markern

Wow. Fascinating. I have seen a lot of people on Dharmaoverground.org and r/streamentry write about getting more and more memory problems the deeper their awakenings become. And Jeffrey Martins research into people who have had awakening experiences describes memory problems as becoming quite frequent. He seemed to say that long term book learning memory and similar types of memory did not get impacted but that things like what people where going to do that day or what they did the last few days become very difficult for people to remember. I remember you writing about some sort of practice of trying to remember the entire day or something. When I have looked at Damos curriculum I have thought that maybe some of these practices are there to balance out the types of imbalances that can occur when people have non dual experiences and awakenings. Some of the mental trainings seem to be about very left brained logical linear types of thinking. For example one of them is about learning to follow a trail of thoughts for as long as you like in the direction you like without becoming distracted. It seems to me that quite a few people who get deep into spiritual practices start to struggle more and more with that. They become so "floaty" and right brained in their being it becomes hard for them to be linear in any way, including their thinking. I have also been curious about that exercise for remembering the day because I have long thought that I could develop an almost absolute photographic memory for things I read. I have a very strong visual capacity and visual memory and I usually remember what the pages of books look like and can vaguely recall what is on each page and sometimes what is in each paragraph if I focus enough on it. But I can only rarely actually read the text. I tried to experiment with trying to focus in and start reading text and eventually managed it sometimes. It was like suddenly my mind managed to zoom in and the text became perfectly readable. Then I did a period of Yoga Nidra, which includes a lot of visualizations, and that made it way easier to actually read the text. It seemed like if I kept it up I could start doing it without any struggle. But then I got very serious chi deviation issues and had to quit all practices and haven't been able to resume any sort of cultivation practice yet. But I am stil very curious about what training that capacity can bring. It seems like to me that almost everything that I have seen is still stored and that with enough concentration and clear enough visualization ability I can recall almost anything.

How did you work with memory and what where the results?

What is all the stuff and why is he sitting with all of it?

Do you have some examples of such systems? It would be interesting to have a look at.

How modern do you think it is?

What is "the spiritual mirror?

Craetion, when I have seen warnings about retention leading to "poison fire taints the heart" it has been presented as happening as long as you practice retention, regardless of motivations during sex. Do you think the poison fire thing only happens if the psychology is bad or just from retaining regardless?

Intuflow could be good to. Gets you into the body while loosening up joints and tensions.

Maybe try Damos system. It is very balanced and focuses on grounding the energies first. Or try to do physical activities that are more grounding than lifting weights. I find walking in nature, martial arts and Pilates more grounding than lifting weights. Anything that teaches precise movements and gets you in deeper contact with your muscles and how to move them I find grounding. And anything that works a lot with the legs and feet and the contact of the feet with the ground.

Damo Mitchell is very good. And has an online academy. His system does eventually take you through the whole alchemical process so the long term aim is much broader than your more limited health goals. But the earlier levels are much more about general health and foundational stuff so you could just do that. He has written a bunch of books you could look into.

CarsonZi back!!!!! That just managed to drag me back as well. Haven't posted here for years. Just lurk occasionally. But CarsonZi and Creation chatting felt so much old Taobums I had to say hello:)

I have a lot of tension in my arms these days and am looking for exercises to relax them. Because I have some chi deviation issues I can't do too much stretches because stretches put I´me in a meditative state which sets of the energy imbalances. What works well is the mobility exercises from intuflow. They help but I need more. So does anyone have tips about mobility exercises, rotation exercises for the arms or similar that can help reduce tension?

Freeform has some good posts in this thread about building the foundation and the "Qigong body": Damo Mitchell has an online course in Nei Gong that is specifically aimed at helping you build the foundation for later alchemy etc. http://lotusneigong.com Damos books are also very good for helping you get a theoretical overview of the path. This is a book written by an enlightened woman whom I am lucky to know. It is more like poetry than a conventional book. It tends to impact people emotionally and spiritually and not just appeal to the mind: http://www.vigdisgarbarek.no/content_en.html

This explains it quite well: https://web.archive.org/web/20200204072939/https://www.reuniting.info/wisdom/what_is_karezza And this explains how they see the difference between Chias methods and Karezza: https://web.archive.org/web/20170128140403/http://www.reuniting.info/wisdom/neotaoism_and_karezza

It is kind of a western tantra invented by a woman in the 1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coitus_reservatus The couple who wrote the book Cupids Poisoned Arrow has done a lot to make it more known these days. They have had a site and forum at reuniting.info dedicated to Karezza but its down for maintenance and upgrades at the moment. Karezza in practice is very similar to the very simple tantra described by Diana Richardson in her tantra books. Her books are usually recommended by the reuniting people.

According to the Secret that works though

I had a similar experience in meditation once. My legs started falling asleep but since I had decided to sit entirely still for the duration of my sit no matter what I didn't adjust my legs, which would have solved the problem. And since I made no adjustments the falling asleep sensations eventually turned into extreme pain. Probably the worst I have ever felt. I sat noticing my awareness try to dissociate from the pain but kept bringing my awareness back to include the pain. After about 15 minutes something shifted and I started to accept the pain fully. 95% of what had felt to me like purely physical pain vanished. There was still some form of experience of intense pain there but it was more like it was a movie experience I was seeing rather than something that was bothering me. I haven't been able to use this for a big shift in my relationship to pain in daily life though. I think I need more meditation time for that.

This sounds very interesting but I don't understand it. What kind of openness internally? That having an increasing openness with equanimity towards all aspects of your internal experience is seen as good? What kind of contraction? Can you elaborate?

I can definitively see how this has been the case for some people I have seen in online forums. And many members of a certain tantra organisation that has a lot of overlap with parts of my social circle. And when I have played around with this it has seemed to me that when I have had sex that is more lustful and explosive and desire driven and orgasms of the more conventional kind, it would lead down such route if I kept retaining the leftover energy. However, it does not at all seem to fit with those who practice Karezza. Those who practice Karezza generally say they practice pre orgasmic sex. They stay FAR away from the point of no return. So if ejaculation happens at arousal level 100 and people can have multiple orgasms at 95 they stay more around 80. And they always put connection above arousal. So if they feel like sexual energy becomes more central then connection/heart then they back of a bit and reconnect until this balance is correct again. They DO have what can be called orgasms in the form of what is often called valley orgasms. But they stay far away from the more explosive conventional (yang) orgasm. Not only the man but also the woman stay away from conventional explosive orgasms and stay either in pre orgasmic bliss or have valley orgasms. Which seems to differ from Taoist advice where womens orgasms are seen as less problematic (maybe that is just from Chia? I don't know but I see it repeated so often by qigong people and "Taoist" sex books). What couples tend to very consistently report is not only more energy and the types of benefits typically claimed for semen retention. But they also claim to experience a drastic drops in addictions of all kind. Porn addiction, sex addiction, chocolate, nicotine, social media, anything that stimulates dopamine type addictions. They also claim to loose interest in kinds of various kinds. And they claim that where sexual attraction and love often dies out for couples after a few years those who practice karezza experience a stable and consistent sexual attraction and a stable and consistent love for years and years. The love they feel tend to be more like the companionate love of long lasting couples (more endorfin and oxytocin based I believe) and less of the early romantic infatuation type love (more amphetamine and dopamin based as far as I understand). The difference between most couples and Karezza couples is that their version of the more companionate love feels as strong and attractive as most peoples early romantic infatuation based love. And unlike couples who love each other after many years but have lost the spark and the sexual attraction their love still has strong sexual desire coupled in. I read through years and years of posts in the Karezza forum at reuniting.info because I found this so interesting. And it really does seem that those who practice this way get these results with a high degree of consistency. It looks to me that the type of damaging results from semen retention you describe comes more from have conventional orgasms and keeping this energy that from having sex and keeping the energy. It probably depends more on how on has sex. I can't recall a single instance of anyone in the Karezza forum reporting things like what you warn about but I can see it being highly prevalent in certain tantra groups that practice forms of sex that goes much closer to the 95 arousal level and have explosive orgasms and retain. This all matches my personal but limited experience. When I have experienced with "tantric" type sex it eventually felt like staying in the cooler less striving less lust driven zone and putting connection above sexual desire was the way to go and led to deeper sexual satisfaction and much more powerful states tend letting lust take over and run the show. And the after effects of retaining with more explosive sex seemed destabilising (though sort of high energy) while the after effects of the cooler more connected karezza like effects seem to provide all the promised benefits of retaining and none of the dangerous downsides. I haven't practiced this and retained over long periods of time though.

You can also contact Tao Semko for help. He is known to be quite skilled at helping people work through those kinds of imbalances: https://taosemko.com/mentorship-program/

You can also try this technique: Bring your awareness towards your muscles and skin. Notice that there is both sensations that feel physical, gross and sort of "meaty" and there are sensations that feel more energy/chi like wherever you feel into your body. Then focus your awareness more and more towards the gross, physical, meaty, flesh like sensations and NOT the feelings of energy. Whenever awareness goes towards the movements of your energy, bring your attention gently over to the physical, flesh sensations in your muscles and skin. This CAN work. But it may also initially work a bit but then make things worse. The key is are you able to switch awareness towards the gross physical sensations and away from energy. When I manage to switch towards the muscles almost all the energy imbalances just disappear. But doing any sort of awareness exercise might still make things worse if you can't properly switch attention. And then you need to rely on doing lots of physical activity over a long period of time to have this awareness shift happen by itself through activity.

I have also found that standing for long stretches while fishing helps in a similar way as standing meditation but without the aggravation of energy that can come through standing meditation. They key is that when I stand while fishing I don't bring my mind to my energy as I do when I do standing meditation, so the energy isn't stimulated in the same way. But because I do stand energy starts to go down as it normally would in standing meditation. So try fishing or anything else that makes you stand for fairly long without going into a standing meditation "mindset". Just do the activity and focus on that not the energy. Walking for (reasonably) long stretches also helps a lot if it is regular enough.

Damo Mitchel has made a video with a series of a few stretching exercises and a short self massage sequence designed to help people with Chi Deviation. This is the link to the video but in order to access it I think you need to subscribe to his monthly Nei Gong program. If so then subscribe for one month, learn the sequence and then cancel the subscription as Freeform is likely right that you need to step back from energywork. Damo advices that as well: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3034889196738071 I highly recommend exercising core muscles and gaining precise control of your core muscles they way you do through for example Pilates. The more you are connected to and move from your core muscles the more your energy will sink to the abdomen and through that stop bothering you so much. It takes time but it works. Very slow ankle rotations builds a rooted energy and pulls your energy and awareness towards your ankles which helps ground you. Intu Flow by Scott Sonnon has, at least for me and one other guy with serious chi deviation, helped with grounding, embodiment, reducing tension and increasing relaxation and unblocking energy in a way that did not exacerbate energy imbalances. Squats help ground me a lot (but I can't do them much because of my knees) but I know at least one other person that found it increased his energy imbalances. Try them out and see how they work for you.

I`ve mostly been away since then too

I remember you. You had recently come of drugs and where doing KAP at the time:)