Heart As Qi Circulation Focus

[Jetsun]

When you break things down everything we do comes from the desire to be happy and avoid suffering so everything we do originated from the heart, even our egotism and violence comes from the desire to be happy and avoid suffering. So the heart is the rightful king but we went up into our heads into imagination with our sense of identity as children in order to survive, but our natural stable centre of gravity of our identity is in the heart.

[Informer]

Did you do any sort of self inquiry Jetsun? I remember trying to trace where is "I AM", and found it to be at the heart as well, yet it was also being attached to the image, so it was not "a free heart". If heart is attached to an image, then I could see that could be fire there, which is related to ego (imo).

 

Like when you get angry when someone is correcting you and even if your wrong you don't want to admit it and have this welling up in your throat, (ego) is trying to be correct and only knows fire, it is attached with fire. I think the trick is to realize that there is more than fire in the heart, then you will have 2 MDT. (imo)

 

Ego seems akin to fire, whereas heart seems akin to true-self.

 

Heart keeps the ego in check. As it keeps the fire in check (ime)

Edited May 23, 2012 by Informer

[Jetsun]

Did you do any sort of self inquiry Jetsun? I remember trying to trace where is "I AM", and found it to be at the heart as well, yet it was also being attached to the image, so it was not "a free heart". If heart is attached to an image, then I could see that could be fire there, which is related to ego (imo).

 

Like when you get angry when someone is correcting you and even if your wrong you don't want to admit it and have this welling up in your throat, (ego) is trying to be correct and only knows fire, it is attached with fire. I think the trick is to realize that there is more than fire in the heart, then you will have 2 MDT. (imo)

 

Ego seems akin to fire, whereas heart seems akin to true-self.

 

Heart keeps the ego in check. As it keeps the fire in check (ime)

 

I haven't got so far with Vedanta self inquiry myself but I have read people like Ramana Maharshi say the same thing that when you trace the "I am" you end up heading towards your heart. But when I investigate most of the things in my mind and trace them back they always originate as some sort of desire to protect or to try to make me happy, the problem being that much of it is based in the past so old heart based intents may not serve the present moment too well and cause problems.

 

I think the ego contains fire because the ego is born out of the heart based intent to protect you, so it is using the fire of the heart as fuel but it is being directed and controlled through habits of mind conditioning and imagination rather than the heart in the present moment.

[joeblast]

in my experience, a heart-mind source - "the source of the I-thought" being the seat of awareness at the niwan, similarly saying "AM" is a heart-word. how does "I AM" sound-feel now?

[Jetsun]

[astralc]

I think the dan tien and the heart are both incredibly important in our journey along the tao. Moving chi into the heart can, in my experience, certainly expand awareness and mellow our earthly ambitions, it rounds us as individuals, but it can also stuff up our health, can create tension and congestion in the heart region causing anxiety, panic attacks and heart palpitations as well.

 

I opening my energy centres over many years, when I eventually got to my heart centre I had to first work at moving through the palpitations and pain that came with it. I was amazed when it opened, I shook like I was holding onto a live electrical wire, the expression of love it released was beyond expectations, was truly extraordinary. After that I would 'see' things, situations differently, like thru a different coloured lens. I could then awaken my heart centre at will, with just a breath I would be off this planet, as high as a kite, like heroine only a million times better, but eventually I had to block it and move back down to the dan tien.

 

The heart as a centre of being is, for me anyway, just too emotional and passionate. I had to centre back lower in the body, to reduce the imbalance of emotions that came with it. It is seductive, very much so, the feeling of love is all consuming, I would lose perspective, love was, but reality was not, so loving, and I had trouble separating the two - the all encompassing love within me and the harsh reality of the world outside. It certainly needed to be tempered with the grounding of the dan tien.

 

Now, I use the dan tien quite exclusively, it expands and includes the heart centre, so I don't have to go separately to the heart. I think that is the best way for me to go these days. I would warn others on this path to be careful, make sure your dan tien is solid before venturing north to the heart or else you could experience some unpleasant side effects.

[hagar]

I think the dan tien and the heart are both incredibly important in our journey along the tao. Moving chi into the heart can, in my experience, certainly expand awareness and mellow our earthly ambitions, it rounds us as individuals, but it can also stuff up our health, can create tension and congestion in the heart region causing anxiety, panic attacks and heart palpitations as well.

 

I opening my energy centres over many years, when I eventually got to my heart centre I had to first work at moving through the palpitations and pain that came with it. I was amazed when it opened, I shook like I was holding onto a live electrical wire, the expression of love it released was beyond expectations, was truly extraordinary. After that I would 'see' things, situations differently, like thru a different coloured lens. I could then awaken my heart centre at will, with just a breath I would be off this planet, as high as a kite, like heroine only a million times better, but eventually I had to block it and move back down to the dan tien.

 

The heart as a centre of being is, for me anyway, just too emotional and passionate. I had to centre back lower in the body, to reduce the imbalance of emotions that came with it. It is seductive, very much so, the feeling of love is all consuming, I would lose perspective, love was, but reality was not, so loving, and I had trouble separating the two - the all encompassing love within me and the harsh reality of the world outside. It certainly needed to be tempered with the grounding of the dan tien.

 

Now, I use the dan tien quite exclusively, it expands and includes the heart centre, so I don't have to go separately to the heart. I think that is the best way for me to go these days. I would warn others on this path to be careful, make sure your dan tien is solid before venturing north to the heart or else you could experience some unpleasant side effects.

 

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

[astralc]

I concur with your warning about solo heart practice.

 

What form of problems did you ignite through the heart-practice?

 

h

 

Hi Hagar, when I opened my chakras I wish I knew a bit more than I did, today I would have just stayed at the dan tien and let them all open by themselves, as they were doing anyway. Issues that arose were tinglings inside the heart itself, heart palpitations, pain in my chest, that sort of thing. The chi pumped itself thru the heart without any problem at all, it was wide open and the chi just flowed, so easily.

 

But it was too easy, I could, with just a thought, explode my heart centre and away I would go into raptures of bliss. It would almost cry with bliss it was so powerful. Then the chi moved into my head centres and I would start to space out with these raptures. Then at night I would push the chi and my head would explode and away I would go into the astral planes. The heart centre was another door to the other side, fantastic, but the cost was too much, headaches, heart pain, spacing out for the following day after astral travel. I had been astral traveling for years before anyway, so why did I want to push it even more? Mind you, the visits to the Elysian Fields were well worth it

 

So, with hindsight, I would just let it happen unconsciously, and stick to my dan tien.

 

Astralc

[astralc]

Hi astralc. Thanks for sharing your experiences. As I allow my own blockages around the heart (front, back and sides) to work themselves out through me, I realize that multiple levels of cultivation are necessary to open it.

 

Question for you: Is there a possibility of resting in a state of equanimous love? And still be heart centered without the passions? Have you been at all able to do that for a (short or) extended time?

 

Hi rainbowvein, thats a good question, when I worked solid on my heart centre the love was way too powerful to allow me to 'rest' in it. The passion was not rage or anger or anything negative, it was just very very powerful love, a state of loveness, a state of bliss and rapture. It was not calm, it was all encompassing, like a river roaring through my body.

 

When I opened it initially it was like being electrocuted, and I have been electrocuted several times as a kid playing with the poorly wired electric water jug, and it was much like that only no danger or pain, well a little pain only. My body shook like crazy for several minutes. Basically it was a kundalini surge focused on my heart.

 

These days it is different, I can open my heart by itself if I want, but I don't do that because it will surge again, the love will become too strong, I will space out and my head will hurt for a day or two. And I become way too sensitive to everything for my own good. So I use the dan tien and open my whole body, not just my heart, it is so much nicer, and more balanced.

 

Astralc

[hagar]

Hi Hagar, when I opened my chakras I wish I knew a bit more than I did, today I would have just stayed at the dan tien and let them all open by themselves, as they were doing anyway. Issues that arose were tinglings inside the heart itself, heart palpitations, pain in my chest, that sort of thing. The chi pumped itself thru the heart without any problem at all, it was wide open and the chi just flowed, so easily.

 

But it was too easy, I could, with just a thought, explode my heart centre and away I would go into raptures of bliss. It would almost cry with bliss it was so powerful. Then the chi moved into my head centres and I would start to space out with these raptures. Then at night I would push the chi and my head would explode and away I would go into the astral planes. The heart centre was another door to the other side, fantastic, but the cost was too much, headaches, heart pain, spacing out for the following day after astral travel. I had been astral traveling for years before anyway, so why did I want to push it even more? Mind you, the visits to the Elysian Fields were well worth it

 

So, with hindsight, I would just let it happen unconsciously, and stick to my dan tien.

 

Astralc

 

Very interesting. I'd love to know what you experienced in the Elysian fields though... Or at least what they are?

 

h

[astralc]

Very interesting. I'd love to know what you experienced in the Elysian fields though... Or at least what they are?

 

h

 

hagar, lol, "the Elysian Fields, in Greek mythology, the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous." From Wiki.

 

The Elysian Fields is where your every dream can be realised, it is the ancient Greek's heaven, so to speak. I have only been there a few times but each time it was 'heaven', and you can imagine what dreams, lusts, desires and wants you may have and how many ways they can be fulfilled. It is an incredible place, as real as this world, and your desires will be satisfied. I have no idea how I got there, it happened by default. I would wake up and find myself standing on a cloud floating way above the landscape below, jungle, a wide river flowing between mountain ranges all laid out before me like a child's rug, and then the adventure would begin.

Edited June 5, 2012 by astralc

[hagar]

hagar, lol, "the Elysian Fields, in Greek mythology, the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous." From Wiki.

 

The Elysian Fields is where your every dream can be realised, it is the ancient Greek's heaven, so to speak. I have only been there a few times but each time it was 'heaven', and you can imagine what dreams, lusts, desires and wants you may have and how many ways they can be fulfilled. It is an incredible place, as real as this world, and your desires will be satisfied. I have no idea how I got there, it happened by default. I would wake up and find myself standing on a cloud floating way above the landscape below, jungle, a wide river flowing between mountain ranges all laid out before me like a child's rug, and then the adventure would begin.

 

What a ride. And this is something that came out of a heart-related practice, or just out of the blue?

 

h

[astralc]

What a ride. And this is something that came out of a heart-related practice, or just out of the blue?

 

h

 

I was learning tai chi in 1980 and after about 6 months I found myself waking up in my dreams, flying, and engaging in the dream itself. I spoke to my master about it because I was a bit confused. Sometimes I would find myself floating above myself when doing tai chi in the class, which was very disturbing, I feared I would fall down.

 

But earlier, before tai chi, I was talking to people who had died, and always had weird dreams and experiences, precognitive dreams, sometimes ghosts though never frightening ones, just talking to them in my sleep. But when I woke up to find myself sitting up in bed talking to this old lady in a flowing ice blue gown for example I would freak out and hide under the blankets.

 

So, I suppose it was already there and tai chi kicked it along to the next level.

Edited June 6, 2012 by astralc

[Mokona]

Once "popped out" there are many places to go. I didn't think they were real until a resident touched me back and the heat traveled through my projected form into my body in a very real way. Cool stuff Astral C

[hagar]

[astralc]

Mokona, yes, many many places to go, you had a fascinating experience too, cool stuff indeed

 

Hagar, mmm, thats weird isn't it, I bet you have worked your ass off trying to work out what it all means, it is soooo hard to 'hack' these experiences. Most of mine are much the same, little rhyme or reason to them and sometimes downright confusing. Where are the instructions to all this?

 

 

Astralc

[Mokona]

Mokona, yes, many many places to go, you had a fascinating experience too, cool stuff indeed

 

Hagar, mmm, thats weird isn't it, I bet you have worked your ass off trying to work out what it all means, it is soooo hard to 'hack' these experiences. Most of mine are much the same, little rhyme or reason to them and sometimes downright confusing. Where are the instructions to all this?

 

 

Astralc

 

Holding energy in the body as a means to project conciously. Chi kung, meditation... Learning to trance while in sitting meditation can bring you to the stepping platform.

You can Google techniques for just Astral Projection, even Youtube has instructional videos. If you practice it, you'll get it.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Mokona

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I've been reading "Taoist Yoga" (Charles Luk, translator) recently, and found it very very interesting when he mentions that the MCO should -- start around the perrenium, move up with inhale and pause behind the heart, then up to the crown, then with the exhale move down and pause again at the heart before going to the lower dantien. This, he says, purifies the post-heavenly chi to become pre-heavenly chi! I personally believe this has to do with transforming the energy out of its sexually propulsive nature into the samadhi saturated all penetrating radiance (hey, there are no words to describe it.. so I'll use 5 lol).

[Fū Yue]

I've been reading "Taoist Yoga" (Charles Luk, translator) recently, and found it very very interesting when he mentions that the MCO should -- start around the perrenium, move up with inhale and pause behind the heart, then up to the crown, then with the exhale move down and pause again at the heart before going to the lower dantien. This, he says, purifies the post-heavenly chi to become pre-heavenly chi! I personally believe this has to do with transforming the energy out of its sexually propulsive nature into the samadhi saturated all penetrating radiance (hey, there are no words to describe it.. so I'll use 5 lol).

 

If you consider the back of your conscious awareness as pre-heaven (the entire invisible universe), and the front of your conscious awareness as post-heaven (the entire visible universe), then refining 'course' breath into 'radiant' (empty) breath via perpetual motion within stillness (undisturbed awareness) as a process becomes very profound.

 

It reminds me of this verse from the gospel of Thomas -

 

Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."

 

They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"

 

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

It reminds me of this verse from the gospel of Thomas -

 

 

These quotes from Jesus, as well as (to paraphrase the paraphrase) "the wealthy man can get into the kingdom of heaven like a camel can get through the eye of a needle" make me really think there must have been something to those papers in the Himalayas that say there was a Jesus who learned with Buddhist monks around the exact same time he disappeared after adolescence.

 

It sounds very much like I mentioned about the Scripture of Complete Enlightenment (see recent topic in Buddhist Discussion) that one can not enlighten the ego/self since the ego/self must dissolve into everything. Much like the wealthy man, wanting to "obtain entrance" for himself will never be able to do so since the self he wants to fulfill the desires of must first be let go of for all time.

 

Anyway, don't take this from me as any complete teachings or anything, but, yes I agree, as far as Buddhist and some Taoist meditation goes, it is the profound continuity which takes one through the gate (gate paragate parasamgate, bodhi svaha).

[Maddie]

I hope this is not too off topic, but I had just posted in another thread about retention about how I have noticed that if I go a few days with out release that I tend to feel desire in my heart as opposed to lower down. This baffles me. If I go more than a few days, I start to get palpitations, nervousness in my chest, and sometimes even difficult to breath, and I don't know why. When I do release the greatest feeling of relief and please is in my chest as opposed to lower down. When I was younger it was not this way, so I don't understand why its this way now. What does the heart have to do with this?