Firsthand Experiences
-
Qi-charged Tea and Emitting Qi into Substances
A specialty of the style of classical Chinese medicine passed down within the Gengmenpai lineage is their use of special pills (dan 丹) that have gone through a special process in which an adept practitioner emits their own qi and injects it into the medicine to greatly enhance the medicinal effect. I have no doubt that it was this extra touch given to the medicine that caused me to have the experience that I did the first time I took several of their signature huaxuedan (化血丹) at once years ago. What is interesting, is that it was explained (and in some cases demo’d) to us how qi can be emitted…
-
Fagong Practice: Assisted Faqi, Practice Moving Non-living Materials
The skill of electric-like qi emission (fagong 发功) is not something you encounter every day. It is a level of skill that typically takes years to attain and is often aided by various “boosts” and adjustments from a master as the student gradually develops. Practicing fagong “with assistance” is sort of like a way for a student to begin to practice this skill with “training wheels,” so that they can start to develop the necessary control and mind-body coordination needed for this never-before-used function of their body. In light of the above, the majority of western students who are practicing this skill (as taught, for example, within the Gengmenpai and…
-
My Experience Practicing Waiqi 外气 Emission (Fagong 发功)
In lineages such as the Shaolin Gengmenpai 耿门派, many if not most of the advanced practitioners practice a style of Classical Chinese Medicine that involves various forms of qi emission. Most who have visited them for treatment have experienced their electric-like “waiqi” 外气 (external qi) emission, the experience of which feels like you are being zapped by a fairly powerful electrical current. If, for example, you receive this qi emission (faqi 发气) up one of your arms, it is powerful enough to cause all of the muscles in your arm to involuntarily contract, until the person emitting pulls the qi back in and “turns it off.” In practicing the neigong…
-
My First Journey to the Yellow Mountains 黄山
It was 2014 and it was the first time I ever set foot in China. I was lying in a small hotel room in the Hongqiao airport hotel, resting after a series of flights that had seemed endless. I turned on the TV in the room and saw that the movie Painted Skin (Hua Pi 畫皮) was playing, a movie in which Zhou Xun plays a seductive, shape-shifting fox spirit who relies on a steady supply of fresh human hearts to maintain her youthful appearance. Despite the movie playing, I kept thinking about what lay ahead in the coming days. The next day, I would take a flight down to…
