Budokha

You have given us little to go on regarding your practice.

You do not need to visualize nor do you need to know considerable theory - Qi Gong is not difficult - it is difficult to find a practitioner that is ready to simply do the practice without their personality having to spice it up with blocking clutter.

Breath into the LDT and do the movements - breathing into the LDT in each inhale.

The MCO requires zero effort - it will arise very well with no coaxing - simply practice.

For quite some time a teacher will only need to point out simple fine points - the more a teacher fills your mind the less is his teaching.

Root your feet in practice - it is nice you are feeling the tips of your toes and fingers - everything you mentioned in so far as feeling is very good.

The manipulation is dangerous and unnecessary - and a reflection of a lesser teaching. However for those that like the rabbits way - manipulation and short cuts get quick "results" and who knows - perhaps the apparent holy grail of lighting a piece of paper on fire.

You will progress quickly enough given what you already feel without any effort but the effort of diligent practice.

As you progress, before each session and frequently throughout the day - ask that you drop your bad habits, judgements, unnatural patterns and mind looping.

All the very best to you.

. As far as my practice I breath into LTT until I get warmth then I Focus Mingmen until it's warm, then focus back to LTT and try to condense a chi ball. All using Buddhist breathing. Then I lead the chi through MCO and finish at LTT. My goals are to build chi to circulate and work on discovering any blockages. Im studying Bagua and will begin circle walking soon so I'm trying to lay a foundation for that practice and prepare for fa jing training. Thus far I'm using Healing Tao USA practices for my still work but I have reservations about it and have read the criticism of it here. I feel the Inner Smile,Six Healing Sounds, and MCO are good but the fusion and the kan/ki practices require too much visualization for me. I'm searching for a core complete nei gong system that fits for me and I'm not in a hurry. I'm just making some positive life changes here and shifting my martial arts from external to internal. If my words come off as self judgement, I'm just being honest with myself and I'm seeking to understand these concepts in depth. Any good nei gung systems in Chicagoland? Thank you all!

I don't want to be too glib here, but Bruce's material is wrong, or at least, it has very little to do with traditional Daoist methods. 

If you want to learn Daoist meditation, there are basically three major routes:

1) Zuo Wang: sitting and forgetting.  This is fairly easy to do and I'm sure the major document "Zuo Wang Lun" has been translated to English.

2: Cun Xiang:  visualization.  This practice is fairly complex and quite varied by school.  You really need a teacher to learn it properly and it can be quite dangerous if you get it wrong.

3: Nei Dan:  internal elixir is the best meditation method in Daoism, but again, it is a good idea to have a teacher.   Although Neidan practice is really easy, it takes considerable knowledge of theory and really isn't like any other meditation method out there, so knowing other methods won't really help you at first.

 

My suggestion would be to either count your breaths or simply listen to your breath and feel it coming and going from your lungs.  the most important basic is to become undifferentiated and empty, so following the breath and then forgetting the breath is a great way to start.   I also think that paying attention to Laozi's tenth chapter is a very good way to understand some of the basics of meditation. 

Basically, quite doing Bruce and Mantak's stuff right away, it is not based in any traditional Daoist ideas and both of them have had a bad track record in regards to hurting students in the past (I personally know people who have been injured by Mantak's methods)

That you for the advice as this is a difficult subject to navigate.

I began to study Daoism about 15 years ago and discovered I didn't have the maturity/patience for the practice even though I got some results. Now I'm 41 and I feel I do have these qualities. My LTT and MCO were at least mildly open. I got back to meditation 6 weeks ago and have been diligent. I'm unclear concerning LTT storage and refinement. I get heat and pulsing after a very short time of focus there as well as a breathing sensation. Lately the pulsating has travelled to my fingers and toes. I get twitching at many Locations. In my LTT it's more like a blob of heat and I'm trying to shape it into a pearl and compress it but it's not cooperating. I'm not clear on the sensation of storing or refining. BK Frantzis's book suggests its months before any storing takes place so I need some advice here. I get warmed up then run MCO and it feels ok there are some spots that feel like a trickle of flow and I'm spending time getting them to pulse and it's slowly coming along. I definitely feel like I get chi flow I'm just not sure I keep it.

I'm a seasoned martial artist now getting into baguazhang and Taoist nei gung. I've taken classes from Michael Winn @ healing Tao USA in the past and own a decent library on internal arts and qigong. I'm interested in guidance through these internal experiences.