Aetherous

Making it back home safely

Think of the third eye as being like the pineal-pituitary-hypothalamus...they regulate everything in the body, so using the third eye is not just a head centered approach. Focusing attention in the head does create problems, though.

First step: watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" on Netflix.

I was basically just referring to movements that warm you up, which aren't vigorous enough to break a sweat. For example, doing gentle circles of all of the major joints. Or most movement forms of qigong.

I think the usual advice is to not break a sweat with exercise in the winter...but warming the muscles often is great, like with qigong. We definitely want internal warmth in the winter.

Cool!

This is a common misunderstanding. Zangfu diagnosis has extensive historical roots, and nearly 2,000 years of refinement. This system wasn't something that was just pieced together by a politician...some of the greatest practitioners in China at the time mutually agreed upon the curriculum (more or less). TCM is best looked at as a clinically efficacious introduction to historical Chinese Medicine, which acts as a universal language for the various historical schools of thought. It's best used as a stepping off point into individualized study of the Classics, or other historical schools...all of which are still accessible, and which Bensky's herbs and formulas book give a first glimpse into. TCM is just fine, especially if done with a deep study of it...I say this as someone who currently learns from a purely classical lineage, who researches the Nei Jing, and has been exposed to textual and lineage sources of Daoist Medicine...in other words, someone who is inclined away from TCM. Those who actually know Chinese medicine history don't disparage TCM so readily.

No, you really don't. Enough said!

No personal offense meant, but I question how you could find Chinese Medical (herbal) information to be of merit or not, without an education in Chinese Medicine. You don't have the skills of diagnosis, the underlying theory, or the experience seeing patients, to know whether the information is beneficial or harmful. The gauge with which you could judge something is completely not there. Also, what you mention of herbalism isn't rooted in the book you say you learned it from over many years, Bensky. This stuff really does require an actual education...and hopefully no one is taking herbal advice from this forum. It's not harmful like pharmaceuticals, but it almost is that harmful. It's truthfully better to not take herbs, than it is to take them with a DIY approach.

A lot of those traditional things you listed are questionable. The complete education really includes diagnosis and experience with patients, in addition to the herbal portion. It's unavoidable - only practitioners can practice effectively. DIY is harmful. Herbs are not safe...food is safe. I agree that pharmaceuticals are more harmful than herbs, in general.

Taking herbs without having a complete education in that form of herbalism and diagnosis creates imbalances in the body. That's really what it boils down to. This is not medical advice, but for myself, I'd just take shen qi wan for increasing jing (which is the original version of liu wei di huang wan). That's not to say I'm advising anyone else do this...I advise people to work with a Chinese Medicine practitioner only. See the first sentence of this post again.

I suspect it'll be addressed if he is really running for 2020...but it takes a lot to force people to look at videos of children being touched inappropriately (I'm referring to video clips of Biden doing this during photo shoots, in public). It seems that most people are so averse to it that they'd rather just completely pretend it's not happening.

Dang gui (angelica root)

Seems to me like doing this, or having other things that are distracting, can be great. I wish you the best, Manitou.

Nope, these are posers.

The hypocrisy and lack of integrity is so lame.

Sociopaths are the opposite of enlightened. Their enlightened nature is buried extremely deep beneath layers of tangled nonsense, much more so than normal people. If you think you see wisdom in such a person, it's a perverted form of wisdom.

Yes there are some things that exist which are similar to qigong, and there is also internal development that is Western. I can't say anything else about it, but it exists, and it isn't rehashed Eastern stuff (although everything Western really did come from an area somewhat East).

The quotes are speaking of where a person can astral travel, basically...their spirit and body are, or can be, disconnected. That doesn't have to do with Buddhist liberation at all, which is something amazing.

Just those eating habits I said, along with not eating damp foods, will do a lot...and exercise. You can find a lot of info with a google search for damp foods to avoid, and also foods that resolve dampness. You'll get a great result if you take Chinese herbs to work on it at the same time (prescribed by a practitioner).

I don't...I think individuals choose to become nurturing or not, male or female. (I think mothers tend to be called nurturing more, since they have the breastmilk that literally sustains a newborn life...but I'm using nurturing to just mean being beneficial to the growth of a kid and not harmful) I know quite a few mothers who are really great, who I respect so much, and who give me hope for what women can be. There have also been some very respectful and responsible female tenants at the apartments I manage...so it's not that 95% of women where I live are insane...it's that 95% of the problems have been from women instead of men. What you quoted from me was the ideal of a stereotypical patriarchal society, that men are constantly out doing things and women are taking care of the home and kids. It's not what I think is actually ideal for society. I absolutely agree. Fathers are great, and essential to having healthy kids. I think there should be roughly equal time spent with both parents, if possible. Definitely not absentee fathers, and definitely not single mothers who ban the fathers from their kid's lives just because the court system favors them.

Yep the TCM doctor saw something that took precedence...if you clear the damp heat out, then the Kidney jing can more easily refill naturally. If you take jing tonics in a damp heat situation, it just makes the imbalance worse (because jing tonics can produce more damp). Besides it being bad for the digestion of tonic herbs, damp also sinks into the lower jiao and interferes with the Kidney's function...so clear damp out and you benefit the Kidney and the jing, without the need for tonics. If after a year of treatment there was no relief, then besides looking for another practitioner, you'd probably want to be looking more into how lifestyle could remedy the damp heat. Sticking needles in and putting herbs into the system when the lifestyle is contradicting the treatment strategy might help a little bit, but giving the lifestyle the same focus will skyrocket the results. A simple solution for the damp is to avoid foods that produce more dampness, and also chew your food until it's liquified (extremely beneficial to just do that). There are other ideas, like eating meals at the same time every day, eating within 1 hour of waking up, eating in a calm environment and not on the run, not doing mental work for the hour after eating, not ever overeating, etc. It's good for a practitioner who is taking a year to treat damp heat to also look at why the damp is there, why the heat is there. Where are those things coming from. Chinese medicine has "root and branch" in diagnosis...the damp heat might be the branch, but if you don't cut it off at the root then treating the branch will just cause it to grow right back. You'd have to figure out why those things are being produced in the body...the cause. Heart blood deficiency can happen from having an overactive mind, among other things...I think a depleting lifestyle would cause it. The blood in the Heart is engendered from the Liver blood...so in a long term approach, the same strategy of replenishing Kidney jing can also nourish Heart blood. Replenishing blood and jing to full levels can take months. These are just some ideas and don't necessarily represent how everyone would do things...it's definitely essential to see a practitioner.

It's not good to diagnose yourself...better to see a skilled Chinese Medical practitioner. Diagnosis requires many different things to be accurate. To me it sounds like perhaps more of a heart blood deficiency, to be super sensitive to caffeine...but impossible to diagnose accurately based on one thing. There may be some jing depletion (or maybe not), but there could be other patterns to consider as primary in treatment. Our systems need balance in order to function well...pump more jing supplementing stuff into a disharmonious system, and the effect isn't so good. But get balance, and everything will work better and lead to a longer life...and with a balanced system, you can supplement the jing better if that's still an issue. It's true that we're born with a certain amount of preheaven jing, and it represents our potential lifespan...with excessive lifestyle like you had, the effects can tap into that jing and drain it faster...and it is a limited supply that can only run out. But a couple words of encouragement - it ain't over till it's over! You're still walking, breathing, etc...so you have life, and you do have jing. There are some people who live hard and end up living over 100 for some reason...so don't worry. Secondly, while it's true that replenishing the preheaven jing is something of a neidan mystery (if it's even possible...do we have any actual physical immortals that anyone's aware of?), and is not within the realm of medical practices...it's also the case that we can replenish postheaven jing to make up for our losses. How I was taught is that "kidney jing" encompasses both preheaven and postheaven jing (simply because it's said that the kidneys store jing, therefore they store both types)...so we can indeed increase our "Kidney jing", but it's done the postheaven route, and the preheaven can't be restored medically. One way of doing that restoration is by having very abundant Liver blood...it's thought that the blood can then be transformed into postheaven jing and increase the jing back to normal levels. Part of this replenishment must include having a lifestyle that's calm and balanced, and supports the process...if you've tended to live so hard that you tap into your resources, then you need to be extra careful to do the opposite and live so that you're never tapping into them, and so that you're having a lot of resources to make up for the tendency. Best to avoid the caffeine, since you want to be natural and not "stimulated".

I like it.

Just some of my personal experiences...I don't have many more.