Trunk

Thus I have heard:

It's a dynamic process.  You take one step towards God, and God takes one step towards you.  You take another step towards God, and God takes ten steps towards you.  Another step towards God, and God takes a hundred towards you.

There are a number of people that I've sat with, where the room was totally suffused with light. 'Subtle' isn't quite the right word, as sometimes it was intense enough so that it was difficult to stay in the room. Certain work literally integrates a human being with Light. We've talked about it before.

 

retreat details:

Lifegate Institute

...

All good points.

Is that why my acupuncturist looked at me funny when he asked if I had an herbal and I told him I had several? I used a combination of Between Heaven and Earth and the Penelope Ody book and Michael Tierra's books and Letha Hadaddy's book, and I looked the ingredients up online.

Likely.

 

I've read BH&E, but not the others. But, basically, every other herbal book that I've seen just doesn't compare - not even close as a reference. Sometimes I've seen very good supplemental information in other books, or convenient listings (like the Outline Guid to Chinese Patent Medicines, which is an excellent guide to the bottles of herb formulas that you can buy for ~$2 in chinatown). But, as a Reference, basically there is no other reference than those book$.

 

Then there's the worse-than-iffy presentations that diminish TCM into something everyone can understand with no considerable effort. Which tends to leave out so much detail that people are at a generally 50-50 chance (at best) of helping/hurting themselves. Luckily herbs are mostly relatively forgiving.

 

WHAA!

What herbal do you have? I used a combination of like five books to get all my info... It was...time-consuming....

10121[/snapback]

The references on Chinese herbs are Bensky's Materia Medica, for the single herbs, and Formulas & Strategies, for puttin' the singles together into classic formulas (& variations). These are the two that are used in English-speaking schools of TCM. They're expensive, but they are _the_ resource.

 

And, yup, squirrel poop is in there. Breaks up blood stasis, if I recall correctly (and there's a good chance I'm not).. but its definately in there, I know that. I wouldn't worry particularly about ingesting that herb; if its in those books its been done a lot before.

Seems to me that the main cause of taoist-online-discussion-addiction-syndrome is that there is so little opportunity in 'real life' to discuss taoist cultivation. And that the obvious solution is to join, or start, local practice groups. Real satisfying community. (There's gotta be a better word than 'real', cause both are real, obviously I mean 3D in-the-flesh.)

 

fer example,

A friend of mine on the west side started a meditation group in his home. He turned his living room into a sort of zendo (zabutans & cushions, nice sitting environment) and people show up for silent sitting early every morning. Same could be done at a local yoga studio. Or with zhan zhuang, inside or outside.

Dang!

.. and ..

Good for you!

In my 20's and 30's I practiced a mantra meditation that resulted in way too much kundalini. ... I was diagnosed as having a significant bone marrow chi loss due to this unbridled kundalini.

Profound situation.

 

(I'm not familiar with TCM terminology so I don't know if jing is synonomous with bone marrow chi. Is it?)

They're interelated, though not synonomous. "The kidneys", the water element, bone marrow, sexual energy, vitality, jing, constitutional reserves .. all those are talking about aspects of the same thing. The first two terms are most often used to talk about the whole subject, but jing could be used also.

 

Kundalini (and related or very similar phenomena) are expansive. You probably went too far along the expansive route and damaged the denser aspects of your constitution, your "kidney yin" (which includes bone marrow).

 

Does anybody know of a vegetarian herbal remedy that could help restore bone marrow chi?

There are various standard herbal formulas that supplement kidney yin. "Lui wei di huang wan" is a common classic such formula, and is good.

 

Good quality he shou wu (a single herb) can also be very helpful. Its not technically a kidney yin tonic; its a blood tonic, but the blood and kidneys support eachother and he shou wu is particularly nourishing.

 

You would probably experiment with, and benefit by, a wide variety of nourishing herbal formulas over a long time. And you should consider reading up on foods.

 

Your practices, if you practice, should emphasize integrating the more dense and earthy energies into your system.

 

Fueling the fire was a misguided attempt to be celibate for a number of years in order to be more spiritual. It wasn't a healthy time.

The sexual practices are generally poorly presented, both in theory and method. Injured students come through here, and the HT site, all the time. That doesn't mean there's nothing to the cultivation of sexual energy, just widely poorly presented.

 

There's lots of info on all of these topics at my site, linked below. No charge.

Does anyone remember S.Biel - Steven Biel?

 

S. Biel posted some of the most well thought out and erudite stuff over the course of 3-4 years and finally just disappeared.

I was thinking about s just yesterday! , driving back from family xmas get-together and combining scrotal compression (inhale) followed by a (exhale) gentle lift in the urogenital diaphragm, then gentle lift in the perineum, then (end of exhale) a sacrum squeeze. The few times it really seemed to "fit together" it reminded me of one of biel's posts that I have at my site (here) and how what I was doing was similar to what he was describing way back when, and thinking "wow, he was so far ahead". (The other post by him that I have up is s.biel's fire & water.)

 

I think at a certain point he saw that he'd basically gotten what he'd came there (HT board) looking for, plus being and posting on the board tended to be somewhat addictive so he deliberately "took a year off" not visiting nor posting. The year turned permanent. Healthy disciplined conscious move.

 

Also, James McConnell deserves mention. He was the webmaster who built the HT USA site including the discussion site. And he built the DragonDoor site (which was originally more qi gong oriented).

A couple of saved posts from James (who very rarely posted):

1. Kan & Li, Fusion and the Tiger & Dragon

2. re: Anyone doing iron shirt packing

It looks good to me.

You're covering all the basic areas to address. Not fixating on one area and ignoring others.

Link?

how does this practice fit in for you... I mean: with/compared to the Micro Orbit... your thoughts on opening the front channel... etc., your sacral squeeze ... further: what about your thoughts that the (central?) channel is the spine itself with the bones & bone marrow...

I'm currently of the opinion that the spine and central channel (and their details) are two Fundamentals of cultivation. I don't experience them as one and the same, or necesarily in the same location: the spine is very physical, the central channel is in a subtle layer.

 

Also, that having some physical practice (like sacrum-squeeze, and whatever other spine exercise/s) and having some meditation (like the spinal breathing) are very complementary.

 

I'm so very typed out.

Taking some time away from the boards..

Happy holidays.

 

cheers,

Trunk

I'm sold on Yogani's Spinal Breathing.

Got around to trying that!

Really good one.

Going as a link from the spine essay as soon as I get back home.

never got used to that Noni stuff and to me the Chi rollers really help chest and belly opening...

Whatever methods work for you.

 

imo, this situation might be something you should take a progressive role in pursuing resolution of. If this is not "something that is coming up and releasing" but "something that is going wrong and could go more wrong" ... joints~bones are a deep layer and good to have them healthy.

 

I could be entirely wrong.

Just my 2 pesos.

I had heat in the joints for a while.

Two things that helped a lot were:

 

1. Tahitian Noni Juice

This was miraculously effective.

 

2. Bridging on a Yoga ball

You can relax while on it and breathe into the lower tan tien. Shift on the ball to emphasize lower belly opening or more chest opening.

Both lungs have a pressure somewhere centered in the middle... sometimes it is very hard to breathe freely...

 

and I have developed something like rheuma/arthritis in muscles, bones & joints...

Both could be interpreted as signs of heat. The first as heat stuck in the center of the chest and the second as heat at the level of "the kidneys" (which include sexual energy and the bones & joints, joints are considered to be part of the bones). That said, both of these could be due to saving aroused (hot) jing and not being able to disperse the heat, and/or a jing deficiency. (My interpretations are not for sure, but might be "pretty good guesses".)

 

You should:

0. Take this situation seriously, and do your best to resolve it at an early stage.

1. See a doctor of chinese medicine, and get their interpretation. Hopefully one that you could also talk to about your practices in regards to this situation.

2. Review your practices in regards to this situation.

3. Drink lots of (somewhat warm) water on mostly an empty stomach (so as not to dilute the digestive process).

Can we change this topic to "what is the power of winter solstice", and how does it feel?

..or..

Got any conscious New Year's plans?

..or..

"alternative rituals"

 

 

 

 

 

(sorry, i'm suffering from a case of western post-modern nausea)

Sean,

 

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I knew that I wanted to have the time and attention to answer adequately.

 

I'm sold on Yogani's Spinal Breathing. I do it every day and retention (including much non-ejaculatory sex) is just naturally happening.

Nice technique. Thanks for the link.

 

This has led me to believe (and I think you've said this a lot) that 95% of the work needs to be done unaroused and daily. Once you are rock hard and making love it's just basically too late you can only work with what stage you are at.

Yup.

 

I admit that I have noticed myself getting a little overboard a few times with the predictable "need to fuck 3-4 times a day" retention syndrome. So it's not fail safe,

If you're younger than ~40, naturally have a vigorous sex drive, and live a modern lifestyle .. its likely that you'll have to work for just "interruptions" of desire. The fact is that you're a young healthy male. You do what you can to keep balanced, so that you can increase the opportunity to soak in the formless desireless states, in Light. Gradually, over a long period of time that connection gains power and the whole process gradually gets easier. Prior to really really profound mastery of this stuff, it might be considered that we're in trouble the whole time.

 

I've played with your sacrum squeeze a few more times. It's a curious technique, I almost feel like I am learning to sign my name with my feet or something. I had a question though (hope it makes sense). Is the squeeze a push or a pull?

Neither, really. More like if you have your hand in a loose fist, squeeze a little, then let up. You're loose fist is like the middle of your ltt at the bottom of the exhale. When I first tried it I wasn't "aiming" for the sacrum. I just exhaled s-l-o-w-l-y in the ltt then gave a little squeeze in the middle (like flexing closed~open a loose fist). Its just that the front and back can get pretty close at the bottom of the exhale, so when I 'aimed' for the middle my squeeze got the sacrum some, probably more the front part of the sacrum than the back of it really.

 

I was just going for 'the middle' (deep-center experimentation) and had no idea that I'd latch on to the sacrum at that point. The muscles around the sacrum are so rarely deliberately used that there's almost no feeling or reference point for it in the beginning, thus the awkwardness that you're feeling. That's normal.

 

Jing has so much to do with the production of muscular tension, and much of the jam-up that can occur in the ltt has to do with residual unprocessed tension. Deliberate flexing of muscles helps process that force and restore healthy blood flow. I'm lately appreciating more that its helpful to explore all of the various muscles in the ltt and learn to work them deliberately. Much of this idea is present in such things as pc muscle exercises, learning to work the urogenital daiphram, the unfamiliar finesse needed to get scrotal compression breathing actually down to the scrotum, etc.

 

Still flipping through Out in The Open. It's really really good.

That book looks like a 'must-have'. Next time I order from Amazon.

 

Trunk

What's a jing massage?

Well, like I said before..

unaroused massage of any of the lower torso (& genitals, perineum, etc) area for the purpose of keeping good circulation, 'cause retention tends to jam things up

Also, in the BMNK book they are noted for releasing sexual hormones into the body.

My recent explorations with the sacrum-squeeze (and on up the spine) has resolved some stagnation in my lower tan tien, which has prompted me to review the whole topic of "sexual energy massage". Like the stuff in Chapt 3 of the Bone Marrow Nei Kung book. That is, unaroused massage of any of the lower torso (& genitals, perineum, etc) area for the purpose of keeping good circulation, 'cause retention tends to jam things up. Or even some simple internal work that serves that basic purpose. Like, my "sacrum-squeeze" isn't external massage, but it basically massages a potent jing area: sacrum and spine.

 

So,

What are your favorite (unaroused) jing massages?

Least favorite?, Are there some that you've tried that did nothing for you?

Are there any that you do regularly?

Did you do some once, three years ago, but none since?

What areas do you think tend to jam up the most as a result of retention?

 

curious and researching,

Trunk

 

btw, I'm reading Acupressure for Lovers and Bone Marrow Nei Kung (chapt 3). Any other good references?

Welcome aboard!

've always enjoyed the pics at your site!!!

Has any body had experience with Chia's Tao Yin exercises?  They look really effective in getting to the core of the body..

 

There are several parts to Tao Yin, and the part that I've had experience with is focusing on the psoas muscle. Really, really interesting work. Goes deep deep into the tan tien; the psoas is hooked into all sorts of really deep emotional and core energy. The Tao Yin video is really excellent.. much much easier to study & practice from than the book. Well worth the $.

 

I got rid of my vhs player, and so gave away my Tao Yin tapes.. gotta order the dvd's.

This exhibit was in L.A. some years back. I have a friend who is a massage therapist, and she thought it was amazing. I didn't think I really wanted to see people's insides that bad, so skipped it.

Welcome, Karen!