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Permalink Reply by savlove on November 19, 2018 at 4:26pm

I think I have to reward the immediacy of your response and the breadth of the question by replying twice. I'll say some stuff now and add some more tomorrow.

None of these concepts are as abstract as they were when I first started. These meditations are all about taking responsibility for your own body, knowing where the parts are, how the systems relate to each other, and what the emotional resonances are. It took awhile, but now I can tune in to, say, my liver, and feel the warm tingling smiling back at me from the lower right side of my body. The masters want their students to sense the weight and size of their glands as a starting point to higher energetics. The human microcosm reflects the macrocosm, so the planets and sun and North Star are all a little less abstract as well. 

Some of the most important changes have to do with constancy - with how little illness I've suffered thanks to these practices. Maintenance is a form of change. The one time I really got ill in the last great many years, it was totally body/mind: My apartment burned up while I was away. I got home, the landlord put me in another place lucky for us he had unrented, but it was all pretty rough and I had to be good about it. But my body just started breaking out in hives, like every other day, all winter! Meanwhile - flus and ulcers and diseases and seizures and asthma and knee operations and IBS and any number of other things that happen to people when they get to be my age, no. And it has as much to do with gentle attitude as it does with moderate diet ... the changes I'm going through are very sweet. I enjoy paying attention to the subtle energies I've developed within myself. It's a very good way to be your own best friend.

More tomorrow!

Permalink Reply by savlove on November 20, 2018 at 6:48am

Another terrain trekked between the start and now is my relationship with other practices. Did you mean what kind of chi or what kind of chi instruction .... you could have meant either. The first and only time I worked with Mantak personally was early on. I was already into an energetics therapy based on Wilhelm Reich. My neo-Reichian therapist insisted that spontaneous emotional and muscular armor release (the Reichian work) was in direct contradiction to the control and retention of the Taoist. I was sure this was not necessarily so, and over the 2 or 3 years following resolved that contradiction for myself. The streaming  flow of chi or "orgone" - the word itself varies according to the study - is nevertheless the goal in either practice.

The overall change has been in an ability to assimilate other notions into the basic practice I claim to favor. As a 21st century Westerner, it's going to be an amalgamation no matter what. The point here is that  Chia's books encourage this adding from other sources. Mantak has collaborated recently on books that marry the same basic set of formulas to Craniosacral therapy and EMDR. Recently I discovered Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming, a martial arts master. I'm going to post him here too. I was never into martial arts and prefer yoga to tai chi .... but this man's DVDs filled in essential information for me, made me understand certain things Mantak refers to but doesn't explicate like this man does. He came along at the right time - rather randomly - and I'm thankful.

Permalink Reply by savlove on February 17, 2019 at 3:41am

3FiresBookSlideshow

I just found this link - a couple of days ago and have read the book since. I wanted to supplement my 3 First Activation. (Lower tan tien, kidney, and heart.) We're very lucky that these books are posted in their entirety for free. I own many of the books so I don't feel bad about this, nor should you, particularly if there's not much $ in your kitty. The main thing is to develop this meditation. P.S. This is an early one - very basic and good but also full of proofreader's errors. Never mind, you'll always know what he meant!