governor vessel

[vamos]

the thrusting vessel as i am aware supplies the upper dan tien and is connected to pituary gland(spirit valley).this has an effect on original essence, mental centre etc,etc but what exactly how does the governor vessel effect the brain?my best guess so far is that it enlivens the cortex and makes it 'work better' improves perhaps neural connections etc.

i am also very intruiged as to the physic effects of the vessels.

if anyone can enlighten me i would be very pleased.

[joeblast]

the thrusting vessel as i am aware supplies the upper dan tien and is connected to pituary gland(spirit valley).this has an effect on original essence, mental centre etc,etc but what exactly how does the governor vessel effect the brain?my best guess so far is that it enlivens the cortex and makes it 'work better' improves perhaps neural connections etc.

i am also very intruiged as to the physic effects of the vessels.

if anyone can enlighten me i would be very pleased.

well, only you can enlighten yourself!

at early stages you dont really need to be concerned with the paths qi travels, you'll make better progress on leading qi where you want it to be! i.e. when you begin with embryonic breathing, you are starting to build a charge so that as you practice you can have more amplitude to your practices; the lower dantien pulsates, and as you smooth out your breath more and more, smoothing-regulating signals propagate up the vagus nerves (L/R central channels) since that nerve pair runs through all the internal organs and diaphragm. that activates the midbrain functions more and after a while you can breathe/pulsate the ni wan/midbrain just like the lower dantien does - the heart center can also do the same thing.

trying to focus on the individual channels too soon are you are just looking for a needle in a haystack - you need to do the prerequisite work and do a little separation of "signal" and "noise" - only then will you have a basis from which to develop your "gongfu of internal vision."

[vamos]

i am only trianing basic wai dan and scholar qigong right now but i concluded that embryonic breathing is the key to nei dan.out of interest the book magnus of java and nei kung i beleive discuss embryonic breathing in kind of round a bout way.i read those books a while ago and thought it was connected.i have to say i like to think about why this works and why that works alot even if i dont train it.find it interesting ing.sometimes i post a message on the board and inbetween the post and reply or no-reply i have workd it out anyway!sometimes..thanks for the reply anyway.i do use systems of alternate nose breathing which impacts on the vagus nerve and hyperthomalus.

could i bother you one more time since im hear.the spirit in the heart i reason travels via the blood through the vessels to the brain were it energises the brain..does that mean the spirit is everywere in the body?of course yes.get that.how is the spirit different in movement to original qi?does the spirit and original qi interwine in the blood?does the spirit diminish like original essence?

also when you talk of the spleen creating blood does this refer to plasma or red blood which i thought could only come from the marrow?plasma is the carrier of the red blood oxygen and qi?what does red blood have that is so good?plasma carries,red blood is.but what??dna?

how would this be interpreted in the yin yang symbol?the blood,spirit,orig qi ,plasma

[taiji1983]

My experience is if you think too much you get confused.

just train and the answers will come.

When I read about embryonic breathing, I was COMPLETELY confused. My teacher showed me in 2 minutes what a 387 page book completely misguided me on... I would suggest practice, and THEN read the book

[joeblast]

Good insight - yes, embryonic breathing is ostensibly the first very foundational element that pretty much any method of lower dantien cultivation will utilize. But it goes so much beyond the dantien - when conditioned to a certain (easily achievable) measure then it will provide more abundant energy to the whole and then other energy centers will become more active - likened to an audio recording when turning up an individual instrument the ear can detect the change at around 3db of change in perceived sound pressure level, it goes the same when you can generate a certain extra amount of qi that you can "cross the threshold where signal becomes more delineated from background noise." So as you practice more and advance yourself when you have more energy more things are activated (although its not simply "more" it can also be "more refined" instead of simply "more abundant," etc..) Lots of quotes...but if I could "set the topic down in front of you on the table" and show that way then perhaps I wouldnt need so many

As to the spirit/heart, yes the blood is a major player but electromagnetism permeates the entirety; the heart's EM field propagates roughly 2.5 feet out from the heart center. Its really a rather complex arrangement since everything supports and relies on one another.

"Spleen creating blood" isnt 100% literal - the spleen actually skims extra lymph off of the top of the blood and transforms it, yes its the plasma that its concerned with, which is roughly 55% of total blood volume. So its not so much "creating" but "transporting" the blood and it maintains that blood balance, pertains to saliva generation, water metabolism, also helps stomach do its thing (I've had good success with acupuncture/acupressure of spleen channel points to help motivate digestion issues before.) Blood cells themselves are created in the marrow out of a blood stem cell that can go either way (most are red, about 1% total volume is white.) But anyway the red is the oxygen carrying component, they're embedded with hemoglobin which is what the o2 actually binds to.

As to granular-izing the whole concept...some things are very tough to remove from the paradigm and assign certain specific meanings to them because a lot of interdependent origination happens between the parts...since yin and yang are only relative descriptive terms one cannot say a thing is concretely yin or yang - everything is embedded with aspects of both yin and yang and meaning only gets derived from an interplay of two or more; you cant have a yin/yang concept with a singular circumstance! (unless you're referring to spontaneous creation of yin/yang from wuji.)

As to the spirit diminishing - it can that I've heard - but not like original essence, that's pretty much all I can accurately say on it, I have no idea about timescales or what not.

Sometimes when presented with too much information its tough to get a grasp on all of it - that's why its good to learn parts, get a good foundation and experiential understanding, then learn something else complimentary to it, then you will likely gain insight of the first thing learned...and the process can repeat almost indefinitely if you gain the ability to observe objectively enough and have trained good discernment.

i am only trianing basic wai dan and scholar qigong right now but i concluded that embryonic breathing is the key to nei dan.out of interest the book magnus of java and nei kung i beleive discuss embryonic breathing in kind of round a bout way.i read those books a while ago and thought it was connected.i have to say i like to think about why this works and why that works alot even if i dont train it.find it interesting ing.sometimes i post a message on the board and inbetween the post and reply or no-reply i have workd it out anyway!sometimes..thanks for the reply anyway.i do use systems of alternate nose breathing which impacts on the vagus nerve and hyperthomalus.

could i bother you one more time since im hear.the spirit in the heart i reason travels via the blood through the vessels to the brain were it energises the brain..does that mean the spirit is everywere in the body?of course yes.get that.how is the spirit different in movement to original qi?does the spirit and original qi interwine in the blood?does the spirit diminish like original essence?

also when you talk of the spleen creating blood does this refer to plasma or red blood which i thought could only come from the marrow?plasma is the carrier of the red blood oxygen and qi?what does red blood have that is so good?plasma carries,red blood is.but what??dna?

how would this be interpreted in the yin yang symbol?the blood,spirit,orig qi ,plasma