doc benway

My concern is that not everyone is prepared to take a deep look at themselves. For some it can be hazardous. For others it can be very disruptive. I don't think it's my place to lead others in that direction unless there is some evidence of complicity.

Mula Bandha!

I think that all of spirituality can be boiled down to one question - Who Am I? Theism, atheism, agnosticism.... doesn't really matter. And the drive needed to seriously explore the question can only come from deep inside. It is something that each of us comes to (or not) in our own good time. I don't think we necessarily help others by inducing or challenging them to consider their spirituality.

I think you are "expressing" both, though when it comes to "the eternal soul" or the "genuine self," expressing may not be the best choice of words. When you act, experience, and react, that is at the level of body and brain. That is where all of your particular desires, aversions, judgements, and motivations lie. That is the seat of your conditioning. The "genuine self" is pure and clear. It's not disturbed by biases or intention. Nothing sticks to it. It is more the source, the milieu of awareness within which all of the activity you can conceptualize occurs. Just my experience and interpretation.

Looking for magic in our lives is like a fish looking for the ocean. It's all a matter of awareness.

Qigong and meditation are very boring, no question about it. In the beginning. For most people. Boring is the awareness of the mind that desires more stimulation. "It" is in control of "you" You make the choice to practice Qigong because others talk it up. But the mind won't let you, it's too busy with other things... more important things Why does the mind always have to be thinking or doing or becoming something other than this, here, now...? What is it like when the mind does not have stimulation? What is it like when the mind becomes lighter and tranquil and less condensed with thought? What potential does the mind-body have? What possibilities exist when the attention and awareness can be focused with great skill? How about when they are completely de-localized? Infinite possibilities to explore within the mind and body and environment and how they inter-connect. Lot's of cool stuff to explore but it takes a lot of patience and it is very boring. In the beginning. It's there for the taking.... or leaving. Totally up to you.

I would strongly suggest you see a spine specialist, MD. In rare cases, neck manipulation can cause pretty serious problems such as trauma to the vertebral artery which can lead to stroke, or fracture, especially if there is a lesion that weakens the bone. Hopefully, it's nothing serious like that but you ought to get that checked out before too long. Good luck.

That's funny! It's not always flattering or pleasant to discover what's inside...

If you look carefully at how we think, we interject a sense of time into everything. It is inherent in how our brains work. If you study Krishnamurti, he does a good job of defining time as the movement of thought. If you read Huw Price (and others) you will see that the unidirectional movement of time does not exist in physics, mathematics, and so on. It certrainly appears to us to be an inherent part of the universe but many think that it is simply a consequence of our sensory apparatus and throught processes. So when reading the Dao De Jing, or anything else, we necessarily interject our sense of time into the words. Because time is related to the action of thought and words are the verbal expression of thought. But if you stand back and look at it, it's possible to see things as being independent of time. There are numerous examples of the "timelessness" of the Dao throughout DDJ. Here is Chapter 7: The Tao is infinite, eternal. Why is it eternal? It was never born; thus it can never die. Why is it infinite? It has no desires for itself; thus it is present for all beings. The Master stays behind; that is why she is ahead. She is detached from all things; that is why she is one with them. Because she has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.

No. I've never found a single book that I wanted to give that central a role in my life. I've tried a few, they never stuck, but they all contributed to where I am now I guess (for better or worse).

Time is only there if you want it to be.

I practice them very similarly. Thanks for that outline. One minor difference, the heart sound for me is more like "huh" than "ha" and is usually written He = 呵 I also have never practiced any of these on inhale.

Sorry but I think it's important to correct the above misconceptions. Fa Jin is important but there is much more to Taijiquan, regardless of which school. Yielding, neutralizing, sticking, and many other types of Jin are equally important. Reverse breathing is not necessary "in order to have faster responses and the ultimate body strength (Jin)" - it has to do with guiding the Qi. This develops coordination power which is critical to Fa Jin as well as developing listening, sticking, yielding, and related skills. The rotation of the dan tian refers to guiding and rotating the Qi in the lower dan tian (and beyond). Rotation of the dan tian is a basic and fundamental technique in Chen Style and is present in all Taijiquan though less emphasized in other schools until you get to the martial applications and push hands where it becomes very obvious. Here is an interesting description of reverse breathing and dan tian rotation by Tu Ky Lam. Here is a nice description of dan tian rotation by Martin Mellish, an experienced Chen stylist.

The "healing sounds" bring a whole other set of things into the equation. The have an effect on how you are using the accessory muscles of respiration(the muscles around the throat, neck, upper chest, even into the face and shoulders; as well as the abdominal muscles). Also, I think that the vibration of the sound waves resonates with different organ systems and creates a variety of internal effects. Certain sounds are linked to specific organs (elements, colors, and so on). I'll leave it to others to discuss this in more detail as it's not an area I'm particularly skilled at. If it is "making" you reverse breath I would guess that mostly is related to engagement of the accessory muscles of respiration, primarily the abdominal muscles. As far as rotation of the LDT, I don't know about that relative to the use of sounds or reverse breathing. I can volitionally control dan tian rotation irrespective of what type of breathing I'm using. I will admit that I've never played around with dan tian rotation combined with sounds. I'll try and see what happens.

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I am moving this thread to the support area.

I'm not a scholar of Daoism or Dao De Jing so take everything I say with a grain of salt. One thing that rings very true with me when I read translations of DDJ is that in describing "creation" it seems to attempt to describe "existence" instead. That is, there seems to be a sense of eliminating the distraction of time and cause-effect from the equation. I think there is a real sense of the these things occurring/existing now and always without implying time. Time seems to be a consequence of human thought and sensory apparatus more than an inherent characteristic of existence. We project our limited experience onto everything around us, time and cause-effect being part of this. Other creation myths seem to be a little less concerned with pointing this out or do so in more subtle ways. So to talk about "creation" vs "existence" already biases the question toward - what happened at some point in time. And that is probably an inaccurate way of phrasing the question.

Excellent article and thread. Though I take exception with this last part. Reorganizing civilization only happens through a process. "We" cannot "do" it. "It" does "us." So our best bet is to reorganize ourselves. To be the change we want to make in society. There is, has been, and will be NO political or religious solution to our problems. We are the problem.

Why is a particular characteristic of the human thought process, it is not a characteristic of existence otherwise. But now that I think of it, there is no experience of existence without awareness and it would seem there is no awareness without the 'why'? I started going somewhere with this but I've actually derailed my own comment... Oh well, carry on please.

Nice thread. It's good to see healthy discussion of something as basic and potentially misunderstood as breathing. Your experience parallels my own, Joe. I've been practicing for about 9 years. It's my opinion and practice that the diaphragm contracts during inhalation whether practicing normal or reverse abdominal breathing. During inhalation, the volume of the thoracic cavity increases, irrespective of the type of breathing. The difference is in what the abdominal cavity is doing. What reverse refers to is the action of the abdominal muscles (and pelvic muscles). In normal abdominal breathing, the abdominal and pelvic muscles facilitate the diaphragm's action by increasing the volume of the abdominal cavity which allows the diaphragm to work without much resistance. The chest expands, the abdomen expands, the pressure in the chest lowers, the pressure in the abdomen stays about the same (actually, it increases a little bit). In reverse abdominal breathing, the abdominal and pelvic muscles actually oppose the diaphragm's action by decreasing the volume of the abdominal cavity. This is the source of the compression (increased pressure in the abdominal cavity) that JB refers to. Perhaps this resistance does cause less downward movement of the diaphragm than in normal breathing, but it is still contracting and attempting to lower, actively. The chest expands, the abdomen contracts, and the intra-abdmonial pressure increases more than with NAB. The diaphragm can only do one of two things - contract (muscles fibers shorten, diaphragm actively lowers) or relax (muscle fibers lengthen, diaphragm passively raises). I guess what CD and dawei are implying is that the diagram passively raises as the intercostals actively contract. JB is correctly pointing out that this doesn't occur during reverse breathing as this is not breathing at all. If there is a relaxation (raising) of the primary motor of breathing while there is a contraction of the secondary system (intercostals), the net effect would be either no movement of air at all or possibly exhalation rather than inhalation. This makes no sense. So the diaphragm contracts (attempts to move down) during any inhalation, normal, reverse, or whatever else we could dream up. Although it's downward displacement would certainly be decreased by abdominal muscle contraction during RAB. My teacher is not one to use a lot of words. He teaches in a very old school fashion so much of this for me has developed over a long period of time as a result of internal experimentation, investigation, then correction and fine tuning by my teacher. Most of it is not made explicit in books and many teachers (and authors) misunderstand the process. JB correctly points out the importance of the accessory breathing apparatus which includes the ilio-psoas and don't forget the quadrates lumborum! There are some great anatomic and physiologic references to explore about the breathing apparatus - well worth the time of anyone serious about cultivation. Reverse breathing is a good way of working with guiding and circulating the Qi through creating a piston type feeling through the abdomen and lower dan tian. Once the energetic clarity has been refined, the same thing can be done using the Yi alone. The reverse breathing is a nice method to make and refine that connection between the physical and the energetic (between Jing, Qi, and Shen). But it's just a tool. It's not the endgame.

A r-hat Sorry, carry on...

I've been really enjoying Haruki Murakami's "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" - really creative and engaging read. i also read Kafka on the Shore. His stuff is existential and transformative. He seems to go through the process of change as he creates. He reminds me of Jodorowsky in that way. Also - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - brilliant fiction!

Working up the bass line on this masterpiece! James Jamerson is the man.