hagar

I concur with your warning about solo heart practice. It needs a coupling with the water-related practice in the LDT. Too much fire will cause problems. But there are different layers to the heart and workin with the energy there. At some point you access the inner "water" in the "fire". Then things transform. The same can be said with the inner "fire" in the "water" in the LDT. My own experience is that I needed to lift the focus out of the LDT, because I was stalling, and needed to transform and burn off some of the quite heavy energy that is accelerated and worked with in the traditional LDT neidan practice. But I would not go as far as to say that pure focus on the heart is part of Nei Dan. In my experice, my "sitting and foretting" practice opens and works with the heart quite naturally. What form of problems did you ignite through the heart-practice? h

I'm probably biased, being a Norwegian, but I find the structure quite nice, and it collects the arctic light beautifully. I doubt that there is any direct inspiration from Half Life when the arcitect designed it. The seed vault is a beacon of hope, in my eyes. No conspiracy here, only good intentions. h

Probably the best film I've ever seen. Not available anywhere. I was gripped by it for days after. h

Nice poem! In your own experience, how to these transformations feel like? h

First off, my teacher is a man, and second, I only practice what I am taught, and by direct transmission. Further, are you claiming that I am caught in delusion and illusion? And since you claim to have a "touch of the ancients and the Zhouyi", what makes you able to infer any judgements of a practitioner's practice without actual interaction? h

Meditating through an entire evening of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde made the experience enjoyable. That's 6 hours worth. h

If you do a search on images related to the location of the middle Dan Tian on google you easily get confused. There are as many locations as there are sites presenting the images. heart location chest Zhong location "Middle pool" Point being, it's difficult to reach a consensus here. I agree that it's thus important to deconstruct this, and going into the physiology of it is a good entrypoint. However, the insubstantial and subtle quality of this area highlights the importance of how detached from the actual physiology this is, and how it is more and aspect of the subtle body. But this is discussion probably is of minor importance for all but the nerds =) h

First off, finally a comprehensive answer! I'm short of time, but initially, I was taught that the Middle Dan Tian is located more or less in the middle of the rib cage behind the heart point (where the ribs join). What you write indicates that you pinpoint it to be much lower, in the vicinity of the yellow court, no? h

Keep in mind, this is guesswork, and not advice; From what I have stumbled across related to neuroscience, the only conventional diagnosis that has several of your symptoms are either some degree of schizophrenic incident, or something complex like an actual neurological issue. There are in some literature examples where auditory hallucinations are correlated to neurological pathology. Yet keep in mind, it is correlated, not caused. The non-western explanation may very-well be more interesting and precise though... h

Very interesting! Have heard many good things about the Huna tradition. It is actually very similar to what I experience myself, in heart-focused practice. In Nei Dan, there is a heart point, the Middle Dan Tian, and then a deep heart point on the inside of the spine. In a standing practice of opening the heart, we connect the heart to the spine, and feel how the light of the spine is fused to the light of the heart. It will actually heal your upper back and neck issues =). h

Hei. you too! Haven't gotten to know the red sun practice. I do work with the color red, and also vizualise the red in Nei Dan practice, as a spark and as a deep red orb. h

I think you're right regarding the lower center, yet it has a deeper layer, also. Or atleast this is what I have felt. You may work for decades with the lower dan tian, or with Jing or chi oriented practices, and this will never cultivate and transform mind and spirit. You will never transforms what keeps the heart closed, and probably also never really transform the dark energies within. This all changes with the heart. I completely agree that the heart is a gateway, and a transmitter. It is through the heart the master transmits his energy, and the lineage energy. It awakens the fire in others also. I think you basically are right, to my experience, regarding certain "charismatic" personalites. They naturally utilizes their energy, and they have alot of it, i.e their Jing Chi is abundant and opened. Yet there is point in measuring your amount of prenatal Jing. We use very little of the fire within the essential water, and just igniting the heart fire or spirit, naturally "boils" the essential water. This naturally nourishes everything. So my own experinence is that working with the light and fire of the heart transforms everything else. And I feel this is different from what f.ex Mantia Chia talks about regarding the heart-fire. This is a deeper or more essential aspect, the true spark of the essential light. I've written about this before. h

Interesting. I've been researching and experimenting with heart-focused meditations the last months, and have similar reflections. I've reached some tentative conclusions, but keep in mind they draw on my own system and lineage. Basically, Nei Dan practice working on the Dan tian involves fusing or coupling the shen/light with the red/Jing essence of the LDT. It transforms the and liberates the inner fire of the essential water. But, as you say, it will work in amplifying and nourishing the lower Jiao, and amplify the water aspect in the body. Focusing on the heart is more a shen practice. It works more on emotional/mental processes, and I find that it creates space, after the initial emotional debris is worked through. (this is an ongoing process). What I've experienced is that you may nourish the nerves, the mind, and later successfully still the mind through heart focus. It also works wonders in increasing chi sensitivity, and circulation, but not necessarily amplify it. Only actually sense what is allready in place. On a more subtle level, my practice with heart-focus has increased my awareness, my "now" - sense, and also hightlights the illusory nature of the separation btw inner and outer, subject-object, and also naturally "soothes" the ego. It will slowly erode latent tendencies to work from a dualistic perspective. And it cultivates the inherent love that resides there. Accessing this is beyond wonderful, and suddenly makes you aware that the heart is also the accesspoint, metaphorically, to the notion of the "mysterious female". This is my experience anyway. Many paths working with the heart, like Christian meditations, yogic paths and particularly many Sufi orders highlight how the heart is the personal access point to the Godhead, the transcendent, and in emptying the mind. Lewellyn Lee Vaugh has a wonderful meditation on the love of the heart: http://www.acupuncturedoc.com/sufi.htm h

Great thread. In recent years, I've come to realize that pretty much everything I am interested in evolves around making sense of a few experiences I've had, and to a degree continues to have that may be defined as "spiritual". The ironic thing is that it has, in many ways, been more a curse than a blessing to my everyday life. What these experiences were I have talked about several times, and they are not that important in and of themselves. What is significant is how they have affected my ordinary life. These wonderful glimpses into reality have turned what could have been a pretty decent life in conventional terms into a life of alot of trouble. The funny thing is that there's no turning back. No way back out of the rabbit hole. It's actually a rather lonely journey. Yet I wouldn't trade if for anything.

You said it best Steve

You haven't told me that story before. Thank you. As for which part remains in the wild? In my experience, it is the part which never left in the first place, but got rekindled. We all stem from this time when everything was engulfed by darkness, and not very long ago, we all woke up just listening to the rustle of leaves. That said, many places in nature are not good for practice at all! There is actually an art in placing one self and finding places to practice in nature. And indoors for that matter. The Norwegian folklore tradition abounds with stores of "Huldra" which is a kind of fairy that lures men into the woods and then beneath ground. People in rural areas of Norway claim to have seen her to this day. =) And the trolls and small "santas" are pretty well accounted for =) Huldra spotted h

Thank you for sharing that Cat. Deep communion with nature and animals, interestingly, is deeply dependent on surrender. Without exception, all the times these experiences has occured in my life, I was either exhausted, sick, content, or just lacking a degree of self-consciousness. It is as if nature waits for us until we are "meek in spirit". Even in Christian mysticism this understanding exist. I think it was St.John of the Cross who, after experiencing union with God wrote "If you come into the possesion of the All, you must own it without wanting anything". h

=) Yes it was Zhendi, LOL. I always felt like she had this direct way of showing concern, especially towards us (relatively) young boys, being recless and full of it. Lotus eaters paradise. Wonderful... I took naps in the forest during my student years. I always felt that really nourishing. Yet it also made me "taken", especially if I mixed these outings with practice. Yet it was more like the human world lost it's appeal, and something inside found rest. I've really haven't percieved malevolent enteties, yet certain trees are not good to do practice with. Can't remember which ones, but they make you sick and dizzy, and sometimes can throw you back if you work with them. Other trees will befriend you. I have one or two such trees, and just tuning into them, even remotely, gives me the quality of their essence. They also miss you when you are gone, according to Erwann, ZWs protegee. Never really found "clingy" enteties in nature, atleast not in this country. But I've run across some places with really bad mojo. And I accidently practiced near swampland once, and got cold and sick and depleted. Yuck! h

As far as non-ordinariness is concerned, the experience was "super-ordinary" and not "extra-ordinary", yet at the same time, definately makes a part of me want to experience it again, really bad. Wonderful line you wrote about children. I can only confirm this; The ordinary is the extraordinary. I remember having one question readily on my lips the first years of my son's life: Where do you come from? Where were you before you were born? I also remember being "nuked" by my son when he was an infant. Basically the same quality as a qigong class. h

Keep it simple. Asking if Daoist methods can be practiced to create merit is like asking if a Ford can get you to Nantucket. It probably will, but what's in Nantucket for you? I really don't have a clue if "merit" exists, yet the Daoist concept of "Te", wrongly translated to "virtue" actually holds a great key to all this. In realizing our "Te", we regain or recognize our own integrity, and power, yet this integrity is deeply non-personal. When you look at a baby, you feel compelled to be kind. Does the baby practice merit? No, it has natural Te. Yet it affects those who come in contact with it. My own experience, merit can only be distilled to one thing: Intention. So the basic consequence of that is that when you practice something, from meditating to prayer, do it for the whole world and from your heart. We are all doing whatever we are doing for the whole universe anyway. So I work at loving and forgiving myself for being the messed up schmuck that I am, and when I meet parts of what I deny in myself in others, I try to accept and forgive that also. Merit is about not keeping score. It's being generous for no reason. This is my experience. h

Fascinating Cat! I've felt that the English countryside is infused with alot of old patterns since the history of human interaction with the surroundings go way back. My feeling is that the earth or ground itself also sometimes have energetic aspects that affect the perception of energy of the area. My teacher says that when he came to Norway the first time he couldn't sleep because the earth chi was so strong. I feel that there are "bad" energies everywhere, but that also, these have alot to do with human lack of ability to take the context they practice into consideration. I've felt that asking for "permission" to practice some places works wonders. My teacher's wife, who is also a qigong master, says that one should be careful with practicing in the wilderness due to the strong energies there, and that it's better to choose parks and gardens, where the energy is "garden variety". This is not my experience, yet I am not that sensitive. In my experience, I "go native", meaning I tap into much stronger and more nourishing aspects of energy in unspoiled nature. But the times when I've done so for longer periods of time, I tend to become abit like the dude in the movie "The big blue"; the ocean starts to call for him, and he loses interest in the human side of things. This is also my experience. When there is alot of human activity into a natural setting, things start to get messy. Like the smell of newly cut grass; its actually the stress signal of the grass leaves as they are cut =) h

Thank you for sharing. Fascinating stuff. I can totally understand how that would have a radical effect on your mind and how life is experienced! I've beem watching a few documentaries on Ayahuasca ceremonies now, and it seems like most of what you describe is very common. The voidness is what freaks most people out. Even more than the monsters and demons. So it's as if we are most afraid of ourselves, or our innermost nature. Adyashanty says this is like "treading water on the void". I like his take on that alot. In my own experience, most of the great "trips" as you say, are forgotten, yet is remembered if some energetic component which was present during the experience is triggered again. I held on to my visions and experiences for a long time, thinking that they were the pinnacle of my practice. One time I felt an entire mountain transmitted it's "heart" into mine. It knocked me to the ground. Another time, I had a vision with my eyes open of ascending the same mountain again and again endlessly. It was as a vivid awake dream. Another time I opened my eyes in a meditation with my teacher and my third eye pulsed like a physical heart. I pounded my forehead from within. Another time I opened my eyes and all I could see was light and mist. Another time I felt complete oneness with my surroundings, and everything was HD. I it was like my eyes were looking at stuff as a microscope, and everything was part of my eyes, and all sensations were extremely comfortable. At the same time, I was as "drunk" as I ever had been. It was like I was taken to the earth for the first time, with no prior memory. Such experiences are easy to hold onto and identify with. Only later did I realize that I needed to let them go, and that these aspects of reality are here now, within this moment. They can really be stumbling blocks, because they keep us "in time". My own practice suffered from this for years. Only recently have I "died" abit and suddenly the energy comes from all directions. =) Yet the most important part of what you describe is, as I also feel, is that we really don't have a clue what is happening and why.... Ken Wilber has a great explanation of this here: h

I understand what you are getting at regarding the Adya clip. The silence, from my experienc, always comes or emerges when the thinking mind is silenced by three situations. My experience is that they have their own inner quality, and energy, yet they are conceptual. The man in the clip experienced at least two of them. These discursive situations are paradox, contradiction and tautology (a circle is round, a stopping is standing still etc). Theses occurences seem to chase us out into the "big mind", or true nature. Most egos don't like that so they freak out =) or the thinking mind relaxes. And this is experienced as silence. The mind stilling itself is mostly the mind realizing the futility of finding solace in the solution to something outside of itself. The forceful stopping, in my experience, is the mind exhausting itself, or failing. But I don't know about how this works with DMT. My own experiences regarding these stoppings were induced by the energy and presence of the master. Stepping into the chi field, the mind stops from the inside out. The energy body is nourished, and a sense of seeking or wanting stops. Often, in Q and A sessions, we "share" and some ask questions. Before such sessions, I have many questions, yet I forget them when I step into this field. I lose my ability to speak. But strangely, sometimes something else takes over, and the energy compells me to speak. In the beginning, the transmission forced my mind into drowsiness, so that the energy could get through. Now I just sit, yet my mind stops working. The great task is to realize this stopping outside the field of the teacher or a plant medicine. Thank you for sharing. h

Great! Enjoyed your post alot. Funny, but I've been stumbling over many videos on Ayahuasca experiences lately, before I read your report. We all make ourselves miserable btw! Who else? There is no good or bad outside your thougths. My own biggest "aha" was when I realized that instead of trying to modify and manipulate my experience, the juice is in stopping and letting everything emerge by itself. This included all my misery and strategies... Trying to bypass that will keep you in a holding pattern for decades. That is when one starts to "reek" of Daoism and "stink" of Buddhism. ) h