Desmonddf

My personal view on your case based in TCM: Do you have those ever since birth? If so, then you might have what we call "constitutional" imbalances. It basically means you need to work on a very deep level to reach their correction. The meridians will not straighten on their own if that's the case - since they themselves might have been affected by your constitution, and their "regular" path is a twisted and blocked one. Unfortunately, if this is a constitutional disease, you will not be able to heal the energetic without healing the physical at the same time. Both will be on their "natural" states and you'll need to refine yourself both internally and externaly to achieve balance. Trying neigong only will make your flesh suffer and might cause damage to your inner energy workings (as the flesh and the energetic pathways will be clashing one against the other as you try to force change). Please enlighten me on what you mean by "open" meridian and what are those feelings of them being twisted. Also, what do you feel as a blockage and in which parts of your body? More than people realize. Abnormal constitutions are a great part of why many people cannot practice good Neigong without doing a few years of body training and QiGong beforehand. It is a method of straightening the flesh first, and then opening and liberating the channels through the body instead of trying to go the other way around - as it would be very problematic if people reached a point like yours. Case and point, both courses are possible - still, the energetic approach tends to yeld less results due to people's lack of belief on physical manifestations of energetic change, which means you have mind + body against energy, leading to great conflict and pain. It depends on the practice, of how it acts on your body, and which parts of it are currently being affected. Some might have been helping, others might have been hindering. It isn't possible to know without diagnosys and a through investigation of your personal case. That said, you should think into constitution refinement practices. Those are very uncommon on the West and relatively difficult to find in the East, but I might be able to channel one fit for your case through my spiritual guides. I will need for you to lit a candle asking for your own "spiritual caseworkers" to allow for interference and for them to hold the blunt of the karma I would be messing with and for you to reach me in private in case this candle manages to stay lit under the sun for more than 3 hours. Pushing ahead will most likely result in Qi Deviation and destruction of energetic workings inside your body, possible with meridian rupturing. Do not do that. You probably got to a point of no return. You'll have to deal with those blockages or keep feeling them for a long while still. However, pain relief methods are available. Mainly relaxation and mindfullness practices. You might find your own energetic perceptions dulling with time if you stop practicing for now, and that will take your mind out of this pain. However, I do can say with a fair amount of certainty that those pains will remain and have also always been there. You have only been unaware of them due to not having a refined enough energetic perception of your own body. Things going wrong, I'm afraid. Probably due to exaustion from trying to mend your flesh and straighten your bones through the use of the mind and energy. Affecting the Yin with the use of the Yang must not be done in such a blunt way. Your flesh will be harmed and your energy will be wasted. If you intend on fixing your constitution through your inner practices, you'll then need to make those gentle and alchemy-based in order to refine yourself without looking forward to energy betterment.

I'd say western esoterism has grown too accustumed to trying to fit things inside other things instead of using two things to create a third, more comprehensive. We have a popular occultist here in Brazil who spends a lot of his time trying to fit things into the Tree of Life, from popular netflix series to pagan gods. It is a pain in the ass, because it limits and diminishes the overal value of these figures. Someone trying to access Thor through the Geburah sephirot will get mostly one of its many faces, and be unable to figure out real mysteries behind that. It has been a very old fetish in Europe, ever since the times of Plato (the whole "search for the real and ultimate Truth" thing), but it has come to a point were it is plainly misleading and destructive. So I would recomend instead to try and get a comprehensive view of the Kabbalah and then use its essence as a way to access new things inside other systems, as well as a form of communicating those systems and creating a new one. For instance, so far I've managed to ask a few of my spiritual guides about buddhism, and they had very interesting views on the subject, complementing it and leading me to compare between the states of detachment from buddhism and daoism - even to the point of finding a greater state of detachment which apparently holds more consciousness than the isolated states from both systems. So, I would recomend doing that instead of trying to fit things inside the Judaic-Christian system of mysticism. It is richer and more interesting - even though it requires traveling quite far in more than one system of mysticism.

Having the meats, but not using them to do what most people are trained to do - it is indeed difficult, but completely possible. Using one's muscles without getting tense have a lot to do with learning to use the fibers in a completely different way than most people use. Think a roundhouse kick. Can you perform that without letting go of muscle tension? Can you perform any martial arts being stiff as a rock? As you're using your bones and Qi to exert power, tension (and muscle tension as well) will disrupt this flux. In order to be able to use Qi without relying on stop using muscles you'll need to learn something that's almost mystical as well - strong and flexible. To let the muscles permeable even when the fibers are contracting. To learn to be energetically relaxed even while your body tenses small pieces of it. Weight lifting will be especially problematic in this case, as the whole mental memetics around weight lifting have to do with becoming more and more tense, inflamated and swollen. Remember that we have energy channels all over our body, not only our main meridians bot lots of very small meridians which spread everywere. Once you learn how to let those relaxed and open even as the muscular fibers operate - and more, once you learn how to use the contraction and relaxing of the fibers to increase the potency of your accumulations and releases of Qi - then you'll enter a new stage on your practices. That should be it. Good luck

I unmade it. I suppose the astral space still exists and some energies still linger, but my own energies and mental influences aren't present there anymore. Just too many problems for too little effect. I suppose it must have been swarmed by people's thought-forms and spirits by now. I started by creating the space on my own. I did a 3-day preparation beforehand with a 36-hours fasting in order to become less energeticaly dense (and a little bit sick, as I was pretty much don't giving a fuck about my own health those days) and then channeled energies by a lot of diferent sources. I started by building the correlated mental space and then fixating the energies of the 12 zodiacal signs and a few of the zodiacal planets inside that space. Then I projected that space on the astral realm by means of energy and thought manipulation. Afterwards I kept on adding energies in there, including teluric and heavenly energies. By building a self-sustaining astral environment with focal points of energy channeling (for instance, I created a sun inside that place which was a portal to the Sun Inteligence according to Agrippa), the environment started to mutate and grow by itself, eventually becoming a space which, althought in my control to a certain extent, didn't depend on my own energy to exist. Afterwards I created a meditation process in which I guided many of my friends at the time so they could reach that space mentaly, and then add to the fun by reinforcing its thought-form. Eventually I created a few means of astraly accessing that space as well, and when people wanted things in there (a friend wanted a dojo, for instance) all I had to do was to repeat the aforementioned process. In the process I did the stupid thing of keeping my own Thoughts connected to the space itself (as I was extremely green on this field by that time) and I had to deal with that afterwards - as everything people did there affected me in mental ways. My head was a mess at that time. Lucky me, it didn't fack up my own personal and material life - as I have always had some degree of support from my spiritual guides. Eventually I managed to disconnect myself from the space on a mental level and let only the energies interact between themselves. That's why it is mostly dead by now, only a few more persistent focal points of astral channeling remaining (that is, points which exist on that astral realm by themselves, not needing a thought-form to be brought there).

Greetings. Which forms of Ethereal (not related to the body, such as exercises or poses) cultivation do our members practice? For instance, ethereal cultivation can happen through calligraphy, painting, writing poems and so on... Do notice that I'm not including visualization and other meditative practices, as those aren't properly ethereal but usually based on breathing exercises. Practices which do not involve breathing or qigong poses are welcome

Oh god, that's so true. I've encountered a lot of those recently. As a Reiki master who is every day discovering how far I am from Reiki, that's just... *burries his head into the sand*

Tricky stuff indeed, but what part of Crowley isn't, haha? It has been my pleasure. Thank you for listening and accepting my point of view Perfection, I'd say. Even if Crowley himself didn't manage to put that into practice, haha. Well, he was a good instrument for receiving stuff, not necessarialy experiencing them. As long as I remember he never even managed to achieve conversation with his SGA. So that's that.

Mostly writing. I've been letting myself go while writing, or at least trying to. Then, there's also dancing, even though that's very sporadic, and also stretching myself. I make a small ritual every morning: I wake up, stretch intuitively while trying to achieve a state of mindfullness, and then meditate about half an hour before starting my day. During this time I'm not exercising or doing stances, but rather letting my body wake and noticing it a piece at a time. Then there's also caligraphy, but that's just so rare I'm dying to try it again. The sensation of the brush on paper is amazing when you're in the right mindset.

This is one of the laws (one of the Essences people have), but not the Law itself. There are many Essences, and the thing is, if your Essence is Kindness, then you'll never find any obstacles for it. The thing about the Law is that no two people who are following it will ever find themselves into conflict. There are Wills related to governance, to power, to misery, to fortune, to healing, to change, to ordenance... all kinds of wills. That's why "the slaves will serve" works both for those who are born with the Will to be slaves and for those who do not follow their Will. People born with the Will to be slaves will always be slaves as long as they follow their Will - and they will have good lives, full of contentment and well-being. They will find the right Master at the right time (for instance, someone with the Will of Ownership) and that Master will make them have lives which will be better compared to those of any free man. If they do not follow their Will, however, their lives will be miserable and full of conflict (I've seen cases of this). If you ever find yourself in situations of conflict due to your Law of Kindness, then that's not your Will and you're following a path based on your desires - the desire not to have conflict, to live in a world of Will and Wisdom, and so on. This is a form of derivance from the path. Crowley identified Blavatsky as someone who had fallen on it. Unfortunatelly I cannot find the quote where he talks about it in detail, but here are some other quotes which may help: This is in contradiction to Crowley's ideas on how to rise children. They're seen as beings who have more than enough Kingship on their own, not lawless little beings to be taught. Children must be directed to find their own Kingship, not on how to follow a set of rules of kindness.

Well, I don't think what you have grasped is Reiki. I would ask for proof, but then again, I don't have the means to confortably do that. However, can you tell the difference in the first place? Can you compare this Reiki of yours to the one of a properly attuned Reiki giver? If not, that is, if you can't even feel the differences, then I have nothing else to say. Not being able to tell the difference is a great indicator that you won't be able to judge if a Reiki teacher indeed is teaching Reiki or not, if someone has been initiated or not.... or if what you have accessed is indeed Reiki or not.

You indeed don't need to go to expensive semminars to learn how to heal yourself. Nor do you need Reiki. And, not entering on the subject as if "it was all made up" (I again strongly disagree), you should look into the results of your practices. Most people think they are healing themselves but manage to get no results out of it. So much for how powerful they are. Measure your healing power through the results you get from using it instead of assuming you are all-powerful just by existing, and this idea of "everyone can heal themselves" shows itself as being very unreal and dissociative. Then you'll see that expensive semminars may or may not increase your healing power. That practicing this or that healing skill may or may not increase it. Reiki was very effective for me. I've used it for a lot of things other means (like visualization, hipnosys and even acupuncture) didn't produce results. You want to get free from the speech of "you need to expend more to become more capable"? I'm all up for that. But do take note of the RESULTS you get from your practices. You'll probably discover that money indeed doesn't mean quality. Some of the best initiations I've had came from people who didn't charge much for them. A couple even came from free. But you'll also discover that, many times, this is indeed true. People who are very good at what they do usually have lots of people interested on their craft, and then receive more for passing it to others than people who aren't that good. Or at least that's what I do, since it gives me more finantial capability to learn new things which require money to be learned (even if I'm not paying for a certain course or semminar, I still have to pay for travel, food expenses, habitation expenses, etc). I also have a phylosophy of offering my services in exchange for other services or plainly doing it for a social price (a small price the person can pay). Many (if not most) of my initiatees came through that, and I have harvested a good amount of good things from that, since gratitude indeed hides debt on its core. Once people feel like they have paid what they own to you, they feel content, not grateful. So I have people expontaneously giving me things out of "gratitude" even today. So, do consider that. Humans (and the universe in general) aren't made to do things for free. It just isn't how this world operates. We don't need to exchange money, but justice means "a gift asks for other gift". If someone gives you something for free, you'll HAVE to give something back, and that isn't due to societal laws or egocentrism. It's needed to achieve inner balance and balance with the universe itself.

I'm a Reiki Master in a few Reiki Systems. I'm also an acupuncturist and have had some experience with non-reiki forms of healing through the hands. So, here are the problems : 1- No, Reiki isn't something everyone has. Reiki is like a direct connection to a certain kind of energy we call "Rei (heavenly) Ki (energy)". It is the Heavenly Energy connected to organization, cleaness and vigour. To achieve THIS energy you'll first need to know what to look for. Saying "anyone can use Reiki" without attunement is like saying "anyone can find gold in Alasca". Anyone can channel Reiki as long as they are properly attuned... but that isn't correct in all of its entirety as well. One needs to clean themselves first. Time will bring skill on this, but both the amount and the effectiveness of the Reiki you channel are heavily dependent on your own energy-manipulation and self-cleansing skills. If you have no talent for this, it can take you years to get there. 2 - Most people who are "Reiki Givers" can't do shit. I've grown tired of people saying they are able to use Reiki and being unable to heal a single broken nail. The most I've managed until today was to heal hot oil and coffe burns, but I've nonetheless managed to do it. The burn was there, I applied Reiki on it, oppened the smaller side-meridians related to the region, and the burn simply went away. Most especifically, I was deep-frying some dough and one of them exploded a few drops fell on my face. It hurt like hell, but I tried using Reiki and managed to see, with my own eyes, the red burn marks fading away in seconds. I treated one of the burn marks and left the other untreated. The treated one went away and the untreated one created a bubble. If you're going to "Healing Reiki" sessions and can't find yourself improving except by the relaxation of staying one and a half hours laying in a bed with soft background music.... it's just that most people cannot channel Reiki effectively. They might be channeling an insuficient amount of Reiki, or plainly not channeling any at all. The Reiki Therapeuts I've found which did had results had to follow quite a hectic life. No drinking, no smoking, most of the times no meat, no sex... yeah, it isn't that easy. 3 - If you're taking your time to heal someone, you're at least in the right to demand payment. Ok, Reiki is an universal energy which "belongs to everyone" (I strongly disagree, it belongs to the Heavens, not to People). But what about the hour and a half the therapist will spend treating you? What about all of the effort and study they put to reach the stage of being able to treat you? What about the consequences they will have to face after treating someone, usually involving having to deal with all the energetic shit people expell during sessions, and which cling to you like old sewage? What about karmic ties which form during some sessions, and worst, when the therapist is a newbie or have found something beyond their skill, and takes part of your karma from you by mystake? What about the help the therapist will have to give YOU after the sessions? Who will have to deal with the unbalances on your life once things like carthasys and expontaneous regressions happen and you need someone to talk to at 5 a.m. ? (true story). All of that either should grant you the position of a disciple in front of a master you'll obey and live for during your life, or payment - depending on if you want a more spiritual connection or a commercial one. Giving Reiki for free is just arrogance and irresponsability. That said, the story I was told was that Usui indeed charged for Reiki - seen as most people gave it no value and didn't treat it seriously without money involved. Something is happening again with people going to parties and then saying "oh, you have a headache? I'm a Reiki Giver, I can help you!" and then putting they hands on someone's head after having drank, eaten processed foods and a lot of other crap. Indeed, I still hung my head low when I see people being initiated in Reiki 2 or even 4 (!!!) which aren't able even to feel the energy on their hands or do an energetic scan (byosen) on the patients. It makes me want to bury my certificate. And so on.

From my experience, everyone has an individual Essence, which is then invigorated and in parts controled by a superior thing, a "higher self", even if it isn't the naming I use. Now, the Essence exists at the level of the Mind (with a capital "M", like the thing which connects all of your past lives and the current one), and the Higher Self on the beyond-the-mind. There are cases in which this "higher self" simply isn't caring for the Essence, much less for you. It is "sleeping" or "isolated", would be metaphors which can be used. This will generate a being "without soul", meaning it doesn't get any energy from its Higher Self, all of the Energy it manages to obtain comes from the Cause-Effect world we live in. So, while someone with an Awaken Higher Self might find itself receiving a "call" for something, people with those "sleeping" won't feel any call. Won't feel their uniqueness and won't have any kind of "compass" in life. They will live, indeed, as automatons - receiving social, bodily and environmental inputs and simply living to react by them. This has been VERY common in the past few hundred years due to certain spiritual reasons (it's "cleansing time" for the planet, and those Higher Selfes's who don't contribute will be forcefully ejected from here, so this is the "last chance" for most), but it tends to diminish within a few decades.

I've been experimenting with out-of-body experiences and people doing them for a few years now. The results can be very frustrating. Dozens of people have passed through my hands, only five or six actually managed to find the same places, recognize each other and describe the same things without knowing what the other was seeing. It was such an orgasmic moment when those things happened, though. One of the best ones I had was once I was conducting an experiment with two people through skype (well, not very scientific, I'm an amateur), and this one wasn't based on two people not knowing what the other was doing and so on. Both people managed to access the same astral place and see the same thing... and then they started to describe the same tree, with the same details. One goes "oh, here's this thing", the other goes "yeah, but did you see this thing here?". One says "hey, come here, look at this", the other goes "wow, this thing is glowing!", the other goes "It IS! That's what I'm seeing as well!". Aaah... it was refreshing. Only happened once, though. I suppose it must be the same with psychics. You'll need to go through dozens, or even hundreds, before finding those who do show some skill. Be it because most are faking... or because it just isn't your lucky day. OBE's have a varied range of variables which depend a lot on luck. Psychic powers, then, must have even more.

Not quite. LHP and RHP are quite racists ideas propagated by european occultists ever since they became influenced by dualism. Good practioners of what would be called "LHP" practices (such as excesses and breaking mental and moral shackles) do not become lawless - they become aware. Indeed, Thelema is considered to be LHP in many RHP occult orders, such as the Martinists, Rose-Cross' and even some massonry adepts. That's the "Abyss Baby" stage. You have failed to cross the Abyss and is now dealing with a fractured ego. To solve that you'll have to achieve conversation with your Sacred Guardian Angel and find your own Kingship according to the Law. Not exactly. That's the destruction of the ego, not its death. Ego never really dies, it surrenders and dissolves into Will. You haven't found your own Will, and have been letting the Will of others possess you. That's being a slave under the kingship of others. You must find your own Kingship, your own Will - the one true Will which will make you King as Aiwas called. At this moment, you not only doesn't has an ego, but also has many of the social and mental vines of others trying to possess you. That's why it is said that, once you fall into the Abyss and becomes an Abyss Baby you've lost your chance in this life. Not exactly, you still have a chance if you find your own Will - but you must remain watchfull of these vines trying to possess you, as they don't have a mind of their own and would, indeed, turn you insane. Everyone has an Essence, a Will granted by "god" (Kether). This is your Tipheret, and your Sacred Guardian Angel is the universal force which guards and protects this Will of yours. This is why you NEED to achieve conversation with it in order to reach Adeptus Minor. If you don't, then you'll become passive and inactive. A pawn made of flesh, bones and empty space on your head. Devoid of Soul, Will, Spirit. Non-action would be the answer. You (ego) won't ever do anything again. Your Will will manifest through you, and act in the world. Achieving complete detachment is only half the equation - the other half is manifesting Will and identifying yourself (creating a "golden ego", a "philosopher's stone" with your Ego) with your Will and thus becoming perfect. Once you do that, there will be no desire, no quiet and no action. You'll be a living manifestation of Essence/Will, and therefore a King.

They do I've been very pleased with the answers. People seem to be doing quite well into the ethereal cultivation camp. It is very good to find people who have experienced the same things, and even finding some new creative ways of cultivating

From the question posted, I believe the author of the post is considering anyone capable of creating things in the astral realm (for instance, a made-up world or life) to be a deity. I do disagree, but it is a perfectly valid definition. If I interpreted it correctly, then you're considering a "deity" as anything capable of creating places and life in the astral realm. I have been able to do that for a few years already. Quite a headache. Places get invaded by random spirits unless you create protections so they don't wander in without even knowing they were doing it. Lifeforms grow, learn and often become astral harassers which will make your life shitty in many levels. Last time I created a place where people would go to during astral projection I was mildly successfull, with people reporting having seen the same things at the same time and finding one another inside while out of their bodies. Still, I had to put a barrier around the thing and avoided creating any form of life without a clear purpose and many limitations (like a goose I put in the lake and which managed to have enough freedom to be only a goose in that lake, nothing else).

Proper rest, proper work, proper exercise, proper eating, proper drinking, proper sex, proper human relations and proper emotions. Then, "genetics" (the constitutional quality of your Jing reserves, as well of your available amount of it). All of those are factors to longevity. In the Yellow Emperor's Classic, humans should get decrepit only at 70-80 years old (with males becoming infertile only at 70), when "your teeth fall out, your muscles are feeble" and so on. That's for a REGULAR human, like, a farmer. In the "old times" the Classic talks about you should be able to reach 100 years old while still being in prim and proper shape, with plenty of energy to use and even fertile - even if you're a woman. Improper Eating will tackle into your Jing reserves way harder than excessive drinking, for instance - unless by "excessive" you mean getting wasted every single day of your life. A single week of fasting can be as harmful of a month of drinking every weekend. That depends on each person. However, fasting can be good as well - as long as the loss of Jing from fasting isn't as great as the loss of Jing from something else (for instance, sedentarism and obesity), then it will actually be a good choice! That's what we ponder when thinking about if it will be a good therapeutic approach to open someone's Extraordinary Meridians. As Post-Heaven Jing is stored in them, opening them mean the reserves of Post-Heaven Jing you have will be used once they're opened, which will make some go like : "The fuck bro, you're making me more vulnerable to using my Pre-Heaven Jing!". Yes, we are. But a full Yin Qiao Mai will be useless if you already has a disease eating away at your reserves. It uses LESS of your lifespan if we open it and heal your disease. It's basically loss control, e-e. Those who are "tonned" with halterofilism are actually sick. As well as those who depend on hormone terapy to look younger (same effects of using TCM to look younger). As for top-tier athetes, there's a reason why they usually retire when they are 30 years old or so Now, being lazy (improper exercise) or not working well (improper work) are indeed sources of Jing loss! Everything that's an excess will tap into your reserves and generate premature aging. So, the instruction is to live moderately. That WILL look like an "excessive" life in some aspects for the regular Westerner (like exercising 2-3 hours a day), but it's still moderate in the eyes of TCM. Then, you also have the proper exercises (2-3 hours of weight lifting will be a huge problem, while 2-3 hours of cardio won't be good as well - you need balance). The ideal routine from a TCM view is as it follows (following the 12-part Qi Cycle in the body): You'll wake at around 3 A.M. (when the rooster crows, lung meridian time). Then, you'll sit on meditation and do soft, body-nourishing breathing exercises until 5 A.M. Then, at 5 A.M., you'll start feeling the desire to defecate (large bowel meridian time). You'll take your time from 5 A.M. to 7 A.M. to do light exercise or tend to your farm animals (remember, daoism is all about the idilic farm life) and then going to the bathroom to do your business. At 7 A.M. you'll start feeling hunger (stomach meridian time). You'll prepare your breakfeast and eat around 8 A.M. After eating, you'll take your time preparing the food you'll eat later and resting, so the stomach can properly digest your breakfeast and separate the best parts of the food and its essence. No hardcore exercises at this time, and absolutely no fasting! This is your most important and nutritional meal of the day - it must contain all of the season's proper foods prepared in the proper way and so on. At 9 A.M (spleen meridian time). you'll start feeling a lot of energy in your body. It is a good time to exercise your muscles by doing farmwork. So, you'll head to the fields and start shoveling that dirt. At 10 A.M. you'll be hungry again, so you'll eat the lunch you prepared earlier. Then, you'll rest for around 1 hour so all of that food can be properly digested and your muscles feed and nourished by the fresh Ying Qi your meridians, blood and "meats" are receiving. Hurray, time to get good muscles - lean and strong, no fibrosys (halterofilists have wet dreams with fibrosys-full and swollen muscles...) and plenty of muscle fibers (strenght-creating) ! Of course, since every day you'll get a little stronger, every day you'll be able to work a little bit more than the previous. So you'll end up becoming a super-farmer which will be able to feed yourself and your family with just a little bit of work every day. At 11 A.M. your Heart Meridian will be receiving the greater amount of Qi possible. You'll do very little exercise and focus on nourishing your Yin and Blood - be by idilic observing the scenery, meditating, making art or any other form of internal cultivation - away from the Sun, of course, since it will harm you to receive too much heat at this time. Even if it is winter. At 1 P.M your Small Intestines will be receiving the most nourishment from Qi and Blood. It is a very good time to let all of the day's worries and excess emotions be drained from your body, so you should take this time to both pump up your circulation and talk to your friends - living like a farmer means you'll have plenty of manual labor to be done, so you can chat up while doing stuff like peeling rice or harvesting vegetables. Nibbling on some food is only part of the course, better if you have just a little bit of wine (usually rice wine) to make it smooth. At 3 P.M. you'll have your whole body nourished with Qi and Blood, as the Urinary Bladder is one of the outer meridians of the body. This Meridian will make it so you'll have to do a little bit of everything - at the same time cultivate, meditate, eat, talk and do internal cultivation. It is the time of closure for the body, in which you'll have to take everything you've done in the whole day and do it all at the same time - the culmination of cultivation. For instance, you can go on to the communal fields (remember, we are old farmers in Imperial China - there are personal and communal fields, the first being your own and the later the community and the lord's fields - the Lord here being the Perfect King, usually a religious figure) and work on them while chatting, nibbling on food, doing breathing exercises, ritmic work and meditating. So, if you have worked hard and sweaty from 9 A.M. to 10 A.M., with the idea of providing for yourself and your family, now is the time to work with precision and focusing on the moment. One form of doing so is by singing and working with your cultivating farmer pals in sincrony and harmony. Quite creepy for a westerner, but do imagine a row of farmers singing, plowing, breathing, talking and so on in harmony and ritmically. It will also generate a strong sense of community and put you in contact with the People Dao, which will be very interesting for reaching new heights in your own cultivation. Do notice the first part of the day (End Yin to the peak of the Yang) is based on "isolated" self-cultivation, while the second part of the day (Peak of the Yang to the Beginning of the Yin) is more community-based. At 5 P.M. your Kidneys start to be nourished. You'll stop work and head home, where you'll bathe, take time with the family and have a nice meal with a very small amount of wine with special herbs. Tea might be even more appropriate, depending on the region you're living in. At 7 P.M. your Pericardium meridian will start to kick in. You must be on your bed already. You and the Wife will take a long time of foreplay and have a form of sacred-but-simple sex in which you'll be able to nourish your emotions, sensations and spirit - while also protecting your body from any harm and creating an "energetic layer" around yourself, which will prevent all kinds of diseases. Pillow talk is advised, but the kind you do after-sex and makes you happy to be alive. If the Wife is pregnant, even better. At 9 P.M. You'll start to sleep soundly and quietly. Your Triple Burner meridian will spread, combine and purify all the energy you have generated through the day, and then store it neatly into your Extraordinary Meridians. Around 11 P.M. your Gallblater starts to release all of the indecisions and tensions you had during the day, making it so your sleep becomes so peaceful you'll be sleeping like a baby. It is the time where the body starts to reach perfect harmony and all of your daily decision-making is solidified, approaching you to the Dao. At 12 P.M. your Liver will finish the day by making it so your body reaches the pinnacle of harmony. The midnight-crow of the rooster will come as a signal for your Hun soul to leave the body and learn on the spiritual plane of existence, while your physical body finds most confort and perfect balance, becoming as nourished and harmonic as possible. Your Souls will be in peace, and your body will be completely relaxed. This moment will be when the Dao is stronger on your body, and also when you'll have to find it (for your Souls) with your out-of-the-body experiences, since your Souls and your Flesh are separated. Once you reach the same level of attainment of the Dao - as a Soul - as nature gives your body by following this routine, then you'll be able to leave it behind and start new forms of cultivation - Soul-Driven cultivation, instead of Body-Driven cultivation. This new kind of cultivation will bring a new kind of lifestyle and living, in which your body will attain higher levels of being than it would attain by simply living. It will also be the kind that's impossible to compress in a Routine, as you'll be starting to become one with the Dao and the Moment will be more important than the Day. Your Souls will show you the path, not your body. In fact, your body will start to become spiritual. Some die at this stage, since their further cultivation practices must be done in the world of the dead, not the living. Some reach amazing longevity... and some appear to have gone insane, but are actually much more aware and spiritual than most. It is the time in cultivation where you'll become out-of-the-norm. After that level has been cleared as well, you'll then be able to do cultivation in the level of Qi Gong and Nei Gong. Do tell me if you find anyone capable of doing this. I'm unable to wake before 10 a.m. and usually sleep at 1 P.M., so I just know the path, not having the capability of walking it... yet. Memory Loss is very litteral in terms of TCM. "DNA memory" is something called "Constitutional Quality of Jing", not being related to "memory". Your Constitution is derived from your Jing, but your memory as well. Both are pretty especific, and you'll have completely different diagnosys and treatment methods for each of them.

Jing is a substance in the body whose amount can be measured due to proper diagnostic, especially of the elasticity and tone of the related acupoints. One can divide Jing into multiple subtypes of Jing depending on where it is stored, so you'll have Marrow-and-Brain Jing, Meridian-Yuan, sexual Jing (stored in the Bao), etc. It is indeed like dividing an egg into yolk and egg white... which is useful for the same reasons people DO separate Yolk and Egg Whites "Sexual Jing" can be understood as the Jing related to the Bao and the Gonads. Even though your amount of produced sperm increases with sexual practice and regular sexual life, sperm IS NOT Jing - it is a material substance which serves as a "vessel" through which Jing flows. Increasing the amount of the "vessel" will make it so more of the "water" will be caried along when you come. The amount of produced sperm increasing with promiscuity is indeed a sign of loss of Jing. Now, how can the amount of Jing in someone's body be quantified? As I've said, Diagnosys of key points and phatologyes the person has will give you indications on the amount of Pre-Heaven Jing someone has in their body, the main factor being Aging. Look into people who commit excesses in their lives, like promiscuity, drinking too much, staying in the sun for too long... and you'll see all the signs of premature aging. Then, if you reach a point in which you can feel the amount of Pre-Heaven Jing inside someone's body, be the Kidney Jing which is stored on the region of the left kidney, the Ming Men Jing in the region of GV4, the Bao Jing, the Brain-and-Marrow Jing or the Meridian's Yuan, you'll be able to notice that it does not increase after being used - and that it decreases greatly with excesses, like fasting for long periods of time. Then, if you find "rejuvenating qi-gong" you'll still will be able to notice that some key acupoints in your body will remain relatively empty compared to when you where younger, and that it is the same with everyone who's older. You'll be able to create a rejuvenating appearance in someone by accurately using acupoints like Kidney 7, which "replenishes the Jing", but you'll then notice that this a feeble effect with many limitations - yes, it will make you look younger and even take away some of the old-age pains you might have, but once you stop using acupuncture or moxabustion on that acupoint, that all crumbles in a few days. The pain will be back, the wrinkles as well... best of cases and you can nourish the region for enough time and with enough technique to be able to accumulate some Post-Heaven Jing in the Kidney meridian's connection to the Extraordinary Vessels to look young for a little bit longer. The Extraordinary Vessel which connects to the Kidney main Meridian, btw, is the Yin Qiao Mai, which connects to K2 all the way to K8, and then follows a path right next to the Kidney meridian as well, even without being part of it. Then it nourishes the Brain. This Meridian, therefore, can be somewhat nourished (to the limit of how much nourishment can come from Heat alone) once one applies Moxabustion on K7. Opening this Vase works wonders for rejuvenating people, especially if they present Kidney Yin Deficiency related problems. Wonder why? Quick note: That's why saying "look at that qigong instructor, he looks so young, his QiGong must work indeed!" is a mistake. There are plenty of means for one to pretend to be younger with TCM. That's the more physical and medical form of understanding the logic of "excesses (including sexual ones) deplete the Pre-Heaven Jing". You're free to think that "it is all sexual taboo by those hiper-conservative idots" and rebel against it, of course.... just make a small money reserve and look for me in 20 years or so, haha. Edit: Memory isn't related to Jing, but to the state of your "Sea of Marrow" (Brain), which is connected to the Kidney's Yin, which THEN is connected to Pre-Heaven Jing. There is some Bone-And-Marrow Jing associated to that, but most of the nourishment to the Sea of Marrow and the Bones themselves comes from Kidney Yin. Only the most profound Marrow has some Jing stored in itself, like some of deepest recesses of your brain (your essential structures, such as the motor cortex, cerebelun, amigdala, etc). Alzheimer patients can be quite easily treated by stimulating the Kidney Yin, and that will solve the memory loss issue (at least for a while). Of course, if it could cure Alzheimer for life then we acupuncturists would all be filth rich by now, but it can slow down the disease's progress quite a lot. In the end, the loss of Kidney Yin with aging is unstoppable without some miraculous means. So things like Dementia will eventually settle in. You either become brainless or die before that, there is no way out except by finding the formula for Pre-Heaven Jing reconstitution.

If you're getting spiritual progress from that, then yes

Yes, that's exactly it! Thanks for sharing Breath can be used to acess the Dao, that's for sure. However, I do consider it quite physical - as it doesn't relate to the abstract... art in general is quite capable in bringing ethereal concepts into play. Just like how @manitou related

People usually do not like when I explain things about Qi, Jing and Xue (Blood) because I always use the TCM view. However, do notice that TCM not only works, it also has plenty of esoteric applications. Not only that, these terms (Jing, Qi, Xue, etc) come primarly in book form from the Huang Di Nei Jing, a classic about medicine (Yellow Emperor's Classic of Inner Medicine, do not confuse with the "Yellow Court Classic", a work 700-years younger). That's not to mention that Qi Gong practioneers usually are required to have quite a good grasp on TCM. It's just needed at a certain point. So, I believe we SHOULD use the TCM comprehension of Jing, Qi and etc for our Qi Gong practices - otherwise, we're just going to get lost on the "common sense" of many schools. Let's go: Everything begins with the formation of the Heavens and Earth.... yeah, I'm not going to go so far. Let's skip that and go to the point things become useful. Everyone is composed of matter and energy. We call matter a form of "Yin" and energy a form of "Yang". Yang and Yin are measurement concepts, like "high" and "low", "there" and "here", "going" and "coming". So, Matter is Yin in relation to Energy. Why? Because Matter is colder, heavier, less mobile... when compared to Energy. People also tend to say that all forms of energy are "Qi", which isn't completely wrong... since "Qi" means anything ethereal. If you're reading a text, especially a Neigong text, and the author is treating "Qi" as every form of movement and energy, that's why. Ok, we got it. Now, what kinds of matter and what kinds of energies there are out there? There's inorganic matter, and there's organic matter. There's soft energy (like the one of the breeze) and hard energy (like the one of a storm). Inorganic Matter is immobile and, many times, cold. So, it is Yin in comparison to Organic Matter. Soft energy is gentle, less mobile and "watery" compared to hard energy, so it is Yin in comparison to hard energy. HOWEVER, Organic Matter is still Matter, so it is Yin in relation to Soft Energy.... got it? + Yin => Inorganic Matter -- Organic Matter -- Soft Energy --- Hard Energy <= +Yang Now, let's see those forms of matter and energy in the human body. First, we know that the Human body obtains energy from "Organic" Matter (boiled water, food). And if we're into TCM, we know that the Human body ALSO obtains energy from Soft Energy (as the one rooted in the Air and Food). We also know that we can obtain energy from Inorganic Matter, but that's dangerous - as "living" foods, in the language of these days (such as non-cooked foods) and unboiled water (if you don't have a good water service) can cause a number of diseases. And even Hard Energy can give one energy, but usually makes someone sick (for instance, staying under the sun for a long time will cause sunburns). Organic Matter would come from foods that have been cooked and water that has been boiled. It is a little bit complicated to explain here, but basically saying - things that haven't received heat for a long time aren't living. So, we know that the extremes hurt the human body - and, therefore, that the Human Body itself must have a relationship of balance with the environment for it to work. Here comes the first aspect of Jing loss - inbalance with the environment. More on that later. Now, let's look into the Human Body itself. We know that we are made of Organic Matter, and that, for better or worst, there doesn't seem to be any form of inorganic matter on the body (unless you consider kidney stones or something, lol). The only moment when the human body loses its Organic property is in death. That said, it also shows signs of "turning into a non-living thing" once we get older. Therefore, this is why we say that someone needs to "cultivate their Yang" - not in the sense of turning the body itself into energy, but by keeping it from becoming old and "inorganic". Many neigong schools confuse the unaware because of this. Turning the Yin into Yang, cultivating the Yang, must be done in the sense of making it so your systems of self-heal and self-repair mantain themselves always at pristine condition. Let's keep on going. Organic Matter. It can also be further divided in Yin and Yang. Bones are at the ultmost Yin of Organic Matter, while Skin is at the ultmost Yang. Soft Energy or Bodly Energy. Also possible to divide further. Simple energy like the one attached to your body's fluids is at the most Yin, and very subtle energy, such as the one related to your emotions which can be seen and manipulated by manipulating your Organs, is at the most Yang. The most Yang Energy one can find on someone's body is called a "Soul". There are five souls in the body, rooted on your five main organs : Liver, Spleen-Pancreas, Heart, Kidneys and Lungs. Now, once we talk about Shen and "turning Qi to Shen", we're talking about using an intermediate-level soft energy from the body as nourishment for the Souls as a whole (and sometimes for the Heart's Soul in specific - each tradition varies). So, "turning Qi into Shen" means using a form of Soft Energy called Zheng Qi, which is naturally produced in your body through digestion and breathing, as a form of nourishing your Souls. What about Jing, then? Well, Jing can also mean two or three different things. There is a form of Energy which is rooted on one's kidneys, and it controls all of the body's aging processess. We call that Jing. There is also a form of Energy which is rooted on one's Bone Marrow and Brain, and controls metabolism, regeneration and mental acuity. We call that Jing as well. There is also a form of Energy which is present on what we could say to be one's DNA (the genetic markings we got from our parents), and which attaches itself to a place right under your LDT. We, again, call that Jing. So, which is the Jing we use to "turn Jing into Qi" ? The answer will depend on the neigong school you're using as reference. All of those forms of Soft Energy can be worked through meditation, exercise, certain forms of breathing and etc in order to be expent and turned into Zheng Qi. The most common, however, is the expenditure of ALL of those forms of Jing - as Jing is in the most Yin part of one's Soft Energy, and it heavily connects to one's body. Some practices will teach you how to produce some forms of Jing which we call "Post-Heaven Jing" (because it was produced after you were born and, therefore, cannot reach and inhabit some places in your body the Jing produced prior to birth reach), and that will then be what is used as fuel to make Qi. However, all practices need to bring you closer to a state where you can access and nourish the places in your body where the Pre-Heaven Jing is stored - otherwise, you'll become sick due to an imbalance of Soft Energy and then die earlier. Sex, sexual fluids and their "intrinsic and all-important" connection to Jing are just a fetish derived from Confuncionist taboo with sex itself. The Jing attached to your sperm and which is used to produce this sperm is important, as it relates to your fertility as well as with your aging in a certain level (the body will automatically try and balance any loses in Soft Energy by drawing the nearest source to use as a substitute, so other forms of Jing suffer if you use too much of this king of Jing), but you should really focus on other things before giving too much importance to cellibacy. I think that's the gist of it. Hope it was usefull.

If the Dao is everything, then it IS care, and it ALSO IS not caring. There is no Yin and Yang. There is no care and abbandonment. It is transcendent - both caring and uncaring. It isn't logical and it isn't supposed to make sense. Making sense is something limited - a product of the mind and its illusion of being able to reduce Reality to Knowledge (see that you're assuming that, if something IS, then it can be known - that the Mind is bigger than Reality).

Any displaced bones in your body will affect it whole. You might have a scoliosis in the middle burner, but that doesn't mean it isn't affecting the rest. Your muscles will compensate this by becoming more proeminent on one side and so on. I would say this means you're holding into an unconscious trauma and/or pysichic complex. That or you have a problem with your constitution (genetic markings). In both cases what you need is either to start treatment with a competent professional (for instance, a chiropratic) and/or train postures and exercises which will organicaly straighten your spine. The full-lotus position might help a lot, but if you can't do it properly then start by finding the correct mindset and slowly build your path towards it.

Everything from your belly button bellow. The Triple Burner is a way of dividing the body into three parts and a meridian that deals with the harmony of these parts as a whole. The upper burner is located from the diaphragm and above, the Middle Burner is located between the diaphragm and the belly button, and the lower burner is located from the Belly Button and bellow.