I’m curious as to what you said about the need for mental direction. I’ve been doing zhan zhuang - standing like a post/tree - for years with great results, but I usually stay away from mental direction because I find it hard to keep the visualisation going “in a straight line”, if you know what I mean.
Would you say that mentally directing the qi is superior?
It’s depends what you’re trying to do. In all cases I’d say you want to have clear intention to get the most out of the exercise. I think if you want to master qigong you have to get intentional about it, learn to read and move your qi to your design.
For moving meditations this is also true but less critical, because the body is involved and the movement moves the qi, but you still want to be mindful about your practice… It’s not beneficial to say, plan your grocery list while ostensibly meditating.
This is a great training posture that opens the joints and allows qi to flow. Without intentional direction this is still good and healthy and can help clear blocks. This is not training your qi as in qigong, as you are not directing it to move intentionally or cultivating it to build it. I think what’s happening here is you’re relying on it’s sentience to do you good and basically ‘getting out of it’s way’ in this posture.
For still meditations like the microcosmic orbit the whole thing is directed by your mind, sitting or standing. Beginners will not run the microcosmic orbit unless your mind directs the energy to do that. Usually it takes some work, it’s thin, it’s harder to get through some points than others etc. I’ve heard that when this has been practiced for a long time people can notice the orbit running by itself, which is ideal, but it usually takes work to reach that. I haven’t got there myself for sure.
I was letting my mind wander during zhan zhuang for a long time until I found out that just observing the feeling of the qi while holding the posture, as you’d observe thoughts in meditation, maginifies and expands the qi.
Once proficient in the macro and micro cosmic orbit, what practice would you recommend next?
That. Keep doing it. The perversion is within your energy now not with techniques.
My energy is perverted? I didn’t think it was THAT obvious 
Haha whoops! Freudian slip… that should have read “progression”. 
Hahaha ok that makes more sense