Cleansox

There seems to be opinions about that. So it would depend on who you ask. If you ask someone trained in a sect that have methods they believe will allow a woman to do that, the answer is "yes". Others would say no. In the end, find someone who will answer you in a way that confirms your bias. During my years practicing stuff, I have heard both claims. And a third, that you will feed demons and spiritual parasites.

Hi! Start with: Regulate your breath. Regulate your body. Regulate your mind. That will also aid your bodymind in the process of healing a lot of ailments. Most of that is easily explained by physiology, some is not. How to do the above? That's the tricky part. Find a method that suits you, and don't worry when posters here disagree.

Other forums covering similar stuff like this also have a decline in posts, maybe we are a dying breed?

Many well known teachers practice/d multiple methods. If you practice each method well, it should work out fine. Speed is not relevant, laying a proper foundation should be prioritized. Why then walk the martial road? There are more direct cultivation roads if you do not have the martial side as an important goal (which is how I interpret you in your post). It is much easier to choose a system where practitioner have developed things you find valuable. Butterflying between methods and instructors might keep you forever doing beginner practices (the level under laying the foundations, if you are unlucky). Some people develop problems when spending time mixing instead of doing a few things well. Others do just fine....

I'm sure Henrik Ling turns around in his grave, hearing that.

@dachungzi check out ianduncan.org It might be closer to your goals than what the market at large offers.

See it as different aspects. Qigong, taiji and so on teaches proper alignments. Some of the above teaches optimal movement patterns, and most of the above can aid if there is an emotional basis for poor posture (and it can be helpful for some physiological reasons as well). But yes, we also have to incorporate this change in everyday living.

All of them? Most of them?

Thai khon seems to be an expressive art with similarities to the Chinese tradition, but perhaps further away from the martial side?

Scott Park Philips has written a book about that, related to the IMA. @Sketch tipped me about it. Basically, it relates movement aestethics from taijiquan and bagwazhang to traditional performance arts, and show similarities to Indian tradition.

So, since @freeform posted while I was writing, I could remove some from my post 😁. Don't worry, he phrased it better... When doing meditation leading to emptiness, we train in dissociating some of our normal sensory signals, thus disrupting multisensory integration. Doing what @freeform stated above will try to fix that.

Before enlightenment: No sex, no students. After enlightenment: ... ...

It is the same in the therapeutic system I use, although that is based on physiological principles rather than Daoist.

Catherine Despeux: Taoism and Self Knowledge, The chart for the cultivation of perfection (Xiu Zhen Tu).

Two days well spent.

As a spin-off to this context, I have found when studying Nei Dan texts to complement/complete my practice, some knowledge about Stems & Branches and loosely related subjects are needed to understand the texts.

In this case, the OP popped basically the same question in the hindu section, which made me interpret it as it was not primary connected to the issue of starting a practice but rather a general/cultural question. My post should be seen in the light of this.

You are right, you were the only one answering the question. My first knee-jerk reaction was also to write "just start with the f practice, but that wasn't what was enquiered. And I do not think that a traditional teacher would say" Hey, Wall-Mart is closed, so lets baishi this dude 'cause I am bored". Alas, my understanding of the divinatory arts is close to zero, so.... 😁

It is interesting that the western tradition uses terms that overlap the eastern traditions' vocabulary. It would be equally interesting to know if they code similar practice methods, but since I have no time to expand my studies beyond that which is relevant to my current practice, I guess I will never know.

...

It's like russian dolls: You open one up and inside there is another one. And since this is Nei Dan, you move on to the next level. Roughly speaking, you have Water and Fire, then you reverse/inverse Water and Fire, and then you extract Dragon and Tiger (different from the other levels/meanings of Dragon and Tiger), and continue the work. At this level, there is no longer a circulation (in the sense of the mechanisms of previous levels). Yes, these arts are multilevel, which both obscure and reveals depth at the same time. We always come back to context, in which context am I using this metaphore.

Yes, we cannot compare an unknown with another unknown, that would be a blind leading a blind. So familiarity with a process increases the chance of seeing the same process even if it is clothed in a different garb.

But teachers of old used to argue that, in practice, only their system went far enough. You can find that in the history of Kashmir Shaivism, and probably in the public "discussions" between Buddhists and Daoists in China. All of them contesting for patronage. So we can only, tentative, compare those systems that on the surface seems to describe the same process, acessed by similar methods.

10-15 years ago when the David Verdasi crowd had an open access site, they discussed this use of morning urine.

Mine neither, and I hesitated when I wrote that post partially because I didn't get the formulation clear in english, so it might be mine part more than yours that is the problem 😁 I might have to read up on those terms... No, that seems to be one of the first things that get left out, both the replenishing and actually working on the level of Ming instead of working with other energetics that are similar in apperence.