freeform

This is where an authentic teacher helps. This is a classic Qi Gong deviation. Usually known as ‘Poison Fire’... The idea is that whether through Qi Gong sexual practices or long term sexual abstinence, you develop this ‘poison fire’ which then begins to ‘infect’ your heart. Basically all your base desires begin to affect the part of you that connects with people, has empathy, feels romantic love, compassion etc. The manifestation of this depends on your nature. Common ones are an insatiable drive for power over others... wanting to sexually manipulate and domintate others... and sadly at its worst wanting to sexually corrupt innocence - peadophelia. It’s common (to various degrees) amongst Qi Gong practitioners that focus on retention and sexual practice. It’s also common amongst people who develop some power over others (politicians, celebrities etc). And seems particularly common amongs people who hold ‘spiritual power’ (priests, gurus, therapists).

I completely understand why you’d want to defend your teacher. I apologise if what I said offended you. You see - having spent many years trying to find authentic Daoist teachings, I became very disillusioned as I saw most teachers mixing traditions, dumbing things down, creating their own amalgamation of systems and their own ideas. This is how these arts, little by little, are homogenised and completely lost... I think there needs to be a certain level of respect for classical teachings. Love, ‘divine love’, the love field etc. just doesn’t feature in most authentic Daoist lineages. And I don’t think it’s because these enlightened masters were too stupid to ‘notice’ it. I think they treated it as mostly irrelevant for a very good reason. Most of the lineages came down from very advanced, enlightened beings. They taught things in a very specific way for a specific reason. I trust that they were far smarter than me. And so I trust that since they decided not to treat love as the most powerful force in the universe, then that’s good enough for me. And it’s probably important to mention again that it depends on your aims. Spiritual cultivation is not for everyone!! It’s different to doing practices to live a fuller life or de-stress or whatever. It’s a specific path where you dismantle every part of who you think you are. Regarding people entering the ‘bliss state’ as I would call it. Yes I’ve come across two individuals who entered this phase of training and hit a dead end. This is a stage they reached through specific alchemical trainings (in two different schools) involving the central channel. When a certain ‘spinal fire’ (similar to chakras) opens up, you connect to this feeling of infinite love. They both pretty much stopped training. One of them I’ve lost contact with. The other one I met recently. He’s now a family man selling crystals. He told me that the bliss state lasted 3yrs, by the sounds of things his life fell apart (lost his flat, a relationship, stopped working etc)... then he went through a period of deep depression. He’s now happy, with a little family, living a simple life. Really nice guy. He meditates from time to time. He’s completely disillusioned with spiritual cultivation. I also know a few individuals who’ve gone through this process, but followed the path and came out the other side. The bliss state lasted between 2 and 3 months for them. One lady described it as a mild dose of MDMA, but 24/7. They were told by our teacher to ignore it and not get attached (very hard to do apparently!) They’re pretty advanced students and quite an inspiration.

Should be a simple thing to answer, right? But unfortunately as with most things in the internal arts - it depends... Firstly it depends if you can master the prerequisites for sinking the Qi. Body structure, quality of mind etc. You also, generally wouldn’t be ‘sending Qi’ to below the ground. You could certainly sink your mind down through your body into the ground - and that’s often done in the closing movements of many systems. That’s a good thing to do. There’s also the complication of Yin Qi and Yang Qi. Yin Qi readily moves between you and the ground. Yang Qi can, but you’d probably not want to as you’d be using it for training. You’d also need to be bare foot on the ground for that to happen. Also - why would you want to send your Qi below ground? It might have use in one system and no use in another system. So it’s always rather complex if you isolate elements out of their context. That’s why there needs to be a system in place - so that you’re doing things to achieve certain aims that move you further down the path.

Overall your training sounds similar to mine. Although my focus isn’t on internal martial arts. Developing the ‘Qi Gong Body’ is very similar. You stand in your ‘fundamental’ posture (every classical system will have one) and you put your body in a particular shape. Then bit by bit, with Ting and Song, your body changes shape. You release particular lines which cause (necessary) tension along certain lines. And deep relaxation along other lines. As your body changes, more corrections are necessary. The way a beginner stands and the way intermediate and advanced students stand will look very different, even though they’re applying the same principles correctly. The listening as it pertains to sinking Qi is slightly different. “Mind is gravity” one of my teachers used to say. What he meant is that mind sinks of it’s own accord when you tune in to the correct quality. Then Qi sinks with it. If you have some consolidation in your Dan Tien, then it’s easier as there’s already an anchor and Qi attracts Qi. The listening soaks through the body and descends. Yes it’s almost literally listening, but at a certain stage you begin to tune in to the ‘substance’ of mind. It’s almost like a viscous liquid. But this is moving into the realms of alchemy. Theres many aspects to Ting and the way they are used will be slightly different in different contexts. And different schools will have slightly different emphasis too. Nice to see that there are some people here actually doing proper training

Our mind has a way of twisting ‘good deeds’ into self-creation. As in creating more layers of ‘self’ - the acquired mind. if you want to do good deeds while cultivating spiritually, you need to tread carefully. It’s a strange thing - but ‘bad deeds’ without attachment cause less harm than good deeds with attachment. so do good things anonymously - in a way that doesn’t generate gratitude from others. Be anonymous and accept nothing in return. No thanks, no money, no attention. oh and some common sense - as in if you see an elderly man struggling with his shopping help him out - whether you get gratitude or not. Just coz. Don’t tell others about it afterwards though

There is ‘process pain’ (the pain of change) and there is ‘damage pain’ (pain that is signalling damage being done). Treat ‘process pain’ as irrelevant. It’s just one sensation of many. It’s part and parcel of any process of change. Treat ‘damage pain’ with attention and avoid it. Now gaining discernment between the two can be hard. The mind is a tricky little bugger.

Yeah I’m afraid Cheshire Cat is along the right lines... seems a bit grumpy though This is not Daoist as such. It’s clearly taken from other teachings in other systems that may use it for spiritual cultivation. As you say, your teacher decided to bolt this onto the system passed down to him. Which is a shame. As I understand it, hitting this point in practice can lead to a trap if you get caught up in it. It’s blissful, beautiful, feels like an unlimited field of love. It is that. But it’s also one layer of the onion that must eventually be shed if your aim is spiritual cultivation. Self cultivation is another matter - if you’d stick around at that level you’d be a lovely person that’s slightly out of this world. It’s certainly a better place to be than 90% of the population - but it’s not the aim of spiritual cultivation. It will build layers of acquired mind. But feel good doing so

Another perspective regarding having a genuine teacher. You already have one... Or rather you have dozens. Hundreds maybe. These teachers are aspects of your acquired mind... they’re that anonymous dude on 4Chan... they’re the random passages you remember from Ekhart Tolle and other writers... they’re posts on this forum... they’re the countless of other people and influences you have. Whether you like it or not all these things are guiding your spiritual path. And it’s worth asking - have these people/thoughts/memories/books achieved or on the way to achieving what it is you seek? Are they heavily interested in having you achieve what you seek? Are they able to give corrections, lessons and transmissions that will guide you through subtle, confusing and difficult terrain - at the right time and at the right points in your development? Have they lead others along the path? And have the others achieved or are on the way to achieving what it is you seek? You already have teachers. Most of them should be fired If none of them cover the criteria above, well maybe you need to find one that does?

One of the first crucial milestones for any Taoist internal practice is Sinking The Qi. In most modern interpretations this is done by telling the student to focus on a point in his abdominal region. Or to imagine a ball in there or something like that. This does nothing of real value. It also does almost the exact opposite of sinking the Qi. But it’s quick and easy and still sells books/videos/online trainings/seminars - which, let’s face it, is the objective of most ‘teachers’ in this ‘industry’. The real process of sinking the Qi takes time and correct methods. It also takes transmission from an authentic teacher (otherwise it just takes much more time). It can initially be achieved in anything from a few weeks (with the help of a teacher + correct methods) to years (with correct methods only). This is regular daily training. And this is not talking of having a stabilised sunk Qi - it’s only the initial sinking - which needs to be repeated constantly until there’s some consolidation and anchoring in the lower Dan Tien. This takes more time. Why this disparity? Apart from the fact that it’s a pretty hard thing to sell (you’ll have to do hard work over many months to even sink your Qi - the very basic thing you do before any actual qi gong can start). There’s also a huge fundamental misunderstanding. “Qi follows Yi”. This is generally accepted now, and for most people means that if you place your mind in your hand or imagine a glowing circle in your palm that the Qi will flow there. It’s further supported by the fact that if you actually do this, you’ll start to feel sensations of heat/buzzing/movement in your hand. This is not Qi! This is the nerves in your hand being stimulated by focused attention! And yet most people get stuck with this for decades - completely wasting their time (I guess it feels interesting, so maybe some entertainment value there at least) The real meaning of that phrase is that the quality of your mind (your yi) moves the Qi. Now, quality of mind is a whole big discussion on its own... but this is where Ting (listening) and Song (releasing) come in. Once your yi is Ting and Song, it’s natural action (when undisturbed) is to gently flow downwards through your body. It flows slowly like honey and over time it penetrates deeper into your body (at first only near the skin). If you have some Qi in your Dan Tien (this is where transmission from a proper teacher comes in handy) it is drawn to it and begins to settle there increasing your Dan Tien consolidation over time. This is sinking the qi. If you ‘observe’ or ‘place your mind on xxxx’ or you ‘imagine’ - then the Qi just moves up to your head and heart - where it lives for most people most of the time anyway. Hopefully that’s given a new perspective to the subtlety of genuine internal arts. Remember this is only the very beginning basic fundamental - sink your Qi. As you progress and things become more complex, it becomes obvious (hopefully) why you need a teacher that has achieved this and clearly sees all the pitfalls and necessary corrections. That’s the process of learning in these arts - almost everything you do is wrong, but bit by bit you make less and less mistakes until you get Gong

I’m usually rather disappointed with scientific studies of meditation. It’s mixing models of understanding - rational reductionist methods with wholistic processes of transformation. This is how you get the idea that acupuncture works by giving you a rush from the pain of inserting a needle The truth is that many long term meditators don’t get anwhere. It’s just empty sitting - for 62,000hrs. Some of course do get somewhere - but that can only be judged by viewing their accomplishments through the mental model of their system. (Scientists have to use hours because they cant judge quality) - There are always very specific, objective milestones (which are usually ‘inner door secrets’) which tell you at what level the meditator in question is at. It’s not hours sat... You get the rather common Qi gong master that can do extraordinary things but then sleeps with his students, gets drunk, picks fights and lusts after money and power... sadly.

Yeah sure. I’ll write a bit more about this and about why you need a teacher (AugustGreig’s question) in a little while. I’m going through an intense week of practice at the moment, but I promise to get back to you on these points as they’re both quite important to discuss!

Sounds to me like you’ve got the right attitude to your training. I’m sure you’ll do great. I would certainly not take my post as instruction. The truth is that this sort of practice is passed on with a transmission, which allows the process to unfold along a specific path and passes on specific energetic and mental qualities. There are certainly important qualities to achieve - ‘quiet’ and ‘effortless’ are two of them. Each quality has very specific milestones. You can go very deep with the breath - moving from the manifestation all the way to the root (primordial) aspect. Which is where ‘meditation’ starts. Its a long process and unfortunately really does require a teacher to unfold properly. There’s a lot of subtlety and many errors to be corrected along the way. All the best on your cultivation path. PS - just to clarify ‘listening’ is not focusing. I know it sounds pedantic, but that’s how the internal arts are This is crucial.

I’m afraid it’s quite technical and beyond my full understanding. Best bet would to work with a very good Chinese Medicine practitioner. There are protocols for sexual deviancy involving work on the pericardium, heart and small intestine. It goes without saying that all practice should be stopped as it’s adding fuel to the situation. Anything to do with powerlocks multiple orgasms, working heavily with the perineum are red flags. Although it’s very appealing to our base nature, sexual practices and spiritual cultivation do not go together. (A normal, moderate sex life is perfectly fine of course)

Depends what you mean by somewhere. Depends also on the quality of sitting. Depends also on the other aspects of practice - moving, standing etc. The ‘fastest’ way is doing all three for a total of 3 to 6hrs a day (sometimes more isn’t better, sometimes is) - it would take about 3yrs to get the foundations down. (That’s the physical structure, fully active DT, most obvious blockages and stagnation dealt with etc) At this point you can start Nei Dan which will work on the deeper aspects of your acquired mind and deeper channels and aspects of your energy body. Keeping your practice up for 10yrs would ‘build the qigong body’ almost completely. From then on qigong is mostly redundant and your practice tends to be more sitting and standing - Nei Gong and Nei Dan. At this point you’d be well past the 10,000hr mark, but still only the early stages of alchemy and meditation (and intermediate stages of neigong). So yeah - it’s a long road. It also means quite difficult, focused practice every day, not just taking it easy and enjoying the floatiness. That’s why ‘gong’ is translated as ‘skill acquired through dedicated practice over time’. Saying all that, with the right school you should experience some ‘extraordinary’ effects within a few months. It just takes a long time to achieve the deeper more profound transformations we hear about. Like the De (the virtues) - which according to Chia is achieved in a few breaths by making sounds and imagining the inner smile

Some good advice, some rather conflicting. Joeblast mentioned about the mechanics of breathing. This is essential, but it’s not meditation. Actually in Daoism meditation is only really happening when you’re completely still and quiet inside. The bar is set high - and that’s what you’re aiming for. You’re aiming for meditation, you’re not doing it (until you are!) You can practice the mechanics of breathing - which is listening to every little nuance of the soft tissues involved in breathing. Not trying to deepen or elongate your breath etc. This is a practice in its own right and it is not zhouwang - it’s breathing practice. Do it separately to meditation. For breathing practice I just listen to the tissues bit by bit, starting at all the tissues in the nose and sinuses, then little by little adding the soft pallete, the throat, upper chest etc. without dropping awareness of the earlier area you were listening to. You eventually let your listening ‘soak through’ the tissues by itself. The other important thing I wanted to mention is Observation vs Listening. In Daoism the classical instruction is to Ting (listen) not observe. And it’s ‘listen’ for a very good reason. When you observe, you ‘look for’. It’s active. Listening is receptive and passive. It also has no borders. It’s also less prone to imagination (compared to observing or feeling) You can’t help but hear the thunder many miles away or the tweeting of the birds outside - this all comes to you, you don’t go looking for it. This is a very important distinction. In training for meditation, always focus on releasing rather than adding. Seeing is adding (the effort of looking for xxxx) Imagination is adding etc. Release (Song) + Listen (Ting) = the basis of most of the daoist arts!

Yeah - you just need to stop gradually. I like thelerner’s Suggestion of making it more of a ceremony - so you do it less often. Combine it with something else. For example going outside and taking 9 deep breaths before smoking. Over time do more of the 9 breaths part than the smoking part and it’ll be easier to quit. The 9 breaths will have as much of a relaxing effect anyway. in regards to healing from the effects of smoking. This can only really happen once you stop. All Qi gong done properly will help with that. there are masters who smoke. There are masters who drink. There are ones who eat junk. Health and skill in Qi is not inextricably linked. You can be very unhealthy and die young, but still have good Gong. theres an obvious cause and effect relationship between smoking and bad health. If you don’t mind being unhealthy and the consequences of that, then you should be able to smoke as much as you wish - don’t be pressured into stopping - there’s nothing ‘morally’ wrong with it.

okok - that might be setting the bar a bit too high. You can certainly get started with Nei Dan earlier - but only with the supervision of an excellent teacher and after you develop a quiet (not necessarily completely silent) and balanced mind state. For most people this will take thousands of hrs of correct practice - not all of it seated.

My advice is not to focus on the specific style of lineage or tradition, but on the quality of the teacher. A real teacher will be able to demonstrate their ability. They shouldn’t start making excuses (“oh if I demonstrate my Qi projection it could kill you” type crap). This doesn’t mean you go round ‘testing’ teachers. It takes a bit of time, humility and discernment. If this is really something you’d like to do then it makes sense to work hard finding a good teacher. Is their temperament matching the classic virtues (takes a while to see this) Are they able to demonstrate things practically and in a way that is undeniable (as in if the project Qi do you fall over writhing on the floor uncontrollably rather than ‘ooo I kind feel something between my hands’). What about their students? Are they able to demonstrate some of the key skills and qualities? if you’re asking whether going deep into the internal arts is better than just being yourself and living a happy life? Then no - the internal arts are only really for the (slightly flawed and weird) individuals that are really drawn to them. It’s a difficult path that’s not for everyone and you can certainly live a happy fulfilled life without any of it!

Ahh Nei Dan - the pinnacle of Daoist internal arts. The practice that you reach after decades of intensive neigong and Qi gong practice. This is where you move onto once you’ve found, activated and built your Dan Tien (the real, physical thing), cleared most of your channels, built the soft tissues into the correct shape and set up a smooth, strong circulation. You’ve also cultivated the correct quality of mind and breath through thousands of hours of sitting practice and now you’re finally ready to go onto firing the furnace... few ever get to this stage... But hopefully this is an accurate picture of your current level of development! But something tells me it may not be (I’m certainly not there yet!) Red flags for me: 1) doing internal training with no teacher (it’s like learning surgery from medieval books written in Latin) 2) lots of perineum squeezing in the past (Chia?) I really don’t mean to sound harsh, but it is what it is. My best guess as to what’s happening is that you’re stimulating your perineum and it’s creating internal heat. If you’ve done a lot of Chia’s stuff, you’ve probably built a connection between perineum and heart. If I’m accurate (which is not that likely to be fair) and you carry on full-force with this practice you’re most likely develop sexual deviancy and then fuel it until you go nuts Or just find a good teacher and you’ll do great!

Fajin, along with all the other internal skills take a long time of dedicated practice to achieve to such an extent that they could be used in actual fighting. Youre basically re-building your body and your mind so that you use completely different mechanics to move and react. It takes literally decades of Olympic levels of practice. And this training can’t be mixed with normal external type training. So it’s just not feasible for someone into MMA to go through this. And even if they do and they finally achieve gong after 30 years of practice - the effect this sort of training has on your consciousness would mean you’re unlikely to be interested in MMA anymore.

Sorry Drew, but from what I could work out from your post is that you had limited training and then created your own qigong from various books. I’ve already said what I believe is necessary to develop any skill - the right system, taught properly by a real teacher(s) over a long period of time (several decades). Self directed intensive practice from books sounds like a recipe for qi deviation. Which incidentally often looks like manic over-thinking... So let’s leave this as the last post in our conversation - since we’re going in ever wider circles with this. I wish you all the best and hope that you’re able to train face to face with a teacher soon.

To be honest I’m really not. But I am interested in you progressing in your training rather than writing about stuff you don’t really understand yet (and neither do I by the way) It takes many dacades of full time, supervised training in the correct way and with accomplished teachers to really develop some skill and understanding in these arts. Then it’s a good time to start improvising and intellectualising the process.

Ok Drew, So if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that you couldn’t get enough information from Chunyi, so you had to look to other ways of explaining what’s going on objectively. Is that right? There’s definitely some cultural differences with how things are taught in China and the West. It’s important to understand that in China there are two types of student - inner door and outer door. Outer door students are the millions who take up qigong. The way they are taught is as you say just follow the instructions and get on with it. Some of these outer door students will start with some natural ability or stumble across a correct principle that would advance them faster past the foundations. They would then be picked and asked to join as an inner door student. This is when the principles, explanations and further transmissions would be given. There a lot of questions, answers, discussions, theory and explanations for inner door students. But it’s really a numbers game in China. There are so many students that it’s impossible for them all to be inner door. So teachers would just teach the basics until the talented or the dedicated ones would stand out. In the West 90% of the teachings are taken from what western teachers learned as outer door students in China and then they add their own interpretations, additions and deletions. Thus the art is diluted to such an extent that the real techniques are lost. This is actually also happening in China as well. These days you need to travel to other parts of Asia to meet accomplished teachers. I’m afraid that what you’re doing, Drew, is the same thing. Taking outer door teachings that have already gone through the americanization process and then further distorting them with pseudo science. The result of this is that neither scientists agree with you nor do qi gong practitioners. I’m afraid that rather than finding an objective way of explaining the processes, you’re muddying the waters and losing the art. I can see that your heart is in the right place and you’re really inspired by these arts. I also completely understand how you would yearn for further understanding. You’re obviously very smart and could probably do really well with proper training. My suggestion for you is to get back to training - the way that a good teacher tells you to train (no third eye orgasms) I can see that Chunyi is rather expensive. So find a way to earn enough money to be able to see him regularly. I’m sure that if you prove yourself a good student, eventually you can reach some sort of compromise regarding costs.

He sounds very accomplished. All the more reason to ditch the recordings and go study with him directly! As to the rest of your message... Im not sure why you need to try and translate the mechanics behind qigong into ‘sciencey sounding stuff’. Let’s face it - it’s not real science and it’s also not real qigong. You lose the point of both. Do you feel that ‘science’ is more ‘real’? Do you feel that you need to uphold a certain air of intelligence to be taken seriously? I don’t really understand. Why didn’t the enlightened sages who created the alchemical path and it’s offshoots (qigong, neigong etc) talk about parasympathetic rebounding and the 12 harmonic nodes? Shouldn’t we assume that they are far smarter than us and follow their advice instead of trying to be cleverer and re-invent the wheel?

Sounds like you’re moving in the right direction! I personally never could directly feel my Dan Tien - only experience it’s effects on the rest of the body (quite intense!). These days I can feel physical pressing, tugging, stretching movements going on down there. This is all besides the point though. Best not to focus on sensations. Sensations are created by the qi interacting with blockages. My approach is - if they’re there notice and move on with the training!