Stigweard

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

I'll be blunt and direct Li Jiong. Can you honestly and openly say that you did not start this thread, stirring up fear around some inevitable disaster scenario, as a way to promote your "Xuanji Matrix" about which you coincidentally happen to be selling eBooks? Be truthful now.

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result

Sorry Li Jiong you are being a little too obvious ... more push hands practice for you.

Just say to yourself time and again, "Thank God I never have to do that again!!" Keep it up you are doing well.

LOL ... I actually was and am. Edit: Now about that tea ... should it be spicy Asian or would you prefer a good ol' Aussie BBQ shrimps and all ?

And if the proverbial shyt does hit the fan then you are all welcome for tea at my place. Wouldn't it be an awesome, pure act of intent and awareness for us all to have a mass group Tai Chi session as the 'fires from heaven' wipe us from existence? What a way to go! The Heavenly Immortals would sing of us for all eternity. In fact I reckon we would gain honourary Immortal status Woohoo! "The TaoBum Immortals" But seriously, there is a difference between 'being simply prepared for life', and 'being prepared for some immanent, unknown, possible/probable, emotionally charged disaster(s).'

"To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower. To hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour." There you go Edit: by William Blake ... Giving credit where credit's due.

Let me be more direct: What do you think are the root causes the experiences we have? Is life just random? Or are experiences and events caused or created by 'something'? If so "What?"

Am I allowed to say that focusing on immanent "used by dates" is a complete waste of time, an antithesis to taoist principles (the surface of life will always change, adhere to the depths and the roots) and is promoted usually by people who are fear-mongering to promote their own agenda ... that's not being too harsh and pointed is it? Edit: Add to this also that if you focus on disasters then invariablly that is exactly what you will discover.

LOL ... change is good is it not? And of course I could ask you the same ... This after all is the thread on attachments

hmm ... focus on the guideposts and you hit the guideposts

Welcom Sunny, find seat, how do you like your tea?

Well asked xuesheng. Into the nagual Freedom, formless, infinite, Is there a return? It's an ironic dichotomy that our Self is both the platform for us to launch into the ineffable and the prison that inhibits us from doing so.

Pure tea coming up

of pure alchemy blending mercury and lead procuring pure gold

In my experience (free-breather now for nigh over ten years ... thank god I don't have to do that ever again ) the physical addiction contributes at most only 20% of the problem. 80% or more is a psychological addiction. Undoing the illusion of why you need to smoke is a powerful personal liberation and can provide you with the tools to accomplish so much in your life. Next time you feel you 'need' to light up stop, take a moment to breath deeply and ask yourself: "Why do I need this cigarette?" Acknowledge the mental and emotional response that comes to awareness. Repeat this process 5 times remembering to take a deep breath each time. The reason to do this is to get a clear picture of the conditionings that have led you to the belief that you need to smoke. With mindful awareness of the illusion the illusion disappears on its own. If, after doing this process you still light up do so with complete mindfullness, paying complete attention to how it feels to have the smoke going down your throat and into your lungs. With mindfullness again ask yourself 5 times: "Why do I need this cigarette?" and again pay attention to the response. The challenge with altering any behaviour is that if it merely arises as a superficial command from the mind and not a powerful directive from the deep subconscious then it isn't a true change (which is why so many people fall back into the habit). You must dig deep, through mindful observation, into the recesses of your emotional and mental 'datafiles'. Another process, with acknowledgements to Anthony Robbins, is to map out the pain/pleasure stimulus of the situation. Get out a pen and piece of paper, do a couple of minutes doing some mindful breathing and answer the following questions: 1. What pleasure will I gain from continuing to smoke cigarettes? 2. What pain will I experience from continuing to smoke cigarettes? 3. What pleasure will I gain from stopping smoking? 4. What pain will I experience from stopping smoking? You have to really dig deep and get into the emotions with these questions and don't stop until you have at least 10 answers to each question. The next step is to become totally engaged with the outcome you want (i.e. stopping smoking permanently) and imprint the pleasure you will gain from stopping smoking and the pain you will experience if you continue to smoke into every recess of the mind. Anthony says that people only change when the pain of staying the same is percieved to be greater then the pain of changing. The real secret is self-awareness.

Welcome along Rob, grab yourself a seat, Darin will be along in a sec as well , how do you like your tea?

In my experience the best 'exercises' are to be found in the various Tui Shou (push hands) drills.

Welcome James, find a seat (I think there is a spare cushion beside Darrin over there ... he's a nice guy really), how do you like your tea?

This is a challenging question, thank you for asking it. My initial response is to say "Dark Energy" is destructive energy, but destruction and creation are the Yin and Yang of natural evolution. There are times when destruction can be beneficial (I love compost) and times when creation can be harmful (rampant creation of cancer cells for example), and of course vice versa. When thinking of it further I percieve that both destruction and creation only become life-oppressing when they become an extreme. So perhaps 'extremeness' is darkness? Within myself I see the 'Dark Forces' as the parts of myself that have become locked away in painful memories. The little boy who got lost and trapped on a cliff face crying for his mommy only to have mommy spank him publicly when he was rescued. The little boy whose friends wouldn't let him hold onto the inflated tire in the water and because of that nearly drowning. The little boy who couldn't understand why mommy was abandoning him as she was going through a nervous breakdown. So perhaps 'Darkness' are the parts within ourselves that have rejected the healing flow of life and become calcified and locked within emotional pain. And when we act from that pain we tend to act with extremeness, we tend to act inappropriately. So is 'Darkness' extreme behaviour brought about by a consciousness that is trapped within pain?

LOL ... why have we overlooked our very own Tai Chi Tu, do we all not believe that this sacred Talisman has perhaps the most potent and auspicious healing and harmonising power of them all ?? It has been said that merely visualising this mystic symbol over an area can dispel all discordancy. Achieved ones can purify food and heal illnesses by simply tracing this symbol over the desired area.