Purifying the heart

[bbsoft0]

I found here

http://damo-qigong.net/qigong/excise/page101.htm

a picture with the nine steps of "disciplining the heart"

The picture is bellow (just click it)

 

However I do not understand what the symbols mean. (and the chinese characters)

And about the timing - these nine steps must be done before one starts the waterwheel or it is something that goes parallel with the Internal Alchemy practice?

 

Please enlighten me with this - I have searched for an answer and found none...

Edited May 2, 2011 by bbsoft0

[Maddie]

Hey I realize this isn't exactely what you were getting at on this post, but the syncrinisoty of what I experienced yesterday was too uncanny for me to not comment.

 

Yesterday I sat down for over an hour and did nothing else except the heart inner smile and healing sound. Why? because frankly I'm tired of experiencing the symptoms of a heart meridain imbalance. As I did the healing sound for the heart yesterday, I felt all this very bad energy that I can only simply describe as "disturbed, dirty, bad" come out. See I got tired of going through extreems of being very stimulated for a while, and not only "stimulated" but stimluated in a kind of odd way. It was as though I was wound up too high, and in addition my thinking became bizzare. Then I would crash and feel totally down, totally disinterested in pretty much everything, until the other extreme kicked in again. This to me actually sounds like bi-polar disorder :-/ , at least from the western perspective. From a TCM point of view though it would seem more like a heart/kidney imbalance, as the kidneys are deficient and can no longer keep the heart fire in check, which then blazes out of control (over joy) until its burnt out (lack of joy).

 

What I think I am beginning to understand now, which I did not fully understand earlier is what the full meaning of the hearts function in the emotional/mental realm is. Most texts on TCM would state that the heart's emotion is "Joy" or at most they might say its negativce emotions is "Over Joy". I don't know about you, but to me the term "over joy" does not tell me much. To me the notion of being a little "wound up" or "giddy" does not convey to me the idea of disturbed mental process. But after further searching I found some sources that mentioned that the heart is center of sound mental and emotional being and that a disturbance in the heart can cause this aspect to become disturbed.

 

So I sat down, and began to do the heart healing sound to see what that might do. I was very suprised as that is preciecly what I found in there, which was quite disconcerting, yet a relief at the same time. The only way I can describe what I felt come out of my heart was that it felt like my "dark side" or the evil side of us that we rarely want to face. I have worked on just about all my organs extensively and have never felt anything like that before. For the most part what I found in the other organs pretty much fit (more or less) with the standard descriptions of them. In my liver I always found anger, or some variant of it, in the kidneys fear, in the spleen worry, in the lungs sadness and sorrow, but up until now I never really connected in a similar fashion with the heart, I mean who wants to get rid of joy? lol. But yesterday when I really made an effort to find out what was in there regardless of what the books say, I was stunned! I did not find "joy" rather I found basically the most disturbing apsects of my nature, what I would be inclined to call the "bad" side of me. Yet I am hesitant to lable them as "bad" or "evil" because isn't that against the nature of the Tao?

 

The effect that I felt afterwards was amazing, I felt so much better, very light, free, innocent, good. It almost felt like some people describe religious conversion experiences. Now I'm not saying that I'm all done, as I do plan to continue working on and with my heart, yet the progress I made in that one session was amazing and encourages me to continue. I just don't understand why just about every TCM description of the heart says its emotion is "joy" or negative emotion "over joy"? That does not seem to fit at all with what I found in my personal experience. But since I begin TCM school this week, I'm sure I will have an excellent opportunity to ask questions about this. Yes I am excited about going to TCM school lol :-). If anyone else has any insight into the heart meridian issue, I would be happy to hear it.

[Otis]

Hey I realize this isn't exactely what you were getting at on this post, but the syncrinisoty of what I experienced yesterday was too uncanny for me to not comment.

Great share and insight, Matt!

[bbsoft0]

Hi Matt, and thanks for sharing your wonderful experience !

 

I found a great video for the heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMv1JXuI4d8&feature=related

 

Inner Smile and heart healing sound seem to be very healing too.

I must implement all these into my daily practice.

 

Please share more info about the heart meridian.

[Maddie]

Please share more info about the heart meridian.

 

Ok well this info isn't about the Heart meridian per se, but its about the Lung meridian which the heart meridian keeps under control (fire dominates metal), and both of them run through the yin side of the arm. I worked on my lung meridian today because even though as I mentioned in my last post a lot of "junk" was in my heart meridian, a lot of "junk" was also in my lung meridian as well, and both the heart and lungs are in the middle dan tien/ upper burner area together.

 

The lung meridian's positive attributes are good self esteem, boundries, righteousness, courage, ect.. While its negative aspects are saddness, sorrow, low self esteem, poor boundries, ect... And while its not the "heart" its also very relevant stuff. As I had mentioned in my other post, a big problem was odd thinking that I had found in the heart, but another problem was a poor self image, self esteem, self worth that I found in the lungs. Either issue is obviously a problem, and needs to be dealt with. So this time I did the lung inner smile and healing sound, and once again got rid of a lot of "junk" related to the issues that I just listed. While the heart may have had me think about interactions with others in a "disturbed" way, the lungs had me thinking of interactions with other people in a "I feel rotten" way. Either way a problem.

 

Working on this meridian has shown me how this imbalance has played out in my daily life. For instance, when one does not have much self value, then one seeks value from an outside source often as a method of compensation. Often this form of self value compensation comes in the form of validation from another person. This is why one often sees people go from one relationship or fling to another constantly, because alone they feel no source of self validation, so they seek validation like a crack addict seeks another hit. In being perfectly honest with myself I realized that this has been a big part of my own motivation to meet women. I'm not saying that wanting to meet women means that you have low self validation, but it can be, at least to unnatural extremes. Often this can be varified by being devistated by rejection (validation taken away) and elation at being accepted (validation granted).

 

Also the lungs have to do with personal boundries, so people that have a hard time saying "NO" to either others or themselves, also show a tendency towards lung meridian imbalance. If anyone had read about my experiences with my soon to be ex wife, it was pretty obvous that when I met her my personal boundries were not all that good.

 

Probably the most well known aspect of the lungs is sorrow. Sorrow can come in many flavors and varieties. Grieving lost loved ones, the sorrow of being alone (lonliness/rejection) which goes back to poor self esteem, the sorrow of regret, which is the exact opposite of the positive lung virtue of righteouesness (feeling that you are a good person).

 

So in addition to my work on the heart meridian, I've also been working a lot on the lung meridian this week as well, and the results have been encouraging. :-)