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Everything we do, on whatever level we do, takes out energy. Generally speaking, the methods available now for building up energy are not complete. The resources needed for that kind of training are also very hard to find, both in time, financial expenses, suitable place, timing, and physical resources - which includes Jing. My advice is just to ahead and enjoy life with all that it has good to offer. It may be the only real thing you'll get out of it... Change of heart: no, keep on practicing and experimenting, and at the same time consider the fact that it may be just a waste of precious time, that you may have spent with your loved ones.

Also keep in mind that these methods belong to the Xiao Dao path of lesser achievement - everyday dao. For Da Dao you'll need different methodology, which may also include extended periods of celibacy.

That's simply not true. When the sensation turns to feeling, it's the jing turning into qi. What you said sounds smart, but just stop and think it over. Someone must have told this to you, just to keep you inside the specificity of your particular training... Don't forget, there are many ways to get to the same place. At the same time, turning jing into qi has a prerequisite: having enough jing to transform. If you only have a little of it, you should build it up and then start the transforming process. Building jing is building the body, i.e, health practices, nutrition, sleep, physical exercise. Many masters tend to over-complicate things, just to maintain a state of uncertainty. It's actually very simple, but you DO have to know EXACTLY how it's done. If you practice it the guess work style, it will take longer and maybe you'll experience some side effects also during the training, but.. hey, everything has a price eh?

maybe it's because the health of the body is a fail-safe sign of the state of health of the mind... what an idea! to solve buddhist problems with daoist methods! i'm not sure these two go together like ham'n'eggs though! btw, your opinion on daoist practices sounds like something other people told you... interesting as a case, nevertheless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z18prjuvkA You'll find the answer watching this movie. Excellent!

Got a pretty good laugh out of this one! And the second one, with Der Spiegel being reliable, not bad a laugh either! @JK forget it, people are programmed to think this way, and any argument goes only to prove they are right, and the rest are biased. There is alot of negative propaganda regarding Asian countries in the West, and many have grown up hearing it over and over.

that's the word

FYI, many traditions have immortal animals. Castaneda's Don Juan said that beings don't need reasoning to become immortal. I think GIH is really close to the position of reason, a position of the assemblage point that allows one to follow an idea to it's most final consequences, without being influenced by personal bias, - I think he can thank his simpathy for buddhism and advaita vedanta school for that. The position is the twin pair of the silent knowledge position. The trick is, both positions depend on the state of health of the body, to become stable. Otherwise the information comes through influenced by misconceptions, supposedly a lack of fine tuning to the purpose of the position itself. Am I making any sense?

You would agree, wouldn't you? It has one major flaw though: it's too darn reasonable. Immortality is anything but reasonable. IME, all the stuff that really worked, sounded pretty unreasonable in theory. But in practice, wow... edit spellings

No you won't

Marbles, GIH, I've looked thru all of the answers given here hoping to find one to relate to, and your answer was the most adequate to my feelings about this process... It doesn't work... of course. When we were little, we couldn't do many things: we can't poop or pee when we want to, we can't walk, we can't even express with words how we really feel etc. To me, the process of dying is something that I feel it must be an option we do have control of, just as we can control our sphincters. And even though many sacred taoist texts reffer to immortality as a possible goal, I think they achieve it as a by-product, the ones that matter, they don't care about life and death. 'Don't fear the bitternes of life, or the horror of death.' To them these don't matter. Daoist practice is a metaphysical cure for a metaphysical condition. Trying to cure day-to-day conditions with a metaphysical cure is like trying to kill a musquito with a huge cannon. I agree that much of the symbolic meaning has been taken too literal. What is the condition? What is the cure? These are questions that have significant answer only when you are inside a lineage. PS: What I really want to say, is i don't know the answer to the question. And if i really did know, although i love you guys like i love my brothers, i wouldn't tell ya!

Nothing beats gardening, not even taiji! And, for the esoteric part, you need these guys: peter tompkins and christopher bird

Thanks! I forgot to add, if you can walk barefoot for a little while in the grass, it quadruples the effect!

The purpose of energetic types of meditation - at least in daoism, - is to 'balance' the inner world. Turning the wheel and Blending the five phases have that effect. In secularfuture's case, I'd still reccomend a daily walk in the park, twice a day, one in the morning, and one in the evening. It can do miracles - and it's free. In my experience, you need to apply the simplest solution possible, with the best effect.

thank you Santi, God bless

http://www.tridaya-innerpower.com/faq.htm I found this pretty interesting in style and mindset. Any thoughts Vaj?

Hey no problem. And what Darin says is also possible... question is, what do you do with that power.

Where was the question, and how did I dismiss it? Chill out, man, you assume way too much of me. I read your last post, there was no question in it. And since you asked clearly just now, the book is, as you said, ToS.

Perineum power is a part of Dear Exercise, yes. It's interesting how, when you want to climb the ladder of spiritual evolution, you have specifical trials that are the same on every spiritual path you choose. There's no way around them. If you take the mild approach, you fail the trial. One is sex, two is food, three is money, four is power.... five maybe fame. 'cuz after you master the first three or four, you're not just anybody. You're the Real McCoy. But me, I'm just here for the fun in it. And at least to me there's no fun in taking things the easy way. Either you put your mind in it, your soul in it, your spirit in it, and you try until you get it right.... or you just skip it and go ahead living a happy life, with no worries about spiritual cultivation and such. Bye now L1

Resident Chia-expert? heh, I might enjoy that title But seriously, what i said is that the feeling of cold energy in the scrotum is the most important aspect of the practice. you can move your testies up and down for eternity, if you don't get that icy cold energy starting to build up, you're not doing testicle breathing, i don't know what you are doing... the movement comes second as importance - it can help you move it up to the perineum and sacrum, and then up the spine one center at a time. but in the end, what we train is the mind. you have to be able to do it by mind alone. I'm happy people started to get interested in this subject. It's much more important that it may seem... later edit: I'm not the Chia-expert, many of the people here tried and benefited from the practices Chia taught. I'm just one of the few that admits it, and has the guts to be grateful for it

You don't need to flex anything. The main focus is getting the feeling of icy-cold into the scrotum. The rest is of little importance. You also need a smooth flowing microcosmic orbit as a prerequisite. That's the part of getting the energy. It's like money. You need a plan.

Look again. Page 64, to be more exact. And Deer Exercise is not anal clinch. Interesting that Chinese masters seem to agree on these matters.

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Hi Shaolin, in order to transform, you need to have enough ingredient for the transformation. for qigong retention is a major issue, because qigong practicioners (not reffering to ammateurs here ) are not allowed to practice for two to three days after they ejaculate. It's very harmful for the body. It seems this rule is often overlooked, but you can check masters like Yang Jwing-ming for details on it... there are other sources available, but YJM seems to be more accesible. After the locking, you need to draw the energy from there, and really insist on relaxing and circulating. Jogging after can be a fairly good method if you don't have enough control over your Qi. If you block and leave it there, you only do half of the technique, and it is only normal that blocked energy should cause pain and swelling in the area. The energy needs to be circulated and evenly spread thru the body. Testicle breathing... it can cool down and heal any area you sent the energy to. Also meditating with a tenis ball, or a small rolled towel under your ass at the perineum point. Short periods of celibacy can be a great aid also... two-three weeks. It's easiest without retention because (physical and psychic) tension doesn't accumulate. However, this tension has the potential of growing into inner power. It's like choosing to ride a bike rather than a Kawasaki. It's safer. But there are many draw backs. In MC's books it's said that the techniques weren't supposed to be known by many. There were many prerequisites necessary before a master would teach these techniquest to a student. I think the same remains true today. Stephen T. Chang teaches the same method of external locking, and it adds something interesting to it. So it's not just MC. My thought is, you should take into consideration that maybe you didn't understand something about this practice... For more information, check up the Contributed Article section, there is a thread I made there re Mantak Chia and retention. Trunk is a good person, but his website is a little bit biased, if you ask me - he needs more information and quite a couple of new experiences. Otherwise, if you keep the practice at the level that he describes, you won't get any noticeable benefit from them... They are supposed to bring power, and make you feel as strong as an ox. That amount of power is needed for transformation, otherwise you consume the body's emergency resources and that can bring disaster. PS: I think you shouldn't practice the external method over extended periods of time. It's idea is to give you a feeling on how you feel after having sex, having an orgasm, and yet keeping the fluid inside. It's just a springboard towards internal locking. However, if you can't reach that point yet, it's no biggie. If you understood the external locking correctly, you should be able to practice it over the years, with little or no discomfort, like me for instance. There are many common mistakes that people make when approaching this practice. Many of them are described in the Contributed Articles section... I'll make it easier for you to find it by copy-pasting this message there, so you can find it on new messages. my 2 c L1, over and out

Mantak Chia explained it this way: your inner organs are the altars in which your inner spirits reside. If you worship an external spirit, the energy will go outside and feed the external spirit. If you meditate on your inner organs, the energy will go inside and feed the inner spirits. Simple and profound.