Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris - Discussion
Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Alan Smithee, modified 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 12:52 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 12:52 AM
Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Posts: 310 Join Date: 4/2/10 Recent Posts
Anyone read this? Is it good?
It purports to detail author and self-described "ninja master" Glenn Morris's path to enlightenment via intensive meditation, as well as some kundalini, chakra, and powers stuff he developed.
At minimum, this book looks entertaining as hell. At best, if could be a rare print description of enlightenment and the path it took to get there...
I'm going to order it and give it a look-see. I'll report back afterward...
Here is where it can be found on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556431570/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
It purports to detail author and self-described "ninja master" Glenn Morris's path to enlightenment via intensive meditation, as well as some kundalini, chakra, and powers stuff he developed.
At minimum, this book looks entertaining as hell. At best, if could be a rare print description of enlightenment and the path it took to get there...
I'm going to order it and give it a look-see. I'll report back afterward...
Here is where it can be found on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556431570/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Alan Smithee, modified 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 12:59 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 12:59 AM
RE: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Posts: 310 Join Date: 4/2/10 Recent Posts
Here is a website I found which has some addition info and background about Glenn Morris Ph.D., Ninja, and some stuff about kundalini. http://www.wholisticarts.org/morris.html
PP, modified 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 1:23 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 1:23 AM
RE: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Posts: 376 Join Date: 3/21/12 Recent Posts
Later today, I'll post some of his stuff I gathered in a taoist forum (I think it was posted by people who were his students).
PP, modified 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 6:51 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/1/13 6:51 AM
RE: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Posts: 376 Join Date: 3/21/12 Recent Posts
Dr. Morris's Secret Smile & Breathing basic KAP 1
Link to taobums
As posted by Santiago, in a 8 page long thread. I cannot really comment on the worthiness of the method nor the people involved in this school.
The Kundalini Awakening Breathing Instructions
1.Begin by sitting in the fudosai meditative posture. The mudra of choice to rest the fingers of the right hand within the fingers of the left hand, palms facing upwards with the thumb tips touching each other. The hands should be then resting comfortably in the area of the genitals.
2.Place the tongue on the roof of the mouth just behind where the teeth join with the palate. Close the eyes.
3.Begin to slowly belly breath, inhaling the air DOWN into the abdomen, expanding the stomach as the air enters the body. Fill the lungs from bottom to top. Inhale for a count of four. Time the breathing with the SLOW counting so that you have filled your lungs just as your reach four.
4.Exhale slowly from the top of your lungs to the bottom, contracting the stomach inwards. This should pull the tummy back inwards toward the spine. Do this for a slow count of ten.
5.Inhale once again, same as before. There should be no pause between the inhaling and the exhaling; the breath is seamless. Focus on the counting to keep the extraneous thoughts from intruding. Continue this for at least ten minutes a day.
The eventual goal is to get the breathing down to between four and six breaths a minute. The downward push of inhale will eventually become testicular breathing and inflate out well below the navel without the upper ribs moving at all.
Safety First: The Secret Smile
The first meditation required for success in the Lightening Path training is the "Secret Smile". Always begin your practice with the secret smile. You want your body to be very happy. That way your hormonal system will cooperate and you will avoid discomfort. I have observed that kundalini moves best through a happy camper and this meditation is a process for internalizing an intensely positive mind-state. A certain degree of intensity is required to raise the kundalini and so this practice draws on highly charged positive emotions that most people are familiar with. There are five emotions utilized in the Heaven's Way Chi Kung, Lightening Path Esoteric Yoga Secret Smile Meditation.
Circulating the Five Intense Positive Mind States
Relaxed Calm: After you are in the fudosai meditation posture and have begun Zen breathing for 5-10 minutes, put a smile on your face. You should actually lift your cheeks so the corners of your mouth turn up. Next tighten your toes until they really hurt and then release them. Do this three times paying attention to the relaxed feeling that occurs with in between each pause. Move that relaxed feeling up from the soles of your feet to your ankles and then up to your calves. Bring it around to your knees and to the heavy muscles of the thighs allowing them to soften and relax. Picture your thorax as a grail filling up with relaxation. Let the intestines, stomach, and lower back fill up as well. Next, allow it to flow up into your chest, upper back, and shoulder so that it overflows into your arms and down to the fingertips. Let your arms fill up until the relaxed feeling begins to move around your neck and up the back of the head coming up over your ears and skull to rest behind your eyes. Catch the feeling with your relaxed tongue and swallow it down to the bottom of your belly where you swirl it around.
Confidence: Remember a time when you did something you were not only proud of but other people recognized your achievement. Pay attention to how you felt. Erase the people and the event while keeping the feeling. Take that feeling down to your feet and bring it up through your body in the same manner as in the active relaxation, but this time you don't have to tighten your toes. Bring it over you head, mix with the saliva, swallow, and allow it to mix with the relaxed feeling and then the cycle begins anew. Do this for three cycles of more of breath.
Happiness: Next, picture a time when you were laughing so hard you literally fell down, cracked up, and totally lost it. Take out the joke or situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Love: Now remember a time when you were in love and felt loving. Take out the loved one and the situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Ecstasy: The smile is for adults over 19 years of age. If you are sexually active, remember the best orgasm you ever had, and if male, hold onto the movement just before ejaculation and breathe that feeling through your body (as you probably don't want to stain your trousers and the male orgasm is usually too short for this exercise). If female, let it rip as you breathe through your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head, down behind your eyes, through the tongue, and back to your belly. This is the power behind the secret smile and one of those important items usually regarded as oral transmission. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Once you've succeeded in combining all these feelings and moving them from your feet to your head and back to below your stomach, memorize the process. Make it part of your daily practice until it is so easy that it just become a warm up for other methods that sticks with you.
Dr Glenn J Morris
/////////////////////
Some remarks by Marken
By you standards any practice that does not itself lead very directly to enlightenemnt is a false practice. Only the practice that itself awakens the kundlini, like Tummo maybe I don`t know, or itself provides the breakthrough to enlightenment like vipassana or dzogchen are worthy pracitces. But in order to make those practices work you need other practices first and simultainiously. Without shamatha (concentration meditation) Vipassana does not work at all. Without the preliminary and surrounding meditations any meditation that is designed particulary to arouse the kundalini is not likely to yield any result because of lack of concentration and no ability to penetrate the energetic kosha and because the chakras and elements are probably completly out of sync with each other. If it actualy did succed in raising the kundalini without the preporatory or surrounding practices one would almost certianly be in for an energetic nightmare known as kundlini syndrome.
Further more, enlightenment by itslef does not do everything to balance you out and make you a good and functional person. As far as I know all or almost all traditions have some sort of post enlightenment training to make you a well rounded enlightened being and to work on the personality structure and "ego" which does not disapear but is "seen through" and looses its tight grip on you which is something quite different. This type of work is done prior to enlightenemnt to prepare you for the journey and increase your likelyhood of success and to build something good that is also there once you get enlightened and it is done after enlightenement. Zen does this in numerous ways, Tibetan Budhism does it A LOT, the yogic tradition does it a lot, taoism does it. Thonglen, the Dalai Lamas favorite practice is, as far as I understand not at all anenlightenemnet practice but strictly a compassion practice designed. Loving kindness meditation tought by the buddha is not an enlightenemnt practice, balancing your chakras helps but is not per say an enlightenemnt practice.
The secret smile does several things as far as I understand. It prepares very well for kundalini by opening your meridians and making them used to carying large amounts of powerfull emotions and bliss. It makes you happy, balanced and emotionaly healthy which is extreemly important in making kundalini pass through without trouble and in having success in gaining enlightenment because emotional stabilty helps a lot. All traditions stress emotional stability. The first trainings in yoga and budhism are about getting your own basic shit in order and your basic morality in order and this is done almost exclusively because it is consdired necesary in order to have success on the path. If you are an unloving, imoral headcase with manic depressive tendencies getting enlightened is a long shot. The secret smile as I understand it also aproxiamtes the void state which is also helpfull in making you move towards it.
Link to taobums
As posted by Santiago, in a 8 page long thread. I cannot really comment on the worthiness of the method nor the people involved in this school.
The Kundalini Awakening Breathing Instructions
1.Begin by sitting in the fudosai meditative posture. The mudra of choice to rest the fingers of the right hand within the fingers of the left hand, palms facing upwards with the thumb tips touching each other. The hands should be then resting comfortably in the area of the genitals.
2.Place the tongue on the roof of the mouth just behind where the teeth join with the palate. Close the eyes.
3.Begin to slowly belly breath, inhaling the air DOWN into the abdomen, expanding the stomach as the air enters the body. Fill the lungs from bottom to top. Inhale for a count of four. Time the breathing with the SLOW counting so that you have filled your lungs just as your reach four.
4.Exhale slowly from the top of your lungs to the bottom, contracting the stomach inwards. This should pull the tummy back inwards toward the spine. Do this for a slow count of ten.
5.Inhale once again, same as before. There should be no pause between the inhaling and the exhaling; the breath is seamless. Focus on the counting to keep the extraneous thoughts from intruding. Continue this for at least ten minutes a day.
The eventual goal is to get the breathing down to between four and six breaths a minute. The downward push of inhale will eventually become testicular breathing and inflate out well below the navel without the upper ribs moving at all.
Safety First: The Secret Smile
The first meditation required for success in the Lightening Path training is the "Secret Smile". Always begin your practice with the secret smile. You want your body to be very happy. That way your hormonal system will cooperate and you will avoid discomfort. I have observed that kundalini moves best through a happy camper and this meditation is a process for internalizing an intensely positive mind-state. A certain degree of intensity is required to raise the kundalini and so this practice draws on highly charged positive emotions that most people are familiar with. There are five emotions utilized in the Heaven's Way Chi Kung, Lightening Path Esoteric Yoga Secret Smile Meditation.
Circulating the Five Intense Positive Mind States
Relaxed Calm: After you are in the fudosai meditation posture and have begun Zen breathing for 5-10 minutes, put a smile on your face. You should actually lift your cheeks so the corners of your mouth turn up. Next tighten your toes until they really hurt and then release them. Do this three times paying attention to the relaxed feeling that occurs with in between each pause. Move that relaxed feeling up from the soles of your feet to your ankles and then up to your calves. Bring it around to your knees and to the heavy muscles of the thighs allowing them to soften and relax. Picture your thorax as a grail filling up with relaxation. Let the intestines, stomach, and lower back fill up as well. Next, allow it to flow up into your chest, upper back, and shoulder so that it overflows into your arms and down to the fingertips. Let your arms fill up until the relaxed feeling begins to move around your neck and up the back of the head coming up over your ears and skull to rest behind your eyes. Catch the feeling with your relaxed tongue and swallow it down to the bottom of your belly where you swirl it around.
Confidence: Remember a time when you did something you were not only proud of but other people recognized your achievement. Pay attention to how you felt. Erase the people and the event while keeping the feeling. Take that feeling down to your feet and bring it up through your body in the same manner as in the active relaxation, but this time you don't have to tighten your toes. Bring it over you head, mix with the saliva, swallow, and allow it to mix with the relaxed feeling and then the cycle begins anew. Do this for three cycles of more of breath.
Happiness: Next, picture a time when you were laughing so hard you literally fell down, cracked up, and totally lost it. Take out the joke or situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Love: Now remember a time when you were in love and felt loving. Take out the loved one and the situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Ecstasy: The smile is for adults over 19 years of age. If you are sexually active, remember the best orgasm you ever had, and if male, hold onto the movement just before ejaculation and breathe that feeling through your body (as you probably don't want to stain your trousers and the male orgasm is usually too short for this exercise). If female, let it rip as you breathe through your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head, down behind your eyes, through the tongue, and back to your belly. This is the power behind the secret smile and one of those important items usually regarded as oral transmission. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Once you've succeeded in combining all these feelings and moving them from your feet to your head and back to below your stomach, memorize the process. Make it part of your daily practice until it is so easy that it just become a warm up for other methods that sticks with you.
Dr Glenn J Morris
/////////////////////
Some remarks by Marken
By you standards any practice that does not itself lead very directly to enlightenemnt is a false practice. Only the practice that itself awakens the kundlini, like Tummo maybe I don`t know, or itself provides the breakthrough to enlightenment like vipassana or dzogchen are worthy pracitces. But in order to make those practices work you need other practices first and simultainiously. Without shamatha (concentration meditation) Vipassana does not work at all. Without the preliminary and surrounding meditations any meditation that is designed particulary to arouse the kundalini is not likely to yield any result because of lack of concentration and no ability to penetrate the energetic kosha and because the chakras and elements are probably completly out of sync with each other. If it actualy did succed in raising the kundalini without the preporatory or surrounding practices one would almost certianly be in for an energetic nightmare known as kundlini syndrome.
Further more, enlightenment by itslef does not do everything to balance you out and make you a good and functional person. As far as I know all or almost all traditions have some sort of post enlightenment training to make you a well rounded enlightened being and to work on the personality structure and "ego" which does not disapear but is "seen through" and looses its tight grip on you which is something quite different. This type of work is done prior to enlightenemnt to prepare you for the journey and increase your likelyhood of success and to build something good that is also there once you get enlightened and it is done after enlightenement. Zen does this in numerous ways, Tibetan Budhism does it A LOT, the yogic tradition does it a lot, taoism does it. Thonglen, the Dalai Lamas favorite practice is, as far as I understand not at all anenlightenemnet practice but strictly a compassion practice designed. Loving kindness meditation tought by the buddha is not an enlightenemnt practice, balancing your chakras helps but is not per say an enlightenemnt practice.
The secret smile does several things as far as I understand. It prepares very well for kundalini by opening your meridians and making them used to carying large amounts of powerfull emotions and bliss. It makes you happy, balanced and emotionaly healthy which is extreemly important in making kundalini pass through without trouble and in having success in gaining enlightenment because emotional stabilty helps a lot. All traditions stress emotional stability. The first trainings in yoga and budhism are about getting your own basic shit in order and your basic morality in order and this is done almost exclusively because it is consdired necesary in order to have success on the path. If you are an unloving, imoral headcase with manic depressive tendencies getting enlightened is a long shot. The secret smile as I understand it also aproxiamtes the void state which is also helpfull in making you move towards it.
Change A, modified 11 Years ago at 2/2/13 9:19 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/2/13 9:19 PM
RE: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Posts: 791 Join Date: 5/24/10 Recent PostsPablo . P:
Circulating the Five Intense Positive Mind States
Relaxed Calm: After you are in the fudosai meditation posture and have begun Zen breathing for 5-10 minutes, put a smile on your face. You should actually lift your cheeks so the corners of your mouth turn up. Next tighten your toes until they really hurt and then release them. Do this three times paying attention to the relaxed feeling that occurs with in between each pause. Move that relaxed feeling up from the soles of your feet to your ankles and then up to your calves. Bring it around to your knees and to the heavy muscles of the thighs allowing them to soften and relax. Picture your thorax as a grail filling up with relaxation. Let the intestines, stomach, and lower back fill up as well. Next, allow it to flow up into your chest, upper back, and shoulder so that it overflows into your arms and down to the fingertips. Let your arms fill up until the relaxed feeling begins to move around your neck and up the back of the head coming up over your ears and skull to rest behind your eyes. Catch the feeling with your relaxed tongue and swallow it down to the bottom of your belly where you swirl it around.
Confidence: Remember a time when you did something you were not only proud of but other people recognized your achievement. Pay attention to how you felt. Erase the people and the event while keeping the feeling. Take that feeling down to your feet and bring it up through your body in the same manner as in the active relaxation, but this time you don't have to tighten your toes. Bring it over you head, mix with the saliva, swallow, and allow it to mix with the relaxed feeling and then the cycle begins anew. Do this for three cycles of more of breath.
Happiness: Next, picture a time when you were laughing so hard you literally fell down, cracked up, and totally lost it. Take out the joke or situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Love: Now remember a time when you were in love and felt loving. Take out the loved one and the situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Ecstasy: The smile is for adults over 19 years of age. If you are sexually active, remember the best orgasm you ever had, and if male, hold onto the movement just before ejaculation and breathe that feeling through your body (as you probably don't want to stain your trousers and the male orgasm is usually too short for this exercise). If female, let it rip as you breathe through your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head, down behind your eyes, through the tongue, and back to your belly. This is the power behind the secret smile and one of those important items usually regarded as oral transmission. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Once you've succeeded in combining all these feelings and moving them from your feet to your head and back to below your stomach, memorize the process. Make it part of your daily practice until it is so easy that it just become a warm up for other methods that sticks with you.
Relaxed Calm: After you are in the fudosai meditation posture and have begun Zen breathing for 5-10 minutes, put a smile on your face. You should actually lift your cheeks so the corners of your mouth turn up. Next tighten your toes until they really hurt and then release them. Do this three times paying attention to the relaxed feeling that occurs with in between each pause. Move that relaxed feeling up from the soles of your feet to your ankles and then up to your calves. Bring it around to your knees and to the heavy muscles of the thighs allowing them to soften and relax. Picture your thorax as a grail filling up with relaxation. Let the intestines, stomach, and lower back fill up as well. Next, allow it to flow up into your chest, upper back, and shoulder so that it overflows into your arms and down to the fingertips. Let your arms fill up until the relaxed feeling begins to move around your neck and up the back of the head coming up over your ears and skull to rest behind your eyes. Catch the feeling with your relaxed tongue and swallow it down to the bottom of your belly where you swirl it around.
Confidence: Remember a time when you did something you were not only proud of but other people recognized your achievement. Pay attention to how you felt. Erase the people and the event while keeping the feeling. Take that feeling down to your feet and bring it up through your body in the same manner as in the active relaxation, but this time you don't have to tighten your toes. Bring it over you head, mix with the saliva, swallow, and allow it to mix with the relaxed feeling and then the cycle begins anew. Do this for three cycles of more of breath.
Happiness: Next, picture a time when you were laughing so hard you literally fell down, cracked up, and totally lost it. Take out the joke or situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Love: Now remember a time when you were in love and felt loving. Take out the loved one and the situation and hold onto that wonderful feeling. Take that down to your feet and bring it up through your body over your head, swallow it down and mix with the other feelings. Then combine the four feelings to breathe through your body following the identical procedure. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Ecstasy: The smile is for adults over 19 years of age. If you are sexually active, remember the best orgasm you ever had, and if male, hold onto the movement just before ejaculation and breathe that feeling through your body (as you probably don't want to stain your trousers and the male orgasm is usually too short for this exercise). If female, let it rip as you breathe through your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head, down behind your eyes, through the tongue, and back to your belly. This is the power behind the secret smile and one of those important items usually regarded as oral transmission. Do this for three or more cycles of breath.
Once you've succeeded in combining all these feelings and moving them from your feet to your head and back to below your stomach, memorize the process. Make it part of your daily practice until it is so easy that it just become a warm up for other methods that sticks with you.
Thanks Pablo, the above has been very useful for me.
Change A, modified 11 Years ago at 2/3/13 7:40 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/3/13 7:40 AM
RE: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Posts: 791 Join Date: 5/24/10 Recent Posts
Alan, if you find more exercises as the ones posted by Pablo in the book that you are reading, can you please update because then I would like to read it as well.
Alan Smithee, modified 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 12:51 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 2/4/13 12:51 AM
RE: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris
Posts: 310 Join Date: 4/2/10 Recent PostsChange A.:
Alan, if you find more exercises as the ones posted by Pablo in the book that you are reading, can you please update because then I would like to read it as well.
Sure. I've ordered it, but haven't received it yet. After I read through it, I'll post any exercises I may find, etc.