Stigweard

Welcome A. Roy, find a seat, how do you like your tea? Frameworks? ... What frameworks?

Welcome Standingpost, find a seat, how do you like your tea? God bless Google hey?

Welcome dirtbag, find a seat, how do you like your tea?

Welcome Kip, find a seat, how do you like your tea? Nice poem by the way

Welcome ahmed, find a seat, how do you like your tea?

Welcome Cynopterus, find a seat, how do you like your tea? (Good to see the welcoming committee hard at work )

I would tend to agree on the suggestion of not making a big deal of such experiences. The real experience, or the level on which the experience takes place, is infinitely more subtle then the theories and explanations we are compelled to contrive. By acting like nothing took place can help to avoid unnecessary wastage of the gift of energy provided within the experience. Thank you for asking. Undoubtedly there are many effective techniques to ground ones energy. What works best for me is standing qigong and taiji, though I have been known to hug the occasional tree

Thanks Gold for your well thought out response. You have some excellent points there which has inspired me to look deeper into the topic. And cheers Sloppy Zhang, I find myself agreeing with your comments.

Heya DragonFire ... your experience and perception of this event was so close to my own that it sent goosebumps across my skin. My initial 'opening' came about through a spontaneous qigung session wherein I directed the most intense flow of energy from my hands into my third eye area with the result that my 'third eye' was blown open once and for all. In the time that followed this I had numerous encounters with the eye that you are refering to. In time allow yourself to enter into and pass through that eye. Be sure not to try and force anything though ... steady as she goes captain. Especially in this time I would recommend you practice as much grounding as possible and give attention to the 'purity' in your environment and activities. Congratulations DragonFire ... you have reached a guidepost.

Thank you for this YMWong, this brings both clarity and perspective. Understanding terms and phrases in their original light is incredibly valuable in my humble view. Regards,

Welcome Flowingwater ... speaking of tea I have just made a fresh pot ... would you care for a drop??

Welcome AMER KHAN, I trust dragons like tea ... if so how do you like yours?

A beautiful quotation YM ... perfect! It reveals the shifting, subjective nature of right and wrong. The right of today may be the wrong of tommorrow. The wrong in one culture may be the right in another. Cheers my friend.

Heya r.w.smith, I admire your enthusiasm and you are right that we should be held acountable for what we say. I understand you avidly support the use of talismans and rituals and I agree with you, they can be incredibly useful in spiritual development and many authentic schools of Taoism use them in varied beneficial ways. I could be wrong here, and if I am I want to be corrected, so lets examine the facts. In the Yuk-Lum thread YMWong commented on the videos that were posted saying: Now I have meagre knowledge on such things so I neither agree nor disagree with YM's assertions. I can see though that he has made no comment directly that "talismans have nothing to do with taoism" and that, if I read correctly, YM's intent was to say that the "cutting rituals" were unrelated to Daoism. Now you may be correct in saying that these rituals and talisman's are one and the same. Could it be possible that this is merely a case of miscommunication?

The chick by the neck! A turtleneck, seize it fast! Wool is so itchy!

A beautiful response Craig

Welcome asterisk, find a seat, how do you like your tea? Dan Reid's other book, "Gaurding the Three Treasures" is also a worthwhile read.

for we are planets breathing in the cosmic winds our flesh made from dust

Hi Arne, you have asked a really insightful question. Now I could be wrong, I am sure most members here have much more insight than myself, but here is my suggestion on the matter. If I had to theorise a connection I would do it like this: Jing = Frugality or Simplicity Qi = Compassion or Kindness Shen = Humility I base this on my understanding that Jing, housed in the lower Tan Tien, is our expression in the earthly, material realm and thus we should cultivate simplicity so that we don't waste our life force in excessive material expansion. Qi, housed in the middle Tan Tien, is our expression in the human, interpersonal realm and thus we should cultivate kindness in order to engender harmonious relationships. Shen, housed in the upper Tan Tien, is our expression in the heavenly realm and thus we should cultivate humility, recognising the interdependence of life and not putting one's importance first in the world. I would be very interested to hear other people's perspective and comments on this.

You will probably read the below and say: "Yes Stigweard, I could have told you this all before." And in fact one of you already has. Let me explain... I love it when I discover practical application of Taoist principles that reveal the potency and fortuity of this way of living. For instance, many years have I struggled with the notion of selfless service. I rebelled against the suggestion that by putting myself last I was gaining some sort of 'spiritual profit'. I felt that the act of selfless service was a path of losing in order to gain; that I had to 'suffer' so that others could prosper. Recently however I have had the great fortune of discovering how wrong I have been. It is in my experience that insights happen through a process of incremental, sometimes seemlingly disconnected, realisations with a final breakthrough that makes you go, "Oh my God! How have I not seen this before?" But once you have had that insight you can never go back to your old way of thinking. Your life has been transformed forever. So let me tell you about the process that has brought me to this new way of thinking. I have been in the sales and marketing field for many years with admittedly only slightly better than average results. I could rattle off a thousand different marketing techniques and tell you the whole psychology of why people buy. So with all this knowledge why wasn't I brimming with sales results? Well to be brutally honest with you, it has because I have been too damn full of myself. And to my chagrin it took someone from a very conservative field to teach me what I had thought I already knew. I have recently been reading Dale Carnegie's book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People". I know I am stepping out on a limb when I say that this wonderful little book could also be called, "The Tao of Personal Relationships". I have long maintained and have often expounded long-windedly that rapport is key to success in sales , that people will only buy from you or act upon your ideas if and only if they truly like you. Knowing this I had set about trying to make myself as likeable as I could. I dressed well, groomed well, spoke well and generally went about becoming what I thought was a likeable fellow. No doubt you can probably see my error already. Sometimes I can be so thick. So with my own views firmly in place I finally decided to read Mr Carnegie's book saying to myself, "I already know this stuff so this should be a nice bit of revision for me." So I progress through the book covering things like: don't critcise, complain, or condemn; smile; never argue; show genuine appreciation; etc. But then comes the cruncher when he actually quotes the Tao teh Ching saying that interpersonal success will only come to someone who follows this guideline: Ch 66 How does the sea become the queen of all the rivers and streams? By lying lower than they do! Hence, it is the queen of all rivers and streams. One who humbles himself, therefore, can serve all people. By putting himself last, he comes to be their leader. Thus, when one of subtle virtue is set above people, they do not feel that he is their burden. And, when he stands in front of people, they do not feel that he is an obstruction to them. Therefore, the world follows one of subtle virtue joyfully, and never tires of doing so. He does not compete with anyone, thus he is above all competition. Mr Carnegie goes on to explain that "People are only interested in you in as much as you are interested in them." My great error was that I was totally focused on me ... on what I had to say and what I thought was interesting about me. But the truth I now see is that for people to be interested in what I have to say I have to first and foremost be interested in who they are and what they have to say. So I tried an experiment today. Usually I have around 12 or so people to my seminars on healthy sleep. Today though, possibly due to the rain, I only had one couple in attendance, Col and Jan. Now normally I would have greeted them and launched into my monologue of what our product is all about. Today though I thought I would try and implement some of the things I have just learned. So I deliberately said nothing about myself, my company, my product etc. and simply became genuinely interested in them. For an hour we talked about nothing other than Col and Jan's life, Col's experiences in the army, Jan's work in a bank, their children, etc. etc. It was only after an hour of this lovely conversation that the discussion seemed to naturally turn to the product I had on display. So I asked them what they would be intereted in. Well they admitted that they had only just bought a bed 6 months ago but they would be interested in our pillows because Jan wakes up with a terribly sore neck and sore shoulders. I simply showed them the unique features of our pillows, gave Jan an opportunity to try the bed for herself and then left them to talk about it all to their hearts content. Then without any suggestion on my behalf they agreed to buy a pillow for Jan ... and then they upsold themselves and bought a pillow for Col as well because they thought it would probably help with his snoring I let go of what I wanted, I let go of what I was interested in, I let go of the importance I had fixated on me and gave these two lovely people genuine, honest and devoted appreciation and interest. And in return for me giving them what they wanted they gave me what I wanted. Selfless service in action! And everybody won! The only thing I had 'lost' was my attachments to myself. Now like I said, you most probably knew this already, I certainly can't admit to being the brightest kid on the block. But I have to tell you, my mind is simply abuzz with this wonderful way of looking at things.

That is a very profound question Apech7. Many times I have contemplated the exact same thing. But firstly: Disclaimer: Recognising that Castenada's works may be totally fictional and contrived any referencing of his works are mere conjecture. The only 'authentic' material I have found along the way is from Theun Mares from South Africa. It would appear he has come through an authentic Toltec lineage with no connection to Castenada. He has also laid down his knowledge in several very practical and lucid texts. In my research I have never encountered a Taoist equivalent to what is referred to as the Assemblage Point, that being an energetic location behind the right shoulder that aligns the filaments of universal energy giving rise to the act of perception. The connections that I have found are quite eye opening, those being principally: ~ The handling of intent ~ The energetic use of the lower Tan Tien As mentioned I have often pursued this line of inquiry myself and would love to hear of your learned perspectives. Cheers,

Ah ... beautiful!

That is a wonderful question Baguakid and its implications are wide and varied. Well asked. Now firstly it must be said that I am a lowly neophyte with poor comprehension and an even poorer level of achievement so whatever I say here should only be considered as the mumblings of an illiterate hobo. Wuji (無極) is the indescribale subtle originalness of the universe itself which, through spontaneous expressiveness, gave birth to the Taiji and the '10,000 myriad things'. How would one access Wu Ji? Ahh ... the mystery of mysteries. Excuse me for answering a question with a question ... but how does a single drop of water, once evaporated from the sea, finds its way unerringly back to the ocean?

Hi Mike, Firstly congratulations on this result A result is exacly what it is ... a result. Pietro has given you some excellent advice. When working with energy it is important not to overlook simple biological causes for the sensations we are experiencing. Also check out: Energy Problem To me it sounds like you have an overactive Xin, heart/mind. Practice more deep abdominal breathing to get energy moving and remember to curl your tongue to the roof of your mouth to keep the circuits open. Seeing a TCM professional is one of the best things you can do though. Blessing Mike,