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The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long!

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I think food helps lots too. I find aitkins diets pretty hard on my liver and heat my liver up more and make things worse. Lemon juice definitely helps. Milk thistle and dandylion i think are great too. I got some livatone plus herbal supplement that has helped lots, it’s just a handy little pill that works well.I know it works well because i can take a pill and 20 mins later i feel very similar to the balancing i’ve done after qigong 🙂 I like my beer though so it helps to bring some balance.

Rideforever: I think Mantak Chia’s standing only part of embracing the tree, not the packing part, is supposed to be done like you say ‘Let the standing teach you’ is told by the other bloke you mentioned. When you get tired of holding yourself the way you think you should be, you let go and stand the way you really should. The great thing about embracing the tree stance is it strengthens the muscles that makes holding good posture in daily life a breeze. The stretching of the throatic spine region shown at the end of the book is very good for this also.

 

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I disagree ride forever.

It is ALL about play. It has to be fun, you need to enjoy what you’re doing now or why do it at all?

What are you trying to achieve by doing qigong? How do you know you’re going the right way? I’ve been doing it over 12 years daily and nothing is permanent, there is no result from qigong that you will be able to keep, there is no goal to reach, other than realizing there is no goal, and nothing is permanent. It sound like you love the sensations and sense of power and control you get from qigong. Thats great, i do too. So you enjoy it… You’re having fun. Later keep repeating the same thing and it gets boring. The power and sensations will be the same ones you’ve done year after year and it will become less rewarding. I remember at my peak when i was practicing around 8 hrs a day for the most part of 2.5 years while living in china and I felt i could pretty accurately predict the near future – it became so obvious, however while it felt awesome at the start it soon became boring because there was no surprises left in life.

You said:

It is not free, everything is earned.
Like growing pains.
Otherwise you practice for a million years and nothing happens.
We are trying to become universal which is a long way from being a physical mortal monkey … a long way, a long journey.
Like a hot blade hammered again and again and then back into the fire for fusion.
Each step is crystallizing something inside.

But then whats the point of a razor sharp blade. Yes it can always be worked on and become slightly sharper and sharper, however what use is it if you don’t use the blade. On a single use it’s sharpness is deminished. Infact, perhaps of the 5000 times you’ve hit it with the hammer, the last 4000x did nothing to increase it’s practical effectiveness at cutting meat. However if you enjoyed hammering it those additional 4000x then you enjoyed yourself and it wasn’t a waste. If it was hard work and you did it because you believed you would EARN something miraculous, other than a sore arm, you may have better spent the time making love to your wife 🙂

I think what is implied here by “Never Leave the Playground” is you need to be enjoying what you’re doing. Fun = enjoyment. If it’s not fun you’re wasting your time.

 

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In hindsight, I guess it did go well, but it didn’t go as expected. I hadn’t had the opportunity to go meditating in my tent (i used to always go for 10 days) for years due to family commitments, and had just been practicing in life as general. I had been waiting for this opportunity for years, and expected that my increased experience now would let me get even higher and experience something new along the same lines as when i went last time. However i guess i was practicing differently so got different results.

I ended up leaving after 5 days. I guess i kind of realised that it was pointless putting myself through all the difficutlities of sitting there for hours on end, when the results of the practice wouldn’t last anyhow. I guess i’ve still got my memories of my experiences when I used to practice lots, but its the mindset.

I’ve always strived for perfection in everything, but getting older i’m starting to realise it’s not worth all the effort, and there is more to life than perfection. What i did take away is the importance of gradual change, perhaps like the seasons, yet each summer is not quiet like the last. As a Bowen Therapist i also carried this thought through to my clients and how the treatments always need to be a little different. How their repetitive activities cause too bolder changes in the fascia, and they need to do something different. Opposite works best for a while, but then it’s just back and forth, it needs to go around like the seasons. Similarly i realized like the huge amounts of research done, has informed top athletes that they need to keep changing their training.

So then what i really took away is that I need to vary and change my repetative lifestyle. Something as simple as changing activities ever so slightly day after day could have the same result as hours of meditative practice. It could be a much simpler physical method of attaining balance.

Also the method i’ve always relied on, especially beginning healing tao some 12+ years ago, building up from the ground doesn’t always hold true. 1+1+1 doesn’t always = 3, it could =2, 1, 4 or 6. Perhaps the base i’m building on moves, or the spirit changes things out of nowhere. The stability of grounding can be a facade, and it doesn’t always give the control that it seems to promise. But control of your life from the spirit is impossible, i don’t do what i want to do, it seems like there is a big gap there. All the times i’ve had effortless control of my body from the soul have only been short lived. So then do I give up my goals and not worry about acheiving what I want or desire? But then if there are some goals I want, wouldn’t it be a waste of life to ignore them? Sometimes i really do wonder if cultivation is important at all. I mean i’m sitting here today with a cold. I haven’t been sick like this in around 4 years, and using cultivation and herbs/foods i’m coming out of it pretty easy for a strong cold, but it’s still knocking me around spiritually because i haven’t had one for ages. Back before i started cultivating when i was younger i got sick every month or two and they used to hammer my physically, but spiritually i was used to them and they didn’t effect me so much. so… am i really better off? Perhaps i’ve overdeveloped the physical and the spiritual but let the heart get left behind. That was indeed a goal, to work on the heart before i went but i guess even with a written reminder i got carried away with what was familiar an tried to work on the heart from the perspectives of the physical and the spirit. Using voltage and amps rather than the colours of the rainbow. But perhaps i can achieve this through a continually changing lifestyle….

Of course now i need to put this all into practice and test it out in the real world…. but we’ll see.

Since i came back i watched the second lot of star wars’s, episodes 1-3, and really enjoyed them. They seemed more deeply connected to laws of the tao than the older episodes 4-6, as if George Lucas’s understanding has developed more as he’s aged. I was expecting to be disappointed but i was really impressed. 🙂

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The times when i’ve managed to unravel the problem areas in my body has been through continued healing sounds practice. Like i mean practicing the healing sounds effecting the troubled organs for hours a day under my breath while doing all sorts of activities, not in a seated meditation session.

Also, probably a more important part is to watch the problem area and learn to realise which activities, foods you eat, thoughts you think, or things you do in your daily life that cause this area to get better or get worse.

The problem is that the things that make me worse are the things I love, and they make me me. In reality 100 years of meditation couldn’t unblock what 6 months of walking the walk could do… and meditation becomes a waste of time if i’m always fighting against myself by doing the things i do. I guess realising it is the start but going on to change it on the long term, well thats something else….

So yeah, this is ‘another way’ and the best way i believe. It’s very fast and effective, but it’s not easy. It is breaking habits and not having habits. Good habits, bad habits, they’re all habits and all bad if we repeat them over and over. We need to continuously change our habits so there are no habits, even if the changes are slight different angle, that can help.

How can this help? because we need to be in the moment. Also changing these things slightly is different from brute forcing it, or even dissolving because these are like opposing the the problem however slight changes can be like stepping around the problem. I find this stepping around works best if i work at it continuously. Just simple things like opening doors with your other hand, washing your legs before your face while in the shower, or arms before back (just keep changing it up), calling somebody by a nickname instead of their real name. Everything just keep changing. Thats what i’m working on at the moment any how.

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MMmm yeah i remember seeing some hardcore street performances when i was living in china. Sticking hooks and stuff into their body and under their skin. Bit over the top for me  haha 🙂

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Thanks

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OK Thanks.

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Also, how about with the healing sounds… do you do more yin or yang smiling in the rest period between each healing sound?

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Well if i do something different in meditation it becomes like a new experience and it’s very easy to stay present. If i keep doing the same thing over and over it becomes repetative, even though I become very good at it and the feeling becomes very powerful, perhaps the power or increased effectiveness of the technique is not the goal. It becomes another habit, and i can get powerful chi flow, but it’s easy for my mind to wander, even though my body is still doing the inner smile on autopilot. So i’m thinking maybe trying to feel different types of energy or something like that. RSI meaning repetitive strain injury, but of the mind.

Also, how much time do you spend smiling inside your body and how much do you spend outside your body? Do you spend much time projecting chi out? Traditionally i’ve spent all my time internally but more recently turning my attention to outside. Intellectually I think it may help but i’m not sure if it actually is helping yet.

Like i get yang smiling is directing energy and yin smiling is watching the energy but either gets me too energized making it hard to sleep.

 

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Most noticeably iron shirt 3. Also not ejaculating during sex builds up the pressure. I don’t need to use weights in iron shirt 3, although i have, but just the massage and drawing the essence into the body has a strong effect for me.

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I think flavours of food, eg bitter, sweet, salty, sour and spicy is the easiest way to work out food choices.

Answers…

1.yes

2.I tried many different diets all with different effects. None helped me lose as much weight as just eating what i want and moderating portion size

3. Mantak chia had a food list which was good. I put a similar database together with php scripting which you may find helpful, you can put in which element or elements u want to cool or heat, and it will give u a list of foods. Its a personal use thing, but if you want to email me i can let you use it. I also developed a questionnaire php program that informs you about the strength of different elements in your body, and exercises and diet according to taoist principles that may help. It is personal too though, but i can give you a link to anyone interested enough to email me, and its not shared on any forum. louisattardbowen@gmail.com

I find wheat fine in moderation but cereal for breaky, sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner is way too much. Also i find white bread better than wholemeal. Wholemeal creates more dampness in my spleen, but too much white bread can cause a clogging feeling in my guts.

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I too like to ground more in afternoon and raise energy in the morning. I think it follows the energy of the day / night cycle

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I did tai chi from a good teacher while i was in China, and the most important parts i found where to bend legs as much as possible while doin the kata, and doing it slow, real slow. Fast then became easy, as was balance, grounding, etc.

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