johndoe2012 Posted December 21, 2014 From Awakening to the Tao, p. 87: The Tao is natural. All forced manipulations and concoctions are in vain. Some people guard their minds and settle their ideas and thoughts, some people hold their breath and keep it in the abdomen, some people perform psychosomatic energy-circulation exercises. When these people come to the end of their lives and find everything they did was useless, they will resent the gods, also uselessly. My own experience: the silence energy-exercises try to induce by clearing blockages is already there "beneath" it all. The buzz from exercises is not actually what one is looking for. The buzz is merely an electrical sensation which can also be induced by plugging yourself into a set of batteries. The sensation covers up the silence. Silence is not necessarily better reached by meditation. Meditation for me equals suppression. Life told me early on this was not for me so I basically couldn't meditate which was actually a GOOD thing. If life tells you this better listen to yourself and stop hating yourself for having mediocre concentration skills! 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky Lionmouth Posted December 22, 2014 (edited) I know nothing of Liu I-Ming but he seems like a popular fellow judging from the wikipedia article (mostly read the section about his works and teachings), is he the guy Hos quote however resonates with me. No control is the chance to feel whatever is going on, and no restriction is a good way to accept and live according to ones nature. Hard to reach that emptyness though. I feel like a cliche but the whole "the dharma is not the dharma" and the namable Tao isnt the real one, could it be that all those artificial exercises give openings to study the unadulterated thing? Edited December 22, 2014 by Rocky Lionmouth Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vonkrankenhaus Posted December 22, 2014 Re: ----- The Tao is natural. All forced manipulations and concoctions are in vain. Some people guard their minds and settle their ideas and thoughts, some people hold their breath and keep it in the abdomen, some people perform psychosomatic energy-circulation exercises. When these people come to the end of their lives and find everything they did was useless, they will resent the gods, also uselessly." ----- This is beautiful. But, understand relative and absolute, because that is what this is about - the absolute - and not whether or not you or anyone should think or breathe do exercises for some relative gain. It's about what you might believe you are achieving or accomplishing in doing so, in an absolute sense, or "in the face of the absolute". -VonKrankenhaus 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky Lionmouth Posted December 29, 2014 VKHaus, it took me a few tries to read you correctly but then i got it, nicely put! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
