My health on the table

[Old Man Contradiction]

Here are my issues:

 

Chronic tension-type headaches, they usually start in the back and eventually wrap around my entire head. In the last two weeks I've had a headache at least 7 days. On more than half of the non-headache days I feel like parts of my brain are semi-contracted. Like a muscle contracting in a relaxed way, it almost feels like a light partially uncomfortable pressure. This pressure usually precedes the headaches on the days that I actually have headaches.

 

question #2, which is not really a health issue. How can I cool down my body's craving for sex? The last day or two this has really presented itself to me. Porno and masturbation feel like they drain me, but in the moment I want to release the tension build up in the 2nd chakra region, I think the prostate area. May have to do with my recent break up. Also, how come during sex it takes me about 5-10minutes to get close to orgasm, and than I lockup my muscles, hold it back, and continue for another minute or two then get too close and lock up again, and I continue this for like 4-5 times, and then after that it becomes really difficult for me to orgasm, sometimes it feels like my nerves go numb, and it usually take me like 20mins, but sometimes it just doesn't happen at all. What's going on here and what can I do?

 

I'm mainly focused on my headache issue, so any advice is welcome.

 

Thank you.

Edited September 12, 2009 by Old Man Contradiction

[Spirit Ape]

Damn, you gotta love TAO BUMS!!!

[Mal]

Yes I Love TTB

 

question #2, which is not really a health issue. How can I cool down my body's craving for sex? <snip> May have to do with my recent break up.

 

Time and age will reduce sex drive or if you can't wait for those, find another person rather than porn i.e. get out and find a new girlfriend (seriously girls are great)

 

 

and then after that it becomes really difficult for me to orgasm

 

The technique you describe after 3~4 time SHOULD make it difficult to physically ejaculate, it's sort of the point of doing it

 

Can't really help with the headache as I don't often suffer from them, but if you do a lot of that pumping/clenching with sex/masturbation then that could actually contribute.

 

Although if you want headache relief without drugs try a cold pack they are good. Of course this is treating symptoms not the cause but pain relief is not to be underestimated.

[Nanashi]

Meditate. Think of No-thing.

 

I used to have bad headaches and sexual fustration, too. It will pass with time and practice.

[Gerard]

Let me tell you something that many people are unaware of:

 

SEXUAL FRUSTRATION AND CRAVING is normally caused by deep emotional issues but this is not always the case. It is normally a karmic issue and can be treated using TCM, how?

 

Sorry, but let me say that getting this sort of advice online because of its complexity is not advisable. So, you need to see a reputable and skilled TCM practitioner.

 

I wish you the best of luck in here.

[goldisheavy]

Headaches are caused by unresolved concerns, like contradicting desires or fears. If you're not skilled in selfknowledge, it might be hard for you to know you own concerns. On the other hand, if you know thyself well, you will know why you have a head ache. Every time I have a head ache I know exactly its cause and I can stop it almost 100% of the time at will, because I know the concern that's causing it and all I need to do is to drop it. Alternatively I can realize that I just enjoy having my concern and accept the head ache as the price of my enjoyment.

 

To become skilled in self-knowledge there is no trick and no shortcut. Just pay attention and from time to time you may want to enjoy doing some practical experiments to complement your contemplation. Without experiments your theory might get detached from your actuality and you probably don't want that. So play with things to test them and to examine them from time to time to make sure your understanding is decent.

 

Simply relaxing in a chair can calm the headache. When you relax, feel kindness in your body. Don't indulge in mentally punishing or berating yourself or anything like that. Feel kindness in your heart and let that feeling suffuse your whole body as you relax in a non-formal, unstructured, playful mood. Forget dogmas about duty, responsibility and whatnot. Spiritual responsibility is nothing like the worldly responsibility you might have learned about. Allow yourself to relax completely... like there is no time, no past, no future. Let it be.

 

Sexual tension can be reduced by visualizing women as rotting corpses. Load some high resolution images of women, but instead of focusing on what is beautiful about them, look at their warts, zits, imperfections, boils, rashes, ugly hair, and so forth. This will upend the tendency of your mind to instantly and reflexively regard women as desirable. It's a gradual process. If you keep at it, your desire for women will slowly diminish. This assumes that women are the main objects of your sexual desire. If you have other objects, you just need to focus on the undesirable aspects of those -- the principle is the same. Because this method gives only gradual results, and is reversible, you can adjust your level of excitement. You can for example contemplate what is beautiful about each women to cause yourself to see all women, even those conventionally thought to be ugly, to be beautiful. It's possible to bend your vision like that. You can make anything seem sexy or repulsive this way. The key is to be honest. In other words, don't pretend that women are ugly. Find something to honestly dislike even in the most beautiful woman and you will have results if you do this as a practice for some time each day.

[Gerard]

Sexual tension can be reduced by visualizing women as rotting corpses...

 

BAD ADVICE. The OP is not a full-time Buddhist contemplative working on the nature of impermanence.

 

If he had to heed this advice he would aggravate his problem and definitively will carry this burden to his next life time.

[Apech]

Old Man Contradicton,

 

You should seek person to person advice from someone who knows about energy. But I would suggest that your two questions are related. There is a link between abdominal tension and neck and shoulders. I would guess that your headaches are the result of chronic tension in the neck which is affecting the nerves which come out through the vertebrae and govern the upper body down to the diaphragm.

 

Chronic tension arises through some kind of conflict in the person. The problem with dealing with tension/symptoms in one part of body (like the head) is that it is easy to miss the fact that the causes are not in the head ... they arise from elsewhere, other parts of your body which do not exhibit symptoms (until you begin to release the problem) - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say - your body as a whole. You might like to try therapeutic massage - if you can find someone - or some other deep relaxation technique which will release the whole of your body.

 

Sexual energy is very important of course. It can drive you to seek gratification when perhaps you don't really want to spend time doing that. However its big plus point is the it is very unified - it wants what it wants when it wants it ... while the rest of your being is either wanting to consider the options and rationalise everything or to emote and feel about the situation which can be quite confusing. I would suggest that your chronic tense state is making your attempts to release sexual tension not work properly. The expectation of orgasmic release can make you tense even more - prolonged masturbation without a partner and with too much focus on climaxing (or controlling the climax) can lead to a general deadening - this is because of the fact that 'continual stimulation = no stimulation" - your sexual energy wants something variable, interesting and which promotes greater sensitivity and not less.

 

This is my take on what you describe - obviously just my thoughts.

[zanshin]

A good manual technique for headaches that start in back of the head.

 

http://www.fammed.wisc.edu/our-department/...cipital-release

[Old Man Contradiction]

Damn, you gotta love TAO BUMS!!!

 

Yeah I love tao bums, especially if help is here.

I've read all your posts and it seems like I'm doing the right thing. I contemplate my mind all day long(and not using thought), and recognize thoughts for what they are. I'll pay closer attention as time goes by.

 

I see my sifu in a day or two... I'll ask him about the headaches. He'll definitely give me a practice to take on for a while. I'm not going to ask him about my sex drive because that'd be embarrassing, and I honestly don't know he'd say. TTB is anonymous.

 

Okay, so I posted this topic to hear anything that might help. I've gotten some great advice, I especially look forward to trying sub-occipital release.

 

Some things I've noticed:

If I focus my attention on feeling inside my brain, a headache starts developing.

 

Along with eating all my vitamins and minerals, a training sequence full of pushups, pullups, core work, zhan zhuang in horse stance, and taiji form seems to cure me of both headaches and overdrive cravings. I just sometimes don't have the time for a training session.

 

thank you bums

[Trunk]

My current understanding... (as I'm trying to get up to speed with acupts and channels and I'm not all the way there yet)...

~ quote from A Manual of Acupuncture in the commentary on SJ-6 ~

Ministerial fire, the primal fire of the body which has its root in the ming men and Kidneys, is 'entrusted' to the Liver, Gall Bladder and Sanjiao."

Headaches have a lot to do with stuck heat in the Liver ~ GallBladder channels, and that's what excessive sex (and retention mis-adventures) tends to produce: stagnant heat.

 

Massaging the Liver & GB channels works to resolve the stagnant heat. I like to do it with the 6 Channel pairings (pg 15 of the Manual).

 

self-acupressure

GB + SJ (shao yang)

Liv + P (jue yin)

 

This, incidentally, also works on the Belt Vessel (aka Girdling Vessel, aka Dai), which "wraps around the waist like a belt" horizontally and goes through all of the other (vertical) channels, including through the major points of the little orbit.

 

There are clear Chinese medical mechanisms at work here. (I don't know all of it yet, but I see some of it.) The headaches and the sexual tension are related. I suggest that if you study in those directions and apply self-acupressure... blah-blah-blah (I'm like a broken record self-acupressure nut these days ).

 

best of luck,

Trunk

[rain]

your head ache (yang symptom) may be caused by yin deficiency,

maybe you suffer from yin draineage..?

 

you could try moxa in bai hui. only an acupuncture therapist could tell

 

about desire..it's energy. let it flow. don't manipulate. just surf it

 

blablabla

Edited September 12, 2009 by rain

[markern]

 

Headaches have a lot to do with stuck heat in the Liver ~ GallBladder channels, and that's what excessive sex (and retention mis-adventures) tends to produce: stagnant heat.

 

Trunk

 

Wouldn`t doing the liver sound - sshhhh - be very good for him to do. It removes heat very well.

 

THe aneros seems to bring people a lot of very good multiples without any sort of strain or over doing (probably since it is only by relaxing that the aneros works). Apparently many people find that after having a lot of dry aneros multiples they just naturaly got the ability to have them during normal intercourse without doing anything with the pc muscles or orbit etc. just ether not doing anything or just doing it with the mind. Maybe using the aneros might help you tune in to the "right" way to have multiples. My theory is that a lot of people when they are having mutliples are having to yang style orgasms with too much tension and heat and restesness. That means the energy they retain is of a different quaity and I think that it is much harder to integrate well. If everything hapens in a relaxed and mindfull way with almost no effort to retain or stop anything but more of an expansion upwards, then the quality of energy is much better and few problems occur. The aneros seems to help a lot in getting you to that place. So to does a lot of practice of very slow very deep belly breathing. This is just me theory though and not something I have proper experience with.

[Old Man Contradiction]

My current understanding... (as I'm trying to get up to speed with acupts and channels and I'm not all the way there yet)...

 

Headaches have a lot to do with stuck heat in the Liver ~ GallBladder channels, and that's what excessive sex (and retention mis-adventures) tends to produce: stagnant heat.

 

Massaging the Liver & GB channels works to resolve the stagnant heat. I like to do it with the 6 Channel pairings (pg 15 of the Manual).

 

self-acupressure

GB + SJ (shao yang)

Liv + P (jue yin)

 

This, incidentally, also works on the Belt Vessel (aka Girdling Vessel, aka Dai), which "wraps around the waist like a belt" horizontally and goes through all of the other (vertical) channels, including through the major points of the little orbit.

 

There are clear Chinese medical mechanisms at work here. (I don't know all of it yet, but I see some of it.) The headaches and the sexual tension are related. I suggest that if you study in those directions and apply self-acupressure... blah-blah-blah (I'm like a broken record self-acupressure nut these days ).

 

best of luck,

Trunk

 

I think my practice has generally been lacking self acupressure and massage anyway, so i'll definitely look into the specifics.

 

By the way Trunk I started reading Alchemicaltaoism.com yesterday, I'm not sure if you built the site or how you are connected to it, but it is good information. So today I added lower tantien breathing while in the bridge posture.

 

For now I practice:

 

body conditioning - Gymnastic holds and progressions (l-sit, planche, front lever), pushups for endurance, pullups, core exercise, stretching, and zhan zhuang in horse stance

 

qigong - taiji and zhan zhuang horse stance

 

presence - sensing the "I AM"

 

Will add acupressure, massage, and bridge to my routines. I feel it won't be long till my body reaches a balance. Maybe then I might take on retention practices lightly, but do you agree that right now it would not be wise?

Edited September 12, 2009 by Old Man Contradiction

[Trunk]

..retention practices ... right now it would not be wise?

Correct.

Retention is advanced. Right now, in that area, you need to focus on remedial. Not that I have a full list of what's in the "advanced" and "remedial" categories, but just mentioning this idea will help get you thinking in the right direction. I find it helpful to think of three broad categories of jing gong: "remedial", "normal healthy" and "advanced".

Edited September 12, 2009 by Trunk

[Old Man Contradiction]

so I should just do my best trying to massage along these lines, spend more time on the points?

 

 

 

hmmm, the tissue is far more sensitive and hurts more on the liver channel than the gallbladder channel.

Edited September 12, 2009 by Old Man Contradiction

[markern]

Correct.

Retention is advanced. Right now, in that area, you need to focus on remedial. Not that I have a full list of what's in the "advanced" and "remedial" categories, but just mentioning this idea will help get you thinking in the right direction. I find it helpful to think of three broad categories of jing gong: "remedial", "normal healthy" and "advanced".

 

I think retention the way people arround here normaly go about it is advanced. Retention in the way karezza and aneros people go about it I think is only beneficial. Seems to work very good even for those who have no other cultivation practice.

[Trunk]

so I should just do my best trying to massage along these lines, spend more time on the points?

 

(gallbladder-meridian.jpg)

 

(liver-meridian.jpg)

Yup. Also spend more time on any place (acupt or along the channel) that is sensitive~tender~sore or if you particularly like the response there.

 

I ended up pairing those channels per "6 channel" theory as I find it gives a more balanced treatment. But it's impossible to take in everything at once. Just start in and make progress as you can.

... I like to do it with the 6 Channel pairings (pg 15 of the Manual).

 

self-acupressure

GB + SJ (shao yang)

Liv + P (jue yin)

 

There's posts in my Personal Practice thread, fairly recent, that talk about 6-Channel theory. And some thread in the main section. I don't have it all worked out yet but it feels to be a very productive area of exploration. That goes for the whole schpiel that I'm laying out here, btw. Might be a year or more before I'm out of foundation study & experimentation phase on this. Yet a lot of signs point to it well, medical theory and results so far. Apply your own discernment, sensitivity and good judgement.

 

Trunk

Edited September 13, 2009 by Trunk

[Old Man Contradiction]

thanks again

[goldisheavy]

BAD ADVICE. The OP is not a full-time Buddhist contemplative working on the nature of impermanence.

 

If he had to heed this advice he would aggravate his problem and definitively will carry this burden to his next life time.

 

Hehe... that's scary, isn't it? Rotting corpses, boo. Actually it's not that big of a deal. Above all I recommend that the person become familiar with one's own real condition. If he heeds that advice first and foremost, like I always advise, then this visualization technique will be harmless.

 

I think we are all "Buddhist" in some way. I am also against basing one's identity on any group, and thus I don't recommend to formally become an -ist of any kind. So any Buddhist who considers oneself a Buddh-ist, should, if they like my other advice, consider somewhat disassociating themselves from the Buddhist movement, and stop being an -ist. You can still enjoy many aspects of Buddhist life and enjoy and benefit from Buddhist advice, but internally you may want to be free of the -ist. There is no way to regain the original freedom while still being an -ist of some kind.

[Old Man Contradiction]

It's as simple as if you say you are anything at all, you are in duality. I am a person, I am universal conscious, I am buddhist... it doesn't really matter what you are saying, but the basic statement of being some thing, implies that there is some thing that you are not, which is a totally dual perspective.

 

Eventually the practice has to be dropped too.

[Vajrahridaya]

It's as simple as if you say you are anything at all, you are in duality. I am a person, I am universal conscious, I am buddhist... it doesn't really matter what you are saying, but the basic statement of being some thing, implies that there is some thing that you are not, which is a totally dual perspective.

 

Eventually the practice has to be dropped too.

 

One should take the practice to it's fullest extent before tolling out advice of dropping what one has not yet experienced directly. Buddhism is designed to take one beyond being and non-being...

 

GIH has a mental dogma that's worse than a religious dogma sometimes. Having the non-dual experience doesn't mean neglecting the process, as duality is what's non-dual, it's not that non-duality is dual. Don't put your cart before the horse. Ya dig?

[goldisheavy]

Having the non-dual experience doesn't mean neglecting the process,

 

What the heck is "the non-dual experience"?

 

as duality is what's non-dual, it's not that non-duality is dual. Don't put your cart before the horse. Ya dig?

 

Don't load your automobile on a pony.

[Vajrahridaya]

What the heck is "the non-dual experience"?

 

Find out, it does not neglect genuine process. Your kind of extreme in your view, not so radical, more chaotic.

[goldisheavy]

 

Find out, it does not neglect genuine process. Your kind of extreme in your view, not so radical, more chaotic.

 

Thanks a lot Vajrahridaya. I am here to tickle your lazy minds. Well, not all of you are lazy, but those who are will definitely feel the tickle.