Eternity

What your saying sounds very interesting. Could you please describe to me in more detail what you mean by letting go or stepping behind? I would love to run a few experiments on myself as see where it leads. It sounds like you are doing something similar to what they call zuowang as mentioned by chuang tzu. I am very curious to know if this is the case. Jhana is habitually referred to when pinpointing your attention on one thing (not forcefully of course) to the exclusion of others. Perhaps try staying on the breath for 30 min and report results? It would be one way to compare traditional methods for entering jhana with what you are doing now. Does this look similar to what you are doing? http://www.oldoakdao.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/Zuowang_-_Shi_Jing.176122155.pdf

I found someone nearby where i live listed as an instructor on bruces' website, so i will definetly be looking into it. I do not so much question bruces legitimacy because of the terms although that does hold a very small sway with me. I question the legitimacy of his "system" based on his clearly definable pursuit of money from his "customers", going against the very description of a sage as described in the chief taoist text the tao te ching. I do not wish to give the man a significant sum of money simply to be in his presence for a day or two. Most other legitimate traditions help those seeking higher understanding without any monetary benefit beyond donations. I wonder what his teacher, an enlightened buddhist and taoist immortal would think of requiring people to pay him hundreds of dollars to educate them about moving beyond material wealth and existance! I am simply remarking that because he is going against the taoist ideals, perhaps his writings should be questioned more. Thank you for bringing up the point about scrutiny. Could you please provide me a link to the discussion so that i may educate myself? Also, I would appreciate if you could clarify his acheivements that would support him as a daoist sage for me or point me to an independant source.

Hi Kajenx, I will start by saying that i too am not an adept meditator. That being said i have some experience training jhana over the course of one year and am a bit familiar with the lower states. Normally entering into jhana is preceeded by access concentration. Here your attention in more or less fixed on the object of meditation. Some thoughts may be floating around but they are not pulling you away in my experience from the object in any major way. Now it has been my experience that immediatly preceeding entry into the first jhana A sign like a whitish cloud, star or mist (rough description here) becomes visible behind closed eyes. If you chase after it in my experience it goes away. Entry into the first jhana is accompanied by a sort of easy going bliss and joyous feeling that permeates your body. Once established in this state your awareness is on the obiect of meditation effortlessly and your field of vision becomes immersed in brightness compared to regular relaxing with eyes closed. I find that the appearence of the sign, the brightening of my field of awareness and the nice feeling arising and permeating my body as well as acute awareness of the object of meditation are all solid indicators that i am 'flirting' around first jhana. Does any of this sound familiar to you? In contrast, insight into the object for me is very different. For example, the first time i experienced insight into the breath i thought wow, there is no in/out... Its all one continous flow of stuff. Senations simply become like little pulses one after the other each one a part of the prevoius one (very hard to put into words) so that you see everything is connected to that which came before and that which comes after. Yet, no one sensation is permanent. The insight has stuck with me to this day despite not practicing vipassana anymore. Insight really involves not only concentrating on the object but observing one or all of the three characteristics of impermanence, no self, and suffering. I think of it as book learning vs jhana as leaving the chaos of normal awareness behind and taking a seat at the controls. The realness you experience may simply be full presence. Dharma overground is a neat site if your into samatha and vipassana.

That is precisely it. Vipassana, samatha, metta, even progressive relaxation are at the very least tracable to multiple sources and have a history of effectiveness to one degree or another. I am going to have to root around and see if bruces' taoist master Liu was in fact recognized by fa shr as enlightened as is claimed and if so, whether bruce was in fact was a long time student of his. May I ask why you did not stick with it? I have read this person's blog and it would seem that it is the only source showing a marked benefit from the practice beyond those expected of any simple relaxation technique. Apologies fror my lack of clarity. By chinese arts i mean in general. It seems that when looking up chi, qi gong, tai chi, or whatever else associated with chinese internal arts you are bombarded by dozens of people trying to sell you their secret method of harnessing whatever. This is not the case with buddhist, yogic, christian, or other long established meditation practices. I can get information for free regarding any of the traditions i just mentioned, however, if i wish to learn the secret of taoist meditation, i need to spend some serious coin and possibly subscribe to some paid membership. In a way it would be much more believable if he was giving the information for free like the yogis for anyone to experiment with. As a taoist master, i would expect mr frantzis to be beyond any attachement to wealth and instead put himself behind the people to help them without taking credit, holding the jade in his heart yadda yadda yadda as indicated as a mark of a sage in the ttc. I hope no one is taking offence to my line of questioning as i do not inted to come accross as polemic. However, the tao te ching is my map of reality and i have long since been interested in the passages with appear to reference a practical meditation process. I think it would be a shame to have sincere people wishing to follow in the footsteps of lao tsu be swindled or waste their time.

Hello everyone, I recently began practicing the water method of Taoist meditation according to Bruce Frantzis' books relaxing into your being and the tao of letting go. I have a few questions regarding the method that I would like some assistance with and I would be grateful for any responses. Firstly is there a standard method to begin the scanning? Namely do you initiate the practice by centering your concentration such as performing Buddhist Samatha meditation to obtain access concentration or enter the first jhana, allowing you in turn to focus better on the feelings of blockages? Or do you simply start scanning with scattered attention and allow it to focus over the course of the meditation? Secondly, I noticed in other posts on the subject that there were various understandings of how to actually perform the scanning. Some individuals were starting from the crown moving downwards and not moving beyond blockages they encountered, preferring to hold their awareness on them until either they disappear or the meditation is finished. I read that one individual been working on the head area for years. I believe Bruce indicates that you should scan the whole body every meditation session. However I feel that this does not leave sufficient time to work on any one blockage. Third, I would be very appreciative if others who practice this method could detail their experiences with this meditation practice. As Bruce is the only person that I have heard speaking about this method of meditation, I can't help but remain highly skeptical, and I sometimes wonder whether he made the whole thing up. Coming from a yogic meditation background I find the Chinese methods to be very highly marketed for money and disconnected which makes me question their credibility. Looking forward to hearing from you guys.

Hello everyone, Student of the Tao Te Ching here and, in accordance with its sagely advice I wont say much more.