Hey guys!   I joined the forum just yesterday and wanted to open this thread for two purposes: 1. To seek guidance and advice from anyone who knows something about the topic, namely the practice described in "The Secret of the Golden Flower" and 2. To track everything that I do from day 1 so that people in the future might have an easier time if I am successful.    Some short information about me. I'm in my early 20s, have practiced martial arts for about 7 years in total but have not done so for another 7 years at least. At the same time, my lifestyle hasn't exactly been ideal since then, smoking, drinking etc. As a matter of fact, I still smoke, even though the rest has been cut off mostly.    In terms of knowledge, I cannot even be considered a newbie tbh. I knew about internal energy a couple years back but have always been a sceptic since it was hard for me to believe in something I cannot understand. Recently, however, after reading some wuxia books, I decided to do some research into legends. So then I found several "entries" of ascetics/hermits that have lived hundreds of years, and even moreso, suddenly 'died' in meditation after people found out about them, with no body to be found etc (i.e. Li Ching-Yuen - Wikipedia)   Anyway, for a few weeks, I scoured the internet for information but mostly to no avail. Besides this forum itself, the only other semi-complete source of information or reasonably researched source of information that I found was The Secret of the Golden Flower, which is also why I have chosen this since I lack a teacher and/or lineage.    My aim is to see how far one can progress on this path when your internal energy isn't that great to begin with and you don't come from any lineages. I will keep editing this post as time progresses and add journal entries.    For the next week or so, I will be reading the book in its entirety, using the Thomas Cleary translation. In addition, I will be using thelerner's comments in this thread.   I do have a question though. GF is described as a kundalini meditation, does that mean it belongs to buddhism ? I am mostly interested in practicing a taoist neidan technique so that's why I am asking.