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Hello everyone, my name is Jesse Howard and I’ve been practicing Qigong for some time now, mainly focused on breathing, body awareness, and cultivating calm and stability in daily life. I come from a background of personal discipline, physical training, and meditation, and over the years I’ve grown increasingly interested in the internal aspects of practice rather than external performance or theory alone. My current interest is to deepen my understanding of internal cultivation, especially how different traditions approach energy, mind, and body integration, especially in Tibetan Buddhism. While Qigong has been my main entry point, I’m very open to learning about Daoist practices, Nei Gong, meditation methods, and internal alchemy, always with a grounded and practical perspective. I value experiences shared by long-term practitioners and enjoy reading thoughtful discussions rather than quick answers. I’m interested in joining this community because it seems to be a place where people take practice seriously, question deeply, and share knowledge with honesty. I’m here mainly to learn, listen, and gradually participate in discussions when I feel I can contribute in a meaningful way. Thank you for having me, and I’m looking forward to learning from the collective experience here. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I allways read about Taichi, Budhism, Hindu, i meditate, i have practice Kung-fu North Shaolin long ago. I want to learn more about deep meditation, chackras, and share experiencies to evolve togheter! I read a lot about energetic Fields, etc. Thank you

Hi everyone, I’ve been practicing Spring Forest Qigong for over two years now, and overall it has helped me a lot., I feel calmer, more regulated, and in many ways it has really supported my healing process. So I’m genuinely grateful for that. At the same time, there’s this question that keeps coming up for me: Is this really the Qigong form that fits me best? What has been bothering me is that in the courses I attended, certain topics were never really addressed — especially things like Qi deviation or how to deal with intense or unusual experiences (including what some people might call “paranormal” phenomena). I’ve had some experiences during practice — seeing or feeling things that were quite strong — and I honestly felt a bit scared at times because I didn’t have any framework for understanding them. I had to research everything on my own. There was nothing in the books or teachings I received that openly talked about potential side effects, energetic imbalances, or how to handle them. That felt too superficial for me. Almost like only the positive, healing aspects were emphasized, but not the possible challenges. I also want to say that I find Chunyi Lin, the founder of Spring Forest Qigong, very inspiring. His story, his presence, and what he has built are impressive to me. I genuinely respect him and what he represents. So this is not about criticizing him as a person or teacher. But even with that respect and inspiration, I still notice that the form itself — the way Spring Forest Qigong is structured and taught — doesn’t fully give me the feeling that this is 100% what I need. Something in me still feels uncertain or not completely aligned. Recently, I’ve looked into other forms like Zhineng Qigong, and there it seems that these kinds of intense or unusual experiences are at least acknowledged and sometimes even described as part of the path that can be integrated consciously. That made me reflect even more on what I’m actually looking for in a practice. So now I’m really asking myself: What are the markers that tell you a Qigong form truly fits you? Is it about physical results? Emotional stability? Feeling grounded and safe? ( maybe the most important?) How transparent the teachers are about risks and intense experiences? An inner sense of alignment? And in what way could my own viewpoint be the problem? What can i expect from a good qigong form? I’m considering committing to one form for 100 days straight to really test it — and then honestly evaluate how my nervous system feels, whether I feel more stable and clear, or whether something feels off. I’d really appreciate hearing from long-term practitioners: How did you know your form was right for you? What are healthy signs — and what are red flags? Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

Friends, After 7 long years, I have finally completed the 2nd book of my trilogy. Please read and support. Best, Dwai https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLT43ZF8

I asked ChatGPT about the differences in effects between the two sets and this was the answer it gave. Is this true? Does it fit your experience or what you have learnt about the forms? 🌿 Eight Brocades (Ba Duan Jin) Nature: Regulating, harmonizing, stabilizing Movement: Symmetrical, predictable, gentle Effects: Calms nervous system Improves circulation (esp. lower body) Opens chest, strengthens legs, aligns posture Builds foundational Qi flow and grounding Best for: Rebalancing after chronic stress or fatigue, building stability before activation 🐅 Five Animals (Wu Qin Xi) Nature: Stimulating, activating, expressive Movement: Archetypal, dynamic, playful Effects: Strengthens tendons and spine Awakens instinctual and emotional energy Improves coordination and flexibility Can slightly energize or excite the nervous system Best for: Developmental practice, mobilizing energy once regulation is established ⚖️ Practical Takeaway If your nervous system is dysregulated or fatigued: do Eight Brocades twice daily before adding Five Animals. Once stability, warmth, and circulation improve, you can add the Five Animals gradually. Think of it like this: Brocades = calm the river Five Animals = increase the current

Greetings! I'm Long! Very happy to found this community! I'm in a journey within myself and i need your help! i'm in a serious deep meditation road, i believe i can reach Very deep states, levels of energy, but i don't know which way to follow. I've read many articles about Nei Gong, Tai Chi, Kundalini, "Everywhere meditation" (Open Eyes). etc. I think, do i have to choose a Path? Or can i be Pathless and find my own Path inside myself? Anyway i have a LOT to learn yet, explore and discover and i Will really appreciate to be part of this community! Best Regards and blessings for us!

With no tension you would collapse onto the floor.

It means try to relax with no tension on the muscles.

ok thanks!

https://www.sofiatopia.org/maat/heavenly_cow.htm https://henadology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/celestial-cow.pdf

That was from AI I confess. Yes I agree no visualization.

You don't visualise anything, it is physical, if you visualise then you use the mind and you don't achieve song. The body should be put in the correct position then constantly released within that position. That is what song is.

There used to be a tradition among Cheng Man-Ch'ing's students to offer the first part of his form for free in local parks, weekly. I've been practicing that first part of the form for a decade and some now, thanks to a teacher in a local park years ago. I bought Cheng Man-Ch'ing's "Thirteen Chapters" maybe 40 years ago. The Doug Wile translation has some things not in the Benjamin Lo translation, but Wile's translation was apparently pirate. I realize you are talking qi gong, not Tai Chi. Chunyi Lin is most amazing, for sure. Cheng Man-Ch'ing did have one caution in his book, and that concerned the mastery of the ch'i moving from the dan t'ien through the tailbone and up the spine. That, he said, should never be forced, and he counseled a teacher at that point in the mastery of the art. Never one to follow such advice; from something I'm writing: When a person is self-conscious, the single place associated with consciousness is in the body, but not of the body—it’s just an empty place. ... the “one-placedness” of self-consciousness can shift and move, especially from inbreath to outbreath and outbreath to inbreath. “One-placedness” is highlighted in the metaphor that Gautama provided for the first concentration: … just as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so, (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease. (AN 5.28, tr. PTS vol. III pp 18-19) A person gathers and firms the “one-placedness” of self-consciousness by extending zest and ease, such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” by the feelings of zest and ease. In falling asleep, the mind can sometimes react to hypnagogic sleep paralysis with an attempt to reassert control over the muscles of the body, causing a “hypnic jerk”. The extension of a weighted zest and ease can pre-empt the tendency to reassert voluntary control in the induction of concentration, and make possible a conscious experience of “reflex movement” in inhalation and exhalation. The ch'i acting in the body to inhale and exhale, when ch'i manifests in the skin and hair: With this method of circulating the ch’i (T’ai Chi), it overflows into the sinews, reaches the bone marrow, fills the diaphragm, and manifests in the skin and hair. ( “Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai-Chi Ch’uan”, Cheng Man-Ching trans. Douglas Wile, pg. 17 ) From the back page of my book: My life has been 50 years trying to figure out how the zazen that gets up and walks around fits into a normal life, and likewise trying to figure out how zazen sits zazen so I can sit as long as I feel I need to sit without wrecking my knees.

**"Sung the body"** (often just "sung") refers to a core principle in Tai Chi and Qigong, where "sung" (鬆, sōng) means a deep, controlled release of tension throughout the body.[1][3] ## Core Meaning Sung goes beyond surface-level relaxation; it's about loosening joints from within, stretching tissues like rubber for elasticity without limpness or stiffness. This creates space for qi (energy) to flow freely, maintaining upright posture while feeling energized and alert.[2][5][1] ## In Practice Visualize elongating your spine, opening elbows, wrists, hips, and knees outward to release bound tension down to the bones. Practitioners describe it as yielding to gravity and heaven, mentally and physically, like a baby's natural softness.[3][1][2] ## Benefits Achieving sung improves flexibility, balance, and internal power (like "peng jing"), while reducing stress that blocks qi. It's foundational, practiced in stages from limbs to full-body-and-mind integration.

Let's think about what it actually means to be in perfect balance with your environment. Picture a rock floating through deep space. Eventually, that rock will cool down until its temperature is close to absolute zero. At that point, the rock is perfectly balanced with its freezing surroundings, but it certainly is not alive. To be alive is to constantly fight against being in balance with your environment. Think about how energy flows to make this happen. Plants harvest sunlight and store it as chemical energy. Then, we eat those plants to borrow that stored energy for ourselves. We put that energy to work in all sorts of active ways: To repair old cells and build new ones. To keep our bodies warm. To fuel our brains and muscles so we can think and move. If we ever reached perfect balance with our environment, all of that active work would stop. Just like the rock in space, we would have no energy left to keep going. Imagine pushing this idea even further and pulling in vastly more energy than a normal organism ever could.

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YES ! I often tell people a dream is full of their own personal symbols interpreted in light of everything about themselves including 'intimate / inside ' knowledge ... how is someone else going to add that into the interpretive mix ? Tarot especially , I read publicly for years and did not use a 'prediction aspect' of it , I would look at and discuss the reading and if the person themselves felt to relate to anything in it to themselves , then we would talk about that . One classic example turns up here ... on the old now defunct Tarotfurum one person insisted ( and it caused rather a bother for some time - controversy ) that this card 6 of Cups 'happiness' - this persons interpretation ... obvious ! ; Child molesting ! ... everyone else was ... '' Its so obvious ; the evil little dwarf is offering the little girl some flowers , like they do ; flowers . sweets ... etc . and the man in the background is walking away allowing it to happen . '' Everyone was .... ummmmmm .... perhaps that is a highly personal interpretation from some personal experience ?'' No No she angrily insisted and went through all the parts of the image to back it up . people insisted it can not mean that . My contribution was ... well, it can ... for her ! In a reading I would give a general description ( that nearly all seem to agree on ) ; a ( badly drawn ) man offers the shorter woman some flowers - happiness . Now IF the querent starts saying .... that looks like a child molester (or whatever ) then that conversation can be had . The danger ( especially with a suggestively vulnerable querent ) is when crazies like that person do someone a reading ... the 6 of cups turns up and the reader goes ; '' OH-O ... its the child molesting card ! do you where your kids are that the moment ?'' Psycho analysis ? I spent about 4 hrs doing something like that with a fiend yesterday .. she has mammoth issues ( actually being a child abuse victim ) at one stage when she got cheeky and evasive and asked me what I was going 'to do about it ' ( jokingly ... it was a 'light ' session ) I said ''I am going to hammer the shit out of you with Socratic dialectic ! '' ''What's that ! ? '' '' I am going to keep asking you questions about what you say and your own answers are going to give you your own solutions . '' It probably should not be more than that . people who do not intend things lack a quantum leap of perennial healing . https://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ That seems the consensus here .

Should she have ' turned the other cheek ' ? people that can not turn the other cheek , have fear of being called to explore the quantum matrix itself as an interface between transcendence and karma.

You would not have said that unless you have ...... ' fear of ....... psionic wave oscilations of quantum energy enobling the angelic inseprability of starfire . ( https://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ ) What lesson do I need to learn from this ? Come on man ... channel it !

lol

Back in the beginnings of TDBs, @Stigweard did a tremendous amount of work with foundational organization. He has recently been producing some insightful, wise, hilariously dark art, "Stuart Shaw Creations". on facebook https://www.facebook.com/stuartshawcreations and his own website https://stuartshawcreations.com/

woah! what? Most of these things are probably helpful but the true answer is to 'sung' the body.

Don't allow the energy flow to your head - brain, as that has severe risks of making one smarter, making one realize their destiny and spiritual path, leading them away from scamgong teachings and worthless practices. You don't want that. Stay grounded.

Qigong needs to "hit the spot." Real life examples from my experience. Person A. An accomplished taiji practitioner for many years. Disciplined, dedicated, talented, competitive. Had a falling out with the teacher. Stopped practicing taiji altogether, which at the time struck me as cutting off her nose to spite her face. Found a different teacher, who only teaches qigong, meditation and a bit of related subjects ("feng shui light," very light.) A few years down the road, completely satisfied with her practice. I don't know what she's doing with the competitive side of her personality, but the rest of it has just flown naturally into the new practice. Person B. Has never been interested in anything Asian, and physical engagement with movement has been limited to an occasional game of tennis. An accomplished professional (medical doctor). Started having problems with her lower back later in life, which turned severe. Had surgery which made things worse. Lived in nonstop pain for several years. Was shown a few qigong exercises by a friend. Reluctantly gave it a try, mostly to humor the friend. Being also a naturally disciplined person, decided to give it a trial period of some length. Until then anything and everything she tried made things only worse, but this time at first she noticed her back doesn't feel worse from qigong, then, that it feels a bit better. Chalked it up to placebo yet kept practicing. Three years later, still practices, her back feels 90% better, she's able to go on long hikes now and is off pain medication. Still looking for an allopathic explanation. Person C. An accomplished taiji practitioner, with all-around taoist interests for many years. Has been taught many qigongs by her great teacher and at various workshops and seminars by other masters. Taught qigong to various audiences. Profoundly dislikes practicing it. Why? She has never been able to answer this question. She absolutely loves taiji and many taoist practices, she's an experienced meditator, and there was a time she would sit in full lotus for two hours with reverse breathing going on autopilot if her practice required it. Qigong? Please... no qigong. Why? Who knows. Doesn't hit the spot.

I've practiced qigong for about 20 years. One thing I've learned is that my expectations need to be realistic. Certainly there are benefits from the forms I practice but qigong has not proven to be a comprehensive and complete system for me. I practice both Shiba Luohangong and Ba Duan Jin and derive valuable and different benefits from each. I have also continued to practice internal Chinese martial arts over that period of time - taijiquan, xingyiquan, and baguazhang. While I no longer compete or train martially with others, these have found a valuable role in my physical, energetic, and mental health. Finally, perhaps most important to me is my meditation practice from a Tibetan tradition. While I do think it's important to stick with a practice for a long time to really probe its depth and potential, I don't know that each one of us can expect to find a single practice or system that does everything we are looking for. Some do and that is wonderful but it hasn't been that way for me. I also think that we need to listen to our body and mind and maintain some openness and flexibility as our needs can change over time.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

The right side of the body, right arm, right leg, is Yin. The left side of the body, left arm, left leg, is Yang. The right hemisphere is Yin, controls the left side of the body - Yang. The left hemisphere is Yang, controls the right side of the body - Yin. The Chongmai meridian (Thrusting) consists of 5 currents of Qi flowing up and moving the Sea of Marrow. The middle one is also called the Taiji Pole. The left one is Yang, the right one is Yin. The front one = internal branch of Renmai. The back one = internal branch of Dumai. The right and left currents criss-cross at the meeting point of Renmai and Dumai and the Third Eye. All these currents start at Huiyin and end at Baihui. Left and right currents after starting from Huiyin go through left Kidney (Source of Yang Qi - Celestial Fire of Life) and right Kidney (Source of Yin Qi - Celestial Water of Life). After Mother's Yin and Father's Yang meets inside the Mother's Womb, the embrion starts to grow, during this growth all the Chongmai currents start flowing up. After being born, during maturization, the Water cycle is happening, Qi flows up through the Renmai and down through the Dumai. When you are an adult it is reversed = the Fire cycle - Dumai flows up, Renmai down. During the Microcosmic Orbit you work with this Fire cycle. The left and right currents are actually Ida and Pingala, they criss-cross also at the rest of the chakras which in Taoist tradition are called Qi Lun (Seven Wheels), Qi Huo (Seven Fires) or Qi Ding (Seven Cauldrons), some Taoist sects have 12 chakras, those 7 plus external ones, beneath and above the body - Jerry A. Johnson is describing them in his books. The left current after criss-crossing at Renmai/Dumai meeting point go through the right nostril, right eye, criss-cross at the Third Eye and ends in Baihui. The right current after criss-crossing at Renmai/Dumai meeting point go through the left nostril, left eye, criss-cross at the Third Eye and ends in Baihui. In TCM because of Nanjing, the left Kidney was Yin (Kidney proper), and the right Kidney was Yang (Mingmen), later during the Ming dynasty it evolved - Mingmen Yang Fire is between both Kidneys, which both are Yin Water. The Yin Yang classification depends on the point of view and usage. If you are right handed, then your right hand is Yang, based on the activity, not the Qi physiology.

Being mindful of the climate crisis we were trying to minimize the carbon footprint by limiting flamage.

Someone asked me this question about a year ago and, without thinking much about it, what came out was... I am practicing for my death. It sort of surprised me, and them as well. My practice has become mostly informal, meaning not just on the cushion but in my day to day life, as often and consistently as possible. It's wonderful to sit in a quite, comfortable room and practice but if my practice is not there for me when I am challenged and stressed, when I am suffering; if it is not enriching my life, and the lives of those around me in the moment, making me more kind, flexible, resilient, resourceful, creative... what is the point? (that is a rhetorical question, I am only speaking for myself - everyone has their own path and objectives). So my point is that I continue to practice so that I can be supported to show up fully in my life and to be able to access and bring all available resources to any and every given situation to the best of my ability. Death is likely to present the biggest challenge in my life. How to let go of everything I have, everything and everyone I've known, and everything that I am? And how to do it without too much suffering for myself and for those around me? Of course, it's nice to say things like - I am God, I am the universe, I am the non-local awareness, Buddha, the Nature of Mind. I am birthless, deathless... I have no fear of death. But they are all words... the test comes when there is extreme pain, illness, when the body and mind are close to the end and loved ones are waiting and suffering. What will it be like then? I watched my father die not too long ago and there was so much pain, so much fear. It was excruciating for him and those around him in the last few days. Wouldn't it be interesting to navigate that with some peace, some confidence, some equanimity and directly experience that transition and what lies beyond with as much clarity as possible? Rather than be heavily drugged and hooked up to all sorts of high tech garbage? I think so... at the moment. And of course, circumstances may change my mind when it's my turn. Time will tell! In the tradition I follow, it's said that we should be able to bring all life's experiences onto the path. Life itself becomes the practice. So for me, at this moment, practice really has no endpoint, I guess I can say I am practicing to live and to die.

I am no longer practicing, but actualizing enlightenment. One can actualize enlightenment by dropping all contrived thoughts, ideas, and practices. From the viewpoint of awareness it can be seen that all appearances in consciousness, including the "self", thoughts, and other worldly phenomena arise and When you practice in this way even the walled-in concept of enlightenment drops away.

Good man for being honest. Rely your brain Apech lest you lose it.