sillybearhappyhoneyeater

I think this deserves its own thread, so I've decided to branch out of the cha gongfu thread to talk about something specific to tea in China. I've personally been studying tea ceremony/the way of tea in China for about six years. I know that isn't a very long time, but I've been a pretty serious student and have visited many of the most important and also some lesser known places specializing in tea and pottery. One thing I have come to recognize and something I want to address with this thread is the very complex and often misunderstood relationship between tea and Chinese religion. Last year, a very good book called Tea in China by James L Benn was released by the Hawaii University Press, I strongly encourage anyone wanting to expand their understanding of tea as something related to Buddhism and Daoism to read this book, since it is the definitive work on this subject. My personal experience in researching modern and historical tea culture has been that many of the ideas surrounding a Buddhist tea culture are badly mixed up with romanticism, both Chinese and Western. Many people here will know the phrase "Tea and Zen, one taste," and certainly it would be incorrect to say that tea has no relationship with religion in China. Having said that, the relationship is considerably different and more practical than most people assume it to be. Aside from the two great sages of tea, Jiao Ran and Lu Yu, there were not very many people trying to put tea and Buddhism together in medieval Chinese writing, at least not in the practical sense. There are however many writers who discuss drinking tea at Buddhist shrines, or even the spiritual effects of drinking a very good bowl of mo cha (Chinese historical matcha). What is sorely missing is a Buddhist or Daoist classic on tea culture, leading me to strongly believe that the relationship between tea and religion is not a spiritual one, but rather a monetary one. Some of the earliest tea producing mountains in China were monastic in nature, and the monks there produced and sold tea, just as monks in Europe make and sell various types of classical beer. The purpose of selling tea was to serve as a way to get tourists to give money to the temples and historically speaking, it drove tourism. As a modern person, it may seem very funny to imagine medieval Chinese tourism, but in ancient China it was quite common. So common in fact that Wang Chongyong wrote an article in his document "Wang Chongyang fifteen upright discussion," about why it is better to travel alone to find a monk to teach you the Dao than to meet up with friends, get drunk and look at flowers (Chongyang zushi was actually a huge fan of da song guan chrysanthemum's, which grew in the area he erected one of his temples in Kaifeng Henan. These crysanthemum's make a great flower tea which lowers body heat among other things). Tea tourism was just as much of a thing in ancient China is it is today. In terms of monks drinking tea to meditate, the purpose was not one of internal alchemy, it was more likely because the caffeine helped them stay awake during long hours of meditation. As far as I know, this is not recorded in Chinese history, but does have some record in Japanese monastic histories. Tea and alchemy are quite different, and I have personally done considerable research to try to find out if they have any connections. My current understanding is that modern Cha Dao tea ceremony in both Japan and Taiwan were invented in order to help people practice "Xing gong," or consciousness practice. The individual movements of these tea ceremonies are designed to calm the mind and the caffeine and l-theonine in the tea also does much to slightly alter regular consciousness. Modern tea ceremony is a type of meditation practice, although perhaps it is more comparable to Qi gong and calligraphy than it is to neidan and zazen. The fact of the mater is that the ancient Chinese tea ceremonies of the tang and song dynasty were lost after the Mongol invasion and that by the time of the invention of the tea pot in the Ming, tea was considered as a naturalized practice and not its own art with its own methods. When we consider tea from the perspective of serious meditation practice, it should best be considered as one of the "Small arts and side doors," and can't be viewed as a serious route to collecting elixir and refining the foetus. This doesn't mean it can't help you cultivate yourself, just that it shouldn't be treated as the main feature. just as there are very few masters who attained enlightenment by doing taijiquan alone, there are also very few who do so using tea alone. These days there is some popular argument that tea from ancient pu'er bushes create a special kind of Qi in the body that can cause alchemical effects, and while there is some basis in truth to this (the tea can open your meridians, not just pu'er, but many kinds, it can be quite shocking the first time), this particular type of Qi is post heaven qi and has no relationship with the "opening of the mystery gate," which is the real basis of neidan. it can be classified in the same genre as Qi that is taken in from eating healthy food, sunlight, breathing etc... Again, it is of value to practice, just as any aspect of healthy life style is. on the other hand, it is important to recognize that the only currently existing tea self cultivation cults existing today were all started by americans, such as Mr.Wu De of the global tea sage hut. These people have decided to try to go back to some imagined historical epoch in which tea was a primary method of self cultivation, and in my personal opinion (again, i don't expect everyone will agree with me here), they are misleading their students. One of the really important things to remember about Chinese culture is that most things that were worth writing down were recorded for posterity. Tea really has no classics which are dedicated to meditative self cultivation, but instead, the many classics of tea are all focused on either agricultural or provisions regarding quality of tea. Most ancient tea classics are either teaching how to properly grow and make the stuff, or how to buy real tea and not get ripped off. This is a very important distinction, because it shows that the ancient understanding of tea in China is actually quite similar to the modern understanding. There are documents dating back to the Ming dynasty that discuss how much fake Long Jing tea is grown around Hangzhou and how to avoid it. Anyone who has ever learned about Longjing tea will surely sigh and empathise with the sentiments expressed in that article. The reason why I make threads like this is to try to put out more truth into the community. It actually isn't fun a lot of the time, because it ruffles feathers and in some tea communities has actually gotten me attacked by business people who have narratives (and profits) to protect. There are two things I'm really interested in though, one is tea and the other is meditation, and I feel that we need to be engaging in a lot more well researched and honest talk about these things, not just superstitious and romantic posturing. I'm happy for everyone to share here, and if you disagree with anything I've said, I'm happy to hear your opinions. If it turns out I was wrong and you were right, I'll amend this post to reflect on the information you have shared. I hope everyone is enjoying their day and that you have a fruitful and beneficial fall season full of warmth, kindness, and love. :)

I have been watching the thread about true vs. false teachers unfolding and how it has come around to monetary issues and a discussion of whether teachers ought to accept payments or not, and have some thoughts on the subject which I think merit their own thread. At first, I was a little hesitant to offer my thoughts on this subject, since as many people here know, I do have a horse in the race. Upon longer term consideration, I think that these things do need to be discussed openly and frankly, and I do think it is important to have an informed discussion about the relative merits of both ways of teaching. Starting with a general historical overview of Daoist and Chinese cultural ideas surrounding lineage and patronage, I would like to start by suggesting that there is no example of a teacher who accepted students in Chinese history who did not receive something from the students in return. What teachers obtain from students can take many forms, but I think we can drill these rewards down to these major points: - livelihood in the form of support, food, housing, and money: Most full time teachers require their students to give them something in return, and whether this is a red envelope on important days of the year, a place to live, food to eat, or any other type of material appreciation, this is something that is intrinsically built into Chinese culture to such an extent that for the most part, the teacher doesn't even have to ask, it is simply a known thing. - people to carry on his or her teachings: The teacher desperately needs qualified disciples to carry on the teachings of their school, and this is always a major consideration of every teacher. - adulation: this is a dirty but true fact about Chinese traditional culture. Teacher worship is a genuine consideration of all masters of respective fields, be it religion and spirituality, martial arts, pottery, fine art, poetry or anything else. Egotistical considerations are a huge part of the life of a teacher of traditional Chinese arts and Chinese students are always willing to reciprocate with exceptionally high levels of adoration and will even go so far as to attack rival schools in order to promote the ideas of their teachers. This brings to mind an incident I was told about in 2012 that involved two teachers of Tibetan Buddhism in Tianjin who were locked into a bitter dispute over students going from one to the other teacher. One of these men was considered in his lineage to be highly enlightened, and yet this issue still took place. It would be a good thing for all students of spirituality to allow the scales to fall from their eyes in this regard. Teachers are people too and have lots of flaws. So having discussed some of the mechanical reasons why teachers take students, lets address these points in a bit more detail. Money: teachers teach for money for many different reasons. For people like me, it is because I have a family to feed and because teaching is a supplement to my income (although it doesn't even account for a quarter of my yearly earnings). For some other people, teaching is a business that they make a full time living from. Some full time teachers are very good while others are not so good, thus is the environment of a market economy. Can teaching for money be called into question? Of course, it can and should be, because there are many very nasty people teaching these arts and money certainly does contribute a lot to drawn out course material, having to pay up to get "high level instruction," and many other not so savoury business practices which we should be aware of and avoid. On the other hand, even Wang Chongyang go material benefit from teaching his students, even if it wasn't in the form of money, so discussing material benefit is a very tricky and difficult subject, and certainly isn't a morally black and white issue. Lineage: this is when things get really complicated, because for a teacher to pass on his lineage, he needs to have serious students who are totally dedicated to mastering his school and will not pollute his ideas with their own shortcomings. This says a lot about the issue of student quality and raises a tremendously important problem which our current western cultural ideology doesn't really talk about, the issue of low quality students wanting to take up all of the teacher's time and getting in the way of his passing on real information to qualified people. One of the major solutions to this has been the culture of outer and inner door students, and certainly a teacher's main source of revenue can consist of outer door students who only by proving their dedication can enter into his home and study directly with him. Personal considerations: it is a fact that many teachers teach simply for the high they get from interacting with their loving students. Whether this was the case when they started teaching, or whether it was developed over time, this addiction to "face" is one of the biggest problems in the spiritual community, and really can't be overstated. Usually, these three big subjects are not independent of one another, but rather merge in unexpected ways and can really shape the way a teacher teaches. It is very symptomatic of our own ideas of self worth to assume that we are worth the time of a teacher who is teaching out of the goodness of his or her heart and passing along real knowledge. I can say with great certainty from my own experience that about 90% of people who come to study with my teacher will never get past the outer door. Most of these people come to class twice a week, socialize, practice a bit at home, and treat the classes as a leisure activity. Since my teacher started a new career, he has cut out a great deal of his old classes and adjusted his system so that only the more serious students are held on to and the trouble makers are let go as fast as possible, but nonetheless, it isn't a foregone conclusion that he will have only dedicated students who are worthy of learning the depth and breadth of knowledge he has accumulated in his lifetime. I am very sceptical of teachers who charge high fees for limited pieces of information and it has been a personal choice of mine to be exceptionally generous with my own teachings, often leaving very detailed curriculum information in forums like this and not asking for anything in return. On the other hand, I do take money for teaching, because in my own ethical model of the world, it is the best way to promote the benefits of practice to a wide group of people while at the same time leaving me with enough free time in my schedule to research and practice by myself. Certainly if I were not already a business person (I run an international tea import and export service) and had to work a full time job, I would not have time or energy to teach, and probably would have a lot less time to research and practice by myself, so at least within my own world view, I consider a moderate fee structure to be acceptable to me, although I also understand that other people may disagree with me for both ideological and practical reasons. I guess what I would like to leave behind, without being too long winded, is that everyone ought to be very sceptical. Not only sceptical of teachers, whether in the public market place, or people who teach for reasons best known to themselves, or even of themselves as students and prospective students. People's intentions are almost never as clear as simply receiving or refusing money, and to simplify it to such an extent is really an injustice not only to the teachers, but also to the students themselves, since in the long run, a student's ability to discern things on a subtle level is what will lead to finding the right teacher and the results that the student wishes to achieve. I think I'll leave it there and wait for others to chime in. I suspect that this will be a somewhat controversial thread, which I don't think it should be, but certainly I'm open to all opinions and as always, I'm sure that many of the people who post here will make me stop and reconsider my own positions. Best wishes, Robert.

I am extremely uncomfortable about certain new posters here propagandizing the methods of their respective ideologies by speaking out against other schools. We need to talk openly and frankly about why specific schools practice differently from others or else new students will always be victim to the spiritual vampires and sheister business people in our midsts. I don't want to name lineages here, but rather talk about an important distinction between two major ideas in Nei Dan and why they work the way they do. I will refer mainly to Zhang Boduan, Wang Chongyang, and Li Daochun's ideas and explain the rationale for their ideas and how they affected later nei dan practices such as those of Wu Liu Zong, Huang Yuanji, Chen Yinging and so on. I must assume that people practicing those lines will explain things from their unique perspective and I hope I don't make too many mistakes in my writing about the lines that other people practice, but whose practices I only know from textual interrogation. Lets start with Zhang Boduan and why he held certain ideas about meditation that differed from earlier Dan fa and also from other popular practices of his day: Zhang was particularly concerned with the cultivation of the Dao by using the mind. This means that his school was largely focused on "Wu Qi Chao Yuan," (five energies rise to their origin), 修一物 Xiu yi wu (cultivate one being), and the harmonization of pre and post heaven intention, water fire etc... He took the language of external alchemy and combined it with the language which had been used to discuss the "Fu Qi" methods that were popular of his day. his argument was that while Fu Qi used post heaven intention to move Qi to the five major organs, it was better to do it by cultivating spiritual oneness, which is expressed in his line "Alone, cultivating one being is the way to ensure victory. tiring the body by stretching and pushing is the false way. Eating Qi (fu qi) and swallowing red clouds are all rash." If anyone wants to read about what Fu Qi is, the texts are available online in "Xiao Dao Zang," under the sections "Zhu Jia qi fa" (there are five sections in total). I believe that Zhang's practice accurately reflects Laozi's idea of following the reverse course and going back to the oneness of the Dao. Probably my favourite phrase from Zhang's work is "returning to the root and going back to the origin is the king of medicine." I think it is fair to make the assumption that Zhang's method would have principally been done seated, and there are many examples from other Southern school texts which have drawings of seated meditation practices. One of the reasons for this is because seated meditation makes it much easier to access the pre natal state and cause the yuan jing, qi, and shen to collect together. Now lets talk about Wang Chongyang: Wang recognized that prolonged seated meditation could be injurious and so he promoted the idea of "walking, standing, seated, and lying down," which is a foundational idea in Quanzhen Daoism. The benefit of this type of practice is that it limbers up the body and allows you to recover from long periods of specific types of practice. It also means that it is harder to directly practice Ming gong, because at a beginner and intermediate level, you will have to come out of the "oneness" state in order to move your body from whatever you were doing to the next posture you choose to take up. Wang's concept is probably taken from Chan Buddhism, which does considerable practice off the meditation cushion. He believed that first you should practice Xing and then Ming would happen naturally, and certainly the idea of combining consciousness with various types of activities is easier to do that practicing Ming gong while moving. In any event, his type of practice results long term in the same benefits as Zhang's, it just approaches it from another direction. It is extremely important to recognize that Wang also wrote a document called "Zuo wang lun" which does focus on seated meditation, so he did not encourage people not to sit as some poster's here recently impugned (doubtlessly to promote his or her sectarian ideas) Li Daochun consolidated these two methods and influenced many people including the Neo Confucian Wang Yangming. Li believed that the centre of consciousness must be kept empty and open, but after that had been accomplished, then all things emerging from it should be placed in harmony with the centre. What this means has two aspects, the first is that he found a way to consolidate Xing and Ming gong together into a method that could easily cultivate both from the very start (Zhang Sanfeng did this before him, but Zhang's writings are considerably more archaic and less detailed than Li's). Secondly, it helped to create a rationale which would later deeply influence other schools of neidan and even gongfu and qi gong, the idea was that once the mind was set, then there would be nothing wrong with combining it with other practices. Li Daochun was also very important in describing the relationship between xin and shen, the kun trigram and physical body, and otherwise brilliantly explaining the relationship between the bagua and the physical and energy bodies. After Li, there was a huge development of Dan methods which went through the Ming and Qing eras all the way up to Ming Guo. Most of these major schools focused on the dual cultivation method, except that some of them felt it was important to cultivate one or the other first. Wu Liu Zong (in as much as I have read, and please practitioners of this style, correct me if i'm wrong) suggested that it was very important to quiet the mind before doing serious Dan cultivation. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Huang Yuanji focused immediately on sitting in total stillness, advocating the concept that the Kun trigram had to be entered completely before pre heaven Qi could revert to Yang energy. Some schools such as Qian Feng pai focus first on actually moving energy with the post heaven intention, and meditating on the image of Tai Shang, only later moving to pre heaven xing and ming practices. Chen Yingning gathered all Dan method documents including Wai dan, and composed his own 20th century method which also focused on xing and ming dual practice. Each of these schools has its respective methods not because the teachers were trying to advertise, but because each of the major masters of these lines discovered a method of practice that worked for them and thus contributed to the overall understanding of Dan Fa in the canon. Without having spent time either learning these practices with a teacher, or at least mastering the concepts left behind in the classics they left behind, we should be careful not to criticise them out of a sense of partisan loyalty. Some people I have met suggest in one breath that we should share information and then that only what they have to present is the authentic or real practice. These people are usually very problematic and have all kinds of methods to cheat their students. In short, if someone has a problem with a specific teacher or group for a practice that they are currently doing which is negative, then it is fair to call them out into the light, but it if you want to criticize classical techniques, then you need to actually point out the fallacies that you find in their original documents, and certainly an interrogation of classical documents is always welcome, since it helps all us of build up our knowledge not only of our own schools, but others too. Please feel free to share on this thread, and if you think I said something wrong, don't hesitate to correct me.

Because there is so much discussion on this board about the small heavenly orbit, I want to share some knowledge from the classics here in order to clarify some things. I'm going to do the first part of the post in point form and then elaborate on somet things as need be: - the MCO of Daoism represents a small version of the universe which is contained in the human body. The Da Zhou Tian, or great heavenly orbit in Daoism is the actual universe. - the small heavenly orbit in Qi gong more specifically means the connections between the Du Mai in the spine and Ren mai in the front of the body. The big heavenly orbit in Qigong is the whole body. - When we want to open our Du mai and ren mai (because this is what most MCO threads are talking about) we have to decide whether we want to use post or pre birth Qi. - if we are using post birth Qi, such as with Qi gong practice, it will take much longer to open the orbit, but it can be done in coordination with physical exercises and intention. - if we want to open it with pre heaven Qi, we have to accomplish this through "action without action," and it can only be done through silent meditation. - it is most common to be able to do a superficial orbit of these meridians, but that doesn't mean that they are open, it just means that you can either send some post birth qi, or pre birth jing around the orbit, depending what type of exercise you are doing. - a deeper opening of the dumai and ren mai accompanies all kinds of physical symptoms such as "he che," the water wheel, or the movement of the perenium and so on. I want to touch on the most important aspects in a bit more detail. When we want to open the du mai and ren mai, we have to be aware of the method we are using to do this. Doing Qi Gong can have an effect on these parts of the body, but to really open them deeply will require many years of effort. Qi gong will also only work with post birth qi, which means that even though we can move Qi through the orbit, it will only be related to breathing, blood flow, and intention, rather than opening the yang gate and so on, which is more associated with Daost practice. If we meditate, we have to be aware that Qi moves sponteneously in Nei Dan and that this isn't something which can be put under our conscious control. We have to adopt the mind set of no mind, the posture of no posture, and learn to gradually forget the breathing. This is actually a much easier and faster process than Qi gong, but it also requires more theoretical knowledge to do correctly. If you want to open your MCO through meditation, the first thing you have to learn to do is successfully hide your intention in your dantian. This hiding of intention involves places the mind in the LDT, leaving it there and not letting it rise up the front of the body. It can take several days to several years for the intention to begin moving Qi, but most people can experience this within a few weeks, at least in a superficial way. Sometimes people get the symptoms of meditation confused with the practice, and I want to expressly state here that: - contraction of the testicles, perinium and stomach are natural symptoms of the yin qiao meridian opening and are not things which you should intentionally practice. - clenching the anus during meditation is incorrect practice, since it will disable you from achieving genuine non action. - when things like the anus and testicles naturally move, this is called "he che," or the water wheel, and is simply a symptom of Qi beginning to do stuff. Don't try to augment it in any way. - leaving the anus relaxed will not cause Qi to leak. Qi leaks through thinking perverse thoughts, speaking excessively, eating poisoined foods, having negative emotions and so on. The anus is composed of two sphincter, one on the outside is somewhat relaxed, but the one inside is always tight unless you are deficating. You don't need to worry about your anus while meditating. - the reason why martial arts and qi gong people tighten the anus is actually to support the abdominal floor in order to stabilize their physical practice during movement. Meditation doesn't move, it doesn't require this. Usually the Du mai will open first and the qi will pass the three gates (wei lu, jia ji, yu zhen) and make it to the head. At this point, the Qi will fall down naturally when it is ready to. If you want to control it a bit, you can gradually move it through your three dantian. It is better to do this with as little intention as possible. In the end, the du mai and ren mai should open naturally and without effort. The Qi should just go there and you should simply be present for it. These are natural pathways in the body and can work by themselves and without outside help. If you find that your Qi won't go to your Du Mai, you can "chong Qi," or purposefully slightly move your intention deeper into your dantian. The idea is you should relax and then relax again, return the mind to the dantian, and then return the mind again. This constant returning and relaxing will help you Qi move better. Remember in the long run that this is less about moving Qi and more about cleaning your body and mind of obstructions. If the Qi is healthy, it will move naturally, and you should be aiming to be healthy.

It actually makes a difference what kind of meditation you are doing. If you are going to be sitting for a long period of time, eating first is a poor idea because it is better to move around a bit and not be sedentary after eating, this helps you digest the food better. Wang Chongyang said that if you sit for too long, blood will accumulate in the lower abdomen and cause your circulation to become sluggish, and I expect that eating exasperates that a bit too. If you are doing some sort of moving meditation like qi gong or taijiquan, doing it after you eat is not a problem. If you take meditation very seriously, you can meditate while you go for a walk after eating, that way you can digest the food and move around while still focusing on calming and quieting your mind. It is always a good idea to calm your mind at all times, not just when you are seated, especially if your practice internal elixir, because you can lose the Qi you accumulate if you let your mind leave the meditative state for long periods of time.

Daoists believe that boys reach sexual and energetic maturity at sixteen years old and girls reach it around thirteen (I can't remember the exact number, but there is a very good article about it in Shui Jingzi's commentary on the clarity and quiet classic). This puts both of them in the Qian/heaven trigram in terms of their energetic potential. This means that boys should start self cultivation practices around sixteen years of age because their Qi is the most healthy at that time, including all twenty four pre heaven energies and forty post heaven energies making up the sixty four trigrams. Abstaining from ejaculation is similar to fasting, you can choose to do it if you want, but it is less important than leading a healthy life every day. If you want to improve your yang energy, exercise more. If you want to improve your yin energy, do silent meditation more often (Not nei dan,but more like sitting and forgetting for instance). My own teacher has started to formulate some theories about how to practice quiet sitting and martial arts in tandem so that before doing martial arts you get some benefit from quiet and then after martial arts you have a baseline to go back to in order to contain the masculine energy you have developed during practice time. The best thing to do regardless is to focus on vitality and raising your vitality through lifestyle practices. you can do a lot to improve your energy just by paying attention to how you live.

Dan Dao is the study of Elixir in Daoism. It is separated into three big practices: 1: Di Yuan: the earth origin aspect of elixir practices. It is concerned with making medicines which are meant to strengthen the health of the body in order to make people more able to practice meditation successfully. This type of practice became unpopular in the Tang dynasty, but in the 20th century some teachers reformulated it in order to include things like Chinese medicine (Chen Yingning, Hu Haiya et al.) 2: Tian yuan: heaven origin of elixir practices. It is specifically based on meditation and the internal elixir system of meditation, which as awaken pointed out uses emptiness to refine the essence, energy, and spirit and return to the Dao. 3: Ren Yuan: human origin of elixir practices. It is a combination of heaven and earth, yin and yang, and is manifested in the form of physical health preservation techniques such as Qi Gong, Daoist yoga, and in modern times, the internal martial arts. The most important of these three methods from a Daoist perspective is Tian Yuan, but the most popular is Ren Yuan because so many people practice Daoist related health preservation exercises. It doesn't matter which one you practice, or if you practice all of them,the first goal is longevity, the next goal is spiritual achievement and liberation through immortality.

Breathing to the lower Dantian and focusing on non action is even better!

I thought about this thread a bit and want to address some of the claims/problems here. 1: the heat goes to the head and the head feels like it has a dent: the heat going to the head is completely normal, but it is important how it feels, because when you meditate, it should always be comfortable. If you feel too excited during meditation, the medicine will not be born. One of the earliest major treatises on Nei Dan by Chen Tuan (Yin Zhen Ren Huan Dan Ge Zhu) says that you should focus first on the "Northern Sea" (lower dantian) which is the ultimate darkness (non action, non intention) and then the "Zheng Qi" (upright energy) will move to the head by the river cart (moving up the ren mai meridian). When the energy arrives at the head, you shouldn't force it, just let it be until it is ready to move on its own. The best thing to do is "bao yi" (contain as one. Your whole body seems to be one unbroken original qi). Trying to open the du mai, third eye, or any energy centre is the lower method of neidan, it is not as good as non intention. 2: the Dantian is not something you should use the intention to focus on: the majority of Neidan documents suggest to focus on the Qi Xue point, which is just under the dantian. The problem is that people don't know how to focus and they think they need to place too much attention. You don't need to put much attention at all, just breathe to that area through the nose, soften the breath so you can't hear it, and allow your mind to settle in the lower abdomen until it seems like the mind disappears. The best way is that there is no you, no surroundings, and if you are successful, even no nothingness. That is how the real pre heaven three treasures are joined. If you focus on the breath, the intention, and the lower abdomen, that is post heaven and it is called "wai yao" or outer medicine. outer medicine is good for your health, but not good for spiritual purposes. It is better to direct the mind to genuine non action, in which the attention and breath are only used as an anchor, not as antagonist. 3: you should find a real teacher to learn in person: I agree with this claim. The best thing to do is find a real teacher who can teach you face to face. This can be very hard to do though and many teachers who claim to teach neidan are actually teaching visualization or qi gong. Both visualization and qi gong can be good though and certainly you can get benefit from them, so don't discount them out of hand. Studying from people online is possible and certainly I have personally taught a number of people, but out of the thirty or so people I've taught, only about three have been able to manifest what I would consider to be the basic level of Nei Dan practice (able to enter into non action and the pre heaven state). Most people would be better suited by studying Zen, or just counting their breaths, since those are much easier to learn and also have many good benefits. After a long time, I've come around to the conclusion that Nei Dan isn't for everyone and that anyone who is going to study it seriously must be very intelligent and very meticulous about practice and research. Studying on your own is an even bigger risk and there are very few resources out there to tell you if what you are doing is right or wrong. If you want to meditate on your lower Dantian, you should just focus on that area, don't worry about the rest of your body. The most important thing is to maintain calm and stability. Don't mess around with the third eye or heart gate until you actually have a teacher to tell you what to do, because those practices can be very dangerous if you make mistakes. I personally believe that meditating on the whole body as one piece is actually safer for most people than the lower dantian and it is much harder to make mistakes that way. If you are going to practice by yourself, then you need to research twice as seriously as someone who already has a teacher, so think carefully because the potential for bad results is very real and you probably don't want to go down that road. I would also suggest that you check out other traditions which might have schools in your area. Neidan is one school of meditation among many and there are many other schools which can produce equal results, so be open minded and look around for a master level teacher. The best situation is you find a master level teacher in an art that works for you, the worst situation is that you find a bad teacher in the art you want to study. Hopefully this has been somewhat useful.

Trying to do neidan without a teacher is a bad idea because it is common to cause energy to move in bad directions and cause blockages. I believe that the person who posts under the name Awaken is teaching Nei Dan to dedicated students here, maybe you should ask her to be your teacher and she can give you advice about how to practice to get the best results.

Daoism at a very basic level is just about being natural. No need to overly complicate things.

Hahaha, its not very far from my house.... Thanks for sharing

do you mean, 易yi: change 仪 yi: rite 意 yi: intention or 义 yi: order? I'm guessing you mean 意 yi: intention. Can you use intention to read the hexagrams? Yes, this is why the hexagrams are so important in meditation. The hexegrams can be translated into functions of the body and mind and when we meditate, it is useful to understand how hexagram theory explains our meditation practice. For instance, the yin in Li reverting the the centre of kan makes the yang of kan move to the centre of li, thus turning kan and li into heaven and earth. Thus revealing the true nature (xing) as the heaven trigram and the body as the earth trigram. This is related to how we use our intention to create 真意 zhen yi: real intention.

Awaken, Xuan Guan (I will call it mystery gate from now one, since we are using an English language forum, mystery gate is its proper name) is, as you know, something which can occur in many different places. Huang Yuanji said 玄关一窍是修道之根本，学者之先务。 "the one opening of the mystery gate is the root or cultivating the Dao, the first work of the student." So we can say that this experience has many levels, and I am confident many people can enter the first level very early in practice, so I think everyone should practice high level skills, since the high level skill is just to return to non action. he also said: 玄关一窍是混元一气之玄关。了无声臭可钔，色相可见。 "the one opening of the mystery gate is the hunyuan one energy mystery gate. Attaining 'no sound or smell to encounter, no sights to see." So again, this should always be the goal and priority of our practice, I have no argument with you about this at all. I argue that there are different ways to enter into the mystery gate in the early stage of practice, and each has its own benefits and problems. If we go by Huang Yuanji's practice, he says 心之下肾之上仿佛在他的虚无窟子 "below the heart and above the kidneys, Place Buddha in his quiet, empty cavern" (for people who are wondering, he means the Qi Hai area under the navel). So we know that he uses this method as the way to 定意 stablise the mind. 定 stabilise only means we 止 stop, not any action. If we want to achieve non action, we have to stop the mind. The Northern school will focus on the breath to stop the mind, most other schools will focus on breath and the Qi Xue point, at least in the early stages of practice. We can argue our own opinion about what is better until the cows come home, but it doesn't change the history of the literature. From what i have heard from you, your ideas are more similar to Wang Chongyang. I respect that, but please also respect that Neidan is a very big school with many ideas, even ones that are different from our own preferred practices. I'm going to stop there and I think I will ignore the thread now, since it has been time consuming and tiring for me. Hopefully in the future we will be more clear about each other's stances and not have to suffer more than we need to. Best wishes, Rob

Awaken, 抱歉您，我不要和您找碴了。当然我十分同意您讲的“玄关妙窍”的内容。收入先天丹法的理论对学生来说是特别重要。不过我们也要注意内丹的经文是怎么写的，而且它从什么道术原来发生的了。比如看张紫阳的悟真篇，应该清楚他的丹法从和合先后天的气结合在一起。南宗本来是一个“收黑知百”和“将心为无为”的理论方法。但这个方法是从“先有为后无为”的基础开始。我很相信萧廷之言的“上品丹法，以神为炉，以性为药，以定为火，以慧为火。中品丹法，以神为炉，以气为药，以日为火，以月为水。下品丹法，以身为炉，以气为药，以心为火，以肾为水。又有偃月炉、玉炉。” 不过，每个人的能力不一样了。基本上我还是相信内丹的方法是一层一层学习的，所以原来要主动一些基本功以后要更注意收先天性。如果是玄关一窍，或清净无为，或伏藏气学，这些入门都可。我们不要辨哪种最好，因为每个人身体的状况不一样。不同方法适合不同的人。 这个是我到底怎么想的。等您回答。 谢谢。您的关心。

btw. there was a mistake in my above post: Chen ye wei = Chen Ye Fu. Sorry for the confusion.

My personal impression is that it is probably related to hormonal shifts during practice. My own teacher has been researching nervous system and hormonal related subjects in his own studies and feels that there is a correlation between experiences of Qi and both the nervous system and endocrine systems, although if I understand it correctly, there is only a very small body of work available in English on the subject. Certainly we do have a few papers that suggest long term meditation triggers production of certain types of endorphin, similar to the runners high.

The point is, every major Nei Dan school except the Northern school says that you must use emptying the mind and filling the belly to 虛其心以養性，實其腹以立命；知先天一氣 (huang yuan ji, dao de jing chan wei). Here are a list of quotes to support my thesis (please note I am translating on the fly, so don't expect it to be perfect). 1: Li Xiyue, Three Carts Secret Method: 凝神調息，是下手功夫。 Collecting the spirit and adjusting the breath is how to begin practice. 凝神者，是收已清之心而入其內也。 Collecting the spirit is in containing clarity in one's mind and entering into its inside. 心未清時，眼勿內閉。 Before the mind is clear, don't close the eyes inward. 先要自勸自勉，收他回來，清涼恬淡，始行收入氣穴，乃曰凝神。 First you should fortify yourself and discipline yourself, collect outward apparatus inward, quietly and clearly placid without personal aspirations. Beginning its movement, collect it into the cavity of Qi (qi xue point). This is collecting the spirit. 坐虛無中，不 偏不倚，即是凝神於虛。 Sitting in emptiness and nothingness, don't lean and don't rise, this is how collecting the spirit meets emptiness. 2: Da Cheng Jie Yao: 外无所着，内无所思，空空 洞洞，虚虚灵灵，心不得随缘而放驰也。 The outside affects nothing, the inside contains no thoughts, most empty, and wide open, utterly void, and completely illuminated, the mind does not follow its destiny and must stop from galloping away. 昔日逢师传口诀，只教凝神入气穴，正谓此也。 In ancient times, the teachers passed on these poems, and taught how to collect the spirit in the “Qi cave.” This is the correct way: 气穴即命门，正在脊骨第七节之下，脐后肾前，前七分，后三分，两肾中 间，左属水，右属火。 The “Cave of qi” is also the “life gate.” It is under the seventh vertebrae of the spine, behind the navel and in front of the kidneys. In front by seven measures and behind by three measures, in the centre between the two kidneys. Left represents water, right represents fire. 沈亚夫shen ye wei: 性有巧拙，可以伏藏。 夫人巧拙之性，坎离之象，巧则既济，拙则未济，故伏藏於丹田。丹田者，精炁之元也。 He who has a clever and dull mind has water and fire's image. Clever means he will cross the river. Dull means he has not yet crossed. Place it in the dan tian. The dantian is the source of jing and qi. There are so many documents which say exactly the same thing, at least 100 if not more. This is a non controversial subject in Nei Dan and is the standard interpretation. The early interpretation of the Quanzhen school is the non standard one, and it even got replaced after the fourth generation. Focusing on emptiness and oneness, while hiding the mind in the lower dantian is the correct way of entering into Nei Dan practice from the gate of "first cultivate ming and then cultivate xing." If people want to first cultivate Xing and then cultivate ming, they should focus on northern school methods, which is basically what Awaken is talking about. They are two different methods of beginning practice. In the end, either way, both of them must arrive at 收一 otherwise 丹不成 This is how my teacher was taught by Cao Zhenyang, this is how Chen Yingning taught his disciples, this is how Jiang Weiqiao taught his disciples and so on. This is how Nei Dan works.

虚心实腹义俱深， xu xin shi fu yi zhu shen: empty the heart, fill the belly has deep principle in its use. 只为虚心要识心。 zhi wei xu xin yao shi xin: trying to empty the mind by first observing the mind 不若炼铅先实腹， bu ruo lian qian xian shi fu: is not as good as refining lead by first filling the belly. 且教守取满堂金。 qie jiao shou qu man tang jin: and this teaches how to collect the palace full of gold. Keep in mind that Zhang Boduan's three biggest influences were: Laozi Li Quan and Chen Xiyi. So of course he follows their practices. Actually, Texts, I agree with you because of course you are right. Aiperon has a good teacher for sure. Awaken is very confused because she cannot separate Ming dynasty practice from Tang and Northern Song. Typical problem in Taiwan from my experience. They do not read enough.

I completely agree.

There are so many posts worth answering, so I have to do a few separate posts: Apeiron&peiron: t'su qiao and zu qiao are the same point. It sounds like what you practice is similar to Chen Tuan's practice, where zu qiao and lower dantian are connected together. It is a type of practice in Nei Dan for sure. It is a very big school. Awaken: you are talking about xuan guan yi qiao, but remember that that idea was not well developed until the Yaun dynasty in the book Zhong He Ji, even then nobody explained that idea very well until Huang Yuanji much later. Even Huang Yuanji also says to focus on the lower Dan Tian in the first chapter of his book Dao De Jing Chan Wei. 不識真鉛正祖宗 refers to yuan jing/ming. Ming = Yuan Jing and yuan qi. It originates in the kidneys regardless of pre or post heaven. Related to ancestor Qi which is originally transmitted from the mother during gestation. You should understand that Nei Dan has both xian and hou tian practice, especially nanzong. If you only try to practice Xian Tian practice, you will not get the physical benefit of Neidan. you also need to practice post heaven, and most people cannot do Neidan if they don't cultivate hou tian practice first, at least for many years. I agree that later people should just practice pure emptiness, but at the early stages, most cannot do this.

this is also a type of practice in Nei Dan. They practice the Zu qiao point, which is between the two eyebrows and inside slightly. It is the point at which the ren and du meridians meet in the upper body. The qi xue in the lower abdomen is the point where they meet (not quite, but close) in the lower body. In classical Daoism, usually people will focus on the lower Dantian, but in some schools, especially Qian Feng Pai, people start by focusing on the Zu Qiao point. Some schools also focus on the whole body, and some focus on the upper and lower dantian at the same time (from my research, Chen Tuan's school does this). The southern School mainly focuses on the lower dantian and i can only think of one document that starts of with a practice called "Zhi yan" which starts with the eyes and then gradually moves the attention to the LDT and it is not a mainstream document. Some people argue that Lu dongbin wrote secret of the golden flower, which has zu qiao practice, but I personally am not sure, since his other documents don't talk about this type of practice (his practice is considered closer to the northern school)

劝君穷取生身处，返本还源是药王 quan jun qiong qu sheng shen chu, fan ben huan yuan shi yao wang: "urge the gentleman to profoundly grasp the origin of the body. Returning to the root and going back to the origin is the king of medicine." 生身处 sheng shen chu = Ming Men/Qi Hai. 返本还源 fan ben huan yuan = Ben: root of the body, ie: navel Yuan: emptiness/wuji. There are other texts too, especially Huan Yuan Pian that are also from the Southern School which share the same ideas.

The main difference between the Northern School and Chan is that it uses alchemical concepts to explain how to refine the post heaven into the pre heaven. That method is called "first cultivate xing and then cultivate ming," because they believe that once people completely realize the pre heaven consciousness, life energy will naturally emerge. A lot of northern practice is found in "martial fire and passive fire" where the mind is gradually tempered with the breath. The main difference is that the early practice doesn't focus on the lower dantian, like the southern school. This changed after the fourth generation when southern school theory was brought into quanzhen, so now most Quanzhen people who practice neidan are familiar with southern school methods. I believe you can cultivate Dan without focusing on the lower dantian, but it will take a lot longer.

Shi Shen: the post heaven consciousness. The consciousness that looks at things (shi means to look at something or to see something). Yuan Shen: the original consciousness, that which is latent and does not change. Shi Shen is active and if overused makes people tired. Staying silent and clear of mind allows us to deplete shi shen and reveal yuan shen. The northern lineage focuses the most on developing yuan shen early in practice and that is why it is called the sudden realization school. Same with Chan.