Maddie

I'm in TCM school now, and as far as I know we don't learn MCO as part of the curriculum.

As to how Mantak Chia "survived" keep in mind I didn't say semen retention would kill you if you did it for a long time, so I don't think survival is the issue. The point I was making was that the point of semen retention is the issue of conserving your pre-natal jing, not surviving. As far as the Shaolin monks go, they are not your everyday layman. They practice a extraordinarily large amount of kung-fu and meditation. The reason they are celibate is so that they can build up enough chi, to convert to shen so that they can store this shen in their upper dan tien which aids them in reaching their goal of enlightenment. This of course is on a whole different level then the average person, and you pretty much need to live an alternative life style (monastery) to reach this point. If they were to ejaculate then a good portion of that shen they had built up would be re-converted back into chi, the chi into jing, and the jing into seminal fluid to replace the loss. Since shen is more subtle and less dense than chi or jing it takes a LOT of it to make a little jing. So naturally they would never get anywhere this way. So if you want to reach enlightenment yes long term retention is important, but then again if you want to reach enlightenment you need to be under the discipleship of a master who would direct you in all of that anyways. But to the average lay person who wants good health and is not under a master, long term retention is unnecessary, and even potentially harmful (stagnation, heat, ect...)

From what I understand, there is no one set ridged number of days across the board, but some guidelines and then you factor in the health and constitution of the individual. From most things I've read, if your a teenager and in good health you can get away with twice a day, in your 20's once a day, 30's once every couple days, and so and so forth. If your an old man in your 70's and in poor health you should not at all. I agree with what Fiveelemento said about retention and heat, specifically damp heat, which is why if you choose to practice retention you still need to release now and then so you don't get a build up of damp heat. j The important thing to remember in retention is NOT that saving sperm forever is magic or anything like that at all. The reason for retention is to allow your body to replace your post natal kidney jing before the next ejaculation so that your body does not have to tap into your pre-natal kidney jing to make more sperm. As long as you are doing this, you have gotten all that you need and can hope to get out of retention. At this point retaining any longer does nothing more for you.... (other than drive you nuts with desire cause the nerves in your testicles keep screaming at your brain that its time to empty).

Ah I almost forgot to mention retention via dual cultivation (my preferred method lol). This is also an EXCELLENT way to practice retention, and balance your yin/yang energy. If your a guy, and you practice fluid retention during love making, and only exchange yin and yang, this will have a wonderful balancing effect. Just one night of this can last me weeks before I feel the need again (of course I can also choose to keep the interval much shorter should I want to). Two things happen when doing this. One is the yang/yin jing chi transfer that takes place on an energetic level if you know how to use your intention to do this. The other is the fluid essence exchange that takes place through the skin. Both of these methods are excellent in allowing one to practice retention and balance their yin/yang polarity (its this polarity that causes people to want sex in the first place). As an interesting aside if dual cultivation happens to be your method of choice. The more one practices solo cultivation, as in lots of time spent sitting in meditation doing dan tien breathing, the more attractive one becomes to women, thus increasing the likelihood of drawing a dual cultivation partner to yourself. One important aspect to attraction that modern psychology won't tell you is that aside from all the obvious social cues and rules, another huge part of attraction is on an energetic level. As a male the more yang chi (you are yang in relation to a woman's more yin chi) you have, the more attractive a woman is going to find you. I've noticed in my own experience that when I have been doing a lot of dan tien breathing at the same time I'm practicing retention, I get flirted with way more often, and attracting girls becomes way more easy with out trying very hard. On the other hand at times when for what ever reason I neglect my time in meditation, it seems that every where I go, and no matter what I do I don't do so well with the ladies. I find it amazing how much of a difference time spent in meditation verses the opposite makes in this realm.

No I don't mean intentional by forced because even natural things have intention behind them. What I mean is retaining beyond your ability to do so naturally and easily. Retention should not be difficult or miserable. If you feel like you have to use a lot of "willpower" to keep yourself retaining then that is "forced". If you are not sufficiently converting sexual fluids and hormones through meditation, then retention can become torture or even harmful. Also keep in mind that anything done to an extreme is not good either. Retaining beyond your natural ability to do so naturally is not good for you, and can foster stagnation, frustration, and damp heat. So a lot of the time from a TCM perspective when you feel a very strong urge to "not retain" its your body telling you to do so in order to avoid, or release stagnation, or damp heat, or toxins. So that is what I mean by "forced". ;-)

Hey Shepherd First of all your 26, so don't think that if you release now and then that you have "failed" anything. As one who also practices retention its important in keeping the principles of the Tao that nothing is to be "forced" or done against nature. Sometimes our body tells us its time to release, and we should listen, for there is a reason. With that being said, to answer your question. The key to transmuting the sexual fluids into jing, jing into chi, and chi into shen is time spent sitting in meditation. The more you meditate, the more this transformation takes place. First begin by simply doing lower dan tien breathing. As you breath into your dan tien, and keep your focus there, the transformation of jing to chi begins. After your dan tien is full, then begin by doing the MCO. The process of doing the MCO reverses the polarity of the jing at your perineum which is yang to yin by bringing that jing chi up to your crown which is yin. Then once you bring the chi back down again and store it in your dan tien what was very yang jing chi, is now a more yin version. Think of it like turning a magnet around and reversing the polarity which thus neutralizes the charges. Now as Drew Hemphel stated in the past, if it is possible for you to do so, when you sit, sit in full lotus because that position further increases the yin/yang polarity balance, expediting the conversion of jing into chi. If this is too difficult then try half lotus. Hope that answered your question.

There are a lot of ways to work on the chakras. One good way is to do the MCO which sends chi through the front and back of each chakra. You can also work on a chakra specifically by breathing into it, and visualizing it in its color and in perfect balance. Crystal elixirs are also a good way, as well as the gemstones applied directly on the chakra area. I am a TCM student, and have also begun to experiment needling the chakras directly, and this seems to have some balancing effect as well (I suppose acupressure could be used to). If I find a chakra to be too difficult for me, there is a Shamanistic healer here in Austin that I go to sometimes, and he does a really good job at breaking up blockages in chakras, so I suppose any really good legitimate energy healer would be effective as well. So above are some suggests, and techniques that I have used myself that have worked for me. Above all else I'd say experiment with those, and see what works and does not work for you, cause after all its your body and you know how it feels and responds more than anyone else. Hope thats helpful. :-)

Hey from one Matt to another lol.... I enjoyed reading your post, and have had similar amazing results from working on my chakras, meridians, and zang-fu organs as well :-). So much of the work to do is finding out what is really inside of us, and dealing with it. Glad to hear of your progress ;-).

Perhaps a good approach to this topic of desire would to look at it from the Buddhist perspective, as Buddhism speaks a lot about desire. As the Buddha said all suffering is the result of desire, and if you remove desire you remove suffering. I don't think there is anything moralistically wrong with desire in and of itself, but if one "desires" to break out of the endless cycle of reincarnation that keeps us in the desire realm, then one must eliminate desires. Naturally eliminating the desires that we naturally have is not an easy or a fast thing to do. First if you look at what desires are and what they are meant for, with in the desire realm (which is what we live in) desires are not only normal but vital. If we did not desire food we would starve, if we did not desire air we would suffocate, if we did not desire sex our species would not perpetuate. So with in the desire realm desire is a perfectly legitimate and necessary function. It is only when one wants to break out of the desire realm all together that desire becomes problematic. If the goal of breaking out of the desire realm by letting go of desire is so difficult, then why bother at all? Because if you look at life in the desire realm, while it does have its rewards, it also has its suffering as well. Look at any nature show and see the circle of life which mainly involves one animal hunting and eating another. Not so fun if your dinner, and also not so fun if your the hungry hunter. So while the desire realm has its pleasant aspects, it also has suffering. So one need not feel guilty about having desire for it is natural. On the other hand if one truly wants to break out of the desire realm, then one must choose a radically different path, in which they seek to reduce their desires. Its all a matter of one's goals.

I was at a metaphysical expo today, and told by a psychic that I have a curse on me in regards to money and relationships. There actually are two areas of my life that have been problematic for a long time. So what I am wondering is how to remove any such curses?

Yup she did offer to remove it for "only" $100.00 lol, and if I ordered in the next five minutes I would get a super potato peeler for free... jk. But yea when she said I can remove this for only $100, and after having just had a stint last winter selling... or trying to sell cars, that did raise a serious eye brow, I know a sales man when I see one. I know now it might sound ridiculous that I even was pondering what she said, but the only thing that caused me to think about it for a moment is that the issues she said were cursed have always seemed to have been a problem in my life (I've never had a good relationship, and never had much money). On the other hand I did think back to the past few years that I have been doing qigong, and all the bad energy I have detoxed from myself doing qigong, and how my life is now slowly beginning to change for the better finally. So if this "curse" she refers to is this energy, then apparently I have already found out how to remove it myself.

Thanks for the replies guys, you all helped me to confirm my misgivings about that situation. ;-)

In addition to Qigong which I do almost everyday I also do Brazilian Jiujitsu :-)

I have actually done the healing sound practice extensively for a few years now and love it! :-). As has already been mentioned here Chia did not invent the healing sounds, they have been around a long time. And yes they do remove excess heat from the organs very well as I can attest from a lot of personal experience. I've also noticed that if you do the movements that Chia prescribes that the effect is even enhanced more. I realize that there is controversy surrounding Chia, but I've found doing what he teaches to work quite well.

I have been pondering a shift of emphasis in my qigong routine. Now that I am in TCM school, and can go to the school clinic I have been told I am qi deficient. This really came as no surprise to me since I have felt pretty tired for a long time. What did come as somewhat of a surprise to me though was that I was told the qi deficiency was also responsible for some of my emotional issues. Since the main emotion I have been working on for a while now is loneliness, and I was not really able to isolate it to any one specific organ as I had with other issues in the past, it caused me to re-evaluate something. For the most part, the vast majority of my qigong forms have been balancing ones. The 8 brocades, inner smile, and healing sounds all are meant to balance qi in the organs, and thus the emotions. These forms do not really do much though to build qi. Coupling this with the fact that I was no able to pin down loneliness to any organs well, led me to consider that perhaps such "empty" feelings like loneliness are not as much an emotional imbalance as they are a lack. After all loneliness is a very "empty" feeling. This in turn led me to consider something else... I was considering that most people who are considered "high energy" people also tend to be very charismatic. Think of Hollywood stars and such. They generally tend to be very high energy, and also very popular. On the other hand I've personally noticed that when I am feeling low energy not only do I tend to feel lonely internally, but I also seem to repel people. On those rare occasions when I actually do feel energetic I notice that people seem to be drawn to me. This has caused me to consider if what we call popularity is actually people's reactions to our qi level? Would a deficient person tend to sort of be a energetic drain on people and as people subconsciously feel this they tend to avoid having their qi drained? On the other hand would the high energy charismatic people who tend to have people flock to them, do so because subconsciously people enjoy to bask in their energy? With this new theory in mind I am thinking of changing up my qigong routine from one of balancing to one of building. It would not make much sense for me to balance my qi if I do not have much qi to balance in the first place. I think I shall do an experiment and see if a qi building qigong routine would have an effect in this realm. I think rather than focusing on the 8 brocades, inner smile and healing sounds, I will try Yi Jin Jing and reverse lower dan tien breathing for a while and see what effect that has upon me, and upon how people relate to me as well.

Yea I agree with you, its just a matter of getting there. Once BIG realization I just came to was that I was that in all my healing sounds I had somehow totally skipped over the Triple Warmer / Pericardium healing sound. Today in the library of my TCM school I was reading that the Triple warmer and Pericardium are the most responsible for intimacy, and relationships of any meridians. I believe this might explain why when it came to this issue I was not having sucess in finding the meridian to deal with as I had in other cases. All this time I had been doing all this work and skipping this, and this I believe is whats causing me my grief.

Pretty much am doing all that stuff you listed

I see what your saying, but lets say that it was in your Tao or destiny that for X amount of time you were meant to be alone, and no matter what you did you could not trumph fate? Then do you think that doing that book or anything else would have any effect?

Today I went to see this psychic lol because this whole issue was really bugging me and I wanted some insight. Now the psychic was Catholic not Taoist, but what she said sort of brought to mind the other possibility that I had considered regarding my present situation. She said that the reason I was having a difficult time making friends and meeting people was simply because that's what this phase of my life is all about. What she said made me think of the other possibility I had been considering which is that its simply part of my Tao at this time to be somewhat isolated for the purpose of concentrating on myself, which is what she said too. According to her because I'm at this place in my life, no matter what I do I will not be able to get very close to others, and that working on myself was the reason for it. She also told me a lot of other stuff about myself that there was no way she could have known, so that added to her credibility considerably. I pondered how that because this phase of my life is for the purpose of working on myself, not forming a lot of new relationships I was unable to make many friends no matter what I did. And then I pondered how deciding to follow Tao changes everything. She also told me that I was very different from most people. This caused me to consider that if one follows Tao their life does not seem to go like most people's. Other people get out of crappy relationships and almost immediately fall into another crappy rebound relationship. Yet I now do not seem to be able of doing even this lol. A few years ago when I had separated from my ex I did indeed fall into the whole rebound thing, and seemed to have no problem at all in getting involved with several relationships. Yet now no matter how hard I try it just does not happen. Though I suppose that since its for my greater good this is a good thing, but still a bit confusing to figure out. I suppose it is like several of those girls I mentioned a few months back that I either just knew were not for me, or knew that they were not part of my Tao. So on that note I guess a good title for this thread could have also been something about how following Tao affects your "charisma" or ability to make relationships and/or friendships. I guess if its just not in your Tao or destiny its just not going to happen assuming you have decided to follow Tao or your highest spiritual path?

Ok perhaps I was just having a bit of a pitty party lol...

Yea I guess so, cause I know two facts. One is that I often feel low on energy. Two is that I'm often out and about by myself, and even when I try to make friends it seems like everyone just wants to get away from me. Its kind of making me paranoid lately. Yet I see other people (who btw appear to be high energy types) with a bunch of pals around them.

Yea I think I'll keep the 8 brocades since I still want to have some kind of balancing practice in there. Though I am still curious as to the original intent of this thread which is how does your qi level affect ones interactions with other people? and how does simply the amount of qi someone has affect how they feel?

Yea I don't know either, one can not say that I have not given ZZ a good chance, as I've done it consistently for over a year now. Therefore I think I'm going to try the Yi Jin Jing form as taught by Dr. Yang for a while and see how that works for me. Dr. Yang says in both "Qigong for health and martial arts" and "Qigong the secret of youth" that the 12 form set of Yi Jin Jing builds a lot of Qi. If this is the case then that is definitely what I need to be doing. Dr. Yang also says in his book that the 12 forms of Yi Jin Jing were created by DaMo after he arrived at the Shaolin temple and saw all the monks were weak (kind of like me lol), and specifically made this form to remedy that. If that is the case then it sounds exactly like what I need. Has anyone had experience doing the 12 form Yi Jin Jing as taught by Dr. Yang?

Yes I practice everyday. The only time I miss is when I am feeling too tired to do so, but that is not very often. The ironic thing is , is what usually makes me tired is after I've done ZZ consistently for a while :-Z.

Kundalini style stuff has a lot going on around this.. like I'd get a shaktipat and women would come out of the woodworks to talk sexual stuff with me. what is a shaktipat? and where can I get one? lol I'm a major fan of zhan zhuang (standing meditation) and practice for an 30 min to an 1 hour daily. It can be subtle, but seems to build jing/sexual/body energy. And also depends on what posture you hold I have tried ZZ, usually the majority of which was "hold the ball" at various positions, with a little wuji position at the beginning and end, but never felt energized from it. Actually I usually felt more tired after doing so, but I wonder if it had to do with my theory I stated previously that the hold the ball position actually uses up chi for chakra opening? What version of ZZ do you do?