Maddie

I was curious if anyone had knowledge or experience with the symptoms and/or side effects of progressing in cultivation? It seems that I will have four or five really good days of doing my Qigong, and then a day or two of feeling really crappy where I can not practice. Then this will clear up and I will resume practice again for several days until I feel crappy again for no reason that I can tell in particular. For example I might just feel really tired one day even though I went to bed at a normal time, or feel weak, or cold, or slightly sickly, or just generally bad. Its not like I get sick, because I don't get a fever or actually get ill in the real sense, but I just have this vauge and unusual feeling of not feeling good. Is this a part of the process of clearing your channels and opening blockages?

Such a weird day yesterday. I realized that i have been doing all of my practice standing up for the last four months or so. Seeing this as a possible variable I tried my SKF practice lying on my back. Basically the energy moved much better and I didn't get the intense build up in the same way. I also got very very intense vibrations traveling from my nose down my face to my heart. The vibrations were extremely intense and I am not sure what my Chi was doing, but I didn't have that extreme build up of energy.

 

I need to find someone to Dual cultivate with, but am finding myself unable to call in that person. Anyone have a good recommendation on how to manifest a partner to explore these worlds with. I mean I am 23 and most people my age just don't seem to be into this stuff.

 

You are right, most people do not seem to be into this stuff, perhaps you could go to a yoga class, you might have a greater chance of finding someone into that stuff there.

Thats cool... Did it happen a lot? Mel

 

Yea actually it did for a while, a little less than a year ago, it just seemed like every single time I looked at the clock poof 10:29 lol, and I pondered what this might mean, I still don't know haha

I have had some problems of this sort in the past and have tried a variety of methods to deal with them. One of the most effective I have found in my own expereience is Feng Shui cures and space clearing. Incense, espceially sage, sprinkeling salt on the floor and putting it by the doors and windows, and in containers around the room, metal pots of water by the foot of the bed, and things like that help. Good Taoist or Buddhist calligraphy scrolls can help as well. I can not afford such things, so one time I meditated into a deep state and then took my caligraphy set that I got at Barnes and Noble and sort of made a spontaneous symbol as my chi led me, this proved to be very effective as well. Sometimes just fixing bad Feng Shiu can help a lot. I also did a visualization in which I visuallized my home surrounded by an amry of Terracotta warriors standing shoulder to shoulder not letting anything evil into my home, and that helped a lot as well. I have also had a few experiences of attack by negative entities where I visulaized myself in Samurai armor and began attacking them with a samurai sword, this helped too. Another time in my appartment in Alaska I was up late at night in the living room after everyone else had gone to bed and I felt this sort of native american woodland spirit trying to enter our place. I grabbed my samurai sword and sat with it in meditation and opposed this thing, and it departed. So those are just a few techniques I have used in the past to deal with this sort of thing, there are others as well, but I don't want to ramble on lol.

Ok in a nut shell there are the three treasures, jing, chi, and shen. Shen is translated as "spirit" but it does not hold the same connotations as in the West. Shen can denote our mind, emtions, perceptions, ect.. It is the most refined and less dense of the three treasures, and is said to reisde in the upper dan tien, or the heart depending on your source. It is said that the state of one's shen can be seen in the eyes. If you to go to a TCM doctor he will look in your eyes to see the state of your shen. People who have mental illness or act in irratic and hystarical ways are said to have scattered shen, or their shen has departed. If you have a lot of time on your hands and like to read a lot this link will tell you all about shen and shen disorders. http://www.itmonline.org/shen/index.htm

 

Here is a shorter version which I also like. http://www.fivespirits.com/shen.php

I get Deja Vu from time to time, and sometimes I get the feeling that I had been in a certain situation before where I made a mistake, and had an impression of what the mistake was, so I then would take measures to avoid that mistake, and it has saved my butt several times lol.

A while back I kept looking at the clock when it was 10:29 which is my birthday lol

Hello all,

I'm curious. I know that the achemetical process is turning jing into chi then chi into shen. Jing being turned into chi seem to be done by sitting full lotus and celibacy redirecting the sexual energy (please correct me if I misunderstand that). However what are the methods for turning chi into shen? Anyone have any insights?

All is appreciated.

 

-Astral

 

If I remember what Drew said correctly, I think if you keep sitting in full lotus, the conversion process automitically continues so after the jing is turned into chi, then if you keep at it the chi turns into shen.

I think I'd have to second that. I almost stopped a while back due to warnings n such. But rather than stopping due to the warnings, I decided to focus more on some of the foundational practices and keep at it, and while I am still no expert I have made a decent amount of progress. Someone on here said a little while ago that if you are learning to ride a bike and if you should fall down, you don't throw away the bike and quit, you keep practicing until you get it right, and I think I'd have to agree based upon my own experience. I think the main difficulty I've personally noticed and it would seem that others indicate as well with these sexual practices is not having enough of the fundimental foundational work completed before attempting retention.

Hi,

 

The root of loneliness is (imho) yearning. From the time when we are able to think clearly, a yearning begins in our heart. We fulfill this need by engaging with other sentient beings and/or material pursuits. So, the yearning is a void that we try and fill with relationships and/or material pursuits.

 

The cause of this yearning is a subconscious understanding that we are somehow incomplete and we yearn for completion...to be whole again. Most people don't realize this and go through the motions of living chasing after one material thing or another, or one superficial relationship or another.

 

What we yearn for is silence and what that means (to attain silence) is to become aware of our true nature, the underlying unity of all existence...

 

That is why you might find a hermit completely at peace with him/herself and not loneliness even though on the surface it might seem like he/she is all alone. Those who are that way have found silence, inner-stillness and therefore aren't disturbed by the myriad turbulences that distract their attention from the core of themselves..their true nature.

 

Hey I like this explination a lot, but by what means do you recommend to acheive this state?

Hey everybody thannks for the replies. Niklas I found your answer interesting and will try that approach. Tao Apprentice I understand what you are talking about, it seems that it is not too common a thing to find someone else interested in these things, so thus we tend to not have a lot of close friendships. Goonis I also like finding pleasure in the small stuff, sometimes I get odd looks lol. Yesterday I was doing the 8 brocades at the park in the morning after dropping the kids off at school. After I finished I saw a little green frog hopping through the grass and stopped to watch it. This park happened to be in Yuppie-ville so all the soccer moms jogging were sort of looking at me watching the frog with this (?)"whatever" above their heads lol. CowTao sorry but I did not understand your point?

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?

hmmm good suggestions I second those

When you mentioned premature ejaculation based upon my limited experience in TCM it makes me think that this might not be a sexual kung fu issue, but a kidney yin deficiency. One of the symptoms of kidney yin deficiency is pre-mature ejaculation and easy arousal. For this you may want to get a Chinese herbal formula from an acupuncturist to build up your kidney yin.

Yes most of the effect is at the first moment. Also the moments of flirtation, where she is holding the sexual arousal in her mind at the same time you are, you will get a nice spike. It spikes at those moments, tapers off.

 

Yea that seems to be what I have observed. I must admit that the temptation to see if I could manipulate this to my favor did cross my mind breifly, but then I figured that even if I were sucessful, that the karma payback for doing such a thing would be pretty bad, so I decided against such experimentation.

My basic approach to most things these days is one of energy balance. I keep working to balance all my internal organs, and as a I do problems work themselves out. As far as this topic goes I have worked on this through the Lung meridian. One of the positive virtues of the Lungs is pride, but the good kind which is healthy self esteem, as opposed to the negative kind which is arrogance. So I breathe in a decent amount of respect, both self respect and respect for others, (for if we respect both ourselves and others we have balance, but if we only build respect for ourselves we become arrogant) and breath out sorrow, low self esteem ect..

One thing I have really really noticed is that intellectual understanding of these issues does not remove them. The only thing I have found that actually fixes such problems is simple practice. Breath in the good, breath out the bad. Its so simple that our egos don't like it, but isn't that the problem in the first place here? lol. Don't get me wrong, I do like to have a good intellectual understanding of these processes, but that is not what fixes things. I have basically taken this approach with just about every unwanted emotion and thought pattern, and it does seem to be working very effectively.

So try the inner smile to your lungs, and doing the lung healing sound as well, and observe what results you get.

I started Qigong because I had a few different goals. The number one goal of mine was and is emotional and sexual health, balance, and stability. The reason being, it has been these issues that have been the most problematic for me in my life. When I began Qigong I was on anti-depressants, sex obsessed, and felt like crap. I also got into it because I was taking Karate and wanted to be a bad-ass fighter, and had heard that Qigong could make you that way. I also felt rather lost in life and was hoping Qigong could help me to gain some perspective as well.

Since that time I no longer take anti-depressants, have dropped the desire to be a bad-ass as my emotionas have balanced out. Sex may still be a little tricky at times, but I am no where near as obessed with it as I was before I began. Yet there is still a lot of progress to be made, yet I feel confident now that I can make progress since I have already made so much.

One more reason is because I can not afford medical insurance, so I have used Qigong to keep both myself and my children healthy, and I pretty much do not need to bring them to the Dr anymore.

This is a topic that I have also been pondering a lot lately. Also I decided to experiment with some of what Drew mentioned as well. I work at a pizza place and there are these two young girls who work there as cooks. Now I have always had a tendency to be somewhat sensitive towards other peoples energy, and since beginning Qigong even more sensitive the longer I practice. So anyways when I first started there about a month ago I just knew that one of the girls there was very horny, and in fact I over heard her telling her friend this later which just confirmed what I had already felt. The longer I was feeling her particular energetic state I also began to feel this way. Since I was at work at the time and did not want to feel this way I decided to try a Drew Hempel on her, and while it may have not been as dramatic as Drew's version, we both ended up having internal climaxes, though I doubt she knew why she was having one. So as far as I was concerned problem solved, for we had both exchanged energy, the frustration was gone, and the people did rejoice, or so I thought.

Thing is that now, once her and her friend show up to work they are both extremely flirty with me. They find excuses to hang around me, and talk to me. As far as the other one goes, I'm not sure why as I did not do any energy exchanges with her, but the only thing I can guess is that since I practice retention and am not constantly squirting out my juices like most of the other guys there most likely are, my energy field is probably quite strong in relation to others. Weird thing is that when they first show up they are super flirty, and as they hang around me being flirty I sort of feel things start to balance on their own. I am not trying to do any energy exchanges, they just sort of seem to happen on their own. Then after this exchange has seemed to reach a certain level (where I assume some sort of balance is acheived) the flirting sort of tappers off, and they go about with actually doing their jobs lol.

I have also noticed that on delieveries my tips seem to average out higher than most of the other drivers. I guess the stronger energy field from retention has a somewhat positive influence on people. On the other hand I have also noticed that if I do ejaculate, not only does my energy field feel weaker to myself, but the flirting dies out, and the tips seem to drop down to the same level as the other drivers.

But I do not feel bad about this, as I see it as yin and yang just wanting to balance themselves, its part of nature. If the pizza girls are a bit too yin and I am a bit too yang, and if us just being in proximity helps the both of us to feel more balanced then that is a good thing.

~

 

Thank you all for your replies they are greatly appreciated. I've put your names in bold to highlight which parts are a response to you

 

 

I quite enjoyed your response dmattwads I think I will look into a couple of bit from your routine, how long does it take to get all your routine done?.

 

 

 

Well I can sort of make my practice go for a while if I so desire and have the time. If I really want to draw it out I can go on just what I mentioned for two hours. Usually I do not have that much free time on my hands, sometimes I have very little free time so I have to be flexible enough to modify my practice according to my time limits. If I am really strapped for time, then I'll pick the practice that I feel like I need the most. So for exaple if I feel stiff and crusty, I may do the 8 Brocades. Or if emotions are the key problem then I'll do the inner smile and healing sounds. If my libido is acting up and turning me into a dry humping lap dog, then I may do the healing love stuff. In a perfect world though I'll try to do all of it.

If you think about it the virtues of the organs and the negitve aspects are really the same thing, just opposite poles. You have the Liver/Gall Ballder which are resonsible for decision making, planning, and kindness. These are all good things obviously, yet if you feel stuck in making good plans most likely you will feel frustrated, or if your more yin then perhaps hopless. Frustration and hoplessness are symptoms of depression which is often associted with the Liver meridian. I believe that if you can remove the blockages which for instance in this case prevent you from making good plans, then once those blockages are gone, then you will by default begin to plan well. Also using the Liver as an exmpale, if you are full of anger, then there is very little room for kindness, yet if you can remove that angry energy from your liver, then kindness will be what remains. Of course it is good to increase the virtues of the organs as well. What I do often when I combine practices, I might breath in with the inner smile focusing on the positive virtues in that particular organ. So with the liver I might breathe in kindness, decisiveness, ect... as part of the smile. Then on my exhale with the healing sound I visualize and feel all that I want to get rid of going out on the exhale. I breath out anger, confusion and frustration with the Shhhhhh sound.

With the Lungs if we have a good degree of self-respect and courage then we will not feel bad about ourselves and go around feeling sad and gloomy.

In the case of the heart its negitve emotion is usualy caused by an excess. So if the positive emotion of the heart is Joy, then if we over do it then we get into over-excitement. See the connection? Same thing just different poles.

In the case of the spleen, if we are full of trust that life will work itself out, then it would be rather difficult to worry. Yet on the other hand if we are full of worry, then we need to get rid of that emotion that is taking up space in our spleen so that trust can by default fill up the space we make.

With the kidneys if we are very calm, gentel and wise, then it is very difficult for us to be irrationally fearful. We will feel calm, not paranoid. If we are full of wisdom then we will realize that most of the things we worry about are groundless.

So I think it is important to be balanced in our practice. Just as we exhale we should inhale. Just as we remove negative energy, we should fill ourselves with positive virtue. In my own experience I have mainly used the inner smile on the inhale to focus on increasing the positive, and the healing sound on the exhale to remove the negative. I have been doing this a lot lately, and have found it to be extremely effective.

I am of the opinion that full lotus is good, but I can not really do it yet lol.

I'd like to hear other people's personal experiences with the Zang Fu (the five main yin organs and their corresponding elements). I'll share what I know and have experienced and would be interested to hear your knowledge and experiences also.

 

The five Zang heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidney, and the five Fu, small intestine, large intesting, gall bladder, stomach, urinary bladder. The five elements, fire, metal, wood, earth, water.

 

1. Heart/Small intestine pair, fire element (pericardium/triple warmer):

Positive emotional attributes: Love, joy, compassion, patience, peace.

Negative emotional attributes: over-excitement, hate, cruelty, haste.

Mental function: healthy interaction with the outside world.

Sound: Haaaaah

 

In my own experience and observation I have found heart blockages to be central to relationship issues. My father is a very hard hearted person, and has had a lot of relationship issues in his life. A few years ago he also had a heart attack, and I beleive the two to be connected. I have had my own issues and most of them tend to be a lack of true love in my heart ( which is a hard thing to admit to one's self). Our society promotes high stimulation, constant excitement, but does not foster true love and compassion. Thus it is easy for our hearts to be full of its negative attribute (being overly stimulated) and lacking in the more positive emotions of real love. We tend to equate sex and lust (stiumlation) with love. Both are heart issues, just as the north and south poles of the earth are both magnetic poles, but totally opposite from eachother.

 

2. Lung/Large Intestine pair, metal element:

Positive emotional attributes: Courage, pride, healthy boundries.

Negative emotinal attributes: Sadness, sorrow, greif, low-self esteem.

Mental function: Cultivation, discrimination.

Sound: Sssssss

 

The lungs, and particuarly their emotion of sadness has probably been the most problematic emotion I have dealt with in my life. When I began Qigong originally it was because I was severely depressed. I felt constant sorrow, and my breathing was usually quite shallow. Additionally I did not think and feel too highly of myself. This also produced relationship problems because since fire (of the heart) melts metal (of the lungs) I subconsciouly hoped that a relationship and love (heart issues) would make me happy (end the sorrow of the lungs). But natrually stimulation and excitement did not melt away my sadness, but rather scorched my lungs and only made my sorrow worse. I also had poor boundries and had a very difficult time telling people NO. This is currently the organ system I am working on now. I am working to increase pride (self respect as opposed to arrogance) and remove sorrow. I am also working on letting go of things that are not good for me, since the other metal element organ is the large intestine (emotional constipation). I also used to get colds often and easily and my skin was not very clear (since the lungs are connected to the nose and skin as well), but this has begun to improve as I have been working on the lungs.

 

3. Liver/Gall Bladder pair, wood element:

Positive emotional attributes: Kindness, forgiveness, generosity.

Negative emotional attributes: Anger, frustration, feeling "stuck".

Mental function: Planning, decision making, strategy.

Sound: Shhhhhhh

 

The Liver was one of the early ones I put a lot of emphasis on due to my short temper. In the past I was quite short tempered with those closest to me, such as my kids, which naturally made me feel quite bad. I also had a very difficult time making decisions and planning things. Since I have worked on the Liver my temper is way more mellow and patient, and I am more decisive than I used to be. I feel more kind in general. Used to if I saw a homeless person holding a "will work for food sign" I would feel angry and think to myself "bum". Now when I see one I often feel more kind hearted towards them, and even gave one a dollar last week, which felt quite good actually, even though I am quite strapped for cash myself. Dandilion and Milk Thistle are good liver cleansing herbs that I have had good results with.

 

4. Spleen/Stomach pair, earth element:

Positive emotional attributes: Trust, openess, sympathy, comfort.

Negative emotional attributes: Worry, pensiveness, ungrounded.

Mental function: clear thought process, study/learning.

Sound: Huuuuuuu

 

My wife and my mother tend to worry excessively. They also both have metabolism problems on oppposite ends of the spectrum. My wife is overweight, and my mother is underweight. The fret and stress and ponder and worry about everything, yet in a non-productive way. I constantly tell both of them to work on their spleens lol. I also used to be more pensive about problems such as finacial difficulties (which I always seem to have) but as I have worked on my spleen I worry less, and trust that things will be ok more. Ginger is a great herb for the spleen and stomach.

 

5. Kidney/Bladder pair, water element:

Positive emotional attributes: Calm, Gentle.

Negative emotional attributes: Fear, paranoia, phobias.

Mental function: Will power, wisdom.

Sound: Chooooooo

 

One thing I notice about American society is that people are paranoid lol, and that calmness is a very rare characteristic. In our society we are scared of everything. Scared of the terrorists, scared of burglars, scared of loosing our homes, our jobs, our money. Scared of accidents, scared of diseases, and on and on. Seveal years ago I had this general paranoia of being out in public, and of random people. Of course it was unfounded, but so is most fear. As I worked on the kidneys this has faded.

Hey everybody,

 

So I read Chia's multiorgasmic man, and practiced pressing the million dollar point pressing to stop cumming and just general not cumming and retention for 3-4? years. I started noticing that it felt like things were getting blocked up... and then recently read that all that stuff was a bad idea unless you knew what you were doing.

 

So now I have trouble pissing, like if I feel any expectation or pressure on me I can't piss. And when I have sex I have issues cumming and even connecting to my dick and the like.

Or even enjoying sex. It literally feels like unless I'm heart connected I can't cum in sex.

 

And just sensation down there feels numbed out sometimes.

 

Furthermore when I get triggered around being important, or enough, it's like my dick head and prostate hurt. Which I think is around the psychosomatics of it.

 

And for the most part of the day my dick head is cold.... which seems unusual to me. Like there isn't enough circulation going on.

 

I've been using the Ring of power to increase circulation and the like down there, and just started doing relaxation of that whole area, and increasing my awareness of everything in my pelvic region.

 

Is this stagnation? Or another issue?

 

Do you guys have any recommendations for this?

 

Thank you for any help,

John

 

Yea Michael Winn has said to NOT use the million dollar point. When I first began doing this stuff I tried doing external finger locking a few times. I did not like it. The last time I did it, the next time I pissed blood came out so I gave that up quick. Now I do internal locking where you squeeze from the inside the muscles of the perenium (the same muscles you use to stop going pee in mid stream). Also very important you should have your MCO open so that once you do stop ejaculation you move ther energy into your orbit (very important) as the goal is not stopping ejaculation but moving that energy through your oribt.

As far as the problems you are having now. You might want to give yourself a little break from that for a bit so you can recover and not permantely screw yourself up. You also might want to visit an acupuncturist as it sounds like you may have done some damage to your channels. Hope you feel better

Is Taoist Kung Fu synonymous with internal martial arts? Are all the taoist martial arts, internal? Are there any "external" taoist marital arts?

 

I found this video very interesting, I appologize if it has already been posted here before. Once you watch the first part you can just follow the links to all 5 sections. It is aboaut Wudang mountain.

 

I recently moved to Washington state. I have studied mainly Karate, and a little BJJ, but I am becoming more intrested in studying internal martial arts and wanted to know if anyone knows how to find a good teacher or school for this?