Spotless

"am interested in Taoism and inner alchemy, so I would like to know about your personal experiences with inner alchemy and whether you have seen any results from it" From the standpoint of "Qi Gong" (as a term encompassing more and not less of these types of practices) and inner alchemy: At some point your embodiment moves from primary awareness of the Gross Physical and Gross Subtle bodies to the Subtle bodies that have come into being. This becomes sustained and does not fade from a lack of practice but continues to grow. It is best described as a biomagnetic field that is beyond what can be imagined without experience - and it is not something that one can have an "experience of". You can have an embodiment of it and it may take considerable time to acclimate to it as it is not a grasped state but one that is ever expanding and unlike the former bodies. In initial practice it is hard to understand the importance of little things and get lost in the more heady arguments and judgements as is seen here so often. The practices themselves have small simple elements that if missed make enormous differences in results but they are skipped over in putting the cart before the horse. The breath is an example of this: Like the tides, Inhale (to high tide) Hold (slack tide), exhale (to low tide) hold (slack tide). Nearly everyone skips the end of low tide and the slack tide in which energy finishes the movement. It is like skipping the end of a song. In movement after movement, the end is skipped and one does not embody the finishing of the fine energies as they settle. A full bended movement forward will create a low pressure up from the back, fully finishing the movement will allow for the low pressure to taunt the energies of the leg channels, this is also true of other movements that increase the energies of the inner side channels - they will require the leg channels to greatly expand in order to proceed in the conversion of channels to fields. The feet must be stretched and worked to facilitate this. Many of the movements create these high and low pressures, this will lead among other things to the radical opening of the MCO. More so, the finishing of the breath allows for the energies that have been projected into the bones to settle in the myelin sheath as well. Simply skipping the adequate 3rd and 4th stages of breath will make a large portion of what one might accomplish only fantasy that will not be fulfilled. It is one reason some view the possibilities of these practice more along the lines of "exercise" and are clueless to the miraculous nature of the transformative powers of such practices. The movement of ones consciousness to the left eye or the right eye in many head turns is paramount but mentioned rarely. The arms are often held slightly forward when raised, entirely missing the compression of the side channels in the head area and not scrunching the muscles of the back near the base of the neck. The result is that long time practitioners have next to no fine inner head development. Fields that should come about in conjunction with other fields are stunted and out of balance with the other transforming areas. Truly understanding reverse breathing is a great asset, it will help one more fully feel the lower Dan Tien. It is done passively in many of the postures though this goes unnoticed for the most part. The LDT will fully feel like a fist of sorts, at a point this will not fade in sickness or in sleep.