The 100 day Meditation Experiment

[The Way Is Virtue]

I've decided to try an experiment and commit to doing the wuji standing meditation (zhan zhuang) stance for at least 20 to 30 minutes a day for the next 100 days. I actually am planning to do about 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening everyday for 100 days, but I am allowing for some days when I may be really busy or travelling etc. I figure I should still be able to manage a minimum of at least 20 minutes a day (10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening minimum) even when I am quite busy, if I make the effort.

 

The idea of 100 days comes from some of the taoist writings that mention that one can fully restore the qi in the dantian after 100 days of taoist meditation. Of course the 100 days mentioned may not have been meant literally, as realistically there are various factors in play such as a person's age, and health, and previous meditation experience, etc., but 100 days of continuous practice sounds like a halfway reasonably achievable goal to commit to.

 

The reason I have chosen the wuji zhan zhuang stance is in my personal experience it has proven to be a very effective form of meditation/qigong for building and balancing qi and improving health, and I have a couple of stubborn chronic health problems that I would like to try to address. Doing qigong practice intermittently has helped but has not been enough to get over the hump and really address a couple of stubborn health issues. I may do some additional practices such as taiji or moving qigong forms as time allows, but my main practice and committment will be the minimum 20 minutes of wuji standing meditation each day.

 

If anyone is interested in joining in on this experiment and committing to either sitting or standing meditation (or any other qigong/meditation practice if you prefer) for 100 days, then you are certainly welcome. There is something to be said for a group dynamic in things like this. Just post a note to this thread that you are willing to give this a whirl and what type of meditation or qigong you are going to commit to practicing for 100 days. I was thinking of making the official start day this Monday, Oct. 18th, 2010, to allow a day for people to find this thread. People can still join in after Monday if they see this thread after Monday and still want to join in. Just post a comment to this thread that you are starting. You just have to commit to 100 days of practicing meditation or qigong. If you miss a day from time to time, no major worries, but try your best to get at least some practice in every day. Anyone participating can post comments or maybe weekly status updates or any interesting experiences you may have to this thread to keep this thread alive and to help keep others motivated to keep going.

 

Even if you are not interested in participating, feel free to comment or offer suggestions or whatever. If no one else is interested, no worries. Just thought I'd throw this idea out there since I am going to do this anyway. If some people are already doing something similar, feel free to join in this thread and tell us what you are practicing and how often you practice, etc.

 

Anyone else interested in making the committment to see where it leads them? You never know until you try.

 

 

In case anyone is interested and is not familiar with the wuji stance, here is a description that someone put up on the net on how to do the wuji standing meditation. In contrast to what is said in this description, I would say that one shouldn't so much 'concentrate' on the area that this person is referring to as the wuji point (dantian area), but instead one should maintain a gentle or slight awareness of the dantian area (wuji point). The exact location of the dantian area is not critical since one is just maintaining a gentle awareness of this area as they are practicing. Also, I believe one pats down the outside and inside of the arms and legs when closing, not the front and back of the legs, but that's not critical I don't think. The main idea is to prevent an excess qi build up and help the body to absorb more qi.

Points on Wuji Standing

There is also this video by Lam Kam Chuen which shows the wuji stance. It looks to me like Lam Kam Chuen needs to relax (sink) his chest a bit more and tilt his chin down a bit more than what he is doing in parts of this video, but what do I know. [Edit: Actually it may just be the camera angle. ]

Edited October 16, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[The Observer]

I'm taking you up on the offer friend! I already started what your doing about a week ago, but all the same ! I'm doing 30 minutes in the morning of sitting meditation and 5 minutes at night with standing meditation (short time because I'm just learning about standing meditation/qigong movements). In addition I'm also practicing semen retention for the next 100 days (longer if necesary) in order to fill up my lower dantian.

Edited October 16, 2010 by The Observer

[The Way Is Virtue]

I'm taking you up on the offer friend! I already started what your doing about a week ago, but all the same ! I'm doing 30 minutes in the morning of sitting meditation and 5 minutes at night with standing meditation (short time because I'm just learning about standing meditation/qigong movements). In addition I'm also practicing semen retention for the next 100 days (longer if necesary) in order to fill up my lower dantian.

Awesome! Should be interesting to see what types of results various people get if more people decide to take the plunge as well.

Edited October 16, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[The Observer]

Awesome! Should be interesting to see what types of results various people get if more people decide to take the plunge as well.

 

Knowing you're not in it on your own is a good thing I suppose! Plus there's a sort of collective energy to feed off in a sense...

[The Way Is Virtue]

Knowing you're not in it on your own is a good thing I suppose! Plus there's a sort of collective energy to feed off in a sense...

That's what I am thinking as well.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts...

 

 

For others:

It's perfectly OK to join in on this even if you have already been doing regular meditation or qigong for quite a while. The idea here is just to make a commitment to do your best to practice every day for 100 days without missing any days to really keep the momentum going and maybe post a comment to this thread once in a while on how you are making out and if you had any interesting experiences. Even if you can only commit to 15 minutes a day, if you do that every day for 100 days you are bound to make at least some progress. Often people practice somewhat intermittently, or they practice a lot for several weeks quite regularly and then start to lose steam. It might be interesting to see what progress people can make if they do regular daily practice for 100 days. If some want to give it a try and they find that they can't keep up the practice for some reason, then no worries.

Edited October 17, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[mewtwo]

OMG this is perfect i have been looking for a way to do more yoga poses. I will join in I will do one yoga pose in the morning and one in the evening. standing in it for as long as i can hopefully over 5 minutes each time I will meditate in this posture. Hopefully i can get to the 3 hour mark. I will either do lion and tiger pose or archer and warrior 2 have not decided yet will deside by tommorow cause that is when i will be starting this practice. Thanks the way is virtue.

[johndoe2012]

I did a year of standing and I think it really increased my patience and perseverance with practises, so standing is really recommended.

 

I am already more than 30 days in in my Intu-Flow practise so I'll just continue this.

[adept]

It is a very good idea but unfortunately the commitment shown by yourself probably won't be copied by many on here.

It's been tried before.

The guy was on his own for most of the time.

Not wishing to rain on your parade mind you.

Therefore, I'll join. 20 minutes of sitting meditation every day for me.

[Jetsun]

I will join you with standing meditation although I'm not sure I will start off doing as much as you as I am a complete novice only having done a few days zhan zhuang and they recommend starting with short times, but I also intend to do dissolving meditation too so it might be hard to tell which of the practises benefit the most, but as long as I get results that's what matters I guess.

[pilot]

When I started Zhan Zhuang I did it because I thought it could address the shortcomings of my taijiquan as explained by the author in Way of Energy. It became enjoyable and an expectation of my body at the same time each evening irrespective of my desire. Miss it for two or more days (such as due to a cold) and you could say it has its own withdrawal symptoms, much like jogging.

[johndoe2012]

When I started Zhan Zhuang I did it because I thought it could address the shortcomings of my taijiquan

 

Did it improve your taiji?

[The Way Is Virtue]

OMG this is perfect i have been looking for a way to do more yoga poses. I will join in I will do one yoga pose in the morning and one in the evening. standing in it for as long as i can hopefully over 5 minutes each time I will meditate in this posture. Hopefully i can get to the 3 hour mark. I will either do lion and tiger pose or archer and warrior 2 have not decided yet will deside by tommorow cause that is when i will be starting this practice. Thanks the way is virtue.

Cool! I'm not familiar with those yoga postures or any yoga postures really. Sounds like it could be a bit tough holding yoga postures for as much as 5 minutes? Are they pretty tough postures to do and hold? If they are you may want to start off with shorter times at first and slowly work your way up, but maybe you have already worked your way up to several minutes in those postures? Welcome to the experiment. I am hoping that doing this is a group thing will help to inspire and motiviate at least a few people to push themselves a bit more to practice regularly and to keep going steady through all the ups and downs.

Edited October 17, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[The Way Is Virtue]

I did a year of standing and I think it really increased my patience and perseverance with practises, so standing is really recommended.

I am already more than 30 days in in my Intu-Flow practise so I'll just continue this.

 

Thanks for joining in! Not all of us have access to local meditation or qigong groups that we resonate with or that we can participate in, so I thought maybe trying this as a group thing here might still provide people a bit of the group energy experience even if we are scattered all over the place and only communicating through electric, light, and electromagnetic pulses through the net. What kind of standing were you doing previously?

Edited October 17, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[The Way Is Virtue]

It is a very good idea but unfortunately the commitment shown by yourself probably won't be copied by many on here.

It's been tried before.

The guy was on his own for most of the time.

Not wishing to rain on your parade mind you.

Therefore, I'll join. 20 minutes of sitting meditation every day for me.

 

Great! Anyway, that was then and this is now. Anyway people are free to participate or stop as they please. Some people may just find they have lost interest after a while or they are getting too busy or whatever, so that is perfectly fine.

 

I think it is probably better for people to not commit to something too ambitious at first to make it easier to keep up their practice regularly. One can always slowly increase their practice time over time if they are finding they can manage without finding it to be too much of a burden. Also, people don't have to report on their progress very often or even at all if they don't want to. Some people may prefer to keep some or all of that to themselves. That's fine with me. I probably won't be posting here much more than about once a week or so myself as I am fairly busy these days, but I will keep up with what is going on as long as others are still interested. I do intend to keep this up for the full 100 days myself though for sure, as I do want to see what results this might bring. I think sometimes the group thing can help motivate some people a bit more though than doing it completely on one's own.

 

What sort of sitting meditation do you practice?

Edited October 17, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[The Way Is Virtue]

I will join you with standing meditation although I'm not sure I will start off doing as much as you as I am a complete novice only having done a few days zhan zhuang and they recommend starting with short times, but I also intend to do dissolving meditation too so it might be hard to tell which of the practises benefit the most, but as long as I get results that's what matters I guess.

Sounds good Jetsun! Yes, I think you probably don't want to try to force standing meditation longer than you can do it without it starting to be a strain. The idea is to stay relaxed and calm, and that state can be hard to maintain if the meditation starts becaoming a strain. When first starting out you may only want to do just a few minutes at a time until yor legs start getting more used to the posture. You don't have to bend your knees too much either. Just a little bit so the knee joints aren't locked is good enough.

Edited October 17, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[The Way Is Virtue]

When I started Zhan Zhuang I did it because I thought it could address the shortcomings of my taijiquan as explained by the author in Way of Energy. It became enjoyable and an expectation of my body at the same time each evening irrespective of my desire. Miss it for two or more days (such as due to a cold) and you could say it has its own withdrawal symptoms, much like jogging.

I see from your list of interests in your tag that you do a lot of practices so I guess it might be hard for you to tell specifically how much the zhan zhuang practice is helping overall, but have you noticed any improvements that you would attribute to the zhan zhuang practice?

[The Way Is Virtue]

Hi motivated bums,

Best to you in your 100 day gongs...

I just completed 100 days and utilized a 100 day gong sheet (previously suggested by other bums). Take a look and see if it might work for one of you.

Go go: http://www.chilel.com/

Scroll down to: "100-Day Gong Sheet" PDF

I also made a bunch of abbreviated notes on each day to indicate various body/mind happenings.

Ciao

Sounds good Rainbow_Vein! What were you practicing for those 100 days and do you think the 100 days of regular practice helped in any specific ways? I am guessing it did.

[johndoe2012]

What kind of standing were you doing previously?

 

I did it as per Way of Energy all the way to page 128 so my last exercises were filling up the balloon with water and imagining magnets pulling at my body from everywhere.

 

Actually I also imagined I was in a river (think whitewater rafting) with a log that was almost pushing me over and I had to keep the log while maintaining the posture in the wild water. A lot of effort but it felt very nice afterwards. This idea I got from a I-Chuan training manual.

 

Why did I discontinue? Two things: I felt I needed a teacher and I wanted to try Flying Phoenix qigong

[Jetsun]

I am wondering whether anyone has done zhan zhuang training alone for any long period of time and can testify to its benefits? I have read a lot of the stories and myths around this practice such as it strenghtens you better than many martial arts etc but was wondering whether anyone can actually testify to its power, as some of the stories sound too good to be true if im honest.

[The Way Is Virtue]

I started practicing the 30 minute wuji standing sessions this Friday evening passed and have continued with one in the morning and one in the evening through yesterday and this morning, as I wanted to make sure that two 30 minute sessions a day of wuji standing was something I could reasonably maintain. The lower legs are a bit sore but it seems I should be able to maintain this as a daily practice as long as time permits. The legs will likley fully get used to this within another week or two.

 

Although it is probably way too early to be drawing any conclusions, I have already noticed an increase in energetic sensations a fair bit above what I was feeliing previously when I was practicing less often and for shorter durations. Last night after practicing the evening session I did the closing and cool down period and then watched a bit of TV and then went to bed. I started laying on my back with one leg bent up and I was feeling fairly strong energetic vibration sensations in my bent leg, and also a bit in other areas of my body. After a while I shifted over to my right side and the energetic vibration and shimmering feelings spread more all over my body. The energetic sensations seemed to be mainly at the surface of my body in the muscles, but I was also feeling this somewhat internally as well, and also field like shimmering sensations in my spine as well. Later I shifted back to lying on my back and the sensations kept on for a little while and then fairly suddenly started to subside. Not sure why it subsided suddenly like that. I fell asleep shortly after that.

 

It seems to me that dividing one's practice between a morning session and an evening session is a helpful thing if one can find the time as it seems one's qi can become somewhat dispersed or lose some 'momentum' during sleep or through all the stresses and activity of the day. Doing practice both in the morning and evening appears to help keep things moving forward more somewhat. I know not everyone has that kind of free time though. I guess we have to be somewhat flexible and practice when we can find the time. Well those are my comments for today. Have a busy day ahead...

Edited October 17, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[The Way Is Virtue]

I did it as per Way of Energy all the way to page 128 so my last exercises were filling up the balloon with water and imagining magnets pulling at my body from everywhere.

Actually I also imagined I was in a river (think whitewater rafting) with a log that was almost pushing me over and I had to keep the log while maintaining the posture in the wild water. A lot of effort but it felt very nice afterwards. This idea I got from a I-Chuan training manual.

Why did I discontinue? Two things: I felt I needed a teacher and I wanted to try Flying Phoenix qigong

Sounds good. I may add in a moving qigong form as well to my practice if I have time, but will have to see what time allows...

[The Way Is Virtue]

I am wondering whether anyone has done zhan zhuang training alone for any long period of time and can testify to its benefits? I have read a lot of the stories and myths around this practice such as it strenghtens you better than many martial arts etc but was wondering whether anyone can actually testify to its power, as some of the stories sound too good to be true if im honest.

I am not a really experienced practitioner yet, but here is what I have experienced so far. I have been doing it completely on my own and have been practicing it on and off over the last year or so. I haven't been practicing for long sessions though until now, maybe 10 to 20 minute sessions at most so far, and not every day. Have stopped for several months at a time as well when I trying other things or when I was really busy. I kept coming back to the zhan zhuang practice though as it seems to bring me the most noticeable results. Even with the irregular and shorter practice sessions I was doing I have been noticing increased qi levels and some improvements to some health issues as well. That is why I now want to start practicing very regularly and for longer sessions. It takes a while to build up to being able to stand longer without strain though. There may be other qigong practices that are very effective as well but zhan zhuang is fairly simple and if practiced with a relaxed mind and body it appears to be quite safe to practice. One should read up on qigong closing practices as well and practice those to avoid any potential ill effects.

Edited October 17, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[adept]

What sort of sitting meditation do you practice?

 

 

Full lotus meditation with awareness on the dantien.

I also practice a moving neigong form and zhan zhuang daily, but i tend to miss a few days of sitting.

[The Way Is Virtue]

Full lotus meditation with awareness on the dantien.

I also practice a moving neigong form and zhan zhuang daily, but i tend to miss a few days of sitting.

Cool.

Have to run now. Have some work I have to get done...

[Tao_Jones]

I'm in. Funny that I was watching my taiji coach's qigong video this morning and decided to begin this very practice in addition to the bear frolic (for deficient kidney). Glad I logged in today.

Be well,

TJ

AKA FNG