Meditation and Retention

[Trunk]

.. 100 days ...

 

Related story.

A friend was recently telling a story - his caucasian friend was talking to an esteemed asian Teacher who said, "just be natural" about sex frequency - and as you do the practices things will naturally change. White guy responded, "natural, like, two-three times / week?" and the asian teacher !?! "are you crazy?!?!!: once a month - no ejaculation." !!

 

My friend's pt of view was that in the asian culture, sex is normally a lot less than what we westerners experience as natural ... due to various cultural factors... maybe wisdom-cultivation flowing through the culture for 1000's of years and people developing 'root' through tai chi, etc, since they were children. All that could be true.

 

My response, at the time of the story, is that there is an over-looked genetic~ethnic factor at work. I doubted that the eastern-european genetics, in general, for example, could possibly go for so long (30 days, much less 100!) - even under great imperative, focus, etc. And I think that the genetic factor hasn't been taken into account in east-to-west transposed blanket statements of how long to abstain, or assumptions about how long one can abstain with any sort of harmony.

 

.. uh,,.. anyway .. still boils down to minding the harmony of your own body, however that works out.

[gendao]

A friend was recently telling a story - his caucasian friend was talking to an esteemed asian Teacher who said, "just be natural" about sex frequency - and as you do the practices things will naturally change. White guy responded, "natural, like, two-three times / week?" and the asian teacher !?! "are you crazy?!?!!: once a month - no ejaculation." !!

 

My friend's pt of view was that in the asian culture, sex is normally a lot less than what we westerners experience as natural

I don't think only once a month is natural for any male of any race under age 30.

 

Now, if this was a much older master...or had a frigid wife...that could be the more likely cause.

 

And I think it also gets much easier in a monastic life, too. Especially in an uninsulated temple where you are not always comfortable, there are no women around, no porn and you avoid garlic (which tends to get your blood flowing). You remove creature comforts, sexual stimuli and stimulating foods...and all of a sudden your mind has a lot of other things to worry about first.

[VeeCee]

The "where are all girls gone" reference was more along the lines of "the boys are talking about retention again and the Female 'bums have left us to our own devices"

 

Isn't that the point of retention? Oh - that's self-cultivation. Sorry.

[rex]

Isn't that the point of retention? Oh - that's self-cultivation. Sorry.

No!

 

... the Female 'bums have left us to our own devices"

That would be the aneros (a hot topic once). I didn't rate it much as an Shiatsu acupoint massager - for all the good it did me I may as well have shoved it up my arse! Edited October 16, 2007 by rex

[Mal]

That would be the aneros (a hot topic once). I didn't rate it much as an Shiatsu acupoint massager - for all the good it did me I may as well have shoved it up my arse!

 

I've actually got one of them coming in the post at the moment.

 

I'll be blaming Smile if I don't have and fun, it was his link.

[宁]

hagar, i forgot to say, that there are five types of energy storing.

if you choose to save up energy mainly inside your organs, what you say is true, emotional outbursts drain a lot.

fortunatelly, we have four other alternatives.

that being said, even since i hadnt any knowledge on taoist sexual cultivation, i thought much about how to mix up the spirit life and sexual life.

we as people are different.

hence the five types of energy storing, depending on which is the strong or the weak point in you.

 

the 100 days period is related to moon time, or lunar time. it is not a number in itself, it has much to do with biological time. maybe someone else can tell us more about it

[hagar]

hagar, i forgot to say, that there are five types of energy storing.

if you choose to save up energy mainly inside your organs, what you say is true, emotional outbursts drain a lot.

fortunatelly, we have four other alternatives.

that being said, even since i hadnt any knowledge on taoist sexual cultivation, i thought much about how to mix up the spirit life and sexual life.

we as people are different.

hence the five types of energy storing, depending on which is the strong or the weak point in you.

 

the 100 days period is related to moon time, or lunar time. it is not a number in itself, it has much to do with biological time. maybe someone else can tell us more about it

 

I'm not really familiar with the four alternatives, so please enlighten me.

 

As to emotions, they can be dwelling anywhere in the body, and often there are no clear cut areas that is "thus", only vague areas of stuck, blocked or empty chi quality. In my experience, the expression of emotions is not the problem itself, but the storing of emotional energy in the tissue, ligaments, organs and bones. In addition, we store our unresolved decayed jing, pollution, and all kinds of toxins in the body that also needs to be released and transformed before any sexual practice can begin.

 

If we really are successful in our practice, the bridge btw sexual energy and pure Jing can be crossed, and that is a big and wonderful step. In harnessing the prenatal Jing as the essential earth, or water, and feel how it nourishes the body before it is transformed into decayed, sexual energy is truly an awakening. Thus I feel that if practitioners started to experience the advantage of harvesting their Jing energy through correct meditation and forms, the issue of sexual practice will fade in importance. Of course, knowing how to make love according to nature is also an important part of our practice, but mostly for expressing our feelings for our partner, and in this way come closer and exchange energies.

 

For me the only place to successfully store energy is in the bones. There it cannot be lost.

 

We need to be pure conductors if we want to channel stronger chi. And if we don't, we end up loosing what we've worked for, or damaging ourselves.

 

h

[宁]

hagar,

 

i like how you think. please remember that the most important asset of taoism is their specificity. they give the recopy, and if you're lucky you can learn what was the principle behind it, so you can make your own recopy.

i like the resemblance of alchemy to cooking. dont you? and you seem to already know what are the other forms of storing energy, so i dont need to enlighten no one. the organs, the cells, the bones and the energy body. what i was concerned regarding my first message on this thread was the importance of the so called sexual practice during the foundation training - a term i borrowed from someone else, but i think it's quite universal. also, i like it we need enough "sexual glue" to stick the prenatal to the postnatal chi. also, the quality and the quantity of these three ingredients may vary, according to: relationship with the environment and ancestors; nutrition; sexual activity - the quality and the quantity of these can and should be indicators of the specific blend one can gather as the Original Force. my take is that the first 100 days are the minimum of days necesarry for someone to balance the diet, the environment and the sexual activity, so that the Dan can be gathered. many people have different formulas for this Dan, but i think the greatest thing ever is that nature does it by itself, if we allow it. basically, practice could mean a means for us to get closer to how natually these thing occur to and within us.

 

cheers