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Being still and listening seems like a passive yin approach. The only time I get restful silence, these days, is when I am in motion. At the same time, I have an aversion to being active. I'm a lazy person. I like to dream, but I've been doing too little for too long. I do like your advice though. It reminds me of something, someone said: that to balance you focus on the center not on the counterweight point. Thank you for the kind replies.

I'm very familiar with this experience and can truly understand where your coming from. Try not to reify a substance. Your consciousness is blooming seeing the interconnectedness of all things, but there is still no singular being that all being is. It's all still just interconnected unique beings all dependent on each other in infinitely complex ways. But yes... your having some beautiful high up experiences here. I will leave a poem... I have left a couple of comments for you that maybe would be pertinent. Saraha's Dohakosa: The Royal Song Doha mdzod spyod pa'i glu: Dohakosa nama caryagiti HOMAGE TO ARYAMANJUSRI! Homage to the destroyer of demonic power! The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers; The king makes multifarious forms out of unity, Seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha. The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two; The vision and the viewer are one, You broken, brittle mind! Many lamps are lit in the house, But the blind are still in darkness; Sahaja (spontaneity) is all-pervasive But the fool cannot see what is under his nose. Just as many rivers are one in the ocean All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth; (the inherently empty nature of all experientials high or low) The effulgence of the sun (of realization) illuminates all dark corners. Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the earth And there is neither increase nor decrease; Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky. Replete with the Buddha's perfections Sahaja is the one essential nature; (seeing dependent origination, one see's through all things even consciousness) Beings are born into it and pass into it, Yet there is neither existence nor non-existence in it. (it... i.e.. "emptiness" is not established as an essence but rather the cause of movement, the flow) Forsaking bliss the fool roams abroad, Hoping for mundane pleasure; Your mouth is full of honey now, Swallow it while you may! Fools attempt to avoid their suffering, The wise enact their pain. Drink the cup of sky-nectar While others hunger for outward appearances. Flies eat filth, spurning the fragrance of sandalwood; Man lost to nirvana furthers his own confusion, Thirsting for the coarse and vulgar. The rain water filling an ox's hoof-print Evaporates when the sun shines; The imperfections of a perfect mind, All are dissolved in perfection. Salt sea water absorbed by clouds turns sweet; The venom of passionate reaction In a strong and selfless mind becomes elixir. The unutterable is free of pain; Non-meditation gives true pleasure. Though we fear the dragon's roar Rain falls from the clouds to ripen the harvest. The nature of beginning and end is here and now, And the first does not exist without the last; The rational fool conceptualising the inconceivable Separates emptiness from compassion. The bee knows from birth That flowers are the source of honey; How can the fool know That samsara and nirvana are one? Facing himself in a mirror The fool sees an alien form; The mind with truth forgotten Serves untruth's outward sham. Flowers' fragrance is intangible Yet its reality pervades the air, Just as mandala circles are informed By a formless presence. Still water stung by an icy wind Freezes hard in starched and jagged shapes; In an emotional mind agitated by critical concepts The unformed becomes hard and intractable. Mind immaculate by nature is untouched By samsara and nirvana's mud; But just like a jewel lost in a swamp Though it retains its lustre it does not shine. As mental sloth increases pure awareness diminishes; As mental sloth increases suffering also grows. Shoots sprout from the seed and leaves from the branches. Separating unity from multiplicity in the mind The light grows dim and we wander in the lower realms; Who is more deserving of pity than he Who walks into fire with his eyes wide open? Obsessed with the joys of sexual embrace The fool believes he knows ultimate truth; He is like someone who stands at his door And, flirting, talks about sex. The wind stirs in the House of Emptiness Exciting delusions of emotional pleasure; Fallen from celestial space, stung, The tormented yogin faints away. Like a brahmin taking rice and butter Offering sacrifice to the flame, He who visualises material things as celestial ambrosia Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality. Enlightening the House of Brahma in the fontanelle (which is an aspect of experiencing the crown chakra, to be transcended) Stroking the uvala in wanton delight, Confused, believing binding pleasure to be spiritual release, The vain fools calls himself a yogin. (vain as in the experience of, "I AM" is all or, "I is all that this cosmos is", these experiences are deluded experiences considered high in Vedanta but false grasping in Buddhism.) Teaching that virtue is irrelevant to intrinsic awareness, He mistakes the lock for the key; Ignorant of the true nature of the gem The fool calls green glass emerald. His mind takes brass for gold, Momentary peak experience for reality accomplished; Clinging to the joy of ephemeral dreams He calls his short-thrift life Eternal Bliss. With a discursive understanding of the symbol EVAM, Creating four seals through an analysis of the moment, He labels his peak experience sahaja: He is clinging to a reflection mistaken for the mirror. Like befuddled deer leaping into a mirage of water Deluded fools in their ignorance cling to outer forms And with their thirst unslaked, bound and confined, They idealize their prison, pretending happiness. The relatively real is free of intellectual constructs, And ultimately real mind, active or quiescent, is no-mind, (not established as real or unreal in any way) And this is the supreme, the highest of the high, immaculate; Friends, know this sacred high! In mind absorbed in samadhi that is concept-free, Passion is immaculately pure; Like a lotus rooted in the slime of a lake bottom, This sublime reality is untouched by the pollution of existence. Make solid your vision of all things as visionary dream And you attain transcendence, Instantaneous realisation and equanimity; A strong mind binding the demons of darkness Beyond thought your own spontaneous nature is accomplished. Appearances have never ceased to be their original radiance, And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be grasped; It is a continuum of unique meditation, In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is no-mind. Thus the I is intellect, mind and mind-forms, I the world, all seemingly alien show, I the infinite variety of vision-viewer, I the desire, the anger, the mental sloth - And bodhicitta. Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness Healing the splits riven by the intellect So that all mental defilements are erased. Who can define the nature of detachment? It cannot be denied nor yet affirmed, And ungraspable it is inconceivable. Through conceptualisation fools are bound, While concept-free there is immaculate sahaja. The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring integration; Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom. Cognition of radiance is strong meditation; Abide in a calm, quiescent mind. Reaching the joy swollen land Powers of seeing expand, And there is joy and laughter; Even chasing objects there is no separation. From joy, buds of pure pleasure emerge, Bursting into blooms of supreme pleasure, And so long as outflow is contained Unutterable bliss will surely mature. What, where and by whom are nothing, Yet the entire event is imperative. Whether love and attachment or desirelessness The form of the event is emptiness. Like pigs we wallow in this sensual mire But what can stain our pearly mind? Nothing can ever contaminate it, And by nothing can we ever be bound. This song of existential freedom was composed by the Glorious Master Yogin Saraha. This Dohakosa of Saraha has been translated by Kunzang Tenzin in Kathmandu over many years, finished on the full moon of the seventh month of the wood-ox year. May all beings be happy! May all manner of things be well! Now I join you in tears of joy!! Yes... You obviously don't have direct experience of the truth of dependent origination. No ONE created this world. It's origination is dependent upon a vast interconnecting web of infinite consciousness' of various levels of self experience and inter-projection.

If you want to experience death, and still live in this life, you don't have to kill yourself. Just practice Dream or Bardo Yoga. The dissolution of the elements at the time of death is similar to that experienced when those Yogas are practised.

Do nice guys finish last? Is it up to men to tolerate or handle women's bad behavior? This stuff is all irrelevant n the world of families, marriage, children, sunshine, seasons, celebrations, generations. I was a bad girl attracted to bad boys. In my experience, the young girls who played that game WERE insecure. Often when a truly good guy would come into our lives, ready to love us, we placed such low value on ourselves that we'd wonder what the hell was wrong with these good guys, if they were willing to love us so much, clearly, there was something wrong with them. In my case, and that of many of my friends from back then, we grew up, and the nice guys did win. We married them. We had babies with them. We are with them for decades. The bad boys who succeed in family life and become good fathers and decent adult men become nice guys. The bad boys who stay bad boys are not good family men, but seems many of them, once they meet the right woman and once they are ready to settle down, become nice guys. Those that don't and try to combine family life and maintain their badness, well, they fail and end up devastating their children's lives. The bar scene is where my husband and I met, we both worked in the bar. He was, and still is, a very nice guy. I was a bad girl who was turned good with him. He didn't do anything but love me unconditionally while I worked through the shit that came with a horrible childhood that had toughened me up. He won. I had fun with those bad boys, but it was spiritual destruction, only by living a life where things are simple, pure, and true have I found the space to develop wisdom and pursue spiritual growth. I recognize that I am only one voice in this subject, but I'm in a similar space as a few people here who are in the family season of their lives. Now there's lots of women and men in other seasons and places, there's Witch, there's nuns, there's women content to be single, there are bad girls. No mode of manliness is the right mode for all women, and in some significant areas of male-female relationships, the nice guys do win in the end. And bad boys do become nice guys too, when they have had enough of the game. I'm glad I'm with my nice guy, he's faithful, kind, a truly devoted father who speaks to his mother daily, and is the dream daddy to our two little girls and our infant son. edited to add: my husband got laid a lot before marriage because he was good looking, and he was a pro BMX freestyler, these two qualities drew women to him like magnets. Being confident and fufilled in your life is the ticket to success in love, is my belief. Desperation is unnattractive in anyone, sucking up to anybody is unattractive, unrequited adoration and idolization is unnattractive in anyone. Confidence, inner power, success and a sense of fashion are attractive to almost everyone, of any gender.

Am I translate you correctly if I write that your energi system is open and energi is moving in it, not only when you meditating but also when you live your everyday life. If I am wrong, are you then living your everyday life in a dream or trace state?

Horses for courses, I liked Last Samurai, a lot, Tom did that very well. Loved Bruce and Kung Fu too even though it was Bruce's idea and is a SLOW 70's style show. Actually watching some of the episodes currently. But I will give you it was blizzard people picking on the "Asian" Carradine in Kung Fu Live the dream!

also, what is it that you are looking to know about them? Considering taking them on as a teacher and simply wondering how they are developed might take two very different approaches. If looking for a possible mentor or simply someone to share information with it is essential that those aspects that are underdeveloped or overdeveloped balance and harmonize with your character. I tend to over think things if I let myself, so for me I try to take measures to insure that I am not merely rationalizing someone into glory or shame. Simply noting how you feel when you are giving them your attention as opposed to when you bring yourself elsewhere could help. So, if you're listening to a lecture, think about something that you are well familiar with, or maybe do a short energy exercise that you are familiar with and you generally know how you feel (refreshed, tired, etc) and see if you feel a little different. Basically give yourself some foundation to see if you feel great around this person because you're having a great day or because their influence on you is beneficial. Just kind of making this up, but something along these lines could be useful. Could also try utilizing dreams to gain insight into their nature. I can't say I'm much developed in this area, but to give a quick common sense concept just connect with their energy while laying in bed and see how your dreams compare to normal. Of course, if you've spent all day with your new love it may be difficult to ascertain what is different from having connected with the master, but if it isn't a very out of the ordinary day you might be surprised at the insights that can be gained while contemplating the content of the dream. There are some good threads on Taoist dream methods, forget the name for it. Trust yourself, and learn from the Tao through the master

I know he was a crappy actor who made a lot of crappy movies, but "Kung Fu" changed lives, and there are still thousands of us who dream of being a wandering Taoist goodguy/badass, helping those we meet with our superhuman wisdom and resourcefulness. Keep up your Nei Kung practice!! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/2...arradine-death/

O Ye Enlightened Ones! Praise be upon thee for your deep words, meaningful posts and all the rest of it all all over this esteemed site! I am here to seek your most honoured attention and even more honoured act of levitation off most honoured bums to do something to make understanding of the Tao - the Chinese version possible in the UK. Yesterday, this unworthy, ignorant and low-ranking novice sought the help of ye enlightened ones (even half would do) in message in "Lobby" to make possible sojourn of a Chinese Daozhan here. For some reason I was expecting a flood of support and feared that I might even have to hold back you willing hordes as you charge through the LongMen Gate, the Pearly Gates, and the Bill Gates. Sadly, this was not the case when butterfly woke up from pipa dream and realised he was no unworthy novice or even "Zhoo-wang Zee"! Maybe I posted in the wrong section of the forum bureaucracy, maybe high-ranking enlightened ones stay in their suites and do not hang around "Lobby", maybe bums of bums glued too fast to jade thrones or plasticised straw-mats... I haven't tossed sticks and insulted the "Eye Ching" or read answers on back of tortoises, maybe enlightened ones all in Noo York, HengShan or in dole queues not in this country. But then again I thought - if I post here in "upstairs department" and ask all ye worthy ones and halves and quarters to take the lift and come down to "Lobby" and honour me by reading message some miracle may happen(?). The message is the one about "getting off bums" and I look forward to reading your enlightened answers or even your rolling up sleeves of divine gowns to lend a hand to make a Taoist lodge possible. Who knows? - maybe one day you can even serve real tea in the lodge or help pull out needles from victims in the clinic! You can if you want more difficult work do calligraphy, play flute to the ox, do real "internal cultivation"... or even drink a nice cuppa with others when you confuse them about the meaning of no meaning... You can even learn Old Master Lu Dongbin's martial arts... hmmmm why is it when one person holds up his one finger when he does Qigong gets others to burst into guffaws when another does same and commands worshipful silence and awe? If there is anything to discuss I think an addition of a Spanish-speaking Chinese Taoist priest would not make any gem less unclear! Some exercise may be healthy for example walking down to "Lobby", type a few words of wisdom on keyboard. Especially when doing standing meditation, karma meditation, focusing on the void, Taijiquan in its multitude of styles, walking the Bagua circles, imitating the animals of Xingyi, directing traffic and doing dragon breaths with the umpteenth school of Kwee-gong doesn't really in truth work anywhere other than in your heads! No offence, guys, rambling on and on and taking off in tangents and spinning in circles in all sorts of discussions in the flavour of mules talking to donkeys don't amount to anything. By this, I don't mean you've manufactured "Wu Wei". I think Lao Zee said that somewhere... I am sure I am wrong... Still, I hope I see you at "Lobby" (I am not the one carrying the fly whisk) and hope you help lend me one shoe to go on journey of a few yards down the road! Bless you all, the cheek shall inherit the earth!

In fact similar for the Buddha, who used to "sleep" in the way we see him depicted in the big statues we have around today. I believe he said, that since he is Awaken he is always in this state hence does not dream. So not sure what the developers of the religion Buddhism came up with later :-)

Thanks for such fast reply, Hangzhou Hot! It is 'the' LongHu Shan I borrow my 'name' from, though I am more closely linked to the Lao Shan fraternity even though the 'fraternity' is all over China! You mentioned Huangshan somewhere on the board - some twenty years back there was only one Taoist priest left on the mountain then he got married, became a 'restaurant' owner half way up the mountain, then he disappeared to the cities! Those were the days before the stupid cable car system and when monkeys were not spoilt by stupid tourists! Do find out about those things I requested, climb as many of those lovely mountains as possible and find that the 'real' Taoists are nowhere to be found - them Xianren (immortals) doth live in caves and still do! I use to like all them city Taoists priests taking me to see them cave -dwellers, it's such fun I always spend the money of the city Taoists for them! Thanks LongHu Shan, I'll do my best for you to answer these questions. Your name means Dragon Tiger Mountain, which LongHu Shan are you named after, may I ask? I love the UK, haven't been there in years. Went to university there back ages ago. Haven't returned since. But I dream of a trip back some day. Best, JessinChina

How sweet. Our cups are neighbors. I have not had the chance to taste Keemun. I love black tea, but as you probably know I'm in the land of Long Jin, Dragon Well, and green tea [lu cha] is de rigueur. I sneak some oolong for myself though and don't mention it. Most people, especially my students, turn their noses up at the mere mention of oolong. Even if I tell them it's from taiwan. What can I say, to each her or his own! Feel free to tell me about Anhui. I have students from there and friends who have been to Huangshan. I've only been to HZ so far and Fuyang and briefly to Shanghai. School has kept me grounded until recently. Thanks for your compliment as well. But I am only a student, no disingenuosity intended. I have much to learn. However, whatever I do learn/discovery I am happy to share. Best, JessinChina Thanks LongHu Shan, I'll do my best for you to answer these questions. Your name means Dragon Tiger Mountain, which LongHu Shan are you named after, may I ask? I love the UK, haven't been there in years. Went to university there back ages ago. Haven't returned since. But I dream of a trip back some day. Best, JessinChina

Transformer has always spoke to me beyond words and music. It was this that came into my head that reminded me of this thread - Row row row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily merrily merrily merrily, Life is but a dream. and the Farsi translation on wikipedia - Ride and go with your boat down the stream row and be happy life is beautiful peace

I am generally impressed by the lvl of knowledge of this group. Regarding the HT: If you want to go the HT root, the person specialised in dream yoga is actually Juan Li. He is from New Mexico and teaches in Spain and I think in Germany (his wife is a HT senior instructor from Germany).

Read the book "Opening the Dragon Gate: The Making of A Modern Taoist Wizard" translated by Thomas Cleary. This book is the biography of Wang Liping's life and it is a very fascinating read. Whether or not you believe all of the remarkable things that Master Wang said he did or said his three teachers were capable of doing is true... you decide, but you must still admit that he seems like he would be a very interesting person to talk to and to learn from. It is understandable that after reading this book many people would be interested in having the man as a teacher; he is like the aspiring Taoist alchemist's dream come true. Wang Liping has been called a Taoist Wizard (one who is capable of many supernormal feats), but not an immortal. If by master you mean someone who is a teacher and who has mastered many different techniques and tools for the path, then of course he is a master. If you mean that he has mastered "the Tao," then I think you have to reexamine what the Tao means to you and maybe reread the first line of the Tao Te Ching. Really I think that the English word master is a pretty terrible rendition of Sifu (honorable teacher) from Chinese or Sensei (teacher, literally "born earlier") and sometimes Roshi (venerable teacher) from the Japanese.

Micheal Winn of Healing Tao USA sell material on Taoist Dream Yoga. I tried it I could never get much out of it. It supposedly has to do with the body being asleep but the mind being awake and consious during a dream state. Bu

Zhuangzi said, and I quote: "A real man does not dream when he sleeps."

Well, since they don't hang out a shingle, traditionally you'd have to go on a hunting trip and hunt one down. I am sorry to say, but I am probably the closest one to such "wisdom master" here, and you can learn from me if you like and if I have the energy and inclination to teach. At the same time, there have to be people much better than me, at least in theory I know this has to be so, but I haven't met or read about them except in ancient stories about people like Chandrakirti or Garab Dorje, or something like that. I don't even think Lin Chi or Dogen are any wiser than yours truly. My real advice is that what you want to know is available to you right inside your own mind. If you address your questions to yourself and instead of jumping to the answer, just let the question sit there as you stay silent, you'll eventually get it. So your own inner mind is your highest wisdom master. You should note that your own inner mind doesn't give a damn about material needs or even you. That's right! There is a "part" of you that doesn't give a damn about what happens to you. Did you know that? Of course it's not really a "part" since it's not apart from anything. Just think it over. Ever had dreams where you die? Why would your mind kill you in its own dream? Supposedly you are your mind's pet avatar, no? Or maybe not. Just pay attention.

Good question. There are two kinds of skills, conventional and not. Conventional ones are like trades, like welding or plumbing or programming. To learn those people pay, at least for the tools and books or internet access, if not to pay for being taught in person or in a class. And then there are non-conventional ones, like wisdom. Wisdom passes beyond convention, and as such, is not a trade and should never be made into one. This is true of all real wisdom, but it's even more true of the wisdom that's meant to liberate a person from the cyclical life. Another way to say "cyclical life" is "life of convention". Obviously following some convention is not the way to liberate oneself from it. It should be common sense. For example, if you're a prostitute you cannot liberate yourself by fucking more Johns or by fucking a specific kind of John. The act of fucking for money is what prostitution is, and doing more of it, or doing it in specific manner is not the way out of it. All the sincere people understand this. So why is it a big deal then? The reason is obvious! The reason it's a big deal is because very few people really care about wisdom. People want these "spiritual" associations and skills for personal self-aggrandizement (or in the best case, health, so they can spend even more energy inside convention that ruined their health in the first place), in other words, they want to use those to add more glitter and shine to their conventional identity. So you get "So and so the democrat, the honest person, the handsome guy, the rich guy, and the spiritual guy", but the "and" part is purely conventional. In other words, since these folks do not want real wisdom, what they want is something that everyone can agree is "spiritual" (even if it's dumb or is useless), so that everyone can agree how wonderfully spiritual this guy is in addition to all the other wonderful conventional qualities they have. It's basically a form of identity-building and maintenance. It's what ties people to the cyclical life in the first place! Haha... It's stupid, but ultimately there is no harm even in that stupidity. It's just a dream. It's like having a stupid dream. No harm done. It's not impressive, useful or good in any higher sense, but it's not totally bad either. But you have to decide for yourself what kind of things you will hold in esteem. For me, I decided to have disdain and contempt for such glitter-seekers. That's my choice and my own identity building process at work. So ultimately I follow the same nature, but relatively speaking I like my choices and tastes better than those of the masses at this time. So it's kind of like saying, I'll teach you how to stop prostituting yourself if you fuck me first. Obviously it's not a sincere offer of help.

With experiencing each moment as new, as in "being here now", "meditating", there is no boredom. Consider two opposite functions to be possible in your brain; "thinking" and "no-thinking". 99.9% of thinking happens automatically and repetitively whenever a stimulus triggers it. All triggers are created from past conditioning. The moment that a human being becomes aware of that thinking happening in their brain, the possibility is immediately available for choosing to "use" the other function of the brain, "no thinking", which I like to call being "mind-space". Here we are at "The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao"... "No words describe it". Meditation can been said to simply be increasing awareness of the activity in the brain. When we humans are unaware of the conditioned thinking happening in the brain, we are living in the dream, the delusion, lost in thought, unconscious robots with our bodies controlled by a bio-computer that is running on old programs that are full of bugs. As soon as we see the thinking happening, and exercise our natural ability to shift to mind-space (non-thinking function), we are simply "being now". Humans have already figured out many types of practices to help us see and expand uses of the possibilities inherent in our brain functioning. All roads lead to the same center. The source of all form is the formless. Therein lies freedom. All else is bondage. (Wei Wu Wei's word choice). Listen to the Silence. It's really fun!

You can try searching for "Shui Gong" on this forum. There was one thread here some time ago where YMWong posted an ancient text on Shui Gong - Dream Practice. Her is the link: Shui Gong

Yes a master of daoism which I believe is now immortal was known for his sleep and dream Qi kung methods and lived for a few hundred years.

Hi, anyone here knows if there is a Taoist version of Dream Yoga? Just asking. (Maybe we can compare notes; I'm into Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist spiritual practice)

By our nature and the nature of the forums, we repeat the thoughts of the others. I will do it directlyand not pretend they are mine. This one - from a guy that was trashed in a parallel thread here :-). And just one more view. As are the views of Buddha, Hegel, Kant etc. "Phenomena means all that you see, all that you experience. All that can ever be experienced is all phenomena. Remember, not only are the objects of the world phenomena and dreams, but also objects of consciousness. They may be objects of the world, they may be just objects of the mind. They may be great spiritual experiences. You may see Kundalini rising in you: that too is a phenomenon - a beautiful dream, a very sweet dream, but it is a dream all the same. You may see great light flooding your being, but that light is also a phenomenon. You may see lotuses blooming inside you and a great fragrance arising within your being: these too are phenomena, because you are always the seer and never the seen, always the experiencer and never the experienced, always the witness and never the witnessed."

an example: angry fearful human being peaceful compassionate human being they experience the same world, but completely differently because they have different views. these views are based on conditioning, past experiences. and this conditioning runs very deep. views can also be very subtle such as the need for a source of manifestation, a ground of existence, and a oneness that pervades all reality. these very subtle views distort the perception of experience, coloring and distorting the windshield of perception. right view in Buddhism in fact isn't a view but rather taking away of views. instead of painting another coat on the windshield, right view cleans the windshield. eventually the windshield melts away/ right view isn't just as simple as letting go completely of expectation, surrendering, not thinking, etc. because mental patterns are so deeply ingrained in the mindstream from countless past lives frankly, it is impossible to rest in a viewless state of truth because truth is not a state or an experience. truth comes from right perception of any state: awake, dream, sleep, whatever.