My first post and a few questions for Michael Winn…

Michael,

A little niggling, and two deeper questions.

1. The niggling.
You say that you are “…not sure why relating one’s first hand experience is gossip.” Well, one of many definitions of gossip is “Rumor or talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature.”(dictionary.com). You were not engaging in rumor, but it seemed to me to be somewhat sensationalized and intimate.

I think that you could talk of these things in a non-gossipy manner if the discussion was not just expository in nature, but also communicated concern and caring for the person. You do communicate that at the end of your discussions, but they don’t permeate your writing and seem more like PC afterthoughts.

2. Sensationalization and arrogance.
The sensationalization comes in that you appear to have ultimate insight into all beings. Maybe you do, but my question still is that, if you have ultimate insight into David’s problems, why can’t you have found the insight to resolve your double scorpio personality?

These deep insights into others can make you seem arrogant. (“Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one’s superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak.” dictionary.com)

3. The bigger question.
As with you, apparent arrogance is also very present in three of my other major teachers: my reiki teacher, my shaolin teacher, and Ken Wilber (through books, not in person).

Perhaps there is some shift that occurs that results in what appears to be arrogance? Perhaps there is frustration, for more realized people such as you, with our slowness? I don’t know.

Or, maybe it is just that I am drawn to those sorts of teachers because I need to learn to come into balance with that energy and my own tendencies to arrogance. What do you think about those two options?

These are not small questions. I think that your apparent arrogance, and apparent lack of concern about these later heaven aspects of social interaction, are part of what happened between you and Plato. They have also been commented on by a number of others on the board. They have been observed by my wife when listening to your tapes. And they create dissonance in me.

thank you for your insights,
Chris

“later heaven aspects of social interaction…”

?
-Yoda

Seems to me that the issue is one of practices.

I’m going to re-quote David’s assertions, in order for us to stay on-topic.

quote
Mantak Chia presently living in Thailand founder of the Healing Tao (now Universal Tao) a system that collects techniques from diverse Qi Gong teachings simplifying them for westerners.

IMPORTANT NOTICE
David collaborated in the codification of many of the practices in what is now called the Universal Tao. Among other teachings, David instructed Mantak Chia and Michael Winn in the introductory part of the Kong Jing (Empty Force) and Jing Shui (Water of Life) practices in order to introduce to them these teachings in a simple form. They later, without permisssion, took it upon themselves to incorporate fragments of these and other of David’s teachings into the Universal Tao and Healing Tao USA systems.

These teachings and others were blended and simplified by them, but in this form are ineffective in the completion of Nei Dan Shu, the very thing for which they were originally created. They do not represent in any way the original transmission of Dazhen or David’s other Masters, nor do they represent any traditional Daoist qigong cultivation method.
un-quote

This may be partly another case of mixing up Mantak Chia and Michael Winn..
As far as towards Chia, I find David’s statement credible, for the following reasons.
(Though I’m not certain about my point of view, just that it seems sensible.)

1. This sounds like Chia’s standard method of operation. Chia, the UT, cranks out lots and lots of practices – and Chia hasn’t seen One Cloud since he was a teenager. Where do these practices come from? Must come from various sources, teachers, systems, branches of Taoism. And we’ve seen that Chia’s practices are often stripped of their classical context.

2. David appeared in several videos (2 or 3) distributed by UT.. water of life, empty force, tiger power. The impression was that he helped introduce this knowledge into the UT. When I attended retreat at Tao Garden in 2000, empty force teachings were scattered through a lot of the exercises that we were taught. The method showed up frequently, not as part of a coherent “empty force” regimen, but incorporated in a fragmentary way to various methods.

I noticed, btw, that HT-USA never sold the videos that David co-produced – and I’ve never seen those techniques pop up in Michael Winn’s teachings. So, again, this could largely be a case of incorrectly lumping in Michael with Mantak.

But to say that David didn’t really contribute anything, as a blanket statement, is clearly inaccurate due to the several videos that he was involved in.. and to the degree that at least UT had adopted his teachings.

And it seems to me that maybe David has a legitimate gripe with UT. Just on the basis of preserving the integrity of teachings that he received.

So, to me, directing to character and personal issues, and saying that David never really contributed knowledge… seems like mis-direction from the real, and far more important, issue: the teachings.

Keith

Michael,

Thanks, those perspectives help. The choice of being imperfect is interesting. Actually, I wonder if personalities can be perfected in Later Heaven? We can become individually balanced in Later Heaven, but perfected for all other beings simultaneously is probably not possible.

If you could talk about Ming and Xing – fate and destiny – I would be very grateful. I have been very intrigued by your brief comments on them (in Sun-Moon-Earth alchemy?), but have not been able to find any elaboration on them anywhere. I think that they must relate to these issues of mine.

I hope to check in for the chat on Sunday, but I may be at a birthday party for my arrogant Reiki friend 😉

thanks,
Chris

Keith,

Thanks for the clarification. You are exactly correct: David is lumping his struggles with Mantak together as if he and I were the same. I was speaking only for myself, I am not Chia’s spokesman and the question was directed at my response to David’s claims.

I never sold his videos on HTUSA because they had dangerous practices.
One of the sexual practices included sticking a metal pipe up your ass, or having women stick it up their vagina. One woman cut herself and got an infection. I ragged o Chia to get it off his site,,but it took him a long time.
Now Chia has nothing of David’s on his site.

The irony of David’s posting is that David wants to build hiimself up by claiming he is the linchpin of the Universal Tao, while at the same time he attacks the UT.

A lot of senior instructors in the US were greatly disturbed by the credence that Chia temporarily gave to David, and to the platform Chia offered him.
It was one of many things that spurred me to begin putting out training tapes with my version of the optimal progressive training sequence needed in neidan. I feel Chia compromised the original One Cloud formulas by trying to commingle them with David’s channeled material. Fusion of the Five Elements suddenly became Fusion of the Eight Forces, for example….

David himself mixed up practices from some many different sources and traditions because he lives in a reality without clear borders. Just as he cannot distinguish between Dajen (his likely immortal teacher in the astral plane) and his physical reality, he cannot distinguish between different practices and traditions and is too young to know how they might be usefully fit together.

I still have hope that David will sort it all out and integrate a workable path that makes a solid contribution to the Taoist community. I am in favor of experimentalism – up to a point. But I also know that
having a high level channelled teacher can be very difficult to integrate. The puny human ego feels a huge gap between itself and the more evolved entity .It wants to borrow the power and intelligence of the entity to elevate itself, but that also makes the ego more insecure because it is not coming from transformation of its own essence.

Most channels are getting only information. Dajen is at least giving methods, so they can be tested and found to be workable or not in this timezone.
The emphasis on most of the techniques I have seen so far do not shift from the physical (post-natal) chi level of cultivation to pre-natal as directly as One cloud’s formulas. If If elt differently I would change systems. Meanwhile I am staying with what works. One Cloud’s 7 formullas are really mainstream esoteric alchemical taoism, a well tested pathway.

fyi,
My double scorpio is hidden – not in sun, in moon and rising. And softened by my Rabbit influence of earth cycle. I am a cuddly scorpio…..

There are thousands of qigong forms, different schools, different family styles, etc. That is why I have sifted through them and either selected the best or created new ones that matched the progressionn of One Cloud’s 7 formulas.

There is no easy way to sort through them all – that is the importance of having a structured path like the seven formulas. REad my article on Daoist Alchmey as the Deep Language of Nature — my thesis is that qigong should be viewed as a language itself, not an exercise form.

And what makes it worse is that the same form can be used internally for totally different purposes.

Marie Favorito is an excellent movement and meditation teacher. Check her out. She doesn’t know all my short qigong forms I’ve added to my sequence, but is serious into tai chi and qigong.

michael