Some more advice needed on practice

[liminal_luke]

7 hours ago, Earl Grey said:

 

Yes, and this leads to complete indifference I've found personally and among some peers when dealing with know-nothing know-it-alls who have funny ideas about how we should be "spiritual" and think we don't get angry or that we're party-poopers for laying out the cold, hard facts! 

 

 

Earl,

 

If I was more clever with song lyrics I´d try my hand at composing a nice roast over on your toasting & roasting thread. As it is, suffice it to say that if I ever thought spiritual people didn´t "get angry" or were "party-poopers" you´ve disabused me of that notion.  

[Earl Grey]

Just now, liminal_luke said:

 

Earl,

 

If I was more clever with song lyrics I´d try my hand at composing a nice roast over on your toasting & roasting thread. As it is, suffice it to say that if I ever thought spiritual people didn´t "get angry" or were "party-poopers" you´ve disabused me of that notion.  

 

I'd be honored knowing your sincerity in a roast!

[liminal_luke]

3 hours ago, Earl Grey said:

 

I'd be honored knowing your sincerity in a roast!

 

Mixing practices and looking for advice?

Earl Grey tells it like it is, he doesn´t care about  nice.

 

Chia says be celibate, get your immortal peach.

Freeform says be careful, you´ll become perverted leech.

 

Taomeow knows her yin and yang,  she´s a genius cat

But if you try to fight her, she´ll swat you like a knat.

 

Guys come here to get power, attract all the girls

It´s a real Taobum bummer, why aren´t you casting pearls?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by liminal_luke

[freeform]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

He wanted "his" system.

He’s part of a genuine, established tradition

[SirPalomides]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

 

I'm not freeform but I can find a way.

 

I watched a bit of Damo's videos here and there, read a bit of what he writes here and there, saw this or that diagram he presents, listened to a fragment of a lecture and a snippet of another, and had to stop every time, somewhat baffled.

 

Something is always off.  Not necessarily glaringly off.  But if he was a flight instructor, he would know that each 1° displacement over a distance of 60 nautical miles (NM) will result in 1 NM off course.  If you keep displacing and never correcting, you'll never get where you're headed -- and where you end up you might not even find a landing strip.

 

Why exactly is something always off, I don't know, but I can guess.  He wanted "his" system.   Without having been born into the tradition, one typically has two options.  Find an established tradition and join the lineage as the next-generation practitioner.  If you're talented, ambitious, hardworking and lucky, become a lineage holder, make it your own, no one will hold it against you that you weren't born into that tradition if you internalized it fully.  And the second option -- cherry-pick the lineage, better yet more than one, as many as you can lay your hands on, mix and match and "create your own system."  The second generation might find it doesn't really work, the third may find it doesn't exist anymore, things that aren't viable are born every day.  Remember X-ray Shoe Fitter, Pedoscope and Foot-o-scope -- machines installed in shoe stores to determine your shoe size in a new and improved way by giving you a hefty doze of radiation every time you wanted to buy shoes?  No?  Neither do I.  But they were all the rage once.  

 

I'd wait a couple generations before committing to Damo's system.    

 

My knowledge of the various martial arts, qigong, etc. systems would be over-generously called "rudimentary," so forgive me if this question is kind of dumb, but don't the various established traditions have disagreements with each other? Couldn't they each scrutinize each other and find this or that detail a little bit off? Not that this justifies someone striking out and piecing together his own system but... isn't that where some schools got started?

 

(EDIT: I think this is more or less Freeform's point above?)

Edited December 16, 2019 by SirPalomides

[Taomeow]

32 minutes ago, freeform said:

He’s part of a genuine, established tradition

 

If that's the case, I've two questions:

 

1. Which one?

2. Why do I hear "Damo Mitchell's system" from its adherents but never the name of that genuine, established tradition? 

 

Would appreciate an elucidation.  

 

[freeform]

5 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

If that's the case, I've two questions

I’ll check if I can answer those.
 

Bear in mind I’m not a student in his school...

[Taomeow]

28 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

 

My knowledge of the various martial arts, qigong, etc. systems would be over-generously called "rudimentary," so forgive me if this question is kind of dumb, but don't the various established traditions have disagreements with each other? Couldn't they each scrutinize each other and find this or that detail a little bit off? Not that this justifies someone striking out and piecing together his own system but... isn't that where some schools got started?

 

No, it's not a dumb question.  Various established traditions do have disagreements.  Plenty.  But not about taoist fundamentals.  

[rideforever]

In Damo Mitchell's book, in Ch12 (preview on Amazon) he distinguishes between Spiritual Practice which he says is rare, and which destroys the self.  And all other cultivation practices which build a self.  Nearly all taoist practice that is done is to build a self and is not spiritual, according to him.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Comprehensive-Guide-Daoist-Nei-Gong/dp/1848194102/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=damo+mitchell&qid=1576529918&sr=8-1

 

I have heard other senior 'masters' say similar things.

I think they are right.  And I think he has wasted too much time building a self rather than learning what it means to dissolve yourself, and learning that if you reduce then you become something new and eternal.  Time is short, it's time to think of the endgame.

"Those who lose their life for my sake will keep it, those who save their life will lose it".

 

I am not sure how many traditions actually lead you to enlightenment.  Will you be disappointed if after decades of cultivation and practices, your grandmaster turns around and says, "and now if you want enlightenment go find a Buddhist because I don't have it."

And then you start again, this time age 70.

This is stupid, start now on the real thing.

[liminal_luke]

16 minutes ago, rideforever said:

In Damo Mitchell's book, in Ch12 (preview on Amazon) he distinguishes between Spiritual Practice which he says is rare, and which destroys the self.  And all other cultivation practices which build a self.  Nearly all taoist practice that is done is to build a self and is not spiritual, according to him.

 

 

Interesting distinction between practices that build the self and those that destroy the self.  At first blush, these would seem to be diametrically opposed goals but I see them as complementary. You´ve got to make the batter before ya can grill up the pancakes.   Actually, this isn´t quite right.  It´s not such a linear process, not one thing happening after another.  It´s more like breathing in and breathing out, complementary activities that support each other.  A healthy sense of self makes dissolution possible and vice versa.

 

Or at least this is what I think.

 

 

[Earl Grey]

3 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Mixing practices and looking for advice?

Earl Grey tells it like it is, he doesn´t care about  nice.

 

Chia says be celibate, get your immortal peach.

Freeform says be careful, you´ll become perverted leech.

 

Taomeow knows her yin and yang,  she´s a genius cat

But if you try to fight her, she´ll swat you like a knat.

 

Guys come here to get power, attract all the girls

It´s a real Taobum bummer, why aren´t you casting pearls?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This SHOULD be in the Christmas thread even without matching a holiday melody!

[freeform]

36 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

A healthy sense of self makes dissolution possible and vice versa.

Spot on.

[Geof Nanto]

8 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

A healthy sense of self makes dissolution possible and vice versa.

 

Agreed but I’d be wary of using the term ‘dissolution’. Rather I’d go with how C G Jung describes the process in his essay, On the Nature of the Psyche. (Note: He uses the term ‘ego’ rather than ‘self’, as should be obvious from the context.)

Generally speaking the ego is a hard-and-fast complex which, because tied to consciousness and its continuity, cannot easily be altered, and should not be altered unless one wants to bring on pathological disturbances. The closest analogies to an alteration of the ego are to be found in the field of psychopathology, where we meet not only with neurotic dissociations but also with the schizophrenic fragmentation, or even dissolution, of the ego. In this field, too, we can observe pathological attempts at integration if such an expression be permitted. These consist in more or less violent irruptions of unconscious contents into consciousness, the ego proving itself incapable of assimilating the intruders.
 
But if the structure of the ego-complex is strong enough to withstand their assault without having its framework fatally dislocated, then assimilation can take place. In that event there is an alteration of the ego as well as of the unconscious contents. Although it is able to preserve its structure, the ego is ousted from its central and dominating position and thus finds itself in the role of a passive observer who lacks the power to assert his will under all circumstances, not so much because it has been weakened in any way, as because certain considerations give it pause. That is, the ego cannot help discovering that the afflux of unconscious contents has vitalized the personality, enriched it and created a figure that somehow dwarfs the ego in scope and intensity. This experience paralyses an over-egocentric will and convinces the ego that in spite of all difficulties it is better to be taken down a peg than to get involved in a hopeless struggle in which one is invariably handed the dirty end of the stick. In this way the will, as disposable energy, gradually subordinates itself to the stronger factor, namely to the new totality-figure I call the Self.
 
Naturally, in these circumstances there is the greatest temptation simply to follow the power-instinct and to identify the ego with the Self outright, in order to keep up the illusion of the ego's mastery. In other cases the ego proves too weak to offer the necessary resistance to the influx of unconscious contents and is thereupon assimilated by the unconscious, which produces a blurring or darkening of ego-consciousness and its identification with a preconscious wholeness¹. Both these developments make the realization of the Self impossible, and at the same time are fatal to the maintenance of ego-consciousness. They amount, therefore, to pathological effects. The psychic phenomena recently observable in Germany ² fall into this category. It is abundantly clear that such an abaissement du niveau mental, i.e., the overpowering of the ego by unconscious contents and the consequent identification with a preconscious wholeness, possesses a prodigious psychic virulence, or power of contagion, and is capable of the most disastrous results.
 
Developments of this kind should, therefore, be watched very carefully; they require the closest control. I would recommend anyone who feels himself threatened by such tendencies to hang a picture of St. Christopher on the wall and to meditate upon it. For the Self has a functional meaning only when it can act compensatorily to ego-consciousness. If the ego is dissolved in identification with the Self, it gives rise to a sort of nebulous superman with a puffed-up ego and a deflated Self. Such a personage, how-ever saviour like or baleful his demeanour, lacks the scintilla, the soul-spark, the little wisp of divine light that never burns more brightly than when it has to struggle against the invading darkness. What would the rainbow be were it not limned against the lowering cloud?            
 
This simile is intended to remind the reader that pathological analogies of the individuation process are not the only ones. There are spiritual monuments of quite another kind, and they are positive illustrations of our process. Above all I would mention the koans of Zen Buddhism, those sublime paradoxes that light up, as with a flash of lightning, the inscrutable interrelations between ego and Self. In very different language, St. John of the Cross has made the same problem more readily accessible to the Westerner in his account of the "dark night of the soul". That we find it needful to draw analogies from psychopathology and from both Eastern and Western mysticism is only to be expected: the individuation process is, psychically, a border-line phenomenon which needs special conditions in order to become conscious. Perhaps it is the first step along a path of development to be trodden by the men of the future—a path which, for the time being, has taken a pathological turn and landed Europe in catastrophe.
 
To one familiar with our psychology, it may seem a waste of time to keep harping on the long-established difference between becoming conscious and the coming-to-be of the Self (individuation). But again and again I note that the individuation process is confused with the coming of the ego into consciousness and that the ego is in consequence identified with the Self, which naturally produces a hopeless conceptual muddle. Individuation is then nothing but ego-centeredness and autoeroticism. But the Self comprises infinitely more than a mere ego, as the symbolism has shown from of old. It is as much one's Self, and all other selves, as the ego. Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to oneself.
 
Notes
 
1.       Conscious wholeness consists in a successful union of ego and Self, so that both preserve their intrinsic qualities. If, instead of this union, the ego is overpowered by the Self, then the Self too does not attain the form it ought to have, but remains fixed on a primitive level and can express itself only through archaic symbols.
 
2.       Jung is referring to Nazism and the devastation of WW2.  (On the Nature of the Psyche was originally written in 1947 when Jung was 72 years old and revised by him in 1954.)

 

 

Edited December 17, 2019 by Yueya

[Zork]

12 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Something is always off.  Not necessarily glaringly off.  But if he was a flight instructor, he would know that each 1° displacement over a distance of 60 nautical miles (NM) will result in 1 NM off course.  If you keep displacing and never correcting, you'll never get where you're headed -- and where you end up you might not even find a landing strip

I think that the answer is simpler.

He must be keeping the "real stuff" for personal tuition and giving away some scraps for tourists.

After all the student who is serious about it, will contact him or another teacher eventually.

[freeform]

1 hour ago, Zork said:

He must be keeping the "real stuff" for personal tuition and giving away some scraps for tourists.

That’s the case with any real teacher. Although I’m always surprised by how much of the ‘real stuff’ he reveals even to the tourists. In general it’s the potentially dangerous parts that are left out...

 

But potentially dangerous often also means very effective 😄

[Walker]

14 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Why exactly is something always off, I don't know, but I can guess.  He wanted "his" system.   

 

I think there really might be something to this. A source I know well and trust used to study at the late Feng Zhiqiang's school in Beijing. He said Mitchell showed up for awhile (can't remember if it was weeks or months, definitely not more than a few months), trained, and then went his way. Common enough in martial arts schools China, but what stood out is that Mitchell--according to my friend--put some of Feng's exercises into his curriculum without attributing them to Feng, much less explaining their context. Not necessarily a problem in and of itself to do some mixing and matching, but if this story is true, the question is why not attribute the moves to the line from which they came? And also, what might be lost if attribution is not given?

 

I tried to read his book with a title like Taoist Neikung a few years ago, and also once or twice have given his recordings a shot. Always have the exact same reaction  as Taomeow... A few minutes in, though I can't place a finger on exactly why, he's lost me...

[freeform]

On 17/12/2019 at 8:05 AM, Walker said:

but what stood out is that Mitchell--according to my friend--put some of Feng's exercises into his curriculum without attributing them to Feng

 

That would be very concerning and disrespectful if true. I guess your friend has continued to train with Damo? Since he knows his curriculum?

 

To be honest I find this hard to believe - for two reasons: 1. the Damo I know is full of integrity. 2. I've also had rumours spread about me when I stopped training with a teacher because I found them wanting...

[freeform]

Regarding the lineage... I noticed he doesn't mention the specific line - I'm sure for a good reason - as I've been asked not to mention it either. Otherwise, you can see his training history on hi website: http://lotusneigong.com/training-history/

[anshino23]

26 minutes ago, freeform said:

Regarding the lineage... I noticed he doesn't mention the specific line - I'm sure for a good reason - as I've been asked not to mention it either. Otherwise, you can see his training history on hi website: http://lotusneigong.com/training-history/

 

A bit funny really because everyone that trains within the school appears to know it as a common knowledge thing  I'll refrain from answering it as well out of respect obviously, but I do find it odd that it is not freely mentioned. Or perhaps you are referring to a very specific line that can be traced back to the lineage holders and is not publicly known even by the open-door students (and only known by inner-door)? 

Edited December 18, 2019 by anshino23

[Walker]

56 minutes ago, freeform said:

That would be very concerning and disrespectful if true. I guess your friend has continued to train with Damo? Since he knows his curriculum?

 

To be honest I find this hard to believe - for two reasons: 1. the Damo I know is full of integrity. 2. I've also had rumours spread about me when I stopped training with a teacher because I found them wanting...

 

The accusation was made a half dozen years ago; I think my friend was upset because he saw teachings he thought were "stolen" from Feng in a book of Mitchell's. That said, I checked his website going back to 2008 on Archive.org just now and it seems he has always acknowledged being a student of Hunyuan Taiji and at times given credit to Feng Zhiqiang on his site. Seems fair enough to me that he might teach some of the things he learned from Feng, but then again that's always a bit of a grey area--it is not at all uncommon for teachers (especially traditional Chinese ones) to feel that students have no right to teach what they're learning to anybody else unless expressly authorized to do so. On the other hand, some teachers are very open about this, and others seem to have ambiguous stances. A bit late to ask Master Feng for his thoughts, though, alas...

 

Anyway, even if I am remembering things exactly right and my friend did indeed see unattributed Hunyuan teachings in Mitchell's writings, given that he's open about his training history in his bio, I personally would give him the benefit of the doubt that it was an accidental omission or oversight, not theft. As for whether or not he was given permission to teach these things (if he indeed is/was teaching them), at this point I guess that's something between him, the late Master Feng, and King Yama!

 

Is what you mean about lineage that in addition to the many teachers and lineages Mitchell studied with, there is one that is central to his teachings and which he officially is empowered to represent and transmit to his students? Is that a Daoist lineage?

[freeform]

1 hour ago, Walker said:

Seems fair enough to me that he might teach some of the things he learned from Feng

 

I've known him to specifically not teach certain things that he's extremely good at but hasn't been specifically asked to teach. He's actually very firm on that front. And as far as I know, he's very firm with his students that teach - what they can and can't teach - according to their skill level. That's why I'm surprised by your friend's story. It may be that he was unaware of conversations had between Mitchell and Feng?

 

1 hour ago, Walker said:

Is what you mean about lineage that in addition to the many teachers and lineages Mitchell studied with, there is one that is central to his teachings and which he officially is empowered to represent and transmit to his students? Is that a Daoist lineage?

 

I don't want to misrepresent his school - as I'm not a part of it. But as far as I understand he teaches solely from a specific line. He does use a variety of forms as tools to affect change to follow this specific line of inner transformation. Yes, it's a northern Daoist line.

 

2 hours ago, anshino23 said:

Or perhaps you are referring to a very specific line that can be traced back to the lineage holders and is not publicly known even by the open-door students (and only known by inner-door)? 

 

Yes - exactly

 

[Walker]

18 minutes ago, freeform said:

I've known him to specifically not teach certain things that he's extremely good at but hasn't been specifically asked to teach. He's actually very firm on that front. And as far as I know, he's very firm with his students that teach - what they can and can't teach - according to their skill level. That's why I'm surprised by your friend's story. It may be that he was unaware of conversations had between Mitchell and Feng?

 

Possible!

 

18 minutes ago, freeform said:

I don't want to misrepresent his school - as I'm not a part of it. But as far as I understand he teaches solely from a specific line. He does use a variety of forms as tools to affect change to follow this specific line of inner transformation. Yes, it's a northern Daoist line.

 

It says the following on the link you provided:

 

Within his school of Lotus Nei Gong, Damo now teaches primarily the Yang system of Taijiquan from within the Huang Xingxian method to new students. More advanced practitioners progress into the Zhaolin methods whilst only close students have the option of learning the Hunyuan system due to the painstaking amount of time it can take to teach the style. 

 

You mean the inner alchemy he teaches is solely from a specific line?

 

[freeform]

5 minutes ago, Walker said:

You mean the inner alchemy he teaches is solely from a specific line?

 

Oh - yes, I'm not a Taiji person!

 

Yes I mean the underlying line of inner transformation - Nei Dan (and I imagine the IMAs serving as a tool for that process too)

 

At a certain point, everything in life starts to serve that line of transformation... how you cook, eat, sleep, walk - for me, the way I sit and type at the computer comes from my lineage

Edited December 18, 2019 by freeform

[Walker]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

for me, the way I sit and type at the computer comes from my lineage

 

Ah, your cover is blown, I should have known you were a member of the Nerd Pai. I'd never be seen dead in a room with members of that lineage 😁

 

You know though, if he's teaching the full Hunyuan system, then that would seemingly have to include the neigong that Feng Zhiqiang learned from Hu Yaozhen, who was a xinyi and Longmen guy. Longmen is so big and variegated that two teachers not only might teach entirely different things, but these things might even end up in conflict (speaking from personal experience). So if he's teaching the Hunyuan system and something else too that we're not allowed to name here, I dunno, it really does seem to me like we're inevitably speaking about a blending of systems.

 

I think blending is as much a part of the tradition as topknots. It's always been there in neidan lines, including well-documented in the first generation of Quanzhen disciples and even more so by the third or fourth generation, especially when Quanzhen went south and immediately bumped into Qingwei, Qingjing Zhongxiao, Zhengyi, and other forms of Daoism. Some teachers probably passed on a mixed bag where it's hard to be clear about the origins of everything they taught, while others like an early Quanzhen master on Wudang, 張守清/Zhang Shouqing, explicitly passed different lineages to different students.

 

In terms of Mitchell, again, I don't know how we can say he's only teaching one thing if he's actually teaching several. Having studied briefly with one of Hu Yaozhen's daughters it's hard for me to believe one could teach the Hunyuan system in a way that would not interact with alchemy (granted, perhaps in good ways).

Edited December 18, 2019 by Walker

[freeform]

3 minutes ago, Walker said:

So if he's teaching the Hunyuan system and something else too that we're not allowed to name here, I dunno, it really does seem to me like we're talking inevitably speaking about a blending of systems.

 

Maybe I'm getting too esoteric...

 

The way I understand lineages (from my Daoist teacher - who is a lineage holder (and a very private individual)) - lineages are not differentiated solely in terms of systems of practice - but in terms of a specific process of inner development. So not the tools used to make the changes - but the specific progress of step by step changes themselves.

 

For example - I also study under a Burmese meditation teacher who's from an unusual Buddhist line - however, both me and my Daoist teacher consider what I'm learning from him to fall in line with the process of inner transformation of my lineage... The Burmese teacher understands this too. Even though this is a Burmese Buddhist line of techniques - the changes it creates in me follow my Daoist lineage.

 

I've also studied under a Hindu teacher, a Theravada teacher and with another Daoist teacher - these were considered to have moved me off the path of my main lineage - so I stopped all those practices, and in fact, had to do quite a lot of work to remove their influences from my body.

 

I don't understand fully how this works - but my teachers can see my development on a 'causal' level. This means I'm told what I'm allowed to practice, what I'm allowed to eat, what I'm allowed to watch etc etc...

 

So from my understanding - a lineage is not the systems of practice or the tools used. A lineage is a specific path of inner transformations - and the tools, systems and techniques used to affect those transformations are only important in so far as how suitable they are in creating the necessary changes.

 

Saying all this, I realise this is unusual. But my teacher is also rather unusual - in that they are able to transmit a living line of development, and not only that but also be able to see what is happening to the students on a deeply insightful level. They can see what is in line with the lineage transmission and what is counter the lineage transmission. There is also obviously a ming aspect to this - as some of the students are allowed to practice some things that others are not allowed to practice.

 

The other aspect is that I'm going through a specifically spiritual process. This includes, but is not limited to neigong, qigong, nei dan and meditation - possibly some IMA in the future... but the aim is spiritual cultivation - not healing (self or others), not self-development - not skill with qi - not any of the possible side-routes within nei dan... just boring old spirituality

 

Things are probably different when it comes to developing other skill in these arts - this is where the system of training is key.

 

So this may or may not be the same as other people's experience with lineage