On Michael’s opinion of Bodri and Nan

White Skeleton Meditation

Start with your left big toe
Give away your flesh joyfully to the ghosts and spirits
Visualize that you are just a shiny, dazzling white (silver) skeleton
Visualize that your bones becoming dust and then emptiness — then forget your body & abandon all ideas of a having body or form (mentally let go of everything)
Sexual desire grows strong with this practice … you’ll become extremely flexible … You’ll become able to see other people’s bones and inside their body … superpowers will arise … You’ll be able to initially enter samadhi
Sickness focus – Manjushri 7th-8th lower vertebrae method
Chiropractors and bodyworkers should use this

I love the zen koan

sitting quietly
doing nothing
the spring comes
and the grass grows by itself

I used to sit or stand for long periods, doing nothing but watching the breath. So peaceful and relaxing, and the mind sooner or later stoped, if only briefly, or sometimes long periods.
Then I would feel the blood flowing through the feet and the rest of the body. Sometimes it would be very difficult to talk again for a while.
BUT, eventually, those nagging bodily aches, pains or general feeling of low energy/poor health would return after recomencing “normality”. The other thing is that sometimes it would take ages to enter that meditative state.

It has been my experience, since doing the inner smile, healing sounds and wuji that the body feels less pain and more energy than before. Most of the bodys’ ills are resolving. I usually end up smiling between each healing sound to the respective organ for so long that the two practices become one. I don’t know if that’s correct, but it just happens that way.

Doing these qi gong forms has become a meditation in itself.
It’s a great way to integrate body/mind/awareness. Once the active form is complete, I find myself remaining still……………just watching……………….

Now “just watching” is so much easier. It seems to me that the qi gong creates the type of bodily landscape (for want of a better description) that is conducive to meditation.

So, essentially, I don’t see how there can such a dichotomy between doing and non-doing, emptiness meditation Vs mind and/or body involvement. Aren’t they 2 sides of the same coin?

Hope I’m not rambling, just wanted to share my experince, and also use this post as a thank you to michael and everyone on this forum for making the exploration of taoist practice so accessible.

mat

Mark,
I fully support testing and evaluating all methods to find the ones that work best and advance human evolution on all levels. The skeleton meditation you’ve posted, as noted below by singing ocean, is already much more eloquently developed in both the inner smile and in Qigong Fundamentals 3 & 4 bone breathing and rooting methods. You don’t need to go to a cemetary and deal with all the ghosts – that is a different skill.

The cemetary meditation is an old hindu meditation borrowed, as most of the buddhist meditations are, from the hindu adepts. I love meditating on death, it is the focus of higher practices. It is not what I generally recommend to beginners.

I think I have made clear that my comments about Nan and Bodri’s wirtings, which I assume reflect their thinking, is only about their conceptualization of their practice. I don’t know them personally, I don’t know what their practice is because by a large they are not revealing it.
I have no judgement about them or their practices for this reason.

The point is that I am not really interested in wading through their stuff to prove to others that their walk is different than their talk. Let them prove it, let them take the feedback and change their talk, bring their talk into alignment.

It is obvious to me that Nan and bodri are into secrecy, max’s comments confirm this. They don’t really want to participate in an open minded and open ended spiritual science process.

I am not really interested in studying with someone who is narrowminded and has very poor language skills. I considered studying with Nan 20 years ago and decided against it, based on the narrow use of language and judgements he held, expressed in his books. I am sure he has a deep practice. But so what? I don’t want to promote his publicly stated metaphysics, they are exclusive and self-serving to entrain people into his following. That is how secret spiritual clubs work. Once you get in, its hard to get out.

Hello:

Some thoughts on your thoughts.

I have some understanding of this. The Nan school says essentialy that you do not know better than your own body what to do. The idea is to let go of the mind and it’s contant grasping( Nan uses the term don’t dwell though I like the term stop grasping better) This causes the jing to qi to shen to Tao to Wu stages to happen naturally on there own.
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In theory this is good, but all systems have some kind of method or technique to allow this to manifest. It can be basic or complex, but some method is used. “Letting go of the mind”, if it was so easy we would all be able to do it, so many methods or cultivations are used to allow this to happen, one must do something. Becuse one uses a basic method, like follow your breath, should not say that is not a method. Does the NAN school have acheived people we can meet and find out just how well they have obtained this “letting GO”, especially in their daily life? If not it is all just talk.

I actually don’t really dispute this and at this point think it works(though I am studying basically the same teaching from other teachers who I like better) I just don’t discredit that those same things and perhaps more can be achived with the Alchemy school.
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Alchemy has always been written in metaphor, and it is easily misunderstood. The basic point of disagreement for many is this, is alchemy creating something that does not alredy exist, or is it allowing one to realize what already exists? This seems to be the big difference between Chan/Zen, people like tolle and “some” of the Taoist Alchemists.

Adyashanti, who is the main teacher I am currently studying, says he has never met anyone that guides the process to enlightnent(via HT type practices)that is anywhere near the level of those that trusts the process( “Allow everything to be as it is”)
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Have you met people that have acheived this? People make all kinds of claims, rarely do we meet this enlightened people. Even more rarely, we dont see them in their private life, to see what they are really like.

The basic teaching is the body has it’s own wisdom and knows what to do. It doesn’t need the ego mind to direct things. You stop directing things and JUST WATCH .Whatever happens you JUST WATCH.
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this is true, but it seems most cannot do this, so many methods were developed to assist in the ability to acheive this. This is really not an issue to argue over, the process of deciding this is the rigtht way will cause one not to JUST WATCH.

Qi Gong offers other things that JUST WATHCING, it increases vitality, calms emotions, detoxifies, etc. The Taoists know this, they try to cultivate with exercise, nutrition, meditation, etc. Many traditions have no foucus on this at all.

bagua

>Adyashanti, who is the main teacher I am currently studying, says he has never met anyone that guides the process to enlightnent(via HT type practices)that is anywhere near the level of those that trusts the process( “Allow everything to be as it is”)

This is a well intentioned, but ultimately dumb comment in the context at least that Golden Sun is claiming it was made. It’s intention is probably to get western control freaks to relax their over-doing conditioning. A good thing. Easily accompolished by the inner smile. Or rather than “easily”, I should say “simply”, which is never easy.

But does “trust the process” mean giving up the development of energetic movment skills and higher alchemical spiritual skill? Does Adyashanti have any of those skills? Does he have a track record of healing people with either physical or deep spiritual illness? Who has he “met” that he didn’t think was enlightened? A dumb blanket generalization. Its easy to trash the “ego”, a concept that didn’t even exist in his underlying Hindu tradition. But that is just words, which are cheap.

Of course alchemy is based on “trusting the process” – that is exactly what alchemy is, trusting the process of the life force – and trusting our human ability to communicate with it and use it skillfully. Skillful means integration of ego, not trashing it or eliminating it. Ego is just another word for consciousness that is still maturing. YOu CANNOT KILL CONSCIOUSNESS.
you can only mature it.

The passive “let it all happen” is exactly the same message that is given by EXOTERIC taoism, just go with the flow. That is first stage of development. But why stay at the stage of being a child? Full adulthood spiritually is what the Life Force wants us to have, so why resist developing that skill? That is the ESOTERIC aspect, which is now becoming exoteric through teachings like the healing tao.

Adyashanti sounds like he is into the school of dwelling in the primordial.
That’s lovely, and powerful for folks when they first experience it. I toallysupport him in that, if that is his Way.

But dwelling in stillness/primordial doesn’t resolve the relation between the primordial and the manifest, it doesn’t tell us how to most skillfully lead our lives. In shrot, it doesn’t heal the modern condition fully, which is enmeshed in technology. Is humanity’s endgame to have everyone sitting in a circle, silent meditating? Unlikely. Stillness is only one aspect of existence.

Its downside is that it develops a kind of passivity. All of my practices are designed to activate a dynamic relationship with the neutral inner witness/yuan shen – but not to fall into a passive state of bliss where nothing else but neutral matters. Neutral self always converts itself into yin-yang in the manifest plane – and that is where the skill comes in, the need for discrimination beyond mindless bliss.

If you were a Jew in Nazi Germany folowing a teaching of Adyashanti, would “trusting the process” mean surrendering to the Nazis and blissfully getting on a train to visit their special relocation centers, later revealed to be concentration camps?

This example shows how meaningless that phrase is in real life. In real life, you need the power of discrimination and wise choice making. Sure, you can argue those trusting Jews were essential to awakening others to the horrors of fascism, that their lives were necessary sacrifice, it was their karma, etc. blah blah blah. More Hindu determinism.

No thanks.

Michael

Thanks Michael,

I actually appreciate this sort off feedback. I feel spoiled in a way to to be 30 years old and be able to get this wisdom from one guy who has spent 30 years doing Taoist Alchemy, another Zen(Adyashanti is not Hinduism but Zen and Advaita Vendanta) and Native American spirituality.

It did seem like a pretty generalized statement. He really emphasizes that your body knows and has the wisdom of what to do better than you ever could and that kundalini type of stuff goes on it’s own. My guess is he hasn’t studied Taoist Alchemy but would say it is “like your ego wanting control of driving the process instead of relaxing in the back seat and letting it drive itself”. That is a loose quotation but essentially what he says.

I havent gottend eeply into any of these paths to really say what is “good or bad” and my guess is is not a one size fits all situation. Adyashanti’s path is probably better for certain personalities9control freak) your path is probably good for others.

I am tending to do more of the allow stuff to happen but still think knowing tools like what you teach is awesome and might spontaneously switch over to Taoist Alchemy if motivated.

Taoist are supposed to flexible, no?

Hi:

You bring up some good points. There is no historical evidence of Huang Di/Yellow Emperor, his is a legendary person from a pre-histotic time frame, it is in the Shang Dyanasty the first historical evidence of writing in china existed. The Five Elements are from the Warring Period, the Later Chou Dyanasty, Yellow Emperor did not talk about them. The Chinese just attach their work to him to give it more credibility.

I welcome a dialogue on the Can Tong Qi, but most wont grasp it as it is in deep metaphor. I mentioned the complete reality school because they attempted to integrate and unify the terms of different traditions, to see the unity to their common insight.

Can you provide specific documents that share the type of alchemy that White Cloud (assuming there is a White Cloud) practiced that dates to the Han Dyanasty? or some specific time frame?

If you talk about ancient Taoist Shaman please reference what source and its legitimacy, so much talked about is just fantasy and make beleive, not based on any kind of histotical fact.

Thanks