Maddie

Hmmm interesting. Did things get intense when you were doing lots of healing sounds?

I was reading something interesting about the Hun and Po. One comparison said that the Hun was related to the light side of the moon and the Po the dark side of the moon. This is interesting because I had noticed over the past several months that on the night of a full moon I felt a lot of irrational intense emotions. The Po is said to relate to our animal nature, and die with the body.

So its been a while since I last did a lot of intense organ meditation and I had forgotten how intense it could be. So for the past couple days I've been working on my liver using the healing sound and the inner smile and man all sorts of stuff has been happening! Its like all these intense emotions and memories from the past, particularly any that had been conflict or stress related are just coming up by the bucket load. I've found myself remembering very vividly past unpleasant memories and feeling what I felt at the time that those events happened. I'm glad I've done this before or it would really be freaking me out, but this is the same sort of thing that has happened in the past every times I've done this. But why do it? cause after those few intense days of unpleasant feelings the long term issues get resolved and patterns that had been long standing fade away. So yea that's the reason I'm doing this, not because I'm masochistic lol. Just curious if anyone else does this kind of meditation? *edit: I was further thinking about the discussion last week regarding the Liver/hun/ethereal soul being the subconscious that survives death and gives rise to the new individual that is reborn. With this being the case I began to think about how then working on the Liver could be so intense as it carries with in it all the subconscious tendencies and memories of not just this life time but countless past lives as well. So therefore any deeply entrenched habits, traits, and patterns would be located here. No wonder working on the Liver is such a difficult thing to do.

True, but I was referring to a more psycho/emotional aspect of it.

Still finding the Liver to be very relevant to work on today, same type of stuff as yesterday.

Yes its in solitude that my qi isn't being drained away by the public, so thus it increases.

Ideally qi cultivation leads to greater wisdom, so I'd like to think that if I was going to a death brawl with a Tiger I'd remember to bring a gun lol

I'd just say keep at it for a while and eventually you'll feel it. Our McDonald's culture of today is very different from how it was back in the day when they would train lol. It's taking me some time to shift out of the McDonald's "everything has to be instant" mentality as well.

No doubt, the existence of monasteries becomes more obvious to me daily haha, well that and the infamous Taoist hermit in the cave lol. As I was reading your last post it caused me to piece together today's chain of events. So before school I had a wonderful two hour meditation which seemed to go by very fast, I was so blissed out. It was half Samatha and half Vipassana with a nice qigong organ session at the end to tidy it all up. So I head off to class feeling lovely. So I sit down at one of the tables before class starts and one of those girls who I mentioned talk to me a lot at the clinic comes in and puts her hand on my back and then sits down next to me. At this point I'm thinking nothing about it. Then class starts and she keeps constantly looking at my notes and asking me about something she missed that the professor said. Gradually I notice myself tensing up lol. By the end of class I'm so tense it hurts but I can't relax lol. But yea that stuff you posted about the hormones was very interesting cause it did feel like I was in that fight or flight mode but there was absolutely no obvious reason to be so. It wasn't until I got home and did that liver meditation that I mentioned that I began to feel myself start to relax again. Also an interesting insight about the liver wanting to deconvert the heart energy, like a reverse generating cycle. So I think doing the liver meditation helped get the generating cycle going in the right direction again. One other thing I did that seemed to help was I did a few of the "cold draws" that Chia talks about drawing the jing from the testes up the back of the MCO to the crown. It seemed to help me to relax a little too. Oh one last thing (I reread your post) and you talked about stressed people around us drawing our energy down. Well that girl that sat next to me after class as we were walking out was telling me how stressed out she had been lately haha. So good call!

Yea heart is what I'd been working on the past couple days before liver. I was doing heart to help me balance out desire and craving but what I noticed was as the heart craving and grasping began to lessen that is when I noticed the tension first begin. Then after some tension while doing heart meditation it would progress to anger cause as I was too see liver seemed to get first very angry and then depressed as I was letting heart desire go. I mean it was intense. At one point it got so bad that I closed my eyes and I had this mental image of an angry ape in a cage screaming and thrashing about haha. Another funny thing that I noticed while working on liver is that it took me two hours to decide what to have for dinner haha, and its the wood element that is responsible for decision making and planning. I also found myself thinking "I should really get back into jujitsu" haha as if something in me wanted to fight. So it seems that all these archetypal liver attributes are really raising their head as I work on this. Thinking back to that discussion a few days ago about the liver/hun/ethereal soul being the subconscious and the heart/shen being the conscious, I'm wondering if my subconscious is protesting me removing one of its favorite attachments (being the heart desire)?

Interesting. It seems that one of the places I felt the most tension was in my diaphragm area, and it was like while I was in class it was impossible to relax, even though I was aware of it being tense. The funny thing is about these memories and feelings coming up is that most of them are some how conflict related which I guess makes sense as it was a liver meditation I did. I suppose that this also explains some of the tension that I'm feeling as well. Though I'm assuming the goal from a Taoist perspective the big (why do this in the first place) would be to let this stuff go so that I can get closer to the stillness that is the Tao?

Hmmm well what ever the reason this led to something else interesting. So to help myself relax a bit I did an hours long liver meditation. It felt like bliss while I was doing it. Odd thing is, is that afterwards I've been super reminiscent and remembering old memories and feeling old feelings. I'd had this happen in the past when I'd do an organ meditation for a good length of time. I'm assuming its old stuck qi coming out.

Yea its on the news here as well. very sad, very messed up

The mentioning of the parasympathetic nervous system and muscles got me to wondering about something. So a couple weeks ago I was mentioning how I'd go out to school and feel drained. This week I've been noticing that I don't feel drained when I go out, but what I do notice is that the entire time I'm out in public my whole body feels tense even though I can't think of anything that's bothering me. I'm back home now and I can already feel my body loosening up. Is this some kind of subconscious reaction to constrict my channels to make it harder to loose my qi to people while at school?

To find truth first one must be in a state of mind to be able to look at it. I don't usually make statements like this publicly but from just reading what you write I can feel the unsettled mania that you are experiencing, and its very uncomfortable and unpleasant. There is a good herbal formula in TCM called Suan Zao Ren http://www.activeherb.com/chineseherbs/suanzaoren.shtml. I highly recommend you get this and take it. This will help to settle your heart shen/mind/spirit so first of all you don't feel so crummy, and second once that is settled pondering who you are will be way easier. Hope that helps.

I'll get you started then. You are not a tree nor a kangaroo

Perhaps since you admittedly don't know who you are, then perhaps it would be easier to begin with something you do know; who are you NOT? And as Sherlock Holmes would say once you have determined everything that you are not then only thing remaining no matter how improbable is who you are.

I've found that Samatha seems to cause all the dust to settle and then I get to see another layer of crap that I didn't know existed lol.

Yea I can see how. Though I did the inner smile and healing sound meditation this morning which helped me to relax to a great deal. Granted I realize its a Taoist practice but it just further convinces me how wonderful Buddhism and Taoism go together

Hey Ant I'm a TCM student at the moment, and yes Kidney yin def is definitely related to adrenal fatigue, so its good to hear your taking herbs for that! As you said Chia seeds are not a traditionally Chinese thing so you have to apply the principles as you seem to have done to sort of figure it out. You are correct in stating that since they are black this does relate to the kidney. Also the fact that they are seeds tends to suggest a kidney relation as well. You seem to have a good insight into this.

Does anyone else get what I'll call "spiritual stress"? As in your not stressed about your career or the stuff most people in the world stress about so you don't even know who to talk to about it that would understand. But rather do you stress about wanting to attain enlightenment and not be reborn and you worry that if you are reborn the next time around you might be born some moron and loose all the progress you've made this time around?

It's in both.

All these things you say are interesting to ponder but as a good history student I'd always remember when I made a statement in a paper "where are your sources" lol. So yea I do realize that after WW2 that many German scientists were taken by both the US and the Soviets to advance their space programs due to the Nazi's advanced V-2 missile technology. But all I'm asking for is if one is going to make a statement such as "NASA" is run by Nazi's fine, but what are your sources that back it up?

I'd recommend seeing an acupuncturist, as acupuncture and herbs are a great way to treat energetic imbalances that can cause insomnia.

Once upon a time I had been a seminary student. Well fast forward a few years and when my mom found out that I was no longer a Christian aside from having a panic induced cow, she asked me to tell her what was wrong with the bible. Since I didn't want to give a week long exhortation I used as an example that far from condemning slavery that the bible actually regulated it. When my mom tried to tell me that no "real" Christians ever thought slavery was ok I mentioned that in the pre-civil war south as the issue was heating up ministers would make entire sermons to proclaim how and why slavery was biblical. They didn't just pull opinions our of their arse, they used scriptural arguments from the bible, and they had loads of them. Oh I don't want to "religion bash" but man I want my spiritual guide book to be more enlightened than me, not less lol.