damdao

I don't know, but I doubt it.

I think this is not entirely true. Sometimes teachers may act independently, taking students of their own but there are schools with wide networks and, in those cases, there are advanced students teaching. Thus, the student has a teacher and after sometime does the baishi ceremony with his teacher's teacher and so on.

无心 is a technical expression, in daoism as well as in chan, son and zen. So you should not take it literally but in the theoretical context of those traditions.

She teaches an Iron Shirt method from the Chunyangmen lineage called Dagong. It has three levels and the higher ones include strong body conditioning through strikes. First you hit yourself, after that a partner hits you and later you practices with the floor, walls, etc. The foundation of this training is a kind of dantian work and replenishment. The Yangsheng training is another system (again in three levels) for health purposes, aiming at replenishing the three treasures. Under certain conditions Dagong can be trained as a soft health preserving set of exercises. It is a very ancient, effective and popular method among Wudang traditions, it trains qi response and fascia reaction to hitting.

Do you include Shah's writtings under others pennames like Arkon Daraul, Rafael Lefort, Omar Burke, Laura (I don't remeber the last name, it was about secret societies).... and the anonymous study material of his groups? I like the classics the way of the sufi, tales from the dervishes, knowing how to learn, knowing how to know, etc. I found, though, a little distubing his earlier books and translations on magick and wicca.

Well... The carpet was a technology which the masters of design (the naqshbandis) liked very much. I remember reading that tale in one of the Idries Shah's books... So while infinite intervowen threads in one could be good to break the ice I think that in the daobums a couple of different threads could be useful to put order into the conversartion.

@terry Maybe, you should consider to open a specific thread, for instance, World as a Dream in Sufism and Daoism. And for each subject you have something interesting you could open a thread.

No references to Ari and very little to Weizza. Her research is foccused on meditation (boran kammathana).

Yes, I began my research in Dhammakaya practices from her book. Before I was not aware of such a body-mind practices in Theravada. About Ari buddhism I am not sure. I will check other chapters (I am still reading the book). But she does speak about Burman esoteric traditions but mainly quoting the French scholar, Francois Bizot. I will check later if there is something about Ari Buddhism.

Indeed. In fact, in her book she did an in depth analysis of the practices themselves, the burman and thai tradition of esoteric theravada, textual transmission, transmission to the West(and Western edition of esoteric theravada manuals) and even how these practices got into Sri Lanka and when they were lost there.

You can, from time to time, ignore some people if they annoy you but let's imagine that we are in public conversation in a caffe or a university, etc. and a person in the chatting group only follow his/her discourse-ideas and when someone interacts raising an objection or give reasons against some statement the first person simply ingnores him and continues to speak as if the is no other living people in the room, doing a monologue in a public group... It would be a weird behaviour... The kind of text that results of this lack of interest in the voice of other people is very disturbing ... (to say the least).

At this moment I mainly practice Xingyi quan. I know some basics from Cheng Bagua (8 palms). And I agree, bagua for the body (and yijing for the mind) it is a good way to deepen our comprehension of post heaven bagua. I think that neidan is good to understand preheaven bagua but it is a very advanced experience.

In fact, you can translate it as pre-heaven because is classical chinese, not contemporary chinese. It could be translated as pre-heaven, before heaven or earlier heaven. And it is not human related (it is not something innate to a human being), it is a stage in the cosmic development. You have a xiantian bagua and a houtian bagua (and certainly these are not innate bagua and acquired bagua) and they have the trigrams in different places. Basically it refers to a pristine and undecaying state before the manifestation of the ten thousand things.

Alchemical classics speak about healing and rejuvenation, so or the imposture is the root of neidan or something is missing in translation. And by translation, I am not speaking about translation between Chinese and English but between the ancient methods and the contemporary approach. Something is missing, otherwise it is not possible to deny the healing aspects of neidan methods. In fact, qigong and yangshen are derived from neidan theory and goals.

There is no problem with Google, only that Google does not translates 文言文。 As this is a Guodian manuscript unknow before the discover of the library it is very interesting for understandig the development of daoism. Those who don't know it can read translations here https://terebess.hu/english/tao/taiyi.html

Zhineng Gong in the tradition of Wang Liping is not Zhineng qigong. Zhineng gong is a meditative work which comprises nine steps: 1. Return to infancy and remember what was forgotten 2. Clarify what true and false 3. Make spirit and will clear and pure 4. Know your future 5. Stop eating to enhance life 6. Change old for new clothes 7. See through illusions to the heavenly pivot 8. Circulate around universe and world 9. Ecstatically travel to the moon At present, only the first three (or its lesser vehicle) have been disclosed publicly. They consist in remembering all your acts and thoughts during the day (plus some other details), then evaluate then, etc..

This is a problem with google translate. It should be trnaslated as wuwei method, not dharma.

A paper by Liu in english. For those interested https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2851675

As Uncle Fester said, little by little we begin to feel and see signs of a better qi "accumulation". The three practices work in synergy generating qi, building the storage capacity of the dantian area and refinig qi. They seem simple practices, specially i the first months but later as you begin to practice a little more you feel stronger changes. All that speaking about the practices, as for the teacher, we have him every day answering questions or giving feedback (even in this difficults situacions). As for the group, we could say that we are a very supportive community, helping each other with conseil and encouragment. So, I think this is a great opportunity to come and see and decide for yourself.

I endorse what others participants have said. Rudi is very kind and infinitely patient in answering questions (and with technical problems too). Moreover, the practices seems very simple but are very deep, and are scheduled in such a way that you are cultivating all day long. And in few weeks you start to feel progress.

Contrary to most of the post here I should say that in qigong you do encounter holding the breath or biqi. It is used, for instance, in Da Gong a "hard" qigong system from Chhunyang Men lineage in Wudang. But, it is not a merciless holding (as in the OP) and you need to practice at the same time some locks and hitting and rubbing. Whats is similar to a merciless holding is Xisuijing or Bone Marrow Washing in the lineage of Jeffrey Yuen. In his lineage you hold the breath and apply muscular tension, mostly static but in some exercises a dynamic one (in fact, if I are not wrong, he links it with the sourthern methods that passed to Okinawa and originated Sanchin kata). Here you inhale-hold-swallow and after a while exhale. When some schools use Yijinjing to an advanced stage they use the same breathing method. So, from my experience and research, holding the breath is present in some traditions (with certain specifications and restrictions of course).

@Taoist Priest Welcome! It would be great if you begin a thread in the daoist section. the questions you post in the OP are very interesting. Some months ago we had a discussion about westerners becoming priests and the partial conclussion was that westernes (generally speaking) lack the time and training to be a fully ordained daoshi. But this was more focussed in Quanzhen. What could you say about that? How is the training for a westerner in Zhengyi? Also, do you have a neidan trainig? (Perhaps integrated into ritual trainig as Michael Saso explained in his book about master Chuang).

I was looking for another thing and found a book, in the Japan National Library, about how to write diaries. Unfortunately, that book is not online for reading or downloading (besides, it will be in Japanese...). Maybe it is related to what Taomeow said before.

Not responding personally to Wilhem, but in order to widen the research framework for people who are reading this stuff for the first time it could be useful to keep in mind that there are northern lineages consisting only in moving neidan. In others lineages (some Longmen and Yuxian) you have moving, walking, sleeping and sitting exercises and even in others (southern) you have static yoga-like postures. So, I think it is better not to restrict the neidan training to seated processes .And we are only speaking about Quan Zhen offshoots here, Zhengyi uses alchemical exercises too but in a ritual context.

@Iliketurtles you can find top scholars on facebook. You have F. Pregadio and his fb group neidan studies, focused in scholarly research. There are other too.