The Way Is Virtue

Ok, interesting, thanks. I beleieve regular meditation practice is recommended as well. For some, if they practice for some period of time and then miss one or more days of practice, this could lead to the problem as well. So, another reason for the more serious practitioner to try to maintain regular practice. I have found that regular standing meditation is particularly helpful for this sort of problem.

Exorcist, have you come across methods described to help avoid this problem in the taoist writings?

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I have my own space in the Personal Practice forum now so I will be keeping a detailed log of my personal experiences with the 100 day meditation experiment there, in this thread: The 100 Day Meditation Experiment You all are welcome to drop in and discuss your experiences or whatever there. I'll be watching this thread as well to see how everyone is doing with their 100 days of daily meditation. If anyone else is also keeping a log of their personal experiences with the 100 days of meditation in the personal practice area, feel free to post a link to it here so the rest of us can check in on how you are doing.

Sounds good f-man! I have noticed that standing meditation does seem to work differently than sitting meditation as well. Seems to be very effective in getting right to work where we need it the most. Keep at it, It sounds like you are doing very well. You are keeping a fairly busy schedule with your other practices as well. Good for you adept! It does take some extra effort to keep up the practice regularly but it will no doubt be worth it!

So how is everyone making out? Is everyone still managing to keep up their daily practice for the most part? Since it is hard to keep a thread like this really active all the time, I am going to request a personal practice log area for myself and log my personal experiences with my 100 days of wuji standing meditation over there. I will start a thread over there called the '100 day meditation experiment' and you guys are all welcome to post updates on your progress over there as well if you like, or you can post updates to this thread if you can still find it. I will post a link to the new thread once I get one set up. I am enjoying the wuji standing meditation. In only this few days of regular practice so far I am already feeling somewhat higher qi levels overall and am feeling the qi active in various problem areas in my body (I seem to have a lot of those areas ), as well as the qi just being more active in general. A couple of days ago I could feel the qi trying to work its way through the back of my neck and at the base of my skull area. I have some neck and shoulder problems (mainly tightness) and the qi being active in this area was causing some discomfort with a dull aching feeling and also a fair bit of heat as well, which was making it a bit hard hard for me to concentrate at work, but this had all subsided by the next morning and my neck area is feeling somewhat better now. In this morning's practice I could feel the qi working more in my left shoulder and left arm where I also have had issues with some pain in my left shoulder and not so great circulation in my left arm. Will see how things progress over the 100 days, but so far the wuji standing meditation seesms to be showing a lot of potential. So, how is everyone else managing? twiv

It sounds like you are doing well.

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Welcome Solman!. Is this the practice you will be praticing? http://www.zhinengqigong.org/Methods/sxpzz.htm

Welcome Ryan McCoole. I'd be interested to hear a little more detail of what you mean by that and what is your source of these concepts. I have not heard things described this way before.

Placing of the palms over the dantian area when you finish is just one way that is used to help direct excess qi back to the dantian area when you are closing. Some teachers teach the rotation of the palms, but just placing the palms over the dantian area seems to work well. Some do the the rotation and then place the palms over the dantian after. Other teachers may add other things as well. Here is a link to a fairly elaborate qigong closing routine, in case you are interested, The massaging of the face, head, neck, and shoulders and patting down the body is fairly common as well. The head, neck, and shoulders can be an area where excess qi can remain and can cause things like headaches or other ill effects, so doing that massage is probably a good idea. Here's a couple more examples: Almost every teacher I have seen seems to do the closing a bit different. BTW Observer, were you practicing any sort of closing steps after standing medition? Maybe you were already practicing some of this?

That's a good sign! (the warmth I mean, not the sore knee ). You may feel various different sensations as time goes on. The idea is to try not to focus on any sensations too much so as to not distract your mind during practice, but of course you will still be aware of whatever is going on. If parts of your body are getting quite warm that is a good sign that you are already starting to get some results. The sensations can vary quite a bit. When you finish your standing meditation you can straighten up your legs and bring both palms to your lower dantian area, with the center of your palms lined up and both palms facing inward over the lower dantian area, and imagine any excess qi returning back to your lower dantian as you stand there relaxed for a minute. [Edit:] The sensations are not a requirement for making progress in qigong, as some people seem to get good results without feeling too much in the way of unusual sensations, but these types of sensations can be an indication that you are making some headway however. Just didn't want to leave the impression that one necessarily has to be feeling a lot of unusual sensations for them to be making good progress. RV, I have enabled my PM feature now. twiv

Sounds like a really good practice routine. How's the knee?

Very good info. Thanks!

Ok, that sounds very good. It seems that you were already fairly open in regards to your meridians/channels before starting this practice. For some people opening the small circualtion can be a fairly long drawn out process with aches and pains and various sensations as the energy slowly works it way through restrictions and blockages. When I do my meditation practice I am feeling a lot of places in my body where the energy is either very restricted or outright blocked. This morning when I was practicing, my left leg started shaking off and on quite a bit making it hard for me to keep standing. It felt like energy was trying to work its way through parts of the leg but was having a very hard time of it. I did my best to ignore the shaking and managed to complete my full session. I can feel similar restrictions all over my body when I practice, so I guess I have my work cut out for me. I try to ignore any sensations when practicing so as to not distract from my practice but the leg shaking was a bit hard to ignore.

Observer, forgot ask you about your previous meditation and/or qigong experience. I think you mentioned elsewhere that you have done some zen practices? Mewtwo, also would be interested in hearing about your previous practices. I think you have done some yoga, martial arts, and some tummo? The tummo sounds like something I should look into. I have a problem staying warm in cold weather. Sounds like a handy practice to know. I know the heat it produces is not the goal of the practice but it would come in handy for dealing with the cold.

Sounds good King K. I think I will try the 100 days first and then re-evaluate at that point. Have you been doing meditation or qigong long? Any interesting experiences so far?

Sounds good. I am practicing indoors. I guess today is the official first day of the 100 days. I don't know if 100 days of daily standing meditation will be enough to make a really big difference, but it should help at least somewhat and maybe strengthen my legs a bit more and give me a bit more stable stance. It will be interesting to see how things progress. Wtm, adept, and Tao_Jones, if you are still checking this thread, I forgot to ask you guys how long you have been doing your current practices now and how you are finding them? Any interesting results so far? Jetsun, have you practiced qigong or meditation much before? Wtm, did you find that all the zhan zhuang practice you did previously helped with your qi levels much? Is the Flying Phoenix qigong mostly static standing and sitting postures or is there movement sequences as well? It looks interesting. Also, I am not sure what intu-flow is exactly. Is it more of an exercise or martial art than a form of qigong? Also, do any of you guys know how I can reply to more than one post in a thread at a time in one single reply? I guess I use the multi quote button but I am not quite sure how that works... twiv

Great! I guess you mean you are going to practice the wuji stance and the bear frolic mmovement? Sounds good. So we have several here who are goijng to try to practice every day for the next 100 days or so. I'll be interested to hear from everyone on how they are making out from time to time.

Cool. Have to run now. Have some work I have to get done...

I am not a really experienced practitioner yet, but here is what I have experienced so far. I have been doing it completely on my own and have been practicing it on and off over the last year or so. I haven't been practicing for long sessions though until now, maybe 10 to 20 minute sessions at most so far, and not every day. Have stopped for several months at a time as well when I trying other things or when I was really busy. I kept coming back to the zhan zhuang practice though as it seems to bring me the most noticeable results. Even with the irregular and shorter practice sessions I was doing I have been noticing increased qi levels and some improvements to some health issues as well. That is why I now want to start practicing very regularly and for longer sessions. It takes a while to build up to being able to stand longer without strain though. There may be other qigong practices that are very effective as well but zhan zhuang is fairly simple and if practiced with a relaxed mind and body it appears to be quite safe to practice. One should read up on qigong closing practices as well and practice those to avoid any potential ill effects.

Sounds good. I may add in a moving qigong form as well to my practice if I have time, but will have to see what time allows...

I started practicing the 30 minute wuji standing sessions this Friday evening passed and have continued with one in the morning and one in the evening through yesterday and this morning, as I wanted to make sure that two 30 minute sessions a day of wuji standing was something I could reasonably maintain. The lower legs are a bit sore but it seems I should be able to maintain this as a daily practice as long as time permits. The legs will likley fully get used to this within another week or two. Although it is probably way too early to be drawing any conclusions, I have already noticed an increase in energetic sensations a fair bit above what I was feeliing previously when I was practicing less often and for shorter durations. Last night after practicing the evening session I did the closing and cool down period and then watched a bit of TV and then went to bed. I started laying on my back with one leg bent up and I was feeling fairly strong energetic vibration sensations in my bent leg, and also a bit in other areas of my body. After a while I shifted over to my right side and the energetic vibration and shimmering feelings spread more all over my body. The energetic sensations seemed to be mainly at the surface of my body in the muscles, but I was also feeling this somewhat internally as well, and also field like shimmering sensations in my spine as well. Later I shifted back to lying on my back and the sensations kept on for a little while and then fairly suddenly started to subside. Not sure why it subsided suddenly like that. I fell asleep shortly after that. It seems to me that dividing one's practice between a morning session and an evening session is a helpful thing if one can find the time as it seems one's qi can become somewhat dispersed or lose some 'momentum' during sleep or through all the stresses and activity of the day. Doing practice both in the morning and evening appears to help keep things moving forward more somewhat. I know not everyone has that kind of free time though. I guess we have to be somewhat flexible and practice when we can find the time. Well those are my comments for today. Have a busy day ahead...

Sounds good Rainbow_Vein! What were you practicing for those 100 days and do you think the 100 days of regular practice helped in any specific ways? I am guessing it did.