ChiDragon

Would you please put this in an comprehensible language....??? Thanks...

Chapter 18 　世上有没有至极之乐呢？有没有可以全生保身的方法呢？现在应当有何作为？以何为依据？回避什么？安处在哪里？趋就什么？舍弃什么？喜欢什么？厌恶什么？ 天下所最崇尚的，就是富有、尊贵、长寿、善名；所最喜欢的，就是身体安逸、丰足的美味佳肴、漂亮的服饰、悦目的色彩、悦耳的音乐；所卑贱的，就是贫穷、地位低下、夭折和坏名声；所苦恼的，就是身得安逸，口不得丰厚的美味，身上穿不到美丽的服饰，眼睛看不到悦目的色彩，耳朵听不到悦耳的音乐。如果不能得到这些，就大为忧惧，这样的养身方法岂不是大愚蠢了吗！ 富有的人，劳苦身体加速做事，多积财富而不能尽数享用，这是求养身于外呀！高贵的人，夜以继日，思虑分辩为善去恶，这对养身不是太疏远了么！人一生下来，就与忧愁同在。长寿的人衰老得胡里胡涂，长处忧愁而不死去，何等苦恼啊！这与养生健体更离得远了！ 殉名之上为天下人称善，却不能使自身生命得以保存。我不知道这种善确实是善呢，还是不善呢？如果认为是善，又不能使自身存活；认为是不善，又使他人存活，所以说：“以忠诚之心去匡正谏止而不被听从，就退却而不强争。”以前伍子胥因为强谏，而身遭残害；然而不去谏争，他也不会成名。 这佯说来到底还有没有善呢？现今世俗之所为与所乐，我也不知那果真是乐呢，还是不乐呢？我观察世俗之所乐，所有人都争着奔向所乐，坚定果敢的样子好象没法停止似的，而他们都以为乐，我认为没有什么可乐，也没有什么不可乐。果真有乐没有呢？ 我认为无为确实是可乐的，而世俗之人又认为是大苦。所以说：“最高的快乐就是无忧无乐，最完美的赞誉就是不赞誉。”天下之是非确实是不定的。虽然这样，无力却可以定是非。最高之快乐与存活自身，唯有无为差不多可以作到。请尝试讲一下：天由于无为而能清虚，地由于无为而得宁静，故而天地两者无为相合，万物都化生出来。恍惚暗昧，不知从何所出！暗昧恍惚，又没有一定形象！万物繁杂众多，都从无为生殖出来。所以说：天地是无为，又是无不为的。人谁能懂得无为之道而效法啊！

What is the purpose of RB...??? Can it be performed by any individual at any time...???

Yes, high adequate level of oxygen in the blood will provide and maintain a maximum number of white blood cells in the immune system to fight off any disease. As soon some white blood cells died, with a constant amount of oxygen provided to the body will be continuously re-manufacture new white blood cells to replace the old or dead ones. People with a weak respiratory system seem to have poor health due to hypoxia. The Chi Kung practitioners know how to breathe in a good amount of oxygen to provide energy fuel for the body. That is why they are so energetic and almost never get sick.

Thank you for showing the video. Now, I know why you are having pain in your legs. This stance is actual Zhan Zhuang. Bending the knees 90 degrees was too advance for you. All beginners should start with a small bending angle and increase the angle progressively. Some ZZ practitioners take years to reach the 90 degree bend.

I am not saying this right or wrong. However, I would like to analyze it objectively. It seems to me that too much emphasis was place on the movement of the tongue. The heavy concentration of the movements of the tongue will cause lots of distraction to the mind. That will put your mind, constantly, in a non-empty state. Besides, this is the first time I have heard of such practice. Indeed, I have not read anything like it in any of my native sources. Keeping the tongue touching the palate was recommended but not moving it up and down as you were told.

ohhhhhhhhh......... Sorry, my ignorance..... Sinfest.... Would you please answer my question anyway....Thank you.....

Moving your tongue like that doesn't seem right. Why don't you keep your tongue in either position whichever is comfortable for you. May I ask you how deep does your breath goes down when you breathe. In regarding to your headache, it seems your breathing was too shallow. Under the shallow condition, there was not enough oxygen supply to your brain which will cause you to have a headache. Do you think that can be in your case......????

So, your worse problem is your headache. Then, may I ask how is your normal breathing....???

It seems to me you had done "horse stance" for a long long time. Why do you still have pain and sores.....??? How long can you do it before getting the pain....???

I think it is the other way around; breathing is before jing. The deficiency of jing is due to poor breathing. We just cannot ignore the fact about the lack of oxygen which is the essence of life according to modern science. Chi Kung will help to correct any breathing problem to improve the survivability of life.

OK Fair enough. I wish they stick with the original term as, 自發功, Spontaneous Chi Kung. Very good. Thanks. It is very confusing that each individual Chinese practitioner start changing name of different methods. Then, they are translated into English, then another westerner comes along and changed the name again in English. I guess we are in the confusing world of the Martial Arts....

What you have, here, was only direct translation of Chinese characters to the English words. If I understand the term correctly, Jing dong gong, in Chinese is 靜動功. It was short for two methods, the static method and the dynamic method. The still method is like Zazen meditation without body movements. The dynamic method is a practice with body movements. By the Chinese definition of Chi Kung, both methods are require abdominal breathing. I must emphasize that the Chi Kung has to be involved with breathing, otherwise it is not Chi Kung. Chi Kung helps to build up the inner strength of the body; and that is why it can be considered as Neigong(內功).

Now I have a question...similar to the questions raised by others here. How did the Taoists come to have this knowledge? If not observable or measurable by the normal senses and equipment... Did "someone" or "something" drop on the scene and hand this knowledge to them? Did all the knowledge come from "elsewhere" via meditation, dreams, etc? For example, Jesus came and directly explained secret teachings to his followers. The gnostics speak quite a bit about this. Jesus being part man, part "god" would have known this information. He may have been "not of this Earth"...we can only speculate. Sounds like some pretty heavy duty information. With a built in protective element. I guess I also ask this in a historical sense. Were there tales of where the Taoist knowledge came from, what it's source was? I want clarify that: In Taoist alchemical terms, the origin and capability of our breathing of air/oxygen ( post-natal form) did not come from the so-called " pre-natal " qi . "Post-natal qi" is something the we eat and breathe to sustain the "pre-natal qi" as defined in the TCM. @KoffeeKommando As far as I know, in the ancient time, the Taoists had no reference sources to go by but their own imaginations and intuitive explanation of their thoughts. They had very limited scientific knowledge. Their increase in knowledge and conclusions were, basically, from learning by their naked eye observations and primitive wisdom.

The notion about the jing, qi and shen is only the imaginary terms from the ancient Taoist thinking. These terms are still not well defined. If you said there are basic elements of human life which leads for me to think that they are the body cells(jing), air(qi) and mind(shen) in modern term. IMO Neither jing nor qi can be the objects of study in Western science because these term are not well define. Since they don't have a good definition, how can anyone going to study them....??? The modern science already have the answer under its noses, but no one want to take the responsibility to admit them. What is the essence of life? Isn't the body cells are the basic unit of the human body....??? Can we consider that the body cells are the essence of life. Don't we breathe the oxygen in the air to survive. Isn't oxygen the essence of life...??? "Taoists, in fact, understand the essence of human breathing much deeper ( of course, also earlier ) than the Western science." is an understatement. Taoists know how to breathe only macroscopically; but they did not understand much deeper than the western science. Western science can go into much finer detail, microscopically, inside the lungs. For example, modern science can explain how the blood carry the oxygen to the body cells. Indeed, the ancient Taoists had no idea about that. Again, the above quote is another understatement. Qi can be said as air(oxygen) but not restricted to confine to the only definition. Qi has lots of different meaning. The user much have a deeper cultural understanding of the term Qi. Most of the westerners only known one definition of Qi as energy. Unfortunately, that was the only mischief causing the regression in their studies. Science can do a lot if you know it and how to handle it with an objective and open mind.

exorcist_1699... Thank you for expressing your outside view of the thread.

We need more opposite views. Thus, we should be able to handle rigorous strong opposing views and opinions. If we were limited ourselves to agree upon what everybody said here, then we will not know what is correct or incorrect; and who is right or wrong. May I suggest that we should just let the weight of the ideas take its course.

I think a point with merit has been made.

Please put breathing into consideration in your meditation. If your don't do any breathing exercise, then it makes no difference as you were just sitting down and daydreaming. Indeed, breathing exercise will help you to refresh and heal your body and mind. If you have any illness in your body, it will be healed. If not, your body will be more refreshing. If you breathe, then you will have something to be concentrated on instead of having a random mind causing you to feel more anxious. Please keep in mind, breathing is the main criteria of Chi Kung. Most people do not have this concept in mind. I am not making this up in thin air but from my own cultural experience and empirical practice. To go into a deeper understanding, doing abdominal breathing is a more precise description about Chi Kung. I am doing abdominal breathing by the minute; and I haven't got sick for years. I have tremendous muscle strengths and fast reflexes to react and anticipate any adverse situations like falling off balance and catching objects before falling off the table.

Yes, I had looked at the information on the declination for the calculation to find the true north. I just don't like to play with semantics, would you settle those are the environmental factors which you had mentioned including the declination that are needed to be considered for accurate measurements... Edited to add: Chinese Compass with the handle of the spoon pointing South... http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Antic_chinese_Compass.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antic_chinese_Compass.jpg&h=1536&w=2048&sz=929&tbnid=awSJRDBHdnSlcM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&docid=0yr5n6qJncYc-M&sa=X&ei=GOhsT4nJCaiciAKd0rizBQ&ved=0CDkQ9QEwAQ]

FYI.... The compass on any LuoPan is not any different. The Early Day Ba Gua was drown around the compass. The compass is just an ordinary one with a marking(red) on the tip of needle pointing at the south while the tip without marking is pointing at the magnetic north. It is customary to have the time unit 午(Wu) in the south direction. It is the same as 12:00pm at high noon. "Chi D are you referring to calculations for deviation from true north?" True north was to be fund by using the compass to orient the proper directions. After finding the magnetic north, the user has to rotate the Luo Pan with the vertical line, where the time unit 子(Zi), is to align with the true north. All the calculations for divination were based on all the proper directions after the true north has been found. It was not based on the true north alone. If the true north was fund and aligned, then the south was also aligned properly. We cannot say that the needle of a compass is pointing at the south because the needle has two tips. One is pointing toward the south and the other is pointing at the north. However, as mentioned earlier, the tip pointing at the south was marked with a color(red) while the tip pointing at the north has no marking. BTW I had just noticed on my German made compass on the south tip also except the color wasn't red. As far as looking for a Luo Pan, I think the one have shown in this thread is a very good one. The actual Chinese compass is really pointing at the south. The needle was shaped like a spoon. Let me see if I can find one again on the internet to show you. Edited to add: Chinese Compass with the handle of the spoon pointing South... http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Antic_chinese_Compass.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antic_chinese_Compass.jpg&h=1536&w=2048&sz=929&tbnid=awSJRDBHdnSlcM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&docid=0yr5n6qJncYc-M&sa=X&ei=GOhsT4nJCaiciAKd0rizBQ&ved=0CDkQ9QEwAQ]

What I meant by "error" was from a scientific point of view, it was something that was caused by Nature which has to be corrected by human. I'm sorry, I was using the term as an engineering definition. We are talking about the Luo Pan at the moment, I was only responding to the point of interest. "There are many ways to find true north." Would you please enlighten us on this...??? Thank you... From the Luo Pan above... I see a compass in the center and the two red lines perpendicular to each other. The Luo Pan was made to be rotatable around the compass. The compass was used to locate the magnetic north and the vertical red line was to be rotated to the true north to get a more accurate feng shui reading. However, the user must know how to locate the true north.

When the Luo Pan was first invented for feng shui reading, the ancient Taoists did not know about the "true north" and "magnetic north". In the modern time, the design of the Luo Pan has been changed to take this little scientific idea into consideration. How much do you know about the Taoist alchemy? What is the difference between external and internal alchemy....??? 2000 years ago, the ancients knew how to breathe better than we do now. However, they didn't know what they were breathing in the air but they do know how to breathe. They didn't know breathing was to provide oxygen for the mitochondria in the body cells to generate the bio-energy ATP. Indeed, they knew breathing will give them lots of energy without knowing why. By all means, the ancients had come up with the ultimate method of breathing called Chi Kung or Qigong. There are lots of things that we didn't know before but we do now. Are you suggesting that we should ignore all the present known scientific facts; even though we can use those facts to help us to explain something better than the ancients...???

This instrument is only using an ordinary compass. It can only detect the "magnetic north". How do you compensate for the magnetic field error to find the "true north"....??? I know there is a way, but I would like to hear it from you.