Anyone here have a qi-gong practice?

I'm wondering if anyone here has a qi-gong practice and how you find it interlinks with your meditation practice?

I don't have an affirmative answer but I'm curious about this too so I'm bumping the thread!

Thanks, Nadav. I've meanwhile had a chance to talk to a couple of friends with qi-gong practices as well as my teacher, so I'll outline what my question was and where I think the answer is going, in case it's useful to anyone. I started qi-gong earlier this year after several sessions with an acupuncturist completely fixed a swelling and pain in my feet that kept recurring intermittently. I also thought it might help me learn to manage my energy, which was super heavy (I frequently woke up at night with ecstasies and so forth, for example; I'd had a very energy-intense meditation practice but never really learned any traditional ways to work with it, just letting it do its thing.) In the first month of qi-gong I had massive releases of energy, kriyas, and "emotional releases" (in the form of bodily/facial expressions of grief, rage, etc, though not felt as stories, memories or any other mental aspect). A bunch of minor physical ailments disappeared and I began to sleep really well. I continued with the level 1 courses until a few weeks ago (five months in total), and found that after getting used to how to do the practice that it felt like I didn't need to manipulate anything (even while doing visualizations, etc.) - the practice was actually about a sort of gentle dance in alignment with the energies that were already manifest in the universe. I enjoyed the very quiet, calm, peacefulness, the simplicity, the sense of harmony. ....

... Then about three weeks ago I started level 2. Now the practice was to do active raising of energy via rather elaborate use of the perineum, and bring that energy up into various organs or up the front of the body or back of the body through the various chakra points (avoiding technical terminology here because I don't know it well). I immediately felt the effects of this in heat in the body, but also began to have a lot of tension, restlessness, go-go-go kind of energy, and muscle pain (ie waking up very locked up and tense and sore). I've been trying to figure out whether this means the practice is not good for me, I'm not doing it right because I'm still learning it, or what. My conclusion after some discussion and further experiment is that because the new practices are a bit unfamiliar I'm putting too much force and effort into them, leading to tension. I also am feeling slightly aversive to the energy that comes up, rather than allowing it to be as it is. I've changed my practice a bit to keep a stronger focus on relaxation, balance and allowing the energy to flow without resisting it or reacting to it. That has almost immediately reduced the tension and muscle pain and other side effects. I'm also going to work on doing the exercises with a much lighter touch, since I am quite sensitive to them. Becoming more familiar with the new techniques will help me be more subtle in using them and find that "dancing with the energies" feeling rather than "making stuff happen" feeling.

So that's where things are at the moment. If anyone else has thoughts or questions or whatever, happy to keep the thread going.

I practice Qigong. Currently my primary practice is Eight Pieces of Brocade and I'm learning Bagua circle walking. I've done a few years of Yang and Chen style Taiji but my Taiji work is on pause as I don't have a good teacher nearby.

I recommend the books "Opening the Energy Gates of the Body" by Frantzis and "A Complete Guide to Chi-Gung" by Reid. Also the books and videos of Jwing-Ming Yang are of high quality.

I have a bit of an allergy to reading, preferring to just do the stuff and not burden myself with technicalities. But given I'm learning from my teacher in a foreign language, and therefore there's a higher learning curve and I'm probably missing things on occasion, I'll take a look at those, thanks. I think there are a billion different styles, too? My teacher does Mantak Chia's method.

I did various qi gong practices for years, initially seriously and then casually. Now I just use some exercises occasionally to relax or focus, or to help digestion. I never really got the benefits I sought, which was simply more energy. My overall impression of qi gong is that it is even more enshrouded in mystery than meditation and it's very difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. People who practice it as you would tai chi, as a moving meditation or to support general health and body awareness, enjoy it. As a path to mastery in healing, or enlightenment... I just never felt that I found the real McCoy.

Gira, I also did some of those perineum practices back in the day. They came with a lot of amazing promises, but yielded little. When I learned about Tummo I thought, Ah! So this is the right way.

But I'm not down on qi gong. One thing it did do for me was bring me back down to earth at a time when I often couldn't feel the ground under my feet, literally. It drastically reduced a lot of unhelpful energetic phenomena and probably made me less spacey and weird. I would pursue it again if I found a group that suited me.

What @someguy77 said reminds me of the "no big wow" thread that was on this forum a while back. It seems many people (many I know personally) just don't have big fat energy experiences (which tend to tie into big fat mystical experiences, big wow stuff, etc.). My qi gong teacher said most students she has do the practices for months or even years with no obvious or loud energetic experiences in response. Why this is, no one knows, but it's also clear (see no big wow thread) that loud energetic reactions/experiences are not needed for or related to insight and awakening. But when they don't occur it can be discouraging to the practitioner, who thinks they must not be doing it right and *should* have loud experiences. As someone with a tendency to over-loud experiences I can say it is actually a real relief to have had them die down. It's kind of exciting for a while, and then it's just distracting and exhausting. And, in the end, just another thing not to be attached to.

Well I was having a lot more energetic experiences before doing qi gong, and was glad to get them under control thanks to the basic practices. When I say I wanted more energy, I'm taking about the kind that keeps your eyes open.

I did have the ability to "project qi" pretty well. People could really feel it. But I couldn't see a concrete benefit. It feels good. It's relaxing. But as a "healing modality..." (which was how it was billed) I'm agnostic. I still recommend it to people who don't know how to just breathe, relax, and pay attention to their bodies. T'ai chi or yoga can accomplish those things too.

The attention/relaxation part is for sure true. The minor afflictions that it fixed for me were all tension related, and to the extent a great deal of our ills are stress and tension related it certainly can address a lot of healing in that regard. As to the further features, I'll be happy to let you all know if anything whacky or inexplicable happens. I'm a little unclear on how the enlightenment features are supposed to work, but in any case I think a simple meditation practice is more efficient. I know one friend who practiced qi-gong both before and after nondual awakening and she said she hasn't noticed that she experiences the qi gong practices much differently after than before. (She did vipassana meditation as her main meditation practice, in any case.)

My experience with qi qong is that for me it has been the most balanced energetic practice I've tried. But this could also be partly because I've never gotten deep in to it or done it continuously for any long period of time. But compared with yoga it feels like the chinese emphasize more grounding and bringing the chi back to earth. I think the kundalini indian yogis are a bit more looking for taking off from earth, up, up , up.......

It's interesting that you downplay the energetic manifestations gira. Having had them strongly yourself. Personally I think I'm still a bit attached to it, at least when it's blissful , and I believe it has a great lesson to teach us. We're not in control when the mother courses through us.

Re: downplaying energetic manifestations, I have mixed feelings. When working with someone who is very insensitive and wants those experiences I might push them hard to try to trigger them if it's a big obsession for them. If someone's got way much going on and it's a huge distraction to their practice I tend to try to get them to settle it down and focus on a plainer practice. Depends a lot on the individual what works best. In my own case the stuff just sort of died down over the past year. I can't really make it happen anymore and after I while I stopped trying. This was hugely disappointing at first as I was quite attached to it. But I find I don't really miss it much now. It feels like there's so much more space to just live a normal life now that I'm not constantly having weird states and sensations and trances and things. When something a bit unexpected comes up like the increased energy from the energy work the past few weeks I was surprised to find it felt distracting and irritating rather than fun. Same for the occasional more intense bliss state (mild by previous standards) - I actually don't enjoy it particularly. Weird. But the mild aversion is something to note, so there ya go.

Thanks gira, I guess you found something more rewarding. Maybe one day I will feel the same

I've had a qi gong practice for years - mostly an internal form - as opposed to Tai Chi say. From the beginning it left me with a sense of energy and well being - though lots of wild stuff the first year or two. As to how it relates to other practices - that depends on the practice. When I encountered vipassana (after doing qi-gong for several years) I found it a very different type of practice. I continued with both practices side by side for a while. Later, when I encountered Than Geoffs breath energy methods (Wikipedia: literal translation of "qi" is breath, air, or gas. 'gong' = cultivation or method) - I recognized these as the same kind of meditation that I was already practicing as qi-gong - he just gave me lots of new tricks and ideas to play with. At that point I dropped the vipassana - it just didn't suit me.

The whole thing remains a mystery - but the practice is very transformative.

'I'm a little unclear on how the enlightenment features are supposed to work'

My teacher never spoke of this so I can't give you an official view. Still, in my own experience, it is a path of tranquility. You mentioned 'I enjoyed the very quiet, calm, peacefulness, the simplicity, the sense of harmony.' - so there you have a sense of ease. You develop that - play with it - explore it - make friends with it. - you kind of slip into it - like enjoying a good book. It is not something that you do - just something you allow. Some people prepare a garden by expending lots of energy digging - others feed the worms (the lazy bums).

Good stuff from Than Geoff:
dhammatalks.org/Archive/120906_Breath_Energies.mp3

Thanks CheleK - that's interesting to hear. The method I do is largely internal (still postures with breathing techniques and "visualizations".

I have a Qi Gong practice, and it interlinks with my meditation practice fairly integrally. The way it works is based on Taoist immortality practices (a kind of somatic enlightenment if you will). The model of TCM is that there are three kinds of energy in the body: the jing, the chi, and the shen, which correspond to etheric or visceral energies - aroused by yoga and exercise, astral or life force energies - circulated by Qi Gong, and spiritual energies which are stimulated by meditation practices. There are two schools of thought about how one should integrate them - in one school one meditates, then practices Qi Gong, and ends with exercise or yoga like exercises. In the other school, the order is reversed - you raise the jing, circulate the chi to purify the jing, and finally raise the shen to purify the chi. The latter school of thought is what I've typically employed - Yoga, Qi Gong, and then meditation (zazen) - works great.

Lately though I've been "sandwiching" the two methods so that you get both the top down and bottom up circulation of energies - start with Zazen, then do the 8 brocades, then do Yoga as well as western exercises (sometimes I'll get a massage right after this), then do Zhang Zhuang Qi Gong, and end with more meditation. Takes a few hours to do this, but if you do, you are completely sorted out at the end of it - though I've found that right in the middle (after the massage) you can feel quite vulnerable - it's good to have a a period where you don't have to interrupt the process.

Thanks haquan. I have been so far tending to use it to sort out physical tensions. Even between more formal practices just standing for a moment and focusing on a tight muscle, a sore joint, etc. This constant attention to relaxation seems helpful. Remarkable how much intermittent random tension I carry in my body. There is also, as CheleK said, a sense of "right alignment" being a sort of ease-ful alignment with the balance of things as they are. This feels best expressed in physical body attention, too, in the sense of being gently mindful of moving, doing daily stuff in a physically balanced and mindful way. It feels "right" when it's right. It's been good for my posture, too. I have not deliberately coordinated my qi gong practice with meditation so far, mostly just because I fit things in here and there throughout the day when I have 30 minute breaks from work and such.

I have a friend who successfully used kriya yoga as a prelude to meditation to help his severe monkey mind. If you ever get a chance try Yoga, then Qi Gong, and meditation in succession. To do the sandwich thing, you almost need half a day off (which is what I do once a week on Friday).

If I had to pick one of them though, it would be the Zhang Zhuang - standing like a tree Qi Gong - essentially it's a standing meditation and it seems to combine the benefits of all three.

Glad to see you, haquan. Welcome back.

A bit late to the party, but I wanted to say that doing a qigong set (illegally!) before the Strong Determination sits on a Goenka retreat are the only way I managed to get through them, I think. Qigong can be a really useful support practice for vipassana, in my experience, although I've never really explored doing it as a main practice. It can be fun to see bodily movements happening without or with less conscious control in qigong, letting the movements happen rather than "doing" them, per se.

I have just started some Tai Chi lessons (Qi-Gong also available) and find it enjoyable.
The purpose is to have a gentle workout at home and to support the meditation practice.
I used some internet Tai Chi workout during the pre-path DN and it helped me there.
We'll see about the energy stuff...

And as an old Judoka it's fun to push people around of course.