Qi - A Pot of Rice

[Taste of Death]

Stanford University has been studying Chinese meditation and qigong for many years.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/ ... -body.html

In addition to continuing their study of tai chi strikes, the researchers expanded the scope of their inquiries based on some preliminary studies performed on Stanford's own resident tai chi master, Shu Dong Li. Together with Dennis Grahn, PhD, senior research scientist in biology, and two professors of radiology, Scott Atlas, MD, and Gary Glover, PhD, they used thermography and functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure biophysical changes that occur during the process of 'focusing the chi.' In Chinese martial arts and Eastern medicine, chi, or qi, represents a life force or energy that can be focused through meditative concentration.

'It was fascinating,' said Blase Iuliano, a research associate on the study. 'We could see Master Li's hands just light up in the infrared image.' But that wasn't all. While the researchers were remarking about Li's ability to warm the skin of his hands by about two degrees, he volunteered to cool them as well. 'And in a matter of moments, he reduced the temperature by about six degrees,' said Iuliano. Furthermore, focusing the chi in this way corresponded with the activation of specific areas of the brain associated with movement and feeling in the hands.

This type of voluntary control over the peripheral vascular system is rare. It's possible that teaching children how to harness this ability could help them control chronic pain, manage disease and reduce stress. Recent studies from other institutions have suggested tai chi training can promote calmness and relaxation in middle school children and improve pulmonary function in children with asthma.

It's not just kids who can benefit from tai chi. Other studies at Stanford and elsewhere have shown that adult practitioners gain balance, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and immune benefits.

In April, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Packard Children's and the medical school orthopedics, radiology, biology and computer sciences departments collaborated to conduct similar tests on Chen, which he agreed to undergo.

'He is curious to see if we can define 'chi,'' said Rose, 'and we are intrigued by his agility and the immense force he generates, the unusual thermal regulation and brain activity. Increasing our understanding of the way he moves can add to our understanding of motor deficits, robotics and rehabilitation-device design for children for whom just walking across the floor is a struggle.'

Stanford Medical Tai Chi
file:///C:/Users/flav1/Downloads/Med%20Tai%20Chi%20Syllabus%20SP%2023.pdf

[everything]

it's a fascinating "old technology". also fascinating they can study it with relatively "new technology".

[everything]

The problem within the IMA is that because of a fundamental problem of people outside of lineages, writing down oral teachings, combined with the issue of teachers allowing or only writing down a character in order to protect a secret, that we now have nearly everyone in the IMA using this character 氣 Qì - (your flames, under a pot of boiling rice producing steam)

When it should actually be this character 炁 Qì

Looking at the character: 炁 Qì there is the modified character for 'Fire' (火 Huo): 灬 beneath the character 旡 Jì (choke; which is actually the reverse image of 欠 Qiàn (to breathe)) which means to figuratively choke out the flames and just leave the hot coals burning.

Building a solid Dantian is like building a brick furnace. Inside the furnace you can eliminate the flames, just leaving hot coals, and build up vastly greater temperatures than with just wood and open flames.

It’s naturally confusing when you think it’s the same character, within the same text that is talking about cultivation, or making progress in an IMA practice, when it’s actually two separate things. Finding or figuring out the context can help. Or even just straight up inserting the character and term 炁 Qì in place of 氣 Qì will begin to make a lot more sense in the understanding of CIMA.


Ordinary people who don’t practice any Daoist or Buddhist cultivation practices only have 氣 Qì and they’re just wasting away the wood into flames, water into steam and rice into crap. And repeating the next day. Always on the edge of just enough, and easily falling into a deficit and then having to try to catch up.

People who practice Daoist or Buddhist cultivation practices will begin to gather up 炁 Qì, and can begin to build up a surplus and not just stuck in the endless cycle of creating and then burning all they have created. At first this will only fill the Dantian, but eventually it could fill up your whole body. Strive to make the whole body into a furnace, where (to make the analogy fit) you could smoke enough meat to eat on for a year.


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if I have a "full" feeling, it's gone later. perhaps the "having to try to catch up".

[Trip]

Stanford University has been studying Chinese meditation and qigong for many years.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/ ... -body.html

Stanford Medical Tai Chi
file:///C:/Users/flav1/Downloads/Med%20Tai%20Chi%20Syllabus%20SP%2023.pdf

file:///C:/Users/flav1/Downloads/Med%20Tai%20Chi%20Syllabus%20SP%2023.pdf

The above address is not a PDF download link.
Seemingly, That is is an address to file on a local (personal) computer

Is this the PDF download link you meant to post?
https://syllabus.stanford.edu/syllabus/downloadSyllabus?courseId=Sp23-FAMMED-213-01


P.S.
this was very, very difficult to post
I was repeatedly kicked out
Then rate banned
for just trying to log in.
Yikes

[D_Glenn]

YOU COULD GET WITH THAT ^

OR YOU CAN GET WITH THIS



I THINK YOU’LL GET WITH THIS, BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE ITS AT




.

[everything]

Is that the Big Green Egg, but in red? I got the Weber Smokey Mountain instead. Amazing device to "transform qi" of wood and coals and food. Ok red meat and smoke are probably carcinogenic so not great for "transforming human qi" but darn if you can't make some delicious food fairly easily.

[windwalker]

An Analytic Review of Studies on Measuring Effects of External Qi in China

ABSTRACT

Scientists have long been interested in measuring external qi (EQ or wai qi) during qigong healing, and have produced a large body of literature over the past 20 years. This paper reviews the major research on measuring EQ in China and tries to help other researchers to get a picture on what has been done so as to eliminate the simple replication of already verified results.

Starting with the historical background of EQ studies in China, this paper analytically reviews the major studies of EQ effects from five different categories of detectors:

1) physical signal detectors;
2) chemical dynamics meth- ods;
3) detectors using biological materials;
4) detectors using life sensors;
5) detectors using the human body.

The focus is on the pros and cons of each detector.

These studies documented some important correlates of EQ process or qi healing, which cannot be explained by psychological effect or the known biological processes. Even though the extant literature suggests that intent plays a critical role in the effect or characteristics of EQ, we know little about its role in EQ effect and its relationship with qigong healing from these experiments.

These studies have confirmed the existence of measurable EQ effects from various perspectives; however, none has really revealed the primary nature of EQ or how EQ healing works.

Given the fact that qigong therapy is based on the dialectic view of two interdependent spheres, while modern science and medicine is based on the reductionist view of one material world, it is recommended that future studies should use more biological or life-sensor detectors to increase our understanding of the healing potentials of qigong, instead of stay at the level of verification of signals.

New methodologies, new theories, and new perspectives are urgently needed for further understanding what qigong is and how EQ healing works.

[D_Glenn]

Is that the Big Green Egg, but in red? I got the Weber Smokey Mountain instead. Amazing device to "transform qi" of wood and coals and food. Ok red meat and smoke are probably carcinogenic so not great for "transforming human qi" but darn if you can't make some delicious food fairly easily.

It’s actually called a Kamodo. There’s a black one that’s made with ceramic tiles. My friend has one. It’s huge.

[everything]

looks amazing. although to be fair the pot of rice over the campfire looks "fire" as well

[D_Glenn]

I think it’s really interesting that the concepts actually played a part in the etymology of these characters. But we still have the problem of what do we do to achieve it. My teacher said that to build the proverbial brick furnace/ oven you need strong Transverse Abdominal Muscles and start trying to use them to make a more hollow or empty space in your abdomen around the area of your Inferior Vena Cava (IVC) and Abdominal Aorta. This will allow them to dilate more, and not always be in a constricted space.

There’s scientific studies that are testing out a potential indicator of one’s health on elderly men, that measures the diameter of their IVC when they’re laying down, and right after they standup. The bigger the difference between the two, is bad, and smaller diameters are bad. It’s sort of like a score and indicator of their future lifespan.

Having a hollow space, and a larger diameter IVC inside your solid abdomen can be used to help syphon blood into the veins. Arteries and Veins don’t connect to one another. The veins have to use a syphoning like action through vasodilation in order to bring blood back to the heart. But we also want more steadier flow which happens with the larger diameter Abdominal Aorta, because we want to unblock arteries, capillaries and microcapillaries in our body. There’s a powerful herb called 丹参 Dānshēn that does this very thing. Western Science is studying its benefits on cardiovascular health now. But the Daoists, (who do actually use 丹参 Danshen if they’re doing a lot of sitting meditation), figured out that it would be better to grow Danshen in our own body, so that’s where the word 丹田 Dāntián comes from. Literally 丹(参) Dān(shēn) 田 Tián (Red Sage Field/ arable land).

The best indicator of how much 炁 Qì you are building up in your body is done by looking at the palms of your hands after a little bit of practice or qigong. The white splotches or dots are caused by blocked microcapillaries. With practice over years of time you will start to eliminate the white spots and they will be filled in with red. Then with more years of practice the color will change to a deeper shade of red. My teacher’s palms are so deep red that they’re almost purple, like the color of a beef liver.
You can also press your thumb into your palm and it leaves a white thumb print as it stops the blood flow. The speed at which it changes from white back to red is another indicator of your level of progress.


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[Quigga]

Re the pot of rice... I have a perpetual stew going on for the last 4 weeks on my stove. It really is enough to bring it to full boil every 24 hours. No food poisoning yet. And you can change the flavor so easily. It's the simplest cooking I've ever done. I'll transition the stew to be more congee like now, that should be amazing.

[Kanken]

Here is a small article that shows that the idea of "Qi" as "life energy" is not so far-fetched even from a Western point of view, if one assumes that Chinese science used to be only a descriptive science:

https://bagua-zhang.eu/?page_id=924&lang=en