Master Logray

Good observation. You have talent.

TaiChi is supposed to be as slow as possible in training. Park or community centre Taichi could be in moderate speed. Performance Taichi is even faster and sometimes very fast as no one bother to watch from start to finish. It is the need to train the person's perception on internal muscle, tendon and ligaments, even on how the Chi and blood flow. This is the foundation of Qigong too. The second reason is high precision of movements that takes time to align and master. Speeding up will make the person ignore all these subtleties. Without the internal side, most Taichi are reduced to external arts, not much benefits to the body and frequently hurt students. Another dimension is about fighting (external). You have to be slow to learn "perceiving the force" 聽勁, for both yourself and the opponent. As a guide, each movement could take 20 seconds, depending on the condition of the body. A full routine of 108-119 moves take 40 minutes. It could be faster when the person masters the necessaries or one ages. With this level of exercise, with preliminaries and so on, muscle strength is not an issue, exhaustion is. The above is about the training, in actual fighting, Taichi is expected to be very fast, reactive but fast. The hard training makes one fast in perception and react with appropriate speed intelligently.

The ones without Chi would not be interested in athletics or anything that tax them too much. The people who are weak or sick tend to do Qigong, which is easier than other competitive or lengthy sports. You can refer to @dwai's post, he said it beautifully, repetitive tasks. Normal sports (training mode) can be turned into Qigong too. But they often spend more than save, too fast, using your mind (competitive, distraction), too strenuous (1/2 hour push up?).... Walking alone in a prison's open square slowly would be ideal.

If you can't make him talk, then can only look at the results (of your reasonable efforts).

These days no one regards Taoist cultivation as spiritual (in the western sense). People practise it for delay becoming a spirit.

The system you belong will determine the method applied on dantien. e.g. focus on dantien in sitting based cultivation.

Ignorant, perhaps. Yet you can do without spiritual practice and yet build up Chi. There are a lot of methods available. It is just how good and efficient they are and whether you can afford the costs. As to discern harmful/helpfulness, I would say a certain risk always exist.

Some systems use the dantien as anchor point only, where the attention and the mind goes. These dantien are there because they are at the centre of gravity of the body and involve with the golden/divine ratio; and full of glands, neurons around. Putting attention there would have beneficial effects than concentrate on the palm or under the feet. In these systems, the usage of dantiens can shift. At first it would be the LDT, then the UDT and MDT. Some just between the LDT and MDT, or even under the feet, or simply change from time to time. It fits the original meaning/name "cultivation field", from where things happen. The other systems, though less common, are what @Trunk and @Sahaja mentioned. LDT is a physical thing. There are a air sac or a space in the lower abdomen (not "thing" but hollow/Hui - emptiness). To prepare it, physical efforts ranging from Chi Kung movements to hitting it with hard objects continuously. The initial approach would be to tear off the tangled tissues from each other, giving it shape and space for fluid so that Chi can evolve there. When the Chi evolves, it reaches same vibration as the cosmic energy, thereby charging the human system. The building up is pure mechanical, the mind doesn't have to be pure. Some schools that starts with sitting would skip this process or just have regular exercises. A primitive tribe in South Africa has the same tradition and said to be able to have some psychic results. Personally I would not recommend this "rough" approach. It may be more suitable for young cultivators. As to the location of LDT, there are naturally many views. Anyhow it can be roughly divided into 2, base on purposes. The alchemical schools usually needs to have a precise location, a single point. The martial based schools would prefer a general area, but not the whole lower abdomen. Because in times of fighting, a person needs to amass more Chi (defence Chi in TCM) of a bigger area to get the power quickly. Chi, air, fluids, electrical impulses are all needed.

The question of this post is to build Chi, not advancing spiritual practice, or having religious experience. As far as Chi is concerned, it is no. Don't forget inner alchemy comes from alchemy, which was a great experimenter of different combination of minerals, plants and animal parts. It only kills Chi.

@Nungali I move the reply to this thread. Since that one has been peaceful for a while and concern this subject more. My observation is that western Buddhism is quite different from eastern Buddhism. Karma is one good example. In the past, if we saw suffering babies/children like mentioned by you, a common response was - what have they done in their past lives that warrant such dire conditions? And the 2nd common response is - what happened in their family that caused the suffering of the young? Instead of referring Karma as more of a tendency in this forum, the traditional attitude is more an eye for an eye type. If you have done good things in the past, you have a better life now. The second difference is the collective/shared Karma. We are not only affected by what we have done in out past lives, we are also affected by the Karma of the parents, family, ancestors, tribes, country.... both good and bad Karma. Western view tends to be more individualistic. Delusion or not is more philosophical. We are any how reaping the benefits or taking up the burden of multiple Karmas, which is more realistic and direct.

Is it a Hindu teaching or Buddhist, or your own research?

If delusion is the condition of everybody, some sort of built-in condition for human, why would we need to be enlightened for this condition? or even having this conversation. It is just like we have 4 limbs, and everybody is content with it, until someone says it is possible to have 8 limbs, which is better. Why creates a need from nowhere and this very action creates desire and in turn, sufferings? Is it possible to deal with craving/aversion directly?

A pickpocket can easily spot other pickpockets. I suppose a delusional person can spot people with same trait easier than others.

You are not new here. You should have heard of many stories, like Man*** and others.

Why most people looking for a lineage and the most authentic original system? It is not really due to branding effect. There were no scientific assessments in the past and even now. And there was no mass schooling, but apprenticeship of limited numbers. No one knows how a system works out in multiple peoples and environments or having desired effects. The only trustworthy way is to see how it works out after a long time. See how many got injuries, getting psychotic, or commonly - long term illnesses. New systems and methods are usually treated suspiciously.

Taoist alchemy comes from a culture that historically do not believe in psychological problems. Apart from some "mad" or "crazy" people, you are a bad person that behave inappropriately if you have psychological issues. It is the complete opposite of say modern Americans that attributes everything to psychology. I think even Damo Mitchell has this observation. I always wonder why so many people talk about psychological issues relating to Taoist cultivation. It is alright to use this system to solve other issues, psychology being one. But does it work or having results? or have some hidden dangers? Cultivation is a very long process that small mistakes in the beginning would lead to big problems later. While the physical "deviation" is 90% of the problems in internal arts. In fact it is dreaded. For this reason, many people refrain from Qigong/Neigong/Neidan at all. A new system that says physical deviation is usual malpractice is rather doubtful to me. But I concur that "seek professional medical help from a real psychiatrist and not a “healer”." is the right way.

Taichi boxing is rather a set of principles. The individual Taichi skills (or moves) are not unique, and quite often borrowed from other Chinese martial arts. These guiding principles are best applied on grappling, wrestling, joint locking - those having immediate contact with enemies. So Taichi looks like these arts. It does have things like direct and heavy punches as in western boxing, but lacks the force and somehow against its principles.

It is about levels. Relaxed mind starts to be empty. Empty mind is empty of conscious thinking. No mind means we no longer feel mind activities. Then comes sleep and coma. These are what we observed and classified. But sometimes coma people can recall what happened during their coma. It shows the mind is never totally empty. Thoughts as empty. It is new to me.

How do you use no-mind to achieve some other objectives? You practically lose control. Even from an observer viewpoint, you cannot set the course for anything?

Try this out. C.C. Tsai is the expert in Taoism and - comics. The DaoDeJing, Zhuang zi are must read. In cartoons with illustrated text. https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691185941/dao-de-jing https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691179742/the-way-of-nature They are also in Amazon and in ebook format. C. C. Tsai is one of Asia's most popular cartoonists, and his editions of the Chinese classics have sold more than 40 million copies in over twenty languages. Here, he works his magic again with a delightful graphic adaptation of the complete text of Laozi's Dao De Jing, the beloved source of Daoist philosophy. Masterfully transforming Laozi's challenging work into entertaining and enlightening episodes, Tsai offers a uniquely fresh, relevant, and accessible version of one of the world's most influential books. You don't have to go through difficulties in cryptic language, foreign culture and translation. Its teachings are so easy to remember. Some of the chapters are in the Youtube channel C. C. Tsai Comics. You can take a look first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyfH1aDrm3A

Spirit hopping vs. transfer of information, could be both.

I read that sitting too long will make Chi "wither". I think mixing practices (within your own system) from time to time is necessary.

Dantien of course exists. It is merely the place you want to do something. If you want data, the term Dantien has 183 names in Taoist/medicinal/philosophical/martial texts. The reason is just like Eskimos having 44 names for snow. They denote different purposes/locations/natures of the processes. The purposes are many many. @Jenn Thanks for your very detail experiences. But you have not told us what you are doing in the first place. Is it MCO or some passive meditation that you don't interfere in anything? It is the case. When a person quiets down the cluttering conscious mind, the perception power significantly improve to pick up sensations normally so minuscule to be discernible. In fact it amplifies everything. So a mosquito bite becomes more itchy, arousal becomes more intense. The feeling of Chi is real. But is Chi real?

I always think similarly. The phenomenon of reincarnation is simply someone (like young children) remembers something belong to a deceased person with verifiable details. Instead of applying the deep theory of reincarnation, it can be explained by possession, subtle linkage with spirits, access to stored memory, access to someone's akastic records, and other telepathic situations. These are more likely and simpler possibilities. Although I believe in the existence of reincarnation, I think it is not a systemic or unavoidable as stated in different religions.

Is it due to population growth? The market share seems to be a better guide. @Sanity Check Why was the question involve China in the first place? I wonder people at the time of Jesus and before even knew China exist?