sillybearhappyhoneyeater

*dear mods, if this goes against TOS, please feel free to make it disappear. In order to help me fund a trip to Hong Kong to help my wife with her immigration papers, I have decided to offer a one week discount on my meditation ecourses at www.daoistmeditation.com I will offer 30% off during this time and so if you have previously thought about taking a course with me, now is a great time to try! My tea shop at www.chayotea.com is also having a sale of 40% off all in store products with the coupon code "massive" at checkout. Again, if this goes against the TOS or general ethos of the board, please feel free to take it down, I will not be offended.

I think it is fair to say that there are many different ideas about these practices (there are at least 500 meditation documents in Dao zang, all written from a slightly different perspective) and that there may be different approaches to achieving the true meditation state. I personally practice from this perspective: When seated, I follow the rational of not moving, not looking, not listening, the whole body and mind completely still. this allows the energy to return to its origin and the mind returns to its root. In seated meditation only a very little seed of intention is needed and only just enough to control the process. When walking around and doing things, I treat the mind like forging a sword (wang Chongyang talked about this), too hard and it will break, too soft and it will bend. Tempering xing is much easier than tempering ming when the body is in movement. tempering ming is much easier than tempering xing when the body is still. Wang Chongyang thought that meditation has three major worlds to ascend: The world of desire: this is the world of thought and what we want. The colour world: This is the world of our natural environment and our natural post heaven mind. the non colour world: This is the environs of the world when we are still trying to "rub against emptiness." Today you can ascend the world of desire simply by being quiet, but can you ascend the world of the natural environs of your mind? When you can do that, can you diminish the intention required to do this and go beyond the world of no colour? This is one world view, but Zhang Boduan believed that by continually building up the golden elixir, after enough times (seven turns and nine time ovurturning) the pill will naturally develop in the body. they have different benefits and detracting elements. Wang Chongyang's method is easy to do all the time, it just requires you to show up. zhang boduan's method is very hard to do when you are in movement, so it requires you to sit a lot. Zhang's method has a bigger effect, but it is harder to practice. Everything is a trade off. Nei Dan is a big school with many different ideas, but I think the best thing that anyone can do is when they catch their minds running around and irrationally chattering, find a single point around which to gather the consciousness and emotions, and allow them to gradually calm down, retain quiet, and return to the origin of the human mind, which is quiet and deep. So yeah, your practice when you are driving sounds like it is useful to you, good luck continuing to develop it

His newest song "you want it darker," which as far as I can tell is about being at the end of life. This guy is wonderfully skilled at discussing humanity. Just thought I'd share

Just a quickie, I have gone into fair detail here about the difference between pre and post heaven cultivation of Qi as it pertains to Neidan, but haven't talked about Qi gong that much. I want to discuss Qi Gong for a moment in order hopefully to open up a wider discussion about why Qi gong is different from Neidan. Qi Gong is a post heaven activity and by definition can not be pre heaven. Many of you already know that the pre heaven state is found in non action and is not something that can be achieved while directing the mind to a specific activity. The reason it is possible to reach the pre heaven when meditating, even if focusing the mind on a specific point in the body is because of "Zhen Ding," which basically translates to "real setting," or "real stability." This is when the mind is placed somewhere for long enough that the feeling naturally resides there even though you are no longer directing the mind with your own intention. Qi gong is practiced by projecting the intention to various points in the body in order to draw oxygenated blood to those areas. For instance, I might choose to do a movement in which I wave my hands forward while focusing on my palms. this is in order to allow more blood to move to that place, improving circulation. We know that when we focus on a specific area of the body, it can cause it to heat up slightly, and Qi Gong basically works according to a similar principle. Because qi Gong will always focus on some sort of conscious control over the movement of oxygenated blood, then it always requires intent, and changing of intent, which means that by definition it cannot be a pre heaven exercise. Things like holding post also work the same way, since you always have to retain enough control of your posture that you don't fall over. Meditation on the other hand has you sitting there, not overly worried about posture, although some schools suggest specific postures to be taken. This is where things get a bit tricky, since we all know that some schools of neidan have the concept of "walking, standing, sitting, lying down," and that some teachers such as Wang Chongyang suggested that you should practice all the time. the fact of the matter is that the only practice in which the mind can genuinely enter the pre heaven state is when your mind and body are completely still, so those other practices are designed to keep the mind as calm as possible while in the fully waking post heaven state. This is a very important distinction of Daoist pracitces, since it recognizes that pre and post heaven practice are both extremely important and that neither should be given absolute precedence. Much of what Wang Chongyang talked about is called "Xing gong," or the practice of consciousness. It is half of the equation of "Xing ming shuang xiu," whereas Ming gong, the other half, can most clearly be seen in practices like Zuo Wang, in which the mind is made totally blank. Neidan and Qi gong are both "Xing ming shuang xiu," or xing and ming dual practice, but Neidan approaches it from the perspective of entering the pre heaven state and allowing the energy to move by itself until it needs to be controlled, upon which the post heaven state is used to control the energy, usually bringing it back to its source. qi gong only usually enters the pre heaven state at times when the body is at rest, so usually at the end of a session when the mind goes into a chaotic meditative state and there is no physical movement. It is very difficult to get into the pre heaven state during physical exercise which requires attention and intention, although not everyone completely agrees about this point, and certainly the Northern school and Zhang Sanfeng school advise that Danfa can be practiced even when your body is moving, so this post isn't meant to be a final verdict, but more just some general ideas about why Qi gong and neidan are different. The key and possibly most important point is that Qi Gong focuses on the mind leading the Qi rather than the Qi accumulating as a result of silent introspection. The Qi that the mind is leading is "breathing Qi." Jiang Weiqiao put it very well when he said that there are two types of breathing, one external and one internal. External breath is the one you take in through your nose, to your lungs and put back out through your nose. internal breath is the oxygen circulating through the body as red blood and returning as co2 as blue blood through the veins. This particular Qi is post heaven Qi which you can practice by directing intent. It is the oxygenated Qi in blood. Neidan cultivates both pre and post heaven Qi and is a different and much more complicated subject that probably has just as much relation to hormonal secretions in the brain as it does with blood circulation improving and becoming palpable. Hopefully this thread opens up some discussion about this, and if you think I've gotten something wrong, welcome to call me out and if I'm wrong, I'll admit it, otherwise, we'll debate it

great response! Thanks for that! I just wrote this blog post today, http://daoistmeditation.com/2016/09/28/265/ And Annie Pecheva wrote this great post on her blog: http://anniepecheva.blogspot.ca/2012/02/cycles-of-life-according-to-yi-jing.html Which both go well with your response

Try cultivating Qi deep inside your body first and then it will eventually naturally appear outside your body. Zhineng qi gong is very good for this, so is neidan.

http://daoistmeditation.com/blog/ Here is the original text if you don't want to click through: This method is from Wang Chongyang’s Ten Discussions” a yuan dynasty meditation document from the quanzhen school. Wang believed that people should meditate at all times regardless of whether they were sitting, standing, walking, or lying down. The basic of his method is in harmonizing the mind with the breath and achieving clarity of mind. This is a good example of the basic practice of “xing gong” or consciousness work in Daoism. 王重阳云：坐久则身劳，既不合理，又反成病。但心不著物，又得不动，此是真定正基。用此为定，心气调和，久益清爽。以此为念，则邪正可知。 “Wang chongyang said: Sitting too long overworks the body and is not the right way. Usually this will cause people to become ill. If the mind doesn’t grasp at external things, and gains real stability, this is the real “setting” and upright basic. Use this to become stable: mix the mind and breathing in harmony together. After a period of practice, you will become clear and comfortable. If you focus on this feeling, you can come to know how to correct your evil.”

Hun Dun is always occurring, but we dont notice it. The Dao is always beginning, but we live in the yin world of karma, illness, and desire so we don't see it. Things don't have a start and an end, they just have transitions between phases. Your consciousness is a transitional phase of reality occurring. Going back to the root is to to let the human heart die and the dao heart be born :) :)

At least according to Jiang Weiqiao is his book "Shiyinzi discusses sitting meditation," Qi occurs anywhere there is blood in the body. Remember that this specific Qi word means air, so when you breathe you are taking fresh Qi into your lungs and it is going through the heart and blood stream as a full external and internal breath (external breath is nose to lungs and out, internal breath is heart to body and back). Anywhere oxygen permeates in the body is somewhere that has Qi, but obviously the major places where there are organs are the most important and also have the most Qi and varying effects and importance to your body. Certainly fascia has Qi, but does it have more than muscle or blood? Probably not.

I like Zhineng qigong.

Just a thought: when we interrogate the classics, we should try to be very exact about what they say. As far as I know, it does not say to "weaken desires" in the Dao De Jing, but it does say not to desire. chapter three says 弱其志 ruo qi zhi, which means "weaken the will." 志 zhi means will, or the basic urge to survive. Weakening the will (or we could also say softening the will) may just be a result of quieting the mind and calming the body. If we follow the formula of that chapter which is 虛其心， empty the heart/mind 實其腹， fill the belly 弱其志， soften the will 強其骨。 strengthen the bones, 常使民無知無欲。 make the people long without knowledge, without desire, 使夫1知者不敢為也。 he who knows this has no brave motive, 為無為，則無不治。 acting without action, there is nothing he doesn't control, so at least in my own understanding, when we become quiet, take care of the things we need, and don't try to grasp things that are outside of our direct basic needs, then we naturally desire less, and don't create anything in other people to desire from us. So just remaining quiet, simple, calm, and not selfishly motivated is already a very good way to reduce desire Remember that desire is not only sexual desire, it is every kind of social and physical desire, from wanting material wealth, status, to control other people, sexual desire, and any kind of desire to gain needless material benefit for our bodies. Desire is a natural poison of the mind and it is not a one day process to break its bonds. We have to practice selflessly for a long time and gradually break the shell, so just the most basic things like remaining calm and quiet is already a very good "seed" to begin cultivating this approach. Now that i have reminded myself of that, I think its time to talk a stroll around the greener parts of the city and focus on nothing specific

Do you have any idea what the cause of the fatigue is? Sleep deprivation? too much sleep? Diet? Mental health? The body is a complex system, or better to say a series of complex systems. We need to focus on lifestyle and things like Qi gong and meditation are part of lifestyle, but need to also be accompanied by good diet, sleep schedule, exercise, work life balance and so on. :) :) I like Zhineng qigong.

I can talk about it to some extent, but of course the course that I teach is a source of revenue for me, so I can't be posting the ideas too publicly, since it is a conflict of interest with my students (IE: they would be offended that I was just giving away the materials they payed their own money to study). I hope you understand

The relationships are numerous, one big thing is the production process from sun, rain, earth, plucking impliments, processing, packaging etc. Another is the type of tea, since each tea has multiple elements contained within its physical aspect, workmanship and so on. The way we pour tea also has five elements and bagua etc... Finally, the effect of tea on the body also has five elements. it is quite deep

my 2c: There is nothing wrong with energy transmission teaching, but it needs to be done with a sense of moral responsibility. I want to illustrate this with a few personal experiences plus the experience of a friend: 1: Qi level: I've had this done to me by a number of people and on different levels. Firstly, the Qi level of energy transmission goes from very simple to very complex, so it isn't that it is one type of event manifestation, but rather different levels and types. The simplest type that I have encountered is hands on, which is similar to what reiki people do, but in the context of a qi gong teacher helping manifest Qi by guiding his hands over my head during practice. Another type of experience of this type that I've had is when practicing Qi gong with teacher and classmates, I felt an overwhelming sense of energy and had to sit down afterward. My teacher asked me if I liked the practice and I said what had happened, he laughed and said "I'm glad you noticed, my teacher Mr.Peng taught me how to do that, to send Qi to the room." I also had this experience while reading Dao Zang on a train in Shandong. An old chap who was sitting next to me started directing Qi in a very condensed way deeply into my body. He didn't say anything, but there was no other way that could have happened at that time. I view all of these practices as "ethical," in that the people doing it didn't try to get anything as a result, but on the other hand, I had a chap in Taizhong send what felt like a hot burning piece of coal into my stomach and du meridian one day and then immediately afterward went on a cosmic rant about how he was taught by the god of the Northern star and that all of his dao fa was taught to him from the spirit realm. He was also making fun of several of his students in the room and being quite dismissive of their questions. I view this type of practice as unethical because he was clearly using it to control people. on a more spiritual level, I had an experience with a Tibetan Lama where he caused me to have a waking dream with a spiritual message through chanting. It was an extremely life affirming and positive experience which also helped me to make some important decisions. On the other hand, a friend of mine during induction into a pseudo-daoist cult was directly given spiritual gifts via third eye communication and then signed into their book of the saved. They go around telling people that they have been looking for them for hundreds of years to train them to be Boddhisatvas. this kind of stuff I'm not too keen on because it is obviously cult like behaviour and preys on mentally weak people. So energy transmission or not really isn't the issue for me, it is more of an issue of intention. When people practice in a pure way, it can do beautiful things for others, but when they practice evil graft in order to control students, it is a bad thing. I notice that the graft method is an epidemic among Taiwanese schools especially. Take it for what it is worth.

Listen to this man, he knows something :) :)

I kind of want a hug.

One of the problems with studying nei dan is that the work is so subtle that most people get the wrong idea and practice in an excessively hot way that hurts them. This mainly comes from incorrect instruction and a lack of education about classical documents pertaining to neidan. I've been really let down by the abysmal translation of neidan documents into English and even more disgusted by money hungry con men trying to make danfa into some type of post heaven esoteric practice. Neidan works according to this principle: the mind ties the consciousness and essence together and switches between the pre and post heaven state - this warms the jing and turns it into "shen shui qi" (spirit water qi), which fills the meridians and breaks blockages and seals leaks. This Qi is then united with the spirit and the spirit is returned to emptiness. The nominal conscious movement of Qi in the meridians is only a symptom of correct practice, not the goal of practice. The goal of practice is to break the yin body of earthly desire and become an entity of pure yang energy. yin and yang only exchange fully in nature and won't mix properly if you use the human paradigm to try to force them via empty cycling of the mind through the meridians (it is called kong zhuan he che, I've written several threads about it in this forum). it also doesn't come from your testicles or taint, that is post heaven jing, not pre heaven jing, there is a very important difference. If you actually want to learn nei dan and not just experiment with potentially dangerous methods, you should find a teacher who is qualified and try hard to learn to read classical Chinese. Otherwise you will just waste your time.

"I'm curious for those who have personal experience or knowledge about the neidan firing process - focusing on the lower dantian while contracting the lower abdominal muscles and the perineum during inhale to build chi in this dantian, etc. I'm not sure if it has an actual name or not. I can find very little on this practice on the internet." This is not a type of Nei Dan practice, it is just wrong. wrong all the way! I feel it is unethical to not speak up about this topic, so I will try to elucidate a bit about how Neidan works here so that you won't fall into the trap of destructive and injurious practices: Firstly, the concept of firing is not native to neidan. The degree to which intention is placed in the dantian can be best described using Laozi's small fish analogy. You should never put so much intention that you clench any muscles. Muscles might react on their own as a result of the meridians doing things, but you shouldn't be trying to engage them at all. Neidan essentially has three big features that make it work: 1: emptiness: the mind should always be set to quiet, emptiness, and relaxation. If thoughts come up, just ignore them and they will go away. You should feel open, free, and non constrained. 2: intention is what ties the mind and essence together. Most schools place the intention generally in the lower abdomen near the dantian, although some place it a little lower in the Qi xue point, and some schools place the intention between the eyebrows in the ancestor oracle, but generally speaking, generally keeping a soft focus on the lower dantian is the safest way. 3: the intention can become "warmer" or "cooler" depending on what you want to do. usually at the start of practice, people will use a bit more intention, but when the body relaxes and the Qi moves in the body, usually people will try to focus more on emptiness. It is much better to focus on quiet and emptiness first and then once you can make the mind totally quiet, you can focus on the dantian more. Don't use any special physical method like pulling up your asshole or tucking your belly, these are useless and can hurt you. Qi is a combination of the mind refining an empty place, not from a physical practice. It is very important to enter into the pre heaven state, which is the time when the mind, the qi, and the jing are all held together chaotically as one. There is no thought to think, no sound to hear, no sight to see. It is just quiet and turbid. This is when the energy of the body is sorting itself out, you need to get out of the way of the process and just let it happen. Neidan isn't about you controlling the process, but rather about starting the process and adjusting it as things happen. Please don't do breathing exercises like pulling in the abdomen while focusing on the dantian and testicles, it is really not very good for your health.

Takes a shit tonne of courage to sit in one place and do nothing

Just in terms of Daoist thought, which is what I am principally interested in, mystery comes etymologically from the Chinese character xuan 玄 here is a Eastern Han dynasty period etymological approach to xuan: 玄：幽遠也。黑而有赤色者為玄。象幽而入覆之也 xuan: deep and remote, black and red colours together are called "Xuan," its appearance is deep and entering, it is overflowing. taken from http://ctext.org/shuo-wen-jie-zi/xuan-bu1 Technically, Xuan means purple, which is the colour of Daoism. It is dark and vague and seemingly has no bottom. A silent and empty mind seems like a deep, dark, mystery :) :)

Fasting in Daoism is called "bi gu," it means to stop eating grains. What many people don't know is that bigu practice usually involves some degree of food, for instance, someone might eat fruit and nuts, and mushrooms, but cut out everything else. At our local temple in Kaifeng, the longest any monk has done Bigu in the last thirty years or so is 27 days in a row. Of course, from a Daoist perspective, you should always avoid eating meat and drinking alcohol, but I also think that we need to be realistic about how high we are setting our goals. Much like semen retention, Bigu and special diet has an important place in practice, but if you aren't planning to become Zhang Boduan, you may want to adjust your lifestyle to harmonize with your family and friends.

Walker, dude, you have China stress big time!!! Go on a holiday for a bit!! May I suggest Taiwan? It is like watered down China with a little Japan. Most of the girls are butt ugly so you won't have anywhere to spend your jing and you can go up on a mountain in Lugu Fenghuan Nei Hu district and enjoy the best sunset in the known world. If I wasn't literally tied to China by the leg, I would run away to taiwan right away and stay there. OTOH, I am not where near as cynical about Chinese as you are! Living in a small town with old culture has really helped me get over how stupid Shanghai is, and even see some of the benefits of living there. I love China, although obviously I also get China rage and want to die or kill quite often

Tummoessence: thanks for the referral! I think you should read everything by everyone, but that would take a long time. I second the suggestion on Michael Sasso's work, because he really put effort into studying, and studied the real thing. You could also consider reading Zhuangzi Nanhuajing, because it is fairly directly translated into English, and is probably the easiest Daoist book to understand. You could also consider learning to read a little classical Chinese and read Dao De Jing and other books, but the best thing you can do is find a qualified teacher. I live in Canada and don't really know who is good in any other country, but I suspect that there are some people in the USA and Europe who are quite knowledgeable. What I suggest you don't read is anything by healing Tao, or MR. Franchise. I mean, read them, but don't take them too seriously. New age Daoist book pushers from the 1980s are a lot like the used car salesmen of the spiritual world. You could think you were buying a porsche at a great price and actually getting a Lemon and a pain in the ass.

Quit now, rest, don't think about spiritual things for a couple years. Falun Dafa is an evil cult and Li Hongzhi is a murderous motherfucker. I live in Kaifeng where the victims of the Tiananmen self immolation incident lived. The one girl started out as a top student in her class, she was beautiful, played Guzheng at a professional level, and had a very bright future, but when the Chinese government made Falun Dafa illegal, she took the advice of Li Hongzhi to protest in extreme ways and went to Beijing Tiananmen, doused herself in oil, and set herself on fire in the public square!! In an interview with her as she was in ICU, she disclaimed Falun Dafa as an evil cult and expressed remorse for making such a stupid mistake!! Li Hongzhi was never brought to justice for his crimes and he lives freely in Canada now. It is such a sad situation that my government can protect such a brutal person. If you want to study spiritual practices, you should learn one of the major systems such as Chan, Long Men, or something else mainstream which has a proven method. Falun and other similar sects such as Yiguandao are just slovenly side doors, and the beliefs and obligations of their followers are extreme and negative. Please stop your practice now and work on becoming healthy again.