Problems with visualizing the MCO

[Starjumper]

Edited January 22, 2007 by Starjumper7

[Mal]

Hi Star,

 

This is weird, I spent an hour last night looking for some post that would tell me more about your views or a web link (slow net connection at home I usually post from work

 

and then you post this..............

 

 

Anyhow my understanding was that the MCO was for circulation of enercy and it was generall accepted as a good idea.

 

I thought the orgasams were from the big draw and/or the cool draw testical breathing. Which increase your "power" by taping into youre reproductive energy that would otherwise be lost

 

I don't practice these exercises. My practical backgroung is from the chi kungs my sifu teaches us for kung fu and tai chi. Intrestingly the first and most important chi kung we learn seem like the MCO it involves a tai gung, (clenching of the feet, pelvic floor and anus) the breath is thought up the spine as the hands brush up the back, then to the top of the head. The air is then compressed following the hands down the front of the body to the belly and then everything is relaxed and the energy is released out the fingers.

 

I first read about Sexual kung fu back when I was 18, and wasn't intrested, sex was pretty great anyhow. And I couldn't really see what could do with the energy.

 

Now that I'm 33 I would enjoy the staying power But I'm still not sure exactly what the rewards of practicing Testical breathing would be apart from a great orgasam. (Forgive me, I know I know that's like saying the 6 mts I spent practicing the middle pillar exercise enable me to see a "great light" , i.e not even in the same ball park but do you get my drift ?)

Edited January 19, 2007 by Mal

[thaddeus]

I don't practice these exercises. My practical backgroung is from the chi kungs my sifu teaches us for kung fu and tai chi. Intrestingly the first and most important chi kung we learn seem like the MCO it involves a tai gung, (clenching of the feet, pelvic floor and anus) the breath is thought up the spine as the hands brush up the back, then to the top of the head. The air is then compressed following the hands down the front of the body to the belly and then everything is relaxed and the energy is released out the fingers.

This is cool, have you related this action to your form yet? You just described 'store' and 'release' and it's fundamental to taiji movement. So what I'm saying is that it's not a separate chigung to practice, it's in your form.

 

 

Now that I'm 33 I would enjoy the staying power But I'm still not sure exactly what the rewards of practicing Testical breathing would be apart from a great orgasam. (Forgive me, I know I know that's like saying the 6 mts I spent practicing the middle pillar exercise enable me to see a "great light" , i.e not even in the same ball park but do you get my drift ?)

 

I also believe, without any studies to support it, that these practices help keep your testosterone levels up. It also keeps the nerve connections and blood flow active to this region. If you notice, as people age, they become more sedentary and this causes lots of stagnation in the torso and lower body especially. It's a maxim in chinese medicine that aging is caused by increased inactivity of the lower body. That's why there is so much attention to activating the legs, pelvic region and lower back with a de-emphasis of the upper body and head.

anyway, my two cents worth,

T

[Yoda]

If you notice, as people age, they become more sedentary and this causes lots of stagnation in the torso and lower body especially. It's a maxim in chinese medicine that aging is caused by increased inactivity of the lower body. That's why there is so much attention to activating the legs, pelvic region and lower back with a de-emphasis of the upper body and head.

 

nice articulation... thanks!

 

I used to have a fascination for upper body strength, but in recent years I'm losing interest in it and I'm gaining a growing appetite for flexibility and lower body strength (I'm 38). One of my goals for 2007 is to gain a greater proficiency for pistols.

[Jonah]

Hey all,

 

Having studied both under Michael Winn and B.K. Frantzis over the years, I have experienced first hand the benefits of using both physical methods to open the MCO as well as guided imagery. Both methods used together in a balanced fashion are quite effective.

 

Michael Winn in fact now highly emphasizes chi kung forms, including Frantzis's own Marriage of Heaven and Earth form, to open up the orbit, and encourages his students to start with these movement forms and then sit down and meditate afterwards, letting the energies do their thing. Once they get moving you can just sit back and experience the energy flowing through you.

 

Each school likes to say they are the best, and offer the "true" teaching. Both Winn and Frantzis do this to an extent and this is one of the reasons they have both become quite succesful. Yet Frantzis I believe has done a bit of a disservice to students continuously emphasizing that his "water" methods are the only gig out there. I love his teachings and have benefitted greatly from his work, but I do have to laugh when he claims that his teachings are the one true Taoist way, and that his water methods are far superior to the "dangerous and false teachings" of the fire method, i.e. his main competitors. An unbroken lineage of thousands of years leading directly all the way back to Lao Tzu... Sure.

 

This whole fire vs. water method debate has been around for a while, and it's a false argument, as is any black and white thinking. That's the whole point of Taoism, the blending of opposites. Finding a happy medium between the yang of physical exercise and the yin of silent meditation is what it's all about. One thing I can say from personal experience is that focusing only on the yin and water for a few years, as Frantzis strongly emphasized, threw my balance off. It took some more yang meditation from Winn to balance me out. And I'm not the only one. I close with a letter to Winn from a longtime student of Frantzis who experienced similar issues. (Again, don't get me wrong, I love Frantzis's stuff, just realize that his viewpoint that over-emphasizes water and creates antagonism towards fire methods, does not ultimately bring about balance in the bigger scheme of things.)

 

 

Over and out,

 

Jonah

 

 

Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:35:44

Subject: Water method

 

Dear Michael,

 

I .....run a studio teaching Taoist body work. I am contacting you with

regard to your article re: the Water method vs Fire controversy. Which

incidentally I think is one of those non starters like the specific or

non specific state of hypnosis argument.

 

I thought for a long time that I was the only person who had doubts about Bruce's WATER METHOD, which I think clearly is a part of something greater. I have had my doubts about Bruce's water teaching and the negative sides of a one sided approach to practice.

 

Not only this I have taught many, many people who had found dissolving very difficult unless I acted as a guide to them by talking them into a dissolved state during sessions. ( leading to a dependence on me ) This initially got my attention, I on the other hand had an instant and deep response to the water method idea where as many people I have taught struggled.

 

My dominant element is fire and so the dissolving process was a huge relief

from my career and ambition driven dilemma. Although I have always had a

natural skill with movement, I have been a pro-dancer, and kick-boxer

and have studied martial arts since the age of 13, I was really self

combusting at an alarming rate. The water method for me was permission

to get out of the endless game. I thank Bruce wholeheartedly for this

gift.

 

I must admit at the other end of the scale that Mantak Chia's emphasis

on Fire, Yang practices and sex was a turn off to his work for me. But I

was also under the sway of the Frantzis mantra. You do address this in

your article too.

 

Primarily I had been teaching B.K. Frantzis material with his

permission. I now view Bruce's work in a different light and have come

across many obstacles over the validity of some of his strategies, some

of which I am in agreement with and others that I clearly do not. I am

one of the oldest B.K people.

 

Thank you for the article. I will try to make this brief as I am apt to

digress.

 

I am in agreement with your article and I would like to add to your

frozen state analogy. In my personal experience I took the water method

to heart and turned my life 180 degrees. However after years of this

method I lost my creative expression and ambition to succeed. My talent

for movement became stagnant, and indeed this passivity simply made me

indifferent to myself.

 

I would describe this state as stagnant like a

pool that needs some fresh oxygenated running water to cleanse it. I

gave up on things I would have fought to overcome in the past. Realising

this I would self reflect even more. Mmmmm. I see this pattern

emerging in people who are now devoting inordinate time to his water

method and it is a shame. The irony of all this being that Bruce has

been devouring Dzogchen Teachings like a hungry ghost for many years now

and uses Dzogchen as a synonym for Taoist alchemy.

 

I have had no compulsion to study meditation with Bruce and still do

not. I have always felt that if I wanted Chi Gung he is the man, but for

spiritual practice he is not. My own research led me to the Dzogchen

teachings of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu and I have had very good experiences

with the work. It turns out that Bruce had already been there and moved

on!

 

I will cut this short now. I would like to interview you for my website

at some point if you are interested and link to your article? I would

like to try to some extent to open up some dialogue to get balance on

these issues so that people can be informed and not fall into the Bruce

propaganda emporium. He has slowly become the thing he says he does not

want to be, which is his inability to take responsibility for his

creation. Hiding behind the image of Liu Hung Chieh. He has become a

Guru by default.

 

By the way I must say that I am not an anti-Bruce campaigner, I have

defended and do defend him even now, he is a fine teacher, with what I

have experienced as superb energetic skill, and I would even study more

if he dropped the act.

 

Thought you might like to know that your article was a relief and thanks

for writing it.

[Spectrum]

"Where I come from we are into cultivating power, chi power, lots of chi power. Remember this word POWER. We want to make our auras really big, particularly the auras around our heads and hands."

 

 

Tread lightly on your path. Temper your cultivation with virtue / Te.

[thelerner]

I find that within Winn's early fundamental work (literally Fundamentals II) there is the repeated emphasis on 'cooking the rice'. No more talking, do the Chi gung form. In the case of Fundamental II video uses hand and body motions to move and guide the Chi along. Each of the 5 sections effecting the chi in a different way or direction.

 

Starjumpers post is a personally important reminder for me because I do tend to lay in bed and groove out to visualizations, they're nice, but they probably just stir the rice and don't cook it.

 

In Aikido the symbol for Ki was explained as showing fire on the bottom, bowl of rice on top.

 

Michael

[Starjumper]

I find that within Winn's early fundamental work (literally Fundamentals II) there is the repeated emphasis on 'cooking the rice'. No more talking, do the Chi gung form. In the case of Fundamental II video uses hand and body motions to move and guide the Chi along. Each of the 5 sections effecting the chi in a different way or direction.

 

Starjumpers post is a personally important reminder for me because I do tend to lay in bed and groove out to visualizations, they're nice, but they probably just stir the rice and don't cook it.

 

I'll use your post as a stepping stone to get on my soap box. This is sort of difficult for me to explain but I'll give it a whack.

 

You can visualize the MCO and have chakra orgasms or cultivate chi power, neither one is superior on it's own terms, and they are both playing games too, and as stated, perhaps my game is different than most here. Anyway, visualizing the MCO is quite detrimental to my own type of game.

 

Someone sent me a PM saying that they had been getting headaches and they could only cure them by visualizing the MCO. OK, that's good as far as it goes. However it is probably only one part of the MCO that needs to be addressed in his case and that would be the part where you bring it up, over the top, and you could do that with your hands too. This person also had a Taoist physical practice, which is good.

 

Once I had a young lady come to me who had developed a pretty serious health problem due to practicing the MCO. She was very overweight, never exercised, and was quite unhealthy. She had learned the MCO from on of Chia's students. (Chia pets? =) Now since she spent all day sitting around, the LAST thing she needed to do was to do more sitting around visualizing stuff. I would say the damage the MCO did to her was permanent and she would never be able to meditate again, she could do Tai Chi safely but probalby wouldn't.

 

I'll post the details of this later.

 

Now, on the other hand. If you had someone who was super healthy, got plenty of exercise, and was in good condition, they could visualize the MCO a lot and it would not cause any easily discernable damage but it still contains a big drawback, and this is the main reason that I don't do it.

 

One easy way to illustrate this problem is with something my teacher said regarding visualizing the MCO: "It's like teaching a dog to stay and then when you want the dog to come to your aid he will not come because he is staying." Now that might not seem so bad at first but considering that it's coming from him that is like saying he thinks it's about the stupidest thing you could possibly do with your life. It's very limiting, a big bad trap.

 

We learn to move energy with our hands, a lot of energy, and we can move it in the MCO and we can move it a hundred other ways. Trust me, there's more to life than doin' the MCO, a lot more. Since the Nei kung paths are inextricably linked to some of the deadliest martial arts on the planet we want to be able to move energy with hand motions. We need to be able to move a lot of energy in any direction, in any position, with nothing more than a quick hand motion. Thinking is WAY to slow. This is one of the main reasons we train to move energy with postures and movements since moving energy becomes a natural extension of a hand motion and it is also a natural way to cultivate healing abilities. Thinking is way to slow.

 

Now, every single time you visualize the MCO, every SINGLE time you do it no matter what else you do, you are training you 'dog' to stay a little bit more each time. It's kind of like 'burning in' a circuit. It seems quite limiting to me. Now, there are some types of visualization exercises that aren't so bad and they are the kind in which you visualize every joint and bone in your body one by one. However it is still not a good idea to direct flow. it is not a good idea to push the energy with your mind because it might be the wrong thing for your health. Your body is smarter than you are, don't push it. Just cultivate the energy and then observe it. You can learn much more by observing things than you can by forcing them. Listening, listening to the energy. You learn more by listening than by talking, yes?

Edited January 21, 2007 by Starjumper7

[Starjumper]

Evidently I duplicated the post above and deleted the original, I hate it when that happens. Later.

Edited January 20, 2007 by Starjumper7

[Spectrum]

...

Edited January 20, 2007 by Spectrum

[thelerner]

I hear so many people from different systems saying, "I have dozens of examples of cleaning up the psychic messes that school created". You certainly don't have to wait long to hear that from Winn or Chia, or hear it against them from people from other schools.

 

Energy meditations can be dangerous. If its not done under a qualified teacher(what ever that means) then you'd better be ready to back off if things run hot. The MCO is a tool, a powerful one. Should it be done first or last or arise naturally? I don't know. I think people should follow there schools system, get intelligent feedback and proceed with caution.

 

Michael

[Mal]

This is cool, have you related this action to your form yet? You just described 'store' and 'release' and it's fundamental to taiji movement. So what I'm saying is that it's not a separate chigung to practice, it's in your form

 

Well spotted Our sifu belives that our tai chi form is "all we will ever need" too. His fathers only practice is doing Tai Chi twice a day.

 

However Sifu also believes it will take at least 3 years before we can do Tai chi "correctly" enough for it to "work" as a chi kung, that is why he teaches us the other Chi Kungs first so that we can experience this while we are learning tai chi.

 

I've been doing tai chi since 2002 with my Sifu. About 6 months ago he corrected our Tai Chi forms and now I can feel "something" when I am doing it. But not to the same extent as the chi kungs.

Edited January 21, 2007 by Mal

[Starjumper]

Hi Mal, glad you're here. I wrote a long post for you last night but then screwed up and pasted over it so I'll be working on that again now.

[Mal]

Evidently I duplicated the post above and deleted the original, I hate it when that happens. Later.

 

 

and I think it was the one that you put a link into a forum of yours on

 

but I'm getting better at navigating here so I think I've found it again "www.skymountain.net" so it's all cool

[Starjumper]

Yes, that is the link to my web site but I had a different link there. It's good to know that you saw the post but I'll try to recreate it here for the record.

 

This is weird, I spent an hour last night looking for some post that would tell me more about your views or a web link (slow net connection at home I usually post from work

 

and then you post this..............

 

It's interesting that you were looking. I have written a fair amount of my views in a forum that Taomeow and I are partners in, Empirical Taoism, and the section on the practices is here: Behind the Dragon Gate You are all welcome to look over the posts and of course post comments too, if you wish.

 

Anyhow my understanding was that the MCO was for circulation of enercy and it was generall accepted as a good idea.

 

It is for circulation of energy and it is a good idea on some ways, the devil's in the details, and I wrote some of them in the post last night, which originally followed the one I wrote to you.

 

I thought the orgasams were from the big draw and/or the cool draw testical breathing. Which increase your "power" by taping into youre reproductive energy that would otherwise be lost

 

OK, now down to the nitty gritty. I would say that the practice does not increase power as much as conserve it. It's true that it will increase energy levels over someone who does not practice it, but it doesn't really create MORE chi. More chi can only be created with certain types of Chi Kung exercises. Note that many Chi Kung exercises are for circulating it and not increasing it. Ideally, to increase power most quickly one would want to conserve sexual energy and also generate more energy. Conserving sexual energy can be done well enough without any of these big draw visualizations and if one also does Chi kung then that's all it takes. In the final analysis, if you had to pick one or the other, the person who would end up with the most energy by far would be the one who did the power cultivation Chi Kung, not the sexual conservation.

 

As far as the orgasms people talk about here, I can't say that has happened to me since we don't focus on things like that. What we do is increase the energy in the whole body all at the same time. In the Tai Chi classics it says that when you have a lot of chi it feels like you have ants crawling all over your body but a friendlier way of saying that would be to say we get a whole body buzz. And a good buzz (if you are healthy and have good energy) can feel quite blissful. So I don't know if this qualifies as one of these orgasms or not, but what I think is more entertaining is when I shine my hands on a lady and then they have an orgasm =) Actually that hasn't happened yet but I can get them moaning a bit

 

 

 

I don't practice these exercises. My practical backgroung is from the chi kungs my sifu teaches us for kung fu and tai chi. Intrestingly the first and most important chi kung we learn seem like the MCO it involves a tai gung, (clenching of the feet, pelvic floor and anus) the breath is thought up the spine as the hands brush up the back, then to the top of the head. The air is then compressed following the hands down the front of the body to the belly and then everything is relaxed and the energy is released out the fingers.

 

This is a good example of a way of doing the MCO physically. Actually there are hundreds of ways and variations of doing this, thousands if you count all the variations, it seems. Some of them are quite strenuous. I mentioned earlier how reading so much here about the MCO got me to thinking about how it applied to my practice and I came to realize that many pieces of my practice were doing just that. I also realized I had not been concentrating on some parts of it so I started filling in those blanks and it has been interesting. One thing I noticed was a decrease in sexual desire.

Edited January 21, 2007 by Starjumper7

[Starjumper]

I close with a letter to Winn from a longtime student of Frantzis who experienced similar issues. (Again, don't get me wrong, I love Frantzis's stuff, just realize that his viewpoint that over-emphasizes water and creates antagonism towards fire methods, does not ultimately bring about balance in the bigger scheme of things.)

Over and out,

 

Jonah

Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:35:44

Subject: Water method

 

Dear Michael,

 

I .....run a studio teaching Taoist body work. I am contacting you with

regard to your article re: the Water method vs Fire controversy. Which

incidentally I think is one of those non starters like the specific or

non specific state of hypnosis argument.

 

I thought for a long time that I was the only person who had doubts about Bruce's WATER METHOD, which I think clearly is a part of something greater. I have had my doubts about Bruce's water teaching and the negative sides of a one sided approach to practice.

 

Not only this I have taught many, many people who had found dissolving very difficult unless I acted as a guide to them by talking them into a dissolved state during sessions. ( leading to a dependence on me ) This initially got my attention, I on the other hand had an instant and deep response to the water method idea where as many people I have taught struggled.

 

My dominant element is fire and so the dissolving process was a huge relief

from my career and ambition driven dilemma. Although I have always had a

natural skill with movement, I have been a pro-dancer, and kick-boxer

and have studied martial arts since the age of 13, I was really self

combusting at an alarming rate. The water method for me was permission

to get out of the endless game. I thank Bruce wholeheartedly for this

gift.

 

I must admit at the other end of the scale that Mantak Chia's emphasis

on Fire, Yang practices and sex was a turn off to his work for me. But I

was also under the sway of the Frantzis mantra. You do address this in

your article too.

 

Primarily I had been teaching B.K. Frantzis material with his

permission. I now view Bruce's work in a different light and have come

across many obstacles over the validity of some of his strategies, some

of which I am in agreement with and others that I clearly do not. I am

one of the oldest B.K people.

 

Thank you for the article. I will try to make this brief as I am apt to

digress.

 

I am in agreement with your article and I would like to add to your

frozen state analogy. In my personal experience I took the water method

to heart and turned my life 180 degrees. However after years of this

method I lost my creative expression and ambition to succeed. My talent

for movement became stagnant, and indeed this passivity simply made me

indifferent to myself.

 

I would describe this state as stagnant like a

pool that needs some fresh oxygenated running water to cleanse it. I

gave up on things I would have fought to overcome in the past. Realising

this I would self reflect even more. Mmmmm. I see this pattern

emerging in people who are now devoting inordinate time to his water

method and it is a shame.

 

Hi Jonah, I read your post with interest. My Chi Kung also falls under the classification of water style but it is different than the one Bruce practices and teaches in some ways, similar in many others. What is interesting is your comments about how it generates lethargy and lack of motivation.

 

Obviously many people will react as if this is a problem but after contemplating it for a couple of microseconds I think that this lacking of motivation is a manifestation of a Buddha or one that has become more at one with Tao. As my teacher once said; "It's good to be lazy, you have to be smart to be lazy"

 

I could make a very good case for the idea that a person who is highly motivated is a perversion of the ideal 'natural' human state. Another way of saying it is that one looses attachments as they mature spiritually, and loosing attachments looks amazingly like not giving a flying flapjack about much of anything.

 

Sooo ... water style wins again

 

Maybe this would be a good subject for another thread.

Edited January 21, 2007 by Starjumper7

[Jonah]

Hey Starjumper,

 

Good to hear your feedback, appreciate your input. The information I posted was not an attempt to show one side winning over the other, as there is no actual competition to begin with. Water does not win, nor does fire. We are always striving for balance and completion. There is nothing to win. The whole water vs. fire battle is an illusion, there is no winner nor loser, only the most appropriate technique for you in the present.

 

My three year journey focusing only on Bruce's water method chi kung and meditiation techniques did not bring about a lack of motivation but serious health problems including severe digestive problems, chronic constipation (not to get too graphic), a dramatic loss of energy, and a very depressed state because of this dramatic change from my formerly energetic self.

 

While I wouldn't want to repeat that experience, I did learn that my constitution is much more yin than Frantzis's and that yin practices were not beneficial for me. His teacher Liu Hung Chieh must have recognized Frantzis's extremely yang constitution and prescribed more yin practices to bring him balance. On the other hand, Liu Hung Chieh taught his other senior student, Bai Hua, the exact opposite techniques -yang fire practices because of Bai Hua's more yin nature. Definitely not water method, but coming directly from the Taoist master Liu Hung Chieh himself. Both are Taoist practices, both appropriate for the right person.

 

Finally realizing that the yin methods were making me overly yin and slowing my metabolism down, I switched back over to more yang exercises including, yes, the Microcosmic Orbit, and I slowly but surely recovered my health back. I now know I need more yang practices to maintain balance.

 

If the methods you are using work for you and make you feel healthier and more balanced, that's great, by all means continue them. But to advocate that it's your way or the highway, and that the MCO is a horrible practice does a disservice not only to the multitudes of people today who have found this practice to be a lifesaver, but to the rich treasured history of such guided imagery techniques found all over the world not only in Taoism but in nearly every other tradition including ancient shamanism, and the mystical traditions Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Western Alchemy.

 

Bottom line, there is no one size fits all method for all of us. Variety is the spice of life, and thankfully long lineages of people before us have come up with a wide variety of techniques that work. It's up to us individually to find out which technique works for us the best.

 

Keep up the good practice.

 

Best,

 

Jonah

[Cameron]

Very interesting thread. I still think Ken Cohen's view is the most balanced I have seen so far. That emptiness meditation(observing mind) and standing meditation(building qi up) are the foundation but you can also 'play' with practices like MCO. What I get from Ken is the emphasis that Emptiness, Sitting and Forgetting etc, and zhan zhuang are the main 'practice' and other stuff like MCO is basically 'playing' with qi.

 

I don't really do the 'playing' too much anymore just observing but Ime not at the point to say 'playing' is complete garbage yet.

 

Am interested to maybe start training with a high level internal martial artist this year to get more feedback on the issue.

 

Cam

[Spectrum]

"It's true that it will increase energy levels over someone who does not practice it, but it doesn't really create MORE chi. More chi can only be created with certain types of Chi Kung exercises."

 

I used to think something similar, but now I don't think so. This the idea that a person can have "more" chi then another. I think it's an integration process of body & mind. Less mind/body dualism, more body/mind singularity or integration perhaps? In Shi Li (test of strength for internal arts) the student succeeds or fails based on their whole-body-mind integration process. The more you relax into the tension, the more tension is released from relaxing, the more successful at lining, aligning and realligning movement that does not naturally belong within their sphere to bring balance to the whole. The moment fragmentation occurs it's a break in the frame the same. Kinda makes you wonder about the defining spaces between thought intent and action.

 

That's part of the profoundness of grasp sparrows tail while practicing push hands, that the cubical sphere being shared and reconfigured with each ebb and flow of weight transition (in push hands or solo) is a central point of reference for bringing balance to the whole once deviations are formed by "opponent". With this idea I've seen people taught that "holding the ball" is the transition to use for whole forms of TaiJiQuan no matter what order of moves. Although that's like only being allowed to use abbreviations for works, it's a workable begining pattern. (seen it called embracing the moon, suspended stance, etc)

 

Yet look at all possibilities, all the various deviations, paths, routes that movement and energy can take.

 

Are you sure any one person has any more "chi" then another? Chi gung is an interesting art no doubt, getting out of your head brings unseen information into the field of awareness. Visualization is still second place to kinesthetic experience when it comes to opening, transitioning or closing practice. From my perspective circulating is refining what you got not "getting" what you don't have. If you don't know how to refine what you have, there will be no room for any "more" to accumulate. Hopefully you don't fill in the madlib with "power".

 

If it's the mind of the cultivator that has some determining factor; for example down syndrome kids are usually much stronger then you would think, how could one say that the "garden of their mind" has been cultivated in these cases? Also the classic examples of "Wife lifts car off husband!" Super-human strength stories of the average person in extraordinary circumstance.

 

If the provable point is not a formula to be repeated, but a cyclic set of uncontrollable circumstances that must be navigated (whether inside... or outside world)... what goods a formula if it doesn't help you navigate the realm you occupy?

 

From a "proper" Taoist perspective I'm thinking the "cultivation" we're refering to here is of the Yi. Being cultivated the mind functions in a more relaxed, open, aligned, and atuned state; this potentially responsive yet meditative mind being called "Sung" which translates as relaxed, but means more then the english relax. It is what I've encountered to be the prerequisite mindset for observation as well as chi gung & tai chi. It coincides with wuji, being the first posture after "opening" in every single chinese form I've ever seen. (endless variations from upright stance to a "empty" stance) Relaxed Expansive Contractive Counter Tensional Intentional Movement Paradoxes that Phi Pi Pho~ Phwam! Movement & Stillness Co-Exis1anT.

 

You don't get more gravel in the same sized bucket by pouring more of the same size on top; you refine it and pour it in as sand. Just my .03c

 

Spectrum

Edited January 22, 2007 by Spectrum

[thelerner]

Spectrum brings up an interesting point. Do some people have more Chi then others. I'd say yes. I think energetics can help to bring better health (ofcourse so can better diet). Even before they say a word, people who have cultivated seriously have a presence about them. The way the sit, the set of their eyes and face, maybe its an unconcious glimpse of the aura.

 

 

Michael

[Starjumper]

Finally realizing that the yin methods were making me overly yin and slowing my metabolism down, I switched back over to more yang exercises including, yes, the Microcosmic Orbit, and I slowly but surely recovered my health back. I now know I need more yang practices to maintain balance.

 

Hi Jonah, we need to do some clarifying here. I'm at fault, maybe you too, but as I mentioned earlier, in my practice we do a lot of the microcosmic orbit, we just do it with our hands, and for a long time I didn't even think it was the microcosmic orbit because there was no need to think of such things and my teacher did not speak of them either. So the ideas I'm putting out here is mainly the problems I associate with the visualization of the microcosmic orbit, and not only the microcosmic orbit but visualization of just about anything.

 

So my question to you is: Did your water style practice not include the mco as a physical rather than visualization practice, by doing the mco do you mean visualizing it?

 

Maybe different systems really are better for different people but for me, and I'm peculiar, no doubt, visualizations are not supposed to be done. For example my crown chakra has a lot of energy so one day I used intent to try pushing energy up and out and alternating it wityh down and in. By doing this I discovered that the normal flow for me is out and up. Later when I told my teacher what I did he said No!, to not do that. In other words he wants the flow to go the way we had been training it and to mess it up by changing it on purpose was counterproductive.

 

So anyway, I've led a pretty sheltered life. I've studied with some masters. A few world class Tai Chi and one Chi Kung master but I don't have all the book learning of the many systems and their characteristicslike a lot of people here have, so, to be honest, I don't really know what the primary constituents and differences of fire or water paths are. I read a description of water style by Bruce and it looked pretty similar to my practice but I really dont know for sure how it differs from fire methods. I have assumed that water methods in general create more chi and guide it with body movements but otherwise not controling it, only watching; and fire methods force chi, with the mind, to go in prescribed routes in your body. Maybe someone can clue me in.

[Starjumper]

Yes thelerner, some people do have more chi.

 

Are you sure any one person has any more "chi" then another? Chi gung is an interesting art no doubt, getting out of your head brings unseen information into the field of awareness. Visualization is still second place to kinesthetic experience when it comes to opening, transitioning or closing practice. From my perspective circulating is refining what you got not "getting" what you don't have. If you don't know how to refine what you have, there will be no room for any "more" to accumulate. Hopefully you don't fill in the madlib with "power".

 

I'm not sure what you mean by madlib, but power is definitely the key word. By more chi I mean more chi power so I'm guilty of not being clear but that's a standard way of speaking. Since energy is always flowing then obviously you can't hold onto a piece of it and lock it away in a bucket, but what you can do is create the ability to store it as in a battery (the bones can act as batteries). You can also cultivate the ability to radate large amounts of energy outwards all the time. So maybe you don't actually have more, but you can have a lot higher flow rate. Radiating a lot of energy outwards is different than circulating it around internally, of course.

 

There is no doubt that some people have more chi power. One person who is sensitive to energy said my energy is very strong and he could feel it strongly from fifteen feet away even when I wasn't projecting energy at him and obviously most people can't do that. We (adepts and masters of my system) radiate chi all the time, strongly, sick people can get a healing effect just by standing near us when we are standing around doing nothing in particular. My teacher leaves energy trails, as he walks through a room, that other people can pick up on and follow. He has so much energy that a person I know, standing inside a large building can feel his energy radiating through the walls when he (my teacher) is standing around ourtside, and he can follow tthis feeling to locate him.

 

From a "proper" Taoist perspective I'm thinking the "cultivation" we're refering to here is of the Yi.

 

I disagree, yi is an important tool to combine with hand movements, in my case the yi focus are the hands themselves, but it's a tool and the result of more chi is due to the practice and repetitions, repetitions, repetitions. Repetitions (or time spent) are additive for chi power.

 

You don't get more gravel in the same sized bucket by pouring more of the same size on top; you refine it and pour it in as sand. Just my .03c

 

That's part of it, but it appears you're resisting the idea of having more, because it's also possible to have 'more' unrefined energy too.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Starjumper7

[Jonah]

Yes, perhaps we are using the term water method and meaning two different things.

 

B.K. Frantzis, who has been the main driving force behind classifying his school as the true water method, has no guiding of the chi whatsoever. Very bad to guide the chi with physical movement or thought.

 

Chi awareness is developed through his dissolving process where you start from the top of your head and slowly, inch by inch, scan your body for anything uncomfortable, any blockage and then you focus on it and feel it slowly dissolve like ice to water and then water to vapor.

 

All chi kung movements involve deep breathing into the dan tien and then simultaneously focusing on the downward dissolving process at all times. No guiding the energy with your hands or intent. Focus is always on down, energy going down into the ground as you move, do tai chi, or sit in meditation. Down, down, down is the mantra. Water goes down, fire goes up.

 

Moving energy up the spine is a definite no-no, and many of the students would feel very threatened if you even mentioned the MCO. Such a dangerous fire practice, we certainly don't do that here.

 

So when you said water method is the best, that's what I assumed you referring to.

 

Bottom line, no method is best, no matter what your teacher says. Only what's best for you.

[rex]

You don't get more gravel in the same sized bucket by pouring more of the same size on top; you refine it and pour it in as sand. Just my .03c

 

This raises an interesting question - is the physical body a shell that contains the energy body or is it a condensation of an all pervasive energy field?

[Smile]

Energy manipulation should eventually lead to health problems/energy inbalance, unless they are closely observed by a qualified teacher who can "see" exactly what you need to practice at this specific point..

.................

At the lower levels, I would say it's about the energy accumulation (jing and chi) to open up the channels. Once the channels are open and the energy is free flowing, the whole idea of being a "chi-bag" should be removed in favor of free-flow and refinement to higher energies.

 

I would say Vipassana with Taiji/Chi Kung is a very powerful practice combination.

Max