Looking for Proof of advanced taoist master's abilities

[QiDr]

Qi Gong is the most researched medical practice in Asia for the last forty years. Most of the research has been published in the Chinese and japanese languages.

 

Having said that, "the Tao that can be known is not the true Tao".

[DentyDao]

Tsa,

You seem to be such a sincere young man who has boldly made a very natural-seeming flow towards Mr. Denty's Candy-apple stand.

 

Tsa, Don't listen to this crap. I want nothing but to share here. He has never practiced anything real in his life and spends his time socializing in the New York culture of art and poetry; I think he should stick to what he knows best instead of constantly attacking my so called 'claims.' What claims? Why doesn't he just present his practice that he thinks is so wonderful if he wants to add to the discussion? Because he doesn't have one.

 

Look at Wayfarer's comments. He assumes you are this young, innocent 'lad' who's just finding your way. Give me a break. And now what? he's going to swoop down and set you straight?

 

I didn't get the immpression that you were 'flowing' toward anything, least of all me!

 

There is more than one path to immortality. Those who seek power over other's spirit will deprive you of yours to maintain their own.

 

Wayfarer the fake Taoist has convinced himself that I am trying to 'seek power over other's spirit.' He really believes that I'm out to brain wash people and manipulate them over the internet. The guy is lost in a world of books and and self pity.

 

There are plenty of great practices and 'ways' being presented on this forum. Mine isn't any better or worse, it's just different and it's not for everybody. By the way I would recommend Dzogchen if anybody's asking. I'm hardly 'pitching' that. And, I'm not interested in attracking any followers.

 

Peace, Sean

Edited January 24, 2007 by seandenty

[DentyDao]

As Wayfarer64 has implied, and I repeat... These "special powers" are not the endgame of Eastern philosophies. In Zen they are looked at as a distracting side effect not to be reveled in. Real practice is getting yourself on a meditation mat day in and day out.

 

I don`t think anyone is saying that. Just that powers can (do) appear with practice. They are just signs of practice, called nyams (if I remember right) in Tibetan. Which are a positive sign, as it means that practice is working. Of course, one should get attached to them, since they can then become an obstacle on the path.

In any case, attachment is a bitch, people seem to be focusing on attachments to superpowers, while at the same time they have hundreds of their own attachments to other things. Attachment is attachment, whether it be to superpowers, to women, to hamburgers, or to something else. No difference.

 

Exactly.

Edited January 24, 2007 by seandenty

[freeform]

Unfortunately most of the 'superpowers' are much simpler and subtler than moving an object with your mind... Trying to move something with your mind is like taking something subtle and putting it in the 'real world' of newtonian physics...

 

Take 'dark matter'... it seems like something extraordinary - read up on it if interested... moving an object with the mind is like trying to play golf with dark matter... these are two different worlds... and they dont interconnect easily. I know there have been claims of all kinds of things here - setting things alight, floating in the air, disappearing - whatever... but there are many far simpler 'superpowers' that could and should be tested... for example the effect of chi-based intervention on human muscles... or the effect of directed attention on balance... something that I've seen repeated hundreds of times and I have little doubt about its validity.

 

There is still a problem testing these things, because it involves the one thing we cant really have a 'standard' control for... and that's the human... If you have overly tight restrictions on an experiment (the way that Randi seems to) then you can't test for something that operates on such a subtle level... If they got Randi to test a lot of the medicines that we use, most of them would be proven ineffective by him - because they only have to be a little more effective than placebo to be brought into maintsream use.

 

If, as someone suggested, randi was to test quantum mechanics based assumptions, again they would all be proven wrong - and same goes if he tested the mental effect of some psychological procedure... Humans, the mind/body, and quantum mechanics are all subtle... they are all affected by the simple act of observation or conciousness... Light can be proven to be made of discreet particles... but it can also be proven to be made of waves... these two theories are incompatible... in the logic of ordinary science they cannot both be true it's eaither waves or particles... but we have tvs that work by using photons (discreet particles) and microchips that work through waves...

 

Science is a fantastic tool that allows us to make a model/map of some effect in the universe and then repeat it... It's not "the truth" - it's a tool... it's like trying to measure the 'niceness' of a day - is the barometer more true than the thermometer? obviously not - they're both tools that map some effect in the world in such a way that we can communicate accurately... If you want proof that the world is much stranger than it appears just read up on the current research being done by advanced physicists (astrophysics, QM etc).

[DentyDao]

I think the best advice is to do your practice and make your own investigation. It would be nice if science looked at spirituality with more interest, but that's something that we are a long way from delving into in terms of the whole world culture becoming more spiritual and introspective.

 

For me personally, these truths, whether subtle or 'overt,' are so clearly real that I feel it's, like gravity naturally 'attracks,' very inevitable that science will naturally discover all of these things over time. It's an evolutionary process that's probably constantly being played out thoughout the universe in countless worlds. You should read Paramahasa Yogananda's epic auto biography. No one can read that book without becoming a believer in what I'm talking about.

 

If you look long enough, eventually all the little pieces of the puzzle come together and become undeniable. People who are always doubting and saying powers and power in general are irrelivant are just in fear that maybe their practice lacks something because it has not reached this level yet. That's not to say that powers are the most important thing, but they are a reality and they are the signposts of spiritual progress; this is true whether we are talking about the wisdom power of Buddhism, or any other tradition, that transends all phenomena (meaning the physical world and all objects and the idea that they are real and inherently exist) or the reletive truth of the physical world that we operate in, in our current incarnation.

 

S

 

The truth is always sexy.

Edited January 24, 2007 by seandenty

[tsa]

[DentyDao]

Again, I am not talking about anything like chi or auras or internal powers. I'm talking about things that can be tested scientifically. These things include: electric shocks, lighting things on fire, flying, invisibility, etc. You don't have to be a believer, or a non-believer, to test these things scientifically for proof of existence. I don't really care how the masters do it; I just want to see the cause and effect where the cause seems to come from some internal power.

 

Why are you interested in this?

[tsa]

Why are you interested in this?

 

Because I am searching for Truth and I would like to aid others in this search in one of two ways: 1) by verifying with scientific proof that these powers are real, then it breaks down the barriers for all people to see that these powers are legitimate and can/should be cultivated for the betterment of mankind, or 2) exposing charlatans for what they are, therefore, not allowing them to mislead vulnerable practitioners down a path that will hinder their development.

 

Don't you think these things are important? What would be the harm of verifying these claims scientifically? Is this something to be feared? If you have experiance with these powers, then please share.

 

Anybody can jump in here with comments.

[DentyDao]

Because I am searching for Truth and I would like to aid others in this search in one of two ways: 1) by verifying with scientific proof that these powers are real, then it breaks down the barriers for all people to see that these powers are legitimate and can/should be cultivated for the betterment of mankind, or 2) exposing charlatans for what they are, therefore, not allowing them to mislead vulnerable practitioners down a path that will hinder their development.

 

Don't you think these things are important? What would be the harm of verifying these claims scientifically? Is this something to be feared? If you have experiance with these powers, then please share.

 

Anybody can jump in here with comments.

 

I've been thinking about this a lot latetly. I think you should concern yourself with 'you' first before you devote your life to debunking others. I think this is the mistake people like Randi and his friends are making. Just a thought.

[Lozen]

Science isn't the be-all and end-all of Truth.

 

Sometimes you need to throw away the books.

[tsa]

I've been thinking about this a lot latetly. I think you should concern yourself with 'you' first before you devote your life to debunking others. I think this is the mistake people like Randi and his friends are making. Just a thought.

 

 

I believe the two endeavors are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe they are completely intertwinded.

[DentyDao]

I believe the two endeavors are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe they are completely intertwinded.

[tsa]

Science isn't the be-all and end-all of Truth.

 

Sometimes you need to throw away the books.

Science does not claim to be. The process of postulation, testing and revision is built into the scientific method. Has science observed and explained every possible phenomenon? No. But I'm not talking about stuff that can't be measured. I'm talking about cold hard proof of some of these supernatural powers. I'm 100% certain that science can come up with a way to satisfy any skeptic to show that some of these events have either occurred or not, such as fire, flying, etc. - see previous posts.

 

Which books would you have me throw out? I'm pretty happy with what science has given us. Modern medicine, though not perfect, is pretty darn good. Modern transportation has allowed for the free flow of thoughts and ideas on a global scale. And I need not mention the wonders of the internet (though I just did).

[Wayfarer64]

Tsa

 

I for one thank you for this thread. More thought along these lines is needed in all these issues. Faith is real for many, encluding myself, each to various degrees no doubt. But that use of "no doubt" should not be used to discribe many of our levels of having faith in reason or reasons to hold faith. For many we have varying degrees of doubt, and science is needed to help us keep faith in both our reasoning and our beliefs. This is a bit convoluted perhaps but in essence it means being reasonable may be enough for some but not others.

 

Scientific proofs go beyond reason into what is the actual nature of our "reality" or maybe the reality of nature may be a more apt way to put this. Basic Quantum 101 seems to back the idea of reality as idea, so the door to these powers seems at least to open into the possible already. My own qigong practices have shown me things that I would have found unreasonable before.

 

I do not doubt some of the phenomina discribed here just because those who claim knowledge of it are just not credible. Others have discribed phenomina that I have doubts about -but they have the credibility.

 

It may be a matter of time and funding. I bet a college course is already available to address some of these issues.

 

Lets try an experiment:

Everyone on TAOBums pray for me to win the lottery. When I win I will fund a university study to investigate many such para-normal phenomina. With my having won said lottery, as tacit proof that the study should be taken up!

[DentyDao]

I do not doubt some of the phenomina discribed here just because those who claim knowledge of it are just not credible.

 

 

Thankfully, no one else cares what you think a this point. As, for the rest of your post, at least you're finally starting to get it.

[tsa]

Thankfully, no one else cares what you think a this point. As, for the rest of your post, at least you're finally starting to get it.

Was that aimed at me or Wayfarer64, whom you quoted?

[DentyDao]

Was that aimed at me or Wayfarer64, whom you quoted?

 

Wayferer, The guy has made a project out of hating me. All I'm saying is that no ones cares what he thinks of me, they just want to have a decent discussion even if others don't take them as seriously as they would like to be taken.

 

I think your doing great.

[Wayfarer64]

Wayferer, The guy has made a project out of hating me. All I'm saying is that no ones cares what he thinks of me, they just want to have a decent discussion even if others don't take them as seriously as they would like to be taken.

 

I think your doing great.

 

Denty, as this seems to have been written before your capitulation I will let it go.-for the most part.

But rest assured no heated emotions were ever raised on my part much less hate. This has always been about philosophy for me not personality. The dispute of yr supposed superior grasp of Taoist thought - than anyone else's here, has a long and very funny history. It started long before I got here. I assume it will last as long as your mind-set does.

 

Tsa-

Just to catch you up-

I do not believe he understands what he thinks he knows. He has yet to show me anything I can believe. My mind is open to all here, but Denty has failed to communicate civily or well much of the time. That he presumes to speak for everybody here belies the fact that I have received some few emails thanking me for taking him down a few pegs. And yes more than a few have him in the ignore user list.

 

there has been a public effort to try the "Pax Lozen" for a while. (The rift between Denty and myself has gotten heated and public at times). Rest assured every time I see BS I shall call it BS. Past present and future...

 

But there will be little if any emotion to this stuff, for me. I've only been using the internet for a couple of years and still do not concider it as "real" as the great wide world where my life takes place...

[tsa]

Wayferer, The guy has made a project out of hating me. All I'm saying is that no ones cares what he thinks of me, they just want to have a decent discussion even if others don't take them as seriously as they would like to be taken.

 

I think your doing great.

I could care less about your personal squabbles. Keep it out of my thread. These comments only succeed in deluding the conversation, which is believe the purpose of these forums is to counteract.

Edited January 25, 2007 by tsa

[Wayfarer64]

Tsa,

 

I offer an apology to you for my part in bringing this silly distraction here. I should not let my amusements interupt any serious discourse. Again your presence here is much needed.- Pat

[thelerner]

Tsa this might be a side track but it does have to do with extraordinary claims and collective psi power..

 

This would be so easy to do, but I haven't done it yet. In Emotos books one water, where smiling makes for nice crystals, bad words make for ugly water crystals. We don't have the expertise or the microscope for that one.

 

He has another experiment with cooked white rice. One jar is labeled love beauty smile, the other is labeled ugly nasty bad. Both are filled with fresh cooked rice, both are sealed and left out. The rice in the 'nice' jar smells is not rotted and smells sweet and yeasty after 2 weeks. The 'bad' jar rice is green and rotted.

 

When I googled the experiment a year or so ago I expected to see people posting there own rice results. I didn't find any. If it actually works and isn't a matter of not cleaning one jar properly, then its pretty conclusive evidence of mind over matter.

 

Next time I cook rice I'll throw some in a two freshly cleaned jars. Anyone care to join me. I'll snap a picture or two first. Hmnn have to buy jars...

 

Michael

[Lozen]

Next time I cook rice I'll throw some in a two freshly cleaned jars. Anyone care to join me. I'll snap a picture or two first. Hmnn have to buy jars...

 

I volunteered to do this a year ago, but then I chickened out because I did not wish to be mean to the rice. Watch out for that bad rice karma, you guys!

[tsa]

Tsa this might be a side track but it does have to do with extraordinary claims and collective psi power..

 

This would be so easy to do, but I haven't done it yet. In Emotos books one water, where smiling makes for nice crystals, bad words make for ugly water crystals. We don't have the expertise or the microscope for that one.

 

He has another experiment with cooked white rice. One jar is labeled love beauty smile, the other is labeled ugly nasty bad. Both are filled with fresh cooked rice, both are sealed and left out. The rice in the 'nice' jar smells is not rotted and smells sweet and yeasty after 2 weeks. The 'bad' jar rice is green and rotted.

 

When I googled the experiment a year or so ago I expected to see people posting there own rice results. I didn't find any. If it actually works and isn't a matter of not cleaning one jar properly, then its pretty conclusive evidence of mind over matter.

 

Next time I cook rice I'll throw some in a two freshly cleaned jars. Anyone care to join me. I'll snap a picture or two first. Hmnn have to buy jars...

 

Michael

Thank Michael. This is a perfect example of the type of thing I'm looking for, something that is testable. Now to test it correctly, you would need to cook as much spare rice as possible in the same container, sterilize your jars, have more then one set of jars for the good and bad rice and keep them under the exact same conditions. You should also have a 3rd party judge who has no knowledge of the experiment. See if they can identify the good rice when presented in a number of random, unlabeled containers. The bigger the number of tests and number of judges, the better. And you should record the entire process. I would be super interested in your results.

 

Of course you might not want to do all this, so I guess you can just try the test yourself and see what you think.

 

This example illustrates well the type of thing I'm thinking of, though I would really like to apply these same reasonable tests to a person who claims they can do something supernatural.

[Jonah]

We need more studies like this:

 

( Original article --

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html )

 

Meditation changes temperatures:

Mind controls body in extreme experiments

By William J. Cromie

Gazette Staff

 

In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering.

 

If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour.

 

Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours.

 

Why would anyone do this? Herbert Benson, who has been studying g Tum-mo for 20 years, answers that "Buddhists feel the reality we live in is not the ultimate one. There's another reality we can tap into that's unaffected by our emotions, by our everyday world. Buddhists believe this state of mind can be achieved by doing good for others and by meditation. The heat they generate during the process is just a by-product of g Tum-mo meditation."

 

Benson is an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He firmly believes that studying advanced forms of meditation "can uncover capacities that will help us to better treat stress-related illnesses."

 

Benson developed the "relaxation response," which he describes as "a physiological state opposite to stress." It is characterized by decreases in metabolism, breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. He and others have amassed evidence that it can help those suffering from illnesses caused or exacerbated by stress. Benson and colleagues use it to treat anxiety, mild and moderate depression, high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities, excessive anger, insomnia, and even infertility. His team also uses this type of simple meditation to calm those who have been traumatized by the deaths of others, or by diagnoses of cancer or other painful, life-threatening illnesses.

 

"More than 60 percent of visits to physicians in the United States are due to stress-related problems, most of which are poorly treated by drugs, surgery, or other medical procedures," Benson maintains.

 

The Mind/Body Medical Institute is now training people to use the relaxation response to help people working at Ground Zero in New York City, where two airplanes toppled the World Trade Center Towers last Sept. 11. Facilities have been set up at nearby St. Paul's Chapel to aid people still working on clearing wreckage and bodies. Anyone else who feels stressed by those terrible events can also obtain help at the chapel. "We are training the trainers who work there," Benson says.

 

The relaxation response involves repeating a word, sound, phrase, or short prayer while disregarding intrusive thoughts. "If such an easy-to-master practice can bring about the remarkable changes we observe," Benson notes. "I want to investigate what advanced forms of meditation can do to help the mind control physical processes once thought to be uncontrollable."

 

Breathtaking results

 

Some Westerners practice g Tum-mo, but it often takes years to reach states like those achieved by Buddhist monks. In trying to find groups he could study, Benson met Westerners who claimed to have mastered such advanced techniques, but who were, in his words, "fraudulent."

 

Benson decided that he needed to locate a religious setting, where advanced mediation is traditionally practiced. His opportunity came in 1979 when the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, visited Harvard University. "His Holiness agreed to help me," recalls Benson. That visit was the beginning of a long friendship and several expeditions to northern India where many Tibetan monks live in exile.

 

During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat.

 

The researchers also made measurements on practitioners of other forms of advanced meditation in Sikkim, India. They were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. "It was an astounding, breathtaking [no pun intended] result," Benson exclaims.

 

To put that decrease in perspective, metabolism, or oxygen consumption, drops only 10-15 percent in sleep and about 17 percent during simple meditation. Benson believes that such a capability could be useful for space travel. Travelers might use meditation to ease stress and oxygen consumption on long flights to other planets.

 

In 1985, the meditation team made a video of monks drying cold, wet sheets with body heat. They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering. They slept until dawn then walked back to their monastery.

 

Overcoming obstacles

 

Working in isolated monasteries in the foothills of the Himalayas proved extremely difficult. Some religious leaders keep their meditative procedures a closely guarded secret. Medical measuring devices require electrical power and wall outlets are not always available. In addition, trying to meditate while strangers attempt to measure your rectal temperature is not something most monks are happy to do.

 

To avoid these problems, Instructor in Psychology Sara Lazar, a Benson colleague, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of meditators at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The subjects were males, aged 22-45, who had practiced a form of advanced mediation called Kundalini daily for at least four years. In these experiments, the obstacles of cold and isolation were replaced by the difficulties of trying to meditate in a cramped, noisy machine. However, the results, published in the May 15, 2000, issue of the journal NeuroReport, turned out to be significant.

 

"Lazar found a marked decrease in blood flow to the entire brain," Benson explains. "At the same time, certain areas of the brain became more active, specifically those that control attention and autonomic functions like blood pressure and metabolism. In short, she showed the value of using this method to record changes in the brain's activity during meditation."

 

The biggest obstruction in further studies, whether in India or Boston, has always been money. Research proceeded slowly and intermittently until February 2001, when Benson's team received a $1.25 million grant from Loel Guinness, via the beer magnate's Kalpa Foundation, established to study extraordinary human capacities.

 

The funds enabled researchers to bring three monks experienced in g Tum-mo to a Guinness estate in Normandy, France, last July. The monks then practiced for 100 days to reach their full meditative capacity. An eye infection sidelined one of the monks, but the other two proved able to dry frigid, wet sheets while wearing sensors that recorded changes in heat production and metabolism.

 

Although the team obtained valuable data, Benson concludes that "the room was not cold enough to do the tests properly." His team will try again this coming winter with six monks. They will start practice in late summer and should be ready during the coldest part of winter.

 

Benson feels sure these attempts to understand advanced mediation will lead to better treatments for stress-related illnesses. "My hope," he says, "is that self-care will stand equal with medical drugs, surgery, and other therapies that are now used to alleviate mental and physical suffering. Along with nutrition and exercise, mind/body approaches can be part of self-care practices that could save millions of dollars annually in medical costs."

 

Meditation... Here the heart/May give a useful lesson to the head. - Cowper

[tsa]

Good article! Thanks for sharing.

 

I have seen a show about this on TV and have read a few things. I have no doubt that this is entirely legitimate and explainable by science. My belief is that this is not under the realm of the supernatural, but rather the scientific process at work investigating the mind body relationship. I do believe it is more proof of the many benefits of meditation.

 

Also check out some of the experiments done by Richard Davidson of University of Wisconsin - Madison:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Davidson

Edited January 25, 2007 by tsa