Why on earth would one practice more than one system?

[Enishi]

There's infinitely many ways "civilized" people are "creatively" discombobulated from the get-go, so when they just express themselves freely, they have absolutely nothing to express other than shades and flavors and degrees of this discombobulated state. One can engage in this neurotic behavior and believe oneself a free spirit, an artist, a part of nature (duh... raised by the TV and video games, nature's native son...). Or one can get lucky and stumble across a system that will start undoing the damage and unfolding the true potentials of natural normalcy. But to get this lucky, one must first get humble and understand that the source of much of his or her self-expression is ignorance of an extreme kind, all-encompassing, body, mind, spirit. Without such realization people tend to instinctively avoid systems that can potentially threaten their inflated self-image by sticking their noses smack into their glaring incompetence in pretty much everything that a "human being" is about.

 

I've had similar thoughts come to mind when witnessing the extreme interests many of my friends have in tattoos and piercings. I also find myself asking more and more whether my own creative work in writing would actually be edifying or mentally expanding to future prospective readers. "Creativity" is always very thereaputic in my experience but not necessarily "useful".

Edited January 17, 2014 by Enishi

[Mal]

~~~~~~~ moderator warning ~~~~~~~~~

 

skydog,

This post is clearly insulting

http://thetaobums.com/topic/33355-why-on-earth-would-one-practice-more-than-one-system/?p=515651

Please edit it.

 

~~~~~~~ moderator warning ~~~~~~~~~

[Mal]

Thank you

[Everything]

If you practice 1, there's really no failing. IT eventually becomes boring, since all that you do is good. I don't know, it's a pretty fun practice, but sometimes also painful. 1 does not care if you have pain or fun or if you're bored. It's all 1.

 

However, if you practice 1 and 2, now it's more interesting. You basicly cut your practice in two and even if you choose one of the two, the other still remains there to be avoided. It is also fun to avoid something succesfully as it is fun to hold on to something succesfully. Why not combine the two and do both at the same time? It's the same as 1 practice, only you cut the 1 in two 1 and 2 and now you got two practices integrated into one holistic practice of 1!

[Friend]

Another thing is one one have the choice to exercise many things.

If one has a plate of foods one has the choice to take what one wants.

If there is no choice one takes what one can gets

 

In old times the teachings are guarded and so one get only to know as

much as the teacher wants and one keep the knowledge guarded against other schools.

Using and exercising teachings of others "can" be used to expell a student when the teacher

is strict in thise manner also this counts if one learns from the older students which both get

punished... except one learns it correctly and it increase the growth and the student is else

is faring well with.

 

Else if one is rich one can afford to learn from many teachers but well traveling was more expensive

and troublesome and timeconsuming.

And so some let people just stand Horsestance, Santi, sit there still for some hours and naturally filter out the students

for the art and hitting while shouting "You need stronger foundation! If your are bored - leave"

Actually the teachers at times go around for scouting and one can expect when they choose they want see growth and invest

time to observe the growth.

[thamosh]

Another thing is one one have the choice to exercise many things.

If one has a plate of foods one has the choice to take what one wants.

If there is no choice one takes what one can gets

 

In old times the teachings are guarded and so one get only to know as

much as the teacher wants and one keep the knowledge guarded against other schools.

Using and exercising teachings of others "can" be used to expell a student when the teacher

is strict in thise manner also this counts if one learns from the older students which both get

punished... except one learns it correctly and it increase the growth and the student is else

is faring well with.

 

Else if one is rich one can afford to learn from many teachers but well traveling was more expensive

and troublesome and timeconsuming.

And so some let people just stand Horsestance, Santi, sit there still for some hours and naturally filter out the students

for the art and hitting while shouting "You need stronger foundation! If your are bored - leave"

Actually the teachers at times go around for scouting and one can expect when they choose they want see growth and invest

time to observe the growth.

 

 

Yes I understand this.

 

When I first asked my teacher about learning his neidan he said no infact he said no to me twice. Then he said yes and then after that changed his mind and tried to offer me some other training he had.

 

Then one day out of the blue he said yes.

 

When I first came across my teacher after speaking with him I kept seeing his face in my head like he was checking me out.

 

For that whole first year anything sifu needed I did any extra cash I had went to sifu I lived like a bum no hair cuts and all of that stuff.

 

Sometimes its worth the sacrifice.

 

I still have my hat from when I lived liked that.

 

Finding alchemy that is worth giving everything for is something special.

 

When I started what I knew to be real authentic alchemy I just wanted to leave everything behind I could careless about the outer world.

 

When I was in my training at that time I learned to sit and listen and learned things about the people around me that i didnt want to know. Which just pushed me further into my seclusive mode.

 

With the right practice and hard work results came.

 

I remember I was at walmart waiting for a friend at the register. I focused my mind to see if I could sense and see the people in the store from with in my mind. The slowly I started to see the people from all over the store in electronics furniture and aisles and departments from all over the store.

 

So there was cool stuff like that and other things.

[JustBHappy]

It all depends on the individual but for me, I have no issue with training multiple systems.

It actually helps the cultivation in my experience, but we do need an advanced understanding, or teachers with this wisdom to recognize which practices complement each other and which ones don't. You don't get very far if you're jumping on two horses that are galloping in opposite directions. They may both be going up the same mountain but you will just get shredded in the process. One example is "active" versus "passive" qi gong systems, I feel a person should not mix this type of practice.

Some practices are more effective in the morning while others are best done in the evening. Some jazz you up, some mellow you out, etc... For those who pursue martial arts training there are some wonderful qi gong systems/methods that complement them beautifully. For me, it's all about balance and sticking to complementary systems and methods. There is no generic black and white answer. You have to look and more importantly experience which methods work best for you and your particular goals. We are extremely lucky to have so many great systems publicly taught and we can absolutely improve on one by also practicing another but we cannot do this blindly.

[4bsolute]

There is more in any decent system than one could master in a lifetime, especially only practicing an hour or 2 per day.

 

So how come folks practice a few in unison?

 

I came to the same conclusion. It seems we do this out of insecurity. We think that one system holds more wisdom than the other. But what we do not yet know is that each of them is similar. Why is that? Because the basic movements are all the same, when you understand them. And then you work with these basic movements and incorporate your intuition. This is when your actual training starts. And for this we only need one teaching that we like.

 

Edit: Of course if we do have problems even figuring out what we like, then it might be time for some meditation or asking ourselves why do we even want to practice a certain style yet. We might have to muck out something in our lives first.

Edited January 19, 2014 by 4bsolute

[Yascra]

Ouh, hmm ... I know that opinion that you should focus on one system, but I find this is a complicated issue. Where exactly would you say that "practicing a system" starts?

With doing some particular practice of that system? When you do some particular mantra or prayer stuff for example, or receive empowerments?

 

I started my life with a moral "setting" heavily influenced by Christianity, you know, as I suppose most Western people do, and as I even started my spiritual way with this system I'm still influenced by it. But .. I couldn't go on there from some point on, as I found teachings for higher cultivation are completely absent there. So what else can one do but look for something else?

As a consequence, when I find something new, I tend to stop most of the other things for some months to concentrate on this and to some degree "test the effects". But if I find some technique useful, and as I lack personal guidance by someone with sufficient experiences, it's hard for me to stop it in the long run, especially if I find that other techniques don't fill the resulting gap.

I think that's largely due to the fact that I've not made close contacts to a system I feel is "complete" in a way of giving me all I need, and acutally I'm just "on my way" for some few years now. But actually, you know .. if I don't even trust a system, how can I then say that I'll stop everything else forever to do only THIS?

Or are you only talking about persons who have this personal guidance? Well, hm. I know a person who is stuck in her practice for almost a decade now because she's waiting for the person she considers her "teacher". She has health problems and is not the youngest person, but while I suppose that this teacher might not even regard her as a personal student, she is stuck on the thought that she has to be limited to this system, and to him as a person, although she might have (had) a large profit from other influences as well, and might even had good chances to improve her health. Not even to mention the time she is wasting while she is sitting there, getting older and older and coming closer to end her opportunity to practice with her human body and with the contacts to spirituality she has already made in this life. She might die in some years and then almost everything will be lost by a loss of memory, and she will have lost YEARS, just because of not allowing herself to be open for new influences. Is that not very, very sad?

 

So, for me it is not that I would not care about it, and I actually am a sensitive person and sometimes feel tensions there, but it's a difficult topic for me, and I really don't know how to handle it.

For sure, if you are practicing a complete system in which you have full trust, know accomplished masters, have maybe even personal guidance, support and all this, it's great. But how many "seekers" nowadays can claim something like that?

I for my part am surely not practicing a "system". I'm just on a way and practice techniques when I find them helpful. It is not nice to find a balance between different things, especially if you don't know the whole truth, so your judgement about what is good and what is bad might still be completely wrong, right? You can't even be sure that your karmic connections will always lead you to the best, for not all connections you have might be auspicious. So how do you judge what's right and what is to be left out?

 

Until I find a better way to measure it, I'd say I'll stick to my method to just try .. and look whether things are helpful or not, rather than ask about lineage. Of course that's not mastery of a "system". But I think I'd prefer persons who master their own mind, instead of being accomplished masters of particular systems.

As far as I am aware of it, the rule is that you have to change the system anyway when you find something that's more effective (for you?) than what you have practiced till then, as everything else would be a waste of time.

 

Well .. really not an easy topic.

 

Best regards

Edited January 21, 2014 by Yascra

[C T]

But I think I'd prefer persons who master their own mind...

Thats really a core consideration i'd say.

[lessdaomorebum]

Can the OP give an example of a "pure" system that is not made up of two or more systems?

Edited July 16, 2016 by lessdaomorebum