just meditating on dan-tien does nothing?

[joeblast]

 

 

What I have been noticing in my own practice, formal and informal, is that the simplest and best way to "charge the battery" of the dantien is to not pressure, or put much effort into, the lower belly breathing. Once one can relax and sink into the embryonic compressing movement,

Very good Combining energetic maxima of consumption minima, constructively combining amplitudes!

[dwai]

I've been really meditating on the dan-tien everyday and it just doesn't seem to be doing anything special. Going to meditating classes though it seems to work really well when the teacher first tells you to open up the crown and get qi from the heavens and then root and get qi from the earth. But just focusing on the dan-tien by itself does nothing but relax the belly...

 

 

Can you cook your meal on a stove effectively when there's not much fuel flowing into the burner?

 

First you need to flow the energy then it can be directed. So, first step is sensitivity to Chi flow...then it's increasing the volume of the Chi and then it is directing the Chi. After that it is flowing...

 

I've found that two approaches can help:

 

1) Moving practice like Taichi Chuan

or

2) Static practice with breath control (pranayama).

 

I use both and they complement each other quite well...

 

my 2 cents worth...

 

Best,

 

Dwai

 

 

 

[dwai]

Hi Q, you mean sink into the core of the dantien?

 

 

Beautiful, joeblast!

 

 

Hi dwai, I agree with you about "sensitivity to chi flow." However, a first? The first step, for folks who are tense or are who are not aware of their inner lanscape, might simply be: a regular relaxation practice. Regular cultivation of relaxation allows one to pay attention, at a deeper and deeper level, of the state of relaxation and tension in the body. THIS -- before one can have sensitivity to chi flowing. Before tai chi. Before any breath control practices.

 

Nicely said Rainbow_Vein. However I think that the relaxation practice can be Tai Chi or Yoga. Relaxation and Chi sensitivity/development are mutually complementary. As one increases the other increases too...one (Chi development) naturally follows the other.

 

It is not easy for a beginner to be relaxed at the level of an experienced Tai Chi player. Relaxation develops with experience. Try telling a starter to be Sung...you'll see what I mean (I know I struggled with it for years even though I perfectly understood what it meant)

[Friend]

Edited November 16, 2011 by Friend

[zerostao]

I don't think Qigong practice conflicts with any belief system or the lack there of. In fact one of the things that drew me to Qigong was because it was NOT a religion. I had recently gotten out of extreme fundamentalist Christianity and was rather turned off to religion of any form what so ever. I saw that Qigong was a practice, not a faith which actually drew me to it.

There is nothing about Qigong which would be incompatible with Christianity. There is no praying involved, no worship, no belief systems that contradict Christian doctrine, so its fine in that realm. On the other hand it is good for your health and that is a pro-Chrisitan aspect as Christianity considers the body the temple of the Holy Ghost. Balancing your chi helps one to live more virtuously which is a plus in just about any religion ;-).

in my case i feel that breathing into lower dantien during qigong helped calm my spirit. then, when i began to spend more time in meditation the spirit becomes even calmer and inner awareness is raised.

[joeblast]

Guess I'm not going to get off easy with being a little poetic, eh?

 

Even it if did basically contain what ya need to know

 

"Find energetic maxima of consumption minima" for each breath component, make it smooth, harmonious, and you will find where output is greater - like most any halfway complex mathematical equation, graph it and you'll find areas that produce more, some that produce less. Find the area, the motion, that produces more (energetic maxima) within the gentler movement (consumption minima...you will have higher local energetic output with a stronger movement, but stillness is a requirement, therefore find the lesser method of consumption and there's resonances in there that have more gainful production. Find 'em.)

 

Think "wave mechanics" - when two waves interact, constructive amplification produces a much higher maxima. Take each "wave" (e.g. breath component) and identify the breadth of excursion (how far the physical component travels - the abdomen travels a lot further than the perineum, for instance) and when you separate out and focus on each individual component you make each one just a little bit clearer, that energetic maxima will stand out just a little bit more.

 

Combine in the proper proportions and you start taking deeper steps

 

Only so many components involved...like Bruce Lee said, man only has two arms, two legs, so how many different ways will one be able to fight?

[joeblast]

Easier to dig back up from somewhere and update a tad instead of typing it all up again

 

-------

(I wound up going from reading Feynman and assessing summation of vector quantities realized as a manifestation of scalar potential, to quantum mechanical combination of amplitudes, to physical mechanism of particle/string interactions having relevance to manifestations of practice. Not that I didnt already believe that a vehicle existed, but it kinda just extended itself from my observations. )

 

I can go a lot further in my own cultivation with the breathe of the universe than I can with some intellectual reductions of same

That's exactly the point - using current quantum mechanical theories we can construct a coherent mechanism by which these phenomena happen - such as a weak force interaction being able to transmute a quark of one type into another, given the constant stream of quarks, done in enough capacity it should be possible to "turn lead into gold" shall we say - but what these theories dont tell you is how to actually arrange the lagrangians to produce the effect

(if a weak interaction then a 'resonance'...a manifestation where the path is through the lagrangian...must be present that allows the interaction to take place inside the radii where the other forces would normally dominate, i.e. EM and strong,)

 

so its rather academic - practice is the only way to figure that out! (I suppose some of it can be applied to real-world curiosities, e.g. in "qi running," how much of the compliment is electromagnetic, and how much is gravitational? Its mostly em...) IMHO all of the fundamental forces will have their own particular qi manifestations. Again, dry academic observation and not "doing."

 

 

 

 

 

 

But some rules and facets can have applicability to practice: Do you think this is a static or a dynamic image?

 

 

Absolutely dynamic, and one has an extent of control of it. (Not that you can arbitrarily...ah, make it into a trapezoid or something though )

 

So in order to manifest something, the conditions need to be arranged - i.e. you want to make a good dantien breath, figure out how to "most efficiently combine amplitudes." If we accept the postulate that qi is a quantum mechanical phenomenon, then we have some interesting rules that apply that seem to be well confirmed by mindful practice (ex. using two as a # of interactions to keep it simple):

 

if we have two amplitudes a=3 and b=4,

 

-if the events happen in sequence, multiply the amplitudes: 3x4=12

-if the events are in coherence but can be distinguished, square the multiples then add: 9+16=25

-if the events cannot be distinguished, add before absolute squaring - 3+4=7, ^2=49

 

So that is just a simple two part analogy to give numerical representation to coherent constructive wave amplification, if the postulate of qi being a quantum mechanical phenomenon then probability *has* to enter the picture...

 

 

 

 

Translated to practice,

 

When practicing, events not in coherence will have the lesser outcome (dantien breathing not harmonious, amplitude peaks do not line up, are not as high as they could be, etc.)

 

In refining, one finds coherence yet events are at least partly still of the mind and thus distinguishable; (dantien breathing harmonious, streamline the process, good overflow of qi into meridians, etc.)

 

Practice until the foreground fades away, background becomes the foreground - and certain events within will start to become indistinguishable, producing the most efficacious result. (dantien glows)

 

 

 

So, analyze outer abdomen...

Analyze perineum...

Analyze diaphragm, etc...

Then begin to combine the smoothed results, juggling in coherence...

 

 

Another thing that QM tells us is that (in the famous double slit experiment) it doesnt matter which slit the photon goes through - the path is a priori deduced from the sum of all paths; in a particle or field interaction, just like the center of a black hole, we really cant see or exactly measure the interaction itself because that would be interfering with the experiment, but it is indeed a manifestation when particles or fields interact.

 

Which begs the question,

What if you are the experiment?

 

Ah...now what happens to the distribution of probabilities for the event when those two slits are realigned so that they overlap?

And of course, when those slits overlap it is but one hole and the probabilities all go through it! Through practice you are subtly affecting conditions - that is key, since what you are doing (similarly stated) is subtly affecting probabilities that something will happen.

 

Focusing awareness (and qi, by extension) is increasing the probabilities that energetic alignment (in myriad ways) takes place.

 

Before cultivating harmony, many slits, many paths, many deviations, lesser or worse depending on the mind's focus.

 

Alignment produces harmony

[Friend]

Edited November 16, 2011 by Friend

[Maddie]

speaking of the lower dan tien, I have been doing something new today, and I was afraid this was going to happen, but I'll state my reasons in a sec. Today I decided to put a lot of focus on my lower dan tien, not only in seated meditative breathing, but also in the hold the ball position of ZZ. The reason I've decided to do this is because I've noticed that as I've begun talking to various girls the same pattern comes up again and again. I have no problem approaching them, starting a conversation, getting a first date ect.. blah blah blah, BUT I seem to have a hard time getting a second date, or a call back or what not. I realized that during our conversation on meeting that I was not feeling attraction, and I felt that she was not feeling it either. I suppose this has to do with my trying so hard to close down my sex chakra when I was still living the married life and now I think I am feeling the effectiveness of my past efforts now. So what has happened today is that since the sex chakra and the dan tien are pretty much in the same area I have been very aggressively horny today, but I figured it was something I'd have to go through if I decided to do this. Does anyone else have similar experience with such things? I hope I can get through this phase fast cause I really do want women to feel attraction for me, and I know for this to happen my sex chakra has to be doing its thing, but I'll be happy when feeling like a dog in heat is over. :-)

[SonOfTheGods]

yes

There are just ways to focus the energy towards the dan tien more. Like full lotus. Not completely sure why, but in half and full lotus the energy naturally focuses more then normal amounts of energy to the dan tien.

The YMAA embryonic breathing material is awesome for this.

Are you simply placing your awareness there, or are you doing something a little more constructive?

Investigate the interaction of physical mechanisms, get a feel for how each motion contributes towards the overall power generation - i.e. make the motions coherent and the energy will constructively amplify. If you dont smooth out the motion and make the different motions in resonance, in coherence with your focus on the dantien, then you will necessarily have a lesser level of efficacy in the practice.

You can break it up into parts to investigate a certain motion more, and each can be its own meditation if you choose, but if you put in a little time working on them then when you bring them together it is more potent. Just like with bone breathing, you do a finger, a toe first before doing the whole hand, foot. Focus on just your abdomen in and out and generate a mental "dyno chart" graphical representation of what points in the motion wind up culminating in more energetic input. (Think wave mechanics.) Then do the same with the perineum, diaphragm, back (quadratus lumborum), and sides....each will have its own range of motion and its own "power curve" - its up to you to find out what those curves are and combine them so that the peak generation areas are coincident - focus that on your dantien over a number of sessions for a month, and then tell us how you're doing

When I combined those concepts with a gradual lengthening of the breath, it took me a month or two to feel like I was glowing, you can just feel it all radiate, esp once you eliminate all of the turbulence in your air passageways - it doesnt even feel like you're breathing then! If you're concerned about the world crashing, this is a great way to supplement your body's energetic needs with a little electromagnetic energy, if electrochemical means become scarce

[SonOfTheGods]

IMO - truth.

So far the various techniques I've heard of are ...

1. Sitting in full lotus (if you can) from Drew Hemphil.

Wrong.

wrong.

wrong.


Meditation on dantien is THE building block for anything that you will be attempting to do, and yes things do happen as you continue the meditation.


Stop thinking about where, how, why etc. The point here is to not find dantien, but to have dantien find you. When you have energy there, you will know it beyond all doubt.


As your energy builds within dantien, you will be able to feel something very, very, special there. Something overt, and not something you have to look around for. It will increase in intensity to the point where even when you don't meditate you still feel it. I won't tell you what it feels like. Best to find out yourself.


Really, the trick is to learn to love your meditation, and to not expect results. when you find yourself always looking forward to spending more time harnessing dantien, that is the time when you will start to notice things.


Tip: when you do the meditation, make sure you breathe deeply, and properly. if your breath does not "touch" dantien, then do not expect to accumulate energy.