Qigong meditation vs moving forms

[dmattwads]

I have been pondering what the different types of Qigong are most useful for. As in.... are moving / physical qigong forms primarily of benefit to the body, and are still / meditative qigong practices primarily of benefit to the emotions / mind? I do realize that the mind and the body really can not be separated like that, but anyone who has been paying attention to this forum knows that I am the guy always asking question about emotional issues.
One thing that I think I have become more aware of is that (and yes some of you mentioned this earlier , a lot of sexual concerns were not primarily the simple physical drive, but rooted in emotional issues.
As of lately I have been doing 8 Brochades, Standing meditation, and the sitting meditation that Mantak Chia teaches called "Inner Smile, and Healing Sounds" (I sort of combine the two together).

Now I guess to the meat of my question. If one's primary motivation for doing Qigong was emotional stability and balance, would it be wise to make a meditative practice the primary (though not exclusive) approach to this goal? I could be mistaken, but my intuition tells me that meditation addresses the mind / emotions more directly, and that moving qigong forms address the body more so.
Additionally if there is a more effective meditation for the emotions than the one I listed, I would be interested in hearing about it. I do the microcosmic orbit sometimes, but "feel" that the inner smile and healing sounds are more direct about this, but I could be wrong.

I thing I do know is that everyone has their issues, some have a bad back, others arthritis, and some like me have a difficult time keeping their emotions in balance for what ever reason. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[joeblast]

the smile & sounds are awesome, it sounds like they are right in line with what you need. a good abdominal breathing regimen will compliment that exercise - when done right the ad breath massages your internal organs - so do the healing sounds as part of closedown after meditation and that should help them cool and balance, but they are also a good exercise to do in and of itself. (if they do more than mco right now then that is indication - keep doing those, mco will come in time and may not be the most fruitful avenue for you at this time.)

of course still meditation is more focused on the mind and moving qigong more focused on the body's structure, but they also go hand in hand and are best when they are both part of regimen. if you sit too much without enough moving then that could stress your connective tissues - so that's why I make sure I do certain exercises more the more I do full lotus.

a balanced approach is always best - but its up to you to find that balance, since we all have a "different target balance."

[dmattwads]

Another question sort of related. Has anyone else had this experience? Lets say you have a Qigong goal, to work on something specific, weather it be physical, emotional, ect.... . At first you notice that what ever it was that you wanted to work on got worse rather than better? For example if you had an emotional issue you wanted to work on, so you decided to do a meditation for it, and then initially that emotion because a lot worse than it was before you started to work on it?

[joeblast]

Absolutely, that's a common experience. Its like when you were little and had to clean your room - invariably you would wind up making a bigger mess before "the mess" got cleaned up

[Dvivid]

One thing to add to this topic: the human body is meant to move a lot, every day. I think a lot of emotional disturbance can be sourced from lack of exercise.

Only in the past 50 years have humans become so sedentary. Evolution takes much longer to make changes, so the needs of the body now are the same as hundreds and thousands of years ago. You need to move your body, for the health of both body and mind.

70% of cell replacement takes place through BREATHING. 19% takes place through SWEATING. You need to breathe deeply and sweat often or the circulation becomes stagnant and problems arise.

[yeniseri]

Another question sort of related. Has anyone else had this experience? Lets say you have a Qigong goal, to work on something specific, weather it be physical, emotional, ect.... . At first you notice that what ever it was that you wanted to work on got worse rather than better? For example if you had an emotional issue you wanted to work on, so you decided to do a meditation for it, and then initially that emotion because a lot worse than it was before you started to work on it?

Having a goal is good and balance (personal experience) is usually more than one's perception of it. One may say they want to work on an emotional issue (as stated above) but qigong (yangshengong, neigong, etc) is not much help, or at least the perception of it.
Emotional issues, most of the time, are one of personal perception and rarely represent a reality so reframing and similar techniques do more to help emotional stuff than, say qigong.

Balance usually means you have to do more 'gong' (practice) so as to build a foundation on which to build that practice. To clarify, if I find that I do x qigong method, the first few days (with no perceived subjective benefit) is usually the groundwork of gong or building the foundation.

To rephrase, Teacher X told me to do 4 months of his method 2-3x/day for 1 hour. The first month is actually, for lack of a better description, the foundation period on which the next 3 months rest upon.

I use the tea analogy alot whereby if you want to boil water, you cannot just turn the burner control to the highest reading and the water will boil. It takes time! If you want tea, you place the bag and let it sit appropriately based on how vigotous, strong, etc you want the tea to be.

[dmattwads]

Maybe I should be more specific as to avoid confusion. I have used the healing sounds and inner smile meditations for a while now, and the results I get from time to time have been very "interesting".
Marin Gilles in his book about Chi Nei Tsang (I think thats how you spell it) talks about energetic detoxification based up on the Five Element theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine. As I'm sure most people familiar with Qigong and TCM are aware each organ has associated emotions and mental functions. As Gilles explains certain toxic emotions that we are unable to digest at the time are stored in our tissues. It is our bodies defense mechanism to protect us, but that negative energy still affects us.
So to deal with issues we can detoxify ourselves in the energetic sense. Prior to a few years ago for example I had issues with my temper at home. I had tried for years to control myself better but with out success. Knowing what I did from 5 Element theory that the Liver is associated with anger I used the inner smile and healing sounds to remove toxic angry energy from my Liver. The immediate result was excruciating. I thought I was going to go insane as the pent up toxic energy from my Liver was released. For about a week I went through hell, but after wards my temper was not an issues any longer. I'm not saying I don't ever get angry, for sometimes anger is an appropriate response to a situation, but I do not have a short temper like before, and its not even something I have to try to control, its natural. I also realized as this energy was being released the source of it, and even had suppressed memories associated with it resurface.
In the time since then I have had similar experiences with other emotions and other organs that I have worked on.
As of late I have been working on my heart. Knowing that the heart meridian is the "big daddy" of the meridian system, this has been an especially difficult time of detoxification, yet its due to its intensity that I realize how important it is that I do this. Since a lot of the emotions associated with the heart have to do with over excitation, anxiety, and mental issues, having the negative energies of these emotions being suddenly released from my heart and re-experiencing them again has been a very unpleasent experience, though one that I feel will be well worth while once it is finished with based upon the experiences I have had in the past.
I hope this makes sense to someone reading, and I would be even happier if anyone reading has had similar experiences with this type of thing. If so I'd love to hear about it, if not I'd be happy to clarify anything I have talked about.

[John the Monkey mind]

I have read a bit about this but haven't given it a go myself as its reasonably advanced stuff and not without risks to your physical and mental state. I intend to look into it once I get back into meditating again. Most of what I have done so far is Buddhist meditation, only went through inner smile with an instructor once, really good experience but I was unable to duplicate this on my own so I left it. I find meditating without guidance to be personally problematic.

[joeblast]

with some energy work its helpful to have a master to show you things - you will most often have an initial more fruitful bit with, but then the hard part is going back and cultivating your own level with no help. definitely that way with the spontaneous practice that I do - was easy for it to be full of phenomena when with teacher, but come home after and then you realize that you have a good ways to go!

dm, try a lot of heart sounds - you dont necessarily need to think of your heart as having toxic aspects even though the blood does indeed get a bit funky with time. your heart is a huge energy center, it shines if you can figure out how to let it!

the way I've gone about it was via embryonic breathing, strangely enough. make the belly soft and you can make the diaphragm soft. make the diaphragm soft and along with calm deep soft slender breathing I found that the heart kinda floats inside the pericardium, perched upon the diaphragm. connect the huiyin with ldt with diaphragm via the psoas and let that conglomerate drop gently when starting the inhale and you wont have a firming of the diaphragm that results from breathing too quickly or forcefully (in the context of a very deep calm breath, so even small peturbations disturb the heart center ever so slightly when everything's calm enough.)


another good tibetan method to release tension from the heart is to take 70% of an inhale while bringing the hands into a quasi-treehold position (hands face heart,) hold the breath there for just a moment, then raise the hands above your head as you do the rest of the inhale to a full 100% and palms down descend the arms as you exhale fully. a modified "pulling down the heavens".

[yeniseri]

I have used the healing sounds and inner smile meditations for a while now, and the results I get from time to time have been very "interesting".

Some questions:
a. What is the distinction between 'inner smile' and let's say 'outer smile'?
Objectively, and the way I teach yangshengong concepts, anything that comes form one's xin ('heart'/'mind'/'gut' synthesis) has the capacity to change the whole being of the person. I realize people tout this 'inner smile' but even though I know what it means. I have also experienced those who state they see accomplishment in it but what comes from their being is truly 'toxic' in external manifestation of behaviour and attitudional rigidity!
All power to those who have truly seen the benefit of this 'inner smile'

Knowing what I did from 5 Element theory that the Liver is associated with anger I used the inner smile and healing sounds to remove toxic angry energy from my Liver.

Anger is not a bad thing but only its excess!

I have been working on my heart. Knowing that the heart meridian is the "big daddy" of the meridian system, this has been an especially difficult time of detoxification.

Based on the above stated, heart detoxification is related to excess anger but its major correlation to health is expression of cardiovascular disease so a dietary/nutritional solution may be a better strategy considering you are using liver to detoxify heart while neglecting the heart's physical conditionary in this modern sedentary society.

Just some extra thoughts for musing!

[dmattwads]

I appreciate the replies and thought I'd offer a little clarification on some points. As far as being non-sedintary I agree, I do work out regularly, Karate being a big part of that as well as a pure work out routine.
The liver work I mentioned as a few years ago, and yea I do realize that anger in its proper context is normal, it keeps people from taking advantage of you. When it is not healthy is when its too much, or irrational as it was in my case previously.
I'll have to admit that I did not completely understand some of the points made in the last reply, sorry.

[joeblast]

[dmattwads]

ok just thought I'd share a few observations and maybe ask a couple questions.

Ok the main reason I took up Qigong was to balance my emotions, which have a tendency to be probelmatic. So for several months now I have been doing 8 Brochades and for a couple months Standing like a Tree / or on a stake. My physical health was already very good. After doing these Qigong forms for a while I noticed no difference at all in my emotional state. So after doing some reevaluating and partially from some advice from some of you guys here, I decided to put more emphasis on the meditative side of Qigong, such as healing sounds, inner smile, MCO. Now that I have placed more emphasis on this side of Qigong, I just now am beginning to feel that as far as my emotions go, I am just beginning to make a little progress (baby steps).
As far as questions go, it would be in regards to my physical health, which is good. Would not my karate practice be good for physical health? What exactely is the purpose of physical qigong movements and forms?

[joeblast]

heck yeah karate is good for your health. any physical exercise is, anything that gets the fluids moving. slow movement stuff like qigong, taijiquan, are more focused on connective tissues and such, since the structures are more fundamental than the muscles they are attached to. since you need to really pay attention in order to do things in proper form, that also builds concentration and awareness, and the addition of breathing techniques helps to integrate it all very deeply, which is enhanced by sitting meditation.

with regard to the emotions, see them for what they are and it becomes easier to be unperturbed by them. not that it will immediately lessen their intensity, sometimes they will get more intense before becoming less so, but your conscious decision to not let yourself become overly disturbed by them in and of itself will help lessen the impact they have on your life. cultivate that aspect and eventually their intensity will lessen.

[dmattwads]

Self Observation:
When I began Qigong I initially placed more emphasis on the meditative side, until I realized I sucked at meditation. Now almost all of my Qigong practice is moving forms which work well for me, but why is it that I can not focus and do meditation well. I can not do sitting meditation with out my mind wondering, nor even standing meditation with out either being bored to tears, or feeling fidgety to death. What gives?

[joeblast]

have you tried focusing on the physical mechanisms of breath? each different physical component...spend a little time with each, then try to bring the timing into a most coherent state...whenever your mind wanders, just return to the breath as soon as you notice, as many times and as often as you have to - dont get discouraged, no expectations...