konchog uma

1. Anal lock is to tighten and squeeze your muscles of the buttock for enhancing the performance of a few body activities in a certain position. It was advisable to perform anal lock at the higher level, the stage when you have full control of your breathing and muscles. A good example for the anal lock is when you are on top of your sexual partner before or ready to ejaculate....

i think it depends on the activities, but again, thank you. what i mean to say is that i used to use the anal lock or pubococcygeal muscle contraction frequently in the beginning stages of practicing sexual control, when it was primarily muscular, but i rarely do it now, as i have internalized the control and rarely need that lock to avoid ejaculation. so in that instance it is used at the lower level and not at the higher.

edited to add:

Have you tried to do anal lock while sitting down...??? Is possible and practical...???

well thats how this conversation started, i commented that i had indeed used it while sitting for certain energy meditations, but no it didn't seem practical. hence my question.

2. By the "beginning level" of meditation, does not mean that you are starting from day one. It simply means that you are at the next level. The next level means that you had made some progress improving your physical being since your practice from day one.

what? if the beginning level is the next level, what level am i on? is this a koan?

Yeah, that's the tricky part. Once we name it we limit it. But then, I think that the Manifest (objective reality) is truely the most limited realm of the totality (Tao). But then, I think it is the realm that we can place the most reliance on as to how we view the various realms of Tao.

 

(Speaking of realms, it is my understanding that there are four realms naturally existing; Manifest, Mystery, Chi, and Totality. To the best of my knowledge all the other realms that are talked about are man-made creations.)

i have never studied those realms but i would like to know more.

they sound to my ignorant mind like the bands of emanations from carlos castendeda's writings about don juan matus and toltec sorcery. i'm in no mood to go off on a carlos casteneda tangent, but they were the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. maybe i am completely wrong but that just came to mind and i thought i would post it.

I think what you are seeing is Taoism trying to reestablish itself here on its own part of the Forum ... after being swamped by Buddhist posters on the General Discussion section for a while. We created the Taoist Discussion forum for this reason - to try to get to some authentic Taoist ideas.

 

I was a practicing Buddhist for quite a long time (Karma Kagyu) and know the value of the dharma ... its great but not for everyone ... I may even go back one day ... and be wiser for it.

 

I think the combined views that you see in books like the Golden Flower are excellent ... but Buddhist 'obsessions' (if that's the right word ... probably not ) like no-self and so on seem to become almost overbearing at times.

 

Best wishes on your path.

 

A.

yeah nothings for everyone. and i hear you about the buddhist obsessions, i think all obsessions are overbearing. thanks.

FYI...

The anal lock was not to be performed in the sitting position and not at the beginner level anyway.

what is the anal lock for? standing qigong? why is it not to be performed in sitting position?

i'm not a beginning meditator but thank you for your input.

No, this is relevant..

 

I'm hoping for some discussion on Xin (heart-mind) especially, but external considerations like these and mudras will be useful as well.

 

Is the anal lock similar to the perrenium lock where there's sort of 3 locks going on, or is it just the 1 point?

 

I've never heard of the abdominal lock and the neck lock. I'm pretty sure I use the abdominal lock as well during sitting meditation, to hold posture, and it seems to energize 3rd chakra and/or triple-heater moderately. What do the muscles do for neck lock?

 

Thanks

 

H.E.

the way i was taught, the anal lock for meditation is like the anal lock for sexual control, and its just a contraction of the pubococcygeal muscle between the pubic bone and the tail bone. the purpose of the lock is to help draw energy upward, and to help chi from escaping downwardly.

the way i was taught the abdominal lock was to slightly arch the back and slightly contract the lower abdomen, yes for holding posture, also for enabling mindfulness of the belly. for the neck lock, tuck the chin slightly to the neck which elongates it, straightening the posture.

i googled "three locks taoist meditation" and got this

http://jiushantaichi.com/training-articles/the-3-qigong-taps-and-3-qigong-locks

i've never heard of a 3-point perineum lock, so i can't comment on that, nor have i engaged Xin from a daoist perspective. I will look into it, thank you. as to mudras, yes they are external, but enable the meridians and changes in internal state so i would like to read more about them too. i wish i had $80 to spend on his book, buti just found a copy of jerry a johnson's "daoist magical incantations, hand seals, and star stepping" in pdf form here

http://www.4shared.com/document/XLjoEQpD/Jerry_A_Johnson_-_Daoist_Magic.html

so i am branching out (i practice kuji-in hand seals every day) into daoist hand seals, which i am very excited about to be honest . i have just read the intro to the section of the book on hand seals, but the section on incantation helped my mantras incredibly.

anyway, thanks, i hope others add to this topic!

to compile specifically Taoist notes to meditation. Not to compare to others, but to bring the purely Taoist perspectives:

 

1

 

 

That's my answer

i like to apply the three locks for energy work like circulating the microcosmic orbit and charging the three treasures, but when meditating to empty the mind of thoughts and practice quietude, i find the anal lock to be sort of extraneous. maybe i have not practiced enough, or maybe i have root chakra issues like fears. i can only apply it ever-so-lightly, or i find that it distracts the mind and uses effort that is counter to the meditation.

the neck and ab locks help maintain posture and good energy flow, but if anyone has commentary on the anal lock or the three locks in general, i would love to read them.

harmonious emptiness, feel free to let me know if this is not the direction you wanted this topic to go in, or if there is a better forum for discussing such things. thank you.

It's nice to have you here. I think you will contribute a lot if you hang around. Without getting too bogged down there have been some endlessly pedantic Buddhist arguments presented in obtrusive ways from time to time that made it difficult to focus on anything else. Some even interrupted discussions about Daoist views to explain why Daoism is completely wrong and the Buddhist view is correct... :yawn:

that sucks. those people bore me too. if i was here i would have probably told them to shut up.

Some folks are OK with that, others have wanted a bit of a refuge from it, hence the section dedicated to more Daoist discussion (not the sole reason but one of the stimuli). I am of the mind that reality is what it is and our paths and labels are all just incomplete ways to put labels on things and divide things up into digestible bits that we can make sense of. I'm open to all forms of discussion and views.

 

I don't think the push back you refer to is as much related to the suffering piece, as it is related to the concepts of emptiness and interdependent origination (although it wouldn't be unusual for me to be mistaken). Personally, I find that surprising because they are equivalent (at least in my view) to Wu Ji and Tai Ji.

 

Anyway - glad to have you here and I'm interested in hearing more of your ideas.

to me daoism and buddhism are like two sides of the same coin. i personally can't relate to a good half of buddhism (zen, theravada, all the miserable suffering schools), but my past is too turbulent to really be able to relate to the lack of structure that daoism presents. in that way daoism is more challenging than buddhism, but also leads to more self-indulgence. in my estimation, emptiness and interdependent origination are precisely wuji and taiji, no difference whatsoever, so it also surprises me that people want to draw lines to divide.

well i can understand the snide commentary if buddhists have acted foolish here and left a bad taste in your mouth. thanks for explaining that.

Well, if you hang around here in the Taoist Discussions forum you just might convert back to Taoism. Hehehe.

 

So, without invoking your belief system, can you say anything about your understanding of objective reality?

haha i've never not been a daoist since realizing that i was a daoist, so i don't need to worry about converting back, but thanks. to me, i don't need to pigeonhole myself into being one thing exclusively, thats silly.

in old china (before mao, im not sure about today) people used to be buddhist, daoist, and confucionist all at once with no real mutual exclusivity between the three. speaking roughly, they used buddhism to govern their religious/spiritual life, taoism to govern their mystical/sexual life, and confucianism to govern their practical daily life. so for someone to be self-identified as both or all three was common, according to daniel reid (tao of health, sex, and longevity)

what?! back to the topic? no, i can't really say much because i don't understand objective reality. i have had my moments of meditation and experience where i felt that there was a field of unconditional love and creative energy that pervaded all things and gave rise to all phenomenon. i could call it eheieh, or mahatman, or a million other things, as easily as i could call it dao, because names don't matter to that field. i have invoked it thousands of times, and had many conversations with it, but all that information is still subjective; what the field showed me personally, or my subjective interpretation of that intelligence. it was very clear that it was only telling me what i needed to hear, and it might tell someone else something totally different, as per their nature.

so based on my subjective experience, i believe there is a truth behind all the mystery schools that is too incomprehensible to be measured by any one particular worldview. i am careful not to nominalize it, thinking i know anything about it because i have word for it, but i believe it exists beyond the bounds of anyone's subjectivity or ability to shape or influence it.

 

First, if we compare Taoism against any other belief system then it is only fair that a member with that belief system enter the discussion to correct us on our misunderstanding of thier blief system.

 

thanks man. being new here, i'm really surprised about the constant bigotry.

i was a self-identified daoist for years and years, but long story short, i had a very profound near-death experience straight out of the bardo thol, which i hadn't read yet. when i read it, i took my first opportunity to take refuge. i found that the structure of buddhism was both more challenging and more beneficial to me, so i stuck with it.

i imagine that most of the prejudice here comes from disagreeing with the idea that existence entails suffering. its odd that a spiritual path base its awareness in suffering. i could get into clarifying what the buddha said in pali sanskrit (it wasnt "suffering") or reminding people that the schools of buddhism are about as diverse as the schools of taoism, but it doesn't seem like many people here would be interested in hearing that.

i will point out, before anyone starts bashing me personally, that the four truths (four purities) of vajrayana differ from the shakyamuni buddha's four noble truths, and they are pretty daoist.

1. seeing ones body as divine

2. seeings ones environment as the mandala of divinity

3. seeings ones enjoyments as the bliss of deity, free of attachment and aversion

4. seeings ones actions as being for the sake of all beings

people who are on all spiritual paths are generally trying to better their lives and the world around them. i am happy that you seekers are very happy with the daoist path you are on, and that you have such confidence in daoism. i hope that one day you realize that your path is only your path and that it is only best for you. i personally have evolved further and faster under the structures of vajrayana than i was able to evolve under the structure, or structurelessness, of daoism. so i guess that my path is right for me, regardless of who feels that they are so enlightened that they should make smarmy comments.

http://www.4shared.com/document/XLjoEQpD/Jerry_A_Johnson_-_Daoist_Magic.html

[edit]

if you search for his name you'll find a couple other books there too

Ok since it's been raised ... I would like a view on whether Taoism actually has the concept of 'ego' ... which is a kind of objective self. When we see ourselves as 'something' ... talk to ourselves internally (out loud if you are me!) we are objectifying our own being. Do the Taoist philosophers talk about this - otherwise we are getting drawn back to the B-word.

i've never seen an authentically translated ancient text mention ego once. i don't think anyone really mentioned ego, buddhists included, before freud popularized the concept.

good point, thanks.

I quite like that idea.

Not to get too far into the self problem:-) but I read/see/know "ego" as the conditioned self (the shell created around oneself to protect it from whatever it needed protection from - and I'd argue, mainly this culture). Anyway, comes a time one doesn't need the shell anymore and needs to crack it open. Exposing the self to the world without the shell can be painful which is why IMO people seek to grow a bigger one, or insist that their shell now encompasses all of it. Well, i say, why not just let your self dry off a little and see how it goes in the world without a shell? I guess that's when one ends up realising one's strength inside. No shells needed. Of course, I'm only speaking for myself:-)

like apech mentioned the different meanings of the word objective, i would like to clarify what i meant by the ego. like you, i see ego as completely conditioned. when i was an infant i was as egoless as i have ever been. then i grew an ego

but to define it, i use the word ego to mean ones recognition of self. my ego is the part of me that knows what i like to eat, what kind of friends i am drawn to, where i work... practical everyday stuff. my ego as a framework or psychic matrix stores all kinds of information about my practical life. without an ego, i would probably be lost in spiritual bliss, one with everything, but in matters of practical life, would i remember to make that phone call i said i would make? only if the spirit informed me, since its my ego that remembers what "i" have to do.

granted, the self is what my tradition refers to as dependent-arising, which is to say that my mind and sense of self are constructs that depend entirely on the external conditions that bring them about. in this way, they have no inherent reality that can be seperate from oneness. because the ego is conditioned, it is incomplete without the primordial or prenatal spirit to balance it, but from the point of view of shaivite tantrism and middle path esoteric buddhism, if one thinks that discarding the ego like a useless husk is a good idea, they are not using their sense of self as a tool. instead of being cast away or destroyed, the adherent seeks to sublimate it and alchemically merge it with the more powerful primordial spirit, so that it will stop its power-hungry chattering and lying. it does these things when it is unchecked by spirit, but as soon as it is accepted and checked (merged and sublimated) it seems to evolve to a higher spiritual perspective. there it remains as a sense of self awareness that can be used to gauge the areas one can improve in, acknowledge accomplishments, and do a host of other self-awareness type feedback loop tasks. the primordial spirit alone doesn't seem to care about these things because it knows that what i like to eat is irrelevant, where i work will change when i die, but my primordial spirit will not.

i know that in some daoism i have read, the primoridal spirit (yuan shen) is seen as being inherited from the parent's energies, so i don't know how put it in daoist parlance. maybe i would be talking about the wuji, if there is a counterpart to that on a personal level. i don't mean to mislead anyone when i talk about primordial spirit. i don't use that phrase in an "official daoist capacity" so my apologies!

i dunno -K- it makes a lot of sense to me, but i am not trying to convince you. just sharing some philosophy that i have evaluated logically and found to hold water. i am perfectly willing to admit that maybe i'm just in a stage of development that can't let go of ego yet. i think that acceptance and rejection are just two paths towards wholeness, and the entire issue is sort of a paradoxical conundrum similar to desiring to be desireless. some schools say negate the desires (eg theravada), and some say accept them and work with them lovingly (eg tantra).

i think that if one is sincere and has the intention to evolve into a whole and holistic being, either path will work to transport them there. i guess thats why we each have to find our own path.

Objectivity shouldn't be definable, nor should it be an objective of practice. Objectivity enables one to adapt to the objective reality. The criteria of objectivity is that ones perspective is selfless. I'd like to be unequivocal about that.

i've never striven for a selfless perspective. to me thats sort of like trying to destroy the ego. i'm afraid that if i were egoless or selfless i might get hit by a bus j/k but only half j/k

to me, self is ok, and the ego is important. my personal practice involves accepting the ego with the spirit, giving it a big hug, and lifting it into a higher perspective, where my sense of self-reference becomes spiritual and all inclusive instead of selfish and cut off from others in a way thats deluded to the truth of interconnectedness.

it might be semantic, and i'm not arguing with you (i love when i have to say that), i just want to talk about it because a lot of spiritually minded people are adamant about selflessness or egolessness and i have never seen the sense of taking this approach. maybe i need to grow spiritually before i can understand mentally. or maybe the self (and awareness of self, or ego) is really important to have a healthy, accepting relationship with.

Excellent post and thanks for joining the discussion.

 

I have no desire here to negate the importance of the subjectivity. I am only trying to express the importance of the objectivity.

 

Your use of the word 'spirit' the way you did I normally use the word "Chi". That keeps me away from having to speak of spirituality and then religions.

Thanks, and you're welcome.

Its an interesting concept, and I'm not purporting to know enough to have any answers... when i re-read my post, I found that I seemed to be expressing more questions, and a generally unsure state. Better that way I'm sure. Thank you for inspiring my wonderment

Spirituality and religion are two entirely different things to me, so I don't personally follow the one (spirituality) to the other unless I'm talking about the spirituality of a particular religion. But I respect your point of view, and I think that in this case, that spirit that I am talking about is more synonymous with chi than not. I am not convinced that all things that exist in the physical plane possess shen, although I am curious as to what the general daoist belief regarding this is.

I saw your comments about taking root in the physical world and letting that be enough. I am steeped in an elemental understanding which informs me that the physical world is the earth element aspect of reality. To my worldview there is also the spirit/fire, mental/air, emotional/water, and emptiness/akasha aspects. So to me, there are all those kinds of chi, which to me means life energy, or subtle energy, and is found in all aspects of reality. I am not trying to convince you that my way is correct, just to share so you know where I am coming from. I am both spiritual and religious, but neither of those facts bears any relevance to the discussion of objectivity/subjectivity as such.

"The world can encompass all of our worldviews at once, but our worldviews can never possibly encompass the world."

I have often wondered if part of the mystery is that the objective reality is really just an aggregate of subjective realities.

Partly, I wonder this because we as humans can affect the world-as-it-is-to-others with our thoughts and intentions, subjective and selfish as they may be. So the subjective in this way literally becomes the objective world. Where does one draw the line from this point of view? To me it is blurry and nebulous.

Partly, I wonder this because of a desire to reconcile the paradox and to realize some kind of "truth" like "subjective is objective, and objective subjective" or some such koan-like verbage that propels the mind to a non-dual vantage point, instead of setting up diametric opposites.

Marblehead, I hear you clearly about wanting to address things as they are and not get lost in dreamland, and I acknowledge that from a certain point of view, there is a black and white difference between subjective and objective that is important to understand, from a raw survival standpoint to a removed, philosophically concerned standpoint. Indeed! I don't mean to put forth the idea that "truth is oneness" just because that follows the tenets of any particular philosophical model.

I personally think that everything that exists vibrates and has a spirit, so this question probably isn't particularly human. I think the deities and the dust mites all affect the 'objective' world with their vibrations. Presupposing that all forms have spirit, if not "a spirit", and that all vibration changes the objective reality (ie that which we can agree on subjectively), it seems impossible to imagine objective reality as seperate from the myriad subjective realities. Even (to further presuppose) a creator-deity would, by definition, have a subjective perspective. I think it would just both be wiser, and effect a lot more change in the world-as-it-was-to-others, so maybe it would seem "more objective" ??? I can't say obviously.

I truly wonder if the mind just wants to cling to "objectivity" in an attempt to believe that something unchanging exists, something it can believe in subjectively, and align with in order to "be right".

i think at first it isn't good to try to think of nothing. you can frustrate yourself if you think that the mind will just quiet down if you sit in a cross legged position. i would recommend just watching the mind, seeing what it thinks and how your internal dialogue starts and how easily it gets away from you. being aware of your own mechanism over time will help you to quiet the mind at will, and to gain a state of internal quietude eventually.

i think that accepting thoughts as natural and watching what you tend to focus on when you are "trying" to quiet the mind is more beneficial than wrestling with the mind's natural tendency to express itself. maybe if you just sat with a general intention to quiet the dialogue (knowing that this takes time and practice), but accepting whatever happens as natural, you would find it more beneficial. if your mind gets away from you, just smile and be aware of it. the silence happens by itself with gentle intention.

there are so many different ways to meditate it boggles my poor mind. study as many schools and techniques as you can, and when you find one you want to try, try it. try a couple. see what works for you and how/why it works.

just stick with it (meditation in general) for a while, even 5-10 minutes a day over time will make a difference

Hmm what do you do though? just breath? what do you think of? nothing?

thank you scotty, i appreciate that.

the person who introduced me to kuji-in and who answers my specific questions about it is a ninja master, and infamous as they may be, i respect them for many more reasons than that they could kill me easily.

i hope others can chime in too, and thanks again. i hope i get a chance to read that kuji book.

Haven't seen this yet, but it's apparently from Tendai/Mikkyo (and simply sold on a ninja website): http://mikkyo.ninjutsu.com/

 

Stephen Hayes' DVD is alright, even though it's also from the infamous ninjas . It's taught in more of a practical psychological manner rather than anything too esoteric. But it does have more of a chakra approach than Lepine's stuff has. He will put the mudras above the crown, then bring it down in front of the throat chakra, and point it outwards (if I remember correctly, while pronouncing it) then will bring it down to the heart.

 

Maybe others here will chime in on other sources...

Having read Master Lepine's trilogy on kuji-in, and found it infinitely more beneficial than the body of ninjitsu literature on the subject, I am looking to further my studies. Can anyone recommend books or authors who give advanced information on kuji-in practice from a spiritual perspective? That is to say that I find the ninjitsu approach about cultivating magical powers to be not so much for me. I like the idea of strengthening the chakra system and healing the luminous body. I have nothing against internal powers, they just seem like secondary effects to having a strong chakra system. Anyway, I would like to read about taoist, vajrayana, mikkyo, vedic, etc take on kuji-in.

thank you!

Hello to all, and greetings from the city of Pittsburgh. I am a Vajrayana Buddhist by practice and lifestyle, and find that I often come to Tao Bums from search engine results on topics I wish to learn about. So I joined.

Right now I am working with the hand seal techniques known in Japanese as Kuji-in (from information by Francois Lepine), with the microcosmic orbit, and with the sacred geometries of the luminous field described by Drunvalo Melchizidek in "The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life" books. These comprise most of my daily meditations. Sometimes I just sit, sometimes with crystals or "boji stones" which have a stupid trademarked name but are awesome for balancing the luminous field, and sometimes I chant mantras and use mudras (non kuji-in).

Recently I stopped playing all violent video games (I have always loved video games, so its just chess and go right now!) and stopped watching pornography (wow did the sex get better), hahaha just to give you some idea of where I am on my path right now. I am not one of those deviant Vajrayana buddhists, I don't drink alcohol or use drugs or mind altering plants at all, although I do eat meat as longs as its clean of hormones and preservatives.

I look forward to learning more about the practices I am engaged in, and hopefully about qi-gong here, which I am beginning to practice every day (charging the three treasures dan tiens and letting the microcosmic orbit circulate)

Thank you for taking the time to read this, hopefully I will join in discussions here, since I don't have many friends in "real life" being very careful about who I associate with. I'm not a spiritual elitist, I'm just very sensitive to energies of others so I keep a short list.

Bless

Anamatva