Ya Mu

On amazon.com there are several higher than that. Saw one sell for 200 something. There was one on ebay for over 1000 but I didn't see if it sold (too damn disgusted). Heck with that - kindle all the way (Android kindle app as well). I am a big fan of kindle. I think soon we will see all books as multimedia on tablet devices in full color. Already almost there, although to me kindle still has readability that the color devices don't have (yet). I don't know exactly how it is in other countries but here in the US paper is mostly from trees. I have seen lots of pulpwood trucks. I read somewhere that 40% of the used paper lands in landfills. Couple that with the fact that recycling has a limited number of times before the fibers get too short to use and there is still vast "need" for new paper. IMO, if we weren't so stupid we would use hemp instead of trees for new paper.

Just take some of these guy's ages with a grain of salt as some figure age somewhat different from chronological, counting pre-birth years. Others plain out use it as marketing tool and it ends up being exaggerated. I spent 3 days in a workshop with him and had a treatment by him. He was a great guy and a MA master (during break wanted me to hit him and I declined saying been there done that; no way, don't like to end up crashing against walls). I think he probably is a good TCM doctor. He smoked a pipe in between his sessions. He was on one of Francesco Garripoli's videos and I know Francesco did study with him.

3600 schools of thought, techniques. Condensed into a system. Not into this forum. Only the people who study this.

My understanding is the monastery is a shadow of what it once was before it was destroyed during the "cultural revolution" as it has given in to the touristy thing. You are already practicing some of this qigong. There is a Chinese guy that comes to the US on occasion that is teaching parts of this. I interacted with one of his senior students but I can't remember his name.

Me too. I have always marveled at this amnesia and the intense effort it requires to come out of it. Yes. 3,600 thoughts condensed; Golden Summit Monastery, one of the 4 holy mountains. Abbot-Zhou-Wang(also studied with Abbot)-Me-You

I read Destiny of Souls first several years ago and really liked it. The findings correspond to my own experiences, some of which I described in A Light Warrior's Guide. I always recommend Destiny of Souls to anyone and everyone. I later read this one and did not like it as well. Destiny was, to me, much more vivid. But yes, a good book. CLINICAL case histories; impressive consistency.

Yes. One reason it is a head scratch-er is because the OP has not said what exactly he/she was doing and what the problem is other than a "dan tian cracked". Is this person a student of a teacher or are they combining bizarre stuff they made up in their head or read on the internet? That did help to understand somewhat. His post still, to me, makes not much sense. It sounds almost like he thinks he has a physical injury from practicing dynamic tension, which is possible. Putting undue pressure on the pelvic floor and associated organs. If this is so, he should seek a physician first as there could be a type of rupture. Energetically this is so bizarrely unlikely unless there is a corresponding physical injury. I see he did ask his (?) teacher (not obvious if teacher Wang is his teacher or not). Utilizing forced methods on ANY energy center can be, or can lead to, a problem. Improper and unnatural sexual practices can also lead to many physical and energetic problems. OP, if you cannot get an answer you like from senior students of the system you are training in, if you are indeed training in a system, chances are you are intensely confused about what is happening. If it is a physical problem see your physician. If it is an energetic problem the advice mwight gave you from the original forum where you posted could be an important step, "I would contact Chunyi Lin of Spring Forest Qigong as soon as possible, healing is the focus of his system..." His other advice may be good and you may wish to strongly consider ceasing the practices you have been doing, "Remember though that working with the middle and upper dan teins carry their own risks of mental and emotional disturbances so you have to be able to just chill and do basic emptiness meditation and not try to fill anything if you notice anything weird." This sounds like good common sense. If we injure an ankle do we immediately go out and run on it or do we rest it, allowing the body to heal? Acupuncturists and medical qigong practitioners can often help with energetic problems if there is indeed such a thing happening. Always first eliminate any possible medical situation with a checkup from your physician.

OP, What did the teacher you learned this from say to do? Is his/her suggestion not working? Only your teacher has any idea of exactly what you are doing, assuming you didn't deviate from the practice you were taught.

Thanks for the explanation of Ki from a Korean MA viewpoint. It differs significantly from the explanation of Qi from the Chinese medical qigong viewpoint. The commonality I see is that the intense calmness must be reached prior to manipulation of Qi as well. This is the calmness (peace) that can be projected to others. In Chinese hospital & clinic based medical qigong this is most often done off-body and not through body contact although sometimes utilized in combination with Tui Na or acupressure type techniques.

It is an intermediate step in true neigong practices - at least it is in ours. I believe vmarco gives the book scholarly explanation quite well. A simplified way of looking at it is awakening to a part of you through realization of the true-heart through the process of integration of Heaven & Earth. A harmonious and natural process.

Where are you located? In the US there are several schools of medical qigong. I am not familiar with ones in Europe but I know there are some programs there. In China it is not as easy as it used to be (never was really EASY, but was accessible) due to government crackdown on what can be taught in medical qigong. It is still possible but not like it used to be in the 70-80-90's with the proliferation of medical qigong hospitals with government support. Just be aware of all the double talk about medical qigong and understand that medical qigong & qigong are two totally different things. Medical qigong is hospital and clinic based techniques for healing others and qigong is self-energetic practices. Lots of people who have never trained in medical qigong and can't do wai qi liao fa (healing with external energy) say they are teaching "medical qigong" when they are really teaching qigong. It gives them a bigger marketplace. In the US, the NQA (www.nqa.org) has established standards for 500 hr clinical qigong training and does offer certification. If there are ever any laws established in US (look how massage therapy certification mushroomed) it is quite possible this will be the agency looked to for standards. Therefore look for a program where the teacher is level IV NQA certified as a teacher; completing these programs will enable a person to apply to the NQA for certification.

I am not interested in debate here on this forum. If anyone wishes to debate this have at it. I present as an alternative analysis & viewpoint. "...how to fully disable and even kill, in under 5 seconds. If everyone knew Hapkido, perhaps they would not feel so fearful to own a dog, which terrorizes others and undermines any possibility of peace." If everyone had a dog, perhaps they would not feel so fearful of people who practice Hapkido , which terrorizes others through the knowledge they could be killed in under 5 seconds and undermines any possibility of peace. "Only a very naive person would suggest that vicious breed owners,...any vicious breed owner,... are compassionate." Only a very naive person would suggest that someone who learned MA to kill you in under 5 seconds is compassionate. Now, are any of the statements true? Certainly either could be true in a relative sense but IMO absolutely not true in the absolute sense. So where does that leave us in determining peace? My belief is that the answer can be found in your quote from another thread, "If you wish to unite with the heart and mind of the Mysterious Mother, you must integrate yin and yang within and refine their fire upward." The problem of course is that most of humanity has no clue about this concept and there are relatively few practices that actually accomplish it. If it is accomplished then the ability to, at any given moment, radiate peace, is accomplished. Therefore in the theoretical cases of the dog and Hapkido practitioner (smile here) the absolute would not be true IF there were the above accomplished for both the dog & the practitioner would immediately calm down. Therefore, IMO, peace on Earth could be accomplished if everyone (possibly in the not-so near future?) accomplished what is said in the above quote about integrating yin & yang and refining the fire upward. This is exactly what true Taoist inner neigong cultivation techniques accomplish. I have personally have seen this peace technique work on dogs of the type you mention, an angry MA about to hurt someone, and an angry person holding a loaded & cocked gun on someone. IME, where the problem can occur, due to the fact that everyone does not practice integrating the yin & yang and refining the fire upward, the overall vibration level of humanity does contribute to the problem of holding this 24/7 while walking with the masses of humanity (easy to do alone on a mountaintop). Therefore the problem as I see it is to get past the 16% statistical saturation point (brought up in post #24 on this thread) where this type of calmness (peace) is radiated 24/7 by everyone. IMO until this happens there will never be peace within humanity. Once it happens PEACE will triumph.

I always have thought he was very good. My mom, who was the last person one would have thought to enjoy martial arts of any kind, and who really knew nothing of it, had the TV show he starred in as her very favorite for its whole duration. Can't remember the name of it.

Enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for calling. Know that there is a huge difference in medical qigong versus simple practicing of qigong. While there is a huge choice of simple qigong practices to choose from that are on DVD, you are not going to learn medical qigong from a dvd. It seems there is so much misinformation about medical qigong that many think it is the same thing as simple qigong. The study of medical qigong is the same as going to any graduate school. It is in-depth and a school which teaches it has the goal of imparting this in-depth knowledge of hospital and clinical based therapeutics to the student. The national qigong association (www.nqa.org) has established standards for clinical qigong practitioners as well as clinical qigong teachers. This is always a good place to begin research.

"Sucks" Yes it does. I have faced this all my career. But what is so very funny (at least I thought it at the time) was that these same preachers would come to my clinic for pain relief. Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Catholic, and other. Most didn't want to talk about the medical qigong but all sure wanted to receive it. I also have a friend who is an ex-Baptist preacher. He can quote multiple translations of the bible forwards, backwards, any which way. He practices Stillness-Movement neigong. So some preachers are open to change; both the guy you know and the one I know were a part of those desiring change. I have taught at several Unitarian churches over the years; in general much more open to energetics. Edit: Most people do not know that my book was edited by a Christian theologian.

This thread is full of gems that have not been talked about. Why not, as you say, look for the positive learning experience? Here are some of the points of Vmarco's that I thought were gems, along with some IMO thoughts: "The absolute is not within the reach of intellect" I would think most would agree with this; especially anyone who actually practiced inner Chinese arts. Anyone practicing pure mental techniques may not, because it would challenge mental concepts. It seems the argument about this statement is where it comes from. I propose that it wouldn't matter if it came from a falling down drunk person in a bar. I think it boils down to truth is truth no matter where it comes from. Having an integrated practice of Buddhist, Taoist, and shamanic techniques leads me to the same conclusion. Any perceived conflict in the teachings is only due to one's own personal mental trap. Although frankly I will say that to me, these being umbrella terms does allow mistranslated texts and misunderstood concepts to enter the picture and this can certainly lead to confusion not only in these systems but in all "systems". To me, the overall picture is FAR more important. Agree that wiki leaves a lot to be desired and is often filled with not well researched information; to think of it as absolute good source is often truly misleading. But IMO nothing wrong with a person consulting wiki for quick overviews of a subject if they are willing to dig deeper based on what they read and know. Thought I would point out that all Americans are not cerebral-centric; just like the rest of the world this country does contain cerebral-centric people and non-cerebral centric people. Good TJ quote. My understanding is that no information is valid (totally embraced by) for any particular person, even if it is truth, until confirmed by the true-heart (I believe this to be the same as your "heart-mind") of that person. Otherwise it will always be something that is just mentally believed to be true and not something embraced by the whole person. This confirmation is how each of us can KNOW if something is really true as it becomes self-evident and until it becomes self-evident it is only a belief. "...But likely your physical senior, with ten times more experience, as spirituality (not religion) has been a full time occupation for roughly the last 37 years. ..." As a physical senior also with about the same long-term experience as you I do agree that some who post on this board do not take into account the validity of long-term experience. I also think the opinion will not truly change until a person has that long-term experience for themselves. At which point they will face the younger generation where there will be many that exhibit the same non-respect for long-term experience. I also believe that sometimes a fresh perspective can also refresh our own thinking; especially our methods of explaining what we do know. Nice. I have found this true in my own life. We can never solve any problem or arrive at any higher level understanding on the level of that problem or understanding. In our energetics system I speak of your 2nd sentence I quoted as "dissolving filters".

If I try to run for over 30 minutes my body does the same thing. I back off instead of pushing it. I think this is the best approach with any exercise. Any type of sitting exercise practice can produce restlessness when done for so long. Like any exercise, it takes gradual working up to longer sessions. There is no magical figure, but somewhere around 40 minutes into the sitting there is a flush of energy. You may wish to go back to that point. With any valid qigong practice the qi has traditionally been described as always attempting to work through inner problems, whether those are mental, spiritual, or physical. As it is working through, a deeper response to that particular thing can occur. This response is usually short lived. There is a name for this in other traditions like osteopathy; they call it re-tracing. Also, I always like to balance out the sitting with movement. I always tell people that 1 hr per day is all that is needed for progress unless a person wishes to do wai qi liao fa. And that requires in person training. I am always available through email or telephone. If you have any specific questions feel free to contact me. If you need to see a physician for any mental or physical health problem do so.

"...The absolute is not within the reach of intellect,..." Great quote.

MPG - I am agreeing with you - not arguing with you. Only saying in addition that moving meditative practices based on neigong are also extremely helpful. A person that doesn't wish to project qi to others can progress in as little as an hour a day, especially once the dan tian has been created. If a person wishes to gain enough to perform wai qi liao fa on a regular basis it is advisable to do 3 to 5 hrs of practice a day in the Jing Dong Gong system.

I agree that if one does not build a lower dan tian they have no foundation for inner alchemy. Also agree that the more reliable & valid systems do that. We certainly do in Stillness-Movement. In Stillness-Movement seers see it as first the dan tian starts glowing brighter and brighter, the energy gets denser and denser until it rises up through the body and opens each energy center in a natural unforced manner, then pops out the top of the head connecting one with the universe. Of course as this happens energy naturally circulates through all the channels and all the orbits, again without forcing. The movements do assist in building Dan Tian and raising the vibrational frequency of the energy body. Most poeple who do the movements feel this. This raising of the vibrational frequency is necessary for true inner alchemy and is one of the things that happens with transmutation of dan tian inside Stillness-Movement. I can't really comment on the systems you mention but would think they should do similar process for creating then filling dan tian. One of the things that differentiates Stillness-Movement is that the teacher creates dan tian for the students; this can significantly decrease the time involved; the student doesn't have to do this from scratch. But no substitute for time&effort. We still have to do 3 - 5 hours a day if we wish to project qi in clinic for 8 hours a day. No one actually has a dan tian until it is created through time&effort. They have a place but not a field.

VMarco does not respond to such an elementry question,...one in which any considerate Westerner would simply type "Buddhist Compassion" on a search engine, and been shown thousands of entries, which among the first would be karuna,.. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karuṇā Then, in response to VMarco's non-response, dwai spews, GOTCHA! "I don't have to rely on wikis to know this. I am very familiar with the nuances of my native languages." Thus, dwai is at the very least an ingenuine person, asking a question he already believes he knows, and second, deeply ignorant, as he actually does not understand his own native language which he implies includes the word "karuna." Dwai's suffering is so profound that he actually believes he is making some sort of contribution on this forum. CT's video above on Compassion and Pity was interesting,...however, if one is paying attention, the monk let it be known that his definition was conditioned by his Tradition and his (mistaken)ideas regarding meditation. A few years ago, a woman named Esther Hicks made a quite pithy observation,...she said, "We teach meditation, or quieting the mind, because it is really easier to teach you to have no thoughts, than to teach you to have pure, positive thought. We would rather you be in a state of appreciation, than in a state of meditation, because in appreciation you are a vibrational match to your [Higher Self]." Within that quote can be seen the nature of suffering. The unappreciative are always in a state in of suffering. For the most part, the majority of posters at TTB are unappreciative. They play games like dwai,...for example, setting up questions they believe they already know so to say gotcha!. Twinner is similiar,...he is writing a book on compassion because he already believes he knows everything about compassion,...for example, Twinner says: Twinner is another unppreciative individual who presumes he knows what compassion is. An unappreciative individual does not, and cannot understand the nature of authentic compassion in the Bodhisattva view, because compassion is a natural byproduct of appreciation. It doesn't come from, nor arise from meditation,...although meditation can be a stepping stone to appreciation. Appreciation is also the core of the admirable friendship of a proper sangha. Every spiritually oriented forum should be as a sangha,...helping and encouraging and expressing a positive message within the forum. Instead, the egoic, gotcha! mentality on TTB is a reflection of the contemporary world today. VMarco is not on this forum to teach, nor to advocate the positiveness of a sangha,...she is predominately here to learn about how negative, insincere people express their unappreciativeness. V Usually I stay out of threads that talk about Buddhist scholarship in one form or another. Because I am not a Buddhist scholar Just want to say here that your views on appreciation are much appreciated. "Every spiritually oriented forum should be as a sangha,...helping and encouraging and expressing a positive message within the forum. Instead, the egoic, gotcha! mentality on TTB is a reflection of the contemporary world today." One would think everyone would think like this. Only thought about compassion, in general, is that it is not about mental gymnastics and is not a passive thing, but a true action. As in, one could have all the best intention in the world but if they never act where is the true compassion? True compassion is not a mental concept but a thing unto itself and what one says is not always the same as the compassionate act itself. And the true act itself, if completed from the higher level self, which is the only way it would be true compassion, almost never coincides with what the sympathy that the linear mind drums up as the problem the compassion is acting upon.

Most neigong is meditative technique but not necessarily what one could call simple "meditation". There is also neigong that is movement based as well. Both can generate much Qi. Best combination is both movement and meditative. Stillness-Movement goes really deep in meditation but it is not like "zen" based meditations. The attuned energetics move the body. I have posted this before but somewhere you can find details of a Japanese study where they monitored brain waves of both Qigong guys and Zen guys in meditation. Both calmed the brainwaves but the qigong guys stimulated creative centers of the brain whereas the Zen guys didn't. Stillness-Movement generates lots of Qi. Inside a short period of time most practitioners can perform wai qi liao fa.

Strictly speaking about internal alchemy I have not seen that it has any effect either way. Edit: however, every person is different

Hey Dorian Black. I must say I admire your enthusiasm for Nei Kung. Don't know that I have seen this much enthusiasm in anyone here on this forum in a while. Dude - you are INTO IT! Suggest you also have diversionary activity in your life as there does need to be balance. Play guitar, swim, plant a garden, whatever it is you like to do. Not suggesting you do so to change teachers as it sounds like you really like the one you have, but for a broader perspective you may wish to do a bit more research as there are several teachers out there that can do these things. And some have different but very interesting and amazing talents. Perhaps a trip to China would be interesting to you. And, I did see someone either inferred that he was or called Gary an asshole. I would like to see people walk in the others shoes. If I am not mistaken as this was quite a long time ago, and I may have him mixed up with someone else, but I think I met Gary at a convention; he was pleasant to me, and he wasn't, to me, an "asshole". He was just like everyone else on Earth and has one. I have also seen other people call other teachers "asshole"; mostly these are people who don't have a freakin clue and are too self-centered and narcissistic to even really have any interest to find out what the teacher is teaching, usually just making flash judgments about the person. I remember hearing someone calling a really good teacher I know an "asshole" before I met the teacher. When I did meet the guy and interacted with him, I found him to be a nice guy and not at all what this person who told me that said. We ended up interacting quite a bit for 3 days at a qigong convention and I think I understand where he comes from with his teachings and I think he understands where I come from with mine, and I do like him. We got along really well. He is an author and many on this forum have referred to him. My point is one man's "asshole" is another man's really good teacher. Keep up your study!

We see all sorts of words thrown around with these type of practices. Words like "supernatural" etc. I totally agree with you. Stillness-Movement practice is entirely a natural system and one could say "natural science", even though we can't yet explain it with western science. Not that the Chinese need Western science to explain it as their explanation makes perfect sense, even to a westerner if one delves into what is meant by the words and doesn't get carried away with exact translations of each word. The medical qigong that follows the practice does an entirely natural thing. Although outcomes with the medical qigong are often perceived as "miraculous", this outcome is really just an application of this natural Eastern science in the same manner as when a western drug that is prescribed does it's job. For those of us that do this in clinic practice, these outcomes are just part of our job. I predict that one day western science will arrive to the place where qigong and medical qigong practices can be totally explained. I think this will be in some of my student's lifetime, although I would be glad to see it too. A physicist friend who practices Stillness-Movement medical qigong suggests string theory will arrive at this place.