idquest

So we have JB's statement about "naturally occurring phenomena" on the one hand (with which I pretty much agree base on my own experience). On the other hand we have an idea that neidan is about going against the current, reversing the flow. Which is an interesting, powerful, and logical point. So if we put aside all personalities issues, how do you reconcile these two if you think both are valid assumptions?

This has been my observation as well: the practice unfolds by itself. But we still need some framework to work with, we have to set up the practice. And for this we need a teacher or at least some pointers.

I'm not sure the relaxation of abdominal muscles by itself should be a goal, Rather what they call 'loosening the waist'. Interestingly enough, I just recently started to feel this loosening while doing simple turns left-right with weight shifting from one leg to another. Tied to the abdominals is loosening of lower back and butts which brings the loosening to a deeper level. If I'm correct, then this is mentioned in the Taiji Classics as referred to as waist problems. Bagua would be a powerful method to study loosening but at the same time a very risky one. One should have certain understanding of the body mechanics before even thinking of bagua.

Watch your knees. Very few instructors explain how to circle walk so that your knees remain healthy. The problem is that the misalignment in the knees don't manifest right away but rather accumulate over years and closer to 45-50 a person might get in real trouble. What helped me - 3 swings as taught by BKF. For some people they are obvious; but for me it took more than a year to fully appreciate them. I started them after 50, so for younger folks all that could take much faster.

I just hope BKA will stay. She's a heart.

I use reverse osmosis water (buy it from a local chain stores) and then I mineralize it back with sea salt (forget the name. This is liquid solution from clean sea salt deposits not subject to pollution or so they claim). Drinking just reverse osmosis or distilled water is actually dangerous because you wouldn't get all those minerals that naturally occur in springs or otherwise traditional water. If you think it further, the problem of soil depletion of vital minerals is a real issue. Because they grow all those vegetables (and by extension meat as well) on the same soil by adding standard fertilizers that lack richness of natural soil. The same with water. A good multivitamin might help or might not because nobody really knows how those minerals get absorbed in the body.

Does Sifu Matsuo offer stand alone exercises in his DVD's or forms only? For instance, for items 1 and 4 from your list, there are forms explained. But are there stand alone exercises that would help to work on different neigong concepts? It is my experience that both forms and stand alone exercises/movements are equally important. One can do a lot of repetitions of short movements and work on a certain neigong component and master it to a certain degree. Whereas forms are more for integrating purposes.

It's actually very simple and easy: just train 6 hours a day every day and you'll get there in no time. Sorry, couldn't resist...

Here is an article on meditation from the Bloomberg website: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/to-make-killing-on-wall-street-start-meditating.html I usually find articles there (on financial and political topics) accurate and to the point. Here is a sentence from the article: "Perhaps most surprising: Levels of telomerase, an enzyme that protects genetic material during cell division and delays cell death, were higher in the retreat group. By boosting telomerase, meditation could possibly extend life." They are talking about research done on a group of meditators.

I understand this is what Frantzis calls his 70% rule: if somebody overdoes, it will fight back. I've heard stories from his senior students (>15 years of experience) when they would put in effort to meditation or qigong too much and then would not be able to meditate/do qigong for several years after that. This is CNS overload. Nothing to do with kundalini. Usually people mind 70% rule but think it applies to physical exercises. It is broader.

If Ching Sung invokes/communicates with spirits, then I'd ask how he identifies them. There are some claims from practitioners as to what spirits and/or immortals they speak to and the practitioners maintain they will know the identities of the spirits/immortals. How?

You haven't done your homework. You could go as back as 17th century when Ukraine asked Russia to protect it against Poland and by doing that it became a part of Russian Empire. Even more confusing, you could go back to XII (or XI th) century when a political entity was established with a name of Kyivska Russia with the capital in Kyiv.

Yes he looks healthy to me and full of energy. He has less body fat than most people have these days which may contribute to the unhealthiness perception. Whether it is better or not - hard to tell. Sometimes body fat is needed to store toxins and for possible emergency situations in future. I'd also like to see how he moves around because flexibility in old age is important to the quality of life. He also has internal energy with not a bad level for a 66 yo.

Look at the issue in perspective. If she is 120 now, she'll likely be 150 after child birth. And now ask yourself whether you'll like it or not.

You can if it helps you to systematize you perception of reality and the ways it changes. Otherwise they will be just funny lines.

Re Kuan Yin Magnetic Qigong from Christopher Matsuo, can anybody say how safe it is? Has anybody experienced anything unpleasant with this practice? I've been eyeing this DVD for quite some time but couldn't make my mind because of safety. Thanks.

Is there Master Liao's DVD where he teaches this? If yes, could you point out to this DVD? He has so many and they are quite pricy. Thanks.

Sleeping for 2-3 hours a day during retreats could be a valid practice; but I'd be really curious to know if any traditions, either daoist or others, employ this kind of practice these days. We already know that Vitalii teaches it in his retreats, what about other modern teachers? Vitalii refers to some texts re this practice. I wonder if any modern daoist sects and/or monasteries have this kind of recommendations for their students/monks? In my experience, meditation doesn't decrease necessity for sleep, rather makes sleep more sound and full. But my level could be low and I'm open to ideas. How about more experienced practitioners? Edited for clarity.

This is contrary to my personal experience. I have strong adverse reaction to caffeine. This is the reason why I had to abandon first coffee and than black tea. I enjoy green tea but I have to choose wisely. Green tea the type of Dragon Well still have bad affect on me whereas Sencha would be the mildest one. The adverse effect I've mentioned is tightening/shrinking of tendons that happens in some areas of the body. BTW, very dark chocolate (90-100%) has huge caffeine component compared to strong coffee. I feel that too, unfortunately, as I hate milk chocolate and enjoy the dark one,

On bureaucracy and regulations. I work in an agency that provides service to disable people. As such, the agency is required to pass an accreditation by international (basically USA based) surveyor agency. There are a total of 857 items pf compliance an agency should comply with to pass the accreditation. Among those there is a requirement to maintain cultural diversity for both people the agency serves and the employees. So the surveyors agreed that the agency where I work is fully diverse, there was no questions about it. But there was no PLAN on the cultural diversity in place and/or Policy on diversity. So the agency got a yellow card warning for a possible non-compliance.

Yeah, I edited my post for more clarity. I actually damaged my knee doing taiji incorrectly; and I fixed the knee after that with the help of the three swings.

What I hear from Frantzis's top instructors, it could take many months if not years to get reasonable sense of sinking chi so that one can move on to dissolving. Working with the energy gates is practice that require even more precision ti be meaningful. Why Cloud Hands are better than Three Swings for the beginners? IMO, it's much easier and faster to screw up one's knees and/or spine doing the Swings incorrectly than doing Cloud Hands incorrectly. That doesn't mean that Swings are more or less difficult to comprehend, it just means that one has less chances to screw up the body with Cloud Hands. I must say that when I bought the Energy Gates and read it the first time about 5 years ago, I was disappointed with its seeming simplicity and put it aside for awhile. Now, several years later, after I might have understood some portion of what Bruce writes about, I still consider myself somewhat in the middle of this book curriculum. Dan Kleiman's blog and his advice have been of a huge help for me, BTW.

Watched Farid Zakaria GPS on CNN today. He said there was a poll-game where the participants had to locate Damascus (Syrian Capital city) on the world map. Among participants there were those from the Pentagon. Only 57% of Pentagon participants were able to locate Damascus on the map. Some alternative locations included those in South Africa and India.

A poor guy just follows the orders. A fish rots from the head down.

I think that setting a limit is good. I remember of several forum members who engaged in quite a few serious discussions, elicited sincere responses from other members, and after that deleted all their posts. I believe this kind of behaviour is disrespect to the members and community. At the same time, I think 30 minutes is a very short period of time; and 24 hours would be more reasonable limit.