Bigu articles, links, etc?

Hi Michael,

There are really two different types of bigu.

The first is what I would call “natural bigu”.
This is when bigu happens naturally or spontaneously
with no effort or real initiative on the part of the
person involved.

From my experience, this seems to happen due to
a period of prolonged practice. For instance, when I’ve
put myself into a practice intensive of practicing
several hours a day–sometimes multiple hours back to back,
I’ve noticed that after a while my appetite slowly starts
to fall away on it’s own. I have a feeling like “it’s time
to eat”, but I don’t really feel like I have to. Sometimes
I skip a meal, or sometimes I don’t eat much–not because
I’m trying to, but just because I’m not really hungry.

After a period of reducing eating, my weight starts to drop;
if I continue, after about a week and a half, my weight stabilizes
and I don’t lose anymore. Moreover, even though I’m not
eating much (maybe half of the normal intake), I don’t feel hungry
at all. Then after I stop my intensive, I usually decide to just
eat a normal meal (even though I’m not really hungry for it), and
afterward, I feel kind of funny. Then a couple hours later,
ravenous hunger comes back and my appetite is back
in full force (almost in a desire to make up for lost time).

Although I’ve never done it, I’d imagine that a longer
period of a sustained intensive practice coupled with even
more daily qigong would naturally lead to a state of complete
abstinence of food without any hunger or real difficulty, which
of course could be useful if you were practicing in a cave as
a hermit.

The second type of bigu is what I would call “forced bigu”.
This is when you intentionally set up a program to put
you into a bigu state. This is outlined in the book
“Daoist Body Cultivation” by Livia Kohn that I mentioned
in the previous post. Basically what you do is go through
the following program:

1. First decide in your mind why you want to do it and
what you hope to accomplish by doing it. Get your desires
and goals integrated into your whole being, so your
whole being is working from this perspective with no conflict.

2. Go into a 100-day practice program of “detox”.
This incorporates breathing exercises and qigong designed to
stabilize your emotions and eliminate toxic chi
(i.e. inner smile, healing sounds, emotional alchemy).
During this time, you eliminate all external toxic influences,
i.e. negative people, highly processed foods, refined sugar,
alcohol, strong visuals (pornography, sex, violence), etc.
You eat normal quantities during this phase.

3. You go into a reduction phase. You decrease the
amount of physical food you eat. Meanwhile you take
supplemental herbs (to reduce appetite and stabilize
yourself during the transition), you take vitamins and
minerals, and eat more and more fruit in replacement
of food. Meanwhile you continue your qigong, and
incorporate “qi-eating” techniques. Some of these
involve: slow, exaggerated breathing; breath reduction;
rhythmic contraction of stomach muscles to pull
breath and chi into it; mixing chi into your saliva and
swallowing your saliva, etc.

4. After your food reaches zero, you start reducing
the supplemental herbs until your reach zero–all while
continuing your “qi-eating” techniques.

———–

Hope this helps,
Steven

good advice steven.

The reason that forcing/direction doesn’t work is because for most of us the forcing/directing pressuposes that we dont find whatever we’re forcing to be unacceptable. this kind of forcing is false yang.

When you can accept whatever you’re working on fully, and feel inspired to make a change, then you can lead/direct it in a beneficial sort of way.