Flying Phoenix Chi Kung

Aeran · February 24, 2018

Thanks It's constantly blowing my mind all the cool and diverse stuff this system can do, and I'm only scratching the surface. Interestingly, I was just thinking on my way home tonight that I should give MSW2 a go as part of my evening practice, so I'll go ahead with that tonight.

There is actually one interesting potential caveat to what I wrote earlier which I'd be keen for your thoughts on: I've noticed over the last couple nights that the effects of MSW4 on sleep seem to be delayed if I use it as to finish off a much longer session of training. The improved sleep quality and transition into sleep is still there, but it takes an hour or two to kick in.

eg. last night I went possibly overboard (if such a thing exists ), after doing some non-BFP Qigong, Taiji and TTP cane I did Guardian at the Gates - Wind Above Clouds - MSW1 - MHPeach - MSW4, then immediately tried to go to sleep. I finished this routine somewhere around 12:30, but didn't fall asleep until just before 2am. Don't get me wrong, I felt incredible with all that FP Qi humming through my system (seriously incredible - I'm talking energetic super-saturation), but it did seem to need to settle down a bit before the sleep inducing effects of the MSW4 could kick in. Once they did I slept really well though, and woke up feeling brilliant. The night before I went MGAM > MSW1 > MHPearl > MSW4 > bed, and that time it took maybe 50 minutes or so to sleep after. Again, sleep transition and quality were still great.

Anyway I feel this calls for experimentation - tonight I'm going to make a point of wrapping up all my other practices by 10:30, relax and read for an hour, do MSW4 at 11:30, then get in bed by midnight and see how that plays out.

It's also possible that the non-FP meditations are influencing things, or the Taiji/TTP Cane, since I usually do those in a separate session earlier in the afternoon. Will be fun to find out though.

Anyway, FP time! I'll bring the stretching up in my next email and see how we can fit it in.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Aeran

zen-bear · February 27, 2018

On 2/24/2018 at 3:19 AM, Aeran said:

Thanks It's constantly blowing my mind all the cool and diverse stuff this system can do, and I'm only scratching the surface. Interestingly, I was just thinking on my way home tonight that I should give MSW2 a go as part of my evening practice, so I'll go ahead with that tonight.

There is actually one interesting potential caveat to what I wrote earlier which I'd be keen for your thoughts on: I've noticed over the last couple nights that the effects of MSW4 on sleep seem to be delayed if I use it as to finish off a much longer session of training. The improved sleep quality and transition into sleep is still there, but it takes an hour or two to kick in.

eg. last night I went possibly overboard (if such a thing exists ), after doing some non-BFP Qigong, Taiji and TTP cane I did Guardian at the Gates - Wind Above Clouds - MSW1 - MHPeach - MSW4, then immediately tried to go to sleep. I finished this routine somewhere around 12:30, but didn't fall asleep until just before 2am. Don't get me wrong, I felt incredible with all that FP Qi humming through my system (seriously incredible - I'm talking energetic super-saturation), but it did seem to need to settle down a bit before the sleep inducing effects of the MSW4 could kick in. Once they did I slept really well though, and woke up feeling brilliant. The night before I went MGAM > MSW1 > MHPearl > MSW4 > bed, and that time it took maybe 50 minutes or so to sleep after. Again, sleep transition and quality were still great.

Anyway I feel this calls for experimentation - tonight I'm going to make a point of wrapping up all my other practices by 10:30, relax and read for an hour, do MSW4 at 11:30, then get in bed by midnight and see how that plays out.

It's also possible that the non-FP meditations are influencing things, or the Taiji/TTP Cane, since I usually do those in a separate session earlier in the afternoon. Will be fun to find out though.

Anyway, FP time! I'll bring the stretching up in my next email and see how we can fit it in.

Hi Aeran,

Yep, you did overdo it. It's no wonder that you couldn't fall asleep right away after dong that series of exercises:

a. Not knowing your level of Tai Chi, I would say in general that you can practice Tai Chi form at night and it shouldn't hinder sleep.

b. Tao Tan Pai Cane form is dynamic and invigorating and is best done in the morning to start the day or any time during the day for strength. It is definitely not a sleep-inducer to be done before bedtime.

c. Guardian at the Gates is a powerful energizer -- not an FP Meditation. Again, don't do this one at night if you intend to sleep.

d. This sequence of four meditations: Wind Above Clouds - MSW1 - MHPeach - MSW4 -- is not optimal for inducing sound restful sleep because the first three are more energizing than sedative!!

"after doing some non-BFP Qigong, Taiji and TTP cane I did Guardian at the Gates - Wind Above Clouds - MSW1 - MHPeach - MSW4"

So what you did was practice more than 8 internal exercises in a sequence. The problem is that SEVEN of them (you didn't specify what kind of "non-BFP Qigong" you did or how many them you did; so I will count that as one "mediation") are adrenalin-stimulating exercises. Definitely non-sedative are the following in your 8-part sequence:

non-BFP Qigong, Taiji and TTP cane I did Guardian at the Gates - Wind Above Clouds - MSW1 - MHPeach - MSW4

Your first four meditative exericses--"non-BFP, Taiji, TTP Cane and Guardian at Gates" are individually highly energizing martial exercises. This 4-part sequence itself is not only powerful and intensifying, but you capped it off with the very powerful Guardian At Gates, which amps up further the energy cultivated before it!

Following this first set of 4 exercises with Wind Above Clouds, MSW1, MHPeach and MSW4 will definitely NOT bring down the cultivated martial Qi but rather maintain its levels. This is because Wind Above Clouds and MHPeach are generally relaxing meditations but both of them can stimulate adrenalin flow and thus have the opposite effect of keeping you up and charged.

• Monk Holding Peach causes all sorts of vibratory states, tremblings, bouncings and jostlings and can cause many small surges of adrenalin--especially if you've experienced the involuntary deep bending forward at the waste and bobbing back up reaction (you know, what I've described in the past as "being in front of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem").

I would therefore substitute in Monk Holding Pearl (done in supine or seated position--not standing) for the Monk Holding Peach.

• Wind Above Clouds is generally relaxing, but for many people the bending and shifting while pent over at the waist also will stimulate adrenalin flow. You are literally squeezing your adrenals when you do WAC correctly at slow speed. Adrenalin is being smoothly secreted and the heart mind is keeping calm and serne So while it's a relaxing stretching meditation, it's not optimal for inducing sleep.

•MSW1 is not a sedating meditation. It is a mild "waker-upper"

My suggestion, if you want to fall asleep right away and sleep longer and more soundly after a good martial workout, is simple:

(A) practice the non-BFP qigong, Tai Chi, and TTP-Cane earlier in the day or evening.

(B) Substitute MSW2 for MSW1. And then do MSW4 before or after it.

(C) Substitute the Monk Holding Peach out in favor of Monk Holding Pearl (supine or seated)

So you are left with doing only MSW2 and MSW3 and Monk Holding Pearl (Pearl in supine of half lotus position) right before you sleep. And you can do plenty of quiet sitting in between, before and after these 3 FP Meditations as well.

If you try the above, you should have no problem falling asleep at the hour that you choose.

Enjoy.

Sifu Terry

www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Edited February 28, 2018 by zen-bear

zen-bear · February 27, 2018

Notice to all FP Qigong practitioners and enthusiasts, this coming March 22-25, I am teaching an immersive 22-hour Flying Phoenix Qigong worshop at thee beautiful Eastover Estate & Eco-Village, a holistic health spa on 600 acres in the Berkshires that is dedicated to providing top quality Chinese Holistic Health arts. Establish your FP Practice like never before. Get all your questions answered. Learn basic healing applications.

This is the link to detailed course and registration information:

http://www.eastover.com/workshop/flying-phoenix-qigong-with-master-terence-dunn.html

Hope to see you there.

Sifu Terry Dunn

zen-bear · February 27, 2018

On 2/21/2018 at 2:08 AM, virtue said:

Does anyone of the Flying Phoenix practitioners around here have experience with David Berceli's Tension & Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), or some other type of exercises that activate spontaneous shaking and tremors?

Any seasoned FP practitioner knows how the FP energy releases tension and causes spontaneous shaking. It would be sensible synergy if releasing tensions through other means enhanced the FP healing mechanism.

I started a routine of first having many standing FP exercises in row, followed by 20 minutes of TRE, and then supine Monk Holding Pearl for rest for at least 10 minutes. It seems to me that the TRE's deep release of tension is amplifying the benefits of FP healing energy and I feel abundant vitality after practice. Can anyone confirm or invalidate this hypothesis through their own experience?

Hi Virtue,

No, i have not heard of David Berceli's TRE. I am always open to other systems of energy release and balancing, especially if it is able to amplify the benefits of FP Healing Energy.

Sifu Terry Dunn

Joolian · February 27, 2018

4 hours ago, zen-bear said:

My suggestion, if you want to fall asleep right away and sleep longer and more soundly after a good martial workout, is simple:

(A) practice the non-BFP qigong, Tai Chi, and TTP-Cane earlier in the day or evening.

(B) Substitute MSW2 for MSW1. And then do MSW3 before or after it.

(C) Substitute the Monk Holding Peach out in favor of Monk Holding Pearl (supine or seated)

Hi Sifu Terry,

hope you are well! Thank you for the sleep inducing suggestions and tips to Aeran and the rest of the group.

Just to clarify because I am wondering, at point "B" did you mean MSW#3 or maybe MSW#4? Because I thought MSW#3 would be the "wake-upper" and shouldn't be done at night.

Also I am interested in what the "Guardian at the gates" exercise is about. Is it from the advanced FP system or Tao Tan Pai?

Thank you very much,

best wishes,

Julian

Edited February 27, 2018 by Joolian

zen-bear · February 28, 2018

On 2/27/2018 at 1:15 AM, Joolian said:

Hi Sifu Terry,

hope you are well! Thank you for the sleep inducing suggestions and tips to Aeran and the rest of the group.

Just to clarify because I am wondering, at point "B" did you mean MSW#3 or maybe MSW#4? Because I thought MSW#3 would be the "wake-upper" and shouldn't be done at night.

Also I am interested in what the "Guardian at the gates" exercise is about. Is it from the advanced FP system or Tao Tan Pai?

Thank you very much,

best wishes,

Julian

Hi Julian,

That was a typo done in haste. I meant MSW#4.

My suggestion, if you want to fall asleep right away and sleep longer and more soundly after a good martial workout, is simple:

(A) practice the non-BFP qigong, Tai Chi, and TTP-Cane earlier in the day or evening.

(B) Substitute MSW2 for MSW1. And then do MSW4 before or after it.

(C) Substitute the Monk Holding Peach out in favor of Monk Holding Pearl (supine or seated)

Thanks for catching that error. It's now corrected on the original post.

"Guardian At the Gate" is a Bok Fu Pai power meditation that was on the old Vol.6 video that I took off the market because the meditations were too powerful to be taught without face-to-face supervision. It is not Tao Tan Pai, but Bok Fu Pai meditation.

If you're interested, I can teach you during our next online tutorial.

Best Regards,

Sifu Terry

www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

ridingtheox · March 1, 2018

finished a 39:30 minute long form tonight ... longest since I did a 40 plus a few months ago ...

long trip tomorrow this will certainly build the reserve of energy for driving 500 + miles

my hypertension is long gone bp av 115/70 w pulse < 60 resting mid morning ... I do this almost daily

thank you Sifu Dunn!!!!!

zen-bear · March 2, 2018

On 2/28/2018 at 8:13 PM, ridingtheox said:

finished a 39:30 minute long form tonight ... longest since I did a 40 plus a few months ago ...

long trip tomorrow this will certainly build the reserve of energy for driving 500 + miles

my hypertension is long gone bp av 115/70 w pulse < 60 resting mid morning ... I do this almost daily

thank you Sifu Dunn!!!!!

Hi Charlie,

Congrats on doing a 39:30 long FPHHCM (Long Form Standing Med.). Breaking or nearing the 40 min. barrier is most impressive and commendable.

But bigger congrats on this powerful milestone in your self-regulated healing of your hypertsion and high bp!!:

my hypertension is long gone bp av 115/70 w pulse < 60 resting mid morning ... I do this almost daily

Don't know which way you are driving 500 mi, but if it's west towards SoCal, I will be back to L.A. the first week in April. I've been in Lenox, MA since last October 6, teaching as master-in-residence at the beautiful Eastover Estate a& Eco-Village.

Hope to see you later this year for more FP fine-tuning.

Safe travels,

Sifu Terry

P.S. FYI, and this is relevant to your practice at this time, Charlie: this past month, in my classes and online tutorials for students who have good proficiency on the FPHHCM, I have been emphasizing super-slow practice of the five 90-second standing meditations on Volume 5. In Year One of this thread, some one had described these 5 meditations as "bon-bons". I didn't say anything at the time and just let it go because being in Year One posting, that comment was the voice of a beginner and "sampler" and someone definitely not established in the FP system through mastery of the Volume 4 meditation. • But now I can say that they are ANYTHING BUT "bon-bons"!!! •

If one does these 5 meditations slowly and as NATURALLY ROUND as possible (i.e., with perfect form that comes from advanced instruction and practice), one will realize that each one has profound and miraculous effects, given that one has become thoroughly grounded in all the FP meditations in preceding four volumes. If one has a foundation in the FP Qigong system through 18 months or more of regular practice, one can do any one--or more--of the FIRST FOUR Volume 5 to activate the cultivated reserve of FP Healing Qi.

But one does need advanced instruction in these meditations to get to this experience and knowledge. There are nuances in their practice that are not obvious in my demonstrations on the Vol.5 DVD. This is simple statement of a plain truth about these 4 meditations, how I presented them in the 2003 DVDs, and how the FP system works--as well as my giving notice now that such instruction is available from yours truly (and has always been a available.) I may produce a short video of my practice of one the Volume 5 meditations for Youtube that shows advanced form.

At any rate, try practicing the Vol.5 meditations so that you take 3-4 minutes to do each one, all the while keeping your shape as ROUND as possible and see what you get.

DSCB57 · March 8, 2018

Do the Volume 7 meditations have any static standing form equivalents to be used in combination with this set, or is it supposed to be combined with the Volume 4 Long form? I am talking about more advanced versions of Monk Gazing at the Moon and Monk Holding the Peach and Monk Holding the Pearl static forms.

I can see the various elements of all the previous meditations contained in each of the Volume 7 meditations, but it seems that aside from the Volume 4 Long form, there is no equivalent standing meditation form at the same level as Volume 7's seated meditations. Is this because Volume 6 was withdrawn?

zen-bear · March 8, 2018

On 2/4/2018 at 4:44 AM, awarenessrules said:

Hi Sifu,I started FP in June 2017 but stopped practice after 15 days due to chronic health issue,Now i have re-started the practice and only in 15 days i am having less fatigue.I am doing first 2 basic standing meds followed by first 2 basic sitting meds in morning.I want to increase the time for the Monk Gazing at moon from 10 min to 20 min in 2 segments back to back. I read in previous threads about your instruction regarding this but i am still confused. If i want to do 2 segments of MGAM in a single session, is this the right method i.e. take 3 deep breaths then the breath sequence followed by the first 10 min practice then again the breath sequence followed by the 2nd 10 min practice and ending with 3 deep breaths.OR is this the right method i.e. take 3 deep breaths then the breath sequence followed by 10 min practice then 3 deep breaths to end the first segment immediately followed by 3 deep breaths then the breath sequence followed by 10 min practice and then the 3 deep breaths to end the 2nd segment.Which one is the right method? Thanks

Hello AwarenessRules,

I'm glad you've experienced positive results from just 15 days of FP practice and have less fatigue. That is a very typical tangible benefit experienced by beginners who suffer from fatigue. Besides relieving fatigue instantly, FP Qigong normalizes one's sleep cycle and ensures more restful sleep. That is another mechanism by which FP Qigong eradicates fatigue from a wide range of stressors.

This is the answer to your question about doing two 10 minute rounds of Monk Gazing At Moon: the second procedure you described is the correct one:

"take 3 deep breaths then the breath sequence followed by 10 min practice then 3 deep breaths to end the first segment immediately followed by 3 deep breaths then the breath sequence followed by 10 min practice and then the 3 deep breaths to end the 2nd segment."

Enjoy your practice and be sure to let the thread know of your further progress.

Sifu Terry Dunn

www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Edited March 8, 2018 by zen-bear

zen-bear · March 8, 2018

4 hours ago, DSCB57 said:

Do the Volume 7 meditations have any static standing form equivalents to be used in combination with this set, or is it supposed to be combined with the Volume 4 Long form? I am talking about more advanced versions of Monk Gazing at the Moon and Monk Holding the Peach and Monk Holding the Pearl static forms.

I can see the various elements of all the previous meditations contained in each of the Volume 7 meditations, but it seems that aside from the Volume 4 Long form, there is no equivalent standing meditation form at the same level as Volume 7's seated meditations. Is this because Volume 6 was withdrawn?

DSCB57,

The 5 advanced seated Flying PHoenix meditations taught on the Volume 7 DVD and the 6 more basic seated meditations on Volume 2 are all part of the complete set of 28 meditations collectively known as "Monk Serves Wine". All of the 24 "Monk Serves Wine" meditations (outside of the 3 "warmup" meditations on Vol.2 and a long 22-movement seated FP meditatoin) are done in sets of 7 repetitions. The MSW meditations on Vol. 7 do NOT have any corresponding static standing meditations on any other volume. They are can be done with any of the standing FP Meditation. The MSW Meditations on Volume 7 do not correspond to and are not necessarily done with any particular standing FP mediation.

Four points to remember:

1. All of the FP Meditations--standing and seated--are synergistic with one another.

2. Again, the Long Form STanding Meditation on Vol.4 (FPHHCM) is the capstone exercise that subsumes the practice of all the

preceding standing FP Meditiatons.

3. If one has the time, one should all the FP Meditations to an equal extent.

I can see the various elements of all the previous meditations contained in each of the Volume 7 meditations, but it seems that aside from the Volume 4 Long form, there is no equivalent standing meditation form at the same level as Volume 7's seated meditations. Is this because Volume 6 was withdrawn?

NO. You are trying to construct or attribute too much organization in the FP Qigong system. As stated above, The goal and guiding principle is to practice all of the FP meditatoins (standing and seated) to an equal extent)

The meditations on Volume 6 were not Flying Phoenix Meditations. I withdrew the title because those meditations, which I did out o inspiration when I was in STonehenge, England in 1995, were are are too powerful to be taught without in-person supervision.

I hope this clarifies and leads to better and more regular practice.

Sifu Terry Dunn

www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

ridingtheox · March 8, 2018

comment on five standing short forms: Mid- year 17 I started a period of doing all five forms intending to do 100 days.. various interruptions ended that effort at about 70 days. During that period, however, I did set a goal to move toward slower practice. By the end of the period almost all practice periods were longer than 30 minutes. In general #1 was about 6 min duration, #2 the shortest at 5 min, #3 6 to 7 min, #4 - 8 min and # 5 at 8+ the longest. The order of practice changed 1,3,5,2,4: 2,4,1,3,5 3, 1, 4, 2, 5 and 4, 3, 2, 1, 5. If the length of first breath is ranked then 7 , 8, 8, 9, 9 is 1,3,5,2,4 ! During that time i also practiced #5 alone as an occasional warm up for the long form.

Currently I am doing a little more yi quan /zhan zhuang and chen style silk reeling . This has been a nice change of pace and resulted in several slow and long practice of the long form as noted recently.

Peace and energy and health to all contributors to the spread of Flying Phoenix qi gong.

ridingtheox

ridingtheox · March 9, 2018

after completing fed income tax today practiced 5 standing short forms. 38 min #1 5.5 min, #2 5.75 min, #3 8.8 min, #4 8 min and #5 10 min. #3 may have a time issue ... did have to start it twice ... long distance phone from son interrupted at the beginning

DSCB57 · March 12, 2018

On 3/8/2018 at 7:59 AM, zen-bear said:

DSCB57,

The 5 advanced seated Flying PHoenix meditations taught on the Volume 7 DVD and the 6 more basic seated meditations on Volume 2 are all part of the complete set of 28 meditations collectively known as "Monk Serves Wine". All of the 24 "Monk Serves Wine" meditations (outside of the 3 "warmup" meditations on Vol.2 and a long 22-movement seated FP meditatoin) are done in sets of 7 repetitions. The MSW meditations on Vol. 7 do NOT have any corresponding static standing meditations on any other volume. They are can be done with any of the standing FP Meditation. The MSW Meditations on Volume 7 do not correspond to and are not necessarily done with any particular standing FP mediation.

Four points to remember:

1. All of the FP Meditations--standing and seated--are synergistic with one another.

2. Again, the Long Form STanding Meditation on Vol.4 (FPHHCM) is the capstone exercise that subsumes the practice of all the

preceding standing FP Meditiatons.

3. If one has the time, one should all the FP Meditations to an equal extent.

I can see the various elements of all the previous meditations contained in each of the Volume 7 meditations, but it seems that aside from the Volume 4 Long form, there is no equivalent standing meditation form at the same level as Volume 7's seated meditations. Is this because Volume 6 was withdrawn?

NO. You are trying to construct or attribute too much organization in the FP Qigong system. As stated above, The goal and guiding principle is to practice all of the FP meditatoins (standing and seated) to an equal extent)

The meditations on Volume 6 were not Flying Phoenix Meditations. I withdrew the title because those meditations, which I did out o inspiration when I was in STonehenge, England in 1995, were are are too powerful to be taught without in-person supervision.

I hope this clarifies and leads to better and more regular practice.

Sifu Terry Dunn

www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Thank you Sifu, yes this will be helpful in my practice. I do appreciate more and more how subtly the Volume 4 meditation subsumes the content of the previous meditations, as well as those on Volume 7. I apologize for my late reply. I will explain this and more in a subsequent post which I will direct toward every forum member.

DSCB57 · March 12, 2018

Sifu Dunn and everyone here. Please bear with me, as I feel the need to explain something which will possibly allow you to understand why I find it necessary to write as I do. I understand that this form of expression may have been a cause of annoyance or that many of you may have misinterpreted this for something else, and I certainly feel this very often, as though people here actually resent my contributions. There is a great deal more I would like to have contributed here, and I feel I have a lot to share, but am very reticent to do so, because I have the impression that I am barely tolerated and considered a nuisance to be ignored in the hope that I will go away and disappear.

I have discovered that I suffer from a condition recently named 'Aphantasia' (the condition was already known and to some extent recognized in the 1880s, but has only recently been given a name and become the object of rigourous , although as yet rather limited scientific investigation).

This condition basically means that the 2% of the human race who suffer from this have their brains wired in such a way as to totally preclude the ability to in any way use the faculty of visualization or imagination. This not only affects the sense of inner sight, but also touch, taste, smell, and in some cases even that of sound.

What this means for me is that my only means of remembering anything, whether it may be something I have perceived or otherwise experienced is by means of my inner dialogue, because once I close my eyes, for me this world ceases to exist. There is nothing more than darkness and my inner dialogue (and physical and energetic sense perceptions) - the voice of my consciousness, if you will.

So if I want to be able to remember anything, I have to go through a process of meticulously and precisely describing my experiences and perceptions to myself as one would need to to a non-sighted person, otherwise, I have no means of remembering anything. The moment after seeing something or hearing, touching, smelling or tasting it, nothing remains of that experience beyond what I have committed to memory via my internal dialogue. This reflects upon my way of expressing myself both verbally and in written form, and I apologize for this, although I cannot expect anyone with a functioning inner eye or the power to imagine to understand.

It also means that when I write, it takes me hours of reading and re-reading in order to ensure that I have committed everything necessary both to paper and to memory. It can be an exhausting process. It also means that I require a considerably more extensive amount of descriptive language input in order to grasp an idea or concept which for anyone non-aphantasic would be supplemented by their imagination, thus bridging the intellectual gap. It also means that my mind is considerably more active in this continuous process of interpretation of the world via my inner dialogue.

Let me give you an example: I am sure that for most of you, you take it for granted that when someone talks about 'counting sheep' in order to get to sleep, you will know what that means, and be able to experience it at will. Someone with aphantasia is only able to conceptualize what that means, but I cannot possibly actually understand what it means or experience this. As they say, if you want to know what ice-cream tastes like, then you need to actually taste ice-cream - there is no substitute. Well, we aphantasics cannot taste that ice-cream, figuratively speaking, because we simply lack the neurological wiring to enable us to do so. Another example would be if you were to ask me to form a mental picture of a scene such as a sunset setting over the ocean. My inner dialogue can piece together descriptions of what that might be like, but I have no ability whatsoever to perceive any sort of mental image of that scene, so any form of meditative contemplation requiring holding a mental image is impossible for me. The only way for me to remember a number with more than three figures is to hear it with my internal dialogue.

If I do not remember the name of the street where I parked my car, I have no inner map to guide me, and spend much of my life getting lost and losing objects.

I am not asking for sympathy, as much in the same way as other senses will be augmented in a person who has lost any of their senses, our brains find alternative pathways to achieve the tasks we need to perform, and so in some ways this condition could be considered a gift, and in fact a considerable amount of aphantasics are considered highly gifted - nature's compensation perhaps... For example there is nothing but my inner dialogue to interfere during meditation, so I am able to enter into very profound states of consciousness relatively quickly and easily.

Conversely, the breath sequencing system used in FPCK is very difficult for me, because the bliss experience interferes with my inner dialogue, and I have no way to remember which breath I am on and often have to start over. It also means that in order to remember the meditation forms, they must be committed to muscle memory, but if I leave sufficient time between practice sessions to forget any part of the form, then I will have to relearn it, thus I have probably forgotten more IMA and Gongfu forms than most people have learned in a lifetime, and they are gone forever, because there is no means to recall them from memory. Perhaps you can imagine how frustrating a life like this can be, and how this can lead to severe depression?

I hope this goes some way to explaining the tone, linguistic content and length of my written contributions here and elsewhere, as well as explaining why I find it necessary to ask so many questions and enter into so much detail. Thank you all for hearing me out.

David

moment · March 12, 2018

David,

Hang in there and do what you do. Worry less about what other people think. I may check in now and then and ask you questions, if that is okay with you.

Edited March 12, 2018 by moment

DSCB57 · March 12, 2018

8 hours ago, moment said:

David,

Hang in there and do what you do. Worry less about what other people think. I may check in now and then and ask you questions, if that is okay with you.

Thank you for your support Moment. No problem regarding any questions - ask away! By the way, my comments did not refer to something imaginary regarding peoples' attitude toward me here. I was literally completely ignored, despite having made a considerable effort to contribute. Even the most supercilious or superficial comments from other members were acknowledged and answered with gusto. In fact, I only received a single pm, nothing more whatsoever. Let's see whether anyone aside from you responds to my last post and whether it actually changes anything.

David

liminal_luke · March 13, 2018

David,

I`m not a Flying Phoenix practitioner, so it`s not my response you`re looking for here, but I want to say that I read the post above and like your manner of expressing yourself.

LL

Aeran · March 14, 2018

DSCB57,

For my part, I think it sucks that you've felt rejected somehow by the conversation in this thread, but I honestly don't think you should take it to reflect anything about you as an individual, and I certainly can't imagine any reason someone would actively "resent" your contributions. There are a lot of reasons that a certain post or series of posts might not get the level of response you were hoping for, and if you link to specific examples I'd be happy to try and both evaluate why that might be and to rectify it to whatever ability I have (I'm currently typing on my tablet, and trying to navigate back through long discussions on this thing is a nightmare, especially since the browser likes to crash whenever I open more than two tabs simultaneously).

Personally, I've also had plenty of times where I've posted long, thought-out pieces of content, sometimes things which I'm quite invested in, and not received a reply, or the level of response I hoped for or expected, both in this thread and in other locations. Partly this is just the nature of the internet as a medium. A bit of seeming arbitrariness comes with the limits of a time delayed, remotely-located, text-based medium.

Partly it's that this thread is, at the end of the day, a community of sorts, even if a very loose-knit, free-flowing kind. This doesn't mean that new members are unwelcome, far from it, but it does mean that regulars are going to get receive more frequent and detailed communication - not necessarily because of their personal traits or virtues as posters, or any lack thereof, but simply because communities are built on repeated interaction and reciprocity.

If I see a post from someone like Earl Grey or Tao Stillness (to name the first two regular and recent contributors to come to mind), then I know that if I reply to it, my response will very likely receive a reply in turn, and engender an exchange of ideas and experiences which will benefit all participants and the tone of the dialogue here in general. This is because they've been posting regularly for a while now and we've had these kinds of exchanges before. There's also a degree of shared experience as practitioners have been moving through the same system of training over a shared period of time which creates common ground and makes discussion and exchanges flow more easily.

On the flip side, to provide a counter example that I think proves the point, Sifu Terry made an excellent post in reply to my discussion with him about sleep and training, and I've gone two weeks without responding to it (admittedly, feeling somewhat guilty ). This obviously has nothing to do with my opinions of Sifu Terry or the content of his post. It's a combination of the fact that I've had an insanely chaotic 2 weeks which hasn't allowed for much time on forums (and that I spend less time on daobums in general these days than I once did), that I've been experimenting with different ways of implementing the advice and concepts he discussed into my training, and that I want to make sure I sit down and do his post justice in my reply, and I haven't had the chance to do that yet due to aforementioned personal business and focus on training.

Point being, sometimes the level of response you get really doesn't have anything to do with you or your posts. Obviously I didn't neglect to reply to Sifu Terry because I dislike him or felt his post was somehow unworthy.

I'm not trying to be dismissive, since I've been in exactly your position in other communities and know the feeling very well, just saying that the lesson I took away from that experience was that sometimes it really isn't you - don't overthink it

Anyway I was sincere in my offer to try my best to respond to any particular posts you feel have been neglected if I can offer insight into their content, so if you read this feel free to reply with links or to PM them to me and I'll get back to you (although I can't guarantee I'll be immediate doing so, my life has mellowed in the last couple days, but I still have a backlog of correspondences and, as I said, simply don't spend as much time online as I once did).

Regarding the rest of your post, three points:

- "because the bliss experience interferes with my inner dialogue, and I have no way to remember which breath I am on and often have to start over" I have the exact same experience, and I can state for a fact that I have fairly vivid and active (excessively, from the complaints of my old school teachers) visual and imaginary faculties, so I'm not sure that this one is related to your aphantasia. I find that the breath sequences cause me to sink into mental quiet incredibly quickly, and that it's a bit of a tight-rope act maintaining enough concentration to remember where I'm up to in the breathing sequence. For a decent chunk of time I'd get lost and have to restart probably every second or third meditation.

As an interesting aside, a side effect of this is that I simply cannot practice FP while listening to certain pieces of music, because they draws my attention in a way which breaks this tight-rope concentration instantly. I tried practising to Glass's Metamorphosis once, a piece of music I otherwise enjoy, and it ruined my attention so thoroughly that I took I think 3 attempts to get through the breath sequence, and even then it was an ordeal to try and relax and go through with the meditation with the music playing.

On the other hand, lately I've been obsessed with practising to Clint Mansell's soundtrack for The Fountain, and I have no idea why one would destroy my concentration while the other immediately calms and relaxes me and enhances my FP meditation experience, despite not being massively dissimilar pieces of music (to my amateur understanding).

- You've got me curious, how on earth is such a condition recognised and diagnosed? And what is dreaming like for you?

- I hope you keep posting, if only because I'm very interested in what happens when you reach the stage in your FP practice where most people start experiencing fairly intense and consistent visual phenomenon. I don't know how heavily you've trained so far, but I know that meditations such as MGAM and MSW1 engender all kinds of interesting visual experiences form me, both open and closed eyed and during and after the meditations, and I'm definitely neither the longest nor most consist practitioner here. Likewise, to tie back to my earlier question about dreaming, the MSW meditations have a profound effect on my dreams, and if your dream experience is in fact different as a result of aphantasia (as I imagine it must be), I'd be interested to know how your experiences of these effects of the meditations are also different.

In summary, please keep posting, if only to satisfy my selfish curiosity And again - don't overthink it.

Edited March 14, 2018 by Aeran

moment · March 14, 2018

On 3/12/2018 at 4:13 PM, DSCB57 said:

Thank you for your support Moment. No problem regarding any questions - ask away! By the way, my comments did not refer to something imaginary regarding peoples' attitude toward me here. I was literally completely ignored, despite having made a considerable effort to contribute. Even the most supercilious or superficial comments from other members were acknowledged and answered with gusto. In fact, I only received a single pm, nothing more whatsoever. Let's see whether anyone aside from you responds to my last post and whether it actually changes anything.

David

Happy trails!

ridingtheox · March 14, 2018

14 hours ago, Aeran said:

As an interesting aside, a side effect of this is that I simply cannot practice FP while listening to certain pieces of music, because they draws my attention in a way which breaks this tight-rope concentration instantly. I tried practising to Glass's Metamorphosis once, a piece of music I otherwise enjoy, and it ruined my attention so thoroughly that I took I think 3 attempts to get through the breath sequence, and even then it was an ordeal to try and relax and go through with the meditation with the music playing.

Interesting i just completed 5 standing short forms practiced to Glass' Metamorphosis 39:50 total time, I have also practiced to the score of "The Hours". Music that somehow expresses a repetitive pattern like the breath and heart basic physiological rhythmic processes. For me it was an extraordinary practice.

I hope this is the beginning of a hundred day gong for the short forms ... currently day 7 keep your fingers crossed for me

Peace ... Hoa Binh

charlie

DSCB57 · March 14, 2018

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

DSCB57,

For my part, I think it sucks that you've felt rejected somehow by the conversation in this thread, but I honestly don't think you should take it to reflect anything about you as an individual, and I certainly can't imagine any reason someone would actively "resent" your contributions. There are a lot of reasons that a certain post or series of posts might not get the level of response you were hoping for, and if you link to specific examples I'd be happy to try and both evaluate why that might be and to rectify it to whatever ability I have (I'm currently typing on my tablet, and trying to navigate back through long discussions on this thing is a nightmare, especially since the browser likes to crash whenever I open more than two tabs simultaneously).

First of all, a sincere thank you for taking the time to reply so fully and openly. Regarding the reason I felt my contributions to have been resented - I simply spoke my truth when I recounted my experiences last year when I had been training in FPCK for a while.

I wrote about the time it was taking me to complete each section of each meditation, and I knew that no-one believed me, and had the distinct impression that my answer was viewed as being in search of praise or perhaps looking to boost my ego.

In fact it was a real issue for me, as it still is, due to the fact that at such a slow pace I would literally need all day to complete all the meditations, and at that point if memory serves me, I was only practicing Volumes 1 and 2, possibly 3 as well, so you can imagine what it is like now that I have included Volume 4 and 7...Sifu Dunn did eventually provide me with a full reply, but by that time I had lost track of the original content when I originally posed my questions and was in turn then unable to reply.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

Personally, I've also had plenty of times where I've posted long, thought-out pieces of content, sometimes things which I'm quite invested in, and not received a reply, or the level of response I hoped for or expected, both in this thread and in other locations. Partly this is just the nature of the internet as a medium. A bit of seeming arbitrariness comes with the limits of a time delayed, remotely-located, text-based medium.

That is to be expected, but my point is that this was an issue which was actually interfering with my training, or my ability to do so in a confident manner. I don't need hand-holding, and have many years of various types of Qigong cultivation under my belt. But when I ask for help is because I really need it.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

Partly it's that this thread is, at the end of the day, a community of sorts, even if a very loose-knit, free-flowing kind. This doesn't mean that new members are unwelcome, far from it, but it does mean that regulars are going to get receive more frequent and detailed communication - not necessarily because of their personal traits or virtues as posters, or any lack thereof, but simply because communities are built on repeated interaction and reciprocity.

I am far from being a new member. In fact I was a well known and regular contributor under a different name since several years ago - albeit not specifically on this particular thread, but due to a glitch in the system I lost my identity and was forced to adopt this one fairly recently, and was also unable to change my name to the original one - it wasn't for want of trying. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name I used, and so am unable to access my previous posts to various sub forums.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

If I see a post from someone like Earl Grey or Tao Stillness (to name the first two regular and recent contributors to come to mind), then I know that if I reply to it, my response will very likely receive a reply in turn, and engender an exchange of ideas and experiences which will benefit all participants and the tone of the dialogue here in general. This is because they've been posting regularly for a while now and we've had these kinds of exchanges before. There's also a degree of shared experience as practitioners have been moving through the same system of training over a shared period of time which creates common ground and makes discussion and exchanges flow more easily.

Precisely...and I see no reason why I should not have been included with those contributors, but as you can see I was not.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

On the flip side, to provide a counter example that I think proves the point, Sifu Terry made an excellent post in reply to my discussion with him about sleep and training, and I've gone two weeks without responding to it (admittedly, feeling somewhat guilty ). This obviously has nothing to do with my opinions of Sifu Terry or the content of his post. It's a combination of the fact that I've had an insanely chaotic 2 weeks which hasn't allowed for much time on forums (and that I spend less time on daobums in general these days than I once did), that I've been experimenting with different ways of implementing the advice and concepts he discussed into my training, and that I want to make sure I sit down and do his post justice in my reply, and I haven't had the chance to do that yet due to aforementioned personal business and focus on training.

Yes, I have also been in that situation with regard to replying to responses from Sifu Dunn, but this is compounded for me by the amount of time it takes me to compose a reply like this one, which is part of what I intended explaining in my long post. It really does take me several hours, this is no exaggeration, and sometimes I simply cannot face it, particularly when I asked a great many questions, and after a lengthy time receive a reply. It is just too difficult for me to remember everything pertinent to the original post I wrote after a significant amount of time has passed.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

Point being, sometimes the level of response you get really doesn't have anything to do with you or your posts. Obviously I didn't neglect to reply to Sifu Terry because I dislike him or felt his post was somehow unworthy.

I'm not trying to be dismissive, since I've been in exactly your position in other communities and know the feeling very well, just saying that the lesson I took away from that experience was that sometimes it really isn't you - don't overthink it

I take your point, but in this particular instance I believe my case is an exception, and my posts can demonstrate this to be a fact because I offered information on the thread which was ignored, while the posts immediately following mine on the same subject were all answered with much gratitude, as though I had written absolutely nothing...

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

Anyway I was sincere in my offer to try my best to respond to any particular posts you feel have been neglected if I can offer insight into their content, so if you read this feel free to reply with links or to PM them to me and I'll get back to you (although I can't guarantee I'll be immediate doing so, my life has mellowed in the last couple days, but I still have a backlog of correspondences and, as I said, simply don't spend as much time online as I once did).

Thank you for your offer. I will try and sift through the posts and provide you with the links, particularly since I still find myself affected by the same issues I was posting about. Sifu Dunn did respond to me, by the way, but he was the only one to do so, aside from a single pm I received from another member.

Failing that, I could simply post the page containing my contributions to this thread since the date I joined it, and you can then see my posts in context and see how the majority were totally ignored.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

Regarding the rest of your post, three points:

- "because the bliss experience interferes with my inner dialogue, and I have no way to remember which breath I am on and often have to start over" I have the exact same experience, and I can state for a fact that I have fairly vivid and active (excessively, from the complaints of my old school teachers) visual and imaginary faculties, so I'm not sure that this one is related to your aphantasia. I find that the breath sequences cause me to sink into mental quiet incredibly quickly, and that it's a bit of a tight-rope act maintaining enough concentration to remember where I'm up to in the breathing sequence. For a decent chunk of time I'd get lost and have to restart probably every second or third meditation.

Thank you, that is the sort of feedback I need. It would be interesting if other practitioners were to pick up on this point and also provide some feedback as to whether they too were experiencing this, and how they managed to deal with this?

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

As an interesting aside, a side effect of this is that I simply cannot practice FP while listening to certain pieces of music, because they draws my attention in a way which breaks this tight-rope concentration instantly. I tried practising to Glass's Metamorphosis once, a piece of music I otherwise enjoy, and it ruined my attention so thoroughly that I took I think 3 attempts to get through the breath sequence, and even then it was an ordeal to try and relax and go through with the meditation with the music playing.

If I were to try listening to music during meditation, I suspect it would lead to sensory overload, quite aside from the experience you describe. In any case, I don't subscribe to the idea of introducing anything from the illusory world we are supposedly freeing our consciousness from - it seems to me to be defeating the entire object of practicing anything other than a watered down New Age approach to meditation.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

On the other hand, lately I've been obsessed with practising to Clint Mansell's soundtrack for The Fountain, and I have no idea why one would destroy my concentration while the other immediately calms and relaxes me and enhances my FP meditation experience, despite not being massively dissimilar pieces of music (to my amateur understanding).

- You've got me curious, how on earth is such a condition recognised and diagnosed? And what is dreaming like for you?

Primarily, Professor Zeman from the University of Exeter Medical School, the man who actually named the condition Aphantasia, following a study on the topic decided to ask the public to fill out questionnaires dealing with the ability to visualize, and was very surprised to receive communications from around 10,000 people who suspected that they were experiencing Aphantasia. This was in the UK alone in a single year. These questionnaires investigate to what extent a person is able to use the sensory faculties attributable to mental imagination, and how this manifests, which senses are affected and to what extent.

For many of us it has come as something as a shock, and several were clearly left in shock when they realized that when a non-aphantasic person had been describing their ability to visualize or imagine something - that they were not simply describing some sort of conceptual idea, as it was for us, but rather actually being able to mentally 'see' what they were describing - in many cases just as clearly as they were able to see with their physical eyes. This is really not possible for me to understand, any more than you could expect to be able to explain your sight to a non-sighted person. As I said, an aphantasic person is mentally blind, and incapable of imagining or remembering touch, taste, smell and often sound as well.

Here is a link to an article which expresses this quite well: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-feels-to-be-blind-in-your-mind/10156834777480504/

And a Youtube video in which you can clearly see the state of confusion and shock of the person who uploaded the video:

So how did these neurologists go about proving that there was actually some physical neurological difference between an aphantasic and a non-aphantasic subject? We already know that using MRI scanning in the process of a subject whilst they are in the process of using the visual imagination, the corresponding areas in the brain light up where such activity is taking place. However what they found to their surprise when examining aphantasic subjects was that none of these areas reacted at all, these parts of their brain simply remained inert, showing conclusively that their brains were neurologically wired differently and did not react to the same stimuli. Indeed the corresponding area was also physically smaller than its counterpart in a non-aphantasic subject.

The investigation of this phenomenon is still in its infancy, but scientists are presently considering direct stimulation of these sensory centres in the brain as a possible way to bring the faculty of visual imagination to aphantasic subjects.

I am in communication with Professor Zeman in order to try and obtain more information and offer any further insights in order to help in these investigations.

It has been established that worldwide, this condition affects 2 - 3% of the human race, but probably the figure is higher, as so many people affected would be unaware of these studies and the fact that the condition had actually been identified - that is if they actually know that their mental process is any different than anyone else's. You will understand more when you read the above article and others. Of these, the majority were born that way, but the first such case was in fact the discovery that a patient had lost their mental sight following heart surgery.

In my own case, I probably lost my mental sight at the age of about 9, and according to my late mother, prior to that had a remarkable photographic memory, no vestige of which now remains.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

- I hope you keep posting, if only because I'm very interested in what happens when you reach the stage in your FP practice where most people start experiencing fairly intense and consistent visual phenomenon.

This is where things become confusing to me, because I do not know whether the visual phenomenon described is a result of an augmentation of the 'normal' ability to visualize, or the opening of what the Daoists call 'The Celestial Eye' (the Third eye?), perhaps Sifu Dunn wouldn't mind clarifying this point please? I suppose once I do reach that stage, it will be even more obvious than it would be for a non-aphantasic practitioner, but perhaps it cannot manifest in this way in my case.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

I don't know how heavily you've trained so far, but I know that meditations such as MGAM and MSW1 engender all kinds of interesting visual experiences form me, both open and closed eyed and during and after the meditations, and I'm definitely neither the longest nor most consist practitioner here. Likewise, to tie back to my earlier question about dreaming, the MSW meditations have a profound effect on my dreams, and if your dream experience is in fact different as a result of aphantasia (as I imagine it must be), I'd be interested to know how your experiences of these effects of the meditations are also different.

I have been training quite intensively, when you take into account that I began my training something over a year ago, but I am now learning the 4th meditation from Volume 7, having completed Volumes 1 through 4. But I have experienced none of the visual manifestations described by you and others whatsoever. What I do experience are very profound samahdic states and Qi manifestations, probably because I am only capable of immersing myself into those experiences in the absence of the ability to experience any visual manifestations.

Regarding dreaming no, in fact many Aphantasic subjects have quite normal dreams, subject to the variations in clarity which affect people in general. However the ability to maintain any visual memory of the dream once awake is often nil. I certainly have been dreaming more since I have been practicing FPCK, but the only visual imagery I have ever had aside from the use of psychedelics is the shape of an eye appearing at times in front of my brow, and I perceive this in a violet or blue colour. But it has happened very rarely and does not last long.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

In summary, please keep posting, if only to satisfy my selfish curiosity And again - don't overthink it.

That will depend on the effect of these posts. Unless other members make it known that they are interested in my future contributions, it really would not be worth the hours of effort each post necessitates, so don't count on my continuing contribution.

17 hours ago, Aeran said:

Earl Grey · March 15, 2018

The other week, I learned the long form Monk Serves Wine in what began as a one-hour session that quickly became two hours because of the awe-inspiring turn of events that transpired in my session with Sifu Terry.

It was just after he had posted to do the flash meditations as slowly as possible, which I had begun doing weeks before. We began our session and he was delighted to see how quickly I picked up on the form, but no more than I was due to the immense bliss (as Tao Stillness would describe) that I experienced doing the form, even before learning the breath control sequence and divided by sections at a time. Upon learning the form, we practiced several times with the breath control sequence and on the last one, something wonderful happened. I saw a blue sapphire gem and golden chains around it, then afterwards, a Buddhist stupa similar to the ones outside of the Javanese temple of Borobodur, and outside in front of it was either White Tara or Kuan Yin standing in a pillar of light. Sifu Terry said I just may very well have been initiated, but I do not know into what, and he recommended I reconnect with the being who came during our session or to talk with Eric Isen to see who this is and what this means.

Since that session, my average for the flash meditations slowed down, and now is anywhere from 4-6.

There is also now a sphere or egg-shaped object I feel energetically that automatically corrects my form in Flying Phoenix and I see it carry over to my Tai Chi and Liuhebafa training. It is as though I am manipulating a sphere within, around, and in front of me at all times
whenever I move.

Also, during Temple Guardian Standing at Entrance (a Bok Fu Pai form for those who don't know), a friend came by and saw me standing there and began doing Zhan Zhuang Embrace the Tree in front of me, then said something strange about me was going on as
he observed. My skull became deeper and face became wolf-like, as my eyes were closed but looked like they were open and piercing him. How interesting. In previous sessions when we would all stand in a circle for basic Zhan Zhuang, he and another student would observe things like my hair becoming golden (not blond, but gold) and eyes and face changing or body size increasing, or seeing my body look like it was the cosmos, as though they could enter my body and float amongst the stars. This time in particular was interesting because it wasn't even 15 minutes, and the things he and everyone else would see would be around the one hour mark.

This now more than ever makes me want to learn more Bok Fu Pai from Volume 6 (and the whole system while I am at it) and both versions from BFP and FP of the form with the same name Child Praying to Goddess for Mercy. I was also excited because I
did the fifth flash meditation that was the Bat Din Gum form and after doing it for six minutes it felt like my body hardened and had been doing Iron Shirt Qigong.

Yesterday, I also reached a milestone for practice of the long form. I began my afternoon session after a long nap with Basic Seated Meditation 5% 60% 80% 40% 30% (which I nicknamed "Tuning The Universal Intellect") for about 10 minutes. Afterwards, I did the flash meditations from volume 5 in order, and averaged 4.5 minutes to 6 or 7 minutes each. I then did long form MSW at about 11 minutes, then for standing long form from volume 5, I thought I would get a good 10-12 minutes for my average before my afternoon appointment, as I wasn't sure if I would move slow enough to beat my best previous time of 16 minutes. I opened my eyes after moving as slowly and gracefully as possible while allowing the form to do itself, and found myself shocked to see that I did the form in 24.5 minutes.

I am about ready to consider draining my credit cards and sell things I have to get more sessions with Sifu Terry and keep learning more advanced practices.

Aeran · March 15, 2018

Quote

This is where things become confusing to me, because I do not know whether the visual phenomenon described is a result of an augmentation of the 'normal' ability to visualize, or the opening of what the Daoists call 'The Celestial Eye' (the Third eye?), perhaps Sifu Dunn wouldn't mind clarifying this point please? I suppose once I do reach that stage, it will be even more obvious than it would be for a non-aphantasic practitioner, but perhaps it cannot manifest in this way in my case.

I think this issue confuses everyone at some stage or another. I don't know either, and I've seen multiple debates between long term and attained practitioners of various esoteric traditions arguing one side or the other (or somewhere between, or some third point involving the regular visual faculty being enhanced - I've read speculation involving the development of the structure of the eye to allow it to perceive a wider spectrum of input and the like).

Ultimately I suspect the distinction becomes meaningless, but arguably, every distinction becomes meaningless in the long run, so that answer is of no help to either of us :/ I too would be very interested in Sifu Terry's input on the subject, but I'm also fairly sure his current schedule at Eastover is jam packed, so we might be waiting a while to hear it

Quote

I have been training quite intensively, when you take into account that I began my training something over a year ago, but I am now learning the 4th meditation from Volume 7, having completed Volumes 1 through 4. But I have experienced none of the visual manifestations described by you and others whatsoever. What I do experience are very profound samahdic states and Qi manifestations, probably because I am only capable of immersing myself into those experiences in the absence of the ability to experience any visual manifestations.

I would be interested in hearing more about what you do experience, particularly what the "Qi manifestations" are like for you. I've found that while Qi has always been primarily a phenomenon of "feeling," it very quickly takes on visual aspects, either literally (where it appears in certain visual forms in either the minds eye, or in the real world as a part of my regular visual experience) or in a more abstract sense (where I come to mentally associate certain colours and visual imagery with certain "energy sensations").

That said, this could be related to the fact that I cut my metaphysical teeth in Western Hermetics, where visualisation is emphasised strongly, and very often taught as a prerequisite skill to more advanced practices (a lot of my first year or two of meditation was spent forming various coloured geometric shapes in my mind's eye )

As an example, since I had this topic on my mind when practising earlier, I performed a fairly long session of Bending the Bows when I got home tonight. As I started the breathing sequence, my visual field behind my eyes took on a distinct blue-ish hue, and moving further into the sequences I started seeing sparks of blue flickering and flaring behind my eyelids. This died down after I finished the sequence, and the first 10 minutes or so of the meditation were fairly devoid of visual content (not unusual for BTB - I find other meditations like MGAM far more stimulating on this count). Around what felt like the 10 - 15 minute mark, I started noticing that I could perceive a blue visual outline of my arms as they moved up and down into and out of my field of vision.

As the meditation continued, this outline started to swirl and expand and take on a purple/pinkish tinge for a while, sometimes merging entirely when my hands came close to each other, and at other times I would see a white shape matching my limbs on the inside of the blue outline, and I found occasionally that when I held the hands in front of my eyes in the "MGAM position" I would start to see a swirling blue vortex right in the center of my field of vision.

When I finished the meditation I found that I could still see a distinct blue outline around my limbs, and now able to move and look around, I noticed I could see it around my entire body if I looked down. Sometimes it would flare out into a wider "aura" shape, although not to the extent that it did during the actual meditation, and sometimes the white outline of my limbs would flash briefly. To see what effect any environmental light might have been having on the experience, I shut off all the lights in my room and got it as close to pitch black as possible (which is pretty close), but this only enhanced the effect and allowed it to continue with my eyes open, at which point I also noticed almost electric looking flashes of white-blue flaring off my fingertips (I have no idea if these were a product of a metaphysical visual faculty or something which would have been visible to an onlooker, although I suspect the former).

...and then I went inside and cooked some fish for dinner

(normally I don't go into this kind of explicit detail about the "cool but weird" side of the training, since there seems to be a taboo against discussing these kinds of personal experiences in online spiritual communities, one which has become ingrained within me despite myself. Perhaps Earl Grey's cheerfully flagrant disregard for this silly convention in his last post has inspired me )

Quote

Regarding dreaming no, in fact many Aphantasic subjects have quite normal dreams, subject to the variations in clarity which affect people in general. However the ability to maintain any visual memory of the dream once awake is often nil.

See, that sounds quite bizarre and surreal to me, because my dreams are very visual experiences (in fact I'd describe them as primarily visual). It's usually my memory of the visual aspect of a dream which remains the most coherent and sticks with me the longest, followed at a distant second by specific sounds and phrases. I have the most difficulty retaining a sense of the passage of time and narrative structure, although this aspect has become far more coherent since I started practicing FP and, especially, since I started practicing assorted MSW meditations before bed.

I have only the vaguest conception of what it would be like to remember a dream without retaining any visuals - in fact it doesn't really sound like what I would consider dream retention at all. Any chance you could try to describe it in more detail? You've piqued my curiosity now.

Quote

I certainly have been dreaming more since I have been practicing FPCK, but the only visual imagery I have ever had aside from the use of psychedelics is the shape of an eye appearing at times in front of my brow, and I perceive this in a violet or blue colour. But it has happened very rarely and does not last long.

I was actually thinking about your post earlier and wondering about the question of psychedelics. That's possibly straying a bit too far afield for this thread though, but I might hit you up in PM for more details tomorrow.

Anyway, I fully intend to get back to you on the other points you raised in your post, but it's getting on here, so I'll have to do so later, hopefully tomorrow morning. But I had this subject on my mind quite strongly when I was doing my BTB session earlier, so I wanted to address that particular point while it was fresh in my mind.

DSCB57 · March 15, 2018

3 hours ago, Aeran said:

I think this issue confuses everyone at some stage or another. I don't know either, and I've seen multiple debates between long term and attained practitioners of various esoteric traditions arguing one side or the other (or somewhere between, or some third point involving the regular visual faculty being enhanced - I've read speculation involving the development of the structure of the eye to allow it to perceive a wider spectrum of input and the like).

Ultimately I suspect the distinction becomes meaningless, but arguably, every distinction becomes meaningless in the long run, so that answer is of no help to either of us :/ I too would be very interested in Sifu Terry's input on the subject, but I'm also fairly sure his current schedule at Eastover is jam packed, so we might be waiting a while to hear it

So then, we will just have to be patient. I do remember a comment Sifu made a while back intimating that once we become awakened (in the sense of enlightened) we will need no-one to explain anything - or words to that effect. Obviously that is the only way to reach total understanding, avoiding all the pitfalls of incomplete conceptual ideas and misinformation/disinformation, and misunderstanding, which all too often plague us. But to me that is a nebulous concept, almost like putting the carrot in front of our noses, but there is no information about at which stage in the practice of this art such awakening or realization is expected to occur. I presume that one would need to somehow learn the entire system, not only what has been released in DVD format. In other words one would need to be in the financial situation to be able to afford one on one classes with Sifu Dunn and enter what he terms 'a formal apprenticeship'.

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I would be interested in hearing more about what you do experience, particularly what the "Qi manifestations" are like for you. I've found that while Qi has always been primarily a phenomenon of "feeling," it very quickly takes on visual aspects, either literally (where it appears in certain visual forms in either the minds eye, or in the real world as a part of my regular visual experience) or in a more abstract sense (where I come to mentally associate certain colours and visual imagery with certain "energy sensations").

Well, despite the FP energy having been described as being cool, I continue to experience it radiating out of my Laugong points as warm energy against my face, and also entering my body - it feels like the radiant heat of the sun. Whenever I bring my middle fingers together in any of the meditations, I can feel a magnetic attraction - that is not quite what it is, but that is the best way I can describe it. In any case, I can feel a substantial amount of resistance when I try to separate my fingers, something I also experience strongly in the final MSW meditation from Volume 2, and any similar movements in other meditations. From the prayer mudra, when I open my hands, this is when I feel the radiance I was describing most, then for example in the 3rd MSW from Volume 7, but also in many other meditations, I can feel the Qi as though I were gathering it from all around me, then drawing it into the LDT. When opening the hands from the prayer mudra outward in several of the meditations at the level of the middle Dantien I also experience a powerful sensation, and also feel my thumbs and first three fingers being drawn together.

I experience a considerable amount of movement in the Dantien itself, but this started to happen before I began the FPCK, so I don't know whether it is related.

Again in the Volume 7 MSW meditations, as the back of the hand is drawn toward the brow I feel the Qi very strongly in the area of the Upper Dantien and my physical eyes, and at this point I also enter much more deeply in the samahdic state, sometimes to the point that I find I have stopped moving altogether without realizing it. Another movement which seems to create a strong energetic manifestation is again in the 2nd Volume 7 MSW meditation, when the hands move into a position with palms upward, elbows drawn in - the energy radiates from my hands from my neck upward, again affecting the Upper Dantien, but also the entire head, right to the Baihui point.

I think perhaps the heat is what my body needs, as there is a great deal of cold and damp in my bones. Aside from the sensations I described, there are many more subtle manifestations of energy moving through all the meridians. There is also a considerable buildup of saliva much of the time, which is why I previously asked Sifu about that, because in other types of cultivation one is supposed not to swallow one's saliva before completing the exercise, so that the now refined Qi is then returned to the LDT. But that is not the case in this form of cultivation, according to Sifu's reply.

The problem is remembering these experiences without being able to write them down, because as I explained, I have to rely on my ability to translate the experience to my inner dialogue, and that stops once I enter the samadhic state - so it's a vicious cycle for me. I have probably forgotten much of what I experienced by the time I come back to normal consciousness after completing each meditation. At one point I was keeping a daily journal, but I am no longer keeping it up to date, there just isn't sufficient time.

An example is that I have only described my experiences with the seated meditations, because I am focusing on practicing these whilst learning the Volume 7 meditations, so I cannot remember the sensations I experience during the standing meditations as I write. All I do remember is the samadhic state, which is common to both standing and seated meditations.

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That said, this could be related to the fact that I cut my metaphysical teeth in Western Hermetics, where visualisation is emphasised strongly, and very often taught as a prerequisite skill to more advanced practices (a lot of my first year or two of meditation was spent forming various coloured geometric shapes in my mind's eye )

I tried that back in the day, when I was a member of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. We used to have to work a great deal with Tattvic forms and colours, but aside from working with flashing colours, once we began working with exercises relying purely upon visualization techniques I was completely lost. But I did get to the stage of being able to look at two images of a Tattva geometrical form, then pick up the image created by the flashing colours and transfer it onto the second image (as a complementary colour) and hold it over the second image for a short time. But I found the exercise extremely exhausting. During my previous occult training I was also forced to often stay up all night and perform similar exercises, presumably to help me gain psychic abilities, I'm not sure. It was many years ago.

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As an example, since I had this topic on my mind when practising earlier, I performed a fairly long session of Bending the Bows when I got home tonight. As I started the breathing sequence, my visual field behind my eyes took on a distinct blue-ish hue, and moving further into the sequences I started seeing sparks of blue flickering and flaring behind my eyelids. This died down after I finished the sequence, and the first 10 minutes or so of the meditation were fairly devoid of visual content (not unusual for BTB - I find other meditations like MGAM far more stimulating on this count). Around what felt like the 10 - 15 minute mark, I started noticing that I could perceive a blue visual outline of my arms as they moved up and down into and out of my field of vision.

That is wonderful, but sadly pretty meaningless to me, I'm afraid.

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As the meditation continued, this outline started to swirl and expand and take on a purple/pinkish tinge for a while, sometimes merging entirely when my hands came close to each other, and at other times I would see a white shape matching my limbs on the inside of the blue outline, and I found occasionally that when I held the hands in front of my eyes in the "MGAM position" I would start to see a swirling blue vortex right in the center of my field of vision.

When I finished the meditation I found that I could still see a distinct blue outline around my limbs, and now able to move and look around, I noticed I could see it around my entire body if I looked down. Sometimes it would flare out into a wider "aura" shape, although not to the extent that it did during the actual meditation, and sometimes the white outline of my limbs would flash briefly. To see what effect any environmental light might have been having on the experience, I shut off all the lights in my room and got it as close to pitch black as possible (which is pretty close), but this only enhanced the effect and allowed it to continue with my eyes open, at which point I also noticed almost electric looking flashes of white-blue flaring off my fingertips (I have no idea if these were a product of a metaphysical visual faculty or something which would have been visible to an onlooker, although I suspect the former).

All this has helped me remember a period during my training a while back when I started to experience seeing everything bathed in a golden light, but it was like seeing everything like the reverse image of a camera. It felt as though rather than perceiving something outside of myself everything was a projection of myself, and I perceived that in this golden light. That lasted quite some time, several months at least, and I remember also that prior to that I spent more than a year with the horrible sensation of having a piece of sticky paper right over my third eye. I don't know how else to describe it, except that it was an extraordinarily uncomfortable sensation which just would not go away. I also experienced a painful pressure in the same area for about the same amount of time. I think that is probably when I began to perceive the violet/blue eye in front of my forehead when my eyes were shut. But I could never actually perceive anything through it.

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...and then I went inside and cooked some fish for dinner

(normally I don't go into this kind of explicit detail about the "cool but weird" side of the training, since there seems to be a taboo against discussing these kinds of personal experiences in online spiritual communities, one which has become ingrained within me despite myself. Perhaps Earl Grey's cheerfully flagrant disregard for this silly convention in his last post has inspired me )

I think one reason for that taboo is the fact that it can cause envy or lead to those unable to have similar experiences being disheartened, which could cause them to give up. The main point however is that it is very rare for any two students to have the same or even similar experiences in the practice of Qigong cultivation. It is not considered good for students to have any expectations of what they are likely to experience in their training, as the mind is quite capable of providing such experiences, but these are not real. This can be very damaging to one's development, which is why the sharing of Qigong experiences is discouraged in many schools. I agree with this.

For example when I was first taught the MCO around 1988, my Sifu asked me what I was experiencing. He was looking for a very specific sign to show that one of my gates had opened, or was about to open, but he would not tell me any more than that. I remember that my mind came up with all manner of sensations which I duly reported, but none of them were what he was looking for. This in fact led me into very dangerous territory, as I became so desperate to achieve what my Sifu expected of me that I forced my own cerebro-spinal fluid around the MCO, and wound up in hospital with a condition called 'meningism' - all the symptoms of acute viral meningitis, but without any infection present. I was then given several courses of lumbar punctures to remove the pressure and have never been the same since energetically, and I still have the scars today.

You might say that the intention is to inspire practitioners to work harder, but it does not necessarily have that effect. It was after all in this spirit that I shared information here regarding the time it took me to complete each of the meditations, but I think there is sufficient proof that it was not taken in the way I intended at all. I think it's rather a shame, as well as hypocritical that many others on this thread openly and frequently boast of their achievements and are applauded for doing so. Many of them should know better, and should perhaps be setting a better example to those less knowledgeable.

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See, that sounds quite bizarre and surreal to me, because my dreams are very visual experiences (in fact I'd describe them as primarily visual). It's usually my memory of the visual aspect of a dream which remains the most coherent and sticks with me the longest, followed at a distant second by specific sounds and phrases. I have the most difficulty retaining a sense of the passage of time and narrative structure, although this aspect has become far more coherent since I started practicing FP and, especially, since I started practicing assorted MSW meditations before bed.

Well, I have no such yardstick with which to compare the visual aspect of my dreams, but on the very rare occasions when I do remember them, I would certainly not describe them as vivid. But hey! - cloudy and unclear is better than nothing...

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I have only the vaguest conception of what it would be like to remember a dream without retaining any visuals - in fact it doesn't really sound like what I would consider dream retention at all. Any chance you could try to describe it in more detail? You've piqued my curiosity now.

All I can do is remember the most striking events in the form of descriptive dialogue. I may remember that I have had a dream, but actually remembering the dream is very rare, and the memory would only be in descriptive form, like reading LOTR.

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I was actually thinking about your post earlier and wondering about the question of psychedelics. That's possibly straying a bit too far afield for this thread though, but I might hit you up in PM for more details tomorrow.

OK, I'll look out for the notification.

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Anyway, I fully intend to get back to you on the other points you raised in your post, but it's getting on here, so I'll have to do so later, hopefully tomorrow morning. But I had this subject on my mind quite strongly when I was doing my BTB session earlier, so I wanted to address that particular point while it was fresh in my mind.

Thank you.

Edited March 15, 2018 by DSCB57
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Flying Phoenix Chi Kung

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