Aeran

That's fair enough, although if those are the dealbreakers for you, you're going to have a very hard time finding any system of qigong, meditation or energetic style practice with which you're comfortable. Which is fine I think mostly_empty summed it up pretty well, but my own thoughts on the matter are roughly: a.) So are a lot of things, some good, some bad. I don't see this as a factor either way. But if you're looking to fit into some conceptualization of "the mainstream" then yeah, Qigong probably isn't going to make that easier, and FP is admittedly a little more "out there" than a lot of systems. b.) If you read what Sifu Terry has posted in the FP thread over the years, most of it can be pieced together. Not all of it though, and if you're after an explanation which fits into the current Western scientific consensus, you'll be disappointed. c.) My experience (which is by no means extensive in the scheme of things) is that the phenomena you're describing about are the consequences of the deeper internal changes worked by the FP meditations. They're generally pleasant, and useful as indications that what is supposed to be happening is happening, but that's mostly it. For what it's worth, in roughly a year and change worth of regular FP practice (and more irregular practice before that), I've yet to experience any effects that haven't ultimately turned out to be beneficial, although some of them were uncomfortable or unnerving at the time I was first experiencing them. But yeah, if you're not up for some weird and "out there" experiences, you might want to look elsewhere

I'm going to drop the quote format, since at this point I think it will just bloat my post excessively. - Your experiences of the energy on a "tactile" level sound very similar to mine, except that to me it does not seem to, in the course of normal practice, create a sensation of heat. There are two exceptions, the first is a very mild warmth, more a "glow" than a "heat," in the LDT during MHPearl or meditations which use the same hand positioning, and times when the meditations are seemingly having some kind of specific cleansing or purifying effect (I experienced this quite heavily when I first started practising, and again recently in response to some specific health problems - when I addressed the latter by changing my diet, the strong heat during practice disappeared almost overnight). But the energy itself, in the course of regular practice, doesn't usually feel intrinsically "hot." That said, it does feel "fiery" during certain meditations, or especially when it accumulates in large quantities after particularly intensive practice, but like a "heat-less fire," if that makes any sense. I know it sounds a little contradictory, but there you go. The closest physical sensation I can relate it to is that which you get when you quickly run your finger through a candle flame, able to feel the flame itself over your skin, but not holding it still and thus not letting it burn you. By contrast, the Qi I feel from most other systems of cultivation seems to have a more "electromagnetic" feel to it, for lack of a better word. - The question of secrecy v. openness is a complicated one, and my views are no doubt coloured by the heavy emphasis on secrecy in the Western Hermetic tradition where I started out. Drilled into me by books and teachers and online communities right next to the importance of visualisation was the Four Powers of the Sphinx, "To Know, to Dare, to Will and To Be Silent." I saw the exact interpretation of this debated endlessly, but I also saw the harm it caused. The confusion it created in aspirants, who were exposed to conflicting metaphysical concepts and denied concrete examples to help them sort the real from the absurd. The paranoia it created in students and practitioners, who were left constantly wondering if their experiences, or their lack of certain experiences, were normal or desirable or safe, if their goals were realistic or even attainable, but feeling unable to reach out to other practitioners and describe what was happening for guidance, and lacked other pre-existing examples to reassure them. The teachers who used secrecy as a cover for allowing implicit assumptions to buttress the reality of their achievements and inflate their public profile, or hid abuses or failures beneath it. I think these are murky issues that everyone has to navigate for themselves and ultimately come to their own conclusion on, but I don't think either extreme is healthy and I do think that the current culture in these communities generally leans too far towards secrecy (although this is shifting - for the better imo). I also think that context is important, and that sharing select experiences in a small subsection specifically for practitioners of a certain system in a relatively small community specifically for people interested in such systems of cultivation, is very different from shouting from the metaphorical rooftops about healing energies and blue lights and psychic experiences and visionary encounters. But I also agree that there are certain things which one should be careful about because you can then "pre-load" expectations, which is why I do reserve discussion of a lot of the effects of I get from FP for private correspondences. I think we just have to do the best we can to strike the right balance on a case by case basis. Even on your end, you have no qualms about discussing some things - in certain places, even talking about energy sensations and "golden lights" and such would be verboten. So it seems like it's a question of degree, no? And respectfully, I don't think your story about your MCO experience backs up your point. The way I read it, you had a teacher who did exactly what you're advocating, withholding descriptions of specific sensations which indicated attainment, and it sounds like at the least this didn't prevent you hurting yourself and, quite frankly, it also sounds like it possibly egged you on. And there are potentially other factors - was he teaching a proper method of opening the MCO? Was he teaching that method properly? Was he monitoring your practice and progress with sufficient attentiveness? These all seem at least as important to me as whether you received a description of what to expect or not. Personally, the relative degree of openness (and it is only relative, I know I'm not the only one who reserves a lot for private discussions) which has evolved in this thread over the years is a large part of the appeal to me. If that isn't the case for you, then share what you feel comfortable sharing, and let others do the same. I think that's all you can expect of any informal discussion group. - I still have an extremely hard time imagining your dream experiences, but it sounds like you have an equally hard time imagining the visual experiences I described last night. Such is life, I guess. The metaphor of reading doesn't really work for me, because I can't even think of a certain book, let alone remember or read specific passages from it, without it creating correlating mental imagery. - Regarding your sense that people took your account of the speed at which you practised to be boasting, all I can say without a link to the specific section of the thread where the exchange took place is that there honestly isn't any speed at which someone could describe their practice which I would personally totally disbelieve, since I know the degree to which the movements and breathing slow down during the course of the FP meditations even without conscious effort, let alone when striving for the "speed of a shifting sand dune" as instructed. The only exception would be if someone with no meditation/yoga/IMA experience claimed to be performing extremely long and slow sets, and even then primarily because like any other system, you can only practice for as long as you can comfortably maintain the posture and movement, and while the meditations might slow down movement quickly, they don't allow effortless holding of postures or repetition of movements without the concomitant physical strain. But that's obviously not the case here.

I think this issue confuses everyone at some stage or another. I don't know either, and I've seen multiple debates between long term and attained practitioners of various esoteric traditions arguing one side or the other (or somewhere between, or some third point involving the regular visual faculty being enhanced - I've read speculation involving the development of the structure of the eye to allow it to perceive a wider spectrum of input and the like). Ultimately I suspect the distinction becomes meaningless, but arguably, every distinction becomes meaningless in the long run, so that answer is of no help to either of us :/ I too would be very interested in Sifu Terry's input on the subject, but I'm also fairly sure his current schedule at Eastover is jam packed, so we might be waiting a while to hear it I would be interested in hearing more about what you do experience, particularly what the "Qi manifestations" are like for you. I've found that while Qi has always been primarily a phenomenon of "feeling," it very quickly takes on visual aspects, either literally (where it appears in certain visual forms in either the minds eye, or in the real world as a part of my regular visual experience) or in a more abstract sense (where I come to mentally associate certain colours and visual imagery with certain "energy sensations"). That said, this could be related to the fact that I cut my metaphysical teeth in Western Hermetics, where visualisation is emphasised strongly, and very often taught as a prerequisite skill to more advanced practices (a lot of my first year or two of meditation was spent forming various coloured geometric shapes in my mind's eye ) As an example, since I had this topic on my mind when practising earlier, I performed a fairly long session of Bending the Bows when I got home tonight. As I started the breathing sequence, my visual field behind my eyes took on a distinct blue-ish hue, and moving further into the sequences I started seeing sparks of blue flickering and flaring behind my eyelids. This died down after I finished the sequence, and the first 10 minutes or so of the meditation were fairly devoid of visual content (not unusual for BTB - I find other meditations like MGAM far more stimulating on this count). Around what felt like the 10 - 15 minute mark, I started noticing that I could perceive a blue visual outline of my arms as they moved up and down into and out of my field of vision. As the meditation continued, this outline started to swirl and expand and take on a purple/pinkish tinge for a while, sometimes merging entirely when my hands came close to each other, and at other times I would see a white shape matching my limbs on the inside of the blue outline, and I found occasionally that when I held the hands in front of my eyes in the "MGAM position" I would start to see a swirling blue vortex right in the center of my field of vision. When I finished the meditation I found that I could still see a distinct blue outline around my limbs, and now able to move and look around, I noticed I could see it around my entire body if I looked down. Sometimes it would flare out into a wider "aura" shape, although not to the extent that it did during the actual meditation, and sometimes the white outline of my limbs would flash briefly. To see what effect any environmental light might have been having on the experience, I shut off all the lights in my room and got it as close to pitch black as possible (which is pretty close), but this only enhanced the effect and allowed it to continue with my eyes open, at which point I also noticed almost electric looking flashes of white-blue flaring off my fingertips (I have no idea if these were a product of a metaphysical visual faculty or something which would have been visible to an onlooker, although I suspect the former). ...and then I went inside and cooked some fish for dinner (normally I don't go into this kind of explicit detail about the "cool but weird" side of the training, since there seems to be a taboo against discussing these kinds of personal experiences in online spiritual communities, one which has become ingrained within me despite myself. Perhaps Earl Grey's cheerfully flagrant disregard for this silly convention in his last post has inspired me ) See, that sounds quite bizarre and surreal to me, because my dreams are very visual experiences (in fact I'd describe them as primarily visual). It's usually my memory of the visual aspect of a dream which remains the most coherent and sticks with me the longest, followed at a distant second by specific sounds and phrases. I have the most difficulty retaining a sense of the passage of time and narrative structure, although this aspect has become far more coherent since I started practicing FP and, especially, since I started practicing assorted MSW meditations before bed. I have only the vaguest conception of what it would be like to remember a dream without retaining any visuals - in fact it doesn't really sound like what I would consider dream retention at all. Any chance you could try to describe it in more detail? You've piqued my curiosity now. I was actually thinking about your post earlier and wondering about the question of psychedelics. That's possibly straying a bit too far afield for this thread though, but I might hit you up in PM for more details tomorrow. Anyway, I fully intend to get back to you on the other points you raised in your post, but it's getting on here, so I'll have to do so later, hopefully tomorrow morning. But I had this subject on my mind quite strongly when I was doing my BTB session earlier, so I wanted to address that particular point while it was fresh in my mind.

DSCB57, For my part, I think it sucks that you've felt rejected somehow by the conversation in this thread, but I honestly don't think you should take it to reflect anything about you as an individual, and I certainly can't imagine any reason someone would actively "resent" your contributions. There are a lot of reasons that a certain post or series of posts might not get the level of response you were hoping for, and if you link to specific examples I'd be happy to try and both evaluate why that might be and to rectify it to whatever ability I have (I'm currently typing on my tablet, and trying to navigate back through long discussions on this thing is a nightmare, especially since the browser likes to crash whenever I open more than two tabs simultaneously). Personally, I've also had plenty of times where I've posted long, thought-out pieces of content, sometimes things which I'm quite invested in, and not received a reply, or the level of response I hoped for or expected, both in this thread and in other locations. Partly this is just the nature of the internet as a medium. A bit of seeming arbitrariness comes with the limits of a time delayed, remotely-located, text-based medium. Partly it's that this thread is, at the end of the day, a community of sorts, even if a very loose-knit, free-flowing kind. This doesn't mean that new members are unwelcome, far from it, but it does mean that regulars are going to get receive more frequent and detailed communication - not necessarily because of their personal traits or virtues as posters, or any lack thereof, but simply because communities are built on repeated interaction and reciprocity. If I see a post from someone like Earl Grey or Tao Stillness (to name the first two regular and recent contributors to come to mind), then I know that if I reply to it, my response will very likely receive a reply in turn, and engender an exchange of ideas and experiences which will benefit all participants and the tone of the dialogue here in general. This is because they've been posting regularly for a while now and we've had these kinds of exchanges before. There's also a degree of shared experience as practitioners have been moving through the same system of training over a shared period of time which creates common ground and makes discussion and exchanges flow more easily. On the flip side, to provide a counter example that I think proves the point, Sifu Terry made an excellent post in reply to my discussion with him about sleep and training, and I've gone two weeks without responding to it (admittedly, feeling somewhat guilty ). This obviously has nothing to do with my opinions of Sifu Terry or the content of his post. It's a combination of the fact that I've had an insanely chaotic 2 weeks which hasn't allowed for much time on forums (and that I spend less time on daobums in general these days than I once did), that I've been experimenting with different ways of implementing the advice and concepts he discussed into my training, and that I want to make sure I sit down and do his post justice in my reply, and I haven't had the chance to do that yet due to aforementioned personal business and focus on training. Point being, sometimes the level of response you get really doesn't have anything to do with you or your posts. Obviously I didn't neglect to reply to Sifu Terry because I dislike him or felt his post was somehow unworthy. I'm not trying to be dismissive, since I've been in exactly your position in other communities and know the feeling very well, just saying that the lesson I took away from that experience was that sometimes it really isn't you - don't overthink it Anyway I was sincere in my offer to try my best to respond to any particular posts you feel have been neglected if I can offer insight into their content, so if you read this feel free to reply with links or to PM them to me and I'll get back to you (although I can't guarantee I'll be immediate doing so, my life has mellowed in the last couple days, but I still have a backlog of correspondences and, as I said, simply don't spend as much time online as I once did). Regarding the rest of your post, three points: - "because the bliss experience interferes with my inner dialogue, and I have no way to remember which breath I am on and often have to start over" I have the exact same experience, and I can state for a fact that I have fairly vivid and active (excessively, from the complaints of my old school teachers) visual and imaginary faculties, so I'm not sure that this one is related to your aphantasia. I find that the breath sequences cause me to sink into mental quiet incredibly quickly, and that it's a bit of a tight-rope act maintaining enough concentration to remember where I'm up to in the breathing sequence. For a decent chunk of time I'd get lost and have to restart probably every second or third meditation. As an interesting aside, a side effect of this is that I simply cannot practice FP while listening to certain pieces of music, because they draws my attention in a way which breaks this tight-rope concentration instantly. I tried practising to Glass's Metamorphosis once, a piece of music I otherwise enjoy, and it ruined my attention so thoroughly that I took I think 3 attempts to get through the breath sequence, and even then it was an ordeal to try and relax and go through with the meditation with the music playing. On the other hand, lately I've been obsessed with practising to Clint Mansell's soundtrack for The Fountain, and I have no idea why one would destroy my concentration while the other immediately calms and relaxes me and enhances my FP meditation experience, despite not being massively dissimilar pieces of music (to my amateur understanding). - You've got me curious, how on earth is such a condition recognised and diagnosed? And what is dreaming like for you? - I hope you keep posting, if only because I'm very interested in what happens when you reach the stage in your FP practice where most people start experiencing fairly intense and consistent visual phenomenon. I don't know how heavily you've trained so far, but I know that meditations such as MGAM and MSW1 engender all kinds of interesting visual experiences form me, both open and closed eyed and during and after the meditations, and I'm definitely neither the longest nor most consist practitioner here. Likewise, to tie back to my earlier question about dreaming, the MSW meditations have a profound effect on my dreams, and if your dream experience is in fact different as a result of aphantasia (as I imagine it must be), I'd be interested to know how your experiences of these effects of the meditations are also different. In summary, please keep posting, if only to satisfy my selfish curiosity And again - don't overthink it.

Thanks It's constantly blowing my mind all the cool and diverse stuff this system can do, and I'm only scratching the surface. Interestingly, I was just thinking on my way home tonight that I should give MSW2 a go as part of my evening practice, so I'll go ahead with that tonight. There is actually one interesting potential caveat to what I wrote earlier which I'd be keen for your thoughts on: I've noticed over the last couple nights that the effects of MSW4 on sleep seem to be delayed if I use it as to finish off a much longer session of training. The improved sleep quality and transition into sleep is still there, but it takes an hour or two to kick in. eg. last night I went possibly overboard (if such a thing exists ), after doing some non-BFP Qigong, Taiji and TTP cane I did Guardian at the Gates - Wind Above Clouds - MSW1 - MHPeach - MSW4, then immediately tried to go to sleep. I finished this routine somewhere around 12:30, but didn't fall asleep until just before 2am. Don't get me wrong, I felt incredible with all that FP Qi humming through my system (seriously incredible - I'm talking energetic super-saturation), but it did seem to need to settle down a bit before the sleep inducing effects of the MSW4 could kick in. Once they did I slept really well though, and woke up feeling brilliant. The night before I went MGAM > MSW1 > MHPearl > MSW4 > bed, and that time it took maybe 50 minutes or so to sleep after. Again, sleep transition and quality were still great. Anyway I feel this calls for experimentation - tonight I'm going to make a point of wrapping up all my other practices by 10:30, relax and read for an hour, do MSW4 at 11:30, then get in bed by midnight and see how that plays out. It's also possible that the non-FP meditations are influencing things, or the Taiji/TTP Cane, since I usually do those in a separate session earlier in the afternoon. Will be fun to find out though. Anyway, FP time! I'll bring the stretching up in my next email and see how we can fit it in.

I wouldn't stress about it too much at this stage. If you had to get the breathing exactly right from the very beginning, nobody would ever be able to do it. Just do your best, stop and restart if it feels off or you do something obviously way off the mark (skip/repeat a breath, forget a number, accidentally go for a different %, etc). A few things I've found that have helped a lot: sit and allow your breathing to steady for a minute or two before initiating the opening 3 breaths, try and keep your breathing stable (mine always wants to deepen as I move further into the breath sequence, which can get confusing), and most importantly, I find it much easier to measure the breath by taking into account the movement of my abdomen in and out instead of relying purely on timing it or measuring the flow of air in/out of my nostrils. Good luck.

I don't know if it's something that people "necessarily" experience, but with the combination of the "blue Qi" cultivated by the FP meditations (which is, as I understand it, essential to the effect of the meditations) and the dramatic effect the FP system has on your ability to perceive Qi in general (although some of the meditations seem to enhance this more than others), if it's something you find unsettling and want to avoid, then you may want to consider a different system of Qigong. In my experience, it's something that popped up pretty quickly. Actually it seemed to start out as more of a violet with a pinkish tinge, and then deepen to a blue over time - I'm not sure why, although I suspect it has to do with increasing levels of the Qi accumulating and/or the fact that I changed my practice to include a more balanced amount of the seated meditations instead of just the standing ones. At least one FP practitioner has said that it's never gone beyond the pink/violet for him, and that he also only practices the Long Form, so I suspect it's the latter and that the MSW meditations serve to "catalyse" the energy in some way (interestingly, Sifu Terry has said that the Long Form can replace the earlier standing meditations, but not the seated ones, which supports this theory imo, but you'd have to ask him). Based on what I've experienced and what others have said, I'd be surprised if you did a well rounded routine of the first 2 DVD's for 6 - 12 months or so and didn't at least start seeing lights behind the eyes during practice, blue visual tracers after training, general outlines of "light" around people and objects, etc. If you really dedicated yourself to the MSW meditations and especially MGAM, I suspect it would happen quite a bit faster. That said, my experience is also that it "does" mostly fade if you stop practising. Maybe there's a point of no return, but I doubt it's early enough that you couldn't stop after your first few times experiencing these phenomena if you decided you were uncomfortable with them. Personally I practised for 3 months the first time around, started experiencing some of these effects, then stopped for over 2 years. During those 2 years I didn't experience any specific FP visual phenomena or sensations of the FP Qi, although I did retain a slight perception of a "glow" around people and plants (Wei Qi field? Aura? Not sure). I'm not sure either way if this is attributable to the FP meditations, I was also doing a lot of Hermetic training at the time, which may have also contributed. Either way, it wasn't something that caused any issues and could be easily ignored if I had wanted to. I'd say you probably want to do some deep introspection about why these phenomena make you uncomfortable before proceeding with FP practice. Although I'd also say that you're going to have a hard time finding a system of Qigong or meditation which "doesn't" result in altered perceptions, energetic sensations and experiences further along that spectrum, if you take it far enough. You can't go swimming without getting wet, and if you go swimming in the ocean you're probably going to see some fish, you know? If you want purely physical health benefits that don't require any recourse to energetic/spiritual mechanics or conceptualisations, you might be better off finding a martial arts teacher or yoga teacher who takes a purely body-mechanics based approach. That's my 2c anyway, I do feel this is really something you should post in the FP thread where you can get some input from Sifu Terry.

Hey Sifu, That might be a bit too extensive, as it is I'm having trouble fitting in all my stretching on top of all the other training but maybe next session we could go over it and you could give me some pointers to help me refine my regimen and shift the focus to where it could use improvement? I know after I worked in the hip stretches you gave me last year it made longer FP sitting meditations vastly easier, but I can still feel a fair bit of tension in my thighs which causes trouble around the 25 - 30 minute mark. I'd like to eventually work up to 1hr+ and maybe full lotus, but one thing at a time I guess... Speaking of sitting, I've moved back into integrating MSW3 (Waker) and MSW4 (Sleeper) as morning and evening practices respectively, and the results are amazing. Sleeper is especially dramatic, I think I've yet to practice it and not manage to drop off to sleep within 30 or 40 minutes - usually it's all I can do to put my meditation mat away and crawl under the blankets before I'm out like a light. As a nice side bonus, my dreams have become noticeably vivid and pleasant each night. As a lifelong insomniac and generally unhappy sleeper, this is a pretty incredible shift. I've stopped taking herbal sleeping aids I needed previously and don't dread going to bed each night. Mind-blowing stuff. MSW3 (Waker) is an interesting one. A bit more subtle, for sure. At first I was expecting a caffeine-esque jolt of energy, given how dramatic the effects of MSW4 are, and I spent a while waiting for this to happen. So far it hasn't, but what I have noticed is that my energy levels have steadied out a lot during the day. I no longer get a mid-afternoon slump, or if I do it's less dramatic, and for the last week or so I've noticed that it seems to create a kind of low key driving "buzz" of FP Qi which circulates through the body and keep me going during the day. So maybe more of a "sleep preventer" than a "waker" - I definitely wouldn't want to try and go back to sleep after doing it. I am interested to see how this effect evolves over time - I've noticed that the other FP meditations become more powerful the more you practice them (and sometimes develop new effects entirely), so it's possible the energizing effect will enhance over the coming weeks and months. The end result is that I'm going to sleep at the same time each night and waking up at the same time each morning, give or take an hour my circadian rhythm is actually stable. Sleep has become a nice period of rest between meditations, instead of a source of stress and frustration. Again, I can't state how big a difference this is. I've even started losing the shadows under my eyes I've had as long as I can remember. Anyway TLDR: If any other FP people have a history of sleep trouble, give this combo a shot. I've tried probably every major treatment protocol for insomnia, and some not-so-major ones, but this is the first that's actually worked comfortably. I'm really damn stoked.

I wonder if the poor government analysts found those old More Pie threads as frustrating as everybody here did?

Yeah for sure get some stretching going - even a short session every day has made a huge difference over time for me, and it's also a really good warmup for Qigong. The stretch I'm talking about is the "Spinal Wave" stretch in chapter 5. As the name implies, it's brilliant for the spine too, but I've found it really opens up the pelvis on top of that.

That sounds like a good resolution Flexibility in the legs and hips is still a work in progress for me, but I have come a pretty huge way with it in the last year or so. The 3 major contributing factors are probably BTB as I mentioned earlier, A set of really good stretches Sifu Terry taught me in one of our skype sessions and a combo of a really basic but highly effective hip stretch with the "sung breathing" technique from Damo Mitchell's Daoist Nei Gong.

That's awesome dude Interestingly, I just decided to branch out a bit further and started integrating MGAM into my practice, so it's almost a bit of a trade haha (and yeah, MHPearl is amazing before bed, gets you right into those deep, super-relaxed states which drifts fairly effortlessly into a great sleep). If you want things to get really interesting, do MSW1 then MGAM back to back. The last two nights I've done this combo, 20 min of MSW1 followed by 10m of MGAM (I tried for more but the arm pain is real! going to have to build up to it). I don't want to spoil it for other people or create preconceived expectations, but the results from this combo are... intense (the good kind) Another random thing which I've noticed developing in my practice is a desire to make sure I include something from the whole spread of meditations (that is to say, standing and seated, and moving and still) each day. So if I only have time for 2 meditations, I can, eg. do BTB followed by BS#3. Or if I start out with a long relaxed MHPearl, I follow it with a MSW or BS#2 (I need to do some more work on BS#1 - would probably help with building up stamina for the MGAM arm posture as well). Either way I definitely come out of a session feeling better if I check off all 4 of those categories. I'm not sure where I picked this up, but it seems like a sound principle, so I stick with it.

For what it's worth, I've stuck with the "JUST DO IT" approach since I properly dedicated myself to the FP training a year ago and I found very quickly that the mind and body seem to develop an intuitive leaning towards certain meditations depending on what they need. With the exception of some nudging by Sifu Terry towards a couple meditations in particular and some experimentation just to get a taste for some of the later exercises, I've allowed this intuitive sense to guide my practice and found it extremely effective. I went through a long stretch at the beginning where I practiced almost exclusively with BS#3 and MHPearl and found this addressed some deep seated postural issues I didn't know I had, significantly improved my mental state and overall health and made for an easy transition into a phase where I added in MSW1 and BTB. MHPearl also seems to do an amazing job at building something of a "resorvoir" of FP Qi within the lower Dantien (accompanied by some rather incredible sensations and effects after a few months). Likewise, BTB in particular has been something of a miracle meditation for me, since it's both done an incredible job of loosening up some extremely long held and progress-impeding tension in the hips and lower spine, and with improving overall internal health through what feels like a circulation of the FP Qi up and down the torso and head. Cool - if maybe gross - story: last August I had a rather nasty flu/cough for a few weeks, but I found that not only would the coughing stop as soon as I started any FP meditation, but that immediately (literally, within seconds of the third closing breath of the meditation) after ending every session of BTB, I would run to the sink and proceed to cough up nasty chunks of phlegm, after which my lungs would feel much better and I'd stop coughing at all for several hours. Talk about cleansing... Anyway I'm possibly rambling a bit because I'm still feeling a bit buzzy after tonight's training but I guess what I'm trying to say is: I've found it really helps if you don't overthink it too much As someone who tends to overthink compulsively, this aspect of the FP system has been a real blessing once I managed to embrace it. I still find myself gnawing over the exact hows and whys of the system once in a while, but at least it doesn't interfere with the practice (in fact the desire for greater understanding of the mechanics through direct experience provides an additional motivator).

Haven't been able to get this out of my head for the last 3 days. Brilliant stuff:

Not to be pedantic, but have you spoken to Sifu Terry or Sifu Hearfield about this? Everything I've read and been told about the Doo family meditations is that not altering the breath sequences is the golden rule, let alone combining two of them into one meditation.

I think if you ask around you'll find that most of the people who practice FP (at least the subset who post here on DB) aren't religious Daoist/Buddhists, but simply integrate concepts from the philosophical branches of those schools of thought into their worldview. And so far, I haven't found this to be a prerequisite in any way to FP practice, just a general trend amongst people who train in Qigong. At least one regular contributor to the FP thread, Ridingtheox, has mentioned that he is a Quaker, and he's I believe one of the more long term practitioners here. We discuss the issue briefly in the FP thread here: https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/?do=findComment&comment=783084 Where it might be tricky with FP specifically is that the oral history of the system is quite firm on the meditations being originally taught to a Daoist monk by an unspecified Goddess on a sacred Buddhist mountain. Given the benign nature of the meditations, I can't imagine that it would cause problems on that end, but you'd have to decide for yourself how comfortable you are, personally, practising meditations which are accounted to have come from a non-Christian spiritual source (and which at least partially tap into an "extra-mundane" source of Qi to induce their effects, as opposed to drawing in/circulating environmental and bodily energies like many systems of Qigong). We actually had an interesting discussion about this a few months ago, regarding spiritual experiences induced by FP practice and whether they were based on the history of the system or on the practitioner's pre-existing notions of the Divine, but never came to any firm conclusions. It might help if you post this in the FP thread directly or contact Sifu Terry via. PM/email and ask him about his experience in the matter - given how many people he's taught, it seems likely that a Catholic or two number among them. I hope you find the answer to your question

Well I think at the least we can all agree that this probably belongs in another thread... Happy NY to all the FP people around the world (and, of course, Sifu Terry) - here's to another year of practice

Not in any way pertinent to Daoism, I just happen to think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I've come across in recent memory:

Looks interesting - ordered a copy. Thanks for the heads up

This. Herbs are a case-by-case thing. A few years back I studied under a teacher who pushed He Shou Wu to all of his students as a supplement to the practices he was teaching, and quite a few had bad reactions. I personally stopped taking it after 3 or 4 doses because it would make me feel cramped up, exhausted and depressed. I mentioned this to my Taiji teacher a few months later and he said that it was "far too cold" for my energetic makeup.

^ I'm curious, what's your reasoning for placing The Fool at Kether instead of Malkuth? I didn't study Tarot or Kabbalah much even when I was working in the Hermetic tradition, so maybe it's something obvious I'm missing, but I'd love to hear more detail about your work at connecting those two systems up to Daoist cosmology. Tying back to early discussion about quiet sitting, I just had a pretty amazing session. I did MHPearl and MSW1 before bed last night - slept like a baby with some very interesting dreams, then when I woke up I started the day with my usual 20 minute quiet sitting before getting out of bed. About half way through, my arms started shaking and feeling uncomfortable resting on my thighs, so I lifted them up and let them move around to try find a better position, and ended up running through a couple rounds of the "circling the ball" and then "willow hand" postures from the MSW meditations. After a few minutes of this they seemed to have worked out whatever energy circulation was going on, and my left hand drifted up to the side of my head while the right hand moved down hovering over my knee, somewhat like those traditional Baphomet images you see (although the right hand stayed facing down, and the palms were open). It's not a hand posture I've ever used before, or even especially paid attention to, but it just felt like that's where the body wanted to rest, so I left it there until the session ended. Whatever was going on definitely got some juice following - my whole body was tingling by the time I stood up. Even now I feel incredible, just sitting here typing this. FPCK never ceases to amaze

Sorry, I should have clarified - when I said seek out trained help, I didn't mean the Western doctor's you've already hit up. I tried that route too, and they were utterly useless. I meant something like a good TCM/Ayurvedic doctor, herbalist, Qigong healer, etc. Someone experienced with cultivation and working outside the materialist/reductionist paradigm of mainstream medicine. For example, one of the people I mentioned earlier who helped me enormously is Eric Isen, who Earl Grey mentioned. I'd highly recommend getting in touch with him and making an appointment, my health and my progress at getting my cultivation practice back on track have improved exponentially since I started working with him.

I think I did a poor job of summarising what the book says, it's been over a year since I read White Moon. But I did flick through it on my phone quickly yesterday and came across discussion of "reversing the course" more than once. And it seems likely to me that stabilizing the jing and making it's conversion to Qi more efficient (ie. preserving jing by getting the same amount of Qi from less Jing) would be the first step towards cultivating/replenishing Jing. I know he speaks about cultivation and restoring acquired Jing, but I think the congenital Jing is the tricky part. But like I said, I'm definitely no expert. Of course it's just a book, so it's unlikely that the big ultra-secret teaching you seem to be seeking is going to be found there, but if you're looking for a good investigation of these subjects founded on practical experience, I think it'd be worth checking out. It's your money though

With respect to the people posting suggestions in this thread, my advice would be to avoid a grab-bag approach of trying different exercises recommended from different sources on the internet. I was in a loosely similar situation (not in terms of symptoms, but in terms of experiencing chronic health issues after a negative experience occurred during cultivation type practices) several years ago, and I made posts like this on multiple forums, and received pages of well meaning advice, and gained very little from any of it. I only started making progress once I had in-depth consultations with a few different experts, explained my situation and my wider circumstances in-depth, and then followed their treatments and advice. People mean well, but I honestly don't think enough information can be conveyed on an internet forum to allow anyone to successfully evaluate what might be wrong with you, let alone suggest a proper course of treatment. Good luck.

Have you read Damo Mitchell's books? He talks in depth about the relationship between jing/qi/shen, stabilizing the jing, increasing the efficiency of the jing > qi > shen conversion, and so forth. I wouldn't attempt to try and summarise his explanations personally, but I'd highly recommend checking them out if you're interested in the topic, especially Daoist Nei Gong and White Moon on the Mountain Peak. The latter in particular goes into a fair bit of depth on the subject of Jing > Qi conversion and the relationship between congenital/acquired jing/qi, since it's focused on the early/intermediate stages of Nei Dan.