Meditation from Baolin Wu

[Long Yun]

[goldisheavy]

It's too ornate. The emphasis is placed on sensations rather than the wisdom. However, this meditation is good if you want to have a whiz-bang experience. That said, since some (?) people don't know how to exhale through pores, it may create an energy imbalance, because people will find it easier to inhale than to exhale, etc. In other words, it takes something natural, like breath, and hijacks it into a visualization that depending on your understanding of phenomena (wisdom) is not natural, and thus can be harmful. But that same exact aspect is also the one that may give rise to interesting meditative experiences. So if you like experiences and don't care about wisdom, that's a good meditation.

[Long Yun]

It's too ornate. The emphasis is placed on sensations rather than the wisdom. However, this meditation is good if you want to have a whiz-bang experience. That said, since some (?) people don't know how to exhale through pores, it may create an energy imbalance, because people will find it easier to inhale than to exhale, etc. In other words, it takes something natural, like breath, and hijacks it into a visualization that depending on your understanding of phenomena (wisdom) is not natural, and thus can be harmful. But that same exact aspect is also the one that may give rise to interesting meditative experiences. So if you like experiences and don't care about wisdom, that's a good meditation.

Thanks for your input, goldisheavy. I haven't tried it, so I can't speak for any whiz-banging What he says in the book makes sense, that closing off the eyes and ears and breathing through the pores protects keeps the outward "spending" of your three treasures from happening. And the posture and accupressure stuff is just to keep open passages.

 

But what you say also makes sense. I understand what you're saying, and to be honest, I'm not sure how well Dr. Wu is sitting with me at the moment. In the book, he seems authoritative and honest for the most part. In a youtube interview I've seen of him, however, he seems like he waters down practices that are supposed to be for spiritual awakening into just mental exercise. (The video I'm mentioning is for opening the third eye, something I understood to be an advanced stage in inner work, by staring at a piece of white cloth and then sending your awareness outward.)

 

The book also gives me a bad vibe at one point, where he says that the real fusion of K'an and Li occurs when one puts Qi into their hands, warms them, and massages the kidney area of the back... Just seems a little to physical...

 

I had been assembling a manual on the practice, but now I'm not so sure if I should. If it's not something worth practicing, why go through all that trouble...

[goldisheavy]

Thanks for your input, goldisheavy. I haven't tried it, so I can't speak for any whiz-banging What he says in the book makes sense, that closing off the eyes and ears and breathing through the pores protects keeps the outward "spending" of your three treasures from happening. And the posture and accupressure stuff is just to keep open passages.

 

But what you say also makes sense.

 

I look at meditation from the perspective of not knowing anything. For example, I don't know if there is a system of meridians. Maybe there is. Maybe not. Even if there was, it wouldn't be relevant. What I have is my knowledge and my feelings and not something existential that exists. Maybe there exists some body in some bed, 3 universes away, that's dreaming all this up. So what? How does that affect me now? It doesn't. So I don't consider existential concerns because through insight I see them as non-concerns for me. From this point of view, it's not even important if something is true or false. What's important is how you feel right now, regardless of truth. If I feel great while in truth I am sick, and if that feeling is stable and lasts 100 years, then how does it matter to me that it's not true in some sense? In other words, what is the value of truth? At times you can find that truth has no impact on experience, or perhaps negative impact. And yet, what I am saying is some kind of truth too, and maybe it's not unimportant? Or maybe it is. I am saying this not to give an answer to anything. It's a kind of exploration. It's like you go in a cave and you look around with your flash light. You see, feel, smell things. You hear things. Then you come out of the cave, but there is no cave in your pockets or in your backpack. It's gone, and it's good that it's gone. It would be a disease if you couldn't leave the cave behind right? So it is with contemplative explorations. I explore something and leave it completely behind. Something remains, but I don't know what and can't name it.

 

So, from this frame of mind, meridians are no more relevant than traffic signs or the weather. It might be something you observe, but meditation is not an ordinary involvement with observables. If you massage this or that meridian, even though your observables are subtle, and your actions are also subtle, still, at the fundamental level such meditation does not transcend ordinary action at all. And as such, it is no way to reach true immortality.

 

I understand what you're saying, and to be honest, I'm not sure how well Dr. Wu is sitting with me at the moment. In the book, he seems authoritative and honest for the most part. In a youtube interview I've seen of him, however, he seems like he waters down practices that are supposed to be for spiritual awakening into just mental exercise. (The video I'm mentioning is for opening the third eye, something I understood to be an advanced stage in inner work, by staring at a piece of white cloth and then sending your awareness outward.)

 

The book also gives me a bad vibe at one point, where he says that the real fusion of K'an and Li occurs when one puts Qi into their hands, warms them, and massages the kidney area of the back... Just seems a little to physical...

 

I had been assembling a manual on the practice, but now I'm not so sure if I should. If it's not something worth practicing, why go through all that trouble...

 

A lot of these folk are good people in the sense that they are honest, and they don't set out to harm anyone. In fact, they want to help as much as possible. They learn from a tradition and share what they know. But they never question their knowledge. They don't question traditions. In a word, they are not contemplatives. And that's OK. There is room and place for all things. It all depends on what you want.

 

If you want something relative and relatively concrete, like warm hands, there are relative and relatively concrete methods for attaining it. Maybe then meridians can be of use, but also, there are alternative means of attaining warmth that don't involve meridians. But if your goal is to develop transcendent insight, then warm hands are helpful at best, but not essential. At worst, it can be a distraction. It can be a spiritual version of chasing material pleasures, except instead of grosser things we chase subtler things, but the dynamic of chasing is the same one. And chasing in itself is not bad, but it becomes bad if chasing is not what you want and you confuse chasing something for something else. Then it becomes bad. If you intend to chase and you chase, then it's nothing other than wish fulfilling gem at work.

[seadog]

having a healthy body is important in all daoist cultivation activities. Acquiring and maintaing a healthy body should be the key stone to any practice. That is why exercises like massageing the kidneys,stimulating the meridians and opening and locking the various gates are essential.

At its heart daoist cultivation is a means of reversal to the one, the wuji,the primordal dao. In order to facilitate this journey in reverse one must have a healthy body.

 

I think it is a grave error to underestimate the hard won knowledge that the many ancestors of authentic daoist practice have left us.

By following faithfully,with consistent practice a authentic cultivation qigong/meditation practice one can avoid many pitfalls in life. One can maintain a relatively healthy body, a body and mind which is capable of withstanding the many onslauts of the modern world.

 

Our bodies,our organs,our bones and blood will never lie to us,they always speak the truth.By following an authentic practice that resonates with us, we are given a means by which we can begin to listen to our bodies.

Enlightment is a physical process,doaist alchemy is a physical process,to not understand this is to spend your life on the shallow shore edge,without knowing the true depth of the sea.

[bukejian]

I look at meditations and chi kung, from the standpoint, of what works for me. That's why there are so many different types of meditations out there. Every person is different, every persons goals and perceptions are different. Er go: what works well for one, will probally not work well for another. Personally, I really like DR. Baolin Wu's stuff. I would say; Don't take this stuff too seriously, Just play with the meditations awhile, see if something resonates with you. If it dose its praobally a good meditation for you. If not, it probally not a good meditation for you...

 

Bu

Edited April 15, 2009 by bukejian