Maddie

I looked into Karezza and to me it looked like a dual cultivation technique. I have re-introduced back into my practice testicle breathing/ cool draw. I had been doing it last fall as part of the 100 days of celebacy thing, and found it to be very effective at reducing my desire. At the end of the fall I finished the 100 days and then proceeded to go on a dating frenzy for about another 100 days lol. Each had their own unique challenges and benefits. The 100 days of cool draw did a lot to dig up the emotional aspects of desire, women, ect, without so much of the physical desire. I found from this that a lot of our desire goes beyond purely the physical drive, and is very much emotional. The next 100 days of doing a lot of dating showed me how much of what I was looking for was not to be found in another person, but rather within. The "100 days of dating" also were quite a distraction from the more subtel inner workings of myself, and my practice. It left me feeling quite empty, frustrated, and confused. As ironic as it may sound, now that I have the two periods in my life to compare, I found that I was actually happier during the celibate 100 days, than the dating 100 days. Does this mean I want to be a celibate monk for the rest of my life? Probably not, I hope not lol, but what I do plan on doing (you know what they say about plans) is making the cool draw a part of my regular practice, reducing desire, putting the dating frenzy on hold, and if its in my Tao to meet the "right one" then just let it happen with out striving for it "wuji". So bascially my practice now is 20 min of 8 brocades for basic health, and balancing the meridians and organs, 20 min of ZZ standing meditation to build up chi, and open channels and dan tiens/chakras, 20 min of testicle breathing/cool draw to reduce desire, and 20 min of dan tien reverse breathing, and inner smile/healing sounds as needed. *edit: ok life is weird, no sooner than I say I am not going to try to date anymore, yet leave myself open to what comes my way, now women are asking me out! Yesterday I got invited to a movie, didn't even have to pay, and now today I get invited to an Italian icecreame/coffee place. Life is just weird lol.

Ok I'll have to look into this Karezza stuff. I'm happy to hear that using the healing sounds to get rid of unwanted emotions has been helpful , its done me a tonne of good.

LOL I'm not going to disagree with you, it is pleasant, but I noticed how the associated desire was not so pleasant :-/. This happened to me again at work last night. The most beautiful girl I've ever seen (ok granted I see a lot of most beautiful girls I've ever seen, but work with me here) walked in the door. It took a lot of effort to pick my jaw up off the floor, and not make an ass of myself. [oh and I found her pretty cause she was smoking hot, and no one needs a class to learn that lol]. So after my inital loss of composure and oogeling what did I feel? I felt pissed! Why pissed you may ask? Pissed because I did not have that girl, or a girl like that, and probably some other schumk did. And then it hit me once again, she pushed my desire button, and now I'm suffering again. It would seem desire triggered my realization of lack, my envy and jealous, bitterness, and such things. Beleive me it was not a pleasant sensation. What I did do after I came home from work was to do the liver inner smile and healing sound, due to the liver's relation to anger/kindness, greed/generosity, and arousal. I think it helped somewhat, but interestingly enough at right about 2am (the time on the chi clock the liver is predominate) I woke up, or was rather woken up by um... "mr. happy", and think "why is it so weird to be me" lol. Ok so my point was that while I enjoy good looking women, in fact I enjoy them a lot, I also think this may be the reason behind a lot of my and others suffering if you sort of look behind the curtain, because it triggers "lack" "envy" ect... I suppose this is the same reason that other people get frustrated when they see rich people, or if their neighbor gets a new anamatronic glow in the dark santa clause in their yard they have to get one, or if cousin Bill gets a new 18" plasma big screen whatever they have to go and get a 20" one.

Ah yes as far as water and fire paths go, I do recall reading that. On the topic of the middle and lower dan tiens, I think I had somewhat of a Buddhist insight on my way to the store. I was in my car and I look to the right and there is a very pretty girl in the car. I look to my left and there is another pretty girl in the car there too. What did I feel from this? Desire of course, emotional and physical. What else did I feel? frustration/suffering lol. It was as though I had a deep insight into the Buddhist doctrine that desires lead to suffering. Where did I feel this desire? I felt it on two distinct levels. I felt an emotional desire for the girls in my middle dan tien, as in oh wouldn't it be so nice/ make me so happy to have a girl like that for a girlfriend, someone to love, to love me ect... On the other level I felt the obvious physical desire relating to oh what fun we could have together, and how pleasurable it would be. In both cases I felt frustration because there was that desire, but of course it was not fufilled. Now at this point one might say, well if you had a girl you would not feel this way. But why then is there this thing called infidelity? Why would people already in a relationship experience desire too? Perhaps its because desire just is, and perhaps the answer is not fufilling the desire, but to reduse the desire itself? I know that Zen Buddhists begin their zazen training by basically doing lower dan tien breathing (I don't know if they call it this, but thats essentially what it is). They do this in an effort to clear their minds of desire. Once the lower dan tien is full, the extra chi naturally begins to spill over into the middle dan tien and balance that as well. So you get physical desires, and then emotional desires eventually balanced. I guess the next step would be when it spills over into the upper dan tien and I guess when that is full and balanced one reaches enlightenment?

I've heard from my acupuncturist that cranberries also are good for kidney yin. I read somewhere that kelp was good too. Know of any other easily obtainable herbs/suppliments that are good for kindey yin?

I actually have those books, but must have missed the part where it said to not focus too much on one system, but I think I have enough good reasons for not doing so after last night lol. Ok so when I posted I was concerned about my flat personality as of late. I was also concerned about my difficultiy (out of all topics) with relationship stuff. So I posted that post and then as I tend to do, did yet another experiment (the mad scientist becomes his own lab rat). I did the hold the ball at the sacral chakra for 10 min in my routine. Thats it! Then I spent almost all night with sex obsessed insomnia. I literally could not sleep almost all night due to a rather insatiable appetite for ...well you know . But then again holding the ball is a rather legitimate exercise, plus what am/was I to do about the fact that out of all topics relating to the human condition, why are interpersonal relationships so hard for me? So I felt like I had nothing to loose at least trying to do something about it. As far as the "lessons to learn" topic I had not even considered it in the context of some outside force trying to teach us something when I posted it. The way I viewed it when I posted was more along the lines of, what is it that we need to learn about ourselves in order for our lives to be better. I suppose the only teacher I had in mind when I posted was ourselves. *Edit: Keeping in mind lessons learned, today I did holding the ball at the middle, and lower dantien, and then the wuji posture. So far I feel much more balanced as a result. I agree that isolating one organ, or chakra, or what ever that is part of a system, can throw things off. It' been my personal feeling that the middle dan tien is more yin, and the lower dan tien is more yang. Only doing the middle dan tien sort of makes me into an emotional wuss, and only doing the lower dan tien kind of makes me into a raving animal. Doing both of them together helps to maintain balance it would seem. I have observed that the middle dan tien seems to contain more of our higher "human emotions" like love and compassion, as well as sorrow and greif, while the lower feels like it has more of our lower "animalistic" emotions like lust, anger, fear, ect.. Too much of one or the other seems to be not a good thing, thus the wuss/anaimal ratio. The wuji posture seems to have a good overall balancing effect upon everything. I have noticed pulsating in my upper dan tien/third eye area while and after doing wuji, so I assume it has a balancing effect upon the upper dan tien as well (standing between heaven and earth). I ran into this before as well when my practice was focusing more on the organs and meridians. If I would work on one organ/meridian system isolated, it would seem to kind of throw everything else off as well. So it would indeed seem that to work on things as a complete system is the ideal way to do so.

I have a rather contradictory question. As I work on my chakra's, partiuarly the lower ones, I use as one of my practices to work on them meditation. Now it would seem that as I continue to meditate more and more that I feel my personality becoming more neutral. On the other hand one of the cheif meditations I do is breahing into my lower dan tien, which is in the same area as the sacral chakra. Now the sacral chakra is supposed to be the seat of passion, enthusiasm, ect... but for all the breahing into this area, and building up chi in this area, I feel less passionate, less enthusiastic. This confuses me, on one hand its better than emotional extremes, but on the other hand I don't want to feel like a Vulcan or a robot either. OR is the idea of personality in our culture mislead, and/or not healthy and meditation is just helping me to reach a more natural state, and since most people in our society are not in a natural state, it just feels weird do to the contrast?? Or is this just some kind of phase that passes? or what?

ditto ... qigong is inner alchemy, herbs are outter alchemy, both are useful

Check out this article about Spleen qi deficiency, it matches how I feel very well. Additionally the spleen is weakened by obessive thinking/ worry, and up till last week I was doing just that. I probably wore out my poor spleen, and now its having a hard time converting what I eat into qi. I would add that when it recommends herbs for the spleen, Ginger is a wonderful spleen herb. I've been taking it several times a day for a few days now, and its helped a lot. http://altmedicine.about.com/od/tcmpatterns/a/spleen_qi.htm Spleen Qi Deficiency Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Pattern of Illness By Cathy Wong, About.com Guide Updated September 13, 2005 Symptoms of Spleen Qi Deficiency Weakness, lethargy Pale, bright face Shallow breathing Low, soft voice Little desire to speak Poor appetite Prolonged headache Fatigue Loose stools Lethargy Dizziness Tired eyes Dislike cold greasy foods Headache after exertion Symptoms are worse in the morning Abdominal discomfort which feels better when pressure is applied Indigestion Bloating and gas Weak limbs Tongue Pale or normal tongue. May have swollen sides Pulse Weak pulse Related Conditions Gastric or duodenal ulcer Dyspepsia Hepatitis Anemia Herbs Used For Spleen Qi Deficiency These are just some of the herbs that are believed to help spleen qi deficiency •Codonopsis •Ginseng •Astragalus •Jujube Dates Foods to Strengthen the Spleen •Beef •Root vegetables •Warm foods •Soups •Warming spices, such as black pepper, ginger, cumin References Kaptchuk TJ. The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine. Chicago: Contemporary (McGraw-Hill) 2000 Lu, H. Chinese Natural Cures, New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 1994.

I'm happy to report that today my energy level is up quite a bit. I dropped all practices other than a very shortened 8 brocades (for the streching and loosing aspects) 20 min of ZZ, and 30 min of sitting lower dan tien reverse breathing. I decided to not take up Yi Jin Jing for the moment as I don't think now is the time to begin anything new, as I already dropped other stuff such as most of the 8 brocades, MCO, cool draw, inner smile/healing sounds (unless a particular emotion is really off balance) ect... So far by focusing on primarily chi building practices I've already felt an increase in my energy level.

This article about "healing crisis" pretty much sums up to a T what I'm going through, glad I found this http://www.compassionatedragon.com/crisis.html

Ok back to the actual topic of the lower chakras (sort of). I have noticed this pattern that when I do the spleen inner smile/healing sound that I get aroused just about every time I do it. Now this confused me because I could not see the relation between arousal and the spleen ... at first, then it dawned on me. I think sexual energy is very closely tied in to our emotions, what ever those may be as individuals. This would seem to explain why some people are turned on by one thing, and others by something else. Men and women are generally turned on differently as well. Some people are rather straight foward and get turned on simply by the prospect of pleasure itself (kidney). Others associate sex with love (heart), still others see a sexual conquest as an ego boost (liver), yet others feel sex makes them feel better (lung). In my case I think I associated sex with belonging, being accepted (spleen/earth). Further supporting this theory is that it seemed pretty much that my prior obession with women which had been on going for a long time, seemed to suddenly end very abruptly when I began my root chakra work last week (earth element). The drastic differece as almost been starteling as due to its suddeness. Now while it would seem that this issue has been vastly improved upon, it would not seem that its totally gone, as today I noticed that once again as I was doing the spleen inner smile/healing sound that I began to once again feel aroused, while doing this practice again, where as before I began I had felt nothing, thus after several expereinces like this a pattern has been established. The root chakra (which is earth element) is about the "tribe" "belonging" "being part" which is something that I have long not felt, and rather stived for. The spleen is also earth element, and about being "centered" "belonging" "acceptance/rejection". It would seem that my spleen saw that quite litterally that one of the highest and (pardon the pun) deepest forms of acceptance by someone, was to be ... "in someone". Looking back on my motivation for finding a woman, it does seem to be that what I sough after, what made me happy when it seemed to be the case, and distraught when it did not seem to be the case was being accepted. The answer has seem to be focusing on self acceptance, and as I do so the need/desire to be accepted by others has greatly diminished. The method has been working on the root chakra, and spleen meridian. With this very distracting issue out of the way, it has seemed to clear up the way for me to get to work on the heart chakra, which is where I'm at now.

I'm a lot into building now due to the massive amount of energy I used in balancing lol.

I found this interesting as it seems to tie in with the whole thing I mentioned about the Liver, and the other thread about fatigue.... Liver: Psycho-Emotional Aspects The Liver is responsible for planning and creativity, as well as instantaneous solutions or sudden insights; it is therefore considered The General in Charge of Strategy. The Liver houses the body's Hun and governs fright. Its positive psycho-emotional attributes are kindness, benevolence, compassion, and generosity; its negative attributes are anger, irritability, frustration, resentment, jealousy, rage, and depression. The Liver is also called the "root of resistance to fatigue." Whenever the Liver is not functioning properly (stagnate or excessively Hot due to suppressed emotions) the patient can experience fatigue as well as physical weakness. http://www.lieske.com/channels/5e-liver.htm *edit: The OTHER major emotion/issue/meridian I've had to deal with is greif/sadness/lung meridian, while I've been working on the heart chakra. In addition to all the anger coming up, at the same time a lot of longing, sorrow, grief is too. Working on the heart chakra is not for sissies lol

After considering some of the advise from this thread, I modified my practice a bit yesterday to include only "chi building" techniques. I dropped all moving sets such as the 8 brocades (swapped it with Yi Jin Jing, which is supposed to be very chi building), yet keeping standing postures, and lower dan tien breathing (as this is supposed to build chi too) but no MCO (don't want to disperse what chi I do build up). So far I can say that today while I would not say I'm 100% yet (its only been one day) but I do not feel nearly as lethargic as I had been feeling previously. I also began taking ginger a couple days ago to strengthen my spleen and digestive system so that it can more effeciently convert food into chi. So far the results are favorable. Thanks to all who offered their advice and input

For a chakra that is about love, working on the heart chakra is very hard and painful. Today the ONLY thing I did was the Liver inner smile and healing sound, because it would seem working on the heart chakra has brought to the surface all the old hurts, bitterness, feelings of injustice, resentments, ect... Feeling all the injustices against you, feeling the feeling of "unfairness" at past hurts, the anger that such things bring up is intense. I did not expect to have to work on my liver as a result of having worked on my heart chakra, but then again it seems in doing qigong a lot of things I did not expect seem to come up lol. Speaking of the liver, now that its spring, the time of the wood element, it seems to me that drivers on the road in San Antonio (a city already knowns for grumpy drivers) are extra moody. I'm not sure if there is any coorespondence but the color of the heart chakra is traditionally green, and so is the color of the liver/wood element, and it seems that I am having to work on both at the same time, one as the result of the other. Perhaps all these "issues" are what block the total free flow of love in the heart chakra, and thus need to be dealt with and removed? As I mentioned yesterday, last year I had started doing Zhan Zhuang with the hold the ball posture at the middle dan tien (as per "The Way of Energy") and had to quit because my rage was becoming unbarable. And as I just mentioned I feel it again, but doing the liver inner smile/healing sound seems to be helping to deal with such feelings as they arise.

I can see how squats and streching the legs could have a beneficial effect upon grounding as it works the channels that are in the legs, which are under the domain of the root chakra.

I'm not argueing that my chakra work may be related to some of my fatigue, but on the other hand the issues I'm trying to fix by doing so are indeed getting fixed. I think its like Friend said, sometimes first you have to spend energy before you get energy. Btw the method I have been using to work on the chakras IS standing meditation.

It seems that as I do purge the energy of the heart chakra that remorse (a lot of it too) has been doing a fine job of coming up all on its own :-S, but I do understand the virtue in this as you pointed out ;-)

I'm working on a theory as to why doing qigong sometimes might make one more tired as opposed to less. This is something I've been thinking about for a while, and in addition to some of the very good replies on this thread this is sort of how I look at it at the moment.... If I was going to compare the body to an old house, doing qigong to the contractor, and qi to the construction budget, it might go something like this. There is an old house (your body) and it needs a lot of work, plumming, electric, insulation, dry wall, flooring, paint, foundation, ect... Yet you have a limited budget (qi) do you get to work on fixing the house (qigong). Now at first you focus on just fixing the plumming, and all is going well. The work fits your budget and you are happy with the results. So a bright idea pops into your head, that since the house is so much better with the new plumming that it would be even nicer with new electric and dry wall as well. The only problem is that you only have enough money in your budget to work on one new project not two, but being the zealous contractor you decide to "screw the budget and go to work anyhow". So about half way through working on the electric and dry wall you get very low on money. Now your in a situation where that you could have had one of them done perfectly by now if you had only done one, but now you have two half way finished projects and not a lot of money to get any further on either. So you get frustrated and eventually decide to put the dry wall on hold and focus entirely on the electric. This is basically what I'm thinking may be going on with me and my qigong practice. I began qigong with a practice, liked the results, and got really excited and thought "more is better", and added more techniques, and now I seem to be tired all the time. I know qigong is supposed to build our qi, but perhaps not if we get ahead of our bodies ability to build up our qi. If instead we use what we gain on greater and better "projects" we might not feel the benefit of this extra qi because its all being used up on these projects?

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. What you said seems to be one of the common denominators of this thread, (or at least what I've picked up as one) "simplify". Another common theme is to simplify by focusing more on Zhan Zhaung. I also found your insight as an art teacher interesting, as one who has experience in teaching one art form, perhaps has better insight into another i.e. qigong. I think I shall stream line a bit, and keep it simple and see how that goes. Its a pitty your not near, as I would love to learn how to do clay art work :-) haha. Thanks

Wow working on the heart chakra is no joke. Last year I had begun doing hold the ball standing mediation at the heart chakra/middle dan tien area and had to quit due to the mood swings and feeling extremely angry (like I wanted to rip everyone's head off). I didn't quite realize at the time that doing this was cleaning junk out of my heart chakra, and thus the violitile emotions. It seems that since I began working on this chakra that I've felt very emotional, almost to the point of crying that anyone must suffer, to having little spells where I get very angry very easily. I guess its good that this process is making me tired because at least it has a lessening effect upon the temper that working on this chakra seems to produce. I suppose the "temper" was there all along (I had a very bad temper as a little kid) and now its just coming out?

Thanks both Trunk and Virtue for your input into standing postures. As far as imbalances go and my chakra work, if you are talking about simply clearing the imbalances then its working wonderfully (as the issues I set out to work on are imporving), but can't say its doing wonders for my energy level lol. One thing I'm going to try switching up is since I already do a fair amount of standing postures, I'll keep that, but I think I'm going to try to exchange the 8 brocades I do, with Yi Jin Jing as YJJ is more standing, less moving, and more qi building I believe. I'll see how making that switch works out.