Energy Work Poll

[RiverSnake]

Given all the discussion on shielding and energies, a member suggested this might be a fun poll to do. Cheers.  

[dawei]

I'll pin it for a while as there is no discussion it will disappear to later pages rather quick in General...   No surprises so far...

 

Vote on

[rene]

Thanks for pinning it!

 

Mine is the No vote.

 

Surprised?

 

Warmest regards

[RiverSnake]

Thanks for pinning it!

 

Mine is the No vote.

 

Surprised?

 

Warmest regards

 

Can't say i believe it, you gotta be doing some kind of practice. The juice is moving. 

Edited September 13, 2016 by OldChi

[rene]

Can't say i believe it, you gotta be doing some kind of practice. The juice is moving.

You betcha it moves - right through me

 

Mine is the path of WuDao; I have no practice. I ride the energy as it rises and recedes, without intent. For me to direct or manipulate or shield or transmit would be extraneous... so, I dont 'do' energy work - but I enjoy reading about your and others' experiences and ideas about it; very much appreciated!

 

warmest regards

[RiverSnake]

You betcha it moves - right through me

 

Mine is the path of WuDao; I have no practice. I ride the energy as it rises and recedes, without intent. For me to direct or manipulate or shield or transmit would be extraneous... so, I dont 'do' energy work - but I enjoy reading about your and others' experiences and ideas about it; very much appreciated!

 

warmest regards

 

Awesome.  

[Jeff]

You betcha it moves - right through me

Mine is the path of WuDao; I have no practice. I ride the energy as it rises and recedes, without intent. For me to direct or manipulate or shield or transmit would be extraneous... so, I dont 'do' energy work - but I enjoy reading about your and others' experiences and ideas about it; very much appreciated!

warmest regards

Count me in.

[liminal_luke]

What counts as energy work?  Sure, there´s moving energy around with your intent but what about everything else.  Like breathing.  Or movement or drinking a cup of tea.  

 

Energy is always moving; whether or not that´s work is up to you.

[rene]

What counts as energy work? Sure, there´s moving energy around with your intent but what about everything else. Like breathing. Or movement or drinking a cup of tea.

 

Energy is always moving; whether or not that´s work is up to you.

Each will have their own definition for sure; mine would be: Energy work is when one intentionally attempts to move or direct spiritual energy, sometimes called chi/ki, in any direction, in any manner, for any purpose.

[RiverSnake]

What counts as energy work?  Sure, there´s moving energy around with your intent but what about everything else.  Like breathing.  Or movement or drinking a cup of tea.  

 

Energy is always moving; whether or not that´s work is up to you.

 

The difference is intent and awareness. Everyone is breathing, but not many are breathing with conscious awareness or intentionally working with energies. 

Edited September 13, 2016 by OldChi

[rene]

Count me in.

Thanks, Jeff! Reading about your energy work has been very entertaining.

[thelerner]

I mostly just sit as my normal steady practice.  Though when the mood strikes me, I'll run the orbit, maybe do some simple circular fusion.  In bed, after meditation, I'll start doing an energy practice before I even consciously decide on it.

 

If I'm on the 'throne' late at night, my hands hit the position and I do Kunlun.  If I'm standing for a while I'll do Hermetic Archaeous element practice.  Mostly, I just sit.

[Stosh]

The closest I do to energy work , is keep my mouth shut... occasionally. 

[Taomeow]

I think the wording of the poll might have been,

"Do you admire yourself enough to never want to change anything about yourself?" 

 

For that's what cultivation/no cultivation really boils down to.  It's not "energy work" in many cases and not even close in some.  It's work on becoming what you admire.  If you already are that, then no work is needed.  If not, and you choose to do such work, you're a cultivator.  Someone who transforms herself by consciously and deliberately working on developing a skill, trait, art, science, practice, and ultimately the kind of self one is for whatever reason more into than the as-is version. 

 

We all have many potential versions of who we are, can be, might be, would have been if...  and so on.  To choose one that is different from whichever of these versions you are currently living, and consciously apply work to creating a version that is not as random, a version of you in which you have some say, is what it's about. 

 

So many people and forces have a say in who we become.  Parents, doctors, teachers, preachers, politicians, the media, law enforcement agencies, peers, bosses, spouses, food manufacturers, fashion and fad dispensers, technology developers...  the list is almost inexhaustible.  Where am I, me, on this list?..   Why should I be excluded from the party of shaping ME?..

 

What energy work?..  I've come to party! 

 

Ah but who are you?  Who is this you who came to party?  

 

I want at least some say in that.  I want me to be shaped by me a bit.  Or a lot.  Or entirely.

 

That's what cultivation is.      

[rene]

Hiya TM (-:

 

I was hoping you'd join in as you are by far, imo, one of the most versed in these aspects of energy cultivation on this site. Bang on, too, re this is about all aspects of cultivation - which is a pretty big bag... but maybe we can confine the words to a small sack that can be extrapolated out.

 

I get the gist of your idea re 'admire'. For me, though, it's not a matter of either/or, i.e., either I'm 'content' with who I am (your 'admire') or I want to improve my version of me. For me, it's both, at the same time. I am content with who I am - and - I'd still like to lose 5 pounds, lol.

 

What that boils down to is this: I work towards losing that bit of extra weight, and dont beat myself up if I fail. I prefer a weed-free garden, and when they appear (as they always do, heh) I just yank them out without stress or anger. Good exercise! Big picture & little picture, same time.

 

I have no problem with any form of cultivation, or with those who practice. To each their own way, eh? And I like that you, and others, graciously share your ideas with us all.

 

Warmest regards (-:

.

.

Edit: Typos. Typing on little phone sucks, heh.

Edited September 13, 2016 by rene

[Taomeow]

Yo Rene ,

 

thanks for your thoughts.  

 

Perhaps people occasionally confuse a drive for self-improvement with self-rejection experienced "until" and "unless" certain criteria are met -- I know you're not one of them, but I'm not one of them either.  And even if the seeds (carefully planted by society every day) were there, some of my practices specifically make sure they can't grow into any "weeds" of self-rejection.  It's most explicit in taiji sparring, e.g., where if you start losing patience and acceptance -- doesn't matter with/of your opponent or yourself -- you lose to a skillful opponent who did not.  My teacher laughs in my face the moment he feels that I move in a way that spells frustration.  Oh, you're getting angry! -- and I get pushed and fly.  I'm dumb that way, you have to smack me to get a point across, words don't cut it for me.    

 

Quite a few of my practices are like that.  I not only don't reject myself in the process of mastering them, I always experience a setback if I get self-critical.  It's something very primordial, to just do the work.  It's like, I dunno, foraging for mushrooms in the forest.  You can't possibly do it any other way than just do it.  But you want mushrooms, you do the work.  If you don't do the work, they won't run toward you.

 

Uncontacted tribes (the few still remaining) are cultivators all of them, without any policing or self-policing of the process of acquiring skills.  You acquire them by doing what you and the circumstances decide you need to do.  In our society, the basis for such decisions can be quite healthy or it can be very neurotic.  In a healthy scenario, it's just obvious what needs to be done, what needs to be left alone, and it doesn't occur to you to waste your effort by doing the unnecessary.  In an unhealthy scenario, both doing and not-doing can be fubar.  The doing can be a counterphobic mess, the outcome of most unhealthy conditioning, any which brainwashed BS -- while the not-doing can be an avoidance mess predicated on deep trauma, running away from experiences, from feeling, from changing, whatever.  So by themselves the doing and the not-doing tell little about what lies beneath... 

 

Methinks. 

[rene]

TM, thanks for your reply and methinks you could be right.

 

Also, your words re self-criticism brought to mind the frustration (more the lost-ness) I see in too many seekers caused by a not-small concept found in too many places: that one must do ____ to find Tao.

 

Doesn't matter what the ____ is that is being proposed. The way that message is 'shaped' reinforces the (incorrect) idea that Tao is separate, something to be 'found'. You and I are way past that, but this twisting by others, to market a method, reinforces only the continuation of the method and does little to help the seeker. Gotta convince someone they're sick before you can sell them a cure. Pfffttt.

 

Well okay, that was my rant for the day. (-:

[Taomeow]

I'm pretty sure the classics that asserted that "in the human world, tao has been destroyed" are, unfortunately, correct (locally, for our particular stretch of spacetime of perhaps about 15,000 years, give or take), but that's an old conversation...  I agree though that quite a few practices are part of the symptomatology of the disease rather than the cure.  

 

I see the quest for the ones that are not as legit...  and worth it.  But it may indeed be safer to assume tao is not lost than to seek it in all the wrong places.  I don't know.  Perhaps depends on quite a few factors.  I have this thirst for "the real thing," and nothing quenches it but the real thing.  I want no Pepsi, even if the label says it's part of tao.  Maybe.  I have to taste it to believe it.  And when I taste chemicals, my mind knows it's "also tao," but my heart says, "are you out of your mind?"  Yes, I am -- it's someone else's mind that wrote that label.  To be out of my mind means taking someone's word for the state of tao.  I don't have to.  I know...   My heart-mind knows for sure -- whenever I'm not out of it and in someone else's...

 

Some practices helped develop this skill. 

[sagebrush]

I can't find the way to start a new post. Has someone cultivated their energy by removing this option.

 

so I have to type it HERE NOW.

 

 

I do not have any practice per say.

I feed birds

I sweep the seeds later

 

I will communicate last night yoga practice-restorative-

 

the instructor seems to have psoas release class once a month on Monday class--

I got bent out of shape yesterday about it--

because of all my own thoughts and ideas now about everything.

 

beginning to try to be gentle with myself everyday

tomorrow I will wait to be super hungry to eat oatmeal---uggg

because I would rather swig Tabasco sauce and shredded pounds of potatoes...

but that does not seem to be helping my brain fog or other issues this far.

 

really practicing not overdoing my presence here

[rene]

TM, re finding tao in wrong places (pepsi, lol), understood.

 

Dao is in the shit. (ZZ)

 

Some say - yes, it is, so anything goes!

 

I say - yes, it is, so it's okay that I landed in it.. and now how the hell do I get out??

 

What do you say?

[Daeluin]

To me dao is everywhere, just out of sight. I can look in its direction anywhere I go, it can never be lost.

 

I think from birth I've recognized that the rest of society doesn't get it.... that the trajectory of this 15,000 year stretch of human momentum has left behind the refined cycles of balance that connect to dao. The life on this planet had grown so refined, so refined and harmonious as to be ripe with manifestations of the mysterious, the point where our species comes around and has some say in the matter. Only instead of continuing to flow with the harmony and refinement and allowing the natural potential to continue to unfold, we get in the way.

 

This is fine for a while, until eventually we got in the way so much that we broke the natural systems of refinement and the whole thing is changed in a way that required large lengths of time to fully recover from. Only in the mean time the seed has been planted and the self-serving-decisions-at-the-expence-of-others continues on and on, and over time little things break here and there, and the refinement becomes coarse in some places, stagnant or dead in some places, sick in others. This momentum continues, and while the conditions are still ripe for allowing the mystery to unfold into manifestation and connecting manifestation back into the mystery, while the dao is still right there, we've come to often exploit this potential while we still follow the momentum of self-serving behavior.

 

So there are many ways of cultivating that can heal, both internally and externally, but often I sense it is easy to fall into the timing of that other momentum of self-serving behavior. So much is simply timing that leads to synchronicity. What is it synchronizing with, and does this momentum lead to dao, or does it support exploiting the refined environment we were born to?

 

ZhuangZi has an interesting exploration of this with Robber Zhi, who kills people, eats them, steals, and in general hacks away at the established kingdom of humanity. And yet from his perspective, the kingdom of humanity is doing the same to the surrounding web of life, so what he leads is virtuous. ZhuangZi calls both sides perverted, and generally asks why we participate in these games of scope and leverage rather than simply resting upon one's own natural flow between heaven and earth.

 

Perhaps it is OK to start with the deliberate cultivation, but one still needs to avoid the traps of deliberate cultivation that aligns with self-serving momentum. There are so many ways the established human momentum drains the balanced refinement of our environment. Just look at our food sources and waste practices. Most of us who are on the internet are contributing more to this than not, whether they cultivate or not. Though it seems like rene just uses a phone, haha! In any case, there are too many questions to really answer them all correctly, not when doing so means being a lot more mental than is healthy either! Spirit likes stillness, not thinking. So all just back to simply resting on the harmonious flow between heaven and earth. If we trust the dao and flow with it in our intention, we will find the way.

[Taomeow]

TM, re finding tao in wrong places (pepsi, lol), understood.

 

Dao is in the shit. (ZZ)

 

Some say - yes, it is, so anything goes!

 

I say - yes, it is, so it's okay that I landed in it.. and now how the hell do I get out??

 

What do you say?

 

Good question!

 

I say, try to find out, don't take anyone's word for anything, don't trust your own thoughts (for they may have been compromised at the very source), don't trust your own feelings (ditto), much less anyone else's.  Just do the work. 

 

What work?   There's only one job description that suits this particular quest: co-creation.  Start building a world to your own specs. 

 

If you're going to move into a new house, you will want to have  a plan -- where do I put the sofa, do I need this table there, what color do I paint the walls, and so on.  Do this with the world you want to inhabit.  Don't rent it from a landlord...  from an overlord... from Our Lord...  from any which bigger boss.  Don't buy someone else's, they built it to suit them, it may not suit you at all.  Build your own. 

 

This world we live in -- someone made it this way.  Whoever likes this model, is welcome to stay.  But whoever is looking to move out must be aware that a realtor's shiny brochure in the mail advertizing a "future home in heaven," "next life," "cessation of reincarnations," or whatever else house pre-designed for you by someone else will effectively be buying a glass beads necklace and giving up Manhattan for it.  I know I can build bigger than Manhattan, and differently.  So if they try to talk me into giving up that project for a handful of trinkets, I'll tell them where to shove that bead necklace.

 

That's my solution.  I don't only want to cultivate myself, for however successful I might be with the project, where's the world that can accommodate that improved, tao-embodying ideal me?..  So, I have to cultivate that world too.  I have to look at the as-is world the same way I look at myself -- not with resentment, but with the buyer's eye.  Am I buying this?  If it's a world that is being planned for an eternity, or at least for a couple billion years (a modest age for a world) -- am I buying what we have right here right now as a good long term investment?  It is a sincere question I ask every day about everything.  Am I buying this for an eternity?

 

Guess what -- I have encountered some phenomena, not many, about which the answer was, yes.  But I've also, in this world, encountered millions of phenomena about which it's, no, no, no thanks, thanks but no, thanks, no way, no way in hell!!

 

So, I have to create it.  If I can't buy it, I have to make it. 

 

Now that's where taoist cultivation comes into the picture.  It is nothing if not a set of tools.  You want to build a world, you need tools.  E.g., you need to be a god or goddess, they usually know how to create assorted worlds.  Does taoism offer tools for that?  Surprisingly, it does.  But maybe it's not the best set of tools.  Maybe a sage creates a better world -- they are said to "roam the root of heaven and earth," so, maybe I want to build this kind of a world, suitable for roaming by a sage?  Maybe.  And so on.  So, I'm exploring the tools...  Taoist tools are not the only ones.  But they are the most ergonomically designed, far as I'm concerned.  

 

I didn't expect to answer your short question in so many words.  But it happened.   

[Karl]

There wasn't an option for 'used to'. :-) so, I bunged it in No.

[sagebrush]

well please forgive me but I have smaller questions on the way...

 

where might I ask is the new post button

 

I seem to bump into Guanyin image more than I care to remember.

 

it was about the tremors.

 

I began to explain my abstract art to others but it was more easily understood to just admit apprehension without so much story and emotion and all the above......

 

oh-yes I can relax on the mat and stay in goddess pose

 

I do not have to warm my fascia and then tremor.

 

watched some videos mayofascial release.

 

I know where I can start my questioning further.

 

my project now is at the home of two brain m.d.

 

the one at work during the day is surgeon

 

the other one studies the brain.

 

she likes philosophical questions and we chatted some yesterday.

 

I mentioned the psoas tremoring but at this point in the conversation she needed to go check on the other workers remodeling the kitchen.

 

I am not going to answer any poll.

 

I do not think questions or answers should be in format so simplified.

 

I am sure I have cultivated bullshit in my lifetime

and I am sure I am steadily working toward kindness and right action...not right or wrong action but......abstract

plus anyone could probably erase or edit my original answers----

[tendou]

Taomeow. I never thought someone here would have this thought too. World upons world.