Ep174: Daoist Inner Alchemy - Damo Mitchell

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  • Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024

Комментарии • 152

  • @LotusNeiGong
    @LotusNeiGong Год назад +89

    Steve was a thoroughly nice guy and a pleasure to chat with. Thanks Steve 🙏

    • @poskantoor
      @poskantoor Год назад +10

      A standout interview, thank you for being so generous in sharing some of your history. I'm an IAA student and it's lovely to get to know a bit more about my teacher.

    • @LotusNeiGong
      @LotusNeiGong Год назад

      Happy to chat :)

    • @elyzak333
      @elyzak333 Год назад +1

      I can’t wait to watch this. ❤

    • @elyzak333
      @elyzak333 Год назад +3

      Wow, this was definitely one of the best interviews I’ve seen of Damo. Steve asked some excellent questions. I’m so glad morality came up, it’s something I crave learning more about. Hearing Damo speak about alchemy is so exciting to me and I feel so lucky to have found a teacher in Damo. He is a person I really look up to.

    • @xvrlskrcll6485
      @xvrlskrcll6485 Год назад

      I really appreciate your "brutal" honesty.
      A useful and also entertaining interview.
      🙏😇🙃

  • @DiscoverTaiji
    @DiscoverTaiji Год назад +52

    I am happy you did this, Damo is the real deal!

    • @LotusNeiGong
      @LotusNeiGong Год назад +12

      Thanks buddy. Means a lot coming from you

  • @sherrilawrence662
    @sherrilawrence662 8 дней назад

    Steve I'm watching this one again ❤ you are such a beautiful blessing and much appreciated 🙏

  • @stevewrightmusic7512
    @stevewrightmusic7512 4 месяца назад +1

    “If I don’t disagree with myself in a year-I’m not progressing”-Love That!! ❤😂

  • @cheerfuldragon5642
    @cheerfuldragon5642 Год назад +12

    I, for one, am very grateful for Damo's teachings and straight forward manner. Thanks for having him on.

  • @alexneil394
    @alexneil394 Год назад +9

    Dude this channel is sooooooooooo underrated

  • @jennydodd8705
    @jennydodd8705 Год назад +5

    Wonderful interview…Damo is an amazing Nei Gong teacher and moral human being!!!! 💕🙏🏻

  • @jasonandfiona
    @jasonandfiona Год назад +8

    I’m always amazed and excited to hear of “early Jhanic states” that so many seekers remember experiencing as children. This is something that I remember from my own childhood, on at least 3 occasions, vivid memories of what I’d now call samadhi.

    • @LotusNeiGong
      @LotusNeiGong Год назад +1

      I think many of these states and energetic aspects of the practice are easier as kinds but then we forget them :)

    • @LotusNeiGong
      @LotusNeiGong Год назад

      I meant ‘kids’, not ‘kinds’ sorry :)

    • @skipinkoreaable
      @skipinkoreaable 2 месяца назад

      ​@@LotusNeiGong ​ It's like you got the German word for child and pluralized it the English way.

  • @xvrlskrcll6485
    @xvrlskrcll6485 Год назад +2

    Great interview, both sides!
    Thank you very much, Damo Mitchell and Guru Viking!

  • @spiritualphysics
    @spiritualphysics 8 месяцев назад +2

    👊🏾😎👍🏼
    an interesting discussion w/ a fascinating man
    thanks for sharing

  • @CyberSec1026
    @CyberSec1026 Год назад +16

    Really looking forward to this! Appreciate the recent focus on Qigong with Bruce Frantzis and Damo.

    • @purplegriffin8969
      @purplegriffin8969 Год назад +6

      I agree! Just to add a suggestion, I would like to see more practice-related questions, like when Steve asked Ian Baker all that technical stuff about pranayama, perineum etc.

    • @varuanda
      @varuanda Год назад +5

      I would really like to know what Mitchell thinks on Frantzis since he seems to be the right guy smelling bullshido from a mile away 🙂Agree, nice to have this mate on!

    • @CyberSec1026
      @CyberSec1026 Год назад +1

      @Varuanda I agree with you, Damo's BS detector is finely tuned. I haven't heard Damo speak about Bruce directly, put Bruce seems to be highly regarded. Bruce and Damo were the names that came up the most as I started getting more into Qigong.

    • @varuanda
      @varuanda Год назад +2

      @@CyberSec1026 Well Damo has a lot content which is also pretty solid and straight forward whereas Bruce i've only seen the insane talk and no walk. But i don't know really about both of them, i'm still in thought about taking the chance on Damos online course, since i don't have any good qi gong and sure no nei gong teachers nearby. But online inner martial arts is just not it, i guess.

    • @CyberSec1026
      @CyberSec1026 Год назад +6

      @@varuanda fair enough, I haven't worked closely with Bruce in person or online either. I am subscribed to Damo's online course and would highly recommend. Very structured, along with a Facebook group to ask Damo and seniors questions. Good luck to you!

  • @onelove7069
    @onelove7069 Год назад +4

    For me, I respect his integrity in being open to transformation of self, and understanding. That's a true spiritual path. And also emphasis on morality. This is the ground. Daoism, chi kung, tai chi, they should all be making one a more loving, kind person, with less ego, less identification of the small limited self, the body, the mind.. And funnily enough that's what will make one more skillful. To be in harmony with the Dao.
    The teacher who took away his anger!! That's skill, I would like to learn from him

  • @swellenator
    @swellenator Год назад +3

    Fantastic interview, great questions, great answers

  • @RocheBrazil
    @RocheBrazil 4 месяца назад

    So glad I found this.

  • @richierich291266
    @richierich291266 Год назад +1

    Fab interview. Thanks to both Damo and Steve 👍

  • @coreyhess3612
    @coreyhess3612 Год назад +1

    Thanks, Steve and Damo. Will listen to this one. 👍

    • @coreyhess3612
      @coreyhess3612 Год назад

      You two might be interested to know that traditional Japanese Zen training, especially Rinzai, involves deep cultivation of the lower dantien, or tanden in Japanese. So a real Roshi’s will be an energy master. This is much more than the normal vague use of the word hara, and it brings a sublime level of functioning. Sadly this part of Zen training is not often seen in most lineages which have come to the West, at least not yet. Thanks for the chat. Informative 👍🏼.

  • @FredericZolnet
    @FredericZolnet Год назад +1

    Wonderful interview. Damon is informative and kind as usual and you ask really good questions! I've heard a lot in this interview that I was curious about but hadn't yet heard on Damo's channel. Frank questions, frank answers!

  • @DuanePortal
    @DuanePortal Год назад

    Spectacular interview, thank you for producing us

  • @BlindfoldedSight
    @BlindfoldedSight Год назад

    blessings brother. I'm excited to see another interview. Good stuff.

  • @sunyangchen
    @sunyangchen Год назад

    Utterly fascinating.

  • @johanhausen1621
    @johanhausen1621 Год назад +6

    I just would like to recommend anyone interested in Daoism in its complexity and thousand-year old tradition to read Louis Komjathy's "The Daoist Tradition" to get another viewpoint of its history steeped in scriptures, talismans, confessions, and rituals, including the history of internal alchemy.

  • @VictorShiryaev
    @VictorShiryaev Год назад +1

    Awesome!!!

  • @novaacuinfo5930
    @novaacuinfo5930 Год назад +5

    Patanjali and many great yogic gurus warn against chasing after siddhis. Siddhis are not the true goal but spontaneously manifest when training properly.

  • @PhoenixDarshan
    @PhoenixDarshan Год назад +7

    I have tried to ascertain Damo's background and I will focus on the facts that he has presented, so to keep things as objective as possible:
    (1) His longmen lineage teachers? - they wish to remain in secret so their names cannot be revealed , only to inner circle students.
    (2) His removal of important aspects from Daoist practice such as ritual and scriptures? - he is an expert in these, but no longer practices them because they are a waste or in other posts this is a common misunderstanding (he never provided further evidence how ritual is not part of traditional daoism for 2000 years or proof of his skill)
    (3) His means of study since he speaks Chinese very rudimentarily stating " I spent two years in China"? -no answer (yes he "translated" the daode jing, which is a rather popularized commentary very liberal and removed from the meaning of the words in classical Chinese, [feel free to run this assessment by anyone with a good standard of classical chinese].
    Of course I was attacked by his followers to be unworthy of such information, and to "test" my suspicions in Bali with him, whatever that means, or by himself, that "I just don't know him personally" (not sure how that factors into the revelance of my questions) or by his buddy Adam Mizner that all that is important is skill not lineage - deviating from my questions in the first place since skills was never the subject of my inquiries)
    So I am drawing here many question marks to which the answers may be given in the future or maybe not. I will now disengage as per request, I said what I had to say.

    • @LotusNeiGong
      @LotusNeiGong Год назад +15

      1. my long men teacher IS named. Wang Haitao was the person I spent the longest with in alchemy but I moved on from here and just keep a cordial relationship with him now. A couple who I taught stayed with him but I moved on to other teachers. I teach Daoist work but I am not Daoist, not really interested in the wider culture and/or religion of Daoism and don’t identify as being a part of that traction, I simply use their terminology and practices. The Daoist world can do what they wish but I want no part of it. It is my current teachers who I wish to keep to myself for now and this is my decision, whether you guys like it or not. Myself, some seniors and a few closer students are privy to that information and that is how it should shall stay.
      2. These are not important practices to me; they are irrelevant, but Lu can do what you want, but I think all this stuff is stupid. I am not an ‘expert’ in your words, but I have been trained to a fair level in them. I just don’t care about them. I don’t teach them 🤷‍♂️
      3. I spent longer than two years in China, I was in and out of that country for many years. Thankfully less so these days
      I don’t answer these to answer you; I don’t respect you enough yo care about your opinion. I answer because others are reading this as well.
      You see, to me skill IS paramount in all of this, even if it is not to you. I never met any of you lot here talking this crap who have any. Maybe I will one day but right now, you guys are just, to me, wasting your time and other peoples.

    • @back-seat-driver1355
      @back-seat-driver1355 Год назад +3

      Thanks PhoenixDarshan,
      these and other Points concerns me as much as you!

  • @journeyingdeeperinward
    @journeyingdeeperinward Год назад

    Thank you!

  • @HIMfan0805
    @HIMfan0805 Год назад +2

    Hello Damo Mitchell,
    I am huge fan of your work and have been following your shows and interviews for a while. I do however thing you are selling traditional martial arts and Chinese martial arts in particular a little short here. Now I do fully recognize you have many more years in the arts and much more skill than me, no questions there. And I do 100% hear your point about martial arts breeding paranoia and fantasy. But I also don't think "tmas" are really comparable to mma and it creates a sort of false impression of what Chinese martial arts are trying to do.
    Comparing mma to traditional Chinese kung fu in terms of "efficiency" is, in my mind, a little like looking at stimulating a single accupuncture point to test its effect on "headaches" without understanding different types of headaches need different point prescriptions, or, to reference one of your podcasts, looking at taijiquans healing skill in terms of "preventing falls." It's simply the wrong criteria.
    Oftentimes mma fighters will be better at defending themselves from an average tcma practitioner simply because they train at higher intensity and take the subject more seriously, but there are still very major context differences between a sports fight/practice fight and a more dangerous encounter, much more than is imagined with "eye pokes and breaks and stuff." In a self-defense situation, much of the important skills happen before the fight, the attacks are more committed, counters need to be immediate and fight ending, much of the higher level skills involve staying upright, making informed decisions under fire, being able to gather sensory info efficiently while disrupting theirs, being able to respond without falling into a rut or psychological loop, and so on. When people talk about Geoff Thompson getting to an almost spiritual understanding through martial arts, understanding this level of martial arts is how you get there, but unlike Geoff, if you have an authentic tcma lineage all that work mental, emotional, and physical technique wise is already there so you dont have to reinvent it.
    A guy named Iain Abernathy is one of the best at talking about this side of martial arts in my opinion, as well as of course Rory Miller. When reading Meditations on Violence, every time he talked about a problem in self-defense violence that made it different from dojo sparring, I could easily match it to a training tool from my taiji and bagua I had already was working with.
    Now yes of course in terms of practicality of how often would I ever need to actually use these skills not much hopefully. I'm not interested in the topic cause I expect ninjas jumping out of the dumpster nor do I watch a ufc fight going "I could totally beat these guys in da streetz." But I do think it's important to understand these arts in terms of their martial value and recognize that modern sports fighting isn't simply an upgrade martially, regardless of the other spiritual and energetic aspects these arts offer

  • @m0rgentraum
    @m0rgentraum Год назад

    Great interview btw!

  • @freestylebagua
    @freestylebagua 5 месяцев назад

    Early in the 20th century there was a martial art competition in China which many famous masters attended, the competition was canceled without finishing because very quickly many people became seriously injured as dangerous techniques were employed that would never be allowed in mma. These masters of course had long trained in their use but without ever having to use them. Without the deadliness of strikes grappling becomes the dominant combat form in space constrained 1v1 fighting, imho. I believe the movement towards these arts as spiritual, exemplified by the change from '-jitsu' to '-do' in the Japanese arts, was an excellent way to retain the knowledge of these techniques but no it is not going to make one a competitive boxer.

  • @rabukan5842
    @rabukan5842 5 месяцев назад

    With all due respect, I've been practicing (and teaching) MA since 1970. I studied a mix of jujutsu/Okinawa Karate/boxing/Filipino MA/military MA from 2 Special Forces Army combat soldiers and instructors who returned from both the Korea and Vietnam wars. I practice(d) Zen, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, etc. for the past 50 years and all of that did come from traditional MA. Karate and Judo since the early 1900's is modern MA, not traditional. Most Karate masters today do not understand bunkai (applications) as they only learned and teach forms and some omote bunkai (surface bunkai.) But Okinawa Ti (what I learned) was brutal and came from Chinese influences and Tegumi, which was the Okinawa form of grappling - which had strikes as well. Qi or Ki was always a part of the arts, and of the fighting. It was based on the coordinated transfer of energy through conduits - meridians/blood vessels/nerve points, etc. - in order to become more efficient in combat and more controlled mentally. We practice breath control/work, which to me, is much more important than the accuracy of a kata or form. I don't believe that Qi and MA can be separated as they harmonize together the way rhythms and melodies work together in music. Most of what I see of YT Qi Gong is American style self-help quick fix/feel-good guru nonsense. It took me 20 years to begin to understand, and that's when I first began my journey to really understand. Those who taught Damo MA in his youth really knew nothing about traditional arts.

  • @DaoNeigong
    @DaoNeigong Год назад +1

    Great :)

  • @gideonros2705
    @gideonros2705 Год назад

    Excellent

  • @SnakeAndTurtleQigong
    @SnakeAndTurtleQigong 7 месяцев назад

    🙏

  • @ultraclaveshermetium5709
    @ultraclaveshermetium5709 Год назад

    I wonder have you heard of Sifu Kam Yuen?

  • @twelvepetaledlotus1721
    @twelvepetaledlotus1721 Год назад

    I got a question for you. Monkey or the watermargin?

  • @bloomintokyoseoul
    @bloomintokyoseoul 7 месяцев назад

    "Sexual practices are basically scraping the bottom of the spiritual barrel, it's the lowest of the low" lol talk about dropping a bombshell

  • @back-seat-driver1355
    @back-seat-driver1355 Год назад

    Hm, everybody has a childhood trauma!?
    Damo has learned a lot from his parents as reported elsewhere, but this is not so spectacular i suppose!

  • @m0rgentraum
    @m0rgentraum Год назад

    I am curious about a tantric perspective on Damo's comment about sexual practice being like scraping at the bottom of the barrel. Tantra is certainly not foremostly about sexual practice, but isn't it true that some of the very advanced completion stage practices are sexual in nature?

    • @Bensaccount-qk6ps
      @Bensaccount-qk6ps Год назад +3

      Actually in Daoist practice, it's important that you become celibate at some point in order to progress. Not neccessarily permanently, but sexual activities are generally viewed as counterproductive. The sexual practices are meant to minimize the damage, not techniques that can lead you to enlightement by any means.

    • @DiscoverTaiji
      @DiscoverTaiji Год назад +4

      even within such completion stage practice actual sexual intercourse is considered the lowest version.

    • @m0rgentraum
      @m0rgentraum Год назад +1

      @@DiscoverTaiji Interesting. I didnt know that.

    • @PhoenixDarshan
      @PhoenixDarshan Год назад +1

      Not quite so, there are records that hint that you can reach enlightenment through it associated with lv dongbin but it is a very small percentage blown out to be the whole tradition and monetized by teachers in thailand.

    • @ushojedi
      @ushojedi Год назад

      Different traditions have different approach's. In Tibetan Buddhism Sexual union is considered essential for final stage practices.

  • @mrc8725
    @mrc8725 Год назад +3

    isnt siddhi sanskrit?
    did you learn taoism from an indian?

    • @LotusNeiGong
      @LotusNeiGong Год назад +5

      I used the term most people in the scene are familiar with 🤷‍♂️

  • @PhoenixDarshan
    @PhoenixDarshan Год назад +5

    Id prefer people represent daoism who actually have a lineage behind them so its clear where their teaching comes from. Damo teaches a hit hotchpotch/ patchwork identity of several traditions whose origins remain guesswork for the student all under the mantle/umbrella of Daoism. He himself said in recent post on instagram he is not a daoist, not understanding that daoism for thousands of years has been religious and before classical daoism there were the fang shi and the wu shamans, to argue against such is utter madness. And I wonder why he dies not pick up some scholarly books to educate himself on history. So why teach daoism if you dont have faith in the very fabric of its religious origin.
    If everyone taught popular/new age daoism like him, daoism would be dead in 1 generation.
    Without memorization (mantra/scripture) there is no daoism.
    If the opening were to be true, does he accept martial arts challenges? I know a person, muay thai trainer from spain in thailand who fought many such challenges, so what are we talking about here?

    • @PhoenixDarshan
      @PhoenixDarshan Год назад +2

      In essence if you buy pizza in the shop and there are meat pies inside, it is false advertising.

    • @jimalliban
      @jimalliban Год назад

      Wow, there is a gigantic strawman in your head built from many misunderstood cherry picked fragments of this man's utterances. Keep beating away at it and perhaps some day you may realise that it is yourself that you are attacking.

    • @Bensaccount-qk6ps
      @Bensaccount-qk6ps Год назад +3

      First I'm pretty he said what his lineage was in this interview. It was Longmen Pai, there's no patchwork or whatever. Second if you've read his book, you'll know that he's quite well-informed on the root of Daoism. And lastly if you've read that instagram post carefully, you'll notice that he's been a part of that type of Daoism for a while too!

    • @YongnianTaiChiUSA
      @YongnianTaiChiUSA Год назад +2

      Felt the same way. Read his books, I dont hate the guy but def it is not pure longmen pai. I made this ironically on saturday. ruclips.net/video/ANIFzkIVCLg/видео.html

    • @LotusNeiGong
      @LotusNeiGong Год назад +8

      “Without mantra/scripture, there is no Daoism” - and that there is a part of the issue these days. This is where the misunderstandings come into play…

  • @relecto2800
    @relecto2800 Год назад +6

    of all the daists you choose fake ones when there are so many proper ones out there. how come?

    • @matth9558
      @matth9558 Год назад

      Steve is open to suggestions - if there are people you'd like to see on the show, suggest them!

    • @m0rgentraum
      @m0rgentraum Год назад +4

      What makes you imply that Damo is a fake practitioner?

    • @relecto2800
      @relecto2800 Год назад +2

      @@matth9558 there are many worthy researchers - academic like Liva Kohn, Louis Komjathy etc., practitioners like guys from Parting Clouds or Jason Read, lots of them actually. It's hard to pick a single person

    • @relecto2800
      @relecto2800 Год назад

      @@m0rgentraum mainly my personal experience in practicing neidan and chinese inner style martial arts and my travels in China. This guy clearly has no idea what is fajin in Taiji or what is dantian in daoist alchemy. He is either making this stuff up or has been learning from fake teachers and is dellusional himself, I can't say for sure. Also he is as stiff as a wooden wardrobe judging from his videos.
      I am not trying to persuade anyone, you may believe him and ignore me. Just wrote this so that Steve would maybe first research who's out there in a daoist field then make his picks for interviews and not go for the most popular obvious cheesy ones

    • @varuanda
      @varuanda Год назад +2

      @@relecto2800 So, what makes Damo fake? I'm really curious. Do you know his work, do you speak of experience?I mean that Bruce guy is an easy target just by listening to him you can smell BS if you like but please explain why you pick on Damo.

  • @Seaileanu
    @Seaileanu Год назад

    My master!