konchog uma

I think that the K'un is a reference to the descending or conception vessel, and the P'eng is a reference to the ascending or governing vessel. When master chuang says that the p'eng rest after ascending to those heights in the lake of heaven, i think he is talking about raising ones energy to the upper dantian and being an achieved spiritual person. I think that the amount of times and distances he is talking about is absurd but is reference to it taking a long time for a person to sublimate and guide their energies to the point that they can be a person who has developed Shen in their upper dantian. When he says that the insects and the birds are saying "why bother, i fly a little bit and its ultimate" he is, i think, talking about peoples attitudes towards spiritual progress, saying "what is the point of sitting and cultivating energy, i dont do that and i am just fine". He further makes this point with his dialogue between emperor Tang and minister Chi at the end. So i don't think master chuang is talking about birds and fish but about cultivation.

this is chapter one from Victor Mair's "Wandering on the Way: Taoist Tales and Parables" I have a pretty beat up PDF scan of it that it is hard to cut and paste from, so i will try my best to correct errors, but please be forgiving if there are some spaces and random numbers or stuff i missed. In the darkness of the Northern Ocean, there is a fish named K'un. The K'un is so big that no one knows how many thou- sands of tricents [three hundred paces] its body extends . After it metamorphoses into a bird, its name becomes P'eng. The P'eng is so huge that no one knows how many thousands of tricents its back stretches. Rousing itself to flight, its wings are like clouds suspended in the sky. When the seas stir, the P'eng prepares for its journey to the Southern Ocean, the Lake of Heaven. In the words of The Drolleries of Ch'i, a record of marvels, "On its journey to the Southern Ocean, the P'eng beats the water with its wings for three thousand tricents, then it rises up on a whirlwind to a height of ninety thousand tricents and travels on the jet streams of late summer." There galloping gusts and motes of dust are blown about by the breath of living organisms. Is azure the true color of the sky ? Or is the sky so distant that its farthest limits can never be reached? When the P'eng looks down at the sky from above, it must appear just the same as when we look up. A cicada and a dovelet laughed at the P'eng, saying, "Wings aflutter, we fly up until we land in an elm or a dalbergia tree. Sometimes, when we don't make it, we just fall back to the ground and that's that. What's the use of flying up ninety thousand tricents to go south? " If you 're going on an outing to the verdant suburbs you only need to take along three meals and you'll still come back with a full stomach . If you're traveling a hundred tricents, you need to husk enough grain for an overnight stay. But if you're journeying a thousand tricents, you've got to set aside three months' worth of grain. What do these two creatures know ? Small knowledge is no match for great knowledge, nor is a short lifespan a match for a long one. How do we know this is so? The mushroom that sprouts in the morning and dies by evening doesn't know the difference between night and day. The locust doesn't know the difference between spring and autumn. These are examples of short lifespans. In the southern part of the state of Ch'u, there is a tortoise called Dark Spirit for whom spring and autumn each lasts five hundred years . In high antiq- uity, there was a large cedrela tree for which spring and autumn each lasted eight thousand years. These are examples of long lifespans. Nowadays Progenitor P'eng is famous for his more than seven hundred years of longevity. Isn't it pathetic that people try to emulate him? A question put by T'ang, the first emperor of the Shang dynasty, to his wise minister Chi is similar. T'ang asked, "Do up, down, and the four directions have a limit? " `Beyond their limitlessness there is another limitlessness , said Chi. "In the barren north there is a dark sea, the Lake of Heaven. In the sea there is a fish named K'un that is several thousand tricents in breadth, but no one knows its length. There is also a bird named P'eng whose back is like Mount T'ai and whose wings are like clouds suspended in the sky. It rises upon a twisting whirlwind to a height of ninety thousand tricents, pierces the clouds and then heads south on its journey to the distant Southern Ocean with the blue sky touching it s back. 'A marsh sparrow laughs at the P'eng, saying, 'Where does he think he's going? I spring up into the air and come back down after not much more than a few yards. Flitting about amidst the bushes and brambles, this is the ultimate in flying! So where does he think he's going?' " This shows the difference between the great and the small ." Thus there are those whose knowledge qualifies them for a minor bureaucratic appointment, those whose conduct is suit- able for overseeing a village, and those whose virtue befits them for rulership and who can win the confidence of an entire country. Their self-estimation is like that of the marsh sparrow, so Master Sung Jung smiled at them complacently. Here was a man who would neither feel flattered if the whole world praised him nor frustrated if the whole world censured him. Master Sung was able to be like this simply because he could tell the difference between what was intrinsic and what was extrinsic, because he made a distinction between honor and disgrace. Although he was not embroiled in worldly affairs, still there was something that he was unable to achieve . Master Lieh could ride upon the wind wherever he pleased , drifting marvelously, and returning only after fifteen days. Al- though he was not embroiled in the pursuit of blessings and thus was able to dispense with walking, still there was something that he had to rely upon. Supposing there were someone who could ride upon the truth of heaven and earth, who could chariot upon the transfor- mations of the six vital breaths and thereby go wandering in infinity, what would he have to rely on? Therefore, it is said that the ultimate man has no self, the spiritual person has no accomplishment, and the sage has no name.

@witch: also, i am convinced that there are cosmic sources of energy that dwarf other sources like a sun dwarfs a candle. You may think that you need other men and their svadhisthana energy but there might be a source you could invoke that would not care if you bathed in it every and any time you liked. It might not replace your sexual practices and im not implying that theres anything wrong with what you do, but it couldnt hurt to have augmented energies in this way right? Maybe there is a cosmic svadhisthana. maybe if you visualized GOD being hogtied and stole his energy (hmmm if you could do it without being turned off) or something ridiculous like that ahahaha those are just fingers pointing to the real point, that the mind and the energy have no limits, everything exists somewhere, we just need to get crazy and creative and tap into the massive sources of energy that exist for us. I think as people we are meant to be happy and nourished like this. just a thought, 2 more cents

oh i guess i misunderstood. My appologies! hahaha I am the original poster so i started it by asking! no offense, and sifu jenny will doubtlessly forgive the tangent train for taking off without her, she seems quite beyond caring about this sort of thing. to be honest witch i was concerned that you were just stealing peoples heart energy randomly, like visualizing them and using that conduit to drain their energy! so that will bring all kinds of undesirable results im sure and i wanted to bring it up out of concern for your karma. Im sure its NONE of my business so i almost didn't say anything, but annyway hahaha as if this thread wasnt totallly hijacked before, at least now we're talking about something interesting not rumors about max! hahahaha J/K all in jest

Okkervil River - Mermaid - 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQqfPkz2kYk&feature=related i love these guys

do you ask a persons higher self for permission before you extract their heart energy? also, maybe you should try visualizing the cosmic heart, or the heart of heart energy itself, and tapping it. Its free and inexhaustible, and won't get mad at you if you vampirically leech from it. Some people are powerful and aren't to be trifled with, I would recommend just tapping a universal inexhaustible source instead of tearing around like some yogic bandito aquiring horrible karma and draining other beings. just 2 cents

oh i don't know anything except that years back on TTB there was some heated conversation about reptile beings and kunlun being connected. I know nothing about it. and i do know better than to dredge up that old nonsense in any way other than laughingly, so don't you bums go making a big mess of that little comment too!! hahaahaha

hahaha i only fear the Kunlun nagas

Just wanted to make the observation that the OP was about Jenny Lamb and i think in 8 pages, one of them (thank you hundun) was in direct response to it. I should not have even mentioned Max. It seems like everywhere his name pops up, opinions and controversy follows. I think he is like strong spirits (alcoholic), powerful but toxic in high doses. Sifu Jenny seems like water by comparison, when i listen to her and read her she is always saying "no thats not the point, enlightenment is the point" and she even said on her Q&A page to someone who was like "max blah blah blah..." she said "dont talk about max let him speak for himself i teach yigong not kunlun". So my instincts tell me that the actual practices of kunlun are beneficial, but the energy of max seems to attract controversy (as well as snakes, bullets, knives, moving vehicles, etc). I don't think anyone should fault him for this, we are who we are, and if you were him, you would be him. I wouldn't want to walk a mile in his shoes thats for sure. But at the end of the day, i get a much better vibe from Sifu Jenny, who seems so driven by integrity that i am surprised she would let her diplomacy down and even say that stuff to Seths group. Even if it's true, she seems like the type to not want to generate the karma that drama brings. Well, sorry everyone i should have taken Sifu Jenny's advice and kept her and Max separate and not compare and contrast them. To everyone who got involved in this mess of a thread i feel i owe an apology for not phrasing my OP in better terms.

youre lucky thats all that happened to you. i'm not trying to be patronizing

of course not semantics are silly, i don't see your point sir

I hope you make awesome use of your time if its true that you aren't coming back. I appreciate your point of view, and i'll miss it.

yes thats true. The last person i read about who used BT was interesting. She made a lattice of it and put it over her shop door on the inside, to keep out negative people. Nobody at all came into her shop that day, not one person.

i think that the idea of resonance is at the heart of karma. But i think the word "karma" means "action" and is linked to a lot of cause and effect thought. I think both ways are valid ways to try to understand karma, as its not a concept that is very easy to pin down.

i just want to say that i think your visionary additions to the forums are completely great! Thank you for being open about your mind!

that much is obvious

that is Justin Sang and Stanley Ngui not Justin Ngui

Master Hua-Ching Ni talks a lot in his books about how spiritual progress can improve the events that one manifests for oneself. He says that as a person carries less weight or darkness in them, that better things will happen to them. So that is like karma. But it is not based on the cycle of action/reaction that buddhist karma is based on, it is more based on energetic resonance it seems. So more in the present moment, as was mentioned, but i think that his thinking relates to the question you are asking.

I was once an ardent daoist who thought that buddhism was silly too! But little by little, the big B wore me down. hahahaha good thing too! Now i have an awesome foundation of purity on which to build my practice. The thing i like most about Chan is Da Mo's idea of just not being offended by the dirt of the world. I am always catching myself being offended, and am always going back to his saying that and realizing "oh right i have a choice". My life is so much easier when i practice that. to me the virtue of daoism is gaining freedom by removing blockages energetically, and the virtue of buddhism is gaining freedom by removing them psychologically, which triggers the body to just release them. I think that when the B and the D combine, an awesome synergy happens. I hope it happens in your life too! The virtue of Chan is that Da Mo was into the energetic approach too! I have been practicing a muscle/tendon change and am looking forward to the day when I am ready to learn bone marrow and brain washing technique!

oh okay i failed to comprehend that from the other threads. Thank you! In light of fiveelementtao's warnings about mixing and matching systems, I think I will work with Sifu Jenny's vids for a good long while and not worry about dragon gate sanctuary right now. But i thank you all the same! thank you, i really enjoyed the 5 minute segment you pointed out in that 100th monkey interview! She seems very pragmatic and level headed. I like her a lot! I don't have a facebook account, largely because of their unscrupulous information-handling practices, and certain gems hidden in the fine print of their EULA. But i can always write to easterninternalarts and see if they have copies they could send me. Thank you, and thanks for answering my questions so nicely. I am still waiting for my DVD so i have time to listen to some interviews

Again, thanks for the kind reminder scotty. I really did not mean to point fingers, just trying to clarify why people say that stuff. Why would I attack Max? I'm not an idiot. But i did read that stuff, so i naturally had those questions. Sorry everyone for the way I came across. I am not a gossip or a troll. I thought they were healthy concerns.

Thanks for the reminder! Focusing on the drama is only going to lead to bad things. I am not trying to cultivate opinions or stir up muddy water, at least not consciously. I am just amazed at some of the rumors and dirt i read about Max. I just have to say it that way. I do not personally have a shred of disrespect for him in me, I don't know him, and I don't pretend to. But some of the things I read seem contrary to how true spiritual master would act, so it just raises the question thats all. Maybe its rumors! I am not saying I know. Like i said, if you look at the original post I was not making statements I was asking questions.

Cameron, Thank you for your thorough response. That is really helpful. I did not mean to speak negatively or critically about Max, and am sorry if I came across that way. I was asking questions about some things I have read regarding him. If you read, you will notice I was not making statements. Even if he is light years beyond me, those might be valid questions. No disrepect, I just don't believe in putting teachers up on pedestals where they are not subject to the scrutiny one would give anyone else. If I heard such things about you or anyone else, I might ask questions for clarification. Especially if I were going to practice techniques you had taught.

since you bring this up Junbao, i want to know how many other people see the outline of their hands through their eyelids when doing Bending the Bow.

thats a neat observation I agree with it. I am not really trying to tweak the normal currents of energy in the body. I feel that by letting go of rigid mental patterns and energetic blockages, my body's normal currents are going to naturally do what they need to do. But as to the more profound flows, I have been experimenting with moving energy up my taiji pole in the AM (and down the outside of my energy field, like a magnet) and then gently letting it switch around noon to flow downwards. I do this with counterclockwise and clockwise rotations of the profound subtle energies within my body, specifically chakras. I have a complex chakra system which would take a little more time to explain than i have right now, but at its root, it involves giving them commandments! (nice ones) and programs of what to do and how/when to act. I just told them to gently reverse their flow at noon and midnight, and it has worked pretty well so far. I have not felt any aMAzing effects, but I didn't expect to. I feel subtly better, and on a gut level, I feel that its beneficial to my energies to do this, but nothing concrete yet.