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The “I AM” aspect is not far away from the thought of becoming one with the Tao. Becoming one with the Tao does not mean that you are not yourself. In fact to become one with the Tao one must know oneself first. Otherwise you are only fooling yourself in thinking you are one. Just in all energy work being one with Tao is a fine line, just as being relaxed in taichi is a fine line. Not like jello, not like a board. In between. When one can find that inbetween that is balance with Tao. So I do disagree with your opinion of Tao. We are not meant to all be spineless jellyfish, we have enough of those in the ocean and they do a beautiful job of holding that genetic coding. we are human beings in this beautiful Tao with brain, heart, soul, spirit – each one of us different and each one of us connected to same and each other. I myself believe that some of the current idea of Tao comes from the communist culture of not having ones head stick out above the rest or you may get it cut off. A conformist opinion I believe.
And as for trust, well I haven’t been too successful in that area. I have trusted a lot, and I do trust. But who and what I trust in now has changed. That lesson I have learned well. I have been taught very well about the traditional Chinese way in taiji and qigong. Even outside of those areas, getting “pumped for information” about anything and everything about my work and work experience and know how, and stupid me of course providing same with open heart in hopes of “helping a just cause” (I am in healthcare). However I began to notice that I was asked a lot of questions but never provided with like information or answers relating to the same by the Chinese questioners. The lessons I have learned from those experiences – not to trust anyone in those areas from that culture. I sometimes think that open heart to them means open market. And I will continue to keep that opinion until I am shown otherwise. I do welcome anyone to show me otherwise. Somehow I do not think there will be any takers though. My opinion stays.
And believe me I am not prejudiced. Line up 5 different people of different races and whatever $. I would help each and every one of them. In fact I just rescued an East Indian man who fell and broke his knee the other day, actually my son and I did. We were both late for work. We didn’t have to stop but we did not even think not to stop. I am caucasian. I just believe now, after this time of learning that I will be very careful as to how I open my heart to. And under what intent. If the other person’s intent is true then the heart will open freely. If not, then I expect to gain experience and maybe a lesson or two but basically it is …. so long Charlie. I believe I have learned integrity. My integrity. And that is part of Tao. That is my integrity though, not the jellyfish’s.
Hey. I am in healthcare too and have learned similar lessons outside that specific area. Personal life experiences can quickly destroy believe in trust and we can be happy if we can keep up integrity and learn to differentiate between what makes sense to trust & what not. It is the trust reason I went away from Falun Gong (did not even stay there for long)… but to them I would be just someone with not enough enlightenment quality.
And this brings us back to the question of lineage. Do there have to be lineages and why have there been in the past. Why have things not been openly sahred by celestial beings? Is it because of Karma, because they did not feel us qualified enough to become enlightened. Why is it that we have to search so much in order to possibly have not reached anything in the end?
Harry
I think that maybe we have progressed over the hundreds of years,that we have heightened ourselves energetically as a whole human race. I think that in the next few years we will see evidence of that. More awareness by large groups of people in general. The Tao is one. Universe is one. However because of different cultures we practise our appreciation of it in different ways. And of course our way is always better than the others way. Ego. I find there are a lot of similarities in the practices of qigong. They are basically the same principles with different flavours. And I think that it is not so much the higher beings that require our undivided attention but the human that is connected to them. A human cannot understand to that level but we still try to interpret what it means and what it is supposed to be, etc. ,etc. Very rarely, in communication with higher beings is the exact communication intended received and transferred to other humans. I believe that as humans when we are so lucky to connect to the information from a higher one, we sometimes put our own slant to it. It takes great practise and training to receive communication and pass it on in the way it was intended and still the information gets coloured. 5 different people read the same page of a story. Ask the 5 people what they read. You will get 5 DIFFERENT answers. We are all unique. Taht is why I say each of our journeys is very individual. But principles are the same.
I believe that the style of qigong does not matter if one follows the same principles and connect to the same source. For me that is the white light source and earth core source. I believe that the different mudras are what they say …. mathematical equations. I agree with that. Just more knowledge. How much is necessary? Sometimes we can drown ourselves. I try not to overload.I don’t know about the teacher you are speaking of, but most american zen teachers I think are pro qigong. I actually found out about qigong through a zen school. It was basically taught as an axcellent complement to zen training. I read an article by one of the most well known japanese zen teachers in America(maezumi roshi)where he was teaching the microcosmic orbit meditation.
there is also a zen type philosophy that says qigong is a big waste of time. this attitude has been most strongly stated by William Bodri(meditationexpert.com) who says all energy work is a waste or “playing with the wind qi”. Basically only do zen practice and focus on the mind rather than the energy phenomena of the body.
I would say my practice over the past years has been listening intently to the different strong opinions of various teachers and doing different stuff. I would like to think the practice that is best for me is what I am doing. one critique I have heard from the zen school is most people doing the esoteric stuff(aka Healing Tao) just end up hurting themselves. Perhaps M Winn is one of the few teachers who can bring this rare teaching to the masses in a healthy and balanced way. I have been coming to this board for years and have always asked for the positve experiences people have had with the HT alchemy and unfortunetly, those who say they have gotten results end up sounding somewhat crazy to me.
I would say at this point the calm, centered focus of zen students and regular qigong students(not alchemy) is more appealing to me. But maybe this board can offer some positive feedback on M Winn’s higher alchemy levels. I think his primordial qigong set is great, don’t know about the whole connecting to immortals thing, but it’s a nice relaxing form.
> I read an article by one of the most well known japanese zen teachers in America (maezumi roshi) where he was teaching the microcosmic orbit meditation >
In the mid-80’s i visited during a sesshin at Maezumi Roshi’s Mtn Center here in southern Cal, and was.. quite directly told that if i was interested in energy cultivation that i was in the wrong place. It wasn’t an unkind statement, but direct. (He seemed quite accomplished, btw.)
I wasn’t around long, so it certainly could be that he gave different advice to different people, or that his viewpoint changed over time.
(I’ll bring this up because it’ll probably come anyway..)
There was an article, recently, in Communities magazine (i think) written by the woman who did a film project about Maezumi’s Zen community in L.A. around the time that his frequent drinking surfaced. Maezumi encouraged everyone to open and natural, and talk as much as they wanted to about whatever topics. It just seemed very real, very human, very as it was. Honest.Trunk
Yes Kieth, I think his attitude changed after time. If I remember correctly, and I could be wrong, the article about him and the orbit meditation was right at the end of his life. I remember hearing one of his students saying how he started teaching qigong at the end and something about how he wished he had started earlier. I am probably a little bit off with this but that’s what I remember.
In any case John Loori, one of his successor’s gave qigong a big thumbs up.
cameron
send me a private email at thorny@zensearch.com.
Although the “goal” of zen is the same as the goal of true spiritual paths. What I have gleaned from it is that it is useful for certain aspirants and not as much for others.
Essentially, one may need to become empty before one can become full 🙂 Zen can help with the emptying and in certain cases results in enlightenment. Just as HT (energy practices) can result in enlightenment for some or not. However, it is (ime) a very Raw 10,000 or 100,000 volts (per HT description). Actually, it is beyond that in power and bliss and nothing that I could have ever have fathomed. It is EXTREMELY dangerous imo if approached for the wrong reasons and without sufficient preparation. Even with the best of preparation there is no guarantee that you will make it and ultimately one must face this on ones own. I do not say this for any other reason than to encourage students to take their time with opening their channels and the practices until they “know” it is time to move on. This does not mean the process can not go quicker than your entire lifetime or many lifetimes becuase it can. It can be a matter of years 🙂
Inner Peace,
Matt
It came out during the guy’s series of teachings that weekend that he did do one simple exercise the student who was a qi gong instructor had taught him–he used it to zap himself out of drowsiness to keep up with his zazen: Drawing energy up the back to the top of his head.
I’ve read that in chinese zen (chan) qi gong is very common or simply taken for granted, but I don’t know if that’s actually generally true now in China.
I like the old saying Wong Kiew Kit relates: To deepen your qi gong, develop your zen; to deepen your zen, develop your qi gong.
I think saying you should never do energy body exercise is like saying you should never do physical exercise, or develop/keep your mind sharp with intellectual activity for that matter; naturally you can overdo or wrongly engage in any of these things, but saying one shouldn’t then do them at all is like saying one shouldn’t ever climb trees or go surfing because one might fall and get hurt, or because it doesn’t absolutely directly lead to enlightenment. In Tibetan buddhism they make a useful distinction between spiritual practice that develops the relative or phenomenal level, and that which develops the absolute level, where neither need be mutually exclusive. I believe the same idea is implicit in Daoism.To deepen your qi gong, develop your zen; to deepen your zen, develop your qi gong.
That’s the way it is in the Tibetan tradition–two wings of a bird, you need both the energy/compassion/skillful means of energy cultivation and the wisdom/prajna of wisdom to fly.
The freakishly gifted can skip the cultivation bit and lord it over the rest of us, and aren’t very helpful to listen to. Don’t mind them.
IMO, the best place to start is to go to the lowest, basest level of cultivation that you can find some traction and get very consistent results.
If you can find the answer in sex, drugs, and rock n roll–you’re quite fortunate.
-Yoda
I see we have a tribe of independents who have learned their lessons about what happens when you follow someone else’s spiritual authority.
I think you are all in the right place, on this path, in the forum, hanging with other free thinkers and cultivators.
Ken Cohen wrote a good piece on falun gong, and described it as “bad Fundamentalist Buddhism” that even other Chinese buddhists reject.
I was in China the day they surrounded the Communist party headquarters with ten thousand people in a play for power. They use fear tactics to keep people in the cult – your falun will be withdrawn if you even practice tai chi, never to be returned. So use of fear attracts attack by even more powerful fear mongers in the Communist Party.Its unfortunate, the followers are well intentioned innocents who become zombies programmed by fascist group think. The qigong is fine, it is borrowed from taoist qigong, but mixed with Li Hong’s personal power play.
I know a fine qigong teacher in china who was co-student with li hong, they studied together with the same teacher. Li Hong’s genius was to give away his teachings, only charge for products on the back end. That works for mass religion.But not for a spiritual science like inner alchemy. Certainly it is an experiment to take it public, and it has more evolution to come.
As for zen, remember its roots are in taoism – buddhists arriving in China who couldn’t ground their intellectual concepts of the divine borrowed Taoist methods dressed up in Buddha’s clothing. My question is, why are so many Zen masters chain smokers? Too much attention on the physical present moment generates need for false fire to burn up the chi that is generated.
I prefer making the energy body conscious. if you do it with progressive qigong training, no one is going to hurt themselves. Except to the extent the Truth hurts.
-michaelalso here in china there have been a lot of suicides and murders associated with falun gong. this doesn’t come from the gov’t, but from ordinary citizens i have spoken with. often times the cult just dumps the bodies in roadside ditches. i have to agree with the communist party on this one: falun gong is bad. they have a different approach to dealing with it than we in the west would, but i’m not going to get into a big political debate about that.
I just recently spent over $1000 for a six month membership to a local yoga school called “Dahn Yoga”(Dahnworld.com)I basically just wanted to connect with a local group of meditators(There is no HT group here in Phx)I figured it was yoga mixed with some qigong and no harm would come of it . The atmosphere seeemd friendly enough.
Then, after I joined, I started reading all these stories online on how this school is a cult and takes as much money as they can from it’s members .The first thing I read is how some lady was milked for $11,000 in a 6 month period for “special healing sessions”. Many other stories follow . They have these weekend retreats and no one is supposed to talk about what goes on there . The people that broke away say it is a kind of brainwashing they do on you to be a lifetime follower of the school.
The founder’s name is Illchi Lee, a Korean Guy, he seems like a peacful, altruistic guy on the otside and his students seem caring enough but there is a subtle forcefulness about it that I didn’t notice until after I joined . it feels like a cult to me and I won’t go back.
They bascially have the same exact philophy and similar practices to healing Tao. jing Chi shen transformations and opening the microcosmic orbit(Water up fire down they call it)Anyway..it disturbs me when people take qigong and ancient practices and turn it into too much of a business . I don’t mind people making a living off of it. But $11,000 from a student for a couple months of special energy healing? come on!
As to zen, I noticed some of the teachers smoke, I figured it was a japanese thing and didn’t really bother me. But I did always felt there was a big absence of dealing with the whole sexual nature of the body and how that relates to spiritual practice, which is why HT stuff originally interested me. I would often have really nice meditations with zen and get a level of samadhi but often would sit there(I started zen sitting when I was 18 so that also may have something to do with it)and notice my body was on one side with it’s lsutful caravings and desires and my mond was on another side with it’s desire for enlightent. So the whole HT Kan and Li practice of bringing these two sides together sounded interesting to say the least.
Anyway, still jsut exploring different stuff and figuring things out. still would like to check out a HT retreat and may do so this summer. Despite what Plato says about you not having any virtue:O
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