What got you on the path?

[Cameron]

So I thought it might be interesting to hear about what got Tao Bums members on their spiritual path.

 

For myself, I was quite the lost soul when I was young. In High School I was really messed up and got into doing all sorts of drugs. I was quite the pot head.

 

So at one party I was smoking in a circle with one particularly huge and scary redneck drug dealer. For some bizarre reason I decided to try to steal his pipe. I put it in my pocket after taking a hit and thought nothing of it. Next thing I know people started to realize the pipe was missing and this guy was pretty pissed. I quickly moved over to a bush and tossed the pipe!

 

Even still, it didn't take long for this guy to single me out as the one who probably took it. Stealing the pipe of a 6' 6" drug dealer. Not so smart!

 

He grabbed me by my shirt and pushed me up against a car. Luckily I had tossed the pipe so when he demanded that I emptymy pockets I was clean. He let me go. I was lucky(and dumb).

 

In any case the next day I broke out the yellow pages and vowed I would never be afraid to defend myself again. I was a big fan of martial arts movies. Van Dam, Steven Seagal etc. I was a child of the 80's!

 

I always remember Seagal's moves as being very fluid and graceful yet powerful. So I looked for Aikido schools in town.

 

So I visited a local Aikido dojo-I was 18 at the time-and quickly became a very serious Aikido student.

 

I also read and interview in a local magazine with Seagal where he mentioned he practiced Zen along with Aikido. So I seriously checked that out on my own.

 

I hooked up with a local Zen school and began to practice meditation.

 

Later, I was able to visit a Zen Monastary in upstate NY where I found out about qigong. And that it was an excellent complement to Zen.

 

From there, I found out more about Taoism doing online web searches. When I was 23 I found out about The Healing Tao and joined those discussions.

 

Tao Bums itself began as an offshoot of the Healing Tao discussion site.

 

After 18 years of searching and studying I still see myself as a total beginner. But for the most part very happy where my path has led me. And also happy to see these discussions still alive and kicking(Thank you Sean)

 

So what's your story? lol

[Jetsun]

Nice thread, for me I found myself in a state of imbalance mentally and energetically after a rough personal time so I thought I would try to "fix" myself and take responsibility for myself. So I started reading all the Western psychology I could find and looking into what the medical establishment suggested, but none of it really made much sense to me, taking psycho drugs from the doctor to block out the world made absolutely no sense at all while the Western psychological model seemed to be a lot of mental masturbation and barely addressed the body, so I started to look into more holistic methods which deal with the body and mind as one which led to Qigong experimentation, which then led to studying many of the different wisdom traditions searching for real genuine knowledge about the way things really work.

[Protector]

It was a dark and not stormy night

 

I had and still have an ancient slow computer that I got when I moved to Canada

It was a little faster then the win98 I had back in Minsk and this one could play the games my old one couldn't, le gasp it is winXP.

So I was one of them crazy internet kids who wanted to play video games all the time and maybe find an insane way to make money with it, like that's ever gonna happen.

So, no spirituality, only video games, internet and the LOLZ.

So one night I was bored again and I was looking up some LOLZ!

So I decided, "Hey, I'm gonna search the word 'devil' on YouTuuuuube"

 

dun dun duuuuuuuuuun

 

and what I saw... WAS... videos about George Bush

I decided to look through them but I couldn't understand anything, they kept talking about some Skull and Bones stuff so I looked up in description and it said that the clips were a part of a movie called Zeitgeist.

 

So I watched the whole movie

scared me ****less

 

You know the movie, the first part was boring and about religion. The narrator wanted to make it look that because so many things are repeating, then the whole thing is a lie, but to me it sounded more like, "Hey, all this stuff repeats, there must be something to it, look it up"

So I did later, but now I was still freaking out

 

I liked all them kung fu movies and stuff but I followed that rule of not trying to do what these guys were doing because it's dangerous. I felt like I was in more danger right now so I just started looking up tutorial videos.

Found some Chi Gong stuff, Kung Fu stuff and Stuff stuff

 

Now on Youtube, in one of the related videos I was this weird looking guy in a white robe in some Asian setting with a title "Shoot fire balls like DZB Naruto" or something

So I'm like... ok

Need all the help I could get

 

I watched the videos, dude never even talked about super powers, he kept talking about this craaaaaaaaaazy Taoism stuff

So I subscribed to him, watched videos as they appeared, registered on the forum.

Met more people on the forum, wanted super powers for a while

got them *cough*

He later on got bad rep because he was mostly self taught, without a clear lineage, he was a businessman and this was just a part of the things he was doing, and everyone kept calling him master so that put him in a bad position. He wanted more of a community where everyone would be like,

"Yo bro I got this super awesome meditashun, check it!"

"Yeah, man. Awesooooooome"

"Duuuuuuuuuuude"

"Yeaaaaaaaaaah"

"Whoooooooo"

 

So eventually everyone in the community ran out of the things to talk about, imagine that.

Some dudes are still making video kinda like the ones he made and talk about the progress but it was kinda dead.

After a while I also sat thinking and let everything sink in, then I got bored again...

Then I remembered Mewtwo saying, "COME ON MAN TAO BUMS YEAH IT'S SO AWESOME AND TOTALLY NOT DEAD, MAN"

"meh"

 

and so I'm here

 

[JohnC]

Women, and relationships....

 

but with more info, I found that my psychology and the way I was interacting with the world wasn't getting me what I wanted with women and relationships.

 

So I learned tons about psychology, did hypnosis, and learned and learned. After 3/4 years I found meditation zazen and vipassana style. Practiced that for 3 years, then saw a video on John Chang. Started researching like crazy, and read tons on the taobums.

 

I started doing qigong/neigong, and found that it impacted how I felt about myself, and the world around me, and it impacted how others felt and reacted to me.

 

And here I am.

Edited November 19, 2011 by JohnC

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Like many children, I was enlightened as a young child, then forgot about my being as immediate Awareness when I became an older child and started to identify with my thoughts, experiences, and the world around me.

 

In my early 20's I experienced a re-living of that Awareness while on psychedelics, and that prompted me to 'remember' Awareness and to start on a path of spiritual pursuit. Now, many years later, I realize that there is nothing to pursue or to realize to become 'enlightened'. Only to live in Awareness, which is what I am learning to do. All the spiritual practices and pursuit of experiences only led to more seeking.

[RiverSnake]

Being pissed off and frustrated with my inability to solve my own problems and realizing how ignorant i was.

Edited November 19, 2011 by OldGreen

[Birch]

Weird spine rush and general meltdown that was later given a context called Kundalini. Found TTB's. Fixed some things, didn't fix others. I'm more of a Taoist than a Tantric, except it's the same thing, sort of. Well, the way I do it seems to be similar.

[Taomeow]

I was raised by atheists of the fierce kind. So when I started discovering patterns and flows and directional interactions and cycles and phases of change, I termed them "energies of the world" and started drawing diagrams and wracking my brains over what it was that I was trying to express -- with math and geometry and physics and nameless frustration. I joined a forum titled Physics New Ideas. I kept asking questions. I remember one of them -- "can a field exist that is somehow localized in certain areas of the planet, that would cause living in these areas to influence human behavior in persistent patterns throughout centuries, causing whole populations, e.g., to wage incessant wars in the locations where the field is induced, regardless of what peoples populate the area at this particular time and with no clear cause-effect explanation for wars waged there and not elsewhere?" (Unbeknownst to me, I had discovered sha' chi in the historic process, so I wanted to figure out if it qualified as a "field." A "field" is what "science" calls phenomena that you can't observe any other way but via their effects on objects and events, so I wanted a "reputable" explanation, a "field theory" for what I was observing.) Physicists told me a few tales, but mostly couldn't really help because in their learned wisdom they were observing what they were told to observe but not what they weren't told to observe in conjunction with their studies and theories and practices -- to wit, the world, history, time, and their own bodies. So, no field theory for me there, so I started creating one.

 

Then I chanced upon some book on feng shui and found out about taoism and qi. The rest is history.

 

I still like my original term -- "energies of the world." Qi is not energy, but "energies of the world" are comprised of the interactions derived from the "potential energy" of Hetu and "actualized energy" of Luoshu reverberating throughout the manifest world as yin-yang, qi, wuxing, bagua, ganying, and together they do qualify to be called that. So, when I realized that what I discovered independently has already been discovered, thousands of years ago, and had been worked with for centuries by those in the know, who happened to constitute a whole ancient civilization, I was happy beyond belief. So I threw away the wobbly wheels I was trying to reinvent and mounted the old but never-rusty, supremely well-oiled and unbroken bicycle of taoism, and took a ride on the Way. And saw that it was good.

[starhawk]

When I was little, I loved standing in the sun! It it was a stretch that lasted forever, but when I woke up I was feeling the sunburn. Ow! Then there were the falling dreams. I kept falling forever into a rainbow elevator shaft (what the deuces?)

 

20 years past...

 

I forgot. I got lost, almost stopped, found qi, started wandering, found a teacher, got scared ****less, then wandered some more and found another teacher. Then I remember something from my past, then all of it is irrelevant.

 

What got me lost was thinking too much.

 

If I think, therefore I am, but what happens when I don't think? Can a man ever not think? If I am looking at the fireplace and I fall asleep, then forget who I am, do I still exist? The fire. Damn fire. Descartes

 

There was a German named Kant who said the unknowable noumenon, the thing in itself, was unachievable to the human mind and we could only experience the world through sensory phenomena. But I often wondered about this world in itself, even when my teachers and the world moved on.

 

Good thing a good teacher found me.

[Dainin]

Kwai Chang Caine-->Bruce Lee-->Carlos Castaneda-->Jack Kerouac-->D.T. Suzuki-->Alan Watts-->Tao Te Ching-->Dan Millman-->Idries Shah-->Tom Robbins-->Shunryu Suzuki-->BKS Iyengar-->Glenn Morris-->Mantak Chia-->and so on...

 

I didn't actually start doing any spiritual practices until I was 34, when a Zen center started near-by. I was really more into athletics up until that point, although I always enjoyed reading the books...

[doc benway]

Nice thread Cameron.

It's cool to see what brings us to this stuf...

 

In my youth, I discovered Castaneda and Burroughs, along with the predictable accoutrements.

I developed some sense of ecological and social responsibility, and Toltec sort of values. Then on to marathon education, a family and career, and all the beauty and bullshit that come along with living in the world. During that time I also practiced martial arts consistently.

 

Around 10 years ago I started on the spiritual path in earnest after going through some serious family and personal trauma. Around the same time I read a bunch of stuff about Rwanda and Bosnia and got terribly depressed. Tried to get back into social activism. Got progressively more frustrated. Got inspired by some Buddhist and Daoist friends. But couldn't get out of my funk.

 

I started really digging into myself and the world. I started to learn Taijiquan and after a year my Shifu let me start training in Daoist meditation and neigong. Those were the practices that have caused the most profound changes. Over the years I added some Bagua and Xingyi training. During those years I also read a LOT. My Shifu is not a philosopher and also preached practice over theory. So my readings have been very eclectic and led me in a number of interesting directions. Krishnamurti and Demello made a huge impression, also Ramana and Nisargadatta, and Watts and Osho (who helped me understand the Daoist classics).

 

Lately I don't read too much (although manitou and suninmyeyes have turned me on to some wonderful books recently - thanks ladies!). I practice as much as I can, mainly meditation and neigong, Taiji, and, lately, a lot of Bagua. And I spend some time here, of course, kickin it with you fine folks. My main focus right now is to bring awareness and understanding to my relationships, work, and daily life; and maintain consistency with the Daoist practices.

 

And so it goes...

[mYTHmAKER]

What path???

[konchog uma]

When i was 14 i wondered what meditation was about, so i sat on my bed and closed my eyes. I kept them closed til i lost the ability to recreate the room in my mind's eye, and got sort of psychically "lost in space". I still remember how awesome and refreshing it felt. I was hooked.

 

When i was 18 I started to study Shaolin Kungfu and Yang style Taijiquan, and my meditations doubly increased. I dealt with the inevitable pains of those years by sitting for long hours. I talked to scholars and masters whenever i could about buddhism and daoism, crafted a daoist alter in my meditation space, and cultivated the way as sincerely as i could.

 

When i was 19, i packed my backpack and hit the road as a self-styled "wandering daoist". I lived out of soup kitchens and with rainbow family as i travelled the country by hopping trains and hitchhiking. I got out of the phase of meditating hours a day and into the action of living life full time.

 

Drugs and alcohol took their toll, and i dealt with several of life's blows by trying to self medicate. I ate too much LSD, too many mushrooms, not in a respectful sacred way, but as a self-indulgent stupid modern person would. The backlash of that was Buddhism. I was ordained by a Nyingma holy man, and sat with a Karma Kagyu group. I found increasing degrees of inner peace as i applied the ideas and lifestyle to my path.

 

As my life mellowed out, i just kept reading classics and sitting, practicing mindfulness and polishing the mirror. I guess i have always just been drawn to spiritual pursuits, and the more i practice, the more i see that the strength that comes from flexibility is greater than the strength which comes from from force.

[Cameron]

What path???

 

 

Haha nice. But, you know, it's still fun to hear about peoples stories man!

[deci belle]

[hagar]

Nice thread Cameron.

It's cool to see what brings us to this stuf...

 

In my youth, I discovered Castaneda and Burroughs, along with the predictable accoutrements.

I developed some sense of ecological and social responsibility, and Toltec sort of values. Then on to marathon education, a family and career, and all the beauty and bullshit that come along with living in the world. During that time I also practiced martial arts consistently.

 

Around 10 years ago I started on the spiritual path in earnest after going through some serious family and personal trauma. Around the same time I read a bunch of stuff about Rwanda and Bosnia and got terribly depressed. Tried to get back into social activism. Got progressively more frustrated. Got inspired by some Buddhist and Daoist friends. But couldn't get out of my funk.

 

I started really digging into myself and the world. I started to learn Taijiquan and after a year my Shifu let me start training in Daoist meditation and neigong. Those were the practices that have caused the most profound changes. Over the years I added some Bagua and Xingyi training. During those years I also read a LOT. My Shifu is not a philosopher and also preached practice over theory. So my readings have been very eclectic and led me in a number of interesting directions. Krishnamurti and Demello made a huge impression, also Ramana and Nisargadatta, and Watts and Osho (who helped me understand the Daoist classics).

 

Lately I don't read too much (although manitou and suninmyeyes have turned me on to some wonderful books recently - thanks ladies!). I practice as much as I can, mainly meditation and neigong, Taiji, and, lately, a lot of Bagua. And I spend some time here, of course, kickin it with you fine folks. My main focus right now is to bring awareness and understanding to my relationships, work, and daily life; and maintain consistency with the Daoist practices.

 

And so it goes...

 

Great story Steve.

 

Kind of the same trajectory as you. But before all that, some profound yet odd experiences in nature kind of hijacked my heart. I started probing for those experiences in my memory. Then I snuck into a movie theater at the tender age of 8, and saw the first Star Wars movie and discovered Yoda and the Force. The rest is history.

 

h

Edited November 21, 2011 by hagar

[Harmonious Emptiness]

My brother had Tao of Pooh when I was 15 or 16 and I basically took it over and read it 4 or 5 times. In University someone suggested I read Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenko, around the same time I chose to do an assignment on the Zen Tea Ceremony. I had always had a fascination with the 'mystic Orient' since my childhood Ninja phase too. Never had much for resources to study martial arts for very long, so the library and used book stores were like treasure hunts for me, and still are of course... At the same time, reading made me reluctant to study with a teacher. After reading ancient masters, they just didn't seem like they could offer me much better, though I'm seeing that serious teachers are accessible now, especially in Buddhism. Though, without speaking Chinese, and not being interested in super powers, I feel like personal study is still the best way to go for me right now. Kudos to those who can afford better.

 

As George Harrison said 'It doesn't matter how well you can play if you're not Enlightened.'

[NeiChuan]

As a kid I felt a need to find this category of lifestyle. Very young even. I grew up alone spending most of my time away from my family, and whenever I became a good amount social. I felt a need to avoid being social, like there was some path in my life to start, but I just couldn't see it.

 

On my 16th birthday it began, im 20 now. It has been a hell of a ride, but so far I know I've only just bought the ticket.

 

Dardon

[Protector]

 

Dardon

 

*jaw drop*

 

Vovanich

[NeiChuan]

*jaw drop*

 

Vovanich

 

Sort of figured by your dong han posts. lol

[Protector]

:lol:

[Shizukanako]

saw the first Star Wars movie

 

^ this

 

Reading Lord of the Rings trilogy a few years later sealed it.

[de_paradise]

You can be running parallel to the path for some years without realizing that you are on it. But habits and inclinations are all indicators, so when I try to understand how close someone is to the path I look at their personality and what they like to do. So therefore many of us were always on the path just not realized it because noone with authority spelled it out in a way we could grasp, or we had'nt been able to piece it all together on our own. Yet we continue running parallel.

 

So the story has no beginning except for the purpose of the anecdote. I guess I started in a pretty depressed state, even though I had a free wandering lifestyle, read and followed with ease the philosophy of Tao, even did yoga and Ba Gua. I still was not on the path, just running alongside. Then I had a breakup with my girlfriend, got a skin cancer, business failure, fell in with depressed people and filled my head with endless negativity for a year. In order to get out of that hole I turned to sexual desire and seduction, NLP, self improvement,hypnosis and back to Buddhist books and lectures. I spent a year studying and changing. In my remaking of my emotions and behavior, I dabbled in deep trance hypnosis where I had my first energy experiences and also a kind of Samadhi, and spent a week in some kind of beautiful enlightened state before the effects wore off. I tried to reproduce it but past the limits of hypnosis research I looked at Tibetan meditation and then once I had read the book by Bodri and Nan, "Measuring Meditations", boy I was off to the races. Kundalini awakened in a most incredible way. spent 2 weeks in an arm chair with my mouth open as an ethereal "team of dentists" drilled holes in my teeth, setting ethereal clamps, using drills I could feel but not see, keeping my tongue away, making energy channel connections.

[Taomeow]

You can be running parallel to the path for some years without realizing that you are on it. But habits and inclinations are all indicators, so when I try to understand how close someone is to the path I look at their personality and what they like to do. So therefore many of us were always on the path just not realized it because noone with authority spelled it out in a way we could grasp, or we had'nt been able to piece it all together on our own. Yet we continue running parallel.

 

So the story has no beginning except for the purpose of the anecdote. I guess I started in a pretty depressed state, even though I had a free wandering lifestyle, read and followed with ease the philosophy of Tao, even did yoga and Ba Gua. I still was not on the path, just running alongside. Then I had a breakup with my girlfriend, got a skin cancer, business failure, fell in with depressed people and filled my head with endless negativity for a year. In order to get out of that hole I turned to sexual desire and seduction, NLP, self improvement,hypnosis and back to Buddhist books and lectures. I spent a year studying and changing. In my remaking of my emotions and behavior, I dabbled in deep trance hypnosis where I had my first energy experiences and also a kind of Samadhi, and spent a week in some kind of beautiful enlightened state before the effects wore off. I tried to reproduce it but past the limits of hypnosis research I looked at Tibetan meditation and then once I had read the book by Bodri and Nan, "Measuring Meditations", boy I was off to the races. Kundalini awakened in a most incredible way. spent 2 weeks in an arm chair with my mouth open as an ethereal "team of dentists" drilled holes in my teeth, setting ethereal clamps, using drills I could feel but not see, keeping my tongue away, making energy channel connections.

 

 

Dentists put me in a trance every time. I refuse anesthesia except for something that touches the nerve, and if you're not numbed out, there's something about dental interventions that pushes you through the "door of perceptions" -- but alas, my dentist is not ethereal, and won't accept the smoke of a burned dollar for payment. Do you still have the number for yours?

 

Otherworldly states do wear off -- this is normal, because this world is, well, not the other world. Got to be clear about where you are... that's the first requirement of sanity for whoever values it. I am always put off, e.g., by people who wear their ritual clothes for non-ritual occasions (an interview, or a workshop that is not a ritual, or -- worst case scenario -- just everyday life), as much as by those who attempt magic while wearing their casual or business clothes. You've got to know WHO you are in which world... and let others know on a need-to-know basis only.