Maddie

That is why I meditate in the first place :-)

Hey Sun, um I wish to point this out politely and in no way want to appear rude but the simple fact that your view on this topic differs from mine by definition makes it a controversy http://www.thefreedictionary.com/controversy I appreciate your input though :-)

Yea I think people keep missing one vital point I was trying to make.I realize this topic is not new (ok one thing I didn't realize is how apparently controversial this topic is lol). The main point I'm trying to make is how clearly I was aware of having my energy drained! Yes I have other theories, but what is not theory is what I personally observed happening to me. It was clear as day, there was no ambiguity. I literally felt and sensed my energy being absorbed by my roommate. I've also pointed out several times that I know for a fact that she did not do this intentionally. What is also a fact is that after this happened I became extremely tired. As far as my other theories I'm not claiming those to be fact, but then again I do think they are pretty reasonable and well thought through theories. The statement that people do this unintentionally is important because I want to be very clear that I'm not blaming anyone of being evil or anything like that. Perhaps that's why this topic is controversial? Is my intention being misunderstood? The good news is that in the midst of this episode I think I also may have found the solution. Now that a little more time has passed since I did the Lung meditation I feel even more confident that this might be a reasonable solution to this problem. Just as an aside as to the Lung meditation it produced some interesting though unintended effects. The first thing I noticed was that feeling of being drained diminished. Then I went home after class and saw on the news the photo of this baby that is missing in Kansas. Upon seeing this I just started crying. Granted its a sad story, but I do not typically react this way, even to sad news. Then I remembered I had just done a Lung meditation. At present I am feeling quite a bit better and not as drained as I had been. It might sound like I'm jumping on some kind of paranoid vampire band wagon but from my point of few I see in retrospect that this had already been happening and does happen frequently but I was less aware of it than I am now. What changed? More meditation improving my perceptions I assume. I assume that this is why Vampire movies and shows are so popular. It's likely a conscious expression of what people are only subconsciously aware of. The only other reason I can fathom that this topic is not popular is the same reason talking about aliens is controversial. The idea of both is very disempowering. Though from my point of view knowledge is power and if you can recognize something then you can take steps to deal with it, not be afraid of it (thus my insight into the Lung meditation).

I'd like to hear them as well. What I'd also like to know is why this topic seems to generate so much more contention than pretty much any other topic I've been involved with here?

To be honest I don't really know much about what Drew's life style consists of by and large as I have never met him. As far as his forum messages go, um yea I'd say they tend to be pretty impressive, He seems to have one of the sharpest intellects on this forum and his posts are usually very interesting and highly informative. Yes, whats that have to do with this topic?

Wonderful choise of words, and interesting timing. So after my last post I thought "ok well now I have the problem identified (to the best of my knowledge), now what to do about it". So I thought how I would treat this if a patient was complaining of these symptoms. At about the same time (I was in class) the professor was discussing now the Lung is the most external organ and controls our wie (defesive qi). So I was like "oh if your having a problem from the exterior strengthen the lung". In contrast for the past couple days I had been doing a Spleen meditation as the Spleen makes your qi, but this was not helping. Then I realized that you can tonify your Spleen all you want, but if you Lung is weak its like pouring water in a barrle with holes. So upon hearing this, and being tired of being tired, I began to do the Lung meditaion right there in class (healing sound and inner smile) and with in minuets I began to feel better. After several minuets I began to feel human again lol. So I figured I'd found the right organ to work on, as having worked on the Spleen for two days straight had not really gotten me anywhere. So yea your comment about boundries is very timely and appropriate :-). Also it makes sense as I've noticed the only place I have any grey hairs is precicely along my metal element meridians... hmmm. But anyways, I could feel that after only a few mineuts of doing the Lung meditation that constant feeling of being drained constantly lessened significantly and I began to feel somewhat energetic again. :-)

Maybe because we are awake enough to realize whats happening. I suppose a vampire does not bother a sleeping victim. Though I don't think I'd use the word "fear" for how I feel about is as much as frustration. * This got me to thinking. I had wanted to move this discussion to this thread as its about vampires, but have noticed how the discussion on the sexual thread continues as well. Then I realized how relevant vampirism is to sexual energy. The vampire shows and movies are usually very sexual and now it is more clear as to why. The vampire myth is an analogy of people wanting to steal other people's energy, espeically their sexual energy as this is the base for other forms of energy in cultivation. Another jing product other than the notorious semen is blood. They "suck" the vicitims "bloood" (jing) jing being the source of sexual energy. Sexual energery, specifically/especially male sexual energy is yang jing. Vampires represent yin, (sleep during the day, avoid sun light, pale, dead) need/want yang as they are so overly yin.

Some patients suck energy, even our professors warned us about this, but basically its the same awareness to stop it. Fortunately patients don't follow you home, so its easier to exert that force of will to stop energy drain in the clinic. Yea I'll be interested to see how I solve this puzzle too haha. Um yea Drew's observations and insights have actually proven to be very useful. In regards to sitting in full lotus for 6 hours I don't cause my legs won't let me get in full lotus. Though I do sit in half lotus between 3-4 hours on average a day, and if I have extra free time then longer. Here is the crux of the issue. The more I do sitting meditaion for long periods of time like Drew for example, the more I see exactely what he has been talking about from a first hand experience point of view. It's clear to me now that he did not simply dream up this stuff out of thin air, but rather from first hand experience as I can attest since I am experiencing similar things now.

If you think about it the scientific method is a combination of hypothesis (making up theories) experiment, observation, conclusions (deducing a rationale) and publishing (telling stories).

You have Kung-fu and your Qigong forms. As I have not done Kung-fu before I was wondering if doing Kung-fu forms (at least some if done a certain way) could be considered a type of qigong? Do kung-fu forms build jing? help the meridians?

I definitely won't disagree that there isn't aspects of ego in all of this to be sorted out, but then again that should not come as a surprise considering the nature of ego and being in Samsara. The catch 22 is that one of the reasons I want to cultivate more is to convert more qi into shen and then with that raised shen to have deeper insight into the nature of ego lol. Though as far as the issue of energy loss I agree that there does exist the possibility to become paranoid about this. In fact at my school I know this one girl who is into Shamanism and she seems to think everyone and their dog drains her energy thus avoiding any self responsibility. On the other hand though we are taught at TCM school that energy loss is a real and common concern. We have one professor who comes from a long and respected lineage of TCM in Taiwan and he said that its very common for new TCM students and practitioners to be drained of qi and get very worn out. So apparently since this is in the TCM culture far and wide it must be more common than perhaps you realize? Granted I got into TCM because I want to help people and enjoy doing so. I'd just prefer to not be made into a zombie to do so lol. In regards to this not being a problem for the many qigong practitioners I was pondering that. That may explain all the monasteries, cave hermits, and the common trend of people into qigong to be some what reclusive. Previously I didn't really understand why it was that the more I cultivated the less I wanted to be out in society as much, but now it makes more sense to me based up this experience. I'll try to explain using this experience as an example. The first thing that happened in this scenario was that my roommate was absorbing my qi field. (In retrospect in the past I had felt this before but didn't understand what was going on, so that also might explain why some people don't complain of this specifically. In retrospect it makes more senses now, as many many hours of cultivation allowed me to perceive the details of what was occurring more clearly). So I'm sitting there with my eye's closed and I am aware of my qi field around me sort of like the earths electromagnetic field. I also perceive her drawing this qi field into herself. I'll skip all the other in between drama that I've already mentioned and just go straight to the part where I just decide to give her the energy. Ok so I let her take this energy. BAM now my external qi field is much weaker and greatly reduced, THEN I get tired. (Its important to note that I allowed her to take the energy first and I felt good, afterwards I became very tired). So I go to bed. Now the rest is what I think happened. This is put together from a combination of direct experience and theoretical knowledge of qigong and TCM. I believe that after she absorbed my qi field that in order to replace the lost qi my middle dan tien had to give up some of its qi as it is the house of qi (electromagnetic spectrum). Once my middle dan tien becomes depleted my lower dan tien has to convert more jing to qi thus depleting it of electrochemical energy (jing). I believe it was at this point that I felt tired. So everything goes through this chain reaction to establish rebalance but at a reduced state of energy all around. This would explain very well what I experienced the next day. I noticed that I felt far more acutely what other people were thinking and feeling (especially if it was not of good will). This I believe can be explained by the weakened qi field that was not able to have the same buffering effect. I also felt more bummed out and as the middle dan tien is the center of emotions this would make sense as well. Even more specifically the heart and lungs both reside within the sphere of the middle dan tien and as their emotions are joy and grief, less qi to power these emotions would result in that bummed out feeling (less joy, more grief). Finally I was bone tired as with less jing/physical vitality in the lower dan tien that would make sense. I actually observed this happening in school the other day. There is this one girl at my school who is very pretty but also aloof. I can't say for sure all the reasons she is aloof, but I can explain one of them. As she is very attractive she is able to meet a lot of her needs for male electromagnetic energy. See what happens is, naturally she gets a lot of attention from the guys. So guy X sees her and his heart desire/excitement becomes aroused/stimulated. As the heart lies with in the middle dan tien, and the middle dan tien being the house of qi this extra middle dan tien qi is released into the man's qi field. Since his attention and affection are upon this pretty girl his qi is her's for the taking. Once she feels this qi she may smile, flirt, wink ect.. to help her get that attention/affection/eye contact so that she can arouse his qi and thus absorb it. This is a lot of whats behind attraction and flirting though people don't realize it. Anyways so this girl holds a conversation with guy X until she has absorbed Y amount of his qi. Now his qi is depleted and he suddenly becomes less interesting to her, and she returns to her aloof state, leaving the guy to wonder why she suddenly shut him out and why he's more tired (if he notices). This is one reason girls are attracted to the bad boy types. Since the bad boy is more self absorbed than the nice guy sap (who is so easy to get qi from) she must work harder to turn his attentions and affections toward her so that she can win his qi. All of this effort takes more intention (yi) and with her yi fixated upon the bad more longer he fills her mind more. Anyway my intent is not to belabor a point, but to show how this event and my reactions to it can be explained in a semi-objective way, and to rule out this being completely a figment of my over active imagination. Which I can appreciate as I am quite skeptical of that girl at school I was mentioning who thinks everyone is draining her.

Yea I was re-reading my narrative and saw how it could be mistaken as a sexual thing. I should therefore specify that there was nothing sexual about this. Nothing physical happened and I had no desire for her, but I can see how the wording might have been somewhat ambiguous. Oildrops. Yea that is a good perspective to look at it through, and I had been considering later that even though I gave her my energy that perhaps I got merit in return? Part of what I was bummed out about was that feeling of loss and thinking that I had worked so hard to make my energy as such and then to loose it. But I remember Dawg on here a while back saying that as he was at the monastery in Thailand how he would be woken up at night as spirits would want to take some of his merit. His dharma teacher told him to let them take it because he would actually get more merit by giving it to them than he lost, so kind of win win. Jetsun and CT. As far as the "reality" of this energy vampirism as opposed to it being a story or script my mind is creating I'll put it this way. The first thing I became aware of was the energetic aspect of this scenario. As I had stated what happened first was that on Monday I was sitting on the couch with my roommate. I was resting with my eyes closed and suddenly I saw/felt/perceived my energy as a field around me (it kind of looked like those pictures you see of the earths magnetic field) and my roommate was absorbing it. I then exerted my will to stop it. On Tuesday she decided to hang out with me again as opposed to her bf which she never does these days, except this time she decides to up the ante and wine and dine me lol. So once again I become aware of several attempts on her part (unconsciously I'm sure) to again absorb my energy. The first few times I once again stop it, but then I start thinking that shes probably not going to quit until she gets what she wants (I figured if I didn't give it to her, she probably want to hang out again for a third day and probably take me to the circus or something lol). Anyways so I finally decide to just let her have the energy so she'll leave me alone haha. Well no sooner had I let her have it then I get very sleepy and go to bed. Sure enough the next day she made plans with her bf and I was yesterdays news haha. The draw back being that I was very tired all yesterday and even a little bummed out. Also at school I was very invisible whereas prior to that I was getting a lot of attention (yes I know ego is involved here, but at least I have awareness of that :-). Drew. So is my consolation prize from giving my rooommate my qi, getting jing from her? Though even if that is the case I use "consolation" tongue in cheek considering how much meditation I had to do last week to convert that qi from jing. Yea that part about Jim Nance sounded familiar to me as last week I was usually doing between 4-5 hours a day in half lotus. Granted even yesterday I did 3+ hours but it felt like I was back at square one, or at least square two, ugh.

This was a topic that until recently I didn't really pay that much attention to, or just figured it was an excuse people used to blame others for some of their problems and not face them, themselves. Ok and then I cultivated a little more and began to see that holy crap this stuff really happens lol. *I decided this would be a better thread to talk about this topic than the other one.

I'm in a bit of a quandary where I don't know what to do. So I cultivate a lot last week and suddenly everyone wants to hang out with me. My roommate hangs out with me two days in a row where as lately shes always with her bf. The first day she tries to take my energy but I stop it. So day two she comes back from round two. At this point I decide just to make her happy so there won't be a day three I just give her the energy. Well its day three and that part worked cause shes off with her bf again, but I've been so utterly exhausted today, and on top of that even feeling a little bummed out, which I had not been feeling for a while now. Last week when I was meditating so much I was in a really good mood. So from where I'm at it seems like you either cultivate a lot and then everyone wants your energy and won't leave you alone until they get it, or you give it to them and then your all tired, bummed out, and then ignored by everyone lol. Hmmm what on earth is the answer?

No she is attractive. My loss of energy is due to me allowing her to take my energy lol.

Yea of course the draw back is that today I've been EXTREMELY tired

When you mention "containing infinity" what does that mean?

I found those videos very interesting. I watched another one from that first woman who talked about the Christ myth. I actually used to be a seminary student, then I became a history student and that ruined that adventure for me as I began to study the history of Christianity lol. When I saw that the Christ myth was not original to Christianity but was much older and was found in many cultures it was quite eye opening. What I found interesting in her video was how the Christ myth arose from the solar worship cult. Now if I understand what your saying about Taoism is that its not polarized into either a purely male or female philosophy but is all about the balance of yin and yang as opposed to the dominance of either?

True granted if you do a meditation for a specific organ its going to be good for you all around. But the reason that I know I did a meditation specifically for my Spleen was because I use the healing sound meant for the spleen (hu), and the inner smile color of the spleen (yellow). I visualize the yellow energy going to the spleen, smiling at the spleen, and making the spleen sound on the exhale. There is one for each zang organ, and it is quite specific.

While my eye sight was never very bad, at about the point I started to do organ meditation I was having to wear glasses in class to see the black board. Then I started doing the Liver meditation and I no longer needed those glasses.

True, but TCM has had a lot more time to do trial and error :-). Although TCM has far fewer side effects than western medicine its a common misconception that herbal medicine is completely free from side effects. This is one reason we spend three years at the masters level learning the herbs, because if you don't know what your doing it is possible to hurt yourself.

After doing this mantra for a couple months now I personally feel that it has accelerated my cultivation practice.

Hey I know this wasn't the intent of your post, but I am curious as to what your experiences have been from doing fusion for a few months? What have you noticed?

Because I did the Spleen meditation and not the Heart meditation lol. The main question I had though was the role of the five elements in cultivation.

Wow. My roommate decided to stay home last night as opposed to going to her bf's lol. So the other day I became aware of her sucking my energy and I stopped it, that was Monday. Yesterday (Tuesday) I come back from clinic and lo and behold shes home, which lately is rather unusual cause her and her bf are pretty much glued to each other and shes always over there. So I come in and shes like "oh lets get a pizza and some wine" lol. So on the way back from the market where we got the wine I notice her trying to suck my energy again, so again I stop it. I should insert that shes not doing this consciously at all. Shes actually one of my best friends, and a very nice person. So we get home and are chilling on the couch eating pizza, drinking wine, watching tv and talking a little. I keep feeling her trying to suck my energy so I finally think to myself "I might as well just let her have some cause if I don't she'll probably stay home again tomorrow night anyways" lol. (I like my roommate, but lately I value my space, that's all). So I finally just let her take some of my energy, then I get tired and go to bed lol. I guess it worked cause she made plans to go out with her bf tonight haha. It was just weird. I had been meditating a LOT last week since it was the break between semesters. I guess she felt the energy I had built up and just really wanted some lol.