Maddie

That's also the custom with the Eskimos in Alaska. :-)

Yea I realize that. My question is what is it used for?

Ok so for those in the know of Taoist cosmetology I'm trying to figure out how to reach the Tao. Now since the five elements came after yin and yang, and yin and yang came after tai chi, and wuji is balancing the five elements with in yourself an important step on the path to Tao? I just did a spleen/earth meditation that I had not done for a while, it was really nice :-)

So what exactly is it that your trying to accomplish with Lucid dreaming?

I believe that religious Taoism is first century so that is correct. Though Philosophical is what came long before that. That's the distinction ;-)

Neanderthals are prehistory as well, but they still existed lol. That's why we have the fields of anthropology and archaeology to pick up where history leaves off.

My TCM professor was explaining how the "Spleen" in TCM denotes the entire digestive system in Western medicine. The Spleen is the foundation of our post-natal or acquired qi. It takes the essence or jing of the food we eat and sends it to be mixed with the air jing from the lungs to make our qi. It also is in charge of keeping blood in the vessels, the organs in their place, and the condition of our muscular system. Though to me the part about the Spleen I'm really interested in is its mental/emotional aspects. It houses the "Yi" or our intellect. Ideally if our Spleen is working well we can think clearly, learn easily, and apply our thoughts to the real world (earth being its element). If our Spleens get weak we can have a tendency to worry, fret, and have a hard time learning and concentrating. Also as it is the earth element often people with weak Spleens have a difficult time being "down to earth".

I don't believe that is entirely correct as Taoisms roots go back further than Buddhisms beginnings. Taoism going back 5000-7000 years ago, while Buddhism is 2500 years old. Though granted when Buddhism came to China both traditions learned from each other and mixed somewhat. Taoism incorporated some Buddhist principles and Buddhism did the same which is where we get Chan or Zen from.

I don't think anyone believes its easy lol. Its not just meditation. That's why Buddha gave an eight fold path.

This topic of working with the organs has been of interest to me for a while now. In fact it was pretty much one of the first things I did when I got into Qigong. My approach then was direct. I would use the Inner Smile and Healing Sounds and meditate on a specific organ. I was not really prepared for some of what came next since I was new to Qigong. I had a lot of old and totally repressed memories, emotions, and all came to the surface. I'd have stuff that I had totally blocked out of my memery from childhood come back up with the emotions at the time and sometimes even smells associated with the event. Though it got to a certian point where I felt like I had reached a plateau and I was no longer getting the same effect from this practice as before. So my main approach now is to take the approach that Brodi mentions. Cultivating some emptiness and letting that create and guide the qi where it needs to go. So these days I usually don't focus on an organ, but tend to observe them being worked on. Though if I were going to choose one to work on right now it would be my spleen due to my energy level being a little low and my mind being kind of fast lol. Though my hunch is that next time I meditate for a good length of time this will probably happen.

I suppose also that in the same way that the Buddha would not answer any two people the same depending on their individual needs, I'd reckon that the percentages (body to mind cultivation) also would vary depending on each individual cultivators state?

I love the timing of your answer! After my last post I did a long session of a qigong standing moving set. I did it very slowly and deliberately, and with mindfulness. The same thing occurred to me as what you just said, about how doing mindfulness while moving amongst other things seems to help to bring mindfulness into daily life. In a thread I was discussing in in the Buddhist forum I had asked if it were possible to be a lay Buddhist and reach enlightenment. One of the answers I got was about an MD who even though working long hours had apparently reached some form of enlightenment. This caused me to consider bringing mindfulness into "real life" even more. Obviously he had to have been doing that (mindfulness in daily life) considering the long hours doctors work. Doing the qigong form also made me more acutely aware of this mental divide I have between spirituality/meditation and every day life. There seems to exist in my mind a divide between the mental world and the physical world. As I was moving my physical body AND practicing mindfulness I saw the benefit of bringing those two practices together. In the past I had seen qigong exercises as something I just had to get through so that I would not get too out of shape and fat from meditating. I saw it as an aid to meditation at best, and at worst sometimes even a distraction. I realize this is a duality of thought and therefore not beneficial. Granted qigong is an excellent aid to sitting meditation as it makes sitting hurt less and helps the mind to be more calm and settled. One additional interesting thing I noticed while doing the form was that I actually go winded several times, as though I had been doing cardio exercises.

Then apparently I don't know what emptiness is lol (I already knew I didn't). Cause that does not make sense to me at all, but I would like for it to. :-)

This might be a simplistic generalization but is it the tendency of Taoism to cultivate the body first and then the mind (or the mind follows), and is it the tendency of Buddhism to cultivate the mind first and then the body? Are there advantages and disadvantages to each approach?

I've noticed the phenomenon lately that as I've increased my meditation time that it seems my desire to know and learn and study almost feels insatiable. Part of the reason I've been on this forum so much lately. Does this come with the territory?

Holy crap I had the weirdest night last night. Ok so after class and my roommate I was tired the whole rest of the night but at the same time mentally wired so that I could not go to sleep till about 1am. Then I finally go to sleep but have one of the weirdest dreams ever. So in this dream I'm now roommates with this one woman in my school who recently broke up with her bf. So to make a long story short she tries to seduce me but I don't find her all that attractive so I don't really want to, so she leaves the room to go look for a condom I think. At this time that scene from "Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia" pops into my mind about Denis' new German roommate talking about what a mistake it is to sleep with a roommate cause she always nagged him afterwards. So I think (this is still a dream lol) I need to distract myself so I see this random doughnut hole on the floor and eat it and it tastes so so good. Then she returns and right before she starts to get busy I wake up (which is what I always do with these sorts of dreams). When I wake up its morning and I'm really tired, not refreshed at all. So now I'm pondering my dilemma again about how to go to school, be in class, talk to my roommate and friends and not get so drained from it all. So all the things people had been saying on here and other musings all ran through my head and I began to wondering if it might be beneficial to increase my ratio of standing exercises to sitting meditation a bit more. I remember Drew saying or quoting Chunyi Lin about how it was good to have something like a 3-1 ratio of standing dynamic forms to sitting meditation to build up jing, if I understood correctly. Well now I'm wondering (this is just theory to me as I have not tried it yet) if since being around people makes my body tired if doing more standing exercises for my body would help with that problem?

Here is a formula to tonify the heart qi and blood, which sounds like what your problme is. https://store-c6cg1q.mybigcommerce.com/blood-mansion-formula/

Well Brodi on his site says to obtain the Tao is akin to reaching enlightenment.

So is a Taoist immortal and becoming a Buddha essentially the same thing? Especially one of those immortals who return to the Tao?

Thanks for the explanation. So I understand more or less about the matriarchal roots of Taoism. Though I'm a little less clear about the Solar / patriarchal component of Buddhism? I don't understand its connection with the monotheistic religions.

I've not really heard much about master Anatole here on TTB's.

Hey Drew. Ok sometimes the wheels turn a little slow, but it dawned on me that you had said a week or two ago something about most of the major religions being patriarchal but Taoism being older and matriarchal. Would you mind elaborating on that?

First of all I like the comments about the dan tien, yes I think that's a good suggestion. As far as the females you are around becoming irritable because you don't reciprocate because of your cultivation I can probably sort of relate a little. Naturally my roommate and I are friends which is how we came to be roommates in the first place. We used to hang out more, but for a few reasons don't as often lately. One of those is obvious. She is really into her new bf so is pretty preoccupied with that. Aside from that I have been focusing more on cultivation lately, more than before so when I'm busy meditating I don't hang out with her and the rest of the gang as often. I think on a more subtle level since I am more focused on cultivation and therefore am less focused on her (less hanging out, less conversation) I'm reckoning that she gets less energy from me than she used to and therefore I seem less interesting to associate with. When I first met her I was attracted to her, but I am not anymore. She didn't become ugly or anything, I just cultivated. This is noticeable in that she is less chatty than before and suggests hanging out or doing things less than before. This part is not because she has a bf cause her, her bf and the rest of the gang still hang out quite a bit, so its not just them two. Also its not just her and that group of friends. Then there are the people at my school as well. This is a different crowd. They too have sort of drifted from me, or I from them. On one level I think I'm less interesting to people when most of my attention is focused on cultivation and not them. On the other hand if I do engage in conversation with people they seem to be very chatty, as though they are thinking "oh lets get some of this energy while the conversation gates are open" lol. But if I'm not chatty I seem to be very boring to them, sometimes almost as thought I'm invisible. The only person I don't seem to ever be invisible to is this one class mate, a male whom buy his own admonition calls himself a perv. Yes he literally calls himself this, and I simply can not get away from this guy. I mean he's a nice guy, but he just lingers all the time. Another comment you made about her using me as a surrogate bf struck me, cause I had not thought of it that way until you put it into words but sometimes that is how it feels, as if she uses me to help to balance her energy when her bf isn't around. I've also had the experience of people becoming irate as well. I was married at the time I first began to do qigong. My ex-wife hated me taking up qigong from day one, and I believe it was for several reasons. First of all she was very controlling and what wound up happening was that after doing qigong for a while I no longer put up with her crap anymore and left her. I suppose she felt that the qigong was loosening her grip over me on a subconscious level and resented it. I remember one specific incident where I had been doing a qigong meditation to work on my liver. I would notice that often if I worked on my liver my ex-wife would get more irritable, as though it was affecting her. So I had done this meditation and then we are in the car. She's not saying anything but I just know shes angry (with her 9 times out of 10 she was so par for the course lol). Anyways just feeling her anger and its intensity was very uncomfortable so I absorbed her liver qi into my lower dan tien, did reverse breathing sort of melted this liver qi down into a more generalized qi, ran this qi through my liver to impart kindness into it and then sent it back into my wife at which point she calmed down (temporarily) lol. I had just dissolved this big knot in my solar plexus yesterday, and today in school this one lady was passing me, stops turns to me and with this livid face starts telling me how angry she is with her husband and the school administration lol. I was like "um ... I'm sorry you feel bad" lol. very odd.

I'm also wondering if in addition to what has already been discussed if another drain on the energy level can actually be breakthroughs. In the general sense I've noticed in the past that sometimes if I had been doing a lot of meditation or qigong and really felt the qi go deep to clear out something or heal something then I would be very tired for a while. Specifically yesterday I spent about 5 hours in meditation and towards the end of it dissolved a "knot" in my solar plexus that I had discovered which had been causing me a lot of bad feelings. Cool as this might have been I felt totally drained afterwards. I'm wondering if that coupled with being around so many people today as I already mentioned all contribute to me being so tired today?

Yes it is a very tricky situation indeed. Yea I had forgotten about you having been in Alaska for a while, but think now I remember you mentioning it before. I kind of miss it. I don't know if its just my imagination but the qi up north seems strong. One time up north my daughters flip flop fell into a pond and floated out to the middle. I drew it back to shore with qi alone and my kids jaws just dropped haha. They had always been lazy about doing qigong, but I think were more enthusiastic about it after that, at least that day lol. I really would like to know what to do about this problem of energy loss around society. I mean after I got back from class today I was already tired having been around all the other students, and then hanging out with my roommate totally finished me off. The problem is that I was made so tired that I didn't even feel like meditating or anything. Its kind of frustrating actually cause you think to yourself, "I do all this meditation to build this qi and then people who don't even meditate at all just drink it up". Since its just not possible to be isolated right now, I'd really like to know ways to keep the energy loss to a minimum.