so, i suppose i am known on this forum as a supporter of it but i am beginning to question it... when i have bowel movements (since the beginning) i used to notice a type of paste in the water that wouldn't mix and i have always disregarded it but now i'm thinking twice. today i had a good run (50 minutes!) and when i went to use the bathroom (bowel movement) i looked and i saw my urine was very thick, in fact it resembled everything sperm does but it was yellow. it was stuck on the toilet and i took a cotton swab and took some and it was somewhat sticky.

i know i didn't have a retrograde because i don't get that close in coming to ejaculation, so what could this be? i am beginning to doubt this practice and might even abandon it, it's dealing with things that cannot be replaced.

what did your saliva look or felt like?

You know my thoughts on the topic of retention and still:

http://www.malesexualneeds.com/semen-and-sperm.html

there is a part about color



Harry

i stopped retention, although i think it's great i have to stop being an idiot; this isn't something you ought to take likely and unless i find a teacher and a system in which the practices are taught i'm not going down that path again.

besides, whats the point in having dry orgasms for them to just go down the toilet

So true To the other part of your post: great decision I feel it indeed to be

Harry

If you're examining every body fluid and excretion this minutely, maybe you're too self absorbed...
Maybe you should get your head out of the toilet bowl and just live!

well, i don't know about you but i am not comfortable with pasty secretions leaking from my penis, maybe i'm just different though?

more than a couple of people warned you about these things... i suggest you should check yourself up for a infection in that area. who knows how many years you will need to repair the damage... for instance, if you step on a plant when it is young, it will take it longer to grow, and will never reach the size and potency of an adult plant. your case, and others, should be a warning as in: not messing with your body if you dont really understand what it is you are doing. no offence.



Edit: the worse thing is people come around blaming retention practices based on case like yours... hence the responsibility of any practicioner for what he/she is practicing... belive it or not, when we start to go public, one way or another we become refference points...

I have this problem myself and know exactly how you feel. I believe that this problem can be solved on a long term basis by abstaining from sexual activities and do grounding exercises (Tai Chi, Standing meditation, Sitting meditation, Yoga) intensively. I believe that semen gets into the urin because of weak kidneys.
Kidneys get weak because of stress, intensive sexual activity, insufficient sleep, too much mental activities (i.e. watching TV in your free time) etc. further information

Some things do not necessarily need to be explained with Chinese terminology and it is necessary not to mix up Western and Chinese diagnosis. On a simple anatomical level messing around with retention the different way might damage seminal vesicles, the prostate etc. etc. etc.

If the link I was provoding above was read carefully it got mentioned that long time no ejaculation might lead to mentioned change in color? The worrysome part is when one has damaged once system so far that retrograde ejaculation into the urinary bladder becomes "natural"... not so good. Infections sure enough are to keep in mind as well. Needs to get checked by an urologist!



Harry

i second that.
please, forget the "do it yourself" attitude. when it comes to these things, it's very faulty.
seek the advice of a specialist.


good luck

L1

To me, it is very obvious that my urine would not be foamy if i ejaculated every day or every second day. I also ejaculate once in a while, and after i did, the foam in the urine is less thick and its volume is lower.

check your imbalance of Yin/Yang energy with this table:
http://sacredlotus.com/diagnosis/yinyang_table.cfm

at your age retention is unnatural.
retention should be done normally after age 30-35... maybe later in life

another life shortening advice - this forum is full of knowlegable and kind ppl

i like retention and if i had a teacher to guide me i'd still be doing it but too much is at risk to just try and say the hell with it, especially at my age

No offense dude, but you need to study a little anatomy. The kidneys have notheing to do with semen - they are separate systems. Nor do sexual activity, mental activity, sleep, etc. alter kidney function. The kidneys are the primary regulators of acid/base balance in your body - if their function fluctuated so whimsically, we'd all die much younger deaths, and definitely wouldn't be able to withstand the abuses we put our bodies through when we're young.

What seems obvious to us, may mean something else to an expert. Please stop drawing conclusions based on what you heard here and there; because when it comes to making changes, the mind has to undergo a special training in order to allow it to become natural...
Otherwise we only get an ego inflammation that will naturally lead to... failure.
Remember the body-mind acts like one,
and any change in the habits of the body, be it nutrition, sleep or sex or etc,
has to be accompanied by a change of a simmilar magnitude,
in your mind, attitude, view, understanding.

AND VICEVERSA... if you want to engage in mental or meditative practice, your body has to undergo a special training, to be able to receive the benefits of the mind-work.

AND OF COURSE... personal training is but one quarter of the work that a practicioner has to undergo. There are four others fields of his life that need to grow at simmilar speed with the training. Otherwise... is hard, unwise and not very statisfactory. On the long term, feelings of deep regret and unfulfillment become a hard burden.

SHOULD BE ADDED... that personal training, even of the Five Fields Of Live, is still insufficient for greater purposes. The man can have an insignificant understanding of his purpose, if he doesnt add the practices of the Earth and Heavens.

There is a lot to do, a lot to understand, a lot to allow to happen, a lot of small things that need to be fed everyday, the smaller they are, the more important. So many of them depend only on the common sense, and people would be safer and a lot more happier practicing them.
It is a very strong foundation, and can mean a really nice accomplishment only in itself.


These are delicate matters, temper-temper...


good luck

L1

He is not talking about physical anatomy. In Chinese Medicine the Kidneys rule essence, and thus seminal fluids (along with general body fluid). They relate to greying of hair, hearing and memory loss, lower back pain and loss of sexual function with age (i.e. as Kidney essence is exhausted through living).

At the same time, most Chinese medical texts (including the Nei Jing) point out that moderate sexual activity is natural and healthy. (Even Plain Girl recommended an "ejaculation schedule" to the Yellow Emperor.) It was the later developed Taoist sects that promoted the idea that ejaculation should be avoided entirely, not the medical/health groups.

On another note, retention in and of itself is not inherently dangerous. The associated practices (the qigongs and meditations) appear to be. This can be acertained from the fact that groups like the Oneida practiced absolute retention (mantis, they even had young guys sleep with postmenopausal women until they could control themselves perfectly, so age is not necessarily an issue) and none of the problems reported by those who attempt to practice Taoist retention methods. Anatomically semen breaks down naturally if it is not used. Of course, if it is not used the body also begins making less of it, and thus less of the associated hormones (which could certainly be less safe for a young guy who needs his hormones for proper development).

the thing is they where having sex, not masturbating, how would i explain to a girl my age "sorry babe i can't cum"

i loved my retention practice all up until yellow sperm came out of my penis while peeing, then i learned it's not something to be played around with.

Girls around your age (a few years older) take it quite well. You don't want to say "can't" though. Rather say you don't want to. Women (especially those used to younger guys) are far too accustom to guys going early to be disappointed if you don't "go". It only takes a second to inform her, then make sure she understands you still enjoy it just as much. Often they will want you to cum every now and then (often just because they enjoy the feeling of you cumming) but most won't mind if you don't most of the time.
As for the Oneida's you are right, they were having intercourse. However physiologically speaking, there is no difference. There is still arousal, plateau and (if you so choose) climax. The nervous system runs through the same phases, the difference is the "feeling" and "energy".

Retention "re-tension"
If one tries to forcefully prevent ejaculation it can create "re (more, excessive) tension" in that part of the body and other areas too. Maybe the word retention is not the best, maybe we could instead say 'opening, tranformation, circulation' etc
One of the mental aspects:
When we have desire, it is a projection outwards. Desire for anything creates a pull of your energy away from yourself, you can actually feel it in your being, it's the begining of loss..........
Most, not all but most sex acts is based on desire (outward projection, 'wanting something/one') the body simply follows the minds directive and sooner or later forces the sperm out- wards toward the object of desire.
So the mind and it's motives for having sex in the first place are paramount to consider. Is it an outward projection of desire, or an expression of sharing love that is calm, relaxed and full of respect and sincerity? Wanting nothing, not even to 'feel good'.
(this question isn't directed at anyone in particular, it's just handy to consider)
It all starts from the mind and it's motives.

One physical aspect.
If you take the analogy of traffic on the road. When the cars build up at the traffic lights, it causes congestion, especially on a one way street. In order to ease the congestion, we wait for the lights to turn green (is that the colour that other countries use too? )...........................or, instead getting to the lights, we do a u-turn.
But in order to do a u-turn, we need:
-enough space on the road
-put the car into reverse.
Im not trying to be flippant, but in order to avoid traffic congestion and seminal congestion redirection capacity and redirection pathways are needed.

The redirection capacity is made more efficient by converting the liquid jing into qi (gas). This takes skill and (usually) some time to become proficient at. Specific techniques can be very helpful in this aspect.

The redirection pathways of the body need to be open if the sperm is not to stagnate and congest, otherwise it might be more healthy to allow it to release.
One way of opening up redirection pathways is to practice dao yin. Daoyin can corect the structure of the body, clear the channels and allow qi to flow.
Massage helps also.
Also, meditation investigating the mind, investigating the body....................internal space, opening, being relaxed, calm, respect, moderation, non-atatchment to outcomes these are all so important, very important.
Actually, when these are practiced regularlly, 'retention' can happen naturally without much effort, because all of the other other pre-requisites are being met.

Don't forget that even if the mental side of the equation is adressed, the body can sometimes take a while to respond to change due to the momentum of past habituations. So many times, seminal emission might still occur. The body might need a little time to adjust, so we should always be kind to ourself. Don't force, don't rush, investigate the mind and motives, open, open open.
Whoa, can't believe how much i just typed

Thanks for getting carried away Hit the nail squarely on the head.

I asked my teacher today about retention. He said it's crazy to start too soon, too young, or without an accompanying practice that is designed to be used with it. Retention is not part of neigong's foundation. It is used for specific cultivation and for old men!

The more time I spend in China, the more I'm realizing some of the notions I learned in the states are bent waaay out of proportion. Before I came I would hear the way a masters lived and then say, AH! OK! So that's the rule to live by! And it's just crazy. There are no absolute rules. You practice different things at different stages.

You can't rush this stuff. Fast is slow, slow is fast. It takes a whole lot longer to clean up a mess than it does to make it.

Ditto Re-tension.

i feel a lot better while practicing retention though, seriously now i see that i don't have a sex drive, i have an ejaculation drive, which is what i believe people really have and that may be why sex is usually only 5-15 minutes. i don't want to sit and enjoy i want to ejaculate and be on my way.

i am really thinking retention is better, i am considering doing it again and following the ayp system with spinal breathing.

wow. Who is your esteemed teacher? What is his core expertise area?

That is sad. The act is where all the pleasure and meaning are.... Perhaps you need to work more on your feelings than your physical ability ability to control.

i'll be honest i'm not a very feeling person at all

He works as a Chinese Medicine doctor. His teachings are from Longmen Pai (龙门派). Aside from Wang Li Ping (王力平) I'm not sure his teachers names would mean much to you. If you'd like to learn more and your Chinese is up to snuff, check out 《钟吕传道集注译-灵宝毕法注译》 this book is by Shen Zhigang (沈志刚）, one of Master Wang's senior students. It does a pretty good job of explaining the Longmen Pai system, though you'd still certainly need a teacher to practice it.

I don't claim any mastery of the system. I'm simply relating that yesterday we had a discussion about building Jing. I mentioned what I know about building Jing to be eating well, practicing gongfu that builds the body, living on a natural routine, and not ejaculating. For the "not ejaculating" part he let me know that I still didn't really understand Jing. I said in America many people practiced retention for their neigong. He shook his head and basically said, that practice doesn't start until much later. Of course you don't want to over do ejaculation, but you also don't want to under do it. For a practitioner my age, 26, it's unnatural until I reach a specific level of cultivation. And even then, it's a practice you undertake for a period of time to achieve something.

This is the practice of the Dao. It's about being natural and about changing. There are no static rules that you follow through the whole course of cultivation. Any universal imperative will lead to ruin. The Taijitu is all about motion. From a state of yin you practice yang. But if you continue to practice just yang yang yang, you will stagnate. From a state of yang you practice yin. This keeps the taiji of your cultivation in motion.

Mantis, cultivation is empty without consciousness. If you're not feeling that means your Shen/awareness is not getting into that part of your body. Here's a sentence for you:

“故神可以益精，使精不妄泄。故积精可以全身，使神能内守。”
"Shen can benefit Jing by preventing it from leaking. Amassing Jing allows Shen to live inside the body."

Not feeling is the cause and consequence of your leaking. You need to increase your awareness of body sensations. You can make this practice easier by eating right (that means plenty of vegetables), rhythmic living (eating, sleeping, even practicing at roughly the same times daily), and exercising right (not just building muscle but building in the joints and tendons). There are also specific practices to build Jing but you need a teacher for them.

this is where my age comes into play. some of you may say "i wish i knew about this or that when i was younger" but in reality there isn't much of a difference. emotionally i am an asshole plain and simple and this is how i come off to most people but i don't try to be like that, it just happens for whatever reason. i am cold to most people and if i don't like you i am willing to bet you'll catch on real fast.

this is why i am interested in ayp - yogani's system. all of the teachings are online and when you are ready you take it to the next step. if i could i'd love going to wherever it is in the world and creating the disciple-guru relationship because really this is a serious issue (not even talking about retention here just the spiritual path in general).

when i used to practice retention i used to get a warm feeling and a kind of tingling pushing to pleasure and so forth, now that i don't i just want to ejaculate and that's that.

i don't know, a lot of esoteric schools all point to the same thing, not ejaculating. if i do take it up again (i am leaning in that direction) i am going to do it with yogani's ayp since it includes the spinal breathing. last time i did retention i also did pranyama which i did not use this time and could have been a factor in the overall decline of the practice.

one thing we do have that the ancients didn't is communication, some of you are in china yet we are here exchanging messages. i thank everyone who has posted in this topic and i am now just trying to absorb all of this and come to a conclusion, whatever that may be.

Hi Mantis,

As pointed out by Taoist 81 replace "can't" with "don't" and have a cool discussion
Could be used as a great pick up line too.....................




Thanks for being honest, I feel a bit like that too. Sure I can have sex with retention........... but I ENJOY ejaculation. Also my “lifestyle” / “culture” has prepared me to expect a wham bam roll over and sleep man sexual style rather than 3~4 hour lovemaking extravaganzas. Wanting to EJ is also a powerful procreative drive, so one shouldn't feel "bad" for wanting to do it.

It’s funny how people can tell us things, but we never understand, till we discover it for ourselves. I think my problems come from not having a teacher but having a lot of book knowledge and using techniques from all over the place to do things they were never really designed to do. There are retention techniques for immortality and retention for health and I’ve been mixing them and not doing other complementary techniques. No wonder I run into problems, it’s like sticking a turbo on your car but not doing anything else to the engine, something is going to blow up!

I still want to reduce my frequency of EJ to look after my health. I’ve always liked Dr Lyn’s techniques and I'm getting a lot of good info out of “Art of the Bedchamber” and since I have not been able to extinguish desire I’m moving away from the immortality techniques and focusing just on health to start with.

So the only “weird” retention thing that I still want to do is 100 days for Kunlun. Not sure what to do with that desire.

thanks. this is all i need to know. Seems like WLP has cornered the market.

Wang Liping is the main lineage transmitter for Longmen Pai. This is the daoism Lu Dongbin pioneered and many sincere cultivators gave their lives to test and perfect. That's not to say it's the only branch of daoism, there are plenty, but it is a big branch. So why not share the information? I'd rather not see a sincere student like mantis screw himself into a hole it will take years to dig out of.

So what's this market you refer to? I don't see Wang Liping turning a profit. My teacher doesn't charge me and his teachers didn't charge him. Big market huh? He's not exactly prostheletizing.

I'd like to understand you Proc, it's hard to do through words, but perhaps you could give us an introduction. I recall you have studied Chen style taijiquan. What else? Translated books? Here's an opportunity, please, liberate the Tao Bum market from the vicious grip of that dastardly WLP! Who is your esteemed teacher? What is his core of expertise?

i am not so sure but i am not contesting that.

i am all for sharing. who said anything against sharing?

how many times did you see him at all? Are you in Dalian?


Your case is a very surprising exception then. A book about him is spread all over the globe, he gives seminars, his senior students bring foreigners to him - that is exactly proselytizing . Please kindly note that i do not impugn anybody. Whatever is he doing, more power to him i do not blame him.


yeah i have translated books:) let me know if you wanna see an excerpt on leackage, 26 -it is not too late yet.


you will easily find that info in my previous posts.

Hello Mal

What have you got for problems with retention?
Just curious

With regrds F D

Of course I would like to hear your take on leakage, the more information the merrier. My notion is make the info available and let the individual sort out what works. Better yet, get a good teacher to help.

And no, I don't live in Dalian, maybe someday as I like the Chinese Northeast, but Xi'an is my home for now. I haven't met WLP, and aside from David's people I don't know how many foreigners have studied with him. And honestly I don't know what to make of the whole David thing. I do know WLP basically just charged overhead at his seminar in Hainan this last summer. I also know he's far from rich. That said, I would love to get one of David's students on the line and get some details.

I think we share a similar skepticism of what we haven't experienced personally. And wow there are a lot of stories over here that are pretty hard to swallow. Things like blind faith never really worked for me. I need the experience. So I'll believe it when I see it. But in the mean time, I have a great deal of trust and respect for my teacher, I can also see for myself that he has manifested real ability, so when he vouches for a guy that means a lot to me.

Are you really going to make me ferret out the info on your teacher just to sate my unenlightened curiosity?

you are right. I have just tried the search engine on this site and its a joke.

My teachers expertise is in alchemy and internal MA. He belongs to Wu -Lu pai.

Where can you buy the book from Wang Li Pings senior diciple and what is the english name for it?

WYG

The book I mentioned has not been translated into English, shame there's a lot of great stuff in it. Give me a few years and I'll do it myself if I have to. Explains the Dragon Gate system, levels and all, and then the rest is a modern translation of Lu Dongbin's questions to his teacher. Very good quality but not easy reading for me just yet. I'll photo copy and translate some of the charts and pictures in the book one of these days and post 'em up here.

Thanks for the info Proc, I don't know much about Wu-lu, or many traditions for that matter. Before I got to China I was more a figure-it-all-out-myself kind of cultivator, I'm not sure I had it wrong but the tradition here has been good for me. Should you care to share more about Wu-lu I'd love to hear.

“
故神可以益精，使精不妄泄。
估积精可以全身，使肾能内守。”
"Shen can benefit Jing by preventing it from leaking. Amassing Jing allows Shen to live inside the body."

Sharing is wrong and subject to terrible punishment by Heaven . But i am interested in discussing this qoute and your translation of such. Which text is this from? and what happened to 肾? Lost in translation?

Ooh, good eye. I didn't do a good job checking my work! Sharing misinformation is what should really be subject to punishment by Heaven. I was about to reply that it doesn't make sense to put 肾 there, but that was my mistake! Respect.

"使肾能内守" should read "使神能内守"

Shen (肾) and Shen (神) are pronounced differently but written the same in quick computer pinyin.

This text from a discussion of Heart and Kidneys (心肾相交） from a commentary on the 黄帝内经 (Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic).

(I will go edit the original post)

typos happen, its nothing. that fixed - the original and translation is:

故神可以益精，使精不妄泄。
估积精可以全身，使神能内守。”
"Shen can benefit Jing by preventing it from leaking. Amassing Jing allows Shen to live inside the body."

its a great quote -everything is in it.

As Excorcist has commented:



...but the translation has room for improvement.

Agreed, Chinese characters contain a great deal of meaning. And the topic of Jing and Shen also requires a real depth of experience. I just made a quick, simple, direct as possible translation. One more, smaller typo: 估　should read 故.

Here's the line that follows from the same text:

"精能生神，神能驭精"

To do a simple translation is easy, to grasp the real meaning and translate that is art. Any time you'd like to compare translations I'm up for it, more views fill out the picture. I think heaven's ban on sharing information ended with industry, bullets and atomic bombs. Now mother nature, the Jing of our own macrocosmic body, may well depend on freedom of information.

天——神
人——气
地——精

Thankx for this discussion guys. Hope to one day find a way to really learn Chinese.
And welcome 松永道



Could it be part of its punishment?



Harry

Correct. As in everything there are two ways to learn about Heaven's punishment - and only one of them is easy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8