ZeroQi

Hey guys! I joined the forum just yesterday and wanted to open this thread for two purposes: 1. To seek guidance and advice from anyone who knows something about the topic, namely the practice described in "The Secret of the Golden Flower" and 2. To track everything that I do from day 1 so that people in the future might have an easier time if I am successful. Some short information about me. I'm in my early 20s, have practiced martial arts for about 7 years in total but have not done so for another 7 years at least. At the same time, my lifestyle hasn't exactly been ideal since then, smoking, drinking etc. As a matter of fact, I still smoke, even though the rest has been cut off mostly. In terms of knowledge, I cannot even be considered a newbie tbh. I knew about internal energy a couple years back but have always been a sceptic since it was hard for me to believe in something I cannot understand. Recently, however, after reading some wuxia books, I decided to do some research into legends. So then I found several "entries" of ascetics/hermits that have lived hundreds of years, and even moreso, suddenly 'died' in meditation after people found out about them, with no body to be found etc (i.e. Li Ching-Yuen - Wikipedia) Anyway, for a few weeks, I scoured the internet for information but mostly to no avail. Besides this forum itself, the only other semi-complete source of information or reasonably researched source of information that I found was The Secret of the Golden Flower, which is also why I have chosen this since I lack a teacher and/or lineage. My aim is to see how far one can progress on this path when your internal energy isn't that great to begin with and you don't come from any lineages. I will keep editing this post as time progresses and add journal entries. For the next week or so, I will be reading the book in its entirety, using the Thomas Cleary translation. In addition, I will be using thelerner's comments in this thread. I do have a question though. GF is described as a kundalini meditation, does that mean it belongs to buddhism ? I am mostly interested in practicing a taoist neidan technique so that's why I am asking.

To update on this. I practised GF for about 2 weeks. Then it "worked" or how you want to call it; in the sense that I did experience some things and well.. I got a bit scared, though that might not be the correct word. It would be more appropriate to say I realized that I was unprepared and wanted to move too quickly which was a mistake. So I stopped. For a few months afterwards I instead focused on getting my life in order first; since this was in a way for me a form of escapism, of trying to substitute something else which I was lacking. I eventually did. However, I am still wildly unprepared and uneducated in regards to everything that the tao represents. So for the next few months I am instead simply studying, I am trying to read as much as possible; and understand the differences between different lineages and techniques. Afterwards I will want to start with some external work first and only then move towards internal work since it would seem that's the correct way. Probably in the end I will still return to the GF as for some inexplicable reason I "feel" that it might be the correct path; at least for me. However, I don't think I'd be going down too far this path if I were to just start practising it blindly now. Especially since I'm from eastern Europe so not only are there no teachers around here but even the concept itself of spirituality and everything else is completely belittled so my only resource is the internet and therefore I'll probably have to spend considerably more time than someone who has the advantage of a lineage and/or sect. Not sure if that's an issue though. The road might be different but the destination is the same; or that's what everyone keeps saying around here haha. I'm more of a lurker so that's why I didn't really give any updates, and also because I was a bit ashamed compared to everyone here haha but since you bumped the thread I figured an update would be good. I do promise that after finishing all my research I will try to post everything I find which can be considered useful in here. Anyway, thanks a lot guys for the advice and replies, I really do appreciate it and if anyone has any other advice it would be more than welcomed.

I'm in Eastern Europe. Thank you for the reply. I will send you a dm.

Hey guys, personally, I do not have much experience with neidan and internal energy practices, however, I was fascinated by the subject after recently discovering the wuxia genre. Obviously the novels are far from reality but slowly I started reading about this more and more until I realized that there is definitely more than what we see on the surface so after lots of time I arrived on this forum. While I did practice martial arts when I was younger (qwan ki do, kyokushin, sei budokai etc), I do not have much experience with meditation or energy so that's why I joined. I've read a bit about tai chi chuan and qigong but to be perfectly honest I am at a complete loss of what a total beginner like me should start with or if there's even a difference between the different neidan techniques so if anyone could offer any form of feedback I'd be very thankful. In the meantime, will continue browsing. Lastly, nice to meet you!

So how could one go about learning the technique if it's not in the book? You are referring to GF though, right, or is it another book?

Hey guys, thanks for the replies, really appreciate it! I had actually given up martial arts as a sport about 7 years ago after I fell on back pretty badly. I can walk, run, blabla, but my back kinda hurts almost every day so doing professional sports was kind of outta the way. I was also kinda dumb and started smoking, drinking etc as well afterwards so my body ain't probably very happy about it. That's also one of the reasons I'm considering to practice internal arts and learn more about eastern medicine, maybe in a few years I'll be able to be a bit healthier. On a different note, there are no teachers here in my country and most of videos on youtube don't explain to well when it comes to taichiquan or similar stuff, so I figured I can read and start practicing secret of the golden flower. I like it because it's one of the oldest books we have on the topic and it was supposedly written by Lu Dongbin, besides, it's easy to understand if you're doing progress or making something wrong. I think I'll open a topic for this. What's the best place for it?