Help out a skeptical beginner..

[dc9]

http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Light-Tao-Foundational-Practices-ebook/dp/B004J4WM6S/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411977312&sr=1-3&keywords=mantak+chia

 

I recently purchased this book, and reading through it fills me with 1) desire for the benefits of the practices in the book and 2) a lot of skeptcism.

 

The introduction portion of the book talks about people attaining immortality and being able to breath air as your only source of sustenence.

 

Fine, whatever, I'll try to suspend my beliefs and read through the exercises..

 

And then when I come across one of the exercises to help beginners feel chi and it has me spinning my eyeballs around and then closing my eyes to focus on the chi between my eyebrows, I just feel kind of dumb.

 

Am I just being suckered? I don't feel anything. I guess I could try doing the inner smile where I smile "inwardly" towards all the organs in my body... but that idea sounds kind of dumb too.

 

I can't help but think this all sounds a bit silly... even though I would like to be able to feel what the book says I would eventually be able to feel.

 

Can anybody alleviate the doubts and skepticism that I'm having so far?

 

And can I just skip all the stupid beginning exercises and jump into trying to do the microcosmic orbit, which I assume is the meat of the book's material? Stuff like that eye rotating exericse just makes me feel so silly

Edited September 29, 2014 by dc9

[Wayfarer]

Hey dc9; it all comes down to why you bought the book and what you hope to achieve. If you want to become an Immortal then these Qigong exercises and rotating your focus around the microcosmic orbit are unlikely to result in that (although you are The Immortal whether you practise from the book or sit on your backside all day; it makes no difference; only your 'knowing' or not changes).

 

To realise you are The Immortal is to come to understand 'you' does not exist, you are THAT which is Being and was never born and can never die - hence unchanging and immortal. If that is what you want; nearly all Taoist scriptures point to the value of Silence and Stillness as a practice. Filling your day with tranquillity will have a natural beneficial affect on your energy levels too.

 

One of the ways of Realisation is that a feeling of Presence forms below the solar plexus/stomach/abdomen area, which can occur when one settles. I believe that all this microcosmic orbit and inner focus stems from someone's explanation of what occurred to feel Presence and it has been broken down and become a method. Where you to suddenly Awaken, you would see that all these ideas are centred on the belief there is an individual that needs energy.

 

If you want to learn energy practices you really ought to find a teacher because you can be doing as much harm as good. Your eagerness to get to the heart of advanced practices will become a problem; you need to stabilise yourself and get a grounding for your body has to catch up with the change in approach to energy and you need time to feel what is going on; it is a subtle thing and cannot be experienced in a ham-fisted manner.

 

Take your time, give yourself chance. The Taoist way is that of ease, simplicity and openness.

 

Best of luck.

[dust]

Being open-minded is a very good thing, but there's nothing wrong with requiring a little evidence of something in order to believe in it. Certainly I'd need hard evidence before I believed that a man could live on air, forever.

 

Clearly you want to find some belief, so why not look for qigong practice that's a little less far-out? I've felt benefits from certain forms, and nothing from others. I think it's probably as personal/individual as anything else.

 

And as Wayfarer says, find someone to teach you. At least the basics.

 

Take your time, give yourself chance. The Taoist way is that of ease, simplicity and openness.

 

^^

[soaring crane]

Perhaps try a different book? Like this one, for example

[GrandmasterP]

Slow and steady wins the race.

Keep up your regular 15-minute cultivation and maybe focus on one short set.

Baduanjin is excellent.

There's a photoset and lots more info in that jsqg.sport link of my sig here....

Edited September 29, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Zhongyongdaoist]

a lot of skeptcism.

Are you 'skeptical' of your 'skepticism'? Or is your 'skepticism' simply the result a set of unexamined beliefs about the world that are common in our culture? A real skeptic questions all beliefs, most particularly those that are taken for granted. Someone who simply doubts because they uncritically accept the common set of 'materialistic', 'scientific' beliefs about the world and our place in it, are stuck in a worldview from about 1900 that is no longer 'scientific', the intervening century having destroyed its very basis. If this belief system is the basis of your 'skepticism', you have already been 'suckered'. Feel free to grow out of it.

[Mystique Enigma]

Find out first what part of your life you are unsatisfied with and why ...

 

Everything else is just illusions

 

[Songtsan]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[aboo]

From personal experience it takes months of practice before you will see 'results' in terms of sensing internal energy. As GMP says, slow and steady wins the race.

[dc9]

So should I drop mantak chia's book?

 

He talks about feeling chi like it's easy. So when I do his meditation and he says "you should be feeling energy flowing through x" and I feel absolutely nothing, it feels very frustrating. Am I really just supposed to sit there and focus on a spot in my body trying to detect some sensation of energy, and after a long time I'll feel it?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Keep Mantak Chia's book and save it for later, which reminds me of one of my favorite English Beat songs, but be that as it may, moving meditation is the best way to learn to sense qi.

 

When I was starting out there was next to nothing available and I had to make do with some books, insight and creativity. One of the things that helped was to think of qi as a field like an electromagnetic field and my body as like the coils in a generator, motion through the field induced qi flow as motion in an electromagnetic field produced produced current flow in a generator. I took some of the moves from 'Tai Chi Ch'uan' and started repeating them instead of doing them as part of a longer set. Later I found 'Tai Chi ruler', which is based on the same idea:

 

 

Good luck.

[dc9]

What would you say is the best way to be able to feel qi?

 

Would it be detrimental to visualize chi moving through my body during a meditation even though I don't feel it? Is that forcing it too much?

[aboo]

I'd focus on a simple meditation to begin with, one pointed focus on the breath etc. With time you should become aware of internal energy. That was my experience anyhow. I've always found expectation of a certain result a stumbling block; focus on the basics and things will unfold naturally.

Edited September 29, 2014 by aboo

[Nungali]

<puts on coffee cup and bottle repellant armour>

 

Due to my lack of experience I have yet to come to a firm conclusion that we can live on air or become physically immortal.

 

Even with such a lack, twice I have experienced ' chi / ki related' activity that I didnt have a 'real force' explanation for

 

However I do have strong opinion against " being able to breath air as your only source of sustenance".

Especially from 'New Age' sources

Take a taste of this ( just a little - if you can bear it )

http://www.jasmuheen.com/living-on-light/breatharians/

Then look at this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmuheen

Obviously ... she isnt a Taoist Master ....

Also I dont go along with this physical immortality thing either ... but as I said above " due to my lack of experience" (I just felt to speak up about the 'living on air' .... 'stuff' ) .

Hopefully this book has a more responsible outlook?

Edited September 29, 2014 by Nungali

[9th]

mantak has a way of presenting extremely advanced stuff as if it were a mcdonalds value menu or something...

 

im not sure id recommend him for beginners.. its not necessarily "over your head" its just not the best presentation for starting out new IMHO

[dc9]

mantak has a way of presenting extremely advanced stuff as if it were a mcdonalds value menu or something...

 

im not sure id recommend him for beginners.. its not necessarily "over your head" its just not the best presentation for starting out new IMHO

 

right??? that's exactly what I feel he's doing... and yet, the promises of the benefits of those exercises are very alluring to me.

 

I'm not scared of any type of danger that can arise from these exercises, I'm only concerned with how effective they are. and they don't seem very effective if they don't help me reach a level where I can even do the first step reliably... such as being able to feel qi in my forehead

 

I want to dive in, regardless of the danger, so long as it works for me. Is there a good resource on doing that?

[PLB]

It took me a long time to get comfortable paying attention to what is happening with my body. I say with instead of in because it is not inside of something in relation to the attention that can live there. We have a simple direct access to ourselves that has no relation to the different maps we employ to talk about it. I don't want to disrespect Chia's teaching or defend it. But his work is a map, not the territory.

 

You are the territory.

 

Something in all this talk about feeling energies attracts you. There are powerful ideas that say the structure of those things are attained through this or that path. If you go some distance in cultivation, you will have to make choices between paths. But at the beginning, start with yourself.

 

It can be boring at first. There is just yourself again. But what looked at the beginning to be a mirror is this place you have been living next to all your life and had no idea was there.

 

The idea behind practice is to go to that place.

Edited September 30, 2014 by PLB

[katsura]

Qigong means breath work so you're not going to get anywhere unless you spend time learning to breath correctly, and also to still your mind so your sensitivity to the inside of your body increases. Zen breathing with light focus on the lower dan tien will give you sensations in a relatively short period of time, but to do even that effectively, you need to have the right attitude. If you're impatient for results and lack faith in what you're doing then you'll continually sabotage your effort in small ways to the point of hopelessness. It takes a lot of humility to set skepticism aside and truly begin in earnest.

[Rara]

Learning quality practical techniques from a book is never a good move. A teacher can always help guide you if you do it wrong...a book can't.

 

PS You're probably being suckered.

[9th]

right??? that's exactly what I feel he's doing... and yet, the promises of the benefits of those exercises are very alluring to me.

 

I'm not scared of any type of danger that can arise from these exercises, I'm only concerned with how effective they are. and they don't seem very effective if they don't help me reach a level where I can even do the first step reliably... such as being able to feel qi in my forehead

 

I want to dive in, regardless of the danger, so long as it works for me. Is there a good resource on doing that?

 

if you are interested in qigong, its best to learn from a live teacher somehow

 

or videos would be a next step down from that

 

it really helps to be able to see someone doing the exercises who already has developed the ability to feel energy

[joeblast]

 

 

And can I just skip all the stupid beginning exercises and jump into trying to do the microcosmic orbit, which I assume is the meat of the book's material? Stuff like that eye rotating exericse just makes me feel so silly

No, ya can't. First qigong book I picked up back in 04 was an advanced one, I got halfway through it before realizing perhaps I'd better start at the beginning.

 

Dont expect to feel anything right away. This is all signal to noise ratio enhancement in the beginning. Dont worry about feeling energy at all, just relax. Do movement exercise of whatever sort, do breathwork. Establish habit. As habit gains inertia, signal to noise ratio becomes enhanced, then you have a better idea of what's signal and what's noise.

 

MCO is useless to start out with, it'll just be mental gymnastics for you at this point. Simple stuff like 8 brocades, zhan zhuang, or taiji or bagua circle walking... dont forget the physical movement as part of the equation. And dont have preconceived notions of things. Mind the basic fundamentals and practice the shit out of them and with the resultant habit energy you build, you will see progress.

Edited September 30, 2014 by joeblast

[soaring crane]

 

And can I just skip all the stupid beginning exercises and jump into trying to do the microcosmic orbit, which I assume is the meat of the book's material? Stuff like that eye rotating exericse just makes me feel so silly

 

I missed this first time round. No, absolutely not, as JB says. Those "stupid beginning exercises" are neither stupid nor beginner level. Can you do them? Is it such a challenge for you to do them that you give up in despair? If that's the case, how do you expect to successfully set the MOC in motion (something which can takes many years to reach)?

 

I would guess that many people find these little accompanying "beginner" exercises a bigger challenge than the full-blown Master-of-Dao stuff they get into. The things is, without the ability to perform these smaller exercises correctly and dilligently, the practice at the higher levels will vary between ineffective, delusional, and unhealthy.

 

Here''s another (serious) book recommendation:

 

Baolin Wu

 

Have fun massaging your ears :-)

[Horus]

The fundamentals are the base of the building, without it you topple and fall.

 

The advanced practices are the leaves of the mature oak that reach to the heavens, without the extensive root systems the leaves will wither.

 

There are many rivers leading to the same ocean.

 

The Sun, the Planets, the Stars and the Myriad will be your food once you remember how to dine.

 

But stillness and breath are your utensils in the great meal, the great work.

 

Attenuate your skepticism in the fires of practice, letting go all expectation, all attachment, all desire, fear, grasping and aversion.

 

After he exhausted all the best teachers, all the best methods, the Buddha could only sit back under a tree and practice simple breathing in stillness.

 

He became then the feast, the feasting, and the feasted.

[dc9]

I've decided to return mantak chia's book.. because it really doesn't make sense that he's telling me to feel and move chi through my body when, according to you guys(which i believe), i'm at least years away from being able to do that...

 

I guess I will simply do stillness for a very long period of time everyday, or at least make that a goal. Then i'll see how I'm feeling after doing that for a while..

 

thanks guys

[Horus]

I've decided to return mantak chia's book.. because it really doesn't make sense that he's telling me to feel and move chi through my body when, according to you guys(which i believe), i'm at least years away from being able to do that...

 

I guess I will simply do stillness for a very long period of time everyday, or at least make that a goal. Then i'll see how I'm feeling after doing that for a while..

 

thanks guys

Good self-advice.

 

Though I think people are saying to don't expect to feel it for years. But, you may be able to do that already.

 

Look up on Yuan Qi & Yuan Shen.