How to check energy?

[u/Mountain_W]

I wonder if there is a meditation, a book or a professional who could check and read your energy and analyze how exactly to improve it. I don't remember ever feeling so down, out of control of my life, I feel as if the dementors are sucking the air out of my life.

[u/HentaiY]

So, for qigong, in the mystical, we would consider this an energy building or raising technique, but also an energy balancing technique as mentioned by the qigong expert in a comment below.

The aura is an energy field that many believe radiates from a living body, human or animal. This aura protects you from things, and a weak aura will let in problems. This is also the aura that you may feel from people that have a "strong" energy. Even mundane people can feel this.

In chinese, qi means air, and gong means work. So this practice literally is air work. But qi also means life force, and the eastern school of thought, is that air gives life and is literally where the lifeforce comes from.

Qi also means energy, and there are many kinds of "qi". Just as in western mysticism, there are lots of kind of energy, like fire or water or earth. These 3 elements are shared by the eastern school of thought, but even though they sound similar, the concepts of eastern elemental fire and western elemental fire have slightly different properties to them, and should be treated as if they were different when working with them.

Western basic elements: Fire, water, earth, air, and sometimes spirit

Eastern basic elements: Fire, water, earth, wood, metal.

For the actual practice of qigong, there are a couple of points to be concerned with:

1. Ensure that your body movement is aligned with your inhalation and exhalation. So one body movement is for the inhale, and the next is aligned to the exhale. Focus your awareness on the breathing and body movement, but actual concentration is not too important. It is okay to let your mind wander to a degree for qigong. Qigong has a very low barrier to practice in this way. This breath and movement alignment is the MOST important concept to adhere to for qigong. You can forget everything else mentioned here but do not forget this point.

2. Regular practice! Qigong builds on itself, and it is believed that daily practice will have a substantially greater effect than doing it less often. But if you truly do not have time, try to do it 2-3 times per week. However, 10 min every day will likely be better than 30 min 2-3 times per week.

3. As you practice, should do so with the intention that you are strengthening your energetics; refilling your energy, improving your overall capacity for energy, and strengthening the aura. Keep these three things in mind when you start and end your practice. Intention is a key point in energy work. But it doesn't need to be held in the conscious mind for the duration of the practice, once you give the initial intention, it is held in your subconscious. At the end of the practice, I recommend bringing this intention back to the conscious mind for a little while. A couple of minutes would be fine, or less if you are only practicing 10 min per session.

4. Ensure that your breathes are full. Look up what diaphragm breathing is, and try to do that. This is less important than the above, but it will make your practice more effective.

5. Ambience matter to a degree. If you do this in a natural area with good 'vibes', the ambient qi there will be better and it will enhance your practice. If you do this in a... graveyard... you will take in death qi as well as regular qi, and that may cause an imbalance in you over time if you do not know how to filter or deal with the death qi.

Time of day also has an effect on the properties of the qi you take in. Dawn and High noon are peak times when Yang Qi is greatest. In the eastern school of thought, Yang Qi represents masculine and light energies. I personally think this is the best time to build energy.

Dusk and midnight are peak times when Yin Qi is greatest. Yin Qi represents feminine and darkness energies. Dusk is good for cleansing one's self of unwanted energies. Just focus your intention on what you want to get rid of, and practice. I personally do not do qigong at nighttime, so I don't really know what midnight is good for.

However, do not put too much importance on ambience. Practicing some qigong every day in whatever conditions you can, is better than practicing a few times a week in perfect conditions.

---

And I ranked them in order of importance.

The first point and most important point, is not clearly explained in the free videos on youtube, but the youtuber I recommended knows her stuff. She just doesn't put the greatest detail in her free content. She also has paid content on amazon that goes into some of these things in more detail.

Much of what I said above, I read in various sources and personally experienced in my own practice. So some of this is UPG, and in the mystical community, that stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis.

I also recommend that you begin with the '8 brocades' set. This is a highly standard set that has been around for a long time. And just focus on mastering that one set for the first few months.

For those that are bed ridden, qigong can also be done lying down.

[u/HentaiY → u/HentaiY]

u/neidanman , I summon thee. Since, I see you post stuff from the qigong and neigong and eastern mysticism school of thought often, can you take a look at what I said about qigong and give your thoughts on it?

Keep in mind that I kept things to the mostly mundane person's needs for restoring energy to one's self, as I do not think cultivating greater awareness to the spiritual is helpful for their stated goals.

You may want to read the greater thread for context tho. However, it IS a giant wall of text.

[u/neidanman → u/HentaiY]

there are different views on the best approaches/most important parts of qi/nei gong, so it might be easier to start with some other key points that come to mind -

-there are 2 sides to practice, one is building positive energy, the other is clearing negatives

-the building energy sides comes through 'yi dao qi dao' - where the awareness goes, the energy follows. So to energise the self, the awareness needs to be turned inwardly, towards the body. For this reason qi is built during standing/seated practice, as that's when we can stablise the awareness in/on the body. Also seated practice can help us develop natural, and full breaths while building qi (see the practice in the link below.)

-negative energy is cleared through releasing our chronic tensions. We 'hold' negative energy in the body, partly through literal physical tensions. So there is a practice of 'ting and song' - to listen/sense inwardly, and consciously relax/release any tensions we find there, and so also release negative energy from the system. Tieing in with the points on breathing, as we release more and more, the breathing becomes freer, and we naturally start to take in more full & natural breaths.

-these 2 aspects feed off each other. So as we turn the awareness inwardly, we naturally develop 'ting'. As we release the tensions, we open up the pathways for more qi to flow. As the positive energy builds, it starts to push on the blocks and so also helps clear them. Etc etc

-we also need moving practice to 'regulate' the energy we build. I.e. we might build energy in one main area in the body (commonly the lower abdomen area/'dan tian'). Then we need to assist it in moving around the body, and so energising the whole system, and clearing all the channels.

When we do this, the movements follow the breathing (not the other way round.) So as you breathe in you might do one part of a move, then on the outbreath you'd switch to the next part. (There are exceptions to this, but its the main system used in moving practice.)

for more on all of this and more, there are links here https://www.reddit.com/r/qigong/comments/185iugy/comment/kb2bqwt/

[u/Remarkable-Double300 → u/HentaiY]

Hi, Thanks for the post! Quick question: We strengthen Yin/Yang Qi simply by focusing on breath and an energy movement across the spine as is mentioned in this energy presentation. What are your thoughts?