A wealthy person with a reading panel

Chapter 76 The Dilemma of Desire (Please Read!)

Zhou Qing searched for information about Meng Xiangwen, the lecturer of the teaching video.

Then click on the first teaching video and watch it carefully.

However, as he watched more and more, especially when he saw that the teacher in the video spent most of the time talking about medical things, such as eye discomfort, which meridians and acupoints should be paid attention to, etc., he suddenly realized that he was stupid.

"I can learn this knowledge slowly later. I'm practicing internal energy, so for now I just need to figure out where the Dantian and the twelve meridians are located on the body."

"Even in the early stages of understanding the Qi, all you need to do is know where the Dantian is!"

The "Nine Yang Manual" describes in general terms how to start practicing as follows: You can sit or lie down quietly. After entering a state of clarity and emptiness in your mind, without desires or thoughts, focus your mind on your Dantian, and at the same time practice breathing exercises. Breathe in and out through your nose continuously, and your soul will not be disturbed. Over time, you will naturally feel the Qi.

The principle of breathing is: nine inhales, six closes, and three exhales.

"Let me try to comprehend the Qi first!"

With the true scriptures in hand, no one can resist the temptation to try practicing as quickly as possible.

Zhou Qing is no exception.

After figuring this out, he immediately changed his plan and began to look up knowledge about Dantian.

"Based on Jin Yong's novels, this generally refers to the lower dantian... located three inches below the navel, near the Guanyuan acupoint, and corresponds deeply to the lower abdominal and pelvic area."

"About four finger widths."

Zhou Qing stretched out his right hand, put his fingers together, touched his belly button, then measured the width of four fingers downwards and pressed it.

“It should be this location.”

It was easy to find the location of Dantian. He opened the "Nine Yang Manual" again, this time focusing on the breathing method.

"Nine inhales, six hold, three exhales, which means inhale, hold, and exhale in a time ratio of 9:6:3."

"If one breath is eighteen seconds, then they are nine seconds, six seconds, and three seconds respectively."

Zhou Qing turned on the stopwatch on his phone and started practicing while looking at it.

He has had a talent for sensing the passage of time since he was young. When he was in school, he didn't need to use time. When he felt that the get out of class was about to end, the bell would ring after a while.

With the numbers on the stopwatch as a reference, he quickly found his rhythm.

I practiced for another ten minutes, then reset the stopwatch and tried it again with my eyes closed.

After slowly inhaling, open your eyes and the number on the screen is 9;

Hold your breath slightly, then open your eyes. The number on the screen is 15.

He exhaled and opened his eyes, and the number became 18.

The next step is to formally start practicing Qi.

He found a comfortable position and sat on the sofa, and then... nothing happened.

An hour and a half later, Zhou Qing collapsed powerlessly on the sofa.

He knew from the beginning that as a modern person, with so much information being received every day, it would be very difficult to enter a state of "emptiness, clarity, and freedom from desire and thought."
But I didn't expect it to be so difficult.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't clear his mind of the distracting thoughts.

The more you don’t want to think about it, the more you can’t help but think about it.

"I not only receive a lot of information, but I also have a lot of desires."

Zhou Qing was "paralyzed" for a few minutes, then suddenly stood up again, took out all fifteen novels written by Jin Yong on the coffee table and piled them together, then began to search - he wanted to see how the protagonists in the novels initially entered this state and cultivated their internal strength!

Let’s first read "The Return of the Condor Heroes". Well, it doesn’t say how Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu practiced their internal skills. It seems to be very easy for them. They just need to practice according to the techniques.

Looking back at the "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber" which he had just finished reading today, he remembered that there was no specific description of how Zhang Wuji first cultivated his internal strength, but there should be a description of his state of mind when he was practicing the "Nine Yang Manual" in the valley.

Zhou Qing quickly turned to this paragraph:
He thought to himself… the years in the secluded valley are long, so whether he succeeds today or tomorrow, it makes no difference… With this thought in mind, he was happy with success and happy with failure, and surprisingly, he made remarkable progress. In just four months, he had thoroughly comprehended and understood all the techniques described in the first volume of the sutra, and had mastered them according to the rules.

Zhou Qing curled his lips.

He immediately knew he couldn't possibly imitate Zhang Wuji's mentality. With the Nine Yang Manual before him, his inner determination to cultivate internal strength was too strong to allow him to accept it as a "nice thing."

He couldn't fool himself about this.

"Furthermore, this part doesn't mean that Zhang Wuji has already cultivated internal strength... A dispensable mentality cannot be considered clear and pure."

Next, Zhou Qing looked up other novels such as "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", "The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils", "The Sword of Royal Blood and Valour", etc., and was even more speechless.

"Fuck, I just realized now that Jin Yong's novels are all about genius..."

I pondered it until 3:30 in the morning.

His spirits were still high, and he tried to meditate again. He thought of the trending searches he had seen online during the day, Li Wanxiu's milky white and pink, and he fantasized about being able to fly in the sky and hide in the ground after practicing internal strength... Anyway, he could not enter that state of "empty and clear, without desires and thoughts".

"Forget it, it's too late today. Let's get some sleep first and talk about it tomorrow."

Zhou Qing tidied up the books on the coffee table, went into the bathroom to take a shower, changed into clean shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, and lay down on the bed.

Now he felt a little more relaxed physically and mentally, but he was unwilling to give up, so he turned off the lights, lay on the bed and tried again.

There are fewer distracting thoughts now, but it is still far from that state.

On the contrary, failure caused more emotional fluctuations.

The little bit of sleepiness that had come up earlier disappeared immediately.

He turned over and sat up, leaning against the headboard for a while, then thought about it, got up, changed into sneakers, and went out.

I ran around the community for half an hour and sweated a lot. I took a shower after I came back.

After some exercise, my whole body felt completely relaxed.

He turned off the lights and lay on the bed again, starting a new attempt. However, this time, he gave himself three minutes of psychological hints: This state will definitely not be found quickly, so don't be in a hurry, just try it once, it doesn't matter if it fails, take it slowly, anyway, you can still learn about meridians first.

Seven or eight minutes later, Zhou Qing opened his eyes.

The eyes are calm.

Although he still didn't get into that state this time, the combination of exercise and psychological suggestion was effective. In the past seven or eight minutes, his state was getting closer to "clear and lucid".

“Maybe I can add some more methods to this foundation and set up a set of steps to enter that state step by step.”

Besides exercise and psychological suggestion, what other methods can help?

Zhou Qing thought for a while, fumbled for his phone from the bedside, used his fingerprint to settle the bill, opened the browser, and started searching: How can ordinary people quickly enter a state of clear mind without any distracting thoughts?
Flipping through the pages one by one.

He wrote down any results he found that might be useful to him.

"Look into the distance, you can try it."

"Play some gentle background music, or birds chirping, or cicadas... that ASMR kind of thing."

Suddenly he saw a post in a forum: It is not advisable to find shortcuts to cultivate the state of emptiness and clarity!
Click in immediately.

"Entering a state of emptiness and clarity is a state sought by traditional practices such as Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and mindfulness meditation. This state is not a complete elimination of thoughts or feelings, but rather a state of inner focus and detachment."

"That state can be achieved through reducing external distractions, relaxing the body, and long-term professional training."

……

"The shortcuts some people come up with are nothing more than those devious methods of drugs and alcohol. Everyone should definitely avoid them!"

"Instead of doing that, it's better to experience 'Sage Time'. Although it's a passive experience, physically demanding, and it's easy to confuse 'emptiness' with 'clarity', it's still better than drinking and taking drugs, at least..."

When Zhou Qing saw this, he stopped dead in his tracks.

blinked.

Sage time?

　(besides)

　　
　
(End of this chapter)