Master Logray

In Taoist world, the good and the bad cannot be easily seen, even after many years. After 40 years, Thalidomide is used to fight Multiple Myeloma, a kind of blood cancer and some other diseases. It has helped in developing a new class of medicines called immunomodulator , both by following Thalidomide line, and medicine companies restudy other old medications to see if any new applications possible. Lives are saved.

I don't think Immortals will ever go to a forum. They probably don't understand English, or even modern Chinese. Very serious seekers, if ever been in contact with Immortals, would be too busy to engage in discussions here.

Western psychology, if it means mental, emotions, trauma...., is not common in the east. I am surprised that people here often refer to things like energy causing emotion release or trauma during Taoist training. These are not important and kind of harmful for even positive emotions. These are better to get rid of instead of being a new way for psychotherapy, as seen in a master's website.

Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka are Buddhist countries. Malaysia and Singapore have lot of Buddhist and Taoist. They are all near the equator or directly under it. If LDT exhibits different behaviours, then the information must have been well-known over the ages. But there is not.

I like this example. @Apech I happened to ask a member from Australia how do the orientation works in the southern hemisphere.

Chikung is mostly practised by middle age to seniors. But care must be taken in choosing which one. For newbie seniors, they should avoid those being too strenuous, having too much twisting or stretching. e.g. in the case of stretching, Chinese Kung Fu or Chikung or similar are mostly done on moving or standing forms. The body is unstable, the movement cannot be precisely controlled and can thus get hurt easily. Comparing with Yoga, the stretching is done on static surface, with ample time, the person can fine tune the stretching. Sometimes the whole series is quite ok, but one or two movements are not. In that case, it is better to drop that particular movement. e.g. kickings in Taichi; the swinging upper body in circle in Baduanjin etc. Standing usually is very safe. But seniors tend to fall into light sleep, they can easily fall, which can be very serious problem for them, recovery for them take substantially longer time if ever. Sitting is more suitable for them. Teachers are usually not young. But they mostly started from a young age. So they may not pay enough attention to seniors' condition as they themselves can handle the movements.

Genuine Taichi is not suitable for seniors if they only start to learn when they are no longer young. The simplified form do not offer much health benefit and being strenuous. In recent years Taichi is used for rehabilitation as it improves balance. Chikung is more focused and much faster in achieving results.

I have been taught this kind of shaking a few times from different teachers. It is more a pre-school level, not even kindergarten. Teachers may spend a minute teaching it and that's all. @Walker's experience is special that the length of time is greatly extended, which makes it a standalone exercise. Naturally it changes the whole game. Due to its nature, no one is ever interested to make a video for it. The only closest one is within part of a series - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/686024955710870643/ starting from 4:14. But this type is a short shake only, and perhaps more vigorous comparing with a half hour shake. For those who miss @Walker, I do read a news article about him. The description fits what he said in the forum. Due to privacy consideration, I won't disclose it. Anyway he seems to be well and happy now. Hope he returns one day.

If your trauma is directly related to shaking, then don't do it. It is a nice and useful exercise but not essential. The shaking rate depends on the person. But the frequency is generally fast about 2 shakes a second. If you are weak etc, then reduce the up/down distance. It is only up and down, don't add something like sideways or circular movements.

Shaking is worldwide. The Bushmen shakes everyday, do they ever have trauma?

If north and south are exchanged, then how about the east and west?

The classics of Internal Alchemy always base on sitting, with very little mention of ChiKung or DaoYin. I check up the 重陽真人金關玉鎖訣, it doesn't specifically specify the process or when to start off sitting. At least according to the book, a person has first to follow the precepts, be quiet, bear with humiliations, compassion, doing good deeds, cut off vices, .... loyal to the emperor, respect the parents and teachers. Then they can start off with the real cultivation, which most likely means in a sitting environment. No wonder there are stories that students are required to run errand for 10 years without receiving any teaching from the masters. Until they are ready, then the methods will be taught. All Taoist activities use up Jing. Sitting is already the better one in terms of efficiency compare with moving and standing. For most of the people, this Jing expenditure creates more benefits than not doing. On the question of sitting produces too much Yin, normally sitting is to purge the Yin rather than creating the problem. But you are right this problem arise when the practitioner is old or sick, or practise Buddhist meditation. Some complementary exercises are necessary to achieve a balance. Bodidharma had addresses this problem when he preached Zen in China 1500 years ago.

Moving/standing are mostly for beginning stage or at most medium stage. Ultimately all Neidan schools must be using sitting the big majority of time. The only alternative is perhaps lying down. The main point is to maintain a static body for prolonged period. Moving/standing are unstable and having too much distractions. They are still being used to balance the body in the advanced stage in a very limited way.

It is very well said and true.

May be the path dependence theory can help. Whether the end point is the same or not, imagine a person pursuing a way for his whole life, in a certain manner, it certainly will create a lot of differences from other seekers, in terms of personal experience, and affect physical, mental and spiritual. A person get rich by doing business and another by selling drugs, they both end up being rich, yet the 2 persons would be very much different.

Taoism comprises of 2 main pursuits, the Neidanist who strives to become Immortals and the Magical. Neidan doesn't depend on spirits or astral itself. May be some of them receive help from existing Immortals or passer-by celestials, but that is extremely rare and "not in the curriculum" and not a must in the development. The Magical pursuits work with or fight with spirits on daily basis. Both of them do worship the same gods/deities.

For Taoist Neidan, astral bodies, gods, deities and stars are generally not part of the pursuit, nor necessitated in any major way.

Kung Fu can be classified as external or internal. Taichi, Bagua, XingYi are more famous internal martial arts. External martial arts do have an element of internal too but not with the depth and scope of internal. Practitioners of external arts commonly turn to internal when they get old. Internal arts normally train for the energies and internal organs, tendons and so on, but not with muscles like external or other physical exercises.

Cultivation is for transforming the physical body to a very good point. Taoist never push the body to near limit, the thinking is always moderation.

It is not possible to survive financially to teach sitting. All current day teachers must go for movement styles or at least standing, these are almost all Ming methods.

I did experiment with shaking 20+ minutes against my normal routine of a few hundred shakes. It doesn't show any difference to me. I do think it is useful in expelling the wind chill from the body which is a big matter in TCM.

Taoism is for you. It has varied paths. The philosophical side can offer you wisdom in life, as in @Nungali's link. The cultivation side is also popular here. Yet one of the 2 main factions of Taoist - the Zheng Yi, is similar to what you practice in the past, like rituals, ceremonies, divination, spirit relations, communications with heavenly court and so on, is not really in this forum.

Taoist cultivation is generally not very keen on visualization, for most factions, and comparing with Buddhist. Unable visualize may even have some advantages in concentration, because many people are watching videos inside their heads all day long. It would stop any progress. So choosing a path/lineage is necessary according to one's own situation. The more common situation is avoid standing stances (ZZ) when you cannot stand. Blocked meridians may affect health more than affect cultivation. Many Qigong exercises do have simple finger exercises, like opening and closing fingers one by one, but nothing compared with Tibetan Buddhist, or other Buddhists in complicated Mudras. Anyway, not working on fingers is no big deal.

You have the advantage of being quite young, full of yang chi, and having good control of sex urges. It is a very good basis that many of the people here can only admire. But your problem in having access to genuine teaching is real and unfortunately common enough, though with varying degrees. To aid your progress, I would have a few suggestions until you are more ready. Firstly, you try to get hold of all sorts of information, you don't need to follow and practise, but building up your knowledge scope is very important. The second important thing is to conserve your Jing, which, in short, means moderation of everything, good or bad things included. The rationale is that income is good but expenditure must be controlled. The third one is to refrain from all complicated trainings to avoid risks and no one to save you once in trouble. Finally, mixing of techniques is not desirable, but seems unavoidable in your situation.

If not recalled wrongly, Damo has written that he was expelled by his faction due to some argument with fellow disciples. So whatever his teaches now, those must be his own "cocktail" of methods. I have read his book. It is surprise that he have a wide understanding of Taoism and different methods. However it is difficult to know his depth of knowledge. BTW what is the full name for IMA?