Maddie

Ah yes in this case working on your root chakra would definately be a good thing to do. The wuji posture is what I used to work on the root chakra. Basically you just stand there with your arms down, on the inhale focus on your dan tien, and on the exhale the "bubbeling wells point" on the bottom of your foot. This has the effect of grounding bad energy, and drawing up good earth energy (very grounding). Also since the root chakra is in between your dan tien and the bottom of your feet, this has the effect of "washing" it on every breath as the qi moves through it. While working on chakras its also good to not forget the meridians as well. IME/IMO the chakras are the deeper issues behind the meridians, but it is through the meridians that we feel many of our emotions. Up to this point I had been doing the 8 brocades first to clear out my meridians, followed by standing meditation to clear out my chakras, followed by sitting meditation. As I have been doing this routine for quite a while, and am beginning to wonder if my current routine has taken me as far as I needed it to, I am contemplating switching up my practice a bit. Perhaps instead of the brocades I am pondering going to the 5 animal frolics or wild goose qigong, and also throwing in the Yi Jin Jing set, but no decision has been made yet, I'm still looking into it.

I have used and do use that method, but of all the methods I've tried probably for me the most powerful was the hold the ball posture of standing meditation. I could feel the hand rotations having an effect, but I feel that by doing standing meditaion for a specific chakra that I accomplished more faster than the circle method. I suppose the only draw back to doing it fast is that my body sent a LOT of energy to work on those chakras which left the rest of me feeling a bit drained while that was going on. I suppose there is always a catch.

Well the method I used mainly to work on my chakras (at least the one I found to be most directly effective) was Standing meditation, and specifically doing the hold the ball stance at the chakra you want to work on, with the exception being the root chakra which doing the wuji stance is what seems to get the job done. The other method I used was simply the Microcosmic orbit, where I would pause the energy at the chakra I was working on for a while before moving on. You wonder if working on your sacral and root chakra will help with what?

You know I hadn't even really thought of it that way, but now that you mention it.... No I guess I'm not, which is weird lol. After thinking about it I realize that in the past week I've totally lost intrest in finding a woman, and have almost exclusively focused on developing myself.

What exactely does the wei dan set in Dr. Yangs book on Yi Jin Jing do? Is it to build qi and accomplish the grand circulation? Will doing it accomplish the tendon changing aspects of Yi Jin Jing? * I did the set today (I've dabbled with it before) and noticed that my saliva changed, it became more watery, and that afterwards it felt like I had cotton in my ears for a while. The main reason I did it was to see if I could build some more qi with it as I'm tired of feeling fatigued.

I think this poll should ask a few more questions because I clicked yes I do believe it works, but I do not think its a good idea. There have been a few times that I tried to obtain what I wanted through my crown chakra (which is basically what the law of attraction per "The Secret" teachs how to do) and every time I got a clear and distinct waring from the Universe (to whom I was sending the request) that if I went ahead with my request that I would indeed get what I wanted but to the detriment of my spiritual path. Perhaps if there was a question in the poll like "do you believe it works, but think its not a good idea" would be a good one? I think driving your car off a cliff to get to the bottom faster works, but is not necissarily the best method one would want to use to do so. ;-)

I see chakra's are not a hot topic on TTB's lol, oh well I mainly do this for my own reference :-). Another completely unexpected turn of events in working on the ole chakras. In our last episode I had been working on my root chakra. This had the unexcpected result in triggering my heart chakra to so some spontaneous opening and clearing all on its own. Apparently the blockages in my root chakra were preventing my heart chakra from doing some of the things it seems that it had been wanting to do for a while. I guess the lust in the root, was supressing the love in the heart. I know the heart chakra is not techincally one of the lower three chakras, but it does have the funciton of intergrating the lower three and the upper three together, thus combining the phyical plane with the spiritual one. So far working on my heart chakra (once I got the message I began to actively work on it) has been the most "painful". Lots of greif and sorrow seem to have been locked up in there. I'm thankful for my knowledge in flower essences and homeoapthy to help me get throug this process. It would seem that the best way to explain the shift in consciousness from the root to the heart is again in relation to women. The root (in its unbalanced state) is kind of like a horny little lap dog that wants to dry hump as many legs as it possibly can. The heart seems to be totally uninterested in "picking up chicks" and rather is content to wait as long as it takes to find the right "one". I think back about a month or so ago when I had that experience with seeing pretty girls but just knowing they were not for me, was the heart chakra trying to speak to me, yet the blocked root chakra was making its comminication with me difficult. Now that I did that work on the root chakra, it would seem that the heart chakra is easier to hear.

Hmmmm still pondering that one lol. Ok several days into working on the root chakra, and several unexpected developments. As anyone who has read just a few of my posts lately can probably tell that I have been rather consumed by the "woman" topic. Suprisingly working on my root chakra has done a LOT to aliviate this issue, which I did not expect at all to be honest. A couple root chakra issues such as lust (the sexual aspect), and the longing to belong (the "tribe" aspect seem to have been driving factors in my "women" issues. I had actually expected working on my root chakra to make matters worse, my reason being that if I added energy to the main center of male sexuality then I perhaps would go beserk (or more beserk than I already am lol). What has rather happened instead is that the issues of lust and belonging where actually blockages or deficiencies and adding energy cleared them out, and has helped me to expereince existence from the root chakra in the manner in which I believe it was intended. I'm still working on it, but the results so far have both suprised me and pleased me. :-)

Yea that quote would definately sum up my childhood for sure. I guess one thing I've noticed so far in working on my root chakra is ironically the oppoisite of what I suspected. That is the subjective and changing standards of physical beauty as culture defines them, and how realitively unimportant it is. The reason this suprised me is because with the root chakra being the most physical one, I thought that if any chakra was going to produce a feeling of "looks are important" then it would be this one. Rather quiet the opposite has begun to happen. I have been able to see the unique beauty in all sorts of women that our current and present culture defines and unattractive, yet past and other cultures found very attractive. And for reasons I don' quite understand I seem to be attracting to myself mostly women that are older than me, and whereas in the past I would have not found them attractive because of what society teaches us is attractive, now I am seeing a great deal of beauty with in them. I just didn't figure that the root chakra would help me to transcend the surface notions of beauty and attractiveness, I sort of figured that would not happen until I got to the heart charka, eh go figure? I guess if I were to sum up in a few words the shift in persepctvie it would be that before I saw a girl that was pretty and hoped she had a nice personality. Now I see a girl that has a nice personality and hope she happens to be pretty. Its come as a suprise to me definately.

Two things. One is that usually when I am working on clearing/opening a chakra, the chakra itself seems to behave as a black hole, and just suck up a tonne of energy. I guess its using this energy for healing purposes. I can tell too, because everytime I have gone through this process I tend to be a bit lethargic and low energy. The other thing I do is ground it using standing meditation, this helps me to achieve a bit more balance. *edit: I've also noticed that working on my spleen at this time is helpfull as well, as the root chakra is the earth element chakra, and the spleen is the earth element organ. Also I've noticed that chakras seem to be multi-dimensional, so it can seem that energy just disappears into them, but I think thats just the illusion as energy it going into the multiple dimensonal existance of our chakras.

Hey K, a little confused as to why you find it disconcerting that there would be a lesson, yet agree that there is a lot to learn? lol. The past few days of working on the root chakra have been very um..."interesting". It would seem that when I work on the upper chakras the key theme is spirituality, and when I work on the lower three chakras the key theme is women lol, yet in different forms. As I worked on my sacral chakra the key theme was "romance". I desired high class romance, wine, and dine, candel light, and music, soft touches, and sweet kisses. My main interest was being sensual as opposed to raw sex. What I over came at this level was that I began to not feel guilty for having a libido, which prior I did to the extreme. As I began to work on my solar plexus, my desire shifted over to "validation" being the primary thing I sought. I was most interested in simply seeing if a girl would accept me, approve of me. This led to less romance, and more flirting and quantity. When a girl would flirt back I felt wonderful, and that was enough for me, when she would not my world came crashing down, which is also what I worked to over come here. Now that I have been working on my root chakra, this is probably the most "uncomfortable" one yet. Now the key theme is raw, animalistic sexuality. I don't really care about romance, or validation, its more about just wanting to stick the dip stick in the oil pan at these level. Its quite disconcerting to be honest, and plus my libido has gone through the roof since I began adding energy to my root chakra. I can't say what I've overcome here yet, as I am still in the process here now, but I can guess it will have to do with balancing raw phyisical desire in some way.

Oh I was in no way saying Japan deserved that, sorry if that is how it came across. I was a history major, specializing in WWII and especially the far east, so I was just refering to the historical question. I have friends in Japan and are grateful they are ok :-)

In my own practice this is what I've discovered. It seems that my own bad energy with in me sends out vibrations into the universe which tend to attract more of the same. As I have been going qigong and removing this bad energy I've noticed those patterns are beginning to change a bit. I guess this is what could be called karma.

I don't know if it was more but at least as many, plus the Japanese also did biological warfare experiments on chinese citizens too. Yet for some reason the Germans get a lot more publicity. In the Phillipines the Japanese would round up Filipino citizens in a village, tie them to trees and use them for bayonet practice for not provocation what so ever. Of course karma did its boomerang thing and they Japanese are the only nation to have suffered a nuclear attack (twice).

I've noticed that when people speak of pride they can often use one word to speak of two very differnt things. One version of pride is good, its the self respect that we all should have to be healthy. The other pride is more like arrogance and that is not so good. I've also noticed that a lot of people with weak egos tend to over compensate for it with a front of pride, but thats pretty easy to see through.

I've been increasingly curious lately about how much seeking the Tao, doing cultivation, ect... makes you different from the rest of society? More and more I just feel like that I have very little in common with the average person. I feel more and more that regular society and me do not really mix well at all. Is becoming "different" from most people a natural consequence of seeking Tao? If so, how so? *edit: found this article very interesting. :-) http://www.taoism.net/enter.htm

Yup you seemed to sum up my observations. I wonder why its like this?

Yea I'm just starting to feel very different lately, different from society and different from how I'm used to feeling. My food tolerences are changing, I'm really tired, feel kind of disoriented, and just a bit "off". I'm not really sure why though I have a few theories.

Important questions: 1. How old are you? 2. How much other qigong back ground do you have? and what exactely? 3. Why do you want to do retention?

Yes your right cause the other day I was working on my lungs due to the spill over from my solar plexus lol, so yea you got it right ;-). It would seem today though that the organ of choise was my spleen. As most of my solar plexus work as been in relation to how I view women, with the spleen it was doing the healing sound to get rid of my rather obessive (lately) thinking about women. And not just thinking about them, but over thinking stuff like "did I say the right thing" "does she like me" ect... It was starting to drive me insane, and also become very distracting to doing anything else.

Yea that makes sense as Zen and Taoism seem very similar. ;-)

Just curious as to what are considered some typical side effects of cultivation? What have been some of the Tao Bum's experiences first hand or otherwise? Is it normal to get very very tired when working on a new area?

Thanks for the replies so far. What I've noticed specifically is that (and this happened to me before too) I began doing hold the ball in ZZ in front of my solar plexus area because in the past with other chakras it was a very powerful balancing effect upon them. And like with other times at the beginning I got very very tired, but then later after I guess what was done was done I did not feel so tired and plus the issues with said chakra were much better as well. But for the past several days I have beeen super super tired. Plus it would seem a lot of solar plexus issues have been coming to the surface, but I sort of expected that to happen, at least it gives me the chance to mentally process stuff I didn't realize was in there. Found a couple interesting links: http://www.spiritportal.org/signs.html http://www.namastecafe.com/edu/symptoms.htm

I don't feel judgmental at all, but I do feel like people don't get me.

If you wouldn't mind I would be interested in hearing your story about how you went through this realization and process?