The theory of touch in meditative practice

Touch has always a way between trusting partners to express their emotions and passions. And in such a way that the partners are enlivened and energized. In chi-kung's terminology it is called chi activation or chi-filled. It can range from simple shaking hands to sexual intercourse. And within this range of touch, schools of internal arts, mostly meditative, founded their practices upon. The most prominent trend is Tantric Yoga.

Recently I came across a book written by Vidya, a lady master of the art of Tibetan Pulsing Yoga rested upon touch. The practice is situated at a point between the spectrum of shaking hands to sexual intercourse.  Vidya was said to be the only fully-trained Chinese student of late founding master Dheeraj. Most of book are about theoretical background, world view and imaginations of the practice. The part that I am most interested in is the techniques chapter. The basic technique of Pulsing Yoga as shown was two (or two plus) chi-points in our body created through touch and executed by or between trusting partner(s). Trust is needed because certain parts of our body are not supposed to be touched by others in our daily lives.

A cursory browse of the web reviewed that the touching practice is more "extensive" in the West than in the East (Taiwan). I am when I compared those in the book and what are reviewed in my photo search. Quite understandably, Chinese mentality is more aversive to physical touch by "strangers" than Westerners, some of whom have a cultural/social practice to embrace and cheek-kiss new acquaintance in the street. On the other hand, some Chinese women even shied away from shaking hands with strangers in public.

I am not an expert in tantric yoga, therefore I am not familiar with the many practices that lied between the spectrum of physical touch. The question I want to raise is "How do Chinese practices make use of the power of touch, if at all?" Just forget about the esoteric Taoist practice with a tantric-feel (that incidentally has been condemned by mainstream lineages), there are indeed ways to make use of touch. I use two examples:

1. In tai chi pushing hands, a teacher makes use of the touch of the arm to listen to and to "transmit" (experientially speaking) chi to his student's body. In close-door inner circle study, some teachers also push against the body of a student for such chi listening and activation. Close door meaning for trusting master-student relationship.
2. In high-level classic Taoist meditation (also referenced in "Taoist Yoga" translated by Charles Luk), a meditator has to use the "services" of helper who rub the spinal cord of the meditator to facilitate superior (or big) elixir cultivation (大葯).

Last but not least, in teaching zhan zhuang, the simple act of touching certain points in the arm and body of a student by an informed teacher can greatly accelerate the progress of a student. This technique has been documented by Zhuang JingKe (a disciple of Master Wang Xiangzai). It was reported that Master Wang was an expert in touch-to-generate-chi.

Tibetan Pulsing Yoga

The secret alchemical practice of Jungian psychologists

Carl Jungian was a famed psychologist. Not only because he was the prodigy of Sigmund Freud who, according to Jung's biography, criticized him (and parted with him professionally) for straying away from the scientific path. Not only because he created the concepts of introvert and extrovert...and not only of his other contributions in analytic psychology. He was, according to some of his prodigies, an alchemist. Not too surprisingly if one came to know that the great Isaac Newton was foremost an alchemist and doing physics as his "leisure pursue".

According to "Jung and the Alchemical Imagination" written by Jeffery Raff who studied under Marie-Louise von Franz in Zurich (Marie was Carl Jung's prodigy on the alchemical side), meditation was being practised by the psychologists studying in the Institute, as part of the curriculum. No details of meditation techniques were discussed in the book which focused on explaining psychological side of the Jungian individuation process (they used meditation and alchemical imagination as the route of progress). The fact is an outsider, be it a teacher or an uninformed observer, cannot witness the transformation process inside a person's body and mind.  We have to depend on proxy to gauge the process. And the proxy those Jungian psychologists used was alchemical imagination.

The stages of transformation as depicted in Raff's book, for exposition purpose, were taken from alchemical texts in the West. What surprised me is that the three stages of transformation look very much the same (or at least alike) as those depicted in a Taoist Neidan classic, none other than the famous Taoist Yoga translated into English by Charles Luk (at the encouragement of Carl Jung).

I suspect most readers of Western alchemical texts (or as introduced by Jungians) and Taoist Neidan (deep mediation) do not cross path. Taoist texts focused more on techniques while alchemical texts focused on empirical internal images. I have seen practitioners in the West eagerly search for and read loads and loads of arcane books trying to find the best route to salvation (yet still puzzled after years of pursue) and practitioners in the East spending years to learn to control their breath and seeking for lights as internal sensation for guidance without understanding what their practice can do to their personality (or self).

Perhaps it has come to the day when East shall truly meet West. And Taoist Neidan texts shall be studied and be practised side by side with Jungian alchemical texts and experience, for the benefit for any practitioner.

New age spirituality and morality

Carl Jung, an expert in Eastern spiritual and meditative practice, had warned against Westerners (which for practical reasons encompass almost every modern man by now) mimicking Eastern spiritual practice. Why? Without a tradition of religious morality behind such practices, a student of Eastern practices may end up with ego inflation at best, psychotic at worst. Why? Bits of unconscious when allowed to surface will become autonomous. When such bits come from the darker side of our unconscious, a person can result in an inflated ego, or even an evil ego. And when such bits are pathological, which can be more prone to be for certain people, an unsuspected novice can become psychotic.

Unfortunately in our contemporary secular culture, meditative practices tend to become amoral - in order to attract a larger audience. Happiness becomes an ultimate objective. To relax our mind and body so that we can be refreshed to earn more money (and power!) also becomes an ultimate objective. "Why enroll if your meditation (spiritual) course cannot deliver some tangible benefits for me?" And our customer has the right to ask and to demand, afterall it is a free and consumerist society.

Traditional Eastern practices have always put morality as a prerequisite to any meditative practice seeking for enlightenment and spirituality. For example, according to the Dalai Lama, the first meditative focus shall be compassion or similar moral concepts. In Sufi, a student has to follow 100% the demands of his teacher, who presumably will instill moral behavior, and concepts, to the receptive mind of his student before any spiritual enlightenment approach begins. Buddhist monks under Zen masters shall follow moral rules and disciplines.

In Jungian approach to spirituality as per Marie-Louise von Franz and C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, such dangers have been raised. Unfortunately in the West, direct spiritual experience has not been part of main stream religious tradition. And when coupled with our contemporary secular thinking, new age spirituality pursues can easily become "doing good things for others, ultimately for the benefits of one's selfish self" even when "morality" and "good deeds" are put onto the agenda, with possible negative effects as explained above.

Carl Jung's warning is still sound, perhaps even sounder now, as almost all of us belong to the West nowadays.

The logic of third eye opening and naval gazing

Third eye opening is sometimes the raison d'etre of people venturing into the art of deep meditation. Metaphors surround it filled pages and built up interesting stories and myths. Some meditators find kindred souls in that they see arcane images from cultures (notably Indian) they have no prior experience or knowledge. A rich playing field for avid imagination, fantasies and ontological speculations. Like "world peace", "world spirit" and "reincarnation". I agree with Jung that it is out of human limit of knowing to speculate further than empirical psychological facts, not that such enquiries are meaningless as scientism would have said, but they rightfully should be in the realm of faith.

As a practitioner, my expertise lays in the area of training and operational guidelines. And along this route I shall direct my writing below.

Everybody is familiar with image of hypnotist using a slowly swinging pendulum with the eyes falling the swinging ball. With the mind conditioned to follow the instructions of the hypnotist and the eyes "faithfully" following the swinging ball, a person can get hypnotized. The scientific fact is, slow movement of the eye muscles can induce one towards a sleepy state. This is the only relevant fact on hypnosis for our explanatory purpose here.

Eye muscles are important route to the inner world. One major limitation of the eye-muscles is that they are weak muscles, and as such, cannot induce a massive amount of chi (which is essential for deep meditation). Deep meditation necessarily involves our strong breathing muscles. For deep meditation, such energy has to be guided to our brain through our third eye. To open the third eye (or using the point called third eye [making a triangle with our physical eyes] as focused point) has a prior pre-requisite: the ability to control the muscles of our physical eyes.

In classical Taoist meditation (Neidan), there is a training method called "incense gazing". It is simple, gazing continually at a burning incense. Tears will flow, eyes will be blurred. This method is also mentioned in the Classic text Taoist Yoga translated into English by Zen master Charles Luk.  A contemporary method is gazing a far-away trees. Master Wang Xianzahi also used tree gazing in healing impaired eye-sights for his students (per reference from his student Madam Zhuang JingKe)..."until the tree tops become blurred", as reportedly said by Master Wang.

Now this is the first step. With some sound prior practice in chi-related disciplines or meditation, the following steps will be easy. Step one: visualize connecting your eyes with broad area of your abdomen with rubber bands, which means your eye movements will trigger synchronically reactions in your abdomen.  The eye movements can be left/right, up/down, doing circles etc. With good training in this direction, you are ready to move on. Final step: visualize connecting your third eyes to your Dantian (i.e. doing navel gazing). The eye muscles will act as balancing of chi-power while the movement of the third eye will become almost stationary or nano in nature.

You are onto the road to deep meditation.

Navel gazing

Why chasing after "classic" kundalini awakening is not recommended

Kundalini awakening is an attractive concept. Many contemporary meditators, in particular in the west, are mesmerized by it, attracted by it, tempted by it, or actually started their meditative practice because of it! Kundalini awakening as described in some modern classics is quite explosive, frightening and unexpected. These writers are usually self-learners. And when some of these self learners later become great teachers themselves, they recounted such experience in their books. Of course those poor guys who, as a result, suffered some traumatic side-effects will not be there to tell their stories.

Nevertheless most of such mentions said that if their awakenings could be better managed, the result would not be so shocking. And with the benefit of experience, their students can avoid such drastic encounters. It is interesting to note that there are cases of Taoist meditation practitioners, and self-learners too, who said they experienced such experiential shock. The Japanese Taoist master and popular writer 高藤 聡一郎 is an example. In Taoist practice, a mild energy surge is called arousing chi foundation (動氣基).  Explosive ones are labeled as chi deviation, in a negative sense.

What was mentioned in those experience is a form of sudden explosion of chi energy. It is just like a dam suddenly broke open. Why is it so? And why a more controlled training can avoid this?

When chi gradually builds up during training in a more controlled training, the student will be trained to open his blockages step by step at the same time. In this way, when the chi become massive, almost all blockages have been cleared. And this is safe. However, with an eager practitioner who is unfortunately without the proper guidance of a good teacher, he may be building up his chi without realizing that his internal blockage is being pushed into a thick wall, disallowing his chi to pass through. Failing to see progress, he became more eager, and engage himself into more vigorous training. Eventually his thick blockage exploded open! His pent-up chi rushes upwards to his head. The experience will be shocking, and painful, and with possible long term negative effects.

There is however in some cases there will be a positive side benefit. This shock can result in a near-death experience. And with (most of the time unintended) prior mental or spiritual training, this can result in an Enlightenment with a capital E. The second Patriarch of Zen Buddhism was reported to have an Enlightenment experience immediately after he cut off his own arm!

For most modern students of kundalini meditation and Taoist meditation, the highest level of Enlightenment is not a training objective. A gradual method is the best method for their training objectives. And therefore it is absolutely no need to try the shock-therapy route. For those who are truly religious or spiritual, they should find a proper teacher rather than dangerously experimenting with shocking kundalini awakening through explosive massive pent-up energy.

The path of enlightenment according to Carl Jung

As an academic discipline, Carl Jung's analytical psychology is a study of the psyche. His individuation process as a development process that combine or complete a person's psyche into wholeness, or that enlightens it, with insight or wisdom. According to Jung, the three parts of our psyche consists of

1. Ego, our conscious mind;
2. The personal unconscious, forgotten or suppressed memories from our own personal lives;
3. The collective unconscious, the collective memory of human thought and experience, from ancient to modern times. This includes the basic human instincts and the archetypes.

The above is academic. The practical question is: How can we facilitate the process of individuation and how does it compare with Eastern methods of enlightenment?

Concerning method, for his patients, Jung used psychoanalysis; for himself, he used meditation and his own dreams (the subject of meditator's vivid dreams I shall tackle in a future post). What is interesting to me is that his three-part construct of human psyche was empirically (in the nature of psychological perception) determined. It was true to him and apparently cross-referenced to be true to his students and/or fellow practitioners or inquirers of the subject matter (perhaps including Zen master Charles Luk, translator of Taoist Yoga, whom Jung knew personally). Such details however had not be documented, i.e. these are only my own reasoned analysis or speculation.

More interesting is that such construct can be used (and apparently was/is being used) by students of the subject as a facilitative tool to guide their inner quest through meditation (and vivid dream analysis too, for some). My contention is that Jung's method is also relevant to Taoist and Zen practitioners, for them tools are just transient objects that need to be thrown away after the next stage of Tao/Zen enlightenment is achieved.  Besides for an average educated intelligent modern man, a belief in a psyche construct (like Jung's) of good academic standing looks more palatable to his (conscious) mind than accepting the existence of mythical beings of the some Hindi tradition or colorful Lamaist mandalas, not to mention the seemingly unapproachability of some gurus in trance states!

The concept of mandala in Tibetan Buddhist and Taoist meditation

Colorful mandala is a signature symbol of Tibetan Buddhism's deep meditative practice. Different lineage has its own signature mandalas for students to meditate. Each master will select a special mandala (out of many of his lineage) for each student to meditate, according to the special individual mind-body attributes of each student. A path is laid down. A bridge is built.

According to chapter six of the Diamond Sutra:

"That's why Thatagata often told you: Monks, you must always remember my Dharma-as-a-raft metaphor: Even my Dharma can be cast away, more so for those unrelated to my Dharma."知我說法,如筏喻者,法尚應捨,何況非法

The bridge is to be cast away. What is the meaning of casting the bridge away in mandala meditation?

Carl Jung has the following interesting comment on the subject. Essential it means the master's mandala should be treated as a conceptual blue-print, rather than a concrete blue-print. In order words, the master gives a specific mandala concept (with attributes defined by a specific mandala), and from this guideline (the raft), a student builds his own unique mandala, the process of individuation according to Jung. This is Jung's passage:

In 1938, I had the opportunity, in the monastery of Bhutia Busty, near Darjeeling, of talking with a Lamaic rimposhe, Lingdam Gomchen by name, about the khilkor or mandala.

He explained it as a dmigs-pa (pronounced “migpa”), a mental image which can be built up only by a fully instructed lama through the power of imagination. He said that no mandala is like any other, they are all individually different. Also, he said , the mandalas to be found in monasteries and temps were of no particular significance because they were external representations only.

The true mandala is always an inner image, which is gradually built up through (active) imagination, at such times when psychic equilibrium is disturbed or when a thought cannot be found and must be sought for, because it is not contained in holy doctrine. The aptness of this explanation will become apparent in the course of my exposition.

The alleged free and individual formation of the mandala, however, sould be taken with a considerable grain of salt, since in all Lamaic mandalas there predominates not only a certain unmistakable style but also a traditional structure.  For instance they are all based on a quaternary system, a quadratura circuli, and their contents are invariably derived from Lamaic dogma. There are texts, such as the Shri-Chakra-Sambhara Tentra, which contain direcctions for the construction of these “mental images.”

In Taoist deep meditation tradition, the meditative process of individuation (or enlightenment) is simply conceptualized as breeding an embryo. A new being is built. It has no visualization, though Jung has mentioned the metaphor of Gold flower from the title of a classic Taoist text The secret of the Golden Flower 太乙金華宗旨. In the establishment of Zen Buddhist, a flower and a smile is also put up as definitive symbol. Round, flower, new being seem to be the key attributes of these practices, as seen from classic texts. Oral (and importantly experiential) tradition fills the unspoken words, as always in the inner practices.

With the same human psychology, the conceptual path is always the same.

Why your master is better to be an ordinary guy than to be a genius

It has always be a puzzle among meditators in old Dynasty China: Why Zen meditation suddenly lost its teachings after the prominent Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng? So much so, it had been mentioned in various Taoist Neidan texts that some Zen masters learned the art of deep meditation from Taoist Neidan masters instead. After completion of such learning, many came to the revelation that what was being taught by the Fifth Patriarch (now only fragments remained) was actually the same as Neidan teachings (as with other things in the internal arts, there have been disagreement as to the similarity, but the fact remained that Zen meditation had been devoid of much of its contents after Master Hui Neng).

According to the Platform Sutra, master Hui Neng qualified as a genius. He was a woodcutter by profession. He got his immediate (probably transient) enlightenment out of hearing once the Diamond Sutra. He then determined to spend the rest of his life in pursuit of full enlightenment and for this reason entered the monastery of the Fifth Patriarch.  His master tested his patience, as well as training his body and mind, by putting him to do many low-level manual tasks. After he demonstrated his intelligence in a famous Zen poem No dusting required, his master decided to teach him the internal art of deep meditation and later passed down the lineage to him, despite the fact that Hui Neng was a low-level monk. Actually Hui Neng only took one over-night lesson from his master, and he got the techniques (and then spent years of self-training in private to perfect his art before he "reappeared" again to recoup his lineage title and began teaching). The relevant point here is that for a genius like Hui Neng, he could understand the technique in a very short period of time (albeit he had pre-conditioned his body in his woodcutting days and he still needed to practise to perfect his art). Was he a good teacher of the internal arts? He was indeed a good master on the cognitive or intellectual side of Buddhism and Buddhist enlightenment. He trained up many knowledgeable monks, perhaps the most notable one was Master Shun Hui who was a prodigy and learned well from Master Hui Neng. The funny thing is that the art of deep meditation in the Zen tradition seemed to have lost since then. There have been many speculations, though all speculation tried to avoid the speculation that our Master was not a good teacher in the internal art.

Let me fast forward to our modern era. If you are familiar with biographies of tai chi (Taoist mediation or internal martial art) masters, you might have noticed that many prominent teachers were being sent to learn tai chi etc from their respective master because their bodies were weak when they were young. After they trained up their mind-body, some of them became great masters later in their lives. The reason is simple. The internal art is all about training our sensitivity to our inner most internal sensations (we call it chi, jing, Zen or Tao depending on our training objectives), discovery of "hidden secret". In Zen, it is called Clear our heart and face our true self (明心见性). If a practitioner has to go through most paths of (otherwise hidden) internal sensations, chances are that he will be in a better position to teach his students who, in most cases, has less (hidden) blockages then him.

It comes to my mind a prominent master of chi king in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism (he spent a good portion of his time trying to adapt in it into China-context and named his practice China-Zen 中华禅). Anyway he is a genius in chi. He said that he did not need to do any body movement exercise or anything else, except sit down and meditate. Many chi masters ventured to test his chi (in a friendly way). They could not got close to his chi level (though he didn't push people out like some tai chi masters did). The master told his audience that during his twenties, once he practised slowing his heart rate. He slowed it to such a low level that he almost killed himself because he was unable to raise it up again, not after hours of great effort!

How about his students? Once he mentioned in of his books that he met a couple of his old students (middle aged folks but still younger than their master) and they complained to him of various back pains and shoulder pains. He was an excellent healer, after he massaged them, in the right places, one by one for a short period to time, everybody was relieved of pain and was very happy. Yet, my opinion is that these students ought to be able to heal themselves instead of treating their master as doctor! The relationship in the internal arts is master and student, rather than doctor and patients.

Can't complain. Nobody can teach anything internal without experiencing the things by himself. We have a similar situation in the practice of psycho-analysis (also having the possibility of total personality change like deep meditation). Carl Jung had been psycho-analyzed by his master Simund Freud before he could psycho-analyze his own patients. A teacher of the internal arts has to put himself to the test first before he can teacher others. Unfortunately for internal artists who are prodigies or genius, they do not need to slay and dragon in the path, therefore they do not know how to teach their students to slay dragons.

Discovery of inner secret - chi kung and psychoanalysis

Orbit and field theory of chakra activation

Metaphorically speaking, the energy of a chakra is very similar to the energy of a typhoon (tropical cyclone). Chakras are not muscle points, not chi points along chi channels, they are points of void, points of nothingness. In other words they are not points where we can feel it through sending chi energy there (like voluntary contracting the otherwise almost involuntary muscles or tendons) there. Actually in some chakras, sending chi will be counter-productive, for example, sending too much chi to the third-eye chakra will result in dizziness and heavy-headedness. The structure of typhoon is similar in this respect. The centre of the typhoon is calm. The energy of power consists of wind circulating around the centre at high speed. The power of chakra energy is the same. Here, we talk about orbit and field energy. The benefit of this conception is that, like everything else discussed in this site, it serves the objective of promoting sound (more efficient and more effective) training. Pedagogy is what I am interested in, rather than arm-chair philosophizing. Theory with a purpose, and a well defined purpose.

In a typhoon, wind travels in circular movements and can also be perceived as a field of high energy. This is a good metaphor for chakra energy training. The first stage is to create an orbit or high traveling energy. I shall use the solar plexus chakra as an example. The location is upper abdomen in the stomach area. Psychologically it is associated with confidence and in control. The orbit is the belt channel. Here the meditator shall visualize a belt channel horizontally embracing the middle part of our torso going through the solar plexus. Another orbit required is the Du Mai at the back and the Ren Mai in the front forming a closed loop - a belt channel in the vertical front/back plane. Prior training is required before building up the orbits. These two orbits defined our torso, in Neidan lingo: cauldron.

After the two orbits are built (established or activated), chi is made to fill the rest of the surface (and at the later stage, inside as well) of the cauldron. After the cauldron has been established, chi will be field like instead of orbit like. The chakra as void is always there. And it is the time when true chakra meditation begins. Meditation on the void. As for the psychological aspect, I shall leave it to other posts.

Who said chakra meditation is simple and easy?

A spiritual approach to the study of Neidan

Neidan is a traditional practice of Taoist deep meditation. Like all deep meditative practice, Neidan's ulterior aim is total personality transformation, in the terminology of our modern psychology. As you can appreciate, the only meaningful approach is to use modern psychological concepts, for spiritual analysis. Having said that, Neidan is a special kind of personality change. It is a personality change together with physical change at the same time.

First issue: What is attractive or puzzling about Neidan is that its purported objective is immortality. Practitioners and academicians alike have been pondering about what is the meaning of Immortality. Although most practitioners and academicians believe that it does not mean physical immortality, there are still a handful of "spiritual leaders" who still believe that it means real physical immortality. Rumor among some "faithfuls" has been that Lu DongBin (the most famous Neidan grandmaster) was "discovered" or "seen" in real person in Taiwan some years ago!

Under Jungian psychological concepts, when a spiritual person has trained, or elevated, himself up to a level completely above human consciousness, he has full empirical justification in claiming himself as "above human" (Jung considered Jesus as God in this sense in psychological analysis, which of course does not exclude, nor postulate, any metaphysical truth, i.e. Jesus is or is not God). In the terminology of Neiden, this level of consciousness is called Immortal. Having no good term to describe, Taoist practitioners call it Tao.

Second issue: What is the training process? The definitive training manual available in the West is the translated work "Taoist Yoga" translated by Zen master Charles Luk. The author of the book is famous Taoist master Zhao Bichen. The approach of the text is similar to most Neidan texts, it presupposed the guidance of a master and presupposed prior physical training. Zhao himself was prominent martial artist (though that does not mean martial art is a pre-requisite), and in his other book on the subject (not yet translated into English), he did mention some physical exercises, as exercise for health and preliminary workout for Neidan. These exercises are rather rudimentary (because of its objectives and intended readers) when compared with various Neigong or chi kung exercises, and hence not highly regarded in the Neidan circle.

What made the issue a little more complicated for contemporary readers or intended practitioners is that Neidan texts are highly complex texts (one of the reasons is that they talked about internal experiences that are felt physically rather than can be explained easily rationally). Because of this complexity nature, most people interested in the texts are more academically inclined than practically inclined. Even in Hong Kong, most serious tai chi practitioners do not talk about or try to understand Neidan. With a sedentary lifestyle, many of those who are interested in Neidan couldn't get a hold of the subject matter, and always in search of a better text but can never find one! To make matter worse, a method mentioned in Taoist yoga involved stimulating our sexual energy which in Charles Luk's translation (wrongly) referred to as masturbation.

My recommendation: a proper approach to Neidan is to start with Taoist energy building exercise of tai chi or chi kung. The second step will be some form of power breathing training (as available, for example, in professional singing, woodwind instrument, yogi pranayama and tai chi nei kung). After these ground works, one will be in a more solid foundation to approach the subject of deep Taoist meditation of Neidan. As to which level of personality transformation one is looking for, it will depend on each person's own choice. No where in Neidan texts said one must go to the limit of total personality change (i.e. become Immortal). As Master Zhao wrote in his Taoist Yoga, he had not reached the highest level nor did he intend to. As to the question "what minimum level a student must achieve" is, in my opinion, quite irrelevant to most, if not all, modern men. In Neidan, it is always the negation of the highest the better.

Build a pair of powerful lungs for meditation

How to build a powerful and healthy pair of lungs? The most simple method is jogging. You only need a pair of good running shoes (aka Rockport,  no commercial intended) and the perseverance to do so.  This method is for the young and athletically inclined.  Apart from athletes, there are other professionals who need to train up their pairs of powerful lungs, for example, professional singers and windwood instrumentalists. For them jogging helps too, and much so the training method of the internal arts, in particular those with meditation as an essential element.

When we say "to train our lungs", we are talking about training the power of our breathing muscles which are responsible for forcing air in and out - against atmospheric pressure. Since our lungs are housed inside our body, expansion and contraction of which will necessitate pushing some of our body parts outwards. In normal breathing at rest, we unconsciously choose the least resistance which comes from our ribcage being pushed slightly upward and outward. This is usually called shallow chest breathing. Power breathing on the other hand is traditionally called abdominal breathing, which involves both the abdomen and the chest. In the limiting case, it involves our whole body.

How to train for power breathing in the internal arts? Like any muscular training, we have to create resistance for the responsible muscles resulting in breathing that uses as much lung capacity as possible without creating shortness of breath. In other word, the requirement is to use maximum capacity to be done in a relaxed way. Seasoned meditators can be seen as very relaxed as are professional singers and windwood instrumentalists. Without adequate relaxation, the meditators, singers and instrumentalists can possibly breath to full capacity, but cannot possibility perform to a satisfactory standard in their respective art forms.

In creating resistance, a student has to mindfully connect his lung muscles (i.e. muscles responsible for breathing) to his body parts which in the first steps (101 and 102) involves our two major joints: his shoulder and pelvic joints. and in order that such connection can be meaningful, a student first has to open his shoulder joints and pelvic joints (and make them into "spring-like"). The latter for tai chi or chi kung systems is called slow movement exercise and for Indian yoga, it is called asana. With a trained supple body, a student is ready to learn the art of power breathing.

In chi kung systems there are always two parts: movement forms and stationery forms. In Yoga, there are asana and pranayama. All have to be done with a meditative mind, otherwise no effective connection will be possible. The concept of points-stretched-body-relaxed is also very important. It is never total relaxation, otherwise there will be no work being done. However, a student must know which points to stretch and how to stretch and what parts to relax. The details of which will go beyond this article. Suffice to say, without such (empirical) understanding there, again, will not have effective work being done.

A pair of powerful lungs is essential for students who aim for a deep understanding of the internal arts and to explore into the interesting subject of meditation. Without a pair of powerful lungs, our mind cannot effectively relax, not without much conscious mind control [for example "let me relax (be mindful) here, and then let me relax (be mindful) there"].   Last words: a student cannot effectively meditate when his conscious mind is needed to command him to relax. Or lightweight meditation never works.

The ultimate Zen experience

Some of my friends are skeptical about people who are deep into the internal discipline of meditation. “Look at those masters on the internet. They are more liked people stoned with drugs…and look at those gurus in the street of Mumbai, as seen on TV, with ordinary citizens offering life’s essentials to them and they mumble intelligible and incomprehensive phrases in a trance state. I don’t want to train myself into someone like them!” That is another extreme of the water-downed meditation of Mindfulness. Honestly speaking, the ultimate Zen experience according to Chinese tradition is an experience hardly recognizable in people that we meet. The experience itself does not necessarily come from (sound) meditative practice, though the sustaining of which depends on good practice.

The Zen master whipped the body of the young witty monk several times, and pressed the young monk with the question: “Do you feel pain or not?” Before the young monk could uttered a reply, the master said, “If you do not feel pain, you are as cold as a piece of stone and have no potential to be Zen-enlightened. And if you feel pain, you are just human and will harbor the feeling of hatred, and therefore have no potential to become Zen-enlightened.”

The Zen master was Sixth Zen Patriarch Hui Neng (惠能) and the young monk was one of his top students Shen Hui (神會). The master himself got enlightened first (just by hearing the Diamond Sutra) and then learned meditation from the Fifth Patriarch. Nothing was said about the learning experience of the young monk. The story was reported in the famous Platform Sutra. One thing for sure, these masters were neither stones/trance-like gurus nor corporate executives taking time out to relax at Mindfulness Classes periodically.

A contemporary master with an ultimate Zen-like experience is exemplified by his Holiness the Dalai Lama who doesn’t consider himself a Zen-master, nor a guru at all. “I am just an ordinary monk” said his Holiness. And he is probably right!

The theory of full lungs breathing in tai chi

When your tai chi teacher asks you to breath "naturally" while doing tai chi form, he is, in a way, correct in doing so. Yet he is not telling the whole story, assuming that he knows the whole story in the first place. The trickiness of tai chi breathing is that on the one hand a student has to breath deeply and on the other hand he has to relax his sternum ("Depress the chest and raise the upper back" in 10 tai chi essentials [含胸拔背]). Worse, forcing oneself to "depress one's chest" in years of tai chi training can make one's back hunched! For safety reason, "natural breathing" seems to be the best bet for beginning students, if not for all students.

In the practice of chi kung, one needs at least two stretched or focused points to generate chi. When applying to tai chi's full lungs breathing, it is the muscles around our upper lungs and those around our lower lungs. Muscles around the lower lungs primarily refers to our diaphragm. Its execution in full lungs breathing is abdominal breathing which essentially is focus on Dantian to activate the diaphragm. The tricky part is on our upper lungs.

Chest breathing is an activation of muscles around the upper lungs. The problem is that it will normally involve raising our sternum which is in direct opposition to the requirement of "relaxing your sternum". Because of this dilemma, some tai chi teachers either train their student to breath "naturally" or to do abdominal breathing only (thereby forgetting about the whole idea of full lungs breathing). Those more "eager" teachers in doing the latter face the danger of making their students' back hunched (after years of practice) - a condition to be cured instead of to be trained!

How to solve this dilemma? The method is focus on the points immediately below the middle part of our clavicles. By focusing on these points on the top and the dantian on the bottom, we can visualize our lungs as a bellow. Opening up and down as full lungs breathing in, closing (controlled relaxation) up and down as full lungs breathing out. With this method our sternum can remain relaxed.

This is also the breathing method for Taoist deep meditation or Neidan. Our body is to be visualized as a bellow to start up a small fire, the seedling in jump-starting the practice of Neidan.

Use bellow to start a fire

The theory behind sexual abstinence in the internal arts

“100 days foundation building (百日筑基)” is a common saying among internal practices that advocate the necessity of doing micro-cosmic circulation as a foundation practice. Despite differences in the practice method, during this period, sexual abstinence has oftentimes been said to be an essential requirement. So much so many said that lest there will be a leakage of chi and the practitioner has to do the 100 days again (poor guy, who can’t control his sexual urge for 100 days). Recently I came across a Shalin Nei kung book published by a lineage of Shalin monks in Mainland China (nowadays they on regular students to be lineage students and gave them Buddhist title 法號). The author, a lineage holder, disclosed that there are also such practices in Shaolin. It seems that such method is quite prevalent in internal martial arts, if not all of them spoken out as such publicly.

No pain no gain. As most athletes believe it to be so. But what is the rationale behind. What is wrong with letting our natural urge finds its natural way?

It is interesting to note that in classic text of Taoist meditation (for example the famous Taoist Yoga translated into English by Buddhist Charles Luk) there is a common assertion “The natural way turns into man, the opposite way turns into Immortal”. A riddle (like Zen riddles) that has been puzzling many readers and practitioners for generations. What is the natural way and what is the opposite way?

Like every “secret” of the internal arts, one has to turn to empirical evidence. In other words, only practitioner who has the experience of the practice process can possibly understand what the classics were talking about. Hence what you are going to read below will be an “opinion” if you have no such experience, but if you have practiced the art in any meaningful way, probably under a tutelage of a learned practitioner, you would probably say “So THAT is what the classics are talking about! (irrespective of whether you agree with it or not, at least you know what I am talking about)” Hence I am not disclosing a secret, which cannot be disclose anyway without proper initiation, but simply pointing out an empirical fact that practitioners might not notice previously.

Before I confuse you further, the gist of the simple empirical fact is as follows:

Irrespective your training method, the first objective in your training is to build up chi in your lower abdomen: from the Dantian (a point a few inches behind your belly button) downwards to your pelvic floor muscles and backward to your kidney. When such chi energy is built up to a certain magnitude, your lower abdomen will have a burning sensation (the classics mentioned the burning sensation in your kidneys as an empirical evidence to seek for). In chakra terminology, you have opened your chakra(s) there (whatever name your particular lineage names the chakra(s). When you progress further, the powerful chi accumulated in your lower abdomen will try to seek an outlet. When it is blocked at the pelvic floor, it will rise up and move the diaphragm, which initially can absorb some chi. As more chi builds up the diaphragm will bounce back the chi. In chakra terminology, the heart chakra is not opened and therefore chi cannot pass through (the heart charka cannot be opened by chi coming up alone, chi has to come three-dimensionally).

Now different systems will have different methods. To do what? To open the spinal cord to allow the compressed (and powerful) chi to go up the spinal cord. It is the “moment” in practising microcosmic circulation in Taoist meditation, the details of which I will not go into here. Instead I will like to point out a practice of opening the spinal cord through pure physical means: it is jumping up and falling down on one’s buttock with crossed legs, as in “flying” of TM or some Tibetan practice.

How does this related to sexual abstinence? When the pressure is high around our groin area, physical pressure will arouse our sexual instinct (and in seated meditation, erection may arise in some practitioners). Such feeling may become unbearable, seeking a natural release (and a practitioner’s otherwise calm mind will be disturbed). If a practitioner follows his natural instinct, his internal pressure will be released. If however, he can make use of this internal pressure to open his spinal cord (with any method including the TM one mentioned above), he can both got his internal pressure released AND move a step forward in his practice. Once his strongly compressed chi can be channeled to go up his spinal cord, it is easy for him to move it down the front part of his body and back to his abdomen. With success and successive (powerful) microcosmic circulation, he is now ready to open his heart chakra.

PS: Is it necessary to do so? Judge it by yourself.

 

 

 

Meditation, chi kung and internal martial art as empirical science

In the tradition of Taoist meditation, there is an important concept, mentioned in many classics, called Empirical evidence (實證). What is the meaning of empirical evidence? And is it the same for other internal disciplines like tai chi, other internal martial art, and chi kung?

Empirical evidence (also empirical data, sense experience, empirical knowledge, or the a posteriori) is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation. In meditation and other internal arts, the empirical evidence is internal to the observer himself.  More so in meditation. In tai chi, certain degree of empirical evidence can be observed by a trained observer, usually the teacher in a pedagogical environment.  The situation is similar to psychology. The same limitation as in psychology: the subject (or student) may lie, the subject may fail to report accurately and the subject may not know what he is talking about.

In chi kung, it is generally called "chi sensation" (氣感). Initially, irrespective of the particular school, lineage or whatever, a student should learn "what is chi sensation", then "how to make it stronger", and then "how to make it affecting a broader areas/a deeper level".  Empirical evidence is the definitive guideline of the progress of a student, and whether or not he has learned anything (in the name of chi kung) at all.

In meditation, chi sensation has particular names according to different tradition. Though with different names, the same theory holds: it is also about chi sensation. But the focus is in the manifestation of it in a strong way. For example, in Taoist meditation, there is this first task of doing a microcosmic circulation (小周天) which is a strong chi sensation rising up one's spinal cord; and for Chakra mediation, the task is called chakra opening which is a strong chi sensation "liberating" a blocked spot at a specific chakra area.

In the initial feeling, empirical evidence will be mild in both meditation and chi kung. In the advanced level, a strong chi sensation when a large blockage is going to open (or opening) can be quite shocking to the observer himself. The guidance of a teacher will be very useful in the advanced level. Metaphorically speaking, the initial feeling of chi sensation is like a breeze over the sea and we see the ripples. In the most advanced stage, it can be like a tsunami! Outside our body, there is no chi sensation, and therefore there is no chi (and outside heat is just incidental side effect of no importance, for example non-contact chi healing is just healing-by-belief rather than empirical).

Chi as wave

In search of esoteric practice

Recently a friend of mine sent me a video to watch. It is called Yogis of Tibet. Among many interesting themes (that I most likely will discuss further in some future posts), there was a short footage of a Tibetan yogis doing stunning yoga/meditative practice in folded leg position. Truly esoteric practice. A practice not to be imitated even by advanced practitioner if without guidance of a qualified teacher. It is just the outside form of the practice. The more inner practice, or areas to focus or manage, were not explained in the video, with good reasons.

Nowadays there are people who just love esoteric practices. Some of these people probably think that by learning some “secret practice” they can take the shorter, and much easier, route to achieve a higher level of perfection. This video footage convinced me that speedy practices are always with hidden danger. Try them at your own risk.

The Tibetan yogis also convinced me that Tibetan monks are highly devoted religious people who would take any risk to achieve their objective of spiritual enlightenment. No wonder many lamas who have fled from Tibet via Dharamsala to the West enjoyed much honors and followers. Truly impressive people of high spirituality.

Chinese practice of spirituality on the other hand has most of its followers seeking a better health. A different contribution to human culture. There are also traditions of esoteric practice developed along certain Taoist or Buddhist tradition.  Such traditions had not been openly discussed in classic texts. Many classical Taoist Neidan texts also condemned some specific esoteric practices. The reason is that there was a parallel tradition of esoteric practice called sexual chi kung (Chamber techniques 房中朮) passed along for the benefits of wealthy royalties or merchants who could afford to have a number of concubines. It is also a historical fact that some of these teachers were (condemned) lamas and Taoist masters (beginning in South Song and becoming more popular in the Mongal Yuen and Han Ming Dynasties). This is also a main reason why some Western folks are keen to “unveil the hidden secret of esoteric Taoist practice"!

Certain mainstream esoteric practices have been passed along the path of martial art. One passed along Taoist-related internal martial art and one passed along Shaolin monks. Recently I read a Chinese book by a lineage master of one lineage of Shaolin kung fu. The master mentioned some esoteric practice of increasing a practitioner’s internal chi energy.  It includes massaging one’s perineum, massaging and pressing one’s scrotum to stimulate chi, and with one easy trick – hold your breath while peeing (I am not joking and the master was serious about that)! It was so written, and it was so reported by your author. I don’t want to mention the name of this book because I am not an advocate of esoteric practice. There are ample easier and safer ways to achieve the same results for most practice objectives.

There is one now more well-known mainstream esoteric practice passed the martial art path. It is sometimes called Golden Shield 金鈡罩. The purpose is to shield a fighter's scrotum from being hit. In deep meditation, a practitioner learns how to control his internal muscles around his Dantian - between diaphragm and pelvic floor. One is cremaster muscle which, when trained, can be used to pull up one's scrotum. In Taoist yoga it is poetically called Hiding the horse's genital 馬陰藏相. Interested readers can search Youtube and watch some practitioners demonstrating such skills of shielding one's scrotum from being hit. A Japanese author Yasuo Yoshifuku in his book Science of martial arts "mystery" - the essence of the technique (in Japanese) mentioned this as an esoteric defense method against groin kick (in addition to the traditional methods of leg block and San-Zhan 三戰 stance shield). The author claimed he has tested its effectiveness. Needless to say, practitioner does it at his own risk if he has decided to use it in real combat.

The search of esoteric practice doesn't end here, nor it will ever end....

Tibetan Yogis demonstrating his art - "not to be imitated" as he warned us!

Seeking direct spiritual experience in our major religions

A very small number of devoted Taoists seek direct spiritual experience, same for Buddhists, same for Muslims (they are called Sufis), but Christians don’t. Why? Wasn’t it true that Jesus got his Enlightenment in the Wilderness before he preached Christianity?

In Christianity, Jesus’ Enlightenment is called Temptation of Christ as appeared in the Gospels of Mathew, Mark and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean Desert. During this time, Satan appeared to Jesus and tempted him. Jesus having refused each temptation, Satan departed and angels came and brought nourishment to Jesus.

Direct spiritual experience comes from meditation and fasting. As the theory goes, when our body approached the condition of near death, our spirit will be free from the domination of our physical body. A feeling of Enlightenment or spirituality will appear. And with it, a condition of reinterpreting our life (or the lives of humanity) becomes possible. The birth of a new personality therefore becomes a possible reality. Needless to say this route to enlightenment is highly formidable, the details and difficulties of which however are not subject matter of this article.

An interesting question: what is the nature of this new personality?

In Sufism, this new personality is a total loss of human personality in complete service of Allah. In Taoism, this new personality is a total dissolution of dichotomy between Yin (- ) and Yang (+), or be at one with Tao. In Buddhism, it is to become a Buddha. In short, in all cases, there is no more human personality as such. But then how is it relevant to us as human beings? How is direct spiritual experience having any relevancy to religion and to our lives?

The relevancy lies in the fact that when the old is discarded, there arises the possibility to create a new one.  It is not a super human personality, but a new and better personality of our choice, assuming that we are going to choose a better rather than a worse one! The state of Enlightenment gives us a possibility and an opportunity. It does not guarantee a solution, and it does not guarantee progress! A person can choose to become a kinder person (and suffer more) or he can choose to become a more selfish person (and enjoy more).

A possible side-effect of direct spiritual experience is that fragments of spiritual/personality entity, when allowed to surface, might seek to identify itself with the meditator. His personality likewise might identify with such entity. The best outcome will be lower level of spiritual enlightenment (assuming such entities are benevolent, which further assuming that the practitioner is under a trusting master/student relationship with his master), while the worse scenario will be the onset of psychosis (which have a higher chance of onset for some personalities and for all personalities without the aforementioned assumptions).

Taoists meditation texts always warned against such identification. The reason is that Taoist deep meditation aims at the highest level of Enlightenment rather than identification with minor entities. The general advice is during deep meditation, a meditator will be advised that he will see many good and bad spiritual figures, but these figures are only fantasies, therefore the meditators should not identify with anyone of these, even if some are benevolent figures. In Tibetan Buddhism, a novice practitioner will choose a good Buddhist figure for his personality identification initially, for speedier progress. But after such identification is complete, the practitioner will need to discard such identification and enter the stage of total void or highest level of enlightenment.

In the lingo of Jungian psychology, the route to direct spiritual experience is the route to make conscious the darker side of our personality. Jung as psychologist was not so much interested in the final result of Enlightenment (which in psychological terms can simply mean acceptance of our inevitable destination of death). He was more interested in the route towards near death. Our hidden human nature stored within our subconscious, be that experience hidden in this life or important experience ingrained into our psyche from thousands of years of evolution will be surfaced. And Jung put himself on the line by going into deep meditation himself, focusing on the not-always-pleasant psychic reality thereby unfolded, reported them and studied them! His journey was documented in his Red Book which he and his heirs hesitated to publish for years, not until recently by his granddaughter.
 

In Muslim, Buddhism and Taoism, there are many ways of spirituality other then direct spiritual experience. Slower ways but safer. More appropriate for the majority of believers. In other words, direct spiritual experience is the exception rather than the norm. For the bravest and most devoted, like Jung who puts himself on the line.

The way of slow enlightenment is for a religious teacher to choose the right way for his students. He lays down precepts upon which his students will follow. And upon following such precepts, a new, and better, personality can gradually materialize. The final result is as good as the speedier method of deep meditation. Slower but without its possible negative side effects.

In Christianity, Jesus chose the way. He is God and human in one single persona. There is no need to seek for direct spiritual experience; the road is here: loud and clear. A believer only needs to follow Jesus’ road (which inevitably will be interpreted and reinterpreted by Christian leaders of all ages). The good thing is, since direct spiritual experience is a double-edged sword, Christianity is safer way for most people wishing to become a better person - to fight against our in-born selfishness (which is essential for animal survival) or to fight against our original sin. 

 

The concept of holding breath in meditation.

Before a diver goes into free deep diving, he has to inhale and fill his lungs with oxygen. After his lungs are completely filled through physical expansion, he has to do quick inhalation to breath in addition air. In order words he has to pack more oxygen into his lungs. The diver has to use the oxygen contained his lungs to sustain and to do the diving. He will have to fight against the urge to breath when the carbon dioxide level of his body goes up. The same for meditators practising holding breath. And the same theory holds.

The logic is simple, if not the actual execution. Meditators also do extra inhalations before holding their breaths. It is sometimes called chi-packing. After we hold our breath for a certain period of time (depending on individuals), the urge to breath will create a panic reaction in our body. And this panic reaction will in turn cause involuntary contraction of our breathing muscles. It is highly dangerous for a diver doing free diving. He therefore has to "fight against" these panic reaction and involuntary muscular contractions. Training of which is through the practice of holding breath in yoga or Taoist meditation.

In training terms, firstly the meditator has to consciously relax his body, but that is not enough. When his body (blood) has a higher and higher level of carbon dioxide, his breathing muscles will have bursts of involuntary contractions. The training mechanism is to focus our mind to consciously relax the particular muscles that go into involuntary contraction - burst by burst. When this initial stage is passed, our mind will go into a state of joyous (spiritual) detachment, due to an increase level of carbon dioxide and total bodily relaxation. The reduced level of metabolism arising from a relaxed body will make further relaxation to ease the urge of involuntary contraction easier. At this stage, the warning signal of the body becomes shut off. For a deep diver, shutting down of our internal alarm system can be dangerous and may cause drowning. For a deep meditator, he has experienced the spiritual zone, the first step of his long journey into the whatever.

Free diving

Why Zen meditation does not work (and how to make it work)

Zen meditation, as it is now commonly practised, does not work. It was asserted by a prominent Taoist meditator in Taiwan master Zhan RuoShui 湛若水, in his book Taoist Immortal breath (道家真氣).

Why? Before we can tackle this assertion, we have to answer two questions: How is Zen meditation (zazen) commonly practised today? What standard has been used when asserting Zen meditation does not work?

Nowadays Zen meditation classes make things easy for beginners. One sits down with or without leg folded, depending on the flexibility of each participant (participant as distinguished from student which implies more complex techniques needed to be learned). And a participant is asked to focus on his or her immediate/here and now, which when put into operational terms, usually means a focus on breathing and counting breathes if simple focus cannot drive away your disturbing thoughts. The following are typical instructions (I Googled from a Zen meditation site):

In zazen, we focus on the breath. Breath is the vital force; it’s the central activity of our bodies. Mind and breath are one reality: when your mind is agitated your breath is agitated; when you’re nervous you breathe quickly and shallowly; when your mind is at rest the breath is deep, easy, and effortless. It is important to center your attention in the hara. The hara is a place within the body, located two inches below the navel, inside the body. It’s the physical and spiritual center of the body. In zazen, you will begin to develop a relationship with the hara. You will practice putting your attention there; putting your mind there. As you develop your zazen, you’ll become more aware of the hara as the center of your attentiveness.

Does it work? Surely it does for some, assuming that enough practice time has been put into it. According to master Zhan, he knew many senior practitioners or monks of Zen Buddhism use this method. And they do get good chi generation and are able to get into a good trance state during meditation. Sometimes they call this direct method which is easy to learn. Hence one has only to participate in zazen rather than follow complicated instructions like the Taoists do.

In short, for the occasional participants, they can have a nice half hour's mental rest during zazen to refresh their mind, like going to a spa or soaking in a hot Japanese bath. And for the serious masters, they can get the same benefits (perhaps take a bit more time) as the Taoist meditators who (stupidly) trying hard to get chi going up and down.

So what is the problem?

Next we have to analyze the standard of Zen meditation. In all classic Zen and Taoist texts, the definitive guideline for good meditation is that one has keep the same internal sensation in all situations: Walking, living, sitting and lying down (行住坐卧).

The problem with modern zazen is that although a participant or a serious meditator can get into the meditative zone when his is doing zazen, when his mind is less than the almost sleeping state of zazen he will be out of zone. In order words, he cannot maintain his internal sensation when he is out of seated meditation.

In order that a person can be in the meditative zone when he is in a relaxed mood during walking, living, sitting and lying down, he has to train his breathing muscles to drive chi to the extremities of his body (in Taoist lingo, breathing with one's heels). It takes time and patient practice and will be impossible without the conscious stage of boosting up one's chi level. In Taoist lingo it is called Turning physical energy into chi energy (練精化氣), the beginning stage of the Taoist internal alchemical process.

To achieve this one needs much more training than just sit down, close your eyes, count your breath to drive away your thoughts. There are many ways of training. Master Zhan's suggestion in his book is to start with internal martial art before one tackles seated meditation. The easiest way is to start with zhan zhuang.

Sexual chi kung in the old tradition of Taoist meditation

Does Taoist meditation has anything to do with activation of (physical) sexual energy or sexual chi kung? There has been different opinions. The popular saying is a kind of please everybody attitude - in the Northern part of traditional (or Dynasty) China, Taoists condemned it; in the South, they embraced it, perhaps in private, behind closed door, only transmitted to inner circle students. This article purports to analyze the validity (or invalidity) of this popular saying.

In ancient times (roughly before Tang Dynasty), Taoism evolved from popular folk mythical beliefs. Like most human cultures, Chinese culture began with folk mythical beliefs whereby everything unexplainable was signified with supernatural or divine entity.  That included things in physical world (like a forest, an old tree or a piece of rock), our internal organs and our various instincts - above all our sexual instinct. These entities were imbued with energy - supernatural energy to be precise. In ancient times, Chinese folk culture embraced systems that purported to tackle or manage such power, and that would include our sexual instinct.

When Taoism evolved from mythical beliefs, ancient sages (beginning with Master Zhuang Dao Ling 张道陵, 34–156, documented as the creator of Taoism) embraced much of traditional mythical cultural practices, though with new interpretations. In the area of sexual chi kung, it was however a later Taoist master that had more to say. He was Ge Hong 葛洪 283–343 who specifically mentioned the use of physical sexual energy in his practice. Traditionally there were a number of Taoist practices for mortality (in addition to the studying of sacred Taoist texts [including Tao Te Ching]). Such practices included taking formulated drugs (external alchemy), taking special food (or no food for some) and herbal medicine (similar to traditional Chinese medicine), doing breathing exercises, visualizing spiritual empowerment, doing chi related exercises (like tai chi) and doing sexual chi kung. The last was mentioned in Ge's book Baopuzi as follows:  房中之法十餘家，或以补救劳损，或以攻治众病，或以采阴补阳，或以增年延寿，其大要在於还精补脑一事耳。”

"Sexual chi kung has more than ten schools, some focus on physical repair, some focus on curing illness, some focus on absorbing Yin to nurture Yang, some for longevity, in our practice we focus on turning energy to nurture our brain".

It is important to note that brain as mentioned in Ge's book is in the sense that the brain is the generative location for spiritual practice. It was therefore clearly stated that Ge took the physical practice of sexual chi kung for his own spiritual objective. There were other objectives of sexual chi kung (and apparently would be practiced differently from Ge's), but they had nothing to to with Ge's Taoist practice for enlightenment.  Having said that, Ge did not seem to have discredited or downgraded the efficacious of folk usages of sexual chi kung.

Now the interesting question is: Why later Taoists (in particular Northern Taoists under Master Wang Cong Yang (王松阳) the founder of Quan Zhen School （全真派), now the largest and the most important Taoist school) condemned sexual chi kung?

The reason is that with the development of Neidan (内丹) or internal alchemical methods, Taoists no longer needed to take the dangerous routes of taking formulated drugs (which resulted in deaths of many practitioners including some Emperors) or doing sexual chi kung (which oftentimes [or perhaps most of the time] deviated from spiritual objectives into a sole pursuit of physical pleasure).

Another interesting question: Why then had many Taoist texts (including some from Quan Zhen school) used many terms taken from old Taoist texts dealing with physical sexual chi kung?

The reason is that Taoists liked (or needed) to create intellectual connections or linkages with forefathers of Taoist practices (like with Master Ge). Such terms were kept for such purposes. They were however used with different meanings. These terms included the explicit terms of inner copulation  内交媾 and yin-yang copulation 阴阳交媾. In modern terminology, this is called sublimation of sexual energy. Practice-wise, it signifies that the practice of Neidan can create the same energy (actually more potent and more focused, which explanation will go beyond the limitation of this little article) as previously created by sexual chi kung. In these Neidan texts, sexual arousal was explicitly addressed as unnecessary and undesirable.

Unfortunately it has created some confusion among some modern practitioners.

The stone of Ge Hong - a tourist sight in China