[hagar]

Greetings from hagar

Great to see you’re still around.

h

[hagar]

I miss you RJ!

h

[hagar]

Yup.

I was thinking about that one.

In working with the spine, I find that the best visualisation is to feel the whole spine being filled with light. Letting the essential water and light blend into one.

h

[hagar]

The cracks are natural symptoms of opening in the spinal pathways when the chi ascends up the spine, and when it starts to permeate the bones, ligaments and joints. It is a natural opening that signifies how the chi goes to the place where it’s needed. Don’t worry about it, and remeber that no cracking sounds are either a sign of a totally open or closed spine. If you want to heal or work with the spinal opening more, stand with our feet closer together(about a wrist’s distance between the heels) and sense the spine and how it aligns.

There are many phases of practice where different areas in the body “crack” open. Sometimes an opening in the neck can create openings elsewhere resulting in noises in the ancles, knees, hips, wrists, etc.
I sometimes have openings in my ancles that results in cracking in my wrists…

Just take it as a by-product of practice and stick to your regimen, but don’t endorse or force these things into happening. Let them come naturally.

[hagar]

A friend of mine is a lap. His father is a shaman, and aknowledges a rock on the tundra in Finnmark, way north in Norway as his teacher.
But I have not heard of any Laps having anything to do with mushrooms…
Alot of coffee, and liquour but no mushrooms.

Funny thing you talk about the Kun Lun and the Altai mountains. I have been fascinated by those for years. I read an account of a female russian psychiatrist who got initiated by a shamanic tribe in the Altai mountains, and the book is filled with stories about how this area is a realm of spirits and immortals, and that there’s a battle between the “good” side and the “bad” side. If the book had any truth content at all, it’s worth a visit.

Every day I fly across these mountains and scope their faces. On Google Earth.

Michael, how was the Kun Lun experience?

[hagar]

It’s difficult to say what the source of your problem is without knowing more about your history, but no matter the cause, kidney strengthening practices would do you good. Just holding the lower back with both hands, or lying on the stomach, with the back of the palms over each kidney is good for kidney deficiency. (Maybe a herbal program would do you good as well)

If the form you practice is is some way strained or agitated, then the heat you experienced could be depleting yin. But if the heat occurs as a relaxed and non-manipulative result, it is probably more a by product of yang emerging out of yin.

In some situations, the increased energy created through practice can lead to nocturnal emission if you do not do one or two of the following:
1. There is an imbalance in the overall practice regimen:
This means that amassed energy have little space to be stored in. The reason is ofen too little emphasis on circulation and opening, and too much emphasis on accumulation. This will often result in NC.

2. The energy you created is either causing arousal that conditions to energy too much, or you store it in the wrong place at the conclusion of the session. If this is true, try storing the energy in the marrow of the bones instead of the lower Dan Tian. Try visualizing the energy going into the spine as light, and the rest of the bones of the body. Breathe in and the at the out breath the energy is “locked” in the bones.

PS. If NC’s are a problem, try lying on your left side when you sleep. Start by relaxing on your right, in the qigong sleeping positions, and change over on the left, focusing on the third eye.

[hagar]

Means “a thousand thanks” in Norwegian.

[hagar]

Michael

My own practice is more than enough for me at the moment, but thanks for the compliment.

Interesting that you put the stillness meditation as a beginning practice, as the best way to go about doing it is to “begin with the end”, meaning to start with the end state or quality, and when you are starting to lose it, begin with the end again. In this way, sooner or later, you are really “cooked” all the way trough.

If you have the time, just one question:
Alchemy is very committing, and I experience a kind of accelerating “karma” or destiny or whatever you call life events playing themselves out at an ever increasing rate. It is quite something these days. And I do feel that these events are connected to my alchemical practice. As you said, opening the Ming Men is connected with fate. Am I right?
In that case, you don’t start alchemical practice until you are atleast a little prepared for what you are up against…

h

[hagar]

Max

Thank you for your words. Your dedication spring through the words you write so eloquently. Very inspiring.

I wish I could answer Yes! to more of the questions above.
For me, practice is war, interrupted by short moments of boredom. But sometimes when I get really bored, I realise I am not bored enough. Later I can be in so much pain that I think I am going to die, and then realize that I feel pain because I do not let myself die.

I agree with you that sitting is so difficult because it is simple. Simple is dangerous. Pure sitting also works with a component of yourself that is neglected in other areas of qigong/alchemy; The conceptual mind and the emotional mind. Something quite magical happens when you detatch from the content of mind and just watch whatever comes up; You realize how close to a dream most of what we call “reality” is. What remains is so real.

Chuang Tzu said something in the Inner Chapters relating to practice:
“Be springtime with everything”. I think that about sums it up, both on and off the mat.

h

[hagar]

Max,

I find the issue of who has the most thorough understanding of taoism, and which path is more direct a matter for scholars.

My point was just that pure sitting, done in a contemporary context often becomes rigid, or unflexible, as following and working with the energy often elicits faster results in an easier manner.

My own experience is that alchemy and pure sitting are just different and complimentary dimensions of practice. The pure sitting is working on the macro level, the alchemical practice is working on the micro level (cavities, space in the body). In the system I practice they go hand in hand,but have different emphasis, and effects.

In pure sitting, I tune into the cosmic energy and space, and let whatever happens play itself out. In int. alchemy I work with the transformation of the system, and open up the space in the internal cosmos.

The fundamental difference is best described metaphorically. The pure sitting creates light, and makes you come into a more symbolic state.
The alchemy is more like discovering the internal weather changes.

Pure sitting is like the clear blue sky, where you become the space above, whereas the internal alchemy is like a sky full of shifing clouds and vapor, where the sun shines through, lighting up ocean, creating life…

h

[hagar]

Max

I do agree with your view that original taoism holds a much more sound and direct approach to the essentials of daoism. It’s important not to confuse heritage with transmission, as there is alot of information that is part of heritage that becomes useless, but transmission always keep getting “upgraded” and improved, adapting to the changing chi of the differnt time periods humans live in.

Just one thing, I disagree with your notion of letting things be in meditation and everything will sort itself out. That is not entirely correct.

There is a time for doing and a time for non-doing. Sometimes the body or the mind needs a jolt of the right medicine to open, and let go. This is done by yourself or a teacher. If that doesn’t happen, life will do it for you.

Just sitting and forgetting is not really a correct approach for most people. Sometimes, it’s even impossible. Alot of sitting and forgetting actually amounts to the very opposite, sitting and remebering. And then you start a period of battling with you own baggage and patterns. And this can go on for years and years, wasting valuable time. Then, it is better to start working on some other aspect of the system, or better yet, get blasted by a dose of the right type of chi from your teacher, to be able to let go entirely.

Sometimes we need help. And sometimes we actually need to remmeber before we can forget. Emptiness meditation is not functional in all those respects.

Just my own rambling opininon.

h

[hagar]

I must be frank with you; nano and biotechnology is not very aligned with the natural order of things. Look into what the consequences of a society totally reconstructed in the image of their creator (man) looks like. The result would probably be pretty neurotic and narcissistic.

Secondly, Why cultivate forever? This is just my personal opinion, but If I was stuck cultivating for hundreds of years, I would probably dissapoint my teachers. Why? Because I would prove that I didn’t know where I was going. When you reach a stage in your cultivation when you know where you are going to return to, you are ready to die. Which is a natural death, and the culmination of a good life.

The point of cultivation is to reach some point in the process where you are completely open to change. Death is the best change that could ever happen to you, because it’s the ulitmate loss. Why bother about living forever, when the goal of cultivation is to let go?

As to you questions: Hearing you lovers thoughts are probably a sign of heightened sensitivity. Either you are born sensitive, or getting more so as a by-product of cultivation. If it makes communication between the two of you better, great. If not, don’t pay too much attention to it.
Leaking energy to others is the natural flow if things. Your lover probably does the same, because there always exists a spontaneous exchange between partners, and that’s nothing to worry about. It all evens out in the long run.

Hope I didn’t sound too conservative or anything. Just some thoughts. Keep practicing!

h

[hagar]

Thanks alot for you feedback.

I relation to the condesation of Jing, I guess the general effect is one of condensing, which I feel in all joints and ligaments in the body. Interesting story about the adept in China. I’m not completely there yet=)

Lately, my emphasis has been on trying to expand the “outer boundries” of my system, i.e increasing the capacity of the jing to permeate the physical body. This, I feel has a direct effect on the inner space. How this happens I have no idea, but really pushing the Jing into the bones and ligaments in physically challenging positions( like sitting on the bones of the feet, releasing the tension and melting through the holding lets the Jing expand and soften the earthly dimension. As a direct consequence, I also feel the dan tian become more active, and more condenced. So basically expanding the outer, Jing-based capacity strenghtenns the inner space/and the dan tians. Working on the dan tians also increases the essential water, making it ready for condensation into the bones and marrow.

Finally, i find it puzzling that greater sense of space in the body lessens the sensation of chi movement.

h

[hagar]

Very good to read this, as this kind of detour into the “saving” and “losin” energy paradigm is a total waste of time. Talking from experience.

In relation to Jing being more powerful than Jingchi, I have a question:

Isn’t Jing, or the essential water in the body better absorbed and recirculated if it is integrated at every step of the way with the essential fire and light (chi and shen)?

My own experience is that this integration can also create a quantum leap in “gong”, as it surpasses the traditional view of first building Jing, then Chi and finally Shen. I find that opening the dan tians, and integrating the three treasures creates so much more space in the body, than working with the traditional accumulation paradigm of saving up a quanta of the different energies before moving up the ladder.
This integration can happen from the top-down or vica-versa.

In sitting practice, I always try to store the increased Jing in the center of the system, like the marrow, bones and ligaments, NOT in the Dan Tian, where it can be “lost”. For example, I always feel sweaty in the hands after meditation, and squeezing the hands feels like squeezing the “water” into the bones, making the bones in the entire body softer, and also smaller. I have actually gone down a shoe size since starting to do this!

h

[hagar]

Plato:

I must admire your courage and pioneering spirit, as I myself would never have the “guts” (pun intended) to try these things out. I remember overdoing it with herbs at one point, wasting precious time and money on stuff that had little or no effect in the long run. But I may only have lacked the proper knowledge at the time…

Anyway, in your approach to external alchemy I find it striking how similar your line of reasoning is to the alchemists of ancient China who in search of the “true lead” and “cinnabar” poisoned themselves in their quest for immortality. Is it pure health benifits you are after, or something more?

In texts like “understanding reality”, and “Inner Teachings of Taoism” the author warns against these practices, as they have nothing to do with cultivating the true medicine, and are looked at as sidetracks. In “The book of Balance and Harmony” there is a ranking of the “lesser” paths, where ingestion of minerals and poisons are among the obvious dangerous approaches, missing the point of true cultivation and a waste of time.

Whats your take on this?

[Author]

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