The principle of diminishing returns applies, but some things you shouldn’t moderate.
For example, 7🐘 sati “mindfulness”, should be and can be done all the time. You don’t want to moderate that.
Jhana 4j🌕 can be done most of the time, even doing exercises you can maintain a partial jhana.
Some things, rather than thinking about diminishing returns and moderating/reducing that activity, you should be instead thinking, how can I exploit the hell out of this and do it even more?
1.1 measure: gorilla buffet of bite size samplers
first, note that “measure” is an extra ‘m’ I stuck into the 4 M’s of the 4 gorilla truths.'measure’ corresponds to pañña/wisdom, the sampajano in S&S🐘💭, the ‘lucid-discerning’ that rides shot gun with sati/remembering always.
The gorilla buffet principle, is that you should do a few reps, just taking a few seconds, of all the moves in your arsensal and taste it, try it out to determine how many and how long you should do that move. If you have an injury and need to do a certain move more, do more of it. If you’ve gotten strong in another area and don’t need to do as much to maintain that strong area, you can lessen that exercise.
The same principle works with eating. If you’re at a buffet, take a bit size sample of everything, then taste the sample (“measure”). How good that tastes, tells you how much your body needs those nutrients. If you need more, eat more. If you don’t need it, it won’t taste good.
mentally sample the buffet
You can also just mentally imagine tasting a sample of food to ascertain whether you need those nutrients.You can mentally try out an exercise , your gorilla intuition will tell you if you need to do more
gorilla buffet principle trains the sati faculty!
This is important. Even you don’t plan to sample everything the buffet, mentally go through everything once a day, or once a week, frequently enough to keep that item in your memory.If you don’t remember something, then you can’t use it.
If you remember it, it’s a weapon in your arsenal AN 7.67
1.2 don’t fall into binary thinking
It’s not either you’re a superhero or you’re a failure, either do or don’t do. There’s an infinite continuum of possibilities, using ‘modulate the measured’ principle.like fad diets, binging and purging. People think either you have to be on a painful diet that you hate, or you have a happy unhealthy diet. If you ‘modulate and measure’, it’s a kind of middle path that can attain a sustainable a healthy diet that also tastes great.
instead, measure and modulate, to create a sustainable healthy habit
1.3 foot in the door momentum: bully the bully
this one works closely with the “1.2 binary thinking”.underpromise, overdeliver
sometimes people won’t commit to attaining a goal, such as first jhana j1🌘, because they don’t want to be someone who can’t keep a promise or vow.
what you should do instead, is commit to something attainable, like 5 minutes a day attempting first jhana.
then you find that it’s such a pleasant and valuable experience with so many benefits, you naturally increase the amount of time.
you got your foot in the door, and you use the momentum to build on it.
if you had been discouraged to even commit to trying to attain first jhana, you would have failed because you never even made the attempt.
bully the bully, turnabout is fair play
this is a mental trick to help with your motivation to commit to self improvement projects.for countless lifetime, mara has been using the ‘foot in the door’ principle to lure you into developing wrong bad habits.
example: “I’m just going to watch a few minutes of t.v. and then do the project I committed to.”
what actually happens? You channel surf a few minutes, something catches your interest and then hours are wasted.
mara got his foot in your door and lured you into his trap..
So now you’re going to use mara’s trick on him, and use “foot in the door” method to develop healthy sustainable habits for self improvement.
Bullying the bully.
instead of being mara’s victim, now you can derive joy knowing you’re the one bullying mara everytime you use ‘foot in the door’ to develop a new wholesome habit.
that’s bullying the bully, and what a lovely motivating perception to give you rapturous joy (4😁).
Example 1: Jogging is stupid, or so I thought
I hated jogging most of life. I used to think it was stupid and only for sadistic masochists. But 10 years ago, I realized I needed some of aerobic cardio health benefits. So I committed to doing 10 minutes a day of slow to moderate jogging.gradually, over time, I increased it over time because I saw the benefits, and now I do 30min a day or more (meeting RDA of health experts).
I got my foot in the door, and built on it. Most people would just fall into binary thinking, either do it and give up, or just don’t even try.
I used to hate jogging, thinking it was the most pointless activity ever.
But after a few years, when my cardio vascular system strengthened, and light jogging was no longer a painful activity, then I began to appreciate the health benefits, and began to experience occasionally the endorphins and runners high people talk about. (actually those bliss factors are the same as Pīti😁 and sukha of jhana 4j🌕).
Using the ‘foot in the door momentum’ principle, I turned what was once the most hated thing into a valuable ally and a beloved friend 🏃👨🍳🥧 that I spend 60 minutes a day with.
Example 2: When in doubt, do jhana
I used the ‘foot in the door’ principle to make sure I meet daily quotas of jhana practice.I tell myself, “even though you’re really busy and need to do X, just sit down do do 5 minutes of jhana, or 5 minutes of taiiji, then do that chore X.”
What happens is once I commit to 5 minutes, it always stretches into 30 minutes or 60 minutes. It’s hard to ever do less than 20 minutes because jhana is blissful and really easy to do if you make a daily lifelong practice of it.
Once you feel the bliss, and can see and think clearly, it’s very easy to see, ok, chore X is not so important and can wait 5 minutes...or 45 minutes.
So my typical day, I commit myself to 8 sessions at minimum 5 minutes each, of either sitting meditaiton or taiji/qigong related standing/walking equivalent exercise.
That’s 40 minutes total which is easy to make a firm commitment that I’ll do.
But because those activities are so inherently blissful once you gain competence, what I actually end up doing is a minimum of 4-6 hours a day. That may sound like a lot of time, but when you charge your jhana battery for 4-6 hours, then you need 3-5 less hours of sleep.
That’s the power of the ‘foot in the door’ principle. I make a commitment of 40 minutes, and I reap much greater rewards because it’s a positive slippery slope and gateway drug.
4.2 – second mobile truth: the causes of pain and injury
4.2.1 – Modify the gems and the trash
a) modifying gem might improve and yield something even betterbut without trying and being complacent, you would never know. Innovate, experiment, modify
b) what seems to be trash, with some modification, turn into treasure
gorilla ethos: Qigong movements improvised in an impromptu way, often without authorization.
Before you can improvise effectively (gorilla jazz improv of 🦍🎱), you have to do your due diligence and systematically train with the 4 gorilla truths.4.3 – third mobile truth: cessation of pain and injury
4.3.1 – how: Maximize jhāna
4.3.2 – gorilla nirvana mantra: fast, slow, high, low, check zen, stay zen, always zen
maximize the 🦍🎱 and anything else in the gorilla arsenalmaximize time efficiency
maximize energy efficiency
maximize health benefits
maximize purpose of your precious life
4.4 – fourth mobile truth: way to end pain and injury
4.4.1 – by (M)ultipurpose (m)atchmaking and (m)ultiplexing
feeding two birds with one sconeCutting 3 carrots with one slice
Getting 5 things for the price of one
Examples of what to do:
1. while waiting 10 minutes for pressure cooker to finish (gorilla truth #4, maximum efficiency of energy and gas to cook food, fastest also),
do shake and bake 🏃👨🍳🥧 which accomplishes cardio and aerobic strenghthening, tap and slap accupressure on feet , and chant some pali suttas.
So in 10 minutes of time, you’ve accomplished 5 important necessary things to do that don’t interfere with each other. That is, you don’t compromise quality by matchmaking and multiplexing those activities together.
2. while lying on back in sleeping bag or bed, can do wrist circle exercises, ankle circles, neck circles, all at the same time.
3. while doing a standing forward bend, dumbell rows. The weights even increase the stretch of the forward bend, while the rowing dumbells strengthens neck, shoulder, back muscles.
Examples of what not to do:
1. read an important book or article while your coworker is telling you something important.
You’ll miss pieces of what you’re reading or what you’re hearing. You’ve just compromised quality and integrity
2. driving and doing something on your cel phone at the same time.
This isn’t multi tasking, it’s about to be multi crashing in every sense of the word.
3. crossing the street and staring at your cel phone at the same time instead of observing road conditions for people running stop signs and traffic lights.
many people have died from doing this.
5 – TBD
6 – TBD
7 – TBD
8 - 🎱🦍 mobile eightfold path, a.k.a. Eight pieces of Gorilla
8.1 - 👣 Buddha takes a stand
There’s a saying that “you don’t want to be a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.” But if that one legged man is a man of taiji, then it’s a completely different story.
8.1.0 – fundamental principles of correct standing
These fundamentals should be done whenever you stand, not just when you’re intentionally doing a meditation in the ‘standing’ posture.8.1.0.1 – wrong ways of standing
* knees, ankles, hips locked – often you see people standing with legs straight, like stilts or crutches.Why is this ‘wrong’ or bad? Because parts of your leg are totally tense to lock everything out into a stilt, and other muscle and tissue that isn’t getting used starts to atrophy. The tension from tightened tissue blocks circulation of qi, blood, and energy leading to further decline of both tense and relaxed parts of the leg.
You may not realize how wrong this is when you’re young, but when you get old you’ll definitely know the effects of wrong standing with the pain and injuries you accumulate.
Why do people stand wrong in this way? Maybe because they’re tired, and this allows some parts of their leg to feel more relaxed.
* full body weight not evenly distributed on entire foot.
If your foot is not evenly supporting all of your body weight, it means you’re biased leaning forward, or backward with most of your body weight on your heels, or favoring the outsides or insdes of your feet.
Why is this ‘wrong’ or bad? Because you want to share the load equally whenever you can. Putting extra pressure on one part diminishes circulation of energy.
* spine is crooked, leaning forward, leaning backward, or sideways
* wearing uncomfortable shoes because they’re fashionable – this damages not just your feet, but causes a chain reaction of other body parts along your spine getting damaged to compensate for foot pain and discomfort. You have to decide whether fashion is more important to you, or health. If you’re really powerful and successful, you can flex and flaunt your power by wearing comfortable shoes and clothing that promotes good health, and thereby change the culture by trickling down and influence everyone else to abandon fickle fashion.
* don’t tense up following good standing meditation advice: There’s plenty of good advice out there on good standing practice, but sometimes Taiji and qigong instructions are too many, too detailed, and as a result the student becomes very tense trying to do all those details. I’m not saying don’t listen to your teachers, but your first priority is don’t block jhāna by being tense and nervous trying to follow details. Maintain passaddhi/pacification of body and mind, deeply relax, THEN gradually try to incorporate the details of whatever qigong system you’re doing.
8.1.0.2 – correct way of standing
* Your hips, knees, ankles, all have at least a tiny bit of bend in them.* If you have damaged nerves, numb parts in your calves, lower leg, entire leg, hips, butt, etc., from too much sitting meditation, really make sure to bend your knees and ankles at least a tiny bit, and get your calves and foot muscles to engage and feel like they’re working, supporting the whole body weight. It took me many years to regenerate nerves and sensation in all parts of my feet and lower leg, before I could do standing meditation properly in this aspect.
* Your body weight is centered on your feet, meaning that, imagining your foot is completely flat for simplicity, the weight is evenly distributed across the entire flat surface, not biased to the front, back, or sides.
* spine is straight, not leaning forward, leaning backward, or sideways: see 🏃📐 ujuṃ kāyaṃ
Ones you have jhāna, you’ll get the J.A.S.I. ('Jazzy') effect, the ideal way to effortlessly maintain straight spine.
In short, correct standing entails
Engage your entire legs, entire body, every cell of your body. If you’ve got jhāna, you should feel like you’re boneless, no skeleton, nothing that feels rough, heavy, stiff, tense in your body. Your body feels like soft liquid, or light as air, empty as space. Or like a single contiguous blob of magnetic gooey force, no arms, no legs. If you flex your elbows, knees, ankles, you don’t feel any bones. You feel light, weightless, like you could levitate if you meditate for a couple of weeks without doing anything else.Every cell in your leg, every cell in your body feels like it’s effortlessly sharing the load it takes to stand. This is advanced higher level. At lower levels, it should feel like the work load is distributed evenly among all your foot and leg cells, there are no body parts taking undue extra pressure, and no slacker cells idling and wasting away.
A. Standing static postures
Only externally static, internally depending on which the 4 jhanas you abide in, it can be a raging volcano, an ocean rumbling in your dan tien, a still pond, or just empty luminosity.What meditation to do while standing statically?
Prior to jhana, work on pacifying body and thinking. A great way to do this is completely immersing your awareness in the breath as it suffuses the entire physical body, aka 16 APS (anapana). Basically, any meditation you can do in the sitting posture you can do in the standing posture.A taoist spin on 16 APS
Visualize a white hot gooey magnetic ball of energy the size of a basketball in your dan tien (near belly). With your eyes closed, visualize and keep your mind immersed in that white ball. Eventually, with a good 4th jhana, it won’t just be a visualization, there will actual luminosity that pervades the entire body, and you can make a gooey magnetic ball of qi roll around anywhere on your body, and compress and stretch that gooey mass.
how do you know if you’re really relaxed?
The biggest problem for most people is they’re not relaxed in the kaya-passaddhi and taiji sense of relax, and they don’t even know it.
If you’re fully physically relaxed, you should feel forces permeating every part of your body, sometimes heat, hot liquid, electricity, other strange sensations running in loops and channels. As chanels are getting cleared, euphoria and blissful sensations in parts and eventaully every cell of the body. At a higher stage when the forces smoothe out, maybe you feel just like a water balloon, at higher stage, maybe like an air balloon that expands and contracts. At a higher stage, body feels empty and luminous.
If you’re physically relaxed but not mentally relaxed, you won’t experience those symptoms of physical relaxation above.
Mentally relaxed means citta passaddhi, a-vitakka-a-vicara samadhi.
In other words, you’ve stopped coarse thinking, only subtle perceptions and intentions relating to your meditation object remain.
MN 19, MN 20, 16 APS are especially helpful in developing this.
why stand when you can sit?
* If your qi channels aren’t opened up very well, not limited to leg channels, after long sits (of many hours continuously) you’ll start to get drowsy.
* doing daily sessions of standing, say, 20min, 30min, 60min, develops some leg strength and if done well can help open up the leg channels. Whereas sitting longer than the flexibility of your body allows (say 2 to 3 hours of advanced sitting meditators), the qi channels in your legs start choking off your extremities (especially feet, toes, lower leg). If you see young meditators in a monastery frequently stumble, lose their balance, fall while walking, this is a strong hint they may be pushing themselves too hard and sitting too long. What they should do instead is shorten some of the sits, add some short yoga stretching sessions, do some standing and walking meditation until they’ve loosened up and are able to comfortably sit for the desired length without any part of their body in pain, discomfort, or going numb.
1. 🌌Wuji posture
legs shoulder width apart, arms completely relaxed at side.Weighting is about 50/50 between left and right side.
Prior to opening up all the energy channels in the body very well, if you’re relaxed enough, you might experience some vibrations and shaking in the body. This is normal, you shouldn’t feel ashamed or self conscious. Shaking can take years to gradually fade. Many people don’t experience bodily shaking because they’re standing (or sitting) too tense.
2. Wuji with hands covering dan tien
one hand over the other, covering your dan tien.Energetically, how does this differ from plain wuji #1? Similar to how cross leg posture connects and energy channels between right side and left side of your body, you might feel a stronger, more consolidated energy from doing this.
3. Tree hugger
See the video 8x-meridian.webmIt has nice 3d video animation with camera angles all around the body.
4. Leaning tower of wuji
Starting from posture 1 (standard wuji).1. close your eyes, don’t worry about details of what the posture looks like externally. Kaya passaddhi, true relaxation is an internal art. Learn to feel where tension and relaxation is.
2. Shift your weight completely to the right leg (you were 50/50 split weight prior).
2a. While shifting weight, try to keep spine + torso relatively straight, but don’t worry if it curves slightly. Main thing is stay completely relaxed.
2b. While shifting, don’t introduce any tension by lifting either shoulder, or adjusting neck orientation, or subtly pushing off the left leg with any upward direction.
2c. your right leg, as you shift, let it compress and sink into the ground from the additional body weight being added to it, rather than keep the right leg stiff and resisting the weight shift. If your two legs were an hour glass, imagine all the sand was in the left leg, and gradually shifting and sinking into the lower right leg. Internally, after you finish shifting weight, you should feel a few inches shorter, most of that from the right leg and hip compresing.
3. your ending position, you kind of look like “leaning tower of pisa”. Your right leg feels a few inches shorter than before you started from the compression, your right hip feels like a shock absorber that got compressed as well, hips folded in as you shifted weight.
4. check your shoulders for relaxation, with subtle “medusa principle” movement.
4a. your right arm should be dangling freely, and if you quietly relax and observe your right arm, gravity and the weight of your free arm dangling should cause your shoulder area tissue to expand and lengthen by several centimeters at least. With eyes closed, it feels like my arm lengths by several inches.
4b. your left arm, try to relax the same way as much as possible, but it won’t lengthen because of your “leaning tower”, the weight of your arm is supported by your body (hand and wrist area will be resting on body from the lean). But your left arm will get it’s chance to shine and lengthen when you repeat this exercise for the left side.
5. similar with shoulders, look for and dissolve tension in the neck by using the medusa principle (soft like octopus, no bones, just liquid or magnetic energy sloshing around). If you don’t understand medusa yet, try just making very small motions with your neck, side to side, or circular, and observe which part of the neck is tense and which parts are relaxed as you move slowly. And then appy sati, remember what tension and relaxation feels like, and using that memory as a reference point, coupled with medusa movement, you know what you’re shooting for when the taiji master tells you to “relax deeply”.
6. your left leg is completely relaxed. You are now a one legged man of taiji, with 3 arms. The left leg is the 3rd arm. Your weight is completely supported by the right leg. Test this by lifting the hand of the left leg just slightly off the ground to see how it affects your balance.
7. empty out your 3 arms, imagine for a moment having all 3 amputated, no arms, just emptiness there. You’re just a leaning tower of spine and right leg. Feel how relaxed those 3 arms are, and try to make your leaning tower feel just as empty and relaxed, using subtle, almost invisible medusa movements to adjust yourself.
do the same for the other side
repeat these steps for the other side of the body.
sample practice sequence
alternate between 3 postures: left side, right side, and 50/50 standard #1 wuji stance with arms hanging freely. Maybe start with about one minute on each. Or try left side, 50/50 wuji, then right side, wuji 50/50. Try different combinations, even up tp 5 minutes for each.
original source
The original move was a taiji quan relaxation qigong designed to loosen the shoulders, but without much explanation other than “relax”. The explicit details of that I figured out on my own over many years, but basically any taiji master who has relaxed shoudler and body are intuitively doing most of what I’m saying in explicit detail, but they might be doing it subconsciously and the internal adjustment is too subtle to see externally, and they don’t know how to explain it in detail other than “relax”.
5. relaxed fit playing guitar
(coming soon)B. Static standing with some arm action
c. cloud hands / feet walkingd. ocean in the palm of your hand
e. wing chun palm changes
f. 3 palm change
g. skiing: on one leg, arms and other leg are “skiing”
8.2 - 🚶🚶🚶 march of the arahants
8.3 – FLT: full lotus turtle
(🚧 book is going through major reorganization right now)
A comprehensive guide to sitting meditation postures
As a memory device for the nomenclature (7🐘), FLT is a pun on FTL (faster than light). Turtles are not known for being fast.The turtle reference is to a set of turtle (animal known for longevity, living even 200 years) qigong exercises ostensibly for the neck, but really when done correctly with the whole body, the undulating motion adjusts, massages every single vertebrae in the spine.
🦵🦶Kicks for hips: Kicking drills to open up hips and give them full range of motion.
a 3 min video of my favorite exercises to support FLT
video: FLT video: megaturtle full lotus around the world, cat/cow flexing, shimmyhttps://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2019/06/flt-video-megaturtle-full-lotus-around.html
-🐱🐮 I do a lot of flying cat cow in that video
🐱🐮 flying cat cow
the principle of alternating forward and backward bending of the spine, as well as all other directions of spinal flexing (left, right, and everywhere in between)𒀽reat to do after a long sit
🙀🐈💩the cat and the scat
great exercise for sitting meditators, squatting safely
The Physics of sitting comfortably
sitting cushions, and getting rid of that crutch
sitting posture: better off without zabuton, the p...
sitting: yoga wedge and elevating spine
It’s not just about knees and hips, spine is super important
🏃📐 ujuṃ kāyaṃ: proper way to straighten spine
Important tip: even if you can do a perfect full lotus posture, if you’re planning to do long sits (3-8 hours or more), consider sitting on some time of wedge setup for your long sits. You may be able to have perffect posture for 20min to 45 min, but most people probably can’t keep perfect posture effortlessly for 8 hours.
sitting meditation posture, knee health, jhana constipation
staying warm, especially if you have a shaved head
for long sitting meditation: my favorite stretch f...: supine hamstring hip opening
FLT: faq, such as 'why is "full lotus" is the best...
FLT: cross leg sitting, right leg over left or vice versa
🧘🐢FLT : switching left/right full lotus posture ...
pull up bar traction great for spacing out spine
pullup bar, spine align, spinal decompression
inversion tables
(work in progress)🐢 around the world
a. sun salutation warmupsb. various angle leg and bound angle
c. plough variations
d. updog medusa and turtle
e. gorilla crouching jazz doens’t need yoga mat
f. turtle was a guest host, then a permanent partner
The move I do most frequently helpful for full lotus seated
under the video /silk reeling / silk neck brianstarting at 6 min mark, this is the turtle movement.
Ostensibly, it's to loosen the neck joints. But if you do it right, it lengthens and expands every vertebrae in the spine.
The radical gorilla enhancement is not just doing it in that one front-to-back plane of motion demonstrated in the video, but take it off the rails and “go around the world” (you should be able to sweep about a 180 range from left to right)
Some examples:
1. Do a 180 sweep from left to right side
2. from a starting backbend, with arms held forward in whatever way to counterbalance and help you feel stable, do the turtle with a 180 sweep. I call this around the world turtle
3. This can be done from a sitting posture, cross legged, legs spread out, whatever.
4. From a standing, forward bend (your torso is inverted, upside down), do "around the turtle". It feels really trippy and it releases your lower vertebrae from the inversion.
Nowadays, at least a few minutes before and after every sit, I do "around the world turtle" combined with various sitting postures (lotus, double pigeon, kneeling, bound angle), and especially the seated angle as shown in the video
/yoga/iyengar/iyengar-instructor-seated-angle
Over time (months, years), gradually spread your legs farther apart.
Misc., References
🔗 FLT articles: notes on the Dhamma
sometimes in civilized society, there is good reason to slap the shit out of someone
1. finger toe spacers: interlace your fingers with your toes.1b. rotate feet and hands about ankles and wrists
2. slapping palms to bubbling wells, HARD.
https://qigor.blogspot.com/2024/02/fun-full-lotus-moves-finger-toe-spacers.html
(end of 8.3 FLT⏹️)
8.4 - 🐳🐉swimming dragon in repose
what could be better than having a tropical warm water ocean paradise in your back yard? How about a swimmming treadmill that costs 0$, no sharks, no deadly stings from jellyfish, etc?
a. macro circles in situps
b. plough scissors
c. lion posture cresent kicks
d. sleeping bag micro taiji
e. bridge pushups
f. wheel pushups
8.5 - 🐙 Subtle medusa rules heaven and earth
a. mastery of 5 bows, no one on heaven and earth can stop you
b. 5 main bottle necks dissolved
c. like drunken boxing, with large to micro movement
d. dissolves into water, then air, then emptiness and luminosity
5niv (hindrances) of kaya passaddhi: tight neck (spine), two tight shoulders, two tight hips.
In the video subdirectory "medusa", watch the octopus videos, especially the "octopus playing", to see what smooth relaxed movement can look like.
quick octopus info:
Octopuses are invertebrates. They do have a beak, which is the only hard part in their entire body. Fun fact, octopuses can fit though anything that is large enough for their beak to fit through. ... Invertebrates do not have a bony spinal structure.
Medusa (see medusa images in that same medusa subdirectory), is based on the mythical character medusa, with snakes instead of strands of hair. Snakes have skeletons, but their movement is much closer to the octopus (no skeleton) than humans.
So now, replace the 5 bows of the body (neck+spine, 2 arms, 2 legs) with medusa snakes, or better yet octopus tentacles, and this will melt the blockages at the 5 hindrances of the body (neck, shoulders, hips) from the twining, twisting, stretching from that movement. Also, all your fingers and toes, make those into snakes and octopus tentacles as well.
Now for the gorilla (guerrilla) jazz improv. Doing any qigong, or taiji quan, or even hatha yoga, take it off the rails. You can use the basic structure of those well known disciplines as a starting point, but then you dance around the basic structure, improvise, literally move your arms, legs, spine, fingers, toes around independently like individual octopus tentacles.
So for the move "around the world turtle goes full lotus", apply this principle, move like an octopus, and you'll be able to feel all kinds of tight areas you didn't even know about.
One more practical tip, you might want to practice this in solitude, and not do this for example in a public group sitting, in a monastery, etc, at least not until you become proficient enough you can do the movements with subtle amount of motion that attracts attention.
In the gorilla eightfold path, the right view of a gorilla is he doesn't care how the public views him, but for practical reasons, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. At a monastery, one of the monastics thought I was possessed by demonic spirits when I was just loosening up during walking meditation time. The general public can not discern the difference between insanity and genius, so proceed with caution.
Here's the secret to success. As I explained with the basic turtle neck/spine qigong in another article, when I first learned it many years ago, I realized it was gold. I didn't just do it every day, I took a break every two hours, then every hour, then even every 30 min. to do the turtle for a few minutes. Same thing with Medusa and Gorilla. Once you realize how incomparably powerful these principles are, you apply it every moment, every movement, all the way, as much as you can whenever you can.
8.6 – 🐯 mountainside archer surrounded by tigers
360 degree spherical coordinate freedom
a. like 8 pieces of brocade “archer” taken off the rails and given 360 degree and spherical rangemetaphor for brahmacariya
b. metaphor for brahmacariya, only one arrow, can not shoot it, but needs to keep it cocked to ward off threats.mountain refers to ☂️🌄 samādhi and Ek'agga (mountain peak allusion). Without brahmacariya, samadhi becomes weak, mind becomes sluggish, dull, stupid, body weakens as well (compared to a yogi who keeps brahmacariya).
The mountainside has many tigers (metaphor for the opposite sex) tempting you.
So this life threatening puzzle, how do you hold off many tigers with one arrow, has a paradoxical solution, somewhat reminiscent of SN 1.1. If you shoot one tiger with the arrow, you are devoured by the other tigers. If you don’t even threaten to shoot, then you are also devoured.
You only have one arrow, so you have to constantly use the power of that arrow to point it at the tigers to ward them off, without actually shooting it. If you shoot your arrow (semen at a coarse level, any thought of lust at a refined level), you lose your brahmacariya and then all the tigers come in and devour you. You protect the arrow and conserve it, representing your spiritual vitality and capital, the source of power of samadhi, then you can keep the tigers at bay and by means of the spiritual power and vigor 3🏹 conserved, have the means to transcend lust.
Lust is transcended gradually in 4👑☸ and 👑8☸, with kāma 💘💃 supressed in j1🌘, sublimated even further through higher jhanas, and completely destroyed with the attainment of a nonreturner and arahant.
8.7 - 🦅🐉dragons ascends
a. bagua teacup, descending dragon windup
b. bagua whirlwind palms
c. 🐱🐮 flying cat cow
8.8 - 🦍🎵 Gorilla jazz improv
After you've mastered your solo, individual exercises,
you're ready to use your vocabulary of exercises and combine them in spontaneous,
unexpected ways to create new masterpieces.
Perhaps the most important piece of all 8, knowing how to adapt, borrow, utilize any movement, from any healing modality, in a spontaneous, impromptu way, to fix any health deficiency you have.
a. it aint what you do, it’s how you do it
b. taiji pull ups, complete relaxation between reps, 9 per day, even just hanging in there releases spine
c. taiji pushups – complete relaxation between reps, modulate wrist orienation, arm distance, breath, etc.
d. 4x4 walking
e. jump rope
f. squat, standing back bend, forward bend, body+neck circles, 2 arm side bend, effectivley compact sun salutation
g. corkscrew squat, single leg armswing. option: treehugger arm swing (for faster rpm)
h. the cat and the scat safe squat: takes body weight off your knees
Using eightfold gorilla path as fundamental structure as a starting point, then dance around the structure like a spontaneous, impromptu jazz improv as needed to fix and optimize physical health.
shake and bake: diguju breath, ujum kaya, j2, j1 sutta recitation
tap and slap: accupressure points, behind knees,elbow crease, releases black bruises, itchy toxins
jiggle and wiggle: jazz hands, light bulb twisting, larry curly moe
flip and flop: inversions and backbends
swing it brother swing:
shake, rattle, and roll:
9 - 🦍❤️ Gorilla Heart Sutra
🦍❤️ Gorilla Heart Sutra
1. always W.A.S.T.E. F.R.E.E. (essential gorilla mantra)2. always WASTE FREE F3.A.R.M.I.N3.G. (expanded mantra)
3. aware but don't care
4. Shake & Bake🏃👨🍳🥧, turn and burn, tap and slap, jiggle and wiggle, fiddle and twiddle, splice and dice (4th truth of 4️🦍) (6 parts to line)
5. flip and flop, invert and subvert, rock and roll, swing that thing, keep the heat: head neck hands feet (5 parts to line)
6. b.o.l.d. man w.a.k.m.
7. 4️🦍 four gorilla truths and 🦍🎱 eight fold gorilla path
8. always WASTE FREE FARMING to F.I.L.L. U.P. with 🌟PIE (complete gorilla mantra for perfection)
If gorilla qigong is correct, you should feel smooth groove, at ease and pleased, see razzle dazzle (4 parts to line)
9. gorilla gātha: fast, slow - high, low - check zen, stay zen, always zen
9.1 – Line 1: always W.A.S.T.E. F.R.E.E.
Essential Gorilla Mantra (to be done every moment, breath by breath)W.A.S. = Warm And Soft
Like a healthy supple baby full of qi, life, vigor. Not cold, hard, brittle, close to death like an old sick man. "W.A.S." comes first in the "always WASTE FREE" because before any exercise can be effective, you need to first heat up make things warm, soft, pliable. Just like you can't shape gold into jewelry until the gold is heated up and pliable.T.E. = Tension eliminated
Equivalent to EBT process of achieving 5🌊 Passaddhi/Pacification, or Taiji's relaxation 'sung'. When you scan the whole physical body (16🌬️😤 steps 3 and 4), while moving through any slow diagnostic movement, whatever feels hard, cold, brittle, pain, tight, uncomfortable, dense, massive, that's tension. And it can be eliminated by warming it up, melting the ice, going through "F.R.E.E" range of motion.F.R.E.E. = Full range (of) expression, elastic
If you move through range of motion, you hear "snap, crackle, and pop" from your joints cracking, you have cummulative tension and sub-optimal circulation, you haven't achieved W.A.S state yet.9.2 – Line 2: F3.A.R.M.I.N3.G.
(f3)
f1: finish diminish: cease activities when you reach a point of getting diminishing returns
cease doing exercises at a time you get diminishing returns.it’s good to try out bite size samples of various exercises like a buffett, to see how they feel and whether you need them. (see ‘m’ measure for pleasure and ‘a’ assess to progress)
f2: finish the mission of exploitation
Not to get the wrong idea from (f1), if you haven’t reached a point of diminishing returns, you should exploit every exercise and squeeze as much benefit you can out of it. For example, I fixed my neck problems by doing turtle neck exercises every hour every day, or about a year, then as neck healed I did less of that exercise, and now I only do a few minutes per day of turtle neck.f3: feed two birds with one scone
also covered in another line from gorilla heart sutra, splice and dice, also in 4 gorilla truths.Not just feed two birds, feed many birds with one scone. For example, I never do basic standing version of turtle exercise anymore, I always combine turtle with other necessary exercises like pancake stretching, etc.
(a.)ssess to progress, with ample sample
1. this corresponds with 16🌬️😤 step 3 breath meditation, become sensitive to the feeling of breath in every cell of the body. The kinesthetic sensation of how it feels tells you the health condition of that cell, whether it’s damaged and needs attention, or whether it’s in good condition and you can move on.2. ample sample: refers to liberally sample from the gorilla buffet arsenal of different movements, each exercise is a diagnostic tool for ‘assess to progress’ as you do the move.
don’t discount the count
ways you use counting to assess:1. for example, doing an exercise, count reps and see what count body starts to strain and tighten up. Gradually build up more reps for increase in strength
remember the count and see if you improve over days
(r.)amp not amp
gradually increase the intensity of your exercise, rather than suddenly ‘amp’ing up high intensity from a cold start. That’s inviting injury.Don't rush into full range and full intensity of exercise, gradually ramp it up, not instantly amplify it to full strength, because it's very easy to injure yourself as you get older.
(m.)easure for pleasure
works in conjunction with ‘a’ssess to progress – body parts that need attention will feel really good when you do that exercise, releasing endorphins and pleasure chemicals in the brain.(i.)nject bottleneck
Also known as a priority principle. You want to ‘f’inish, or limit the time on exercises where you’re already getting diminishing returns, and focus more time and energy on exercises that are your problem areas. The body is an interconnected whole, and parts that have a problem are a bottleneck on the whole system, so they need immediate and extra attention. Fixing a bottleneck yields an exponential return, or alternatively stated, fixes the exponential drain on the whole body caused by the bottleneck.Some of these bottlenecks develop slowly over decades so you don’t even notice them. Finger and toes for examples, and the skin, are extremites in the body, the last place to get nutrients and garbage collection from circulation.
(n.)o pain to gain
There are two important meanings here(a) in contrast to the popular saying, “no pain, no gain”
That’s not exactly wrong in all cases, but it’s a rather crude way for a plan to success. A much more skillful approach would be a-p-pamāda 🐘🐾 to success, while being happy in the process.In other words, one still has to strive diligently, but if one’s mental attitude is skillful, it doesn’t have to be a painful process.
(b) body parts that are in pain are often bottlenecks that need fixing
(n.)o harm alarm
“measure for pleasure” often rides a thin line between being too lax, and too intense of a stretch causing pain and injury. So be conservative and avoid injury, which can set you back a long time, and is a poor risk reward gamble. Develop and Listen to the alarm for harm.(n.)o need for greed
careful patience is the fastest way. Greed for fast progress creates tension, mistakes, injury, etc.Note there are three ‘n’s in ‘ f.a.r.m.i.n.n.n.g.’ for emphasis, that human nature is greedy for fast progress and needs extra reminding and emphasis to avoid that trap
(g.)rit to the limit
Grit corresponds to EBT ‘s a-p-pamāda 🐘🐾. At first seems contradictory to ‘no pain no gain’ and ‘no need for greed’, but it comes down to not what but how you do it. If you do it wrongly, it’s unskillful greed and effort. If you can harmonize bliss and assiduity, then it’s skillful resilience and diligence.9.3 – Line 3: aware but don't care
don't care if they stare,don't care what you wear,
don't care about hair,
don't care for underwear.
probably the biggest hindrance to why people only get a small fraction of the benefit of from their regular exercise routine. They're worried about how they look, their social status until taking the gorilla ethos to heart and maximizing the health benefit of the exercise routine. They do taiji as a performance art, worrying about meaningless superficial details for theatrical purpose, etc.
9.4 – Line 4: shake and bake, tap and slap, jiggle and wiggle,...
4. shake and bake🏃👨🍳🥧, tap and slap, jiggle and wiggle, fiddle and twiddle, splice and dice9.5 – Line 5: flip and flop, invert and subvert, rock and roll, swing that thing, heat the feet
flip and flop
🐱🐮 cat cow, flying cat cowthe principle of alternating forward and backward bending of the spine, as well as all other directions of spinal flexing (left, right, and everywhere in between)
Also refers to doing exercises from unusual positions flip flopped from the usual. For example lying down doing cloud hands and cloud feet. Doing turtle while forward bending from standing.
invert and subvert
invert: instead of looking at a problem in a straightforward way, such as I want more passaddhi 5🌊, how do I get it?Use alternative inverted ways of approaching it, such as, what things am I doing wrong that block relaxation/passaddhi, and how can I avoid doing those things?
subvert: that’s not an injunction to arbitrarily subvert authority. One should be careful and circumspect, but if authority or common wisdom is promulgating wrong views that cause harm, don’t be an accomplice to the crime.
Or don’t be afraid to speak up to qualify or correct health advice that is harmful under certain conditions.
For example, drink 8 glasses of water of day is bad advice if taken in an unqualified dogmatic rule.
Someone who has a low salt diet and eats a lot of fruit, needs a lot less than 8 glasses,
and someone living in a desert may need more.
rock and roll
1. see GST gorilla stick therapy, using foam rollers and pvc pipes to roll out the knots2. crab shuffle squats: lots of ‘rocking’ on heels and toes and ‘rolling’ body in various angles to get all kinds of leg stretches with bent legs. Normally people think you can only get a good leg stretch with straightened legs, but that limits stretching to the parts of the leg that are already stretchy. If you want to stretch the stiff parts of the leg, crab shuffle squat, and corkscrew elevator will hit all kinds of spots on the legs that straight leg stretches will never hit.
keep the heat: head neck hands feet
9.6 – Line 6: b.o.l.d. man w.a.k.m.
b.o.l.d. man w.a.k.m. = blind one legged drowsy man wins ass kicking matchSounds like one legged one is in a serious competitive disadvantage, but this is superb way to develop taiji to the highest level
(b.)lind
practice taiji, qigong, internal martial arts with eyes closed, fully attend to kinaesthetic breath and energetic body experience, soft, magnetic gooey energy.(o.)ne (l.)egged
the taiji principle of differentiating between solid and empty (how much weight bearing on each supporting leg), taking to its logical conclusion.the taiji forms generally don’t have that many moves where you can completely practice being 100% on one leg. Repulse monkey is one.
so modify taiji forms to have a lot more 100% weight shifts, narrower stance, try to always be 100% on left or right leg.
and doing some line drills and standing qigong drills with 100% one leg.
waist turning drills on one leg
such as the corkscrew arm swing squat drill, will really accelerate your taiji development.for sitting meditators, this will accelerate the opening and development of opening hips and loosening legs, because being 100% on one leg means the 100% of the other leg can be 100% relaxed and loosening decades of calcification from standing on two legs double weighted all the time and sedentary sitting with legs atrophying.
one legged man with 3 arms
in your one leg drills, think of yourself as a blind man with one leg and 3 arms (the 2nd leg is the 3rd arm). If you make progress, your 3rd arm/leg can be as soft, smooth, and full range of motion as your regular arm shoulder articulation. In other words, if your leg doesn’t feel like your arm, it’s because the butt, hips, etc, are calcified and tight from too much lack of range of motion ( the ‘free’ in line 1 always WASTE FREE).(d.)rowsy man
Drowsy here does not mean actually drowsiness, fatigue, or lack of energy and mental alertness.It’s meant to convey that the ‘sung’/relaxation of taiji, the passadhi of jhana 5🌊, when it reaches it’s maximum limit, is straddling the point between exerting enough energy to maintain a shape, form, body posture, and the form collapsing.
For example, if you were standing and decided to completely relax 100%, you would collapse on the ground like a rag doll and pee on yourself.
But if you are training to find the maximum relaxation point before that point of collapse, using the most relaxed energy efficient method to maintain desired form/posture,
then in the process of finding that point, you might sway like a drowsy person.
So most people practicing taiji or an internal martial art, they prioritize getting the superficial details and appearance of the form correct, so the teacher doesn’t correct them or they don’t want to look incompetent in front of their classmates.
But for someone shooting for jhana and maximum development of relaxation, then you prioritize pacification/relaxation and don’t mind occasionally look like a bumbling drowsy man while searching for maximum relaxation. This works in close conjunction with line 3 ‘aware but don’t care’. You don’t care if the superficial appearance of your form is not the most correct or prettiest – you value the PIE (precious internal energy) and jhana development. Superficial appearance details adds to much tension and kills your relaxation. So know your priorities.
(w.)ins (a)ss (k)icking (m)atch
There’s a saying that you don’t want to be the one legged man in an ass kicking contest, because you’d be at a serious competitive disadvantage.But If you’re a master of taiji and jhana, then the blind one legged man is a completely different story that defies conventional reality.
9.7 – Line 7: 4️🦍 four gorilla truths and 🦍🎱 eight fold gorilla path
4️🦍 four gorilla truths and 🦍🎱 eight fold gorilla pathmodulate, modify, multi-purpose, maximize
Example: taiji set done fast for cardio and heat building.
modify: modalities that don't work, put on hold. They can work later, you can inject the reject with some modification.
9.8 – Line 8: always WASTE FREE FARMINNNG to FHILL UP with PIE
optional addition to line 8 to memorize: If gorilla qigong is correct, you should feel smooth groove, at ease and pleased, see razzle dazzle
if everything done right, body empty, soft, warm, smooth, razzle dazzle means luminosity perception ASND 🌕🌟, energy sublimated into higher vibrational levelease and pleased = Pīti😁 and sukha
always WASTE FREE FARMINNG mantra explained already in line 1 and 2
F.H.I.L.L.: Force, Heat, I = current of energy, Luminosity, Lucidity
For all 5 terms, see the glossary in SLUMP🌄👁U.P.: Unlimited Potential
Refers to the fact that if you bake and eat a massive amount of PIE (precious internal energy) every moment of the day as much as possible, you will have unlimited potential to attain the 6ab ⚡☸ higher knowledges (most importantly, nirvana, and 5 mundane superpowers possible).P.I.E.: Precious Internal Energy
see article: Essential Principles:and read sections on PIE and balancing 4 elements
9.9 – Line 9: fast, slow, high, low, check zen, stay zen, always zen
gorilla gātha:fast, slow
high, low
check zen
stay zen
always zen
meaning: partial jhāna can be maintained in any posture, any activity, whether you’re going slow or fast.
beginners need to move slow or stay still to maintain jhāna, but with practice you realize jhāna has nothing to do with fast or slow, it’s how relaxed you are.
it’s not how fast or how slow, it’s how zen
when in doubt, zen
zen first, questions later
31 – body part index of notes
legs
18 knee lifts18 kick backs (kick heel to butt)
lunge, fiddle and twiddle, neck look back, better than yoga extended pose
48 squash ups
Squats + pushups simultaneously = squash-ups
similar to ‘scat and the cat’., but hands can be farther apart from feet like 4 leg animal
squashup jumps: both hands and feet, or just hands, or just feet
can do pushup jumps the same way
999 – index
FZQ feng zhi qiang lineage: Hu Yao Zhen, Chen FakeZMQ zhen man qing