Empty Mind

[Cameron]

My feeling now is you can't even see the path, much less walk it, if your not involved in some form of Empty Mind cultivation.

 

I'll tell you my story(qiuckly). I started doing empty mind cultivation over 10 years ago. I began with traditional japanese zen and studied briefly with different schools and teachers. I think many American Zen teachers are wonderful. They are some of the best people to be around and genunaly compassionate. I stated doing aikido roughly about the same time and got interested in the whole Ki/Chi cultivation practices. I found out about Healing Tao and Michael Winn and took some classes.

 

Although I was spending time posting on the HT board and had taken some classes I never really got too deep into it. I basically only kept up Empty Mind meditation. Outside of the classes I took with Michael Winn I never really practiced any HT formulas. I mean, I knew the formulas and they would often go spontaneously just thinking about it, but I never sat down and practiced Fusion or Kan and Li. The only thing I ever sat down to practice is Empty Mind(sitting and forgetting).

 

For years I would check up on the HT board and see Plato or someone else talking about there latest Kan and Li experience and it was interesting and I pondered it but NEVER practiced any of it. I just felt that real cultivation was all about letting go and saving your sexual energy and things happen naturally if you do it right.

 

But I always kept my mouth shut except for an occasional post on Zen or something, I didn't want to just say " This is all bullshit" or whatever especially because it always seemed that atleast someone was getting something out of the HT formulas.

 

So a few months ago when P started posting all about Bodri I checked it out and was mildly interested at first. I saw the manual he was selling was 700 pages long and a download and all of that, so I just put it off for awhile. Then a month or so ago I started really going over all of his free stuff. I read alot if not most of his articles and free meditation dowloads. I bought White Fat Cow and poured over that.

 

Anyway, I ended up emailing Bill on an almost daily basis for like weeks, and God bless him, he answered every email. I probably should have just thanked him and sepent my own time researching on my own but kept asking him question after question. Anyway, Bill finally let me know he cant' answer my every question all day and I thanked him for his time and told him I'll read up on my own from now on

 

The main thing I have come to in Bodri's stuff that is not found in Japanese Zen is the importance of jing retention. Pretty much all the other teachings are the same..the importance of virture or keeping the precepts, the fundamental teaching of no-self and impermanaence. But Bill has taken all of those Zen teachings and applied them to Daoist jing/qi/shen cultivation stages. Or I should say his teacher has done it and Bill has interpreted it.

 

So in the end, I will continue doing the practice I have been doing for years but with a hell of alot of new insight into it.

 

And no more thoughts about playing to much with my qi. I never really did any of it anyway...but pondered it for many years as I did Empty Mind.

 

But Empty Mind and the subsequesnt transformations are nicer with an inner smile I found. But I think Bodri mentions that as well.

[Harry Pain]

You are a smart boy and I agree to every word of your post!

 

With Metta,

 

Harry Pain

[vidiami]

Would you please offer a definition of an empty mind meditation?

 

I do a meditation where I just sit and "listen to the silence". Silence is not that silent but does seem to have a sound. I listen to it and let all thoughts drop from my mind and then the middle of my head/brain seem to relax. When this relaxation and stillness occurs my mind seem to be picked up and carried somewhere else or there is some kind of expansion. And recently there seem to be a lot of chi rushing in mainly through my hands. So it's a almost techniqueless teqnique - don't think, just listen. I guess this is a kind of empty mind meditation - not forgetting, rather letting go.

 

I started this out not listening, but "looking" with closed eyes. I realized I could look with closed eyes and see some kind of "pattern" moving. When focusing on this moving pattern I would get lifted up and carried away. After doing this a while I noticed some kind of soundless sound and started to focus on that instead. I stayed with the sound as it seems more effective now.

 

Hope this doesn't seem too strange.

 

Peace.

[Cameron]

Listening is a good way To practice I think. That is how Kuan Yin became enlightened. Kuan Yin was originally a man but has been transformed into a woman down through the ages. I remember reading somewhere that Kuan Yins practice was "listening to the sounds of suffering in the world".

 

Basically, just sitting and purely listening the mind quiets down of itself. It is not casual listening but very intent listening. The Zen practice of ShikanTaza that Dogen and Bodhidharma mastered is sitting like "Your hair is on fire". That kind of sitting is so intesne some practioners say you have to take a break after 30 minutes because you will be drenched with sweat!

 

That is also the kind of sitting the japanese samurai did. Can you imagine being so focused in your practice as if facing a warrior who intended to cut you down? The slightest hesitation or wavering of your mind would result in death.

 

But most people can't walk around that intense all day!

 

Sitting and doing the inner smile and just breathing and feeling the enegy naturally transform is a gentler approach.

[RON JEREMY]

Listening is a good way To practice I think. That is how Kuan Yin became enlightened. Kuan Yin was originally a man but has been transformed into a woman down through the ages. I remember reading somewhere that Kuan Yins practice was "listening to the sounds of suffering in the world".

 

Basically, just sitting and purely listening the mind quiets down of itself. It is not casual listening but very intent listening. The Zen practice of ShikanTaza that Dogen and Bodhidharma mastered is sitting like "Your hair is on fire". That kind of sitting is so intesne some practioners say you have to take a break after 30 minutes because you will be drenched with sweat!

 

That is also the kind of sitting the japanese samurai did. Can you imagine being so focused in your practice as if facing a warrior who intended to cut you down? The slightest hesitation or wavering of your mind would result in death.

 

But most people can't walk around that intense all day!

 

Sitting and doing the inner smile and just breathing and feeling the enegy naturally transform is a gentler approach.

 

KUAN YIN, WHAT A FAGGOT!!!!

[Cameron]

Check out

 

www.baus.org/baus/library/ekye1.html

 

 

gassho

[turbo]

There exists two forms of moving qigong inspired by Kuan Yin one sitting and one standing. I have practiced the standing form extensively, but not lately. Stricty vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka these days. The calm achieved through vipassana made the last session of Kuan Yin standing absolutley amazing. If you are interested in learing this form see the following page.

http://www.shengzhen-americas.org/Index.htm

the workshops link offers dates and locations. The practice may not enlighten you but it will teach you.

 

cheers

turbo