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stop trying to figure things out in your depressed state... do some physical activity that will MAKE you more yang!! Hit some free weights!!! It'll get the serotonnin and dopamine and whatever else going and you'll feel SO much better, and your thoughts will magically get more positive!! plus, taking ACTION is a yang trait!! Your obviously not happy but YOU gotta DO something to improve (other than thinking-thinking-thinking)

yea you gotta use a torch lighter and preferably a water pipe... cuz it's the vapor actually, not the smoke that gets you going... or that's what the dude at the head shop told me... and OH BOY that seemed to work... but I wouldn't recommend it... You have no idea...

Be VERY VERY CAREFUL with salvia. I tried some a couple years back and had a hellish experience. I don't even like to think about it... You won't know what it's like until it happens... sanity is THE MOST PRECIOUS thing. seriously be careful.

I also have serious problems with being "ungrounded" and I find it very helpful to practive an exercise called 'shaking'. just stand in horse stance (or just bend the knees as much as your comfortable and put feet shoulder-width apart)and bounce up and down... my feet feel embedded in the earth but the rest of me shakes up and down... It feels good letting my nuts dangle!! I also find doing traditional squats (with or without weights) very helpful... also running or anything else that involves the legs is good!! Of course stretching is fantastic... its amazing how much it clears up the blockages down there!!

I've heard people say that the jing is simply the hormones... but I've also heard people say that jing is the sperms themselves. This stuff isn't an exact science, just practice!!

I'm turning 31 within the month and have recently been experiencing some acne flairing up... wtf, right? I was wondering if any fellow tbums have the same problem and what exactly they do to treat it... What is the reason for it within a TCM or "chi related" perspective? I get them under the mouth around the chin and right under the nose... does that mean anything? Is it too much 'heat'? Or maybe I'm just not keeping the heat in my DanTien so it's spreading? Or is energy getting stuck in my head and not traveling down? I remember hearing that acne is a outward manifestation of low self-esteem (although that seems like the RESULT of acne, not the cause) Please advise, it really sucks!

Wow! Thank all you guys so much the replies!! That's why I love this site so much!! Another thing I should mention that might be playing a big role in this is that I am coming off of a long-time methadone maintenence treatment. I started it in 03 and am aggressively cutting back my dose (i was on 210mg and am currently at 17mg). It was bad before being on the methadone and got better while I was at "stable" doses. Now that I'm going lower on my dose I'm starting to get flare-ups again. The doctor said that taking methadone lowers ones testosterone substantially, so that might have something to do with it... Being on methadone definitley kills my sex-drive, and now that I'm lower on my dose the drive is back with a vengeance... but it's hard to get it fulfilled with pimples!! lol! Thanks again!! You guys rock!! _/\_

yeah... opiates are bad news.... between the 'chi-killing', the constipation, and the overall addiction; they suck majorly... To the other dude, benzo's are the same thing... your cultivation practive will come in handy when/if you decide to cut back on them... I'm sure your familiar with benzo "rebound"... it's no joke and can be as bad as heroin withdrawal... ask me how I know... but the fact that you practice can be helpful when dealing with the tapering effects... It'll mimick the effects of hardcore 'chi-action', but in a bad way really... Yea, drugs pretty much suck...

Look up 'BINAH' in the tree of life... (Kabbalah)

Dude! Your caught up in the depression/negative-thougth cycle... Because you're in a depressed state your not thinking is negative... and because your thinking is negative you're having trouble thinking those happy thougts that would increase the seratonnin in your brain. Please check out the book called "Feeling Good" that I recommended in another thread... I'll send you my copy if you pm me or buy one from amazon and have it shipped to you. Seriously!!!! You remind me of me 10 years ago except that I turned to drugs (a form of suicide really)and I would be dead except that I was lucky to have some people point me in the right direction, which is what I'm trying to do with you. Don't ponder all these big questions, what you need to do is ACTION!! Do something like go for a walk, run, play basketball, taichi, vigorous masterbation, ANYTHING... but DON'T sit around in your thoughts all day!!!! Do some activity to get the serotonnin going and THEN you'll find your viewpoint will be mystically more positive!!! Seriously man, don't give up on life... Let me know if you want that book... okay?

Hello again. I just wanted to report back since I had a shaktipat from Phore on Saturday... ...I told him I planned on getting a session Wednesday of Thursday of last week (around when this thread got started) and he said he'd gimme a lil juice over the next couple days to prepare me for the noon Saturday session. I immediately remember feeling more electric and throbbing all over (especially my head)... Now, on Saturday I... well, basically got high... knowing that I had paid for a session and that doing so would lesson the effectiveness of that service (In addition to all the other bad consequences... I've been very open about my struggles with addiction on this board)... so i didn't really feel much of ANYTHING on Saturday, honestly. But Sunday, my-oh-my... I was buzzing (not THAT kind of buzz, I mean i literally felt like I was plugged into a socket), my whole body was throbbing, and my feet/legs felt like ice water was surging through them (I had nerve damage to them 8 years ago, normally they don't feel like anything)and my abdomen was hot when i breathed into it... I meditate and am working my way through KAP1, so i know a little bit what chi/prana feels like, but this was like 5x's what I normally feel SO... I'd recommend his services to other people, based on my limited/novice opinion... and I apologize (to myself also) for squandering the experience on Saturday due to my own dumb-assedness... Thanks!!

12 step programs CAN be helpful... but there are some weirdos and nazis there... yea, pot is bad, but it's okay to smoke 2 packs of cigarettes and drink a pot of coffee in 8 minutes... lol They are dicks when it comes to methadone too... anyway... WHen it comes to smoking, try switching to cigars! You'll get that nicotine fix, but in a different manner. Smoking cigarettes is like a rush, but puffing on a stogie is a relaxing, chill event... totally different, and it can help you transition. You won't be smoking a stogie every five minutes like a cigarette... have it at the end of the day... you're lungs wont be as tore up (but your mouth and throat will still be at risk, obviously)

Wow... Those are wonderful quotes... I'm going to have to meditate on them deeply. thanks for posting that!

Dont be so down on yourself bro!! I'm sure you have a lot of wonderful things to experience on this earth yet. You'll die someday for sure, don't rush that day!! Check out a book called "Feeling Good" by David D Burns... It's about cognitive therapy. you are caught up in a cycle of negative thoughts/depression... You gotta break the cycle!!!! Just by getting up and doing something in the solution you become more YANG! You may not FEEL like it, but FEELINGS come and go... just DO something positive and then you'll FEEL more positive!!! ...seriously read that book though... NO EXCUSES!!!

Yeah, anyway... I signed up for Phores shaktipat... It'll be for this Saturday, I'll try to remember to come back and tell you guys what happened... Now, I've never had a shaktipat that i really could tell (like I'm doing KAP1 but I really am not sensetive enough to know when I'm getting the juice from those guys or if it just means I'm just doing the meditation right.) exactly when it was occuring... I feel a lot when I'm doing the skype sessions and meditating with the ustream vid's but it' hard to differentiate... So I'll let you guys know. You guys should read through Phores practice journal, he's really cruisin!!

Always thought about the 'big questions' of life... Wasn't happy with myself or the world... started on the long, painful road of addiction. Continually bumped my head against the wall, but never really gave up looking for solutions, read Dr. Morris's books which really opened my eyes to another way of doing things and slowly started to implement some of the stuff in my life. I found this site also by doing a search on him... and I've stuck around since then cuz i mostly liked what i saw! Making progress little by little from an almost hopeless situation/outlook...

Have you tried "Secret Smile"? ...it seems to be kind of a panacea... and it's fun! If your getting headaches when you bring energy up it seems like the energy is getting stuck in your head... Do you have the 'orbits' open? LIke can you bring the energy back down either the front or the back channel? I hope you find a solution!

Ok, i been hanging out with you guys here and having a good time learning and rapping about things... and i hear lots of talk about transmissions so, what exactly is it? is it: 1) just the forms... for example Master Cheeba Chiballs is going to give me a transmission (like some dvd's say "contains a transmission"), is it just the posture and movements? LIke oh snap, just move my arm down five inches and i got this transmission? 2) the freaky deaky energy you get... Like Master CHiballs is just emulating such JUICE that he breaks you off some and then you have some of his stuff going though your orbit? (although i hear people here say that it's really about energy passing through you, not hoarding or storing it) So i couldn't take some of thus said transission from Cheeba and put it in my TanTien until i need it? 3)OR, it's the guru's juice that passes through you but it really just clears my channels, thus making me more open to develop my own? Like water clearing a clog in a hose.. The h20 being the transmission, and me being the hose... so yea, i'd like to understand this as it seems you need a transmission to get somewhere with this right? It seems as i evaluate different systems they make it seem like you need to get your chi from somewhere, like you need to plug into the lineage or something... and i've heard people say that you can get chi from a dvd or even reading the forum, although what this says about my notion of reality... thanks yall... MUCH LOVE

why exactly?

Very well put. Good read. i'm sure some haters are going to come up with a retort though...

Personally, as an ex IV heroin addict whose in the program... I like the proposed changes for the simple fact that there are a lot of people that get turned off by the wording of the way it is now... As long as the underlying message is the same (which i believe dude did a good job of extracting the essence, from what little i know)then it can only be a good thing. A lot of people get turned off and leave because of all the god-talk and 12-step Nazis... I used to HATE going to meetings, and not just because i wanted to use... i thought it was total bullshit until i (luckily was desperate/lucky enough to) stick around long enough to have other people explain it a little different to me. I was like "oh THATS what that step means!! WHY didn't you guys just say it like that?" I could have easily died in the time when i started coming to meetings to when i started GETTING IT! Anything that makes it more accessible... HELL that's part of the reason why they do bowling nights and make coffee and shit, just to get the addicts in the room Even among people with LOTS of clean time there is still some individual interpretation of the existing steps with things like "oh, it says we 'came to make a decision' not 'we made a decision' or 'we HAD a spiritaul awakening' not 'WILL HAVE a spiritual awakening'... so people are going to get what they want out of regardless... The 12 steps are NOT EASY, they may be simple though... But i think that the Taoist breakdown is very good! KUDOS!!

if you feel like sharing: what do you mean by 'issues with your prostate and testes?' I'm assuming prior to doing the exercises right?

Maybe different than what your original message was... but Mr Crowley said that 11 was considered a homosexual number.

i thought i'd chip in because i go to NA meetings with regularity. I'm not really officially working the steps but i am slowly starting to come around to the whole program... The fact that i am on Methadone Maintenence is a tricky thing with regards to NA. I don't count clean days and only go over the 1st 3 steps until i'm successfully weened off (which is something i'm doing). I used to HATE meetings and i would come up with a whole slew of reasons why it was all bullshit... but in the end i found it highly therapuetic. I think what makes an addict and addict is the justifications that go through ones head; when we do this self-destructive behavior we have it all figured out so it really seems like a good idea... that's where the surrender thing comes in And i'm starting to realize the higher power thing as well, or at least a higher power that is "loving and caring and could restore me to sanity"

I think tattooes are ultimately a spiritual act... they're on until you die... They should resonate with you. I have a tattoo of Da Mo (from one of Dr. Yang's book) and a kalachakra i'm working on ... i have a couple others as well, a dragon, starting a tiger, and one thats the buddha with his consort on his lap... just get something that's going to mean something!! of course i'm a little biased cuz im learning how to tattoo.