Maddie

I have a question for Dawg and anyone else who has been at cultivation a while. Have you all experienced side effects during your cultivation progress? If so what have these side effects been like?

One of his main goals is to preserve Chinese arts and culture, so it makes sense that he would write about things he may have more of an academic understanding of, so that stuff gets translated, preserved, and shared. He encourages those who study his books to keep in mind that martials arts are indeed an art form and thus are evolving and not static. I really believe that a lot of what he may publish but not be too experienced in is so that someone else will be able to pick it up and run with it. He has shown a great concern for the loss of traditional elements of chinese culture in the last century, and that is one reason he is doing his retreat center project now.

Well he does have a Ph.D in engineering / science lol, but I think the reason I do like reading his stuff is because he is that way, I'm sort of that way too lol.

The Hun is also called the ethereal Soul Hun is related to ability to be resolute, to plan and have creative drive and assertiveness. When the Liver is out of balance in excess for instance, this becomes anger. I found this at http://www.sacredlotus.com/theory/zangfu/liver.cfm I guess I need to work more on my liver.

I agree, I have a difficult time separating the two sometimes...

Hey Dawg I had a question about something you had mentioned, and something I have been pondering. You said you don't get angry anymore, but isn't anger sometimes necesarry? I mean if someone is trying to do you wrong, then sometimes you sort of need to get angry. I have been pondering boundries, and dealing with difficult people the last few days, and have also been pondering what the best and not so best responses and reactions are. In TMC the organ that is said to generate anger is the liver. I would thank that if that is an emotion that we and most animals have, then there is a reason for it. We have fear as a self preservation thing. Would not anger thus serve a purpose. I ask because I feel that I have not, and probably do not really get as angry as I should a lot of the time, and due to this I feel that people take advantage of me. I sometimes wish that I could get more pissed off when people do me wrong and just go off on them so they would back off. So I'm not even sure if never getting angry is such a good thing. I know that staying angry, and/or getting angry inappropriately is not good, but never??

Yes I do. I consider him one of my main "teachers" lol. I do his version of the 8 Brocades almost every day. I also learned the MCO from his books too. I do have his White Crane Qigong book and DVD as well, and have done it many times, though I have not made it a regular routine of mine as of yet. I initially got it because I do Karate and it is a good practice to do for that. I always feel very good afterwards, and would definately recommend it. ;-)

Ok loathe again to begin a "new" thread, but in my searching I did not find one like this, so here goes .... I had this epiphany, and realized that most of the practices that I have gravitated towards since I began Qigong a couple years ago have in some way or another been connected to issues with my wife and father. Most of the practices I have done are related in some way either to emotions or sexuality. If one is having issues with their spouce this would make sense as these are two of the major components of a relationship. If one had issues with one of their parents then the emotional aspect is pretty obvious as well. But how this relates to goals. At the time I began I was already very unhappy with my marriage, but had what I realize now to be an unhealthy outlook about it. I thought that if I could somehow get past what ever it was that made me unhappy with her, then all would be well. It did not occur to me that perhaps we were just not compatiable, and that maybe I was trying to force things that were not meant to be. I had always been told all my life that if I didn't like something about someone that the problem was mine, and I'd better do what I needed to go to just get over it (i.e. fix myself). Ironically the past couple years of practice have done nothing to improve my marriage, but have done quite a bit to help me to look at things in a new light. Instead of being unhappy with her irratic behavor and thinking that I had a problem for not being happy with her, I now realize that she is not very well adjusted and has a lot of issues. My father was/is the same way, and Qigong has helped me to over come a lot of what I went through with him as well. So as to the topic. It seems kind of funny now that we may begin with one set of goals, and as we progress the practice resets our goals, rather than helps us to meet our original goals if they be not well adjusted ones. I began Qigong to help save my marriage, and now as it is about to end, I realize that I would not have the strength and courge to end it now had I not begun doing Qigong. I would be curious to see if anyone else has had similiar experiences.

In a few more days I am going to begin my drive to San Antonio and am going to stay with my brother and his wife for a little while at first. I am looking forward to this cause my brother and I are best friends. Only thing I feel a little uncomfortable with is that his new appartment that he got is very close to a cemetary. Anyone know of measures I can take to keep the "neighbors" away lol. I have found that setting up a perimeter of terra cotta warriors has worked well for me in the past. I have really no idea what they were for from an archeological point of view, but if they were used for spiritual protection I would not be supprised because they have worked well for me in this role. Mel, I think in your case you should find experts (what I mentioned before) to deal with this issue.

Then check out what I pasted at the top of this page

I have been pondering the issue of loneliness lately. What I'm looking for is not a simplistic answer such as "people just need eachother", but rather I am looking for what it is that causes these feelings, or relieves them. I know that many higher level taoists and some buddhists become hermits in order to facilitate their cultivation. I wonder if they deal with lonliness? And what is it that causes loneliness. I have been working on my heart and lungs a lot lately. I can see how loneliness could reside in either the heart or the lungs, or maybe a combination of the two. In my case I am in a bad relationship, so I understand that feelings of loneliness make sense, but on the other hand even if I get out of this relationship, I do not want loneliness to drive me into another one. If I get out of this relationship I don't really want another relationship for at least a good while. For one I feel that if I seek a relationship out of loneliness (as I did this one) then that is coming from a position of lack, and that if you approach something from a position of lack things will not end well. I believe that the heart is responsible for most of our interaction with others so it stands to reason that it might have a lot to do with loneliness. Yet on the other hand since being lonely is a sad feeling I can also see how it might relate to the lungs as well. Both of these organs lie with in the area of the middle dan tien so maybe it is a middle dan tien issue, or all the above. So lets say as an experiement you took a guy and placed him on an island like in the movie cast away. Now most likely he is going to become lonely. So why does the hermit in the cave in the mountain not become lonely. What does he know that we do not, what has he done that we have not? Why would the guy on the island become lonely? What is it that we need from other people, that we can not supply ourselves? I feel that loneliness in the past has been the causitive factor in a lot of my relationship issues, and so thus I want to deal with loneliness in a proper fashion so that it will not continue to be an issue for me in the future. So what should I do? Continue to work on removing heart blockages? Keep running the orbit? stand on my head and spin?

What are the symptoms of having a heart center blockage? is that the same as your heart chakra, and/or middle dan tien? Reason I ask is because I was at my new job today, it was very quiet, nothing in particular going on, nothing bad, and I just started to feel extreme greif/sadness/dispair/hoplessnes, it was horrible, and I don't really know why? If I have been running my MCO more often could that have something to do with it? Could it be the sign of a blockage being cleared, or of just a blockage?

My continuing adventures with my dan tiens. My first problem and goal was to deal with my physical sex drive which had been rather excessive. So I began doing the cold draw (testicle breathing) to bring the energy to or near my lower dan tien (mainly just as a means of getting it away from my sex organs to help calm me down). For this goal, it was highly sucessful, but to my supprise the issue did not fade away as simply as I thought it would. The next issue became a more emotional one. Dealing with loneliness, love, ect... became my next issue. Granted it did not have the same feel to it as raw physical desire, but a quality all its own which was just as distracting yet different. So I began to do the cold draw to my middle dan tien, which once again helped with this issue as now the emotional aspect was getting "fuel". Again supprisingly to me the issue sort of morphed again. Now it was not physical desire, or emotional attachment, but unusual mental activity. This came in the form of odd fantasies and imaginations which did not have a physical desire, nor an emotional attachment, but were nevertheless extremely distracting. So next the cold draw wen to the upper dan tien, which is the point I'm at now. I can't say for certain yet what all this means, but its definately more than I expected when I began dealing with this issue, which at the time I took for mainly a physical one. Its been like each dan tien is jealous for its own share/attention of jing, and won't give me a break until I get the message. Weird...

Good to hear, like my Grandpa always used to say "if it aint broke, dont' fix it" haha, hope everything stays good

Thanks for the answer Dawg (I get a good vibe from you btw) Would that explain why some people seem to be born with a knack for such things? If you do reach a higher level of cultivation in this life, then is there a pretty good chance that circumstances will lead you to pick up where you left off in the next life consciously? Personally I feel that at this point in my life my level of cultivation is higher than when I was born, because I think I was born with quite a bit of bad karma which I have been working very hard for the past couple of years to clear up. Would that suggest that next time round that I would be in a situation where I could pick up cultivation earlier in life, make more progress? be born in a better situation? Do we tend to get re-born in the same families often, or does it vary widely? I definately don't want to go into the ghost realm or something lower, but on the other hand even though it may be more cushy, I don't know if I necessarily want to go into a higher realm either as the human one is supposed to be the most adventageous for cultivation. Just wondering how all this stuff works?

Hey RV I have heard you talk about Stillness movement. What exactely is it? how is it done? what does it do? Just curious Matthew

Yea same for me. I love martial arts, but I don't really know why either.

First thing I want to say is don't be so hard on yourself . I KNOW your intentions were good, as were mine. I know right, you see the thing in Toy's R Us and a game board like box and think, oh fun!! Each of us has a Tao to follow, and so everything we encounter on our Tao is for a reason. If for people like us who are good intentioned but ill informed stumbeling across this stuff and having to deal with it is in our Tao, then thats just the way it is for some reason which will only make sense at some point in the future. No need to be mad at yourself, or embarassed, it just is what it is . As far as passing stuff on to our kids I got a story. My first daughter was born with this really big birth mark on the side of her thigh. I read Rober Bruce's psychic self defence book, and he had mentioned drawing ink drawings around skin blemishes and often times they would go away. I don't know why this is, but thought I'd give it a try. So I drew a large circle with a regular ball point pen around my daughter's birth mark, with a cross through the center. It was so weird, but it actually shrank to half its original size. Then I got distracted with life and stopped, but I ponder if I were to continue if I could totally remove it? P.S. you can feel free to PM me if there are other aspects you'd like to discuss about this, as I have had to deal with a lot of this myself due to my own Ouiji board experiences. Best of luck Matthew

I tend to go through extremes of wanting to talk to everyone all the time, (like now lol) to not wanting to really talk to anyone...

I think what you mean is you have a hard time finding time to be alone eh? Cause being alone and loniless is not the same thing at all. You can be lonely in a large crowd of people.

I like the computer illustration, and will run with it... So lets say you don't reach enlightenment in a given life time, but you do acheive a degree of cultivation (i.e. your seriously upgrade your computer) in your next incarnation do you start from scratch, or (if you have upgraded enough, do you get a free cupon for a more advanced model when you get your new computer), that is does your spirit body retain some of the cultivation, so you pick up from where you left off?

Hmmmm interesting....

I noticed you said these odd skin blemishes began a couple years ago, and you said a couple years ago you messed with a Ouiji board. I'm sure you were not aware of this at the time, but messing with a Ouiji board is the equivilant of painting a big red target on yourself in the spiritual realm and saying "attack me please". If one is unfortunate enough to mess with one, it should not be thrown away but disposed of in a proper ceremony (what that ceremony is, I don't know, but there is one). When I was in high school I dabbled with one, and after that the house I lived in got way spooky. I also about this time grew an odd bump on the back of my right hand (my ouiji board hand) that I still have to this day, and no dr. seems to know what it is. As far as moles and blemishes go, its not to say that all moles are of a spiritual nature, but IMO a lot of them are. The sad thing is, is that if a demon or what not has attached itself to a person in a family, it can pass these attachments on to their children, even while they are in the womb. I suppose that is why the bible talks about curses being passed on for many generations. I have heard of these Puerto Rican exorsists who are very effective at removing bad spirits by casting them into a coconut, which I suppose is similar to a gourd. So I suppose if you have a real problem, there are people out there that specialize in getting rid of such things. I'm not really sure how to find them, but they are out there.

I've heard before that moles and other bumps on the skin can be physical points of attachment for these things. That is why during the middle ages witch hunts they would check the bodies of alleged witches for such things as "proof" that they were witches. It has been my personal observation that very often the more sexually permiscuous a person tends to be the more moles they have on their bodies. When you have sex with a person you can also pick up any spiritual attachments that they may have as well. I suppose this is why so many of the ancient holy texts that we in the 21st century think of as "kill joy" rules of an outdated era had various regulations in regards to sexual activity.

I had a situation a couple years ago, where I had to fight off something. I don't know exactely what it was, but I don't think it was a demon, but more like a malevolent earth spirit, but I can't be sure for certain. Anyways I kept feeling its presence, and after reading a book by Robert Bruce on psycic self defense, I came up with a few strategies that worked. The first was creating for myself spiritual samurai armor, and a samurai sword. I didn't just "imagine" it, but put a lot of effort in forming it with my mind with a lot of intent and detail. The first time forming it took a while, but subsequent times were much faster, just a matter of bringing my weapons back. I would enter "its" realm and fight with it, hacking off limbs and stabbing it, n such. It seemed so shocked that I would actually enter its realm and take it on, after several more attacks it sort of gave up and left me alone. "It" also seemed to be able to command lesser entities which seemed to resemble snakes and spiders in the astral plane. They were dark and nasty, but not to hard to chop into pieces. Naturally since I had to sleep sometimes, when I did I would summon/create a wall of terra cotta warriors around me, my bed, my room, my house, my property to ward off anything that would try to get at me while I was asleep. This also seemed to be effective. I also found burning sage incense to be effective at cleaning out negative energy, as well as sprinkeling salt, spontaneous calligraphy while in a hightened chi state, and auspacious feng shui, amongst other things. Salt baths have also been effective, I suppose in a manner somewhat similar to the salt scrub mentioned above. I have also used a bowl of water filled and placed at the foot of my bed, as well as crystal bowls filled with salt placed in various spots around the house. There are a lot of other ways to deal with this as well, but there are just a few of the ones that I have used personally in the last couple years that have proven to be effective against what I had to deal with. Hope this helps.