Maddie

I'll agree with you to a point. Granted things that someone else has that are similar to your own issues will allow that person to trigger your stuff much more easily. On the other hand my professor at said that the problem of picking up your patients sick qi can be a real danger and was showing us ways to avoid it. His family has a TCM lineage that goes back generations and his highly respected in Taiwan. It's very common for me to hear students complaining of feeling what their patient feels after needling them. I even had on student ask me to help her needle a patient once. I had no idea what this patient was there for, I was just helping the other student. After we finished I felt lower abdominal pain in a way I had never felt before. I asked the student what her patient was there for and she said "menstrual cramps" lol, and I can assure you that's not something I've had haha. When I first started internship I always had to go take a nap after clinic cause I was so tired, and many other new interns have this same experience. When your new and don't know yet how to stop getting your qi drained off it makes you so tired.

She does not even realize consciously what she is doing at all, its just sort of instinct for her and a lot of people. Later that day she gave me a classic example of how she does it. So at the time she was draining off m qi I was helping her change her bike tire. It was kind of tricky and at one point we were contemplating taking it to the bike shop down the road, but we eventually got it. After that we went to lunch and as we were talking about the bike tire she was telling me that if we had been unable to get the tired changed that her next tactic would have been to go to the bike shop and play "cute and dumb" in hopes of getting the tired changed for free. I asked her why she would act dumb. She said because if she went in there being smart and serious and saying "I am having a hard time getting this bike tire on" then they would most likely view her neutrally and charge her. Then she said but if I go in there and say in a high voice "oh can you please help me I don't have any idea what I'm doing" and acting like a dumb bimbo that they would want to run to the rescue lol. Now on my end this was VERY enlightening. When she said it the first time I felt nothing in particular. The second time she said it I could actually feel my "male hero empathy" aroused and my qi drained off by her for the few seconds she was talking that way lol.

One of my TCM professors held the belief that there are no accidents. He had mentioned how often angry people will just happen to stub their big toe where the first point on the Liver channel is (ying spring) as their subconscious attempts to vent out excess heat from the liver. That is just one example.

that made me laugh so hard

I found this interesting article about the Po http://taoofnourishment.blogspot.com/2011/09/po-corporeal-soul.html and this too http://www.fivespirits.com/po.php I had a great Lung/Metal element meditation today and it made me feel super good, which is quite a relief after having a rather rough week of Kundalini symptoms. Anyways the reason I wanted to comment on this is because the most common diagnosis in TCM for depression is the Liver. While it is true that the liver can and does cause a lot of depression I think its important to differentiate the various types of depression, as the word is a western one and can be somewhat ambiguous. So let's consider a few different types of sensations that are called "depression" in the west. So you have the Liver/wood Hun type of depression for sure. I consider this kind of depression to be the more yang type of depression. If you break it down to its "aggregates" or component parts you will find a mixture of stress, anger, frustration, vengeance, and unfairness. Granted its easy to see how these feelings can definitely make someone feel bad. Since the Liver is responsible for our plans, and decisions if any of those don't work out like we would have hoped we get stressed. Since the liver is also in charge of problem solving, if it becomes overwhelmed people tend to feel "hopeless" as they can no longer see a solution to their problems (the problem solving aspect of the liver has broken down). On the other hand this is another type of depression that is more yin in nature and that is Lung/Metal Po depression. This kind of depression has a more "empty" feel to it than the Liver/wood Hun type depression. The emotion of the Lung/Metal Po is grief, loss and longing. An obvious example of this would be mourning the death of a loved one. You have lost this person who was previously in your life and resistance to letting go causes grief. Just in the way the Liver is responsible for planning, decision making and problem solving, the Lung is responsible for taking in what is needed (oxygen) and letting go what does not serve us (CO2). We can see this function in the other metal element organ the Large Intestine as well. It takes in what the body needs (water) and releases what we do not need in the form of solid waste. One way then of viewing Metal type grief would be as emotional constipation. Not being able to let go of grief and things that no longer serve us. On the flip side the virtues of the Lung/Metal Po are Dignity and Respect. If our metal element is strong then we feel very good about ourselves and we feel go about others. If our metal element is weak then we lack these feelings of dignity and respect for both ourselves and others. A few other interesting aspects about the Po/Metal/Lung is that it relates to boundaries. What you let in and what you keep out (O2 vs CO2) (water vs solid waste). It also governs the skin and wei qi (defensive qi) so we can see how there is another example of boundaries there too. The Po is our instinctual animal nature so all things relating to such things are contained in the Po. Being that it is the instinctual part of our animal nature it represents the more primitive and automatic parts of our brain such as the limbic system. The limbic is the part of our brain that relates to emotions and smell. (This is why aroma therapy is effective in treating emotions). The Po is also very much about feeling and touch and we can again see this in its governing relationship to the skin. From a more personal experience point of view, I realized earlier today that after doing the Lung meditation that not only did I feel much better and less bummed out from this week of Kundalini hell, but that this great feeling of "chaos" was replaced by a very nice feeling of "order" which is also a metal aspect.

You had a very profound insight, that's great! Like Ajahn Brahm says all the time about figuring out not only what you know but finding out who is the knower lol.

I watched that other Matrix video the other day, and last night I watched the Matrix again haha. It was very interesting to watch it after having seen that talk on it.

I used to make my ex-gf speak to god often

I put a lot of thought into what you said, and your response did actually cause me to think deeply for an extended amount of time, so for that I am grateful. Here is my analysis of what you stated. It would seem to me that the ego if you define it as all the various aspects of you that cause you to identify yourself as a separate, constant self would actually be that thing with in us that wants to sustain and perpetuate itself and thus it would stand to reason that the ego's greatest fear and its greatest resistance would be to the end of itself. Naturally once the ego is totally eliminated there would be nothing to regret this loss of itself, but it is reasonable to assume that until final eradication, the ego would protest quite forcefully any circumstances that would act to lessen it, as self perpetuation and promotion is the very nature of the ego in the first place. I found your view on separateness interesting but I think I'll flip it on its head. It would seem ego is that part of us that views itself as a separate and constant self. This being the case with the lessening of ego would then come a greater sense of contentedness and actually a lessening of the sense of separateness. Since therefore non-separateness is an anti-ego element it stands to reason that the reduction of the sense of separateness would agitate ego. This post by Dragonsnectar I have found to be very interesting and insightful. Basically the common theme about the function of Kundalini is freeing the chakras from their various bondages. The detail of this schematic seems to be; based upon my subjective observation of this experience quite accurate. It feels like everything that has been happening to me since the initial Kundalini even on Sunday has been a letting go of several of these various issues. Interestingly enough as Kundalini seems to be working its way through my chakras, when it reaches a specific chakra not only do I seem to experience internally the subjective results of that chakra being dealt with, but also my objective external reality seems to reflect what ever particular chakra is being dealt with at the time. In my opinion the sense of loss feels more like the loss of long held world views that are dissolving. It reminds me of the Matrix and Neo's initial shock at realizing the truth and understanding that for his whole life that everything he had thought to be true was a facade. This very much describes how this experience feels. Yes I want to see things as they really are, but at the same time letting go of long held onto perspectives on life is definitely a shock and our systems respond to any type of shock with stress.

Hey XiaoYao ... your name makes me think of Xiao Yao Wan haha. Anyways I wish I could offer more info for you, but I do know what you mean about acupuncture text books being somewhat limited on this topic. I have read some of Jerry Johnson's Medical Qigong books as our library has all the volumes and they are interesting. It was from him that I also heard of the taiji pole. I've not heard ot the specific technique that your are mentioning though, but I have noticed something similar in practice. My main approach to things is a Buddhist one, but its interesting practicing Buddhist meditation with knowledge of TCM because most Buddhists I know and have met don't really know much about it. But anyways I've observed constantly that as I sit in meditation that almost every single time that I feel the qi rise to my upper dan tien and my ears clog up and I feel sensation in the GB12 and SJ 17-18 area as well as a popping feeling in the bridge of my nose just under Yintang.

This does not strike me to be the case with Theravada at all, Ajahn Braham seems to be very much into waking up and seeing things as they actually are.

Kundalini diminishing the ego is a funny paradox. I want my ego to be lessened but what I'm discovering as the whole Kundalini hell week continues is that the ego very much does not want to be diminished and as it is, there comes this great feeling of loss and nothingness. I think that is what is so painful about Kundalini, the feeling of loss, even though letting go is what you are aiming for.... weird.

I looked at it more as an exchange as she was already beginning to draw off my qi as she tends to, but I had not considered the Kundalini aspect of it . Good point I would not want to trigger this in her, especially as she is mundane and would have no idea what's going on and I'd feel very bad if I drove her looney.

Hey Drew I decided to give something you had mentioned a try to day and so far it seems to have worked well. So what happened is I was hanging out with my roommate today for a while. I feel her starting to suck up my qi and at first I stop it. Then I remembered you saying how you would let a female have your qi and you would draw in her jing through your perineum (if I remember correctly). So I decided to give this method a shot. So I just go ahead and let her draw the qi from me while this is going on I draw in jing from her. Now nothing dramatic happened as in your experiences but I noticed that after a little while that both of us seemed to have this super relaxed look to us lol. I feel a little tired but not nearly to the extent that I did in the past when she would suck up my qi. As she is young and has never had children she had a lot of jing so it was relatively easy to take it in. I didn't feel any sort of what I'd call an orgasmic feeling but I just feel super chill super relaxed, very nice. The only catch seems to be that I feel some of her emotional issues from it, but since I feel so relaxed I don't really care that much haha. Once I get back from clinic in the evening I plan on meditating anyways so I'll just deal with that then. So drawing in her jing made me feel very relaxed and judging from her expression and reading her energy I could tell that she was feeling good as well but I think it got her a little hot and bothered because I first felt her start to think of her bf specifically that she wanted sex from him now that she was turned on, and then a few seconds later she said "I need to go to my bf's" lol with a sense of urgency I rarely hear from her haha. It kind of reminds me of the times you said some guy would suck up your energy and then have to go to the bathroom haha.

I reckon that's why I'm studying medicine and not going to rely on my comedian skills for a career lol.

I simply have to ask after the week I've been having why anyone would intentionally want to mess with Kundalini lol?

I don't know if this will help you, but it did help me so I'll give it a shot. In Buddhist cosmology there are six realms of existence. The human realm (ours) is the third one down. At the top are the gods, and at the bottom are the hells, and we are somewhere in the middle. All of these realms though exist in Samsara and thus experience dissatisfaction and thus are subject to the wheel of karma. Being that the human realm lies somewhere in the middle of Samsara this means that if you're here you have a mixture of good and bad karma that in the big picture is more or less equal. You have enough good karma to not be in hell, and enough bad karma to not be in heaven. Also the fact that we are in Samsara in the first place is indicative of the four noble truths that life is suffering and suffering is caused by desire. So what I'm trying to say in all this rambling is that we don't live in a perfect world, and this world will never be perfect. Of course if we can do some good in the world around us we should (gets you more good karma) but we are in Samsara and that is the nature of things. Thus as the Buddha said the only real and permanent solution is to get out of Samsara all together, and that is why we have the eight fold path.

Actually I was hoping to not experience it at all lol. Ajahn Brahm was interviewed one time about Kundalini and he said that in the hundreds of people he has taught meditation to, no one has had a Kundalini experience yet they consistently attain to very high level meditative states. I was not doing any sort of Kundalini practice, it just sort of happened spontaneously, but if I could have somehow avoided it I would have as this week has been very uncomfortable. But I'm glad you like my posts, even if that is my ego speaking haha.

Its's simple (in theory) really. Thousands of Buddhist monks have been doing it for thousands of years. They meditate a lot, end of story. I know it might sound too simple, but in my personal experience I've seen it work for me as well. Retention alone will just drive you nuts as you've already noticed. You have to change that sexual fluid into something more useful which is qi, and the way you do that is by spending a lot of time doing simple mindfulness meditation. How it works is that by doing mindfulness meditation (Samatha) you create emptiness with in your mind. Once you have achieved some emptiness or stillness the process of sex fluids to jing to qi to shen begins. First it will fill up your lower dan tien with jing, then your middle with qi, and then your upper with shen. So emptiness is the key, which is why it take a lot of meditation. If you get the opposite of emptiness which is form in your mind, specifically clinging and craving to form, and in this case specifically the female form the qi will always follow the yi or the intention. So if your mind is on any topic of sexuality then your qi will follow suit and turn into sex fluid. Once you have a lot of sexual fluid accumulated this will stimulate nerves down in your nether regions which will then send a signal up to your brain causing you to feel all that discomfort that you were mentioning. So the key is to convert the sex fluid not just store it, and the way you do that is to meditate a lot and keep your mind empty (which is where the meditation comes in).

I've found myself spontaneously laughing during meditation now as I begin to get more insight into ego and see just how ridiculous it can be, its like its a big cosmic joke and I'm starting to get the joke haha. (or is that part of the joke to?) Oh I thought you had said you had too much yang? Still its a good idea to cultivate yin while you cultivate yang as yin gives rise to yang and of course helps to balance it.

I was watching some smokers talk about free will, I just smiled to myself

I hate it when I'm busy and get a knock at the door and its more atheist missionaries wanting to tell me about nothing.

Hmmm a few days ago when this whole Kundalaini pain the arse experience started I mentioned that one of the symptoms I was having was nausea. I find Ginger to be very effective when ever I feel nausea though.

I'd not heard he was assassinated but it used to amuse me to no end the things he'd say to George W haha.

He was assassinated?