standing meditation is overrated?

[Yoda]

Thaddues said:

 

Wang Xiangzhai was a truly exceptional martial artist who is arguably single handedly responsible for the standing post craze. He was a Xingyi master who arrived at the truth of standing post training after spending his life training hard in Xingyi. Please note that his practice of standing came as the fruits of his lifetime of practicing Xingyi. There is no one of note who has gotten anywhere by just standing. I'm sure I have just pissed off all the Yiquan people, but c'mon, let's be realistic here. If standing post was such a cure all, there would be no heart disease, no strokes, no cancers among the leading proponents of the practice. Wang Xuanjie, who was supposed to be 'the successor' died young from a stroke. If standing post created superior martial artists, you would see them and hear about them. If it was such a great training, olympic athletes would be doing it for the extra edge. Lance Armstrong would be all over it. Standing post is not part of the traditional Taichchuan curriculum. It's a recent development. All the elements of a standing practice were incorporated into the form and were used to correct the form. Chen Fake for example was not teaching or practicing Zhang Zhuan as a separate training. This focus is recent by people who jump on the bandwagon and need to make a living here.

I watched vidoes on the net of people who claim to fight with Yiquan. It's just a bunch of bitch slapping. All these yiquan experts would get creamed by a decent high school varsity wrestler.

There is no magic power, just hard intelligent consistent training. Do a search on Richard Mooney and get all the facts you before you start following him and buying his stuff.

 

A number of fun points are brought up here:

 

Wang Xiangzhai didn't live very long.

 

I've seen Sam Tam demonstrate yiquan with his students. It seemed very effective on the DVD, but maybe the students are just brainwashed.

 

It does seem that the ability of a pure IMA guy to win against a varsity wrestler is a rare and wonderous thing, but I believe that it can be done.

 

In my experience standing, it pulls in a tremendous amount of energy that really builds many martial qualities. I simply wasn't able to handle the quantity and quality of the energy and I'd bet my experience is pretty typical of many practitioners who must either limit their time standing or blow off the extra energy somehow which keeps them in the more modest levels of achievement with the practice.

 

Not that the practice isn't extremely powerful, just it's very hard to digest.

 

-Yoda

[thaddeus]

Thaddues said:

<snip>

-Yoda

Uh oh, what have i done...

[Cameron]

Do you practice standing meditation or is this something you read?

 

I have a hard time saying someting that is so clearly an awesome practice "overrated".

 

To me, calling standing overated is akin to calling Tai Chi overated or zazen overated.

 

Maybe, it's not the best practice for you personally, for me it's definetly a top 10 practice.

[thaddeus]

Do you practice standing meditation or is this something you read?

 

I have a hard time saying someting that is so clearly an awesome practice "overrated".

 

To me, calling standing overated is akin to calling Tai Chi overated or zazen overated.

 

Maybe, it's not the best practice for you personally, for me it's definetly a top 10 practice.

yeah, of course I practiced Zhang Zhuang. I was doing it in the 70s inspired by Kenichi Sawaii's book Taikiken.

I am NOT saying ZZ practice is worthless. These comments were taken from a thread that started regarding Richard Mooney. I have issue with people claiming ZZ is going to cure cancer and give you amazing healing powers. It's just a tool. I would have the same comments for people claiming zazen is going to heal your cancer.

btw, just to be more controversial, taichi the way it's practiced by most people is overrated.

lol

T

[sean]

I don't know about standing meditation's direct relationship to healing or fighting abilities, but what I get out of any held asana, wether it be standing, sitting, bridging, whatever, is a meditation on structure, breathing, selective tension, etc. I never explored standing meditation consistently until my acupuncturist just recently prescribed 20 minutes a day "embrace the tree". I do it after my sitting practices and it's has a unique energetic flavor that I am enjoying. I haven't noticed a yang energy surge yet, Yoda, in fact I find that it's very yin-descending, grounding when you focus on deeply relaxing and surrendering into the minimum structural effort required to support your posture. Maybe the fire comes when you are like wincing and tensing and trying not to shit yourself to muscle through the session. The intention I go into it with is to rest my body on a deliberately efficient, consciously created frame. Like getting on a coat hanger or something. It's very refreshing.

 

Here's a good recent RMAX discussion on the values of standing chi kung. Cool quote by Kwasi in that thread:

"Excess tension is really uncomfortable when you hold a posture for an extended period of time plus it wastes energy. The discomfort causes you to be aware of tension in your structure and makes you learn control. Over time awareness and control both improve. Bad alignment is also uncomfortable and so over time you learn to stand in the least uncomfortable manner so that your structure handles gravity naturally."

 

Sean

[Yoda]

Thaddeus,

 

I just thought it'd be fun to kick around this issue some more. I'm conflicted over the practice, myself.

 

Thanks for a cool jumpoff point!

 

Yoda

[thaddeus]

Thaddeus,

 

I just thought it'd be fun to kick around this issue some more. I'm conflicted over the practice, myself.

 

Thanks for a cool jumpoff point!

 

Yoda

 

One approach that I liked was from Fong Ha. He stands with his hands to the sides and waits for his arms to naturally float up by themselves (which they will with the right intention). He feels if you *put* the arms in position, it's a *doing* and not a taoist approach. I kinda like that way of looking at it. I do find when I put my arms in position, I have quite a bit of tension to unravel as opposed to when the arms move up from intention.

But alot of the benefits people claim from ZZ practice are better gotten in other ways. Example..you want increased leg strength...there are lots of more efficient ways to do it. You want to good posture..again, better ways.

ZZ practice can do alot of harm. People who aren't astute enough to release the tension, as Sean points out above, actually become more tense, grip more, and get worse posture. Doormen who stand all day aren't the best physical specimens. I train taichi with a guy that brags he stands one hour day for something like 10 years now. He's so tense and so unaware of his tension.

So ZZ, like any tool, needs to be used properly.

I incorporate ZZ in my taichi training (which is how it was traditionally done--according to Wang PeiShan.) In the form I will stop and do some self checking and sinking, relaxing etc at various points.

T

[Yoda]

Plus, I knew it would get a rise out of Cam!

[sean]

One approach that I liked was from Fong Ha. He stands with his hands to the sides and waits for his arms to naturally float up by themselves (which they will with the right intention).

Awesome tip thaddeus!

[Cameron]

Good points all around. Thadeus, it's definetly good to maintain a critical eye regardless. my main standing meditation teacher is Ken Cohen. I did a workshop with him a couple months ago and think his book is an excellent introduction to standing meditation and the guidelines are very balanced. He makes no claims at the practice curing cancer but does say it is the foundation of qigong training.

 

Sean, I think it's cool your acupuncturist prescribed 20 minutes embracing the tree a day and look forward to your ellaborate feedbacks. In regards to the energy created, Ken says the 3 tests(I have written about this like a year ago in my journal here) are the test of discomfort, fire and patience. Sean, you are probably in the test of discomfort now where there is some straining etc. after 20 minutes the shoulders feel very heavy, the arms or wrists are shaking etc.

 

The next stage, and Ken said at the workshop that it could take anywhere from a month to a year to go through these stages depending on the individual, is the fire stage. I guess you could say this is a more yang stage where areas that were cold or depleted are filled with qi and may become very hot. The dan tien may feel very hot where it felt cold before etc. the shaking and trembling isn't experienced as much and the qi is basically surging through the body(providing you also take care to do retention).

 

The test of patience is the final stage. I think from what Ken teaches this is where standing truly becomes a "spiritual" practice. Maybe the boundaries between inside and outside disappear .You no longer differentiate where your head ends and the sky begins or where the Earth begins and your feet end. You are going more deeply into the awareness aspect of standing. The "Yi" aspect of Yiquan..mind. For me it is really a profound practice that probably parallels zazen in many ways but with more of an energetic quality. Whereas pure zen sitting you are going directly to the shen awareness aspect of meditation in standing your working with the jing and qi and shen..balancing and building them up and then developing them quite naturally.

 

And the internal power is real. Even BK Frantzis says it was through standing meditation outside of Hombu Dojo of Aikido in Japan that he first realized what internal power was. His water method makes alot of use of standing but with a more ellaborate dissolving meditation. Ken doesn't do any dissolving and says just stand with awareness, let whatever happens etc..very zen.

 

From what I have heard Chia does lots of mental stuff and from what I remeber of the Bone marrow nei kung book it was alot of do the inner smile, circulate the orbit etc while you stand. I like those practices but prefer Cohen's approach and occasionally play with Bruces dissolving approach. Ice to water to vapor etc.

[Pietro]

Awesome tip thaddeus!

 

Ehm, actually if you read my blog you would have gotten it two months ago.

 

[Cameron]

Pietro, I think most of us regulars don't read or do much of anything with the blogs and have decided the personal cultivation journal is the place for these discussions. I am a little embarassed to say I didn't even realize you had a blog on here and will go through it when I have time as it looks pretty interesting.

 

If you like that format no problem but porbably you would get more feedback and people reading if you started your own cultivation jounral.

[thaddeus]

Ehm, actually if you read my blog you would have gotten it two months ago.

 

Which workshop did you learn this at?

T

[Pietro]

Which workshop did you learn this at?

T

 

Standing Workshop from Bruce.

5 days, Germany, November 2005.

 

 

Unfortunately Bruce takes down the pages describing the workshop once the year is over, so I have no page to address you too. But you have my notes available, and there is pretty much everything over there.

[Pietro]

Pietro, I think most of us regulars don't read or do much of anything with the blogs and have decided the personal cultivation journal is the place for these discussions. I am a little embarassed to say I didn't even realize you had a blog on here and will go through it when I have time as it looks pretty interesting.

 

If you like that format no problem but porbably you would get more feedback and people reading if you started your own cultivation jounral.

 

I know, I am not getting much exposure over there. I would probably get more if I move it as a sub domain of pietrosperoni.it. But there are some technicalities that has to be solved before. As for the journal:

thanks, but no thanks.

 

In the meantime... you are welcome to read it all two times

[Trunk]

In a shing-yi class I've heard that "all of shing-yi is in sam choi (maybe an exageration), but you're not going to get all of shing-yi just from doing sam choi". (Sam choi is the shing-yi signature standing posture.)

 

Its kind of like, doing ZZ, nowadays, a lot more goes on in it and I can process more. Why? Because I've done other exercises that've taught me to open and close my joints (and I do that a little while in ZZ). My sacrum is activated, my meditations are more developed.. all because I've explored those in more detailed specific practices, so when I come back to ZZ there's better integration.

 

And I know to take breaks in ZZ and do squats (or ankle rotations, or whatever) if I need to process differently for a while. Basically, "things add up".

Edited February 2, 2006 by Trunk

[Yoda]

the undiscovered blog!!! Good stuff in there.

[Cameron]

Kieth,

 

how were you taught Saamchoy? Sifu Morrissey told me he does 5 minutes with 1 arm extended then 5 minutes with the other arm. And he breathes up and down along the arms to the back .Sort of a mini orbit around the arm to behind the chest.

 

I prefer just doing embracing the tree but play with it sometimes. Seems like it is the basic posture of Baguzhang or something.

[IanB]

Standing a Defence

 

I have been doing ZZ for years and have found it to be an extremely sound practice. I have a background in combative martial arts and yiquan like tai chi if you understand it, it allows the practitioner to develop power and skill quickly.

 

M y ability improved quickly when I began training using some of the yiquan system.

 

To get this you have to really work at it and standing is only a small part of the training. It will not give you super powers, only wearing your pants on the outside can do that, but it will help you develop connected and integrated movement.

 

Ian

[mike andre]

Hey,

 

I've starting doing some standing in the embracing the tree posture and I've been finding it to be a very interesting practice. I'm getting a really nice grounded feeling from it.

 

I'm finding that I start getting some discomfort (aching shoulders) at about 10 minutes and I'm wondering how I should relate to that. Should I stop as soon as I experience discomfort or should I continue on through the discomfort?

[Cameron]

You should continue but build up the time graudually. In other words don't start standing for 1 hour the first week start with 5 or 10 minutes for a couple weeks then 15 minutes etc. If you build up the time gradually it is easier. you may experience some trembling after 15 or 20 minutes that is pretty normal and part of the test of discomfort. The way Cohen describes this in his book is your body is adapting to a greater charge of internal energy. Sort of like a pot of water boiling and the lid is jumping up and down.

[allan-in-china]

Standing a Defence

 

I have been doing ZZ for years and have found it to be an extremely sound practice. I have a background in combative martial arts and yiquan like tai chi if you understand it, it allows the practitioner to develop power and skill quickly.

 

M y ability improved quickly when I began training using some of the yiquan system.

 

I agree standing is quite a good practice for martial arts, health and grounding.

 

Going off on a tangent here, in China they say "Xing Yi Quan - 2 years and you can kill people; Tai chi chuan - 10 years and you haven't even started"

 

Basically Yiquan, comes from Xing Yi Quan so I can assume it would roughly be the same. And the pace with tai chi chuan is also related to training methods, and focus...

 

To get this you have to really work at it and standing is only a small part of the training. It will not give you super powers, only wearing your pants on the outside can do that, but it will help you develop connected and integrated movement.

 

Ian

 

Nice.

 

Allan

[Pietro]

But standing is not the same as embracing the tree. Embracing the tree is just one of the standing postures. As we were tought the whole system included 200 postures, and they are generally not teached to people who are not disciples. This because some of those postures include postures to open the psychic channels in the brain. Not everybodies brain can take that, and learning that includes learning the preparatory practices, what can go wrong, how to spot if something is going wrong and how to fix it. So it should come no surprise that finding a person who knows the whole system is verh hard. And one that is willing to teach you the whole system is, at the moment, nearly impossible.

 

Still taking away the most dangerous postures there are still many other postures thar should be known, studied and practiced. Each having a different effect in the body. Depending if you want to raise the energy or ground it. If you want to concentrate the energy (and where, TT, internal organ, bones, ...), or disperse it. Develop stability or develop Fa Jin. Open the MC. Send the energy to a particular organ and so on.

 

According to Bruce (and I have no reason to doubt him), when people started to connect the postures Tai Ji was born. Most (all?) of the standing postures are just Tai Ji positions, used as postures. So Single Whip is the most yang position and is used to raise the energy (or was it expand it?). The opening with the hands raising raises the energy. If I were in a Tai Ji school and they were not teaching ZZ I probably would change school. There is also a way to practice Tai Ji where you stay in each definite posture between 5 and 15 minutes, and in each passage posture between 1 and 5. The details are in the book: "the secret of internal martial arts". A must have.

 

Play Guitar is the most yin position, and when I asked Bruce what posture should I use to develop my deep yin he said Play the Lute (Yang Style)/Play Guitar (Wu style). For this reason I asked Yoda what posture was he using during his chastity period. Saying, "I have been doing standing" is like saying "I took a pill". Which?

 

For a period I tried to use play guitar to see if it was enough to balance my rising sexuality. It wasn't. But it might be enough if I start working with that many months before I start building up. Then the deep yin would be firmly estabilished. It's in my totest list.

 

BTW, Yi Quan teaches 6 of those 200 postures, and that alone is more balanced than doing only one.

 

It wouldn't be a bad thing to start to write down a list of standing postures (the safe ones at least), and their relative effect.

[thaddeus]

But standing is not the same as embracing the tree. Embracing the tree is just one of the standing postures. As we were tought the whole system included 200 postures, and they are generally not teached to people who are not disciples. This because some of those postures include postures to open the psychic channels in the brain. Not everybodies brain can take that, and learning that includes learning the preparatory practices, what can go wrong, how to spot if something is going wrong and how to fix it. So it should come no surprise that finding a person who knows the whole system is verh hard. And one that is willing to teach you the whole system is, at the moment, nearly impossible.

 

Hi Pietro, I'm going to challenge some of this, don't take it personally, it's for clarification(this an important topic).. what 'system' is this? Most of what we see today comes from Wang Xianghai (e.g. Lam Kam Chuen, etc.). Did Bruce say this? I don't recall Master Wang writing about opening psychic channels in the brain and what not. I also have experience with BP Chan (Ken Cohen's teacher, and he definately never spoke like that, in fact, he would scold you harshly if you talked about 'chi' and mingmen,etc.)

 

Still taking away the most dangerous postures there are still many other postures thar should be known, studied and practiced. Each having a different effect in the body. Depending if you want to raise the energy or ground it. If you want to concentrate the energy (and where, TT, internal organ, bones, ...), or disperse it. Develop stability or develop Fa Jin. Open the MC. Send the energy to a particular organ and so on.

 

 

What would be a dangerous posture and what was the result of practicing this posture. Also I am familiar with some Chen Style Xiaojia practice for Fajin development using Single Whip, but it doesn't have to be single whip, can you elaborate on what you were taught regarding learing fajin from a specific posture?

 

According to Bruce (and I have no reason to doubt him), when people started to connect the postures Tai Ji was born. Most (all?) of the standing postures are just Tai Ji positions, used as postures. So Single Whip is the most yang position and is used to raise the energy (or was it expand it?). The opening with the hands raising raises the energy. If I were in a Tai Ji school and they were not teaching ZZ I probably would change school. There is also a way to practice Tai Ji where you stay in each definite posture between 5 and 15 minutes, and in each passage posture between 1 and 5. The details are in the book: "the secret of internal martial arts". A must have.

 

Play Guitar is the most yin position, and when I asked Bruce what posture should I use to develop my deep yin he said Play the Lute (Yang Style)/Play Guitar (Wu style). For this reason I asked Yoda what posture was he using during his chastity period. Saying, "I have been doing standing" is like saying "I took a pill". Which?

 

For a period I tried to use play guitar to see if it was enough to balance my rising sexuality. It wasn't. But it might be enough if I start working with that many months before I start building up. Then the deep yin would be firmly estabilished. It's in my totest list.

 

BTW, Yi Quan teaches 6 of those 200 postures, and that alone is more balanced than doing only one.

 

It wouldn't be a bad thing to start to write down a list of standing postures (the safe ones at least), and their relative effect.

 

I think it's extremely difficult to show any effect from a standing posture. If it were possible to document a rise or fall of blood pressure, for example, as a result of a specific posture vs. another, it would put this practice into mainstream. But realistically, the health benefits are anecdotal and any research is dubious at best. Also, why do we continue to listen to non medical experts about health benefits....Our society and europe are extremely open regarding alternative therapy and so far no one is taking this seriously. Discussions about psychic channels and such are interesting but extremely subjective. But I think it would be very cool if it were possible to document some effects of standing as it is being done with acupuncture. For example, can we show that liver enzymes were affected somehow by using a posture that is purported to affect the liver meridian. Acupuncture studies are showing changes in hormones and other biological effects.

Anyway, enough ranting for now..

T

[Pietro]

Hi Pietro, I'm going to challenge some of this, don't take it personally, it's for clarification(this an important topic).. what 'system' is this? Most of what we see today comes from Wang Xianghai (e.g. Lam Kam Chuen, etc.). Did Bruce say this? I don't recall Master Wang writing about opening psychic channels in the brain and what not. I also have experience with BP Chan (Ken Cohen's teacher, and he definately never spoke like that, in fact, he would scold you harshly if you talked about 'chi' and mingmen,etc.)

 

Fair enough, challenge accepted. I learned this from Bruce Kumar Frantzis. He is a taoist master and lineage holder. He learned (actually relearned) what he teaches from Liu Huang Ching, who was a well known figure in Bei Jing, Master, Lineage Holder and head of a Taoist Sect. He also was both a Confucianist and a Buddhist, but this is irrelevant to our present discussion. When Bruce got to know Liu, Bruce was already at an advanced level and Liu only accepted to teach him because of a dream he had that night. When they went to speak about standing Liu asked Bruce what he already knew. As Bruce described the various element he has gathered from teachers around China, Liu finally conceeded:

Ok you have all the pieces, but you do realise that this is an extreemly uneducated way to learn?

Yes, but did I had any choise

No, but would you like to relearn everything in the correct sequence and the correct way?

 

So Liu reteached to Bruce all the elements that compose the standing practice.

 

Accoding to Bruce there is no one outside of China, in this moment that teaches the whole set of the 200 postures. Bruce knows them but he does not teches them either. To us the psychic channels elements were given as an en-passant information, just telling us how far did the rabbit hole go, and why asking to know the full set was not an option. the fact that your teacher did not say nothing about them does not necessarily mean that they ignore it: also Bruce did not spoke about "standing postures to open the psychic channels" for more than a decade. But he often spoke about how in Taoist meditation it is possible to connect various points in the brain, how that is extreemly dangerous as (he said) some combinations would give you 'powers' but all the others would make you mad in a way that no one could recover you. I am just repeating what's in his books. There are 30 points. This makes for about 2^(15*30) combinations. Of those maybe 10 or a 100 are ok. This makes 1 on 3*(10^133) circa. If you want to try you do it FULLY on your responsability. And no, I don't think that Bruce himself knows what combinations are feasible.

 

What would be a dangerous posture and what was the result of practicing this posture. Also I am familiar with some Chen Style Xiaojia practice for Fajin development using Single Whip, but it doesn't have to be single whip, can you elaborate on what you were taught regarding learing fajin from a specific posture?

 

I don't think I can help you much with this. You know how Chia has the ethical position of keeping nothing for himself, and teach everything? Well Bruce has the ethical position of teach pubblicly only material that is safe. Since I only took public courses I was not exposed to that info (only to the fact that it does exist). If I were exposed to that kind of info, I probably would not tell you pubblicly too, as this might have prevented me from learning more from Bruce.

 

But, when I started standing every day I soon was standing with the hands above my heart in the classical tree position. I developed a blockage in the heart, and Frank Allen, told me to go back and stand with the hands by the side. After 6 months the blockage was totally gone, and measurement taken with that computer that measures your aura (or so it claims) gave a fully white energy for my heart.

 

While we were learning standing we were briefly told about how by twisting the tendons around the arms it is possible to open (or was it, it helps open) the skull plates. Skulls of practitioner with skull plates not perfectly sealed have been found. Chia has one in his meditation center, too. To show all this Bruce sometimes moves his skull plates. Before he always asks for the doctors in the room to come near and then tell if they skulls are effectively moving. I have seen this 2 times, and both times the doctors said, "yes it is happening, it shouldn't but it is". I suppose this is the kind of technique you don't want to teach around.

 

Now let's go to Xing Yi. I have a book (not here, you have to trust me on this) about one of the main master from Xing Yi. At the beginning of the century he changed the hand position in San-Ti, from extended out, to fingers pointing up. This because he said the first is better for fighting, but it disperse too much energy. Since people were now practicing San ti for health, the change made sense.

 

Speaking about how to develop Fa Jin. Yes he showed us that position. It was at the end of the fifth day and I was cooked, and not particularly interested in that. It was a sort of tree position (oh my god, now you will assume that everything is a modification of the tree position ), but the hands were twisted. I am not going to describe the way the hands were twisted, but if we meet or you IM me I shall be happy to tell you were you can find a picture of it. The info was given as an answer to a question from an advanced student: Ralph Herber, who was hosting the event. If you contact him you could probably ask more details, as he was suggested from Bruce to actually try this out. For me it was all way above my hair.

 

When Bruce teaches spiralling he usually takes the students one by one and assigns to each a personal position that is supposed to balance his personal imbalances or just bring the person easier to the next level of the practice. I haven't done the course (is considered not a basic one) yet, although by now I am eager to do it. But I have seen people practicing in their personal postures, and believe me, you do have a wide variety over there.

 

I think it's extremely difficult to show any effect from a standing posture. If it were possible to document a rise or fall of blood pressure, for example, as a result of a specific posture vs. another, it would put this practice into mainstream. But realistically, the health benefits are anecdotal and any research is dubious at best. Also, why do we continue to listen to non medical experts about health benefits....Our society and europe are extremely open regarding alternative therapy and so far no one is taking this seriously. Discussions about psychic channels and such are interesting but extremely subjective. But I think it would be very cool if it were possible to document some effects of standing as it is being done with acupuncture. For example, can we show that liver enzymes were affected somehow by using a posture that is purported to affect the liver meridian. Acupuncture studies are showing changes in hormones and other biological effects.

 

I hope you realise, sir, that science is based on reproducibility and measurability. In standing this would mean having a statistical significant set of people willing to stand for about an hour a day, for many days, if not months. All this while you need personal corrections OR you need to take a group of people who already practice taoist arts and know how to stand. Those people would make the whole test fairly inconsistent as any 'unaverage' result might be attributed to their strangeness. Also when you make a double blind you need to have an equivalent body of people who are not doing the practice, but believe they are. This is not easy too, as if you take practitioners, they know how to stand. And if you take non-practitioners, and place them in a wrong standing position for 1 hour a day they would probably develop a structure too. So you would only test for the specific effect of a posture and not for the general effects of standing.

 

Of course you could measure Bruce or other masters before and after a session of standing, and this has been done. I remember the measurement taken on Chia before and after doing the sounds. But what does this tells us? Just that this particular person had those measurements. Considering the level of control that those people have on their body even I wouldn't sign that the reason is in technique alone, unless I personally trusted that they would not alter the state of their bodies in other ways (also physical, like squeezing an organ). So we would have to stand on trust. A fairly unstable base for a scientific test, you would agree. And not significantly different from where we started.

 

Does all this say that standing has no scientific base? Yes, indeed, for now it does.

Does it say that standing will never have a scientific base? No, maybe one day we might find a way to test for all those things. And then we will know. In the meantime we have to use anedocte and instructions from people who supposedly are more knowledgeable than us in it. And to conclude, and I am speaking here as a scientist, Science does not cover the whole of reality, and never will. And I have no problem with that. Do you?

 

Anyway, enough ranting for now..

Thanks,

Pietro

 

Edited to add calculation.

Edited February 3, 2006 by Pietro