INTERNAL CULTIVATION COURSE Healing Part I By Li Jiong http://www.yiquando.com/
[email protected] Copyrights©2000-2006 All Rights Reserved 1
Statement This is a correspondence course run by the author Li Jiong, each license is for one individual only. The term of this course is one year, in this term, you have the right to ask free questions of internal cultivation, and get their answers from Li Jiong in time. Please join the Gongfu Online Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yiquando/) to get help, and you may also get a lot of useful information of internal cultivation there. Long time edification in a good group is vital for internal cultivation, if you do not take part in our group, you will lose at least half benefit of this program. Thank you for your cooperation! 2
Table of Contents Author’s Preface………………………….……………………………..6 I. Elements……………..……………………………………….………9 II. Experience Relaxation………………………………………….….15 III. Hunyuan Gong………………………………………………......32 1. Wuji Standing…………………………………………………….33 2. Turning Taiji (hands)……………………………………………..37 3. Turning Taiji (shoulders)…………………………………………39 4. Warm the Eyes……………………………………………………40 5. Warm the Face……………………………………………………42
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6. Warm the Ears………………………………………………….…44 7. Warm the Nose……………………………………………………46 8. Knock the Teeth…………………………………………………..48 9. Collect Yin Qi from the Earth…………………………………….52 10. Hunyuan Standing (low)………..……………………………….57 11. Collect Yang Qi from the Heaven……………………………….59 12. Hunyuan Standing (low)………………………………………...64 13. Hunyuan Standing (round)…………………………………...…66 14. Wuji Standing.…………………………………………………..68 15. Warm the Face…………………………………………………..70
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16. Circumfluence Flap………………...…………………………...71 17. Points for Attention…………………………………….………..82 IV. Other Points for Attention……………………….……………….84 1. Keep your Shen in your center all the time……...……………….84 2. About life style……………………………………………………84 3. About food………………………………………………………..85 4. About training time……………………………………………….85 5. Feelings in training……………………………………………….88 6. Practice and knowledge……….………………………………….89 7. About home study……………………..………………………….90
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8. About sexual activity…………………………………………..…91 9. About strenuous sports……………………………………………92 10. About environment………………………………………...……93 11. Accumulate merits and virtues………………………………….94 Acknowledgment………….…………………......…………………….95
Author’s Preface By studying, translating and practicing
, and by exchanging experience with some Daoists for a long time, my level on internal cultivation has been improved a lot again. Looking 6
back on the path that I have come through, I now know there are some detours that can probably be avoided. Internal cultivation is a quite different realm with the external world. For research in the external world, science works very efficiently in the recent centuries. Therefore, the externalism thoughtway is rooted in the most brains, which is also called scientism. However, the key of internal cultivation is uniting Shen and Qi as one, only when we give up all wild thoughts as well as all intellectual thoughts; it will be possible that to unite Shen and Qi unite. So here is no room for displaying one’s intellect. Many practitioners doing internal cultivation their whole life, but never attain any significant achievement,
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the reason lies here. I have come through some detours before, the reason is here too. I think this apperception and experience is vital, so I am reworking the Gongfu course. The new course is composed by three parts: 1. Internal Cultivation Course – Healing Part, which introduces how to attain a internal balance and so that your Jing, Qi and Shen can be cultivated step by step; 2. Internal Cultivation Course – Power Part, which introduces how to cultivate your power step by step, some self-defense skills are also offered; 3. Internal Cultivation Course – Dao Part, which is just the inconceivable book Real Meaning of Dao De Jing.
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Internal cultivation is so wonderful, belief is the only portal; let’s leave ‘external’ to science, and leave ‘internal’ to ourselves (true I).
I. Elements The Real Meaning of Dao De Jing explains the elements of internal cultivation perfectly, it is suggested to read this immortal book again and again, and the benefits you can attain from it will be inconceivable. Here I offer a brief explanation. First, let’s review some concepts that are often used in internal cultivation: 9
Jing – Jing can be considered as essential life substance, such as semen, blood, saliva and hormone etc. Qi(Chi) – Qi can be considered as life energy. There are the one and only congenital Qi and acquired Qi. The one and only congenital Qi is also called original Qi, it is the manifestation of the Dao when it runs from Wuji to Taiji. It is an absolute existence without an opposite side, so we call it ‘one and only’. It is the ultimate source of all lives. The one and only congenital Qi comes before God, and since it is an absolute existence, it is impossible to explore it by external technology. The acquired Qi come from food, water, atmosphere, heaven, sun, moon and
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stars…, it can be divided into Yin Qi and Yang Qi, the feeling of Yin Qi is cool, and the feeling of yang Qi is warm. The one and only congenital Qi and acquired Qi are both vital for one’s life, and only when you experience them, will you really know them. Shen – Shen includes Shi Shen, Yin Shen and Yuan Shen (Yang Shen), perhaps they correspond with mind, soul and spirit respectively. Acquired Qi can nourish one's Yin Shen/soul, but your Yuan Shen/spirit can be nourished by the one and only congenital Qi only. Yuan Shen/spirit is what we say one’s real nature, ‘true I’ or ‘real self’ etc, and in internal cultivation, generally when we say Shen, we suggest Yuan Shen/spirit.
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Wuji – It is the original state that can also be said as emptiness, there is nothing that can be held or thought of, but all possibilities of creation are there. Taiji – It is a state that is perfect round, it is born from Wuji, and it is one and only without an opposite side. Yin – The character of the things such as the earth, moon, water, female, coldness, darkness, quietness… Yang – The character of the things such as the heaven, sun, fire, male, warmth, brightness, activity… Center – In internal cultivation, generally it suggests a room around the
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inner of the belly button, but again the space should not be strictly limited, when you get into deep quietness and emptiness, sometime you will feel it is an infinite space. It is also called mysterious hole or mysterious entrance/portal, in some Daoist schools, it is also the same as Dantian. Besides the Dao, all things have both Yin side and Yang side, and as a healthy state, one must have a dynamic balance between Yin and Yang, recover from imbalance to balance, this is called healing. A good health is a necessary foundation of internal cultivation. Further, there are different grades of balance, the Dao is the top grade, and it is an absolute existence, there is neither Yin nor Yang. Recover from imbalance to balance, and
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then cultivate yourself from low grade balance to high grade balance, and finally to the Dao, this process is called internal cultivation. The essential way of internal cultivation is letting Yin and Yang unite as one, and mainly, it is letting Shen and Qi unite as one. When Shen and Qi united, Shen can be nourished by Qi naturally, Qi will not leak when Shen is there, and so Qi will be accumulated more and more. Shen and Qi can also help one to accumulate and refine his Jing. Thus, Jing, Qi and Shen all can be cultivated little by little, and your internal world will be more and more wonderful. Well, let’s start the wonderful internal cultivation travel now.
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II. Experience Relaxation Internal cultivation seems strange; will it be very difficult to approach? Take it easy, truth is always simple and easy to approach, so long as you can believe it stably. Let’s just start from Relaxation. Relaxation is the basal natural state of one's life, it is an inborn ability to stay in relaxation state, but somehow a lot of individuals always have too much unnecessary tension, and perhaps have not experienced real relaxation for a long time already. So here are some simple exercises to let the practitioner get the feeling of relaxation and then get back the inborn ability of relaxation. 15
Relaxation means the muscles of the body not being contracted, and the mind being quiet. It is a state where the brain, central nervous system, and the muscles are at rest. But is it possible to relax all the muscles? No, certain muscles must always be supporting the frame, otherwise one will fall down. So relaxation means lack of any unnecessary tension. One should not, however, take the approach of dividing the body into different parts and different muscles but see it as a unity. The way of analyzing is artificial; it is not the way to do internal cultivation. Analysis can explain the theory, while the real thing can only be understood by personal experience; both have their own value and use.
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In order to feel relaxation in its simplest form, stand still in a natural posture, your hands hanging down relaxed on the sides. Note that if your hands hang away from your body, it means you are tensing to keep them up, once you relax them completely, they will hang down touching your body. You may ask someone to grab your wrist and lift your hand and arm up, and then let it loose, let it drop down. Here your friend can test whether you are relaxed or not, if your hand feels light you are tensing up, while a heavy hand is a sign of relaxation. That is because by tensing one will keep the hand up with one's own strength, thus the other person does not need to exert any strength. When he drops your hand, it should fall
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down immediately and slap your leg or hips when it comes down, any delay before the hand falls down means tension. A relaxed hand feels like a loose heavy rope, and feels and looks like one even if the other person shakes it. Some might be able to do this right away, while for others it might take a while to learn to let go of all tension. After you can do it, it is time to move to the next exercise: Exercise 1 Stand with your legs parallel, at about your shoulder width.
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Picture 1 Bend your waist forwards about 45 degrees, keeping your back straight. Let your hands and shoulders hang down loosely.
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Picture 2 If you stay relaxed like that, without doing anything for a while you'll get a heavy feeling in your hands due to the blood packing in there, but that is not the purpose or the goal of this exercise. Next start moving your
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weight from one leg to another, keeping your hands and shoulders completely relaxed. The movement caused by moving your weight will make your hands wave like two big pendulums, or two thick and loose ropes. Let the hands go with their own speed, don't even try control them.
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Picture 3
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Picture 4 If you ask another person to give a slight push to your hands at any moment, your hands will give up and weave to the direction of the push without any resistance. Again some might be able to do it right away, or after a few minutes of practice, while for others it might take days, or 23
even a couple of weeks to learn it, it all depends on the level one starts from. Many practitioners even with dozens of years of experience might lack this basic skill of relaxing, and some might have made their bodies stiff and tense by incorrect practice. But even if you would find it difficult to relax, remember that relaxation is inherent in every one of us, it is an inborn and natural state of ours, only hindered by tension. Anyone can attain it; all it takes is to stop tensing. For many people it might indeed be more difficult not to do anything, than to do many things. After one has learned to enter the state of relaxation in this simple movement, it is time to extend this relaxed state into a slightly more complicated movement.
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Exercise 2 Just continue the first exercise, now unbend your waist, and stand straight with your legs parallel at shoulder width, as if you were hanging from a rope from the crown of your head. Let your hands hang down on your sides. Then start turning your body back and forth around the central axis using the waist only, and your upper body will naturally follow, but your head keeps upright and does not turn with the body, the hands and shoulders still being like loose ropes, or pendulums of a rattle-drum.
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Picture 5 Here you can feel your hands slapping your body in the front and behind. You can try doing this movement with maximum speed, and if you do it correctly, your relaxed hands will be hitting your shoulders or chest so
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hard that it hurts very much.
Picture 6 There's no need to keep doing the exercise with such speed and get bruises, just try it to find out whether you can keep your hands and
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shoulders relaxed.
Picture 7 A qualified teacher can see it right away whether one is relaxed when one does this, but without a teacher one has to count on one's own judgment. 28
If the hands are moving together with the rotation of the waist, you are tensing the shoulders. When the hands and shoulders are relaxed they will follow the movement with a small delay and hit the body when it is already turning to another direction. This collision will naturally change the direction of the hands. It is most likely that the more one thinks of one's hands and relaxing, the more one will actually tense. Forgetting the hands and shoulders, letting go of the tension will help in relaxing them. So a beginner can pay his or her attention to turning of the waist, make sure one does the movement around the central axis, without moving the buttocks from side to side. If the hands do not slap the body at every turn,
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another one in front and the other behind, it is a clear sign that one is tensing them. The reason for the hands not slapping the body might be unconscious fear, but after one can get over it, one will notice that there is no pain involved. After this has been learned, it is time to go on. What is meant by "learned," is that one does it correctly every time. There are three phases for each of these simple exercises: 1. "Completely wrong"; 2. "Partly right, partly wrong"; and 3. "Always right." If one cannot overcome the first phase in a few minutes, it's no use to keep on doing that exercise, but one should move back to the previous exercise. In the second phase, one
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should do the exercise much, practice earnestly until one reaches the third phase. After getting to the third stage one does not need to keep on doing that exercise anymore, it has served its purpose, that is, given you a feeling of a certain state. At that point it is time to move to the next exercise. One can, however, always return to the previous exercise to get a feeling of the correct state. Now you have experienced the right feeling of relaxation, you may try to keep this feeling anytime, anywhere, when you are walking, standing, sitting or lying, often use a few seconds to check whether you are in natural relaxation state or not, if not, adjust yourself immediately. When 31
you find you are always in the right state, this exercise is complete over, and it is not necessary to practice it any more.
III. Hunyuan Gong Hunyuan means your Jing, Qi and Shen are completely united as one. The original version of Huanyuan Gong comes from an old friend of mine, who had learnt Dao cultivation from a Daoist in a high mountain for three years. Later, I unite Hunyuan Zhuang (the Round Standing) with it, thus, this manner comes into being. I have practiced it for years, and now this
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is still my favorite. 1. Wuji Standing First, find a quiet place; it is the best there are big trees around. Stand naturally, your feet at about shoulder width, the toes pointing forward or slightly outward - try it by yourself and find the most comfortable position for your feet. Your hands hang at two sides naturally. Sit down slightly, as if you are sitting on a high stool, but do not push your stomach out. Keep the head and spinal column upright, as if the spine is hanging from a thread, but do not raise the chin. Close your eyes lightly. Touch the palate by your tongue lightly; there is a point on the palate that Qi will 33
leak from there if it is not shut by the tongue, so it is important to train a habit, always touch the palate by your tongue lightly (don’t do this too forcible, that will result in unnecessary tension) whenever the tongue is free.
And shrink the anus slightly, anus is also a point that Qi will leak from there if you do not shrink it a bit, try to form a habit, always shrink your anus slightly (don’t do this too forcible, that will result in unnecessary tension) whenever it is free. These specifics are small knacks, but they are very useful for your internal cultivation, don’t neglect them.
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Picture 8 Stand naturally, keep relaxed and quiet, this is a state of Wuji actually. Keep your Shen in your center naturally. Use your thoughts to keep your Shen in your center. Your Shen will go where your thoughts go. But it is 35
important to not focus too much on this. Try and not allow your mind wander, but if it does, just bring it gently back to your center. At the same time, feel the undulation of the inner breath which is just like a bellows in your center. When you breathe in, your abdomen expands, and you feel that Qi sinks down some; when you breathe out, your abdomen compresses, and you feel that Qi raises some. Be sure that the inner breath cannot be too high and also cannot be too low, if it works too high, one will suffer from excessive internal heat; if it works too low, it will result in nocturnal emission. And again, your attention on the inner breath should not be over careful; it is just as if it exists, as if not. Keep
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this Wuji state as long as you like, and let Shen and Qi unite in your center and nourish each other. 2. Turning Taiji (hands) After stand in Wuji state for a long time (or just a while), suddenly, there is a feeling as if Qi moves, this is what Taiji appears. Then swing your hands following nature. The backs of hands forward, and the palms of the hands backward, the left hand moves first, the right hand follows, draw circles slowly (generally one circle for a breath) at two sides twelve times.
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Picture 9 If you feel Qi flows, or as if there is something moves you, and makes your body shake, it is natural, just let it be and do not pay attention to it 38
too much.
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3. Turning Taiji (shoulders) Two arms hang naturally; two shoulders draw circles(back-up-front-down) slowly 24 times. 39
Picture 11 4. Warm the Eyes Rub your palms each other to hot.
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Picture 12 Close your eyes, do gently massage on two eyes by your hot palms from the middle to two sides 3 times.
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Picture 13 5. Warm the Face Rub your hands each other to warm, and then massage your face slowly, form the chin to two sides of the mouth, and then up to the two sides of 42
your nose, then up to the forehead, and then down to the cheek, and finally turn back to the chin. This is a circle; massage the face 9 circles by your warm hands.
Picture 14 43
6. Warm the Ears Rub your hands each other to warm, and then massage your ears 18 times by your warm hands.
Picture 15 44
And then cover the ears by your palms, and put the fingers on the occipital bone lightly, put the index finger upon the middle finger, and then the index fingers slide down to knock the occipital bone, you will hear a sound like a drum, repeat to knock for 24 times.
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Picture 16 7. Warm the Nose Rub your thumbs each other to warm. 46
Picture 17 And then rub two sides of your nose by your warm thumbs, 36 times.
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Picture 18 8. Knock the Teeth Put down your hands slowly, and let them hang at two sides of your body naturally. Close your mouth light; knock the upper teeth and the lower 48
teeth each other with moderate force, 36 times.
Picture 19 And then stir your tongue between the teeth and lip, 49
left-up-right-down-left for 18 circles, and then left-down-right-up-left for 18 circles.
Picture 20 50
Then gargle 36 times by the saliva, and then swallow the saliva down in three times.
Picture 21 51
9. Collect Yin Qi from the Earth Two hands move out slowly, the palms forward down to the earth and are concave slightly, keep the fingers open, keep the wrists higher than the hands. Raise two hands little by little, if you feel as if there is Qi that rises following your hands, don’t care this too much.
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Picture 22 When your hands are a bit higher than your shoulders,
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Picture 23 bend your elbows, and turn your palms slowly to face each other, your will feel as if you are holding a ball of Qi, again don’t care this much. 54
Picture 24 Turn your palms toward the QiaoYin(the middle of two eyes), and press Qi into your body via QiaoYin.
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Picture 25 Turn the palms downwards, the fingertips point at each other; fall slowly to the front of the lower abdomen.
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Picture 26 If you feel Qi rolls over and over in your heart, slow down the falling speed, but your attention can not stay here. 10. Hunyuan Standing (low) 57
Two palms face each other at the front of the lower abdomen, the arms form a semicircle, the elbows brace out, the fingers point at each other, as if hold a Qi ball.
Picture 27 58
Keep 24 breathes (breathe in and breathe out one time is a breath). And keep your Shen in your center naturally. 11. Collect Yang Qi from the Heaven Two hands move out slowly, the palms forward up to the heaven and are concave slightly, keep the fingers open. Raise two hands little by little, if you feel as if there is Qi press your hands, never mind.
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Picture 28 When your hands are higher than your shoulders, bend your elbows, put two hands above your head,
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Picture 29 and turn your palms towards Baihui(the top of your head), and press Qi into your body via Baihui.
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Picture 30 Then two hands fall slowly to the front of the lower abdomen.
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Picture 31
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Picture 32 12. Hunyuan Standing (low) Two palms face each other at the front of the lower abdomen, the arms form a semicircle, the elbows brace out, the fingers point at each other, as 64
if hold a Qi ball.
Picture 33 Keep 36 breathes. And keep your Shen in your center naturally. 65
13. Hunyuan Standing (round) Raise your hands to the shoulder level slowly; keep the arms round, as if you are holding a ball of Qi. Do not raise the elbows to the same level with the hands and the shoulders, but do not let them hang too low either. Your palm and fingers are opened as if you are holding a rubber ball in each hand, and your fingers support slightly as if you are nipping some cotton between the fingers, and also as if try to break loose some ties extrinsic (with a light attention on this only, don’t over do it, that will result in unnecessary tension).
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Picture 34 Keep relaxed and quiet, this is also a state of Taiji actually. Keep your 67
Shen in your center naturally. At the same time, feel the undulation of the inner breath which is just like a bellows in your center. And again, your attention on the inner breath should not be over careful; it is just as if it exists, as if not. Keep this Wuji state as long as you like and can, and let Shen and Qi unite in your center and nourish each other. In the beginning, perhaps you are able to hold this posture for a few minutes only, don’t worry and don’t hurry, just change to Wuji standing. So long as you practice properly and studiously, you will be able to keep this posture for about twenty minutes or more each time soon. 14. Wuji Standing 68
Put your hands down slowly, and let them hang at two sides of your body naturally, it is just the same as the beginning.
Picture 35 69
We start from Wuji, run to Taiji, and then Yin and Yang are born from Taiji, then Yin and Yang united as one to be Taiji, now we turn back Wuji again. Keep this Wuji state as long as you like, and let Shen and Qi unite in your center and nourish each other. 15. Warm the Face When you feel it is the time to finish, rub your palms each other to warm, and then massage your face slowly, form the chin to two sides of the mouth, and then up to the two sides of your nose, then up to the forehead, and then down to the cheek, and finally turn back to the chin. This is a circle; massage the face 9 circles by your warm hands. 70
Picture 36 Now open your eyes slowly, and do the circumfluence flap below. 16. Circumfluence Flap With your right palm slap your left arm repeatedly, moving from the 71
shoulder to the hand on the inner side. Each slap should overlap so that the entire area is covered. Then slap back from the hand to the shoulder along the outer side; do this three times.
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Picture 37 Now change hand; use your left hand to slap the right arm just as above.
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Picture 38
Then use your two hands to slap the front of your body from the top down. Again, do this three times. 74
Picture 39 Slap the back of your body from the top down three times too.
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Picture 40 Now, slap your legs along the outer flank from the top down and slap along the inner side from the bottom to the top, three times.
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Picture 41 Then slap the middle line of your body, one hand slaps the front of your body, and the other hand slaps the back of your body at the same time, from the top down, alternately for three rounds. 77
Picture 42
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Picture 43 At last, your right hand slaps the left Jianjing(the middle between the shoulder and the neck) nine times,
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Picture 44 and your left hand slaps the right Jianjing nine times.
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Picture 45 You may repeat to do the circumfluence flap a few times, if you have enough time. This exercise also can be done as a supplemental exercise at the beginning or end of each training session. 81
Ok, now you have practiced the whole Hunyuan Gong over, just take a walk for a while. And then you can do other things normally. 17. Points for Attention This formula is easy for us to make progress; especially it is very helpful for the practitioner to experience and accumulate Qi rapidly. But please notice that your Shen grows slowly, here is a danger that it will result in an imbalance between your Qi and Shen, and then the Qi will be out of control. Therefore, every time after three months practice, please stop practice it for a month, just read the Real Meaning of Dao De Jing, or you can do some movements that will be offered in the power cultivation part. 82
So that your Shen can grow naturally, and catch up with the speed of your Qi cultivation, and then you can keep a balance between them. And anytime if you feel the state is going to be out of control, please stop to practice it immediately, even if you have not practiced it for three months yet. Wait your Shen grows and the balance between your Qi and Shen is regained, then you can start practice it again. Hunyuan Gong is simple but profound; it is not only for healing. Actually, the essence of power cultivation is here; the essence of Dao cultivation is here too.
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VI. Other Points for Attention 1. Keep your Shen in your center all the time Internal cultivation is a full time job, not only in the dedicated training, you ought to keep your Shen in your center naturally, but also in all the time, you’d better to form a habit to keep your Shen in your center naturally. And this will not impede you to do other things; on the contrary, it will be an enhancement to for your living. 2. About life style Since you have attached yourself in internal cultivation, your life style will not too bad. Just in case you have not waked up to something. Brief 84
speaking, a simple life style is very helpful for one’s internal cultivation. If you really want to attain a great achievement of internal cultivation, it is necessary to retreat from the unnecessary worldly things little by little, and to be as simple as possible. 3. About food You’d better eat fresh and light food, such as vegetable and fruit etc. Fragrant food and peppery food will dissipate your congenital Qi, often eating meat or fish will result in your acquired Qi being coarse, be careful! And do not eat too full each time. 4. About training time 85
Following this course, just experience relaxation first; when you mastered the relaxation state well, it is not necessary to practice these relaxation exercises any more. Only when you feel that you lost the proper relaxation state, you can turn back the relaxation exercises to get the proper feeling. After experience relaxation for a few days or a few weeks, you can focus on Hunyuan Gong. Generally, you can practice Hunyuan Gong once each day, and each time the entire practice duration can be around two hours, of course, you may reduce or increase the duration according to your condition. In addition, according to my personal experience, all time are good time,
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whenever you have the time to practice, all will be good, unless if you eat too much or when you are very hungry. This is a correspondence course for one year, but it does not mean you can finish Hunyuan Gong in one year. Actually, it can be practiced for many years; some practitioners even practice it lifelong. One year correspondence and practice can just let you grasp the essentiality of Hunyuan Gong. Again, it is also not fixed that you must practice Hunyuan Gong for one year first and then you are able to take the further course after. If you have grasped its essentiality well, and you have accumulated Qi a lot, it is allowed to go further even if you have just 87
practice Hunyuan Gong for a few months. 5. Feelings in training Generally, one will get some special feeling in sometime of training, such as: feel some part or whole body warm, cold, itch, pain, tingling like light pins and needles, heavy, light etc.. You may experience some of them or all of them, these feelings indicate your Qi is increased, and the body is in a good adjusting. But don't pay much attention to these feelings, don’t be scared, and also don’t expect the special feelings, don’t try to keep them, just following nature, these are some lower feelings of Qi, they will disappear naturally when you advanced, and you will find more 88
wonderful sensations ahead. 6. Practice and knowledge It is necessary to learn the knowledge of internal cultivation, but the more important thing is practice. I did meet some individuals who had multifarious knowledge of internal cultivation, but they neither had a good health, nor had a good power, and say nothing of spirituality. We call these guys wastebin; they can talk about a lot of specious theories, but do not have any true experience. Don’t run into the self-cheat trap, if you have not experienced something personally, you cannot really understand it. Practice and more practice, when you get actual progress, 89
when the internal Jing, Qi and Shen improved, your wisdom will be improved naturally, and you will understand many things by yourself naturally. 7. About home study Some may ask: “Can we really learn internal cultivation from a home study course?” My answer: of course we can! Internal cultivation is a process of self-realization. The teacher can just lead you come into the door, other things depend on yourself. In ancient years, communication is not convenient, and many secrets of internal cultivation are not revealed on 90
the paper, so the students have to learn internal cultivation face to face. Now, things are changed, it is very convenient to communicate with each other even if we are far-between. What the teacher can tell you orally, they can also be expressed by long distance communication; by pictures and videos, some forms and actions that are hard to be described can also be expressed now. Internal cultivation cannot rely on the external persons or things two much. If you place all your hope on an external teacher, that will be foolish. Lao Zi says: “You go out farther, you know less.” Why not stay in home and keep your spirit in your center? 8. About sexual activity 91
Frequent sexual activities will consume a lot of Jing and Qi. But we do not advocate forbidding sexual activity forcibly, things will be even worse. Nothing is forced in this course, just following nature. When you get quietness and stay there in more and more time, when your Jing has been accumulated more and more, you will decrease the desires of sex naturally. And sometime when you cumulate Qi too fast, you have an imbalance between Qi and Shen, doing sexual activity will be a very efficient way to get back the balance. 9. About strenuous sports The strenuous sports such as boxing, climbing mountain and football etc. 92
will also consume a lot of Jing and Qi, and if you indulge in these strenuous sports, your heart will go crazy, that will harm your internal cultivation. However, sometime when you cumulate Qi too fast, you have an imbalance between Qi and Shen, doing strenuous sports is also a very efficient way to get back the balance. 10. About environment We are influenced by environment every moment. A good environment will help your internal cultivation greatly; on the contrary, a bad environment will impede your internal cultivation a lot. Choose a good environment to live, and try your best to protect and improve it, another 93
side, make friends with nice individuals, this will improve your social environment. If the weather is bad (rain, snow, wind or thunder), don’t practice outside. It is a good choice to do internal cultivation in home. Something special: don't touch cold water just after training; don’t be exposed under cold wind; in training, the pores of your body are open, if you wash your body or hands by cold water or exposed under cold wind just after training, it is easy to be sick. 11. Accumulate merits and virtues Everything you think, everything you do, God knows! Nothing is for no 94
reason at all. This internal cultivation is a repayment of your merits and virtues. Only when you have accumulated enough merits and virtues, you have the fortune to meet this course, further, you are able to comprehend it properly, and you have the conditions to practice. And your merits and virtues are the best safeguard of your internal cultivation. Accumulate merits and virtues whenever you have the chance, that’s something important for your life which can really be grasped by yourself.
Acknowledgment First, let’s appreciate all internal cultivation predecessors, especially Lao
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Zi and Huang Yuanji; they are illuminating the way of internal cultivation for us. On the way that I grow up in the internal cultivation world, many friends have helped me, and these helps are vital to me, utmost thanks to them all! Kevin Pinkerton had given me some useful suggestions on this part, thanks a lot to him here! Li Jiong 24th Jan 2006 In Hangzhou
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