Master Nan & Bill Bodri - circulation being a waste of time

[erdweir]

Allot of Bodri and Nan's comments on circulation and Qi Gong are a bit exaggerated, and it's just a fact that their tradition is a stillness one. They exhibit a good deal of prejudice on the matter. But if you dig through all of the stuff in Measuring Meditation, they actually admit several times that the different schools(stillness/movement, orthodox/esoteric, etc.) exist to help different types of people reach higher states of being. they even say for instance that younger people benefit from movement and so forth because theymay have too much energy to cultivate stillness. So they can show a pretty fair way of looking at it, even though it's often obscured or contradicted by polemics.

 

There are places where they actually say it is of gret value that the Taoist tradition has preserved all of it's body transformation knowledge. They also say that even if one obtains enlightnment very quickly, that one still has to transform one's body. so one can either work on the body first, the mind first, or both at the same time. but the body has to be transformed one way or another. Their position is that it can be much easier for some to do it with zen methods, and if they are right, then circultaion is strictly speaking, not neccessary for everybody.

 

BTW, Master Nan's bio says he was a martial artist before he began serious cultivation.

 

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As far as my personal experience goes, I had all kinds of trouble trying to direct circulation. If I just follow my breath, then it happens without my needing to interfere. I am in the same position as Cameron when she says that the trick now is to just let it happen without trying to mess with it. But this reminds me of some saying i cant quite remember where in the beginning the mind leads the chi and then.. i cant remember the rest of it. feel free tofinish my thought if you want. I have work to do.....

Edited August 5, 2009 by erdweir

[宁]

everything in the universe moves in a spiral... who do you belive, man or nature?

[Guest sykkelpump]

everything in the universe moves in a spiral... who do you belive, man or nature?

 

 

Everything in nature moves in spiral?

Everything is made of atoms,and the electron surrounding proton does not move in spiral.how do you explain that?

[Desert Eagle]

I just read this...

 

Thought it was funny:

 

Energy work vs sitting

 

good article, thanks for sharing.

[Smile]

BTW, Master Nan's bio says he was a martial artist before he began serious cultivation.

I have a video of him doing Taiji...

[Cameron]

 

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I am in the same position as Cameron when she says that the trick now is to just let it happen without trying to mess with it.

 

 

Are you referring to myself or is there another Cameron here? If so I am a he.

 

Zen Master Sunim who I sat with last weekend combines Zen and Sundo training. So there is a nice mixing of the mind and body stuff with him.

 

Though Kunlun is my main practice. I also practice the standing forms Max teaches which really help to ground the mind into the body.

 

Cam

Edited August 6, 2009 by Cameron

[erdweir]

Are you referring to myself or is there another Cameron here? If so I am a he.

 

 

you fooled me with the cute kitty

[宁]

Everything in nature moves in spiral?

Everything is made of atoms,and the electron surrounding proton does not move in spiral.how do you explain that?

 

i don't know the physics terms in English, but i think even the electron moves in a spiral, when it changes it's electrical load. there are a quite a fiew layers of the atom, and electrons usually jump from one to the other, especially in the layers that are farther from the nucleus. it may 'look' as if it's spiralling around the nucleus, back and forth.

but the view of the matter as being composed of atoms is not a very precise one, neither the division of the layers of the atom itself.

if you have the time, please watch nassim haramein's video on videogoogle...

also, stillness and movement in a straight line are two extremes, the middle way is the spiral, that can both keep a center, and still keep on moving.

 

the earth seems still to us, but it's actually moving. if we exit our planet, the planets seem to move, but the sun seems to be still. if we exit our solar system, the sun itself rotates around a larger star.... and so on. stillness and circulation are both needed, and they may be different aspects of the same thing, depending on the observation point.

[Smile]

Zen Master Sunim who I sat with last weekend combines Zen and Sundo training. So there is a nice mixing of the mind and body stuff with him.

I told you he is awesome.

[Old Man Contradiction]

I agree with Bodhri. All you need is emptiness meditation and sexual retention and everything else will happen naturally (and I have beautiful skin too). But sitting still and not blowing your wad is not fun so.....

 

haha best post ever. DarinHamel I salute you and your down to earth attitude.

 

 

to thread:

 

My problem with visualizing chi is i'll just be imagining it, not actually working with it. Worst part is, I wouldn't even know it because the book says that whatever sensation I feel is chi, when it's really just my daydream of doing qigong and gaining all it's benefits without having to work for it.......

[de_paradise]

It's so wonderful to put your attention on some part of the body and in not time at all feel it suddenly becoming lively with the vibrant tingling and warmth of the Energy body, then soon feel this extending beyond the limits of the body while in the same time a rejuvenating stream of energy is finding its way from the place you had your attention before to the part of the body where it's fixed now...

 

Strangely enough, one of the gates to awareness of the energy body is becoming silently aware of the physical body itself since "normally" in the 'solical order' accent is put mostly on the head and the sexual organs (the two extremities of the trunk). Go in any country and look at the leading journals and almost always the themes are "brain", "sex" "sex", brain", or: "sex & the brain" or "the brain and Sex"...

...may-be i'm wrong about this but that's my impression.

 

So, bringing the attention (and thus vibratory awareness of the Energy body, or chi/qi or whatever one may call it) back into the whole body decrowns the exclusivity of the head and awaken the body energetically. To my feeling we can only be grateful to those who have mapped the body energetically.

 

We are trapped in this realm in our bodies and we cannot deny it. I feel our challenge is to reawaken and reclame the full energetic capacities of our bodies and turn them into what they are really: most magical things. Some shaman said once: "all the wonders and magic are in the body itself oyu only gotto calim its powers, it can be a powerful radar, it can be a shotgun, it can lift off piercing through gravity, it can heal others...". It just is not an obstacle.

 

Naturally a physical body should be able to turn into pure energy and back to body by will. But somehow we became trapped into a "solid" phisical vibratory level of worldview and this is not because we have a full awareness of our bodies as a total energetic unit but rather because we haven't.

 

We all know that feeling the energy fibers in the body consistently transcends sooner or later into feeling the energy fibers extending beyond the body: thus matching the fibers without with those within. I'm sure most of you know that from the midsection of man extend fibers that connect man to everything outside and through which you can affect things and matter in sometimes strange ways. A key thing to becoming aware of these fibers in the lower disc is to start by simply 'listening' to the energetc vibrations there or later trying to sense your surroundings from there--just one example of how focussing on a 'local' part of the body can bring awareness of some of the most important features of our energetic beings. Many know about the midsection as simple energy-storing place but that's only one side of it.

Another similar example is developing the sense of the energy fibers of the feet and calves, then intending awareness of extended fibers from there and feeling your surroundings with, let's say, your calves. Like, you can try to sense your neighbours through the wall.

 

All those practices don't mean that they should be practiced amidst mental chatter or with mood of obsession or ambition...

 

Many of us were even OBLIGED to start to purposefully circulate energy and open channels because of disease: there was a problmem IN the body, and as a blessing in disguise, claiming the magical capacities of the body itself became the solution! In the same way: one doesn't need to be sick, but just as sickness is a limitation we may see the "normal-solid-only-worldview-reality" as a limitation and thus get spurred/inspired to re-claim the full magical capacities of our bodies as a total energy unit!

 

The body is there, full of memories, full of judgements, emotions and distortions--all this TRAPPED ENERGY. We need to deal with this and liberate this energy setting the fibers of our bodies luminous with awareness and fluid again. If we don't do this, we can go to our "blissful samadhies" to our hearts content but the moment we get back into our physical bodies we are again the same asshole because of this trapped energy and distorted fibers that program and trigger our routinery responses to the everiday life world outside. So, i feel, it should be seen as a joyfyl challenge that one can't deny or ignore.

 

...i think it's like polishing a concave mirror for a telescope: they do it slowly, delicately and with consistency--every day, every day!

 

Probably it is true that many turn it into a narrow obsession (i get the enrgy to circulate, then i get powers, etc.) but that's not because of working with enegy in the body it is because of our habit to turn everything into an "end" that will justify all our means & "doings"...

 

...i feel it should be left openended, buzzing with "not-doings" rather than "doings", with sense of exploration, awe, elegance and lightness... while consulting the vibratory vibrations of our Being at all times...

 

like some Lao Tzu said (paraphrase): "A good traveller is not intent on arriving.." Kind of like, it's the journey that counts not the destination.

 

If it were the destination that counts then the discourse would be: "oh oh, what do i do to get there! oh tell me what to do give me the phone number of your teacher only he'd know what i need to do to 'get-there'..."

 

All these folks talk about doing this not doing that, but the feeling of the vibration of being is the primordial, if its not there no doing will help. And it's first felt in the energy vortexes of the body...

 

Maybe

it's not what you you're DOING, it's rather how are you BEING

 

Wow, thanks for reviving this thread. Funny I was just naturally doing what is mentioned in this post, intuitively knowing it was the right thing to do: feeling my surroundings with midsection. And true that its all in the attitude. A good many things mentioned in this post I have understood by the by. Nice peice of hypnotic writing too!

 

Beyond this, I was sitting in the bathtub last week and thought that qi circulation is not really qi circulation, its more like using your mind to stimulate various parts of your energy body to get it excited, and moving your mind round and round. That is why whenever I do orbits, the result is an excited energy. But its going to circulate naturally anyway, much faster and much more accurately by itself. I think orbits should be called "orbital stimulation with a bit of qi following" Because most qi (thank your lucky stars) does not follow your concious mind, and the bit that does seem to follow may not be travelling at all, just giving you the illusion of going somewhere. Where in fact---like distance healing energy--it seems to be "created" or transmuted into existence (think quantum physics)from the spot that the intention travels to. Anyway, just something I thought of...

Edited August 6, 2009 by de_paradise

[King Kabalabhati]

I personally don't see the problem behind moving the chi, since I've been taught that your mind, once engaged in following the chi, in fact becomes one with the chi, so where you move it with your mind is not really separate from where it moves your mind. I do recognise sometimes that my will is trying to move the chi somehow "violently" and that's where relaxation and thus stiling the mind is most useful.

 

Anyway, following and moving the chi has given me lots of good, quiet sitting down and I've also felt the circulation get stronger, with energy pathways opening and awareness of my internal channels increasing as I've done the practice. In fact, before I was introduced to the Microcosmic I never fully believed in the existance of chi power.

Edited August 6, 2009 by King Kabalabhati

[Guest sykkelpump]

i don't know the physics terms in English, but i think even the electron moves in a spiral, when it changes it's electrical load. there are a quite a fiew layers of the atom, and electrons usually jump from one to the other, especially in the layers that are farther from the nucleus. it may 'look' as if it's spiralling around the nucleus, back and forth.

but the view of the matter as being composed of atoms is not a very precise one, neither the division of the layers of the atom itself.

if you have the time, please watch nassim haramein's video on videogoogle...

also, stillness and movement in a straight line are two extremes, the middle way is the spiral, that can both keep a center, and still keep on moving.

 

the earth seems still to us, but it's actually moving. if we exit our planet, the planets seem to move, but the sun seems to be still. if we exit our solar system, the sun itself rotates around a larger star.... and so on. stillness and circulation are both needed, and they may be different aspects of the same thing, depending on the observation point.

 

The electron does not move in spiral,thats a fact .check it up.neither does the planets.if they did they would either move away or crash with the sun.use your head.and look up some facts

[宁]

The electron does not move in spiral,thats a fact .check it up.neither does the planets.if they did they would either move away or crash with the sun.use your head.and look up some facts

 

 

no one knows the exact movement of an electron, and it's surely not Exactly orbital.

neither the planets, or the stars.

 

but hey, have it your way, i'm cool with that too.

 

my point was, if everything in the universe is moving, in a cycle or spiral, that may Definately mean something to practicioners.

there is a saying, if you don't understand something (about practice), you can seek the answer in nature.

you won't be fooled by second-hand philosophers that easy this way.

good luck with it

 

L1

[erdweir]

I personally don't see the problem behind moving the chi, since I've been taught that your mind, once engaged in following the chi, in fact becomes one with the chi, so where you move it with your mind is not really separate from where it moves your mind. I do recognise sometimes that my will is trying to move the chi somehow "violently" and that's where relaxation and thus stiling the mind is most useful.

 

I dont know if there is a problem with this approach in general either, but I ran into trouble with it, and still find it problematic. There is a point were you are not forcing anything and it works better though.

 

Nan and Bodri are just coming from a different school of practice, that's all. Nan makes some claim to have the "original" Taoist methodology, whatever that is, and places it at odds with the later devellopments of internal alchemy and such. I personally find his viewpoint interesting, but the way it is expressed is a bit dissapointing.

 

You know a Turkish friend of mine told me about how you can go to these particular Sufis in Turkey and they will ask you allot of questions and then tell you what kind of Sufi you should go study with. It seems thay have a better grasp on how various styles of practice might be suited to different individuals than allot of Taoists.

[JessOBrien]

Hi Snowmonkey,

 

Just to throw a few thoughts in this:

 

BKF speaks of Water and Fire approaches to Taoist cultivation often. The Fire approach he refers to is in regards to his learning inside a Taoist cult in Taiwan and Hong Kong where he was ordained as a priest. It also refers to people he encountered in mainland China when he was given letters of recommendation and sent to visit various monastic groups.

 

I can't say for sure, but I'm 99% sure that either he or his teacher coined the Fire/Water distinction, it's not drawn from a mainstream source. It's a metaphor he uses to point to different ways of achieving meditative and alchemical results.

 

He says that Fire approaches of visualizing and moving Chi consciously are Extremely effective, in fact too effective to be taught without direct teacher supervision. He teaches his Water approach of letting go, and dissolving because he doesn't have time or desire to mentor students directly and monitor their progress. He says that Water approach is slow, and yields progress only one drop at a time, however it is much safer and can be practiced solo for the most part.

 

Just a few things I've picked up in my study with him.

 

I guess my take-away is that the Fire/Water thing is useful as a safety mechanism metaphor, but shouldn't be taken as a judgment of one or the other.

 

Take care,

 

Jess O

[松永道]

First I haven't read this thread, I don't have time (no internet at home anymore! talk about a cultivation aid).

 

I simply want to comment on Bodri's approach to meditation.

 

We see a good deal of Buddhist monks and nuns in my Doctor's office. Invariably, most come in with the same core issues. Poor circulation, qi stagnation, blood stagnation, dampness and mucus accumulation. In western terms, diabetes and prediabetic conditions, cancer, fatigue, etc.

 

These people are cultivators mind you. They are serious mediators with many achievements. So why do they have these problems? Because they don't move! They don't exercise - the simplest form of circulating Qi! They neglect the body for spiritual cultivation, get a certain ways in, then hit a brick wall. They become limited by their vehicle. Sure you don't need an Prius to drive across North America, but you need a car that won't break down! This applies especially to women as, on average, their circulation tends not to be as good as men's to begin with. Everyone needs to exercise.

 

Qigong exercises are even better for circulation. Especially genuine microcosmic and macrocosmic orbit (the kind that arises naturally out of lower dantian cultivation, not the mental orbit that is forced or visualized).

 

That Bodri heavily endorses nattokinase among the many other supplements he advocates attests to my experience. Nattokinase in a blood thinner. In TCM terms it circulates blood and removes stagnation. In essence he's still indulging in a circulation practice, only his is wai dan fa (external elixer method) as opposed to nei dan fa (internal elixer method).

 

Qigong practice is about as tangent to meditation practice as strength training is to football. You don't have to, but it sure helps.

 

(now if someone has already said all this stuff, my bad)

[宁]

First I haven't read this thread, I don't have time (no internet at home anymore! talk about a cultivation aid).

 

I simply want to comment on Bodri's approach to meditation.

 

We see a good deal of Buddhist monks and nuns in my Doctor's office. Invariably, most come in with the same core issues. Poor circulation, qi stagnation, blood stagnation, dampness and mucus accumulation. In western terms, diabetes and prediabetic conditions, cancer, fatigue, etc.

 

These people are cultivators mind you. They are serious mediators with many achievements. So why do they have these problems? Because they don't move! They don't exercise - the simplest form of circulating Qi! They neglect the body for spiritual cultivation, get a certain ways in, then hit a brick wall. They become limited by their vehicle. Sure you don't need an Prius to drive across North America, but you need a car that won't break down! This applies especially to women as, on average, their circulation tends not to be as good as men's to begin with. Everyone needs to exercise.

 

Qigong exercises are even better for circulation. Especially genuine microcosmic and macrocosmic orbit (the kind that arises naturally out of lower dantian cultivation, not the mental orbit that is forced or visualized).

 

That Bodri heavily endorses nattokinase among the many other supplements he advocates attests to my experience. Nattokinase in a blood thinner. In TCM terms it circulates blood and removes stagnation. In essence he's still indulging in a circulation practice, only his is wai dan fa (external elixer method) as opposed to nei dan fa (internal elixer method).

 

Qigong practice is about as tangent to meditation practice as strength training is to football. You don't have to, but it sure helps.

 

(now if someone has already said all this stuff, my bad)

 

excelent post SYD!

[Andrei]

We see a good deal of Buddhist monks and nuns in my Doctor's office. Invariably, most come in with the same core issues. Poor circulation, qi stagnation, blood stagnation, dampness and mucus accumulation. In western terms, diabetes and prediabetic conditions, cancer, fatigue, etc.

 

These people are cultivators mind you. They are serious mediators with many achievements. So why do they have these problems? Because they don't move! They don't exercise - the simplest form of circulating Qi! They neglect the body for spiritual cultivation, get a certain ways in, then hit a brick wall. They become limited by their vehicle. Sure you don't need an Prius to drive across North America, but you need a car that won't break down! This applies especially to women as, on average, their circulation tends not to be as good as men's to begin with. Everyone needs to exercise.

 

this should be put as banner on taobums forum for everybody enters here to see!

[de_paradise]

Interesting facts about the Buddhists health problems, SYD.

 

In Bodri's defense, I bought a rebounder (mini trampoline) from advice in his book on detoxing because apparently it stimulates all the cells in the body in a very efficient manner. Also I tried out Scott Sonnon's flofit program from advice I read in Bodri.

 

I think his main point is this: one pointed focus is just better done while sitting rather than doing some exercise. I have found that this is true, because in sitting it takes me no time to acheive a very deep state;while doing some exercise there is not much of a deep meditation or chance to explore ones consciousness.

[Aetherous]

These people are cultivators mind you. They are serious mediators with many achievements. So why do they have these problems? Because they don't move! They don't exercise - the simplest form of circulating Qi!

 

Excellent.

[MudLotus]

Hello, I am a new member. I have read a good deal of the comments on Bill Bodri & Master Nan. I would like to offer a few thoughts that I believe are balancing regarding what I believe Bill is attempting to do with his writings, direct teachings and website.

 

I have taken the Stages course and found it very valuable. At no time did I feel it was so doctrinaire as to shut out the great diversity of practices we can avail ourselves of. In fact, I feel the throughline of the logic espoused actually allows one to pursue exactly what they need to use, including physical and tantric practices, while becoming well informed about how these efforts fit into the underlying goal of achieving true quiescence, samadhi and transcendence of egoic limitations.

 

Since Bill has put out thousands of pages of text between his site, books and courses, I would advise some people to reconsider their assumption that he is pitting the Zen tradition against the others. If you know Bill or his work well, you will find out he has absolutely no issue with using methods from any tradition. While he has his biases and can be blunt, he would use whatever works according to the needs of the individual.

 

It is his assessment of those needs that I think causes confusion about his approach. He is committed to asserting that once you do get your chi moving that the primary way for it to actually do its work of purification one must surrender, avoid subtle ego identification traps and let go of notions that you are either your body or your attainments.

 

In the simplest terms, he is saying that even if you do have great practices and have great chi cultivation you still will have to LET GO to advance much further.

 

And I am not dumbing anything down. This is surely my limited experience as well. Remove impediments. In life, in your habits, and ultimately your notion of your self. And you will open. You can visualize and stimulate and activate to great benefit, but at some point your greatness will only be revealed by truly mastering the process of letting go.

 

Bill uses Sutras as source material. They are ancient records and guides as we all know, dependable sources of realized wisdom that have stood the test of time. Some people may find him repetitive, but that is a teaching technique used to great effect if you just go with the flow and read the material. And in his books and courses, there is a great compendium of very useful quotations from many sutras. He is thorough. It may not be your style, but I don't believe that should ever be a ground for criticism.

 

And Bill is not in the least advocating you sit and let your legs rot off and your circulation stagnate. Not true at all. He advocates exercise, health routines that suit you, he is big on detoxification practices. He may point out that many martial artists have dirty chi as a result of their mental orientation and low level of spiritual comprehension, but that does not mean he believes there are not more advanced yogis out there.

 

And by extension, I have seen no advocacy of simply sitting as the only path. I do not see how this misconception can be formed if you simply read enough of the free material on his site. He merely points out over and over again that proper view is everything (some may use the word VIEW from their Tibetan background), thus any practice can lead you astray if you are so results oriented as to not achieve true quiet and release and abiding states.

 

He has assembled a great deal of traditional knowledge that allows you to place frameworks like dhyanas and skandhas and levels of consciousness into a full framework. Yes, he emphasizes Buddhism simply because the Buddha(s) left a diligent record of the refined states of awakening making for a very good map that is inclusive of other traditions and their schemas. It is Bill's basic assertion that Buddhism gives you the best map for achieving enlightenment while Taoism is the best for health practices and longevity and qigong. He finds corollaries in every tradition including Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

 

Any characterizations that polarize these efforts may stem more from reactions to his personality than to the actual mission or knowledge assembled by him. I find nothing offensive in the material or him. He's busy, he has done a great service to many people and he has made peanuts from the meditation materials and site in relation to the huge amount of time he has put into writing, publishing and teaching these materials. That people misinterpret his marketing techniques as somehow a demerit is puzzling.

 

Personally, I have found his willingness to put himself out there rather brave and most definitely in service of the dharma. When a teacher travels to teach a group of meditators, you do pick up the tab and pay for his airfare and food and lodging, don't you? I would suggest people to be more respectful of someone who really has not been heavily compensated for doing something that has incurred great costs to him.

 

Wrapping up these thoughts, I'd say there is nothing in Bodri's work that truly suggests circulating your chi is wrong, merely that it is not a higher level practice. That is not the oppositional stance that I think some people take it to be, nor is it a simplistic bias. Rather, it is an inclusive system of thought with distinctions as to the level of awakening certain practices can lead to. It doesn't negate their value, but instead seeks to emphasize what will eventually be necessary to proceed to deeper samadhis and your own personal realization. Thus, Opening the dharma eye may not be a result of qigong attainments, no matter how great, and more a result of true surrender to the original Tao. If you spend any time with Bill and his materials, you'll see he recognizes the value of all forms of purification, including directed practices, as long as you then learn the value of truly quieting the mind and letting go.

 

He is now doing teleseminars. I attended the one he did last Saturday night on breathing practices and it was really good. He's doing another this Saturday evening. Its $15 for about 2 hours on a conference call which is reasonable. I got an email, but I assume he has something posted about it on the MeditationExpert.com site or blog.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Regards,

Mud Lotus

[Gerard]

We see a good deal of Buddhist monks and nuns in my Doctor's office. Invariably, most come in with the same core issues. Poor circulation, qi stagnation, blood stagnation, dampness and mucus accumulation. In western terms, diabetes and prediabetic conditions, cancer, fatigue, etc.

 

These people are cultivators mind you. They are serious mediators with many achievements. So why do they have these problems? Because they don't move! They don't exercise - the simplest form of circulating Qi! They neglect the body for spiritual cultivation, get a certain ways in, then hit a brick wall. They become limited by their vehicle. Sure you don't need an Prius to drive across North America, but you need a car that won't break down! This applies especially to women as, on average, their circulation tends not to be as good as men's to begin with. Everyone needs to exercise...

 

 

Fully agree with this; however there are Buddhist renunciates that move (Theravadins, some Chan Buddhists, and others I am not aware of) and they do not develop health issues.

 

The Buddha moved a lot, lol, and I find amazing that most monastics are immobile when the Buddha did the opposite. Very interesting topic.

[erdweir]

If you read Nan's Tao and Longevity he actually says one "cannot argue against" the efficacy of circulation.

[erdweir]

Hello, I am a new member. I have read a good deal of the comments on Bill Bodri & Master Nan. I would like to offer a few thoughts that I believe are balancing regarding what I believe Bill is attempting to do with his writings, direct teachings and website.

 

I have taken the Stages course and found it very valuable. At no time did I feel it was so doctrinaire as to shut out the great diversity of practices we can avail ourselves of. In fact, I feel the throughline of the logic espoused actually allows one to pursue exactly what they need to use, including physical and tantric practices, while becoming well informed about how these efforts fit into the underlying goal of achieving true quiescence, samadhi and transcendence of egoic limitations.

 

Since Bill has put out thousands of pages of text between his site, books and courses, I would advise some people to reconsider their assumption that he is pitting the Zen tradition against the others. If you know Bill or his work well, you will find out he has absolutely no issue with using methods from any tradition. While he has his biases and can be blunt, he would use whatever works according to the needs of the individual.

 

It is his assessment of those needs that I think causes confusion about his approach. He is committed to asserting that once you do get your chi moving that the primary way for it to actually do its work of purification one must surrender, avoid subtle ego identification traps and let go of notions that you are either your body or your attainments.

 

In the simplest terms, he is saying that even if you do have great practices and have great chi cultivation you still will have to LET GO to advance much further.

 

And I am not dumbing anything down. This is surely my limited experience as well. Remove impediments. In life, in your habits, and ultimately your notion of your self. And you will open. You can visualize and stimulate and activate to great benefit, but at some point your greatness will only be revealed by truly mastering the process of letting go.

 

Bill uses Sutras as source material. They are ancient records and guides as we all know, dependable sources of realized wisdom that have stood the test of time. Some people may find him repetitive, but that is a teaching technique used to great effect if you just go with the flow and read the material. And in his books and courses, there is a great compendium of very useful quotations from many sutras. He is thorough. It may not be your style, but I don't believe that should ever be a ground for criticism.

 

And Bill is not in the least advocating you sit and let your legs rot off and your circulation stagnate. Not true at all. He advocates exercise, health routines that suit you, he is big on detoxification practices. He may point out that many martial artists have dirty chi as a result of their mental orientation and low level of spiritual comprehension, but that does not mean he believes there are not more advanced yogis out there.

 

And by extension, I have seen no advocacy of simply sitting as the only path. I do not see how this misconception can be formed if you simply read enough of the free material on his site. He merely points out over and over again that proper view is everything (some may use the word VIEW from their Tibetan background), thus any practice can lead you astray if you are so results oriented as to not achieve true quiet and release and abiding states.

 

He has assembled a great deal of traditional knowledge that allows you to place frameworks like dhyanas and skandhas and levels of consciousness into a full framework. Yes, he emphasizes Buddhism simply because the Buddha(s) left a diligent record of the refined states of awakening making for a very good map that is inclusive of other traditions and their schemas. It is Bill's basic assertion that Buddhism gives you the best map for achieving enlightenment while Taoism is the best for health practices and longevity and qigong. He finds corollaries in every tradition including Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

 

Any characterizations that polarize these efforts may stem more from reactions to his personality than to the actual mission or knowledge assembled by him. I find nothing offensive in the material or him. He's busy, he has done a great service to many people and he has made peanuts from the meditation materials and site in relation to the huge amount of time he has put into writing, publishing and teaching these materials. That people misinterpret his marketing techniques as somehow a demerit is puzzling.

 

Personally, I have found his willingness to put himself out there rather brave and most definitely in service of the dharma. When a teacher travels to teach a group of meditators, you do pick up the tab and pay for his airfare and food and lodging, don't you? I would suggest people to be more respectful of someone who really has not been heavily compensated for doing something that has incurred great costs to him.

 

Wrapping up these thoughts, I'd say there is nothing in Bodri's work that truly suggests circulating your chi is wrong, merely that it is not a higher level practice. That is not the oppositional stance that I think some people take it to be, nor is it a simplistic bias. Rather, it is an inclusive system of thought with distinctions as to the level of awakening certain practices can lead to. It doesn't negate their value, but instead seeks to emphasize what will eventually be necessary to proceed to deeper samadhis and your own personal realization. Thus, Opening the dharma eye may not be a result of qigong attainments, no matter how great, and more a result of true surrender to the original Tao. If you spend any time with Bill and his materials, you'll see he recognizes the value of all forms of purification, including directed practices, as long as you then learn the value of truly quieting the mind and letting go.

 

He is now doing teleseminars. I attended the one he did last Saturday night on breathing practices and it was really good. He's doing another this Saturday evening. Its $15 for about 2 hours on a conference call which is reasonable. I got an email, but I assume he has something posted about it on the MeditationExpert.com site or blog.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Regards,

Mud Lotus

 

 

Thanks for putting all of this out there, I took the time to read it all and I agree with most of it. It nice to have someone with personal experience with Bodri to share their view of him.

 

What I will say about my own experience reading his writings and his website is that it is informative and I am glad i read it, but he contradicts himself allot. I feel like this is mainly just an unpolished surface though. You just have to read between the lines with him, that's all. If you read one of his books that actually has an editor, like his 25 Doors, it reads more consistently and clearly.

 

But allot of his self published work can really be confusing because he doesn't use terms consistently, among other things, and it took me a while to realize that he is not just bashing southern school style esoteric techniques, but trying to show that they can be misinterpreted. He does over-argue some points, and the quote that started this thread is a prime example of this tendency. it can be pretty annoying, but to his credit, he does also talk about how zen can be misused as well. He mentions "dead tree zen" for instance, and says that many modern people's psyche's are too complicated to reach realization through zen or orthodox methods and therefore body cultivation techniques can be more appropriate for them as long as they dont get too wrapped up in them.

 

I think his stuff is worth reading if you have a discerning mind. but some have said it much more simply, like for instance:

 

Focusing on openings is easy to get into, but final realization is hard. Not focusing on openings is hard to get into but final realization is easy. It is easy to give instructions for focusing on openings, hard to give instructions not focusing on openings. - Hsiao T'ien-Shih

 

this quote is from Cleary's translation in "Vitality, Energy, Spirit", a book Bodri recommends..

Edited November 22, 2009 by erdweir