Maddie

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.

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".