Maddie

Hey Joe Doesn't Dr. Yang teach that dan tien breathing converts your essence into chi automatically?

Hey Non I think I can relate to your frustration. I was told once before that for emotional balance to just meditate on your lower dan tien also. But since I was feeling very bad emotionally, this was definately not fast enough for me. I get much more direct and fast results in the emotional arena from using the inner smile and healing sounds. You can target each organ, and/or specifically focus on a specific issues that happens to be bothering you. The effect is much more direct, and the results of much faster. ;-)

He didn't really say why other than it was a genetic pre-disposition. I was having empty heat signs, insomnia, aggitation, ect.. A good source for learning the healing sounds and inner smile is Mantak Chia's method which is why I have used with great results. The kidney's healing sound ala Chia is "chooooo".

I went to my acupuncturist a couple years ago, and he told me that my kidney yin was low. He used acupuncture and herbs to get me started. After that doing a regular qigong routine has helped a lot too. The 8 brocades that I do have several movements that strengthen the kidneys. I also do the inner smile and healing sounds which include the kidneys and that has done quite a bit to help as well. I also noticed that doing retention/sublimation with practices like the cool draw helped them too.

Probably anyone who has followed my posts with even a half awareness for sometime would be able to realize that my marriage has been problematic, and that I have been uncomfortable with sexuality. I have recently come to a deeper personal realization that I guess seems pretty obvoius looking back. I have spent a great deal of effort in the past couple years in my Qigong practices in trying to reduce or eliminate my sex drive (as unusual as this might seem to many). It seemed as long as I spent a lot of effort in trying to reduce it, not only was my sucess in doing so only limited at best, I was not able to progress beyond it. At the same time I had for a very long time been having serious relationship problems with my wife, yet because I did not want to be a cheater even if we were having problems I felt very uncomfortable with having a libido because its tendancy was to tempt me to do things that would have violated my conscience. So for a long while I thought the answer was to reduce my libdo. What I have recently come to realize is that my approach to things was quite unnatural. Though it may seem obvious to others, the fact that a healthy libido is a normal, even healthy thing has been a recent re-discovery to me. I say re-discovery because before the years of relationship difficulties I did realize this, but as my relationship deteriorated this became lost to me. Not only was I trying to force myself to not have a sex drive which in reality is normal, I was forcing myself to love someone that I did not love which is also not natural or healthy. When we first got married I loved my wife more than anyone can imagine, but after that, after years of her breaking my heart with constant hurting words, and cruel behavior it seems that my heart was irrepriably broken towards her. Yet just because I had a broken heart towards her did not mean that the normal functions of my heart and libido ceased to function. It was after that she broke my heart that I found it increasingly difficult to want to remain faithful to her, and I also found myself having to "fight off" more and more feelings of attraction to others. Yet because we were still in a marriage, at least the in the technical sense of the word, I felt exceedingly guilty for such desires, though now I realize that such desires were actually the natural and healthy reaction of my body, and trying to force something against nature was the unhealthy thing to do. I am now at a point where now that I am being more honest with myself I wonder if there is anyway to work things out in a way that would be a true solution with her, or if doing so would still be trying to force things against nature? I have seen several other posts by people on this forum (mainly guys) who for various reasons also seem to feel uncomfortable with having a libido. But after now having become more honest with myself I wonder if for the other guys who feel uncomfortable with having a sex drive that the problem may very well not be the sex drive at all, but rather have a more emotion based explination. For someone in my situation the issue was not really sex drive, but a moral dilema of trying to force myself to be in a love-less relationship. I've seen other guys who seem frustrated in their abilities to find a mate. Again in this situation I do not feel that the solution is eliminating the sex drive, but discovering what it is within that produces such a difficulty. If it is a self-esteem issue then work on your self esteem, don't try to suppress what is a natural expression of your body. If you somehow feel that sex is dirty or bad, then find out why you feel that way and remove that blockage from your life, deal with your guilt and shame issues. I realize that Buddhist monks live celibate lives, but for one most people are not monks, and two I'm not exactely sure why they do that, and further more am not sure if that is the best way to do it, or even necessary at all (maybe it is, but I don't get it). I guess the key issue out of all of this is if you feel a way that does not seem to be in alignment with nature, then don't create more blockages in your life by going against nature; rather find out what it is that is keeping you from following the path of nature and correct it.

Since one of the main reasons for me posting on this thread is to make a personal log of my practice I don't mind being the main poster haha. Anyways as I stated yesterday I had been working on my liver in regards to the whole relationship aspect. What I found in there was a lot of the ego stuff that can make relationships problematic. Since the primary emotion of the liver is anger, all sorts of stuff in that realm were found such as frustration, jealousy, controlling attitudes, possesiveness, the need for validity, the tendency to be obsessive about finding a relationship, selfishness, ect... In addition to using the liver healing sound to eliminate those unwanted emotions I also used the liver inner smile to increase the liver's virtues such as kindness, generosity, ect.. It would seem that I found a lot of things in there that tend to be issues that sabotage a lot of relationships (stuff I didn't even realize was in there, but that tends to happen when one does qigong lol). If the liver houses kindness, the emotions of frustration when a relationship does not go how you think it should can poision things. If the liver generates generosity, envy, jealosy, and possesiveness will definately not be condusive to a good relationship as well. If the liver houses assertivness, things like agression, being controlling, and/or on the other extreme being timid or indecisive will not be good for a relationship either. One thing that did come up though after this is something I'm a bit confused by. I realized from doing this that happiness, and love and contentment do not come from another person (which is why a lot of people seek a relationship and turn out being dissapointed) they come from with in. So that raised the question for me, if we do not get into a relationship to become happy, or loved, why is it that we get into one then? Only thing I could come up with was back to the liver attribues of kindness and generosity, which don't seek to take to be happy, but rather to give.

Yea it makes a lot of sense to me. I also did my time in the fundamentalist Xtian thing also and that was all about being "fenced in". But yea Taoism is pretty much one of the philosophies with the least amounts of do's and don'ts, and yes it is about about finding your Tao, or your way. I also read that book by master Anatole and found it very interesting, and yes I had to read it several times and still feel like that I would benefit reading it more, its rather deep, unfortunately I lost my copy of it. In regards to that feeling of missing something spiriutally I believe its yourself telling yourself that you need to find your tao ;-)

Since in the last couple months I have found myself newly single again, and since this is the first time I've been single since beginning qigong, it has been quite a learning process for me in many ways. I've noticed that I've had to spend a significant amount of time on each organ in the realm of dating because in each there has been an issue relating to this topic. I know I've already talked about this a bit, but the process of discovery goes on and on... There was fear of women in my kidneys, fear of rejection, ect... In my lungs was the sadness and loneliness that wanted remedy. In my heart was naturally many issues about love and relationships, and also the over excitement issues, which for guys tends to be a bigger issue than for women anyways. In the spleen there was the chronic worry about what girls think about my, what I think about them type stuff. Now it would seem that its my liver's turn. Last night I was just pretty much sitting there minding my own business, and I began to for no reason that I can tell feel extremely aggitated, frustrated, angry, ect... Now while I am just beginning to work on this, and can't say I've made a whole lot of progress yet, my guess is that this is where all the frustration and bitterness of dating comes into play. Also since the positive emotions of the liver are kindness and generosity, I can definately see how these qualities would be attractie in dating, while the while jealous, bitter, possesive, feel sorry for myself attitude is a huge turn off. So off I go to work on my liver lol.

Ah yes, well since until very recently I had been living in Alaska, where in the winter its dark practically all the time, I can relate to this dilema. One thing I would do up there in the winter is to eat more yang foods like spices, curry, ginger, meat. That is also where I really got into martial arts, as yang activities such as martial arts where we did a lot of sparring, bag work, ect... also were effective in making one more yang. I'm sure there are many ways to increase yang, though I'd always heard that grounding was actually a way of increasing your yin, and was a remedy for being too yang.

Bahahahaha !!!!

Dunno as I've never used a tanning bed, but my guess would be its always better to get it from natural sources. Could be an interesting experiment though??

It is hot lol, and besides bookstores seem to attract the kind of girls I'm into more so than other places. Also you can sort of choose which section you want to hang out in and that further narrows down the type of people who are likely to be in that section.

Yup he's pretty much a genius ... the thug thing does not seem to be an issue in book stores lol, besides qigong is not the only thing I'm into, I like marital arts too haha

LOL I'm not sure if he is replacable haha, he is totally like yoda , man I miss him on here

My body building friends tell me that doing squats increases testosterone and thanks Little1 I'll puff on my cigar happily lol

Want an easy yet effective way to increase your yang? sun bathing mindfully ;-)

Ok had another interesting day today lol. I woke up this morning and noticed my dan tien was just buzzing big time, like it was full of chi. Later in the day I go out to the book store, get some books to look at, a cup of coffee and sit down, and then have a "Drew Hemphel like experience". This really good looking girl walks right in front of me, and positions herself so that her ass in right in my face practically. Due to the obvious and by reading her energy I can tell this is very intentional. I remember Drew stating in his McDonald's adventures that girls will do this sometimes in the same way that primate females stick out their back side to show they are "ready to go" so to speak. So anyways this "Drew flashback" comes back to me while this is happening. So she goes over to the coffee bar which is close to where I'm sitting and orders her coffee. While she is doing this I decided to make Drew proud of me, and noticed that my lower dan tien was really buzzing now. So I pull all that excess chi up my MCO to my third eye, and shoot it into her back side which she still has pointed at me very strategically. She then gets a very satisfied look on her face, and after she gets her coffee walks past me just staring at me with this huge grin on her face. As she is doing this I feel an "electric shock" in my heart, as now she is sending the energy blast back at me. My heart does a few palpatations as its over loaded, so to remedy this situation I send this excess chi back down to my lower dan tien where it can be safely stored. Upon doing this then is my turn to feel a pleasurable sensation in my lower dan tien area. After recovering from that I try to figure out where the girl went. So I turn around and she is behind me, down the book aisle a bit "looking at books". The energy she is putting off is screaming "come and talk to me" but I noticed my limbs have turned to jello, and I'm really tired, so I don't, but rather just sit there trying to take this whole experience in. It was weird too, because after that I didn't really have a large desire to go and talk to her or any other girl for that matter lol. Previous to that experience I had noticed I had been getting flirted with a lot. So naturally I tried to makes sense of the whole thing, and this is the best I could come up with. First this morning I noticed my lower dan tien was very full of chi. Currently my latest round of retention has gone on for a couple weeks. But this time not because I want to reduce my libido or anything like I did before, but because I wanted to build up my chi. Apparently this has worked, as I have not simply done retention alone, but with the cool draw/testicle breathing, and running my MCO frequently. As Drew stated a while back, once your chi field gets pretty strong, women are attracted to it. I guess that would explain all the flirtation I was getting on the very same day I woke up with my dan tien buzzing. And finally I guess ultimately what we really seek for is energy balance, which I suppose explains that after having this rather unusual Drew like experience with this girl in the book store, that I had really no desire what so ever to follow up and talk to her, I guess she got my yang chi, I got her yin chi, and we were good lol.

Yet another interesting and unusual experience today. I went to the Zen center here cause there were having a class on zazen, which was pretty interesting. What was more interesting was this really cute jewish girl from new york that sat next to me. I just knew by feeling her emotional energy that she was interested in me, so me being the kind soul that I am asked her out for a cup of tea after zazen. She looked delighted and so we went and had tea. She was beautiful, intelligent (she turned out to be a grad student) and very nice, and apparently into zen and yoga, what more could one ask for? Only thing is, I felt no desire for her. I don't know why, cause she had everything any guy could ask for, she was very pretty, just didn't "feel it" for what ever reason. There is another girl I took out last weekend and she is also pretty, and smart (wants to go to grad school) and kind, pretty much all the same stuff as the first girl I mentioned, but with her I DO feel desire. I just don't understand why if two girls are both pretty, smart, and have similar personalities and interests, why I would have desire for one and not the other??

From one thing you mentioned that your mind keeps playing loops, I'd say your spleen meridian is out of wack, as this is the primary indication of an out of balance spleen. Chinese medicine has several approaches to this, with acupuncture/pressure, and herbs. You also might want to try the spleen healing sounds and inner smile for this specific issue.

Oh don't worry about talking about your personal life, most of us tend to do that on here quite a bit lol. You know you have already gotten quite a bit of good advice on here, and some good recommendations for Qigong forms. Something else I thought I might throw out there is that especially beginning, before you have had much of a chance to establish a regular practice of some sort and see the results, I think another worth while route to consider in addition to picking up a qigong practice is various forms of natural medicine. For such things as anxiety and such, acupuncture/pressure, flower essences, homeopathy, herbs, ect.... All of these I have used to great effect along with my qigong practice. I look at it this way, its hard to get meditative if you can't reach a basic level of mental peace in the first place. If you have any specific questions about how to go about treating a condition with these things feel free to post a question on here or send me a private message if you would feel more comfortable with that.

What are you goals?

Well yes true I do want what you mentioned, but it would seem that a recent realization I've come to is that if you are one who is inclined to seek the Tao, that pretty much makes you different than 99.99% of the rest of the population. And not just different as in my hobby is different than your hobby kind of thing. Its more like you are "different" and others and feel it. So since I guess its like then that only 00.01% of the remaining population is going to be compatiable with you, you kind of have to rely on the Universe to cross your path with hers. Though I'm not going to specify what form that might take cause when you try to identify what the Tao is, what you have identified is no longer the Tao.

Really, so you mean most of what you see them doing in the parks in the morning in China which they call Qigong is nothing more than calisthenics???

I had a chance to see Astral's "shut up theory" in action today, but fortunately it was just with my mom so no permanent damage lol. Anyways she was mentioning how she thinks she has ADD (which I don't disagree with). My initial reaction with out even thinking about it (instinct) was to repeat for the millionth time that I think she should order this Kidney Qi herbal formula that I had found online, and used myself in the past. Just about all her various symptoms (not just this) indicate a lack of kidney qi, including the fact that the kidney's house the will, which obviously if this is not strong people are going to have ADD like symptoms. I instantly felt her demeanor change, she got defensive, moody, ect.. Then I suddenly remembered what we had been discussing on here, and realized that if this had been not my mother, but some girl I was trying to meet, that it is probably at this point that she would have gotten distant from me. It does seem to be true, just because someone is complaining about a health issue, and even if you know how to fix it, does NOT mean that you should necessarily offer advice, even if you have to bite your lip until it bleeds lol. I've even noticed that most of the time even when people actually ask me for advice, they still ignor it lol, go figure. I also was going to say about the other topic that came up on this thread, about spiritual compadibility, and allowing the Universe to bring the right girl your way. After my most recent experience I find this point of view to make a whole lot of sense.