松永道

In the summer dinking warm green tea, or if you don't want the caffeine, boil up some mung beans and drink the water from that. Both of these drinks are cooling without shocking the system with cold temperature. I actually think drinking warm/hot beverages all the time may be one of the reasons for the slender build of most Chinese (which is not as true for the younger generation who grew up on milk, soda, and processed junk food). One of the things Chinese Medicine believes about eating/drinking cold things is they will impair the digestive process and harm the stomach.

Here here to our cyber sangha! Good call. Shamans, wisemen, and mystics (not to mention the more mundane outcasts) always lived on the edge of society. One foot in this world, one foot in the other. It is indeed an odd life. Who chooses to be a drifter? A vagabond? A bum? Wayfarers do. It's a hard choice to be socially homeless. People don't like change. I don't know if this resistance is inborn or installed, but most folks want to settle, get secure and get comfortable. Cultivation changes one's personality. And that's downright weird to people who are doing everything they can to be consistent. When I first started, it really put a strain on all my social relationships, not because I was worse, just because I was different than before. And even though my attitude was better, I was healthier, more compassionate, more giving, friends nevertheless said, "people don't just change!" Who was I do defy the order of things? I thumped qigong and meditation at first like a mad man. It's done this for me, it's done that. You gotta try it! Eh. From the above posts I can see it's only natural that thumping doesn't work. Then I stopped protheletizing and low and behold, friends started asking me how. And now my mother practices qigong, her cancer has gone into remission and her health continues an upward climb. It's only a matter of time 'till she cures it completely without surgery. My sister dove headlong into yoga and Buddhism. I have many friends who have attended vipassana meditation retreats and continue to meditate. And the love of my life meditates, does qigong, and will begin learning taiji this summer. All this through NON-ACTION! Wayfaring maybe isn't the right word anymore, now with so many loved ones traveling too, it's starting to feel more like a pilgrimage! What a lucky thing we have here, Tao Bums, this merry caravanserai to share stories.

I agree completely that qigong/taiji/internal martial art folks would get their buts kicked in weightlifting should they try and outmatch a power lifter. And a strong body is definitely an asset if you develop the tendons in pace with the muscles. However, a lot of muscle mass can be a liability when it comes to qigong. More muscles means more lactic acid when you use them. This creates an acid environment in the body. If your body is already somewhat acidic, your muscles won't dump that lactic acid into the circulatory system and instead store it inside the muscle tissues. This makes muscles hard even when they aren't flexed. This also decreases the amount of power the muscle has because the range of relaxation to contraction is necessarily shorter. Hard muscles stop getting good circulation (because of the acidic environment) and therefore also lack adequate nourishment and oxygen. Exercise and damage for circulation into the muscles, which then dump more acid, which other tissues are forced to absorb. Eating most proteins, dairy, white sugar (the worst) and simply carbohydrates also cause the body to become more acidic. Dark green veggies are the most alkaline foods out there and most veggies and some fruits are also alkaline. Muscle building plus high acid, low alkaline diet puts you on track for a double whammy. We see folks like this in the Doc's office, guys in their late twenties with nice big muscles but organs like the elderly. I say keep muscle building, do what you love, cardio is good too. If you then use the last 3rd of your workout stretching (developing the joints and tendons) you'll have a body with real power. Then add veggies to your diet. Lots. In fact if you had the amount of protein the size of your palm every meal and then ate veggies until you were full, muscle size development might slow but muscle power development would skyrocket (and when I say power I don't mean dead lifting but living athletic explosive power)

Sounds like a cool workout. I've been interested in Sonnon's stuff for a while, never tried it though. Does that incorporate arm strengthening exercises? As a recovering over-thinker, I'm having a great deal of fun exploring my great interior frontiers. I mainly do Taiji these days and plenty of it. Forms in the morning before, gongfu in the evening, push-hands when ever someone's willing to push with me. My legs are doing great these days, though I would like to find more upper body stuff that doesn't involve going to a gym. For the past two years I've only done hard qigong and push hands. I'm thinking of bringing in some yoga or at least push ups and handstands. Any suggestions?

No way...

Why all the body building anyway? Just a question. Seems that many muscle builders end up with qi that doesn't flow too well especially through the joints. If you have other sports, qigong, or stretching routines I image that helps qi flow out. I just remember one time a huge ripped dude came to our bagua class, looked at all us thin guys and thought it would be all too easy. And yet, he had the worst balance, coordination, flexibility, and endurance of any guy there.

Good thing to bring up 火龙! In Daoist philosophy there is a notion of three parasites that feed off your qi. They correspond the the upper (heart and lungs), middle (stomach and spleen), and lower (kidneys and bladder) regions of the body. The upper parasite feeds off excessive thinking. The middle parasite feeds off excessive eating. The lower parasite feeds off excessive sex. Every time you feed one of these parasites you give more energy to all of them. The west would describe this as an addictive personality. One doesn't crave all three at once, just one at once generally, but when that one addiction is denied, the addictive personality will swiftly find another. You can even get addicted to "good" things like working out, cleaning, studying, you name it. However, in even good addictions the underlying personality imbalance lurks. And for that, you need mindfulness. Vipassana and Wuwei are two great meditations I know of. Because, in the end, you gotta go cold turkey. No action, no thought, and the parasites will slowly slowly starve to death. But that's the big solution. In the mean time, I'd just stop spilling it every time. Ooh, one more story: One of the Eight Immortals started a school that required celibacy. Every man claimed he had no desire for a women and if one came he would deny their advances. So one evening the master gave every student a log with a hole in it and asked them that evening to sleep with it in their bed and bring it back in the morning. That night, a beautiful woman came to every room, seeking shelter from the cold. Of course that wasn't the only warmth they were after. In the morning the women were gone and every man woke up cuddling up to his log. Every man brought back his log, and every man but one had, well, spilled his essence into the hole. The master asked the one man to come forward and explain why it was that he alone had kept his word. His answer? He had spent his youth in the brothels, wasting his health, day in and day out, until his was too weak to go on. And this is what brought him to the Dao. And story is as story goes, he went on to obtain immortality. So even if you let excess take it's course (or has it already?) future hardship may well bring you closer to the Way.

In the far flung past, daoists hold that sages taught powers, magic, and all that right from the start. Yet as time went on, people's mind's became dirtier. They misused these teachings and wrought great calamity. Now this is a story. Maybe true, maybe not, in either case the moral is: siddhis and enlightenment are not the same thing. Should you temp people with powers, provable, undeniable powers, you're not doing anything for the Dharma. On the contrary, powers seem to be the most perilous things on the road to enlightenment, so attractive, power is pure ego candy. Power is a test of attachment. That's why it shows up on the road uninvited. Searching for power is a different path altogether. Daoism has reproducible, effective systems for developing these abilities. It's a matter of concentration, intelligence, and endurance. And these are good human qualities. However, they say nothing for compassion. If you want to do good by the Dharma, let health and happiness be your superpowers. If you just want to prove reality is more than we know it to be, then perform. And I do believe that someone can start for the wrong reasons and find the right ones later. It's just that Dharma and results oriented thinking mix about as well as oil and water. But, I suppose, that too is another test along the Way.

Awesome, thanks. I can see some parallels between cultivation practices already. P.S. Wouldn't #9 and #19 be geometrically impossible? I mean if your hands could touch your knees standing, you'd have one heck of an arm span!

Good enough for me! What a beautiful thing, the root of things. We are all the same after all. ...but who are we?

I would like to know as well, I have some good friends over in Japan with whom I practiced a bit of qigong. I'm sure they would like to experience Kunlun.

Procurator, so you don't need water or money. That's pretty cool. Seems you're an adept. May I ask what you're still doing here then? I mean, college students don't generally hang out with a bunch of middle schoolers, they have better things to do. Hold on, there are some, but they are teachers. Are you a teacher?

So Lin, this is a result of cultivation practice? I know flat feet through little cultivation can become arched again, mine did. I've seen the transformation that happens to a man's head who has undergone neigong cultivation for yang spirit travel, he looks like one of the fellows in Daoist temple murals with a bump on his forehead. Of course the mural dramatizes the bump so it looks much bigger. I suppose it stands to reason then that every part of the body may change. A clockwise hair growth would indicate long term powerful crown chakra activation. (on a somewhat related tangent I had a teacher who did energetic healing at the oregon state fair one year. A man came who had a leg 4 inches shorter than the other. My teacher asked about it and he said his whole family had it going back generations. Just a genetic thing. She asked if she could work on it and he of course thought, "alright crazy newage nut doesn't believe in heredity." However after an over an hour she finished and his legs were the same length. Needless to say he became very emotional. She ended up later treating the rest of his family. Here was an instance of energetic heredity, in the way that children generally acting like their parents when they get older. Now this didn't involve actual reshaping of the tissues, just sorting out torsion, but as the energetic body is a blueprint for the physical, I am particularly intrigued my the effect of long term cultivation). Very interesting. Could you please list some other physical characteristics?

If I may add some constructive criticism, this line of thinking won't get you very far. We are all in both worlds, if you own a computer and can connect to the internet you most certainly have a foot in this one. I recall a college conversation with friends. We were having a lively conversation about how we didn't need all this stuff. We didn't need money, career was for suckers, on and on. And I still we were right. People don't need all this. However, when we entered what seemed like the worst job market since the great depression, in a new city without family where we really didn't have ANYTHING, my friend reflected on our high-minded holier than thou ideals. "It was pretty easy to say I didn't need anything when I had my ass planted on a comfortable couch and food in my belly." What a world of difference is was to say than do. It took me a while to figure out there are three levels of knowing. That which we hear, learn, or read second hand. That which we then have thought about and incorporated into our logical framework. And that which we can do and have direct experience of. Your words are obviously from that second category. And that's a good thing; you've thought about it. That's a hell of a lot better than getting spoon fed something in school or church and then regurgitating it without thought. But just because you've thought about it and it makes sense, that doesn't make it real. You need experience to fill in the framework. Experience is the proof. And people without it will always have this underlying insecurity. They need to prove it. Be it through logic, belittling language, whatever. You look outward to prove, to convince others, of that which is inwardly unproven. If you have your proof, it doesn't matter what someone else thinks. You're not going to convince me snow isn't real just because you haven't seen it. I already know! I've seen, touched and tasted it. When you have proof, there's no contest. Then it's just about sharing if the person has the ears to hear it. Real masters are very simple, they have the proof, they don't need to demonstrate it to every jackass who says, "then prove it!" Water is poison to you? Money means nothing? My friend, my friend, you don't have to prove it to me, but is this something you think or something you really experience?

Is this directed at me? I'm not a doctor. Nor is my name Lin. Nor am I going to debate the merits of Chinese medicine with the narrow minded. Unless you have a teacher who told you to do the retention, a good one who is supervising your progress, I wouldn't do it. Especially not at a young age. In Jewish Qabala the age of admission is 35. There have been exceptions of course, but this is the rule. Youth is for having some fun, building your body, career and family. Then you begin the wisdom tradition. In the past, 30's was considered the beginning of Jing decline. My theory: Jing decline activates spirituality and wisdom seeking behavior. It's the midlife crisis. It makes you think that there is something you're missing. In our society, consumerism is the tradition, so we sate this need with some new stuff. In traditional societies however, it's time to begin a wisdom practice. Now if you're young and have the spiritual life or bust mentality, great, don't throw out the baby with the bath water. However, odds are it's because you don't have the best relationship with your earthly body. Continue filling yourself with processed, low nutrient junk and you may very well be having your midlife crisis. But the young body can turn things around fast. You just gotta give it what it needs. Establishing Jing boils down to exercise, eating well, and getting enough sleep. If this be quakery I don't want anything to do with the establishment!

In Chinese Medicine ears are associated with kidneys and therefore wisdom, will, and Jing. Cultivation requires and develops these. Still, I'm not sure that would lead to your ears actually getting bigger. Long term pulling or earring wearing as a method of cultivation? Just pulling on my ears right now seems to affect the area that connects my third eye and crown chakras. Hmm.

From what I've learned from the Chan (Zen) monasteries I visited in Hong Kong, the questions like this are topics for pretty serious meditation. Like any other type of monastic meditation practice, it's every day and for hours. Not just a question you ask yourself occasionally. It's true though, I don't think there is any one path and suits everyone at all. It's like trying to get from your home to the town center. The route and form of transportation is different for everyone depending on where you're coming from. As you get closer routes tend to converge but there's only one place they all meet: in the town center. From what I can tell every route to enlightenment involves harnessing creative/sexual energy somehow and this is a very broad category. In Tang Dynasty China both Buddhism and Taoism flourished. China was a major exporter of culture and many people (including early Christians and many Muslims) all gravitated to the capital Chang'an (Japanese architecture is essentially Tang Dynasty architecture). In this time period enlightenment and qigong were the topics of the day. And every creative pursuit was used to cultivate. Meditation, qigong, martial arts, medicine, music, calligraphy, painting, sculpting, the list goes on. Most people pursued many ways but also emphasized one or two. We can all do it all but each of us have our character strengths. Perhaps you'r e right, asking "who am I" is a better way for a genius than stillness meditation. Different strokes for different folks. I pretty glad we're not all the same, what a boring place that would be.

Wow, do yourself a big favor and change your diet. 10 to 20 years, months, or even weeks from now you'll see some big improvement. Food prep and cooking time is just as important as qigong time, even more so at the beginning. The masters don't have to eat much because they've already established their Jing. To speak generally muscles need protein, organs need vitamins and minerals. If you can afford it, I'd switch the milk for yogurt in your shake and put some superfood and/or a few different kinds of fruit (even vegetables if you can stand the taste). Fruit and veggies are cheap and non-organic pesticide laden are still better than none at all. On a budget frozen vegetables are pre-cut and can be stirfried up in minutes. Eating lunch between 11am and 1pm is said to be the best time for digesting a big meal, why only a granola bar? I'd green things up my man. Jing is the car, Qi is the fuel, and Shen is the driver. Your vehicle needs repair, adding premium fuel won't do much of anything, you need to supply the proper parts. If you can take time for qigong, you can take time to prepare food. Do you know what the character for Jing is? 精, thats rice on the left 米 and green on the right 青. Rice and greens. Green it up!

Lower back and leg exercises are fine, I think lower abdomen is the core issue though. This is why the weight belt was invented. Lower abdomen is the power center. My Taiji has a stationary cloud hands that is a little bit like rotating the hips while in horse stance. Further the legs are apart, the harder the inner thigh and quads have to work. I've noticed inner thigh flexibility is completely dependent on my lower abdominal power. And after doing a couple hundred cloud hands my abdomen and inner thighs really heat up and feel strong but relaxed. My suggestion, if you don't have a marital art or qigong form that works this area, check out pilates. Also Alchemicaltaoism.com has more exercise options for establishing the abdomen. As for diet, too much meat is not a good thing. Meat digests slowly, gets stuck in the intestines, and this ends up putting pressure on the kidneys. You want your lower trunk to be spacious, not clogged. Chinese medicine says eat well for breakfast, to fullness at lunch, and have a small dinner. Many western doctors are telling elderly patients (jing and kidney problems) to get their protein in the morning. Here is an outline of my routine: Wake up early. 5 or 6am at the latest. Yellow Emperor's classic says, in the spring rise early (to receive yang) and go to bed early. Summer rise early and go to bed late. Fall rise late, go to bed late. Winter rise late, go to be early. Decide what this means to you. Do oil pulling (my sister studies ayurveda and recommended this. It makes sense in Chinese medicine because the Kidney organ network governs the bones, teeth are the excess of the bones, most injuries to the kidney network will first manifest in the teeth. Oh childhood cavities, if I had only known sugar was doing that to every bone in my body! Oil pulling pulls out bacteria and nourishes the teeth. The daoist practice of swishing with your saliva does the same I imagine) Have a glass of lemon or lime water. Sour flavor is said to tighten and tone tissues. Think of sour as puckering. It stops excessive perspiration, loss of fluids, diarrhea, frequent urination and mucus. 1/2 to 1/3 of a lemon in warm water. Western science shows the lemon to be very alkalizing. Best thing to set your PH right in the morning. Get enough water though and don't over do it, too much sour will dry you out, cause poor digestion, and toughen the flesh. Then I have a glass of superfoods. I'll tell you, I like to get up early and practice for a few hours before breakfast. Having a glass of the greens feels like concentrated Jing. Its expensive and not too natural, but for now it hits the spot. Practice hard, then wash off and bring all that energy in for neigong. Have a protein & nutrient rich breakfast. Eggs or meat with a handy amount of veggies. Greens, reds, yellows, whites. I avoid sugars and simply carbs that turn to sugar right away. These acidify the body and the quick cheap energy ends up leaching out more nutrients than it brings in. They also cause the sugar high and sugar crash. (fruits are except for while they are easily accessible sugars, they have loads of nutrients to offset this). Lots of greens feels best right now. Whole grains and beans are good but should be soaked first (usually over night) to deactivate the enzyme inhibitors. Sprouted stuff (do it yourself) also rocks. Overall the point of breakfast is quality over quantity. Then after that live like a normal person. The most important part of my day is already done and I feel amazing all day long. I eat little to no meat for dinner and prefer to eat before 7pm. If I can I'll get in some more gongfu and meditation. But I'm not so ridged in the evening. I go to bed when I want, knowing that morning wake up call is non-negotiable. Give the morning to Apollo and night to Dionysus.

Kidney deficiency. Here are some other symptoms of deficient kidney yin: ringing ears, weak sore back, slouching, premature ejaculation, longterm forgetfulness, dry skin, dry throat, and vertigo. Kidney yang deficiency: ringing ears, lack of libido, wet skin, subdued quiet manner and a tendency toward passivity. There is also kidney Jing deficiency which means deficient yin and yang but usually leans one way or the other. Other systems often affected in this condition are liver and spleen. Liver deficiency resulting in less flexible tendons and weak joints. And spleen resulting in inadequate muscle development. Not everyone has every symptom but this is a very general idea. Not a quick problem to heal. Eat well, eat more sour fruits (but no processed sugar junk) for snacks, get enough water, sleep and eat at regular times in the day, less sex, and take up exercises that really emphasize the legs, abdomen, and back (martial arts, particularly an internal martial art like taiji xingyi or bagua are great for this). I had a similar problem. It feels like qi is leaking out through your penis. My lower abdominal muscles were weak, I had trouble doing front bend stretching (back of the knees and hamstrings, kidney and bladder meridians, were weak) and was particularly poor at the side splits (kidney deficiency leading to liver deficiency). All these muscles need to be stronger, the core being the lower abdominals. Lower dantian / second chakra. When I strengthened this area my leg strength and flexibility increased dramatically. My whole body became stronger in fact. I built my Jing through good diet, having a rhythm to my day, neigong (reverse daoist breathing to establish the dantian) and taiji. This is a common problem that for me resulted from bad childhood diet (waaay too much candy and processed flour), excessive thinking (both issues of the spleen affecting the kidney); and excessive sexual activity. Additionally, Kidney anchor the breath/qi. Qi gets to the lower dantian via internal anchoring, more like pulling, rather than trying to use your mind to push it down. Many people practicing taiji know that they have to sink the qi but they don't know how. For most, the problem is in the Jing. Jing is our original gravity. I'm a student, not an expert, but I hope that helps!

We never domesticated the cat. They chose us. It's interesting to have a look at people's pets. Dogs, the lovable dependent things they are, do well in a nurturing environment. But in a bad home they really soak it in. They are sponges. Go to the park and have a look and people and their dogs. They often have parallel postural problems/qi flow issues. Man's best friend is a mirror of his soul. Cats don't. The environment still affects them of course. But a cat in a bad home acts like any wild animal would and finds hiding places. The cat can be trained but they don't imprint off us. They have their own lazy gongfu and instinctual hardwiring. Cats are inborn taiji adepts. Soft and unassuming, they yield and wait for their opening, then explode with speed, power, and grace. They keep everything concealed. Only their eyes give away the cat's power. Little wonder why the church feared them. Their control, their hell hath no fury like nature's scorn. Why are Gothic churches covered in devils with hard angles pointing every which way? Oh boy, how the human story's great antagonists can be so obvious for so long is beyond me. Aren't actions supposed to speak louder than words? Even when revolutions overthrow old evils, the words change, but the actions remain. How are we to fight evil when fighting makes us evil? Would that we could all have power but rarely use it like our feline friends.

Hey Karen, what's your take on magnetizing water? My sister studies Ayurvedic medicine and apparently they swear by it.

I read an interesting article on this, through I forget from where. This historian postulated that these structures that kept time were, in a sense, a coping mechanism. Tribal societies were oriented by the moon, agricultural by the sun. pre-agricultural societies had no sense of the work day, they were unbound by all but nature's rhythms, essentially they lived lives of unattachment and oneness. That's not to suggest the lifestyle was without hardship, just more visceral, more present in the Now. They lived at the whim of nature as a baby in his mother's arms. With agriculture came ownership, attachment, and a sense of control. Nomadic societies became sedentary. Buildup began. And it has been good too. From the buildup arises professions, specialties, diversified communities. Tribalists, those jacks of all trades, couldn't compete with career farmers, craftsmen, and soldiers. It seems we grew up, but in doing so, could never return to nature's bosom. A traumatic experience. And in every culture loomed the comforting stories of that time of infancy. Ahh the rosy hue of recollection. For all our stuff, knowledge and control we lost the oneness, here and now. Where, oh where, had our mother gone? Do you know one thing Stonehenge does? There is a window there, where once a year the moon transforms into the sun. Sunrise, moonset, at the same time and place. Ahh an explanation, what relief. Our mother isn't gone! That's the story anyway. And when you think instead of feel, stories are just as good as the real thing.

I agree mbanu. It's a symptom of American culture to rush things. A lot of symptoms, weird sensations, etc could be avoided if people just slowed down. And when these symptoms do occur, an ungrounded psyches can make them even bigger issues. Chinese medicine is a fine framework for experience, especially at the beginning stages of qi development. It does a great job of plugging the holes (one daoist told me that ghosts feed off qi leakage) and establishing the Jing. Jing development, from what I've seen, is what's most overlooked by western students. In many cases, being ungrounded is what draws people to qigong in the first place. Chinese medicine would describe as overactive 魂 (hun, yang soul, non-corporeal soul) and/or under active 魄 (po, yin soul, animal soul). Like a tree with branches too big for it's roots. There are two solutions, cut the branches down (stop being so spiritually minded), or grow the roots (develop the body). But to continue qi development when the Jing is insufficient leads to bigger problems. Jing is like the power line, qi is the power. Too much power running through weak wires runs hot and will start a fire. Jing is developed through adequate sleep, good diet, a natural routine, and physical exercise. Oh and not too much ejaculation for us men (although sexual arousal develops Jing). Jing is yin and grounding compared to qi and it is also the source of qi. I know when I first awakened to the qi world I wanted to feel more, see more, heal people, go on spirit travel adventures, all that cool fantastic stuff; proper eating, exercise, sleep and routine were the least of my interests. But they are the foundation. What to build a skyscraper? Better make sure you've got a damn big foundation. Ok I got side tracked. Back to Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine provides intellectual framework for normal body conditions from sick to healthy. Other Daoist work (Buddhist, yogic, I'm not picky) provide the framework for a healthy body to a cultivated body. Experience provides the understanding. Knowledge and understanding. Yin and yang. Yin transforms to Yang which transforms to Yin, back to Yang... a growing upward spiral. Chinese medicine is definitely worth learning for any serious qigong practitioner. Maybe not the application, but certainly the theory.

I'll reword, a TCM doctor ignorant of qigong is best avoided by someone here at Taobums in favor of a doctor who practices self cultivation. And you're right, diagnosis cannot be downplayed. Diagnosis is absolutely essential. And here is one area where qigong separates high level doctors from mid level doctors. A mid level doctor bases his point selection on knowledge of the points and combinations, a high level doctor sees feels and addresses the problem accordingly. I never said mid level doctors can't be effective. What I am saying is there is more room for error depending on the complexity of the condition. Frankly, if your teachers tell you that you'll get better results if you practice energy work and some of your classmates still don't, that's their freedom of choice, and it's my freedom to avoid their care. I want a doctor who strives to be the best healer she can be. I know I do now and will continue to.