idquest

I don't agree that fruits are not sugar. This is my opinion based on my personal meal consumption statistics over several decades. I have some medical condition which results in some inflammation when I consume more than certain amount of 'sugary' food. This condition certainly responds to the processed sugars. But in the same fashion it responds to the sugary fruits especially such as mango, nectarine and peaches (from greenhouse). With this, I have my own benchmarks for myself as to how much 'sugary' food (including fruits) I can eat so that my condition does not flare up. On a slightly side note, modern and highly (genetically)modified fruits have nothing to do with the fruits even from 50 years ago. This could be the reason. Everybody makes their own judgement, but when an apple is a size of a small watermelon and a nectarine contains more fructose that a bucket of peaches from 100 year old, I'm not sure we can call those chemical implements fruits any more.

Whatever neigong system you do, it will affect the health condition, and this change can be in any direction, desirable or not. The proved lineages are good exactly because of this - you can trace back for at least three generations and see how people practicing the system were doing. Otherwise one may have impressive results at the moment but long term - not so much.

The Secret of the Golden Flower is taiyi jinhua zongzhi (I hope I did it right) which is chapters 14A-B in the book. For the beginners (such as myself) there are two distinct practices there: opening the 3rd eye with li, and An Shen Zu Qiao. WLP usually teaches the first one in the beginning, and the second one in the end. It is recommended that one has done good volume of pore breathing and xiatian (lower field/dantian) work before starting with the 3rd eye. Another comment re the book: it is NOT a textbook and it is NOT a map for WLP's teaching. In my view the content of the book is more like a collection of transcripts of WLP's talks and guided meditation from 90-s and early 2000-s that are combined in almost random order. Those who attended at least one retreat will figure out what is what. Otherwise it is very difficult to figure out how to build practice based on this book.

Yes this new book includes the Yin Xian Fa although it was translated to English as 'Attracting Immortality'. To be honest, now that I've received the book myself and had a chance to quickly flip through it, I see how it could be confusing. I'd say even more, the impression from the book is very different than from WLP's retreats. With this, for any new readers and anybody new to WLP's system, I'd recommend start reading from chapters 3A and 3B, and after that jump right to chapters 13A and 13B which is Attracting Immortality (Yin Xian Fa), and after that to 14A-B. This will give you more feel of how current WLP's retreats are structured. Also, on a general note, some technical Chinese terms were translated to English which also can be confusing. Here are some of them: - shen - translated as 'spirit' - Jing - translated as 'essence' - ling - translated as 'life force' - Xiatian (what is usually referred to as dantian) - translated as lower field. I see how these translation choices could also be confusing.

To OP: To distinguish a real benchmark from delusion, you'll have to meet an accomplished master at some point in your training. You need this to feel what the real qi is like. Maybe or already have it, maybe not, but without meeting a real master you will never know. It is impossible to describe online. Otherwise, freeform's road map is an excellent resource for safe training, IMO.

You could start with the pore breathing practice, this is how WLP starts with new students. The chapter to begin with is 'Attracting Immortality' which has 12 methods. It starts from the very basics and unfolds into whatever depth you can manage.

I've attended some of WLP's retreats. Daoist walking, tree qigong, and sleeping practice are usually taught at the retreat very close to how they are described in the book. It does not mean that a verbal description is complete because there is always a lot more to them then you can put in any description. When you are on the retreat, you absorb the teaching not only verbally but with all you body and spirit and everything integrates inside you body. It is like you would play a violin on its own and then you would play it as a part of the symphony orchestra - as you can imagine the difference is huge even though the violin is absolutely the same and the tune is absolutely the same.

There are several chinese editions with the texts that summarise WLP's teaching over the years, a so called 'Blue Book'. "Ling Bao Tong Zhi Neng Nei Gong Shu" as translated by Richard Liao is a translation of the first edition of that Chinese book. The 'Daoist Internal Mastery' is a translation of the second edition of the Blue Book which has a lot more chinese characters inside so to speak. You might have noticed that the 'Daoist Internal Mastery' was edited by Livia Kohn which adds to the better translation to English. There is quite a number of practices in the book that outlined in a way that readers can start practising them from the book, for instance daoist walking, sleeping practice, some more. But to practice the core teaching students will need to attend WLP's retreats to understand how the practices are built.

It is very easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The imagination could be counterproductive when it is used in a wrong way. But let's say we want to sink the qi - how do we go about it? Well usually we start at the top of the head and work down allowing the mind/awareness/shen/yi to sink down. And when you do this, you follow whatever sensations are available to you at the moment. And the only reasonable way to do it is inside the body and for that you have to maintain at least some kind of a picture of the body. Is it imagination? Visualisation? I don't think the answer is simple.

Well the smell is a complex organic molecule on one hand, but on the other hand it is an electronic signal in the brain which is triggered by such a complex molecule. While it would be difficult to transfer the molecule long distance, an electronic signal arguably can be transferred if the people involved have some kind of telepathic siddhi. Just some thoughts.

Two reasons for the migration. First - western birthrate is well below the break even point. Which means the population of the western countries would diminish significantly if there were no immigrants. Second - push from big business. It is very good for the business to have unemployment 6% or more so that there is a surplus of workforce on the labour market. I don't know what you position is in the place you make your living, but if you are even remotely close to the process of hiring people, you must have noticed that recently it is next to impossible to find decent people to fill positions. Any business owner, small or big, will tell you that the more immigrants the better.

So I watched a beginning of this video and I'm curious as to what exactly you found so hilarious there. On several occasions I have found that his understanding is in fact deep however ridiculous he might appear. Not a fan of him, this is for sure.

IME energy practice is an extension and a function of the degree to which physical tissue is released (song'ed). With this, even quiet sitting makes sense only if physical tissue is reasonably song'ed. This is how far I've got anyway. I mean there are certain techniques and such, but eventually you have to sit still to get something. And for this you need the tissue released.

There can be many reasons for the pain but the most likely is that some of the muscles in you right hip are frozen and weak, so the other groups of muscles have to compensate. To resolve the issue - you have to not only stretch the affected area but also strengthen the weak group of muscles. You can also read this blog post on hip pain: http://sequencewiz.org/2014/05/14/three-types-pain-butt-can/

You can find a good discussion on spontaneous qigong in Damo Mitchell's book 'Comprehensive Neigong'

Subscribe to online yoga and do yoga at least 5 hours per week. I was in exactly your situation about 6 years ago. I'd sit a lot and was doing taiji and I thought I was covered. Taiji as taught in the West is not even remotely enough to counteract dangers of sitting jobs. Ironically, taiji encourages a drop of the pelvis so that it appears as a pelvis tuck. When you sit, your pelvis is chronically tucked. That means the taiji actually exacerbates the problem if done without this idea in mind. Most modern westerners need pelvis stick out rather than tucked. From what you wrote, you need all kinds of back bends that focus on stretching the front of the hips/kua area. Also you need to strengthen your back muscles in your lower back area and overall core. This is not 1-2 stretches you need, you need several hourly progressions done on a regular basis. This is how I have been dealing with my problems.

I agree, 'Comprehensive' should come first and only after that 'the moon'. Especially if you don't have a neidan teacher. You can't really learn neidan without a teacher, but you can sit silently an hour a day and this will create a good starting point when your teacher appears. When I say sit silently I mean you sit without any agenda and try to enter stillness. With all that, you can't really enter stillness if your body tissues are not connected inside. This is where neigong comes in and you can start basic movements on your own. If you do it right, with time you can develop body connection even without a teacher, it will just take longer to figure out. You can also do online yoga to develop this connectivity and sensitivity in your body. Modern times are remarkable in terms of accessibility to information.

Well yi jin jing was developed for a reason. Of course yi jin jing is not hatha yoga but it is somewhat close to it. I'm very glad I followed Damo Mitchell's advice about 4 years ago when he said yoga should take about 30% of the practice. By extension, not yoga as such but stretching, engaging the whole connective tissue lines along the body in a targeted and mindful way. I'm not sure how OP defines qigong; but if it is a set of movements designed to activate movement of the post natal qi in the body, it is obviously far from being from being even remotely enough if practised on its own.

Kǒng Fūzǐ ism = good pension plan It appears not only baby boomers are/were obsessed with having proper pension plans.

These are the key words. It is going to be your way with food and not somebody else's as every body is different. For instance, I eat breakfast, no lunch, eat dinner, and no snacks. So I eat two times a day, nothing in between, and it feels right for me now. But such way may not be good for you or somebody else. Generally, some great mind said (unfortunately I don't remember the name): eat food, mostly plants (not exact quote either). I'd add to this that it is good to alternate / rotate things you eat because all food contain something not good for the body and rotating food would be a way to reduce a negative impact on health. How to interpret words 'eat food, mostly plants'? I interpret like this. For instance, there is a fashion in the USA to eat 0% fat or 0.1% fat milk products. This in my view is just ridiculous. Natural milk products contain from 3% to 15% fat in them and this is how it should be. Eating plants - I prefer steamed veges, this is better for my digestion, and they are just delicious steamed. If you want to try raw plants - I tried it and did not like it. Didn't feel right for me. No sugar. There is more than enough sugar in food we buy in store. I stopped buying corn about 10 years ago because it became disgustingly sweet. I do like green tea with dark chocolate, but it is 90% coco content and as such minimum sugar added. Also, modern fruit are more harm than good in my opinion. Like one piece of nectarine is just a sugar bomb. I always cringe when parents buy these nectarine or peaches for their children being absolutely sure they feed them 'healthy' diet.

Well the health of the species is determined by what features are passed down the generation line. In the past, weak and unhealthy humans would die before producing any descendants. Now with all the protection, proliferation of all humans including those who should not proliferate is encouraged. There is no easy solution here as all this is a highly controversial issue.

SO the first 2 or three chapters of his biography are available for free as a Kindle pre-view. To be honest, they are not very inspiring reading. I wonder whether it gets better further on?

Are you serious when you call yourself a humble one?

I have witnessed this personally, when people with health problems would start doing dubious (really dubious) forms and would get better. The reason is very simple: before starting those dubious forms the problematic people hadn't done any physical movements at all developing numerous health problems from sore muscles to high blood sugar and diabetes. With this ANY physical movement would remove at least some of their problems which in fact happened and, understandably, was attributed to the miracle of qigong.

What I heard the reason is much more mundane.