freeform

I’d say it’s probably best to listen to your teacher than a friendly fellow on the internet. There’s a reason for using the front of the foot. It’s obviously not included in Dwai’s system but is included in Damo’s and several others I’ve come across. Follow the system not your assumptions and ideas - or the assumptions and ideas of others not qualified in the system.

It’s normal It'll change in time… and be replaced by some other discomfort soon enough

It is. I mean you’ll obviously get nutritional benefits still - but it won’t be as efficient as eating a couple of ingredients - or even one ingredient at a time. But then again, it won’t matter so much at the moment for you anyway as you’re yet to activate your Dantien. When on retreat I really simplify my diet down to individually verifiable ingredients… so a meal might consist of cooked spinach, a steamed sweet potato and a bunch of pressure cooked black beans. Not mixed together… not flavoured with herbs/spices/salt… no oil added etc. On a retreat, when energy is refined and attention is finely tuned and ‘present’ in every moment, you can clearly feel what’s happening inside

I like the book. It is, however, mixing a few different approaches - not just Chinese medicine. Unfortunately I don’t have a decent book to recommend. I remember there was a thread a while back with a few recommendations. The Chinese medicine aspect of food shouldn’t be too dogmatically followed though. It’s helpful in the beginning - as a kind of aid in developing your own intuitive sense of the qualities of different foods. The reality is that it’s a complex model - yet it still pales in complexity to the real energetics of foods. Qualities of a tomato for instance changes depending how much it’s been watered… how the weather has been… what time it was picked… the quality of the soil… the quality of mind as you’re consuming it… not to mention the thousands of different varieties of tomato. And that’s just a tomato. Use food energetics as a kind of guide over a couple of years as your own energetics develop - and over time you’ll develop an intuitive feel for the right things. Sometimes when it’s the heat of summer and you’re hot inside, a cold watermelon is just the ticket - despite it being detrimental to your Dantien at another time. Sometimes the detrimental element of food is not as detrimental as missing out on a beer with a close friend.

It’s tricky because as you say you can easily over-complicate a dish. Also ingredients at the direct opposite spectrum can confuse the digestion… such as frozen bananas in chilli and garlic oil Or deep fried Mars bar with ice cream 😅 So generally you match ingredients that aren’t extreme opposites. Though saying that, some herbs and spices can be helpful in balancing a dish if not over-done. Borscht that’s a great blood building and tasty dish. Personally I eat quite simply most of the time - just steamed veggies with rice (though I’m fussy about rice - in Asia you can get what they call ‘gaba rice’ which is like sprouted brown rice - love that). Sometimes chicken or beef or some liver. Stir-fries are great especially in spring and summer. Simple stews, soups, beans, pumpkin, root veg etc for winter. Yeah totally. Any sort of compulsiveness around eating will pull you away from correctly reading your needs. Though it’s also true that your Dantien will give you a bad case of the shits if it comes across something it really doesn’t like After a few years, once the ‘container’ is built, it’s a lot less sensitive - and you tend to be naturally drawn to the right food for you anyway… sometimes you’ll be drawn to fasting. I would say that this is the stage you want to shoot for - then all these distinctions don’t matter too much anymore, as you’ll get a really intuitive understanding of what’s right for you. But it takes time - and it takes weaning yourself off compulsive eating habits. ————— Im conscious that this is getting really off topic - maybe we could splinter off the food stuff into another post? How can that be achieved? Maybe a mod could help?

Heat has a minor effect… as in there’s a difference between a frozen banana and a grilled banana… but it’s not a big difference. Food combinations can balance things a little… for instance oats are warm and bananas are cold - this can shift the dish as a whole into the cool category. (Try oats with dates ) The way you cook things also affects the Energetics… grilling creates a hot quality whereas steaming is neutral. Local climate and seasonal variation will have an effect too… for instance it’s ok to eat a little more cool foods in the middle of summer (which is when most of the cool fruits and veg ripen). You'll find local, traditional, seasonal peasant dishes from a few hundred years ago have almost perfect combinations of ingredients for good health. Its a pretty big, involved subject - I’m sure people will be able to recommend decent books on it. (Try a search here). But the whole diet thing doesn’t have to be compulsive. Don’t get too embroiled in it. If 80% of your meals meet the criteria then you’re fine. Its only if you have health issues, that you could be more careful about doing the right things.

It’s ok. It breaks things down into nutrients, which I think is an unhelpful way of understanding these things. My advice is better for Neigong. This is because for Neigong you generally want energetically warm and neutral foods… spirulina is cool, but things like beetroot, sweet potato, dark green kale, pumpkin etc. for fruit - dates, figs, grapes, pomegranate, apricots, cherry… These are generally warm or neutral… Ideally you would be diagnosed according to Chinese medicine to see your constitution - but overall warm and neutral is good… you can have cool foods in moderation (if you have heat issues energetically, a bit more cool might be helpful for a time) but avoid cold foods (yogurt, bananas, dandelion leaf, most seaweeds, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers)… also avoid hot foods in general. Don’t need to be strict, just don’t rely too heavily on these foods… once in a while it’s ok. Once you have a Dantien you’ll know what’s good for you and what isn’t.

From the Daoist perspective there's are always Ming entanglements between healer and patient. This is also the case between spiritual teacher and disciple. Sometimes traditional teachers or healers will refuse to treat or take on a student because they see conflicts within the Ming.

Its the overall quality - not specific nutrients. When you take nutrients out of the whole, then the quality will change.

Basically building ‘blood’ - which is a Chinese medical term (as in - it means more than just the red stuff flowing through you). Its difficult to build blood on a vegetarian diet. Lots of dark green leafy veg and lots of beetroot and stuff like pumpkin and sweet potato… spirulina, chlorella… nuts, seeds (black sesame seeds are particularly good). Have to have a lot of this stuff if vegetarian. If not vegy - beef, pork, chicken, bone marrow, organ meats, bone broth etc - don’t need to have a lot, but regularly. Learn about your habitual emotional patterns… what makes you overthink, what makes you stressed, angry, agitated… what are you addicted to? This means subtle addiction - anything that is compulsive. Checking the phone and the socials is a big addictive thing for many… porn… masturbation… video games… late nights… alcohol… weed… food… addictive tendencies will drain kidney yin and disperse the jing. I would say avoid Neigong while fasting and leave a couple of months between Neigong and psychedelics or other powerful psychoactive drugs. You can certainly learn the method - just don’t practice it while fasted or too soon before or after taking psychoactives. In the beginning while you’re still learning it’s probably ok - but when things start to ‘work’ you’ll realise just how powerful these methods are - and why there are contraindications.

Depends on the methods. If the method helps to anchor your Qi in your Dantien, then it will support the yin, it will enable your organs to work efficiently and will slowly fill your channels. This can help to support the Yin, it can help to keep you calm, centred and confident and less emotionally reactive. It's also a prerequisite for much of the Daoist methods of transformation and growth. If the Qi rises and is too erratic, it will instead start to power your emotions and habitual stress response. And there's another major issue that comes up (for men in particular) - a strong dantien and a lot of Qi will invariably start to inflame your 'base desires'... basically cravings for sex, power, status etc. Genuine lineages have specific ways of avoiding this.

The health of your Blood and your Yin are key in generating Qi. Stagnant, depleted blood and depleted yin combined with with Qi building will deplete you even more. It can be quite problematic if you continue to ‘push through’ your depletion. Diet and habits (mental, emotional and practical) are important in keeping healthy blood and full yin. Depending on the method, building a Dantien can be really good for yin… but Qi building can be bad… If health is an issue, I’d suggest finding a good acupuncturist and herbalist that can help. Look up yin depletion and blood depletion, and see if the symptoms line up. If they do, get treatment and adjust your lifestyle to help support it.

It takes very long to be able to predictably emit Qi too - way longer than the degree probably. But good TCM will help you understand the context of all the other healing stuff and how everything works together holistically.

Trance state

To be able to use Qi emission of any type for healing you really need to understand Chinese medicine to a deep level. It’s quite possible to hurt people with Qi emission.

Haha - fair enough. Unfortunately they have the mainstream world fooled. In my experience most monasteries and ashrams are like a microcosm of the real world… The majority just coast and have very little in terms of development or even interest in real spiritual practice.

I have no doubt there are… but there’s 10,000x more chanting empty mantras in yoga retreats every day.

Yeah. It’s the same with mantras that have an empowerment - the difference between the pleasant trance you get from repeating a sound and repeating one with empowerment is night and day. Unfortunately it’s rare to come across a master of mantra - and empowerments are generally reserved for those that show dedication and respect.

Oh - like pathogenic Qi. Even when there’s no strong flow of Qi from one to another, fields interact and things can get passed through in a therapeutic setting. Well when you’re in a therapeutic setting, you’re meant to let things flow - otherwise what’s the point But there’s always some interaction of Qi - despite what some teachers say, I’ve not found it possible to ‘shield’ my Qi away from others consistently. Maybe at a later stage that becomes possible? But at the moment, even when my energy field isn’t expanded, there’s still always a bit of Qi exchange. But I don’t mind leaking a little Qi if it benefits others in some way. Especially if they’re low and drained and it’s impacting their health (which is generally when their energy body actively ‘sucks up’ Qi from outside). Some people can be slightly ‘vampiric’ in a sense - and they suck up Qi to power an internal emotional process rather than their health. That’s not so helpful (for them or for me) - so I try to avoid them… but never too strictly. When my cultivation requires an abundance of Qi, I take a retreat. Otherwise I’m happy to share if it’s of benefit.

Yeah, I think so - particularly if you’re there in person. Though it’s very rare to find anyone able to chant these types of mantra correctly (with internal vibration) - including monks. I believe it only works in one direction - meaning: correct sound, correct sound + inner vibration, no sound + inner vibration, internal sound + inner light. Eventually, after just settling into your practice, the inner sound will start of its own accord. But you need to go through the ability to generate the sound and inner vibration first before the later stuff is possible. At least in my experience. I suppose some teachers might be able to transmit and help you generate the inner vibration without having to start with the gross sound work first.

In my experience genuine Daoist Neigong/qigong are incompatible with Reiki. Reiki does work - in the sense that there is definitely a transmission that occurs. But from my experience it’s not just ‘divine’ energy that’s transmitted - a lot of personal energy is too. (This was my experience even with quite long term serious reiki practitioners). The way Qi is transferred is the one with more Qi will always transfer to one with less Qi. So I’ve always felt a little depleted after getting a reiki session… and I’d have to then release whatever pathogenic qi was also transmitted. I’ve found that once you build a lot of Qi and it ‘fills’ your body, it is very hard to get any kind of therapy - massage, tui na, reiki, craniosacral, even bone setting and stuff like that. In almost all situations the net effect is negative for me. Even with acupuncture, the therapist must be in good health themselves - or I end up depleted and with some xie Qi that needs clearing out. I think in the beginning Reiki is probably fine. I’m not sure if the negative effects just happen when there’s a disproportionate difference in Qi level between therapist and patient… or if it happens normally too (and just goes unnoticed).

As far as I understand it, there are three ways mantra work. And one ‘false’ way that still has some genuine benefits. 1) Through the vibrational quality of the sound. The key here is to understand the correct tones and pronunciations. AUM is an example of this type of mantra. The sound produced is not just the auditory tone but the internal vibration necessary for making this tone. Eventually you lose the auditory tone and continue with the vibration silently. Eventually the sound (and light) starts to be generated internally. 2) Through empowerment. The same mantra chanted by two different people in the same way will have profoundly different effects in one who has been given an empowerment or a transmission connected to the power behind this mantra. 3) Repetition through thousands of generations. By being repeated over and over in a devotional setting, a mantra can generate power over thousands of years just by the sheer momentum of the attention given to it by millions of sincere people. 4) The ‘false’ way. This works on the principle that repeating any sound over and over will produce a sort of hypnotic trance. This can be quite a relief to an overactive and stressed mind. Most effective mantra work through all these aspects together. I had a teacher who used mantra a lot. He would sit with me for hours correcting the sounds, the tones and the inner vibration until I got it right. And the difference between getting it right and close was spectacular. Reading the the words and repeating them… or even having a mantra whispered to you in a TM class - how effective can these really be? This probably rests on how well you respond to trance and how stressed out your mind is.

Indeed. Most translations are made by translators - not people that have ever had insight into real Daoist practice. Yes. The return. This isn’t talking about a process being undertaken by a sage. This is the nature of Dao. There’s are many translations. I don’t do comparative translation discussions. The translation I presented doesn’t mention about separating yang from yin. In fact all the quotes are meant to show the importance of both Yin and Yang.

I don’t like the translation to be honest. —— The motion of Dao is through return. Dao achieves through receptivity. The myriad beings originate from existence, and existence arises from nothingness. ——

I don’t know exactly how Damo teaches it… but with these sorts of exercises I absorb my mind fully into the body before starting. So the full shape of the body - not just the Dantien. Again - not sure what he does - but when I train mudra, there must be ‘engagement’ in the hands - meaning they’re not loose, relaxed and floppy - there’s slight strength and engagement of the tissues in the hands. Glad you’re finding that helpful. He is very good in my opinion.