The Ten Thousand Ways of Nei Kung
This thread was inspired by seeing that more and more people are claiming to teach nei kung systems and they only offer a few techniques.
If someone takes a few exercises out of a nei kung system then it really should be called chi kung and not nei kung.
What I have read about real systems of nei kung is that they contain thousands of techniques, and my own experience has verified this. When you take one or a small group of techniques out of a vast system then technically it should be called chi kung, not nei kung, because the name nei kung should be reserved for the few wholistic systems that address all aspects of cultivating health and power. if someone focus on one type of technique that may lead to some power it can cause a serious imbalance in a person in the long run.
As an example of this, the kind of yoga done by the immortal mahavatar, Babaji, is said to contain thousands of techniques also, and I was told by another chi kung master that the methods are actually quite similar to the methods of a real nei kung system like mine, which also has the goal of leading one on the path of immortal.
Here is a video that explains it well:
Visualization can work for some things but it's also the kind of thing that is more likely to cause chi problems and energy psychosis.
One of the problems with visualization is mistaking imagination for intent. I think that visualization is really supposed to be the use of intent, like the most common is when someone is doing the MCO and just imagining they are doing it thoroughly when in fact they are missing some areas because they're actually using imagination and failing to use intent or feeling (for those areas).
For may schools visualization is absolutely wrong, and mentioning it would upset my chi kung teacher more than anything else.. Like in the nei kung systems which are so closely related to self defense. You want the power to manifest with movement, and automatically with movement or posture, the mind is way too slow for self defense. Also visualization completely misses a very important part of cultivation, which is using your hands as your energy tools and cultivating power in those tools. Whether a person is a healer or Jedi, they need the chi power in their hands.
Another thing about visualization is it is fundamentalist in nature, telling energy where to go may not be where you need it to go for health or self improvement. If you use movement and posture you can cultivate energy 'all over' and it automatically goes where it needs to for maximum health benefit.
I say it is fundamentalist because it is taking something that is natural, movement, which has many other benefits that visualization completely lacks, and instead substituting arbitrary mental exercises that only cover a fraction of the energy bases that should be covered.
