Interview with Bruce Frantzis

[Jetsun]

It could be that he says you don't necessarily need to know what caused the issue in you because he says many of the blockages we have may come from pre verbal experiences, even in the womb, so they may be too primal to work out with your mind what they are or mean.

 

But just being present to your blockages will bring understanding naturally without any required analysis, what dissolving the energy does is takes away the fuel to the story your mind has made up around the event, so for example if you were on a torture table your mind may have all sorts of beliefs revolving around that experience, like you deserved it, or you didn't deserve it, or you can't recover from it, or your life is ruined, etc etc etc but if you dissolve the energy fuelling these tapes and witness them as beliefs rather than facts then you can see the event of you being on the torture table in a more realistic way, it wont take away your consciousness of what happened it will just make you see what happened more clearly and realistically so you can then move on.

[Taomeow]

It could be that he says you don't necessarily need to know what caused the issue in you because he says many of the blockages we have may come from pre verbal experiences, even in the womb, so they may be too primal to work out with your mind what they are or mean.

From my own experience, not just "many" but 95% of them are from the preverbal time. But meanings are not predicated on words. Preverbal, yes, pre-conscious, no, pre-meaningful, never. At no point are you unconscious until you create an unconscious to stuff consciousness into. This, too, happens at the preverbal stage, but once you have this storage facility installed, everything that consciousness has learned not to accept goes there. The bummer is, it goes there, it doesn't go "elsewhere" or "nowhere." It's still you whether you know it or not.

 

Per my own explorations, that's where you keep 95% of you. Words have little to do with it, but since the 5% of you that you do know is verbal, they have to be included eventually to tie it all together. You don't use them except at the end of the process of feeling-meaning-consciousness -- in strict accordance with the chronology of your actual development, your neocortex came last. What it does is uses words to slap a label on what's already there. Now another bummer. People love slapping labels on mystery black boxes their being is stuffed with without knowing what's in there. AND people love to mistake the labels for the contents of the boxes. If you don't engage in either folly, words are just quick shortcuts like the ones you use to google something up -- you have a label, a key word, and it takes you where whatever you're looking up is stored. (To simplify what I'm talking about a thousandfold, that is. )

[GrandmasterP]

It seems to me the general consensus here is that books on meditation/qigong/internal alchemy etc like BKF's 'relaxing into your being' should be viewed more like car maintenance manuals as opposed to books like Suzuki's 'Zen mind Beginners mind'?

 

ie just like with car maintenance manuals we don't really care about the personality of the author or their attitudes and how they behave etc, the important issue is whether we have a set of techniques which do the job efficiently and safely.

 

What do people think about (seriously) training directly with a teacher in real life? Do our priorities change or is the important issue still developing techniques which 'do the job' when it comes to things like meditation/qigong/internal alchemy?

.............

Good question Reed some students want to be disciples, some want the teacher to play mommy for money, some teachers play up to those needs.

Some of the system sellers seem to be the worst offenders for grooming dependency. It's to their best financial interest to keep the students dangling from their apron strings.

Good teachers promote learner autonomy and I like Dao rain Tao's point that some teachers can sort of transmit learning without actually teaching. That whole satsang-thang works well where and when it works, we were chatting about epiphanies elsewhere earlier on here.

Real learning is what remains when the student has forgotten everything the teacher ever said and discovered their own answers.

Edited January 6, 2013 by GrandmasterP

[Sloppy Zhang]

This is not unique to his system though. It's a pretty everything and everybody deal. But that's where I disagree with everything and everybody... except what went before this particular power structure we're living.

 

It's my personal belief what what you wrote about is, well, an implication of the system.

 

I say it's my belief because no one ever told me (with resepect to his system) that it's what it causes. Rather, it's something I've experienced. And maybe it's because I'm wildly off base and aside from reading and practicing Frantzis' materials, I also have read and practiced other materials. In any case, this is how I see it...

 

Yes, you start with dissolving blockages after the fact. You don't really analyze whe you have that crick in your neck. You just dissolve it. Then the next day you dissolve the same crick in your neck. A week later, you dissolve that again. So you think "okay, here's a spot that I should pay attention to when I dissolve."

 

That's level one. Awareness of something after the fact.

 

But your awareness starts to grow. You start to dissolve earlier and earlier in the process. So maybe you don't notice that crick for two or three weeks. Then two or three days. Suddenly, you start noticing it as it happens.

 

And you realize "hey, when I start slumping like this in my chair, it causes this crick in my neck. Hm. Maybe I should...... not slump so much?" Then the tension goes away. And your posture improves.

 

Then as your awareness expands, you start to see what causes tension BEFORE you get into the act. You look at it. You think about it. You project yourself in that situation and going through what you're going to have to go through and you can already feel the tension mounting. And so you go "nuh uh, No way. Not for me. I'll pass."

 

Tension averted.

 

One tradition, Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics, has you analyze varying situations and place them into the categories of the four elements. It lets you analyze yourself and a situation and see how balanced or unbalanced it is. Which is great. But for me, different situations are going to require a different level or complexity of analysis. Some of them will have intermingling issues (abandonment mixed with personal validation issues mixed with lack of self confidence mixed with the fact that you just hate it when people says "yolo") and some of them will be somewhat straight forward ("ah, this situation is predominated by the fire element. hm.")

 

Frantzis' method (to me) takes the approach of, look, it's going to cause a blockage. It's going to hamper the ability of your energy to flow on one or of several possible levels. If you can release this, great. If you can release it as it's happening to mitigate the problems, better. If you can circumvent the situation in the first place, best. Maybe it comes from too much fire. Maybe it comes from too much water Maybe you just aren't abiding by the principles of "yolo". Maybe... it doesn't much matter?

 

Maybe rather than learning to avoid "bagels" and then doing the process over again to avoid "aggressive people" and then doing the process again to avoid "brainwashing tv programs" you just follow one overarching principle.... "avoid blockages".

 

So you might have a complex situation. Do you analyze complexly, then dissolve complexly? Or do you just dissolve complexly because that's what you have to do anyway, and you can figure out as you go through life and as your awareness expands what intermingly issues are going to cause complex blockages?

 

Or maybe I'm missing something. It might have to do with my overwhelming lack of an in-person master.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Sloppy Zhang

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I think BKF is just being who he is. That is his personality. How could he sincerely go from being a dynamic type person to a quiet and meek invisible person. I'm not saying that he is a Buddha, but we need some personality to survive in the world at times, especially if 100's of thousands of people are trying to learn from us. I don't see a braggart full of childish pride when he talks about his past. I'm sure he doesn't say far more than he does.

 

I think there is something to be said for spiritual teachers smashing expectations of the limits of a cultivated person. Like if people expect to see a meek type person, some might show the opposite just to make them question the fixed-ness of reality and spirituality.

[Jetsun]

From my own experience, not just "many" but 95% of them are from the preverbal time. But meanings are not predicated on words. Preverbal, yes, pre-conscious, no, pre-meaningful, never. At no point are you unconscious until you create an unconscious to stuff consciousness into. This, too, happens at the preverbal stage, but once you have this storage facility installed, everything that consciousness has learned not to accept goes there. The bummer is, it goes there, it doesn't go "elsewhere" or "nowhere." It's still you whether you know it or not.

 

Per my own explorations, that's where you keep 95% of you. Words have little to do with it, but since the 5% of you that you do know is verbal, they have to be included eventually to tie it all together. You don't use them except at the end of the process of feeling-meaning-consciousness -- in strict accordance with the chronology of your actual development, your neocortex came last. What it does is uses words to slap a label on what's already there. Now another bummer. People love slapping labels on mystery black boxes their being is stuffed with without knowing what's in there. AND people love to mistake the labels for the contents of the boxes. If you don't engage in either folly, words are just quick shortcuts like the ones you use to google something up -- you have a label, a key word, and it takes you where whatever you're looking up is stored. (To simplify what I'm talking about a thousandfold, that is. )

 

I haven't heard him talk that much in his books about deeper causal reasons, most of his Water Method material is more focused on trying to give people basic sanity, which I found quite refreshing. I have heard that he has a deeper spiritual teaching which he hasn't made public yet, but I don't know if he will release it except to advanced students.

[Birch]

Finished the Alexandra David Neel book on the secret teachings of Tibetan Bhuddism. She also mentions the Bön/Taoist link. The book gets very interesting towards the end as the teachings progress, they seem to have more to do with Taoism. She also mentions what seem like stopping point belief positions that would be more 'classical bhuddist'.

 

I personally agree that without going through the 'what happened to me' stuff, I've had little real benefits from meditation (and I mention in the OT where I've found the risk of meditation for me personally).

 

 

[mYTHmAKER]

I personally agree that without going through the 'what happened to me' stuff, I've had little real benefits from meditation (and I mention in the OT where I've found the risk of meditation for me personally).

 

There are always - most always - benefits that we are not aware of plus the ones we are aware of

[Gerard]

.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Gerard

[i am]

Good discussion.

 

I think that's my deal. I like his books, he clearly is for real. Would I enjoy a conversation with him? I'm not sure...but that doesn't mean I won't buy his books and practice what he preaches.

[Taomeow]

 

He mentioned at an event that he had gotten into several car accidents. A new age-y kinda person was there and said "that would clear a lot of your karma."

 

He said "it would clear karma, yes, but not necessarily yours." He then hinted at the fact that one of the functions of a Taoist priest (which he was initiated into) involves, in some cases, taking on the karma of others in some cases (for instance, healing). That karma would then have to work itself out in some ways and, well, you never know.

 

An exceedingly important point... all our homespun karma experts should pay attention, and I think it would be beneficial for their own karma to blush and lower their eyes and bite their tongues.

 

Nearly all top level masters get a much greater share of adversities -- health, well-being, all kinds of physical and social trouble -- than an average person living in the same period under similar circumstances. Many deities in the taoist pantheon were martyrs, gods who started out as mere mortals and took on suffering (Jesus is in good company in this respect) of others, knowingly or unknowingly (their higher self knew though...) Edgar Cayce asserted that karma can be not just individual but collectively accumulated by whole countries, whole nations, whole races. In which case every member of this country or nation or race will share in the overall debt. E.g., if your government does atrocious things which you don't do personally but don't do anything to stop either, you accumulate karma. The sins of omission. The crimes of not-doing. Stuff like that. A sage may take on a heavier burden onto herself than her sister who is not as spiritually strong, as morally together, as "equipped" to survive it and grow rather than be shattered.

[Reed]

It's hard to say.

In fact, it seems to me (based on physiognomy) that BKF's personality is much more balanced than Suzuki's. I think that there's a "special way" in which the true teaching can pass through guys who (maybe) don't embody it in its fulness.

Otherwise, we should admit that teachings like those of Milarea have been lost with him, since none today can do what he did.

 

That's interesting on Suzuki. I'm thinking maybe asking if BKF should be taken like a car maintenance manual or something like TTC/ZZ might have been a better question perhaps.

 

I don't know who Milarea is, unfortunately, although I get your point -- all I seemed to get is entries on malaria when I use a search engine lol

 

.............

Good question Reed some students want to be disciples, some want the teacher to play mommy for money, some teachers play up to those needs.

Some of the system sellers seem to be the worst offenders for grooming dependency. It's to their best financial interest to keep the students dangling from their apron strings.

Good teachers promote learner autonomy and I like Dao rain Tao's point that some teachers can sort of transmit learning without actually teaching. That whole satsang-thang works well where and when it works, we were chatting about epiphanies elsewhere earlier on here.

Real learning is what remains when the student has forgotten everything the teacher ever said and discovered their own answers.

 

Thanks for the input. This was also helpful.

 

Good discussion.

 

I think that's my deal. I like his books, he clearly is for real. Would I enjoy a conversation with him? I'm not sure...but that doesn't mean I won't buy his books and practice what he preaches.

 

Yes, this was a very good and helpful discussion in general. The above issue has been weighing on my mind for several months since I made a decision to start practising deeper/more often. I think I've reached your conclusion as well and will look to things like TTC/ZZ instead for more metaphysical and ethical issues etc

[Birch]

There are always - most always - benefits that we are not aware of plus the ones we are aware of

 

That's an interesting thing to say. I'll say the only benefit that I am personally aware of is increased awareness. Very personal that one. No intent here to disagree with you about what anyone is saying has been of personal benefit to themselves. That's something I'm trying to swear off:-)

[dwai]

 

Pretty interesting video, he talks about his life and about Taoism. What do you guys think? he comes across like he has a lot of enthusiasm and looks like he has a lot of power, yet it seems like he has a pretty big ego for someone who practices so much meditation and he is often out of shape. I guess you shouldn't judge Taoists though as they are meant to defy usual conventions.

 

I do like his Water meditation and practice it a fair bit, yet I am not particularly drawn to him as a master or guru, I wonder if that creates a problem as people say that it is good to practice the methods of someone you want to emulate.

 

In one of his books he wrote that the difference between a Daoist teacher and a Guru (in making which distinction I think he is wrong btw, for I see a guru exactly like he describes a daoist teacher) is that a Daoist teacher is like a friend on the way, whereas Guru-hood comes with the burden of being a "mother-father-brother-sister" all rolled into one.

 

So, in that aspect, he posits that a Daoist teacher is really like a friend who has travelled the path before and therefore despite their (teacher's) personal idiosyncrasies, one has to determine whether they are indeed worthy of being one's teacher/friend.

 

We all have friends who have peculiarities (some are egotistical, some are meek, some like limelight, some hide from it, so on) -- so why is it different for someone like BKF?

 

What should matter is, does this guy's path positively influences mine. If it does, great. If not, that's great too...find someone whose path does so and go with it.

 

my 2 cents worth...

[Clarity]

An exceedingly important point... all our homespun karma experts should pay attention, and I think it would be beneficial for their own karma to blush and lower their eyes and bite their tongues.

 

Karma blush, wonderful!

 

Now going out on a limb....

 

I deleted BKFs karmic weakness to being traumatized and traumatizing others. It was weak for him personally, his spiritual experiences, and the descendants (future generations).

 

So even though he recovered from his accident, the weakness was still there, gone now.

 

Edit: persoinally to personally

Edited January 8, 2013 by Clarity

[Taomeow]

He has a very interesting face to analyze, especially when you compare his current pics to the ones from his youth. This is the face of Guan Di -- God of War.

 

[Jetsun]

Karma blush, wonderful!

 

Now going out on a limb....

 

I deleted BKFs karmic weakness to being traumatized and traumatizing others. It was weak for him persoinally, his spiritual experiences, and the descendants (future generations).

 

So even though he recovered from his accident, the weakness was still there, gone now.

 

I don't know much about Karma, but what I have learned mostly though the study of trauma psychology is that when you have the energy of a trauma in your body it is constantly trying to work it's way free, so those people who have had a shock or trauma are more likely to be involved in another one as they try to resolve what is inside of them, so they subconsciously try to recreate the initial event again in order to resolve it. So when I saw that he had been in seven car accidents in seven years I thought it was a classic case of a traumatic imprint trying to resolve itself, but the issue being is that his meditation is designed to defuse such imprints safely without them being played out physically in the world, so something wasn't adding up. Yet like others have said there could be many reasons I am not aware of which can cause such things.

 

Also I guess it is a bit unfair of me to judge his appearance compared to many others like monks because it is obvious that he has had a very full life with many accidents, illnesses and problematic childhood as well as done a lot of fighting and had a lot of women,whereas a monk sits around meditating all the time and is taken care of with little stress or bother, so he is bound to look more rough round the edges despite being as master of things which are meant to perfect your health.

Edited January 8, 2013 by Jetsun

[i am]

As far as "teacher" vs "guru", there is a huge difference...and maybe the taoists don't "do" gurus? The book "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass has a good description, for his system, on the difference between the two. I don't have it on the tip of my toungue right now, but I know it even went so far as to say that a guru didn't even need to be flesh and blood. Teachers show up when you need them, and can be anyone, even someone you hate. But a guru is a whole different deal, and can even be guiding and leading you spiritually without any physical contact or closeness.

[Mandrake]

He has a very interesting face to analyze, especially when you compare his current pics to the ones from his youth. This is the face of Guan Di -- God of War.

 

 

Perfect: This expresses my sentiments much more succinctly than anything I could have written. I have the impression that many people believe - or expect - sages and bodhisattvas to look like Jesus hanging on the cross, or else they are not advanced spiritual beings at all. I suspect that the real case is quite opposite: these beings often do what nobody else does, or wants to do; thus, they are quite able, strong, and often fearsome.

 

Mandrake

[Mandrake]

Consider that you may be applying your limited knowledge to something that is vastly more complex; your rules of thumb may have nothing to do with this case.

 

 

Mandrake

 

I don't know much about Karma, but what I have learned

[Jetsun]

Consider that you may be applying your limited knowledge to something that is vastly more complex; your rules of thumb may have nothing to do with this case.

 

 

Mandrake

 

Already considered

 

.....Yet like others have said there could be many reasons I am not aware of which can cause such things.

[Taomeow]

Great catch, TM!

 

Regarding the face: Somatic imprints are stored in the face. It's interesting to see so many folks work on their body. Yet forget their face. These somatic knots/lines/ruts can also be released quite easily.

What methods do you favor, RW?

[Owledge]

Some free-flowing ideas...

 

What people say "about" him is always filtered through the prism of who they are... There's this episode in the interview where he describes an average student who comes to a master with "Mommy! Mommy!!" as his unconscious expectations... This student will be disappointed by a teacher who won't be that. There's enough "masters" catering to this frustrated infantile quest, Bruce is not one of them, he's going to give real stuff, not serve as a receptacle for projected needs... many people will be uncomfortable with this I'm sure. He is absolutely not "heartless," he just has a better idea than most what "heart" really is and won't fake it to cater to immature hearts' desires...

This, generally speaking and not specifically focused on Frantzis, could also be a justifcation for not making the jump from teacher to healer. Teaching is a mind-thing. Healing works best with the heart. If you are the embodiment of loving kindness, there's no use for lectures and teachings. You can just walk through life and people will heal. BUT that jump requires a certain strength. Of course it is wise not to overextend oneself, but one should not take that as a defense against expansion. Pushing the boundaries is healthy expansion. A teacher who doesn't learn anymore is a bad teacher. Easily one stops learning when going by the motto: "I'm just doing my thing.". Spreading a teaching could be a means for avoiding self-healing, thus one will shy away from other people who require healing. They're asking for something that the teacher himself doesn't have.

[thelerner]

So, he thinks it's about getting off the torture table. I think it's about becoming someone no one and nothing can drag onto the torture table. And Consciousness is the only way toward this goal. It's not about knowing everything about every change an event has caused in every muscle and bone and every brain wave and every qi channel -- this, indeed, is irrelevant. It's about the totality of the event. When you eat a bagel and you have celiac, it does not matter how much you know about immune conflicts and the precise mechanism of destruction of the intestinal lining and the flood of internal painkillers that makes you not know that you're doing damage (or being done damage to) -- but it is crucial to know that you ate a bagel. If you miss out on this one primal piece of the puzzle, the actual what-is-as-is real-life happening, you can spend your life taking antacids, prescription painkillers when you run out of your internal ones, this drug or that to alleviate the symptoms, and for a while all of it will work... and none of it will Work with a capital W. What would work is a capital C -- Consciousness. Of the bagel. You did eat it. And knowing it is the only thing that can stop you from eating it again. (Or someone made you eat it, which is what everybody's childhood is about -- no choices yet, you don't do things you are, you are made to do things you aren't. Knowing they made you eat it gives you a free choice for the first time in your life, gives you back your free will. You can keep eating this bagel, or you can stop. Consciousness is the natural biological mother of free will.)

 

His system does not provide for finding out about the bagel. This is not his fault or his teacher's. This is a cultural taboo. If you use a system that lets you find out that what is doing the damage to you is exactly what's in charge of you, the power not to be challenged under any circumstances, you are going to be a danger to the whole set-up, what the whole civilization is running on. So you circumvent this danger by "not knowing about the bagel." You know enough to repair your own life (at least until the next bagel comes along), but the built-in limitation is, you can't be led where you will know something that would potentially repair all lives. Not just get you off the torture table and make sure you never get dragged onto that table again, but something that can potentially overturn all torture tables for everybody else once and for all. This is not allowed, and the danger of it happening has to be prevented... and therefore Consciousness is bypassed by the process.

 

This is not unique to his system though. It's a pretty everything and everybody deal. But that's where I disagree with everything and everybody... except what went before this particular power structure we're living.

Wow..another TMer for my Best of TaoBums Writings.

[Taomeow]

Why thank you, Thelerner!