Maddie

On one hand I just got right into inner smile / healing sounds as Mantak Chia states its a good beginning practice. On the other hand though I have been doing it for a couple years now, the amount of junk I keep digging up from it never ceases to amaze me.

No, I mean that you should do TB for a couple months first before you begin another practice. TB takes time to really get the feel for, so I'd recommend just focusing on that for a while. Then once your good at that, then try to learn a new skill.

SC comes after you have been doing TB for a while. Also in that book it makes it sound like you bring the energy to the head and leave it there ( at least that was the impression I got), but you don't. It's very important that after you get the energy to your head that you bring it down your front central channel to your lower dan tien.

I do my routine based up Mantak Chia's inner smile. I start with the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, and then end with the lower dan tien as to make sure I don't leave too much chi in any one organ so it does not get burned out. Sometimes thought (like now) when I can tell a specific organ needs a lot of work I tend to focus more on that one, but this is a speical thing, not my daily practice.

I don't want to get this thread too off topic, but then again if you factor in how everything in the energetic/spiritual plane affects the physical then this ties in together nicely. I have been working a lot on my organs lately, and from what I have noticed working on two organs in particular has helped me to stop putting up with bad treatment, the lungs and the kidneys. The lungs are about our boundries, our personal boundries in life, as well as separating oxygen from carbon dioxide in the physical. We need oxygen, but carbon dioxicde is harmful. So too in when it comes to people, people who are kind to us are great, but toxic people we need to "exhale" out. The Kidneys are the organ of either fear or wisdom/clammess/strength. The kidneys have to be very vigilant as to ensure that they remove all the amonia from our blood, so they are the paranoid organ. They also need to remove posionous people from our lives, but if they are frozen in fear they can not do their jobs. If this is the case we are too fearful to do what would be best for us, so we remain with people posioning, we are frozen in our place in life, as the kidneys element is water, and season is winter, tempuratre is cold. Only when our kidneys are clean and functioning can they do their jobs calmly of filtering out what ever it is in our lives that are poisioning us. This would explain all those cases of one partner continuing to live with an abusive one even though they know their partner is bad for them. They "freeze" with fear. The lungs feed the kidneys, the lungs other positive virtue is courage. When there is enough courage in the lungs, this feeds the kidneys with good energy, so that they will not be frozen up anymore, but will feel calm and gentel, being fed by courage to remove what ever it is that poisions us from our systems.

I loved Fearless, just had to say it :-), one of my favorite movies

I had another moment of relaization today. Things with my wife and her crazy family have had me in a state of "fight or flight" for an extended period of time. Realizing that the fight or flight responce comes from adrenaline, which of course comes from the adreanline glands which in TCM are considered part of the kidneys, and that the kidneys are one of our main energy storage areas of our body; I think I have just gained even more insight as to why I feel so exhausted lately. I "fear" what she might do next, or what will become of things, all Kidney emotions, and thus I feel burned out.

Hey Tubes As you mentioned there are a variety of breathing methods, and most of them vary depending on what it is you are trying to accomplish. In Dr. Yang's Root of Chinese Qigong book he covers a variety of breathing methods, such as reverse abdominal breathing, and regular abdominal breathing, n such. He categorises regular abdominal breathing as the Buddhist method, and reverse abdominal breathing as the Taoist method. He says that the Buddhist method builds chi slower but is more relaxing, and the Taoist method builds chi faster but is less relaxing. So I suppose based upon that description (which is a rather simple one) you decide what your goals are and chose a method.

as far as our soul goes from a taoist point of view we have two parts of our soul. The Hun and the Po. The hun reisde in the liver and are the part of us that continues to exist after the death of the body. The Po reside in the lungs and disolve when the body dies. The Po relate to more of our animal instincts, and constitute mainly the reactions you see in a new baby which is almost all Po. The Hun reside in the eyes in the day and the liver at night, and when we sleep fly away as we dream. Of course the shen our spirit also accompanies us after death, but it operates at a different level. Hun http://www.fivespirits.com/hun.php Po http://www.fivespirits.com/po.php

I've never heard of anyone remembering being in the womb or a new baby before. I wonder why it is that we do not remember past lives?

Well not so long ago, about an hour, I almost got in a fight with one of my wife's big mouth brothers who came over to my house and started yelling at me. So I called the cops on him.... So perhaps when 9:11 keeps coming up, it means nothing good is about to happen lol. Sheesh I am going to make it to Texas??

So do you know the low down on 11 then? lol

Is this pretty much Zazen?

Lately this has been happening to me with 9:11 , I'm not so sure if that is a good thing :-S

Well the organ I have been working on a lot lately is the spleen. I have noticed while working on it that it seems to house a lot of the negative emotions that have been ailing me lately, such as home discord. Some of the books I have read state that the spleen relates to us feeling comfortable with our surroundings and our home enviornment, all earth element type stuff. I've always felt like I was unable to settle down and find my comfortable spot in life, and I think that holding a lot of negitive energy here has had a lot to do with that. Bruce Franzis said that chi is where karma connects with our bodies. So I am hoping that once I get my spleen cleared out that I will stop attracting to myself unfriendly domestic situations, and begin to find good ones. The spleen also has to do with our musculature, and flesh, either too much, too little, or just right. I have always tended towards the slightly skinny side. Also I have tended towards the slightly unenergetic side. Both a lack in the spleen department. About a month ago I was working a lot on my heart and lungs, mainly due to issues with relationship and love stuff. After about a good month of working on that area I noticed a big different for the better. Before that my main area of focus was my liver, due to having a short temper at times. Working on that helped there as well. A year or so ago it was my kidney's and the weird thing about that was that a lot of old memories even ones that I had forgotten came up in the realm of things that I feared. Now those things do not bother me either. So going though the organs and clearning them out of junk is definately worth it.

I'm not sure why, but I've only had one wet dream in my entire life, and that was when I was a teenager. I've heard that with guys this is a problem with often don't have enough kidney yin, and that tonifying kidney yin helps.

I agree Non, but sometimes you have to wonder which came first the chicken of the egg lol, because before I got really tired I was doing both physical qigong movements such as the 8 brocades, and martial arts as well. After I got super tired then I had no energy for just about anything. I think I tend to agree which what you said about things surfacing and the changes in the energy body.

So have you worked extensively on clearing out emotional blockages and then become extremely fatigued after wards?

Similar to your experiences eh? then I'm glad to hear its not just me :-)

Yea it is very warming, I can feel it heating up my middle warmer (triple warmer) but thats a good sign cause the middle warmer turns food into chi :-). I've continued to ponder how my chi level got so low in the first place, especially since I have been doing retention for a while and not loosing all that energy. On the other hand I have been doing a LOT of other practices such as the inner smile and healing sounds to a great degree and I'm sure that uses up a lot of energy if blockages are being removed. At least by tonifying my spleen and middle warmer I think I am compensating for the extreme draw on my chi from my other practices. The reason I feel that my inner smile / healing sounds practies have been using a lot of energy, is because the emotional results that I wanted in the first place are coming now. So while it has been rather exhausting, I'd say it was worth it because my emotional state is a lot better, even factoring in my bad relationship issues which are still quite stressful.

I have taken it as tea in the past. Now I am taking the ginger capsuls in concentrated form. Usually I will take it right before a meal. It seems to be having the effect on my spleen that I wanted :-)

continuing to take ginger and my fatigue is lessening... strengthening the digestive system seems to be very important in increasing energy levels.

Most of the sources I have studied say to start in wuji position with the arms down.