MattMyster Posted August 16, 2020 Hey guys, I was referred here by an old reddit post I stumbled upon that said to come here and ask for help. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what Jim taught to do for levels 1-2 or if anyone can point me in the right direction. I've pasted the original reddit post below for reference. Quote Two years ago I was a student of the first American student of John Chang. His name is Jim McMillan. I lost contact after he became sick with prostate cancer and I have lost his email but am trying to get in contact with him again as of today. Kosta Danoas made alot of the things up in his book. An example. When John meditates and levitates at the end of the book. John was not yet at a level where he could visually be hovering in air. He could sit on a scale and the weight be reduced but he could not be lifted visually in the air. Plenty of other things were made up aswell. I warn you now. Do not follow what kosta danoas teaches in his book. Do not meditate in the way he teaches you to. You see Kosta became violent with John after not gaining anything I believe. John saw this coming and when Kosta first became a student John taught him fake ways of meditate where he couldnt gain anything. Kosta was just doing normal meditation. Kosta then went on to make up his own techniques which is a dangerous thing to do and could hurt your students. As I said I lost contact with Jim but am trying to get back in contact with him. I would give you his email if i could but he stopped using his truesearch email and i forgot the other one. I suggest you go to the tao bums website and ask on that forum for someone to tell you what Jim taught to do for levels 1-2. And if they can give you his email. Do not believe what Kosta writes. He has gone crazy. Thanks for any insights! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thelerner Posted August 16, 2020 Hello Mr. MM, Mo Pai always seems like a charged issue. Being a closed system, reputedly the top says they don't teach Westerners. Master John Chang who did, stopped after being warned, and sadly passed away. Jim Mcmillan also died quite a while ago. Kosta no longer practices. We do have an excellent Q&A from him the Teacher Interview section. His demeanor and answers seem pretty well balanced. The threads on Mo Pai here tend to get long and circular, often devolving into flamewars. Some of the earliest ones were quite good though, the last few years they got long and pointless, imo. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. 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senseless virtue Posted August 17, 2020 Hello MattMyster and welcome! 20 hours ago, MattMyster said: what Jim taught to do for levels 1-2 Tension practices that aren't so good for health. These only work in the context of the complete system and under superior instructions, but there is a cabal of stubborn Western practitioners out there in the wild who think they are smarter than everyone by the margin of a misconstrued scientific proof. 20 hours ago, MattMyster said: if anyone can point me in the right direction The ethically right direction is with legitimate and safe practices trained under the auspices of responsible and competent teachers. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MattMyster Posted August 17, 2020 Hi Lerner, Thanks for this I will check it out. Did he ever provide a reason for this? Seems odd he would just stop after a decade or more of all this from what I gathered from the books. I found out his facebook and its just filled with angry greek political posts. Kinda odd for a guy who trained and practiced meditiation, higher vibrational living and consciousness and chakra alignment. 8 hours ago, thelerner said: Kosta no longer practices. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MattMyster Posted August 17, 2020 (edited) What do you mean by tension practices? From what I gathered Level 1 is 81 hours of meditation filling up dantien and Level 2 is forming it via the same or other meditations. Are you saying prolonged meditations of this cause ill effects or are you referring to potential damaging effects of messing with the Dan tien in level 2 without proper supervision? 1 hour ago, virtue said: Tension practices that aren't so good for health. Edited August 17, 2020 by MattMyster Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
senseless virtue Posted August 17, 2020 Just now, MattMyster said: What do you mean by tension practices? Applying tension is a fundamental part of these practices. It's frankly quite dangerous and very unorthodox in the context of typical Daoist training precept to keep everything relaxed. You would need to have superb teacher to not get any type of deviation, and there's the often left out premise that hardening and tension practices suppose an excellent health to begin with. Just now, MattMyster said: From what I gathered Level 1 is 81 hours of meditation filling up dantien and Level 2 is forming it via the same or other meditations. And then what? The complete system is supposed to have some 72 levels so it's deficient training in as much it's incomplete. It might not be good for health to leave the training unfinished or prolong the practice of beginning levels. Just now, MattMyster said: Are you saying prolonged meditation can ill effects or are you referring to potential damaging effects of messing with the Dan tien in level 2 without proper supervision? Everything in technical internal alchemy pursuits, like Mo Pai supposedly is, requires extreme context sensitivity and wisdom. There are many things that could go wrong even if you did everything by the letter. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RiverSnake Posted August 17, 2020 (edited) Your seeking for a system that is no longer taught. It might be best to water other pastures. Edited August 17, 2020 by RiverSnake 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
EmeraldHead Posted August 17, 2020 (edited) As it has been said, wrong system has been given out on purpose by Jim and many fakes trying to sell these things with fake info. Not to mention we're talking about crumbles of bread of the whole system which is blocked for you by the astral master, can't argue there. Lots of people seem to like McDuffies alternative though: https://t.me/LingQiLibrary Edited August 17, 2020 by EmeraldHead 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cleansox Posted August 17, 2020 23 hours ago, MattMyster said: I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what Jim taught to do for levels 1-2 or if anyone can point me in the right direction. Zork's PPD. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cleansox Posted August 17, 2020 The Students Of McMillan And Danaos (SOMAD) had a long thread on Original Dao that recently was hidden, for traditional reasons 😁. But if @MattMyster search old threads, go back 8-10 years, you will get as much information as you can. Which is: 1) There is a seated focussed technique. 2) There is a standing compression technique. 3) The McMillan email is doctored and contains flaws that wasn't in the original. 4) There is an instructional film available only to SOMAD, which have instructions that invalidates a decade of critique. 5) SOMAD threads tend to be repetitive and without content relevant for cultivation. Have fun though 😁 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zork Posted August 17, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, Cleansox said: Zork's PPD. Thanks but I intentionally avoided this thread since yesterday. The exercises were not on my PPD but Starjumper's. 5 hours ago, MattMyster said: Hi Lerner, Thanks for this I will check it out. Did he ever provide a reason for this? Seems odd he would just stop after a decade or more of all this from what I gathered from the books. I found out his facebook and its just filled with angry greek political posts. Kinda odd for a guy who trained and practiced meditiation, higher vibrational living and consciousness and chakra alignment. Kostas stopped practicing because he and Jim were evicted by order of the astral masters/ancestral spirits of the MoPai school. At least that is his version of what happened. 5 hours ago, MattMyster said: What do you mean by tension practices? From what I gathered Level 1 is 81 hours of meditation filling up dantien and Level 2 is forming it via the same or other meditations. Are you saying prolonged meditations of this cause ill effects or are you referring to potential damaging effects of messing with the Dan tien in level 2 without proper supervision? The level 2 exercises cause tension which in turn ALWAYS creates problems. Kostas has developed prostate cancer which he attributes to MoPai practice. Jim died from prostate cancer a few years ago. John Chang died from cancer too at a far more advanced age. I would advise you to search for another system. This one is a literal dead end because all the teachers are dead and the school is closed of to westerners. The few students of Jim and Kostas who still practice the exercises, haven't activated the LDT which is required to progress further. Also bear in mind that systems aren't compatible with each other most of the time. Which means that progress in MoPai won't help you with other schools at all. Edited August 17, 2020 by Zork forgot a negation.... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zork Posted August 17, 2020 Quote " The dantian, it does not exist, it's not there. You have to cultivate it, you CANT do this just by focussing on the stomach, letting your qi sink into your stomach, guarding the dantian, watching your breath, you are wasting your time. First you need your channels opened, or know how to open them yourself. It's a really horrible form of mabu, which i have never seen anywhere else, which does it if you don't have a teacher. it requires 3 years of doing this mabu to open the channels required for dantian development to even happen in the first place. " Quote "I will share a funny story with you guys. A few years back, maybe 5 or 6, was visiting a fairly well known teacher who could emit qi. A few guys showed up on the trip, they had been doing the stolen mp practices and were part of the dedicated mp group. Each had been training an hour a day and been training for 2-4 years each. They came up to the teacher super confident, ready to be checked. He evaluated their health, had some minor deficiencies, nothing major, some blockages, quite common these days for most people. Then they asked one by one, what about my dantian, what about my qi? The teacher kinda giggled, confused look on his face, asked them what qi? There is nothing here, no dantian, no qi. Angry they sat in the back mumbling to each other. Over a few days their moods improved, they accepted that they wasted their time and was finally here with a teacher who could do what they hoped to achieve, so gave it their all. I became quite close with one and we talk every now and again. About 3-4 years later, one of them finally managed to accumulate enough qi in his dantian to get to try to emit this qi with assistance. Channels are opened for you, making it easier to do. He succesfully emitted qi, only a short 3 second burst of electric current and he was empty, but he did it. I asked him later on, what the difference was in his practice. At first he did quiet sitting practice with focus on the dantian for an hour a day, no channels opened, dantian could not develop but he didn't know this. On the first trip mentioned above, his channels were opened, allowing him to skip the 3 years of horrible mabu and immediately start to develop the dantian. I asked, did things feel any different when you trained? Before and the past few years. He said no, things felt exactly the same. He had the same kind of sensations in the dantian after coming and actually being able to develop a dantian that he had before when he was effectively wasting his time. The sensations most of you experience in the lower abdomen has nothing to do with a dantian. I know many desperately want to believe they are working with their dantians and can feel their dantians, but you can't. It's not there, you are just feeling random sensations created by intense focus, breathing, increased blood flow, stretching of the abdominal muscles, blockages, etc. " @MattMyster Look at the above quotes from the thread i link in the beginning. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Iskote Posted August 17, 2020 On 8/16/2020 at 2:50 AM, MattMyster said: Hey guys, I was referred here by an old reddit post I stumbled upon that said to come here and ask for help. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what Jim taught to do for levels 1-2 or if anyone can point me in the right direction. I've pasted the original reddit post below for reference. Thanks for any insights! My reply will likely not make any difference, but here is my comment anyway. A complex neigong system as was practiced by John Chang of course can't be learned from any junior student who is not by any stretch of the imagination qualified to teach any part of that system, no matter what they may say. Anything you read about 'mo pai' on the net or in a book by any junior students or any other claimed 'students' likely isn't trustworthy at all. If someone wants to learn that system, you would need to go to Surabaya or where ever the school may be located and ask if they will accept you as a student. Good luck with that after all the complete craziness and extreme negativity that has occurred from that school apparently teaching just a few westerners a few basic practices. However, anything is possible. IMO, however, If a person's goal is to seek super powers and fame and fortune, they likely have already lost before they have started. Truthfully, the differences between western culture and eastern culture can be very large, and most westerners are likely just not in a compatible head space to assimilate well into such a system even if a westerner were to be accepted these days. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ralis Posted August 17, 2020 I wonder how many pages this obsession will take up before the thread is locked. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cleansox Posted August 17, 2020 There should be a betting pool. 1) Number of posts. 2) Suspensions/bans. 3) How long before the vid discussion starts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zork Posted August 17, 2020 45 minutes ago, Cleansox said: There should be a betting pool. 1) Number of posts. 2) Suspensions/bans. 3) How long before the vid discussion starts. you forgot the 4th. How long till a WMP member jumps in to "defend his teachers"? I don't think those will happen though. Not with the current members on the thread. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thelerner Posted August 17, 2020 8 hours ago, MattMyster said: Hi Lerner, Thanks for this I will check it out. Did he ever provide a reason for this? Seems odd he would just stop after a decade or more of all this from what I gathered from the books. I found out his facebook and its just filled with angry greek political posts. Kinda odd for a guy who trained and practiced meditiation, higher vibrational living and consciousness and chakra alignment. When your teacher says I can't teach you anymore, changing things up happens. In the interview here, Kosta listed other practices he thought were worth while. Personally I'll go years with Just Sitting, then do something a more involved, energy based then return to just sitting. For me, Higher/Complex.. lower/simple.. both have there charms. Not that I get too close to the higher stuff. Life and passions pull at you. There's time enough for that and to leave the world behind and go deep. Nothing wrong with that. Probably best not to lose out on life by trying to become some spiritual caricature, the point is to be yourself. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cleansox Posted August 17, 2020 54 minutes ago, Zork said: WMP SOMAD The official name. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MattMyster Posted August 18, 2020 Lots to think about here, thanks for the insights. Why did they get evicted? It doesn't make sense why a practice would be detrimental to health when part of the practice itself in later stages is healing. Do we know why this happens? Whats "LDT"? 16 hours ago, Zork said: Kostas stopped practicing because he and Jim were evicted by order of the astral masters/ancestral spirits of the MoPai school. At least that is his version of what happened. The level 2 exercises cause tension which in turn ALWAYS creates problems. Kostas has developed prostate cancer which he attributes to MoPai practice. Jim died from prostate cancer a few years ago. John Chang died from cancer too at a far more advanced age. LDT Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cleansox Posted August 18, 2020 1 hour ago, MattMyster said: Lots to think about here, thanks for the insights. Why did they get evicted? Trolling 1 hour ago, MattMyster said: It doesn't make sense why a practice would be detrimental to health when part of the practice itself in later stages is healing. Do we know why this happens? Compression creates stagnation. Stagnation is baaaaad. 1 hour ago, MattMyster said: Whats "LDT"? Lower dantian. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cleansox Posted August 18, 2020 (edited) The basic story SOMAD is the official name of a group of students/practitioners who, while practice some aspects of a lineage, are not currently connected to that lineage. They have gone under other names, but after a fruitful and non-aggressive discussion on another site this summer they decided upon this term, and we should use it as well. For members of SOMAD, their practice is the ultimate power kick. Once you try it in ernest, you do not go back to other methods. For non-SOMAD, their practice is the ultimate power kick. Seen from the perspective of other methods, it has some (major) problems/issues. As I wrote above, it is based on a focus on the lower dan tian, parallell with a specific mind state. After a while, you do more practices, including a practice where you use force to compress qi into the LDT. If it was just this, there would be very little attention to this group. There are many people with practices out there. The major part of all discussions have circulated around non-cultivation issues. That's sort of summons it. I might have left out some of the annoying stuff 😂 Edited August 18, 2020 by Cleansox Spelling 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zork Posted August 18, 2020 11 hours ago, MattMyster said: Why did they get evicted? Supposedly the spirit of Chang's master came to him and told him that the westerners were not welcome to the school. After this incident Chang was on good terms with everyone (in the west) but did not teach them anything further. 11 hours ago, MattMyster said: It doesn't make sense why a practice would be detrimental to health when part of the practice itself in later stages is healing. Do we know why this happens? It does. It is the way they train. I don't remember the page from magus of java but it is written somewhere that everyone that had a developed LDT had acquired some problem as a result of the training. Take this with a grain of salt. I read the book a long time ago. 11 hours ago, MattMyster said: Whats "LDT"? Lower Dan Tien. It is the one of the 3 main energy centers of the body according to taoist teachings. The other two are the Middle and Upper dan tiens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites