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I know I know it baffles me lol. In fact it was martial arts that got me interested in qigong in the first place. I saw Dr. Yang's book about Qigong and Martial arts and I was like everyone else who as a kid saw a Kung fu movie and was like "oh that's the secret stuff they train that makes them so good" lol. So I got the book and started and lo and behold I got way better at marital arts fast! I didn't anticipate all the other stuff that came with it though. I eventually even changed styles from mostly stand up striking to Brazilian jujitsu grappling because with grappling you could stop an opponent with out hurting them (if you wanted to). But yea it was cool cause if I did qigong before practice it was like during sparing it was much easier to pick up on the subtle signs that the opponent would telegraph before they made a move and you could be a couple steps ahead of them. It also seemed to improve my speed and made taking a hit a little easier. But yea that's pretty cool about Joe Rogan. I don't know how many countless UFC matches I've listened to him announce lol. Ah that was my dream for a while there in Alaska, I trained hard, but as my MMA friends say now I got "soft" on them haha. I didn't enjoy hurting people anymore, but they all seemed to get off on it.

I'm curious to find out what some of you do first thing upon waking in the morning? One of my great curiousities about my human experience is the play between various states of consciousness. Lucid dreaming is something I engage in regularly and recently I'm trying to incorporate more discipline to my dream experiences rather than just enjoying and playing. But that is a precursor to my question. The transition between states of consciousness fascinates me. Especially the transition from sleeping awareness to the waking state. Those first few moments upon waking... Usually, based on my ridiculous schedule in my early 20's and my habit of setting my alarm clock to the last possible moment to get as much sleep as possible, I would leap out of bed at full speed and blaze out the door. These days, I still often find myself mechanically 'hopping' up and getting right to action with what needs doing. For many years I paid no mind to how I woke up, I just got up and went about it. Recently, one day I hopped up and looked in the mirror and stopped. My heart was jumping and I asked myself 'what's the emergency? Why in such a hurry?' Now I'm taking the first moments of the waking state, to just sit and observe... memories of dreams if there are any, listen to the sounds of morning and focus on my first conscious breaths. I then get up slowly. Go out and squeeze the juice of a lemon into a cup of hot water and look out the window as I sip. I leave the lights off. I get up quite early on work days 3:45 or 4:00am. After that I do some mild stretching and a few cycles of Tumo breathing. Then it's make lunch and head out to work. I'm curious what others do upon waking?

In many Ancestor centred cultures, hungry or angry ghosts are seen as beings who were not honoured or elevated by their children or who did not receive the appropriate rites, and so did not join the ancestor line... Ancestor cults felt that we have a responsibility to our dead, and some have suggested that we 'add' something to them that they may have lost when they went through the division... Allowing them deeper intelligence and rationality than many ghosts normally exhibit, such as the confusion many ghosts display... their spirit has departed. Spirit of course being cognitive and rational awareness. Soul being memory and feeling based awareness, or dream logic.

What a fortunate place to be,...those with "something" seldom if ever become self actualized, let alone transcend. Of course,...for someone with nothing, your questions appear to about getting deeper into the dream,...not waking up from it. Questions like: These are not the questions of someone wishing to awake in anyway. What are you seeking exactly? If your desire is for phenomenal success, why hang out on a Taoist forum? If you want to realize truth,...you need diffrent questions,...wouldn't you say?. The above youtube should give you an idea as to whether you are a serious seeker, or not. If not, why spend even another minutes on this forum? Learn how to be a day trader, be a landlord, get out and sell something,...watch CNBC throughout the day,...go dumpster diving, especially after estate sales, and sell the stuff as unique items on craigslist,...steal out-of-state front licence plates and sell them them on e-bay,...collect urine from pregnant women and sell it as a hair growth tonic,...go out into the woods and be an exotic mushroom supplier,...collect herbs and make herbal cigarettes,.... trap squirrels, dye them purple, and get a government grant to study them. The key is to burn with passion, 24/7.

I would look into Jungian and kabbalastic/gnostic theory on the number 4. I believe it represents a sort of perfect completion, and evolution from 3 (the egoic self). 4 is important in sacred geometry - see tetrahedron. And the name of God in hebrew is known as the tetragrammaton. My experience with 4 is positive. Also back to Jung, he has good stuff for dream interpretation, which sounds like it could help for this one, especially. with the numerology thing. He uses mandalas (4 components) to represent the personality, where a complete male or female personality has 4 developed archetypes each. The capstone for the male is the old wise man...really don't remember about the rest. Also, jungian theory has variations of ideas on similar topics, so look around.

Ok, I will try to pay close to attention if the number 4 is associated with the Tao or the teaching of the Dharma... One thing I read about is that a person who is stuck in his life, he tends to see and dream about the number 4 a lot. Yeah, I am stuck in my life. More like trying to make sense with my cultivation path and making good use of my fruits in this world. So far, I am not able to make the connection.

Cool story. Most of these things I know as I lived a fairly isolated life on a vegetarian/pescatarian diet, meditating and abstaining from all subatances. I simply stopped caring. The fire went out. One night I swear I was being followed by a large entity as I heard loud booming following me at night from about 150 meters away, then I quit doing everything "right"if because I wanted out of everything that involved the path. Now I feel as if I'm going crazy sometimes because I constantly awake to a life that I want nothing to do with. I am fairly unhappy with things but that isn't the biggest issue, it's that I feel as though I've already lived/died and have nothing else to live for. Not much concerns me currently and that's a bit scary. I simply can't find the passion within myself right now. I'm so fucking fed up with everything. I'm living a life that doesn't even feel like it's mine, it all feels like a bad dream now. People always say to hold on, why bother. I don't even know if any of this legitimately happened to me

Cool. Have you experimented with fully with it yet? I played around with it. It's very powerful and dangerous. I have a job that demand my brain power. I can't afford another mishap. I understand that you're retired. And you have access to this function all the time. If the "circuit" you have is similar to what I had, you're sitting on a gold mine. I believe this circuit can make prophecy come true. Well it's more like self-filling prophecy in some sense. For example, you feed this circuit a statment like "I'm a good person", and activate it. It'd gether all the information and make smart associatiion to convince you that you're a good person. It's like a "dream creation machine". It can alter your sensory. I got myself into trouble once I feed "I'm God" into the circuit. After serious interactions in a few days, I forgot that I started the chaine of thought. I was fooled by myself. Be careful and have fun.

Yeh interesting some strange things there haha... overall pretty gloomy. Hm my understanding so far..kinda like this.. > Earth > Lower astral (close to the earth vibration) > Middle astral > Higher astral ... surrounds the earth. > Spirit realm These beings only really function in the lower astral ("hell realms" - lowest energies and expressions// vices..greed, envy etc... things that bind people ) + negative thought form in the lower astral? These beings are parasitic ... no real higher capacity // some say they are "demonic" ... but an alien life form..not of this earth / different theories about that - generally seen as the grey or reptilian type. With the movers / shakers of the world being possessed or...of these creatures somehow. Appears they dictate from the lower astral down to earth... It appears they mostly feed off fear + try to create fear, chaos, confusion. ... humanity just has to step up. Humanity is "multidimensional" and can go beyond them... really similar to the matrix and Neos awakening. // It appears they can influence peoples thoughts etc... some people open themselves up to such things via a number of methods. So you decide ultimately ... though I guess a good number are unaware of the situation and are being taken advantage of. Apparently the astral is basically a reflection of the Earth... you have a scale between the good and the bad... though the majority are good / just trying to make a living + provide for family... the "common" folk. As with living on earth you don't walk around in a wonderland... depending on where you are etc sometimes you have to be on your guard, ready to defend yourself etc. So mentally equip yourself ...weapons + armour etc... the astral / dream world is really fluid things manifest fast with conscious intent... and humanity seems to be really powerful in this regard. Apparently gamers are really proficient at this, at controlling such states... as they spend a good amount of time in virtual / alternate worlds... so their world in much more flexible/ imaginative than most. So they can more actively defend themselves... like this guy said when he encountered them it was relatively easy to "blast them away" ... he says and a number have that these things are machine like... so they don't have the consciousness/ imagination / creative potential we do. ... they can only really manipulate what we create... kinda like in Harry Potter? and that creature that can transform into what you fear and traps you in fear... the solution was to make the thing look ridiculous / comedy / use your imagination to transform it... when you are in a state of fear you are accepting the conditions that this creature brings.... when you attack back (like a warrior you are also rejecting fear) it can't respond... you have rejected its conditions and are now transforming it to your will / or actively pursuing it... so the hunter now becomes the hunted. Also like in life you have allies + friends etc... in the other worlds it is similar.. just like on Earth upon meeting people you arnt sure about them or their intentions / who they are etc so it take time to figure out / understand. So I guess the solution is to be courageous + also work to mend the earth of evil workings... light a candle in the darkness and expose these things. IN the end it will make you a stronger/ wholesome person. the strongest steel is formed in the hottest fires?

These are comforting words, even fighting words, to drum up courage to face death. I am not questioning the veracity of your near-death experience. I am quite convinced that near-death experiences are very real, as real as experiences of people on LSD. Such experiences are not like those we go through in our daily lives tending to practical matters. Dream states - during sleep - are real too. The reason why we put faith in near-death experiences and regard them as authentic evidence of an afterlife is to give continuity to ourselves when the body dies. This boils down to a need to go on living - not as before but in better conditions - after the death of the body.

Pure Dzogchen and Mahamudra involve Short Path literature that is fully unaccessible to Long Path inquirries. Ultimately, there are only two Paths,...and only one that uncovers the nature of spirituality. No one realizes nirvana from the Long Paths,...thus, all Long Paths lead to the Short Path. Until one realizes the Short Path, discussing pure Dzogchen and Mahamudra is futile. A Canadian said: "Waking up is not necessarily pleasant; you get to see why all this time, you chose to sleep. When you wake up the first thing you will see is Reality does not exist for you, you exist for it. Shocking as it is when you let it in, there is rest. You do not have to labor anymore to hold together a reality that does not exist; forcing something to be real that is not real. You and this life you have been living are not real ...In letting it in, even through the shock... pain... shattering, there is rest. Reality is when all you want to know is what is true ...just so that you can let it in and be true. Reality is not a safe place for you - the you that you have created. It is the only place where you would die; where there is no room for your hopes, your dreams. Once you have let it in, once you begin to re-awaken; to let Reality wake you up, nothing can get it out. That is the beginning of your end. Waking up can be much more painful than the agony of your dream, but waking up is real." What the Canadian is discussing is fully unavailable to one on the Long Path. One on the Long Path will not realize Truth Realization in this lifetime. I've found some quotes of Paul Brunton helpful regarding the differences between the Long Path and the Short Path,...nevertheless, unless one has a predisposition towards truth realization, those quotes will not be very clear. http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/notebooks/23/5

Feeling is good. But getting the emotions involved is just stirring up winds. You don't need to develop the 'feeling of being'. It is buried underneath all the veils. One only has to learn to relax and drop the veils for the true presence of being to shine through. Love can sometimes do this very easily. The funny thing about layers of consciousness is that the deeper (or finer) you go, everything becomes visual. But it is not sight. It is it's own kind of knowing. There is not one method for realization that is better than the other. There is a method that is better for each individual person. The main thing is to understand this: The true you lives in the little point, the indestructible drop in the heart. That little drop manifests your being, your body, mind, and speech through the five lights, the five elements. You are creating yourself, and have been all along. The heart is sacred. It has unbelievable powers. It uses the five senses to manifest your world. You can use any of the five senses to collapse the structure. There are many methods. Inevitably it comes down to living from the heart, realizing that it's creation is a dream, and realizing that it has that power to create, over and over and over again. The only problem is that mind thinks it is the center and does things to maintain that focus. Don't believe the mind for a second. Hold firm in your heart, the magic, the sacredness, the power and the love that is the source of your being. Don't forget it for an instant. TI

I've always thought it was quite interesting how the "enlightened" west makes decisions regarding other cultures. We try to change the way they live and behave, because our society is supposedly superior, yet how can we justify this? Are american's really happy people? Are they any happier than Indians or Malays or even Hondurans? The irony is that in recent times a large portion of the illegal immigrants that come to America to take advantage of the American Dream, end up leaving after just a short time, seeing through much of it for what it is, a lifestyle of consumption and misery, compounded by a culture and economy that strives to consume, but not really create anything worthwhile. I'm wondering whether anyone ever bothered asking the women of these other countries whether they feel like they're taken advantage of, or have we decided that they are and hence we need to step in and convert them to a superior culture such as ours? I think its time that we stop trying to interfere in other cultures and start working on our own, because I think we can all agree we have a long way to go before we really offer happiness. There are far too many incidences to quote here, but suffice it to say, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central America, South America, and Vietnam come to mind. Anyways this is vastly off-topic. Neither Buddhist or Taoists would advocate interference in other customs, I guess only Westernized intellectuals feel the need. Aaron

According to Alan Wallace, the average person, with a toned down environment (no TV or activities which are too simulating), with diligent practice (3 to 4 hours a day) and by maintaining mindfulness between sessions, can achieve samatha in about 6 months. He also mentions the 'degree of ripeness' concept, where some people will achieve it sooner with not much effort, and others may take years to achieve, if ever.. Shamatha is a great help for visualization. The other thing that you can do is practice visualizations. Practice every chance you get. Imagine a tic-tac-toe board in your head. Play the game. Keep the visualization going. It is easier to visualize things in motion than static visualizations, because unbridled awareness jumps to moving objects first; imagine a colored disk moving up with the in-breath and moving down with the out-breath. It is much easier to maintain that than to imagine/visualize a colored disk that is not moving. Buddhism has many visualization meditation practices, as like meditation/visualization with the kasinas (colored circles), or guru yoga (visualizing a guru in front of you). Even tonglen, in which you visualize breathing in all the dark and suffering from humanity into your heart and then transmute it into love and sending it back out from your heart to all sentient beings is a form of visualization. Practice. Imagine, visualize, practice. Hone your concentration. Learn to relax the mind and focus on the task at hand. The more relaxed you are, the easier the visualizing becomes. But when the mind is producing many distracting thoughts which whisk away your attention, you will come to realize that taming the mind is a noble and rewarding endeavor. I've also read about taking a picture of a guru, gazing at it and 'memorizing' every detail and then closing the eyes and recalling the image as a bonified practice. You do that regularily for weeks until you can clearly see the whole picture in your mind's eye. Learn about the different components of attention, and the fact that you can control them, make them more intense or diminish them. For example, "interest" is something that you can control yourself. Most people let it move without volitional control; it flits about based on desires and motivations. You can learn how to increase your interest; it is something you can control. There is nothing more boring than watching the breath. The mind hates it. But if you augment your interest in it, by watching it intently, watching how long one in-breath is compared to the out-breath, watching the point where the in-breath switches to the out-breath, watching to see if you can see any light in the breath, etc etc.. you can trick your mind into becoming more interested. Gradually, you come to realize that "interest" is controllable and trainable. So is attention, will and vividness. The three components of shamatha that you work on are relaxation, stability and vividness. When the vividness comes, it is very neat. You need the relaxation part because the tension that is created during heavy concentration is detrimental. Relaxed and effortless is the goal. The stability part means that you can maintain relaxed focus on the object continually, without distraction, as a constant flow. Another method of developing visualization is through dream yoga, or becoming conscious in your dreams. That is another subject.. And, if you'd like, try this. Imagine an orange. Notice where it appears in the space of the mind. Keep the attention on the orange until it dissolves and then maintain your focus on the place where the orange was. Now, visualize an apple. Notice the location. Once you see where exactly the camera exists in the space in your mind, go up higher from that location. Move your attention higher up, above where the orange or apple appeared. Now imagine an orange again. If you do this right, you will see that the region above where the dull, lackluster orange appears, is much brighter, clearer and crisper. It is like there is a high definition TV which is sitting 'above' the low resolution tv that you normally use. It is in the space of the mind which is above or higher.. In other words, there is another cave in the space of the mind, which you will eventually find when you practice resting the mind, shamatha. In it, the visualizations are stupendous. TI

Hahaha! That's one hell of a demon. Most of this la la stuff I talk about is merely me observing what I indeed experience in my dream states and when my third eye is open and fully aware. I don't worry all that much about this sort of stuff these days, but I do feel it is good to inform others. Once you meet higher beings, you sort of can't go back from go, so to speak. Demons could care less about virtue, but there is something to be said when others of higher intelligence are watching over you.

Unless the author clarified it for us ,, it will be speculative but I like to do that Did you notice the similarity of his tassels and beard to the horns and fringe of the dragon? If he defeated the dragon beneath his feet , and looks to the next dragon in the sky he is still drawn onward eternally (as his posture reflects) if he defeated the dragon which was above and now stands on it then he has become a dragon himself I suppose it also makes sense but his goal is in limbo. If he was drawn to the divine , though the divine was beneath his feet, he therefore becomes his own divine-dragon, by chasing a dream of the divine I guess we could use input on the traditional significance of the stuff in his hands, it looks like a coin and a thing of incense. power and humility the tools to his hearts desire? Imo the image is done wonderfully , and such like it are the possible content of many enwisening threads a blend of the intuitive and the derivative

Hrmmm. What is this day 25 since my last nocturnal emission? I don't have a problemo with masturbation or porn. My focus/concentration is sharp and deep, which is something I've been wanting to cultivate. I could probably go longer if it wasn't for nocturnal emissions, but I have have been at this for over 100 days already and now I am able even resist ejaculation while i am lucid dreaming. I noticed that I am able to fight off entities/beings that subsist off of sexual fluids. Lately I have been having dreams where beings have been asking to me to jack off or I encounter some one who seeks to control my free will and my hand begins to masturbate in mid air. It's rather funny and stupid. I've even had dreams where I am imagining my self cumming in the dream, but when I wake up, I am dry down there and still have my energy intact.

Most can't even remember their dreams... or what happened last week... What did you dream of last night? Just because you don't remember doesnt mean it didn't happen... Sometimes during the day I'll have flashbacks to dreams... something triggers the memory.

Some patients suck energy, even our professors warned us about this, but basically its the same awareness to stop it. Fortunately patients don't follow you home, so its easier to exert that force of will to stop energy drain in the clinic. Yea I'll be interested to see how I solve this puzzle too haha. Um yea Drew's observations and insights have actually proven to be very useful. In regards to sitting in full lotus for 6 hours I don't cause my legs won't let me get in full lotus. Though I do sit in half lotus between 3-4 hours on average a day, and if I have extra free time then longer. Here is the crux of the issue. The more I do sitting meditaion for long periods of time like Drew for example, the more I see exactely what he has been talking about from a first hand experience point of view. It's clear to me now that he did not simply dream up this stuff out of thin air, but rather from first hand experience as I can attest since I am experiencing similar things now.

Going off grid is something I'd love to do, alas due to my physical carriage being barely road worthy I'd have to be part of a bigger group. The 18 yr old model would have had no hesitations! Fit and strong, unlike now broken and so wrong! Unable to move, sorry sight of a groove who you'll see me sitting on a creaking wooden stool!!! Other options would be to join an established commune, and that would take serious research. So, for now I'll dream! Namaste, gentlewind

When I bought my dog, I had to drive downstate Illinois to Decatur where that strong smell of Archer Daniels Midland's soybean processing permeated the air. The breeder has her own four-acre farm where she has her dogs in the middle of vast tracts of corporate farmlands growing corn and other stuff. The place, in the middle of nowhere, had a wonderful feel but I did wonder if life there could be good on account of the massive crop-dusting of pesticides and insecticides in the area. Did that bother you growing up on the farm? Hippie retirement farm is good. A place in the country is the dream of all city-dwellers. What about safety? Are you not afraid to live on a farm? Have you seen the movie "Deliverance"? I sure hate to have to keep guns and shoot mountain men barging in and knocking down the front door in the midst of dinner.

My understanding is that you just do whatever you practice during the day in the lucid dream state.

I've seen two immortals who looked like wizards with robes and hure fore heads, in my dreams mid-sleep. They looked like cartoon characters in the dream or avatars so to speak. They had white beards as well. Twas an interesting experience. They laughed a lot and said they're heads were so big from storing up knowledge.

Yea. Tis what I figured. Hrmmm. I am curious to know what kind of abilities are also needed to interface with them. Clairvoyance and clairvoyance? I can only 'interface' with the unseen when I am sleeping or right before I wake up. I have seen other things like angels and other beings as well in my dream state or in my minds eye before I wake up. So I guess the question is, how does a magus learn how to use elementals... hrmm.

Yup, that's why I am trying to do all my stuff during wake initiated lucid dreams. Practices are supposed to be more effective there as well. Dudjom Rinpoche also said "We need to gain proficiency in this, because if we succeed, we will be able to mingle our daytime perceptions with our dream perceptions without drawing a distinction between them, and our practice will be greatly enhanced. "