King Kabalabhati

The Great Dao sez: Love your body

OK.. Good thing I haven't done Qigong for so many years yet.. Is it really healthy to try not to let emotions release? I mean, I'm not talking about acting on them. Lately it's been some sadness I've felt due to changing life situation. Earlier it was anger and I felt energized by it, so no not tired.

Is there any benefit/harm from spiraling the dantien? I mean, I seem to have made a habit out of "stirring" it while doing something else like driving, especially when I have emotions bubbling up. Now after reading this thread I've started more seriously concentrating on building the dantien. I sit at least half an hour in full lotus every day, belly breathing, and also meditate it before going to sleep. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

"Life is yoga", said one elder yogi I know. To me this means that everyday situations can be very cultivating. Children can show us most of our own faults in plain and simple forms, all the selfishness, short-sightedness, impatience, grasping onto things, resisting growth and changes, prejudice, doubtfulness, aggression, soaking up bad influence... All of that shit is very plain to see in children because they don't know how (or why) to camouflage it. So they are teachers in that respect. Then they also put you in a situation where maintaining your health and energy levels is mandatory since you won't stay sane otherwise. I know it can batter your ego to "lose" some of your life, meaning that you're forced to give up some ambitions because of children. I'm experiencing it right now. It's sometimes a very profound feeling of having to let go. I try not to make the children my pride, nor to determine their destiny too much, in short, not to tie them to my ego. They have their own destiny and it's not necessarily something I would hope for though it can be. It's always a challenge to keep yourself authentic towards your feelings. With children it's even more so, with all the social programming on how parents are supposed to feel about things concerning the kids and the kids themselves. There's a lot of fear and shame-based response in our culture, sometimes it's even called love.

I used to smoke and do certain exercises like Pranayama walking. That's where I got my first taste of the Kundalini power, a thick "lightning" struck from my tailbone to my head. It was a good experience because it made me more certain that there's greater powers in me than I had previously felt. Then after I started with Tao Yin and the Inner Smile, I became friends with my liver who told me to stop smoking and immediately after that I quit. It was very easy though I'd been smoking on a daily basis for over 10 years. When I smoked, I had more motivation to meditate. It seemed much more tempting to fall into the inner space, and sometimes I felt the energy flow in the MO so strong as if it could have cracked my skull. I'm not sure if those were false experiences caused by being high. I think all in all it was a meaningful stage of my practice but now I'm comfortable without it. I still need develop that kind of motivation for sitting down though. BTW freeform, are you sure it's yin by nature? At least it's heating in the liver and in ayurvedic terms it raises the pitta, which governs fire.

I sing reggae music yep, for (modest) living.. Well sometimes I do an odd sound design job too. The good thing is I spend minimal time on working.. like maybe 5-10 hours a week, sometimes even 20 when I have to travel more

I've said this before but Tao Yin. It's lying down/sitting type of qigong. Easy as it gets, since there's no issues of finding the correct standing position, for which (as I've understood from this forum) a teacher is probably a must. edit: sorry, Tao Yin does include visualisations though you can probably benefit from the exercises and stretches without it. Pranayama breathing is another very simple thing.

You probably tried the breath of fire already? Where you push air out with your belly with some force and very quickly, then allow inhalation to happen just as quick, then push again, repeating about 30 times or more per round. It's a very basic pranayama breathing exercise. Could be something more you need to dispel that cold though, maybe a chi kung doctor.

I KNEW there had to be a natural taoist sex change

Living proof.. Travelling & teaching are not lightweight work. I get somehow depleted from even a short flight, and I'm still young. Who's for another Mantak debate? Ayurveda doesn't consider massaging the penis the same as masturbation, as long as the intention is to strengthen the organ and not to discharge.

As if Chia was the only one talking about "sharpening the spear"... Ayurvedic medicine also talks about improving sexual capabilities through similar techniques, along with many Tao/Kundalini/Tantra teachers I've heard of. This is not meant to argue about whether these techniques are beneficial or "real cultivation". That I don't know for sure and I doubt if you do either. But I totally agree about sexual imagination. It is not beneficial to fantasize sexually, but to stay in the reality.

Coming from a more biblical background, I want to use the tools the Dao gives me to expand my potential for love, compassion and efficiency in the daily toils and trials of life. If enlightenment or immortality becomes part of this path later on, so be it, but these things are not ambitions of mine. I do not condemn such ambitions though, if its your thing then go for it! Oh yeah, enjoyment and pleasure seem to come with cultivating so I receive them gratefully

I love that story. I never want to overlook a drunkard's state of happiness as opposed to a yogi's state of happiness, what do I really know?

I dont drink nor smoke, but I see it a bit black&white to say that if someone is using alcohol moderately to "loosen up" that they would NEED it as a crutch.. If it's available you can do it every now and then but should be brutally honest to whether the amounts and frequency are excessive or not and what the level of dependency is.

Haha, this guy is not giving much hope for our sexual cultivation.. Hard words, but of course they could be correct.

This depends on your body type and the climate you live in. If you're a robust or at least medium built type and have tendency towards a lot of heat or excess weight, then raw food is generally very good for you. I'm rather skinny/light and tend to get cold easily, especially in the climate and the house I live in. So cooked warming (veggie) foods are the way to go. I tried a raw food diet and it made me cold and airy in a unpleasant way. I think if coupled with energy work this would make me fly away with the wind.. I hadn't thought of the possibility to eat raw meat products.. Just make sure you do something to get rid of the parasites

I've noticed a huge increase in my interest (and available energy) towards physical conditioning after I started with Dao Yin and quit with my wife Oh yeah, my muscles don't seem to get sore very easy nowadays.

This is interesting since the Chia way is the way I come. How will I be certain it's not just my imagination? Well, I'm certain. Because it often happens that without thinking about it, doing something like driving or typing, I suddenly become aware of the sensation of warm pressure rising up the spine and moving along the orbit. If it's just the mind, I'm fooling myself very well I've also had no problems with this. Maybe the pranayama exercices I did for a couple of years before starting with MO have built my dantien power?

If your intention is to increase well-being and loving capacity for the benefit of everyone around you instead of personal power, and you also have other, meaningful and grounding things in life to work on I think it's quite safe to cultivate, even without a teacher. But to go into it intensely for the sake of experiences, super rapid progress or "far out" powers is something I wouldn't recommend, even with a teacher... Teachers face the same problem as students, their pride or lack of sensitivity may blind them from being realistic with the limitations a student has for their rate of progress. It's good to be honest with yourself when studying from books: "Is this exercise really simple enough for me to understand? How do I feel when doing it?" And if problems arise, to consult a teacher before continuing.

Thank u

Freeform, greetings from the (ex-) wife!! I've already noticed some of the things that you speak of. When we start to talk about her lover or other possible relationships I still occasionally notice a slight feeling of discomfort rising. That's when its quite easy to change the way the emotion is taking, when its not yet blossomed as a full blown feeling. This is good stuff keep it flowing FF

As I said, we're no longer husband and wife, but very good friends. So we're free to explore the world. In fact I am at this moment at this one girl's place I am content with the situation. As I look at it now, everything went as it was supposed to. I personally needed the kind of emotional cleansing and the lessons this crisis brought me. It's time to live on and grow up..

The thing is, now that I understand some things about emotions, I no longer think the words need to be justified because ANY MEANS (excluding physical violence) of bringing up what's hidden is necessary for healing. Both of us need to be aware of what's going on of course and I don't accept to bear any guilt for what I say. What I feel is what I feel, if there's a person who wants to be on the deeper level with me then she must accept these feelings and let me express them in order to clear them up. I'm not at the yogic level of transforming emotions without acting on them and it would be foolish to pretend to be. Angry words make me familiar with what's inside. Not any person could take my bitter wrath and still be friends, this tells a lot about the quality of relationship we share with her. Again we feel we've made a step forward, we both seem to understand now what the other has gone through and why we've been acting the way we've been.

The week went by, the wife was in town studying, I was at home with kids, everything went smoothly and I had no emotional issues, just good feeling and frequent bliss. Then yesterday I went to meet her in town, we went shopping and for dinner etc. And at one point I had this powerful need to get really hard on her and especially her lover. So I did. I called him all the ugly names I could think of and also told her how stupid I thought they were acting how they did. It was very childish, swearing and cursing but somehow I felt it necessary. When we got home I started again and kind of wanted myself to hear what kind of feelings I was hiding inside. My liver was on fire again. She told me it was very strange to hear me talking mean like that and that this angry, bitter side of me had sometimes surfaced during our years together. This time I just let it all loose and I also told her that I need to say this, I need to clear out these things. Last night I was physically resting but my consciousness didn't go out at all. I'm feeling shaken but somehow cleansed, she didn't seem to take this too hard and we're still friends. Now I know this might be a longer process than I thought. I think my manhood and self-esteem has been brutalized by this marriage from the start, I've been filling up with this "eunuch" kind of anger and the fact that she went with someone else was the thing that popped the cork, so to speak. This of course means her womanhood has received the same kind of treatment over the years, though she's already had some sexual healing to lift up her spirits. It's quite possible that's also what I'm going to need for my own rebuilding process. At least I'm gonna need a lot of time and healing sounds.

Damn, anythime I see this thread makes me want to brew some coffee.. Not doing it this early though, it's 8 am here.