ChiDragon

From my point of view, objectively, people said all these postures work in their practice. Why do they work for all to accomplish the purpose of Qigong ? There must be a common denominator that no one have ever mentioned here. Have you ever asked why you are sitting in the half or full lotus position on the floor or a chair or whatever but still works? To meditate is like having a dream or just concentrate on the sitting postures or to concentrate on the breathing? Which one of that you think it will help to accomplish the purpose of Qigong?

Yes, whenever possible, I practice Tai Chi Quan, Tai Chi sword and Sabre at least once a day.

Now, we all know what Tai Ji means the "supreme ultimate"; "Ultimate extreme"; "Yin-Yang". In Tai Ji Quan, the are two things that one wants to go to the ultimate extreme. They are the breathing and the physical body. Breathing is soft with the Yin attribute, the body is hard or solid with the Yang attribute. The goal in Tai Ji was to fine tune the respiratory system to its ultimate extreme(the most Yang state) and transform the body to a tip-top shape. We always hear the common phrase in Tai Ji, 以柔克刚, "the softness dominates the hardness." In this case with Tai Ji, it is the breath dominates the body. We know breathing controls the body, otherwise, without breathing the body will die. Hence, we want to dominate the breathing by fine tuning it to its ultimate extreme. In the same fashion, we want the body to have the ultimate strength. Fortunately, the ancients had found an ultimate method to accomplish the two. This method is called Tai Ji Quan. Tai Ji Quan involves slow movements and slow breathing. The slow Tai Ji movements will force the body to go through all different positions as it normally should be capable of. While, doing the movement, the breath was going down deeper and deeper into the Dan Tian while breathing. Thus having the breath to reach the Dan Tian was the ultimate goal in Tai Ji or Chi Kung. The ultimate breathing method is, now, known as the "abdominal breathing" method. It was because the Dan Tian was located below the navel at the abdomen. For simplicity, let's say that there two levels in Tai Ji, the primary and secondary. The primary level is for those who had not been exercising or with chronic illnesses, especially with a breathing problem. Without exercising, the muscles are stiff and may not be able to move at any position. The reason that Tai Ji practice begins with the slow movements was to adjust the muscles gradually for getting use to the different stresses which was being applied. The improvement of the breathing was being done spontaneously while performing the slow movements. After a prolong practice continuously day-by-day, the muscle were fine tuned to have better tones. The breath are going down deeper and deeper. Finally, the breath had reached down to the Dan Tian. This breathing state has being called 氣沉丹田, "Sunken the breath to the Dan Tian", throughout the last two centuries. Many people are mistakenly interpret this character 氣(Chi) as energy; and mistranslated the phrase as "move the energy to the Dan Tian". With the notion of "move the energy to the Dan Tian", most people were misled that breathing has nothing to Chi Kung. That was why some people advanced quicker and some was not improving at all. At the secondary level, all the muscles were transformed to fast twitch type and they are ready for action. The breathing has been able to do abdominal breathing. Hence, the practitioner at this level was capable to control the breathing to assist all the muscles to Fa Jin(發勁). It is very important that one can control the breathing. How deep the breath was will determine the amount of Jin or body strength that can be exerted to the muscles. Another word, if one wants to exert 25% of the Jin, one will control the breath to go down 25% inside the body, so to speak. In order to Fa Jin, the muscle must be contracted and the breathing has to be controlled by the depth. An experienced Tai Ji practitioner will never hold the breath but always breathe smoothly in and out without a pause. Thus that will keep the lungs to exchange gas at a constantly rate. PS.... Your comments are welcome....!!!

When I say breathing I meant "abdominal breathing", do you think it would help you to accomplish whatever your intended end result was......???

This is the most authentic and genuine method to practice Chi Kung regardless of what style or whatever it was called. Before you ask anybody how to do Chi Kung(Qigong), this is where you start. The ultimate method of breathing

Reply to Bendowa... "My primary objective is health. For the past half decade I've been struggling with a serious digestive condition, which has psychosomatic components, that I believe can be addressed via spiritual development of the nervous system. My progress has thus far been limited mainly be injuries (for example,currently rehabbing a knee injury that limits tai chi, standing and sitting), time (have a job/career that demands the majority of my waking hours and energy), and self-pacing to remain grounded -- I find pushing too hard in any of these directions tends to be counter-productive, so am working on finding a steady pace of gentle opening and integration. So... who do I talk to about getting a practice journal? ;-) " You may practice sitting Chi Kung by concentrate on your breathing. Breathe slowly, expend your abdomen during inhalation and suck it in during exhalation. This abdominal breathing will massage your digestion system to help indigestion and prevent constipation. At the beginning, abdominal breathing is not easy. It is better to breathe progressively form shallow to deep breathing until the abdomen can be fully expanded. It may take a little time to accomplish this. In the long run, it will improve your health tremendously.

Chapter 42 - Genesis 1. 道生一。 2. 一生二。 3. 二生三。 4. 三生萬物。 5. 萬物負陰而抱陽， 6. 沖氣以為和。 Translation 1. Tao engenders One; 2. One engenders Two; 3. Two engender Three; 4. Three engender all things. 5. All things with yin on the back and yang in the front. 6. Blend the primordial essences and become homogeneous.

The eight observable sources of the Universe: 1. 乾: Heaven 2. 坤: Earth 3. 離: Fire 4. 坎: Water 5. 艮: Mountain 6. 澤: Marsh 7. 風: Wind 8. 雷: Thunder The symbols of this eight sources are needed to be drawn and understand them to know what the Yi JIng(易經) is all about.

Can anyone come up with a good reason to the best of your understanding....???

Many people were talking about the cultivation of Tao's principles by reading the TTC. What are the principles in the TTC that one would like to be cultivated.....??? Is there anyone would like to list them one by one or chapter to chapter to share your idea with us....???

No, it is 羊 with no gender specified nor species.

You lost me by throwing out piece by piece without a direct answer as usual. My double headed snake...... Are we talking about Kung Fu or the serious.....???

Year, but the Kung Fu series was written by a China man called Bruce Lee who has a BA degree in Philosophy.

Then, where do you think that the philosophy in the Kung Fu programs came from...???

Great! but how?

In regard to the attributes for the front and the back and how they were defined.....??? Let's look at the sides of the hill. The sunny side of the hill was consider to be Yang which is the front. The shadow side of the hill was considered to be Yin which is the back. Ref: Yin-Yang

It seems to me this is always falls into the dilemma of double standard.

It seems to me that Yutang was quoting from Lao Zi.

使: to make it happen; let it happen I am glad that we have some agreements in our discussions for a change. Finally. we have come to our senses.

TM doesn't believe in Yin is within Yang and vice versa. 陰中帶陽 Yang is within Yin 陽中帶陰 Yin is within Yang

It was be because no one has read Chapter One correctly. Lao Zi had introduced Wu(無) and You(有) in Chapter One and explicitly expressed throughout the TTC. All ZZ's ideas were derived from LZ.

The key to get the correct answer is from the right source. It seems no one knows how to get to the right source. Unfortunately, the source may be right up front for grabs but many chances had gone by unknowingly.

Walker..... Sorry, my translation had disappointed you. I am glad that you didn't like it. To be honest with you, I had done my best to do an unbiased translation to reflect what the article says. btw I don't think my Chinese is that bad and deserve such strong remarks from you. However, even though I did the translation but I did not like it anymore than you do. It is because I believe that is not what Chi Kung is all about neither.

Okay..... I will stop here.