Phoenix3

From recommendations by @Taomeow regarding making bone broth and @Gerard on which foods to eat and at what time, I’ve made a meal plan to finally treat my Yin deficiency (I have a dry constitution, so I need more moisture/humidity/dampness). Please tell me if there is any corrections or improvements I can make, thanks. By the way, sources differ greatly on what foods are yin and what is yang. Some say honey replenishes yin, some say it is strongly yang. Some say cherries, lemon and apples are yang food, while some sources say they replenish yin. So I’m not confident this meal plan is completely Yin replenishing. Of course, this way of eating is only short term, a few weeks at most. My specific problems are Heart and Liver blood deficiency, and Liver and Kidney Yin deficiency. ——— Wake up at 7am. Start cooking bone broth. Breakfast (7.30am) is milky, thin porridge with added cinnamon and a banana. (Milk is yin replenishing. Cinnamon relaxes the blood vessels and banana is yin replenishing) Brunch is a fruit juice, consisting of pears, cucumber, lemon, lime and coconut water. (All these fruits are Yin replenishing, right?) Early lunch is omelette with cheese. No spices are added to the omelette. (Chicken egg and cheese are yin replenishing). Alternatively, early lunch can be pasta with lots of cheese and tinned tuna (fish is generally yin replenishing, and tomatoes are yin replenishing). Late lunch (2pm), I eat the bone broth as a soup by adding added potatoes, sweet potatoes and beef (bone broth, potato, sweet potato and beef are yin replenishing. I won’t add onion, garlic or any spices as these are yang in nature). After this, for the rest of the day I won’t eat anything at all, as it is best to finish eating at 3pm, according to @Gerard. Then I will go to bed at 10pm.

@Gerard you said that ‘internal work’ will fix kidney yin deficiency (and I suppose therefore also the spleen), so does that mean all I need to do is: 1. Meditate a lot more, 2. Eat a diet mainly consisting of baked and steamed vegetables and fish, and not after 3pm. And this will cause my yin deficiency to disappear?

@Aetherous Last time I replied to you it was the daytime. During the night in the last two days, I have noticed the soles of my feet being much hotter than the rest of the body and my legs (they are really hot). But in the daytime, they are just warm, hence my last reply. It is about 9 degrees celcius outside and I often can’t sleep because I feel so warm. I also get a lot of nosebleeds. It is always coming from the same nostril. I have seen multiple qualified chinese medicine professionals and they have all said I have a yin deficiency and I’m experiencing ‘false fire’, which apparently means my yin levels are low. I also have to say that this only happens when I’m practicing celibacy. When I’m not practicing celibacy, I don’t have these symptoms so much. Another problem is that the chinese medicine professionals always say the same thing, that this can be treated by taking chinese medicine, but it takes a very long time. They don’t really talk about what diet or lifestyle changes I can make, even when I ask. But to take chinese medicine over a long period of time is very expensive.

They’re warm, but not as warm as my legs or other parts of the body. @Fa Xin I do prefer soups and foods with a lot of moisture. I really don’t like baked things, with the moisture all removed. But this is normal for me because I think I’ve always been Yin deficient.

I’m suffering from Yin deficiency so much that I have false fire symptoms almost every night, and my mouth is always dry every night, yet I always get recommended food which take away moisture! My body needs dampness, not to remove dampness from it!

@Gerard You always recommend no ‘damp forming’ foods! But not everyone is the same. As I said before, my constitution is dry, so I need moisture. Aren’t leafy green vegetables mainly yang? Can I instead cook leafy green vegetables in a stir fry, instead of steaming them? Isn’t chicken a yang meat? thank you

Thank you. I think I added too much vinegar, and it had such a bad taste, like liquid vomit. In fact that is the perfect way of describing its taste.

I made the bone broth exactly how it was suggested in this thread, and it had an awful taste

@Aetherous I plan to stop eating at 3pm because I want to meditate. I heard meditation is good for augmenting Yin. I just had a check up again recently, and apparently I had a spleen deficiency, linked to bad digestion.

I have seen someone align Daoist animals to the 5 elements: Water is black tortoise Wood is blue dragon Fire is red bird Earth is yellow dragon Metal is white tiger. Is this correct? Why is it those animals though? I thought wood element is green so wood should be green dragon maybe? And maybe Fire should be red dragon? I have never heard of a red bird in Daoism.

I’ve read a few books which mention this, and ‘turning the light around’ seems to be a fancy way of saying to meditate on emptiness with the eyes closed. Am I correct? Also, once one’s eyes are opened, does the ‘turning the light around’ suddenly cease?

(Or leave the top of the head and arrive at the bottom of the body,if that is what’s really happening). Thanks I’ve heard many things, from it takes 24 hours to go through the body (from the chinese 24 hour meridian clock), to just a single breath required to send the qi from the bottom of the torus to the top, or the top to bottom.

Please give a reason. And if ‘God’ usually is seen as masculine, and ‘Nature’ is usually seen as feminine, then what gender is ‘Dao’? If ‘God’ is usually seen as personal, and ‘Nature’ is usually seen as impersonal, then what is ‘Dao’? Please don’t just repeat the predictable answer of ‘Dao is genderless’ or ‘the Dao that can be named is not the true Dao’, like a mindless drone. Not to say they are wrong, but it’s just a typical answer from someone who doesn’t think. Please provide a thoughtful answer, though I acknowledge thinking isn’t for everyone. Thanks

1. Meditation is considered a good way to develop Xing (心性). However, what effect does meditation have upon the Xing exactly to bring about a change to Xing? Does meditation: increase the amount of ‘Xing’ (assuming it’s a physical thing)? just refine the ‘Xing’? merely extract the Xing from the heart, so the body can develop it somehow? 2. How does Xing interact with Ming? 3. Is Xing represented by the Li trigram, and Ming represented by the Kan trigram? 4. As Ming is considered material, where is it found in the body? Is it somewhere specific, or is it spread around the body, or does it flow around the body? 5. What is the relationship between Xing and Ming, and Hun and Po, if there is any? I always get those two mixed up. thank you

I don’t mean the usual changes in sensation (like changes in temperature), but is there any physical change?

Like Mikao Usui. He went in a cave to meditate and fast. Afterwards he left and was far more powerful in terms of qi

I’ve seen both said a few times. If Jing-Qi is Qi that has joined up with Jing, then why has it done so, and how does this come about? I’m assuming it arises when Jing (from the kidneys) descends into the qihai in the lower dantian, but I’m unsure what causes Jing to descend from the kidneys to the Qihai. Maybe it doesn’t and i’m just incorrect. Does Jing-Qi have different properties to normal Jing? Thanks for any help provided.

For me, this is a really important point, as so much understanding about traditional chinese medicine, qigong, etc is dependant on the assumption that qi flows down the ren mai and goes up the du mai in healthy people. It’s what separates Daoist thought from Dharmic thought, where the two main channels (the ida and pingala nadis) both go up to the head. Something about the Daoist/traditional chinese model just doesn’t seem right to me, but I can’t figure out what. Though i’m no expert and I don’t know much at all about either subject to be honest. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding or mistranslation somewhere? Are the Daoists absolutely sure that qi flows up the du mai, and down the ren mai (I know they say that qi can sometimes flow up the ren mai or down the du mai in unhealthy people, but i’m not talking about that)? ————— For clarity: So if the ida and pingala channels, and ren and du channels are different, we got the ida channel, pingala channel and du channel sending qi to the head, and only the ren channel removing qi from the head. Either the ren channel is huge or there would be a lot of congestion in the head, no?

Yes, but I said clearly celibacy of the mind and body (which is called brahmacharya), and just doing meditation regardless reduces jing leakage as shen holds jing. Thus celibacy of the mind and body should be enough to retain enough jing.

I don’t get it, sorry.

@exorcist_1699 why wouldn’t just celibacy of the mind and body be enough jing? Buddha said that being celibate in mind and body was enough.

Apparently the yang channels are supposed to flow down the body at the back of the body, and yin channels are supposed to flow upwards at the front of the body. So why does the ren channel (sea of yin channels) run down the front of the body, and the du channel (sea of yang channels) run up the back of the body?

When metal overcomes/destroys wood, what element is the result?

And this quick fire breathing is what causes the alchemical agent to arrive in the original cavity of the spirit (niwan palace), correct?thanks

@voidisyinyang is this light you describe the light mentioned in taoist yoga which arises from the mysterious gate when the alchemical agent arrives in the original cavity of the spirit (niwan palace)? Or is the light of the opened third eye a different light? Thanks