Kadesdes

Actually, Neidan and Daoism are synonymous.

If you want to understand Neidan more, you can compare Neidan and Qigong in a lot of ways. Essentially, Neidan is about understanding the inner functions of the human being as a whole. In Neidan (and Qigong) there is no separation of physical and mental because it is all part of an integrated and interconnected whole. Both Qigong and Neidan work with energy. You could say that in Qigong one learns how to work with, move and optimise energy. It's like learning how to fill your cup to the very top and keep it topped up. Neidan is like adding a new handle to the cup, increasing its size and even changing the material the cup is made of. A key goal in Neidan is to work with the pre-natal energies of the human being. This is not possible in Qigong.

Maybe a living organism cannot live without post - energy, but the pre - energy aspect of the being continues just fine without being nourished by oxygen for example. But this also implies that the organism cannot live without pre or post energy.

These statements remind me of an analogy I read once about a model of the human brain known as the "triune brain" which specifies different "layers" of the brain identified as having developed one after the other in an evolutionary sequence, the frintal lobes being the most recent, the limbic system the middle layer and the oldest being the "reptile brain" or brain stem. The analogy was it is like we are all riding on the back of an elephant. We think we have tamed the elephant and we tell it where to go and what to do but every now and then, our more "basic instincts" take over and eventhough we are desperately telling the elephant "no no NO! Don't do that!" (eg elephant sees one sexy lady elephant and proceeds to affront her in public with his growing appendage) we helplessly pull on the reins, struggling to get control to no avail. We get swept up in the moment and become one with the drama rather than one with the events in wakefulness to witness the cycle transpiring before us.

So I am curious about what it means to "flow with the tao" let alone how we know we are "flowing with it". Looking at it one way, I am not sure we cannot, not flow with the dao as we are always in it and are it. But from the perspective of the individual organism I think that flowing with the dao would be related to living in the world of duality - ying and yang - whilst navigating within it as an expression of the form you are in to move towards the ultimate nothingness where all is one. I suppose the easiest signposts for an organism is that it will move towards what feels "good" and away from what is "bad" (although in themselves can be misleading because the good is bad and the bad is good). So once you can move away from purely looking at the world in absolute terms and can see how one extreme can lead to the other and vice versa, that in itself is a way of flowing with the tao. So moving beyond duality are we not in a way still instinctively moving towards what is "good" so how do we define "good"? Is it that which we do so that we can continue doing, moving, expressing our utmost best feelings of goodness?

It certainly is a profound change - I think this obsession with controlling everything can be seen at large as the underlying pattern of modern civilisation and its insane and rampant consumption of the planet. We have enough resources and technology now to feed everyone but we have people in cities running around in circles striving, struggling to make as much money as possible, working ridiculous hours and living imblanced lives whilst turning a blind eye to the people lying on the side of the road with nothing but rags. I think we all DESPERATELY need to slow down, I think humanity has become obsessed with "doing" and "growing" due to to the sheer opportunities that our discoveries and developments have opened up for us. We have basically created a living environment (cities) that is in complete opposition to nature and moving at a scary pace. I watch nature documentaries sometimes and note to myself how the narrators sometimes say "We (humanity) have conquered nature" - I think it is quite an arrogant statement and reflective of the immaturity still inherent with us.

I have found that "letting go" is one of the hardest things to do - ironically - because of what the word implies. It is like Squeezing a stress ball in your hand until the skin goes pale and then you realise that you can just let go and relax. But the mind is so needy and paranoid with its throughts trying to control everything your hand soon clenches up again....and then you again remember to just let go and jump off the cliff without holding back. Keep to the black, but know the white.

Hi guys, I am just wondering if anyone else has experienced this: Whenever I practice taiji or Qigong it ALWAYS feels better when I do it wearing a shirt with long sleeves.....the movements feel "fuller". I have also noticed practicing in a windy place seems counter productive. Comments?

Yeah I have always suspected that it feels better with long sleeves because you can feel the movements more and that gliding, floaty feeling tends to accumulate but I wonder if the long sleeves also literally help keep the chi in, it certainly literally feels like the wind carries the chi away!

The weather has been all over the place lately, but all year round I would say it is fairly cool overall but quite hot in summer. I usually train in a nice shady spot and never in direct sunlight feels best.

I think that the more skilled you become at doing qigong, the more relaxed your body and nervous system become and the more efficiently you manage your internal energy, you start to automatically do qigong all the time without trying although having said that, additional techniques can be used to supplement that but I think constant all round practice is dependent upon how much of an expression of Qigong your every movement and life in general is.

Hi guys, This has now happened twice: About a year ago I was doing the Tai chi form and I was fully in the zone, fully relaxed, and movements flowing and as I got about half way through (about 15 mins) it was as if I could not feel my body or like I wasn't actually moving my body but I was moving the movement itself if that makes sense. It was quite interesting but soon after that I began to feel VERY hungry and like I just wanted to lie down and look at the stars in a fully relaxed bliss - which I did so and then later went to eat something. This happened again to me last night and it was during my Qigong practice. same sequence of events but this time I did not eat anything I just allowed the feeling of hunger to be. It gradually went away as well as the feeling of wanting to lie down but as I continued something different happened - I began to feel a bit shaky, my arms and legs were all shaking slightly and throughout the whole session I was fully alert. Can anyone comment? Thanks

Thanks for the comments guys! I did suspect that my sugar level was liw but I also wondered if there was anything else to it as I could not feel my body. I will simply let it be for now

If you get to 1000 days and become a semi - enlightened then I doubt by then you will want to reward yourself with or have huge sex urges because by then you would have become quite proficient at sublimation and transmutation that the energy doesn't build up enough to feel than uncontrollably horny. I think this question reflects more how you are feeling at this moment or at least part of you and having said that I would not think there is anything wrong with this if it is done with respect and consent from the other party.

Can I ask what your experiences have been when you say "I learned the hard way"? Kadesdes

You do not need to overthink it: If you get overpowering sexual desire just observe it, acknowledge that it is there, there nothing intently wrong with this, only relative to your goals and aspirations and how you think about the matter. Once you accept that those feelings are there either continue powering on with your practice or allow yourself to experience sex with someone else, even if they are not you "soul mate" you can still share sex with them with an attitude of love - just treat them as you would want to be treated with respect etc. We are not yet super immortal beings we are in transition and thus we sometimes are haunted by the conflicts of our dual nature and thus the animal aspect of ourselves can still be treated kindly and allowed to dissolve gently. If you decide or end up indulging in this part of yourself it does not necessarily make you soulless creature. I personally do not think what one does is what decides whether it is virtuous or not but rather how and why it was done and with what attitude and how it "flows" with the energy of the moment.

Hello, I have been doing internal alchemy practice, Qigong as well as Tai chi, Bagua, Xingyi for the past 4 years diligently and I feel very lucky to have come across my teachers and the knowledge I have learned by doing these practices. I am going to talk about my experiences to a group of people as a guest speaker at a self - development workshop run by a friend in less than a month or so and although I know enough about the male aspect of sexual energy transmutation to talk about it and answer questions, I would greatly appreciate it if any women on this website could offer me some descriptions of their experiences and what they have learnt doing this type of practice? Thanks Kadesdes

Hi guys, Just wondering if anyone has had the experience of "water" dripping inside the forehead? I have been doing Qigong for years now and this feeling that I got is congruous with what my teacher has described to me in regards to what happens when energy circulates the body and becomes refined. It basically felt like a vortex accumulated in my forehead and then the pressure was released through a dripping tap. This also reminds me of what I suspect about subtle anatomy in that there are bodies within bodies in an organism existing simultaneously yet in different dimensions.

I think we all need to be aware that we are all talking about the same "meditative state" - some of us may not be talking about the same thing or have experienced it the same way. To me it feels I am in that state all of the time to varying degrees (or rather we all are shifting, but some are so distracted by the world and drama they rarely see it) - it is the state within which all things happen - the space, the stage upon which all occurs and emanates from. Problems arise when we forget we are this space and become seduced by the allure of the play, the movie, the drama, the 10 000 things. We begin to think we are this or that specific thing and take things personally. The world contracts and the contradictions, conflicts and misery arises until we return to the emptiness. Initially you may need a specific practise to jump start the process but ultimately it is a non - doing, no effort, an allowing, an embracing all that is.

There are some courses you can do online, although it is best to learn from a teacher in person I did this introductory course I found and found it helpful as an adjunct to what I do: http://www.leeholden.com/

I think that the answer needs to be looked at in a relative sense. In the absolute - all that is - energy is infinite. I am not using the word "Qi" because "Qi" is the name that we give to energy in a specific form as defined relatively from our perspective - all energy changes from one state into another. From the perspective of a mortal organism, if qi is keeping it alive and the inevitable fate of the organism is to die, then that means that qi is limited without considering into the equation specific practices to increase qi. Having said this the qi isn't really "lost" or the organism "dies" but rather the various energy components required to assemble the physical and mental entity that is a specific form of organism disperses and loses form to be recycled. I suspect that the ability to "store" and build up qi is potentially limitless if an organism can find a way to push those limits.

Hello, I have been practicing taiji and qigong for the past 4 years and I can definitely say that taiji is wonderful for developing body and energy awareness but it is actually, in my experience, the long way to do it. I learnt from a Taoist master martial qigong for developing energy and also for internal alchemy and I can safely say that although martial arts and self - defence were once my primary goal, qigong and energy cultivation are actually primary and without even trying, your ability to do taiji and defend yourself naturally develop, and you can encourage that more if you wish to do so by doing martial art specific qigong or taiji movements. The most important thing that I learned from my teacher is that taiji tends to use too many different movements which get in the way of energy cultivation because the energy changes too much too often. Think of it like sharpening a knife: you want to stick to the same movement pattern for a substantial period of time to get somewhere and this is why my teacher's additional martial art movements that work in conjunct with the foundation qigong practice are simple and repetitive, done over and over and over again. After giving this system a genuine go for these past few years just doing the repetitive qigong cultivation movements made me better and better at doing the taiji form (I learnt taiji and bagua from another teacher) to the point where I only do the full taiji form maybe once a month or so and each day I might do snippets of the form just for fun or for a warm - up. The taiji form just feels more awesome each time I do with minimal taiji form specific practice and just focusing on energy cultivation through qigong.

Yes that is true - I have noticed over the years practising consistently that all aspects of the practice become refined and a cumulative effect occurs that is lost if you cannot commit enough and have enough discipline to allow it to arise.

Something that I wonder though is whether this process is happening even if I cannot feel it. I have only experienced this two times but I assume when I felt it, it wasn't so much that it started happening for the first time but rather I saw a glimpse into another aspect of my anatomy that I usually am not tuned to.