Chi into Shen

[exorcist_1699]

Don't know about the rest, but- "Nourish a MIND by paying attention to nowhere" I think is a description of nurturing single-pointedness of mind, place of mind as the source of action as opposed to volition in mind as the source of action. Paying attention to nowhere is also excluding nothing from awareness, that's another way of saying it. "it is something much more"- it is being realized as action out of the occurrence of consciousness, that is to say: out of the place of occurrence of consciousness, out of the impact of consciousness on the fascial stretch already in existence, and out of the feeling generated by activity caused by stretch (the fascia and ligaments can generate nerve impulses to cause associated muscles to contract to relieve their stretch, and reciprocal activity generated by the balance of the body as consciousness takes place can align the spine and joints to open particular feeling).

 

woof, just drank up the Yangtze in one gulp...

 

Mark, thank you for your comments.

 

" Nourishing a MIND by paying attention to nowhere" is a way , as you say, of preventing people from adding other impurities into their consciousness. In fact , a pure consciousness without any characteristics can be said to be same as the emptiness existing everywhere in this cosmos, at least ,they are two faces of the same entity.

 

This way, of course,is much more difficult than others ,for example, asking people to pay attention to their breathing, focusing on dantian or visualizing something .

 

Many people may even overlook it as some kind of philosophical gossips..

 

In fact, all those other methods enable people to get some feeling of qi or light or whatever they want more easier and quicker . However, as people are approaching the higher stage of changing their qi into Shen , all those other methods unfortunately conversely become some kind of blockade , barring them from achieving such a huge, abrupt jump.

 

Every stage in our cultivation has its own specific difficulty, saying that just by accumulating qi and jing , then naturally we can attain Shen is somehow too optimistic...

[Birch]

"This way, of course,is much more difficult than others ,for example, asking people to pay attention to their breathing, focusing on dantian or visualizing something"

 

But IMO (and small experience) it arises spontaneously from all of those practices, which is (one) of the points of doing them. Sometimes I think of those monks sitting for hours on end and getting cramps (or just getting bored) and inventing a new game for themselves to pass the time (qi-gong) and then finding out it "does stuff" like preventing their legs getting too sore

 

"However, as people are approaching the higher stage of changing their qi into Shen , all those other methods unfortunately conversely become some kind of blockade , barring them from achieving such a huge, abrupt jump."

 

Well, not necessarily. If I'm getting too much pressure/blocked energy or tense holding (or whatever you want to call it) in my head then I'd rather like a solution for diminishing it.

 

"Every stage in our cultivation has its own specific difficulty"

 

Oh I believe it does,

 

"saying that just by accumulating qi and jing , then naturally we can attain Shen is somehow too optimistic..."

 

Aren't they "transformations" more than "accumulations"?

[Mark Foote]

"This way, of course,is much more difficult than others ,for example, asking people to pay attention to their breathing, focusing on dantian or visualizing something"

 

But IMO (and small experience) it arises spontaneously from all of those practices, which is (one) of the points of doing them. Sometimes I think of those monks sitting for hours on end and getting cramps (or just getting bored) and inventing a new game for themselves to pass the time (qi-gong) and then finding out it "does stuff" like preventing their legs getting too sore

 

"However, as people are approaching the higher stage of changing their qi into Shen , all those other methods unfortunately conversely become some kind of blockade , barring them from achieving such a huge, abrupt jump."

 

Well, not necessarily. If I'm getting too much pressure/blocked energy or tense holding (or whatever you want to call it) in my head then I'd rather like a solution for diminishing it.

 

"Every stage in our cultivation has its own specific difficulty"

 

Oh I believe it does,

 

"saying that just by accumulating qi and jing , then naturally we can attain Shen is somehow too optimistic..."

 

Aren't they "transformations" more than "accumulations"?

 

I read this and I think, yes, and yes; yes. I'm gonna be no help to myself at all, that way!

 

Tai Chi teachers do, I think, speak of accumulating and storing chi. I never heard of ji until I came to TTB, but it makes perfect sense to me, because of the importance of the sacrum and the sacral ligaments.

 

Chen Man-Ch'ing spoke of the chi "overflowing" the tan-t'ien and penetrating the tail-bone, then rushing up the spine to the top of the head. This, he said, should not be forced, and is the thing for which a teacher or at least another student to consult would be nice. I have read books that talk about the chi returning from the top of the head to the tan-t'ien, but my experience is that when I have a continuity of practice, there is a single-pointedness of mind that wasn't there before.

 

For me it's important to see these practices in the context of my own suffering. If I have attachment to, aversion from, or if I ignore the place of consciousness as consciousness occurs, I suffer. If I witness dependent causation as consciousness takes place, I am freed, even though I do nothing. Ji, Chi, Shen is only a river flowing underground, and only the physician that must heal themselves need concern themselves with such, as it will ruin what most consider a normal life. So they say, and I believe it's true.

[Birch]

"it will ruin what most consider a normal life."

 

Spot on.

 

However, whoever said "once begun, better to finish" is probably also spot on. You (I mean "i" can't abort this stuff. As Iching puts it (I'm paraphrasing) "to wish cessation of the process is to wish death upon life"

 

I can't wish death upon life. Sorry.

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

Tai Chi teachers do, I think, speak of accumulating and storing chi.

Not All Taiji teachers.. make yourself a better conduit for the Lifeforce to flow through you, to carry away the dreggs of stasis.. Qi stored, grows stagnant.. replenish yourself with each breath, each intention..

 

Be well..

[3bob]

Greetings..

 

 

Not All Taiji teachers.. make yourself a better conduit for the Lifeforce to flow through you, to carry away the dreggs of stasis.. Qi stored, grows stagnant.. replenish yourself with each breath, each intention..

 

Be well..

 

Generalizations are ok, which includes the obvious fact that Beings do have storage of various types of energy for various amounts of time as designed. (on a simple level our bodies do store at least some amount of fat as an energy reserve, which btw. bears are better at than many of us humans. )

[Mark Foote]

Greetings..

 

 

Not All Taiji teachers.. make yourself a better conduit for the Lifeforce to flow through you, to carry away the dreggs of stasis.. Qi stored, grows stagnant.. replenish yourself with each breath, each intention..

 

Be well..

 

My dancing usually (hopefully!) gets better as I go, and better when I dance with another or with others. I learned to dance at Mabuhay gardens in San Francisco in the eighties, doing the soft slam to the garage bands Dirk Dirksen could hire (punk and new wave history, here: Mabuhay Gardens).

 

In my estimation, the tan-t'ien concerns the pivot of weight around which the psoas and extensors reciprocate involuntarily. This reciprocation is healthy when the sacrum moves freely in the cranial-sacral rhythm, the movement of breath is relaxed, and consciousness takes place spontaneously (ji, qi, shen?). The only thing that really accumulates is the sense of place as consciousness occurs, and the place that consciousness occurs tends to favor the tan-t'ien at some point, although the continuation of the sense of place can exclude nothing and is actually not continuous- how do you like them apples!

[Mark Foote]

Mark, I am finding this true in my practice. As soon as the breath "frees" the sacrum, I feel it travel up the spine!

 

Rainbow_vein, that's amazing! No so clear for me, though the last few days I have been reminded of Chen Man-Ch'ing's practice description for the stage of man, mainly: relax from the shoulders to the wrist, from the hip joint to the heel, and from the sacrum to the headtop (in the Ben Lo/Martin Inn translation, this is "relax the ligaments"; I don't think that's actually possible, as ligaments stretch and resile but it's muscles that contract and relax- nevertheless, I take the meaning as resting weight on the ligaments in such a way as to realize reciprocal activity in associated postural muscles).

 

So your practice is very clear, as to the relationship of the movement of breath and the free movement of the sacrum. You are describing how it feels, and a big trick for me is that the sense of place as consciousness occurs can cause the stretch in existence to generate activity to align the spine and produce feeling. This is a big trick because if I put all my energy into feeling the breath or the movement of the sacrum, I will finally lose actual feeling for having directed the occurrence of consciousness to the particular place. So I think to rely instead on the movement of breath and the cranial-sacral rhythm to place consciousness, and I look to realize impact as consciousness occurs, impact and feeling. Is this natural? It is really just staying with what's happening, not a gaining practice.

 

My posture is pretty bent, usually, so I envy you the clarity of "up the spine". I guess the reason I mentioned learning to dance is because that's where I sometimes feel an uprightness in the spine both on the inhale and the exhale, yet the feeling is intimately tied to resting the weight of my body on the sacrospinous and sacrotuberous ligaments and allowing movement from that stretch. At least, that's the way I feel it.

Edited October 11, 2010 by Mark Foote

[gendao]

My posture is pretty bent, usually, so I envy you the clarity of "up the spine". I guess the reason I mentioned learning to dance is because that's where I sometimes feel an uprightness in the spine both on the inhale and the exhale, yet the feeling is intimately tied to resting the weight of my body on the sacrospinous and sacrotuberous ligaments and allowing movement from that stretch. At least, that's the way I feel it.

Interesting. I was just trying that this morning (or something like it).

 

Basically feeling all my weight concentrated down between my root and dantian - which then allowed my upper body to relax and "float" upright. In zhan zhuang, I also imagined my pelvis "sliding" and hanging down on the backs of my femur heads. There seems to be a connection between where you "feel your weight" and the focus of your awareness.

[Mark Foote]

Interesting. I was just trying that this morning (or something like it).

 

Basically feeling all my weight concentrated down between my root and dantian - which then allowed my upper body to relax and "float" upright. In zhan zhuang, I also imagined my pelvis "sliding" and hanging down on the backs of my femur heads. There seems to be a connection between where you "feel your weight" and the focus of your awareness.

 

Sometimes it's so hard to hear in another person's writing things I understand with different terminology, but the pelvis "sliding" and hanging down on the backs of the femur heads is ringing a bell with me. I too look to a feeling roughly between the ilio-sacral joints and the sit-bones of the pelvis, and when I have feeling there, the pelvis shifts slightly on the femurs. Have you seen Calais-Germaine's "Anatomy of Movement"?- written by a dancer, she has illustrations of how the obturators can "hammock" the pelvis off the hips. Here's my attempt at illustrating the same, it's a view from below the pelvis showing the obturators running below the pelvis, then up to the back of the femur (Calais-Germaine has a lovely little side view of how the two obturators therefore pull down on the femur as they contract, which raises the pelvis off the hips):

 

 

 

 

Lately I spend time appreciating the side to side rock that can happen when I sit on the sit-bones, balancing around the sacrum. Even though I can't exactly find the sacrotuberous ligaments, having feeling for the diagonals there and looking to rest weight along those lines allows me a rotation with a relaxed uprightness; the teeth tend toward touching and I feel like it's a good stretch for me.

 

Have to forget it, now, don't I!

[gendao]

Sometimes it's so hard to hear in another person's writing things I understand with different terminology, but the pelvis "sliding" and hanging down on the backs of the femur heads is ringing a bell with me. I too look to a feeling roughly between the ilio-sacral joints and the sit-bones of the pelvis, and when I have feeling there, the pelvis shifts slightly on the femurs. Have you seen Calais-Germaine's "Anatomy of Movement"?- written by a dancer, she has illustrations of how the obturators can "hammock" the pelvis off the hips. Here's my attempt at illustrating the same, it's a view from below the pelvis showing the obturators running below the pelvis, then up to the back of the femur (Calais-Germaine has a lovely little side view of how the two obturators therefore pull down on the femur as they contract, which raises the pelvis off the hips):

Lately I spend time appreciating the side to side rock that can happen when I sit on the sit-bones, balancing around the sacrum. Even though I can't exactly find the sacrotuberous ligaments, having feeling for the diagonals there and looking to rest weight along those lines allows me a rotation with a relaxed uprightness; the teeth tend toward touching and I feel like it's a good stretch for me.

Yes, sorry for my vague and probably anatomically-incorrect descriptions. In fact, the pelvis cannot really "slide" off the backs of the femur heads - as those heads go into hip sockets in the pelvis.

But, I was just trying to describe the "imagined sensation" I felt (without knowing the actual anatomy at the time). As you say, a feeling of shear "sliding" between the pelvis and femurs and perhaps a suspensatory "hammocking" there. I think as you open, relax and loosen ingrained tension up down there - you may start to feel more of these various relationships - as opposed to just one big, solid, locked, immobilized mass.

[TzuJanLi]

My dancing usually (hopefully!) gets better as I go, and better when I dance with another or with others. I learned to dance at Mabuhay gardens in San Francisco in the eighties, doing the soft slam to the garage bands Dirk Dirksen could hire (punk and new wave history, here: Mabuhay Gardens).

 

In my estimation, the tan-t'ien concerns the pivot of weight around which the psoas and extensors reciprocate involuntarily. This reciprocation is healthy when the sacrum moves freely in the cranial-sacral rhythm, the movement of breath is relaxed, and consciousness takes place spontaneously (ji, qi, shen?). The only thing that really accumulates is the sense of place as consciousness occurs, and the place that consciousness occurs tends to favor the tan-t'ien at some point, although the continuation of the sense of place can exclude nothing and is actually not continuous- how do you like them apples!

I like 'them apples' plenty.. Thanks!

 

Be well..

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

Sometimes it's so hard to hear in another person's writing things I understand with different terminology, but the pelvis "sliding" and hanging down on the backs of the femur heads is ringing a bell with me.

Yes.. firm-up the foundation/legs with dynamic tension (tensegrity).. suspend the crown, as if a rope were pulling it upward, then.. relax the 'girdle muscles', abs, glutes, low back.. the hips/pelvis will drop downward, naturally, and the spine will elongate, creating 'space' between the vertabrae.. you will like this..

 

Be well..

[Mark Foote]

Greetings..

 

 

Yes.. firm-up the foundation/legs with dynamic tension (tensegrity).. suspend the crown, as if a rope were pulling it upward, then.. relax the 'girdle muscles', abs, glutes, low back.. the hips/pelvis will drop downward, naturally, and the spine will elongate, creating 'space' between the vertabrae.. you will like this..

 

Be well..

 

To teach each other, I believe we must each teach ourselves. If I ramble, I do so in part to strike out into something unfamiliar, to give my unconscious a chance to slip a word in edgewise. That way I continue to like to write, and find it valuable, like some kind of crystal ball from which we may all take something useful.

 

The suspend the crown I have yet to enjoy. A rigor up the spine I have experienced, that closes my jaw (which is usually open in concentration, like a child sticking out their tongue as they try to work with their hands). Yet I am cognizant of Foyan's 12th century advice, in China; there are two illnesses, he said: looking for a mule while riding a mule, and when riding a mule unable to dismount. Better, he said, never to get on the mule. I wish I had that much choice about it! For me, the place of occurrence of consciousness is ultimately the action of the moment, no other.

 

I read the other day that Dogen said, "if you can't find truth where you are now, where will you find it?". That means, the sense of place I already have, the stretch I am already in even when I'm relaxed, is the action; all I need do is allow the two respirations to do their thing with the place of consciousness, realize the feeling out of the impact of consciousness, look to be where I am now. Can't miss.

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

The suspend the crown I have yet to enjoy.

Hi Mark: It is more an awareness, so little effort.. if it affects the jaw or the moment it has been objectified.. when it is what you 'are' it 'floats' the head, taking pressure off the spine.. it is that same feeling as when you are alerted by a noise in the dark, heightened awareness, softly intense clarity..

 

Be well..