Zen Master Pacfan and Taoist Andre.

[pacfan]

wait a second, this is supposed to be on the off topic board, how did it get here? Attn: mods, can you pls. move this to the off topic section.

There was a slight melt down mate and things went squ wiff and some threads went awol and mia,you were fishing at the time so we blamed you.

Thanks mate, I thought I really did something wrong, lol. Ah, the ol' fisherman thing. I live in a fishing town so I decided to use that symbolically, like the ol' Christian symbol of 'fishers of men.'

There were couple guys here asking me about meditation so I thought it's about time I updated a bit on it. I reckoned that by now if they persevered they are ready for a more advance form of meditation, the use of visualization. I just skimmed thru the net and good for me, there were plenty of sites about it and I thought I might let them, or anyone else interested in them, know about it. I think it's better that way since there are variations to it and so they can try and pick whatever that suits them most. After mastering basic meditation, it's time to add some visualization techniques...

Good stuff the stage is yours.

Hey, get your name back in here, Andre, that's an abuse of your 'moderatorship'!...
...and you know that I'm a lonely boy... When I first saw the title, I was sort of uncomfortable with it, like, I asked myself 'when did I became a Zen Master? But I kinda liked the sound so I kept quiet. Ya indeed the word master is sort of contrary to our philosopy where our I should be an i. The self or ego has been the source of most of the problems of mankind; Me, My and Mine to keep. A well-known priest here, who's also the source of my 1st and soon to follow joke on the joke thread, said that we human have been engaging in 'mining business' ever since. Human ego is the last of bestial instinct that separates us from the divine. They say we are half beast and half divine, take the beast out and we are divine. I think the end of the ego is beginning, like with some billionaires starting to donate most of their money to charities, and it's probably needed to survive the future world. Imagine if every Chinese and Indians started to own a car and started guzzling the gas, we'll be in pretty good trouble. World will need to cooperate in the future and forgo some of it's ego and work for mutual good in order to survive. A nice discussion but it'll need a whole new thread...

I'll wrap up my posts here for now by discussing what technique of visualization I myself use. Basically my technique comes from my old karate exercise used for developing the so-called inner strenght. It's supposed to be secret but over the years, I've found out that it's nothing more than a yoga exercise adapted to karate. It goes like this: During the kata or form exercise, when I draw my arms into a pre-strike position, I take a deep breathe and visualize energy coming from the ground into my body, and when I make a strike, I breathe out while visualizing that energy going out of my fist (or my knife hand) to far beyond.

So when I meditate, I just visualize energy circulating all around the universe coming from the ground, circulating around my body, and then going out of the top of the head to the universe beyond. Or reversely, the energy coming in from the head and down to the ground.

Just don't forget that visualization is just a tool or means. What is more important is the feeling. Try to feel the energy. When you feel something (I can't explain it exactly) like a subtle breeze flowing around your body, that's the energy... Andre has his own techniques, he taught me one. But you'll have to beg him on your knees to get one...

[Andre]

Ok I wont leave you here alone. Ive compromised.
If in doubt, choose the middle road.