sheng zhen

Yes! One qigong treacher said to me: you move as fast as your full awarness allows. Which for most people will be reeeeaaaly really slooowwww....

hahahaha

Shen Gong

Oh no, dont tell the BUDDHIST!!! They are just as bad as the australians... <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value=" name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object> oops...come to think of it... you are australian, aren't you, Seth?

Yes! "the more silent we are, the better we understand each other" he said. I like that!

Really cool!!!

Yes. To me this is just logical. We are all connected on many levels and eventually, as we develop, we would reach a level of unity that allows us to connect to anything. As we develop ourselves the limit for how subtle expeirences we can sense is expanded. Just like we can connect to our ankle now(some people cant even do this...), feel how the condition of our ankle is, sense the muscles, the bloodflow, the energy, etc, we can also expand this and connect to other people the same way. And eventually distance will no longer be an issue. But I think it is important that this comes as a by-product of training and not as a premature urge to have the "ability".

hmm, Ive allways been wondering... is there any written account on all the 84000 meridians and their specific function in diagnosis and treatment? Or is this just a number that has been passed through generations upon generations of people who never really have learned to use them in therapy, but still recklessly use the numbers to make their own practice look better than the rest? I have heard several other numbers. 72, 72000, 144000, some even just say "thousands" or "hundreds". But I suspect very few actually use all the thousands of meridians(nadis... whatever) in real treatments... They probably just use 10-20 of them anyways, right?

ey, you have Tool in the background! great!

There is one more option: see it AND wallow blissfully in it. I do it that way

Yes, absolutely! It helps release fascial restrictions. I also have been playing around to direct the vibration with just small movements. But I have never had inspiration to use my machine over longer periods of time. Yet... Maybe I got some inspiration now

aww, wow! Lucky morning! And lucky you doing qigong with whales!

I am a little ambivalent in this regard. Through studying anatomy and science I have realized that a lot of TCM can be explained scientifically. But not everything! I do not think TCM should be discarded just because we have found a scientific explanation. I only think it confirms TCM. And at the same it time confirms that science really has not discovered everything that TCM and taoist sciences explains. When I feel warm water flow slowly up my spine I don't have the scientific explanation for it so I use the taoist explanation and call it qi. Or when I feel wind blowing around me while doing qigong I dont know the scientific explanation. So I call it qi, like the taoists have done for thousands of years. But when I feel heat in my hands I can maybe explain that by increased bloodflow. Or when I feel total unity with my body, what the taoists call Sung, I can explain that by increased proprioceptive activity of my nervous system. Or when I feel like I'm being supported by some "energy", what from ancient times has been called Zheng qi, I can explain that by biotensegrity and the slow-twitch postural muscles I think many things can be explained by science and medicine. But taoists have already explained it thousand of years ago. And they have explained a lot more as well. This should not be underestimated. If we discard the taoists concept of qi, we miss out on a lot of the deeper effects of taoist practices and are stuck at the level of which science has evolved to.

oh yes, that. Cant get more simple, yet limitless effect.

Zhan Zhuang! As simple and effective as it gets...

Very good article! I also like that he say the weight should go down in front of the spine instead of the back: Deep Front Line of the Anatomy Trains! When he write "I", it also means "Yi", right?

I like the simplisity and portability of the StressEraser, but I really miss a computer connection to get out the raw data and re-evaluate the graphs, or see how the graphs change while I train my nervoussystem. The device only shows a log of the time and amount of points for each session. Im still enjoying the effects and have been able to smooth and harmonize my graphs. This gives a very good feeling that is a little different from what I experience with my regular breathing meditation(without biofeedback). I dont know exactly how it is different... Also my breathing while at work has become better. So I really like this gizmo! Its a good thing to combine different biofeedback systems. I think the skin conductance show a more global or generalized relaxation effect in body, while the HRV shows how to optimize each breath resonating to the nervesystem and increase of parasympathetiv activity. Im definately getting the NeuroSky also.

All very important points! Nooooo, dont become like Winpro, AugustLeo and the others who delete their posts... Negativity is not bad... its natural. Especially here on taobums, even though I think this is one of the most positive forums available

yeah, its getting more and more fun everyday. I thought it was mostly for teaching noobs to breathe, but it really could be very interesting for more experienced meditators also. You get your nervous system's condition right in your face! No lies, no visualizations or fantasies of amazing high level divine energies It shows the autonomic nervous system in real-time and teaches how to breathe to harmonize it. I bought mine for 149$. aha, Xin. Very interesting concept! I need to look more into that. I really like the concept that it is not the conscious mind that does the "moving" of qi, but some deeper mind. I have become very anti-visualization these last years because of the superficiality and limitations of visualization, since it is being controlled by the waking everyday-mind. So Hsin might seem to be what I try to understand instead.

Thank you Pietro for the thorough explenation. Interesting also that you mention the nervoussystem. Just yesterday I was observing my Heart Rate Variability(which is a biofeedback window to the nervoussystem, check out www.stresseraser.com) while deep and long breathing. It clearly showed the limit to where the nervoussystem start to fire off chaotically instead of harmoniously. And the limit was not where I thought it was! I can easily slow my breathing to 2-3 breaths per minute and have a good and deep meditation like that. But when I saw my nervoussystem I noticed that it is not really relaxing my nerves at all! I had to spend a lot more time than usually with 7 breaths per minute before I could slow down to 6 while keeping the same harmonious nervous system. I could not get past 6 breaths per minute without disrupting my nervoussystem. It was an eye-opener for me that I dont think I have fully understood yet. By the way...by "heart mind" you mean Shen, right?

No. Not at all. Physical exercise just gets more important. If you have a lot of energetic development but without the mirrored development of the body, it will become unbalanced. I used to be like that. Thin, weak, and spiritual. But now, the urge for physical exercise just gets stronger with increased energetic development. I'm a lot more healthy now. I don't think necessarily the gym is the only alternative, but some kind of bodywork is necessary. If it is chopping wood, biking, hiking, dancing, martial arts, or whatever activates the body.

Tapping, in several forms, seems to be very popular. I have just discovered EFT and like it. Its simple and effective.

Me too! I mostly do just Wuji. After 10 minutes or so with micro-correction of my posture I enter a state of relaxation and internal balance that makes it easy to stand. It feels like I am supported from within instead of using muscles to stay upright. Then I just enjoy the stillness and breathing for as long as my body takes me.

Please explain why you follow the 70% rule? I have not studied with the Water tradition so I dont really know. Do you neverEVER break the 70% rule? What happens to you if you do? Personally I like to break and expand my own limits once in awhile. But I always spend the nessecary amout of rest, healing and integration afterwards.