Which way is right...

[cmpunk50]

I seen two different methods:

 

1. While breathing, you want your stomach to fully expand and suck in the energy (and in reverse as well).

 

2. While breathing, you want to try to limit your stomach from going in and out, more like forcing all of the breath into a very small space through your stomach (this is what Gary Clyman teaches).

 

Which way is correct? Does one work better than the other in order to pull chi in through your dan tien?

[Protector]

There are ten thousand ways of doing it but you narrowed it down to two somehow

[joeblast]

Or explore the vast empty space there

[ChiDragon]

I seen two different methods:

 

1. While breathing, you want your stomach to fully expand and suck in the energy (and in reverse as well).

 

Yes. This way:

"While breathing in, you want your stomach to fully expand and suck in the Chi"

[joeblast]

The push-pull of generation vs manifestation is such that each physical component of breath contributes its own energetic coefficient, e.g. for meditative you are looking for an energetic maxima coincident with a relative consumption minima; focused about the dantien, each component sung yet still effecting positively from an energetic standpoint. If the abdomen fully expands that has more energetic cost, 70% rule. Culminate the totality of breath, physical breath structures, the focus of awareness and that is what you're looking for. ..its a little more than expanding and sucking in qi..

[doc benway]

My experience is that the whole concept of Qi being something that exists outside of "me" that I must suck in and store in my belly is a fallacy. It is a useful image we can create in our mind that helps us to regulate and deepen our respiration while becoming aware of the internal universe.

 

Qi is always already there - it is what you are, not separate from you. My experience is that the process of Qi cultivation is more about becoming sensitive to what you are and awakening a different facet of awareness.

 

There are many ways to cultivate Qi. As long as the source is credible and the process makes sense to you, it is right. You need to select a method, work with it for a while, and judge the results based on what is changing for you and what you are feeling. Mental images and scientific models are fun to think about but ultimately you must sit and breath and open your awareness to what is going on inside.

 

Good luck!

[Thunder_Gooch]

I seen two different methods:

 

1. While breathing, you want your stomach to fully expand and suck in the energy (and in reverse as well).

 

2. While breathing, you want to try to limit your stomach from going in and out, more like forcing all of the breath into a very small space through your stomach (this is what Gary Clyman teaches).

 

Which way is correct? Does one work better than the other in order to pull chi in through your dan tien?

 

Neither way matters if you aren't in deep deep deep trance states.

 

I use deep abdominal breathing, and reverse breathing as is taught in longmen pai.

Edited June 27, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[cmpunk50]

Thanks for all of the replies everyone! Great responses!