What are your goals for your practice in this lifetime?

[Michael Roland]

There seem to be a lot of knowledgeable members here who practice a great deal. What do you expect to achieve in this lifetime with your practice?

 

Longevity, martial prowess, healing or psychic ability, total enlightenment?

[Sloppy Zhang]

Psychic abilities, physical and spiritual immortality, possibly enlightenment (though after I've had my fun with the first three).

[Zhuo Ming-Dao]

I think that it is a great idea for us realistically evaluate our progress and think a little bit about what we really think we are capable of achieving. That said, I do not mean that we should be proud, or that we should be setting crazy, unrealistic expectations. We don't want the goals to get in the way of the path, but it is valuable to provide a guide for ourselves to keep us practicing.

 

I have already achieved a few of my early spiritual goals, particularly the ones relating to self discipline, self control, will power, relaxation/stress reduction, a high level of emotional equanimity, a good flow of healing energy, and a solid current through my microcosmic orbit.

 

I the next few years I hope to achieve more reliable stability in the higher states of concentration meditation, more Vipassana noting speed and control, and some nice energetic breakthroughs.

 

In the distant future I hope to realize some form of enlightenment, be this through a kundalini event, satori, or an Taoist alchemical transformation. I will take whatever I can get (assuming that they are even actually different realizations and not just different maps and terminology for the same realization).

 

If any form of immortality comes, I will not complain, but I am not actively seeking it.

[Encephalon]

A solid microcosmic orbit would make me happy. Proficiency in medical qigong and some solid longevity practice would probably give me a chance to redeem my negative karma (I have boatloads, how about you?)

 

I hope to spend the last 20 years of my life in the Canadian Rockies or Coast Range, quietly practicing and playing guitar and piano. I believe I have 20 years to prepare for that.

 

Life without music would be a mistake.

F. Nietzsche

[findley]

Ah... Well, my 'way' has reaped much more 'philosophical' fruit than anything energetic or spiritual.

Thus far, I have established a great good deal of personal character. I am not much subject to dogmatisms of my own making... I have hardly no guilty conscience...

 

Since I have (perhaps mistakenly, we'll see,) disregarded energetic practices, in favor of the Mysterious Pass, I believe I have realized 'what' enlightenment is... just simply am too pre-occupied with my youth and education to step into it. (which is a great feeling.... I'm not constantly upset with myself for breaking down and jerking off. Worrying about being able to get enough practice in... things like this really added up...)

 

Now, I am living my life dedicated to establishing my 'worldly foundations'... that is, moving towards becoming a proficient professor of philosophy. ...Perhaps moving to teach in Hawaii or some other cool place...

 

And then, once that is all done, I will have much more time to spend indulging in the Mysterious Pass...

 

In the end, I believe I have a really good chance of achieving a very high degree of 'realization'...

[Aetherous]

My goal is to continue with my practice until it achieves the end result in the most complete manner. And also to enjoy my life on my own terms while I do that. I think the second part is more important than the first.

[z00se]

I want to be able to fly, walk through walls, see through girls clothes and get to 500kgs with my qi weight lifting.

 

Thank god i've been making lots of progress i'm almost there

 

I think if you try to acheive things u'll never get there. If the dao needs you to do it you can do it.

 

Equally though, there are many psychic abilities i'm sure everyone has already, they just need to try and believe. I've seen auras, felt peoples organs and emotions as they've felt them and been able to feel some injury of others in my own body. I was meditating very heavily at the time and i couldn't automatically have these feelings i had to have the imagination to look. Look for the aura, connect to the others and feel your organ energy change. Sometimes i look for it and are surprised that sure enough it's there. Other times i look and look but i can't see anything.

 

I mean even when i can see auras it doesn't mean very much, i don't know what colour means what. I can see some bigger or brighter than others and guess some other things but i don't know how correct it is. I guess thats why we need science connected with meditation

[forestofclarity]

Zhuo,

 

Just out of curiousity: what method did you find the most effective (if any?)?

 

 

... a good flow of healing energy, and a solid current through my microcosmic orbit.

[Taiji Bum]

Ascension.

[Michael Roland]

What an interesting mix.

 

 

I think if you try to acheive things u'll never get there.

 

I think desire can definitely block progress or worse cause a significant deviation from your path, even if it is only desire for progress. I've seen this in those who are relatively elevated, but I suppose it can happen at any level.

 

Ascension.

 

Ascension to where? Do you mean at the time of death or well before?

[Smile]

To get all the chicks...

[Stigweard]

There seem to be a lot of knowledgeable members here who practice a great deal. What do you expect to achieve in this lifetime with your practice?

 

Longevity, martial prowess, healing or psychic ability, total enlightenment?

Initially "The Five Blessings":

 

1. Happiness

2. Longevity

3. Wealth

4. Health, and

5. Natural Death

 

But if I can commit myself properly (a work in progress):

 

"The process of spiritual attainment proceeds through six phases or levels, beginning with personality refinement and conscious refinement and culminating in becoming Tao.

 

Step One: Chi refinement and Natural Meditation as the cultivation of chi.

Step Two: Teh Tao: Receiving or discovering the path and learning the Tao.

Step Three: Wu Tao: Enlightened by Tao.

Step Four: Ming Tao: Lucidified with Tao.

Step Five: Teh Tao: Gaining Tao, and Tao also gains you. You live beyond your personal cares.

Step Six: Chen Tao: Attaining Tao. Your physical presence gradually merges with the invisible reality of Tao, but you are still able to respond, if you choose, and appear in form. You have achieved spiritual immortality, not physical immortality in the ordinary sense of a life that needs to eat, sleep, and pay taxes."

 

P65, Ni, Hua Ching, "Enrich Your Life With Virtue", Seven Star Communications, CA 1999

[goldisheavy]

There seem to be a lot of knowledgeable members here who practice a great deal. What do you expect to achieve in this lifetime with your practice?

 

Longevity, martial prowess, healing or psychic ability, total enlightenment?

 

First, I don't think my path is defined in terms of lifetimes. I have goals that go way beyond one lifetime. Some things that I am working on will take many lifetimes. So restricting my goals to just one lifetime is not a fair thing because I don't think like that. I don't think "what's my spiritual goal in the next hour" either. In fact, I don't even have firm timelines of any kind. Instead, I have some aspirations which I allow to guide me. How long it takes is not that important to me, but I don't hamstring myself by expecting something specific to happen within one lifetime.

 

To reflect on your proposed goals:

 

Longevity -- useless.

Martial prowess -- useless (but this depends on what you think martial prowess is, if you think that martial prowess includes subtle influencing and not just fisticuffs, then yes, I follow the way of power)

healing -- good stuff, very useful under many conditions

total enlightenment -- this is the big million dollar prize

 

 

Here is how I would put it:

 

1. Wisdom (this is my primary virtue, not compassion, not patience, etc.)

2. Compassion

3. Tolerance of inconceivable phenomena / forbearance

4. Power

 

So these are my aspirations, and also favored virtues, in the order of importance. These are what I develop.

 

Perfections of the above 4:

 

1. Wisdom perfected -- enlightenment

2. Compassion perfected -- flawless liberative technique (able to liberate others and oneself via all manner of techniques), liberation on sight (people become liberated upon merely gazing on you), liberation on hearing (people become liberating upon merely hearing your footsteps or any other noise that indicates your presence)

3. Tolerance of inconceivable phenomena perfected -- immovable mind, ultimate stability, perfect fearlessness

4. Power perfected -- magical ability approaching omnipotence for all practical intents and purposes

 

I might be able to accomplish all this in the next hour. Or maybe in the next 100 lives. Or maybe it will take me 3 eons. I don't worry about that.

 

To put it in simple words: I just want to have a fun-filled enjoyable life. That's not very surprising, is it?

Edited October 10, 2009 by goldisheavy

[Michael Roland]

So restricting my goals to just one lifetime is not a fair thing because I don't think like that.

 

The point was not to restrict you or to somehow be unfair to you. It was rather to restrict the conversation for purposes of discussion.

[King Kabalabhati]

Coming from a more biblical background, I want to use the tools the Dao gives me to expand my potential for love, compassion and efficiency in the daily toils and trials of life. If enlightenment or immortality becomes part of this path later on, so be it, but these things are not ambitions of mine. I do not condemn such ambitions though, if its your thing then go for it!

 

Oh yeah, enjoyment and pleasure seem to come with cultivating so I receive them gratefully

[goldisheavy]

The point was not to restrict you or to somehow be unfair to you. It was rather to restrict the conversation for purposes of discussion.

 

In that case I guess I simply couldn't participate in such discussion honestly.

[Easy]

What do you expect to achieve in this lifetime with your practice?

 

A life that can grace my perception of it like a work of art.

[Zhuo Ming-Dao]

Zhuo,

 

Just out of curiousity: what method did you find the most effective (if any?)?

 

Warning - Big, unhelpful personal story to follow:

 

I did some physical qi gong practices for a while and felt no tangible results (but then my teacher at the time also did not have any tactile sensations of qi...). At this time I was also doing some deep trance meditation and stumbling around trying to understand an altered state that I had experienced as a child every time I had a serious fever.

 

Then I dropped the martial arts after I received my first reiki healing. This event triggered a sudden, unexpected kensho experience. I spent the next handful of years learning reiki and practicing on many hundreds of people. At this time, when I had a firm intention to heal, my hands would heat up, the energy would start flowing from my hands, I could feel the emotions and physical pain of my clients, and have solid results. However, most people that I know who did reiki did not have such amazing results. Reiki seems to be a very haphazard technique, since it has so few formal practices to help people who do not have a natural knack for it. Also, as we have discussed elsewhere, it does not have many safe guards for the things that can go wrong (and some teachers even claim that nothing can ever go wrong, which is simply false).

 

Then I discovered Robert Bruce's Astral Dynamics. I spent several years using his (fire method) technique to systematically open up my system, ratchet up my ability to feel every flow through my body, clear out all blockages that I could find, and force open the microcosmic orbit a little at a time. This was rather forceful, but very effective. I also found that hours after I had practiced and I was walking somewhere or sitting and not thinking about anything, the energy would move on its own in a far more smooth and natural way.

 

Also at this time I learned astral projection and lucid dreaming. I began being woken up occasionally by painful dreams of electricity going up my spine. These things were fun and interesting, but less important than the energy work.

 

Now I am doing long bouts of zazen. Once I was able to comfortably enter access concentration, the energy and the microcosmic orbit stabilized and started to flow smoothly and naturally on their own whenever I was on the pillow. When off the pillow, it flows like this by itself whenever my mind becomes still. Also, my healing energy is now much more subtly profound than it used to be. Throughout my day I also try to do vipassana.

 

I gave so much time to "my story," not because I think that it is important or unique or even interesting, but because I don't think that I can point you to a single thing and say "do this" and you will get "this." Everyone is wired differently. Also, I might try new techniques now, but I do not know if they would have helped me more or less when I was first starting. I see a lot of people go straight to water techniques in the hope of energy sensations right off the bat, such as qi gong or stillness meditation, and spend 30+ years without experiencing qi directly. Because of this, I usually recommend that people start with something that deliberatly uses the mind to move the qi, in order to build up qi sensitivity to a good degree, and then switch to a more gentle method. Everyone is built differently, though, so you should either find a teacher who is good enough to know how to tailor their teachings to their students, or be a student who is willing to try different things, take some risks, and put in good effort to whatever you are doing without going overboard.

[Michael Roland]

A life that can grace my perception of it like a work of art.

That's beautiful man! I don't know what it means, but I like it.

[Vajrahridaya]

Leaving with a resounding drum role and encore!!

[JustARandomPanda]

My goals used to be quite lofty. Enlightenment in this Lifetime, Qi Gong Master, etc.

 

Now I think I'll have lived a good life if I actually do manage to repair everything that's been damaged or off balance in this and past lives.

[Michael Roland]

... and encore!!

Doubtless, but what about this lifetime? or is that it?

[Trunk]

There seem to be a lot of knowledgeable members here who practice a great deal. What do you expect to achieve in this lifetime with your practice?

 

Longevity, martial prowess, healing or psychic ability, total enlightenment?

Well put ?, and this, or a very similar, topic that came up in a recent earlier thread - unfortunately in a context and way that wasn't going to yield positive conversation. I'm really glad that this thread appeared, to bring forth the positive part of that earlier post - which is a really interesting and genuine topic.

 

I'd like to answer the ?, but I need some time to think about it a little first.

 

I can tell you that my thoughts to myself re: this are more nuanced, complex, both more limited and more exhalted than during the first years of my path. (To paraphrase a Teacher,) It's like anything else: you study, practice, experience - and over time it adds up. You get bruised, you accomplish some things, you correct what your can, and your experience/knowledge/skill-base gains depth, detail, clarity. In some really basic practical ways, it's just like learning anything else.

 

May we each and all

become more profoundly skilled

at harmonious transformation,

know ourselves,

and be of benefit

to all beings.

[Vajrahridaya]

Doubtless, but what about this lifetime? or is that it?

 

Actually, this has to do with the fruit of the entirety of meaning and effort. If there is encore, that means one has applied to doing lots of beneficial things for all beings and thus your well loved in the highest sense. If there's a resounding drum role, that means that there has been an impression of importance reflective of course not in ego based principles, but in principles of virtue grounded in a bodhisattva view of things as elaborated in the Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) Sutra and the inner realization of Dzogpa Chenpo or pristine awareness that has effected people towards the final goal of human potential.

[forestofclarity]

Zhuo,

 

Good story. Sounds like you really have gotten a lot out of NEW and Reiki.

 

Warning - Big, unhelpful personal story to follow:esting, but less important than the energy work.