Practice

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Practice

Postby Quigga on Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:13 am

Where did your practice take you?

Non attachment to phenomena during practice can be difficult. Especially when it had a huge impact on your heart and you ask yourself what it meant. What I want to share:

1) I have a blessed portrait of Wang Chongyang in my living room. One day I felt a surge of something coming toward me from it. I felt weird and looked outside the window. There was a bird on a tree. I looked at the tree and couldn't feel/perceive/conceptualize a difference between the tree and myself. In the next moment I looked at the bird. Same thing. Then I couldn't make out a difference between me, the tree and the bird. This lasted 20 seconds and it shook me to my core. I can't really describe it any better. I had my eyes open and couldn't differentiate anything, I had no sense of "I". Afterwards I locked myself in the bathroom in the darkness to calm down, I cried a bit and felt anxiety. I left. A similiar feeling overcame me when I walked past the portrait, but with much less intensity.

2) After a seminar, I sat on my couch and "thought to myself" (interesting formulation...): "I let go of my pride, my name, my love and many other things... what else can I let go? My body of course." I laid down on my back and let go. A darkness slowly crept around me, closing in. I began to feel cold. Everything got darker and darker. It was quiet and got quieter. I stopped thinking. My body slowly began contracting into the fetal position as I laid on my back. It was not relaxed, it wasn't pretty. I cried and shivered. I was afraid. When I was almost completely curled up, my jaw started clenching down. Hard. Then came utter stillness and I stopped breathing. The inhalation that followed felt really, really good. Like the first one I ever had. But in total, I felt like shit afterwards. This was 15 minutes maybe for the whole experience.

3) I experimented with laying both hands on the middle of my chest, between my nipples. One over the other. I focused on creating a soft, dissolving, washing feeling into my heart. The first few times I felt really nice and mellow. But it changed. I don't know how long it took. I had a vivid experience. I saw people dying in many different ways. Burning, drowning, by different kinds of violence and stuff I can't remember. The suffering was intense. I was the observer. I cried and beat my matress lying down. A few minutes of silence, but somehow I knew it wasn't over so I went back in. This time, it was me who caused the suffering. I did terrible, terrible things to the people I saw in my mind. The worst one was raping a child. It all felt very, very real... I could see, hear and feel most of it clearly, smell a little bit too. The whole thing took 45 minutes maybe.


These, among others, are things I will never forget.

Why am I sharing this?
I want to warn. You can seriously scar yourself. I had and have a teacher as well as my Sifu in my life. I didn't use their help as much as I should have when I tried to integrate the above in my normal personality. I didn't use my community to my favor - my brothers and sisters in training, but also my regular friends and family.

I continued my practice, but I began abusing drugs. Mostly weed and alcohol over the last 3 years. Luckily, I didn't screw myself up any further and even made progress. I fear I could have wrecked something with the weed, but I described my withdrawal to my former friends and none of them shared the same symptoms. So I think I'm ok because I keep progressing.

Even if my own idiocy in the past ends up limiting my ultimate potential, I'm ok with it. There are so many guys and girls around the world doing truly great stuff that actually helps humanity. I'm glad and thankful that I can support them.

The worst thing I feel wasn't the drug abuse but the garbage that followed because no one precisely explained what happened to me or what I did to myself. Somehow it was an unspoken agreement between my teacher and I that I keep telling him what I experience and he guides me along the way, letting me figuring out stuff by myself. He was there for me so I didn't drift too far away from the way. But even then, I didn't take his advice seriously and thought I knew better.

Some of my rambling got cut off because I got logged off automatically.
Anyway, I hope you guys gained something from this open diary entry and that I didn't bore you :P.

Don't let doubt and uncertainity poison your heart - be brave.
Quigga

 

Re: Practice

Postby Trick on Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:43 am

Who is Wang Chongyang ?
Trick

 

Re: Practice

Postby Giles on Thu Jan 16, 2020 8:24 am

Quigga: It's not my entitlement or competence to make any kind of 'diagnosis'. But I would point out that a lot of what you describe - the perceptions and mental processes, as well as the feelings and emotions you experienced along with them (generally negative/unpleasant) - would seem to fit various symptoms of schizophrenia. Losing the sense of identity and differentation between yourself and the tree, for instance, is known as "derealization". Schizophrenia probably occurs in around 1 in 200 adults at some time in their lives, more frequently in males, with an average onset around the age of 25. It certainly doesn't have to be all terrible or hopeless, and forget most of the characterizations you see in films and so on - these are much too superficial, stigmatizing and sensationalist. But it is an illness, and one that can often be treated, maybe cured or at least alleviated.
If you would consider seeing a medical specialist, maybe on the recommendation of a family doctor, then that might be a positive move. Once again, I'm not presuming to diagnose you, but there are enough indications that could make it sensible to consult with a specialist to find out more about your situation. And if necessary, to get some useful support.

All the best to you :)
Do not make the mistake of giving up the near in order to seek the far.
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Re: Practice

Postby jimmy on Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:22 am

but sometimes... and i really mean like sometimes... like 1 in 000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 times... kid might be onto something.

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Re: Practice

Postby jimmy on Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:33 am

but for real... go to a doctor. you might prove them wrong and we love you either way... endlessly.
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Re: Practice

Postby Giles on Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:39 am

@ Jimmy. "on to something" - I know you're just joking in a friendly way, so no beef here. But even if the perceptions (insights?) in themselves might be potentially useful, the emotions and ultimate experiences undergone by Quigga are of much more import. And they ain't happy.

"and we love you either way... endlessly"
:) :) :)
Do not make the mistake of giving up the near in order to seek the far.
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Re: Practice

Postby wiesiek on Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:28 pm

`cause thread title is >practice< , not a >asylum diary<, I would like mention, that sometimes:
mind impressions inducted by energetic/emotional/spiritual trainings can wind up the senses to the LSD aka schizophrenic level , :)
BUT
its makyo, stupid -violin-
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Re: Practice

Postby edededed on Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:49 pm

Trick wrote:Who is Wang Chongyang ?


Google him - famous ancient Daoist who founded Quanzhen Daoism.

I thought non-attachment is more of a Buddhist thing, but maybe it is all similar.
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Re: Practice

Postby Bao on Fri Jan 17, 2020 10:00 am

edededed wrote:I thought non-attachment is more of a Buddhist thing, but maybe it is all similar.


You'll find it in Daodejing. It (non-attachment) is probably more of a thing found in all religions.
(Juxtapositioning a sentence with the word "religion" together with a sentence with the name Daodejing does not mean that I believe that the Daodejing is a religious text.) But many ideas in Buddhist philosophy and Daoist Philosophy are similar.
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- To affect the quality of the day, is the highest of all arts! -Walden Thoreau
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Re: Practice

Postby Quigga on Fri Jan 17, 2020 12:13 pm

First of all, thank you all for your concern.

Schizophrenia and psychosis are interesting states if you know how to handle them. I got very close to breaking when I was smoking, drinking, not sleeping enough, eating badly and sleeping too little as well as digging too much trauma up from the past too quickly. Add an exagerrated focus on spirituality because the rest of your life sucks and you got a recipe for disaster.

I had different experiences while smoking that would fit the symptoms of the above clinically defined illnesses much better. I wrote some of my best poetry while high. But I specifically chose those 3 things in my OP because I was stone sober.

The emotions weren't all bad in the aftermath. But I firmly believe that if you want to gain knowledge/insight, you always have to pay a price for it. In my case it was suffering. One thing I always get wrong when I talk about the 3rd experience is that I wasn't the observer. I somewhat experienced the different ways of dying. My body felt like it was cut into pieces, my limbs and head were torn off etc.

It was easier to try and detach myself from the pain than to keep identifying with it. I don't want to boast or motivate anyone to be as stupid as I was that's why I focused on the negatives. I felt deeply changed and touched.

"Makyo" is a great term wisiek, thank you! My name is Thomas Kwiatek, nice to meet you. Giles, I'm German and probably will be staying in Berlin Mid June.

No one came to me and said: "Son, that's just bullshit. Keep on practicing and let those things be a thing of the past. They will reveal their meaning on their own in time if you let them."
But alas, I almost broke my head pondering because those states had such a deep impact. It forced me to seriously reconsider my worldview and beliefs.

It's nice that I can tune back into this non-differentiating. What's interesting are the things inside me that move and disturb the clarity. Unresolved issues, emotions, thoughts. It starts to feel more and more comfortable without hindering my ability to function in the real world.

Now I couldn't care less. I'm not spiritually burnt out, it all just seems like a joke to me... Like, in a way, isn't spirituality the highest form of egocentrism? ;D Just let things be the way they are, stop the questioning and doubt and do your deeds, stupid!

It feels nice to be taken seriously. I had 3 sessions with a very competent and sensitive psychotherapist. But in the end he wasn't doing anything else I wasn't already doing at that time - I liked to be in control of the process.

Anyway. I will translate some of my poetry into English and post it on here. Once I get ahold of a pretty camerawoman which should be in the near future I will post some practice. You guys are a great community with an absurd abundance of information (search function ;) ) and deserve something back. Maybe you don't want it, then you can tell me to suck it :D
Last edited by Quigga on Fri Jan 17, 2020 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Quigga

 

Re: Practice

Postby Trick on Sat Jan 18, 2020 6:39 am

edededed wrote:
Trick wrote:Who is Wang Chongyang ?


Google him - famous ancient Daoist who founded Quanzhen Daoism.
.

Oh! The OP mentioned an portrait so I though it was a more recent guy.
Trick

 


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