<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Energy Practices</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_category?p_l_id=&amp;mbCategoryId=12381</link> <description>For the discussion of all energy body practices</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 00:38:12 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T00:38:12Z</dc:date> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600508</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Kim Katami:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I didn&amp;#039;t see your message for a couple of days but I somehow managed to get it visible. I still don&amp;#039;t get why the messages don&amp;#039;t open in consecutive pages...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Reg. the exercise. It is a simple exercise and everyone knows it. My article is not meant as an instruction to any practices mentioned. I also don&amp;#039;t feel right to give you instructions in any practice without knowing anything about you. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Baba&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Okay, my mistake and I deleted my post because it is irrelevant.  Yes, the &amp;#034;Home Message Board&amp;#034; no longer displays for me.   Only Daniel&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;Dho...&amp;#034; message displays.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:03:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600508</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T13:03:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600466</link> <description>I didn&amp;#039;t see your message for a couple of days but I somehow managed to get it visible. I still don&amp;#039;t get why the messages don&amp;#039;t open in consecutive pages...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Reg. the exercise. It is a simple exercise and everyone knows it. My article is not meant as an instruction to any practices mentioned. I also don&amp;#039;t feel right to give you instructions in any practice without knowing anything about you. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Baba</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:46:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600466</guid> <dc:creator>Kim Katami</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T11:46:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597635</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Interesting.  So, do you think listening to recordings would work just as well?  This makes me think of binaural beats, actually.  Music definately has a marked effect on the mood - but this is could be a cultural/learned thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Definitely yes if we talk in very broad terms. I don&amp;#039;t know what binaural beats are.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 15:22:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597635</guid> <dc:creator>Kim Katami</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T15:22:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597583</link> <description>Interesting.  So, do you think listening to recordings would work just as well?  This makes me think of binaural beats, actually.  Music definately has a marked effect on the mood - but this is could be a cultural/learned thing.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 09:54:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597583</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T09:54:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597535</link> <description>Sure Eva.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 05:43:54 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597535</guid> <dc:creator>Kim Katami</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T05:43:54Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597490</link> <description>I have considered that mantra may work as another form of concentration so in that way works similar to following the breath or any other form of fixated concentration.  Concentration seems to help tame the monkey mind at least for the duration of the concentration, which can be a form of relief for many and with a bit of luck, may also form better monkey mind  habits.  Mantra and repeated sounds have also been used through history to bring about altered mental states.  &lt;br /&gt;-Eva</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 05:14:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597490</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T05:14:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597473</link> <description>Not Tao,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think it is a good question. I go for the practical explanation which is that different sounds directly affect different parts, in various degrees, of our psychology. I wish I had an English transcript of a speech (1 h 45 min) that I give a couple of months ago to make this clear. Certainly, mantras are a science directly connected with mans psychology and its various parts. Though, of course there are many who don&amp;#039;t know/talk about this but rather talk about it in mystical light.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Baba</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 04:35:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597473</guid> <dc:creator>Kim Katami</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T04:35:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597124</link> <description>How would you explain this mantra idea to a materialis?  Is the reason magical - as in, the words themselves have power in the universe - or psychological - as in repeating a phrase embeds it within the mind and causes emotional changes?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit: Full disclosure - I don&amp;#039;t really believe in spiritual energy, but I&amp;#039;m willing to try something if it seems to have a relationship to my interest in emotional liberation.  I hope my question doesn&amp;#039;t start a flame war - these things seem to be touchy on this forum.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 21:15:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597124</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T21:15:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596814</link> <description>Yes, the vid seems all right.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 15:24:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596814</guid> <dc:creator>Kim Katami</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T15:24:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596777</link> <description>Hello, Kim, kind regards.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The alternate nostril breathing interests me and I would like to incorporate it in with my other exercises.  Does this youtube video explain it well?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;WxEqooqgCEs"&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxEqooqgCEs&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&lt;/a&gt; haven&amp;#039;t worked through it yet, only sampled it, and will let you know what comes up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;best,&lt;br /&gt;colleen</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 13:34:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596777</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T13:34:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Relaxing Cranial Muscles</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596055</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Teague:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Interesting.  You&amp;#039;re right.  Even the focus required in typing these words tenses the cranial muscles.  Basically even just the act of thinking.  So yeah, there does seem to be a correlation or even causation.  It&amp;#039;s funny, the way I figured out how to relax them is by reading posts on here I find myself getting relaxed (unless it&amp;#039;s a battleground thread &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;), and then I feel my cranial muscles un-tensing and once they start I can help them along.  I&amp;#039;m doing it now between typing sentences and it feels like my brain is reclining in my skull with a pleasant zone-out feeling.  I wonder if I can start tapping into the same sorts of feelings in my chest.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, and more synchronicity, (from other thread), earlier today I had also noticed the tightening when reading words, so I consciously &amp;#034;let go&amp;#034; of reading the words, yet still looked at the words, the mind would sometimes start reading the words and tighten, then I would &amp;#034;let go&amp;#034; of the reading and just be aware of the words(as a sight sensation) and the tightening would release.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, I think there are two entries into jhana, and maybe two types of jhana.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One, the focused concentrative jhana that arises due to focus on one object and hinderances are suppressed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Two, the open relaxed entry to jhana where one gently &amp;#034;lets go &amp;#034; of hinderances when they arise, and the jhana arises naturally, not through suppression of the hinderances, but through the &amp;#034;release&amp;#034; or cessation of the hinderances.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think type two is more productive and that the practice also develops skills for both on and off the cushion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The two types of jhana thoughts arose I guess due to the similarity between the tension of cranial muscles and the relaxed/tranquil state of the cranial muscles, it seems inter-related.  As, in my opinion, in jhana, there is just the pleasant sensations, traditional thinking slows, then ceases, sensations flow from pleasantness(piti) through to equanimity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And , say one starts with the breath as object of meditation, then as one notices he relaxed state of the cranial muscles, one can move the awareness to the relaxed stae of cranial muscles, and use that as the new object of meditation.  And just like the breath, if the mind wanders, gently bring the mind back to the relaxed cranial muscle state.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This, is also seemingly related to suffusing the body as a soap maker would knead the soap and water together to make soap, all of the soap powder would become suffused with water until it was completley combined and mixed/saturated.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So too, one could work through the bodily and mental formations, tranquilizing each area/sankhara/formation, (just like one did with the cranial muscles) until each was saturated with the tranquility, from head to toe, from inside out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think in this way one can utilize the Satipatthana Sutta, and blend together Mindfulness and Jhana, maybe this is Vipassana Jhana, I&amp;#039;m not real good with all the terminology here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, I couldn&amp;#039;t really tell you why this reply started going on and on...  (my minds impersonal nature , I suppose/ associated thoughts arising)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, back to my episode of Burn Notice on Netflix, yikes I am human!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 05:29:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596055</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T05:29:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Relaxing Cranial Muscles</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595982</link> <description>Interesting.  You&amp;#039;re right.  Even the focus required in typing these words tenses the cranial muscles.  Basically even just the act of thinking.  So yeah, there does seem to be a correlation or even causation.  It&amp;#039;s funny, the way I figured out how to relax them is by reading posts on here I find myself getting relaxed (unless it&amp;#039;s a battleground thread &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;), and then I feel my cranial muscles un-tensing and once they start I can help them along.  I&amp;#039;m doing it now between typing sentences and it feels like my brain is reclining in my skull with a pleasant zone-out feeling.  I wonder if I can start tapping into the same sorts of feelings in my chest.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 03:44:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595982</guid> <dc:creator>Teague</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T03:44:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Relaxing Cranial Muscles</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595950</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Teague:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I&amp;#039;ve heard it mentioned a few times of relaxing ones cranial muscles.  I&amp;#039;ve figured out how to do it, at least to some extent, but I was wondering if this actually has any relevance to meditation?  I suppose it does have a relaxing and somehow meditative feeling to it, but why?  Is it some kind of two-way stream, where if you release stress your muscles un-tense, and if you un-tense your muscles you release stress?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-T&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cool, it seems you have found another golden key!  Rather than explaining my hypothesis or inserting links, investigate this:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When your cranial muscles are relaxed and remain relaxed does dukkha or stress arise?  When dukkha or stress arises are your cranial muscles relaxed or tense?  And when you become aware of your cranial muscles &amp;#034;tensed&amp;#034; up, what happens to stress or dukkha when you relax them?  Can negative thoughts even arise when the cranial muscles are relaxed?  What about other external tensions around the skull, i.e. &amp;#034;furrowing&amp;#034; of the brow, a slight frown or grimace, firm set jaw, slightly clenched jaw/teeth?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One could go through other body parts areas, Chest, throat, sloar plexus.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But it seems there is a mind/body connection here, as above so below, and that the external facial and internal muscle tensioning is a &amp;#034;mirror&amp;#034; of the mind, and also the mind &amp;#034;mirrors&amp;#034; the body.  It seems to go both ways. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For instance, a happy mind creates a smile, and a smile creates a happy mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are other proofs in scientific studies for this,i.e. &amp;#034;Power Poses&amp;#034;  will release testosterone, and decrease cortisol.....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It also seems that the tightened , or contracted mind has alot to do with the mental formation called the &amp;#034;ego&amp;#034;, it seems that when the cranial muscles are contracted, it carries along with it the wanting to change the way things are, or the wanting to not change the way things are, (craving).  Or, in insight terms, not accepting or understanding anicca, dukkha, and anatta.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, one last note, the tensioning and tightening of these muscle seem to like to tighten up all on their own (impersonal nature), so mindfulness is needed to be aware and release.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, still practicing and investigating myself....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 02:45:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595950</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T02:45:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Relaxing Cranial Muscles</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595820</link> <description>I&amp;#039;ve heard it mentioned a few times of relaxing ones cranial muscles.  I&amp;#039;ve figured out how to do it, at least to some extent, but I was wondering if this actually has any relevance to meditation?  I suppose it does have a relaxing and somehow meditative feeling to it, but why?  Is it some kind of two-way stream, where if you release stress your muscles un-tense, and if you un-tense your muscles you release stress?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-T</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 23:13:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595820</guid> <dc:creator>Teague</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T23:13:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595008</link> <description>Very interesting -- two strands of Thai Forest Tradition practicing, teaching qigong-like stuff.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Ajahn Cha lineage and Ajahn Thanissaro&amp;#039;s)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m considering writing Than-Geof -- or has anyone else asked Sujato or other from that branch / lineage -- WHAT DO THE THAI&amp;#039;S CALL THAT SORT OF PRACTICE? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Did thera (elders, forerunners in the lineages) like Ajahn Lee, Ajahn Mun teach that? Have a name for it? A Pali term? (other than, too broadly, anapanasati or satipatthana).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I pointed out, the term &amp;#039;qigong&amp;#039; was invented ca. 1930 (in Nationalist China), and used in the current sense only since the late 1950&amp;#039;s (in the PRC and then outwards).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Or have Than-Geof, Sujato -- Westerners of the hippy generation, basically -- cooked this up (formed a new tradition) on their own?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 21:24:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595008</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T21:24:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Feeling energies outside my body, psychiatrist prescribed mild drug</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594978</link> <description>Disclaimer: Not a doctor but do have experience with what you&amp;#039;re talking about, antipsychotics in the past (unrelated, not for schizo), and some formal neuroscience&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The brain has many heuristics running to give us best guess intuition. We rely particularly strongly on intuition for spatial processing and social interaction. I&amp;#039;d guess that you&amp;#039;re experiencing some of these heuristics explicitly as extra sensations rather than implicitly like most people. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, what you&amp;#039;re feeling is &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; but not supernatural. Don&amp;#039;t put any more faith in it than you would your own intuition (because that&amp;#039;s what it is), and you should be fine. Just because it&amp;#039;s happening in your brain doesn&amp;#039;t mean you can control it easily. Just because it feels like its coming from &amp;#034;the out side&amp;#034; doesn&amp;#039;t mean it is, but it also doesn&amp;#039;t mean it&amp;#039;s fake.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don&amp;#039;t take the antipsychotics (unless this is causing serious disruption of your life - but even then there&amp;#039;s probably better first resorts). At best, you&amp;#039;ll dull everything. At worst, you could do long-term emotional/neurological damage</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 20:46:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594978</guid> <dc:creator>David Orion Girardo</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T20:46:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Feeling energies outside my body, psychiatrist prescribed mild drug</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594666</link> <description>Hello Mario,&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for sharing your story. I was curious if you would give an update.&lt;br /&gt;Billy</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 17:57:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594666</guid> <dc:creator>Billy John Lockhart</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T17:57:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Actual oneness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594506</link> <description>&lt;span style="font-size: 24px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;Hi DO-folks. Thought I&amp;#039;d drop this here, if someone is interested in such a topic. Feel free to comment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;- Baba&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 24px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actual oneness&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;On several occasion I have written and talked about the progressive stages of&lt;br /&gt;the yogic path. The three main stages are: awakening/enlightenment,&lt;br /&gt;liberation (skt. jivanmukta/arhat) and surpassed state (skt.&lt;br /&gt;mahasiddha/paramukta/full buddhahood). In this article I will share&lt;br /&gt;my casual thoughts about the energetic process of the tantric&lt;br /&gt;meditator in regards to karmic purification, compassion and the&lt;br /&gt;actuality of ”oneness”. I will look at the issue from all the way&lt;br /&gt;from beginning of the practice to very matured states. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Prana and shakti&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, I have to clarify the difference between two kinds of energies so that&lt;br /&gt;the reader will later understand what I am talking about. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my experience the vital/breath energy (skt. prana) and spiritual energy&lt;br /&gt;(skt. shakti) are two entirely different kinds of energy which are&lt;br /&gt;cultivated by different techniques. Prana which is cultivated through&lt;br /&gt;physical practices such as asanas and bandhas or through breathing&lt;br /&gt;energy practices (skt. pranayama), is very gross compared to fine and&lt;br /&gt;pervasive shakti. It is my conclusion based on my own experiences&lt;br /&gt;with prana-practices as well as through being in contact with many&lt;br /&gt;people who have had pranic problems, that these two energies are not&lt;br /&gt;the same. I&amp;#039;ve often seen discussions of ”energy problems”,&lt;br /&gt;”kundalini problems” or ”kundalini syndrome” but all that has&lt;br /&gt;nothing to do with the actual &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;kundalini shakti&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;or with other kinds of shakti which are numerous&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;Such problems are caused by pranic energy altogether. I think this is&lt;br /&gt;one the biggest misunderstandings in yoga today. To put it simply:&lt;br /&gt;Cultivated in excess prana, can cause problems while shakti that is&lt;br /&gt;cultivated mainly through mantra can only cause solutions, in the&lt;br /&gt;sense of removing dualistic barriers from the bodymind of the&lt;br /&gt;practitioner. So, prana and shakti are different.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;Why I say this is because it is my observation that the energetic purification&lt;br /&gt;can not be achieved by prana practices alone. In order to &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;completely&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;purify the karmic knots from the subtle nervous system, one &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;must&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;combine the methods of pranayama and mantra. Mantra means syllables,&lt;br /&gt;words or sentences that are spiritually potential. Mantra does not&lt;br /&gt;mean just any formula of words that are repeated. Mantra is shakti in&lt;br /&gt;the form of spoken language. My point is that in order to finish the&lt;br /&gt;karmic purification in the channels and centers, one is required to&lt;br /&gt;learn an integrated practice that combines both the prana-aspect&lt;br /&gt;together with the shakti-aspect. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Purification of the channels&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Every beginner yogi is taught how to purify his or her energy channels&lt;br /&gt;(skt. nadi). This is mainly done by practicing various forms of&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;alternate nostril breathing&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt; (skt. nadi shuddhi pranayama). This practice is concerned with the&lt;br /&gt;three main channels of the energetic (pranic) body which in turn are&lt;br /&gt;in contact with numerous other channels of the energetic body. The&lt;br /&gt;idea is to purify and balance the pranic currents on the left and&lt;br /&gt;right sides of the body. This has a clarifying and calming effect on&lt;br /&gt;the mind and emotions of the practitioner. In addition, when the side&lt;br /&gt;channels are put into balance with each other, the central channel&lt;br /&gt;becomes active. The central channel in the spine is the most active&lt;br /&gt;channel during meditation. In other words, if either of the two side&lt;br /&gt;channels is more active than the other, it will be difficult for a&lt;br /&gt;beginner to meditate. For these two reasons, purifying the side&lt;br /&gt;channels and activating the central nadi, is why the technique of&lt;br /&gt;nadi suddhi pranayama is so widely taught. Despite of it being&lt;br /&gt;probably the most well-known of all pranayamas, I have met none out&lt;br /&gt;of hundreds of people who knew this technique who were aware of the&lt;br /&gt;purpose of the practice. I have neither met a person who had actually&lt;br /&gt;dove deep into the practice to the extent of getting his channels&lt;br /&gt;purified.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I usually require my students to practice nadi shuddhi daily for at least one&lt;br /&gt;year. Some do it longer. What takes place with the practice is that&lt;br /&gt;the yogi feels his body becoming very light and less obstructed&lt;br /&gt;compared to before. Also, the nostrils remain open and the central&lt;br /&gt;channel is mostly active which in turn keeps the bodymind in a close&lt;br /&gt;contact with calm meditative state, awareness itself. People often&lt;br /&gt;describe this as having more free space within them which allows them&lt;br /&gt;to be more relaxed, healthy and focused in whatever they pursue in&lt;br /&gt;life. This calm state is called calm abiding (skt. shamatha) or&lt;br /&gt;establishing a calm state. It is a state when one can clearly&lt;br /&gt;recognise pervasive peace and calm within that is permeated with&lt;br /&gt;aliveness, bliss and love. That is good news for everyone, especially&lt;br /&gt;those who are spiritually inclined. When a beginner achieves this&lt;br /&gt;state it is sort of a first milestone in the practice. Most certainly&lt;br /&gt;the benefit is felt.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Purification of the centers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Purification of the chakra-system (skt. chakra suddhi) in most cases requires much&lt;br /&gt;longer time than nadi suddhi (we talk about nadi suddhi here having&lt;br /&gt;the meaning of purifying the three main channels). It is a matter of&lt;br /&gt;question what type of a chakra system is concerned as there different&lt;br /&gt;kinds of them that different traditions use. The most well known&lt;br /&gt;system of chakras are the 7 basic ones between the pelvic floor (or&lt;br /&gt;the tip of the tailbone) and the crown of the head or the 6 between&lt;br /&gt;the tailbone and forehead. However, there are literally hundreds of&lt;br /&gt;other centers in the bodymind of man and most of them store karmas,&lt;br /&gt;samskaras and vasanas. I often use only the word ”karma” of all&lt;br /&gt;kinds of energetic grooves and knots which rule the psychological&lt;br /&gt;operation of man&amp;#039;s mind in his daily life and makes him spiritually&lt;br /&gt;ignorant. Most people are completely unaware that their behaviour is&lt;br /&gt;biased because of these subtle imprints in their nervous system. I&lt;br /&gt;think that meditating and chanting mantras in the 7 basic chakras is&lt;br /&gt;good to begin with. Quite soon, if not right in the first few&lt;br /&gt;practices, one will see the effect of yoga sadhana. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my master&amp;#039;s teaching a 14 center model is taken up from the beginning.&lt;br /&gt;The total number of chakras that are included in the system number up&lt;br /&gt;to 150. All of these centers are not in the torso and head area,&lt;br /&gt;though. There are many in the limbs. As far as I know, there are also&lt;br /&gt;other systems of yogic meditation that employ more elaborate chakra&lt;br /&gt;models in their teachings than the one with 6 or 7 centers. This is&lt;br /&gt;very good because not all karmas can be released from the 7 main&lt;br /&gt;centers. Not very effectively, at least.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is my experience that if we talk about the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;complete&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;karmic purification, then we cannot leave out the subconscious mind.&lt;br /&gt;By subconscious mind I refer to a vast storage of karmic files that&lt;br /&gt;are stored in each human&amp;#039;s bodymind. I have sometimes compared the&lt;br /&gt;subconscious mind into a large room that is filled with thin spider&lt;br /&gt;threads. That is how an ordinary persons karmic situation looks like.&lt;br /&gt;There are so many of these imprints that it is hard to imagine.&lt;br /&gt;However, with a proper yoga method all of the karmas can be uprooted.&lt;br /&gt;I know of people who have managed to attain this without tantric&lt;br /&gt;means but they have been monastic meditators for long periods of time&lt;br /&gt;who have had the opportunity to spend several years in intensive&lt;br /&gt;retreat. I on the other hand am a tantric practitioner with a job,&lt;br /&gt;family and many other obligations. This being the case, I don&amp;#039;t have&lt;br /&gt;even nearly as much time for practice than a monastic has. Therefore&lt;br /&gt;I advocate tantric means that concern initiation given by a guru and&lt;br /&gt;the tool of mantra and visualisation, in addition to pranayama. If a&lt;br /&gt;person is inclined to practice tantric yoga, surely it is much faster&lt;br /&gt;way to complete karmic purity than the classic/monastic way. This is&lt;br /&gt;my personal opinion.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Body of a jivanmukta&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I implied before the subtle body (also called energy body or astral&lt;br /&gt;body) of man contains hundreds of energy centers, of various sizes.&lt;br /&gt;The classic texts give numbers like 72 000 or 720 000 for the total&lt;br /&gt;number of channels. This complex of many centers and channels contain&lt;br /&gt;all of man&amp;#039;s dualistic ignorance. Specifically, it is below the level&lt;br /&gt;of the forehead that the various karmas are stored. There are also&lt;br /&gt;practices for the centers at the forehead and crown level but these&lt;br /&gt;are not for their purification but just for activating them. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;#039;s try to figure out how this congregation of nadis and chakras looks like.&lt;br /&gt;Imagine that you sit inside a big balloon that is 2-3 meters (6-9&lt;br /&gt;ft.) in diameter. You are sitting in the center of the sphere. First,&lt;br /&gt;imagine that there is one single line or thread (nadi), thin like&lt;br /&gt;spider&amp;#039;s thread, that travels from one side of the sphere to the&lt;br /&gt;other side of it, going through your body. For now, it doesn&amp;#039;t matter&lt;br /&gt;whether it goes from top to down or from left to right etc. Just&lt;br /&gt;imagine one line inside the balloon. Then add a second line. Then add&lt;br /&gt;a third line, and fourth, and fifth and so on until the whole balloon&lt;br /&gt;is filled with these single lines. This is of course a visualised&lt;br /&gt;exercise but &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;actually there are so many nadis in your subtle body&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;This information can be verified in meditation.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider the sphere, that is the aura of your personal bodymind, entirely&lt;br /&gt;filled with thin lines. A non-yogi&amp;#039;s aura is filled with numerous&lt;br /&gt;karmic traces. It could be compared to the nadis being coloured with&lt;br /&gt;shades of random colours. We can imagine how the whole complex could&lt;br /&gt;be mixed with random colours making a non-harmonious whole. When one&lt;br /&gt;advances in nadi and chakra purification, the whole complex becomes&lt;br /&gt;more and more clear, until all traces are gone. When karmic&lt;br /&gt;purification is brought to maturity, the nadis and chakras can be&lt;br /&gt;perceived to be like hollow tubes, like thin tubes made of flexible&lt;br /&gt;clear glass. When the nadis and centers become completely clear, the&lt;br /&gt;nervous system can also transmit various spiritual energies (skt.&lt;br /&gt;shakti) to others naturally. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How it might feel to have an entirely purified nervous system of a liberated&lt;br /&gt;person (skt. jivanmukta/arhat)? You can, for example, find a picture&lt;br /&gt;of old Ramana Maharishi and feel the energy that is emanating from&lt;br /&gt;him. Of course, such people also exist today in physical form.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Body of a paramukta&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jivanmukta-hood or liberation means that all causes of dualistic delusion have been&lt;br /&gt;rooted out or have been seen through in the bodymind of a person.&lt;br /&gt;Here is a simple overall explanation for this.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are two kinds of causes of delusion in man&amp;#039;s mind: the primary cause of&lt;br /&gt;delusion and the secondary causes of delusion. The primary cause of&lt;br /&gt;delusion is the I-sense that sits in the place of a subject. When you&lt;br /&gt;think or say, ”I am angry”, it is the ”I” in front of the&lt;br /&gt;sentence that I&amp;#039;m talking about. It is the entity that can be called&lt;br /&gt;a subject*. The secondary causes of delusion are the inner objects:&lt;br /&gt;mental and emotional stuff . These objects are many and they spring&lt;br /&gt;up from the subconscious mind, the karmic storage, that I mentioned&lt;br /&gt;before. If you again say, ”I am angry” or ”I am happy”, it is&lt;br /&gt;the feeling of anger or happiness that I am talking about. All&lt;br /&gt;secondary causes of delusion have some feel of I-ness in them. These&lt;br /&gt;two causes can be clearly analysed.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Please, refer to free e-book ”&lt;/span&gt;Awake! Stories of&lt;br /&gt;awakening and dialogues leading to it&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;” by the author to study this in detail.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, a person becomes liberated, totally free from existential suffering,&lt;br /&gt;when the primary and secondary causes of delusion are seen through.&lt;br /&gt;Such a persons mind is lucid and clear at all times. It is just&lt;br /&gt;freedom, whether or not there are thoughts or emotions going on in&lt;br /&gt;the mind. The thoughts and emotions are not the same as before, they&lt;br /&gt;are transparent, not solid entities with a sense of self anymore.&lt;br /&gt;There are no existential confusion and mistaken identification. It is&lt;br /&gt;just clear and pure. It is all very natural and simple, just as you&lt;br /&gt;can see from Ramana&amp;#039;s face.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is progress after liberation as well. The path doesn&amp;#039;t end up in the&lt;br /&gt;liberated state.  &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;Often, when talking about full buddhahood (which is not limited to &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;buddhism&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;by the way) or spiritual masters, words like omniscient, omnipresent&lt;br /&gt;and omnipotent come up. A good friend of mine who is a disciple of a&lt;br /&gt;living avatara, a master who has attained full buddhahood, once joked&lt;br /&gt;that his master could turn the Earth into a cube is she wished to. In&lt;br /&gt;regards to omnipotence, if I think of my own master and his peers who&lt;br /&gt;are many, I am not sure if that is what it means, that the master&lt;br /&gt;could actually do &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;whatever&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt; he wished to, for example turn Earth into a cube or change all the&lt;br /&gt;salt water in the seas go sweet. I don&amp;#039;t think that is what&lt;br /&gt;omnipotence means. Here is another view into this matter.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In regards to channels and centers, there is indeed a further progress after the&lt;br /&gt;attainment of liberation. Like I said, liberation means that the&lt;br /&gt;persons own bodymind becomes fully pure and transparent. It is like a&lt;br /&gt;single box that was earlier filled with all kinds of useless stuff&lt;br /&gt;but has now been cleared up. Hence, the space inside the box is&lt;br /&gt;unobstructed and ever connected. This could be called the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;unification&lt;br /&gt;of the microcosmic energy system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is also a unification of the microcosmic energy system with the&lt;br /&gt;macrocosmic energy system. By macrocosmic system I refer to&lt;br /&gt;everything else, in various forms and dimensions that exists outside&lt;br /&gt;the box, the persons own bodymind. Before, we imagined our bodies&lt;br /&gt;inside the big balloon filled with thin nadis. You get a picture of&lt;br /&gt;these nadis going through your body and extending to all directions&lt;br /&gt;and various dimensions of existence, all at the same time. It is like&lt;br /&gt;a massive bundle of threads connected to everything alse. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are perhaps as many of those thin tubes, nadis, as there are physical&lt;br /&gt;cells in the human body. The modern science is not uniform of the&lt;br /&gt;number of the cells in the human body but nevertheless the most often&lt;br /&gt;stated number is &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;several tens of billions of cells&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;. It seems&lt;br /&gt;to me that there are nadis for each of the cells in the body. Of&lt;br /&gt;course a nadi is made of energy, not of physical matter. The nadi&lt;br /&gt;begins from the energetic counterpart of the physical cell. There are&lt;br /&gt;so many of those thin tubes of pure transparency and pure light, in&lt;br /&gt;our bodies, that is more impressive than any fireworks ever in China.&lt;br /&gt;And they do have amazing fireworks in Asia!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Question&lt;br /&gt;rises: Where do the nadis actually go? What is there at the other end&lt;br /&gt;of the lines? Here is where it gets absolutely beautiful.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The plot thickens&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At the other end of the billions of nadis of each of our bodies are... all&lt;br /&gt;other sentient beings. I have all those billions of channels, you&lt;br /&gt;have them and all living beings have them. Of course, we as human&lt;br /&gt;beings (can) exist simultaneously on a great number of dimensions&lt;br /&gt;(which open up from each chakra) at the same time. Animals and&lt;br /&gt;vegetation are not capable of this (some animals like dolphins can&lt;br /&gt;be). The more advanced you are spiritually, the greater is the scale&lt;br /&gt;of dimensions you are aware of. A liberated person can be aware from&lt;br /&gt;anything from the very low level of insects and simple animals all&lt;br /&gt;the way up to the bodhisattvas who are nearly buddhas.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is a beautiful orchestration of oneness that is actually taking place&lt;br /&gt;everywhere at this enerhgetic level. This is what oneness actually&lt;br /&gt;means. When all causes of delusion have been uprooted from the&lt;br /&gt;bodymind of a person, one can become aware of this oneness as an&lt;br /&gt;actual experience. Then it is not an idea anymore but an actuality.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know some people have the idea of oneness as some single Being that inlcudes&lt;br /&gt;all life forms. Some people call it God or Self (skt. atman/brahman).&lt;br /&gt;I think that is OK but I would like to clarify that the oneness that&lt;br /&gt;I am talking about could be rather explained as ”interconnectedness”&lt;br /&gt;that is devoid of self. From the absolute point of view there is no&lt;br /&gt;one, no entity, that this oneness is. It is all an I-less, self-less&lt;br /&gt;occurrence made of grace and compassion.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Prayer of compassion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As all beings are actually connected like this, through the subtle net of&lt;br /&gt;billions of energetic threads, it is only natural for us to think and&lt;br /&gt;act in terms of compassion, love and equality. Even hatred and other&lt;br /&gt;forms of gross suffering are met with this pervaisve sense of love&lt;br /&gt;and compassion. Along the centuries many masters have talked about&lt;br /&gt;this. It is because of this why in many world religions there are&lt;br /&gt;prayers and ceremonies fto increase happiness, harmony and liberation&lt;br /&gt;within and among all beings. The underlying reason for compassion is&lt;br /&gt;this interconnectedness. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For this&lt;br /&gt;reason, I would like to conclude with a simple prayer.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lokaha Samastaha Muktaha Bhavantu&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lokaha Samastaha Muktaha Bhavantu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lokaha Samastaha Muktaha Bhavantu&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;May all beings attain liberation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;May all beings attain liberation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;May all beings attain liberation.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Baba, 9/2014&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;Samadhi Path, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: navy"&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;samadhipath&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;www.samadhipath.com&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia&amp;#x2c;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The author is a professional teacher of non-sectarian tantric yoga in the&lt;br /&gt;lineage of his teacher. He is based at Helsinki, Finland but has&lt;br /&gt;students in Brasil, France, Singapore and Australia. &lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 14:13:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594506</guid> <dc:creator>Kim Katami</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T14:13:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594463</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;ftw:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;TDC, there&amp;#039;s a ajahn on youtube practicing qigong, so i guess he as a buddhist finds some value in it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My first qigong practice was interesting thats all i&amp;#039;ll say &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt; Looking forward to new ones. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I possibly wouldn&amp;#039;t have even started to read this thread, were in not for attending a weekend retreat in london with Ajahn Sucitto, current Abbot of Chithurst monastery (he&amp;#039;s an English monk in the Thai Forest Tradition). He spoke alot about relaxing the body and readying the body for sitting meditation and incorpating walking and standing meditation into the practice. Also, about methods to release energy blockages which do not mean just trying to sit through them.On the Sunday morning, after a short talk, we started with about 1/2 hour of basic Qi Gong practice. I know very little about Qi Gong/ Tai Chi  (side note, is there much difference between the two or is there plenty of overlap?).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Similarly, about 3 years ago, I attended a week long non-silent retreat (much focus was also given to group dialogue/sharing etc) by another monk from the same tradition (Amaranato, whom I notice has also contributed to this site in the past). He too, also led some Qi Gong sessions during the week. I don&amp;#039;t think that Ajahn Chah was leading Qi Gong sessions in NE Thailand during his teaching life (I&amp;#039;ve never read or heard about this and I&amp;#039;ve stayed at Amaravati for several weeks/months in the past). I&amp;#039;m not even sure if all or even most of the monastics (I&amp;#039;m talking specifically about those in the West in the Thai Forest Tradition) are practicing Qi Gong as well as more formal Buddhist meditation practices, but quite clearly some of them are and are very open about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve often thought, that these types of practices and this goes for yoga too, often naturally lead to sitting meditation. It&amp;#039;s like when I do Yoga, and especially after some of the &amp;#034;controlled&amp;#034; breathing practices too, if often lends itself nicely to sitting practices afterwards.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;~Piers</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 11:40:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594463</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T11:40:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594108</link> <description>Hi Albin,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have studied Dao Yin, Nei Gong and Nei Dan in China for several years since the beginning of the 90&amp;#039;s. My main teachers were Di Zhao Long (disciple of Shi Style Ba Gua master Yang Rong Ben), Sun Jian Yun (daughter of Sun Lu Tang, the founder of Sun Style Taiji), and Cao Zhen Yang (Daoist monk in White Cloud Temple). I teach in Blackeberg, Bromma. If you have the time and interest please come by and check us out! Weekly schedule can be found here (swedish): http://www.alipsa.se/schema.html</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 21:38:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594108</guid> <dc:creator>Per Nyfelt</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T21:38:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594023</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeff Grove:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Sorry all for the delay in providing the zhineng qigong books and videos, I need to convert some of my kindles format to pdf&amp;#039;s and videos to a format thats easier to use. Also training notes and a couple of videos from retreats I went on to learn the first and second dynamic  forms and the standing form. I missed the chance on the weekend (grandkids took up most of it) I probably wont have it done until next weekend now that I am back at work &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Jeff,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No hurry at all on my account. We&amp;#039;re having our third baby any day now so my free time will be very limited for a while.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 19:46:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594023</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T19:46:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593758</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;A couple of further notes on the historical interplay of Buddhism and Chinese traditions, vis-à-vis &amp;#034;gigong&amp;#034; and meditative practices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) One of my first &amp;#039;gigong&amp;#039; teachers, in San Diego was one (Sifu) Share K Lew, a Cantonese Taoist priest from pre-revolutionary China, then in his 70&amp;#039;s, teaching various forms in the driveway by his house; also TuiNa and other medical techinques to the teachers in the school, which then became part of the curiculum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Quite by chance, he was invited a couple of years ago (2010-2011) to teach a couple of weekends in the classroom at the clinic where I work, in Palo Alto. He was then about 100 y/o (died in 2012), assisted by his wife, who was about 40. The course (&amp;#034;Cloud Hands&amp;#034; &amp;#x2013; a frequently used term in gigong and TaiJiQuan forms) was a series of movements, standing, mostly involving the arms in very slow, overlapping circular motions, with intense concentrated attention to the hands (actually quite difficult to sustain). But after all that, the ending phase was to sit, lotus position, back erect, eyes directed, unfocused, at the floor a couple of feet out, concentrating attention to the tip of the nose and the breath; for 30 minutes or more. He also mentioned at one point, if you don&amp;#039;t have lots of time to practice all this stuff, the most important part to do was the sitting meditation! (But 90% of the teaching time was in the moving forms &amp;#x2013; that&amp;#039;s what interested the students more as &amp;#039;qigong&amp;#039;.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) After Buddhism came to China early in the first millennium, it caught on big time, such that by the Tang Dynasty some emperor took it up and made it offical state religion. A contributing factor was that Buddhism resonates so perfectly with Taoist thought and practice. (The &amp;#034;great masters&amp;#034; in the history of Chinese medicine, Tang through Song eras, were mostly adepts at Taoism / Buddhism, often primarily so, with medicine as an avocation.) The Tang era was a great flourishing of arts, literature, and tolerance (e.g. many prominent women). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, the old-line Confucian mandarins didn&amp;#039;t like it at all, all that &amp;#034;foreign influence.&amp;#034;Also, Buddhist monasteries were tax exempt, and the Chinese, being quite adept financially, caught onto &amp;#039;re-incorporating&amp;#039; their family/clan operations as monasteries, which started to bankrupt the government. So the mandarins took control, banned the Buddhists.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The succeeding Song Dynasty &amp;#039;neo-cons&amp;#039;&amp;#x2013; neo-Confucians, not unsimilar in style to modern American &amp;#039;neo-conservatives&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013; sought to eradicate the &amp;#039;foreign influences&amp;#039; that were perceived as defiling pure Han culture. BUT they were careful to preserve, i.e. to appropriate a lot of useful and popular Buddhist thought and practice into a re-formulated Confucianism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was once reading (excerpts) from the Song era (ca. 1000 AD) neo-con commentaries on the fundamental &amp;#039;4 Books&amp;#039; by Confucius (KungZi is his real name), the first major rewrite since the commentaries on the &amp;#039;4 Books&amp;#039; of the Han era (ca 0 AD). Amazing was that descriptions of meditation there were exact carry-overs from Buddhist meditation, but now not &amp;#034;Buddhist,&amp;#034; but rather &amp;#034;Confucian,&amp;#034; and the purpose now less individual cultivation for liberation (also a strong vein in Daoism), but rather to condition the individual as a proper Confucian, to perfect one&amp;#039;s wisdom and skills as a good family member, a good minister of the state, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Buddhism, though somewhat &amp;#039;underground&amp;#039;, is still a major factor in Chinese culture. China has more &amp;#034;Buddhists&amp;#034; than any other country (by some reckoning, almost more than all other countries combined). And a large presence here in the USA &amp;#x2013; a much larger popluation than, say, the Vipassana Movement, but the Chinese don&amp;#039;t proselytize or try to make a popular movement out of it.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Chris,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the information, the big three Daoism, Buddhism and Confusism all influence each other&amp;#039;s system as they were all embraced by the chinese&lt;br /&gt; your very lucky to have had the oportunity to train with Sifu Lew, I have heard a bit about him and his system and he was known for his knowledge and skill. &lt;br /&gt;Chinese, Tibetan and Indian Medical systems are very profound I have studied a little Chinese Herbalism and acuptuncture but would love to one day study Tibetan Medicine. Zhineng Qigong also has cloud hands as part of two of its forms.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Simon&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sorry all for the delay in providing the zhineng qigong books and videos, I need to convert some of my kindles format to pdf&amp;#039;s and videos to a format thats easier to use. Also training notes and a couple of videos from retreats I went on to learn the first and second dynamic  forms and the standing form. I missed the chance on the weekend (grandkids took up most of it) I probably wont have it done until next weekend now that I am back at work &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 13:02:31 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593758</guid> <dc:creator>Jeff Grove</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T13:02:31Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593752</link> <description>A couple of further notes on the historical interplay of Buddhism and Chinese traditions, vis-à-vis &amp;#034;gigong&amp;#034; and meditative practices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) One of my first &amp;#039;gigong&amp;#039; teachers, in San Diego was one (Sifu) Share K Lew, a Cantonese Taoist priest from pre-revolutionary China, then in his 70&amp;#039;s, teaching various forms in the driveway by his house; also TuiNa and other medical techinques to the teachers in the school, which then became part of the curiculum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Quite by chance, he was invited a couple of years ago (2010-2011) to teach a couple of weekends in the classroom at the clinic where I work, in Palo Alto. He was then about 100 y/o (died in 2012), assisted by his wife, who was about 40. The course (&amp;#034;Cloud Hands&amp;#034; &amp;#x2013; a frequently used term in gigong and TaiJiQuan forms) was a series of movements, standing, mostly involving the arms in very slow, overlapping circular motions, with intense concentrated attention to the hands (actually quite difficult to sustain). But after all that, the ending phase was to sit, lotus position, back erect, eyes directed, unfocused, at the floor a couple of feet out, concentrating attention to the tip of the nose and the breath; for 30 minutes or more. He also mentioned at one point, if you don&amp;#039;t have lots of time to practice all this stuff, the most important part to do was the sitting meditation! (But 90% of the teaching time was in the moving forms &amp;#x2013; that&amp;#039;s what interested the students more as &amp;#039;qigong&amp;#039;.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) After Buddhism came to China early in the first millennium, it caught on big time, such that by the Tang Dynasty some emperor took it up and made it offical state religion. A contributing factor was that Buddhism resonates so perfectly with Taoist thought and practice. (The &amp;#034;great masters&amp;#034; in the history of Chinese medicine, Tang through Song eras, were mostly adepts at Taoism / Buddhism, often primarily so, with medicine as an avocation.) The Tang era was a great flourishing of arts, literature, and tolerance (e.g. many prominent women). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, the old-line Confucian mandarins didn&amp;#039;t like it at all, all that &amp;#034;foreign influence.&amp;#034;Also, Buddhist monasteries were tax exempt, and the Chinese, being quite adept financially, caught onto &amp;#039;re-incorporating&amp;#039; their family/clan operations as monasteries, which started to bankrupt the government. So the mandarins took control, banned the Buddhists.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The succeeding Song Dynasty &amp;#039;neo-cons&amp;#039;&amp;#x2013; neo-Confucians, not unsimilar in style to modern American &amp;#039;neo-conservatives&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013; sought to eradicate the &amp;#039;foreign influences&amp;#039; that were perceived as defiling pure Han culture. BUT they were careful to preserve, i.e. to appropriate a lot of useful and popular Buddhist thought and practice into a re-formulated Confucianism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was once reading (excerpts) from the Song era (ca. 1000 AD) neo-con commentaries on the fundamental &amp;#039;4 Books&amp;#039; by Confucius (KungZi is his real name), the first major rewrite since the commentaries on the &amp;#039;4 Books&amp;#039; of the Han era (ca 0 AD). Amazing was that descriptions of meditation there were exact carry-overs from Buddhist meditation, but now not &amp;#034;Buddhist,&amp;#034; but rather &amp;#034;Confucian,&amp;#034; and the purpose now less individual cultivation for liberation (also a strong vein in Daoism), but rather to condition the individual as a proper Confucian, to perfect one&amp;#039;s wisdom and skills as a good family member, a good minister of the state, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Buddhism, though somewhat &amp;#039;underground&amp;#039;, is still a major factor in Chinese culture. China has more &amp;#034;Buddhists&amp;#034; than any other country (by some reckoning, almost more than all other countries combined). And a large presence here in the USA &amp;#x2013; a much larger popluation than, say, the Vipassana Movement, but the Chinese don&amp;#039;t proselytize or try to make a popular movement out of it.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 12:24:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593752</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T12:24:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593746</link> <description>re Jeff Grove (9/26/14 6:40 AM as a reply to Chris J Macie.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It could well be that &amp;#039;tumo&amp;#039; comes from &amp;#039;gtummo&amp;#039;, i.e. no relation to Dumo/Dumai. Thanks for the feed back. Justine Stone used the term &amp;#039;Dumo Heat&amp;#039;, and in the context of Tibetan practices, but I read that decades ago, and the book is buried somewhere in my boxed library.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tibetan medicine, as currently practiced, is largely based on Chinese medicine, though has some unique elements (e.g. &amp;#039;gold fire needle&amp;#039; at BaiHui / 7th chakra), and may have uniquely Tibetan aspects that have been supplanted in modern practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A couple of smallish paperback books by Yeshi Dhonden (famous as one-time physician to the Dalai Lama) outline current Tibetan medical practice, i.e. a mostly Chinese system.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One passage though was especially interesting, and relates more directly to &lt;strong&gt;DhO&lt;/strong&gt; issues. In discussing the training of the highest-grade of medical practitioner, (basically as both Lama and doctor), he outlines 3 skills:&lt;br /&gt;1) knowledge/use of  Tibetan&lt;strong&gt; Buddhist &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rituals&lt;/strong&gt;;&lt;br /&gt;2) mastery of the &lt;strong&gt;medical&lt;/strong&gt; knowledge/system, per se;&lt;br /&gt;3) several decades of &lt;strong&gt;samadhi&lt;/strong&gt; practice, to the point of attaining something like the &amp;#039;divine eye&amp;#039; (I forget the exact term), whereby the doctor sees immediately to the root of the patient&amp;#039;s issue(s), without SOAP protocol, taking pulses, etc, and knows exactly what to do. Actual treatment may involve rituals (religious or medical), but that&amp;#039;s more to satisfy the patient (and their family) that &amp;#039;medicine&amp;#039; is being done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dhonden came to San Diego back in the late 1980&amp;#039;s, while I was in (acupuncture) medical school there. He held a couple of days of appointments / treatments at a nearby house, mostly for Tibetans in the area. A group of us hotshot acupuncture students scheduled appointments and saw him &amp;#x2013; more for curiosity than medical issues. He readily knew what we were up to, asked a few questions, studied the pulse a while (oddly, reading the ulnar artery pulse, several inches proximal to the wrist, whereas in his books he describes the Chinese style pulse reading &amp;#x2013; radial artery, index finger at the wrist crease and 3rd, 4th fingers immediately adjacent); gave us some marble-sized herbal pills; and told us to stop smoking so much dope!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Lamas also held a weekend ritual at the acupuncture school, said to be an intiation into becoming a Medicine (Blue) Buddha. An elaborate altar set-up, with bowls of butter, flowers, and whatnot; hours of Tibetan chanting. I attended that, but didn&amp;#039;t get much out of it. My current office colleague, an MD who studied acupuncture with Worsley and Mariam Lee, has a magnificent tapestry of the Medicine/Blue Buddha in his office, and says he uses embodiment of that image in his practice to good effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I also once took a Mantak Chia weekend course, learning some useful things, but not buying into the whole system.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 12:15:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593746</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T12:15:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593742</link> <description>re Daniel Leffler (9/25/14 12:12 PM as areply to Chris J Macie. )&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;…share any and all links/info concerning &lt;strong&gt;[1] Than-Geoffs practices related to balancing the dantiens &lt;/strong&gt;as well as anything else about the &lt;strong&gt;[2] downsides of bare awareness/acceptance&lt;/strong&gt; as it really hits home. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for the experience 7 years ago &amp;#x2013; if that&amp;#039;s still persisting, it may relate to A&amp;amp;P or &amp;#039;Dark Night&amp;#039; or other, which I can&amp;#039;t address, and haven&amp;#039;t heard about in Than-Geof talks. On the other hand, checking out various of Than-Geof&amp;#039;s short talks on using breath (see below, series titled &amp;#034;Basics&amp;#034;), developing it as a refuge, might offer some tools to help stablize the whole-body experiences, and be useful overall with MCTB-type insight practices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[1] An excellent intro is a meditation and dharma talk given last April at IMC (Redwood City, where he regularly shows up and gives a day-long talk around the end of April):&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20140421-Thanissaro_Bhikkhu-IMC-guided_meditation_the_four_feeding_truths.mp3&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(at http://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/16/)&lt;br /&gt;1 hr 25 min total &amp;#x2013; ca. 30 guidedmeditation, 15 min silent meditation, 40 min talk&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Guided meditation: begins with metta/goodwill; then the breath itself, getting it good&lt;br /&gt;then, ca. &lt;strong&gt;8.5 min to 31 min&lt;/strong&gt;, using that breath throughout the body, &lt;br /&gt;starting at lower dantien, up to soler plexus, throat, to center of head&lt;br /&gt;then back of neck then down arms;&lt;br /&gt;then back to neck and down spine, down legs;&lt;br /&gt;(he doesn&amp;#039;t use Chinese (dantien) or Hindu (chakra) terminology, but the progression corresponds to inner-to-outer, up yin/front side, then out and down yang/back side; i.e. as this is mental meditation, where mind-body are always co-present, here priority in the mind &amp;#x2013; it&amp;#039;s not physical exercise / cultivation)&lt;br /&gt;to about 26 min, = a complete cycle thru the body;  review, how to use the results…&lt;br /&gt;31-42 silent meditation&lt;br /&gt;42 review, ending meditation, more metta, spreading goodwill everywhere. reviewing to notice what worked well in the meditation, to cultivate it as a skill for next time… &lt;br /&gt;at 45 bell ending meditation.&lt;br /&gt;45 min- 40 min dharma talk, Buddha teachings about priorities, what one feeds on, clings to going through life, Buddha&amp;#039;s path through, overcoming suffering. &lt;br /&gt;at 1hr 13min some (interesting) Q/A&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A good source of short talks by Than-Geof (from evening dharma talks at the Metta monastery near San Diego)&lt;strong&gt; Basics&lt;/strong&gt; (also available as a CD)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #000080"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;archive&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;details&amp;#x2f;basics-thanissaro-bhikkhu"&gt;https://archive.org/details/basics-thanissaro-bhikkhu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Thirty five pithy (about 15 minutes each) talks on the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation by one of the great living masters of Buddhism.&amp;#034; One can see from the list of titles there, many about aspects of breath&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;also 2013 August Than-Geof gave an on-line retreat at Tricycle website, dealing focally with breath.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[2] The discussion / debate on &amp;#034;&lt;strong&gt;bare awareness/acceptance&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034; vs mindfulness as a more pro-active skill&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Analayo&lt;/strong&gt;, &amp;#034;Satipatthana: the Direct Path to Realization&amp;#034; (2003); in introductory chapters discussing terms, on &amp;#039;sati&amp;#039;, largely arguments and citations for &amp;#039;bare awareness&amp;#039;; not on-line)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;(Sujato&lt;/strong&gt;, &amp;#034;A History of Mindfulness&amp;#034; (2008,2012) 2nd half of book &amp;#x2013; very long-winded and complex, scholarly &amp;#x2013; worth it if one has lots of time to read; can be found on-line)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A useful, relatively brief, perspective, comparing both sides of the debate in terms of the history of English translations of &amp;#039;sati&amp;#039; and the associated the viewpoints:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Rupert Gethin&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;#034;On Some Definitions of Mindfulness&amp;#034;, 2011 &lt;br /&gt;at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14639947.2011.564843#.VCXRsefqKuU&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanissaro Bhikkhu&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;#034;Right Mindfulness&amp;#034; 2012 &amp;#x2013; cites abundant Sutta evidence that &lt;em&gt;sati &lt;/em&gt;has bascially active (as well as some passive) aspects; especially Chapter Four on &amp;#039;bare attention&amp;#039;; my sense is he&amp;#039;s replying to Analayo, among others.&lt;br /&gt;at:&lt;span style="color: #000080"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;lib&amp;#x2f;authors&amp;#x2f;thanissaro&amp;#x2f;rightmindfulness&amp;#x2e;pdf"&gt;http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/rightmindfulness.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Analayo&lt;/strong&gt;, &amp;#034;Perspectives on Satipatthana&amp;#034; (2013) continuing the dialog (e.g. p.35 footnote 44, citing Gethin disagreeing with Than-Geof); not on-line.)</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 12:00:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593742</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T12:00:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592880</link> <description>The best resource I&amp;#039;ve come across on the net is a series of videos - many, many hours worth - by this fella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1YilBJY-rk . The &amp;#034;demystifying&amp;#034; approach should be of interest to this forum. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d also be interested in Jeff Grove&amp;#039;s books and links for Zhineng Qigong.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 12:09:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592880</guid> <dc:creator>Some Guy</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T12:09:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592870</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Simon E:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeff Grove:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Zhineng Qigong although relatively new is based on forms that have been handed down over the past 1000 years. So alot of the traditional elements have been preserved. Dr Ming Pang released the forms for free and prior to the curbing of qigong in China in the early 2000 it was very well repected with Hospitals and research based on the teachings and the forms. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is alot of material out there on this school and I am happy to put together some videos and books to use. Like meditation it is something you can learn and with practice will discover the finer details in the forms. There are only a couple of forms to learn and the first two are enough to keep you going for years. The progress in the forms matches the progres of awareness from the outer to the inner. The system consist of three practice methods or forms, dynamic practice forms, static practice forms and dynamic - static practice forms. Each of them consist of 3 stages - External Hunyuan stage, Internal Hunyuan Stage and Central Hunyuan Stage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Level one  is Lift Qi up and Pour Qi down which stresses the process of gathering, blending and transmuting external Hunyuan Qi&lt;br /&gt;Level 2 is the Body and Mind form - the mutual blending and transmuting of the body with the mind  which is th Internal Stage of practice&lt;br /&gt;Level 3 The Five in One Form - making the five internal organs into one unity, bleding and transmuting true Qi of the internal organs&lt;br /&gt;Level four - Central Channel Hunyuan&lt;br /&gt;Level 5 - Central  Line Hunyuan&lt;br /&gt;Levl 6 Return to original Self nature&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Static form is 3 Centers Merge Standing form&lt;br /&gt;The are also a couple of auxilary practices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ive learnt of few different forms from different teachers and this one is up there with results for effort put in. This practice compliments the meditation practices discussed here.The Theory and principles of Zhineng Qiging are also sound and worthwhile investigating&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Jeff,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My knowledge regarding this type of body practices is basically zero, so most of what you wrote is way over my head.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;There is alot of material out there on this school and I am happy to put together some videos and books to use. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you could do that, that would be really great. Google is not being terribly helpful and some recommendations would be very helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks,&lt;br /&gt;Simon&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Happy to do this, give me a day or two to get it together and I will put in my drop box&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 11:45:12 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592870</guid> <dc:creator>Jeff Grove</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T11:45:12Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592867</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;T DC:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;... The practice of Tumo immediately comes to mind, from what I have read this involves visualising a growing ember in the lower abdomen in order to generate internal heat, which is clearly a qi gong-like practice. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&amp;#034;Tumo&amp;#034; = Du Mo = Du Mai = one of the 8 &amp;#039;extraordinary&amp;#039; or constitutional channels in classical Chinese medicine. &amp;#039;Du&amp;#039; translated as &amp;#039;Governer&amp;#039;; mo = mai = &amp;#039;vessel&amp;#039; as in &amp;#039;blood vessel&amp;#039;. So it&amp;#039;s known as the Governor Vessel or Channel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This channel originates in the lower dantien (s/t considered the uterus in women, the prostate in men), emerges under the tail bone and runs up in the spine, over the top of the head down the face and ends inside the upper lip. From the back base of the skull it has a branch also going through the brain. A &amp;#039;point&amp;#039; on top, slightly posterior (at the meeting of the two parietal bones and the occiput) is named &amp;#039;bai hui&amp;#039; (&amp;#034;hundred meetings&amp;#034;, also numbered as Du-20) -- this is thought to be equivalent to the 7th chakra in intrepretations that map the chakras into the channel system (not orthodox TCM, but used in some related traditions). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s also called the &amp;#039;sea of yang&amp;#039;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Various daoyin / qigong / daoist &amp;#039;practice forms&amp;#039; do involve compressing qi/yang at the base of the channel (i.e. using kegel-like tightening of the perineum muscles at the base of the pelvis) and sending it up the channel through the spine and into the head. It&amp;#039;s easy to actually feel this. This exercise is used, among other things, to improve prostate gland health. (See the &amp;#039;male deer exercise&amp;#039; in almost any of the several books by Dr. Stephne Change, of San Francisco)  If over-done, it could resemble &amp;#039;kundalini&amp;#039;-type exercises, and prossibly result in unbalanced energies.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A more balanced exercise, s/t known as the &amp;#039;micro-cosmic orbit&amp;#039; (see books by Mantak Chia) involves circling &amp;#039;energy&amp;#039; up the Du channel (the back) and then back down the front of the torso in the &amp;#039;Ren&amp;#039; (&amp;#034;Conception&amp;#034;, aka &amp;#039;sea of yin&amp;#039;) vessel/channel, which goes from under the tongue down the front to the bottom of the perineum and then inside to the dantien -- the origin of both these channels. I.e. circling energy up the back, down the front, etc. The link at the top is made by touching the roof of the mouth with the tongue to link the two channels (Du at under upper lip, Ren at under the tongue). One might recognize this gesture from many gigong / daoyin/ etc. forms, even some TaiJiQuan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Justin Stone, in his book on different types of meditation, mentions that he went through a period of cultivating &amp;#039;Tumo&amp;#039;, and actually achieved it, which he describes. (Stone was an early student/master/writer on such things, and the inventor of &amp;#039;Tai Chi Chih&amp;#039;, an easy sort of TaiJiQuan especially suitable for old folks.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hi Chris,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know if there is a relationship between the Tibetan term Gtummo or tummo (or chandali) and the Chinese term dumai but  I was told that gtummo means Fierce One in Tibetan. The Nyingma teachings I received did not use the DuMai or Governer Channel. It used the Central Nadi and the Sun and Moon Nadis just off to the side of the Central. ida, pingala and susumna nadi. The central nadi went from the point between the eyebrows (yingtang) to the lower tip of the sex organ. There were a number of precise pionts that you could pierce using vase breathing which is similar to kegel exercise but different. There are a few different traditions in Tibetan Budddhism and Shavism that teach tummo or similar practices so the practice is bound to vary&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Im not fussed on Mantak Chia&amp;#039;s teaching of the micro-cosmic orbit as it is missing alot of the information such as the foundation and what people think they are achieving with it is not the same as what is traditionally taught&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 11:40:46 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592867</guid> <dc:creator>Jeff Grove</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T11:40:46Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592863</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeff Grove:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Zhineng Qigong although relatively new is based on forms that have been handed down over the past 1000 years. So alot of the traditional elements have been preserved. Dr Ming Pang released the forms for free and prior to the curbing of qigong in China in the early 2000 it was very well repected with Hospitals and research based on the teachings and the forms. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is alot of material out there on this school and I am happy to put together some videos and books to use. Like meditation it is something you can learn and with practice will discover the finer details in the forms. There are only a couple of forms to learn and the first two are enough to keep you going for years. The progress in the forms matches the progres of awareness from the outer to the inner. The system consist of three practice methods or forms, dynamic practice forms, static practice forms and dynamic - static practice forms. Each of them consist of 3 stages - External Hunyuan stage, Internal Hunyuan Stage and Central Hunyuan Stage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Level one  is Lift Qi up and Pour Qi down which stresses the process of gathering, blending and transmuting external Hunyuan Qi&lt;br /&gt;Level 2 is the Body and Mind form - the mutual blending and transmuting of the body with the mind  which is th Internal Stage of practice&lt;br /&gt;Level 3 The Five in One Form - making the five internal organs into one unity, bleding and transmuting true Qi of the internal organs&lt;br /&gt;Level four - Central Channel Hunyuan&lt;br /&gt;Level 5 - Central  Line Hunyuan&lt;br /&gt;Levl 6 Return to original Self nature&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Static form is 3 Centers Merge Standing form&lt;br /&gt;The are also a couple of auxilary practices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ive learnt of few different forms from different teachers and this one is up there with results for effort put in. This practice compliments the meditation practices discussed here.The Theory and principles of Zhineng Qiging are also sound and worthwhile investigating&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Jeff,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My knowledge regarding this type of body practices is basically zero, so most of what you wrote is way over my head.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;There is alot of material out there on this school and I am happy to put together some videos and books to use. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you could do that, that would be really great. Google is not being terribly helpful and some recommendations would be very helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks,&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 11:32:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592863</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T11:32:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592857</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Simon E:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeff Grove:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I recommend that you check out zhineng qigong&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is all very interesting. In your opinion, how possible would it be to try to practice something like this from resources like books and the internet? I suspect there are no teachers/classes in my area.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hi Simon,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Zhineng Qigong although relatively new is based on forms that have been handed down over the past 1000 years. So alot of the traditional elements have been preserved. Dr Ming Pang released the forms for free and prior to the curbing of qigong in China in the early 2000 it was very well repected with Hospitals and research based on the teachings and the forms. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is alot of material out there on this school and I am happy to put together some videos and books to use. Like meditation it is something you can learn and with practice will discover the finer details in the forms. There are only a couple of forms to learn and the first two are enough to keep you going for years. The progress in the forms matches the progres of awareness from the outer to the inner. The system consist of three practice methods or forms, dynamic practice forms, static practice forms and dynamic - static practice forms. Each of them consist of 3 stages - External Hunyuan stage, Internal Hunyuan Stage and Central Hunyuan Stage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Level one  is Lift Qi up and Pour Qi down which stresses the process of gathering, blending and transmuting external Hunyuan Qi&lt;br /&gt;Level 2 is the Body and Mind form - the mutual blending and transmuting of the body with the mind  which is th Internal Stage of practice&lt;br /&gt;Level 3 The Five in One Form - making the five internal organs into one unity, bleding and transmuting true Qi of the internal organs&lt;br /&gt;Level four - Central Channel Hunyuan&lt;br /&gt;Level 5 - Central  Line Hunyuan&lt;br /&gt;Levl 6 Return to original Self nature&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Static form is 3 Centers Merge Standing form&lt;br /&gt;The are also a couple of auxilary practices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ive learnt of few different forms from different teachers and this one is up there with results for effort put in. This practice compliments the meditation practices discussed here.The Theory and principles of Zhineng Qiging are also sound and worthwhile investigating&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 10:56:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592857</guid> <dc:creator>Jeff Grove</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T10:56:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592853</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;T DC:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;... The practice of Tumo immediately comes to mind, from what I have read this involves visualising a growing ember in the lower abdomen in order to generate internal heat, which is clearly a qi gong-like practice. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&amp;#034;Tumo&amp;#034; = Du Mo = Du Mai = one of the 8 &amp;#039;extraordinary&amp;#039; or constitutional channels in classical Chinese medicine. &amp;#039;Du&amp;#039; translated as &amp;#039;Governer&amp;#039;; mo = mai = &amp;#039;vessel&amp;#039; as in &amp;#039;blood vessel&amp;#039;. So it&amp;#039;s known as the Governor Vessel or Channel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This channel originates in the lower dantien (s/t considered the uterus in women, the prostate in men), emerges under the tail bone and runs up in the spine, over the top of the head down the face and ends inside the upper lip. From the back base of the skull it has a branch also going through the brain. A &amp;#039;point&amp;#039; on top, slightly posterior (at the meeting of the two parietal bones and the occiput) is named &amp;#039;bai hui&amp;#039; (&amp;#034;hundred meetings&amp;#034;, also numbered as Du-20) -- this is thought to be equivalent to the 7th chakra in intrepretations that map the chakras into the channel system (not orthodox TCM, but used in some related traditions). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s also called the &amp;#039;sea of yang&amp;#039;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Various daoyin / qigong / daoist &amp;#039;practice forms&amp;#039; do involve compressing qi/yang at the base of the channel (i.e. using kegel-like tightening of the perineum muscles at the base of the pelvis) and sending it up the channel through the spine and into the head. It&amp;#039;s easy to actually feel this. This exercise is used, among other things, to improve prostate gland health. (See the &amp;#039;male deer exercise&amp;#039; in almost any of the several books by Dr. Stephne Change, of San Francisco)  If over-done, it could resemble &amp;#039;kundalini&amp;#039;-type exercises, and prossibly result in unbalanced energies.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A more balanced exercise, s/t known as the &amp;#039;micro-cosmic orbit&amp;#039; (see books by Mantak Chia) involves circling &amp;#039;energy&amp;#039; up the Du channel (the back) and then back down the front of the torso in the &amp;#039;Ren&amp;#039; (&amp;#034;Conception&amp;#034;, aka &amp;#039;sea of yin&amp;#039;) vessel/channel, which goes from under the tongue down the front to the bottom of the perineum and then inside to the dantien -- the origin of both these channels. I.e. circling energy up the back, down the front, etc. The link at the top is made by touching the roof of the mouth with the tongue to link the two channels (Du at under upper lip, Ren at under the tongue). One might recognize this gesture from many gigong / daoyin/ etc. forms, even some TaiJiQuan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Justin Stone, in his book on different types of meditation, mentions that he went through a period of cultivating &amp;#039;Tumo&amp;#039;, and actually achieved it, which he describes. (Stone was an early student/master/writer on such things, and the inventor of &amp;#039;Tai Chi Chih&amp;#039;, an easy sort of TaiJiQuan especially suitable for old folks.)</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 09:51:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592853</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T09:51:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592829</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Pejn .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Albin Hagberg Medin:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would also appreciate if anyone knows a good teacher in the scandinavian area, as practicing only from the basis of a book does not seem like the most skillful of approaches in the long run.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tjabba Albin!&lt;br /&gt;I just might know... Where in Sweden do you live?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a few swedes here. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 07:41:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592829</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T07:41:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592825</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeff Grove:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I recommend that you check out zhineng qigong&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is all very interesting. In your opinion, how possible would it be to try to practice something like this from resources like books and the internet? I suspect there are no teachers/classes in my area.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Simon </description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 07:40:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592825</guid> <dc:creator>Simon Ekstrand</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T07:40:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592788</link> <description>TDC, there&amp;#039;s a ajahn on youtube practicing qigong, so i guess he as a buddhist finds some value in it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My first qigong practice was interesting thats all i&amp;#039;ll say &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt; Looking forward to new ones. </description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 05:19:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592788</guid> <dc:creator>ftw</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T05:19:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592702</link> <description>Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jeff - Indeed it does seem wrong to say Buddhism disregards lower dantien energy development.  In regards to Tibetan Buddhism, there are the postures asscotiated with Thodgal, and also to a greater extent there are the 6 yoga&amp;#039;s of Naropa.  The practice of Tumo immediately comes to mind, from what I have read this involves visualising a growing ember in the lower abdomen in order to generate internal heat, which is clearly a qi gong-like practice.  The more I read about qi gong the more I understand what you have said, that qi gong is an intamately linked part of many Buddhist traditions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, perhaps my starting point was simply a feeling of the relative lack of this in the western Buddhist culture today, at least as far as I have been aware of it.  When I was focused on straight meditation, talk of cultivating the lower centers first would have seemed eroneous.  While I was dimly aware of that there were infact tibetan practices focused on meridians and such, this was vauge at best.  Greater recognition of the place meditation holds in terms of &amp;#039;development&amp;#039; seems in order.  As many here have said, a greater awareness of working with bodily energies in a less mind dominated way is very beneficial.  Also that is very interesting your teacher is Robert Peng&amp;#039;s old friend!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Chris J Macie - That was very interesting!  I suppose rather than disregard the health of the body I meant more that Buddhism doesn&amp;#039;t seem to focus on it especially.  The overt emphasis in qi gong of &amp;#039;healthy body and healthy mind&amp;#039; is somewhat refreshing after all my Buddhist practice, but again I am speaking from limited experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel Leffer: I took a two-day course with Robert Peng this summer, and he said the 4 Golden Wheels practice from The Master Key is a good one for balancing the dantiens.  And no worries about a hijak, more from Chris on balancing the dantiens sounds awesome!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll - I do still have thoughts.  It is difficult to really explain the end of the thought stream, but basically in my expereince we have a current of thoughts which we don&amp;#039;t consiously produce, we just react to.  Meditation and attainment works on the beliefs (or perception) we have regarding the solidity, or supremacy of these thoughts.  However, even once our beliefs about them are gone, they are still a tangible presence.  Once this stream was ended, it was as though there was quiet in my mind at last.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 00:03:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592702</guid> <dc:creator>T DC</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T00:03:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592650</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Albin Hagberg Medin:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What a wonderful topic and rich discussion!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In early spring this year, I began practicing chi gong (Chi Kung) as taught in the book &amp;#034;The way of energy&amp;#034;. Bodily inbalances primarily felt as heavy tensions in neck, throat and shoulder areas was my main reason to begin these practices (In my history I have some years of seated meditation practice as well as hatha yoga). I was very surprised on the very beneficial results a mere 20 minutes standing practice had on not only these tensions but unconscious tensions in the dan tien, in the pelvic area as well as the chest. It also spilled over to effect my perceptive ability in many ways as well as the breath rythm which during this time has become subtler, subtler and subtler in my ordinary life as I work, talk, eat and sleep. I also notice great benefits on the stomach /digestion problems I&amp;#039;ve had for a long time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In short, cool stuff and I look forward to keep practicing, I now follow the routines described in the book, which is first ~30 min slow movements coordinated with the breath, then ~30 min standing still in several postures that at first are extremely challenging just to hold for a minute, but after a few weeks gets surprisingly easy to stay in. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would also appreciate if anyone knows a good teacher in the scandinavian area, as practicing only from the basis of a book does not seem like the most skillful of approaches in the long run.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Practicing Zhang zhuang has lead to many insights as well as healing the body. It is often left out of the Martial Arts that are taught today but this simple practice can radically change your art. Its like leaving the engine out of a car.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The way of Energy is a great resouce, For styles and teachers I hope the following may help&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recommend that you check out zhineng qigong&lt;br /&gt;Also there is a very knowledgable teacher from NZ that is teaching his on variant of this style. I dont know what these teachers are like but its worth checking them out&lt;br /&gt;Google Yuan Tze Swedish Teachers &lt;br /&gt;The following teachers in Sweden have participated in the Yuan Tze teacher training. &lt;br /&gt;City name Teacher name 8-Level  6-Level  Web site reference E-mail address &lt;br /&gt;Stockholm Anders Henschen 1 1 Qigong in Upplands-bro  &lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;anders&amp;#x40;yuangong&amp;#x2e;se"&gt;anders@yuangong.se&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Arne Nordgren 8 1 Qigong in Upplands-bro  &lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;arne&amp;#x2e;nordgren&amp;#x40;telia&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;arne.nordgren@telia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Marita Gegerfelt Nordgren 2 1 Qigong in Upplands-bro  &lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;marita&amp;#x2e;gn&amp;#x40;telia&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;marita.gn@telia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Måns Larsson 2 1  Qigong in Upplands-bro  &lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;santis&amp;#x2e;larsson&amp;#x40;gmail&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;santis.larsson@gmail.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Margareta Egeberg 1  Qigong in Upplands-bro  &lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;margaretaegeberg&amp;#x40;hotmail&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;margaretaegeberg@hotmail.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Jörgen Egeberg 1  Qigong in Upplands-bro  &lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;egebergjorgen&amp;#x40;yahoo&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;egebergjorgen@yahoo.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Helsingborg Arne Nordgren 8 1 Qigong in Helsingborg  contact &lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;birgitta&amp;#x2e;norlin&amp;#x40;telia&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;birgitta.norlin@telia.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:45:44 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592650</guid> <dc:creator>Jeff Grove</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T21:45:44Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592566</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Albin Hagberg Medin:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would also appreciate if anyone knows a good teacher in the scandinavian area, as practicing only from the basis of a book does not seem like the most skillful of approaches in the long run.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tjabba Albin!&lt;br /&gt;I just might know... Where in Sweden do you live?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:10:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592566</guid> <dc:creator>Pejn .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T20:10:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592413</link> <description>Amazing post Chris &amp;#x2013; I can&amp;#039;t thank you enough for this!&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t want to hijack T DCs thread but I would love it if you could share any and all links/info concerning Than-Geoffs practices related to balancing the dantiens as well as anything else about the downsides of bare awareness/acceptance as it really hits home. After my head opening up in a kundalini event accidentally after a couple of 10-day Goenka retreats very heavy energy has been continuously pouring from my heart center and keeping my entire body packed to the brim with prickly painful sensations. The painful heavy energy stops at my throat making audible popping noises, as my entire head has remained clear all this time after the dramatic energetic events that took place over seven years ago, all due (I believe) to my pushing too hard in vipassana practice and various &amp;#039;energetic experiments&amp;#039; I did that seemed to subsequently throw my whole system well out of balance.&lt;br /&gt;Any info and recs you&amp;#039;d like to throw out would be very much appreciated&lt;br /&gt;@T DC: your practice and your experiences of thought stream and emotional stream cessation claims fascinate me, and I can very much identify with being non-grounded and too spirit-oriented after some crazy mystical experiences that I endured over a period of years &amp;#x2013; when I began meditation just to feel happier and more at peace! I have already purchased and begun reading The Master Key by Robert Peng per your rec (thank you!) and I am very interested in keeping this discussion and exploration going. Any insights or recommendations you have about further reading and practice (I live in San Francisco California) would be so good&lt;br /&gt;I also identify with your excitement of having finally discovered detailed techniques and teachings that clearly expound on a very common theme. I think these issues of energetic balances (and the lack thereof) directly tie into so many previous discussions on the DhO and elsewhere regarding Kundalini phenomenon, Dark Night problems, and even Actualist teachings (though the balanced approach of Taoist and Buddhist teachings on vitality, happiness, wisdom and love appeal and speak to me on a much more human and direct level)&lt;br /&gt;I really think this thread and line of exploration has the potential to link together so many previously misunderstood and seemingly disparate phenomenon and experiences and at the same time help out loads of people&lt;br /&gt;Best, Daniel</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 16:56:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592413</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel Leffler</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T16:56:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592288</link> <description>What a wonderful topic and rich discussion!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In early spring this year, I began practicing chi gong (Chi Kung) as taught in the book &amp;#034;The way of energy&amp;#034;. Bodily inbalances primarily felt as heavy tensions in neck, throat and shoulder areas was my main reason to begin these practices (In my history I have some years of seated meditation practice as well as hatha yoga). I was very surprised on the very beneficial results a mere 20 minutes standing practice had on not only these tensions but unconscious tensions in the dan tien, in the pelvic area as well as the chest. It also spilled over to effect my perceptive ability in many ways as well as the breath rythm which during this time has become subtler, subtler and subtler in my ordinary life as I work, talk, eat and sleep. I also notice great benefits on the stomach /digestion problems I&amp;#039;ve had for a long time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In short, cool stuff and I look forward to keep practicing, I now follow the routines described in the book, which is first ~30 min slow movements coordinated with the breath, then ~30 min standing still in several postures that at first are extremely challenging just to hold for a minute, but after a few weeks gets surprisingly easy to stay in. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would also appreciate if anyone knows a good teacher in the scandinavian area, as practicing only from the basis of a book does not seem like the most skillful of approaches in the long run.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:17:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592288</guid> <dc:creator>Albin Hagberg Medin</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T11:17:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592170</link> <description>Great topic! I appreciate all contributions. I don&amp;#039;t have much to add except that today I&amp;#039;m going to my first qigong practice. </description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 07:01:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592170</guid> <dc:creator>ftw</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T07:01:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: 'Liberated Martial Arts'</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591843</link> <description>A bit yes... especially if i focus on the constant marching in circles that is disciplined practice based on a projected ideal... or the shallow ego high of &amp;#034;i know the truth&amp;#034; and its false promise of future reward.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 05:03:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591843</guid> <dc:creator>Adam . .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T05:03:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: 'Liberated Martial Arts'</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591796</link> <description>After you realized that, did you become more interested in freeing yourself again?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 04:41:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591796</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T04:41:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>'Liberated Martial Arts'</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591776</link> <description>This is a link I found randomly via a youtube comment... I don&amp;#039;t know alot about martial arts or some of the references made here, but I think this is a really interesting article.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.jkdselfdefence.com/Just-A-Boat.html&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was especially interested in the 5 stages idea, here is a summary-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. first you realize that you aren&amp;#039;t &amp;#034;free&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. then you realize that by running with that idea you put yourself in very unstable territory and you are faced with the choice to continue or not&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. then you are in a &amp;#034;sea of styles&amp;#034; (i.e. styles of &amp;#034;practice&amp;#034;) the more you drink from this sea the sicker you become and if you aren&amp;#039;t careful you will spiral down into a &amp;#034;creative death&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. then you cross to the other shore i.e. direct knowledge of freedom, here you are faced with the greatest challenge of all - whether to cling to one&amp;#039;s knowledge of how one crossed and to get back into the boat (for various egotistical reasons) or to let go completely&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5. then you are &amp;#034;free&amp;#034; and you can begin the true journey which is about staying focused and not being bewildered by the vain babblings of those still adrift in the &amp;#034;sea of styles&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To me this is really interesting as it relates to some of UG krishnamurti&amp;#039;s words quite clearly, as well as to my practice. In my own experience, what is clear is the experience of directly knowing what freedom is (i.e. being completely natural and asking for nothing more), but then being satisfied with that knowledge (because that knowledge is the most valuable thing in the world) rather than with actually freeing myself (which in a sense seems to have no value.)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 04:22:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591776</guid> <dc:creator>Adam . .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T04:22:27Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591758</link> <description>re T DC -- 9/23/14 4:31 PM&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;0) Being professionally involved in classical Chinese medicine (i.e. a &amp;#034;licensed acupucturist andherbalist&amp;#034;), and with a background in historical studies, I&amp;#039;ve also studied the history of the medicine and related practices. (To skip an introductory essay on the historical background of the term &amp;#039;qigong&amp;#039; and go directly to discussion referencing prior messages in this thread, skip to section (2) below.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) &amp;#039;Qigong&amp;#039; is a term invented in the 1930&amp;#039;s Nationalist era (during a period of repression of classical Chinese medical practices, in the name of &amp;#039;modernization&amp;#039;), meaning literally &amp;#039;breath work&amp;#039;, i.e. a rough equivalent of &amp;#039;aerobics&amp;#039;. &amp;#039;Qi&amp;#039; is air, breath, natural gas, vapor, etc. In the classical medicine it refers to the behavior, the physiological activity of living tissue and organisms, i.e. moving, warming, transforming (e.g. growth), defending, and holding things in place. In Western new-age terminology, it&amp;#039;s often called (s/w problematically) &amp;#039;energy&amp;#039; or&amp;#039;vital force&amp;#039;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Qi embodies, actualizes the &amp;#039;yang&amp;#039; principle, and just as &amp;#039;yang&amp;#039; is inseparable from &amp;#039;yin&amp;#039;, the embodied &amp;#039;yin&amp;#039; counterpart is called &amp;#039;xue&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;blood,&amp;#039; which refers to not only the red liquid, but also to the &amp;#039;stuff&amp;#039;, the material pole of physiology. Qi is living activity, xue is that which is acted upon or is the physical basis of that activity. Like yin-yang, qi-xue are mutually interdependent. Classically, &amp;#034;qi is the commander of blood, and blood is the mother of qi.&amp;#034; Qi produces physiological activity, blood provides the raw materials (glucose, oxygen), plus the organic and musculo-skeletal system of stuff that manifests living activity (movement, transformation,…).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the 1950&amp;#039;s, the term &amp;#039;qigong&amp;#039; was adopted by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party &amp;#x2013; the current dynasty) as a generic term for many types of exercise, under the umbrella of TCM (&amp;#034;Traditional Chinese Medicine&amp;#034;). &amp;#034;TCM&amp;#034; itself is a modern fabrication, actually a &amp;#039;school&amp;#039; of thought among many others over a 2000 year history of the medicine, fashioned to make use of large resources of traditional practitioners, but on apath to the incorporation (the currently modish &amp;#034;integrative medicine&amp;#034; was invented by the Chinese) into a Western medical model. They use &amp;#039;qigong&amp;#039; also as an umbrella term to include simple aerobic-like breath exercises, as well as traditional &amp;#039;moving meditations&amp;#039;, and even soft-form martial arts, like TaiJiQuan.Various practices involving posture and motion (s/t called &amp;#039;moving meditation&amp;#039;) were cultivated over the prior 2000-3000 years, but under other names. The most common is perhaps &amp;#039;daoyin&amp;#039; (where &amp;#039;dao&amp;#039; is a different word than that in &amp;#039;Daoism,&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;yin&amp;#039; is a different word than that in &amp;#039;yinyang&amp;#039;). The earliest concrete documentation is an illustrated manuscript (actually a picture book) of medical exercises, titled &amp;#039;daoyin, &amp;#039;found in a tomb in 1972, where the tomb itself was sealed in 285 BCE.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Things like what &lt;u&gt;T DC&lt;/u&gt; and others here refer to, particularly in connection with Daoist &amp;#039;internal alchemy&amp;#039;, were probably originally called daoyin &amp;#x2013; not to deny that everybody and their brother use the blanket term &amp;#039;qigong today&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013;it&amp;#039;s CCP orthodoxy, in large part to intended to strip the practices of their, in many cases, original connections with quasi-religious ideas and practices, which are a major no-no in the PRC. (Witness the persecution of the FaLunGong sect.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) &lt;u&gt;T DC&amp;#039;s&lt;/u&gt; description of methods from Robert Peng closely approximates the system of Daoist &amp;#034;InternalAlchemy&amp;#034; as I learned it from a Daoist master (Jeffrey Yuen) who specializes in the classical medicine. E.g. dealing with the three &amp;#039;dan tiens&amp;#039; housed in the three major &amp;#034;boney cavities&amp;#034; ofthe body &amp;#x2013; the pelvic cavity, the thorax, and the cranium (skull). The proper progression of cultivation &amp;#x2013;the alchemy &amp;#x2013; involves careful practice (meditation and exercises) beginning in the lower dantien, working on the &amp;#039;jing&amp;#039; based in thepelvis. When that&amp;#039;s ripe (which may take months or years), spontaneously generating heat as in an alchemical oven ready to &amp;#039;transmute&amp;#039; jing into something more refined. (In a daoyin form I learned from one Wu BaoLin, this is termed &amp;#039;lian dan&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013; &amp;#039;smelting the elixer&amp;#039;.) Then cultivation proceeds to the middle dantien in the chest, the seat of &amp;#039;qi&amp;#039;. This is cultivated, heated, smelted (again, often many years), until it transmutes, before proceeding to the top, cranial dantien that houses the &amp;#039;shui&amp;#039; (marrow, the grey stuff inside the head-bone, i.e. the brain). Often modern practitioners use the term &amp;#039;shen&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;spirit&amp;#039; for this dantien, but back in the early centuries of the first millennium, when internal alchemy was first being formulated, &amp;#039;shui&amp;#039; was the original term in the texts (according to Jeffery; needless to say, other authors may differ on this, just like in Buddhism).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The interesting part (in the context of DhO) &amp;#x2013; cultivation of the top dantien (taking perhaps a lifetime, if at all attained) culminates in the blossoming, the &amp;#039;opening of the third eye&amp;#039;, whereby vision extends in all directions, near and far, in both time and space. Obviously a Daoist version of realization or awakening.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Note: also obviously related to the &amp;#039;opening of the Golden Flower&amp;#039;, which we may recognize from thatfamous 18th-(or 19th-?) century Daoist-Buddhismesoteric practice guide (&amp;#034;The Secret of the Golden Flower, &amp;#034;as translated in the 1990&amp;#039;s by Thomas Cleary,  improving upon the seriously flawed translation in the 1920&amp;#039;s by Richard Wilhelm and C.G. Jung.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;T DC&lt;/u&gt; points to a common problem that afflicts people, especially Westerners, who undertake some paths without proper guidance: immature jumping to cultivation of the upper dantiens (before adequate grounding in the lower) results in serious, even dangerous imbalance. We may recognize this when people speak of &amp;#039;kundalini&amp;#039;-type cultivations, unleashing fire up through the body to the top. Unless it&amp;#039;s adequately grounded in the lower dantiens (in water and earth), this fire becomes destructive, i.e. even to the point of psychosis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3) Ascribing such an unbalanced approach to Buddhist practice is problematic. Depends on who is reporting what practice. Again, a tendency in some Western approaches, in the jumping right into advanced insight realms (vipassana to panna), without thorough grounding in the soil ofethical behavior (sila, including care of the body), and clarification of the mind with concentration practice (samadhi).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4) A footnote: PaAuk Saydaw, theBurmese master especially known for mastery and teaching of Jhana practice, mentions (somewhere in the book &amp;#034;The Workings Of  Kamma&amp;#034;) that the breath at the nostrils is the &amp;#039;beginning&amp;#039; of the breath, in the chest (lungs) is the &amp;#039;middle&amp;#039;, and in the lower body (&amp;#039;kidney&amp;#039;,in Chinese symbolism) is the &amp;#039;end&amp;#039;. This is a play on a Buddhist saying (that he invokes regularly) that the Dhamma is good (fruitful, rewarding) at the beginning, through the middle stages, and especially at the end/goal. It also may be taken to symbolize that the anapanna meditation object at the nostrils corresponds to the mind (top dantien), and extends into, is properly rooted in, the middle and lower dantiens.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5) &lt;u&gt;Jeff Grove&lt;/u&gt; (9/23/14 5:26 PM as a reply to T DC) correctly points out that disregarding the body&amp;#039;s health is really not characteristic in the Buddha&amp;#039;s teaching. (Not to say that some people&amp;#039;s idea of &amp;#034;Buddhist thought&amp;#034; doesn&amp;#039;t go in that direction.) Remember the Buddha&amp;#039;s emphasis on a &amp;#039;middleway&amp;#039; between acetisicm (punishing the body) and sensual indulgence. And also that one of the only four &amp;#039;possessions&amp;#039; allowed to those&amp;#039;gone-forth&amp;#039; (&amp;#039;recluses&amp;#039;, monastics) is medicine (in addition to food, clothing and shelter).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6) Jeff also mentions that &amp;#034;the Thais have some energy exercises.&amp;#034; This is exmplified in the teaching of Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Than-Geof). Standard fare in his introductory meditation techniques &amp;#034;first get the body into position for meditation&amp;#034; -- getting the body into a state of comfort and ease, using the breath, e.g. in a version of &amp;#039;body-scanning&amp;#039;. (Then, &amp;#034;get the mind into position into position&amp;#034;, often using Brahmavihara practice establish goodwill, compassion, appreciation and equinimity as mental comfort and ease.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Than-Geof s/t uses the word &amp;#039;qi,&amp;#039; though perhaps as a general new-age usage. But, more significantly, he also uses images of dispelling, flushing out tensions, blockages in bodily feeling (sensed in the course of &amp;#039;breathing though them&amp;#039;), eliminating them through the finger-tips (from the head and upper body), or the toe-tips (from the torso and lower body). This is distinctly a classical Chinese medical practice, and prominent in Daoist moving-meditation practices; the finger- and toe-tips are considered crucial foci of qi, the places where the channels meet and communciate. In the medicine, we often use heat or needling at the corners of the nails (where the skin is less thick from callousing) to strongly influence the qi and blood. (And in modern neuro-physiology, it is well know that the finger-/toe-tips have the densest concentration of nerve endings (along with the lips), and correspondingly the largest areas of influence in the mapping regions of the brain.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Than-Geof also mentions that these practices stems from his teachers (Ajahn Fuang, going back to Ajahn Lee, and then to Ajahn Mun &amp;#x2013; a founder of that lineage of the Thai Forest Tradition). Thai, Vietnamese (and perhaps Cambodian, Burmese) peoples and cultures are known to have ancient roots from, or at least in common with, the Chinese. &lt;u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind&lt;/u&gt; also accurately depicts practices along similar lines, and exessive top-heavy vs bottom/grounded pathological tendencies in some Western circles. I would, however, agree more with Than-Geof that active qualities of skillful practice are the primary remedies to obstacles, the more passive (just watch it until it subsides) techniques being more last resort. (In line with his general critique of &amp;#034;acceptance&amp;#034;,&amp;#034;bare/choiceless awareness&amp;#034; etc. &amp;#x2013; i.e. the Vipassana/Insight Movement party-line -- as a one-sided, if not distorted understanding of the Buddha&amp;#039;s teachings.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Examples of Than-Geof&amp;#039;s guided-meditation techniques along these lines are abundant in recorded dharma-talks and day-long workshops available at the DharmaSeed and AudioDharma websites. I can point out specific ones, if anyone&amp;#039;s interested.)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 03:51:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591758</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T03:51:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590682</link> <description>Hello T DC,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You&amp;#039;d be interested to know that the Zen master Hakuin encountered a similar issue, he records in his biography &amp;#034;Wild Ivy&amp;#034;, how his extreme exertions caused him Zen sickness, this was solved for him after practicing instructions from a Taoist master. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;imgur&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;NOdCwY0&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;imgur&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;752Xggr&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;---&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;imgur&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;Hf966zX&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;---&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jeff also mentions that much of higher tantric practice within Vajrayana includes body work, I&amp;#039;m not familiar with Dzogchen but within the anuttara-yoga-tantras there is much body work, consider this free translation of a treatise by Tsongkhapa on the Six Yogas of Naropa:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/ettt/ettt13.htm</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 23:30:44 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590682</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T23:30:44Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590557</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I continued to meditate for several months until my thought stream was ended (September &amp;#039;13).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;By &amp;#039;thought stream&amp;#039; do you mean the continuous awareness of thoughts? Clearly you still have thoughts. Are you aware of subconscious processing?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;While the strict awareness meditation leading to attainment is important and valuble, it seems that Buddhist thought disregards the health of the body (vital energy), promoting the development of wisdom above all else.  I personally found, after intensively pursuing the attainment of wisdom that I had become majorly unbalanced, a large head, smaller heart, and smaller still vitality, like an upsidown pyramid.  A truly balanced individual is the opposite; much vitality, a good reserve of love, and a dose of wisdom&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I strongly agree. Insight practice is powerful and transformative alone, but ignoring the concurrent physio-energetic processes seems a mistake to me. (It&amp;#039;s like trying to do advanced physics with basic math skills, or trying to build a new floor on top of an old house.) By regularly relaxing one&amp;#039;s body, breathing deeply, fully, and easily natural currents of pleasureable sensations will begin to flow through the body. If one yields to the pleasureable currents then the body will begin to naturally shed any blockages; it&amp;#039;ll shake, jerk, yawn, cry, sob, scream, etc. Letting this process happen on its own, watching with meditative concentration but not interfering seems to significantly lessen DN symptoms and expedite process. There usually isn&amp;#039;t a need to grind out the blockages in intensely agonizing noting sessions. Kenneth Folk pointed out in the Hurricane Ranch talks that Burmese/Mahasi vipassana communities have a tendency towards a Protestant guilt-like attitude towards pleasure. I sense this also. I suspect, like the Reichians, that this attitude stems from a repression of natural, spontaneous, sexuality. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m interested in trying Qi Gong or Taichi. Got any recommendations for resources?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 22:31:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590557</guid> <dc:creator>Droll Dedekind</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T22:31:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590548</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;T DC:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi all,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just thought I&amp;#039;d make another post here, as my practice has shifted somewhat significantly.  Here&amp;#039;s a rehash..  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After attaining enlightenement, the complete end of duality in May 2013, I continued to meditate for several months until my thought stream was ended (September &amp;#039;13).  After this point meditation did not clearly further my progress, as there were no overt thoughts to work with.  It was clear to me then as it is now that the development of awareness is an endless progress, growing to greater and greater expanse as time moves on and one&amp;#039;s experience increases.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, in the winter following my enlightenment and subsequent eradication of thoughts, I was greatly troubled.  I suffered a number of physical issues, and longed always for spiritual salvation.  I became very interested in lucid dreaming and astral projection; to some extent I longed to join the spirit world.  Having reached the top of Buddhist philosophy, I could see no where to go, and yet all the while I felt a great urge to escape.  I could see no clear path and was greatly troubled.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways, in June of this year 2014, I read a book on Qi Gong: The Master Key by Robert Peng.  Robert Peng describes in this book his life&amp;#039;s journey; meeting a Qi Gong master when Peng was a boy, he trained intensively for many years, becoming enlightened around the age of 15 in an 80 day no-food retreat in a dark chamber, and subsequently developing the ability to generate electricity like Qi from his fingers.  Oeng describes in his book the Qi Gong theory of personality, which is based on the relative strength and weakness of three energy centers in our body, the upper middle and lower dantiens, which regulate wisdom, love, and vitality respectively.  When these centers as balanced, a person is vital loving and wise, but when imbalanced, personality issues occur.  He describes how enlightenment, while a final and lasting state of oneness, is seperate from developing balanced energy centers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To read this made me so happy!  Finally a teacher who described my situation and demonstrated a clear way to improve it!  Thus I began to practice Qi Gong, and am thus far extremely gratefull for what it has brought to my life.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While the strict awareness meditation leading to attainment is important and valuble, it seems that Buddhist thought disregards the health of the body (vital energy), promoting the development of wisdom above all else.  I personally found, after intensively pursuing the attainment of wisdom that I had become majorly unbalanced, a large head, smaller heart, and smaller still vitality, like an upsidown pyramid.  A truly balanced individual is the opposite; much vitality, a good reserve of love, and a dose of wisdom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Said another way, Vitality is the wisdom of I Am being strong in your own self, Wisdom is knowing that all is empty or one, and Love is a combination of these two energies that allows the individual to connect with the all.  If we go through life dominated by wisdom, instead of being strong in ourselves, of acting with compassion, our default is to see the emptiness of the situation, to see that it is void.  A healthy, energetically balanced individual acts first strong in themselves, secondly with love, and lastly with the knowledge that all is ultimately one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers! &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;..And what say?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi TDC,&lt;br /&gt;I have trained with Sifu Zhao (&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;tiandiqigong&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au"&gt;www.tiandiqigong.com.au&lt;/a&gt;) who is Robert Pengs kung fu brother (trained under the same master) and there skills are defineatly real. I disagree that Buddhism disregards the health of the body you just need to investigate the different flavours of Buddhism. Chan incorporates qigong, look at its history the Shaolin temple, Damo and the birth of kung fu in China. Tibetan Buddhism which I thought you practiced as I recall you stated you progress thru the 4 visions of Thodgal incorporates qigong and body work from the start. Tantra, Anuyoga, Atiyoga, Dzogchen all incorporate forms of qigong. Ngondro preliminary practices are a form of qigong&lt;br /&gt;Zhang zhuang is a interesting tool to add to the tool box as well as healing the body it helps increase your sensitivity to change, releasing tension and gaining an understanding into the 6 directional force that is part of our life. There is a little discussion on qigong, yoga and body work on DhO but it is a fantastic way of investigating stillness and our emotional body. Some practices work on the mind first then the body, the body first then the mind or both mind and body at the same time. Even Theravada incorporates qigong in its meditation walking and the Thais have some energy exercises. Its great to hear you are finding more areas to investigate and this is a great topic&lt;br /&gt;Jeff</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 22:15:41 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590548</guid> <dc:creator>Jeff Grove</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T22:15:41Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Qi Gong</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590494</link> <description>Hi all,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just thought I&amp;#039;d make another post here, as my practice has shifted somewhat significantly.  Here&amp;#039;s a rehash..  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After attaining enlightenement, the complete end of duality in May 2013, I continued to meditate for several months until my thought stream was ended (September &amp;#039;13).  After this point meditation did not clearly further my progress, as there were no overt thoughts to work with.  It was clear to me then as it is now that the development of awareness is an endless progress, growing to greater and greater expanse as time moves on and one&amp;#039;s experience increases.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, in the winter following my enlightenment and subsequent eradication of thoughts, I was greatly troubled.  I suffered a number of physical issues, and longed always for spiritual salvation.  I became very interested in lucid dreaming and astral projection; to some extent I longed to join the spirit world.  Having reached the top of Buddhist philosophy, I could see no where to go, and yet all the while I felt a great urge to escape.  I could see no clear path and was greatly troubled.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways, in June of this year 2014, I read a book on Qi Gong: The Master Key by Robert Peng.  Robert Peng describes in this book his life&amp;#039;s journey; meeting a Qi Gong master when Peng was a boy, he trained intensively for many years, becoming enlightened around the age of 15 in an 80 day no-food retreat in a dark chamber, and subsequently developing the ability to generate electricity like Qi from his fingers.  Oeng describes in his book the Qi Gong theory of personality, which is based on the relative strength and weakness of three energy centers in our body, the upper middle and lower dantiens, which regulate wisdom, love, and vitality respectively.  When these centers as balanced, a person is vital loving and wise, but when imbalanced, personality issues occur.  He describes how enlightenment, while a final and lasting state of oneness, is seperate from developing balanced energy centers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To read this made me so happy!  Finally a teacher who described my situation and demonstrated a clear way to improve it!  Thus I began to practice Qi Gong, and am thus far extremely gratefull for what it has brought to my life.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While the strict awareness meditation leading to attainment is important and valuble, it seems that Buddhist thought disregards the health of the body (vital energy), promoting the development of wisdom above all else.  I personally found, after intensively pursuing the attainment of wisdom that I had become majorly unbalanced, a large head, smaller heart, and smaller still vitality, like an upsidown pyramid.  A truly balanced individual is the opposite; much vitality, a good reserve of love, and a dose of wisdom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Said another way, Vitality is the wisdom of I Am being strong in your own self, Wisdom is knowing that all is empty or one, and Love is a combination of these two energies that allows the individual to connect with the all.  If we go through life dominated by wisdom, instead of being strong in ourselves, of acting with compassion, our default is to see the emptiness of the situation, to see that it is void.  A healthy, energetically balanced individual acts first strong in themselves, secondly with love, and lastly with the knowledge that all is ultimately one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers! &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;..And what say?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 21:31:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590494</guid> <dc:creator>T DC</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T21:31:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Shaking Explained</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585423</link> <description>&lt;strong&gt;NOTE:&lt;/strong&gt; I&amp;#039;ve moved this thread to the Insight board here: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5585415&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve flagged this thread for deletion.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 08:15:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585423</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T08:15:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Shaking Explained</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585292</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Justin Chapweske:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Its an interesting theory, but it doesn&amp;#039;t really resonate with my experiences of kryas.  I&amp;#039;m not trying to be disagreeable, just offering a counter data point.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I might have posted this on the wrong board. I just looked up &amp;#034;shaking&amp;#034; and most of the posts were here. I haven&amp;#039;t practised kundalini or kryas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are some situations I&amp;#039;ve experienced shaking:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Trauma releasing exercises (TRE, David Berceli -- great way to induce shaking, and this was the practice following which I made the above theory)&lt;br /&gt;- Yoga&lt;br /&gt;- Physical exercise&lt;br /&gt;- Posture work&lt;br /&gt;- Meditation, especially when my &amp;#034;stuff&amp;#034; bubbles up into awareness&lt;br /&gt;- Breath work&lt;br /&gt;- Reichian therapy (though I have only dabbled -- the shaking correlates with the dissolving of &amp;#034;emotional armouring&amp;#034; in my experience)&lt;br /&gt;- Genuine shock/anxiety-inducing experiences in the moment (I now am aware of the body&amp;#039;s desire to shake, and no longer compulsively repress, which is what stores tension/blocks energy flow in both my theory and Berceli&amp;#039;s)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The A&amp;amp;P I&amp;#039;m in currently has effortlessly bubbled up tons of &amp;#034;stuff&amp;#034; to be investigated and a lot of it (maybe most) induces shaking. And I&amp;#039;m getting lots of equanimity with those &amp;#034;themes&amp;#034; following the shaking.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 20:44:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585292</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T20:44:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Shaking Explained</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585221</link> <description>Its an interesting theory, but it doesn&amp;#039;t really resonate with my experiences of kryas.  I&amp;#039;m not trying to be disagreeable, just offering a counter data point.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 17:49:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585221</guid> <dc:creator>Justin Chapweske</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T17:49:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Shaking Explained</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585169</link> <description>There is a lot of confusion regarding body shaking during energy practices, the A&amp;amp;P, and the many other situations in which shaking can spontaneously arise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will explain what the shaking is, in my view.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you pay attention, you will notice that shaking coincides with memories arising and passing. These are memories you have now found equanimity with via your practice. They were usually troublesome in nature, and were built into the system as a &amp;#034;block&amp;#034; due to resistance to that experience at the time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Memories / emotional imprints are stored as muscle tension patterns across the whole body. The solar plexus area appears to be the epicentre, or &amp;#034;distribution network&amp;#034;, of these muscle tension patterns, hence why shaking appears to emanate from here most often.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In actuality, muscle tension patterns can occur anywhere in the body. For example, releasing a blocked leg or arm muscle via posture work will spotaneously release the memory associated with when that block was formed. Whenever I do posture work I always, without exception, experience vague, often distant and seemingly unrelated to anything, memories, drifting through my awareness and vanishing as the muscle is released. If an arm is released, the shaking will nevertheless move into the solar plexus area as the memory release occurs. Again, this area appears to be the &amp;#034;distribution network&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, the solar plexus area itself, and indeed all the muscles associated with breathing including particularly the diaphragm (hence breath of fire work) are major, MAJOR stores of muscle tension patterns.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When, via your insight work, you find equaniminity with certain experiences (or general &amp;#034;themes&amp;#034; of experience formed by the summation of many individual experiences), the muscles will begin to unlock as the full emotional weight of that experience is now allowed by the unconscious to be experienced by the mindbody. You will perceive this as energy flow in that area.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The shaking then kicks in as this is how muscles dissipate stored tension.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recommend that, rather than allowing violent shakes (I can enter full seizures at will during this type of work), that instead you stymie the unblocking process, slow down the shaking and let it flow at a lighter pace, and simply allow a much longer period of time of gentle shaking to allow a full dispersion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is also important that you investigate the sensations associated with the release, using insight meditation on the areas of energy flow, while this is going on. The areas of energy flow will tend to move. Follow the movement with your awareness. This additional practice is equally as important as the shaking itself, as this allows the insight released from the &amp;#034;locked&amp;#034; experiences to be registered by the conscious mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To allow the most unimpeded flow, relax your face and simply choose to &amp;#034;be&amp;#034; with the sensations of the release in the body. Facial contortion, wincing etc., is actually a key part of emotional repression, and therefore a key part of the resistance process which initially created the blocks (this is why you wince when you see something unpleasant -- the face can actually inhibit the rest of the body from experiencing the full weight of the emotional experience).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this clears up all your shaking questions and can really help you refine your practice. If you have any questions however, please ask!</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:27:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585169</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T15:27:48Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583278</link> <description>I tried meditation as taught by Daniel . I had an series of episodes which led to psychiatric meds. This is how i go to sleep at night. I don&amp;#039;t understand it fully yet.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Sep 2014 02:06:06 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583278</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-14T02:06:06Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583253</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Simon T.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Could you elaborate on that? I started again using cannabis on and off a few months ago. It&amp;#039;s habit forming for sure, but not in a very explicit way. It&amp;#039;s subtle, but still. There is something about the thought of using cannabis which contain a projection of the feeling. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It often escapes notice, but people also develop an addiction to the small amount of tobacco they mix with. If you find yourself craving cannabis, and you think of having it without tobacco, is it still as appealing, or do you find you could take it or leave it? In my case: take it or leave it.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I use a vaporizer so I don&amp;#039;t mix with tobacco (I&amp;#039;m a health conscious druggie). I think strains high in THC might be more problematic, as they tend to activate an identification thought process. A kind of mental delusion that the experience that we are having is good, that the food is good, that weed is great, and so forth. I have medical strains high in CBD which don&amp;#039;t give any high but have a painkiller and anxiolitic effect. It seems relatively ok to be used in equanimity but I notice there are important negative effects in the dark night than generally outweight the benefits. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have been using some nicotine gums almost daily for a few months to alleviate some terrible headache I get sometimes. I was never a smoker but I knew nicotine had effect. I was worried it would become addicting and surprisingly, and don&amp;#039;t notice any signs of addictions. By this, I mean the thought of using nicotine doesn&amp;#039;t arise if I don&amp;#039;t get the headache (which are improving). It&amp;#039;s possible that the slow delivery of the nicotine over 30 minutes, and the fact that there is no hand movement and instant-reward to form an habit, lower the addictive effect.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Sep 2014 01:07:41 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583253</guid> <dc:creator>Simon T.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-14T01:07:41Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583220</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Simon T.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Could you elaborate on that? I started again using cannabis on and off a few months ago. It&amp;#039;s habit forming for sure, but not in a very explicit way. It&amp;#039;s subtle, but still. There is something about the thought of using cannabis which contain a projection of the feeling. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It often escapes notice, but people also develop an addiction to the small amount of tobacco they mix with. If you find yourself craving cannabis, and you think of having it without tobacco, is it still as appealing, or do you find you could take it or leave it? In my case: take it or leave it.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 23:20:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583220</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T23:20:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583207</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam Dietrich Ringle:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I am dedicating this post to the great Tommy (who I haven&amp;#039;t seen on here in a while). That guy is a genius in learning how to deactivate the effects of cannabis on the related aspects of the nervous system.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have had to stop smoking weed. Its been almost three years now. The desire is basically almost non-existent now, so that&amp;#039;s good.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Could you elaborate on that? I started again using cannabis on and off a few months ago. It&amp;#039;s habit forming for sure, but not in a very explicit way. It&amp;#039;s subtle, but still. There is something about the thought of using cannabis which contain a projection of the feeling. </description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 23:05:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583207</guid> <dc:creator>Simon T.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T23:05:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583187</link> <description>I am not sure (actually I feel fairly confident that it won&amp;#039;t) if this pertains to anybody, but after you have had your LSD mindstates, your DMT mindstates, your mushroom mindstates, your ecstacy mindstates, your LSA mindstates, your MAOI inhibitor mindstates, your meth mindstates, your cannibis mindstates, your speed mindstates, your salvia mindstates, your alcohol mindstates, and your pain killer mindstates (not to mention the plethera of mindstates related to legal, procribed psychiatric drugs), please return to the Buddha mind (aka come back to god, or whatever else you might put here...I don&amp;#039;t really know) and join us for a great time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All for now,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;ADR</description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 22:26:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583187</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T22:26:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Placement of Awareness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578019</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Change A.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I have found it beneficial to place the awareness at the top and bottom of spine simultaneously. This results in the energies being balanced throughout the body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to placing the awarenes at the top and bottom of spine, if it is placed on the right and left side of the spine simultaneously as well and then the breathing is relaxed (no additional muscles being used other than those needed for inhalation and exhalation), then that results in total relaxation.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 07 Sep 2014 20:01:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578019</guid> <dc:creator>Change A.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-07T20:01:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Anyone practiced kriya yoga?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5564088</link> <description>I took the initiation from French association Kriya Yoga Shanaram. You can check their lineage on their website (in French) : http://kriya-yoga-sharanam.com/les-maitres-de-la-tradition&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The basis routine was 40 min - 1 hour long, and we were encouraged to practice it twice daily. There was also a mantra routine with a 108-beads mala to be done at least once daily. Summing it up, it needed at least 1.5 to 2 hours a day, sometimes even more. There was also some routines of asanas that we were also encouraged to practice several times a week. It is a really beautiful, complete and potent practice, for those with the needed time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess one could also do the basis practice in 20 min, summing up to 40 min per day, and get rid of the other practices, but I think it works better with some dedication.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I might say that this is my point of view, after only 2 years of mitigate practice, so it&amp;#039;s probably not worth a lot.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 04 Aug 2014 01:34:06 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5564088</guid> <dc:creator>Jean B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-04T01:34:06Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Anyone practiced kriya yoga?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5564068</link> <description>Really? This book, which from what I understand is generally in well regard (not to mention it&amp;#039;s one of the only detailed books in print on kriya yoga in english), gives practice routines from 1-2 hours daily. Where did you learn kriya yoga/ what school?</description> <pubDate>Sun, 03 Aug 2014 22:52:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5564068</guid> <dc:creator>Brian K.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-03T22:52:48Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Anyone practiced kriya yoga?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5564064</link> <description>I did practice kriya yoga for 2 years, with interspersed months of dedicated practice and months of no practice. The mix of pranayama, concentration and asanas is very effective in gaining great body and mind relaxation. I did stop because it takes at least 2 or 3 hours of daily practice to really gain some momentum, and I couldn&amp;#039;t afford it. Also I experienced strong pressure in my forehead which bothered me a lot, then I was quite frightened because it got stronger and stronger, and no one could explain what was going on. So I dit quit kriya yoga then started again with other practices.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 03 Aug 2014 22:49:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5564064</guid> <dc:creator>Jean B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-03T22:49:48Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Anyone practiced kriya yoga?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5563891</link> <description>Hi Brian,&lt;br /&gt;good luck making it through the course.  i don&amp;#039;t know enough specifically about Kriya yoga to give specific advice but you might want to check out the Advanced Yoga Practices website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="www&amp;#x2e;aypsite&amp;#x2e;org"&gt;www.aypsite.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;tom</description> <pubDate>Sun, 03 Aug 2014 13:27:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5563891</guid> <dc:creator>tom moylan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-03T13:27:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Anyone practiced kriya yoga?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5563675</link> <description>&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;So I&amp;#039;ve started the preliminary practices of kriya yoga, as outlined in the almost 1000 page course, &lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT"&gt;A Systematic Course in theAncient Tantric Techniques of&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 10px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt; Yoga and Kriya&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;by Swami Satyananda. And was wondering if anyone has any experience with this. I am planning on progessing through each lesson and posting a practice log on the DhO. Let me know, thanks!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 02 Aug 2014 18:44:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5563675</guid> <dc:creator>Brian K.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-02T18:44:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use [Droll Dedekind] [MIGRAT</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5553704</link> <description>No problem, I&amp;#039;m just glad others are benefiting from these powerful, if underused, techniques.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My best guess is that you&amp;#039;ve previously crossed the A&amp;amp;P, and you&amp;#039;re cycling around ReOb or you&amp;#039;ve fallen back and are sitting in Cause and Effect. As Daniel has pointed out in other contexts: if you&amp;#039;re hanging out on hardcore meditation forums, meditating for an hour+ a day, and in this case, investigating the body-based exercises invented by an obscure/defamed Austrian psychologist and scientist the chances of you not having hit the A&amp;amp;P is very low. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As this is a meditation forum I&amp;#039;ll preface with this: finding your way to Equanimty, figuring out how to stay there, and then landing stream-entry and taking it from there is your best bet in relieving your symptoms. You can find the relevant information on that process elsewhere, but I can summarize my recommendation. Power the mindfulness all day, learn how to surrender at the peak of ReOb, experiment with tweaking the effort/do-nothing in low EQ, stay viligant, stick honestly to the bare/basic/direct/simple/immediate sensations, and practice well. It&amp;#039;s also important to make strong resolutions regularly. Have you mastered noting? If not, do that asap.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That said, I find Reichian exercises highly complementary to vipassana. Here&amp;#039;s a simple argument to explain the synergy. Vipassana can be defined informally as a gradual process of expanding awareness (defined loosely) to include previously unclear/unconscious mental processes and physical sensations. Mental and physical phenomena are intimately interconnected, and at a certain level, useless to separate conceptually or pragmatically. This insight shows itself early on in &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;dharma-wiki&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Main&amp;#x2f;MCTB&amp;#x2b;2&amp;#x2e;&amp;#x2b;Cause&amp;#x2b;and&amp;#x2b;Effect"&gt;Cause and Effect&lt;/a&gt; and more clearly later when formations are experienced in &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;dharma-wiki&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Main&amp;#x2f;MCTB&amp;#x25;2011&amp;#x2e;&amp;#x25;20Equanimity&amp;#x3f;p_r_p_185834411_title&amp;#x3d;MCTB&amp;#x25;2011&amp;#x2e;&amp;#x25;20Equanimity"&gt;Equanimity&lt;/a&gt;. Following common sense and the metaphor of chakras, certain parts of the body have certain mental or emotional correlates. When we&amp;#039;re emotionally hurt we have a &amp;#039;broken heart&amp;#039;, when someone&amp;#039;s flighty they don&amp;#039;t have &amp;#039;both feet on the ground&amp;#039;, when we&amp;#039;re nervous we get &amp;#039;butterflies in the stomach&amp;#039;, and so on. The metaphor of chakras obviously extends this common sense considerably. In any case, if we tentatively accept the body correlation hypothesis then it stands to reason that certain neuroses will have predictable physical markers. As it turns out, Reich and Lowen demonstrate just that in the books I mention later in this post. Neuroticism manifest as tensions and deadzones of energy in predictable places in the body. Reich also predicted that through simple physical exercises you could gradually elicit repressed emotions, recover repressed memories, and bring increased awareness to the physical tension and associated neuroses. The most difficult patterns of sensations to include within awareness are slippery neurotic processes that, through reinforcement since the childhood events that triggered them, constitute a significant portion of our character. Reichian exercises, in my experience, help tremendously to bring awareness to these processes that are difficult to be honest about and hence difficult to see clearly. It should be mentioned, Reich intended for the exercises to allow people to surrender to &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;en&amp;#x2e;wikipedia&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Orgastic_potency"&gt;more complete orgasms&lt;/a&gt;. These theories are fascinating and controversial, but not necessary for an interested dabbler nor directly relevant or contradictory to the meditation connection I&amp;#039;m making. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&amp;#039;s a relevant passage from MCTB&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;All that said, there is some debate about what factors or progress allows some people to just notice the Three Characteristics of the sensations that make up their world in the face of their stuff as opposed to those who just flounder in their stuff. Some would argue that you have to have done enough psychological work and deal with enough of your issues to get to the place were you can move on to the next stage. I must reluctantly admit that there is probably some truth to this. However, I didn’t consider myself particularly psychologically advanced when I started insight practices, as I had all kinds of stuff to deal with and still do, and yet somehow, perhaps through good instruction, perhaps through some other factors I have yet to identify, I was able to practice well despite it all and make the shift from being lost in content to noticing how things actually are.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I would argue that Reichian exercises (along with the awareness-expanding and energetic effects) provide an ideal method for precipitating psychological growth without a high risk of getting lost in content.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Although working with our &amp;#039;stuff&amp;#039; and the practice of vipassana techniques should be clearly differentiated, it seems that working with our &amp;#039;stuff&amp;#039; is necessary for progress at certain sticking points, and largely unavoidable in the long-run. I would also argue that Reichian exercises can be particularly useful during the DN. There have been times in the DN when my concentration is virtually gone, my body is stiff, and psychologizing is dangerously sticky. This isn&amp;#039;t unusual, so I hear. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/tongue.gif" &gt; I&amp;#039;ve found that a Reichian session can really break up some of those irritating repetitive thought processes. Of course, physical exertion, dancing, walks in nature, and (attempting) socialization all help with this too. But, Reichian work will really target those patterns of mind, whereas the former are moreso skillful distractions. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve mused about combining the systems of Reichian and vipassana after I reach some degree of mastery in both. The idea isn&amp;#039;t completely new. As you mention, &amp;#039;sense and feel sessions&amp;#039; are essentially vipassana lite. And, Ron Kurtz gave it a go with &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;en&amp;#x2e;wikipedia&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Hakomi"&gt;Hakomi&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Integrating scientific, psychological, and spiritual sources, Hakomi has evolved into a complex and elegant form of psychotherapy that is highly effective with a wide range of populations. The method draws from general systems theory and modern body-centered therapies including Gestalt, Psychomotor, Feldenkrais, Focusing, Ericksonian Hypnosis, Neurolinguistic Programming, and the work of Wilhelm Reich and Alexander Lowen. Core concepts of gentleness, nonviolence, compassion, and mindfulness evolved from Buddhism and Taoism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I haven&amp;#039;t researched Hakomi thoroughly, but I suspect it too is highly potent. Though, the mindfulness component sounds too light for me. &amp;#039;evolved from Buddhism and Taoism&amp;#039; reads (to me) as &amp;#039;misinterpreted and watered down from Buddhism and Taoism&amp;#039;. At least they mention the Reich influence, unlike EMDR and most other modern body-based approaches.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;#039;re interested in exploring character types from a body-based bioenergetic perspective check out Character Analysis by Wilhelm Reich, and Language of the Body by Alexander Lowen. If you match the rigid profile given on that website, check out the chapters in the above about the compulsive and phallic-narcissistic type. I should warn you, both books are technical and dry. Lowen is slightly less dry. Both books are available online if you know where to look (message me if you need).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As far as other resources go, check the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5201846"&gt;prettier version of this thread&lt;/a&gt;. I&amp;#039;m gonna make this post in the other thread too; if you respond please do it there &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/smile.gif" &gt; Also relevant are the books of Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen, Peter A. Levine, &lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #3d194a"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 10px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #3d194a"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 10px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;John C. Pierrakos, Christopher Hyatt (Undoing Yourself and Secrets of Western Tantra), Nick Totton, and Ron Kurtz. Myron Sharaf&amp;#039;s biography of Reich is also of interest. Robert Anton Wilson wrote a play called Wilhem Reich in Hell. Here&amp;#039;s a noteworthy quote from the preface&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;When I am in my Reichian or neo-Reichian reality-tunnel, it seems overwhelmingly obvious to me that I live among a species that is desperately sick and desperately afraid of the changes it must undergo to be cured.&lt;br /&gt;When I am in my Buddhist reality-tunnel, the medical metaphor of sickeness in Reich&amp;#039;s system seems as over-simplified as the Christian metaphor of sin, and I merely see that the human race at this stage of its evolution has the habits inevitable at this stage of evolution. What is, &lt;em&gt;is&lt;/em&gt;, and our evaluations of it are simply -- our evaluations of it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;RAW and Hyatt were friends, and both were familiar with at least Zen Buddhism. Hyatt went so far as to call himself a Buddhist for most of his adult life. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This turned out to be a long post; I&amp;#039;ve been reading Reich the past few days and haven&amp;#039;t updated this thread in awhile. I&amp;#039;ve also experienced new results from the exercises, if anyone&amp;#039;s interested in reading those. Good luck with stream-entry and Reichian!</description> <pubDate>Sun, 06 Jul 2014 19:58:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5553704</guid> <dc:creator>Droll Dedekind</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-07-06T19:58:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use [Droll Dedekind] [MIGRAT</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5553627</link> <description>Thanks for sharing this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For the past two years I tried getting back in Vipassana on and off. The longest stretch was 1h a day for a month or so.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have been discouraged because everytime I get back into it, I become very sensible to what appears to be a lot of accumulated stress and tension in the body. Usually I start feeling it in late afternoon, as I sit at the computer programming or whatnot, and it becomes a crushing feeling of lots of very heavy sensations. Usually in the top of the head, temples (sides). Sometimes a heavy sensation in the solar plexus, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If I try to &amp;#034;push through&amp;#034; with Vipassana alone, eventually after 5-6 hours split over a few days, I start feeling small tingling sensations, and then I feel like I can finally breathe and &amp;#034;stay afloat&amp;#034; with the circus of sensations. There has been a lot of trembling lately, usually around the shoulders.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have one shoulder (left side) that always rises up a little bit. I only realized this during my 1st Goenka retreat. Overt he ten days I could feel the tension and as my concentration became better, it was dropping down. If my concentration wavered; I felt the shoulder raising again. I think in the second course, I had my whole left arm trembling for more than an hour. Two retreats and a few years later, and this still happens.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve always thought I should seek some form of emotional or body therapy to speed up the process, but with so many woo woo out there and self appointed &amp;#034;healers&amp;#034; I just never found the confidence to contact any of such people.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fact is I&amp;#039;ve suffered from social anxiety a lot before Goenka retreats, and I think I have a significant block around the throat. At least there is some progress in that I can now feel those sensations in the neck and throat area.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Vipassana is really hard though if you have accumulated a lot of such tension, and I was pleasantly surprised how quicly an hour can pass and how effortless it is to do the Reichian techniques. After a few days of finding the proper &amp;#034;ah&amp;#034; sound I noticed there is so much tension in my belly still and how difficult it is to release completely the diaphragm when exhaling.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think breathing alone for me is a significant help. It&amp;#039;s worth mentioning that I did a bit of Yoga at home as well as a 1h30 class once a week for a couple years or so and while it made me feel better and more relaxed I never felt much release during the practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The best I&amp;#039;ve ever felt in Yoga is after really slow stretching sometimes I would naturally make this &amp;#034;ahhh&amp;#034; sound as I exhale, and once I remember crying as I was stretching a leg, not from physical pain but a sudden emotion that seemed to come out of nowhere. Other than that it seems to me that you have to practice Yoga pretty intensely and stretch really FAR in order to get any kind of emotional release.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For me the main blocks seems to be around the neck/shoulders/throat. It&amp;#039;s reallky difficult to do even simple anapana when within minutes after sitting down you feel a heavy pressure in the middle of the chest. It requires a tremendous effort of concentration and motivation to sit patiently with the sensations till the concentration builds up and the body starts to relax.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways just sharing a perspective... after a few days once I found the &amp;#034;ah&amp;#034; sound (I was doing more of a &amp;#034;huh&amp;#034; in the beginning), I start getting the same body shaking than in Vipassana, except without all the incredible tension building up and exploding with a big trembling along the spine that gave a very limited sense of release.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;According to the &lt;a href="energeticsinstitutehttp&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;energeticsinstitute&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au&amp;#x2f;page&amp;#x2f;the_perfectionist__obsessional_rigid&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;energeticsinstitute&lt;/a&gt; site I am a Perfectionist. So my breathing is uniform  but exactly as they describe, I have been hunching over my computer for as long as I can remember and have been shallow breathing all this time. Just sitting straight and belly breathing I get small spasms in one shoulder.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway long story short my main hurdle with Vipassana is that I was sitting during the day &lt;strong&gt;outside of meditation&lt;/strong&gt; still feeling heavy sensations and no matter how much I try to be equanimous, or to stop resisting, I would seem to just wallow in this forever and it was really discouraging. I&amp;#039;ve started lately to wonder if this was the &amp;#039;dark night&amp;#039; that people talk about, since it was at times affecting my relationships, making me feel very irritated and/or feeling anger.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now I finally have another avenue to address the problem. It&amp;#039;s just not feasible for me to invest 2h every single day of fine concetration. It would work eventually for sure, but if I miss a single day I&amp;#039;d feel like I am back to square one and next time I sit I&amp;#039;d be sitting through another hour of heavy sensations and barely able to keep my head afloat and feel like I am getting nowhere &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/sad.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I have been experimenting last few days I sense that Vipassana can go much deeper but this may be an enormous help when the stuck energy or whatever it is makes it really difficult to sit. The only other option I could think of was to do another retreat since the assistant teachers are helping ... but I haven&amp;#039;t had the heart to do so.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway &lt;strong&gt;thanks !&lt;/strong&gt; And please share related materials if you have any.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, it seems like the &amp;#034;POST EXERCISE SENSING AND FEELING&amp;#034; describedi n the book is very much a light Vipassana session isn&amp;#039;t it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even more so in [url=this vid of Hyatt describing &amp;#034;You mehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmkvkErixvcditation&amp;#034;]this vid of Hyatt describing &amp;#034;You meditation&amp;#034;, here he mentions doing it for up to an hour.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;DO you know if he has been influenced by Eastern teachings and meditation techniques or is this something he came up on his own?</description> <pubDate>Sun, 06 Jul 2014 14:45:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5553627</guid> <dc:creator>faB</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-07-06T14:45:48Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5547312</link> <description>&lt;u&gt;The Psychadelic Baseline, and how to access it.&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You have positive feeling tone, negative feeling tone, and baseline.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, project a positive feeling in some part of the body. Or tune in. Or observe. There are many verbs that could go here. Arhat the thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After some time, the positive will change into a negative. Its not going to hurt you, so just remain detached.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Baseline will settle in.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The process will want to repeat itself, allow this to happen. Eventually you will enter a psychadelic state.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2014 16:36:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5547312</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-06-19T16:36:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Insight meditation and upward energy flow</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5547233</link> <description>Howdy Mario,&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been in that phase for some months now although it is at present not problematic for me. My &amp;#034;energy&amp;#034; is concentrated heavily in the head.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When it began to predominate it was very blissful and because it was quite a change from a looong reobservation stint, I preferred it to the point of attachment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I found Vimilaramsi&amp;#039;s advice helpful.  He submits that this concentration of &amp;#034;energy&amp;#034; is craving and suggests relaxing as the solution.  In a post earlier this week about thailand, Simon mentions a particular form of vipassana which has a step of body focus added to it.   This may help you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good luck!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;tom</description> <pubDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2014 06:27:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5547233</guid> <dc:creator>tom moylan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-06-19T06:27:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Insight meditation and upward energy flow</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5547157</link> <description>Hi Mario,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have the same problem. I close my eyes to do vipassana and I feel that energy rising to my head. This has been going on for years. I had to leave vipassana for the same. But if I don&amp;#039;t meditate I feel so awful. So then I medidate and the energy starts going to the crown. This started after I did  tantric intimacy practices. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I eat food, the I feel energy/stuff rising to my head too. I am at my wits end. I am suffering really bad. Kindly let me know if you find a solution for the same. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have tried to bring energy down as mentioned by Daniel several times and it just magnifies the energy and make me more uncomfortable.I have to mention here that I have tried to bring energy down for 5-8 minutes on each occasion and not any longer.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 18 Jun 2014 23:34:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5547157</guid> <dc:creator>Vic Douglas</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-06-18T23:34:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recommendation for cooling meditation please.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5546759</link> <description>Thanks for all the replies.  I had forgotten to check back in on this thread after a while.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Th heat is definitely a stress response (for me) and in that sense I needed to address, where possible, what was stressing me.  That involved some thought substitution style work. The ice packs, showers, breathing etc are helpful too, but very hard to mainatin the cool.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 18 Jun 2014 02:15:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5546759</guid> <dc:creator>C C C</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-06-18T02:15:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Body Temperature</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5543899</link> <description>Yes I&amp;#039;ve always been &amp;#034;cold resistant&amp;#034;, liked having a draft, wore t-shirt and shorts in the dead of winter etc without feeling too cold (I still needed protection from long-term exposure, but hopping between buildings in a blizzard was fine). Ever since A&amp;amp;P (I don&amp;#039;t think I ever got stream entry) I&amp;#039;ve been much more sensitive to cold, and my body temperature seems less stable, jumping between 97.5-99.4, depending on my mental state, but never in fever territory... very strange</description> <pubDate>Mon, 09 Jun 2014 19:56:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5543899</guid> <dc:creator>David Orion Girardo</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-06-09T19:56:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Sex and women</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5534963</link> <description>It&amp;#039;s amazing all the wildly different interpretations of the same thing. I was often told the way of the buddha was the middle road, not the extreme road.  For instance, he did not say to fast beyond reason, even if food might be a temptation.  As for sex, it is another part of the world.  I think the problem with sex is if it sucks up too much of your thought processes, you become in an imbalanced state.  Or maybe it is if you are in an imbalanced state, sex sucks up too much of your thought processes.  Is the sex to blame for the imbalance or did it only display an already existing imbalance? </description> <pubDate>Sat, 17 May 2014 20:38:30 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5534963</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-17T20:38:30Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recommendation for cooling meditation please.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5532913</link> <description>Sometimes when I sleep, I wake up feeling very not and also irritable and sometimes very very tired but could not easily sleep.  If I forced sleep, then irritable unpleasant dreams would immediately begin.  The burn usually lasts like maybe 30 minutes to an hour.  I have tried lots of things but one thing that seems to help quite a bit is to to actually lay down on the hard ground with minimal pillows and padding, I usually just use maybe one head pillow plus there is carpet.  Our house sits on a cement slab, not sure if that is important but it seems like somehow it might be.  I&amp;#039;ve tried other things like cold showers, eating, etc, but with little effect.  Cold water feels nice on the skin but does not touch the irritable tired component of it.  Only waiting it out and laying on the hard ground seem to help.  During such times, I&amp;#039;ve checked my body temp with a thermometer but according to the thermometer, my body temp is totally normal the entire time, even if I&amp;#039;m sweating and feel like I&amp;#039;m dieing of fever.   I had this for many many years but in recent years it&amp;#039;s really mellowed out a lot.   &lt;br /&gt;-Eva </description> <pubDate>Tue, 13 May 2014 06:16:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5532913</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-13T06:16:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>doable energy practice [Rist Ei] [MIGRATE]</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527854</link> <description>doable energy practice [Rist Ei] &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2013-07-28 12:36:59 - doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1.balance left and right channel (ida and pingala)&lt;br /&gt;2.become aware of middle channel (sushumna)&lt;br /&gt;3.bring kundalini shakti to head center(crown 7th chakra)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If its in the head center then it is equal to anagami (i assume).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Its a method of using force. Forcing shakti into nervous system.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://biologyofkundalini.com/article.php?story=Superfluidity&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;According to Ipsalu Tantric Kriya Yoga a technique called the Cobra Breath pulls magnetic energy into the spine, ionizing the spinal fluid and allowing the kundalini to rise, bathing the brain in magnetized fluid and transforming consciousness.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In taoism alchemy its called inner breathing&lt;br /&gt;In Kriya Yoga its pranayama with internal breathing&lt;br /&gt;Its also called applying sushumna, i think.&lt;br /&gt;Also making myself more clear. etc..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Practice one purpose will be:&lt;br /&gt;http://www.yogananda.com.au/kriya.html&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The advanced yogi transmutes his cells into energy. Elijah, Jesus, Kabir, and other prophets were past masters in the use of Kriya or a similar technique, by which they caused their bodies to materialize and dematerialize at will.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The body of the average man is like a fifty-watt lamp, which cannot accommodate the billion watts of power roused by an excessive practice of Kriya. Through gradual and regular increase of the simple and foolproof methods of Kriya, man&amp;#039;s body becomes astrally transformed day by day, and is finally fitted to express the infinite potentials of cosmic energy, which constitutes the first materially active expression of Spirit.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Will see where it is going..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2013-08-15 12:03:37 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;individual consciousness gets into sync/matches with collective consciousness - its called enlightenment, even if it lasts only a second or less.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;it is possible to pinpoint(see, feel) where&amp;#039;s the mind raises or coming from. Its the spiritual center inside the skull. Its not obvious at first that the now moment is the direct experience/fruition/pce/non-dual etc..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you purify yourself more then you will notice(subtle tho) the door when you enter into present moment. Its the awareness and you can make awareness more clear and obvious by will and it will speed up your purify progress.&lt;br /&gt;When the awreness is pinpointed so clearly it is near or very close to the spiritual center. It will occur that you are the spiritual center and also the world what you see is also coming from there(from you).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i am the observer. It seems i have tuned myself into one frequency(unique code) and lost my real identity who i am. Lost in appearances and in delusions that this world is &amp;#034;real&amp;#034;. Here is no real me its only appearance of myself. Because of karma the appearances are shaped automatically. Its time to purify myself from karma.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2013-08-22 19:26:01 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I asked my friend can he be in the present moment, he said yes but he does not get it obviously what it is about yet. So i assume that when we are so much in ignorance then the present moment does not seem special or intense enough to shine forth or be a life changer.&lt;br /&gt;Thats why one single line of sentence does not make common people enlightened. We need to purify our mind first sufficiently and continue to do so after realization.&lt;br /&gt;I know how hard is it to actually start practicing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If i see dreams then dream becomes reality when i become lucid in dream. In dreams the nibbana is more intense compared to real life one. &lt;br /&gt;Hindu scriptures say that the nibbana or whatever it is called is in this world like a camel piss compared to higher heaven one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now i think i have a clue why we are coming back into lower world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In dreams the nibbana is very hard to maintain. At first we got only a glimpse like omg i can see my hands. Later this moment will be longer and later we are becoming to realize that we can hold that reality by will little longer.&lt;br /&gt;Some people can do it hours(awesome).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But in real life the moment is not so hard to extend but its intensity is weak compared to what is experienced in dreams.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have read that in heavens we are mostly sleeping/dreaming state till we die. Also it seems that this our reality world is too much for many to wake up to reality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2013-12-23 11:54:07 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;world.&lt;br /&gt;mind----copy of that mind----copys of other minds&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Only one constant: mind.&lt;br /&gt;copy of the mind have sprung out of the real mind. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To find real mind, we need to be able to discern it from the wrong(copy). But to do this we need at first find the wrong. When we found the nature of wrong(the energy/kundalini) then we can make a real progress towards its source(real mind).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;mind is the source of light. It will appear(its copy(one idea(data, part) of it) in a human body(host) and lights it, its light reaches to every its cell(creates light body). Light takes the form of human body and freezes. What we need to do is wake its energies up, enlightenment means we know its energy and real wisdom is that we know its source and perhaps put it into practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;when we want to start transform the cells then we need to know how to identify with the source and bring, suck, breath more energies(light) from the source into the body that the cell transformation will become complete over time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;fire, becomes to know itself and also learns to fuel itself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2013-12-25 12:31:47 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i write here in this thread my thoughts and about progress.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I still practice(gather, cultivate) everyday nonstop basically, i do it also automatically(thats why i can say basically nonstop). It is possible. But also i spend some of it also, sometimes more sometimes less, sometimes automatically sometimes intentionally.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My practice is from the very beginning i consentrated on the head( i wanted to open up the third eye) this caused that it activated the spiritual center.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then there were a pause i think a year, don&amp;#039;t remember. Then i got interested again in spiritualism and practice. This is also written in my other thread how i did practice and what i thought then what i was doing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is not well explained then and also i am not very good at it explaining it right now too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Basically what we want to do is activate the spiritual center(by concentrating on it). Then there is longer pause(there is needed acclimation period) where you eventually discover how to balance left and right channel[your left and right part of your body](take both sides into focus(capture, cling etc) at the same time you then should feel/witness the change and you will come aware of the naturality or the essence of you(the ability to be unbounded, without object, objectless).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is the second part. you need to dwell on these energies. Also you need to figure out how to force these energies. And the most important thing, also to protect these energies from flowing away(through sense organs by grounding etc).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Imho the balancing act in the first part means you have untied the first knot and is equal to stream entry. The dwelling and forcing is &amp;#034;gathering&amp;#034; the energies, at the end the stress is pretty high and suffering too, imho it is the energy what is looking to be grounded, now if lucky(full) then these energies will push themselves up tho untie the second knot.&lt;br /&gt;You will just continue what you do and in time third knot is also untied.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If that is done, third step is to force energies up that you will see &amp;#034;nothingness&amp;#034; and take it as an object(hold on to it). Repeat it so many times as its needed. Then some day you will become clear and you will let go of the bad energies and take good as your source(identification). You will let go of what is impermanet(you will reflect on what is impermanet and what is permanet) and automatically are identified with the permanent. That means you have made it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the cultivation does not end here. This is a start of something better.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now you don&amp;#039;t blink out when you pass 6th chakra(the mind). Actually you even can&amp;#039;t because it is not real you who is blinking out.&lt;br /&gt;When you are full again then when you allow then mind will get passed, that means the passage is free and the energies from the upside can now enter the body. That is what happens during the blip, or fruition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;fruition- you won&amp;#039;t do it, it happens automatically when its time is ripe. That means you are full of energies and these energies will push the 6th(mind) open(going beyond mind). Its more like you have questions but you don&amp;#039;t have a sinlge answer and have no idea what to do, then your mind will &amp;#034;ask for it&amp;#034;. It is like the surrender act,that means you do nothing. You will step aside then energie can come in through the head.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When we deliberately go beyond mind it is premature and its a waste of time, so is dwelling in jhanas(imho).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In a one sentence we gather and hold the energies what are coming from the bottom that these energies could break the barrier of mind that transformative energies can then enter from the void/actual source.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;void is the unlimited&lt;br /&gt;bottom energies in 1st chakra are limited.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Step by step.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;its all is phenomena, occurences. One time events, you are never the same anymore.&lt;br /&gt;The abiltiy to be(dwell in) boundless, deathless is actually gathering, cultivating the bottom energies so that the breakthrough could happen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe it is possible to open up the 6th chakra deliberately and let in the source energies, but i don&amp;#039;t know how. Imho it is not possible because:&lt;br /&gt;How do you defeat something from what you are made of. That what is writing here is mind and tries to defeat himself is also mind, so it is depleting its own energy to defeat itself, so by doing it i grow tired and nothing else.&lt;br /&gt;Only thing is gather the energies and hold them that they would not get into the hands of &amp;#034;demons&amp;#034;(they will flow out through conciousness, no matter of what you are concentrating upon- TV, running, eating, sex, chatting)) and when sufficent amount is gathered it will do the blast.&lt;br /&gt;When it happens, energy from source will come in and now more power and clarity to the mind. That means also more to gather to gain even more power.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Basically its all mumble, but read the books its all there and clear...I wish.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;but its fun. you reap what you sow.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;this post is counter to the last post here, hehe&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-01-12 22:14:33 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I decided to simplify my path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Details:&lt;br /&gt;Humans have the guiding energy with them and can learn to follow it all the way to its source. &lt;br /&gt;Hint:&lt;br /&gt;That source is unmoving - recognize it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Summary:&lt;br /&gt;The whole things is about events: direct(gift) and undirect(my effort) by the same energy. Be aware this energy is highly intelligent.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Objectives: &lt;br /&gt;Merge with the unmoving and then find yourself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-01-25 10:43:52 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally i destroyed my self.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today:&lt;br /&gt;I woke up i had developed a constant suffering. I have had put all eggs in one basket and i didn&amp;#039;t succeeded, meditation didn&amp;#039;t worked out. It caused so much suffering, i couldn&amp;#039;t rely on anything anymore, last thing i counted on didn&amp;#039;t worked out. Tought that death now is not bad at all, well before when i was making progress i didn&amp;#039;t wanted to die i was afraid to lose something.&lt;br /&gt;Anyway there was this suffering constant pain, i thought then death is not the option nor camouflage it with thoughts and ideas. So i decided to face it and then i took my face out of this suffering, i stopped clinging to it and then pain got enjoyable and then disappeared.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The no self means the ego(clinging self what wants to succeed and make progress and all other things).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Before today it just couple days i managed to clear block from forebrain and energies moved now to top of the brain, i experienced something, better to say undescribeable.&lt;br /&gt;In this december i realized spiritual body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. simple material body awareness&lt;br /&gt;2. energy body(chi) awareness&lt;br /&gt;3. spirit body awareness&lt;br /&gt;4. realizing ego, no self. Taking the ego self out of the awareness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;less confusing is that there is just awareness 1,2,3,4 - every level more wisdom. Meditation ends here. At least self oriented meditation or goal oriented.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to create energy body:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You body is left side(-) and right side(+). What you need to do is wire them together. &lt;br /&gt;You need to learn to switch yourself between left and right side, learn to switch yourself between them by will, master it and then you can try taking both sides at the same time, when you succeed permanet change will happen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If energy body is created, you then need to realize it. Its done by bringing the energy body essence to the head center and then there rises something into sight, its very subtle, you need to hold it till it dissappears(may need several attempts). After you are succesful you will need to realise the energy body, by mergeing it with the thing you had hold last step(i think it is this thing).&lt;br /&gt;Now with this your energy body is realised now you need to start open and purify the channels. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How to create wisdom body:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To do that channels needs to be purified enough. That you could hold top(head) and bottom(first chakra area, genitals). This will produce an opening or effect-up and down side fuse together or sometihng like that event. If it succesful then you can enter the next stage, you will realize spirit body, its easier than energy body realization(for me).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When all channels are purified then energies can reach top of the head and you can now take energy(chi) out of the senses also from genitals.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next step is you will take your ego out of energies.(if i may say it this way).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How it is done fast:&lt;br /&gt;its all about cultivation quality. Noting then choiceless awarness, cultivating on emptiness, energy body level cultivation- the more  channels are clear more energy is able to reach higher parts, spiritual(mental) body cultivation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Book materials: for noting and choiceless awareness MCTB for example, AF.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For higher level cultivation learning tips: Anything from Mantak Chia, Charles Luk. Kundalini yoga(pranayama), Kriya yoga etc..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actually you don&amp;#039;t create anything but transform energies to higher more pure level!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-01-29 13:05:38 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It took 2 days, that i did notice that i get used to it(read gone). Meditation is ok again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-02-17 12:29:01 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;last post was 1/29 today is 2/17&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had two periods of suffering and two let-goes. Also intense wave of lust(i practice celibacy over 4 years now i think).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is also some things i can&amp;#039;t put into words clearly- when you meditate then you feel your whole body and then will at some point can integrate it into one lump. Its not repeatable it seems but it is evolving, first time i did &amp;#034;same&amp;#034; thing was not so &amp;#034;big&amp;#034;(strong..).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;About the let goes- you build up energy so you could feel it and then can let go of it. Usually it is forehead. And the other time was i took two brain side into awarness and hold till energy got released. After that i was feeling like brand new, so i needed to build up energies again from zero but its okay because energies now are more &amp;#034;clean&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then i was sure that suffering will come back at some point but not sure about what form. So i practiced my usual practice, well then lust build up and it was the intensest and weirdest(embarrassing) in all but i overcome it- i almost failed but made a determination that i will hold on and investigated it similar way like i did with my ego(couple posts back) defeat, i succeeded and also this gave samelike effect in a lower abdomen, i felt energies went from bottom to abdomen and whatever there were heat and pain then i knew i won it- i turned lust into higher stuff i think.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;lust still rises when i stumble upon something lustful, but the thing is that the lust and craving what rises is weed and i have some power to weed it. Same thing is with the anger or other things. Also with happiness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am sure there are greater challenges, so i will press on. Yesterday was that lump thing, i think i will xp this more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-03-07 12:55:51 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Breakthroughs(BT) or happenings or whatever they are. I think they are latent energy releases.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For example regular session of awareness, i look for blocks in awareness, i use every trick i have. I get stuck, i don&amp;#039;t know what to expect, then one BT was i catched my own mind chattering, there were something in my mindfield what seems to engulf my experience here and now, i released a block there, it caused my body instantly went hot and saliva run into my mouth,.. i endured the hotness it subside and its over.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Recently have noticed that there is hot in different organs when i meditate, specially in abdomen. This is not every organ at the same time but it is one at the time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have strong faith in God. Technical part of the path is just one part of the things what helps to evolve. Even physical movements helps to release blocks, disciplines, etc. Whatever experience is helping to advange.&lt;br /&gt;Knowledge is power but it comes from personal efforts, reading other peoples stuff etc can shake things into place too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I doubt that everyones experiences are like mine, some people may not feel same events intense enough to call them BT. I just use my effort and will a lot, this moment is my last moment, this is the time i eat last time etc. - if i remeber to do so.&lt;br /&gt;Have noticed that i am doing nonsense a lot of the day, its too hard and tiring to be alert.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;More i grow, the more i see possibilty to grow. Better to say the growth have been small compared to the things i already see, can be done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We are being watched. Anyway this is more like a rant, in one hour i would have said different things or not at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-03-29 13:12:11 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Rist Ei:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;individual consciousness gets into sync/matches with collective consciousness - its called enlightenment, even if it lasts only a second or less.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;it is possible to pinpoint(see, feel) where&amp;#039;s the mind raises or coming from. Its the spiritual center inside the skull. Its not obvious at first that the now moment is the direct experience/fruition/pce/non-dual etc..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you purify yourself more then you will notice(subtle tho) the door when you enter into present moment. Its the awareness and you can make awareness more clear and obvious by will and it will speed up your purify progress.&lt;br /&gt;When the awreness is pinpointed so clearly it is near or very close to the spiritual center. It will occur that you are the spiritual center and also the world what you see is also coming from there(from you).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i am the observer. It seems i have tuned myself into one frequency(unique code) and lost my real identity who i am. Lost in appearances and in delusions that this world is &amp;#034;real&amp;#034;. Here is no real me its only appearance of myself. Because of karma the appearances are shaped automatically. Its time to purify myself from karma.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have asked people do they know that everything is impermanet,&lt;strong&gt; they know it is&lt;/strong&gt;. Why then they don&amp;#039;t awaken? because they don&amp;#039;t know that they are clinging to the permanence. So they don&amp;#039;t do nothing about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Permanence consists of stuff we don&amp;#039;t know yet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For example when we are dreaming we still think(unknowingly) it is somehow related to the waking reality. So we unknowingly bring stuff from waking life to dreaming world, what basically ruin everything. We also then bring stuff from &amp;#034;past life&amp;#034; to this life. The thing is that we don&amp;#039;t know that, thats why we don&amp;#039;t bother to find things out either. &lt;br /&gt;Top of it the self is not actual self, its the self what is taken care of already(impermanence), so the self what is actually experiencing stuff(permanence) is our future self(impermanence) who is going to incarnate to next life. The more we evolve the more we take &amp;#034;life&amp;#034; out of the permanence the less impermanet we become becasue we lose the self(permanece) accordingly bit by bit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;without permanence there is no impermanence. Basically if i feel energies then they move, they then stop for a while then they start moving to the other way. I assume then while energies are moving is life and then when it stops it is the blackout(death) and then when it starts moving again its another life begins. The difference between this life and another is permanence, life itself is impermanence. &lt;br /&gt;Nibbana then is when impermanence takes the shape of permanence. I think what karma is is permanence and its appeareance is impermanence. The less karma we have the less is the difference between this life and dreams, next life, others. &lt;br /&gt;Sameness means then: there is no difference between impermanece and permanence. No-self and self does not exist without eachother. Far far future when we are pretty wise we will invent new things and the result is unknown so we are lost again till the karma of that unknown is all solved again and overall we are wiser again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-04-14 11:09:44 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I need to rethink everything, i have been wrong and thought too much of myself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I reached 5th chakra: throat chakra. From there comes more knowledge.&lt;br /&gt;I haven&amp;#039;t experienced nirvikalpa samadhi, nor nirvana(at least for now i am puzzled). I figured now where i have been wrong with my thinking- basically everywhere.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope i didn&amp;#039;t do much damage to the group here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;things started when i activated energies, by concentrating on &amp;#034;third eye&amp;#034;. Then there were longer pause, more than a year or two.&lt;br /&gt;Then i started mediating seriously it took i think couple months to reach 2nd chakra.&lt;br /&gt;2nd chakra is easy(now, but were no idea what i were doing then), i needed to balance my mind or awareness. Shortly after that i discovered that i can make awareness become more stronger or clearer(thread in Dho, method &amp;#034;making myself clearer&amp;#034;).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From then i started working my way up to 3rd chakra: I did forced my awareness to be more clear, that itself pushed energied to move upward, that caused burst three or were it two knots or whatever they are. After that done i could take &amp;#034;reality&amp;#034;(what actually is my mind itself i guess) as object(here i did mistaken it by nirvikalpa samaphatti), then that object dissolved into the abdomen or something. I also had experience of clicking out fully(i thought it was total cessation) After that i could let go that &amp;#034;old self&amp;#034; or cell, it indeed felt like putting 20kg bags down from my back. At that time i thought now i hitted 4th path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;but again i was wrong i didn&amp;#039;t hit 4th path, after few months things started change again, i guess i started working with the 4th chakra. There were a thing that i at some point conscentrated or held downside(genital or lower abdomen area) and also at the same time were aware of my mind, it produced effects and after that were able to let go block in my forhead and energies flew into top of the head. At that time again i thought i nailed it. But again i was wrong. I now figured that i could be in a new way, also could bring energies opposite way into the body and make my lower body more aware or something.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4th chakra have been most decieving for now. There are lots of shifts and one time experiences. Well then i made a breakthrough again, after that i was able to push energies to 5th chakra. I think first time i didn&amp;#039;t do it with much force, my body was vibrating or boiling without heat specially in the area of lower abdomen. So i decided to use the making my awareness more clear or precise, to my suprise it felt now that i am evolved(that awarness is much more than before), at some point energies moved to 5th chakra, few gulps of saliva and also then intuitevely i let something rise from the abdomen to the head area(blackish circle or bulk) then it returned back down.&lt;br /&gt;Now im working i guess with the 6th chakra.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Everything were onetime experiences. When enter to every next chakra there is a change or entrance, hard to tell exactly but there is a mayor change or give away.&lt;br /&gt;i don&amp;#039;t have self knowledge yet, because its knowledge of 6th chakra i think(have read it from literature).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I left out the ego part. Thought the ego is the main key here &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt; . Basically there are tests if you fail you will repeat the test.&lt;br /&gt;Half thing is preparation(whatever you do or are), then there will come a tease or test, if you pass you will get initiation(free will to move on to next level).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway the experiences are dissapearing from my brain memory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rist Ei - 2014-05-02 10:55:09 - RE: doable energy practice&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;this thread is no more updated. Reason is this i advanged in practice, i was writing all the details and also full review from the beginning again, when i was about done electricity went away. This is def sign of not writing about these things, already second time it happens..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The thing is there are books where everything is encrypted with metaphores, but its encrypted with reason i guess. Grow your own intuition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;or the other variant is i am plain wrong and spirits want to avoid me to do more damage&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;lower body&lt;br /&gt;middle body &lt;br /&gt;upper body &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;idea is to activate energies cultivate them, send them to lower body then work the way up to the upper body and let go of the habit of subtle clinging.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;lower body- if enough awareness is cultivated then its possible to balance yourself(in my case my energies were adrift to one side) and find lower energy center. Then must reality or your mind cultivated and taken at the end as an object and then dissolve or sending it to lower body(it goes there by itself if enoughly cultivated).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;middle body - after some time maybe months meditation, energies are ready to be consentrated upon lower body that will result i don&amp;#039;t know how to describe that properly, lightning bang, i read that&amp;#039;s impregnates your energies. Energies become live again, now able to let go of the forebrain block and lead energies to top of the head. Now you can send energies down to your body channels.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;upper body - this is simple, energies are moving at some point to the head, that now the culmination is letting go of this subtle clinging.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;obviously i didn&amp;#039;t say anything here, no electricity interuptions..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;this just is the basics, start for the way of becoming sovereign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;very good explanation about dantien&amp;#039;s.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5224358</description> <pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 10:29:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527854</guid> <dc:creator>Migration 6.2 Daemon</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-07T10:29:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use [Droll Dedekind] [MIGRATE]</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527753</link> <description>Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use [Droll Dedekind] &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-02-12 22:43:37 - Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;markfoster&amp;#x2e;net&amp;#x2f;struc&amp;#x2f;Reich_Home_Book&amp;#x2e;pdf"&gt;Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use, by Jack Willis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The methods here were first developed by Wilhelm Reich and then added to by various practitioners including the author. Since Reich did not leave any detailed description of his technique, it is not possible to say with confidence which of the exercises presented are directly those used by Reich and which were added by other practitioners. The author was taught the therapy by Francis Regardie who practiced this therapy for over three decades. The author has been practicing the therapy for three and one half decades and thus this presentation bears the signature of over sixty five years of experience.&lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;The power of this Reichian work is that it will change you as a person. Your very being will be different. Donít concern yourself with emotions during the body work. If they arise, that is fine. If they do not arise, that is also fine. The beauty of the Reichian work is that done properly it will do its job, not because of you but despite you. This is something to keep upper most in your mind: do the Reichian work and give yourself permission to change. This is not the world of instant reward.&lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;So it is with this work of self-improvement. The work itself can produce all sorts of body shaking, feelings of electric currents or tingling, feelings of lightness or heaviness, feelings of a part of your body being relaxed or tense, feelings of your chest being open or closed, strange tastes or smells, feelings of parts of your body being dead or ultra sensitive; all these things can and likely will happen and all are acceptable and correct. But like muscle tiredness at the end of strength training, the real growth, the real change will happen while you sleep.&lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;Also, as you change you will probably not be aware of it. When I say that character is the basic way you are in the world; that is what I mean. When your basic nature changes, you will generally not be aware of the change because it is simply the ëyouí that is different. People around you will be aware of the change. And you will often see the change when you do something and then afterwards realize that you didnít do it that way before. This is the secret magic of this work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I find that Reichian therapy is a wonderful adjunct to meditation.The breathing exercises alone have removed an astounding amount of tension in my body. Fans of Christopher Hyatt&amp;#039;s Undoing Yourself with Energized Meditation and Other Devices will be interested to learn that Hyatt&amp;#039;s book was partially ghost written by Jack Willis. (More info on that here http://duncantrussell.com/forum/discussion/comment/193525 )&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;#039;re a struggling Dark Night Yogi, working with your &amp;#034;stuff&amp;#034;, trying to remove bodily tensions, or you&amp;#039;d just like to test out the only Western yoga-like practice I can&amp;#039;t recommend it enough.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The exercises are simple, but powerful. Here are some testimonies &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.reddit.com/r/occult/comments/1wlt8n/undoing_yourself_with_energized_meditation_and/&lt;br /&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Reichian-Therapy-The-Technique-Home/product-reviews/1442137800&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&amp;#039;s Dr. Hyatt with some demonstrations&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tfDscBUpro&lt;br /&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J3beCXtEhw&lt;br /&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dAibJBQSZE&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In Dr. Hyatt&amp;#039;s book he gives the exercises in three sets. Here&amp;#039;s the first set for those who&amp;#039;d like to try but can&amp;#039;t obtain the book&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;These exercises are considered more reckless than those given in the Willis book.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;METHOD I&lt;br /&gt;Step 1. Sit or lie down. Make Faces ~ Stretch all the muscles in the face. Open your mouth as wide as you can, move the jaw from side to side. At the same time open your eyes as wide as you can. Move your eyes up and down and from side to side. This will begin to destroy tension, thereby destroying uncontrolled and extraneous thoughts generated by this area. Make many different faces. Do this for about 2-3 minutes. (A word of caution: While in the end these exercizes are meant to reduce and eliminate certain thought patterns, some might find an increase of new thoughts from previously &amp;#034;Hidden&amp;#034; places of the mind. If this is the case don&amp;#039;t be concerned, since this will be a fine way to perform &amp;#034;mental house cleaning.&amp;#034;)&lt;br /&gt;Step II. Hum and Chatter ó Hum from the depths of your voice box. Use OM or just MMMM. Do this for 1-2 minutes. Now using your tongue, chatter ó DA DA ó BA BA BA. Stick out your jaw as far as you can and continue humming and chattering. Do this for 2-3 minutes.&lt;br /&gt;Step III. Shoulders to Ears ó Pull your shoulders up as if you were trying to reach your ears. When they start feeling tired, drop them as low as you can. Repeat this 3 times in 2-3 minute intervals.&lt;br /&gt;Step IV. Nose Breathing ó With your mouth closed take in a deep breath inflating your chest and pulling your stomach up. Be sure to pull the belly in. Hold for a 7 count and then just let the chest fall and the belly relax. Repeat this 10-20 times. Be sure to allow an additional 7 count to elapse before your next inhalation.&lt;br /&gt;Step V. Turn Head ó Now bring your attention to your head and turn it from side to side as far as you can. Repeat for 2-3 minutes.&lt;br /&gt;Step VI. Leg Stretch ó Lying down on your back, hold your legs about 4 inches off the ground and stretch outward. Hold this as long as you can then let them drop. Repeat this 2-3 times.&lt;br /&gt;Step VII. Quick Breath ó With your mouth slightly open breathe rapidly, sighing as you exhale. Do this for 2-3 minutes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now lie down and sense and feel your body, for about 10 minutes. Note every sensation you feel. Now assume a meditative position of your choice making sure that: (1) Your eye lids are not tightly closed, but simply relaxed. (2) That your jaw is relaxed and not tense. Make sure of this by trying to stick out your tongue; if you have to lower your jaw, it was too tightly held. Check your forehead making sure it is not wrinkled. Once you are relaxed, either concentrate on your mantra or point of focus. For those students who do not have a mantra or point, we suggest Dr. Regardie&amp;#039;s Mantram tape or simply OOOOOO-OOMMMMMMM. For students who wish or require specific images or points of focus, please feel free to contact us.&lt;br /&gt;(3) Finally make sure your throat is not blocked by holding your head in the wrong position. Make sure it is straight. In order to reduce thoughts, keep the eyes relaxed and still, with your tongue touching the roof of your mouth. Do not move the larynx and again be sure that your jaw is relaxed. Meditate before eating, or wait for 2-3 hours after eating a heavy meal. It is also best if the bladder and bowels have been emptied before you start your work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ashwin R - 2014-03-25 02:00:53 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt; In the last few months I&amp;#039;ve read a couple of Alexander Lowen&amp;#039;s Books and contemplated going to a bioenergetic therapist ñ but haven&amp;#039;t yet. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for posting that link. I researched the author, went through the linked pages and read the reviews. (checked out command z, undoing, christopher hyatt etc. -- interesting stuff to say the least). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While reading the book you posted I came across the page where Jack advises to practice the breathing exercise for about 12 months before moving on to the actual exercises. That seems like a long time. Is this what you are doing? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have a lot of tension and tightness in my body. I have a lot of psycho somatic issues ñ and besides Vipassana or I should say with Vipassana I was thinking maybe a body based therapy would be a good idea. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The testimonials are definitely powerful. Could you share more about your experience with these exercises ñ how long you&amp;#039;ve practiced and besides letting go of the tension what else have you experienced? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-03-25 15:58:30 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Then, when you have read all of it, come back to this chapter and read for understanding (but not memorization) this and the next chapter and start the breathing work. After a few months just with the breathing work, when you have some degree of mastery of the proper breathing cycle, then start the work in Chapter 11 on the forehead and eyes. You now have all you really need for the next, letís say, twelve months.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s both Hyatt&amp;#039;s and Command Z&amp;#039;s opinion that Willis&amp;#039; pace is overly cautious. That said, I only do the basic breathing exercises, eye/forehead exercises, and some of the neck/shoulder exercises. I plan to continue with the basics until I notice a marked reduction of tension in whatever area, or I hit the 12 months mark. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d say pick your pace preference. If you are fairly sure you&amp;#039;re dealing with some serious repression, lean towards the Willis pace. If you&amp;#039;re the kind of person that (to borrow from Daniel) would take psychedelics in public, then lean towards Hyatt&amp;#039;s more flexible pacing (and pick up Energized Meditation for his similar exercises [Warning: If you&amp;#039;re unstable or don&amp;#039;t care to be, don&amp;#039;t read it]).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve only been at the work for a couple months now, but I&amp;#039;ll share my experiences. In general I feel less tense throughout the day, I&amp;#039;m more able and willing to express myself, and I have increased bodily awareness.  During the work I&amp;#039;ve yet to have a clear and dramatic catharsis. But, I have had bizarre emotions and energetic phenomena pop up. I&amp;#039;ve experienced: unprovoked frustration, the giggles, feeling like I&amp;#039;m about to cry, feeling my throat constricted like I&amp;#039;m fighting back tears, and feeling static-like energy all over my body (especially in the arms, for some reason).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, my breathing has gone from paradoxical, heavily using the accessory muscles (esp. in the neck), to almost proper with slightly less use of the accessory muscles. My concentration practice has become much easier now that my neck isn&amp;#039;t stiff with tension after 10 minutes of focusing on the breath.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you have any experiences to share I&amp;#039;m interested to hear them. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hope this helps.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ashwin R - 2014-03-25 17:32:43 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi and thanks for the reply. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope to read through the first few chapters again and then start the breathing exercises. I&amp;#039;ll go with Willis&amp;#039; pace for the moment and see how I do on it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the process, I also want to impress on myself that this is long term work ñ as I have had problems sticking to one thing. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Interesting what you&amp;#039;ve experienced ñ I bet I will some of the same. I&amp;#039;ll keep you updated on how it goes for me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-03-28 03:18:31 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I thought to give you an update.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I discovered a remarkable amount of tension in my lower back and pelvis region doing one of Hyatt&amp;#039;s exercises. Later that night I tried some of Willis&amp;#039; pelvis exercises and I started to feel my lower back twitching, a pulsing energy around my sacrum bone, and general strange energetic sensations around my tailbone. If the idea of chakras has any merit, then it seems my root or sacral chakra is becoming active&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Shortly after reading your reply I fell asleep and dreamed that Dr. Hyatt injected me with an ostensible sedative. It become apparent that the drug was intended to put me into a suggestible state so that he could Undo me manually by removing false beliefs and emotional repression. As my consciousness faded I accepted the Undoing with little reluctance&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-03-29 22:54:52 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been an occasional lurker on this site for a few years now and this seems like an apt place for my first post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First off - this book and its technique is a real cracker.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I first came across CS Hyatt&amp;#039;s Undoing YourSelf with Energized Meditation almost a decade ago now, and the techniques in it (a hodge-podge of some of the stuff in Wills&amp;#039; book) were my first real kick-start into any kind of practice. When I started out, I&amp;#039;d explored a little hatha yoga and basic zen meditation, but I was pretty screwed up - super-high levels of depression and quite high levels of anxiety. I&amp;#039;d noticed a few months of yoga and meditation had helped a little in that arena, but employing the Reichian techniques was a totally different story.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I practised dilligently, and over the course of the next year I oscillated between phases of extreme bliss and extreme depression/guilt/anxiety (whereas before it was a fairly steady state of depression). It felt like the exercises were doing me good overall so I persisted. Eventually this oscillation calmed down, and I noticed that my anxiety had dropped to very very low levels (and still are to this day, to the point where people frequently comment on how &amp;#039;chilled out&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;easy going&amp;#039; I am), and my depression had dropped to low levels (still there today). Along with the exercises I was continuing with a regular meditation practice as well which probably helped balance the whole process.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So CS Hyatt&amp;#039;s deranged and wild book and reckless throwing forth of extremely powerful techniques had eventually restored a modicum of sanity to my young mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I slowed down with that particular practice for a couple of years, continuing with meditation, but spending a couple of years exploring chi gung and other body-based techniques, discovered some more-interesting-than-average meditation instructors (people like Daniel, and Shinzen Young, among others) did a couple of retreats (a 10-day goenka, a 30-day mahasi), but eventually discovered that Jack Willis book and dove back into committed exploration.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A friend and I started going through the Willis book together, and found his articulation of the system to be far more meticulous and precise than Hyatt&amp;#039;s. Hyatt still has some unique things to offer, some of his dvds are good (and he&amp;#039;s a pretty hillarious character as far as anti-gurus go), but Droll is right in saying that Hyatt&amp;#039;s approach is a bit more... unbalanced - but he does have some unique insights. And his book &amp;#034;Secrets of Western Tantra&amp;#034; is an interesting example of combining this system with Chakra-work and Western Occultism, while his &amp;#034;Energized Hypnosis&amp;#034; is another interesting example of combining the system with Hypnosis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-03-29 22:59:31 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Willis book is the real deal. Its very different from Lowen&amp;#039;s stuff (which I almost find to be more useful as a warmup for the heavy-hitting hour-long breathing sessions), and indeed from anything else I&amp;#039;ve encountered. The effects are utterly incomparable to chi-gung, or yoga, or any other body-based practice I&amp;#039;ve experimented with. One probably would not want do a solid 10-day retreat of this kind of bodywork, 2-3 hours a week of it really is plenty. And having some kind of meditation practice to support it is a really good idea, and also I find it to have massively beneficial side effects on my meditation practice - such as vastly deepened body-awareness, the ability to sit for long periods of time with much greater ease, among other things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I still find it to be heavy-duty psychotherapy. I very recently went through some extremely traumatic experiences that years ago might have left me a train wreck for months and months ñ since then I&amp;#039;ve done about 4 reichian sessions (and a whole lot of meditation which has also helped), and the whole thing now seems like a well-integrated memory that I&amp;#039;ve grown immensely from. The reichian stuff is like a wrecking ball ñ I find it smashes up emotional bundles ñ right to their core- that might otherwise grow into undesirable character traits.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hmm, a wrecking ball is a good metaphor. Its certainly not a happy easy shortcut to emotional balance, indeed I find it often makes me feel worse before my subconscious processes and integrates things. Usually this takes a couple of days (there&amp;#039;s a very good reason why willis suggests at least 48 hours between sessions).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And the sessions can be frickin hard work. I often feel slightly daunted before embarking on one ñ almost similar to diving into a cold ocean, you know you&amp;#039;re going to feel so much more alive in a very unique way as a result of doing so, but you also know its going to be a bit of a shock to the system. Developing skill at the techniques is challenging too, and not at all a linear progression.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;During a session (or the sense and feel (mindfulness) period afterwards), emotional catharses are not entirely uncommon. Unusual ìenergeticî sensations, tinglings, flows, shards of bliss up the spine etc also happen. Something I find very common is spasming ñ sometimes in parts of the body, sometimes the whole body. Sometimes very gentle, sometimes they look like an epileptic fit. Sometimes they&amp;#039;re neutral in flavour, sometimes almost orgasmic. Sometimes they&amp;#039;re spontaneous with no apparent cause other than the practise itself, othertimes they&amp;#039;re an aspect of the emotional catharsis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As far as the pacing of the work goes:&lt;br /&gt;Willis is to slow and Hyatt is too fast, depending on who you are. Willis&amp;#039; pacing makes sense to me for someone who has never done anything like yoga, meditation, dance, etc ñ for someone who is quite locked up in their own thought prisons.&lt;br /&gt;From my experience I would advise anyone wanting to explore this stuff to first of all get a very very basic degree of mastery with the breathing technique, do the daily preliminary exercises for a while, and then crack straight into the Eyes &amp;amp; Forehead. Do what you feel comfortable with ñ plus a little bit more. Get used to the highs and lows often experienced after sessions, and work your way up to 2 one-hour breathing sessions (plus a sense &amp;amp; feel of at least 15 minutes after each session) a week. Thats enough for the work to gain its own momentum, but not too much.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Taking my friend through it for the first time, we spent 1 month on the upper half of the face, 1 month on the lower half, 1 month on the neck shoulders torso, and 1 month on the legs. That was a good 4-month tour of the body, giving enough time to explore the whole spectrum of techniques listed in the book ñ which is probably about the amount of time one needs to decide whether the system is worth keeping in one&amp;#039;s psycho-spiritual arsenal, or whether its worth chucking in the bin.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once one is familiar with the system, one can start to take a more organic, experimental approach ñ mixing and matching and expanding on the techniques ñ based on a growing communion with one&amp;#039;s subconscious&amp;#039; deeper wisdom &amp;amp; intuitions.&lt;br /&gt;Fun stuff.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-03-30 00:20:03 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, welcome to the DhO. Wow, what a post! I&amp;#039;m glad you took the time to write it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree wholeheartedly that Energized Meditation is a wild and reckless book. At first I thought it was just a poorly-written RAW rip-off. I&amp;#039;ve come to realize that whereas RAW writes like a friendly-you&amp;#039;d-never-know-he&amp;#039;s-enlightened Zen master, Hyatt writes like a schizophrenic Zen master. Something like that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I actually just finished skimming through The Language of the Body by Lowen, and I&amp;#039;m onto Bioenergetics next. Do you mind going into more detail about your opinions of Lowen? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I read your post I realized that neo-Reichian exercises are probably the most powerful techniques the West has to offer in the realm of meditation-like or yoga-like practices. And, noting is probably one of the most powerful techniques the East has to offer. If I had 6 months to change someone as radically as possible, noting and Reichian therapy would be my goto techniques. If Tony Soprano had went to a Reichian therapist the show would have ended around Season 1. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If anyone reading this is interested in the prospect of Reichian therapy but is unconvinced or unsure, I recommend &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;mega&amp;#x2e;co&amp;#x2e;nz&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x23;&amp;#x21;y0RBhJJT&amp;#x21;R2DggixGqIfJVocxxjqdpCbtIgY2gEwaveSJ8LOkq2M"&gt;The Lazy Man&amp;#039;s Guide to Relaxation by Israel Regardie&lt;/a&gt; as a primer. The read is short, easy, and relatively content-dense.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ashwin R - 2014-03-30 00:59:19 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow, those are amazing postsñ thank you, I appreciate you putting your thoughts here. It&amp;#039;s going to be a huge help going forward. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I feel I am where you were 10 years ago. I have a lot of anxiety, depression etc. and it&amp;#039;s all locked up inside. So coming across something like this and with so many great testimonials is really encouraging. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, the important thing for me will be to stay dedicated over the long term. Well, since you say that it takes about 4 months to judge if it is helping you or notñthat will probably be my goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-03-30 12:30:34 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My pleasure. I find this particular &amp;#039;yoga&amp;#039; pretty interesting, especially as its relatively unknown, and it really does pack a punch.&lt;br /&gt;Hahaha yep schizophrenic zen master is a good description of Hyatt. Peeking beyond his wild ramblings there are glimpses that he was an advocate of hardcore dharma study and practise, along with the western occult stuff ñ it would have been good if someone shrewd, knowledgeable and penetrating had given Hyatt a serious interview that pushed him out of his mad bad doctor role ñ some of the experiments he ran with Regardie with the stuff sounded pretty interesting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for Lowen ñ I&amp;#039;ve only read Bioenergetics and his book containing various exercises. I enjoyed reading his stuff, and I still use his &amp;#039;bow&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;grounding&amp;#039; exercises on a daily basis. The exercises he presents seem to make good warm-ups for the full-blown hour-long reichian breathing sessions. I really can&amp;#039;t comment beyond that as I don&amp;#039;t have any experience beyond the basic exercises and theories presented in his books.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This particular work is pretty open and experimental really ñ its not an ancient established system of bodywork with hundreds of thousands of practitioners worldwide like yoga, including myriads of experts. Its a bit mysterious ñ I think Reich, Lowen, Willis, Hyatt all present some useful theories and frames regarding it but I don&amp;#039;t think they or anyone really understands it in its entirity. I really like that ñ it means that everyone who comes to practise it is a little bit of an investigator and explorer rather than a student going from A to B. So I&amp;#039;d be very curious to hear of any experiences with it ñ short or long-term.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ll also plug that Regardie book you mentioned Droll ñ its a nice primer indeed. Regardie was Aleister Crowley&amp;#039;s secretary, and one of the senior movers and shakers of the Western Traditions of the last century. I recall reading an interview with him where he recommended that anyone wanting to get into serious Western Magickal practice should go through about 200 hours of psychotherapy beforehand ñ most preferably Reichian, of course.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ashwin ñ my psychological state was so dire 10 years ago that it really provided the fuel to keep going with the Reichian work (and with meditation). I realised I had a serious need for some deep level change. I vividly recall the crystal clear realisation that either I could keep going round and round on the same misery circuits while life slid on by, or I could attempt the practice, and stick at it and see what happened. Hmmm good decision...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m happy to be a sounding board for anything related to this stuff if anyone wants feedback or suggestions of exercises or anything at any point in time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-03-30 19:59:49 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Its all very interesting, thanks. From my reading of it, the &amp;#034;weird stuff&amp;#034; seems to be a physiological effect of hyperventilation (p. 58 home book). My guess is that a lot of A&amp;amp;P and kunadlini type experiences might be related to this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There seems to be a whole world of these psychosomatic type approaches, but in summarising them, it seems to be primarily about training to release bodily tension, particularly associated with poor habits and tension with breathing and the belly/diaphragm. Is that a fair summary?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In terms of &amp;#034;bang for your buck&amp;#034; - or if you have to choose one exercise for a desert island - it would seem that practicising the basic deep breathing technique described in &amp;#034;Technique for home use&amp;#034; (back on floor, knees up, belly then chest, ah on exhale, no gap between inhale and exhale) would be one to go for?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I found this website which discusses principles behind Reichian and Lowen bodywork (this link about breathing, but there is lots of good material on the site if you are interested in how this all might work)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://reichandlowentherapy.org/Content/Practices/breathing.html&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A relevant quote:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&amp;#034;Second, hyperventilation allows the more ready perception and expression of emotion. For anyone relatively distanced from his or her emotions, this can be very informative. There is also a cathartic release (a release is not the same as a discharge) and there will be a sense of calm and well-being afterwards...Acute hyperventilation has been used traditionally in religious and other movements to create an &amp;#039;oceanic&amp;#039; less earth-bound feeling. While this may have some utility in freeing work, the insights from these moments certainly are not a reliable guide to growth or living! &amp;#034;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-03-30 21:41:04 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Willis goes out of his way to pitch Reichian exercises as psychotherapy:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It is to be appreciated that Reichian therapy is psychotherapy. It is not mysticism, it is not meditation, it is not occult. It is not chakras or auras or meridians. It is psychotherapy. The major difference in Reichian therapy is that it approaches the psychotherapeutic process by working on the body.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Clearly he has an agenda in attributing the weird phenomena to hyperventilation. This makes more sense when you consider Willis&amp;#039; falling out with Hyatt, who did associate Reichian therapy with mysticism, meditation and, the occult.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my opinion, more than just hyperventilation is at work here. Sit around purposefully hyperventilating for a couple weeks, take note of results. Then, start the Reichian exercises and tell me if you still think it&amp;#039;s just hyperventilation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, your understanding is correct. As I understand it, the idea is that every thought or emotion has a corresponding effect on the body (part of the primary insight in the Cause and Effect stage). In working with the body you naturally end up dredging up your &amp;#039;stuff&amp;#039;. It also increases bodily awareness in general and separates muscle groups that are unnecessarily fused together. Read the Regardie book in my last post for more info (it&amp;#039;s really an enjoyable read; and, Regardie taught Willis).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, yes. Breathing exercises + eye/forehead are the best bang for the buck. It seems you tend to intellectualize, so it&amp;#039;s safe to say you have a lot of tension in the eye/forehead region. Check Chapter 11 for the eye/forehead exercises.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;COUNTEREDIT:&lt;br /&gt;Interesting, hyperventilation is definitely part of it&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Acute hyperventilation is not well suited to self-help or homework because the likelihood of dissociating and losing grounding and contact is high. While Wilhelm Reich used this practice, Alexander Lowen largely dropped it, using the bioenergetic stool instead to increase depth and excursion at normal rates of breaths per minute. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But not all of it&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-03-30 21:59:41 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Droll Dedekind:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Willis goes out of his way to pitch Reichian exercises as psychotherapy:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It is to be appreciated that Reichian therapy is psychotherapy. It is not mysticism, it is not meditation, it is not occult. It is not chakras or auras or meridians. It is psychotherapy. The major difference in Reichian therapy is that it approaches the psychotherapeutic process by working on the body.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Clearly he has an agenda in attributing the weird phenomena to hyperventilation. This makes more sense when you consider Willis&amp;#039; falling out with Hyatt, who did associate Reichian therapy with mysticism, meditation and, the occult.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my opinion, more than just hyperventilation is at work here. Sit around purposefully hyperventilating for a couple weeks, take note of results. Then, start the Reichian exercises and tell me if you still think it&amp;#039;s just hyperventilation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, your understanding is correct. As I understand it, the idea is that every thought or emotion has a corresponding effect on the body (part of the primary insight in the Cause and Effect stage). In working with the body you naturally end up dredging up your &amp;#039;stuff&amp;#039;. It also increases bodily awareness in general and separates muscle groups that are unnecessarily fused together. Read the Regardie book in my last post for more info (it&amp;#039;s really an enjoyable read; and, Regardie taught Willis).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, yes. Breathing exercises + eye/forehead are the best bang for the buck. It seems you tend to intellectualize, so it&amp;#039;s safe to say you have a lot of tension in the eye/forehead region. Check Chapter 11 for the eye/forehead exercises.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had quick skim of the Regardie book earlier, but maybe will have a more serious look. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yep, itís a safe bet! Also shoulders and neck, and jaw, pretty much all over really! I think intellectualisers (like me) probably would benefit a lot of from bodywork (which is why I am interested), though often these sorts might be the sort of people to see it as woo. The way I see it as is that a lifetime of overthinking leads to a bodily disconnection, and all this thinking creates tension in the body, and then the tension in body perpetuates negative thinking, which triggers stress in the body, and so on. But the emotional expression angle is new to me, so I am going to read more about that. From my understanding of the link I added in the above post, the hyperventilation induces emotional expression, which is an important ultimate goal of Reichian therapy, and that is the driver for the change (rather than the hyperventilation itself) but I think the attitude and context to the emotional expression is also crucial - i.e. receptivity to it and seeing it an therapeutic context.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here is another interesting quote from that website on this:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Muscles can be held rigidly in check and this has the effect of suppressing emotion, selectively at first but globally as muscle tension forms into rigid patterns--muscular armor. The same mechanism that stops emotion, muscle tension, also stops pleasure. A tense person may be irritable but this is a problem with arousal, not true emotion. Emotions like grief or sadness are associated with the subjective experience of suffering but the greatest suffering of our time comes from emotionlessness and the accompanying pleasurelessness.&lt;br /&gt;http://reichandlowentherapy.org/Content/Energy_and_Movement/emotion_mood.html&lt;br /&gt;. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-03-30 22:33:25 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If I had to match you to a character type from Lowen&amp;#039;s Language of the Body (a guess of course) it&amp;#039;d have to be schizoid (I also place myself here). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Where the schizophrenic in his break with reality will suffer from depersonalization, the schizoid character maintains the mind-body unity by a tenuous thread. He uses his body as I use my automobile. He has no feeling that he is his body, but rather that the body is the abode of his thinking and feeling self. This is not infantile for it in no way reflects the infant&amp;#039;s identification with bodily pleasure. The body of an individual his is most immediate reality as it is also the bridge that connects his inner reality with the material reality of the outer world. Here, then, we have the key to the therapeutic treatment of the schizoid personality. First, to bring about some identification with or to increase an identity with kinesthetic body sensation. Second, to increase the depth and range of expressive movements. Third, to develop the body relationship to objects: food, love object, work objects, clothes, etc. The effect of this approach is to strengthen and develop the ego which, as Freud reminds us, &amp;#034;is first and foremost a body ego.&amp;#034;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He then goes on to discuss the common physical characteristics of the schizoid type: head held at a slight angle, strong isolated tensions in neck (but no generalized rigidity), deep tension at the base of the skull, lack of expression in eyes, use of arms seems mechanical, deep shoulder tensions (based on the immobility of the scapula), block in the small of the back at the junction of pelvis and spine (corresponds to tension in base of skull, somehow...), little freedom at hip joint (causes immobility of pelvis), in breathing an expansion of the chest cavity corresponds to a contraction of the abdomen cavity, and a general lack of unity in the body (body feels split into sections).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, as to Reichian as &amp;#034;woo&amp;#034;. You won&amp;#039;t have much luck finding scientific evidence for the theory or effectiveness of Reichian therapy, largely because the US gov&amp;#039;t banned research into the area. As with meditation, the proof is in the pudding, consider it an experiment, etc etc&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-03-31 04:13:23 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;In terms of &amp;#034;bang for your buck&amp;#034; - or if you have to choose one exercise for a desert island - it would seem that practicising the basic deep breathing technique described in &amp;#034;Technique for home use&amp;#034; (back on floor, knees up, belly then chest, ah on exhale, no gap between inhale and exhale) would be one to go for?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yeah probably the basic breathing, although once that was mastered one may as well develop it into the &amp;#034;roll the pelvis&amp;#034; exercise - the basic breathing is fundamental, and the basis for nearly everything else in the book but I get much more bang for buck out of the other exercises.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A friend of mine recently emailed me a similar question, suggesting he was considering &amp;#039;taste testing&amp;#039; the system, and asked something about what 20% of exercises from the book could give you 80% of the results.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&amp;#039;s my paraphrased response in case its of use to anyone who might have a similar line of thinking:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe not the most best way to approach this complex and arduous system, but that if I had to pick 20% that I thought were indispensible to this system, a &amp;#039;greatest hits&amp;#039; if you will I&amp;#039;d go with:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*Making faces in a mirror (move face slowly) for 5 mins+ (can be done anytime, especially awesome after sleep, long periods on computer or work, breaks up mask-like tendencies.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*&amp;#034;Proper&amp;#034; Breathing - as meticulously described in chapter 4, 6 &amp;amp; 7 (and others) of Willis&amp;#039; book.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*Eyes Open Close (also note the &amp;#034;tonic eyes open&amp;#034; &amp;amp; &amp;#034;tonic eyes closed&amp;#034; exercises which this is a combo of)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*Eyes in Directions (&amp;amp;/or Roll the Eyes)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*Croak Hold Flick&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*Roll the Pelvis (Hyatt also has an easier version of this exercise, both versions are great)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*Legs Open Close&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You could easily create an effective  hour session out of those exercises alone. But I haven&amp;#039;t covered jaw-tongue-neck-throat-shoulders, so maybe you&amp;#039;d want to stick something in from those areas. Really depends on what areas need the most work, what emotions are most significant to you, what you want to achieve etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An advanced special exercise that is also worthy of the &amp;#039;top 20% category&amp;#039;&lt;br /&gt;*Mussolini Jaw&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-03-31 04:42:37 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Droll Dedekind:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Willis goes out of his way to pitch Reichian exercises as psychotherapy:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It is to be appreciated that Reichian therapy is psychotherapy. It is not mysticism, it is not meditation, it is not occult. It is not chakras or auras or meridians. It is psychotherapy. The major difference in Reichian therapy is that it approaches the psychotherapeutic process by working on the body.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Clearly he has an agenda in attributing the weird phenomena to hyperventilation. This makes more sense when you consider Willis&amp;#039; falling out with Hyatt, who did associate Reichian therapy with mysticism, meditation and, the occult.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my opinion, more than just hyperventilation is at work here. Sit around purposefully hyperventilating for a couple weeks, take note of results. Then, start the Reichian exercises and tell me if you still think it&amp;#039;s just hyperventilation.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hahaha yeah I agree with you there. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Re Willis - I do think that its possible that he wrote this deliberately to preserve the intergrity of his book and his &amp;#039;lineage&amp;#039; - keeping it in the paradigm of scientific materialism and out of mysticism has several advantages when you think about it. I wouldn&amp;#039;t be surprised that if you took Willis aside off the record he&amp;#039;d have been quite capable of talking in depth about magick and mysticism and undoubtedly had a plethora of experiences related that that side of things, many probably stemming from his own Reichian exercises (he was Israel Regardie&amp;#039;s apprentice after all - and Regardie supposedly occasionally taught things like the Middle Pillar Ritual to some of his therapy clients!!). &lt;br /&gt;Using Hyperventilation as an explanation for the results of this system is a bit like saying meditation works by affecting the autonomic nervous system... yknow it like um, reduces stress levels and stuff... *ahem*&lt;br /&gt;Sure there are physically measurable and quantifiable aspects, but clearly there&amp;#039;s a who range of very potent subjective experiences and changes that can ALSO result from doing it....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having said that, I always find it fun to muse about the phsyiological correlates of things like meditation, thanks for that link on breathing sawfoot, looks like a worthwhile read...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-03-31 08:49:27 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My perspective on this is to see that you could consider magick, meditation, mysticism as all sub-types of practices of &amp;#034;therapy&amp;#034; - deliberate practices designed to improve or alter self-expression and functioning. And the potent subjective experiences are expressions of activity in your nervous system and brain - just different levels of explanation, each useful and with explanatory power. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From perusing that (amazing and vast) website I linked to am getting an insight into what an original thinker Reich (and Lowen) was. I get the feeling that their perspective might become increasingly mainstream in years to come as explanations for the kinds of phenomena they worked with become better understand (e.g. operations of the vagal system), and as modern society wakes up more to the fact its pretty fucked. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To my mind it provides a great way to think about the practices engaged in here on DhO. &amp;#034;Awakening&amp;#034; is a meant to be psycho-energetic process, and the Riechian therapy perspective gives a great insight on the energetic aspect of the process.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will try some of the mouth and eye things as well, and I noted the hip roll looked important too. It is one of those things that I feel is probably good for me, like eating well and exercising, but I don&amp;#039;t always get round to doing...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;edit:&lt;br /&gt;a nice video of some full body exercises, including Lowen&amp;#039;s Bow, mentioned above. &lt;br /&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD-3j2g9w9U&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-03-31 23:14:12 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would have to classify magick and mysticism slightly apart from pure meditation. It&amp;#039;s all in your head, you just have no idea how big your head is. I lean towards that school.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, check out &lt;br /&gt;http://radicalundoing.com/&lt;br /&gt;https://www.youtube.com/user/radicalundoing&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-04-01 03:18:23 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro that emphasizes disturbing memories as the cause of psychopathology [1][2] and alleviates the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). EMDR is used for individuals who have experienced severe trauma that remains unresolved ... &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;During the processing phases of EMDR, the client focuses on the disturbing memory in multiple brief sets of about 15ñ30 seconds. Simultaneously, the client focuses on the dual attention stimulus, &lt;strong&gt;which consist on focusing on the trauma while the clinician initiates lateral eye movement.[12] Following each set, the client is asked what associative information was elicited during the procedure.&lt;/strong&gt;This new material usually becomes the focus of the next set. This process of personal association is repeated many times during the session.[13] &lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At this phase the goal of the therapist is &lt;strong&gt;to identify any uncomfortable sensations that could be lingering in the body. While thinking about the originally disturbing event, the client is asked to scan over his or her body entirely, searching for tension or other physical discomfort.&lt;/strong&gt; Any negative sensations are targeted and then diminished, using the same bilateral stimulation technique from phases IV and V. The EMDR network has asserted that positive cognitions should be incorporated physically as well as intellectually. Phase VI is considered complete when the client is able to think and speak about the event without feeling any physical or emotional discomfort. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Watching an anime called Ghost Hound, and the main character is receiving this sort of therapy. Interesting synchronicity. Oh, that Reichian is woo-gobbedlygook-New-Age stuff, right?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-04-01 07:17:48 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Droll Dedekind:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Watching an anime called Ghost Hound, and the main character is receiving this sort of therapy. Interesting synchronicity. Oh, that Reichian is woo-gobbedlygook-New-Age stuff, right?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That command z stuff looks (from initial appearances) like a way of monetiszing  Reichian therapy in the internet age. I understand people have to make a buck, but it leaves me cold. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My point about mentioning woo, is that if you look into Reichian therapy initially (as I did) there is a lot of &amp;#034;woo&amp;#034; (at least to me - Reich did seem to go pretty nuts later on life), and it puts a lot of people off, and has hampered its acceptance into the mainstream. But then I went onto say that there seems to be a lot value there. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tried doing some Lowen stool type breathing exercises (with a foam roller on a platform), and man, that was quite intense. I am starting to understand why I might want to take this slowly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-04-01 14:56:35 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yeah, they&amp;#039;re trying to make a buck but they do seem to know their stuff, and they offer free info&lt;br /&gt;http://radicalundoing.com/podcast-2/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The &amp;#039;woo&amp;#039; line was more a jab at the entire psychotherapeutic field. They demonized Reich in his time, and either discredit or ignore him in our time. With supreme irony, one of his basic techniques has been rediscovered and made into an entire therapy 60 years later. The founder of EMDR &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;books&amp;#x2e;google&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;books&amp;#x3f;id&amp;#x3d;BNR1KGJXX9cC&amp;#x26;pg&amp;#x3d;PA177&amp;#x26;lpg&amp;#x3d;PA177&amp;#x26;dq&amp;#x3d;emdr&amp;#x2b;reich&amp;#x26;source&amp;#x3d;bl&amp;#x26;ots&amp;#x3d;X800choheL&amp;#x26;sig&amp;#x3d;0oMV1xEiMIfVzQ-9WsteF98jgu8&amp;#x26;hl&amp;#x3d;en&amp;#x26;sa&amp;#x3d;X&amp;#x26;ei&amp;#x3d;T9A6U_CyH-mqsQSjv4CAAw&amp;#x26;ved&amp;#x3d;0CCcQ6AEwAA&amp;#x23;v&amp;#x3d;onepage&amp;#x26;q&amp;#x3d;emdr&amp;#x25;20reich&amp;#x26;f&amp;#x3d;false"&gt;ostensibly&lt;/a&gt; hasn&amp;#039;t even credited Reich&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Without giving any nod to Reich&amp;#039;s work with eye movements and their relation to both repressed emotion and overall psychological health, EMDR proponents say that their modality is solely based on Shapiro&amp;#039;s observation that eye movement and reduce the intensity of disturbing thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;Though it has been scientifically researched, there is no definitive explanation as to how EMDR works. Empirical support and anecdotal evidence is overwhelming, especially in treating personality disorders, anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, post traumatic stress disorders,  and general emotional dysregulation in both children and adults.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In any case, the research done on EMDR might give some insight into Reichian techniques.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, I&amp;#039;m glad to see you&amp;#039;re witnessing some results. What kind of intensity did you experience?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-04-01 17:36:14 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Droll Dedekind:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Yeah, they&amp;#039;re trying to make a buck but they do seem to know their stuff, and they offer free info&lt;br /&gt;http://radicalundoing.com/podcast-2/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The &amp;#039;woo&amp;#039; line was more a jab at the entire psychotherapeutic field. They demonized Reich in his time, and either discredit or ignore him in our time. With supreme irony, one of his basic techniques has been rediscovered and made into an entire therapy 60 years later. The founder of EMDR &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;books&amp;#x2e;google&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;books&amp;#x3f;id&amp;#x3d;BNR1KGJXX9cC&amp;#x26;pg&amp;#x3d;PA177&amp;#x26;lpg&amp;#x3d;PA177&amp;#x26;dq&amp;#x3d;emdr&amp;#x2b;reich&amp;#x26;source&amp;#x3d;bl&amp;#x26;ots&amp;#x3d;X800choheL&amp;#x26;sig&amp;#x3d;0oMV1xEiMIfVzQ-9WsteF98jgu8&amp;#x26;hl&amp;#x3d;en&amp;#x26;sa&amp;#x3d;X&amp;#x26;ei&amp;#x3d;T9A6U_CyH-mqsQSjv4CAAw&amp;#x26;ved&amp;#x3d;0CCcQ6AEwAA&amp;#x23;v&amp;#x3d;onepage&amp;#x26;q&amp;#x3d;emdr&amp;#x25;20reich&amp;#x26;f&amp;#x3d;false"&gt;ostensibly&lt;/a&gt; hasn&amp;#039;t even credited Reich&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Without giving any nod to Reich&amp;#039;s work with eye movements and their relation to both repressed emotion and overall psychological health, EMDR proponents say that their modality is solely based on Shapiro&amp;#039;s observation that eye movement and reduce the intensity of disturbing thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;Though it has been scientifically researched, there is no definitive explanation as to how EMDR works. Empirical support and anecdotal evidence is overwhelming, especially in treating personality disorders, anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, post traumatic stress disorders,  and general emotional dysregulation in both children and adults.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In any case, the research done on EMDR might give some insight into Reichian techniques.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, I&amp;#039;m glad to see you&amp;#039;re witnessing some results. What kind of intensity did you experience?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know much about EMDR but from what I do know a lot of people would consider it to be towards the woo end of things, so I am not sure how much help it would be, but that website I linked to has given me a fair bit of insight.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I didn&amp;#039;t see the podcasts on radical undoing, having listened to part of one I take it back a bit - they seem passionate and sincere - I am more just objecting to certain internet sales techniques (of which a &amp;#034;radical cure/undoing&amp;#034; is one...)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not results exactly, more effects. The intensity was a reminder of what I call my A&amp;amp;P, and it brought back some negative emotions, primarily fear, loss of control. A couple of questions:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. in people&amp;#039;s experience, is there an association with bodywork, &amp;#034;charging&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;unblocking&amp;#034; and so forth with ease of attaining jhanic states?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. When I do bodywork, I actually tend to find myself more stressed - I become much more conscious of malfunctional postures and patterns of holding tension (and their negative correlates), which are normally masked by lack of awareness, and become a bit obsessed with them (and the need to do stretching and exercises). Presumably this can be overcome long term as the awareness allows changing of bad habits, but I haven&amp;#039;t really heard about the short term negative physical consequences in what I have read. Is that common to other people&amp;#039;s experience?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-04-01 20:37:31 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) I don&amp;#039;t have any jhanas myself, but I find that my concentration practice goes more smoothly because I can breathe more naturally and fully without my body tensing (outside of my awareness).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) Yes, I&amp;#039;ve become stressed or frustrated at persistent tensions or my inability to do an exercise properly. It helps to remember that the process is aimed at eventually helping one let go of the need to control. During whatever exercise, I make an effort (or noneffort) to let my body take control of the movement while I practice choiceless awareness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-04-01 22:03:07 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;My perspective on this is to see that you could consider magick, meditation, mysticism as all sub-types of practices of &amp;#034;therapy&amp;#034; - deliberate practices designed to improve or alter self-expression and functioning. And the potent subjective experiences are expressions of activity in your nervous system and brain - just different levels of explanation, each useful and with explanatory power. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fair comment, I guess the difference in my mind is that &amp;#034;therapy&amp;#034; is usually associated with simply healing/resolving/integrating psychological ailments, whereas magick, meditation, mysticism are often associated with developing a whole spectrum of &amp;#034;extraordinary&amp;#034; types of consciousness... definitely some overlap there though.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;a nice video of some full body exercises, including Lowen&amp;#039;s Bow, mentioned above. &lt;br /&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD-3j2g9w9U&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;ahaha Elliot Hulse - that guy is like the Morpheus (from the Matrix) of the body-building world. Hillarious character. Considering how many youtube hits he gets, he must surely be the most famous flagbearer of this stuff alive today. Good on him.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;edit:&lt;br /&gt;mmm I know what you mean on the Radical Undoing guys sawfoot. I find their marketing style and excessive fees to be rather nauseating. Bit uncomfortable with branding the work with a woohoo self-improvement edge... in the same way I&amp;#039;d be uncomfortable with someone branding insight practices in that light (but I would probably be ok with someone branding yoga or simple shamatha meditation like that) - its more of a practice of &amp;#034;self&amp;#034;-destruction and deconstruction, than a super-upgrade your life style thing. Maybe I&amp;#039;m just an old fuddy-duddy who&amp;#039;s being pedantic. each to their own. Target markets right.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-04-01 23:07:49 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I didn&amp;#039;t see the podcasts on radical undoing, having listened to part of one I take it back a bit - they seem passionate and sincere - I am more just objecting to certain internet sales techniques (of which a &amp;#034;radical cure/undoing&amp;#034; is one...)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;yeah this is it - they are passionate and sincere, and they must have a pretty good knowledge of the stuff, but I personally find that whenever I encounter those types of sales techniques I am immediately skeptical and put-off.&lt;br /&gt;Skype sessions are ok, but no where near as effective as having a helper physically present - which would be the way to go if one had that kind of money to spend on a few reichian sessions IMHO.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not results exactly, more effects. The intensity was a reminder of what I call my A&amp;amp;P, and it brought back some negative emotions, primarily fear, loss of control. A couple of questions:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. in people&amp;#039;s experience, is there an association with bodywork, &amp;#034;charging&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;unblocking&amp;#034; and so forth with ease of attaining jhanic states?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. When I do bodywork, I actually tend to find myself more stressed - I become much more conscious of malfunctional postures and patterns of holding tension (and their negative correlates), which are normally masked by lack of awareness, and become a bit obsessed with them (and the need to do stretching and exercises). Presumably this can be overcome long term as the awareness allows changing of bad habits, but I haven&amp;#039;t really heard about the short term negative physical consequences in what I have read. Is that common to other people&amp;#039;s experience?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. Jhanas are the neglected area of my sitting practice and I don&amp;#039;t have consistent enough experience or exploration of them to comment, but in the long-run I think the bodywork makes longer sits easier, and definitely instills a &amp;#034;DEEP&amp;#034; level of relaxation level in ones (whereas something like a progressive relaxation exercises instills a &amp;#034;surface&amp;#034; level of relaxation) - so that could definitely facilitate for sure.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. yep.&lt;br /&gt;I haven&amp;#039;t had any negative physical side-effects (although I often need to piss lots during and after a session) - just tensions and emotional bundles coming to the surface - which I treat accordingly as grist for the mill of sensory clarity and equanimity training.&lt;br /&gt;And indeed - consistent practice over a period of time does eventually lead to a diminishing of pondscum of the bodymind. But more than any other stuff I&amp;#039;ve practised, this stuff works on long-term slow undoing effects, rather than immediate resolution. I&amp;#039;ve had times of feeling like utter shit afterwards and been convinced that the bodywork was bad news - then a couple of sessions/weeks later discover that my awareness and deep deep global-relaxation levels are stronger than they&amp;#039;ve ever been in the past, and that I was just temporarily hypnotised by the pondscum that had been churned up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-04-01 23:20:09 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Droll Dedekind:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) Yes, I&amp;#039;ve become stressed or frustrated at persistent tensions or my inability to do an exercise properly. It helps to remember that the process is aimed at eventually helping one let go of the need to control. During whatever exercise, I make an effort (or noneffort) to let my body take control of the movement while I practice choiceless awareness.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;yeah totally.&lt;br /&gt;I recently went through a couple of months of quite heavily traumatic events, during which I completely let my practice slide (only to be replaced with shoddy health patterns).&lt;br /&gt;Coming back to it it felt like starting again for the first time - even the most basic exercises became incredibly difficult to do. It takes a good amount of persistence, and a certain degree of clearing of blocks/pondscum to really be able to glide through the exercises smoothly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Seriously, if you ever can convince a friend to do helper sessions with you (also useful to be a helper to their sessions), especially if they can be physically present, that can be really helpful for accelearting &amp;#039;proper&amp;#039; performance of the exercises. As well as carefully observing your breathing, and ensuring that say - your eyes are rolling smoothly and fully in something like roll the eyes, they can give simple stimulation like a light tapping on the forehead, a soft jab in the diaphragm area to open up breathing, testing accessory muscles and the like (all stuff that one should do on solo sessions anyway, but easier with an observer who can spot what needs work).  Once one has ploughed through the bulk of crap that comes up, then a helper becomes much less necessary, but in those early, or rusty, or difficult stages a helper is really useful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-04-02 09:08:14 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I first read that bit about the pissing - I thought it was during the actually practice! lol. I think that is just parasympathetic over activation.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having listening to more podcasts and reading the first in the email newsletters, I take it back about taking it back (and agree with what you say). This guy is a former anarchist punk who has learned to use or the tricks, marketing tools and bait-and-switch techniques of the &amp;#034;get rich quick/transform your life&amp;#034; internet scam artists. Honestly believing that it works only buys them so much good will. $250 dollars per hour for talking to someone on skype? For something you think it is so effective if could transform the world? I think somewhere down the road they made a wrong turn. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The thing about these kinds of techniques, is that I am not entirely convinced that the results would be much different from some serious yoga or tai chi or whatever. So if you do them, and you feel good afterwards, you think, yay! its working! If you do them and feel shit afterwards, you think yay! Its working! I am releasing and unblocking all my negative toxins/emotional stress/painful memories. And if you feel good a week later, you think yay! its working! A lot of the &amp;#034;marketing&amp;#034; is instilling the belief that it will work, that it will be life changing, and that belief is very important to its effectiveness, as is your commitment to the &amp;#034;practice&amp;#034;, but can only take you so far, unless you buy into it completely and turn it into your &amp;#034;religion&amp;#034;, as the command-z guys have presumably done. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still, while I remain skeptical about the discharging &amp;#034;emotional memories&amp;#034; side of things, I am convinced of the reciprocal connection (and negative feedback loop) between stress in the body and stress in the mind, and so I am going to make a concerted effort to do the face and neck things at least, and work on my deep breathing with some of the techniques in these traditions. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;rob&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fair comment, I guess the difference in my mind is that &amp;#034;therapy&amp;#034; is usually associated with simply healing/resolving/integrating psychological ailments, whereas magick, meditation, mysticism are often associated with developing a whole spectrum of &amp;#034;extraordinary&amp;#034; types of consciousness... definitely some overlap there though.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sure, so I would counter that the purpose of people developing these extraordinary states of consciousness is as tools for  healing/resolving/integrating psychological ailments. Even in the case of recreational uses of these states. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And what they ultimately seem to point to (though I don&amp;#039;t know if this is true for magick) to use the extraordinary to get you more in touch with the ordinary. So for example. in the Command Z approach (and its forebears) really the goal is to experience your ordinary reality, the experience of your body in the hear and now (where you could find your &amp;#034;true self&amp;#034;, the &amp;#034;real you&amp;#034; or whatever).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-04-02 16:06:03 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The thing about these kinds of techniques, is that I am not entirely convinced that the results would be much different from some serious yoga or tai chi or whatever. So if you do them, and you feel good afterwards, you think, yay! its working! If you do them and feel shit afterwards, you think yay! Its working! I am releasing and unblocking all my negative toxins/emotional stress/painful memories. And if you feel good a week later, you think yay! its working! A lot of the &amp;#034;marketing&amp;#034; is instilling the belief that it will work, that it will be life changing, and that belief is very important to its effectiveness, as is your commitment to the &amp;#034;practice&amp;#034;, but can only take you so far, unless you buy into it completely and turn it into your &amp;#034;religion&amp;#034;, as the command-z guys have presumably done. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On one of their podcasts they mention that the extraordinary part about the work is that it will work whether you believe it will or not. You can judge that for yourself. Also, one of them was talking about how the work became like a religion to them but they recently realized that it&amp;#039;s just another belief/trap/attachment to &amp;#039;undo&amp;#039;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They seem like alright dudes, but their money grubbing seems off-putting to me&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(D Z) Dhru Val - 2014-04-03 06:42:21 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Droll Dedekind:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;markfoster&amp;#x2e;net&amp;#x2f;struc&amp;#x2f;Reich_Home_Book&amp;#x2e;pdf"&gt;Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use, by Jack Willis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I find that Reichian therapy is a wonderful adjunct to meditation. Many of us unknowingly harbor repressed memories that may be creating tension in the body, and impeding our practice (more info here &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;energeticsinstitute&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au&amp;#x2f;page&amp;#x2f;reichs_segmental_armouring_theory&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;http://www.energeticsinstitute.com.au/page/reichs_segmental_armouring_theory.html&lt;/a&gt;http://www.energeticsinstitute.com.au/page/reichs_segmental_armouring_theory.html ). The breathing exercises alone have removed an astounding amount of tension in my body. Fans of Christopher Hyatt&amp;#039;s Undoing Yourself with Energized Meditation and Other Devices will be interested to learn that Hyatt&amp;#039;s book was ghost written by Jack Willis. (More info on that here &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;duncantrussell&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;forum&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;comment&amp;#x2f;193525"&gt;http://duncantrussell.com/forum/discussion/comment/193525&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;#039;re interested in psychotherapy, but (like me) you don&amp;#039;t have money for talk therapy, I highly recommend the above pdf. If you (like me), feel you carry unnecessary tensions in your body (or, repressed memories), I highly recommend the above pdf. Finally, if you&amp;#039;re (like me) a struggling Dark Night Yogi, I can&amp;#039;t recommend the above pdf enough.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The exercises are simple, but powerful. Here are some testimonies &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;reddit&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;r&amp;#x2f;occult&amp;#x2f;comments&amp;#x2f;1wlt8n&amp;#x2f;undoing_yourself_with_energized_meditation_and&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://www.reddit.com/r/occult/comments/1wlt8n/undoing_yourself_with_energized_meditation_and/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[url=http://www.amazon.com/Reichian-Therapy-The-Technique-Home/product-reviews/1442137800[]http://www.amazon.com/Reichian-Therapy-The-Technique-Home/product-reviews/1442137800&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have only been doing these for a few days. But they are already quite effective. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I didn&amp;#039;t even know this sort of psychotherapy existed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Reminds me of mahamudra. Very cool.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-04-03 13:42:23 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Glad to hear it! Keep us updated on your results. I&amp;#039;m sure we&amp;#039;d all be interested to read it &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/smile.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-04-03 15:38:50 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow, just saw that video, nice find! His whole channel is great. He mixes traditional fitness with bioenergetics perfectly. And, his mentor is&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Robert Glazer, PhD, CBT is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Director of the Florida Society for Bioenergetic Analysis. His training includes 7 years of study with Alexander Lowen and 38 years in practice as a Bioenergetic Therapist. HIs expertise is in the integration of strong Alexander Lowen style bodywork, traditional Chinese medicine theory, and precise character analytic processing. He has conducted numerous workshops in the U.S., South America, and Europe.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peter Lynch - 2014-04-08 22:23:26 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi, I&amp;#039;m new here, and this is my first post! I signed up particularly because the book you linked seems legit, and if some of the testimonials I&amp;#039;ve read are true, its pretty impressive stuff. I have some questions, though I understand that this is relatively new territory for all of us. I&amp;#039;ve just started the exercises but I was wondering a few things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The author repeatedly emphasises that it is easy to go too fast, and undo too much too quickly. For example, there are many parts where he says things like - &amp;#039;To put it bluntly, you are not a super hero; and if you continue to demand that you be one and thus overdo these exercises or jump to advanced work before you are done with the earlier work, well, welcome to chaos. Thatís what you will get: chaos in your life. ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY.&amp;#039; I&amp;#039;m wondering, we are not your typical selection of individuals. So perhaps we need not follow his highly cautious syllabus too closely? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Many of us here have gotten quite some ways along the path, and are much more emotionally and mentally balanced than those who might be unearthing shadows which they do not have the capacity to integrate. I wonder if the &amp;#039;chaos&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;damage&amp;#039; he describes is something akin to a gradation of the well known &amp;#039;dark night of the soul&amp;#039; which often occurs at a particular point in practice. I am reminded of a passage from Nietzsche&amp;#039;s Zarathustra - &amp;#039;One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.&amp;#039; I&amp;#039;m not saying I&amp;#039;m oceanic or anything, but I&amp;#039;m highly emotionally stable. Surely I could push the boat out and fare well on the waves. I suppose I will find out in the course of my practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If these exercises are as effective as some say they are, I will definitely be incorporating them into my &amp;#039;psycho-spiritual arsenal&amp;#039;, as someone here brilliantly put it. An aside is that I&amp;#039;m also interested in what this chaos could be... could it perhaps be similar the Freudian unconscious or Jung&amp;#039;s conception of the shadow as the sum of repressed memories? What happens when these are released onto the psyche? It is partially destroyed and must reform itself in the light of new evidence. For those with typically inflexible self-conceptions this is surely dangerous, like those people who take psychedelics but try to hang on to their ego while the energies of the universe rip it from their clutches. Here this can perhaps create some kind of splintering, perhaps a retraumatization of the event. But if we are willing and able to let go, to let this process unfold, which is itself much of meditation practice, or if we are not very invested in the self-construct our minds happen to harbour at this time, if we are willing to die in order to be reborn, what of this chaos... Well, these are simply speculations. I will of course push the envelope and pay close attention to my bodies reactions. I&amp;#039;ll let you guys know if I have a mental breakdown or anything. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have a hunch there is going to be a profound synergy between Reichian therapy and meditative practice in general. The general theory, as far as I gather, is that muscular armoring is often co-occurent with a kind of emotional repression, which is to say, it is a blind-spot in the field of our awareness, a vortex in the river of mind, a diversion of mental energies into unproductive and even counter-productive flows. If the aim of spiritual practice is the gradual progression of awareness, the unity of consciousness or as I like to see it, the absolute integration of body and mind, then meditation is the means by which we allow unity to occur (which it does naturally, given space), while we simultaneously &lt;em&gt;clear&lt;/em&gt; this space of blockages and counterproductive energies, something which the gentle force of energetic tendency towards unity may not be able to do because the self-construct is too strong and is thus the primary attractor around which order crystallizes within the field of our minds. Thus instead of trying the erode the construct slowly, like the tidal forces which grind rocks to sand over millennia, we can instead attack the rocks directly, with some kind of explosive device. In this way what is coarse and obstructive can become kinetically fluid much faster. Perhaps there are damages beyond simply the loss of rocks... perhaps we might catch shrapnel in our third eye&amp;#039;s! Anyway, I&amp;#039;m intrigued what you guys think about this. And also, thanks so much for bringing this to our attention Droll! You da man ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-04-09 20:31:06 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Peter Lynch:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have a hunch there is going to be a profound synergy between Reichian therapy and meditative practice in general. The general theory, as far as I gather, is that muscular armoring is often co-occurent with a kind of emotional repression, which is to say, it is a blind-spot in the field of our awareness, a vortex in the river of mind, a diversion of mental energies into unproductive and even counter-productive flows. If the aim of spiritual practice is the gradual progression of awareness, the unity of consciousness or as I like to see it, the absolute integration of body and mind, then meditation is the means by which we allow unity to occur (which it does naturally, given space), while we simultaneously &lt;em&gt;clear&lt;/em&gt; this space of blockages and counterproductive energies, something which the gentle force of energetic tendency towards unity may not be able to do because the self-construct is too strong and is thus the primary attractor around which order crystallizes within the field of our minds. Thus instead of trying the erode the construct slowly, like the tidal forces which grind rocks to sand over millennia, we can instead attack the rocks directly, with some kind of explosive device. In this way what is coarse and obstructive can become kinetically fluid much faster. Perhaps there are damages beyond simply the loss of rocks... perhaps we might catch shrapnel in our third eye&amp;#039;s! Anyway, I&amp;#039;m intrigued what you guys think about this. And also, thanks so much for bringing this to our attention Droll! You da man ;)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Welcome to the party. Your thoughts on neo-Reichian exercises mirror my own exactly (all the way to the last sentence).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d advise anyone to tread the Reichian Middle Way between Willis/Hyatt. In this &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;oWYDXCz39cE"&gt;cynical interview&lt;/a&gt; Hyatt gives his opinion on the exercises and the Willis relationship at 1:47:00. &amp;#039;If people kill themselves with it, I don&amp;#039;t give a shit&amp;#039; Extreme cynicism or testimony to the power of the exercises? Both? You decide&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Going to add some Hyatt videos to the OP&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-04-09 23:34:57 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The thing about these kinds of techniques, is that I am not entirely convinced that the results would be much different from some serious yoga or tai chi or whatever. So if you do them, and you feel good afterwards, you think, yay! its working! If you do them and feel shit afterwards, you think yay! Its working! I am releasing and unblocking all my negative toxins/emotional stress/painful memories. And if you feel good a week later, you think yay! its working! A lot of the &amp;#034;marketing&amp;#034; is instilling the belief that it will work, that it will be life changing, and that belief is very important to its effectiveness, as is your commitment to the &amp;#034;practice&amp;#034;, but can only take you so far, unless you buy into it completely and turn it into your &amp;#034;religion&amp;#034;, as the command-z guys have presumably done. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hahaha - this radically applies to ALL techniques really - tai chi, yoga, all forms of meditation etc included. Its easy to imagine someone stumbly across the DhO and go &amp;#034;well look at all these folks who have hypnotised themselves into thinking they&amp;#039;re on this stage of the path or attained this state etc etc because MCTB &amp;amp; other sources instilled the belief that spending silly amounts of time examining this facet of experience would lead to stage/state X&amp;#034; - who knows?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Its been fascinating for me to watch myself subtly buy into the hype of various techniques over the years - thinking &amp;#039;wow as a result of doing this my moods have changed signficantly&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;as a result of doing this my perception is considerably more vivid and detailed&amp;#039;...&lt;br /&gt;And these may very well be accurate evaluations - the faith that they are is the reason I still dedicate significant amounts of time to meditation, breathing exercises, etc, as well as the fact that I find them inherently fascinating and enjoyable.&lt;br /&gt;Experience dictates to me that they produce a number of vastly different effects (and several similar) from tai chi and yoga - even when one whole-heartedly believes that they produce only pretty similar effects.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But yes these are exercises not to be wrapped up in hype and &amp;#039;yeah wow these are really good&amp;#039; - instead they&amp;#039;re an unknown number. The best approach is experiment experiment experiment, observe, and setting any hype or needs-system-excitement aside - evaluate in as balanced a way as possible, with an earnest spirit of skepticism.&lt;br /&gt;If I were an evangelist for this stuff the motivation would come from a place of extreme curiosity - if you play with this stuff over a period of time - what changes/shifts - (both pleasant/unpleasant, useless/useful) - do you encounter?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Njosnavelin - 2014-04-10 00:01:05 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Peter Lynch:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The author repeatedly emphasises that it is easy to go too fast, and undo too much too quickly. For example, there are many parts where he says things like - &amp;#039;To put it bluntly, you are not a super hero; and if you continue to demand that you be one and thus overdo these exercises or jump to advanced work before you are done with the earlier work, well, welcome to chaos. Thatís what you will get: chaos in your life. ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY.&amp;#039; I&amp;#039;m wondering, we are not your typical selection of individuals. So perhaps we need not follow his highly cautious syllabus too closely? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Many of us here have gotten quite some ways along the path, and are much more emotionally and mentally balanced than those who might be unearthing shadows which they do not have the capacity to integrate. I wonder if the &amp;#039;chaos&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;damage&amp;#039; he describes is something akin to a gradation of the well known &amp;#039;dark night of the soul&amp;#039; which often occurs at a particular point in practice. I am reminded of a passage from Nietzsche&amp;#039;s Zarathustra - &amp;#039;One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.&amp;#039; I&amp;#039;m not saying I&amp;#039;m oceanic or anything, but I&amp;#039;m highly emotionally stable. Surely I could push the boat out and fare well on the waves. I suppose I will find out in the course of my practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If these exercises are as effective as some say they are, I will definitely be incorporating them into my &amp;#039;psycho-spiritual arsenal&amp;#039;, as someone here brilliantly put it. An aside is that I&amp;#039;m also interested in what this chaos could be... could it perhaps be similar the Freudian unconscious or Jung&amp;#039;s conception of the shadow as the sum of repressed memories? What happens when these are released onto the psyche? It is partially destroyed and must reform itself in the light of new evidence. For those with typically inflexible self-conceptions this is surely dangerous, like those people who take psychedelics but try to hang on to their ego while the energies of the universe rip it from their clutches. Here this can perhaps create some kind of splintering, perhaps a retraumatization of the event. But if we are willing and able to let go, to let this process unfold, which is itself much of meditation practice, or if we are not very invested in the self-construct our minds happen to harbour at this time, if we are willing to die in order to be reborn, what of this chaos... Well, these are simply speculations. I will of course push the envelope and pay close attention to my bodies reactions. I&amp;#039;ll let you guys know if I have a mental breakdown or anything. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Haha awesome, please do!! After fairly religiously adhering to the &amp;#034;ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY&amp;#034; mantra for a decade (never done more than 3 sessions in a week, longest session ever done was about 4 hours), I&amp;#039;ve also been questioning this and considering doing a couple of hours a day just to see what comes out.&lt;br /&gt;Willis&amp;#039; book is clearly written for would-be therapy patients.&lt;br /&gt;Willis, Hyatt and Regardie were all therapists, undoubtedly with an acute awareness of the collective emotional-instability prevalent in this culture. Maybe they&amp;#039;re giving that advice because of some &amp;#039;point of diminishing returns&amp;#039; on doing the exercises, or maybe its not advice they&amp;#039;d adhere to themselves, or recommend to anyone who does happen to have a strong foundation of emotional stability. &lt;br /&gt;Only one way to find out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Somewhere along the line Hyatt casually mentioned his and Regardie&amp;#039;s experiments combining these exercises, hypnosis, and certain psychoactive fungi. Was Jack Willis there shaking his head going &amp;#039;tut tut tut be careful boys, chaos might come knocking...&amp;#039;?&lt;br /&gt;Probably if one is wanting to push the envelope out of an unknown (and perfectly valid) need for emotional transformation then ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY is certainly worth paying attention to. But otherwise.... only one way to find out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Droll Dedekind - 2014-05-02 22:23:54 - RE: Reichian Therapy - The Technique, For Home Use&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I feel compelled to post this update from my practice log&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;For the first time, I tried Dr. Hyatt&amp;#039;s entire first set of exercises in a continuous experiment. By the middle of the last exercise &amp;#039;Quick Breathing&amp;#039; I started to feel energy move around on my neck and spreading to my ears. By the end of the exercise I felt the energy spreading to my eardrums and parts of my face. I&amp;#039;ve previously experienced energetic phenomena around most of my body, but never around my neck/face/ears. The feeling was bizarre. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 10:18:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527753</guid> <dc:creator>Migration 6.2 Daemon</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-07T10:18:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Insight meditation and upward energy flow</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5408377</link> <description>Hi!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My problem is not that I have a constant upward energy flow; it&amp;#039;s more like, now it&amp;#039;s April, and this makes two years spent in EQ nana. Now, after a lot of time spent doing mostly energy work, I&amp;#039;d like to switch to insight practices; it doesn&amp;#039;t really feel like the next path is far away, not if the ease I can rise to a well-defined fourth vipassana jhana is a good marker; the problem is thatI noticed that, no matter what insight technique I use (it can be anything, from staying at a very fluxing level to watching impermanence in sounds to doing fast noting while walking), that creates immediatly an whole bodied upward energy flow, in a way thatis similar to what would happen ifI were focusing on the crown for awhile. It&amp;#039;s not about energy going up in a particular location, it&amp;#039;s more like, it feels like every cell of my body is uniformly rising up. Just doing vipassana for about 20 min before going to sleep causes minor physical problems the day after (sore throat, contractions being created in the intestins/solarplexus area), and to make things coming back to normal again I have to spend the next day a few hours breathing into my feets, wich creates a whole-body downward energy flow.&lt;br /&gt;Now, 20 min are enought to go into a very nice fourth vipassana jhana and are also enought to create minor physical problems the next day; my concern is that if I were to practice insight it for a few days constantly, that might cause some more serious problem, as that kind of upward flow is notoriously destabilizing (as I said, it feels quite the same as if I were focusing on the crown), and I seem to be quite sensitive to these stimulations.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I can certainly do things to move energy downward; however, I find myself unable to do that and vipassanize the act, it seems like it&amp;#039;s still beyond my reach.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;More details: according to my observations, when there is a sensation in the body, that form of energy needs necessarily to get discharged outside; this happens either from specific points in the body (i.e. the joints), or from places where there is a huge concentration of little pores sending energy out and taking energy in from the environment (those are feet, hands, lips, eyes, the big homunculus&amp;#039;s body parts); also, a small part of the energy rises up tothe third eye, and from there there is the intention to react, and that intention goes downward; another part of it cretes thoughts, and another small amount stays in the body, wich creates energy blockages; now, if I chose to see sensations clearly, energies do not follow any of those pathways, but get entirely discharged from the crown, wich might explain why seeing things clearly has on me the same effect than focusing there.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 09 Apr 2014 14:55:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5408377</guid> <dc:creator>Mario Nistri</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-09T14:55:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Insight meditation and upward energy flow</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5407271</link> <description>First general recommendation:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Backing off practice will generally reduce unpleasant symptoms. There are exceptions, but it holds most of the time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Other thoughts:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If energy is rising, lay down and gently move it down. It may take time. Find where the energy is and then gently put the attention just below it and hold it there a while, maybe minutes, maybe 10s of minutes, feeling the energy slowly moving down into wherever awareness is, and then find the lower edge of the energy, put the attention there and then just slightly lower, and hold the attention there gently, moving the energy down. In this way, stepwise and slowly and deliberately, the energy will follow attention and move gradually down. Learning this is a skill like anything else. Do not rush this, as it is not as likely to work. Take your time, be deliberate and steady.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It can sometimes take a while to do this, like an hour, but if you are patient and gentle but steadily attentive, it will likely respond to your persistent and consistent intentions. Stop when it gets down just a few finger-breadths below the navel and hold it there a while, enjoying what the energy can feel like when it gets down there. See if that helps.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel</description> <pubDate>Wed, 09 Apr 2014 09:32:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5407271</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-09T09:32:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Insight meditation and upward energy flow</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5391769</link> <description>Hi!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For the past few months I&amp;#039;ve been doing mostly energy practices; now I&amp;#039;m thinking of coming back to vipassana again and I have a problem I&amp;#039;d like someone&amp;#039;s input about.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, basically I&amp;#039;ve become quite sensitive to energy moviments; relatively small sollicitations cause quite strong results on me. Now, I&amp;#039;ve noticed that everytime I practice vipassana a whole-body upward energy moviment, is created, and such flow is quite destabiliing. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have the sense that practicing insight 24/7 would be quite dangerous for my health, as that kind of flow tends to hit the physical body quite quickly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, did anyone here have similar problems? If so, how&amp;#039;d you deal with it?</description> <pubDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2014 15:28:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5391769</guid> <dc:creator>Mario Nistri</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-07T15:28:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5376503</link> <description>Thank you all for your positive responses. I wish you the very best in finding your own alchemical secret recipes.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 21:41:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5376503</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T21:41:16Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5375100</link> <description>&amp;#034;Some creative people insist that taking drugs helped their spiritual growth&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.ascendedmasteranswers.com/spiritual-path/walking-the-path/135-some-creative-people-insist-that-taking-drugs-helped-their-spiritual-growth</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 16:19:08 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5375100</guid> <dc:creator>Rist Ei</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T16:19:08Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5375068</link> <description>I&amp;#039;ve never smoked DMT, but i&amp;#039;ve drank ayahuasca with a shaman many times. It was always a profound and healing experience. However if I compressed that 8 hours into 5-10 minutes, like you&amp;#039;re doing when you smoke DMT, I don&amp;#039;t think you&amp;#039;re doing yourself any favors. It just seems like too much info to assimilate to be of any benefit. Just my opinion.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 16:00:44 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5375068</guid> <dc:creator>Shel S</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T16:00:44Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5374746</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;T DC:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Could you elaborate a bit perhaps? Having never done either, I am interested in what the experience is like. Especially the way you describe DMT. What do you mean?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Content wise, DMT gave me a full on enlightened experience. My meditation changed, I gained access to states I never could before, I had memories that seemed like past life experiences, etc. It also paved the way for three years of mental illness. Its a trade off I have accepted, but must warn against in either case.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;LSD was very, very nice. Too nice...so I have no plans on taking it again, as my nervous system is in a rather delicate state right now and I like my life as things go.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 12:34:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5374746</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T12:34:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5374286</link> <description>Drugs can have a vastly different effect depending on the insight stage we are in. Rule of thumb is that they should be avoided in the dark night. LSD can be great in very low dose in equanimity, ideally high equanimity. I used it on myself to get rid of affects and help me open myself up to the people that I love, and re-establish an healthy relationship with them. The trick is to not use more than we can handle to stay in &amp;#034;this world&amp;#034;, using it simply as a very powerful anxiolytic instead of a psychedelic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;DMT is a different beast and I never dared to smoke it. The few times I drank it in combination with harmine (Ayahuasca), I could only take a few sip as it was way too powerful. On the other hand, harmine alone is the substance that give the cleanest meditative experience when used moderately. I&amp;#039;m not advocating for its use, as I didn&amp;#039;t do much research on the potential harmful effects (it&amp;#039;s an MAOI so precaution are required) but I did get something positive out of it.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 07:02:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5374286</guid> <dc:creator>Simon T.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T07:02:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5374211</link> <description>Hi Adam, check your inbox, I messaged you with a question. I&amp;#039;ve done NN-DMT on several occasions and have never had a bad trip with it. Was it NN-DMT or 5-MeO-DMT or both? DMT is an extremely altered (this is an understatement) and primarily visual experience that only lasts about 5 minutes. In a &amp;#034;breakthrough&amp;#034; state it replaces all normal sensory experience with something altogether different and indescribable.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 06:16:26 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5374211</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T06:16:26Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5373697</link> <description>Could you elaborate a bit perhaps? Having never done either, I am interested in what the experience is like. Especially the way you describe DMT. What do you mean?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 03:38:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5373697</guid> <dc:creator>T DC</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T03:38:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5373601</link> <description>I might mention that taking drugs is potentially dangerous.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 01:40:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5373601</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T01:40:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>The DMT vs. LSD mindframe</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5373596</link> <description>I am dedicating this post to the great Tommy (who I haven&amp;#039;t seen on here in a while). That guy is a genius in learning how to deactivate the effects of cannabis on the related aspects of the nervous system.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have had to stop smoking weed. Its been almost three years now. The desire is basically almost non-existent now, so that&amp;#039;s good.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A couple of years ago, I took LSD. A little later that summer I made and smoked some powerful DMT...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of these experiences was fun. It was high times and magical. That was the LSD.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The DMT was a different story. I had this crush on the sexy alchemical mother. I wanted to enter her lair at all costs. So I sacrificed my own health for a glimpse into her dominion. I made myself her bitch.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So...if you really want to know. LSD is fun. DMT is high spiritual horror. Combine the two and you have got a very balanced and sane life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The end.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2014 01:38:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5373596</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-03T01:38:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Body Temperature</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5358870</link> <description>22:08&lt;br /&gt;http://vimeo.com/69793499 &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, my body seemingly gets hot around the A&amp;amp;P. I&amp;#039;ve yet to determine if it&amp;#039;s an objective increase.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2014 16:25:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5358870</guid> <dc:creator>Droll Dedekind</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-29T16:25:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Body Temperature</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5358116</link> <description>My body become hot and sweaty sometimes in re-observation or when I hit the re-observation-like spot/door in equanimity. I tend to also have body movement and difficulties to sleep when it happens. This link document it for re-observation:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;vipassanadhura&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;sixteen&amp;#x2e;html&amp;#x23;tena"&gt;http://www.vipassanadhura.com/sixteen.html#tena&lt;/a&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2014 10:54:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5358116</guid> <dc:creator>Simon T.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-29T10:54:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Body Temperature</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5358005</link> <description>I&amp;#039;ve been wondering about this for a while but never asked. Has anybody else experienced changes in subjective and/or objective body temperature. For most of my life (before insight) I was always too hot and I liked open windows and so on, but since I got stream entry it&amp;#039;s completely reversed. I frequently get chilled with the slightest draft, and I need to constantly wear warm sweaters inside. Objectively my body temperature is usually between 96-97 degrees F, which is a little low. I&amp;#039;ve taken my temperature at various times through the day, and it&amp;#039;s always a degree or two cold. As far as I know, before stream entry, it was closer to average (98.6). I&amp;#039;ve had this checked out at the doctor and nothing shows up as abnormal medically.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m writing because lately (in the last few weeks) I&amp;#039;ve started getting the opposite effect (at least subjectively). I&amp;#039;ll get incredibly hot while I&amp;#039;m meditating. I know this may be kundalini related, but I don&amp;#039;t really understand what it means for my practice. The strange thing is that I just took my temperature after a lot of intense heat sensations and profuse sweating, and it&amp;#039;s actually 96, so below average. I guess this makes sense since you often feel cold when you have a higher temperature. But, I usually feel cold with a low temperature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess one possibility is that I just have a lower temperature all the time, and sometimes I feel hot and sometimes I feel cold. I suppose temperature is like any other sensory modality that starts to become less glued to habitual patterns as insight dissolves those patterns. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m looking for any kind of shared experience and or practical wisdom about the significance of hot and cold sensations in practice and their relation if any to physical body. Most importantly, would be if there is anything to be concerned about physically in terms of dropping body temperature too low. On that score, I always make sure to dress warmly before long meditation sessions to keep my temperature up, but this gets awkward when I start to feel so hot. Yet, I&amp;#039;m afraid to strip down because my objective body temperature is low and I don&amp;#039;t want it to go sub-normal. Any thoughts on this dilemma?</description> <pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2014 10:04:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5358005</guid> <dc:creator>Avi Craimer</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-29T10:04:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Planting flowers, contemplating emptiness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5333342</link> <description>One day this body will start to decompose and feed back into the earth. Meanwhile, my brain will have blacked out. This I feel is an attainment of neither perception nor non/perception. The awareness of this paradigm completes the triad.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 21 Mar 2014 21:22:43 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5333342</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-21T21:22:43Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Placement of Awareness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5270810</link> <description>I once heard Thanissaro Bhikkhu discuss this method in one of his talks. He said that his teacher went off to meditate on his own in a cave and was feeling very sick with no one to help so he started experimenting with this method and was able to balance the energies in his body. &lt;br /&gt;Thanissaro recommends it when the mind is very agitated and restless. I found it to be useful.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 09 Mar 2014 11:07:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5270810</guid> <dc:creator>George S. Lteif</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-09T11:07:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Placement of Awareness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5264587</link> <description>&amp;#034;Where conciousness goes, qi/ki follows.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anonymous quote used a lot in shiatsu circles</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Mar 2014 20:10:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5264587</guid> <dc:creator>Nikolai .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-08T20:10:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Placement of Awareness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5264350</link> <description>good stuff, harmonize the upper and lower dantiens</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Mar 2014 18:18:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5264350</guid> <dc:creator>Dan Cooney</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-08T18:18:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recommendation for cooling meditation please.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5264347</link> <description>An example, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;to heat oneself, laogung breathing, inhaling heat up the yin channels of the arms...yang phase on the inhale...(express hexagram 11)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;the &amp;#034;opposite&amp;#034; analog,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;yang phase on the exhale, shed heat off the yang channels, especially yangming. (express hexagram 12)</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Mar 2014 18:16:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5264347</guid> <dc:creator>Dan Cooney</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-08T18:16:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: ASMR</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5263520</link> <description>CCC,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are uncomfortable with the homosexual feelings, try Lilium. Still incredibly creepy though. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m37InAMfbxw&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;see also&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4813384</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Mar 2014 09:27:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5263520</guid> <dc:creator>sawfoot _</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-08T09:27:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>ASMR</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5263492</link> <description>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0JEumprlqg&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He&amp;#039;s a real doctor here in Australia.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Weird huh?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Very relaxing, although it feels gay having a man whispering in my ear.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Post your reactions and other thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Mar 2014 09:01:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5263492</guid> <dc:creator>C C C</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-08T09:01:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can't practice vipassana, headaches and heavy head for 2 years</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5250294</link> <description>find newindian@hotmail.co.uk on facebook, message me, add me friend !!!</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 23:17:12 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5250294</guid> <dc:creator>marvelous light</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T23:17:12Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can't practice vipassana, headaches and heavy head for 2 years</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5250290</link> <description>I feel that you have been enslaved by demons, that is my long time experience with demons, hinduism, kundalini, vipassana, even shrines of dead muslim saints !!! I need JESUS CHRIST to help me and everybody else has failed, so I would suggest come to JESUS !!! He has all the cures !!! Find some successful DELIVERANCE minister in your area !!!</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 23:12:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5250290</guid> <dc:creator>marvelous light</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T23:12:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recommendation for cooling meditation please.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5220348</link> <description>Shitali pranayama with Jal Vardhak, Shankha, or Surabhi mudra will certainly help you out!</description> <pubDate>Wed, 19 Feb 2014 22:57:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5220348</guid> <dc:creator>Dzogchen Natural</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-19T22:57:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Recommendation for cooling meditation please.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5212058</link> <description>Grounding (earth) helps for me but so does water.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Drink cool (but not cold) water.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Visualize water.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Float in water.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Shower.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 16 Feb 2014 22:49:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5212058</guid> <dc:creator>Mattias Wilhelm Stenberg</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-16T22:49:09Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 