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Hello everybody, I would like to start my first post with this question Whats the difference between Channeling Taoist gods and a qigongs master lineage and transmission. Here in malaysia it seems like every chinese temple has at least one tangki (medium) channeling somebody from the taoist pantheon, either daily or at least once a month to help people in need, in some temples the gods also teach things (massage, and some Taoist divination etc.). In contrast, the chinese temples in indonesia seem not to have many tangkis anymore, often they invite tangkis to come only once a year from singapore, malaysia or taiwan to do the temple festvial, on the otherhand the indonesian tenaga dalam (inner energy) masters they also channel their sages and have similar practices. In china i never saw anything like trance happening in a temple. anyway i am wondering about the differences in approach because quite a number of these tangkis let me interview them, and none is practicing qigong, most are practicing nothing. some (so far only the young ones) told me they are reading scritpures and pray, meditate daily up to 5 hours if they don’t have to work. They get instructions from an older tangki, I have yet to meet anybody who got taught only from the gods directly, without ever having a human teacher. now I found a temple where they have a separate area in the back behind the main altar hall for bodhidharma, he is teaching formless qigong and sometimes gives the temple members instructions, the tangkis of the temple practice occasionally only. There seems to be little interest in pursuing qigong, good health or mental freedom. (tangkis are normal people, alot I have seen like smoking and drinking and dont know too much about what they are actually doing) It is just uncles and aunties coming to channel and burn inscense and yellow paper (another story i am wondering about) or in this case sometimes practice some formless damo qigong. does this burning and sitting on the yellow paper has an effect other than on the subconscious of the surrounding people? the tangkis if they channel the gods, the gods seem to need this yellow paper around,its quite important in the temple. on the other hand I also was told they don’t need it and can go in trance anywhere.. but why they are acting as if they cant proceed without the yellow paper? Just to add something. one 60+ year old guanyin tangki, choosen when he was 9, tried to run away from the god, but onces choosen u cant run and cant hide, his grandma was also a tangki (brings me to the karma question), he told me, that the high level tangkis are vegan or vegetarian.They are fully unconscious, blackout in trance when they channel. He said the ones who practice to become a tangki are considered lower level, its difficult to reach high level energy if you are not choosen by a god. Btw. I was just sitting next to him and my lower back, hip and leg channels were opening, so this kind of healing can also take place. He also said the experienced tangkis can control their trance level. Now that’s what he said, I am yet to talk to more than 10 tangkis. I also heard food is considered belonging to form and there is another way which is formless. Hence formless qigong maybe that’s another thread about channeling or healing through formless qigong where sick people heal each other, like a group practice. anyway now about the qigong lineage, how it works and whats it actually good for? it seems the average qigong master doesn’t live much longer than healthy people who don’t practice qigong ,so it must be good for something else than good health, what can that be? Does it free the mind from clinging to ignorance for example? And what would also interest me is Where does the talking in tongues come from? Is it also channeling, like a low level tangki who is aware and can stop anytime? Do some qigong masters also blackout when they go about doing qigong, like full trance tangkis, not knowing what happend? is giving ur body to the gods, or to the qigong lineage to do their work in this realm is that so they can get some karma +points? is there a difference between these two approaches other than what you are conditioned to do? whats the karma you are building by these connections? Compared to for example just practicing in a monastery until you can help show other minds how to release their obsessions and be happy? I especially would be thankful to hear from tangkis and qigong masters who get taught from beyond about their similarities or what they think is very different. and one more thing, are there any sharing of merits in taoism?