Confusing experience.

[jacklantegi]

Hey fellow bums!

 

I had a very strange, enlightening and disappointing experience a few days ago.

 

I have been practicing Master Lin's Spring Forest Qigong levels 1 & 2 every single day for many months now.

 

The progress I have achieved is quite substancial, but although it has been remarkably effective for increasing my ability to develop, refine, and manipulate chi, I always felt that there was something missing or not quite right with the results I was having.

 

So a few days ago after doing some research and debating whether I should give it a shot, I decided I would try doing an hour long guided Kundalini Yoga meditation, which basically consists of focusing on each chakra while listening to very trance-inducing chanting, and the meditation is ended with 25 minutes or so of Savasana. It's something I used to do fairly regularly in the past with little to no tangible results.

 

However, for the first time ever, I felt some incredibly tangible and blissful effects during the meditation, which as I mentionned, I have never had before (prior to starting my Qigong practice, that is).

 

After I was done, I felt INCREDIBLY peaceful, centered, energized, happy and emotionally stable. This single experience was more profound than all the hours of Qigong I have done, combined.

 

The next day, I woke up feeling just as great as I did after my meditation, and resumed my usual Spring Forest Qigong practice. After 2 hours of practice, I started feeling HORRIBLE. Anxiety and depression started setting in, and I just felt like complete crap.

 

I decided to do the Kundalini Yoga meditation again to see if there was any connection, and lo-and-behold, I was back to normal and then some afterwards.

 

I know it is bad practice to combine different energetic practices, but I made sure to inquire with the SFQ staff if this would be safe to attempt, and I got their OK.

 

So I'm at a fork in the road here. I don't know how to proceed. For all the effort Qigong requires, it is somewhat disappointing in terms of short-term well-being. By that I mean that after a lengthy Qigong session, I won't necessarily feel that much better than before I started. However, in the long-term, it is quite effective in that I am a much healthier and happier person than before I ever started my practice.

 

However, after my experience with Kundalini Yoga, I am tempted to follow this path. I have no idea how or why any of this happened, but I am amazed at how great I feel when doing Kundalini Yoga/Chakra meditations. And isn't that what counts the most? Your daily wellbeing?

 

Perhaps through all my time doing Qigong, I have unblocked and strengthened many channels and accumulated a decent bit of energy, which primed me for the Kundalini Yoga meditation and enabled it to be much more effective for me. I really don't know.

 

What do you guys think?

[Friend]

Do what your affinity is.

 

"You should feel like coming back to home."

 

As I see you learn the Spring Forest from home, pretty dedicated to exercise which you make you do too much and not touch the energetics. There is a point in some Qigong I exercised that when you do too much you loose energy also you set different flow.

 

You have to remember that mostly you have a definit amount of energy, rarely having backup from outside energy.

When it has to shared with two different things things will may not get the right amount to hold the energetic mechanism constant and the system get scrambled

as both may also have different flow.

 

More is that you as a beginner waste more energy on perception of repetive things

and compensations in the body and foreigness of movements, visualisations and reaction to inner and outer enviroment.

And remember that you can build with the same method as much hinderance as much they can free you.

 

Also if you expirience that mixing is not good then do not do it- Common sense.

Else find a amount of exercise time and intensity where you feel good.

Else do as most people : "Do as you want, its your life"

[jacklantegi]

Thank you so much. I found your reply really enlightening!

 

What you say makes a lot of sense.

 

The thing is, in SFQ, Master Lin recommends practicing as much as you want. His belief is that the more you practice, the more results you will get. I practice anywhere from 2-6 hours a day.

 

I'm reluctant to give up SFQ for something else, because I don't think I have given it a fair shot. I was thinking at the 6 month mark, I would get a pretty good idea whether it is right for me.

 

That said, I'm finding I am enjoying my SFQ practice less and less as time goes on. I am also feeling less connected to Master Lin. After having done several phone healing sessions and consultations with him, I not having benefited in any way, it made me lose some confidence in his system, which translates into my sessions being less productive. Ideally, the best thing would be for me to go see him in person, but I am currently unable to do so for financial reasons. He is a very kind and loving man, but that's not what this is about.

 

So I'm wondering whether I should continue and see whether my faith in the system will somehow be resurrected, or go on and try something else altogether.

 

Some of this is definitely due to lack of variety, as with most things that involve repetition, but I do not believe it to be the main reason.

 

I am and looking into continuing to just do the Kundalini Yoga meditation I mentioned, perhaps 4-5 times a day, but I am not knowledgeable enough to know whether it is safe or practical do only be doing this type of meditation several times a day.

 

It's also quite hard (as I have found out), to know which types of practices can go well together. It seems that your best option is to simply adhere to one system and stick with it, but that doesn't always pan out.

 

For instance, if I start working with the yogic system and working on my chakras and raising Kundalini, will I be missing out on the other important aspects of energetic cultivation such as developing chi, storing chi in the Dan Tien, balancing and opening the various channels, etc. ?

 

I have a lot of time to devote to cultivation, and it's something that I love doing very much, so I'm really not sure where to go with this.

 

 

Do what your affinity is.

 

"You should feel like coming back to home."

 

As I see you learn the Spring Forest from home, pretty dedicated to exercise which you make you do too much and not touch the energetics. There is a point in some Qigong I exercised that when you do too much you loose energy also you set different flow.

 

You have to remember that mostly you have a definit amount of energy, rarely having backup from outside energy.

When it has to shared with two different things things will may not get the right amount to hold the energetic mechanism constant and the system get scrambled

as both may also have different flow.

 

More is that you as a beginner waste more energy on perception of repetive things

and compensations in the body and foreigness of movements, visualisations and reaction to inner and outer enviroment.

And remember that you can build with the same method as much hinderance as much they can free you.

 

Also if you expirience that mixing is not good then do not do it- Common sense.

Else find a amount of exercise time and intensity where you feel good.

Else do as most people : "Do as you want, its your life"

[Friend]

For instance, if I start working with the yogic system and working on my chakras and raising Kundalini, will I be missing out on the other important aspects of energetic cultivation such as developing chi, storing chi in the Dan Tien, balancing and opening the various channels, etc. ?

 

The greatest obstacle and as well for me to accept that a system is complete until the mastery of the system. One of the greatest Fear one has is to believe of "maybe" to miss something important and loose a chance.Doing many ways to have something like a reserve if one fail to do something so one can replace it it. And we do this planning because the risk is finacial, relationship, time, effort intense to learn,practise and live a choosen way arcording the choosen system.

Always fear of scammer no different than in materialism reality.

 

For the System of Chakra not really exist in the System of Dantiens.

And even this things exist for thousand of years and exchange exist.

The schools saw different importance to reach a specific goal.

Maybe the incarnated saw dantiens in ancient India but they found it more important to work on Chakra while incarnates in Ancient China saw that Dantiens are important.

 

And well because our livespan has been shortend drastically compared to the fairy tales of the ancient which live up to thousands and tenthousand of years the choice is difficult as one can not test it all out for hundred years.

 

Each System has its weakness and strength.

And accpeting the System is like accepting yourself.

As the external is representing the internal and we have all our weakness and strength but still live on.

 

When you found something or it found you and is like an old friend, stay with him.

In the world one maybe just one person, but to the person you are maybe the world.

You may embrace a system but a system can embrace you too!

A pair is when two embrace each other which is the loving union.

 

In gamer terms: Hybrids sucks mostly, play a tank, a healer or a damage dealer.

(But hybrids are fun to play )

[Clarity]

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. From an energetic standpoint, you have a karmic issue with Master Lin. That would be your ancestors on your mother's side and his ancestors on his father's side, corrected and deleted. That karma would also interfere with any 'healing' you might have received.

 

My feeling is that 45 minutes to an hour should be plenty of time for this practice. 2 to 6 hours is too much or overdoing it. You want to balance your meditation practice with your life experiences so they are more even.

 

Some meditation practices can really trigger spiritual experiences, so that's something to watch out for in the future.

[de_paradise]

Well I dont have any SF qigong experience, but I can offer my general point of view shaped from my experience. Bliss states come when you break through to some new level, sometimes its because you have changed you meditation a little or a lot. Nothing was holding you back per se, just a new way often yields immediate results, like breaking a dam from different places that finally allowed the water to flow. If you continue practising you may find that the new practice wasnt better, it was just different, and it later doesnt yield such amazing results consistantly. Secondly, you should no longer equate "feeling bad" with "doing something wrong" because in the world of energy detox and detox in general, the opposite can be true. Mood swings, feeling crap, feeling bliss. This is real progress. Wednesday morning here. And thirdly, theres time to pursue different things. My feeling is that you are sincere and basically a good person, and things will work out for you one way or another.

[Birch]

Yeah, I'd say that the kundalini stuff probably has a higher amount of detoxing (cough cough) to it than some other forms. I liked the idea of changing up forms to get at things differently. I've noticed that life (well, not a sweeping generalization) also carries repetitive forms. Feeling crappy there or anxious there too could be just 'against form'.

 

-----vaguely speculative opinion alert---

[jacklantegi]

Thank you for the very kind and helpful words.

 

I understand what you are saying about there always being two sides on a coin. It's just a bit more worrisome for me when it involves rapid shifts in psychological states, especially anxiety (which also includes physical components such as heart rate and blood pressure).

 

But in any case, I now know that these kinds of things aren't permanent and usually don't last much more than a day.

 

Well I dont have any SF qigong experience, but I can offer my general point of view shaped from my experience. Bliss states come when you break through to some new level, sometimes its because you have changed you meditation a little or a lot. Nothing was holding you back per se, just a new way often yields immediate results, like breaking a dam from different places that finally allowed the water to flow. If you continue practising you may find that the new practice wasnt better, it was just different, and it later doesnt yield such amazing results consistantly. Secondly, you should no longer equate "feeling bad" with "doing something wrong" because in the world of energy detox and detox in general, the opposite can be true. Mood swings, feeling crap, feeling bliss. This is real progress. Wednesday morning here. And thirdly, theres time to pursue different things. My feeling is that you are sincere and basically a good person, and things will work out for you one way or another.

[joeblast]

Sometimes working through junk will make you feel like crap.

[dwai]

In my experience yoga has worked very well in conjuntion with my tai chi and qi gong practice. In fact doing a specific type of yoga (a type of kriya yoga) actually opened up meridians and helped open my central channel and spine up. And shavasana always helped...and the qi qould flow into every part of my body after a 10-15 minute shavasana practice.

 

But it is important to not do too much...remember the guitar string that is tightened too much will snap and that which is too loose wont play. ThAts whT my teacher says...not too much, not too little.

[daojones]

I have to agree with the OP. Whenever I do kundalini yoga it's like wow! Super powerful stuff...without fail it has significant effects on my bliss level, emotional stability, and centredness. I don't practice taoist meditation/qi gong as much as the OP though, but I found whenever I did the effects were more subtle and took time to accumulate. I think both yoga and taoist approaches are good, although from a theory point of view I feel daoist approaches are more balanced.

 

Good to know I'm not alone!

[jacklantegi]

UPDATE:

 

I have replaced most of my SFQ practice with Kundalini Yoga and I must say that I am still getting very impressive results.

 

If I had to compare the two, I would say that SFQ benefits the body more than the mind, and Kundalini is the exact opposite (in my experience, anyway).

 

However, now that I have some physical healing to do, I am going to put the majority of my effort back into SFQ, and I'll let you guys know how that goes...

[RiverSnake]

You got a lot of good advice Jack, i'll just give my 2 cents. I agree with de_paradise. When we switch to different practices we tend to get immediately results from the new practice exactly as when we first started the previous practice. However, IME its never good to make decisions when we are emotional. Find a place of clarity and peace and make one's decision.

 

Also my understanding is that there are "Fire Practices" and "Water Practices". Water practices flow into the deepest recesses of oneself and heal in subtle ways that we are not even aware of.

 

Fire Practices can often be more forceful and burn through blockages at a rapid pace and as a result we will get more "fireworks" and "experiences".

 

Both practices have a place and different people are drawn to different practices due to their different dispositions.

 

IMO fire practices can be very helpful if we need to burn through a stubborn nugget or block that we are having trouble with and that water practices would take a lot longer to dissolve. Fire practices can be very beneficial in the short term but to really go deep and heal the deepest depths of ourselves water methods are best.

 

Much of my thoughts and ideas on this topic come from reading Bruce Frantzis Water Method.

 

Ideally we want a practice that is balanced. Hope this helps.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

Edited April 17, 2012 by OldGreen

[Ish]

You got a lot of good advice Jack, i'll just give my 2 cents. I agree with de_paradise. When we switch to different practices we tend to get immediately results from the new practice exactly as when we first started the previous practice. However, IME its never good to make decisions when we are emotional. Find a place of clarity and peace and make one's decision.

 

Also my understanding is that there are "Fire Practices" and "Water Practices". Water practices flow into the deepest recesses of oneself and heal in subtle ways that we are not even aware of.

 

Fire Practices can often be more forceful and burn through blockages at a rapid pace and as a result we will get more "fireworks" and "experiences".

 

Both practices have a place and different people are drawn to different practices due to their different dispositions.

 

IMO fire practices can be very helpful if we need to burn through a stubborn nugget or block that we are having trouble with and that water practices would take a lot longer to dissolve. Fire practices can be very beneficial in the short term but to really go deep and heal the deepest depths of ourselves water methods are best.

 

Much of my thoughts and ideas on this topic come from reading Bruce Frantzis Water Method.

 

Ideally we want a practice that is balanced. Hope this helps.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

 

 

Yeah good point. Ive found an excellent way to do a "fire" practice is in a water way, i.e deeply relaxing, deep state of mind and really getting into it, force without forcing.

[jacklantegi]

Thanks for the input.

 

Yes, I have read Bruce's "Energy Gates" book and many topics about fire and water methods, although there is much debate as to what practices are primarily water-based.

 

For instance, I would not be able to classify Qigong as either fire or water. Kundalini as fire, yes.

 

You got a lot of good advice Jack, i'll just give my 2 cents. I agree with de_paradise. When we switch to different practices we tend to get immediately results from the new practice exactly as when we first started the previous practice. However, IME its never good to make decisions when we are emotional. Find a place of clarity and peace and make one's decision.

 

Also my understanding is that there are "Fire Practices" and "Water Practices". Water practices flow into the deepest recesses of oneself and heal in subtle ways that we are not even aware of.

 

Fire Practices can often be more forceful and burn through blockages at a rapid pace and as a result we will get more "fireworks" and "experiences".

 

Both practices have a place and different people are drawn to different practices due to their different dispositions.

 

IMO fire practices can be very helpful if we need to burn through a stubborn nugget or block that we are having trouble with and that water practices would take a lot longer to dissolve. Fire practices can be very beneficial in the short term but to really go deep and heal the deepest depths of ourselves water methods are best.

 

Much of my thoughts and ideas on this topic come from reading Bruce Frantzis Water Method.

 

Ideally we want a practice that is balanced. Hope this helps.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

[RiverSnake]

Thanks for the input.

 

Yes, I have read Bruce's "Energy Gates" book and many topics about fire and water methods, although there is much debate as to what practices are primarily water-based.

 

For instance, I would not be able to classify Qigong as either fire or water. Kundalini as fire, yes.

 

Indeed

 

Much like Yin and Yang theory it is my understanding that there is no such thing as pure Yang or pure Yin practice...each quality has the opposite within itself. However, there are practices that lean more heavily to one side than the other.

 

Based on your description of Kundalini Yoga it sound like it leans toward the fiery side. Ideally we want balance. How to classify Chi-Gung in all this i think is a bit tricky and one would have to have a deep and intimate knowledge of the individual system to make such a weighted judgement...perhaps ask Chunyi Lin.

 

However, one point i would like to add is that in ones practice their will inevitably be times when we feel like we are not making "progress" because we are not feeling any "fireworks". Every practitioner myself included whom has put a suspended period of time into a practice has felt this.

 

My understanding of this is that as we grow energetically we are opening up our channels to increased Chi flow. Because are channels are closed at the beginning we often feel the difference immediately when we first begin a practice and get to feel some initial "fireworks". However, as our channels become more open we often feel we are not getting anywhere because are body and channels have adjusted to the increased chi flow....changes are always happening in the body when we practice but often because we are not used to dealing with the subtle we can not feel them. Practice IME is always filled with peaks and plateaus...however IMO we should not be attached to either but simply remain dedicated to our practice.

 

Often this is why it is good to have a teacher. He can tell you whether you are making progress or not and give you advice on how to approach the situation.

 

In regards to how much you should practice...i say use your best judgement. Feel what is best for you at this time. You must adjust your practice to you as an individual... were all at different levels. What is appropriate amount of practice for others may seem to much or too little for you. I wish you the best in your endeavors.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

[Mokona]

Sounds like chi sickness, do you accumalte chi in your dan tien? I hear chi sickness can be really painful. Good luck.