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March 12, 2010 at 10:54 am #33603DogParticipant
“I am in no way interested in immortality,
but only in the taste of tea.”
…the 400 year-old Lu T’ung, (b. 755 A.D.)After years of spiritual journeying Aline says it is all about learning to enjoy her self. ๐ Return to spring, return to the joy of nature.
March 12, 2010 at 1:01 pm #33604StevenModerator>>>”I am in no way interested in immortality,
>>>but only in the taste of tea.”
>>>…the 400 year-old Lu T’ung, (b. 755 A.D.)Amusing ๐
>>>Aline says it is all about learning to enjoy her self.
Pema Chodron (American Tibetan Buddhist Nun) likes to say
you can help accomplish this by trying to notice the
“subtle sweetnesses” in life. The million little things
we enjoy every day, but don’t acknowledge . . . the gentle
breeze, the sight of a sunny blue sky, the smell of lilacs,
the warmth from a warm shower, the taste of the food we are
eating, the company of friends, etc.Part of the cultivation we do toward integration of the shen
is help the shen stop bickering amongst themselves, get
them to recognize that they are working toward the same
goal (they just don’t realize it), and stop the internal
argument that distracts us from the joy of life.I think this is what immortality is really about.
If you can integrate and get the internal argument to die down
so that each moment becomes joyful and you can live in
the present in open-hearted happiness, then your shen and
core essence will want to continue on in the same way
upon physical death. If, on the other hand, life is
filled with internal struggle and conflict, then upon
physical death, the shen and core essence will say
“I’m not interested in any more of this. Can’t I rest already?”
And in that case, you will. Game over.Steven
March 30, 2010 at 1:02 pm #33606StevenModeratorHi ChiFiend,
You could say that all of White Cloud’s Seven Formulas
of Immortality are designed to do exactly that.The Fusion of the Five Elements 1 course is the real start
of that process (having laid the foundations in the
Fundamentals courses). The material in that course directed
tackles this issue, and how their harmonization affects
your postnatal (manifest) life.Core patterns due to sexual desires, ancestral (genetic) influences,
cosmological influences etc. may act to continually undo/rewrite
this good work. To tackle that, you go into the higher level
formulas, Kan and Li, etc.Best,
StevenMarch 31, 2010 at 7:21 pm #33608StevenModeratorHi ChiFiend,
Skipping earlier practices in favor of getting to the more advanced material
has one of two typical results:1. You have trouble making the higher level practices work.
Namely, the material from the course becomes “head” information only,
and doesn’t do anything in terms of actual body-oriented energy change.2. They work; but you get nasty unintended side effects.
This ranges from physical problems, such as having energy moved
and stuck in places you don’t want . . . causing headaches, insomnia,
hallucinations, etc., or physical sickness as in the case of having
toxic energy and patterns circulating through your body, i.e. nausea,
vomiting, and the like.One of the most common side effects, though, is not physical!!!
It is emotional and chaotic consequences in your subsequent
everyday life. I’ve seen people get extremely strong emotional
mood swings . . . suicidal thoughts, fits of rage and anger,
extreme paranoia and anxiety, intense fears, severe depression;
or it triggers/amplifies identity crises . . . personal life
feels chaotic, feel like they are losing their minds. It can
make you feel spaced out, stoned, disconnected from reality, etc.I see the stuff of the last paragraph quite often, usually as
the result of people trying to “rush through” the formulas . . .
always rushing ahead to “take the next class”, rather than take
the time to actually *LEARN* the material and let it digest in
a previous class.Even if you have the prerequisite material, sometimes Lesser KL
and higher level formulas can trigger issues that you had either
consciously or subconsciously buried as the practices start to
unwind/resolve these things you weren’t dealing with before.
HOWEVER, if you have studied the previous material thoroughly,
you can use the tools from the “lower level courses” to help
you manage the results . . . deal with your emotional changes,
help get grounded, deal with physical symptoms etc.So, in other words, you don’t want to think of the “lower-level”
material as junk that you just do to “piss away” time until
you get to the “real” stuff. This “junk” is extremely important
and you can think of it as “safety” material you can always
return to, to help support you through serious/severe changes.When you go on a boating trip, checking the gas in the boat,
putting on a life-preserver, making sure you bring food/water, etc.,
are all things that aren’t necessarily “fun”, and “slow down”
the process of getting into the excitement, but you can sure
bet that if you don’t do these things, you will probably regret
it later.Do you know what I mean?
Usually wanting to skip the earlier practices tends to come
from having a lot of experience with spiritual training and/or
seeing some of the “juice” of the later practices, but you have
to sort of realize that this is just ego and impatience that
you are dealing with.Moreover, a lot of other spiritual practices have you work with
the third-eye immediately, which is much easier to open than
the lower centers. The lower centers take much more work to
open and develop, and you might not see fast results. However,
opening them is extremely important. The problem with practices
that just have you open the third-eye first and get really
profound experiences, is that oftentimes these experiences
don’t stick and don’t internalize and transform you. What you
end up getting is nothing more than an energetic “drug-induced
high”. Like taking pot or acid, you get a really trippy
experience and feel like you are on cloud-9, but then you come
back down to reality and the experience is over–it doesn’t
integrate in, and all you are left with is the craving for
more of the same. Not to mention the fact that your physical
body gets weaker from it over time. Take the time to open
the lower centers, and the progress will appear “much slower”,
and take longer to get to the “seeing angels” category, BUT
the experiences you DO have, *last*. They integrate in, and
change you to your core, and you slowly progress to higher levels
that *remain* with you during your everyday life. I can
speak on this from personal experience.Lastly, some of the basic practices, say the Inner Smile, get
much more profound and get deeper as you evolve to higher levels,
so the practices as a self-reference become more powerful as
time goes on. In some sense, the Inner Smile is both the
beginning and the end; the alpha and the omega.If you’ve had other spiritual practices before, and had really
high level experiences, then despite what *you desire*, what you
probably need is, in fact, the lower-level stuff. You probably
*need* to get grounded, etc.Having said all of that, let it digest and think about it ๐
A final word:
There are two types of people: tortoises and hawks. Hawks
don’t waste any time getting from A to B, just soar overhead . . .
always eager to get to the next thing. Tortoises are extremely
slow, creeping along but ever forward, slowly examining each
inch in front of them. I’m am an admitted tortoise. But what
I will say is that I’ve had a number of hawks talk to me in
private and tell me how they regret having rushed ahead,
how it’s caused problems for them, and how they wished they
had been a tortoise like me. With enough patience, even
tortoises reach the finish line . . .Note: Yes, I realize I didn’t really answer your question, but
sometimes it’s more important to say other things.Just think about some of the things I said anyway, and let
it digest within. If you are still not really interested
in the things I said in my response, then you can ask again,
and I’ll tell you “what you want to hear”. But bear in mind
in that case that the response is less than the ideal recommendation,
and you take full responsibility for any and all consequences of
your actions ๐Smiles to you and hope you have a wonderful day ๐ ๐ ๐
StevenApril 1, 2010 at 12:18 pm #33610Swedich DragonParticipantHello ChiFiend
I’m not an instructor like Steven, but have been practising in this system seriously for about 10 years.
I will try to give you an answer to what you need from my point of wiew. But of course it is quite impossible to know what exatly you need, that you have to figure out by yourself.
I see from your story that you easily connects to the earth and that is realy good, if you do retention. Try to involve in regular practises of iron shirt to keep on developing your earth connectedness and to build a firm ground for your later kan and li practise. ( I have never done the kan and li myself, but have heard that you need to be realy grounded when you do them.)
Fusion is also nessesary before you start with Kan and Li and you need microcosmic orbit meditation for doing the fusion. The fusion of the five elements are also wery good in connection with retention, beacase the fusion ballances your feelings and emotions, which is realy important beacase sexual kung fu expands your energy and if it is unballanced from the beginning it will be much more so with sexual kung fu, so you expand your unballanced energies instead of the ballanced, that is of course not good at all. It increases any problem you already have instead of helping you.
A minimum practise should be:
Good firm understunding of fusion of the five elements
Microcosmic orbit
Iron shirt regularily
The fusion of the five elements could be alternated with the inner smile which is simpler and easier to do.
If you build to much heat or feel wery stressed or have problems with sleeping, then do also the six healing sounds.The healing light is as I see it not nessesarily, but if you follow it you will have quite many practises in it that are good for you. So you can practise it if you want. The fusion one, two and three might take a while to grasp, so you might start to practise the Healing light before you go into the Kan and Li. I have done the healing light from the book, but not the whole book. I must say that my strongest and most intense experiences from this system comes from my practise of the healing light book.
There is one exercise that was extremely strong for me. That was when you combine the orgasmic energies with the love in the heart and the higher self as a energy ball or actually a chakra above your head. That was as combining the greatest sex experience with your biggest love and in the same time feel the energy of your spiritual higher self. It was quite amasing. I think that if you do this practise, the healing ligth, you still need the basics that I mentioned above, and perhaps a few others.
Also keep on doing the cool draw and massaging your testikles regularily to avoid getting any stagnation in your Jing energy. This is if you keep on doing the retention practise.
If you feel tense in your body do more iron shirt or add also some tao-yin to your exercises.
Well this is what I see as an absolute mimimum for you to do if you are doing retention, and the fusion is and iron shirt is realy important if you want to continue into the Kan and Li.
Good luck with your practise! ๐ ๐
It was also nice to hear about your story about how you have coming into contact with this system. So different from my own!
Peraps Steven has a different perspective than mine on this, it will be interesting to follow the discussion anyway.
SD
April 1, 2010 at 12:47 pm #33612wendyParticipantChiFiend,
After about 18 years of practice, I can share with you that the most important thing of all this different practices is… learn to feel.
It sounds simple but you have to learn to FEEL your organs and learn to create a pathway and communication with your inner self. The more you sink into your inner garden or inner universe (however you like to feel your inner sanctuary)the better and the more truthful your practice will become.Not a head thing, not a mental concept which happens too much for too many, but a real sensed experience in your body.
Healing sounds and inner smile can take you there, it looks like it is a ‘simple’ way, an easy practice, realize it has many levels of awareness, so the simple becomes complex when you tap into the many layers of your organs and feelings. In short, don’t see it as something minor, it is still one of my main focus points, and I find new pathways in it every time I dive in, not every day though.
What I do every day is turning my awareness inside and observe, feel and register the coming and going of feelings, sensations, short, I work on my communication skills with my inner universe.
The more communication you can FEEL the more the other practices become more easy by itself…
Fusion almost happens as a natural result, kan and li is the logical result of fusion and sexual practice, etc…So the stronger you build your foundation skills AND your feeling ability, the better the higher practices show themselves…
I was a rocket ship once, I hit some stars and planets along the way, bounced back the hard way on planet Earth, and transformed into a very slow turtle, digging my way through the center of the Earth, … I am at 1/3 of the way to the surface ๐
Good luck!
WendyApril 1, 2010 at 3:59 pm #33614user244075ParticipantChiFriend,
For some reason I didn’t see your original post http://www.healingdao.com/cgi-bin/tpost.pl?smessage=20010 . Thanks for relating some of your personal interactions as an introduction.
I will just say follow the unfolding of the practices in sequence. They are not necessarily lower or not important just first. The sequence has been tested over time and as mentioned if you don’t do it you may end up with naughty side effects.
Balance and harmony.
April 1, 2010 at 9:49 pm #33616StevenModeratorHi ChiFiend,
I suspect no one saw your original welcome post.
You posted your original post on the “OLD” forum.
A number of years back Michael created a new forum,
whereby the forum is divided into three categories
“General”, “Philosophy”, “Practice”.Unfortunately, people can still access the OLD forum,
and any posts that people make on the NEW (current) forum
get COPIED onto the OLD one. This gives people who
see the old forum the belief that people are posting on
that one, which is false. If someone makes a post on the
OLD forum, it does not get copied to the NEW one, so no
one sees it or knows it exists.Michael should really have the OLD forum disabled, because
this issue comes up from time to time.I’m sorry this happened to you, but I see you found the new
version and are making/seeing posts.S
April 1, 2010 at 10:31 pm #33618StevenModeratorHi ChiFiend,
That’s quite the story you have; thanks for sharing.
That really helps give a better picture of what is going on.I see you already have been given a number of responses from
others, and have been given some valuable suggestions . . . many
different things for you to consider, and good suggestions in
all cases. Wendy is dead-on right in her comment about learning
to feel; it is really the key. Some of that can be hard to
identify with or truly understand until you’ve acquired a lot
of practice, but trust what she’s saying as correct anyway, because
it is the key to it all.You are interested in taking Lesser Kan and Li, but with whom
were you interested in taking it? In particular, Michael has
made some drastic changes (i.e. *improvements*) to the way that
Lesser K&L was original taught. Personally, I have had exposure to
some of the classical Chia methods, as well as Michael’s updated
modifications, and they definitely have their differences. To
be honest, in my opinion, Michael’s material is better than Chia’s;
that might be a bold thing to say given Chia’s stature as originator
of the material, but I’m sorry it is better (in my opinion). It’s
got more juice, you can feel it more in your body than just a mental
game, it feels better (TO ME). Michael also incorporates a lot
of other qigong and meditation techniques that he’s learned over the
years into his system that help amplify the practices.The bottom line in all this, is that if you were to take Lesser K&L
from Michael you would get a different course than if you took it
from Chia (or a teacher teaching “classical” Chia). In particular,
if you took Chia courses and then took a “more advanced” class from
Michael, you might not have the appropriate prereqs., and VICE-VERSA.Not only are the teachers different, but people are different as well,
and have different needs–so it really wouldn’t be good to just make
a grand sweeping suggestion (a “one size fits all” suggestion . . .
because one size does *not* fit all). So it would be good if you
could not only provide which system you are interested in, but also
what your individual goals are. In absence of that, I could only
suggest start from the beginning in Michael’s system. However,
if you give me a little more info, I can give you a somewhat more
“hawkish” approach.Best,
StevenApril 2, 2010 at 1:08 am #33620Swedich DragonParticipantHello
Yes I am from Sweden. The right spelling is realy Swedish, but I spell wery ugly ๐
Dyslexia.I have the book “Awakening healing light of the tao”, but I do not have the DVDs. I guess it is the same practises or about the same.
You are wery welcome to ask questions about retention and related topics. I answer according to my own understunding, but that is of course obvious ๐ , what else could I or anybody do. The retention practise is one of the things Mantak Chia has been most critisised for, so the subject is a bit controversial. There is some dangers connected to it and some practioners does not practise it at all. I think you will find some valuable information on this site: http://alchemicaltaoism.com/
Have a nice day
SD
April 2, 2010 at 1:12 am #33622Swedich DragonParticipantYes like having one esoteric and another exoteric forum ๐ ๐
Perhaps not a good idea!
S D
April 2, 2010 at 3:16 am #33624user244075ParticipantChiFriend,
I might propose that you go at it from both points to find all there is. If you are so close to Chia I wouldn’t hesitate to take that opportunity in a Chang Mai minute, that is a gift being so close. If you also have a proclivity to Michaels teachings order the cds/dvds and use it too. Maybe through a logical thoughtful process of learning, the juxtapostion and the harmony of the two you may find what you are looking for. Just a humble suggestion.
PS There is no accelerated program and shortcuts will lead to adverse effects as you have been warned. I’m not sure now but in the old days Chia’s Micro Cosmic Orbit worshop taught the Inner Smile, the Five Healing Sounds, and the Microcosmic Orbit. That is the begining, the trip of a thousand miles starts with the first step.
Good luck, balance and harmonize
April 2, 2010 at 9:12 am #33626wendyParticipantI consider you as a fellow traveller, none of us needs to teach you a lesson as if you were a child. We should only share and listen to each other from a respectful place.
One thing you might look into. I was, looking back on it, an energy junky, addicted to the highs, addicted to the high vibrations of stars and galaxies. Why? Because life was not exactly really meaningful to me, although I was ‘happily’ married, had 3 lovely daughters, etc etc I felt there was something missing. I thought that reaching for the highest possible would solve the problem, would give me the answers, would save me from the seemingly emptiness of normal life. I could not find satisfaction in my body and my feelings, thinking I had to vibrate on the highest possible to become trully happy and accomplished, HA!
I tell you: it is a cosmic joke….
I can not tell you not to go for it, because you have to find out yourself, you have to feel and sense it for yourself and then come back and sit down, and smile and enjoy the simple sunset, the moonrise, the flowers, the wind, the breeze over the water.
I only can tell you, there is nothing outthere that we can not have thousands times better here on this wonderful planet, stored in your cells, your organs and your memories of past, present and future…April 2, 2010 at 9:39 am #33628StevenModeratorHi ChiFiend,
If you are looking for spiritual immortality,
you’ve come to the right place ^_^I’ve attached a link to this post listing
Michael Winn’s Recommended Sequence, as you
requested.Note: The full package at any level consists
of BOTH the DVD and the CD set. Some of the
material at a given level is on the DVD, and
some of it is on the CD set . . . but they
are not a duplication. DVDs contain demonstrations
of the physical movements and qigong forms; CD
audio sets contain the meditations plus lectures
on Daoist theory relating to the material at that
level, i.e. you really need both for completeness.Chia’s DVDs are worth considering also, and or
lessons at Tao Garden (given your proximity) but
Chia is really prolific and has put out a LOT of
DVDs and materials, and it can be a bit overwhelming,
i.e. difficult to see the forest through the trees.
There’s nothing wrong with his stuff; it’s all good
material . . . but I personally would consider it
more an adjunct or add-on as you see fit (as time goes
on) if your goal is to reach Lesser KL in a less
tortoise-like fashion.I have to cut this post short right now unfortunately,
as my college algebra students are having their exam today,
and I need to get ready and get onto campus.I’ll respond more later today,
and give more specific recommendations based on
what you told me . . . but the link and sublinks etc.
should keep you plenty busy until then ๐Best,
STevenApril 2, 2010 at 9:44 am #33630StevenModerator -
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