Advance Energy Techniques

[astralc]

The Dan Tien formula is ok for certain guys, but not for everyone.

It's common to have a few "collateral effects" while working single-minded

on the dan tien spot.

If my memory is not cheating, there's a book out there that talks about this topic.

I think that the basic healty method to accumulate energy for meditation is

"celibacy" + "watching the thoughts" rather than cultivate dantien from the beginning...

 

dao rain tao, if you please, why would dan tien practice not be suitable for everyone?

 

I do agree that working 'single minded' on the dan tien will cause issues with chi congestion. But suggesting that celibacy and watching thoughts is a healthy and more suitable practice for cultivating chi in the dan tien, I believe, is quite inaccurate.

 

Even a beginner can start chi breathing at the dan tien, they might not feel much, and it will take them a very long time to feel anything, but it won't hurt them one whit - and I talk from experience working with people. I don't want to sound rude, but do you practice chi cultivation?

[ChiDragon]

I have to say that breathing Chi down to the dan tien is the goal of all Chi Kung practitioners.

It has to be breathed slowing at the beginning and progressively for sometime until the Chi reach the dan tien. However, it was never recommended to have to Chi to go straight to the dan tien for beginners. Those who can have the Chi go down to the dan tien without any difficulty and no ill feelings was considered to be that they have reached the ultimate goal of Chi Kung practice.

[JohnC]

I have to say that breathing Chi down to the dan tien is the goal of all Chi Kung practitioners.

It has to be breathed slowing at the beginning and progressively for sometime until the Chi reach the dan tien. However, it was never recommended to have to Chi to go straight to the dan tien for beginners. Those who can have the Chi go down to the dan tien without any difficulty and no ill feelings was considered to be that they have reached the ultimate goal of Chi Kung practice.

 

Not in my experience.

 

This is the right place to share this practice

 

She is speaking of stillness movement.

[ChiDragon]

Not in my experience.

 

 

That was applied to all the cases in general. However, in your individual case, I may come to a conclusion that you have no breathing problems.

Edited April 24, 2012 by ChiDragon

[joeblast]

dao rain tao, if you please, why would dan tien practice not be suitable for everyone?

 

I do agree that working 'single minded' on the dan tien will cause issues with chi congestion. But suggesting that celibacy and watching thoughts is a healthy and more suitable practice for cultivating chi in the dan tien, I believe, is quite inaccurate.

 

Even a beginner can start chi breathing at the dan tien, they might not feel much, and it will take them a very long time to feel anything, but it won't hurt them one whit - and I talk from experience working with people. I don't want to sound rude, but do you practice chi cultivation?

Complete and utter stillness is the key. If you cant do that, all of this other stuff is just playing, in a sense. Your ability to enter stillness directly correlates will how well you will be able to integrate the things you practice. What was that analogy about making rice by steaming sand?

[astralc]

good post joeblast, complete silence is a goal, absolutely, and if you can do that then you can do a whole lot of other wonderful things.

 

What I am getting at is that dan tien breathing is not an exclusive practice, there is really nothing special about it, just practice. If you can breath chi then you jump a level so to speak, and, as you get better at silence, even in dreaming, you may start to enter states that will teach you other meditational techniques, from your own subconscious.

 

I get ahead of myself, all I wanted to emphasise was that we shouldn't restrict Taoist practice, even amongst ourselves, dan tien breathing, packing and reverse breathing are free, to everyone, and the results each person gets are the result of the amount of practice they put into it. And no one gets 'there' without practice, which is why so few people can do it.

 

Hope I am not raving here...

Edited April 24, 2012 by astralc

[Cheshire Cat]

I'm just a little guy who likes to sit quietly sometimes.

 

Maybe I haven't all your experience in the field of cultivation,

but I hope, in my limited understanding, to be useful for someone.

I talked about the basic principles of no-leakage, based on the essays of

taoist masters of the past. This is supposed to be the "basis" for cultivating

Yang-Qi.

 

I don't claim to have the right view. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

dao rain tao, if you please, why would dan tien practice not be suitable for everyone?

 

I do agree that working 'single minded' on the dan tien will cause issues with chi congestion. But suggesting that celibacy and watching thoughts is a healthy and more suitable practice for cultivating chi in the dan tien, I believe, is quite inaccurate.

 

Even a beginner can start chi breathing at the dan tien, they might not feel much, and it will take them a very long time to feel anything, but it won't hurt them one whit - and I talk from experience working with people. I don't want to sound rude, but do you practice chi cultivation?

[astralc]

I'm just a little guy who likes to sit quietly sometimes.

 

Maybe I haven't all your experience in the field of cultivation,

but I hope, in my limited understanding, to be useful for someone.

I talked about the basic principles of no-leakage, based on the essays of

taoist masters of the past. This is supposed to be the "basis" for cultivating

Yang-Qi.

 

I don't claim to have the right view. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

dao rain tao, thanks for reminding me to be nice to people, I am sorry for being so blunt, if we never engage in conversations with others we never learn.

 

Your reporting what you read is fine, its just that this issue of chi leakage is silly, but it did make some of us chuckle, so it was well received.

 

Chi cultivation takes just one thing, loads of practice. Chi breathing at the dan tien is what preborn babies do, us adults can let our instincts guide us to breath, and it will move to the abdominal breath, then with a bit of inner awareness, to sucking / bellows and packing or just silence and water dissolving. Reverse breathing is a little more difficult, but again, with practice it will happen.

[Thunder_Gooch]

I don't mean to get into a p***ing contest with anyone here, but I encourage you to at least try out a deep trance state where you go so deep you are where you can barely feel your body, at least that deep, and try to work with chi in that state. Then compare that to whatever it is you do in a non trance state. Come back here and tell me that the experience is even close to being on the same level.

Edited April 25, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[astralc]

I don't mean to get into a p***ing contest with anyone here, but I encourage you to at least try out a deep trance state where you go so deep your where you can barely feel your body, at least that deep, and try to work with chi in that state. Then compare that to whatever it is you do in a non trance state. Come back here and tell me that the experience is even close to being on the same level.

 

OK, peeing contest it is, lets go, trousers down, peckers out!

 

LOL, more-pie-guy, love your spunk, of course going deep into trance with nei gung is always going to dribble all over what you can feel or do in the conscious state, at least for me anyways, not sure about the Masters.

 

And may I suggest to you, try chi breathing, at the dan tien, and then whole body, move that into a deep state trance. Then let your 'state' go deeper into the unconsciousness and do some astral travel or OOB. If you can do that then we are pissing over the same fence

 

Conscious chi work is, IMHO, fundamental to the practical application of taoism, just as deep state work is, they are each one side of a coin, like the yin yang symbol, no question or argument from me on that front.

 

Anyway, keep up the good work more-pie-guy, love your posts

[joeblast]

I don't mean to get into a p***ing contest with anyone here, but I encourage you to at least try out a deep trance state where you go so deep your where you can barely feel your body, at least that deep, and try to work with chi in that state. Then compare that to whatever it is you do in a non trance state. Come back here and tell me that the experience is even close to being on the same level.

I tried red phoenix while in this sort of state - it was a bit...well, usually the center is easy to find, but while deeply "tranced" it was like shooting a laser into a cloud looking for the center 2-3 werent as ambiguous. I sorta dislike the term trance though, its usage always gives me the impression of contrivance. IMHO the best way to such a state is by the breath protocol - until you reduce the turbulence in the air passageways sufficiently, your olfactory bulbs that protrude forth are going to keep firing - and my experience with the nature of the cranial nerves is that when one set fires, they will before long trigger other cranial nerves to fire. Same with the vagus nerves - if your breath is rough, uneven, it causes stimulation of the nerve, which feeds back onto the heart, lungs, continue back on up to the top and the 5 thieves easily manifest.

 

Conversely, limiting the amount of olfactory nerve stimulation by letting go of the air passageways; limiting vagus nerve stimulation by having diaphragm motion be one smooth wave that propagates upward and forward, smoothly transitioning the tendonal motion past the foramina; teeth just barely apart, lips kissed and tongue on the pallete, relaxed helps quiet the trigeminal...

 

Since each little bit feeds back on one another, they all must over many sessions be brought to deeper states of pacification - for if progress is attempted too quickly there are feedback mechanisms where yang springs forth from "contrived extreme yin" because it is false extreme yin and not true extreme yin. (I'd link one of Taomeow's posts on that if I recalled where it was right now )

[Thunder_Gooch]

OK, peeing contest it is, lets go, trousers down, peckers out!

 

LOL, more-pie-guy, love your spunk, of course going deep into trance with nei gung is always going to dribble all over what you can feel or do in the conscious state, at least for me anyways, not sure about the Masters.

 

And may I suggest to you, try chi breathing, at the dan tien, and then whole body, move that into a deep state trance. Then let your 'state' go deeper into the unconsciousness and do some astral travel or OOB. If you can do that then we are pissing over the same fence

 

Conscious chi work is, IMHO, fundamental to the practical application of taoism, just as deep state work is, they are each one side of a coin, like the yin yang symbol, no question or argument from me on that front.

 

Anyway, keep up the good work more-pie-guy, love your posts

 

Deep abdominal breathing is what lets you get deeper and deeper, slower and slower, more relaxed. It is almost as if you are asleep while sitting up, but your mind is still aware, but the body goes to sleep.

 

I've had a few obe's and a few lucid dreams at obe level.

 

But that isn't really my end goal.

 

If I get that deep and realize I am dreaming I try never to waste it and focus on sucking in as much energy as is possible.

Edited April 25, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

It's interesting you mention vagus nerve stimulation.

 

Another master from a school I am studying would meditate underwater using a pipe or reed and enter a near coma state.

 

I think the cold water on the face may trigger the vagus nerve to quiet down.

 

I have found being underwater to be very powerful, and it is used by another teacher I study to increase Intelligence in students. (win wenger author of the Einstein factor)

 

Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu is Japan's greatest and most prolific inventor and holds 4000+ patents. He invented the floppy and hard disk and digital watch among other things. He uses underwater training and credits it with his insights.

 

 

My father was underwater demolition in the navy, and he said whatever that training did being under water for so much time changed him.

 

He came back from the war like a Jedi, and took control of his physical environment and really made something of himself in a big way. He tells me all the stories of his life and shows me pictures and newspaper clippings and it's hard for me to believe one man really accomplished as much as he did, but I know it to be true.

 

 

 

 

I tried red phoenix while in this sort of state - it was a bit...well, usually the center is easy to find, but while deeply "tranced" it was like shooting a laser into a cloud looking for the center 2-3 werent as ambiguous. I sorta dislike the term trance though, its usage always gives me the impression of contrivance. IMHO the best way to such a state is by the breath protocol - until you reduce the turbulence in the air passageways sufficiently, your olfactory bulbs that protrude forth are going to keep firing - and my experience with the nature of the cranial nerves is that when one set fires, they will before long trigger other cranial nerves to fire. Same with the vagus nerves - if your breath is rough, uneven, it causes stimulation of the nerve, which feeds back onto the heart, lungs, continue back on up to the top and the 5 thieves easily manifest.

 

Conversely, limiting the amount of olfactory nerve stimulation by letting go of the air passageways; limiting vagus nerve stimulation by having diaphragm motion be one smooth wave that propagates upward and forward, smoothly transitioning the tendonal motion past the foramina; teeth just barely apart, lips kissed and tongue on the pallete, relaxed helps quiet the trigeminal...

 

Since each little bit feeds back on one another, they all must over many sessions be brought to deeper states of pacification - for if progress is attempted too quickly there are feedback mechanisms where yang springs forth from "contrived extreme yin" because it is false extreme yin and not true extreme yin. (I'd link one of Taomeow's posts on that if I recalled where it was right now )

Edited April 25, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Enishi]

Not sure if it counts as an "advanced" technique or not, but I've found working with the Water element as described on Mistele's site ( http://williammistele.com/ ) to be quite powerful. My experience with Water is much as he describes, intensely cool and contractive, but also loving and blissful.

 

Entering into Akashic awareness is another one. Recently I found, partly by accident, that it's getting easy for me to connect to some of the spirits listed in Franz Bardon's book on Magical Evokation. One day I was simply looking over the sigils of the Moon intelligences without trying to consciously connect with them and got an incredibly powerful rush of energy. O.o When I want to connect intentionally, I can do so using the aforementioned Akashic awareness.

 

My theory is that having practiced Stillness-Movement and KAP for the past three years has enhanced my direct perception with such things, whereas before it was all forced mental techniques.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Enishi

[joeblast]

It's interesting you mention vagus nerve stimulation.

 

Another master from a school I am studying would meditate underwater using a pipe or reed and enter a near coma state.

 

I think the cold water on the face may trigger the vagus nerve to quiet down.

 

I have found being underwater to be very powerful, and it is used by another teacher I study to increase Intelligence in students. (win wenger author of the Einstein factor)

 

Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu is Japan's greatest and most prolific inventor and holds 4000+ patents. He invented the floppy and hard disk and digital watch among other things. He uses underwater training and credits it with his insights.

 

 

My father was underwater demolition in the navy, and he said whatever that training did being under water for so much time changed him.

 

He came back from the war like a Jedi, and took control of his physical environment and really made something of himself in a big way. He tells me all the stories of his life and shows me pictures and newspaper clippings and it's hard for me to believe one man really accomplished as much as he did, but I know it to be true.

I used to be on swim team years ago, I can definitely agree with the interesting difference between working in water and working in air - it is almost like hitting the gas pedal in your car with a full exhaust system vs no exhaust system in terms of the balance of pressures Imho the water would affect the vagus nerve mainly by this difference in external pressure and viscosity, in essence providing a sort of pressure buffer that helps stabilize the motion of the abdomen. A useful tool, I think - it'd help one integrate the motions while providing that little bit of crutch. Actually this balancing of pressures was one of the things that led me to formulate things as I have, i.e. the buffering of air pressure by the sinuses that allows one to breathe...in whatever fashion the diaphragm may move without encountering a significant difference in the competing tensions. I only discovered that when I got my breaths slow deep long enough and then added the "letting go of the air passageways" (active and then the passive fruit ) which left my abdomen to 100% deal with the pressure differences on its own and not get that buffer-assist from the air passages. And then as things calm further if you arent able to resolve that tension with proper diaphragmatic motion then the diaphragm will hiccup! (Not hiccups, just a single one, and I determined that to be the result of not descending the diaphragm from the root - so if it is descending from the middle then it is allowed to "free float" in a manner of speaking, and the anterior vs posterior tension in the diaphragm needs to get resolved somehow. Either way, it is activating everything down the middle far too much, note all the significant openings in the diaphragm - a tense diaphragm will restrict blood flow, stimulate the vagus, pull at the pericardium, heart, lungs via the pulmonary etc ligaments.)

 

That's why I cant stress enough how valuable it is to begin the motions of breath from the very bottom back - it "roots" the breath and then the motion flows in one direction crus to xiphoid and thus has no context to have the need for resolving such differing tension since it is in one direction. This image is rather flattened front to back but it does convey some visual to what I'm saying.

 

 

One thing I noticed when receiving instruction, or reading books, etc is that there was never any very specific mention of how exactly to begin a breath. Sounds stupidly fundamental but I never realized the importance of that until I hit that glass floor in my meditation and had to troubleshoot my way through it. I had to ask myself "what are the very first motions?" More and more I conclude the front of the abdomen is less fundamental in terms of meditative breath than the diaphragm/psoas/perineum dynamic - why is the front of the nei jing tu open?

 

One other thought in my head wrt underwater is that if your face is underwater then the trigeminal is also receiving pacification from the water. Its a very loud nerve set, perhaps the most extreme pain I have ever experienced was via the trigeminal (took a baseball to the mouth when I was younger and when I got to the hospital for stitches, they strapped me down, pulled out my upper lip, jammed a needle way up there and injected what felt like 5 gallons of novicane pain...) so in the whole feedback mechanism paradigm of the cranial nerves, underwater is a bunch of them being pacified at once...though the hearing is a whole different world down there.

 

So if you want that "trance state" it is best done by quieting the cranial nerves.

 

Tried rp again last night when deep like that, was like shooting an arrow in the fog - but perhaps I cheated a bit and slightly opened my sphenoid sinus It lies on the anterior side of the midbrain...just dont "open it too much" or you'll get a headache!

[Thunder_Gooch]

Tried rp again last night when deep like that, was like shooting an arrow in the fog

 

So in deep trance energy sensations aren't amplified for you, or is it just you have trouble coordinating in that state?

[joeblast]

coordinating, really - note the change in description I've come to "have nothing to do" while there, so its...adjusting the trim on the boat motor to do something a little different

[voidisyinyang]

Regarding Gary Clyman mentioned in this thread - I want to thank people for inspiring me to read his Qigong Bible on his website -- free pdf -- very excellent information.

 

I have a few points of contention but first of all the good things.

 

Gary states that Mantak Chia is incorrect to teach males to fondle themselves and I completely agree. Gary says that if this fondling is going on then it's "too late" because it brings the energy down to create ejaculation which is against the whole point of building up the energy.

 

So this is excellent that Gary has pointed out this major error of Mantak Chia but I would say Gary does not go far enough. Gary states he studied the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" as one of his three main traditional energy training texts. But then Gary states that he encourages the watching of porn to activate the sex centers -- while doing his exercises (certain exercises) -- but the crucial point for Gary is that the energy must avoid the reproductive organs -- so the energy needs to be circulated from the lower tan tien then directly to the back. O.K. I'm leaving out details but my point is that this goes against the teachings of Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality.

 

If you really study Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality it calls this "heart's false fire" -- http://fulllotusqigong.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-sufi-way-of-blame-heyoka-tricksters.html I blogged on this for further details.

 

So I don't blame Gary for this erroneous teaching -- I mean this is why real energy masters are so rare - with the third eye fully open! For the really advanced levels there can be no thoughts about sex.

 

On the other hand -- for me any subconscious thoughts about sex need to be consciously sublimated and "burned" -- ionized - and this is why there is no "blue balls" as Westerners erroneously think.

 

There has to be a purification of the energy and to create real chi energy this requires no thoughts about sex. So this is why real qi - the prenatal chi energy -- this is why it's so rare. Because the modern world is completely bombarded by the fixation of male ejaculation, the exact opposite of real energy training.

 

So I applaud Gary for not only being completely celibate for his first four years of training but also avoiding contact with females.

 

Yeah I know it sounds harsh and it is harsh -- again this is why advanced energy levels are so rare.

 

So Gary goes on to say how in Taoist Sex the male takes in the female energy while giving back the male energy -- this creates more internal orgasms for both the male and female -- but no ejaculations. Gary even states that this does not require physical contact!

 

Indeed this is the level I achieved but people don't believe it. Yes energy is taken in from the females but again it is transmitted back to the females as male electromagnetic energy. Also females can do this -- and anyway this is the real trick of energy training.

 

I also applaud Gary for emphasizing the crucial need of "personal space" for successful energy training and how this is often lacking in the West - people do not value their "selves" over their "environment" as Gary describes. This is so true!! Even qigong master Yan Xin gives the details on this as I have blogged on - http://fulllotusqigong.blogspot.com/2012/10/maintaining-state-of-listening-but-not.html

 

So there requires protection of self energy for successful energy training and of course this ties directly into the sex energy and how it's exchanged through interpersonal relations.

 

So then Gary says that an ejaculation is about 6 days of full meals to recharge that energy for the male. So anyway Gary even states how that if there has been retention for a long time then if there is ejaculation this clears out the toxins and also creates "more space" to build up more jing energy.

 

Now this is where I have to disagree with Gary. I mean -- YES -- again it is very difficult to advance in the training precisely because you store the chi energy (or call it jing) in the lower tan tien where it can easily be deconverted into ejaculation due to various reasons. For example Gary states how having sex during the female's menstruation means her temperature is higher internally and so it's too difficult for the male not to ejaculate. Well this same problem arises just from sleeping with too many covers! Or sleeping on the stomach, etc.

 

So preparing for sleeping means turning all the sex and food energy into jing energy or chi energy. Gary's focus on the lower tan tien as a pressure boiler -- relying on flexing the anal sphincter and the kegel muscle to stop urination - and then Gary stating how when the pressure builds up the released "steam" is the jing energy that then circulates into the microcosmic orbit. This is excellent training.

 

Gary's point that the difference between Zen meditation and qigong is that qigong uses mind intention to direct the energy while in Zen the energy just flows on its own - again this is an excellent point that Yan Xin also emphasizes. So the energy is "bidirectional" and so when a person goes into the Emptiness this creates energy by changing the direction of the "extra" blocked or negative lower emotional energy. But that changed direction energy needs to be stored or else it gets dissipated back into the Emptiness.

 

Well so the energy dynamics are constantly flowing like this and as Yan Xin emphasizes the practice is actually subconscious. So the intention is bidirectional - if there is an error then the energy can be emptied out again.

 

But for the really advanced training there needs to be retreat -- I recently asked qigong master Chunyi Lin "how many times he had done the 28 day full lotus fast cave meditation." He said: "Not many." haha. He said actually he did one retreat that was 2 months non-stop no sleep full lotus fasting in the cave. So I think that was when he had the three bottles of water and three apples. Anyway then another time he did the 28 day no sleep full lotus fast meditation in the cave. He said mainly he did lots of 7 day full lotus nonstop fast no sleep meditations and three days. Chunyi Lin then said he wants to do a full year of nonstop full lotus no sleep fast meditation.

 

Anyway we do the best we can in the environment we train in which has to be considered a "tantric" environment.

[chenplayer]

Glad to have you back Drew!

[voidisyinyang]

Glad to have you back Drew!

 

thanks -- sorry I meant the above for the strong energy thread.

[SonOfTheGods]

Blast from the past

[SonOfTheGods]

Full Lotus and standing cultivation GiMaSae.

That'll cook ya right up

[Green Tiger]

My favorite part about this thread is the revelation that Sinfest was doing 5 mins of horse stance and not 5 hours.

[Green Tiger]

Hey, Sinfest/Protector hasn't been posting in some time. Maybe he's working his way up from 5 min. to 5 hrs. And doesn't have time to post?

 

That would be truly impressive.

 

In Power Healing by Dr. Zhi Gang Sha, he says:

 

"In the beginning, I could hold this fixed position for only one hour. My legs and body ached. After reporting to Master [Zhi Chen] Guo, he told me, 'Not enough! Do it more and longer!' After that, I did it for two hours. I felt warm, even hot, and I felt strong inner power. My body felt as if it were expanding. Then I reported to Master Guo again, and he said, 'Not enough!' Next, I managed to do three hours. My whole body was boiling inside. Then I reported to him, and he said, 'Still not enough!' I tried very hard to follow my master's instruction in order to win his approval. I practiced the position for longer and longer, until I could hold it for five hours at a time. Then Master Guo smiled and said, 'This is your first step.'"

 

-- Power Healing, page 30

 

Note: he was practicing san jiao, which is more like wu chi than ma bu.

Edited February 8, 2014 by Green Tiger

[BaguaKicksAss]

What, you guys are saying that you don't read and reply to TTBs while in horse stance?