I've recently started making progress in my qigong practice (both specific White Crane Qi Gong and general "health" Qi Gong, being finally able to feel and somewhat "move"it (I still refuse to consider it a mystical lifeforce, but I can't deny I've felt something I just can't explain). I'm almost addicted to the thing now I love the feeling of using it in strikes. Is it possible to actually become depleted?
A wise person once gave us a metaphor of eating and going to the bog. You cant always eat without going to the bog, like you cant always go to the bog if you don’t eat. Eating in the sense of soft practices. Going to the bog in the sense of discharging practices. I think the ration recommended, if I remember correctly was 30-1. In other words 30 times soft for 1 time hard. P.S. don’t know where your from, but here “bog” means “toilet”.
There was I hoping that no one would pick up on this thread, and then when someone finally did, they did so with such taste and finesse. I thought this might well just be a lure, but please be careful, anyway.
LOL... I hope your being sarcastic But as Joanna, pointed out, "addiction" is not a good thing. In other words don’t get too attached.
Qigong is definitely very enjoyable and addictive. Someone was commenting on another board that the more you practice the more it becomes like a non-stop train. Practice becomes more and more enjoyable and you feel so terrible if you try to stop that you just have to keep learning... like morphine but good for you. I wouldn't worry about "depleting it" so long as you keep practicing the more relaxed, quiescent qigong, especially qigong to cultivate the dantian. We have one exercise specifically this in which you swallow a breath and lightly tap both sides of the dantian. It's supposed to come at the end of each set of practice to sort of "recollect" the qi. I guess maybe if you only did qigong with tension and no relaxed practice you might run the risk of exhausting yourself a bit. Guizzy, do you have any links to examples of White Crane qigong? I'd be interested to see. Do you do that unusual finger-waving thing?
Onyomi wrote: Onyomi, you seem to have no idea how crazy this sounds. Tell me - do you think the following sounds good too? (From a "Daoist Mysticism" website, describing teachings that were on offer):
Haha... you seem to have no idea how crazy qigong is. I haven't done any sexual qigong or tantric sex practices, but I also can't deny their validity. I don't believe in achieving intoxication with any substance other than alcohol. Qigong can give you very interesting and pleasant feelings and experience without resorting to harsh drugs much more likely to cause side-effects, dependancy or even brain damage. What's more, qigong is not comparable to drugs because its effects carry over into regular life. Qigong can increase your daily energy level in a much gentler way than stimulants, for example. I think qigong also increases natural secretion of some hormones. This is obviously much safer and better than taking steroids or other performance enhancing drugs... Actually, in many ways, qigong is like a safe way to enhance performance because it all occurs within you. I don't really consider it "intoxication," anyway. It's more like reclaiming your body's natural ability to function better and feel better than it does for most modern people. For many people, especially as they get older, the body becomes like a prison. The best they can hope for is that it won't torment them. If they feel nothing at all they feel lucky. For many people the only way to make their bodies feel good are to eat, smoke, drink, have sex or use substances. Is it really so strange that when healthy your body can also feel good much of the time simply by being? The funny thing is, I'm really a very rational, logical, anti-hippy person in real life. I've always approached this kind of thing with a heavy dose of skepticism and will not simply buy into things like Reiki which I've never experienced myself. I just can't deny the unusual qualities qigong really has presented me. Is it possible I'm engaging in some kind of self-reinforcing delusion? I doubt it, since I can observe physical signs of qigong--but I also can't deny that 100%. I also can't deny I'm a butterfly dreaming I'm a man. But I've reached a point where I honestly don't care if other people believe me about qigong. I don't talk about it much in real life because I know it sounds crazy to people who haven't practiced it. But if qigong is wrong I don't wanna be right.
Again there is always the same assumption. I have done heaps of qigong, neigong, plus buqi healing and Reiki healing at Master level. That is HOW I know it is fake. So-called "qigong healing" has no lasting positive effects - just a whole load of kidding oneself and at best a little placebo. It is the easiest dodge in the world to say "oh well - if you've never actually experienced it..." I've had it coming out of my ears and think it is a load of overblown BS. No one who does "internal work" has any ability to discuss what they are saying in any kind of rational or detailed way - it is so ritualised and covert that it is not real. I can get all the benefits and none of the side effects by reclaiming my body and mind, instead of leaving them swimming unquestioningly in a nonsensical, irrational and seemingly very inconsistent, imaginary universe. Doing qigong, I've had the "qi" experiences - the sensations, the vortices of light - the sensation of the exploding dantian. I've also been told that such sensations are utterly meaningless, or that they go away when you've blasted through all your "qi blockages" (stiff muscles). With buqi I have calmed angry dogs - I even had a wounded turtle (at a marine centre) swim towards me and rest next to my hand for 20 mins (there was a pane of glass between us). I put it down to buqi - I now know he'd have done it anyway - what he picked up on was the emotion in my face. The dogs sensed my serenity - I did not smell in any way threatening to them. Qigong is such a mish mash - the term is far too broad to be useful. Most forms of actual physical exercise can be beneficial, but there is no evidence that a qigong person is getting any healthier than any other exerciser. Seriously - ditch the occult methodology and the real benefits would still be there, but without the harmful mental side effects. Any practice that makes you crave more of it and makes you feel terrible if you don't do it is dangerous. I'm also astounded that you don't find such self-absorbed practices morally abhorrent. Regarding the butterfly dream - there is danger here that anyone can say any old thing, but we all really know that some ideas have more validity than others. Is it better to murder others, or not to? Is there more validity in the idea that the Universe is so, of itself, and has always been and may always be; or that the Universe was created when Elmo from Sesame Street sneezed, one day? You can say "well who can tell?" but this is just a philosophical dodge that has been seriously overused since the 1960's. You can not get far through life by putting rationality on hold, and I am sure you only do so very selectively. You could not live your life otherwise - you'd be too unreliable. "Is it a fact that I have to go to work, or am I but an illusion?" Think about it. For many people, Qigong fills a theological hole. The real danger comes when it starts to fill all of their scientific, philosophical and moral holes too.
I didn't assume anything. I know you've practiced qigong... I just doubt whether or not you've practiced real qigong in depth with a good teacher... It sounds more like you've hopped about from one new-age guru to the next. Real qigong takes years of consistent effort and cannot be zapped into you. You're also making assumptions about my practice. I didn't say I use qigong for spiritual fulfillment, as a moral compass, to heal the sick without touching them or to speak to animals, nor do I believe it can accomplish those things. I use it as a type of "exercise" for body and mind... and it gives me tangible, cumulative benefits. I haven't seen god or anything like that, nor do I expect to. It's also really easy to make a straw man argument against qigong, because there's so much crappy self-delusion going on out there under the name of qigong. That's all I see you doing. Also, I'm not going to discuss the validity of qigong any more in this thread. If you want to talk more about that then start yet another thread devoted to that topic. I was actually interested in hearing more about Guizzy's experience with White Crane qigong. It isn't necessary to poke your nose in EVERY qigong thread just to inform all the participants they're crazy.
Onyomi said: No - most of my qigong has been with some very recognised teachers, but I never name names because I don't want any fingers pointed. Valid martial exercises are still part of my practice, anything that no one could explain a rational use for is not. Hong Junsheng referred to this process: Qigong is only BS because the methodology itself is BS. Look, Ken Cohen (a Daoist Monk) points out the term originated in the 1950's as a broad generic term for all kinds of things that had previously been discussed separately. I'm sure you know only too well that people use "qigong" for all manner of things, from healing and harming without touching, to moving people and objects, developing superhuman skills such as iron shirt (this always baffles me in Taiji - what happened to yielding to force?) and lightness skill. You yourself describe druglike experiences and cravings coming as a result of qigong, which sounds crazy to me. I'm baffled why you'd want to make me out to be doing BS by doing buqi healing qigong, yet you seem completely unconcerned about Regarding your statement: Firstly, there are many qigong threads I have kept out of completely. But this time, I had contributed before you came along. Furthermore, I had said nothing critical until you said: This was the very thing that provoked me into expressing an opinion about qigong. If you are going to make trite comments to big it up, others may well respond. I think we've done it to death, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.
My desire to do qigong is nothing like a drug craving. It's more like someone who stretches every day wanting to stretch again today. You've become so sensitive about this topic that you blow my comments (which are full of smilies, so that you don't take them too seriously) way out of proportion.
My apologies for being so sensitive on the issue Onyomi. I didn't see very many winks* though to be fair. But it doesn't matter. If it is just stretching, then OK - I think some qigong / neigong exercises are a mixture of warming up and stretching the body, but that is not really at all mysterious. If "qigong" just meant that, I'd have no problem with it, but by the time it also meant martial movement quality training (such as chansigong) and then other things too, including quite supernatural things, I'd wonder what the point was of such a vague term being introduced. I think acceptance of the term "qigong" has become Conventional Wisdom but that does not make it true. Regarding qigong being "nothing like a drug craving" - I'm sorry, but you were the one who said it was. Sorry again if I didn't see the funny side, if it was meant to be a joke. We are getting nowhere here though, are we? Let's try to just shake hands and agree to differ. I'll back off now so that Guizzy can maybe answer your questions about White Crane qigong. Take care. *OK so you changed winks to smilies while I was typing, fair enough.
Unfortunately, the "shaking" qigong is more of the calling crane branch than the flying crane, so I can't help you there. Our style specific qigong consists more of large "wing flapping" motions that emphasise relaxing muscles while retaining control of our limbs. Very extended motions that work on the timing of the kinetic chain to produce a "wave"-like power. Our school doesn't emphasise much on the internal aspect of the art. While I personally like to put a special emphasis in my training to work it, we don't get a lot of qigong instruction (not nearly enough for my taste). --- On the subject of qigong cravings; it's not that it's irresistible or anything like a drug. But there are many moments where I think to myself: "darn, some qigong would feel nice right now". I was asking the question from a "chi believer" perspective not because I actually believe in chi, but because I wanted to hear if those actually believe in it felt overdoing it is dangerous. I haven't quite sorted my beliefs on chi quite yet; I can't say I actually believe there's a "lifeforce" that can be moved and shaped through the body, but there are things I just can't deny anymore about the usefulness of proper qigong.
Just for interest, in our Taijiquan we also do "kinetic chain" like exercises (from the ground up), to help with techniques such as "Single Whip" and "White Crane Spreads / Shines / Flaps its Wings, but we just call them "undulation exercises." We focus on the undulation movement method separately from the reeling silk method (multiple smooth connected rotations) and draw out different qualities to greater or lesser degree to suit the specific combat circumstances. But we only view them as different movement qualities, rather than anything anyone would usually describe as qi or energetics, because we think we are using physics rather than life force. If energetics only meant body mechanics, it would be fine, but we think the idea of using "life force" to power movement (in any kind of direct or literal sense) is incorrect and a bit silly. OK - I'm going again, sorry to interrupt.
jkzorya, it's interesting to hear a differing opinion about all this. Just curious, do you feel the same way about Yoga as its claims as you do about qigong?
Though modern Yoga tends to justify its practice with certain well-understood physical principles like the benefits of increased strength, flexibility and balance, if you actually read books about its overarching goals and methods, they tend to be even more "out there" than qigong, what with the "astral body," the "aura," the association of the chakras with behavioral and spiritual effects, the use of fasting, music, invocations, mantras, etc. By comparison qigong seems like a down-to-earth exercise/health-maintenance system.
It depends which claims. I've got no problems with stretching, and relaxing while doing it to enable deeper stretching, but I'm just as against the so-called "Kundalini awakening" type stuff. Things all start going wrong for me when mystical practices become specifically anti-science, rather than being seen as a body of knowledge that is compatible with scientific learning and advancements. I do think that much of so-called "neigong" or "qigong" and by extension perhaps Yoga's pranayama (breathing exercises) and chakra work either comes under the heading of pseudoscience at worst, or protoscience at best.
I don't see them as being "anti-science" just like I don't see religion and science being mutually exclusive (yes, you can believe in God and evolution at the same time), but, I do understand if people think it's a load of BS. Things like that though can't really be proven. Do I assume it's bunk then? Not necessarily....do I think people like Dillman are full of it at the same time? Certainly! Thanks for the response though.
Hi Javyn, I'm with you on the fact that science and religion don't have to be mutually exclusive. I like much of the work / writing of people like Carl Sagan and James Randi, but I don't think we necessarily need to think there is no God, just because we allegedly cannot prove there is. I think if we apply the theory of Occam's Razor ("when given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should embrace the less complicated formulation" - from Wikipedia), we might actually find that "there is a God" is by far the simplest explanation for the existence of the Universe. God / Dao / Science is kind of all the same thing to me, with existence chiefly being about the here and the now and creation being an ongoing process of manifestation and transformation. Scientific discovery is a natural development of our consciousness. The particular problem I have is when people who are already quite self-absorbed and cerebral, are drawn to increasingly self-absorbing pursuits, such as meditation, Yoga and popular T'ai Chi. I was rushed into hospital yesterday (I'm an acute asthmatic with a depleted immune system and had been knocked out by a virus) and had to spend half the day on oxygen. I'm now back at home and fairly comfortable with the help of antibiotics and painkillers. The doctors and nurses were actively helpful, they were nurturing and they got things done that needed to be done in order to keep me alive and as comfortable as possible. I rarely see so much dedication, commitment, genuine benevolence or genuine ability to help within the Yogic or Internal Arts communities, where people can and do get absorbed in their own inner journeys and self-cultivation. I see this as a flaw in the introspective process itself, especially in the case of Westerners who gravitate towards uncritical romanticised notions of Eastern philosophy and mystical Orientalism because of an overly critical (and even ungrateful) perspective of Western culture and science. I think this uncritical approach results in an inability to recognise flaws or outright quackery and an unwillingness to own, adapt and adjust the knowledge they are exploring. Whether Westerners like it or not, they are the product of 2000 years of Christendom and our culture, like any other, has had its share of historical achievements and historical blunders, but I think there is a lot to be said for it.
