konchog uma

Good luck to you! I don't know why but something just flashed in my head to recommend you superfoods. Like chlorella or spirulina or barley grass. Happy cleansing!

thanks for sharing, i liked that

hahahah i love finishing a hot hot shower with cold water!! yes battle cries too

I never knew all that stuff about bagwan shree rajneesh! holy SH@%!

Some people meditate 3 or 4 hours a day, some 10 min, some don't. I'm glad you want to deepen your practice. I personally love meditation, and recommend that you try it for a while, like a month, sitting at least 10 min a day. If possible, keep a journal! Then at the end of a month (or however long you decide to sit) see if you like it! It helps to sit at the same time every day, I recommend in the morning, about 15-30 min after waking up, but some people are still tired. I make some tea if that happens, but you can sit at any time of the day that fits into your schedule. I also think it helps to do the same kind of meditation every day, which is weird because there are hundreds of kinds of meditations, and choosing one blind can suck. Two meditations that can be learned and practiced easily are samatha and vipassana. You can look them up and learn them online and practice them safely. Daoist meditations tend to be more energy oriented, and if you want instructions on basic beginner daoist meditation, you should just ask here and i'm sure you'll get some good replies. They tend to be based around minding the breathing, keeping the mind on the lower dan tian, and implementing the diaphram, belly muscles, and perineum into the breath. Maybe with a little talking about it here you could narrow down what kind of meditation you were looking to do. Oh well, just an idea, I hope it takes root, sitting is awesome

Welcome! I like what you had to say on wu wei. And I like what Chang said.

I tend to think that anyone who was actually enlightened of the burden of their conditioned self would not go posting "I became enlightened" or "I..." anything on internet forums. And yes those links are ludicrous. But that being said, I wish the OP well in their practice, and am happy to hear of their deepening realization.

I just got an email from demandprogress.org that said that congress had dropped SOPA/PIPA ??? has anyone else heard any news?

Thanks Gerard. Informative...

Philosophy comes from the greek meaning "love of wisdom", which, in a strange self-referencing way, is the quickest summation of my philosophy. Go strange loops!

I've been standing in wuji posture, or embracing the tree, for 2-3 minutes at night for the last week. Even tho I am just beginning Zhan Zhuang, I can feel there is something really potent and powerful about the practice, and today i was waiting for an elevator and other people were shuffling around and i was just standing there rooting and grounding, softening my knees and breathing from my dantian.. It felt awesome! Thanks for all the advice and help on this thread my friends.

time is meditation.. i love it! haahah indeed

I would guess you've never actually meditated for any length of time. It helps to be educated before you condemn something as a waste. Because, if you knew what meditation was good for, you wouldn't think that. Stillness balances and heals, and gives the mind time to rest and the spirit space to rise. Thats the tip of an iceberg, but i'll stop there. hahaha reading that post was a waste of time... i could have been meditating! j/k

i think food can be responsible for cold sores, cause some food gives me cold sores. like wheat gluten or refined bread/pasta.

oh yeah thats my group

for those that aren't aware, tomorrow, jan 18th, is an internet blackout in protest of sopa/pipa. hundreds and thousands of websites including wikipedia are going black with links to info about sopa. So get your wiki fix tonight! and a ray of hope for you http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/white-house-blasts-internet-blacklisting-bills/

sinfest: foods in chinese medical theory are attributed hot or cooling properties (or neutral) it has to do with the effect it has on the bodies energy when ingested. I imagine CTs link will be worth reading arab: megadose on lysine if you can find the suppliments.. 3000-4000mg daily is no problem.. i don't think you can overdo it but look it up to be sure

wow. that sounds completely awesome! i had a minor experience with that same gabriel cousins video. But thats neither here nor there I hope your wonderful experience just deepens and deepens!

beeeautiful story!

me either. If it happened to me, I would think it was nasty spirits or some kind of demon. a psychospiritual perv attack from the lower dimensions!! teeheeehheee i would sage the room and pray to the directions or the elements or whoever you pray to. But i'm not trying to fearmonger, that just, in all seriousness, what i would do. I hope its no big deal and that it doesn't happen again.

I wanted to say that I have been practicing cultivating spirit, or "transmuting chi into spirit", and in a post some time back, withheld the technique at the middle dantian. Well I wanted to post again regarding that because 1. my teacher said its not a super special or very dangerous technique and if i wanted to i could talk about it, but more importantly 2. it has given way to non-technique, which i wanted to talk about. Firstly, the technique is very simple, just to use counter-rotation. He said it can be done in multiple ways, if i am just working with spherical field, just visualize them going both directions at once, like chakras. Or if i am using the imagery of a cauldron, stirring it both ways at once til the qi arises as shen. I will repeat his caution here that the MDT doesnt like too much energy at once (or rather that the physical heart doesn't) so just put a little bit in at a time, and wait for it to transmute, which should feel like a nice refreshing feeling like a cool spring or a glittery mist which should be spread out in all directions from the MDT. He also said don't try to do it if the heart isn't quiet, the heart must be quiet and calm like still water in order for it to work. After a while, the technique got in the way, and when i told him this, he said "AHA thats the true technique, the first part is just something to latch on to that beginners need".. In the same vein, I just came upon this passage from Wu Shouyang from Recorded Sayings on the Common Origin of the Immortals and Buddhas: 'Simply repair by yourself this essence with your essence and this qi with your qi. You do not need to perform any odd practice, self cultivation is easy." I think that the context of it is that the mind is quiet and the heart is still and the essence is conserved, but some of the alchemical instruction i have been reading implies or states that the work happens spontaneously when the energy is conserved and stillness is practiced. Zhang Boduan in The Secret Text of Green Fluorescence said "What is called 'coagulation of the spirit' essentially consists of ceasing thoughts and returning the spirit to the heart." My teacher said that the lower dantian turns forward, the middle dantian turns both ways, and the upper dantian turns in all directions without turning at all (to transmute the spirit to emptiness) but that these were just tricks to kickstart the natural progression of the alchemy, which actually happens spontaneously in stillness when thoughts are stopped and the heart quiets down. So in my experience, visualizing cauldrons or spinning fields, or maybe anything at all actually disturbs the process. I feel like i can say this much about it without mentioning my own personal experiences, and i hope it helps those who also study and practice neidan. I think the concept of going beyond technique is a key to cultivating spirit and manifesting the medicine. As someone said, (and i paraphrase) "the medicine is not separate from essence or energy or spirit, it is the same". Blessings to all!

Yeah winter can do that. hahah dark lunchtime.. like a dark night but with sandwiches! vitamin D helps me in the winter, which one can get from pills, or also from chlorella or spirulina or superfoods in general. Its the hormone that the body creates when the skin is exposed to sunlight, and it helps with happiness. just a thought

Oh it means the same thing I was really excited about and posted the OP about... effortless effort for sure! Thats neat about the crown point being the key to automatic happenings.. I really like that idea. I use the root chakra the same way, to breathe up from the earth and down from heaven. I should say i use the perineum, or the huiyin point as a focus for breath when doing qigong, and rest my awareness there. It opens up the bubbling wells to the earth and draws heavenly energy from all around for me. Its not so much a chakra thing as a matter of channels and vessels like the thrusting vessel and all the leg channels. Its not even that, its just how energy moves, I just put it in terms of channels and vessels but heavenly energy just goes wherever it wants, I don't think it needs channels. Anyway, I like the idea of refining a work down to one or two points or processes that one can focus on in order to jumpstart the whole thing.

I thought that Daoist Yoga for Women book looked pretty good, but i didn't actually read it, just kinda skimmed small parts. I'm not actually trying to solve your problem tho, if you even have one. Emptiness does lend itself to the slipping off though.. Nothing really wrong with that if you ask me. I figure do whatever feels right at the moment is a pretty good way to go about it.

i had that same thought "things daobums say"