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The soloflex product ( http://www.soloflex.com/wbv/ ) is the cheapest I’ve seen around (ebay?), and allows standing as well as lying front/back on. Think standing lower tan tien breathing while your insides are vibrating, or lying down doing tao yin while vibrating. Wider range of etc explorations possible.
Ok, so the situation is that you have no local resources. Given that there are no garuntees in life, and we’re all just getting along as best we can, here’s what I would recommend:
A combination of herbs, acupressure, and exercise (including qi gong).
Herbs
Call up either dragon herbs ( http://dragonherbs.com/ ) or the tea garden herbal emporium ( http://teagardenherbalemporium.com/ ) and ask to speak to one of their doctors. Tell them your situation, say that you’re looking for a long term remedy, answer any questions, get what they recommend (it should be one formula, or maybe two). Expect that you’ll get improvements, but that also you’ll be taking herbs for at least quite some months.Acupressure
Buy the CD version of a Manual of Acupuncture. It’s searchable. You can search for “asthma” and apply self-acupressure (not acupuncture) of various classical acupoint-combinations for asthma. (btw, the hardcover book is over at amazon.) Acupressure is very convenient and safe for us amateurs, and you’ll find that, over time, you’ll learn a lot and help yourself a lot with it – very inexpensively. It’ll not only assist you with specific maladies, but will help keep your channels open in general, will make your qi gong endeavors much more fruitful over the long haul.Exercise (and qi gong)
Whatever you decide to take up.best of luck,
TrunkA few thoughts.
Amongst potential benefits, the main dangers of semen retention are stagnation and heat.
One of the Chinese medical views of asthma is that “the kidneys are failing to grasp the lung qi”, so you can’t breathe deeply easily, can’t catch your breath. The (healthy) energy of the lungs is cool and descending, and connects with kidney yin at the bottom of the inhale. If you’ve tinkered unskillfully with retention, it’s likely that your lower abdomen is tensed up and over-heated, the exact opposite conditions that the lung qi connects with most easily. Bottom line: it’s likely that your ill-informed experimentations with retention have made your asthma worse. It would behoove you to stop retention experimentation at this time, (though other qi gong might be beneficial) and see a doctor of Chinese medicine, to address any remedial condition.
I’m not a doctor, only an amateurish hobbyist. Maybe the above is just so obvious that no one thought to mention it. Anyone with the least training in Chinese medicine and qi gong would know this.
best of luck to you,
TrunkI agree with freeform, that you are clarifying your central channel. One might expect it to “open”, “flow”, and “fill”, as happens with other channels, but its’ process is unique amongst the channels, is more about clarification, stillness, the union of concentration and openness. One of the concise Tibetan directions re: the central channel is “enter, abide, dissolve”. It’s the skillful means where the personal connects with the Transpersonal, and as such, more limited patterns of energy are superceded.
Further reading at AlchemicalTaoism.com. Read the “Overview”. Also go to “Extraordinary Vessels” and all the info there under “Core Vessel”.
D> Is there nothing in Toaist cosmology that would explain this thing kundalini? I did not mean circulation of jing I meant a transformation. >
Well, I’m just a poor round-eye, limited to reading Taoist texts that’ve been translated into english – but I haven’t read any description that correlates to kundalini. There’s a ton of un-translated Taoist literature, and there are plenty of Taoist Masters that I’ve not talked to – so I can’t speak for all of Taoism (obviously). Certainly nothing described in the HT books correlates to it, or any of Cleary’s books that I’ve read.
It doesn’t matter which channel, or whatever blendings or transformations you’d do, imo. It’s a giant leap of energetic depth that occurs within the lower centers. Once opened, it doesn’t shut (or takes some very high level rare maneuver).
D> Is kundalini just jing transforming to shen in the fire channel? >
No, definately not. Kundalini is about the lower centers tapping into a Primordial Force. What, exactly, that is, I couldn’t say. But it is definately not just the common circulation of jing, through whichever channel.
Jimbo,
j> Can you recommend an overview somewhere? >
Some people find my website helpful, AlchemicalTaoism.com. It’s free, and written (mostly) by students, for students – so, take it for what it’s worth. 😉 Pertinent to our discussion: the Overview section, Microcosmic section, Extraordinary Vessels section (core vessel essays).
The macrocosmic orbit is really important – opening the arm and leg routes, and integrating with your standing practices. ime, the micro can be over-done to the point that one excludes earth connection, and that’s a big mistake.
The central channel is unique, in that it is a still place, where the personal and transpersonal intersect – on an applied basis vis-a-vis ‘effective means’. imo, the Tibetans talk most clearly about this in their Six Yogas of Naropa system (even though you have to wade through complexity that is typical of Tibetan Buddhist literature). Without the knowledge of the resolution of energy to the Big Still, which occurs in the central channel, the energies can run around endlessly without really producing stable integrated integrity (on a spiritual mechanical basis).
My mother had a miscarraige (considerably prior to term, I believe), prior to her pregnancy with me. Not too long ago I remember my mother’s emotions (which were easily mistaken for my emotions at time, since her blood was pumping through my umbilicus, that nourishment was being used to build this body, and I was too early in formation to have a human emotional set of my own). Her child had died in her womb: Unfathomable anguish and guilt (though undeserved), and fear (during her pregnancy with me, that she would lose me also). When first I remembered it, some short years ago, the wave of it was staggering.
There is real, earthy suffering that is a part of life, and everyone gets some. (I’m about to get all Buddhist, here.)
* wanders off in his own mind *“Grist for the mill of awakening.”
Roll that heavy dharma-wheel, brother, and we’ll all have grits.
🙂I made two changes to the essay, based on our conversation:
1. I included a couple of tank pictures, one at the beginning, one at the end. Our “body type” discussion prompted me to look for some pictures, and these are what I found to indicate the pertinent issues (not just of body type, but also libidinal psychology, and pelvic structure). They’re concise, and fun. 🙂
2. I re-wrote the concluding paragraph (the one just before the 2nd tank picture), based on your comment
m> I hope many people can/will read this: …
from how you describe it, it is obviouslly so beneficial.. >Dialogue helps considerably, to better the writing.
Mat,
m> maybe it’s got a lot to do with body type – i’m pretty thin – not really prone to excessive strength anyway. but i can see how stonger constitutional types would have more strength/power particularlly in that region. >
Yes, you are so right. I thought of mentioning this, but there’s only so much one can type at once. 🙂
I’m a stocky, muscular body type (50% eastern-European genetics). I think that people with more slender musculature have a somewhat different issue-set, and different solutions work perhaps more completely (like stretching). I have to do a certain amount of heavy strength training in order to just relax, and to warm up – always have (at least since puberty). Big contrast to the asian musculature, or others.
m> i actually don’t feel that as residual power at all after practice (daoyin/qigong meditation) >
Grrrrrrr.
~~~
Just to mention a bit more on this exercise set. Basically it strongly, repeatedly, contracts all of the major muscles of the pelvic region .. What else does that? – Orgasm. So, basically, through exercise I’m mimicing some of the muscular response of orgasm. What happens, for me, when I do this (all three exercises in succession) is that, afterwards, the center of my lower core is pulsing, and it feels very cool and nourishing (none of the heat & stagnation issues that accompany aroused jing). I think it’s a very healthy approach for those of my body type to cool our jets. 🙂
Thanks for the compliment.
Glad for the conversation.Trunk
Exercise the spine, in any number of ways.
Examples:
Spine Massage
Spine ExerciseMat,
m> Do you mean that the feelings/sensations of ‘power’ and strength that come with vitality, .. are not addressed by most systems? >
Yes, but more specifically:
– muscular strength-usage within the pelvic region, and how that relates to processing jing’s power within the pelvic region.(In this essay..) I’m not addressing lower-center psychology, though clearly they’re inter-related. And I’m not addressing blending with other centers, the rest of the body, though obviously those are valid topics.
My experience with strategies of “circulate the jing”, “blend it with other centers”, is that there still tends to be a residue of unprocessed force left within the pelvic region, and that circulating alone does not resolve that.
m> (particularlly arousal) >
Yes and no.
Yes, it helps process unrefined arousal residue.And, no, not necesarily. By working out the pelvis area, you can activate the jing and employ it for purely muscular work. The resulting jing-pulsing is enjoyable, and healthy, but does not contain the element of desire~arousal.
Men tend towards a sexual frenzy imbalance, anyway, and modern life does nothing to process that vitality with physical labor in nature. This gives you a quick way to physically work the area.
m> And with that being the case, how then to integrate this strength/contraction into the rest of the body? >
Not addressing that in this essay. 🙂
Trunk
