JJ Semples SoTGF method

[mantis]

I was reading through the thread yesterday and decided to try it - as my main practice is lightly gazing at the LTT anyways. One of the differences in my practice and his is that I didn't really mind if I could hear my breath or not, and that made a huge difference in my practice.

 

Once I began tuning into my breathing to make sure it was inaudible, I focused on the LTT and I could tell exactly what JJ was talking about, I could feel the LTT rolling the opposite way. I gently rolled it back as in the backwards flowing method and I had an experience that I'm still trying to process. First I felt very small and I think my consciousness shifted down to my LTT whereas it's normally in my head. Then I felt very big, bigger than the room I was in. At this point I freaked out and the experience ended, but once I recollected myself I began again and the experience repeated itself.

 

So yeah, I thought I'd make a new thread for this and anybody else who might be practicing his method.

[joeblast]

Now start your breath listening over, with a pair of earplugs

[mantis]

lol, I guess nobody else is having success with this method.

[Mal]

With all the SoTGF threads here and JJ Sempel posting as well I though quite a few bums were using this method.

[Creation]

mantis,

 

Good luck to you, oh intrepid explorer. Please do keep us posted.

 

By the way, did you mean that you felt the circulation in the lower field to be the opposite direction than the one JJ felt (before reversal)? Did your body tell you that reversing the flow was a good idea, like his did? Do you find that the flow remains reversed, or does it go back when you do not pay attention to it?

 

 

Mal,

 

I remember Wu Liu was excited about it, but I haven't seen him around in a while. The main reason I haven't tried it yet is because I want to get more straightened out (physically and otherwise) before I seriously try to awaken kundalini. But I admit I also have my doubts that this method is really a good idea for just anybody. That's why I asked mantis the questions I did. For one, Wang Liping says SotGF is an upper dan tien practice, implying that JJ's interpretation isn't really what Ancestor Lu had in mind. More importantly, since reading Deciphering the Golden Flower, I have noticed a few references to the circulation in the lower field by masters that I respect, and nothing is ever said about reversing it. (Though I suppose it could be the big secret that the masters aren't sharing with the commoners ).

 

But to be fair, if your body and higher self say yes, go for it. It sure worked out for JJ.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Creation

[Desert Eagle]

I found this method for the meditation of the golden light from Osho:

 

http://www.osho.nl/New-Osho-NL/Meditation/MeditOnAudio.htm

 

The Secret of the Golden Flower - also known as the Golden Light Meditation

 

 

You simply lie down, as you are In lying down in your bed, on your back.

Keep your eyes closed.

When you breathe in, just visualize great light entering from your head into your body,

as if a sun has risen just close to your head - golden light pouring into your head.

You are just hollow and the golden light is pouring into your head, and going, going, going, deep, deep, and going out through your toes.

When you breathe in, do it with this visualization.

And when you breathe out, visualize another thing:

darkness entering through your toes, a great dark river entering through your toes, coming up, and going out through the head.

Do slow, deep breathing so you can visualize.

Go very slowly.

And just out of sleep you can have very deep and slow breaths because the body is rested, relaxed.

 

 

Let me repeat: breathing in, let golden light come into you through your head, because it is there that the Golden Flower is waiting.

That golden light will help.

It will cleanse your whole body and will make it absolutely full of creativity.

This is male energy.

Then when you exhale, let darkness, the darkest you can conceive, like a dark night, river-like, come from your toes upward

- this is feminine energy: it will soothe you, it will make you receptive, it will calm you, it will give you rest - and let it go out of the head.

Then inhale again, and golden light enters in.

 

 

Do it for twenty minutes early in the morning.

The best time to begin is in the early morning, immediately, just when you are half-asleep, half-awake.

And the process is so simple.

It needs no posture, no yogasana, no bath is needed, nothing.

And then the second best time is when you are going back to sleep, in the night.

 

 

Lie down on the bed, relax for a few minutes.

When you start feeling that now you are wavering between sleep and waking,

just in that middle, start the process again, and continue for twenty minutes.

If you fall asleep doing it, that is the best, because the impact will remain in the subconscious and will go on working.

 

 

After a three-month period you will be surprised:

the energy that was constantly gathering at the muladhar, at the lowest, the sex center, is in no more gathering there.

It is going upwards.

[gendao]

I found this method for the meditation of the golden light from Osho:

 

http://www.osho.nl/New-Osho-NL/Meditation/MeditOnAudio.htm

 

The Secret of the Golden Flower - also known as the Golden Light Meditation

You simply lie down, as you are In lying down in your bed, on your back.

Keep your eyes closed.

When you breathe in, just visualize great light entering from your head into your body,

as if a sun has risen just close to your head - golden light pouring into your head.

You are just hollow and the golden light is pouring into your head, and going, going, going, deep, deep, and going out through your toes.

When you breathe in, do it with this visualization.

And when you breathe out, visualize another thing:

darkness entering through your toes, a great dark river entering through your toes, coming up, and going out through the head.

Do slow, deep breathing so you can visualize.

Go very slowly.

And just out of sleep you can have very deep and slow breaths because the body is rested, relaxed.

Let me repeat: breathing in, let golden light come into you through your head, because it is there that the Golden Flower is waiting.

That golden light will help.

It will cleanse your whole body and will make it absolutely full of creativity.

This is male energy.

Then when you exhale, let darkness, the darkest you can conceive, like a dark night, river-like, come from your toes upward

- this is feminine energy: it will soothe you, it will make you receptive, it will calm you, it will give you rest - and let it go out of the head.

Then inhale again, and golden light enters in.

Do it for twenty minutes early in the morning.

The best time to begin is in the early morning, immediately, just when you are half-asleep, half-awake.

And the process is so simple.

It needs no posture, no yogasana, no bath is needed, nothing.

And then the second best time is when you are going back to sleep, in the night.

Lie down on the bed, relax for a few minutes.

When you start feeling that now you are wavering between sleep and waking,

just in that middle, start the process again, and continue for twenty minutes.

If you fall asleep doing it, that is the best, because the impact will remain in the subconscious and will go on working.

After a three-month period you will be surprised:

the energy that was constantly gathering at the muladhar, at the lowest, the sex center, is in no more gathering there.

It is going upwards.

Nice meditation.

 

Anyhow, the thing about these meditations (and why many may not have attained results yet)...is that they typically take about 3 months (~100 days) to start feeling "directional" eddy currents in the dantian or some circulation in the MCO.

 

And most people simply haven't meditated for 100 days straight yet (myself included, lol). I mean, if we made a poll for that alone, I'll bet maybe only 10% or less TBs here have done that before.

 

mantis - How long have you been meditating daily?

[mantis]

mantis,

 

Good luck to you, oh intrepid explorer. Please do keep us posted.

 

By the way, did you mean that you felt the circulation in the lower field to be the opposite direction than the one JJ felt (before reversal)? Did your body tell you that reversing the flow was a good idea, like his did? Do you find that the flow remains reversed, or does it go back when you do not pay attention to it?

Mal,

 

I remember Wu Liu was excited about it, but I haven't seen him around in a while. The main reason I haven't tried it yet is because I want to get more straightened out (physically and otherwise) before I seriously try to awaken kundalini. But I admit I also have my doubts that this method is really a good idea for just anybody. That's why I asked mantis the questions I did. For one, Wang Liping says SotGF is an upper dan tien practice, implying that JJ's interpretation isn't really what Ancestor Lu had in mind. More importantly, since reading Deciphering the Golden Flower, I have noticed a few references to the circulation in the lower field by masters that I respect, and nothing is ever said about reversing it. (Though I suppose it could be the big secret that the masters aren't sharing with the commoners ).

 

But to be fair, if your body and higher self say yes, go for it. It sure worked out for JJ.

 

In my experience the breath normally flows to the front and you have to gently guide it in order for it to flow backwards. If I lose my concentration it'll usually go back to flowing to the front.

 

Nice meditation.

 

Anyhow, the thing about these meditations (and why many may not have attained results yet)...is that they typically take about 3 months (~100 days) to start feeling "directional" eddy currents in the dantian or some circulation in the MCO.

 

And most people simply haven't meditated for 100 days straight yet (myself included, lol). I mean, if we made a poll for that alone, I'll bet maybe only 10% or less TBs here have done that before.

 

mantis - How long have you been meditating daily?

 

I have only been meditating for 3 or 4 days and I had the experience I wrote about the first time trying the meditation.

[wudan]

What is purpose of Secret of golden flower ?

[gendao]

In my experience the breath normally flows to the front and you have to gently guide it in order for it to flow backwards. If I lose my concentration it'll usually go back to flowing to the front.

I have only been meditating for 3 or 4 days and I had the experience I wrote about the first time trying the meditation.

Seriously? Sheesh! But, you must have done many other practices before, then?

I was reading through the thread yesterday and decided to try it - as my main practice is lightly gazing at the LTT anyways. One of the differences in my practice and his is that I didn't really mind if I could hear my breath or not, and that made a huge difference in my practice.

 

Once I began tuning into my breathing to make sure it was inaudible, I focused on the LTT and I could tell exactly what JJ was talking about, I could feel the LTT rolling the opposite way. I gently rolled it back as in the backwards flowing method and I had an experience that I'm still trying to process. First I felt very small and I think my consciousness shifted down to my LTT whereas it's normally in my head. Then I felt very big, bigger than the room I was in. At this point I freaked out and the experience ended, but once I recollected myself I began again and the experience repeated itself.

BTW, so are people normally running a circuit that goes down the spine and up the chest? Which the "backwards-flowing" method then reverses to up the spine and down the chest?

[mantis]

Seriously? Sheesh! But, you must have done many other practices before, then?BTW, so are people normally running a circuit that goes down the spine and up the chest? Which the "backwards-flowing" method then reverses to up the spine and down the chest?

 

Oh yeah of course I've meditated before.... And yes, from the little I've experienced so far with the method it usually flows to the front.

[Creation]

BTW, so are people normally running a circuit that goes down the spine and up the chest? Which the "backwards-flowing" method then reverses to up the spine and down the chest?

vortex,

 

When Semple talks about the flow of the breath and reversing it, he is not talking about the mCO or little orbit, but a circulation of chi in the lower dan tien itself. He says that his was running up the front and down the back and that he reversed this. I have heard this flow in the lower field mentioned by Waysun Liao (in The T'ai Chi Classics) and Hu Xuezhi (on damo-qigong.net), but nothing about reversing it. Also, Liao describes it as going in the opposite direction. I am quite curious which direction others feel when they begin to feel a circulation in the lower field. I have heard that for some whose mCO opens naturally as a result of Taiji or meditation or some such it occasionally will naturally open in the opposite direction than most, i.e. up the front and down the back (in Mysteries of the Life Force by Peter Meech). Perhaps it is the same with the circulation in the lower field?

[AugustLeo]

.

[gendao]

My copy of the TaiChi Classics calls it "Turning the Tai Chi Ball Practice" and shows the direction as down in the front of the LTT and up in the back of the LTT (Just as JJ Semples described and drew in another thread ). According to Liao, as one inhales the LTT area forms a "round ball" due to the pressure of inhalation and it will automatically turn backward and upward. Beginners usually start to sense this "turning" after several weeks of practice. Advanced cultivators will experience a more rapid, turbine-like turning with each inhalation-exhalation cycle. It should be noted that Liao cautions that this practice should only be done after consulting a highly qualified instructor.

Thanks for the re-clarification guys.

 

AugustLeo - Are you talking about this book?

 

And has anyone else felt this turning of the dantian ball yet? I haven't.

[rain]

yep but Im a girl and I feel that..

somehow.. somewher in all this

 

I wanna do the opposite.

so im all mixed up at the moment

[AugustLeo]

.

[Creation]

Thanks for the correction about the direction Liao describes.

 

So, mantis, just to be clear do you feel the chi in the dantien going up the front down the back or down the front up the back before reversal?

 

Anyway, Liao wants you to get the chi spinning more in that direction rather than reverse it. I wonder what he would say about reversing it? Especially since JJ says the reversal becomes permanent after 2 weeks or something.

 

EDIT: Wait, I just looked in my version of T'ai Chi Classics (the one vortex linked to), and the description is completely ambiguous about the direction, but the picture shows down the front and up the back. It's on p. 35-35.

Edited October 5, 2009 by Creation

[AugustLeo]

.

[mantis]

Thanks for the correction about the direction Liao describes.

 

So, mantis, just to be clear do you feel the chi in the dantien going up the front down the back or down the front up the back before reversal?

 

Anyway, Liao wants you to get the chi spinning more in that direction rather than reverse it. I wonder what he would say about reversing it? Especially since JJ says the reversal becomes permanent after 2 weeks or something.

 

EDIT: Wait, I just looked in my version of T'ai Chi Classics (the one vortex linked to), and the description is completely ambiguous about the direction, but the picture shows down the front and up the back. It's on p. 35-35.

 

lol, you really confused me, I'll try to explain it the best I can. Basically, I feel a fuzzy ball (I guess my dan tien?) and it spins forwards constantly. When I can no longer hear my breath and focus on it I can make it reverse it's direction, making it flow the opposite way, or backwards.

 

When I first did it I got a semi-erection which I thought was pure chance but as in my original post I repeated the experience and got another; could be a sign it's working with the energy down there.

[findley]

JJsempel is full of shit, and you are not practicing the 'secret of the golden flower'.

 

I suggest you study the text, (cleary.)

 

It has nothing to do with this sort of 'energy manipulation' you seem to be talking about.

[mantis]

JJsempel is full of shit, and you are not practicing the 'secret of the golden flower'.

 

I suggest you study the text, (cleary.)

 

It has nothing to do with this sort of 'energy manipulation' you seem to be talking about.

 

I disagree. I have reason to believe that JJ Semples method is indeed effective; whether or not it's the SoTGF is up to debate but he is definitely not "full of shit."

[Oolong Rabbit]

Thanks for the re-clarification guys.

 

AugustLeo - Are you talking about this book?

 

And has anyone else felt this turning of the dantian ball yet? I haven't.

 

Not the ball turning, but the turbine spinning ine the lower dantien yes. I actually read his book a few weeks after I experienced it the first time and was like ahah! It kicks in after about 15-20 minutes of breath work in half lotus. And the sensation get very intense the longer I practice. That really is a great little book.

 

Brgds!

[joeblast]

Spinning at times, but that's usually after my awareness is elsewhere, usually I've just been pulsating

 

 

 

 

 

Gerry! Hope you're doing well brother