Your Current Cultivation Practices

[Pilgrim]

6 minutes ago, Aetherous said:

 

Someone else just made a thread about that:

 

 

Thank you but I would like to hear / read your your words here. Why Here? Mission statement of  this thread.

 

This thread has a great start and will help others.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Pilgrim

[Aetherous]

I'm not sure what you're asking. This thread is for sharing what practices you do, and maybe why you do them.

[Fa Xin]

I've always enjoyed the term "cultivation", though I don't much use it in my lexicon.

 

It says to me, "I'm working at something, but it is never really finished."

[silent thunder]

raw

awareness...

radical simplicity.

ever unfolding presence...

 

radical release.

beingness...

 

descriptions of resulting mental/emotional experiences:

unity consciousness, emptiness, bliss, clarity, bouyancy, passionate compassion, resonating self reinforcing gratitude cycles, spontaneous healings, realizations of the consistent nature of perceptual fallacies, the dissolution of rigid mental constructs/preconceptions/projections

 

[GreytoWhite]

I like the term cultivation. I spent my summers helping my grandfather with his little patch of land. When you're actually connected to the Earth that way you know that you prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water, amend the nutrients as needed, combat pests, harvest, and repeat. You can have multiple harvests from the same practice just as you can have multiple crops, multiple years of work, and varietals. It's an apt comparison.

[Toni]

I also like the term "cultivation". For me it means to train oneself, or to improve yourself. In which way? There can be many ways to train and to improve oneself, and some of them are surely mistaken. But a good way to understand this, though not the only one, could be to improve health, body and mind, in order to be not as much successful as virtuous

[Vajra Fist]

These days I've been experimenting with a few bits and bobs. My main practice, as always is the mani mantra - which to my mind is a thousand practices in one. I've also kept up a regular Shaolin martial practice.

 

But I've been dabbling in a few qigong forms, 8 brocades, zhineng and a bit of Chen. All good fun. Also someone kindly shared with me the secret smile pratice from KAP. Sometimes it's good to branch out a bit, try new things. 

[doc benway]

On 4/9/2019 at 10:06 PM, Pilgrim said:

I find the term , the phrase “Cultivation” very odd and strange, perhaps someone could explain what it is they are cultivating and what they believe it does for them.

 

I've always resonated with the term cultivation, possibly because my spiritual practices grew out of martial arts training.

The "me" that came to these practices, both martial and spiritual, was looking for something better - health, fitness, security, contentment, physical attractiveness, happiness, peace - the list can go on and on. This was the intent and as my realization deepens and broadens, it adjusts accordingly but never entirely departs (at least not yet). What I have cultivated are any qualities or skills that support my values and vision, like cultivating seeds of edible and nutritious plants in a garden and weeding out the chaff. Eventually, a blessing of realization may occur that the one who is putting the effort into cultivating something is that which must be released to fully open into unlimited potential. Then the cultivation can be termed "non-cultivation" which indicates a more mature path and the ultimate need for a release of that effort and intent. For most of us there are many stages of transformation or growth leading to this point (at least there was for me) and this mind of cultivation that seeks to allow positive qualities to blossom and grow is necessary and valuable. For some perhaps, simply resting into being is all that is ever necessary. I often remind myself to be cautious as more often than not, people in the latter category are fooling themselves much of the time.

[Aetherous]

Something I forgot to mention...this isn't a formal practice, but I usually do some jin shin jyutsu self-help holds to clear various issues.

A couple of months ago I started to have a twitch in my inner right calf muscle. I was trying to figure it out, taking magnesium, taking herbs like shaoyao gancao tang. Acupuncture (on BL-60, KD-3, KD-9, BL-57, BL-40) sometimes would help a little bit...probably the most out of anything I tried, but the issue would still come back the next day.

One day I spontaneously had the idea to do the final pose of the "main central" practice of jin shin jyutsu. This is where the left hand is on the pubic bone, and the right hand is on the sacrum/coccyx. I thought maybe if the twitch was related to the nerve roots exiting the spine, then maybe that area needed some healing.

It helped get rid of the weird twitch by 99%.

Perhaps if I had acupuncture done on me at the sacrum coccyx area, it would've been even more effective...but jin shin jyutsu can be very effective if it's the right area that's being worked on.

The trick is to know what's right to do in the moment. Kunlun flying needles!

[dwai]

The term "cultivation" evokes the sense that the mind-body complex is a field in which certain "crops" are being cultivated. What are they? Some may call them "virtues". What these virtues are going to vary based on our progression on the path.  Initially it may start as martial power, ethics, morals, etc etc. But with time they will be revealed to be aspects of our "true nature" - stillness, emptiness.

 

Eventually, one will get to a point where it becomes apparent, that the cultivation was more a de-cluttering, and eventually, nothing at all.

The crops were always there and there never existed a separate field, the crops or the process of cultivation.