Is MCO/SHO with intention/visualization bad or just different?

[Brooks]

I'm very much a beginner to taoist practice and (not surprisingly) am confused again. Perhaps a bit of background will help to put my question in context... My intention is definitely to learn from a good teacher, but since that may not be possible for some time I've been trying to figure out what initial steps I can take to best prepare myself for something like a retreat with a highly skilled instructor, should I ever have a chance at that.

 

There are so many different paths and practices out there that my head starts to spin. I wish I could practice them all but since the word is that it's best to pick one and not to mix them I was very inspired by what I've heard about Longmen Pai and Wang Liping so I read Opening the Dragon Gate and ordered the Ling Bao Tong Zhi Neng Nei Gong Shu book. It seemed in the post on here regarding Ling Bao Tong... that some others expressed concern that it was a little hard to grasp for beginners (like me). Someone suggested that a good place to start for introductory practice was Spring Forest Qigong and I thought, "great, I've also taken an interest in SFQ and Chunyi Lin, and they offer a home study course that really breaks things down for beginners." Although, it's not the same path ultimately as Longmen Pai I thought maybe I could at least learn an introductory meditation practice... afterall, some things I had read about both these different practices kind of seemed similar (at least at first). So I've been studying SFQ for a few weeks now and have been doing qigong active exercises and the small universe meditation.

 

So now to my concern (sorry it took so long I tried to get here quickly) - I've been reading various things on Tao Bums concerning microcosmic orbit/small heavenly orbit/small universe and I'm trying to sort things out. Recently there was some discussion about this on DreamLight Fugitive's thread, but I wanted to address this more specifically here. In Spring Forest Qigong level 1 the small universe meditation very much involves visualization of the energy moving around the orbit. I've read on here that this type of thing is what makes it a qigong practice and by contrast in inner alchemy training the orbit is (eventually) spontaneous. I've also read that Doing the MCO/SHO with intention and visualization is useless or actually harmful. So I'm now questioning whether doing SFQ is really a good preparatory practice for someone who aspires to train with Wang Liping or one of his students? The general opinion seems to be a good one towards SFQ, but I keep reading how what sound like the same practices as small universe meditation could be useless or harmful... or is it just a different objective?

 

And finally, the straw that really broke the camels back and motivated me to make this post: I was reading the blog of Shen Laoshi - a long-time student of Wang Liping. On a post discussing SHO he wrote:

 

"'Small Heavenly Orbit (SHO)' (or microcosmic orbit) is a term that can be seen often in qigong literatures. Many different schools all aim to "open" it. You can even heard of "speed courses" which claim to open up the SHO in a few days. But if we look at all these so called SHO methods, one can see that they are actually talking about Intention SHO or meridian SHO. Intention SHO means that the practitioner uses variants of visualization or intention method to "open" SHO, this is nothing more than fantasy. It will cause more harm than good. Meridian SHO means using will power to concentrate on points of the Ren and Du channel and then using intention to guide the Houtian (*) Qi to move in the channel. Since usually the movement got mixed up in other channels in the front and in the back, it created the illusion that there is actual movement in the SHO. Again this causes more harm than good."

 

So for those familiar with Spring Forest Qigong's small universe meditation - would it be considered the intention SHO that he speaks of (and says is harmful)??

Edited May 19, 2012 by Brooks

[chi 2012]

I guess there could be some bad MCO's. Small Universe from SFQ is not one of them. I've been practicing SFQ since 2001 - and small universe has been my main practice. I do it everywhere...Mostly lying down and while watching movies. Not the best habits - but keeps me healthy. Chunyi Lin says that the more advanced you get with SFQ - the more small universe you do. He says that that every year his small universe meditation gets better. While it used to take him hours to remove sickness with it - it now only takes him a few minutes. He also says when he flies to China - he does small universe on the flight.

 

Small Universe is also the SFQ meditation that is used to connect people to the "emptiness". So people who practice Zen might say guided meditations are bad - but what they don't know is that people eventually go beyond the visuaizations of small universe - where they connect with the emptiness. So, they get the best of both worlds...Improved health and pure awareness.

 

Chunyi Lin has also said that the small universe is the most powerful meditation that he is aware of.

[Practitioner]

The best advice I can give you is to follow the foundation practice of the sect or cultivation you are interested in integrating with, and do your best to emulate the master that you are trying to be. You should pick one person to be your master and don't stray from him. You can become very advanced in one practice if you make up your mind right now and do not be like some of us here on this forum who jump onto whatever practice or group is the popular thing at the time and then discard it for something else later.

 

Thus, if you want to be like Liping then you should do the foundation Longmen practices and basic techniques that they practice. If you want to be like Lin then you should practice and follow Lin. from my understanding going to a $3000 Liping seminar is not required, when you could easily get in touch with some of his students in whatever country you are living in, and learn the basic foundation techniques for them. I hear that Liping only gives you what he can sense you are ready for in his seminars, so to my understanding if you want to learn the basic stuff you could learn from his students, and then when you have a strong foundation Liping will teach you more advanced stuff.

 

Lin has a very strong reputation as a healer, but you have to understand that not all Taoist practices are the same, nor will they integrate seamlessly with each other. The systems are not the same, and the eventual end products of the systems are not the same. The masters that Lin has learned from are not the same the same masters that Liping has learned from, and to one lineage one technique may be fundamental while to another it would be pointless. You have to stick to one lineage's way and technique of cultivating energy instead of being like a bunch of these folks here who read something in a book and think "I'll practice this technique!" and end up trying to practice 5 or 7 different techniques which have no relation or synergy with each other.

 

Lin's practice is obviously qigong both from the name of his practice and the methods he uses. His system is different from Liping's lineage neigong. The way that the two cultivate energy is different. You will definitely not experience chi in the same way with both of these systems.

 

One thing I will tell you from the practice of neigong is that when a channel opens you will know it immediately, the energy is very strong and the blockages are very palpable. You can read Liping's student's journals and confirm this. I have felt this myself. The way that neigong does this is by building up strong fiery energy in the dantian, and thats something you'll generally also not experience with qigong oriented techniques because they do not focus on sitting long hours focusing on the dantian. Qigong and neigong are different.

 

In short, it comes down to making a choice to stick to a single system. You'll save yourself a lot of time and frustration in the long run this way.

[寒月 Hanyue]

I've been reading various things on Tao Bums concerning microcosmic orbit/small heavenly orbit/small universe and I'm trying to sort things out.

 

Good Luck

 

A summary of some of the aspects surrounding this as my two penneth;

 

Spontaneous Vs Visualisation.

 

Visualisation can refer to various things. And when someone says 'visualise', you don't always know what they mean so be careful. Generally it should be more than simply trying to create a picture of moving qi, which is more mental masterbation than anything else, ie it is fantasy and a mental construct. This is not always what people mean by 'visualisation'.

 

In Chinese the term most often transalated as 'visualisation' is cunxiang 存想.

 

存 to exist / to deposit / to store / to keep / to survive

想 to think / to believe / to suppose / to wish / to want / to miss

 

"Visualise" is either 想像 xiangxiang or 显像 xianxiang

 

想像 to imagine / to conceive of / to visualize / imaginatio

显像 to form a picture / to develop a photo / to visualize

 

So we can at least appreciate that when the Chinese wrote cunxiang they did NOT mean to imagine or form a picture or even a mental construct, which is what often happens when we are told "to visualise" something.

 

Spontaneous

 

Well, there is nothing to say here. It either happens and starts or it does not. There is no explanation needed. Ultimately the 'movement' of qi, or the 'opening' of qimai is a SIDE EFFECT, not the aim of the cultivation practices (you could say this is the difference of 'cultivation' (whether Buddhist/Daoism/Yogic etc) and "Qigong").

 

While I do not have the references handy, what you can see through various historical texts across the board in Daoism that some adhere to the notion of spontaneous (wuwei) and others to a notion of encouraging (yuwei) the opening of qimai and the movement of qi.

 

Given that the older texts do not delineate a 'method', you end up with two conclusions influenced by the two perspectives, though we have to be careful of retrogressively making things fit to our perspective. Either;

 

1) The texts do not give a method (of circulating qi) as there was none, it was spontaneous development from the actual cultivation methods used.

2) The authors only suggested the outcome, and kept the practices to themselves.

 

This 'polarity' of perspectives (and blends of the two) are not only found in Daoism, but Yoga, Buddhism, indigenous animist practices and elsewhere.

 

The methods of engaging with and encouraging qi movement (yunqi 運氣) is a reverse engineered process from the observation of the development that has occured in those that have attained. It is like physiotherapy if used for medical presctiptions, or going to the gym if used to try and 'develop' aspects of qigong.

 

Yet is either physio or going to the gym the same as 'natural' development from simply using your body to its fullest? See something like MovNat as AN example.

 

For years people became obsessed with TRAINING MUSCLES, (because muscles create movement don't they, they do don't they??) and now they have realsied this can have a negative impact upon the body, especially when one does not properly understand HOW to do this to not imbalance the system. Now there is a big movement towards TRAINING MOVEMENT, and making sure the body is not overly specialised in ONE way, but developed in 3 DIMENSIONS across various activities.

 

So what has all this got to do with the 'river chariot'???

 

Training the SHC is the same as going to the gym and training muscles. Does it do something? Of course it does, but do you know what it is doing TO YOU or even WHY you are doing it? (Well its important in qigong, and if I don't open it I won't become Immortal! )

 

The ren and the du are only TWO of the qijing bamai, yet they have become fixated upon. There is a reason the energy body is divided in to the 12 jing and the 8 mai in the Chinese system. Engaging with and working the WHOLE system naturally and developmentally WILL ALWAYS be safer and smarter in my VERY honest opinion.

 

I am not against yunqi, whether for the SHC or any other qi route. However I personally view such things as either a prescription for MEDICAL reasons (think physio) to bring back into balance something. Or as training to develop/strengthen something for LINEAGE/SYSTEM specific reasons (think Olympic lifting for Football players) it is done to develop INTO SOMETHING ELSE. But are you a "Football player"? Get what I mean?

 

In qigong it is usually prescriptive, despite claims of connections to neidan or immortality from what I have seen.

 

So if a system has it, why does it have it? What is it for? and how does it advise it to be used? and for how long? Whether it is prescriptive or method specific it is not meant to be done forever, it should be going somewhere else.

 

I feel that for normal cultivation you should simply enagage with a genuine method that is not forceful and is natural and given that these things open naturally as A SIDE EFFECT, if you want to open them and do so without imbalancing your system simply engage with the practice and keep going.

 

Best,

 

 

The best advice I can give you is to follow the foundation practice of the sect or cultivation you are interested in integrating with, and do your best to emulate the master that you are trying to be.

 

In short, it comes down to making a choice to stick to a single system. You'll save yourself a lot of time and frustration in the long run this way.

 

 

Exactly...

Edited May 19, 2012 by snowmonki

[Chang]

Beautifully put Snowmonki

[Friend]

Brooks,

 

put your winamp/audio equalizer on +8K for each when you listen to the audio.

The Ohm Muah will then start resonate in the LDT. Try to feel the resonance and you find the correct place.

While the track goes on the Ohm Muah will add resonance to the next body area as well. Just put awareness more awarness on the higher place in the Small universe and breath on this area, the other places will still resonate and most strong it is the LDT. The audio is build as far to center mainly in the Lower Dantien and helps the LDT based meditation for this system.

 

When you do white light visualisation... actually you should see light, else there is nothing, and if you see you not need to visualize right? So you only check for the white light and for the time just listen to the audio track. Later just follow the light.

 

Else listen to what others say, especially to Snowmonki.

 

Best,

Q

[Brooks]

Thank you all very much for the detailed replies. I have found all the information here very helpful and informative.

[寒月 Hanyue]

Thank you all very much for the detailed replies. I have found all the information here very helpful and informative.

 

You are most welcome, its what forums should be for. Sharing information and points of view to help others and learn.

 

I want to add that the development of 'Chinese' Energetic anatomy took a long time. There have been many variations and different opinions on the various qi mai (qi channel/vessel). Today we generally only think of the standardised model as it has been handed down to us.

 

It should also be noted that the routes, conception of function, and the way they are engaged with is NOT always the same from Chinese Medicine to Daoist or Buddhist Cultivation schools, nor Qigong (here referring to modern 'qigong'). Each having their own goals and reasons for their methods, they emphasise different qimai as important or beneficial, also emphasising different functions of, different relationships between, and work differently with the qimai.

 

As a quick example, many Chinese doctors will ascribe the appearance of certain phenomena as activity within or activation of a qi mai, that in Daoism would not be conisdered anything. This is becuase what they are looking for and what is important to them in the larger picture of that modality is different. In fact the 'qi' being referred to isn't even the same either, but thats probably the other side to this xiao zhou tian coin.

 

This is why I use a physical analogy. Even with something more 'tangible' such as the body we can find a plethora of perspectives over what is "natural" both in function and in structure. As I learned the hard way, the body (as concept, not just as a physical thing) is a very fluid and adaptive thing and is not as fixed or rigid or 'objective' as it may first appear. If there exists this much variation with something as tangible as the physcial body, what happens when we get to the etheric or energy body?

 

To consider it is fixed and does not respond to the way that we conceptualise and engage with it is a grave error I feel.

 

Best,

[寒月 Hanyue]

Beautifully put Snowmonki

 

Thank you for the generously kind words.

 

All the best,

[寒月 Hanyue]

Brooks,

 

put your winamp/audio equalizer on +8K for each when you listen to the audio.

The Ohm Muah will then start resonate in the LDT. Try to feel the resonance and you find the correct place.

While the track goes on the Ohm Muah will add resonance to the next body area as well. Just put awareness more awarness on the higher place in the Small universe and breath on this area, the other places will still resonate and most strong it is the LDT. The audio is build as far to center mainly in the Lower Dantien and helps the LDT based meditation for this system.

 

When you do white light visualisation... actually you should see light, else there is nothing, and if you see you not need to visualize right? So you only check for the white light and for the time just listen to the audio track. Later just follow the light.

 

Else listen to what others say, especially to Snowmonki.

 

Best,

Q

 

Interesting point about using the resonance of the track regarding the LDT. I don't have or use it. But I know sound can be used to do some interesting things haha.

 

Best,

[Friend]

Interesting point about using the resonance of the track regarding the LDT. I don't have or use it. But I know sound can be used to do some interesting things haha.

 

Best,

 

So let me share some more with a warning:

The Ohm Muah should be only use for the Small Universe eventually while other exercise of SFQ. Because the chant cause Ohm to expand a little and Muah to contract a little of the specific Qi that is there. (One do not need activly listening)

 

So if you try to use it for example for Longmen Pai or Stillness Movement practise then it would not work well as it resonates with different Qi.

 

As well it works on LDT it do not touch the energy of this two lineages.

 

For other LDT based track I can say that the Audio from Jenny Lambs Voice do resonate with LDT when one do the 8k Equalizer- as well the "Golden Orb" by Tom Kenyon.

 

Best,

Q

[thelerner]

The best advice I can give you is to follow the foundation practice of the sect or cultivation you are interested in integrating with, and do your best to emulate the master that you are trying to be. You should pick one person to be your master and don't stray from him.

 

Lin has a very strong reputation as a healer, but you have to understand that not all Taoist practices are the same, nor will they integrate seamlessly with each other.

Which Lin are you discussing? Aiwei?

 

Thanks.

[exorcist_1699]

Most major Taoist writings view visualizating something as trivial sideways(旁門) that should not be advocated . The resaon is simple , its drawbacks outweigh its benefits.

 

Slightly paying attention to our dantian can be the initial step, then follow the 3-step of forgetting formula : Forgetting the body so as to noursih the qi, forgetting qi so as to nourish shen, forgetting shen so as to nourish emptiness ("忘形以養氣, 忘氣以養神, 忘神以養虛 ")

[exorcist_1699]

deleted.

Edited May 21, 2012 by exorcist_1699

[寒月 Hanyue]

So let me share some more with a warning:

 

So if you try to use it for example for Longmen Pai or Stillness Movement practise then it would not work well as it resonates with different Qi.

 

As well it works on LDT it do not touch the energy of this two lineages.

 

I don't plan on adding anything to SMneigong, no need

 

I just found your comments about the mantra specifically resonating the LDT intersting

 

Best,

[Friend]

I don't plan on adding anything to SMneigong, no need

 

I just found your comments about the mantra specifically resonating the LDT intersting

 

Best,

 

I add this as "other" people might want test around, and this is a finger point

to watch out. Well SFQ Qi is a sort that build up fast and seem to use up by motion,

I feel when I use the song it build up Qi in a specific part of the LDT and gets bigger.

Actually having this acess to this Qi is pretty handy for work but it is different than SM Qi.

 

Best,