yuuichi

@voidisyinyang what do you mean by left eye and right eye? From my perspective? Or looking at a diagram? You also said that the left vagus nerve is mainly afferent (and so the right is mainly efferent?), that’s the left vagus nerve on the same side as looking at my left hand?

You can easily find lists or catalogues of daoist literature through the centuries by searching for daoist books on chinese daoist websites. The vast majority of the titles are not freely available in english, nor have they been translated.

That’s where I originally looked.The cheapest I found was 500 characters for 5 dollars. Which would mean about 3,000 dollars for 300,000 characters.

I respectfully disagree. If you don’t have a destination, in what direction do you take the next step? If I don’t know the destination, the next step (incorrect practice) could be a dangerous one. So I’m asking this forum for any advice. Preferably from someone experienced enough to know what sensations I should feel, when following the correct practice. I’m sure the Daoist sages have described it too, but so few Daoist manuscripts and literature have been translated into english.

Would acupuncture help? Also, what am I supposed to feel? I heard some people say one should feel a warmth.

So I have been vegetarian for a while, and celibate for about a month. When I meditate on my lower dantian (2-3 inches behind the navel), I can keep concentration there for a long time. After 20-30 minutes, everything feels numb. My arms and legs have lost all sensation and all I can perceive is my lower dantian. When I stop meditating and open my eyes, my body or lower dantian doesn’t feel any different at all. My mind feels more still, but that is the case after any meditation. I have been doing this for 2 weeks and despite my celibacy, I don’t feel like I have a lot of energy. I don’t feel like my lower dantian is full of energy. Also, I don’t know if I should do reverse abdominal breathing, abdominal breathing or regular breathing. Normally during meditation, the breath gets more subtle and barely moves the body. Perhaps abdominal breathing is more for qigong? Strangely, during meditation, reverse abdominal breathing feels more natural, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to do that.

How did you learn chinese? I’ve always had trouble with grammar.

To clarify, I already speak and read Chinese. But to understand Daoist texts, you need to be a native speaker at least.

@Wu Ming Jen hey, thanks for your response. Sorry for not writing this before but I just saw your reply now. It’s reassuring to know I’m not the only one here with a fast metabolism! Anyway, I’m happy to report that although i’m still thin, I have reached a healthy weight. My method is eating lots and lots of cream, and adding lots of olive oil or butter to meals

I know about 100 daoist texts in the public domain that i’m interested in and it’s likely they will never be translated into english. This is because the cheapest rate of translation from chinese to english (cheapest doesn’t mean quality) would mean I would have to pay about 3,000 dollars to have all 100 daoist texts translated. I can afford to pay only about 5% of that because I’m quite poor. The 100 daoist texts contain about 300,000 characters, and the cheapest rate of translating that many characters would equal 3,000 dollars. Seriously, there are thousands of daoist texts out there, and barely none of them have been translated into english, except very few (zhuangzi, daodejing, etc).

For replenishing a kidney, heart and liver yin qi deficiency, or a blood qi deficiency, is congee better than porridge? If so, why? Porridge and congee seem to be basically the same to me.

thanks for the responses guys.

So what everyone is saying is that if there isn’t physical attraction to begin with, then there can be no attraction (or potential to date each other) in the future?

Hey, sorry if this website isn’t the place to ask for dating advice, but I don’t really use other websites and it seems a lot of men here have a wife, which is surprising. Anyway, I’m friends with a woman and we get along really well, by that I mean we share the same interests and personalities. I know sometimes in this situation, the woman may start to fall in love with the man who she is friends with. But that seems to be the case only if she was physically attracted to him in the first place. In most cases, I think she would reject his romantic gestures and decide to only be friends. Am I right in my assumption? That if she isn’t initially physically attracted to her male friend, it is unlikely they will start dating in the future, even if they get along as friends? Thank you.

According to traditional chinese medicine, I have a deficiency in yin, resulting in symptoms displaying a deficiency of yin. To replenish yin, most doctors give herbs. Could it instead be replenished with Buddhist meditation?