There are two big  branches in spiritual cultivation - those who  try to cultivate enlightenment or awakening directly, and those who choose to cultivate samadhi and its adjoining kungfu (kung-fu, gongfu or gong-fu) as stepping stones for enlightenment.

Shakyamuni Buddha, in countless sutras ages ago, always introduced the direct way to see into your mind's true nature to Awaken to the Tao. In the Surangama Sutra, Complete Enlightenment Sutra and others, he first talked about awakening to enlightenment directly. When people did not understand (such as in the Diamond Sutra) he then said something along the lines, "Okay, let me teach you how to cultivate the samadhi as a stepping stone," and detailed various meditation methods as well as the kungfu that would result from these methods. You can find them all in various Buddhist texts.

My own teacher would do the same thing. First he'd give individuals a very high cultivation method. After they had no results or success with that or didn't understand it, only then would he teach a lower level method. But he always gave them the chance to succeed at the highest first. People all think that the high methods are the complicated ones but the simplest ones are the highest. They are also the most boring or plain, so no one wants to do them. That's another reason why so few succeed in spiritual pursuits.

Modern Hindu teachers like Papaji, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and others most often teach Buddha's direct cultivation method to realize your original nature, which is the method that's the basis of the Zen school. It's a method of directly seeing into your original nature, abandoning  body and mind to realize the Tao. However, many other teachers talk about cultivating samadhi and kung-fu instead.

In fact, the MAJORITY of low level masters teach only chi and shen manipulations, and the various abilities that result from this which we call kungfu. The problem is, most people are confused and without wisdom and lack good teachers. hence, they take these  samadhi and kung-fu (gongfu) demonstrations/teachings as the path, and sport after cultivating their chi, shen, superpowers and all sorts of other things as spiritual accomplishment rather than penetrate through mental delusion to their original nature. They still attach to form and the idea of being a person or body, and cultivate this body or higher energetic bodies thinking that clinging to form in some way, and purifying it through effort, will win them the Tao. They just subsitute one form for another, and are still lost within the realm of relativities. It's a higher accomplishment than physical accomplishment, but don't make me laugh calling it the Tao.

The martial arts crowd is heavy with this influence, and ALL the form schools have this tendency such as Taoism, Tibetan Buddhism, yoga, tantra, and the martial arts. In cultivating the body they cling to the body; in trying to bring consciousness into the body they also make another mistake.

These people use attachment to breed gongfu results, and yet are blinded by the fact that this isn't true cultivation. This is just cultivation of gongfu or Kung-fu, like learning how to ride a bike or play tennis well when others cannot. It is a skill, for sure, but not the road to Tao if you are blinded by what you are doing. That's why few people succeed on these form school paths. If you have wisdom you can use this to succeed, but if not then these folks are the real disasters. The simple practitoner passes these guys who get stuck on clinging to their gongfu life after life until they too, let go and recognize it's not the real thing. The tortoise who doesn't cling beats the har who does!

So there's nothing wrong with following form school teachings if you know what you're doing. If you don't then be careful. Many people drop into Tibetan Buddhism thinking it's very high stage and contains many secrets, but my own teacher used to laugh at them saying this was the low level stuff….and very expensive. In China's Ming dynasty the Tibetan Esoteric school was outlawed because of all the damage it did to society. If I was a ruler of a country, I'd think seriously about this.

I'd argue with my teacher and report of all the high stage special phenomena that Tibet school practitioners report and which transpires on these form cultivation paths. I'd think to myself, "He doesn't know because he can't read all these books coming out in English," Years later, I can say that he was 100% right and that most monks, Rinpoches and students following   Tibetan Buddhism, even with samadhi achievements, are LOST…Remember, he was an enlightened Esoteric Master (which no Rinpoche can claim, nor even the Dalai Lama) and he was saying this, which is why he wouldn't teach the Esoteric School. It just took me awhile to catch up.

So when you see people telling you to spin your chi and chakras and the like, know that there are hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of cultivation methods like this that cultivate all sorts of things and produce all sorts of extra ordinary results, but cultivating gongfu of many types is NOT the spiritual path.  It's just cultivating gongfu. Taoism has these methods. The Hindu yoga schools and tantric practices  of Tibet, born of Indian and Taoist influence in conjunction with Bon practices, have these methods. This is just low level stuff, so most all genuine schools have versions of this.

Hiowever, what you need to do is break through thoughts, abandon thoughts, detach from, silence, let go of , not be involved with thoughts to discover your original nature. You penetrate through the idea of being an ego, or identifying yourself as an ego, and then you're eon the first rung of self-realization.

There is one original nature, and that's the TRUE REALITY. It only appears that we are all independent egos and beings because of false thoughts, but there is only one original nature. Like the one moon that appears in thousands of puddles all over the world as a reflection while there is only the one real moon in the sky, so it appears as if all universal  beings have separate consciousness when this is just mistaking a reflection for the parent real as well. There is only one Source nature — realize THAT ONE. All is THAT.

Cultivating body kung-fu will not help you realize the moon becaus ein the end you halways have to cultivate the mind. You need to cultivate a freedom from thought attachment (ignorance or delusion clinging)  to see the moon, and not focus on the finger that points to the moon. That's the gist of Zen and Mahamudra and Advaita methods. You can cultivate all the kungfu you like, and become a skilled kungfunician, but it won't win you the Tao. Sure it can help you transform your body, but if you focus on your body and its chi, and attach to it, and mistake the body or any form as REAL or as YOU or the OBJECTIVE, then you're lost. You'll watse years. You may waste lives. You may waste aeons.

Think about that before you talk indiscriminately about these things next time. Learn the whole picture before you open your mouth. You can talk about jing, chi, shen, samadhi, chakras, skandhas, heavens, heavenly beings, stages of consciousnessness, kungfu and so forth, but this is just the revolving scenery and not the real thing or real gist of spiritual cultivation. It will keep you occupied, but in a negative sense.

Cultivate to achieve the real. That's all I can say. And if you need English to help you realize what that means, try Nothing Ever Happened, or Collision With the Infinite, I Am That and other English works  to learn what it means to awaken to the falsity of the ego, and achieve awakening. That's what you're after. It's hard to realize the meaning of spiritual cultivation from books translated from foreign languages written in ages path, so these and others will help you realize the first stage of self-realization, which is crushing the notion of being an ego. From there you can work on REAL cultivation.

First you study the path. Next you practice. Then you awaken by abandoning the idea of being an I or ego. Only then do you start on the stage of true cultivation practice  that leads to perfect and complete enlightenment.

If your religion or spiritual path has no meditation forms for practice, oh boy are you lost. ceremonies, pujas, pilgrimages, and holy books won't help. You have to realize within. So if you're focused on ceremonies, that's the same as being focused on a body - it will never get you to the Tao.

Remember, understand the WHOLE PICTURE and then you can guide yourself correctly. Don't just drop into a path because it's attractive. If you know what you're doing you can use the false to cultivate the real, and use poison to cure illness. But if you can't then follow the tried and true and not something based on the demonstration of superpowers and the like.  With so much at stake, that would be stupid, wouldn't it?