MuadDib

I second this.

Actually it's not honey. It's pollen collected by bees from flowers. Bees harden the soft bulk of pollen using their hind legs. They then take the stuff to their nest. Bee cultivators collect a percentage of this material using a filter at the nest. It is nutritionally potent as pollen is the masculine seed of the flower - packed with proteins and vitamins. It looks like this. Regular consumption for a few weeks helps me breathe from the nose better at night. I do not live in the U.S. and I know the geographical area where my pollen comes from - so you could call it locally sourced I guess. I cannot say whether honey helps allergies. I found that it helps healing wounds faster when applied topically. Especially those nasty tongue wounds when you bite your tongue by accident... I also like to spread honey over a nice tender cut of meat before I cook it - makes the meat kind of caramelized and delicious

I once saw one of those on a documentary. A large and deadly scorpion entered the mouse's home (a hole in the ground) at night. After a while, the mouse emerged from the hole and howled victoriously - no trace of the scorpion. It was hilarious

Every night, when I go to bed, my nose gets clogged and I end up sleeping with the mouth open so I can breathe. I strongly suspect this is due to dust allergy - household dust, mites etc. I have a history with it - I even had mild asthma back when I was a kid and was treated for it. A few months ago I bought some bee - pollen upon good advice. I mixed a spoonful of it into my yoghurt every day. Within two weeks, I was able to breathe through the nose again at night (after many many years). I ran out of my bee - pollen supply and quickly I developed the same problem again. So I'm pretty sure it helps this kind of allergy.

Thank you for your reply @Desmonddf Very interesting story with the animals. It's been a few weeks since I had the first experience. Since then, I tried it again maybe 10 - 15 times, but I did not get the same intense sense of warmth and hotness. I believe in not forcing these things, so I do not try too hard to get a specific result. Didn't get any love from animals yet, no noticable bites from bugs either How do you determine if Qi is refined or not? If I'm doing the practice described above (perineum to LDT to solar plexus), what should be the pathway or method to refine the Qi? MCO? The 8 extraordinary meridians? Answers beget questions...

I agree with most of the above. However, the feeling of fullness is also related to the volume of food you put into your stomach. For example, if you eat a huge amount of salad (lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes etc), you will feel full but you will get a small amount of calories since most of the stuff you ate is basically water and fiber. As you mentioned, going heavy on simple carbs may easily screw with your health. Protein is also not appropriate for gaining weight. Our bodies are accustomed to breaking down sugar and fat for energy, protein is sometimes used for producing energy but as a last resort kind of way. Also too much protein will risk screwing your kidneys which is a big no-no. So, if you want to put on some healthy weight the only sensible solution is increasing your fat consumption. As we've been discussing, fat is very calorie - dense. So you are able to get a large quantity of calories with a relatively small volume of food. The feeling of fullness comes with a lag when we eat fat, because it is digested slowly as we've been discussing. So if one eats a high - calorie fatty meal before the feeling of fullness hits, one will be able to put on weight. At least IME, sorry for the long post.

Apologies in advance for the derailment Lucky you for having a fast metabolism. Still, increasing your intake of fat should solve the problem. Fat is very calorie - dense. So go ahead and dip your bread in virgin olive oil, spread butter over your bread, have some hard cheese, generously add cream to your potatoes and have 'em mashed. Eventually you are bound to tip the balance and start gaining weight - ending your struggles. What is important is not getting used to it and become overweight, IMO

IME, the most efficient way to gain weight without screwing up your body balance is consuming a lot of healthy fats. Simple carbs usually fill your tummy up for a short time, but get broken down quickly and spike your blood sugar level causing a lot of long term problems such as insulin resistance etc. Fats on the other hand, are metabolized slowly and provide a less volatile source of energy. So you should go for all kinds of nuts and seeds. If you consume animal products, go for fatty fish like salmon and red meat like lamb and also chicken. Remember to avoid frying things. You can reduce the amount of bread you at and spread some real butter on your bread. Similarly, eat less rice and cook it with butter. If you eat dairy that is.

The Shaolin monk types look very muscular and they seem to do a lot of resistance training - on the videos at least. (Most noticably extreme forms of horse stance and ZZ). Would that indicate that they do not build internal power? Just curious...

I totally get your concerns. One should remember that there are two sides to the equation when it comes to weight loss: The amount of energy you burn and the amount of fuel you put into your body. Building muscle is an effective way to lose weight. More muscle mass will increase your baseline metabolism and as long as you keep your food intake stable, you will eventually lose weight. Since you do not wish to increase your muscle mass, you will need to reduce the amount of food you consume. This is actually a sound thing to do as one ages - one does not need as much energy as younglings. This is basically why you are gaining weight as you age - you are consuming more than your body really needs. As a side note, there are studies on rats where scientists were able to prolong a rat's life by %20 - 30 simply by restricting the animal's daily calorie intake. Hippocrates said that man's best medicine is walking. I believe he was right and your are doing the right thing with the long walks. He also said death begins in the gut - that's basically what I've been rambling about above I would suggest doing push ups in addition to the walking, if your left shoulder allows for it. If done right, a push up is really a full body work out. You are not likely to gain a lot of muscle mass if you don't do too many reps.

I had an experience during my practice the other night and I would like to share it. I suspected someone else on this forum might have pondered over this and a quick search confirmed it. This forum is really a treasure and I take the opportunity to thank everyone for making it so. Some quick background... My current practice includes a single weekly session of modern hatha style yoga to stay flexible; a modest duration of zhan zhuang and horse stance every morning, a brief meditation session every day as well as regular gym workouts. I integrate MCO and meridian opening into some of the above exercises. Generally speaking, during meditation or at other times, I can feel the energy in the perineum, heart, third eye and solar plexus, the whole spine, sometimes intensely. However, it has been very rare for me to feel the LDT. Sometimes I feel it subtly after a yoga session during savasana, sometimes after I do abdominal exercises & fire breathing at the gym, but nothing intense, the feeling has been weak and subtle. It almost never happens during zhan zhuang which tells me that qi is not sinking. Last night lying down, I decided to meditate briefly before going to sleep. My usual lying down meditation position is with the soles of the feet firmly pressed against each other, close to the perineum. After a few relaxing deep diaphragm breaths, I spontaneously tried something new. I breathed in through the perineum, sucking in (yin?) qi from the environment, up to the LDT through the thrusting channel. I released the breath inside the LDT (or the general area where it is supposed to be located). A few breath cycles like this, and very quickly I felt warmth from the inside like the Taoist texts described. I kept at the breathing and in no time warmth turned to hotness in the LDT. For the first time I experienced and understood what the Taoists meant when referring to the LDT as the "stove." The hotness suggested to me that yang qi was involved. I continued with this breathing, sucking in the energy through the perineum and going up the central channel, this time releasing the breath inside the solar plexus. The solar plexus became warm and then hot, just like the LDT. I did not go up to the heart, because from what I've read over the past year or so, this might not be a very good idea, perhaps dangerous - I do not have a master. Just wanted to share the experience, it felt like progress, beautiful. I found this thread after a quick keyword search. I believe what others have described above is fairly similar to what I experienced.

That makes sense. I'm a big fan of standing exercises. I will surely check out the online material after I've done reading the book. It should take some time though as it is not an easy read Thanks.

I noticed @voidisyinyang keeps referring to the book Taoist Yoga: Internal Alchemy and Immortality. Since it is freely available, I decided to read it... slowly and carefully. Chapter 3 is about opening up the eight channels. The author describes a step by step method towards opening the channels and advises the reader to practice it every morning to clear impurities and blockages. It is meant to be practiced in full lotus (which I am able to do), but I thought since I do 5 minutes of zhan zhuang every morning, why not integrate the breathing practice into that? I found that the channel opening practice feels very natural in zhan zhuang; more so than in full lotus. So I integrated that into my morning routine. It seems to be very effective and I feel like I have made some progress.

I also have similar experiences. The type of bodily activity (or passivity) and variation in food intake produce different states. After I finish a weight training workout, I feel ferocious and enter what I call a primal state. A strong craving for eating animal products develops. When I eat animal products (the strongest effect is from red meat, then chicken, eggs and fish), I feel a strong desire to do weight training and possibly other violent things. I believe this is the experience you describe as dark; I prefer to call it primal or ferocious. Similarly, if I refrain from eating meat and consume a purely vegetable based diet, I have the exact experience as you do. The urge for violent physical activities subsides and I enter an elevated state where meditation and energy work becomes much easier. The saying "you are what you eat" has deep meaning. Kudos for water fasting, I engage in it regularly and reap the benefits. In the end, I prefer to view these states as primal vs. elevated instead of dark vs. light. I think it is useful to listen to the body. I find that the body sends us many signals and many people choose to ignore them. If I feel like I'm catching a cold or flu, I feel a strong need to eat lots and lots of vegetables and also spices. At other times, I feel like eating animal products and engage in strenous physical exercise. For me, striking a balance works best.

@Everything That was a beautiful post. Your words resonate very strongly with me. I think the fast paced busy-ness of modern civilization wires us so that we forget in your words "what we truly are." It stays forgotten unless one makes a conscious effort to undo the wiring. Speaking for myself, I'm not even close to saying that I have come to the realization of what I truly am. Maybe I've had very brief glimpses so far, scratching the surface a little bit. Still feeling extremely wired and susceptible to getting caught up in the daily ups and downs of life. Thanks.

Thank you very much for your kind suggestions. I will try to fit these practices into my daily schedule. If some progress is made, I will share them here. Looking over some earlier replies, I sense that I might have conveyed the idea that I draw in a big breath, empty the lungs and try to hold it for as long as possible to get the *high* feeling. The process is more like I sit/lie down for relaxation/meditation, after a while the breath and mind calms down, I pause for a few seconds with empty lungs and experience energy moving around the body for a few seconds - until I have to breathe again. I like how it feels so I wish to stay in that state, however this results in a less calm breath next time so upsets the process. I share this just as a clarification, those who kindly gave advices do not need to repeat them 😊 As a side note, I find that it is much easier to enter this happy, blissful state when I am (water) fasting. Sitting for meditation, doing some basic yoga or zhan zhuang feels much more powerful and effective if I am fasting. So if the body is more hollow (empty stomach/gut, empty lungs) it becomes easier to feel and work with energy? Thanks.

Thank you all for taking the time to reply. I checked out vase breathing and will definitely give it a try. I tried the Wim Hof method of breathing a couple of years ago, for a month or so. I did not like the initial phase where you are breathing very fast, the heart pounding. It yielded the promised results; I was able to hold the breath after the final exhale for much longer. I gave it up in the end though as it didn't feel very natural to me. I did embrace the cold as Wim Hof advises; %80 of the time I take cold showers whole year long. I actually grew kind of addicted to it, it became an entrenched habit since then. I find that I can enter the blissful state quickly utilizing breath retention. I will keep experimenting techniques until I manage to stay in that state for a few minutes at least, through many breathing cycles.

I recently went on vacation to a place known for its good quality honey and related products. I bought some bee - pollen along with my usual thyme honey. Apparently, when bees fly around from flower to flower drawing nectar, they also collect pollen and squeeze it into a ball using their hind legs. This stuff supposedly contains a wide spectrum of amino acids and also packed with vitamins. The smell and taste did not agree with me though. I mix a teaspoon either into my milk kefir or my plain yogurt. It kind of melts in it and becomes much easier to consume for me. I've been doing this for two weeks and I notice some mild benefits. I find a glass of bee pollen milk kefir very rejuvenating.

Hello Yonkon, About the blandness of life and the purpose issues... I think the key here is finding an activity where you lose track of time. While you are bored, time slows down. While you are doing something you enjoy, something that engages you fully, time speeds up. This activity may or may not be martial arts/meditation. You mentioned giving piano lessons. Maybe you lose track of time while you play the piano? I find that great pleasure can be experienced from simple activities. For me, cooking helps a lot. Chopping, seasoning and heating things up helps me relieve stress. I can get creative and try new things while cooking. And if the outcome is successful, a well - prepared meal is satisfying for me in many ways. If it is a failure, I have gained experience and I will do a better job next time I cook

I begin the morning with some joint mobility exercises (shoulders, back, neck, wrists, fingers, waist, ankles etc.) and some stretching (arms, legs, torso). After that I do 25 squats, 9 breaths of spinal breathing and 13 breaths horse stance. I follow up with 15 narrow push ups and 5 minutes of zhan zhuang. This is my morning routine. If I do not go to the gym that day, I do 150 crunches and 25 knee pulls-ins for core strength. I also do 35 more push ups so that I finish the day with 50 push ups. If I do go to the gym, I do the crunches and push ups at the gym. I also do one or two sets of 5 pull ups. I work the bench press going up to 35 - 40 kgs plus the weight of the bar. I use the machines at the gym for training the chest, back, biceps and upper leg. I do cardio in the form of two sets of 12 minutes on the treadmill. I run at an average rate of 10km /hour but I squeze in two subsets where I go up to 12-13km/hour so it's like high intensity interval training. Overall I do roughly 4km on the treadmill. I try to go to the gym at least twice per week; if I manage to go for the third time, I reduce the amount of repetitions and increase the amount of the weights so I gain some strength. I do beginner level hatha yoga once a week, roughly for 45 minutes. This is so that I remain somewhat flexible. I used to be much more flexible when I went to regular yoga classes If the weather permits and I have the time, I take a 7-8km walk in the morning over the weekend. There are simple resistance training machines on the path I take, so I take the opportunity to do some pull ups and some simple resistance training during my walks. I find the combination of resistance training and walking very effective.

It was milk kefir. I cannot drink milk. Even a little amount of milk causes gas problems; if I drink a large amount of milk I am certain to get diarrhea. I do consume yogurt and cheese though. I LOVE thick plain yogurt and I eat at least 3 kilograms per week. I know it is way too much, but it's one of my addictions. Probably acting as a slave to the yogurt loving bacteria in my gut...

@voidisyinyang you sure sound like you take the act of taking a crap very seriously. I do, too; most of the time it is the highlight of my day, sometimes I have two highlights I recently read about spirulina. I try to get my nutrients from regular food and I don't take any supplements. So, I never tried spirulina. However, I suggested a friend who consume protein shakes to try spirulina as a healthier alternative.

I like my vinegar on a salad, lots of it and with lots of lemon juice and some pomegranate. My favorite vinegar is balsamic followed by apple cider vinegar. If I am at home, I drink the leftover juices that accumulate at the bottom of the salad bowl with great pleasure

Greetings All, I have been following this forum for a few years now, and I have finally decided to become a member. I first came across this place when it kept popping up on my various past Google searches. Since then, I found it to be a valuable source of information and wisdom. I feel like I may contribute a little, too, going forward. A little about myself... I have developed an interest in the internal arts when I was a teenager (I am 36 now) mainly under the influence of a family member. However, I began doing some dedicated work in this area only a few years ago when I started attending yoga classes after I hit the bottom emotionally and physically. I kept going to the classes for two and a half years. In the mean time, I was drawn strongly towards Qigong and Neigong. My current practice includes an hour of yoga per week performed at home, five minutes of zhan zhuang every morning, some kind of MCO stimulating meditation whenever I feel like it, along with rigorous physical exercises (push ups, pull ups, crunches, weight lifting, running etc). I try to eat well and I enjoy fasting. I do a 24 - hour water fast at least once every week and do intermittent fasting pretty much every day. I strive to stay physically strong and cultivate more energy and internal calmness as time progresses.