In Pillars of Bliss, Max warns against doing practices that lead qi in addition to kunlun to prevent being afflicted by "sang kung" or "energy sickness", which can't be healed. But he doesn't elaborate. What exactly is sang kung? What are the symptoms? WHY is it so undesirable to your health?

The chinese has a saying for this "Run the fire, enter the demon" maybe this is why Daoist always use Water Method to stop the fire /yang as alot of Martial Artist and chi kung works mostly fire path! Water path is apparently the harder out of the 2. Best is to have a balance!



I know 4 people that this has happened to and 1 was locked in an Asylum, 1 was possessed, 1 has mental health problems but the other on has a sickness that has blocked his throat and heart energys and some accupuncturist have tried to heal him and they automatically became sick and asked him to leave. Some get cold near him!

All of these people i knew very well and i knew there training and i watched as they got worse and less healthy, and went made.

LOL Maybe it was me??

LOL Maybe it was me??
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I wouldnt be surprised if it turned out that you were actually the mad one

Hahahah that is the TRUTH!

And im possessed.......

wtf?

what were they doing?

The physical and energy bodies can only handle so much of certain types of energy at one time due to blockages in the mental/psychological/energetic. Yang should be brought in and then balanced with yin. It should also be circulated, and if necessary released if it is too much. You can tell if it is too much when you start finding yourself quick to anger, nervous, over-bearing toward others, and generally stressed or tense. Additioanlly, if it is not either appropriately circulated or released through use, your physical body will begin to get sick in the places that it is trapped.

For a person who is adept and opening all (at least the major) energy channels in the body, Yang always enters as at the same time as Yin. In a person who is just starting and cannot open the appropriate channels at will, they will tend to bring in either more yin or more yang, and the one type of energy gets blocked up in some part of the body. This is what causes sickness.

Drawing in and storing energy in your dan tien or some other energy center should not be your first main focus when learning. It is better during your first few months of training to focus on appropriately stimulating and opening the major and minor joints of the body and learning open these at will and keep them open in order to open the complete channels. The joints are major energy channel gates in the body.

Start with the feet, then legs (on leg at a time), and then move up to the perineum, and then opening the dan tien. When you get to that point, you can focus on pulling in energy through your perineum up to your dan tien. If you have learned to open your leg channels you will find that as you draw in energy through your perineum up to your dan tien, energy will also be at the same time drawn up at least one of your legs (from the heal) to the Dan Tien. One is Yin, One is Yang, and they will mix in the Dan Tien.

Have fun... be balanced... don't over-due it and go crazy... undo your blockages and procede at a modest rate.

I tend to be very careful and cautious in my training. I have heard the saying "walking into the fire" before, but that is usually caused by leading qi into the wrong path, ex. leading too much qi to the legs and paralyzing them. As for "entering the demon", I thought that was caused by leading too much qi to the brain. But I'm kind of a noob, so...yeah. What I don't understand is what defines which practices are safe to do with kunlun and which will cause you to suffer from sang kung. Also, as a side note: Yang Jwing Ming talks about a similar phenomenon called "san gong", or "energy dispersion". He says that when you practice too much yang and not enough yin you will become too yang and your body will rapidly degenerate. I don't know if that's what sang kung does, but I'm definitely entertaining the idea that it's similar.

My understanding was that "san gung" was the result of doing too much very-hard-style martial arts over many years. Eventually, when you are too old to keep doing it, your body suddenly starts aging much faster than before. I compare this with a similar phenomenon that happens to people who abuse steroids to build muscle mass and strength, they have a very similar problem when they stop using the steroids.

The fire demon thing, the demon is the insanity or mental instability that results and the fire is the burning or excess yang that incinerates a meridian or energy pool in the body. All cases are different and the severity depends on the condition of the body at the time and the mal-practice that was done. I suppose the only thing that compares to it that people can understand is kundalini syndrome, which seems to be very similar symptom wise. It seems like blowing out a fuse or using an improper voltage or faulty wiring, just like electronic stuff as our meridians and chakras are like wires and batteries.

For instance Kunlun level 1 runs the fire but later uses water visualization as a counter balance does it work, i dont know as most the TTB of kunlun havent passed level 1. But judging from there post they are all seem weird (just kidding) maybe!!! So these people looking for faster enlightement and what not can find that running the fire as they are doing and bringing in so much energy to there nervous system as Max has put in his book could be dangerous but if his level 1 visual med is also about keeping the practitioner safe then i guess its all good. But im just using Kunlun as an example nothing else.

Anyway just some thoughts!

WYG

That brings up another good question: How does the visualization prevent qi blockages? I'm pretty sure that's what Max says in the book, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Maybe I just imagined it

Max, uses alot of visualization methods by the looks of things!!!

If the Mind is pure and strong it can acheive much...

Yes, hard style done exclusively over many years will result in quicker aging and usually also very bad arthritis. I've seen this in several masters who did nothing but hard style external martial arts.

I've read that European-descended people have a less robust knee joint structure, on average, than East Asian-descended people. This has implications for kick practice, etc., does it not?

But look at the standard american diet and western diet people are dying young these days regardless.

Yep, just like in the Monkey King, no matter what your initial intention for cultivation once you take the wrong way and fire gets out of control say hello to zuo huo ru mo and goodbye to Dao. Become a lonely demon, self obsessed and self possessed, stuck in a cycle of destruction.

With zuo huo ru mo, the shen is weak and not steadfast/contained with the jinqi, hence the vunrability to 'outside' body possession as well as to internal possession from an unbalance of the bodies internal 10,000 shen. Just as the huang ting jing outlines - the heart, the liver, whatever organ/shen, each have their own relation within the internal hierarchy/administration if they step out of place and one or several overrule the overseeing Ni wan then all hell brakes loose. Just like a nation in times of chaos, rebellion and war.

This is the number one most important thing to avoid and watch out for constantly, no matter what the level of so called 'attainment' achieved so far.

-cc

Can you explain 10,000 shen mate?

10,000,36,000, numerous, uncountable, basically just a way to refer to unlimited shen of all the different parts of the body. both in terms the macro systems of the organs down to the micro of the individual cells and components.

maybe this explains why i can't sit in half lotus for longer than 40 minutes

I'm going to have to argue with that one. It was my understanding that hard style MARTIAL ARTS are fine as long as you don't overdevelop your muscles. It's hard style QIGONG that can be dangerous if done too much for too long. Dangerous hard qigong like that is taught in styles like White Crane. It overenergizes the physical body or yang body and, if you neglect your energy body or yin body, you will become like an electronic device that doesn't have enough power to keep it running and your health will deteriorate. That is why White Crane and styles similar to it also teach soft qigong and small circulation, both of which energize your yin body to keep it on the same level as your yang body.

Gonna have to disagree with ya, yue. imho, of course lack of balance is what will cause adverse effects, whether you are neglecting the yin or the yang. there's a gray line between qigong and martial arts.

Again, regardless of your opinion, I've personally known several masters who practiced hard styles exclusively and all of them began to develop severe arthritis once over the age of 45. A couple of them realized they were too focussed on the hard aspects and started practicing softer tai chi and qi gong and the effects of arthritis gradually disappeared.

Hard styles tend to close/block and damage the joints causing arthritis. Hard styles should be offset by exercises or movements designed to open the joints and connect the meridians to let stagnant qi flow. If you don't believe me, just practice nothing but hard martial arts for 20 years and then come talk to me when your arthritis starts.

A lot of teachers I've known have never even heard of qigong and they're still teaching well into their fifties with no problems. However, I make sure to practice embryonic breathing and soft qigong to balance the yang with the yin. Eight pieces of brocade, small circulation, etc. will, I HOPE, prevent san gong.

While not exactly qi, Bruce Lee used EMS machines quite extensively in the year or so before his death. I wonder if they might have caused some energetic problems in him.

I wouldn't be surprised. Yang Jwing Ming says that electrical stimulation can definitely cause a dangerous over-abundance of qi.

Depending on what your Yang practice is and yoru Yin practice is! Too much Yin -meditation can get you lose of muscle and bone desity and too much Yang can cause one to run the fire as well damage the organs (tension, stress), wearing of the joints, and creating Fung Sup (evil wind) arthritis from constant smashing of the body.

Smart and proper training using, herbs, releasing Yang chi and harmonising it usually is done at the end of external practices to balance the bodys energy. Some Yin practices uses steel rods like iron body to vibrate the energy to the bones or bean bags which can be considered a yang workout. Chens taiji uses combination of rolling a ball (weights) with chi, intent, spirit etc.

Its all a matter of training and developing your body correctly, i have practiced external and internal kung fu for over 20yrs that uses explosive power and the wear and tear on the body near the end i believed could have hurt my body especially the spine from the shock, the brain, joints, nervous system etc. Fast explosive arts that use shock power that trains forms striking the air i believe can lead to developing injuires later in life if someone is not smart enought to know when to stop.

my 2 cents!

wyg

That's why practitioners of styles that use explosive jin (martial power) wear tight sashes. They keep the organs snug and in place and prevent herneas. As for the spine and joints, you just have to warm up properly. Pretty much the only external training I do is grip and finger training for qin na, shoulder excersises like finger push-ups and panther walking, and ma bu (horse stance) for stability, as well as practicing my forms and practicing strikes and kicks on the heavy bag.