Sorry to be disrespectful Foreigner but it all sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. Breathing in conjunction with visualization (which includes bodily sensations), in conjunction with a peppering of esoteric 'masters' and concepts, amounts to nothing more than hypnosis. I suspect most people will feel something if they practice that every day for a prolonged period of time, doesn't mean it's qi though.. the mind is quite good at creating things.. or picking up on existing physiological processes and amplifying them, which then in turn get mislabeled as something else. The invisible and undetectable nature of qi doesn't help its cause of course.
There's actually no visualization involved. Like the martial arts, such as taiji, qi gong, ba gua, etc... all it requires is proper posture and alignment, and it happens. Breath work is essential, I don't see how that can be left out. Breath becomes bodily energy which can then be used for various activities. The mapping of the qi pathways in the body is a result of observation, not fantasy. The person isn't made to fit the system, the system is used to describe the person. You've probably experienced all these things but just conceptualize it differently, and that's okay. Or maybe you haven't experienced them, and that's why you writing off this model for explaining it. Either way, the content of what you reflect back at me indicates that you don't have all the information or experience at hand. Not a critique, just pointing it out... there might be some blind spots you're not considering.
I find it insulting actually that people (not you personally) promote the idea that we need some extra system or practice to activate something within us..
I'll stop you right there. It's just "a system", it's not "the system". No system is complete. You can use whatever model you want, or no model. I'm just saying what has worked awesomely well for me, such as it is. To turn around and write off my experiences as just my imagination strikes me as a personal shield you are using to prevent challenges to your construct. (Something I'm aware of doing earlier in this thread with you, which I recognized at the time and have now reneged on.) It's not much different than scientists saying that anything spiritual is bullshit because it can't be measured, yet refuse to actually subject themselves to the methods which may provide the evidentiary experience.
On the other hand, we have a short lifetime and an infinite number of sources to work with, so it's important to work with what we gravitate to. That's why I see little point in arguing about this.
as if our body/nature wasn't designed in such a way that these things would happen automatically, which is far more likely to be the case! I mean take a step back for a second.. the whole concept that you need this or that practice.. does that not sound like ancient advertising to you? Can you not see the human influence in this whole thing? The fact that you can't see or test for qi etc always helps sell the concept/product.. that same tactic used yesterday is still used today, e.g dark matter in astrophysics. Can't see it, can't test it, but believe me.. it's there.. honest.. I'm an authority/master! I would add that in regards to qi that perhaps there is subtle energy in our bodies in some form.. however it remains to the individual on whether they believe and trust that anyone has discovered how to actually manipulate it! Maybe someone 2000 years ago experienced something or a result, maybe he did.. but whether he labeled it or pinpointed it accurately is up to you to decide. Personally I always remain doubtful.. again there may be subtle things going on.. but the differences between cultural systems and the similarities at the same time suggest that perhaps there is something, but the fact there are differences suggest no one really knows exactly what the fuck is going on!
It's healthy that you remain doubtful and need to try things for yourself to determine their accuracy and validity. I'm not suggesting anyone swallow what I said whole... do your own experiments. I don't think something is valid because it's ancient or modern, but it's valid because I tried it and it worked. The Daoist aspects are not based on one person's interpretation of reality, like how the Bible is centered around Jesus; it's based on centuries of works and cross-analysis, through a different epistemology. That's really all there is to it.
Also... yes it's true, the body will do many things naturally, but like many of our human functions, it can be enhanced, much like how education enhances knowledge. Augmenting self-knowledge with an existing body of knowledge can be advantageous. Does this even deserve an explanation? Why re-invent the wheel? If there are systems of education out there which can provide a certain level of instruction to help you figure it out faster, what's wrong with that? From the way I conduct my life, I don't know why someone *wouldn't* investigate that, albeit it with the discernment and acumen you're suggesting.
Energy flows where attention goes. If you want to raise energy up to your head.. then.. you have to use your head. Want to raise kundalini? Concentrate and attack a mental problem. It will happen automatically.. energy will be drawn upwards to fuel the mental processes.. there's your conversion process right there. Or.. you can visualize bliss or something nebulous and pleasurable and believe you're doing God's/divine work.. you'll have the same result, energy will move. The outcome of the former is productive, the outcome of the latter is wasteful.
That's not kundalini. But anyway...
Your first paragraph actually explained it all. The body reorganized itself, on its own. You then began to have mental pressure.. what needed to happen was self-observation and examination of why you were feeling the emotions you were, not turning to a concept system to divert the energy away from attacking those mental blocks. You added a system of belief, as opposed to using the energy to dismantle/subtract internal issues.
You're assuming what I did or didn't do. Your assumptions are wrong, actually.
Also, it's condescending to call something a "belief" just because you've arbitrarily decided it's not real, based on a purely intellectual analysis with no experiential backing, and then project that on me as though I myself haven't applied any rigorous discernment or investigation. How's that comfort zone working out for you?
Daoism isn't the first system I've worked with. It also won't be the last.
EDIT: Was just listening to some music and had the tingles, and it reminded me of what I was referring to in this post and bodily sensations. I can trigger very pleasurable and very pronounced sensations when listening to music, but I learned how to carry it over so that I can now trigger it under (emotional) circumstances without music.. however this is a pattern I try to avoid. I also learned how to stop hiccups after only 1 spasm by putting my mind in a certain state. When I was very young and used to use the bath I would put my head under the water and slow my heart right down.. I stopped that practice when my heart paused for seconds and scared the shit out of me!
The point is the mind has enormous influence over the processes of the body.. but it is not something one should really interfere with. That heart example being a prime demonstration. The mind also has an enormous ability to fuck with itself too. There's plenty of accounts of people all over the internet who mixed visualization, meditation and attention to sensations in the body and ended up pushing themselves into psychotic states. "Kundalini psychosis".. what's funny is that these people still try to label it all with spiritual wording and concepts, like "spiritual emergency", when in reality what they did was tangle themselves up because they were foolhardy and took advice from people on the internet who know as much as the next person (ie nothing).
You're referring to things in your critique that have nothing to do with what I posted. You're just lumping systems together and then dismissing them all with specious reasoning.
If what I described doesn't jive with you, then that's fine. You can choose to believe whatever you want, including that I'm apparently some moron who can't think for himself and just loves ancient eastern things for apparently no logical reason. It couldn't possibly be that I've spent years investigating and working with these things, and concluded empirically that there's something to the system that deserves closer study and observation; it couldn't be that thousands of years worth of works might be on to something. No, it's just all a bunch of non-provable hogwash, and people are just jerking themselves around because they're all delusional fools believing in something that isn't really happening.
Everyone's at where they're at, and you'll be lead to the information and practices that are appropriate for you, based on the learning you need to be doing and at the level of consciousness you're at. Keep up the good work. People will read what I wrote and draw their own conclusions. Thank you for your input.
