Embryonic Breathing

[Trunk]

Several people whose breathing accomplishment I respect have highly recommended this book. I've taken it out of my closet and dusted it off, look fwd to reading it bit by bit as I have the time.

 

 

Hopefully those of you who have read and experienced more about this book will share some for the benefit of us newbies.

 

- Trunk

 

p.s.

Please note the page number when you quote the book.

[Trogdorf]

[NeiChuan]

From what I've seen this book is really good.. Lol I have a book from Dr.Yang right now.. its pretty good and covers general knowledge. This book seems to cover some stuff im involved with so I think I'll buy it..

 

Thanks Trunk

[joeblast]

I like Dr Yang's engineer mindset IMHO this book should be on the shelf of any person who does meditation, it covers these fundamental aspects that well.

 

 

170 pages of relevant translation of ancient text, chinese included - Goldmine there, even if you dont wish to rigorously follow Dr Yang's methods to a t.

 

"The accomplishment of all this depends on the peaceful spirit and calm mind, no vexation and no disturbance." (178)

 

 

"Practice gradually until reaching the stage that Embryonic Breathing is "as if there and as if not there" (186)

 

 

I know some people have knocked his grasp on the more advanced methods like xi sui jing as being only theoretical, but this subject at hand, being so very fundamental, is explained very well and thoroughly in this book.

[Pietro]

Several people whose breathing accomplishment I respect have highly recommended this book. I've taken it out of my closet and dusted it off, look fwd to reading it bit by bit as I have the time.

 

 

Hopefully those of you who have read and experienced more about this book will share some for the benefit of us newbies.

 

- Trunk

 

p.s.

Please note the page number when you quote the book.

 

 

Is this the translation of a taoist book?

Can you tell me which one in case?

 

 

Thanks

[rex]

Is this the translation of a taoist book?

 

No, the translations and commentaries are collated from a number of documents:

 

"More than 150 documents related to Embryonic Breathing practice, written during nearly four thousand years of Chinese Qigong history, are now available. Many of these documents focus on theory, while others emphasize the general concept of the practice. Naturally, the contents of many of these documents are redundant or repetitious." p155

 

"The main sources of documents were from Daoist and Buddhist society, with a few from scholar and medical society. Documents generated from martial arts society are very scarce. Even though there are some, their discussion and practice remains on the surface level.

 

The majority of the documents translated and commented in this book are from the following sources:

 

1. Dao De Jing and Qigong, by Ding, Xin-Bai and Pan, Ming-Hua; Anhui, China, 1996

2. Chinese Qigong Dictionary, by Lu, Guang-Rong; Bejing, China, 1988

3. The Great Completion of Chinese Qigong, by Fang, Chun-Yang; Jilin, China, 1989

4. The Study of Practical Chinese Medical Qigong, by Ma, Ji-Rhen; Shanghai, China, 1992

5. The Complete Book of Nourishing the Life in Chinese Daoist Qigong, by Li, Yuan-Guo; Chengdu, Sichuan, China, 1991,

6. The Great Completion of Chinese Life Nourishing, by Fang, Chun-Yang; Jilin, China, 1992

7. Important Collection of Concealed Daoist Qigong, by Hong, Pi-Mo; Shanghai, China, 1991."

p156

 

[Chinese characters missed out and I took the liberty of using a semi-colon to separate the place of publication from the authors].

[Creation]

Will someone please give me an outline of the actual breathing method Dr. Yang recommends to practice?

 

Thanks.

[joeblast]

This book is an overview of techniques; a collection of signposts if you will.

 

Starts with General Concepts which includes talk about breathing as employing a strategy - whatever sort of breathing you are doing, it is a technique, even if you're paying no mind to it. The points lead one toward more granular control over the breath and manifestations thereof. Natural Abdominal Breathing specifics as well as Reverse Breathing specifics are covered.

 

After that there is a section on theoretical foundations that ties physical mechanism in with qigong theory.

 

Followed by a good 170 pages or so of translations and commentary of a collection of ancient documents, all covering the subject but quite a few overlap since they are on the same topic - but even so, each "signpost" tells a tale from a slightly different perspective. This is perhaps the most profound section of the book, and the original Chinese text is included.

 

Next chapter is ~5 pages of focused summary of the ancient documents...

 

And then about 20 pages of practice specific methods, including a closedown/shougong meditation exit that has some massage in it as well.

 

 

 

Basically, if you know how to do natural abdominal breathing and reverse breathing, you will know a decent percentage of what's in here already, but there's a thousand little points in here that any practitioner of any amount of expertise may glean valuable information from. To enough of an extent that it can easily take you from mundane to marvelous if you practice diligently.

[soaring crane]

Hi

 

I've had this since the day it came out (had it on pre-order at Amazon). JoeBlast describes it very well with the word "signposts" - there is not a lot of how-to instruction in technique here, especially for someone with no experience, but there's a lot of motivation to practice and to delve deeper into the meditations. Dr. Yang encourages experimentation and state straight-up that he also does not have the answers to everyone's questions. He's very humble in that way and that just makes his work more valuable to me, since I'm such a rotten student to begin with and always apply my own interpretations to everything.

 

There are so many nuggets of wisdom in those translations, you can really just open the book to any one of those pages and start reading, just for the enjoyment of it.

 

One of the more profound Qigong moments I ever had was when I first turned to the page with the image of the Taiji superimposed on a sketch of a standing person. The Yin point of the Yang field is situated directly in the middle of the head (the Mud Pill) and the Yang point in the Yin field in the true Lower Dantian.

 

The center of the Taiji, though, where Yin and Yang meet, is where's it's really at. That's something you discover with this book.

 

I'll write more about my experiences with the book later. I had some pretty profound moments with it.

 

What about you, Joe? Have you put the book into practice? Had any special experiences?

 

I'm scheduled to visit with Dr Yang at a seminar in October in Graz (Austria). The themes will be Push Hands and Yi Jin Jing/Da Mo's hand set. I wish the session were based on this book, but I'll be happy one way or another

[soaring crane]

Will someone please give me an outline of the actual breathing method Dr. Yang recommends to practice?

 

Thanks.

 

Get the book, really.

 

It isn't a "breathing method", it's a rebirth.

 

 

 

[joeblast]

There are so many nuggets of wisdom in those translations, you can really just open the book to any one of those pages and start reading, just for the enjoyment of it.

This is perhaps the best feature of this book - it is absolutely something you can just open up and begin to connect with, although there is an underlying progression to the concepts presented.

 

 

 

What about you, Joe? Have you put the book into practice? Had any special experiences?

Absolutely! Been practicing this for a good while, have fallen in and out of depths of the practice (of course, life's events, etc...we all know how that goes) but some of the coolest stuff I've had happen was doing this. We've had a good discussion relevant to this stuff over in Pietro's learning to breath thread, although that is primarily focused on BK Frantzis' teaching methods. I borrowed the longevity breathing concept from BK and combined it with the embryonic breathing and that got me some pretty unmistakable results like a super tonifying jolt to my metabolism when I was hitting ~minute long breaths, no-breath breath (turbulence in your air passageways falls below the threshold of innervation; you can no longer feel yourself breathe) which is akin to the "one-breath" that Max teaches, and...words fail much of the rest

[Trunk]

Ok, well - I finally opened up this book to start in - based on recommendations from several people that I really respect re: breath, that don't know each other, and all recommended this book highly.

 

Yet, partly, I wasn't looking fwd to it. So thick. "Introductory concepts", blah! Anticipated drudgery.

 

What a enjoyable surprise each page has been!

[JustARandomPanda]

Woot! A reason to read this book. I've owned it for a while. I'll join in.

 

 

 

 

Several people whose breathing accomplishment I respect have highly recommended this book. I've taken it out of my closet and dusted it off, look fwd to reading it bit by bit as I have the time.

 

 

Hopefully those of you who have read and experienced more about this book will share some for the benefit of us newbies.

 

- Trunk

 

p.s.

Please note the page number when you quote the book.

[Trunk]

Well, I'm 50 pgs into the hundred pg Ch#1: General Concepts.

* gaaahhhhh! *

I've never been introduced to "what is qi gong?, what is jing, qi, shen?" like this. :)

[gendao]

I've never been introduced to "what is qi gong?, what is jing, qi, shen?" like this. :)

How does he define them?

 

Depending on his viewpoint of them, I might be persuaded to buy this book too.

[Trunk]

How does he define them?

He's all over the place.

For instance, "qi gong" he goes into different categories of qi gong, briefly tells you about each's purpose and nature, and how they are woven together. You get an overview of the art seen from different angles.

[joeblast]

yeah, that's basically the standard ymaa intro, there's something similar in all of them, for the most part.

[NeiChuan]

I just ordered the book.. Was deciding between this and CK.Chu's book of nei kung for awhile.

 

This is a good choice im sure

[3L3VAT3]

anybody peeped the dvd?

 

I have some of his books, seem pretty good... thinking about getting some of the dvd's as well...

[Aetherous]

I have the small circulation DVD. It's alright. I wouldn't skip the embryonic breathing book.

[Mal]

At the moment this appears to be the most usefull Taoist book I've ever owned There is a lot of INFORMATION here. A sincere thank you to all for the recommendations.

 

Since Dr Yang Jwing-Min is rather prolific (turns out I've read some of his other books) my question is what is the next step?

 

He refers to building up and storing Qi with embryonic breathing, learning small circulation for Muscle/tendon changing, then Grand circulation for Marrow/Brain washing. (sort of hard to summarise without loosing the specifics) So I guess the next step is his "Qigong, The Secret of Youth" as Da Mo's Muscle/Tendon Changing and Marrow/Brain Washing Classic is... well..... a classic but being published in 2000 I can't help but wonder if 2006's Qigong Meditation: Small Circulation is an "update" with perhaps a Qigong Meditation: Grand Circulation to follow at some time.

 

Practically I wouldn't recommend jumping quickly through this stuff. A strong foundation is important and takes time to build. It was really helpful when Dr Yang pointed out that different schools have placed different emphasis on various steps of the process. That helps explain a lot of the confusion out there. And Dr Yang's steps and explanations follow what I was taught in KAP (I'm guessing most systems would/should be similar)

[Aetherous]

His version of MCO is kind of interesting and different...there's a lot of back and forth clearing the channels, versus going in just one direction. I haven't tried it that way.

 

I haven't seen the small universe book, but I'd recommend it over the DVD anyway. His books rock.

 

I think it's okay to push it a little bit in training. In his DVD, he says that in the past he focused a lot on natural breathing because it was recommended as the safe foundation, but now he teaches all of his students reverse breathing right away, because it helps so much. So, it's possible to be overly cautious when you could really be making a lot of progress instead. It's enough to know that natural breathing is there as a safety to balance you out, is the impression I got from the SU dvd.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Several people whose breathing accomplishment I respect have highly recommended this book. I've taken it out of my closet and dusted it off, look fwd to reading it bit by bit as I have the time.

 

 

it's an interesting thing when a book of this much importance and value ends up dusty in a closet. We all seem to be prone to the next book, the next practice, and pass on over the treasure repeatedly. Ah, but at least it gets resurrected and dusted off and the treasure recovered. I did the same thing with this book.

[idquest]

The book is good but I'm not sure I would be able to actually practice from it. It is lacking clarity on practical stuff. A good example of a clear step by step practice manual could be Qigong Empowerment by S.Y. Liang. Unfortunately can't say the same thing about EB. But theory is good.

[joeblast]

Since Dr Yang Jwing-Min is rather prolific (turns out I've read some of his other books) my question is what is the next step?

 

He refers to building up and storing Qi with embryonic breathing, learning small circulation for Muscle/tendon changing, then Grand circulation for Marrow/Brain washing. (sort of hard to summarise without loosing the specifics) So I guess the next step is his "Qigong, The Secret of Youth" as Da Mo's Muscle/Tendon Changing and Marrow/Brain Washing Classic is... well..... a classic but being published in 2000 I can't help but wonder if 2006's Qigong Meditation: Small Circulation is an "update" with perhaps a Qigong Meditation: Grand Circulation to follow at some time.

What's next? Make use of the wonderfully enhanced tool you've honed, cultivate diligently and your body gets set into a rhythm, the practice carries on when you are just sitting there, or sleeping...setting the conditions for enlightenment, fully aware at all times. Dr Yang is a martial artist and engineer, so a lot of the way he writes is geared towards "real world application."

 

 

 

The book is good but I'm not sure I would be able to actually practice from it. It is lacking clarity on practical stuff. A good example of a clear step by step practice manual could be Qigong Empowerment by S.Y. Liang. Unfortunately can't say the same thing about EB. But theory is good.

What do you want, a spreadsheet? These are guidelines to proper practice, I'm curious of why you'd say its lacking on practical stuff. Of course there are many things I've learned from practicing the method that arent in the book, but the book in its context is decently comprehensive, imho.