Orion

All that conservation and jing produces yin, but it needs to be exercised to be converted to vital yangqi. Jing conservation does not mean you're no longer sexual, it means the energy is channeled differently. You could also get a basic hormone panel done with your doctor, via blood work. It's easy to analyze testosterone levels. If they're on the low end of normal, or abnormal, you could try taking DHEA. It's over the counter in the U.S. and does wonders for the adrenal/testosterone cascade. Anyway, do more research on it before you commit to anything.

Pine pollen contains phyotestosterone and it's quite invigorating to take. I usually make it into an alcohol based tincture. It's considered a longevity tonic in many lineages. The resin is good for burning, for the same effect. I like cleansing spaces with it too.

LSD is one of the most powerful psychedelics out there, assuming what you took was genuine. There are a lot of research chemicals out there now being peddled as LSD, and their side effects are extremely diverse. A woman came into my practice 2 years ago with transient numbness of her arms following an LSD experience, but her dealer admitted to her some time later that he actually sold her an RC. These RCs were invented to study the effects of agonism on various receptors in the brain. Apparently the one she took regulated the peripheral nerves of the arm -- scary! Regardless, there are energetic potentials when taking these substances. They may reconnect or unlock parts of your consciousness by force that normally take years of sequential practice to master. I don't think you did anything wrong, everyone has their path in this life. Sometimes that includes entheogens. That said... you need to take care. It can take 6 months to a year to physically recover from a high powered, intense LSD experience. If the experience was also traumatic, then that has lasting implications. I can't tell you what's happening in your energy field and I don't have a model to recommend to you. What I do suggest is making your life about grounding. Make a go-to list of things that help keep you in this present moment. Here are some of mine: - making / eating foods I enjoy - walks in nature, spending time with trees - physical exercise, like swimming, running, weightlifting, martial arts, qi gong / taiji, etc. - walking bare foot on the earth, especially beaches - spending time with friends - receiving healings from others - dancing (unless dancing triggers spiritual events for you) - the colours maroon or red, worn as clothing or in the environment Add some of your own. Keep the list handy and be sure to do some stuff from it every day. If you go get acupuncture, ask them if they'd consider needling DU-16 (Fengfu), DU-11 (Shendao), BL-57 (Chensan) right and then left, and KI-1 (Yongquan) right then left. Do them in that order, using light gauge needles. Only lightly tap in the needles, do not do deep needling. That's what I would do, to affect the fine energy body and bring it back down. The practitioner should stand at the feet with their palms over the soles of your feet while grounding themselves.

Yes, but not in the way new agers describe it. Once accessed, it's sufficiently non-linear that I call into question who or what the information is really coming from. It's the same as claims of past life memories. How do you know it's your memory and not something from some kind of mass-consciousness? Rupert Sheldrake has some interesting theories on morphic resonance that the scientific community has trashed him for. One thing he claims is a phenomenon is that if a member of a species learns a new skill, it becomes more easy for subsequent members of that species to learn the same skill. The reason is that the skill exists in a morphic field which all members of the species can access. He claims the same is true with mineral formation and the formation of new scientific elements. I question everything. I've experienced things that could be called akashic phenomena, but I can't claim it has anything to do with me. Another cool recent discovery is evidence for epigenetic memories through trauma survivors: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160328133534.htm Actually I'm pretty surprised that story has not made bigger headlines.

I would add: if you invoke Godwin, you lost.

Excess protein is definitely a problem but I think that America especially is actually undernourished. They eat calorie dense, low nturient food, in large quantities. And many foods are so synthetic that it's not even real food. A lot of the obesity types we're seeing, and the early puberty thing (plus other hormone problems) are from the artificial, hormone-mimicking ingredients in food. If you look at other northern countries that eat a lot of meat, like Russia, the nordic countries, even western Europe, the malnutrition and obesity rates are not as high. Anyway, this is totally off topic, but my interest was piqued by what you said. OK so back to the OP. For strength, I do weight training, ba gua, swimming, and some kind of stretching like yoga or just regular stretching. I don't follow a set regimen, it all depends on what I feel my body needs on any given day. Food wise, I eat whole foods, mostly home cooked, mainly organic. In the past couple of years I've eliminated wheat, gluten, a lot of dairy, and a lot of grains. I've noticed I've had way fewer health problems with a modified bigu diet. Now if I eat white rice I really notice the body lag. I've really wanted to gradually transition to a low calorie, high nutrient diet. It seems to be the key to long life. I just have to figure out how to do it (if anyone has any literary suggestions I'd love that). It would also mean sacrificing my more anaerobic exercise, like weight lifting, because it demands so much more calorie intake.

Earlier I watched a tutorial on how to use cyanide to do gold extractions, and then use as a precusor to electrochemical gold plating techniques. But since I don't have a death wish to actually synthesize cyanide, the videos have to be purely educational. Now I'm watching cooking shows. Out of the crucible and into the fryer

It's hard to dichotomize things strictly along eastern and western lines. The east has a deep well of continuous knowledge that has been unbroken from ancient times, which means we have various streams of human consciousness able to poke through to the modern era. So we're gifted with knowledge about energetic practices and the subtle nuances of the human condition. My main critique of the east is that it's obsessed with tradition to the point that it's difficult to inject new ideas, and this creates a lot of cultural stagnation. Things must be done "this way" or they're not correct, and that has its pros and cons. The result is that divergences from the model are still forced to fit the model, through some weird stretch of the philosophy. Everything is made to fit the cosmology, somehow, instead of just acknowledging something doesn't work or doesn't make sense. I've seen so many far fetched explanations of people's illnesses using TCM theory when it's patently obvious that the practitioner just doesn't know. The west is technologically advanced and has taken its knowledge of material reductionism to the nth degree, with amazing results. We can see the micro and the macro with the naked eye as never before. We can build machines that grant us unique opportunities, and these gifts have spanned the world. I have a great deal of respect for surgery, acute care, and emergency care. They can take smashed up bodies and put them back together. The west also has a lot more individual liberty, less group conformity, so there is more free thinking. The problem with the west is that it still has a fairly infantile view of the universe. There's no holism and no appreciation for other epistemologies. In China TCM and western medicine exist side by side, but not in the west. In the west, western medicine is king and everything else is garbage. It's changing, but not that fast, and there are major politics. Western culture also has a REALLY unfortunate tendency to toss the old in favour of the new. For instance, in medicine we had the Hippocratic method, then the 4 humors, then alchemy, then modern medicine. With each era they completely ditched the previous. Alchemy got completely replaced by modern chemistry, when western alchemy had a LOT of useful material in it. So the west is arrogant in that way. If you believe in anything old then you're a primitive. The east has so much venerence for tradition that it's practically the opposite. I've noticed that it's reflected in how we treat our old people. In the east the elders are respected, in the west nobody wants to think about getting old and we put our old people in homes.

Well, I don't believe in karma in terms of some universal moral accounting system. Ultimately there's nothing in here for karma to attach to. Karma is mind and your own personal database of what you feel are your rights or wrongs. Anything you hold onto that needs sorting is karma in that sense. I also believe in simple cause and effect, but that's not always predictable. Just because you do something good does not mean it will have a good consequence (the road to hell paved with good intentions), and likewise some bad stuff leads to beneficial outcomes (violent uprisings leading to better governments, etc.). Good and bad are subjective anyway, but I digress... Magic is altering your consciousness or reality with a specific aim, at its most simple definition. What that means or the desired goals are really up to the practitioner. You can use it for higher or lower pursuits, to help or to harm. But in terms of karma? Beyond how you internalize your own actions, and how the external world may react to your actions, there are no rules. I'm sure there are some people out there who revel in doing harm, but at their core of cores it's hurting them. Others are completely unremorseful. Forget magic for a sec. There are people in this world who are totally psycho and enjoy inflicting pain, violence and suffering on others. They torture, maim and kill for amusement. Many of them get away with it. What's their karma? If there's more to karma than what I already said, then it's beyond our knowing. Just follow your path and your heart, and that's all the guidance you need. If you're doing shit that's out of alignment with your dharma then that's going to sidetrack you whether "good" or "bad". If it feels like you shouldn't be doing it, chances are that feeling is correct.

Remarking that twitter has too many thought police is like remarking that a toilet has too much excrement in it. Do you really expect quality discourse from social media? It's about as bottom of the barrel as you can get, especially if you're unfortunate enough to journey into social justice or political discussions.

I've gone through periods of intense near-death illness in my life and I can attest to being harassed by low life presences during those times. Can't say that my body was ever possessed but I did experience disturbances in my consciousness, and the sense that there were presences around who were feeding off my pain or even enhancing it for their own amusement. When I was younger I had no defense but I learned techniques as I got older to protect myself. In classical acupuncture there are 13 Ghost Points, as expounded upon by Sun Si-Miao. In modern acupuncture they are used exclusively to treat physical health conditions. Traditionally, it was believed that if the body's treasures (yin, yang, qi, blood, jing, shen) were severely depleted, then spirits could enter the body or at the very least mess with you. The ghost points were used to expel these influences, and seal up the body from invasion. The core, foundational reason that spirits can invade is either because the body becomes too weak to house the shen (spirit) completely and so the vessel becomes partially vacant, or the shen itself becomes highly disturbed (trauma, emotions, etc.) and can no longer govern the stable functions of the qi dynamic. I've been having OBEs and astral travel since I was a kid, it just happened naturally. As a child I had some highly disturbing experiences - not possession related, but not being able to fully "come back". In modern science they attribute night terrors in children to not being able to properly exit REM sleep, so you linger in between REM and wakefulness; but in my experience it was an inability to fully re-enter my body. It really sucked. It went away into adulthood. I question if the body can be possessed by something else during an OBE. Your weiqi fields do not disappear just because you leave. You'd have to already be pretty weak + out of body to maybe get fully invaded, and even then there are psychic mechanisms which would immediately fling you back into your body if something goes wrong. That's been my experience. There's also a difference between being invaded, and something being attached to you that's influencing you. One can look like the other, but one is way more severe than the other. Attached things are way more common than true possession. That said, I've encountered things in the astral plane that, to my impression, posed a serious threat. One was a portal or vortex of some kind that strongly, magnetically was sucking everything into it, and it was alive. I knew that if I went inside that thing I might never come back. I've also encountered astral low lives trying to attack me, but all you really have to do is raise your vibration and go "above" them, and they can't follow you. It's what I've always naturally done... I don't know if it's something people normally have to train to do or not. The main risk with astral travel, in my opinion, is not that you can be invaded or encounter scary things, it's that things can follow you back to your body and just mess with your life in general. The cord that joins your astral form to your body is like a highway that tells them exactly where to find you. So although they may not invade you, they may hang around your home and try to mess with your life for their own amusement. If your life in general is balanced, your home and person are purified, and you are of strong character, they usually lose interest pretty fast though.

I don't think there any sure-fire qualifiers to tell a fake from a real guru, other than to go by energy and general presence. It's a classic idea that if a guru takes credit for their enlightenment that they must obviously not be very high level, because in the absence of ego politics there's no need to do any convincing. But what if it's just factual? The thing about real gurus is that they are just some person being a person and living their enlightened life, like the rest of us. If you tell a genius that they're a genius, they'll usually just shrug and say okay, and then go back to doing their genius things... they may not conceptualize themselves that way. But tell a genius that they're a genius enough times and it might turn into an ego identity complex, and they'll start going around telling people they're a genius. Does the fact that they do so negate their genius, though? Same is true of gurus. Guru is just a word, so is enlightenment. The reality of it precedes the semantics used to describe it. Also, what is a teacher other than someone who has shown you something about yourself you didn't already know? Let's say you hypothetically follow a fake guru for some years before you find out that they're a fraud. Did that person not still teach you something? Perhaps about the value of illusion and deception? Doesn't that make them a valid guru, of sorts, without intending to be? Just an idea. And anyway, if it's all One Thing then who is doing the teaching and who is doing the learning?

I have been contemplating this for some months now and it would be nice to get feedback from the community, whether it's scholarly, experiential, or just friendly advice. I'm feeling kind of existentially frustrated right now, having Realized some major things, but also getting the sense that the process is incomplete. I just wanted to preface this by saying that I'm trying my best to put words to embodied feelings, so it may seem like mind, but the sensations come from a centered, embodied experience and then get translated by mind. For me, the embodied sense of emptiness doesn't change with the circumstances anymore. I've felt this way in the midst of some of the highest points of my life, and the lowest. I just wasn't able to put words to the awareness until recently. (This year I had a near death experience and extremely intense suffering which catalyzed the process further.) Whenever suffering gets too intense or happiness gets too extreme, something within me caves in, and I come right back to center, to ground zero, to total presence and awareness. It happens to a lesser extent in other circumstances but even in the midst of passion, I find myself stopping and feeling this embodied sensation of, "What's really happening here? Why am I doing this?" (I'm phrasing it as a thought, but it's a body feeling.) It's like my consciousness can no longer get carried away with idle distractions, even ones that I actively seek. Something in me ceases to believe in what's happening, I unattach, and then go right back to emptiness. It's almost as though people, places, and situations are constantly causing me to suspend my belief and look more deeply, in a very autonomous way. I have some background in psychology and at first I was concerned I might be dissociating, but it turns to such razor sharp focus, presence and clarity that I have ruled that out. For some people, the more intense a situation gets, the more they tune it out... for me it's the opposite, the more intense it gets the more real it becomes and the more the truth is revealed. Maybe it's because intensity suspends all stories and narratives and causes total presence. If it weren't for the crystal clarity of these moments, I would have given up on myself as being insane a long time ago. There are definitely people who abdicate participation in life by spending too much time dwelling on nihilism, or using emptiness as a means to obliterate themselves. For me, it works a bit differently. No matter if I'm enjoying myself and feeling passion, or having the worst day ever, I find it hard to put my belief 100% into anything. I could be fully engaged in "self" and all its machinations, only to be pulled back out of it a moment later. I know everything's temporary and that's not what stops me; what stops me is that having a belief seems like a distraction from the truth. It's as though every story or narrative a person holds about the truth is what stands between them and the real truth. I'd rather not identify with anything. It's not a rationale or a method to excuse lack of productivity or direction. I feel it is pure truth of the situation incarnate. No matter if I'm happy or sad I'm still experiencing it. "It" never changes. It's totally seamless. Now here's where I'm at. I've connected with some others around the world who understand what I'm saying. For some reason they are able to move into a state of pure joy and bliss after realizing "it", but that hasn't clicked for me. I still only see the pointlessness (not in a depressed way, but in a temporal way). I have so much love and compassion for other people and living things, but it doesn't negate that I feel like having to live this life and involve myself in material world tasks seems pointless. Again, I'm not saying I'm above it or anything. I still work, pay bills, etc... I just mean, I dunno... how do you move forward when you see things as they really are, when all stories and all choices seem like narratives? How can I choose another mask to wear when the mask has already been removed? The truth that I feel in the meat and understand without equivocation is that whatever's happening is just what's happening. There's no "trying", just awareness observing arising and dissolving. How this plays out in my life is that suffering doesn't end, it just becomes yet another transient state, like happiness, depression, joy, lust, etc. They are all empty states. It is total freedom and so there's no point in "trying" to be anything within it, as there's no "you" doing it. What I'm having trouble reconciling is that there still seems to be another level to this which I am yet to experience, while at the same time levels seem superfluous. I've met others who are awakened in this manner, but somehow it brings them such joy and bliss. For me the experience is bittersweet... all the pain in the world is beyond my control and so is all the joy. I can free myself of extraneous identities on the one hand which is totally liberating, but on the other hand it's like I am watching an ocean of waves arising and dissolving and all I can do is let it flow through me without trying to grasp. So where is this bliss in that? I don't get how these realized people feel so great about reality. Are they merely making a choice with their freedom, to be happy? Or what's the deal? I'm kind of in this lull of pointlessness despite a life that has the potential to be otherwise meaningful, but I can't get beyond the pointlessness. I hope this makes some kind of sense. Thank you for reading.

Not sure how to phrase this, so bear with me. Considering all the highs and lows and the spiritual experiences, I've been made unusually prepared to let everything go. It may turn out that I underestimate this, but... the gratitude of being shown these things has humbled me to the point of willing acceptance. I can accept more than most people I've met, not a lot phases me. A lot of this has been brought on by suffering and agony, which perhaps nobody should have to keep taking past a certain point... but I digress. My experiences so far have been very dissolving. On the one hand it has felt dangerous because it undermines all ambition and life force. It's like learning in advance how to die feeds too much into the death drive built into every human being. It may even implant, at a subconscious level, a desire to die, not out of suicide but out of dissolution, because the psyche is trying to come to terms with the truth of its own redundancy. This is a deeply existential quandary. On the other hand I'd personally rather feel freed of all the extraneous bullshit relatively young, rather than work my ass off my whole life for some rat race because of living in the shadow of the fear of death as a means to keep achieving. But the bigger burden seems to be that often others care for me more than I do for myself -- not that I hate myself or dislike myself, but I'm just overly accepting and risk taking. It seems defeatist, but that may not be the right word to put on this. Not to make too fine a point, but it seems that if you have anything left to give, then fight, otherwise stop swimming against the current. Just be the inevitable movement of the Dao that goes on and on endlessly. The dissolution is overwhelming at times. Everything I look at in the world, my own reflection, in the eyes of the people talking to me, in the wind that blows through the trees, in the rain, I see the Dao. All one thing, doing itself endlessly. Out of control, beyond tampering. I don't really know what remains, whether it's an ego game or just pure being in the energy field of all that is, but as long as I am not unconscious there must be some heavy cognitive dissonance going on. What I know is that the feeling is in my body, it taps every centre. It's with me when I meditate, or go grocery shopping, talking to a friend, etc. The feeling never leaves. And no it's not merely being ungrounded. There is a deep seed within me that urges me to not rest too long in this state, that somehow there is something beyond this, even though I can't see how that's possible right now. It's almost too yin. I could sit on a park bench for the rest of my life watching the world do its dance or I could go start a fortune 500 company, it would make no difference. Am I in a spiritual trap?

Thanks everyone, this thread has helped clarify many things and has brought me a sense of peace. Gratitude for all that you contribute <3

I haven't become dispassionate or averse to reality. It's rather the opposite, if anything. What I'm trying to describe is a state where participation seems redundant and so it's easy to become passive. Not the same as laziness, apathy or abdication as I am usually a hard working person. I don't think I can put this into words. What I said earlier was a metaphorical attempt to delineate some of this. Others in this thread more or less understood, so I'm not sure how much more I can expound upon it. Thank you for trying though.

Yes, I get this. I guess I focused too much on this specific situation in my last post, which kind of drew us into a scenario. What I'm trying to describe is the sense of inner spaciousness I feel, the calm in each moment, even in those little, simple things. But it's even in the presence of those big things. The spaciousness comes with me wherever I go, it's not merely grief. In relation to that, the spaciousness seems to be overwhelming. There's not enough mind, individuation, or ego anymore. Most people have the opposite problem... they think and think, or constantly take action. Mind is very strong. For me the spaciousness is almost all consuming to the point that there is no will because the spaciousness is so calm and peaceful that it requires nothing to be added or removed. Does this make sense? The world of "stuff" is hard for me to deal with because the overwhelming spaciousness has perhaps softened my ego too much, or something? (Please don't take my words literally I'm being metaphorical.) I'm in a more critical situation right now but the past 5 months I was in remission and super healthy. Still I was dealing with this issue. I suppose it could be some form of PTSD, but I doubt it. I feel possibilities and spaciousness but somehow it doesn't engender me to "become" anything. That's why I question where this undermining of life force comes from. Why is this sense of inner freedom not freeing up my energy? The grief comes in because the spaciousness sometimes feel heartbreaking, like there's nothing to reach out and grasp for, it all slips away. *That* is something I'd like to change... to see it more joyfully and dive into the possibilities. Maybe if I recover and get my vitality back, it would be easier to see that. However the spaciousness itself -- that never leaves. It's in my body.

Because I don't want to waste this opportunity, if wasting it is possible. Hence advice seeking.

I have to reflect more on this. Can't deny that grief is in the mix, but eventually even grief bottoms out. I do need to know if I'm stuck in a negative state or not, as it does feel rather nihilistic. At least I know I'm not beyond the pale because I can recognize what's happening. I don't know what's being cultivated here. Yesterday I received chemotherapy to perhaps save my life, after a year of other methods didn't sustain. I'm at a major crossroads. While I was in the car being driven to the hospital, I was just enjoying the sound of the rain on the window, and watching the world go by. It seems like the closer I get to death the more in love with everything I am, not that I'm truly dying right now. At this point I see no difference between the word "cultivation" and the word "choice". Choosing to exercise this sublime freedom in any way we wish, we might as well choose something life affirming. But it doesn't change the fact that no matter what I do, the free fall is constant.

This talk of "rotating" the dantian is a little too conceptual. If you look at what the lower dantian is generally connected to meridionally, there are only so many directions it can go (in healthy physiology, anyway); but as it is analogous to a polaric energy potential and not a material vehicle, multiple potentials can be activated at once. Qi is higher than 3D so it's not confined to spatial vectors, it just has a "home base" based on how the reservoirs are formed as part of our early embryology. The energy of the dantians can be cultivated to move anywhere, but most of those directions will not be healthy. Maybe I'm being too daoist about it but I don't really see the point of trying to tweak the MCO in this way. Any time you move the qi of the lower dantian somewhere, another aspect in the qi dynamic will react to it. The dantian does not move in vacuo, just like yin and yang move each other if either gets moved. If you change one pole of a field dynamic, its opposite pole will react. You're just observing the current polarities compensating for one another, in their natural "home base" reservoirs. All of the body's physical processes are rooted in the life gate of the dantian, so its energy is naturally multi-directional to begin with. The only difference is that in physiology, its qi is transformed into other processes to be used more efficiently. What you're doing when you move it is just moving its raw form. I saw talk of the belt meridian earlier. This is my favourite meridian to work with. It's the only one that connects all the major channels together, and it affects the smoothness of the vertical flow. It acts as a reservoir for stronger channels to pour excess into, and weaker channels to draw from. It's balancing mechanism in the natural qi dynamic. I find that if you work with the belt meridian in any MCO practice, it makes the MCO rotate faster, more smoothly, more clearly. You can also take some of that extraneous organ qi and put it back into the dantian, or vice versa... fill the dai with the dantian qi and it will go to which meridians need help, without you having to go through the trouble of circulating individual meridians. I don't recommend it if you have a lot of meridian blockages though.

Dissociation is a normal coping mechanism. If humans didn't do it, we would decompensate into raving animals. When people are tortured or experiencing major distress, those are really the only two ways they go. They "check out", which then makes them pliable to the torturer, or they completely lose all cohesion and they're lost forever. Most people fall into the former category. A smaller percentage go the opposite way on the spectrum, toward schizophrenia. Their nightmares become experiences projected externally. Either way, they are no longer connected to the experience. It has been artificially separated from the primary personality. The extreme form of dissociation is multiple personalities. Not only does the event get fragmented off, but over time it becomes a separate ego who governs the experiences. I've had the privilege of meeting and working with some high level spiritual people who have MPD and they were utterly fascinating individuals. I could write pages and pages about these people, but I digress... There are a couple schools of thought about how to deal with this. One is that you'll never be whole unless you unlock the dissociated parts of yourself and reintegrate them, which means directly re-experiencing the memories to some degree. There are many ways to do this, like through dream work, "soul retrieval", hypnosis, etc. You can also just ask to be shown. Seriously, it can be that simple. Set the intention within yourself to start experiencing the missing parts of your life. Over a period of time you may get glimpses. It will unlock at the rate you can handle because your own neuropsychology will not want to be bombarded. For myself, I used dream work, since my dreams are always florid and they're playing out my traumas anyway -- plus it's the direct link to the subconscious. The other school of thought is that this direct re-experiencing isn't necessary. The dissociated parts can be overwritten with a stronger programming of a different kind, kind of like how when you delete a file from a computer, you can write another file over it to the degree that the previous file "ghost" underneath is essentially non-existent. If there's utility in remembering, then you'll eventually remember regardless. Our psyches have innate intelligence about what needs to happen and what is superfluous -- nature wastes nothing. Some things aren't meant to resurface. What you're dealing with is a fragmented ego only. You can still experience true mind, true awakening, true essence without the need to reintegrate everything. The basement level present awareness never changes, and it's this that you can delve into to either bypas or re-access dissociative aspects. Every dissociated part of you comes from that present awareness -- it's the ultimate back door. All you need to do is focus on pure consciousness and the spiritual path. Either the dissociated parts will dissolve and release of their own accord, or they will surface of their own accord. It's organic. One person I knew used psychedelics to reintegrate her many fragmented personas. (She chose LSD.) There are neuroplastic aspects to psychedelics which allow for these disparate ego fragments to communicate through a sense of "oneness", without having to delve into the specifics of the experience. She became aware of 17 separate personalities this way, and made her peace with them. KundaliniLinguini, the tiredness you speak of... it's a natural process. You can only maintain resistance to the truth for so long until something gives... either physically, mentally, or emotionally. The fact that you are directly identifying the need to process these things means that they are closer to the surface than you might think, which means you may have a breakthrough experience impending. What that looks like is different for everyone person. A colleague of mine totally trashed his office when he remembered a childhood abuse, and then he went home and trashed his apartment. Then he cried for a week, then he was despondent for a while, and then he became a happier person than I ever saw him. It's hard to predict... but the most important thing is to practice allowing. How do you practice allowing? Well, when the breakthrough starts to happen, your own reactions may disturb you on the surface, but underneath you'll feel a great sense of bliss and relief that the essential energy is decompressing. All that stagnation, all that holding on, all that resistance... it begins to whither. On some level it will feel good so you follow that feeling.

I'm a man who is more yin by nature, and I've never seen it as a weakness. It's not like one is better than the other... they're interpenetrating and intergenerating. Everyone contains both. I find that my path in life is a more yielding, receptive one. I would like to take some martial arts just to explore the yang nature in myself. In this thread there is an unfortunate tendency to associate yin personalities with lack of yi （意） but that's not necessarily true. Being yin seems like doing nothing but it's not. Surrender and yielding require intention. Ask any yang person how hard this is for them. When I choose to engage in yang activities I often slower than others at the outset but I end up doing better than them in the long run. Yin is slow to move but if it has been accumulated then it becomes unstoppable once in motion. There's also more yin to draw on yang activities if it has been conserved, more qi that can be transformed from substance into action. In other words both should be understood as important. Neither is superior. Likewise, my blood work has always shown a higher testosterone level than average. I don't think you can equate hormones with being more yang than yin. In most holistic medicine systems, like TCM and ayureveda, weight lifting is seen as depleting to both kidney yin and yang over time, but especially yang. It's not dynamic enough to prevent most forms of qi and blood stagnation, unlike the martial arts which are integrative. Most body builders don't live to a ripe old age, and many common weight lifters develop heart problems if they push their bodies too much. It also taxes the endocrine system. Hormones are yang so if your foundational nutrition is solid, the yang should get replaced. I do lift weights but only to tone. You need to look beyond yin/yang philosophy for what is best for your constitution. If you have a runner's build then it doesn't make much sense to focus on weight lifting. At the end of the day, the concept of yin and yang personalities is just a duality. Don't get sucked into thinking you're too much of one and not enough of the other. One aspect of yin and yang is that they are always relative. Next to another yin person you may be the more yang. If you aren't happy with the way you are and want to change, then change. Ascribing the nature of your desire to change to yin/yang philosophy can only take you so far. If I were to categorize things I'd say I started out yang, became more yin, then incorporated more yang activities along the way; but I could easily compare myself to someone else seems way, way more yang than I am, even with the balancing I've done.

I only know about Mercury in the context of western astrology. Mercury is the planet of communication, the mind, the logic, the intellect. It's quick witted and processes information clearly. It's also about how information is expressed. The God Mercury rules celestial discourse and the ability of all the other Gods to transmit their Divine revelations to humanity. It is the messenger. Its dual rulers are Gemini and Virgo, each representing different aspects of Mercury. Gemini rules the 3rd house of primary communication ("I communicate" in the personal evolution), and short journeys. Mercury in Gemini is the literal definition of mercurial, free spirited and light natured, not wanting to be weighed down by seriousness all that much. It's the AIR aspect of Mercury, in that it's less attached to where the thoughts go and simply enjoys exploring them. It's also the twins, which means Geminis tend to see all sides even if they can't decide which side they're on. They can be very indecisive and two-faced for this reason, and moody. It's a very cerebral disposition for this planet. They make good salespeople for this reason because they can convince themselves and others of pretty much anything. This manifestation of Mercury is very curious, jovial, and inquisitive. They also tend to be pretty ungrounded, heh. Because the 3rd house is earlier in the astrological evolution, this aspect of Mercury is more child like. Virgo rules the 6th house of health and work, and responsibility. Virgos are the organizational, analytical and educational types, so they tend to make good teachers or systems people. I always say that if you need your filing system reorganized, just invite a Virgo over because they revel in the most tedious things that others have no patience for. (I used to have a Virgo roommate who volunteered to sew all my clothes for me -- hell yeah!) This is the small, fine details aspect of Mercury. Virgo is the more critical aspect of Mercury. The 5th house is ruled by Leo which is "I create", which is all about me, me, me and look what I can do! Look at my creation, isn't it the most awesome thing ever? The next level, Virgo, says, "Just because you made it doesn't necessarily make it good. It has to have real-world applicable value, and make sense." Virgos are the beginning of structural analysis and critical mind. Virgo is the EARTH aspect of Mercury, which brings ideas into practical reality. Hermes the messenger is a good way to illustrate Mercury... from the ethereal, airy, abstract higher realms he comes down to Earth to deliver important information. Because Mercury governs both these signs, it is mutable in nature and changeable. Gemini is mutable air and Virgo is mutable earth. They have a flexibility which the fixed and cardinal signs lack. It also means, for better or worse, they tend to take on the qualities of the people they're with or the environments they're in.

I'm curious if you wouldn't mind explaining these a bit further. I know about the actions resulting from lust, like excessive ejaculation, but lust in of itself? Hatred is obvious... it's pretty stagnating. Just wondering how you view the others as health problems.

I never said the body was the whole point, just that it's part of the experience. The body is the physical storehouse of spiritual activities. If your consciousness has problems then so will the body. You can't heal one without working on the other. Qi permeates every level. As you said there are no separations. It's all one thing so dichotomozing it into lesser and more important foci doesn't work.