Meditation Expert

For some reason people like to attack Bill’s work like he invented something new. He is paraphrasing the great works of Buddha, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. If you want to argue, go argue with them (and by ‘you’ I don’t mean you snowlion. This topic is not new on this forum).

Opening the orbit, feeling qi flow etc feels great. We are not kidding ourselves. We are not claiming that we will become enlightened just because our qi is flowing. But it certainlly leads to a corresponding clarity of body/mind awareness, thus creating the space/potential for sudden enlightenment of the zen type. Buddah himself had said that he cultivated for lives previously. Was it in vain? He was enlightened in the end…………although he did not advocate it to his disciples, it may have helped him.
Osho said that modern man is so full of crap that he needs to start with the body. Empty out the junk, a bit like shaking the tree in the taoist practice.
We are all at varing levels/stages of awareness, some people are clearer than others. Yet the possibility of sudden enlightenment as in the zen tradition remains open to all.
I had a few satories a couple of years ago, before I had ever done qigong, the oneness I experienced was unmistakable, blissful Funny, after that, the harder I tried to have it again, the more it eluded me.
So is effort necessary? Yes and no, honesty will tell you.
What I am trying to say is that I think that if we remain honest with ourselves, and hence the universe, the truth will be revealed to us.
………and has anyone noticed that when you do qigong without seriousness, with a sincere heart, openings happen?

PS, just checked out Bodhi’s site. He sure sells a good game! All this, “The secrets of being very rich, YOURS for just $20!” stuff! He’s obviously studied marketing at length if nothing else – NLP salesmen will be familiar with such techniques as “I feel safe putting you in this product’s hands to get started at meditation”, etc. He is trying to make you feel unsafe following someone else, it’s quite classic really, playing on insecurity etc. I mean come on! This is not a master! He is speaking as to a mark or a sap and not as to a student. Surely I can’t be the only person for whom this lights a red light? And then he goes off on miraculous easy results, surely another brakes-crammer?

Even if he were right, which I’m quite sure he isn’t, I personally don’t touch hucksters! You can’t tell whether you’re drawn to the teaching or the pitch… his main concern is to put you off others by means of your insecurity and fear about doing things wrong, that is his first message, THEN comes the teaching, which seems to lack, how shall I say?… dignity? I never met anyone well-cultivated who talked that way, trying to reinforce societal conforming pressures et al. He doesn’t exactly speak to the soul does he? All he really says is, “Forget everyone else, I’ve studied and I know the truth”. I personally can’t trust anyone like that.

It also is not correct that bodily or inner alchemy is a mere chimera, descended from true teachings that were corrupted through misunderstanding. Historically that case does not wash. The qigong teachings and those of western alchemy are linked and come from somewhere else altogether, and they have to do with observing, conversing with and being part of natural forces.

NN

Heya Max –

>>Sadly, you judge Bill based on his marketing skills- without reading any of his material or meeting him<< Well I think that in fact Michael's post from way long ago, which I did search out, answers things very well. However, I am quite satisfied from looking at his site that there is nothing there for me. I did look further into things than you imply, but that beginning certainly put me off! As far as the selling is concerned, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not trying to start an argument, because I don't believe I would change anyone's mind. However, to add to what Michael said, and to answer the original question, and to reply further to the material I saw on Bodri's site, here are ten objections which, although I understand they might not be sufficient for everyone, are so for me: 1. I do not consider it to be the correct method of teaching to 1st of all scare the prospective student at the prospect of studying elsewhere. The most effective teachers I have found are those who recommend wide-ranging experiment by their pupils - from what I've seen on this site Michael is one of those. (Perhaps the coolest teaching technique is that employed by my acquaintance Paul Hughes-Barlow's Sufi teacher, Punditt, who simply says nothing about any spiritual matter whatever - he only talks about sports! He also does things like having Paul drink all day until he is vomitous, and then giving him one more glass of whiskey which strangely sobers him up! But this kind of teaching - shamanic "stalking" - can only take place one-to-one, more's the pity. Find out more about Paul on supertarot.co.uk.) Bottom line is, if there is a spirit of paucity and meanness and orthodoxy about, I personally am not interested. It's a question of tone of voice! When I began learning about spiritual stuff I thought maybe I was wrong about things like that but it's turned out to be the right thing to do for me, to follow one's heart. I mean, how could it be otherwise? 2. It is implied on Bodri's site that the "8 levels of consciousness" can only be experienced via zen meditation. This is incorrect. I refer you to "The New Hermetics" by Jason Augustus Newcomb - exactly the kind of newfangled stuff of which Bodri disapproves, rife with NLP and suchlike. Yet it contains the same 8 levels of consciousness. Furthermore Timothy Leary wrote of the same 8 levels and he was hardly a Buddhist either! I refer you to Leary's works. 3. If Buddhism's mind-emptiness is superior to Taoism's internal alchemy, how come, in the case of the Dragon Gate Taoists (as described in "Opening the Dragon Gate", trans. Thomas Cleary, which is a record of the modern-day training of a Taoist wizard), do we find the emphasis to be on the Taoist techniques, despite the fact that Buddhist techniques are also used? If the Buddhist techniques were superior they would have replaced the Taoist ones in such a long-lived and secret lineage. 4. As Michael says, Bodri's complete unawareness of the "inner temple" approach betrays an unfamiliarity with Taoist work, and only a superficial investigation of its techniques and teachings. The temple approach is found everywhere, and to abandon it one would have to abandon not only Taoism but also Hermetics, Plato and his solids (search for those on this board - interesting discussion), Egyptian sacred geometry and ritual, and so forth, as misguided and unnecessary. I'm not willing to do that! The supporting evidence of their profound importance, which is too widespread for me to give huge numbers of examples - it can be investigated as you like - is persuasive in my opinion, even leaving out of account my own experience. 5. A similar gross injustice is done on Bodri's site (by Nan, not Bodri alone) to kabbalistic teachings, which are caricatured as scholarly intellectualism. Although I am not a kabbalist myself, I am well aware that they are nothing of the kind. Please see for example the web page of Rawn Clark - this link: http://www.abardoncompanion.com/8T-Links.html will do. Again what happens when Nan speaks here is that he assumes, because this other tradition is not his, it must be wrong. The truth is far otherwise and furthermore, anyone who truly had checked the teachings out would realise this.

6. Samadhi is not the sole province of Buddhism. I refer you to the work of the Celtic Bard Taliesin, for example. The magician Jan Fries has replicated the state of Samadhi from the work of Taliesin alone - see his book "Seidways". Furthermore he did so only with magical techniques and never meditated in his life. And he doesn't seem to be aware of the term "samadhi" either.

7. Moreover, "samadhi" is an experience that at least two people I know have had, and neither considered it any kind of final objective. One disparaged it, calling it a "fugue state", and said that she was left feeling she had wasted her time racing towards it and ignored her life in the physical world, to the overall detriment of her practice. It isn't the be-all and end-all - there's no such thing.

8. A misunderstanding is shown by Nan of the importance of transmutations between elements - which he says are impossible or illusory. Yet these, by means of distillation, are the processes by which Alchemy in the physical ssense - spagyric, homeopathy etc. - proceeds. Lest anyone think these pratices are ineffective, I refer you to the volume "memories of Franz Bardon", written by this czech magician's son and by his student. In here you will find examples of these techniques used to cure the otherwise incurable, such as Multiple Sclerosis. What you learn from Bodri will not include this information. Yet he says that he teaches everything of importance, and that no other system has anything to offer.

If elemental transmutation is possible in herbs, why not in humans?

9. As Michael says, the Buddhists often (not always I know, but here certainly) disparage the body. Why look for medical or health benefits from qigong or alchemy? Your life is an illusion in any case! All I can say about this is - it's one approach. It's not mine. I object to being told that because mine is different to his it is therefore wrong or achieves nothing - doubly so, since in my case it has actually achieved at least something.

10. One learns as much from teachERS as from their teachINGS - in the case of a good teacher, more. I trust no-one who tries to start an argument between the various traditions on earth, especially if they are simultaneously attempting to sell something, and also playing upon the insecurities of the ignorant as I say. Buddhism is no less arrogant than other religions at times, and is quite prepared to stamp out unorthodoxy, which shows a lack of generosity of spirit - which latter quality is in my opinion the first qualification for a spiritual teacher.

None of these objections is meant to put off someone who wants to work with Bodri's stuff, but is meant to justify anyone who doesn't, and to refute the allegations of uselessness he levels at traditions other than his own. None of the people I respect (for example, those in the above books, links and quotes) stoop to the kind of disparagement offered by Nan and Bodri on their site.

And that's all I have to say.

best, NN

…from reading Bill Bodri’s book ‘Measuring meditation’ which describes in details how all the teachings- buddhist, taoist, pagan, etc merge into the same cultivation principles that produce results. If you don’t want to buy it, you can go to thetaobums.com and ask them to lend you the physical copy of the book.

There is a lot of misconceptions about what taoism is. To understand that, you need to read classic texts of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. This is original taoism.

But old teaches and modern ones can only give you tools. What you do with them is another matter. One can give you the precious secret that would lead you straigh to the Tao, and yet you will discard it as garbage because the teaching was free and too simple. The difference between the one who sees the treasure nad the one being blind is wisdom. And that can only come from doing merit and not from spinning wind chi.