jing gong (healing, healthy, advanced)

[Trunk]

I've been tinkering with words, lately. Clarifying names and purposes of practices. Partly by something that Sean mentioned in another thread, partly my own process.

 

Its long struck me that "Healing Love" is a very ironic name to the jing cultivation practices as presented by the HT (books).

1), If someone really is experiencing an illness, disharmony, at the level of jing - then the HT's practices are way way way too advanced - and will almost certainly make that person worse. So the "healing" part of "healing love" is sort of a joke. and

2), Some of the practices are so advanced (long term retention) that even most generally-healthy people get hurt by attempting them. So, "healing" is not an apt word, here.

.. "Love" is pretty loaded, also.

 

Additionally, people tend to get fixated on jing retention (which is just one thing that might happen, if a number of things are in place). The way that we've been presented with "Healing Love" material has resulted in a pattern of thinking about sexual energy cultivation that is narrow.

 

I've come up with "jing gong" as alternate words to "healing love". For me, its loosening up the way I'm thinking about the subject.

 

Also, I'm thinking about it in three broad overlapping levels, that broaden the view from our typical rather narrow scope. "Healing Jing Gong", "Healthy Jing Gong", and "Advanced Jing Gong". My scrappy notes follow:

 

1. Healing Jing Gong

This key word for this level is "disharmony". Illness, dis-ease, significant, or minor disharmony. Whether its manifesting as something that clinical western medicine might call a serious health condition, or its something relatively more subtle that Chinese medicine might recognize, or whether its personal consideration that some significant healing progress needs to take place in an area. This could be physical (in the tissues, etc), or emotional (for instance, post-relationship healing), significant compulsive behavior, consciousness, life-style, what ever.

 

The more seriously into this level, the more specific help is needed.

 

At a level that really borders in the next level, one might look at the natural minor fluctuations of tissue, fluid, alchemy, that occur as one goes through one's sexual cycle. (For men, that'd be build-up and release.) What happens at the different stages? Do the transitions happen smoothly, harmoniously? Or is there some exagerated jag at some point?, if so, what disharmony is going on there? and what is the appropriate remedy?

 

2. Healthy Jing Gong

for those that want to maintain and improve good health

 

this layer is more social

vs. too far into disharmony, and social ability is impaired

vs. the high end of advanced jing gong tends to be alone work

variety in lifestyle

healthy forward and healthy reverse

healthy satisfying 'normal' sex life (ie, retention uncommon, not part of the discipline at this stage, of course allowing for when its natural and unforced)

'healthy satisfaction' is forward, here

gradually more & more adept, developed

at harmonizing the minor disharmonies

body work through physical wisdom discipline/s

opening and filling the channels

 

` at high end of this level, true reverse is experienced more frequently

though it doesn't dominate at this level

 

3. Advanced Jing Gong

this is where reverse begins to dominate

- references: post #6957 and thread, essay Jing-to-Light

the centers are transformed, and truly become Medicine Fields

- particularly, in this context of jing gong, the lower center genuinely becomes a Medicine Field

personal expression Dives into the Ocean

focus on building a light body

stillness cultivation dominates more here

- non-dual nature becomes more of a factor

dual cultivation is a lesser technique of this level

- the consciousness art of dual cultivation is higher level here

- retention is part of this level of discipline, and is the norm here

- though not an absolute,

- in respect of the lessons of healing jing gong and healthy jing gong

at the high end its solo

 

 

--- summary notes ---

 

I'd suppose that there are solo and dual cultivation aspects to all three of those areas.

 

Note, I don't put retention in as a significant focus until "advanced jing gong".

 

Also important to note that probably most people have some experience with all three levels, at least at different times in every regular life, perhaps on a regular basis. So, these are rigid levels, but just ways of looking at whatever condition you're currently looking at ... in a way that helps sort it out more, I think.

 

Glad to hear any feedback, thoughts.

[monucka]

Looks like the beginning of an essay or book or instructional series. Not that it has to be, but the points you've outlined make sense to those who've already experienced them- sort of a crib sheet for aspects of jing gong (nice term), not yet a guide. Do you have any plans to develop those pointers into guides for beginners, whether oral or written? For example,

 

healthy forward and healthy reverse

are admirable, but open to interpretation

how does one differentiate the real from the false?

 

 

- j

[Trunk]

sort of a crib sheet for aspects of jing gong (nice term)

I edited the original post a little to include a couple of link-references re: fwd and reverse. But yeah, right now its mostly a crib sheet. I do want to put it in an essay format and include it in my website .. after some feedback (I'm sure that you guys will have some useful things to say). It really could be the starter outline for 3 thick books , but I intend to have it in short-essay form with some related links - to help people (including myself) think about this area in a broader way.

 

And, thanks, I like the term too.

 

The three categories might help people assess where they're at better, and set more reasonable goals. At least begin to think along more reasonable, incremental, lines.

 

-- later thoughts --

 

So, I don't think the purpose of the categories (healing, healthy, advanced jing gong) is to provide any sort of strict nor comprehensive set of answers, but to prompt practioners to ask better questions of themselves and their conditions. And, as a result, hopefully take up more appropriate goals and practices.

 

I'll probably have to cut back on my "crib sheet" list, to just a short general description of each (several paragraphs, max) that can be understood by most any one who reads it. With a few related links. And note my previous point, above.

[Simon V.]

Hi Keith

 

Great ideas.

I can also envision eventually bringing in an English terminology for qigong altogether. I like the anglo-germanic word 'craft' for translating 'gong', as it can convey both the idea of 'deeply ingrained skill' and also 'energy' or 'force'.

It also has been and is still used as a term for western magical skill, in a way very similar to how gong is used I think--a deeply ingrained skill that is hidden yet can be unfolded by the possessor.

 

Simon

[sean]

Wow. Chi-Craft. Energy-Craft. Cool spin. I like it.

 

Hey Trunk, forgot to say ... amazing outline. Really glad that you take the complexity/sensitivity of this issue so seriously. I'm still digesting and intend to give you feedback.

[Trunk]

Really glad that you take the complexity/sensitivity of this issue so seriously.

Its from bungling my own path, getting ow-ies, and compelled to sort it out. Initially buying the narrow "retention & mo" package for way way too long. When, actually, the path is much much broader than that, and the actual demands of my own situation were/are much more complex, much broader. I got a taste of a high clear place, of "advanced jing gong", and so focused on that rather narrowly, hard core, for a long time. Without even knowing the mechanics of advanced jing gong ! (nearly totally misguided), plus having very substantial aspects of psyche, physiology that would've been more appropriately viewed as simple "healthy jing gong" and some very serious "healing jing gong" (my health issues have been formidable).

 

And various aspects of myself, my practice, quite often might be categorized as being in all three of those areas quite frequently. For instance, I need to be attentive to a stubborn channel blockage ("healing") of mine, need some time simply to be with others as a regular human and be nourished and participate in basic fun male~female interaction ("healthy") and cultivate higher states, integrate that as normal reality ("advanced"). And my body emphasizes those various aspects naturally at different times. Learning to groove well with my own cycle of changes, my own varied make-up.

 

I've been serious about this stuff, and got more fixated than I should've - but, on the other hand, there were principles that I just had to clarify. The "R&D" work on this road has been personally expensive. And not just for me. Back somewhere prior to 2000 (98?) when we were just starting out on the HT board - looking back it was so pitiful and ridiculous how little we knew, how naive we were. Plato really was very progressive and prompted a number of very important avante-gard break throughs. Now there is this broader base of knowledge that the community knows in general (and, yes, a lot of it is preserved on my site - a group effort).

 

When that recent thread, "loosing jing", recently started, I thought "oh, no, here's another lemming who read a HT book or three". Just sort of tragic cannon fodder, like most of the droves that read those books. But then a number of people piped up with broad-minded, well informed, experienced communique. Its like "wow, that guy is really getting some good help, early, - he doesn't have to go down that narrow ill-informed road". Its really genuinely difficult to sort it out on one's own. The cyber-community is really baring fruit. Our niche of culture is generating a wisdom-base. Its really really gratifying to see.

 

This was the purpose of my website, to assist along those lines. As I started realizing how much critical information we were missing, and I knew what I'd gone through by mis-practicing.. partly as a sort of revenge, I wanted others to have the information, in a really clearly spoken way, that I'd missed for the first 15+ years of practice.

 

Wow, did I really just type all that? I'm ranted out.

 

cheers everybody, cheers.

[Yoda]

Us taobums are certainly indebted to the first generation of HT test pilots.

 

Trunk, Plato and Ron and many others have really advanced the discourse of the subject far better than the gurus themselves, actually.

 

Fortunately for myself as well as most taobums, we tend not to buy into extreme views that sperm retention is mission critical to save the world or to save one's immortal soul after death. Given that, what we are playing for is pretty nerf... better quality of life in the here and now. And that is something that each of us is capable of assessing in the moment in order to direct their swimmers in the desired direction.

 

So it's not a particularly big deal. There are plenty of excellent, vigorous, and long-lived lives out there who haven't paid much heed to sperm conservation. More power to them. For an energy practitioner, don't spooge within 3-4 hours after an energy practice and you'll make fine progress.

 

Still... mastering retention is a ***big prize*** and a huge boon to one's practice if one can swing it happily. It's definitely in my sights and big on my to do list.

 

If I go to my grave without mastering it, I won't loose sleep or anything. It's not worth crimping my happiness, but I certainly will do everything that I can to make it happen.

 

I was born in 1968 and there was no information. Not only on retention, but sex in general except the feeling, in my family at least, that sexuality was problematic. Damn we've come a long ways in a few short years! My next life I'll have this shit iced by the age of 12 and later I'll be experiencing sexuality on 13 planes simultaneously and shit. But of course the first book on multiplanar sex will have its glitches and panicky moments where you wonder where your dick is .

[hagar]

Trunk:

 

I really like your angle on this.

 

It reminds me of the post I wrote last night in the "Losin Jing" thread below. Interesting to see how similar our views are on this matter. There are definately two or, as you state, three levels of Jing gong. And like you, I have had a bad trip down the path where I tried to follow the Chia books on the subject. Result was inflamation.

 

One dimension that I have been contemplating these days: Forgetting the theory and listening to the system instead. I have found that this gives me the much-needed empirical info that just reading texts are lacking.

 

Basically, fixating on the sexual aspect of taoist arts is really a detour. If I just drop the idea of retention, stop counting days, and start listening and tuning into the information in my energy system I get the input I need to stay on track. Generally, the important thing is creating space. When space is increased in the body, the retention problem goes away. Sitting and working with the Dan Tians as a consequence creates vast space in the body, and there is no place for sexual tension to manifest. These days, I really have no need for sex. Whic probably should be worrying me, but it's not. The payoff is too great.

 

Meditation after this process has been going on for some time is like eating gravy instead of soup. Much more nourishing

[rex]

Over the years I've got myself into various trouble with inappropriate use of solo cultivation techniques. Thankfully I've always managed to get out of trouble more or less intact. In seeking solutions I Ching divinations often led to hexagram 61 Faithfulness in the Centre - 'Avoidance of both obsession and negligence, seeking fulfillment by becoming empty'. The Lover Within: Openning to Energy in Sexual Practice by Julie Henderson (I'll do a review of this this later) has an appendix which to me outlines a safe and sane way to practice jing retention in the light of hexagram 61. It also acknowledges many of the issues and concerns articulated by the term 'Jing Gong'. Here it is (with slight format rearrangement):

 

"To experience satisfying sexual union with yourself or with a partner, you need:

- high charge (relative to your normal base line)

- a relaxed, toned, flexible system capable of: containment; pulsation; reflexive re-distributon of energy

- contact (whether physical, emotional, energetic, or spiritual) that allows you to feel touched: by self; with another; with/by life

Why:

- High charge in a rigid system creates displeasure. The person will ether avoid touch or move towards rapid, frequent release.

- Low charge (usually in a contracted or collapsed energetic system) means that the systemic energy never reaches the point of reflexive release.

- Lacking the kind(s) of contact you value, touch will feel flat, mechanical, or hollow: so will sex. And life.

 

The more toned and flexible you are energetically and muscularly, emotionally and mentally, the more charge and the more life you can contain and the more pleasure you can experience. This is true of your being at all, as well as in the release and re-distribution of "extra" energy in sex (and in other experiences of union). "

 

The Healing Tao system aims among other things to get practitoners more toned and flexible energetically, emotionally and mentally and when jing retention is practiced within this wider context the term "Healing Love" is bang on. All my self created problems in jing retention have been due to practicing outside this context. Re-aligning and reframing jing practice and linking the energy to love, compassion and joy is, well ... healing. Love is a loaded term but ultimately isn't that what jing is all about? For me Jing Gong has too much of a martial connotation and hints at soulless efficency. The caveats are there in Healing Love and the Healing Tao - it's just that they don't seem as well systematised as they are in your presentation of Jing Gong.

 

Can't Jing Gong just be a collection of useful advice from someone who has travelled a bit further down the road of jing retention than most? If a phrase must be used how about 'Path notes of a Jing Retentionist'?

Edited October 29, 2005 by rex

[GrandTrinity]

I dont think that is a bad name. The gong, that is. This has so far been a very good thread.

 

I think the 3 levels are not be looked at linearly. Has anyone acheived a perfect physical? No, so in that sense they are stuck at level one.

 

Has anyone acheived a perfect healthy practice? If not in 1, then not in 2.

 

And level three sounds like paradise on earth!

 

Thanks for clearing this up, trunk. I could see all three levels in myself and the world. Now, getting from level one out to level 2? Perhaps that is a question only to be answered on a dimension beyond the third? Or just in the heart.

[rex]

It has been an excellent thread. I value Trunk's insights and his outline is thorough and very useful. Not wanting to appear as someone who has dumped in the collective punch bowl but I can't see anything in Jing Gong that hasn't already been stated before in the seven Healing Tao formulas and their suggested order of practice.

[Trunk]

The Lover Within: Openning to Energy in Sexual Practice by Julie Henderson ... outlines a safe and sane way to practice jing retention in the light of hexagram 61. .. Here it is

- high charge

- a relaxed, toned, flexible

- contact (whether physical, emotional, energetic, or spiritual)

COOL! Good notes.

 

The Healing Tao system aims among other things to get practitoners more toned and flexible energetically, emotionally and mentally and when jing retention is practiced within this wider context the term "Healing Love" is bang on. ... Re-aligning and reframing jing practice and linking the energy to love, compassion and joy is, well ... healing. Love is a loaded term but ultimately isn't that what jing is all about?

 

Can't Jing Gong just be a collection of useful advice from someone who has travelled a bit further down the road of jing retention than most? If a phrase must be used how about 'Path notes of a Jing Retentionist'?

Two points.. Well, first off - all well said, a good read.

Ok, two points:

1. If someone actually needs healing, if they're not 'basically healthy', then they shouldn't be practicing retention. Likely that retention would make their situation worse. People do come into this system of knowledge who actually need substantial physical or emotional healing. Who have serious health issues and so on. Retention is likely to really jam up their system and exacerbate troubles. There's too much emphasis on retention in the HT system, imo, and there's not enough clear discernment about how it can cause trouble and it when it shouldn't be used.

 

2. The word 'love' is so romantic and hits squarely in the middle of emotion and desire as a selling point. While healthy, satisfying relationship is part of it, the deeper principle of transcending desire is crucial. Without that, people are being sent down a very entangling path. Without that, its lost the principle of Tao (which is non-dual), and that's real trouble. That's why Buddhism has been a hot topic in discussion lately, to clarify some of these deeper principles (that are central to Taoism as well, but perhaps more accessible through Buddhist readings).

 

For me Jing Gong has too much of a martial connotation and hints at soulless efficency.

I hadn't thought of the martial connotation, but now that you mention it I see it and agree that its unfortunate. For me the term didn't have much connotation at all (only that it was jing practice, or jing art, or jing cultivation) and so was free of pre-conceptions and has broad open application. From healing, to playing music, lifestyle's effect, to relationship, to meditative states. It widened the scope beyond retention.

 

Seems to me that you have a very healthy view of the practices, and can see the very healthy elements in the HT system... which, I agree, are there and can be seen if one has the balance & perspective to see them. And perhaps your healthy view shields you from some of the mis-use that some people bungle with when working the HT system. But, imo, the emphasis in the HT system too easily lends itself to obsessive focus on retention at inappropriate stages, and to missing some of the deeper principles that are protective.

 

Good conversation.

 

Trunk

[Ian]

 

2. The word 'love' is so romantic and hits squarely in the middle of emotion and desire as a selling point.  While healthy, satisfying relationship is part of it, the deeper principle of transcending desire is crucial.  Without that, people are being sent down a very entangling path.  Without that, its lost the principle of Tao (which is non-dual), and that's real trouble.  That's why Buddhism has been a hot topic in discussion lately, to clarify some of these deeper principles (that are central to Taoism as well, but perhaps more accessible through Buddhist readings).

 

 

YES !!! Yes yes yes yes yes!! YES!!!

 

Yes!

 

Yes!

[rex]

[Trunk]

[rex]

[VCraigP]

Hi all.

I, like Rex, have a view of the HT system which does not see the problem with Jing retention as systemic but more as individual in origin.

 

To be fair I think it should be well acknowledged that offering sexual practices such as found in "Taoist Secrets of Love" and "Cultivating Female Sexual Energy" could be viewed as throwing fuel on the fire of overly revved Western sexual culture. In this regard I think these HT publications and the much more recent "multi orgasmic man" and "multi orgasmic couple" do have inherent flaws of Emphasis.

 

The ideal is to receive information/teaching orally and to support that instruction with books and/or other media.

The real world is that many people came to HT practice directly through interest in one of these sex manuals.

 

The ideal of learning/studying/exploring/healing the emotional body FIRST, before sexual practice is undertaken is not an experience I hear many people relating.

Truly it is not my experience either.

 

M.Winn's emphasis on gentleness and caution in both the Iron Shirt and Healing Love practice is in my view a CRUCIAL distinction from M.Chia's more forceful/yang approach to these subjects.

 

One of my more recent posts went into some detail about Fusion practice, and I return to that here.

The HT system provides a model of emotional exploration which is coherent with Oriental Medicine and all the foundation practices of the HT (inner smile, healing sounds, M.O. orbit.) Along with this emotional exploration is the energetic exploration of the channels.

 

With regards to Jing retention and sexual practice the missing link is the prior opening up of larger channels involved in Fusion, and the familiarity with emotional energy which this practice aims at achieving. Having these channels open (especially central channels and belt routes) allows for better energetic communication with another and more clear exchange.

 

With regards to being sexually revved, the tools are there to deal with this as well.

Not only having more channels through which to move the energy, but having the tools to balance this higher load is very important. The channels are like the wiring, and to continue the analogy, the fusion blending practice becomes somewhat like a circuit breaker. When there is an overload it is time to look to how the system is balancing itself and what can be done to regain that balance.

 

Once again, the above is somewhat dry and theoretical, and the real world is not so simple. these tools are important requisites to the care and feeding of your Jing Gong. I would like to propose "Essence Craft" as my transliteration.

 

To continue there are two areas I would like to emphasize in utilizing the Fusion/Shen theory into Essence Craft issues. One is having a system which can properly handle the higher level of energy going through it. This is accomplished by opening up all the channels (8 xtra vessels - starting with the M.O.) The next is playing with the shen/organ energies to balance out what may be excess Jing energy.

 

It seems to me that this discussion is primarily concerned with how to harness this energy without it becoming a problem. This sexually revved energy is IMO a manifestation of the Kidney essence/Shen taking control and saying, yeeha I gots a lot of juice, lets get to it, f... f... f..., all day long. Meanwhile the other Shen are not so much in the forefront and are perhaps overwhelmed by this situation.

 

One of the problems of understanding the energy I have had is that aroused sexual energy is so yang/firey/hot that it seemed more appropriate to associate it with heart/summer/yang fire correspondences. In actuality it has to do with the yang aspect of the Kidney/procreative urge. Collecting All of the Kidney energy and blending with more heart energy in the center actually helps to ground this further.

This is a good example of the function of the tool kit which is Fusion.

 

And as has been discussed, though long ago, on the HT board the more complete solution is to begin and continue with the KanLi sexual self intercourse method. If you really begin to get this going on, things can really shift in the retention process through the resolution of this extra energy within this Kan and Li process. Some students have even reported they feel a diminishment of desire as a result of this.

To paraphrase M.Winn "of course if you are having self intercourse all the time you naturally will have less desire" This could be problematic in a relationship.

 

Again I must say that Your Results May Vary. All of this theory is just that if you are just working on the basics.

 

My main point I think is that some very important intermediate steps have been overlooked in the HT curriculum. M.Winn has made IMPORTANT refinements in the teaching of the fusion, both in the inclusion of moving chikung forms to work with the meditations and in the simplification or really return to the core simplicity of the Shen theory and how to apply it to your life and energy work.

I do not blame people who balk at the approach M.Chia takes in teaching fusion. I find it too mental and confusing as well. I have heard M.Winn take major issue with M.Chia's particular approach to it also.

 

I have a particular interest in this dynamic because after years of foundation work I became stuck at the point of mastering the fusion process because of M.Chia's inability to transmit it in a simple way.

 

There is a dichotomy in my experience as well because some of my earliest peak chikung/meditation experience came with working in a small group with Chia and learning the first parts of Fusion. I GOT it. It was definitely a transmission experience. This experience was later diffused in part by the overly mental manipulation of the advance fusion practices.

 

After being sidetracked for a number of years I finally got moving again through M.Winn's much more approachable Fusion and Kan and Li instructions.

 

I have not seen much interest in discussion of Fusion/Shen work here, or on HT forum, but I think there is much to be gained from this piece of the work, especially when trying to understand how to deal with "Essence Craft" and retention.

 

OK - I think that's enough for today.

 

Craig

[Trunk]

[rex]

Edited November 9, 2005 by rex

[Trunk]