Daoist meditation: water and fire methods

[snowymountains]

40 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

You can basically teach whatever you want.

 

I'll file a trademark for "Daoist hip-hip energetic chanting" 😁

[Neirong]

3 hours ago, snowymountains said:

b ) If the curriculum is unstructured ( different per teacher ) but the textual references are clear - then in my experience it's possible to recognise a star teacher, though it may take a bit more time ( again defining as star someone who teaches excellently their tradition).

The main question for me, as I explored various teachers, was whether a teacher is merely an instructor following a tradition or if they are a true master.
 

An instructor strictly adheres to the book, teaching based on predefined materials and the knowledge they received. Their understanding is limited to what they were taught, and they acquire knowledge through others. In this chain of knowledge succession, one might not even be third or fourth in line; the information could have been passed and altered hundreds of times, rendering it irrelevant to the original teachings.
 

A master, on the other hand, is someone capable of walking the path. They learn directly from the source and can acquire new knowledge not previously known.

If you had the opportunity to learn directly from Buddha or Patanjali in person or from any existing "lineage" transmitters of their teachings, what would you choose?

 

1 hour ago, snowymountains said:

Regarding the outcome which the lineage's teaching promise, that's a different discussion, one needs to do trial and error on that.

I have observed many people hopping between schools and traditions in search of some holy grail. The reality is that any legitimate, non-make-believe teaching has a passing rate. The more advanced and potent the teaching, the higher the barriers and difficulty, resulting in fewer people being able to get through it.
 

What people often don't want to admit or believe is that they might have an internal flaw or issue. It is quite common among seekers of ancient knowledge to think that they are the chosen ones, special beings with no chance to fail at anything. Which is utterly delusional.

What saves them is that most of the masters they find are teaching make-believe stuff with no difficulty scaling at all. Easy practices are popular with public and are profitable. All you need to do is show some sleight-of-hand tricks like "Fajin pushing" then add some fancy words like spiritual energy daoist arts water/fire cultivation and you are digging gold.

[Maddie]

4 minutes ago, Neirong said:

What people often don't want to admit or believe is that they might have an internal flaw or issue. It is quite common among seekers of ancient knowledge to think that they are the chosen ones, special beings with no chance to fail at anything. Which is utterly delusional.

 

Careful that word triggers people here lol. 

[snowymountains]

37 minutes ago, Neirong said:

The main question for me, as I explored various teachers, was whether a teacher is merely an instructor following a tradition or if they are a true master.
 

An instructor strictly adheres to the book, teaching based on predefined materials and the knowledge they received. Their understanding is limited to what they were taught, and they acquire knowledge through others. In this chain of knowledge succession, one might not even be third or fourth in line; the information could have been passed and altered hundreds of times, rendering it irrelevant to the original teachings.

 

Depends, e.g. Theravada is usually taught in a very systematic way.

The good teacher who has a deep knowledge and can transmit it makes a huge difference, just like a good Chemistry teacher, a good Maths teacher etc. 

A structured curriculum or not is not necessarily an indicator for the teacher, just what a tradition follows.

 

40 minutes ago, Neirong said:

I have observed many people hopping between schools and traditions in search of some holy grail. The reality is that any legitimate, non-make-believe teaching has a passing rate. The more advanced and potent the teaching, the higher the barriers and difficulty, resulting in fewer people being able to get through it.
 

What people often don't want to admit or believe is that they might have an internal flaw or issue. It is quite common among seekers of ancient knowledge to think that they are the chosen ones, special beings with no chance to fail at anything. Which is utterly delusional.

 

There are also delusional teachings too which are practiced solely because someone hundreds of years ago said so, this is more of a theme when not all methods and goals are transparent upfront, so category c). Sometimes there's no ancient knowledge to be found, just time to be wasted on metaphysical beliefs.

[Maddie]

6 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

Depends, e.g. Theravada is usually taught in a very systematic way.

The good teacher who has a deep knowledge and can transmit it makes a huge difference, just like a good Chemistry teacher, a good Maths teacher etc. 

A structured curriculum or not is not necessarily an indicator for the teacher, just what a tradition follows.

 

 

There are also delusional teachings too which are practiced solely because someone hundreds of years ago said so, this is more of a theme when not all methods and goals are transparent upfront, so category c). Sometimes there's no ancient knowledge to be found, just time to be wasted on metaphysical beliefs.

 

 

The Buddha said not to believe something simply because of reputation, or lineage, or popularity but to see for yourself if it was true and made sense. 

[Master Logray]

1 hour ago, Neirong said:

The main question for me, as I explored various teachers, was whether a teacher is merely an instructor following a tradition or if they are a true master.
 

An instructor strictly adheres to the book, teaching based on predefined materials and the knowledge they received. Their understanding is limited to what they were taught, and they acquire knowledge through others. In this chain of knowledge succession, one might not even be third or fourth in line; the information could have been passed and altered hundreds of times, rendering it irrelevant to the original teachings.
 

A master, on the other hand, is someone capable of walking the path. They learn directly from the source and can acquire new knowledge not previously known.

If you had the opportunity to learn directly from Buddha or Patanjali in person or from any existing "lineage" transmitters of their teachings, what would you choose?

 

I have observed many people hopping between schools and traditions in search of some holy grail. The reality is that any legitimate, non-make-believe teaching has a passing rate. The more advanced and potent the teaching, the higher the barriers and difficulty, resulting in fewer people being able to get through it.
 

What people often don't want to admit or believe is that they might have an internal flaw or issue. It is quite common among seekers of ancient knowledge to think that they are the chosen ones, special beings with no chance to fail at anything. Which is utterly delusional.

What saves them is that most of the masters they find are teaching make-believe stuff with no difficulty scaling at all. Easy practices are popular with public and are profitable. All you need to do is show some sleight-of-hand tricks like "Fajin pushing" then add some fancy words like spiritual energy daoist arts water/fire cultivation and you are digging gold.

 

I think instructors and masters have their roles.   You don't want Einstein or Hawkins to teach your kids in the kindergarten.

 

Masters (not Buddha level ) may not be good teachers at all.   Many of them have no teaching skills.  Some are lowly educated or even illiterate.   Some are naive.  They are no doubt high achievers in their internal arts but it doesn't mean they are good in other aspects.  Showing tricks and dragging are common.  Can you teach a person meditation everyday?   I have seen a teacher's curriculum.  There are full of inflators to prolong the teaching.

 

 

 

 

[snowymountains]

10 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

 

The Buddha said not to believe something simply because of reputation, or lineage, or popularity but to see for yourself if it was true and made sense. 

 

True, this is about whether a tradition fulfills this promises ( not about on whether teachers experience is as advertised by themselves ).

Krishamurti was even more critical than the Buddha, but at the end of the days one tries out and sees what makes sense.

Sometimes one wouldn't even need to do that if the practice was transparent upfront, they could reject it straight away if all available information was there from the start😁, that's the downside of category c).

 

 

On the other matter, of whether teachers experience is as advertised by themselves. Even though I'm no a Buddha, I say before spending an hour, commute time and a single dollar to see it, I want to see some nice and verifiable curriculum vitae by the teachers as my $, my rules on where its spent 🙂.

[Maddie]

16 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

True, this is about whether a tradition fulfills this promises ( not about on whether teachers experience is as advertised by themselves ).

Krishamurti was even more critical than the Buddha, but at the end of the days one tries out and sees what makes sense.

Sometimes one wouldn't even need to do that if the practice was transparent upfront, they could reject it straight away if all available information was there from the start😁, that's the downside of category c).

 

 

On the other matter, of whether teachers experience is as advertised by themselves. Even though I'm no a Buddha, I say before spending an hour, commute time and a single dollar to see it, I want to see some nice and verifiable curriculum vitae by the teachers as my $, my rules on where its spent 🙂.

 

This is one reason I train Brazilian Jujitsu and what I found interesting about the early UFC in general. Before the UFC there was lots of talk and claims about which marital art was the best but these claims hadn't really been tested on a broad and widescale range with a large audience. In the early UFC it was pure art verses pure art. During those times BJJ rose to the top along with wrestling. 

 

* In a similar manner if someone practices a tradition and they seem like a pretty happy and kind person this gets my attention. On the other hand if they seem reactive, immature and unhappy I am not impressed. 

Edited January 12 by Maddie

[snowymountains]

1 minute ago, Maddie said:

 

This is one reason I train Brazilian Jujitsu and what I found interesting about the early UFC in general. Before the UFC there was lots of talk and claims about which marital art was the best but these claims hadn't really been tested on a broad and widescale range with a large audience. In the early UFC it was pure art verses pure art. During those times BJJ rose to the top along with wrestling. 

 

I've stopped watching UFCs for decades, but was watching the first ones, I've watched Gracie, Frank Shamrock, also the Japanese Pride with Mark Kerr, Coleman, Igor, Sakuraba, pre Fedor/Crocop era stuff. I had watched some Japanese Pancrase before that too (Ruten-Shamrock !).

 

I know what you are talking about, it was a complete joke to see wrestlers and submission wrestlers take down the rest. At one point, when headbutts where allowed, it was not uncommon to have a whole game go like

start -> double leg takedown -> headbutts -> over because too much blood on the tatami.

 

I also remember Tank Abbott and his treatment of practitioners who made extravagant claims (aka BS) 😂

On the other hand, good athletes like Vitor Belford would get done with him easily. 

 

When a universal style came along, it combined wresting/bjj/boxing/muaythai/K1 kickboxing, all very practical.

I had also trained and competed in a couple of these when I was younger, not at UFC level clearly, amateur level.

 

Blind faith was paid dearly in the first UFCs

[Maddie]

6 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

I've stopped watching UFCs for decades, but was watching the first ones, I've watched Gracie, Frank Shamrock, also the Japanese Pride with Mark Kerr, Coleman, Igor, Sakuraba, pre Fedor/Crocop era stuff. I had watched some Japanese Pancrase before that too (Ruten-Shamrock !).

 

I know what you are talking about, it was a complete joke to see wrestlers and submission wrestlers take down the rest. At one point, when headbutts where allowed, it was not uncommon to have a whole game go like

start -> double leg takedown -> headbutts -> over because too much blood on the tatami.

 

I also remember Tank Abbott and his treatment of practitioners who made extravagant claims (aka BS) 😂

On the other hand, good athletes like Vitor Belford would get done with him easily. 

 

When a universal style came along, it combined wresting/bjj/boxing/muaythai/K1 kickboxing, all very practical.

I had also trained and competed in a couple of these when I was younger, not at UFC level clearly, amateur level.

 

Blind faith was paid dearly in the first UFCs

 

Yes. The reason I even mentioned that at all was because I use this same early UFC approach when it comes to spiritual and religious traditions as well. I look at the overall character and behavior of the practitioners to see if its even worth wanting to emulate in the first place or not. I think this is within the spirit of what the Buddha said about this topic. 

 

* As an aside in my personal observations the most emotionally immature group over all seems to the the "powers" people. 

Edited January 12 by Maddie

[snowymountains]

Just now, Maddie said:

 

Yes. The reason I even mentioned that at all was because I use this same early UFC approach when it comes to spiritual and religious traditions as well. I look at the overall character and behavior of the practitioners to see if its even worth wanting to emulate in the first place or not. I think this is within the spirit of what the Buddha said about this topic. 

 

You do the right thing. What I'm talking about is more in the lines avoiding the wasting time to go and see them if they don't fulfil criteria not trust them blindly 😁

 

There is often more than meets the eye to some of the folks who commit to practices in terms of what drives them there, esp when there's a supped secret sauce to achieve stuff I'm pretty sure my child understands are downright impossible but here I'll refrain.

[Maddie]

1 minute ago, snowymountains said:

 

You do the right thing. What I'm talking about is more in the lines avoiding the wasting time to go and see them if they don't fulfil criteria not trust them blindly 😁

 

There is often more than meets the eye to some of the folks who commit to practices in terms of what drives them there, esp when there's a supped secret sauce to achieve stuff I'm pretty sure my child understands are downright impossible but here I'll refrain.

 

Haha I often use the "what would a kid think about this" test a lot when evaluating things. Like would they giggle and say "that is just make believe". Or is this something I would see kids on a play ground playing i.e. lets play Harry Potter as they pretend to have magic powers as they pick up sticks for wands. If so, I don't take it seriously lol. 

[Neirong]

1 hour ago, Master Logray said:

I think instructors and masters have their roles.

The problem lies in the perspective; a kindergarten teacher won't be able to prepare you for what comes next, as he does not know the path himself. It is possible to waste 15-30 years of life practicing various things. When you come across higher-level teachings, you realize that you are lacking and have to start from the very beginning, unlearning and relearning basics.

 

1 hour ago, Master Logray said:

You don't want Einstein or Hawkins to teach your kids in the kindergarten.

That is why Hierarchy exists in esoteric circles and is necessary. For "Einstein" teaching kindergarten kids would be a waste of his time and potential that could be used more wisely elsewhere.

Also a person who does beginner classes all his life, can only be a kindergarten teacher, even if he claims differently.

 

1 hour ago, Master Logray said:

I have seen a teacher's curriculum.  There are full of inflators to prolong the teaching.

In the market, it is supply and demand, people are willing to pay for the volume and hours of video recordings. It creates a fake sense of value and a sense that you are studying and absorbing a lot of "knowledge". There's an endless production of content of dubious quality to satisfy the consumer demand, but it does almost nothing to change anyones life and potential.
 

I think some of those teachers go to classes on "How to say nothing and spend 3 hours on it."
I have also observed cases of instructors developing slow-paced speech, so that every sentence they say takes longer..

[snowymountains]

Teachers, lineages etc can be great means to ...teach a set of techniques/practices, provided they do teach something real as in a real lineage that lasted for a long time or in the case of western mindfulness something clinically tested etc.

 

Then after some time in a curriculum one evaluates what they keep for their own practice, for most meditative systems some form of advanced insight meditation or open awareness is almost always included.  Monks do it similarly, they tend to specialise in some meditations, though they've been exposed to a wide curriculum.

 

After that though, there's no teacher, only practice, Krishnamurti summed it up well. 

 

On Gurus | Krishnamurti (youtube.com)

 

 

[Maddie]

3 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

Teachers, lineages etc can be great means to ...teach a set of techniques/practices, provided they do teach something real as in a real lineage that lasted for a long time or in the case of western mindfulness something clinically tested etc.

 

Then after some time in a curriculum one evaluates what they keep for their own practice, for most meditative systems some form of advanced insight meditation or open awareness is almost always included.  Monks do it similarly, they tend to specialise in some meditations, though they've been exposed to a wide curriculum.

 

After that though, there's no teacher, only practice, Krishnamurti summed it up well. 

 

On Gurus | Krishnamurti (youtube.com)

 

 

 

This reminds me of when I first wanted to learn meditation. Every where I went I was always told to do Samatha type meditation of focusing on the breath and "making the mind quiet" This did not work for me. What I would notice is that I would do this for just a little while and all kinds of things would come to the surface, to which I was advised to just ignore. This seemed like odd advice since I had been led to believe that the point of meditation was to know one's mind better. To ignore what was coming to the surface seemed like suppression which seemed to be the opposite of the goal of meditation.

   Later I learned about mindfulness meditation where the goal was to observe what was in the mind. I have made much better progress with this type of meditation and it is the one that I specialize in now. 

[ChiDragon]

10 minutes ago, Maddie said:

meditation of focusing on the breath and "making the mind quiet"

This is more like Taoist type of meditation!

 

10 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 Later I learned about mindfulness meditation where the goal was to observe what was in the mind. I have made much better progress with this type of meditation and it is the one that I specialize in now. 

This is more like Buddhist meditation!

[Maddie]

4 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

This is more like Taoist type of meditation!

 

This is more like Buddhist meditation!

 

Samatha meditation is very much a Buddhist practice. I'm not knocking it and saying its not useful, but it was not working for me. 

[ChiDragon]

3 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

Samatha meditation is very much a Buddhist practice. I'm not knocking it and saying its not useful, but it was not working for me. 

 

Yes, It was understood that Taoist meditation is strictly similar to Samatha meditation.

[Maddie]

4 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

 

Yes, It was understood that Taoist meditation is strictly similar to Samatha meditation.

 

My first meditation practices were usually Qigong or Daoist. Specifically in this case I did a lot of five element/organ meditations at the beginning. Typically after working on a specific organ/element for a while a lot of repressed stuff would come up to the surface and I would become aware of it and observe it and learn things about myself. The observation part I wasn't taught it just sort of happened spontaneously but this was basically mindfulness. 

[ChiDragon]

People who practice Buddhism in the Chinese society is because of marriage or family problems. They wanted to have a peace of mind. So, the first thing is to practice Samatha meditation. Especially, the Chinese women are in this category.

[snowymountains]

33 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

This reminds me of when I first wanted to learn meditation. Every where I went I was always told to do Samatha type meditation of focusing on the breath and "making the mind quiet" This did not work for me. What I would notice is that I would do this for just a little while and all kinds of things would come to the surface, to which I was advised to just ignore. This seemed like odd advice since I had been led to believe that the point of meditation was to know one's mind better. To ignore what was coming to the surface seemed like suppression which seemed to be the opposite of the goal of meditation.

   Later I learned about mindfulness meditation where the goal was to observe what was in the mind. I have made much better progress with this type of meditation and it is the one that I specialize in now. 

 

Samatha is often just means to calm the mind before the awareness step.

Of course you can also do Samatha as a stand-alone practice too.

 

If it is emotional stuff that comes up during Samatha, a common practice is to do a round of Metta or Karuna first.

So Metta ( or Karuna ) calms emotions, then Samatha calms the mind, then in insight you observe without entangling with the stuff that comes up, just observe their rise and fall. 

 

Now in all those steps the breath is 100% natural.

 

As an extra you can do one more step at the start, in that step the breath is not natural, you do boxed breathing, which calms down the nervous system.

 

So the full process would be like

 

1) boxed breathing ( 2-3 mins, not a lot ), to calm the nervous system.

2) Metta or Karuna, to enter a pleasant emotional state - with natural breathing.

3) Samatha, to calm the mind - with natural breathing

4) Insight, to observe, all the previous steps were effectively preparation steps for this - with natural breathing

[snowymountains]

4 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

People who practice Buddhism in the Chinese society is because of marriage or family problems. They wanted to have a peace of mind. So, the first thing is to practice Samatha meditation. Especially, the Chinese women are in this category.

 

Actually one of the worst reasons to practice Samatha is to calm and ignore what's coming to the surface during everyday life.

 

If there are family problems one should work on the relationship, or if that doesn't solve things, leave the relationship.

Otherwise people will do Samatha to ignore it and because of dealing with it by doing Samatha, they ( and perhaps their children too ) will be stuck in dysfunctional family patterns for decades.

[snowymountains]

28 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

Samatha meditation is very much a Buddhist practice. I'm not knocking it and saying its not useful, but it was not working for me. 

 

Samatha predates Buddhism!, the Buddha learnt Samatha from his teachers.

The Buddha's own great addition to the meditation arsenal was insight meditation, which has a lot of similarities with what is taught in western mindfulness courses.

[ChiDragon]

15 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

My first meditation practices were usually Qigong or Daoist. Specifically in this case I did a lot of five element/organ meditations at the beginning. Typically after working on a specific organ/element for a while a lot of repressed stuff would come up to the surface and I would become aware of it and observe it and learn things about myself. The observation part I wasn't taught it just sort of happened spontaneously but this was basically mindfulness. 

Taoists believed that meditation by focusing on particular organ would be beneficial or healing an illness of the organ. IMHO That was only an imaginary concept. In reality, the body is actually a self-healing machine. Regardless of one is focusing on the organ or not.

[ChiDragon]

6 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

Actually one of the worst reasons to practice Samatha is to calm and ignore what's coming to the surface during everyday life.

 

If there are family problems one should work on the relationship, or if that doesn't solve things, leave the relationship.

Otherwise people will do Samatha to ignore it and because of dealing with it by doing Samatha, they ( and perhaps their children too ) will be stuck in dysfunctional family patterns for decades.

A person who stepped into a Buddhist temple to become a Buddhist, that person will be out of this world and leave the problems behind regardless of the consequences. I am only speaking within the Chinese society who has this kind of problems.