LBDaoist

In my mind the benefit of learning from a lineage holder is that they are not figuring out. Someone else in this thread asked (and I'm paraphrasing) "How do you know that what you're doing is different than what I'm doing?" I do not have to consider that question. That question does not matter. Working with a lineage, I can look back on a long history of people who have been pursuing a single goal and getting results from it. They are not wondering what will happen when they practice. The results are there and documented. The exercises for opening the channels are codified. The techniques for circulating the qi are codified. The philosophy of the art has already manifest through the practice and the teaching. At the end of the day, it comes down to being healthy and helping others be healthy. My own experience went something like this: I had an idea about qi, it seemed logical to me. I did some reading and developed what I thought was some understanding. I did some practices on my own, breathing exercises, physical exercises, etc. I found a teacher. A few years later, I realized that most of what I thought based on what I had read was wrong. I spent a long time unlearning what I thought I knew. I came to appreciate Lao Tzu's saying, "The way that can be spoken of is not the true way." The teaching is not knowledge. It is not a concept that you get. It is a way of being. On one level it is like a vibrational frequency. Anyone who has experience with healing sounds will understand. Each organ has an optimal resonance. The body as a whole has an optimal resonance as well. For lack of a better term, a lineage holder, a true teacher is someone who is calibrated to the right frequency. Yet the teacher does not own that frequency. It is the frequency of life. A lineage does not own the frequency. Anyone can find the frequency at any given time. What a teacher and what a lineage provide is calibration. A teacher tunes people to the right frequency.

I think that lineage plays an important role in cultivation and practice. A master passes energy to their student. That energy is the essence of the art. The essence itself has been cultivated and passed down (in some cases) over a thousand plus years... transmitted from master to student over and over again. The essence is the interrupted refinement of the life force that has been cherished, pondered and improved by every person who has dedicated their lives to the art. Now in the culture we live in, where everything is for sale, it is hard to comprehend this. What makes teacher A better than teacher B? They both show you how to do motions. They both call what they do tai chi, or qigong, or what have you. We live in a culture of excess and competing products. So many people focus on the "best" or "most effective" or blah blah blah blah blah. Those who do not have a teacher want to tell themselves the teacher or the lineage does not matter. Those have had the opportunity to experience the transmission of a 1000+ year old essence and all of the love, and discipline and encouragement and refinement that has gone into it... they know differently. Qigong is not about a set of movements. It is about a way of life.

1. 9 Years 2. 2-3 times a day 3. Mmmmmm, qi. Better flexibility. Less serious illness. Positive vibrations and improved connectedness with those around me.

As my sifu once said, "The art itself is free, you are paying me for my time."

I recently went through the same choice in my own life. I had (have) a serious disc issue (L5 / S1 is way out of whack.) I was on vicoprofen (ibuprofen and vicodin combined) and a muscle relaxer. I ended up tossing the pills and going with a good sativa strain of marijuana. The difference between the two is that vicodin completely masks the pain. The pot just makes it bareable. With my background in qigong, I appreciated being able to still feel the pain because I was able to work with it. I have since tapered off the pot, but it was a good middle ground for me. I hate vicodin with a passion. It is nothing but bad news for the body. Do you have any bao ding balls? Those are great for increasing circulation, especially in the hands and arms. Are you doing heat and ice? Those will help get the qi flowing again as well (heat more so than ice). Just don't do either for more than 15 minutes a time.

I wish I could. Like so much of Taoism, it is one of those things that has to be experienced. I could try to record myself doing the sound, but even that would be practically worthless because you wouldn't be able to sense the tone and pitch as if you were there. A suggestion that I can offer is that if you do come across someone who knows the sound(s), make sure that you do them with a rising tone. Start low and get louder/higher as you make the sound. Two sounds that are easy to convey are the lung sound. You say it like sea (the ocean) or si (yes in Spanish). The other is the heart sound. It is an Ohh sound. With the emphasis on O. The kidney sound is hard to write. It's like chwee... ch... weeeee. I wish I could help you more, but it's probably best that you only practice the easy ones... heart and lung. Six repetitions each. Lung first.

I train what sounds like a very similar style. My sifu has direct wing chin lineage, and also teaches what he has called bagua tai chi (a mixture of wu style tai chi and baguazhang). Anyway, there are a few levels of training. I started training tai chi and moved onto kung fu after about a year and a half. There are two levels of kung fu... beginners and seniors. Beginners cannot go to senior class until they pass their first test. That test is usually taken after about a year of training. Part of being a senior student involves teaching beginners. Long before I knew about Daoism or Buddhism, an elementary school teacher told me that, "You don't really understand a subject until you are able to teach it to others." Why does he suggest you only train once a week? That does not seem like enough time. Especially in the beginning you need to be training a lot. It's weird that you pick your own areas. I always thought that a good sifu gave students what they need. My intention was never to train kung fu. Yet one day my sifu told me it was time. It was a suggestion... but a sifu like suggestion that really comes across as more than that. The style I study is very structured. My sifu has made it his life's work to take what he was taught, improve upon it and pass it along. The style is always evolving, yet there is a core set of fundamentals that are always trained. You can never train those fundamentals enough. Train them 10,000 times and you're just beginning. The fundamentals form the foundation of the rest of the art. If the foundation is weak, a house is in trouble. If the fundamentals are weak, a martial artist is useless. If you can go observe a class, do that. My sifu is very traditional in that there is an interview process. Nobody gets a sneak peak at the art. Nobody gets a trial period. You sign up for a year, because sifu wants to make sure that students are really committed to the training. New students are expected to be at the temple at least two or three times a week. With what you've described, I'd be kind of hesitant. If the class really is a sort of mish mash of people doing what they feel like doing, I'd keep looking for a new teacher somewhere else. One last note. With my sifu, every student gets a private session once a week. You can attend as many classes as you want. There are both morning and evening classes. Sifu teaches a couple of classes every week (beginner level classes, because he believes the fundamentals are most important), but most of the classes are taught by senior students. Most of the senior students have been there ten plus years and are well qualified to help beginners.

In my own life and practice I have found that attempting to repress or shut down thoughts and emotions only leads to problems in the long run. Control has been likened to an illusion. I have had good results with acceptance first, and then guidance. If thoughts or emotions trouble me, I ask myself how else I would rather be behaving, or feeling. I spend some time figuring out where the negative or disturbing thoughts come from, what they relate to, etc. Once that awareness has been established, the thoughts often times resolve themselves. The need for control over them evaporates along with them. So to directly answer your question, CONTROLLING thoughts/emotions leads to repression.

Healing sounds are no joke. They work. I do lung, heart, kidney, liver, spleen and triple warmer. When you get the tone right, you can really feel the particular organ that you focus on. There are motions that go with the sounds to help channel the qi more efficiently.

Has anyone else felt any particularly powerful energy tonight? The moon seems to be in a very auspicious and well aligned position. The mass of white on the bottom, offset by the equal amount of darkness above presents the image of a bowl, perfectly level with the horizon. There seems to be a grounding energy, a heightened sense of balance. I finished doing qigong and my finger tips were absolutely vibrating. I had my girlfriend close her eyes, and I placed both hands near her cheeks. I expected her to feel a similar tingling perhaps, or an itching. She mentioned that she felt a slight breeze. It surprised me to hear that. I was not expecting that. She mentioned that it felt cool. It has been an amazing night.

Paying attention to my breathing. Paying attention to what I hear. Paying attention to what I feel. Paying attention to what I see.

One of the most insightful philosophies that I have had passed along to me is that of the "four pillars". In our lives we have four pillars that we need to maintain. Those pillars are; our health, our relationships, our finances and our career / job / work. Only after all four are in balanced and in harmony can we turn our attention to higher pursuits. When one is out of wack, it undermines the others. For example, if you are having problems with your career you might have problems with money. If you have problems with health, you might not be able to work as much. Your health problems might lead to doctor's bills. If you have relationship problems, they might distract you when you should be focused on work. If you do not make enough money, you might not be in the position to contribute equally to a solid relationship. There are probably infinite interactions among the four that one can recognize. It has been said, "If you enjoy what you do, you will never work a day in your life." Along a similar line of thought, if you focus your efforts on empowering others to help themselves, you will find the rewards come to you in round about kinds of ways. Realize that your time is valuable. It is not bad to expect compensation for what you do.

I used to get really bad headaches as a kid. The only thing that worked for me was complete relaxation. Instead of trying to fix the tension or guide it, let it go. On the inhale become aware of it, on the exhale let it go. Do not force the exhale, just let it evaporate. It took a few months to develop the internal awareness to make it work. Once I got it figured out, it has worked like a charm ever since. Good luck!

That is a very good point. Electrolytes are super important. I wish I could afford a water ionizer / purifier. I would love to have pH perfect water, but at $2000+ for a good one, I think I will be sticking with tap water for a while.

Life continues itself. Life evolves. The purpose of life revolves around continuity. Beyond that we are simply along for the ride.

I have a couple basic questions. They are related to the concept of front and back of the body. When inhaling and drawing qi up the back, where does the draw start? I'm imagining somewhere at the base of the sacrum? The point that a chiropractor would label S5? When exhaling down the front, starting from the head, where in the head does the front begin? With the concept of starting points in mind, how about blockages? Let's say I start at the sacrum and I can only draw upward to my lower back until I get a blockage. Then on the exhale, is it okay to "skip" ahead to the top of the head and let the qi flow downward from there? Obviously the ultimate intent is to get a full circulation. Yet in the beginning, how does the practice go? Along the same line of thought, the two channels are separate but eventually will be joined. Does one work on each channel, knowing that eventually they will come together at the two points above and below?

You might consider that perhaps the thoughts have lead to the blockage and not the other way around.

Just stop. It sucks. You are going to feel like crap. You are going to get cravings and urges. You will have headaches for a little while. In the end it comes down to whether or not you have the willpower to be in charge of yourself.

Because you want the thoughts to go away they will linger. The mind produces thoughts. No matter what you do, the mind will continue to produce thoughts. The best we can hope for is to become aware of the thoughts and then let them go. I have found it helpful to become aware of the senses... sound, smell, touch, etc. It seems to me that when I am fully focused on a sense, there is not enough awareness left over to think. Of course maintaining full awareness of a sense is difficult, and often thoughts arise about whatever the sense is aware of.

Good luck. I re-read and realized I left out an important part. You have to keep going. You have to keep asking yourself, "What would happen if..." after every answer you get. Accept the answer you get. Try something along the lines of, "I am okay with X happening, now what if X happens..." You have to really be okay with it. If you aren't, pause and figure out what about it you aren't okay with. That pausing to reflect will often start the cycle over again. Just keep going down the mental path. Let your brain exhaust itself with "what if's". Get to the end of the what if road. The end of the road is what is really bugging you. Every step between the present state of mind and that end of the road are simply excuses that your mind has created... separate problems it has come up with to distract itself from what it can't/won't deal with.

I think you are heading toward the right path here. From what I've read of your various posts, I will make a suggestion. You are avoiding something. You are pouring yourself into energy work and practices and meditation as a way of distracting yourself from something that you do not want to face. A part of you already knows what needs to be done, but you feel trapped. So you are trying to work with the situation. You are trying to become okay with being trapped. Like Zhang said... I'm going to suggest something radical. There isn't anything wrong with you. You're just in a bad situation that you are trying to cope with. Try this... ask yourself, "What would happen if I don't stop (whatever you're worried about)." When you get an answer to that, follow up with, "So what? What would happen if that happens?" The trick is not to quiet your mind. The trick is to focus it, acknowledge what it is focused on, accept it and then act on it. Once you do that enough, you will find you do not need to act anymore. Then the mind becomes quiet.

NLP was my first step toward developing spirituality. It was a great instructional manual for how the mind can work. Things like eye accessing cues are a load of nonsense. On the other hand the meta-model is a gold mine. The hypnotic techniques of Milton Erickson are also very useful.

Up until about a year ago I was training full time, 4 to 5 times a week since 2002. I started with tai chi (modified Wu style) and baguazhang. After about a year and a half I started training kung fu; modified wing chun, hung gar and northern shaolin. These days all I can manage is some basic qigong and tai chi due to a herniated disc that is impinging my sciatic nerve. I really want to get back up to speed. I feel like a big part of my life is missing.

In my own experiences, the simplistic understanding that I came to is that Taoism and Buddhism are two views of the same thing. Buddhism seems to be primarily focused on the mind and thought. Taoism seems to be focused on the body and the spirit. They are both tools to guide a seeker to the path. I original read a lot of Taoist texts. When I read the Buddhist texts, they helped me make sense of the Taoist texts. I would imagine the reverse would be also be true. Although you didn't ask, Confuscian texts seem like the third part of the family. Where Buddhism deals primarily with the mind, and Taoism deals primarily with the spirit, Confuscianism seems to deal with society and interpersonal relationships.

Thank you for taking the time to send out email messages regarding this interview. I find it interesting that all qigong teachers seem to share the same philosophy of helping others. I am surprised that Chunyi Lin did not make a statement along those lines when asked about ultimate goals, despite having previously mentioned it being the purpose for developing the SFQ system. It seems to come naturally. Once we feel good about ourselves, we want to share it with others. The goodness seems to be a force of its own, and it wants to propogate and multiply.