Taoist Third Eye Training?

[Friend]

Edited March 29, 2013 by Friend

[silas]

>>Lets say you awaken the 3rd eye - or someone were to do it for you - it will be of little use to you and it may make you go mad if you have not worked on the qualities mentioned above. You cannot "see" from judgement, you cannot "know' from projection, you cannot see "what cannot be", and you cannot see what will make you run from and hide. You will not be able to "be" with a "seeing" - at once you will categorize and in that instant it will be gone.

 

This is an interesting comment. You are saying that if someone is able to open the 3rd eye, what they see will polarize them, will make them "categorize", and so violates the Principle of Equivalance or Non-Distinction.

 

My interpretation of the Principle of Equivalence is that you harm your inborn nature if you use your mind to distinguish and form likes and dislikes. Yet, in the real world, you must know how to avoid that which harms you. In that clip above from the Scorpion King, the scorceress must find the cobras.Therefore, it cannot be your mind that categorizes, but the Tao and your center of mystical Te (your core of self) must guide you instead.

 

Taoist Third Eye, which builds on a foundation of wu-wei, is a connection to Te and Tao to help you navigate the world around you. (See Recognizing The True Form Of Things). Some people may develop 3rd Eye spontaneously, but I am seeking a methodology for helping others develop theirs.

[taijistudent]

Lets say you awaken the 3rd eye - or someone were to do it for you - it will be of little use to you and it may make you go mad

Yes, anything done with intensity can potentially be quite harmful. I have learned to just let things unfold as they might naturally unfold from any practice that one may have. The third-eye can be interesting. Is it mind-boggling? I do not think so. Does it have any great practical value. Again, I don't think so. Is it interesting? Yes, I believe it is. It is something interesting to experience in life. But then again there so are many other activities that one might be involved with and are also very interesting experiences.

 

I believe moderation and gentle unfolding of experiences preserves one's health and permits many new and healthful experiences to continue unfold in one's life.

[taijistudent]

Taoist Third Eye, which builds on a foundation of wu-wei, is a connection to Te and Tao to help you navigate the world around you. (See Recognizing The True Form Of Things). Some people may develop 3rd Eye spontaneously, but I am seeking a methodology for helping others develop theirs.

I believe it is safest and most beneficial for any experiences to unfold in a natural way. I have seen so many people harmed (I am not sure they are even aware of it) by too much intensity in order to obtain a certain desire. But, then again, it is up to each individual to decide for themselves the path they wish to follow and hopefully they are aware of some of the potential experiences they might encounter.

[silas]

>>The third-eye can be interesting. Is it mind-boggling? I do not think so. Does it have any great practical value. Again, I don't think so.

 

Taijistudent, what if 3rd Eye means seeing the cobras as Kelly Hu's scorceress sees them? Surely, that is of practical value.

 

Edited March 7, 2013 by silas

[taijistudent]

Taijistudent, what if 3rd Eye means seeing the cobras as Kelly Hu's scorceress sees them? Surely, that is of practical value.

In my humble opinion, I believe Kelly Hu is very pretty, possibly even beautiful.

[silas]

>>In my humble opinion, I believe Kelly Hu is very pretty, possibly even beautiful.

 

I take that to mean that you now see 3rd Eye as truly beautiful, very practical and very mind boggling.

[Spotless]

This is an interesting comment. You are saying that if someone is able to open the 3rd eye, what they see will polarize them, will make them "categorize", and so violates the Principle of Equivalance or Non-Distinction.

Wow - Silas!

 

Please do not put your mis-interpretations into my mouth:

 

"You are saying that if someone is able to open the 3rd eye, what they see will polarize them, will make them "categorize", and so violates the Principle of Equivalance or Non-Distinction"

 

I said nothing what so ever of the sort.

 

 

 

Wow!

 

 

Please let us know how in the world you came to that conclusion - and please - if you are going to quote me - put it in context.

(do omit prefacing sentences)

 

And Silas - you are looking at ways to teach this - to others?

[林愛偉]

When one "opens" their Third Eye, what they see is what they see, what they conclude to what they see is totally based on their own thinking.

[Spotless]

Their is tremendous practical value in the opening of the 3rd eye.

[silas]

>>and please - if you are going to quote me - put it in context.

(do omit prefacing sentences)

 

I'm dyslexic. Too many sentences confuse me.

 

>>When one "opens" their Third Eye, what they see is what they see, what they conclude to what they see is totally based on their own thinking.

 

I am researching a form of 3rd Eye which can be verified and is reliable enough for military applications. In the clip above from the Scorpion King, that woman is able to sense a cobra in a covered urn. Soldiers with 3rd Eye would all be trained to see a cobra inside the urn. Even if each soldier starts off seeing something different, they would train themselves to see a cobra. If 3rd Eye is real and works, the military would set up all kinds of training and testing to expand and refine the gift.

 

My assumption is that 3rd Eye is real and works. Then what is the curriculum to develop the talent? How do you find people with the nascent talent? Those are some of the questions I am investigating.

[Shagrath]

Then what is the curriculum to develop the talent? How do you find people with the nascent talent? Those are some of the questions I am investigating.

 

silas go to page 2 of this thread and look at 18th post. It has link inside it. that is the best third eye development curriculum that I ever tried and that gave the best results.

 

it doesn't mean it's perfect but it worked for me and many of my friends.

[silas]

>>It has link inside it. that is the best third eye development curriculum that I ever tried and that gave the best results.

 

Illumina, is that a Taoist way?

[Shagrath]

No, it is integrated approach. But does it matter really if it works?

[silas]

>>No, it is integrated approach. But does it matter really if it works?

 

It does, because I am not in the best position to understand a syncretic approach. Plus, I don't find any corroboration to Illumina's methods. Is there anyone else online (or better in a book) who will testify to the efficacy of their method?

Edited March 8, 2013 by silas

[teknix]

Their is tremendous practical value in the opening of the 3rd eye.

 

I agree, but what is the value, iyo? Imo, the rationale that led to the conclusion is as important, if not more important, than the conclusion itself.

Edited March 8, 2013 by teknix

[hydrogen]

I have never experienced pain in that area but pressure and heat yes. I did training in this method http://illumina.co.rs/EN/Mental_vision.html Teacher told me that there are two ways of initiate energetic processes: 1) with your mind and 2) with your consciousness. Majority of approaches rely on mental strength and developed focus and with those visualization you force some process while on the other hand if you initiate some process e.g. development of third eye with your consciousness your third eye development won't be forced, there will be any negative sensations or consequence and because the development with go along your inner development and all the different processes will be harmonized.

 

I guess everyone is different. I'm not good at visualization. And I don't know how to say one prayer for 10 minutes either.

 

The common approaches (candle/nose/star/brow gazing) don't require visiulization. And you get feeback about your process.

 

I like samuel sagan's book.

[Shagrath]

I guess everyone is different. I'm not good at visualization. And I don't know how to say one prayer for 10 minutes either.

 

The common approaches (candle/nose/star/brow gazing) don't require visiulization. And you get feeback about your process.

 

I like samuel sagan's book.

 

Well, this is only one small fragment of entire teaching. I did all those tratak meditations, also I used mantras for third eye and 6th chakra but this approach with whole system gave be best results and it really changed me from inside out

[Spotless]

I agree, but what is the value, iyo? Imo, the rationale that led to the conclusion is as important, if not more important, than the conclusion itself.

 

I spent several years in intensive meditation and yoga - 2-4 hours a day, fasting, vegetarian diet, breathing etc. The very week that I decided to end the practice because I was not "moving beyond", because no real sign posts of higher realms had been attained (though I could stop my thoughts - which my some measure was a miracle) - that very week I attended one last lecture in a group I had been also working with - it was a Gurdjieff / Ouspensky group. During the lecture my 3rd eye opened.

During the same evening I had very clear and verified Telepathy.

 

The 3rd Eye is not just clairvoyance - it is a whole world of things: Knowing starts to occur. Some times you see futures.

In the beginning your mind interrupts or abridges these experiences - ones surprise interrupts them - dis-trust stops you from acting upon them - a whole different world comes into your world slowly for the most part.

 

The following is an example of a practical application that I did not act upon last summer:

 

I was looking for some dried nutritious soups for my 95yr old mother in the soup section of a health food store. My wife and son were off elsewhere in the store. Out of nowhere I saw clearly and vividly my 5yr old son hitting me in the nuts. Normally I would change that future and not cast it off - but it was soooo out of where I was at the time mentally that it slid off me like nothing. Less that a minute later I turned to my right at just the time my son came around the corner and he swung his right arm just perfectly smack dab into my nuts - just about dropped me to the floor in pain and he was in tears!

I could have dissipated the energy in that future and changed the outcome without so much as a millisecond of attention but I was "in the labels" of the various soups and not reading them from my space.

 

This awareness of where you are in your space is also something that comes with the 3rd eye - you become very aware of when you are in it - and so - you become very aware of when you are not. This is also a phenomenally practical side effect if you are trying to awaken.

 

 

I have saved my life several times seeing a future that I have altered - it can also save on speeding tickets. But this is just the small stuff. Knowing also takes place - it is hard to explain what all comes with it - just as it is with Seeing. This is not "the big" prize but the 3rd eye is way beyond most attainments. Again, what you have attained with regard to mental control is the big throttle on this - you will receive almost nothing from this unless you have fairly strong neutrality and the ability to withhold thought or at least judgement. (actually it is hard to receive "almost nothing" from this but huge chunks become more available with experience and control)

 

Because of this 3rd Eye, your worlds will fall apart - one after another. You will come to know that you do indeed know nothing.

I think this can be considered as truly practical if one is seeking to pull aside the veil. It makes your world very different than it is for others - you are not in their world any longer and you cannot really share it with anyone because it is unfolding constantly. During the 70s in the USA it means you just left most if not all of your teachers in the dust.

 

 

.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Spotless

[tumoessence]

When one "opens" their Third Eye, what they see is what they see, what they conclude to what they see is totally based on their own thinking.

I wold think this kind of opening would be very low level. I would say that the thinking capacity has not been transformed.

 

Higher levels would approach the kind of knowing that Spotless mentions. A knowing that not only knows the depths of the object or subject, and its true being but knows its connection to greater wholes. Its place in the scheme of things so to speak. I think it was this kind of ability that allowed the ancients to know about the health and healing attributes of substances in nature, to know how to build the architectural wonders of the ancient world etc.

A healthy development of the third eye in my practice has to do with consciously creating imaginations for each of the five senses, sustaining them for 5 minutes without interruption. Sustained practice of inner stillness, and purifying the character as expressed in the temperaments or elemental balance. And I start my Taiji and or qi gong from the Niwan the center of the head, just brushing through it recognizing stillness there, then to focus energy in the tan tien.

[Spotless]

 

A healthy development of the third eye in my practice has to do with consciously creating imaginations for each of the five senses, sustaining them for 5 minutes without interruption. Sustained practice of inner stillness, and purifying the character as expressed in the temperaments or elemental balance. And I start my Taiji and or qi gong from the Niwan the center of the head, just brushing through it recognizing stillness there, then to focus energy in the tan tien.

 

""A healthy development of the third eye in my practice has to do with consciously creating imaginations for each of the five senses, sustaining them for 5 minutes without interruption. Sustained practice of inner stillness, and purifying the character as expressed in the temperaments or elemental balance.""

 

Is this a Tibetan discipline or?

 

"" And I start my Taiji and or qi gong from the Niwan the center of the head, just brushing through it recognizing stillness there, then to focus energy in the tan tien.""

 

I do the same

[林愛偉]

I wold think this kind of opening would be very low level. I would say that the thinking capacity has not been transformed.

 

Higher levels would approach the kind of knowing that Spotless mentions. A knowing that not only knows the depths of the object or subject, and its true being but knows its connection to greater wholes. Its place in the scheme of things so to speak. I think it was this kind of ability that allowed the ancients to know about the health and healing attributes of substances in nature, to know how to build the architectural wonders of the ancient world etc.

A healthy development of the third eye in my practice has to do with consciously creating imaginations for each of the five senses, sustaining them for 5 minutes without interruption. Sustained practice of inner stillness, and purifying the character as expressed in the temperaments or elemental balance. And I start my Taiji and or qi gong from the Niwan the center of the head, just brushing through it recognizing stillness there, then to focus energy in the tan tien.

 

Your practice sounds good.

 

As for your comment on my statement as a low level ... Not at all. Before a person decides they want to stimulate, activate "open" their third eye, training is required before hand. This training should be in line with the experience and proper teaching that will guide the practitioner to not attach to states, not "assume" they know what they see, and to not create more ideas of a self.

 

Opening the third eye just because it seems interesting will allow the cultivator to either not see/feel anything at all, and or see and feel things they are not prepared to recognize...as something true or something false.

 

Wisdom teachings are necessary to help the cultivator understand what's real and what isn't. Not the "real" in terms of what is based on the conscious mind.

 

Opening the third eye doesn't mean one attained any state of enlightenment, nor does it mean they have the slightest bit of wisdom.

 

Hence, what they see is what they see, what they conclude to what they see is totally based on their own thinking...If they have a bit of wisdom, then they wouldn't conclude what they see and feel to their own thinking (false thinking).

 

For example: (only an example don't think its true) I may see one of the Dragon Kings, and may have a conversation with him, but that doesn't mean that he is the end all be all of wisdom, powers and it doesn't mean his state if the greatest.

 

I have met some who meet beings along their path, and simply cling to them due to lack of wisdom. Some feel things, or experience states that when they come out of the state, spread the news of their "accomplishments" and make themselves out to be some sage, when in fact, they haven't even come close to spelling it. Its all due to lack of wisdom, lack of proper guidance.

 

Maybe I should have elaborated on my post previously.

 

All in all, things are as they are, what we assume them to be is illusory.

Edited March 10, 2013 by 林愛偉

[寒月 Hanyue]

There have been lots of interesting things posted in this thread. However, the thread is called;

 

Taoist Third Eye Training?

 

And the question was;

 

"The few sources I've read speak of Buddhist 3rd eye. What is the Taoist equivalent?"

 

And most of the discussion has drifted off this topic.

 

Silas, I get that you are interested and intriqued. You sound very young, maybe I'm wrong, but you come across that way. Your ideas and conceptions of these things are a little naive, i'm afraid to say, but I want to be honest with you.

 

If you go to an decent conditioning coach and say, I've seen this guy, he had THE thickest wrists and sickest forearm strength I've ever seen!, Can you give me that?

 

Well, it isn't that you can't ignore everything else and simply work the forearms, but generally the question is going to be, what for? And overall you have to accept that for anything to be "functional", ie 'real-world' strength. You HAVE to also condition what the forearms are attached to! So, the coach is probably going to start by teaching you a solid foundation, and get out the old basics of proper lifting that teach whole body co-ordination, strength and power.

 

And at first you might be thinking, "well, shit! I wanted to develop my forearms like that guy I saw, and this coach, he's got me training squats, and deadlifts and what not....maybe I should find another coach!". But something says stay, and so you do. And you begin to forget about the forearms and concentrate on your form in your lifting. As your form gets better, you find your coach loading up more plates on you. Then one day he brings out the thick axle bar, and something inside you clicks. You realise that your forearm strength has grown immensely since that first day, and you hadn't even noticed! That the power to contract those muscles and to put it into an explosive clean and jerk, has done more for you than your attempts to play with sledghammer training after reading a book on it. As you train with the axle bar, you simply know those forearms are going to get even stronger....

 

This is what is called 'natural' training, rather than 'intentional' learning. Daoism generally favours 'natural' learning. Yes there is doing, wuwei does NOT mean you do not do anything. But the fruits of your labour are not the goal, in fact often the fruits are not in mind at all. They are simply the side effect and natural result of doing the "gong" (work).

.

There is a simple model of three important aspects in learning theory;

1. Our “inherited capacity”, or what we’ve been given.
2. What we learn “naturally” through what we do.
3. What we “intentionally” or “deliberately” learn through specific things.

Unfortunately, all too often the teaching model of an art/system is put before the individuals who are actually doing the learning. Quite often teaching models only focus on number three, and rarely take either number two or number one into consideration.

 

So, as my teacher would say "YOUR natural gifts, are YOUR natural gifts", and the process of cultivation is meant to bring out YOUR gifts, whatever they are. Yes you can always manipulate things to some degree, but some guys genetically are just going to have better wrist and forearm strength than others!! Make sense?

 

So are there "Daoist excerises for the "3rd eye"?" Well, yes in some systems. But they are icing on the cake at best, they are done on top of the foundational training as that has progressed. And in some cases only if those natural gifts are emerging in the individual. In fact the same in Buddhism.

 

“The exotic exercises than many beings are so anxious to get into are really meant to be a capstone, to be placed on a background of established awareness. They are not a starting point but a tool with which to probe more deeply into the nature of mind.” Namgyal Rinpoche

 

This is what makes such things in military circles so hard (there have and are both 'natural' and 'deliberate' trainings in the military related to this already by the way). But in all fairness, the development of such things in martial lineages is far far different to anything I have seen posted in this thread! And yes it is very real. I have however seen far more Westerners try to shortcut this martial training process and supplement themselves with 'esoteric' practices, and you know what? Well most of them only ended up deluding themselves, some gained something. But it was NOT, and was no where near the level of integrated skill found in the people who simply ate bitter and trained. But then, those that got that far where few and far between to say the least. Nearly all high level martial art, Chinese or Japanese, or Fillipino or whatever, operates from the level of a combatively functioning "3rd eye", whether they developed that intentionally or knowingly or not! But I doubt it would appear that way depending on just what your ideas of a functioning 3rd eye is based on.

 

You want 3rd eye the Daoist way? Learn a decent neigong system (easier said than done, but still). Then work.

 

I apologise if this is not the answer you want to hear, but then honesty often isn't. And I'm sure others have and hold onto a different truth which is fine.

 

All the best,

Edited March 10, 2013 by snowmonki

[taijistudent]

You want 3rd eye the Daoist way? Learn a decent neigong system (easier said than done, but still). Then work.

I would agree. One does not can cannot train for any experiences. They come when they come if they come.

 

What one can do is quietly practice healthful exercises and live well and observe what happens. Practice for your health and over all well being, don't expect much more than a healthy body, and what comes will come. One never knows.

[RiverSnake]

From what people have said it seems like there are various "parts" of the 3rd eye. The most common known being the surface part or mid-brow. A part of my personal practice is meditating on glyphs and I have noticed that meditation on symbols seems to stimulate this area and causing stirring in the midbrow. I was curious if anyone knows what the role of that aspect of the 3rd eye is?

 

My 2 cents, Peace

Edited March 15, 2013 by OldGreen