Reverse Abdominal Breathing

[Maddie]

Ok I'm trying to think of how to put this.

 

First of all I'll state that I love Brodi's website and I have learned a lot of great stuff there and expect there is much for me still to learn there.

 

Second the Buddha said not to even take his word for anything but to see for yourself if what he said was true.

 

Ok so a while back I began to read Brodi's site and got really into, as it was very interesting and answered a lot of questions, so that part was cool. Yet though he claims a "non-denominational" approach he obviously favors Buddhism (as I believe that is what his back ground is in) and seems to not be too keen of several Taoist practices. So the more I read his site the more I began to shy away from a lot of qigong practices.

 

Lately I've been re-evaluating that stance. Partially from the advice of some wise people on this forum. So what I've noticed is getting back into qigong (as well as doing the more predominately Buddhist stuff I've learned from Brodi) has helped my current practice and filled in some of the gaps where it was lacking or unable to help me as much as I would have liked.

 

Doing organ meditation (a qigong practice) I've noticed makes doing my other meditations easier and benefits me in other ways that my current practice was not.

 

I just finished a nice long session of Samatha meditation while doing reverse abdominal breathing (another qigong practice) and wow it was much easier is several ways. My legs, and back hurt less, and it was easier to not loose focus. It was a nice blending of Taoism and Buddhism. What I noticed was that my dan tien filled up with qi quickly. Then that extra qi began to spill over and some of it filled up my leg channels thus making my legs hurt less (a couple hours in half lotus can start to hurt) and it went up my back making that hurt less too. Also as it was going up my back it helped correct my posture which I'm also sure helped my back to hurt less. It was interesting when it got to my head as it exerted a slight pressure and made my ears feel like they were clogged up for a while. It also made the practice of Samatha easier as well as my mind did not tend to wonder as much and the time seemed to go by faster. It was great.

 

So with that being said, and seeing what a great aid qigong is to Buddhist meditation I don't understand why Brodi tends to poo poo on some Taoist practices.