An interesting thing can be felt if I do hard physical workouts after a period of retention. The longer the period of retention the less sore and stiff I get from training. I feel this has something to do with the relationship with the spleen and kidneys, but also the quality of the spleen energy nourishing the muscles. The liver is supposed to nourish the tendons so this also seems to be a factor. When sitting in meditation or doing forms after a period of exercise and retention, it is easier to open up the stiff and inflexible areas, and I use less time doing it.
On the opposite side, after ejaculation, there is much more stiffness after a hard workout or a running session. I also tend to feel much more soreness a lot faster. Particularly during power- intense training like rock climbing, I have so much more power and energy if I do retention. I have a strong hunch that when an athlete looses his "edge" and younger contenders take over, this is part of the reason.
The more jing chi you have at your disposal, the more dynamic and explosive your system is, and you are also less susceptible to injury. Also, when one depletes the kidney energy a lot through ejaculation, you tend to be more "afraid" and this makes you less able to "go for it".
It is interesting to watch team sports where older athletes are less able to do their thing than younger players. When the age difference is subtracted what is the difference? Mental and physical rigidity and lack of power. This is mainly due to depletion of the Jing chi. Muhammed Ali knew this all too well, and had a no-sex-zone one year before an important match.
It is fascinating how the aging paradigm has become a "truth" among athletes, and how it quite easily can be reversed. One aspect of the inevitable "effects of aging" is more soreness and longer recovery after a workout or run. My experience is that this can be reversed, or at least stopped with a retention-based program.
Message: The real problem with ejaculation is not the loss of the seminal fluids but the loss of certain critical highly pressurized chi that was keeping the body strong and vital.
When you ejaculate and the outward flow of Chi is substantial this is draining the high pressure chi out of all those muscles, tendons, joints which was keeping them protected. (You can feel the strong sensation of chi streaming and leaking out of the perineum on ejaculation there is a lot of chi escaping from the lower gate. This is different from the chi that leaks out the penis that is inseparable from the semen. What I’m talking about is the powerful energy drain; the greatest leak is really not out the obvious escape of the urethra but directly through the skin leaking out the perineum/hui yin point and anus.)
The male orgasm has two major sensations one is the prostate muscle spasm we know and the expulsion of semen, this is its own orgasm. But here is another half. The other is that distinct heavy sensation that starts a little after you are already ejaculating which feels so intense and makes you want to moan a long slow “Ohhhhhh!” in a groaning voice.
It feels like someone hit you in the kidneys so that your diaphragm feels stunned and can’t breathe. Or there is an expression in English describing when your body gets hit (as in sports or hitting the ground hard), the feeling of “getting the wind knocked out of you”
This is important to pay attention to, remember some describe the kidneys natural sound as a groaning. The kidney healing sound is a variation on this inner connection to a groaning action. You know in your mind that “I know this is hurting me somehow like a little death but it feels so
great anyway!” So this powerful sensation is the feeling of the downward loss of kidney and other organs orgasmic energy. (why is it that weakening your health and even instinctually sensing it still feels so great?)
You’re sort of deflating the tire that means all the layers of highly pressurized chi tightly wrapped around the muscles and organs, bones, tendons, other fascia, brain and spinal cord. That amazing groaning feeling is the entire chi that took so long to slowly build up and pack into the tissues escaping. It is similar to the theory of a tightly wound ball of string, when you start to let it unravel and loosen up everything that was being held tightly in place in your body can fall apart. This loss is also much more of a shock to your system if you are not used to it. If you have not ejaculated in a month or two it can feel like death because it is such a contrast to a system used to being filled with that power and suddenly drained of it. For people who ejaculate a couple times a week it is not that noticeable because their system has adapted to it somewhat. (But people who ejaculate several times a week are not going to achieve anything as alchemists.)
This is why I really am not a big fan of ejaculating if I don’t need to, because I generally feel like shit and all achy and sore for at least a day afterwards. And your spirit is fairly well gone for that day. You can feel like a walking zombie all disoriented and fatigued through the day. And forget any good feeling of alchemical energies inside for at least a few days. (Personally I prefer the neurosis and inflated ego of long term retention to feeling like crap for a while.)
I think that we have fairly well established that it is not possible with current knowledge for us mortal beings to cease ejaculation entirely. It’s not really a sane or practical thing to do without some incredible spiritual safeguards.
The major goal I am working on exploring and figuring out now is not about stopping ejaculating entirely (which is absurd for anyone other than mountain immortals), but how to lose much less chi when you do ejaculate. How to minimize that downward flow?
I believe that you can actually control things and choose just how much chi escapes and drains out during ejaculation. If we understood this secret well you could occasionally dump the sperm load and get rid of all the problems associated with that and have the pleasure of the contractions and ejaculation but still keep most of your valuable chi for alchemy.
To be able to define a theory and strategy for retention will be a major breakthrough. And overall a much more levelheaded balance approach than the esoteric fanaticism which is only reserved for the true madmen close to immortality.
Also when you retain for a longer time, say over a week, your muscles really start to respond to all the extra testosterone plus the built up packing power everything is stronger. Also I think it is worse in cold climates in the winter. In the cold weather the tendons and ligaments have a natural tendency to stiffen up.
I believe your theory about athletes is correct. Many people in physical sports tear their tendons and ligaments especially in the knees and ankles. (I bet guys who tear an ACL in their knee were out somewhere over-ejaculating the night before.) As to that report, for women I’m sure the same holds true, they similarly lose their protective jing in the process of menstruation.
I remember shortly after I first figured out how to make myself ejaculate and went crazy with it for a while. Shortly thereafter I did something really bad to my knee cartilage, it wasn't a full tear but I still can’t fully bend my knee even now.
point where they spent too many years pumping chi into their wife/girlfriends without any taoist knowledge of preserving their energy. In any other area of life 30 would be considered young, in many sports ones career is considered over by that time. Their knees and ankles just become too creaky and warn out.
You’re also right about the “ability to go for it” part. The loss of kidney jing definitely decreases the “zhi” will power and makes you easily timid and afraid of taking chances and going through with things successfully. Older athletes also probably lose their spirit and motivation to keep playing and winning right about the same time.
There is definitely something to the whole theory.
Look at Pete Sampras he was unbeatable for 8 years then he married that cute blonde and immediately his tennis game started to go downhill, same thing with Andre Agassi when he was married to Brook Shields for a few years he sucked, then he got divorced and he made a comeback. Tiger woods has a hot new girlfriend and he’s actually been losing some tournaments this year.
Here’s an interesting thing to note. There is a certain soreness of the muscles usually around the second day after ejaculating, I think that’s not entirely because of chi loss but more like swollen lymph nodes and glands and your muscles being too overloaded with testosterone which you start producing faster right after ejaculating. Then after a few days it slows down again and that’s when things become saturated and return to normal.
Message: Healing Tao and healing love techniques do work if you completely read *between* the lines. Before incorporating Lin's tricks I did get most of it to work half of the time. Along the way I make up my own stuff that sometimes has no resemblance to what's in the book after I get done with it.
Most of us could not figure out what to do even we follow the books closely step by step. The basic concept of anal breathing vs. big draw (up the spine through the microcosmic orbit) is not all that different. The critical difference is the focus on the anus instead of the misleading notion of the prostate. Right from the very beginning I always felt that’s what those books were really trying to describe. But some error of miscommunication took place.
When I took that workshop from Chia last year he was teaching things very differently than the printed material. With a focus on empty force and the sphincter power, anus, mouth, irises/eyes, palms, soles, all in conjunction with each other, which seemed almost identical to anal breathing to me?
There is also something critical in the "draw the nectar up to the golden flower". You look with the eyes that seem to roll over in your head following the loop of the micro-orbit and they seem to look up at the crown of your head where the jing drawn up is condensed into a golden pearl sitting on your crown.
Lin's Chi Kong breathing is simply the microcosmic orbit and that healing Tao certainly teaches it in more detail. Besides that his penile ballooning, screwing body motion, and numerous other tricks. Lin's stuff is brilliant, even though I don’t agree with him totally. It is probably the best approach for practical people who just want something that work. As far as his supplements, for someone's sexual rehabilitation they're perfect. About every other letter he gets is from yet another kid who had masturbated himself impotent before the age of 25.
However I don’t particularly recommend permanent reliance on his supplements. Especially those acting as an outside source of strong hormone type chemicals: DHEA, andro, dopamine, ground up animal glands etc. except the purely herbal formulas - Fibra for example works great.
I prefer to first rely on spreading the chi throughout the energy body as well and doing things on an alchemical level as my first step. My theory is that various levels of k&l are naturally spontaneously happening during intercourse anyway just due to the intense explosive electrical nature of it all. When properly controlled and accentuated these things tend to supersede muscular methods.
I also do something with breathing right up through the central channel from the hui yin directly to the crown bypassing the spine altogether. Now that’s powerful, that opens up virtually every channel in your body.
Message: The Tao path of spiritual progress is a continuous struggle that is life. It’s a misconception that you could or should ever do these things with no difficulty. Remember you're dealing with something that probably 10 in 1 million men even ever know about. And maybe 1 in 10 million ever could truly grasp. And fewer than that actually ever will. There are probably just a handful of people in the world at any one time who has actually mastered sexual Chi Kong that deeply.
You shouldn’t expect reading a book or two alone and even understanding it will make you proficient. Just because you are as of yet unsuccessful does not mean you won't eventually experience success. Give it time. This is not designed to be a walk in the park. You have to be devoted to it.
You have to discover everything you can, develop an intimate familiarity with your body and your chi and keep getting more proficient as you progress. So you’ve messed with things here and there. Don’t ever stop messing with different things that might be an improvement. Tao is a constant exploration for finding out what's right.
It takes years of trial and error to arrive at what is successful for you. And once you think you’ve arrived at where you are it takes continuous attention to keep the skills fine tuned. You will never overcome the challenge of maintaining your securing of the seed to the point where a little challenging work is no longer existent. But a state of confidence and satisfying competence is definitely possible.
I'd say that I am reaching a point where I can with confidence maintain composure most of the time. More importantly I'd also say I am recently able to keep from getting lost in technique to the point where it distracts from the awareness of the moment.
Still there's always that occasional time when your sexual energy controls you instead of you governing it. I can't speak for anyone else but I'm sure a few of my fellow cohorts have a similar story to tell you. It is really a matter of not letting your mind run away with things. It’s a state of mind that’s the key rather than a physical action. It's ultimately more letting go than hanging on. It's an art of finesse like playing beautiful music on a instrument. No one learns the nuances and subtitles of playing it overnight.
There's no doubt most mainstream medical or mental health professionals would consider each and every one of us mentally ill if they could read everything that we talk about. Fanaticism in either direction is unhealthy.
energy integration. Yet only a vital state of controlled madness before the divine can actually be considered true health.
For balance and total health, right Intention is everything - TE: Virtue, Integrity, and natural goodness. If you try to hoard a treasure of semen and ignore the critical pressure valve of the compassionate heart and wisdom mind the Tao will strip you of your treasures faster than a master pickpocket.
The million dollar point technique can be a real risk to health especially since it is so hard to do right and so easy to do wrong. I would avoid it all together. It’s a crude technique that is jettisoned once you learn the real mind and chi centered methods. For me the problem is not really the retention anymore, I'm pretty comfortable in that although far from perfect.
The real enigma I'm interested in is the spiritual, physical, mental, energetic integration of all the extra ching with the chi and spirit bodies. Also I feel the deep energy exchanges of higher dual cultivation, both personal and interpersonal; this is really where it is at for me right now.
Ultimately I have a sense that if you can latch onto the feelings of all that deep interpersonal alchemy happening and the infinite power it holds you can just forget most of the techniques and manipulation anyway. That feeling from the other side just takes your being over completely and then keeping the whole thing going indefinitely becomes virtually effortless.
Message: I never used million dollar point method. It never appeals to me. If it came to that, I'd just ejaculate. My impression is that it's prone to causing injury as well.
I think we can all agree that sexual energy is a powerful force, and has valid potential for health, personal & spiritual development. Yet, personally, I think that strongly promoting long-term ejaculation control is backward and self-defeating. There are a lot of things that need to be addressed first. In general theory, the HT system totally agrees with preparation and balance. In particulars, some places it does very well, others it falls down pretty hard.
First there needs to be some relatively free flow of Chi in the body, and some sensitivity to the energy. Early HT practices are the microcosmic orbit, inner smile, and so forth. In my opinion, those aren't sufficient for many people. A 3-month diligent program of hatha yoga can assist greatly in opening up your body to energy flow. There are other ways as well.
The next number of things doesn't happen in a discreet sequence, but do progress gradually over a period of time (as does all of this work). You need to start working with, getting a feel for, and learning to balance the energies in your body, in general.
Part of this is getting a subtle facility for your sexual energy. A very important part of this are the non-aroused practices, especially testicle breathing. After a while of this, you'll begin to develop the ability to abstain from ejaculation, some times, in some positions, when the mood is not too raucous.
Now, here's the kicker: Aroused sexual energy is a dense, explosive, highly polarized energy. Any harmonious program of storing that energy (beyond one or two sessions) must balance it first, or you're only going frustrate and hurt yourself. Experience has shown that the microcosmic orbit is not sufficient for this job.
Sometimes the upward draw does balance the energy through interaction with the upper centers, and you are supposed to bring that energy back down to balance your sexual center... but, usually, the sexual center doesn't really get fully harmonized, though it does happen sometimes. Also, just