Felecula Posted January 15, 2022 Hi Bums! Ever since I started meditating and doing Qi Gong, I've been feeling energy on Items. It doesn't matter what kind they are (I could be drinking from a cup I always use and it has a warm feeling to it, versus a table that has a softer warmness to it. ) What exactly is it that's happening? I'm a little confused! Thank you! - Felecula Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
steve Posted January 15, 2022 32 minutes ago, Felecula said: Hi Bums! Ever since I started meditating and doing Qi Gong, I've been feeling energy on Items. It doesn't matter what kind they are (I could be drinking from a cup I always use and it has a warm feeling to it, versus a table that has a softer warmness to it. ) What exactly is it that's happening? I'm a little confused! Thank you! - Felecula Hi Felecula, Welcome to DaoBums! What type of meditation and qigong do you practice and how long have you been practicing? Would you be willing to share any thoughts or feelings you have regarding what is happening to you? The world of our experience is largely determined, or influenced, by our perspective. That perspective is determined by our conditioning, our life experience, and, if we are diligent and successful, our spiritual practices. Consequently, to discuss what you are experiencing needs context, otherwise any answers you receive will be valid for those offering them but may not be relevant or meaningful for you. (this is simply my perspective, of course) 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Felecula Posted January 15, 2022 48 minutes ago, steve said: Hi Felecula, Welcome to DaoBums! What type of meditation and qigong do you practice and how long have you been practicing? Would you be willing to share any thoughts or feelings you have regarding what is happening to you? The world of our experience is largely determined, or influenced, by our perspective. That perspective is determined by our conditioning, our life experience, and, if we are diligent and successful, our spiritual practices. Consequently, to discuss what you are experiencing needs context, otherwise any answers you receive will be valid for those offering them but may not be relevant or meaningful for you. (this is simply my perspective, of course) Hi there Steve! Meditation for me is mostly sitting in silence, focusing on breathing for 30 or so minutes. Sometimes i lay down because my back hurts, other times I sit with my legs crossed. I've been dipping my toes into Spring Forest and Flying Phoenix! I like Spring Forest a lot. I've only been practicing for a little while- a month or two at most, before that it was just basic movements from Mimi Kuo Deemer like 8 Brocades and 5 Elements. I dunno how to feel about it to be honest! It's neat, I guess, I sort of thought it was like energy imprints. It happens with my runes a lot- when I want to pick one and I have them all down turned, up to three will have energy around them so I pick those ones. I have a roommate now so I don't do readings as often anymore but that's something I distinctly remember. I hope I'm making sense! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
steve Posted January 15, 2022 Makes sense to me. Thanks for sharing that info. I'll share some ideas about the changes you're noticing, I enjoy sharing my opinions! First I'll say that I don't have a simple and direct answer for why your cup feels a bit warm or the table soft and warm. It would be easy to say you are feeling qi or feeling energy. I generally avoid such explanations because they are too ambiguous for my taste and don't really tell you anything. This type of explanation locks us into a limited paradigm, IMO. They're just labels and most people would not agree on a precise definition of such terms. My way of looking at what is happening is first and foremost that you are becoming more sensitive and more aware. With meditation and qigong practice, we become more quiet inside. Rather than being so lost in the inner dialogue and thought stream, we become more aware of the thought process and the prominence of that inner narrator. We become more aware of the body and how it feels, both internally and in relation to the external world. We can pick up subtle things in sensation and perception, things about our thoughts and moods and those of others, characteristics of our environment that may have been overlooked before. I recall my first meditation retreat, a week in silence. Simple things were dramatically different simply because I was more alert and more aware. The simple act of eating a salad became a symphony of textures, tastes, and sounds! In addition to being more sensitive and perceptive, it is important to be aware that we participate in generating the experience of our lives. We add the meaning and color the experience. Your reality and mine are different. This isn't simply a gratuitous assertion, it's consistent with Daoism, Buddhism, and the most accurate of scientific paradigms, quantum mechanics. So what you feel when you touch the cup is determined in part by the structure of the cup, in part by your individual sensory apparatus (are your fingertips sensitive, calloused, scarred, numb?), in part by your conditioning (that particular cup may have meaning for you, cups in general may hold significance, the act of drinking, a history of alcoholism or caffeine dependence, .. all of that has an effect), and finally, by your world view (some may hold a paradigm related to qi, energy, spirits, deities, emptiness, etc...). This was why I asked what you thought of what was happening. Your frame of reference and context will strongly influence your interpretation of what your are experiencing. So I apologize for being so long-winded and oblique but these are some things that came up for me in response to your questions. My approach when I begin to feel new things in response to my ongoing spiritual practices is to simply be open and experience it. I avoid the temptation to label too quickly. Once we give an experience a label or an explanation we limit ourselves to that paradigm and it can be an obstacle to progress. When I started practicing qigong and Daoist meditation, my sifu admonished us to minimize discussing our experiences with each other to avoid creating expectations that would influence our meditative experience. Staying open and connected to the experience allows us to keep questioning, remaining open to something new rather than categorizing and limiting ourselves to one particular interpretation. There is a cool book whose title and content capture this approach by Steven Harrison called The Question to Life's Answers. The idea being that, particularly in spiritual matters, answers are less valuable than open questions. Warm regards and welcome to the show! 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
liminal_luke Posted January 15, 2022 (edited) 37 minutes ago, steve said: Staying open and connected to the experience allows us to keep questioning, remaining open to something new rather than categorizing and limiting ourselves to one particular interpretation. Congratulations on your expanding perceptivity, Felecula. Perception is a near universal phenomenon -- almost all of us are aware of something -- but the range of what we're aware of can expand and that's a beautiful, fun thing. When perception expands there's often an urge to know if we're "right." Do our feelings and sensations correspond to real things happening in the real world? The trouble with this meta-analysis of experience is that it tends to take us away from the experience itself. There's also the potential trap of using these perceptions to reinforce a part of us that is stuck. We believe things about ourselves. I am someone who senses energy on objects. Or...I am psychic. These beliefs may or may not be true (who knows?) but spending time believing these things is one thing and basking in the innocent wonder and childlike joy of feeling what is felt something altogether different. The meaning of the experiences you are having is not separate from the experiences themselves and cannot be explained or given by anybody outside of yourself. Understanding is not something that is figured out. Understanding blooms. Just my two cents. Edited January 15, 2022 by liminal_luke 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Seeking Posted January 16, 2022 Go to a library or bookstore. Wander around a bit then pick a title at random with closed eyes and see what it says to you. Dealing out playing cards into a pile of black and red with eyes closed is also another good one. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Felecula Posted January 16, 2022 Thank you guys for responding so quickly! It's a lot to take in but, I decided to do a rune reading today. I got Tiwaz, Fehu and Jera respectively. All of them right side up, so I'm hopeful for good things. My head hurts a little after doing it (sort of like it's expanding), right near the temples. Unsure what to make of it thus far but here's to good things! Felecula 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
