freeform

I can try. Often people say you shouldn’t use muscle force in Qigong - but that’s not strictly true. The idea is to relax as much as possible the tension of your muscles before you collapse on the floor in a flaccid heap So if you have strong muscles with let’s say 1000 muscle fibres under a very low tension then it’ll hold you up. If you have 100 muscle fibres though, it will take a lot of tension to still hold you up. Tension is the enemy. It stops Qi and it stops you accessing your ‘insides’. So this applies to the start of building the foundation. What happens over time is that as you relax the major muscles as much as possible, you’ll begin to engage the deeper postural muscles that tend to be deeper in the body. For example when we hold a plank in Qigong, we try to relax the glutes, the stomach and big muscles in the back, and instead try to engage the smaller muscles all around the spine. At first both the postural and movement muscles will all be triggered at the same time. But over time with standing they begin to separate. As the postural muscles get stronger and stronger, you’ll be able to let go further the bigger outer muscles. And there’s another aspect which is the ‘soft tissues’ - this is the network of fascia, tendons, connective tissues that run through your entire body (including organs, bones etc). In Daoist internal arts these are known as the Jing Jin lines. These are the ‘channels’ as used in all the internal arts. Once these start to literally re-pattern and connect in the correct way through Qigong and standing practice, they’ll join your postural muscles in supporting and moving your body. This takes a long time. But this is where the body starts to get very springy, stretchy, elasticated. Your strength actually goes through the roof even though your main muscles won’t be engaged much at all. So the outer big muscles will soften and relax but the deeper muscles and connective tissue will build and get very very strong. They say that a well developed internal arts practitioner has ‘steel covered in cotton’... meaning that inside tissues are extremely strong and thick while the outer muscles will be soft. I remember when I was developing this at my teacher’s house. One day he decided that he didn’t like where one of his stone statues was positioned in the courtyard... Bear in mind just a month earlier I saw four sweaty workers carry this thing in on a wooden pallet. It took all four of them and the use of ropes and harnesses to position it into place... But my teacher (quite short, a little chubby guy in his 50’s) hugged the statue, picked it up and walked it over to its new spot like it was nothing. Then shouted at me for staring instead of practicing 😄

It’s not really a technique as much as an ‘ability’ that you develop over time. In building the foundation you will have cleared blockages and stagnation... this will allow your awareness to penetrate deeper into your body... so your awareness can suffuse into all parts of your body all at once. This is difficult - if you think you can do it straight away, then you’re wrong - look for the error! Normally when junior students tell me they can get their awareness into their full body, I can check - and 100% of the time their awareness is just in their head and they’re imagining everything. By body I mean everything - from top of head to tips of toes - from the hair on your skin to the core of your bones. I’d recommend the following. Sit in good upright posture. Allow the breath to be as it is. Don’t interfere even a bit. Don’t try to breathe from abdomen or anything - allow it to do as it pleases. Using diffuse, relaxed awareness, start to notice the tissues of your nose. Keeping some of your awareness at the nose, move awareness deeper into the sinuses, allow your awareness to penetrate and suffuse into the tissues in your sinuses. Keeping some of your awareness in your nose and sinuses, allow extra awareness to suffuse into the tissues of the back of your throat... And carry on this way going from your nose down through every part of your wind pipe, all parts of both your lungs and your diaphragm. Always adding rather than just moving awareness (so you’ll have just as much awareness left at your nose as all the way deep in your lungs). Your awareness should be soft and passive not focused, intense or ‘searching’... it should be mildly interested but not really... this is Ting. Once all your breathing system is ‘lit up’ with your awareness just keep it there and let the breathing process carry on without any interference. After a few weeks of daily practice, you’ll notice a substantial change in your natural breathing pattern. This is a safe exercise for anyone to do. And despite its apparent simplicity, it can get you really far.

I get it. It makes logical sense... but the reality is that it just doesn’t work that way. Just like in my aeronautical engineering example... of course it makes sense to have a helicopter blade - you can lift off vertically... of course it makes sense to have a hot air balloon - you can cruise at great altitude for ages... of course it makes sense to also have rocket boosters - you can go super fast! But the result is you’d just crash and kill all the passengers. Each path is like a well crafted airplane. They all have different features... they’ll focus on different aspects of air travel... some you’ll just prefer the look of... and yes, some are better than others overall... But you’ll need to pick one aircraft to get into and fly, you won’t do well breaking bits off one plane and bolting them onto another... It’s not like weight lifting - these aren’t ‘exercises’ they are paths of development... You’re clearly sincere and I’m sure you’ll do well. Just remember the advice you’re getting here. I know it’s tempting to think that you know better - I certainly made mistakes like this... but some mistakes you simply can’t bounce back from.

Yes being able to stand in relative ease and comfort for 8hrs is a good indication that you’ve built the Qi Gong body. Having a calm, quiet, long, full and soft breath with no mental control or contrivance is another. Having the ability to absorb your mind effortlessly through your entire body (this is Ting - inner listening) and being able to hold that absorption unwaveringly for as long as you want is another. The way it generally works is body comes first and helps with opening the breath... so breath comes second and helps with quality of mind... and so the unwavering, absorbed mind comes third.

Hi Welkin... So I think we need to talk about ‘dabbling’. You’ve talked about Mo pai breathing, kundalini yoga, flying Phoenix, heavy weight training, Damo Mitchell’s stuff, Hermetics etc. You’re going to need to focus on one thing. It is not the case that doing mo pai breathing while practicing flying Phoenix and doing Hermetics training will give you some extraordinary results. In fact it’s the very opposite. I realise it’s exciting to have all these possibilities in front of you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t explore them, but to actually get anywhere you will need to pick one path and stick to it. The best way to explore is to actually meet people practicing these systems. You’ll get a very good vibe of what each school is like by meeting students and teachers. You can work out which ones seem more compatible and who would you rather turn out like (the nature of this sort of training is that you’ll start to harmonise with the teacher and general ‘personality’ of the school) You can’t combine these things - it just doesn’t work like that... it’s like getting all excited that you got into aeronautical engineering so you put a helicopter blade, a hot air balloon and some rocket boosters on a passenger plane... I’d suggest just make a habit of training something physical every day. Do some basic sitting practice like following your breath (not breath control like you talked about - you will end up hurting yourself). And then explore, talk to people (not just on forums) and see what path you’d like to follow. Once you’ve got a disciplined daily routine (this can be hard to establish) then it will be easy to plug in a more ‘internal’ practice in that time slot.

Practice with trees is a big part of many northern Daoist lineages including Longmen. It’s a good practice. You don’t want to give much direction to the Qi with the mind. Obviously things will move much more powerfully once you’ve built the foundation. But the idea is to connect with the tree and then let it lead... sometimes it will give you ‘energy’ (particularly at night) and a lot of the time it will take your pathogenic Qi and transform it... But there’s not much for you to do other than engage your ‘insides’ and then create the connection - the tree will do the rest... Once the foundations are mostly built, this is not a subtle experience in the least!

Regarding discernment and delusion. I think this is an important thing to touch on. When you start to get into the more energetic aspects of practice, it becomes exciting. You’ll experience unusual stuff and it’s really easy to get carried away. The way I approach my training is not popular. I’m on the lookout for errors. Progress on the path is making less and less errors. And you often need to make the error, before moving on. No error means you’re a fully enlightened immortal - anything other than that is error I’m not focusing on experiences or how well I’m doing or how sensitive I am... I’m generally trying to find out what error can I correct? Of course this this is not all the time - it would drive you nuts, it’s not like it’s a running commentary in my head - but it’s the general attitude I take. My notes that I take after practice are generally talking about things I need to work on - not things I’ve been doing correctly. My questions to my teachers are generally about where I need to improve and what errors I need to correct next. (The answer almost always includes “more Sung”!) It takes a lot of self-honesty to do things this way. But I think it’s a good way of overcoming the potential error of delusion

Yeah - most bodyweight stuff is good. Just watch out for the more ‘extreme’ forms - like muscle ups and Olympic Rings... Animal crawls and ‘flows’ are good for when your Qi Gong body is beginning to connect as it gives you a chance to integrate this inner connection with the more ‘external’ muscles.

Yeah, you’re quite right. Actually there are ‘upside down’ paths in Daoism too. Kunlun being one of them. I trained with Max quite extensively for several years before meeting my more ‘traditional’ teachers. The way Kunlun works is by activating the upper Dantien, receiving a specific ‘seed’ of Ling Qi that then guides and evolves through the basic practice of Zi fa Gong and Red Phoenix. However... If you spend time with Max, it becomes quite clear that that’s not really the full story. Max himself trained in the traditional way that I talk about. Anyone that had had any genuine progress in Kunlun (such as Kan) had also ‘built the foundation’ as I describe above. A good proportion of other students with no foundation just got mired in delusion. Some just burnt out and had breakdowns. Some were fine. I’ve also trained with a Hermetic teacher... yes there’s a certain crossover from the beginning, but just like in Daoism a significant part of the start of the path is working on the physical level. Same thing with LiPing - he can tell when you have a foundation and I’ll just say that you’re treated differently to the other students... People love to know the big inner door secrets... it’s actually all in the foundation!! I’m not saying this for some personal aim. That’s just a fact. In every system I’ve come across (and I spent a significant time doing this stuff full time, all around the world)... the thing that sets you apart as a student is how well you’ve built your foundation.

Just connect to the tree. You don’t actually absorb energy from the tree (if anything it usually ‘absorbs’ energy ‘from’ you)... just harmonise with the quality of the tree... It will help to ‘tune’ your own energy to a certain quality. Different trees will have different qualities. You generally can’t go wrong with a nice straight pine tree. Some individual trees won’t like you and ‘push’ you away 😄

You’ll get tugging elsewhere in the abdomen too. That’s a sign that your mind is engaging the tissues. Keep releasing, don’t ‘look for’ sensations or the location of your Dantien, just rest your diffuse awareness and settle in your lower abdomen - then things will happen of their own accord.

Ok 1) This is quite important - for several reasons. Fitness is important for building Yang in the body. For fitness anything aerobic like running or swimming is good. Strength - particularly in the core of the body is also important. You’ll be creating some very strong forces and internal pressure inside, so you need strength. Also when you strengthen your muscles, it’s actually easier to Sung. A very minimally contracted strong muscle is better than a strongly contracted weak muscle for the purposes of qigong. With strength training for internal arts, I’m afraid that stuff like powerlifting, kettlebells, heavy clubs, lots of pull-ups, Olympic Rings etc are all majorly detrimental to building the Qigong body. What works best is connected, whole-body movements - like the ‘animal crawls’... also core work - like planks and the many variations on them. Unweighted squats are also good. Opening the body - basically stretching and loosening. Particular focus should be on the lower body, shoulders and spine. Also joint mobility stuff - like Scott Sonnon’s Intuflow is good. 2) for finding your insides and 3) building your internal connection - the very best thing I’ve seen available is Damo Mitchell’s Foundations of Qi Gong Practice online video course. 4) building the Dantien - I’m afraid that’s beyond the scope of this thread. Actually this is also a primary aspect of building the foundation - not secondary. And that’s clearing your channels. The reason I can’t say much about it is because it can’t really be ‘taught’ online. In person I’d just activate your Dantien and get your Qi moving and you would generally go through a process called Zi Fa Gong... basically means spontaneous movements. As Qi moves in your body it will hit blockages and as a result produce spontaneous spasms, shaking, flailing about, sometimes shouting, laughing, growling, singing etc. This generally takes half a year to move through if you’re practicing a lot every day. This stage is not really possible without a teacher. Sometimes people start the process off on their own, but they will generally need help to move through it efficiently. Not every system uses this method, but most of the more powerful ones do. All the teachers Pegasus mentioned - I’ve trained with all of them - and they all use Zi Fa Gong. The other part is harmonising your organ and emotional system. This is partly accomplished with particular use of the Zi Fa Gong and partly through different forms of Wuxing Qigong. Now regarding this: That’s true. You can get a lot of ‘experiences’ from both LiPing and some of the other teachers mentioned - without even having a foundation. The difference is that when you have a foundation built, these experiences actually make profound changes in your development. Without the foundation they’ll just be experiences that you’ll remember fondly. I’ve found that with advanced teachers they’ll generally only take on ‘inner door’ students that clearly demonstrate that they’re prepared to make a commitment and take the time and effort needed to build the foundation. Otherwise they’ll just give you a little light show for your money and you’ll leave exhilarated and very happy, but with no actual development.

It’s important to talk about this. I’ve met many hundreds of students... maybe thousands by now. As you can imagine - with that number of people, a proportion of them thought that they are naturally talented or that they’ve somehow gone past ‘the basics’ on their own. Some of them were indeed naturally talented... Some were just deluded... But that’s not important. The important thing is that natural talent doesn’t mean you don’t need to build the foundation. Think of it this way... you’re studying surgery, and you somehow have this natural talent of not being bothered by blood and guts and you have a very steady hand, great dexterity, and a good ability to focus - but does that mean you can just go ahead and perform surgery and skip the rest of the medical degree? Or say you have a naturally athletic build, you’re big, strong, resilient etc - but can you become an Olympic power lifter with no training? Of course not. This is the same with the internal arts. Regardless of talent you still need to build the foundations. Everyone always does. The other issue I mentioned is delusion... sometimes we have experiences that our mind attaches to and uses it as a kind of ego fuel - so we have a genuine experience but then the mind conflates it to mean that you’re somehow extra special. This is quite normal and very common in the internal arts. There is nothing really wrong with that but it does create issues - particularly if you don’t have a teacher to have a word with you and confirm or deny your assumed level of development. For example - one way to confirm that your foundation has been built is to stand in perfect posture, with unwavering Sung and Ting for 8hrs straight (no breaks, obviously)... it should be effortless and deeply relaxing if you’ve built ‘the Qigong body’... And with many internal teachers it is actually the test to see who’s ready to move on. So yes there certainly are people with major talents - but they must all still go through the same process - they may get through some parts much faster, but they still need to do them, and they will always find parts that are just as slow and difficult for them as for anyone else. If you want to check whether your foundation is built, just stand in wuji or I jong for 8hrs straight - if that’s easy for you, then you can probably move on past the foundations.

Sure ok. I won’t lecture you about needing to find teachers. I also began my journey adamant that I don’t need or want a teacher - and I did manage to make some progress without. So yes it’s possible. (But then I found lots of teachers 😄) If your aim in the internal arts is beyond the basic de-stress and relax thing, then you need to start with reasonably good health - both physical and mental... If these are not generally fine, then you need to fix them - the internal arts at this level won’t heal you in that way... Once your health is reasonably fine, the main premise is don’t trust your mind As you probably know, we need to work with your Qi and the channels of the body. But the way we get to them is through focus on the body first - you don't start out trying to feel your your Qi or direct it with your mind. This mental control of Qi creates all the dangers - Qi reversals, heat in the head, poison fire tainting heart, steaming bones etc etc... One of my teachers in Malaysia specialised in treating people with Qigong sickness - it’s quite common when not following a proper method. The first step is to prepare your body... this means 1) loosen tension, 2) increase flexibility, 3) build strength... This involves stretching and mobility exercises and a lot of bodyweight strength training - focusing particularly on legs and core - nothing extreme like muscle ups or heavy weights though, as this will slow your progress in Qigong. The second step (and this is generally done concurrently) is to start to get into your ‘inner body’... This is basically accessing the various tissues that we’re not used to using - the little stabilising muscles, the deep core muscles, the sinews and tendons and the fascia matrix. You do this by standing (a lot) and repeating the foundational Qi Gong movements of your system (a lot)... And developing Sung (active release) and Ting (inner listening). At first you’ll get hints that there’s something more than the basic muscles we all know about - you’ll feel aches and pains in places you’ve never felt before, you’ll feel weird stretchy connections between parts of your body that you’ve never felt before etc. It takes a long time (3 to 5 years), but eventually your entire body will feel connected. It feels like your insides are all rubbery and connected in stretched way - a slight change in pressure of your foot will send your arms up... a slight stretch in your palm will be felt throughout your body. It feels like wearing one of those wetsuits... but interweaved through your muscles under your skin. When you have this sort of body, you’ll get into your standing posture and it will feel like sitting into a nice stretchy hammock or trampoline - quite comfortable... When you do your moving forms, it’s not the ordinary muscles that move you, but these stretchy connections. Often it feels as if the movements are happening by themselves. Ever do this thing as a kid - where you stand with your arms by your sides and your friend holds them there as you try to push out... then your friend suddenly lets go, and your arms just lift and float up by themselves... all your Qigong movements will start to feel like that. (This is just a stage, you actually need to relax and drop more weight into this floating - then things start getting painful - but that’s some way off!) This is ‘the Qigong body’... this is the foundation you need to move on to anything else. But why? Your standing and moving practices will have connected your body in a very particular way. The Qi of your body run through these tissues. It means that you’ve built the physical riverbed of your channels for the Qi to move through in a particular way. Now you don’t need to direct Qi with your mind - because its path and direction is already physically built into your body... it will naturally flow where it needs to without any mental effort. Remember - we can’t trust the mind Another aspect... if you think of an old style lightbulb, the light is created by running electricity through a metal filament... when you build this body, you’re actually building thicker, denser filaments through your body - meaning you can transmit a far greater current. If the filament is too thin or the current too strong - what happens? The filament pops and the light goes out As well as this you’ll need to build your Dantien (this starts concurrently to building the body)... this creates the vessel or container for generating, holding and moving very strong currents of Qi. And that’s basically the foundation - although obviously there’s a lot more - like harmonising your organs, clearing out blockages, sinking Qi etc etc. To summarise - 1) open and strengthen your body physically 2) find your ‘internal body’ 3) build a fully connected, elastic Qigong body 4) build a Dantien. So bearing in mind that this is missing a ton of stuff, and written very crudely... but I hope it helps to explain what authentic Qigong does to set up the foundations for further development like actually going through the Jing-Qi-Shen conversion process and so on. Happy to answer questions.

Sure - I’ve witnessed many such things. So I’m open to the possibility that the video in question is legit... But it’s worth pointing out that he’s demonstrated an ability to use visual effects to edit videos. I’m not saying it’s ‘proof’ of fakery. But there’s nothing wrong with a bit of skeptical discernment.

Especially when there’s a demonstration of at least some proficiency in doing that in other videos.

That’s coz I’ve no interest in arguing with you over trivialities I’m only pointing out things for others considering jumping into ‘advanced’ Daoist processes without having a foundation. Again - no interest in proving anything to you. You’re clearly happy with your views and have no sincere interest in what I have to say. Which is perfectly fine. Carry on. If someone else is sincerely interested in the safety and efficiency factors of the Daoist path, and they indicate that - then I’m more than happy to say more. Otherwise - just carry on with the topic at hand 👍🏼

Thats exactly what I’m saying you’re saying That his decision to teach things in the order that he does is apparently a business decision... Again - it is not. Every traditional classical teacher will start with fundamentals and Qi Gong. Qi Gong is not ‘simple’ - not the authentic stuff... it’s difficult, often painful - it builds the body to be able to contain, develop and transmit large amounts of energy safely and efficiently - it leads to mastery of Qi. Which is what Qi Gong means. I’ve had a very highly skilled traditional teacher in Singapore who charged eye watering prices for his training. I’ve had ones that charge nothing. I also don’t care about this - I’m not one who believes everything should be free... But your assertion that the only reason to build the foundation is to set up some repeat business is plain wrong. You can spin it whatever way you want. It’s still wrong I get that you’ve got an agenda to elevate your friend/teacher - but saying clearly false things is not the way to do it. Just tell everyone about your experiences in training with him and you’ll do a much better job of it.

Yes. I think it’s a bit of a semantic trap. I don’t see people as foolish or smart or whatever... I see their actions as foolish or skilful... I’ve seen this turn into a sort of condescending arrogance in certain ‘spiritual’ circles. A foolish action is a foolish action - there’s no need to negate it or see the good in it or understand it... it is what it is. I don’t know the full extent of cause and effect chains that led to the action, so I treat the action accordingly, but I treat the person as just a person - not a fool not as a poor unfortunate idiot that doesn’t know any better... just a person with an Acquired Mind... just like me. Maybe that’s a form of compassion in a way? But Id deny it vehemently

Actually that’s clearly what you’re saying. You’re clearly saying that how he teaches is a business decision. Yet you can learn all his material in whatever order you want for the price of a few books... Clearly he didn’t make it to Business 102. Actually the reason he teaches in the order that he does is because that is the classical path of development. It’s how I’ve been taught by my traditional teachers, it’s how they were taught by their teachers and their teachers before that - for many generations - there’s a good reason for it. If you don’t want to do it this way then that’s perfectly fine. But the reasons for it are not business-related. Just safety and efficiency.

That made no sense to me to be honest. You seem to be saying ‘he’s just out to make money’ - but then you negate that, saying - ‘he’s not doing that and seems honest’... And OP didn’t ask about him - you mentioned him... So what’s your point?

That’s good I think as long as students know what they’re getting into - specifically the risks of following a diy system - then I have nothing against it. In the past, alchemical substances were given to prisoners to check for safety So who knows, maybe if I was a prisoner in medieval China I might have signed up myself

Thats probably coz Damo Mitchell doesn’t hide his identity - so if his students die because of incorrect practice, there would actually be someone to blame... Although I imagine he wouldn’t want student to die from practice anyway

Yeah. It was also somewhat confusing to me too. It’s generally quite unpopular with most students of the Dao. The context is important here. We should remember that the height of Daoism arose at the same time as Confucianism which is kind of the exact opposite... Confucian society was very ‘culturally refined’ and very stringently controlled - there were very many precepts for behaviour and many taboos. Human progress was considered to only be possible by refining action in accordance to strict external rules. I tend to think of the upper class Britishness of the 18th century... where even table legs were covered up because if left uncovered they were considered to be a bit too racy - reminding one of a lady’s bare leg 😧🙈 For Daoists the opposite was true. They were the anarchists of the day 😄 Their only precepts were Humour, Humility and a general attitude of not taking things too seriously. The important part is that there was a big difference between one who’s a cultivator on the path and an ordinary ‘householder’ living in society. For a spiritual cultivator, contrived rules are detrimental. For an ordinary person they are a necessity. And it’s also important to remember that developing uncontrived virtue was of critical importance in most of the Daoist lineages. Someone who’s fully virtuous and uncontrived is considered to have developed a higher attainment than mere immortality.... Uncontrived virtue means virtuous action that comes not from the ‘personality’ or the Acquired Mind but virtue that arises spontaneously from the Original Self (the Yuan Shen)... With uncontrived virtue one does things not for some personal aim (I want to be a good guy) but just coz they do it... “I’m going to pass on some wise lessons to these people” - contrived. Opens mouth, profound wisdom comes out - uncontrived There are five main virtues and they all come about through the harmonisation of Qi in the body as a foundation, through to the full transformation of the Acquired Mind and one’s emotional nature. They are: Contentment, Patience, Bravery, Compassion and Wisdom.

It may look beautiful yes - just as the description of a dish on the menu of a fancy restaurant might sound amazing - but if you ate the menu you wouldn’t be happy. Does that make sense?