Cobie

Chu - Daoism Qin - Legalism Han - Buddhism/Confucianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Gate_Taoism ~~~ the end of the Han Dynasty In AD 184, plague spread throughout China. Thousands of people were cured after drinking Zhang's ash water. He sent 8 major missionaries and his followers covered around 2/3 of China. They then became the major army of the Yellow Turban Rebellion. This rebellion led to the end of the Han Dynasty. “

esoteric Daoism In ‘esoteric’ Daoism, the DDJ is considered a manual for ‘alchemy’, and assumed to contain lots of hidden clues. The literal meaning of the characters in the text is in this view often not what it’s about, so the dictionary definition is irrelevant to them.

@Master Logray very informative, thank you very much.

Hi Delta_Wave. Welcome to the forum.

Righto. Thanks for elucidating.

Wow, looks very impressive. Unfortunately my Spanish is insufficient to understand any of it.

Thank you very much for the info. You say, “drawing Chi around”, could you please describe what “Chi” means according to you?

Thank you very much for the quote. You really must post more! @awaken seems the Buddha did teach breathing: Ānāpānasati (Pali; Sanskrit ānāpānasmṛti), meaning "mindfulness of breathing" ("sati" means mindfulness; "ānāpāna" refers to inhalation and exhalation[1]), paying attention to the breath. It is the quintessential form of Buddhist meditation, attributed to Gautama Buddha, and described in several suttas, most notably the Ānāpānasati Sutta (MN 118).[note 1] Derivations of anāpānasati are common to Tibetan, Zen, Tiantai and Theravada Buddhism as well as Western-based mindfulness programs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati @ChiDragon the above quoted “ānāpāna" refers to inhalation and exhalation”, this seems to me to be exactly what’s now called 吐纳 tu3 na4. @awaken could it be the qigong special exercises are based in Daoyin, and the qigong breathing was added to it later by Bodidharma?

No, you “need” not imo. You bring good info, I did not know re this sutra; thank you. Could you post a relevant quote please?

A knife can be used for good (surgery) or evil (murder). Imo best not to give a knife (science) to a child (humanity).

How come Bodhidharma taugth breathing if the Buddha did not teach it? ~~~ 佛陀 - Buddha fó tuó bù jiào hū xī ， fó tuó jiào de shì zhù yì lì de shǐ yòng fāng shì

Why do you think 氣功 (qi4 gong1) equals 導引 (dao3 yin3)? ~~~ qì gōng zài huáng dì nèi jīng chen4 wéi dǎo yǐn

Hi Alexa. Welcome to the forum.

Deleted. Thought better of it.

Religious persecution by a Taoist emperor. “Emperor Wuzong of Tang (814–846) indulged in indiscriminate religious persecution, solving a financial crisis by seizing the property of Buddhist monasteries. Buddhism had developed into a major religious force in China during the Tang period, and its monasteries had tax-exempt status. Wuzong closed many Buddhist shrines, confiscated their property, and sent the monks and nuns home to lay life. Apart from economic reasons, Wuzong's motivation was also philosophical or ideological. As a zealous Taoist, he considered Buddhism a foreign religion that was harmful to Chinese society. He went after other foreign religions as well, all but eradicating Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism in China, and his persecution of the growing Nestorian Christian churches sent Chinese Christianity into a decline from which it never recovered.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Buddhists

Everyone is free to believe whatever they want, knock yourself out! Just keep in mind that what you believe is not necessarily reality.

Hi Galactic Traveler. Peace to you too.

@ChiDragon is there anything known about the earliest roots of qigong? Or do you think the Shaolin monks invented it?

Yeah, that’s how it often goes, people will take an ancient art and do something else entirely with it.

Makes sense to me. 氣 qi - means ‘breath’, ‘air’. Breathing brings in air. No air, no energy. Better breathing, more energy. What is “energy work”? Righto. Chinese qigong is doing special physical exercises and (separately) sitting in meditation, both while focusing on the breathing.

Righto. Yes, that makes perfect sense to me, fits how it felt for me when trying it out.

@ChiDragon I think it sounds difficult to coordinate, doing the exercises with the special breathing. Possibly easier while meditating. Re UBM, I know there’s is also ‘reversed abdominal breathing’. How does one know which one to use?

@ChiDragon Is the type of breathing during practising the exercises different from the “abdominal breathing” during meditation?

I know the special breathing is done during the exercises. Do you meditate during the exercises, or is the meditation done separately at another time? And if the latter, Is the special breathing also done during the meditation?

I’m not informed enough on the subject to have any ideas as yet. Google tells me, “Qigong is an ancient Chinese breathing exercise with meditation which is being developed today for therapy of chronic illnesses in the People's Republic of China.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6763845/ So do you also meditate?