Warning - stay out of your head

[astralc]

A taoist (or any energy teacher) is responsible for the welfare and safety of their students. As a master of their own chi they have the skills and knowledge to bring a student to an awareness of their own energy body. I think it is important for us all, particularly those new at chi work, to consider how one learns to move chi through their physical, mental and spiritual / energy bodies.

 

Traditionally, the master would start their student to practice 'being in the body'. This is done through physical exercise, cut wood draw water, tai chi, dao yin, kung fu, walking, jogging, weights, etc. Then they would define what the movements are actually training, feel the chi moving thru your arms, legs, the change in weight and chi flow with each foot movement, etc.

 

They then introduce meditation, focused forms that allow the student to learn how to focus their mind, and then, slowly, their breath. Learning 'deep state' meditation is an important step in this process. It gets the student in touch with their physical body until, in a deep state, they can much easier feel their chi body. One simple technique for this is 'progressive relaxation'.

 

Another technique is breath work, training the breath to slow, to deepen, to move the breath into the dan tien, to feel the chi stir with the breath, and to then flow it out through the feet. Breathing the 1 minute breath, 30 seconds in and 30 seconds out in no mean feat which, by itself, can develop an extraordinary clarity of mind and speed spiritual growth.

 

At this stage the novice is learning to switch from body movement to breath movement then to chi movement, this is the critical time to train safe chi techniques.

 

The master will direct the student to practice moving chi from the dan tien to the soles of the feet and into the ground, for months, if not years. They would not allow any other chi exercise to be practiced. Each day the master would test the student's ability to stay grounded, pushing them at the hips from all angles to ensure that they could stay grounded thru their a powerful chi connection to the earth thru their feet. Then the master would direct them to earth while pushing on their shoulders, to strengthen their torso as well.

 

The master would then direct the student to move chi to their shoulders only, then to the elbows and finally the hands. This process is slow and deliberate. The master does not allow the novice to move chi anywhere else. This is for a very good reason, it is to train the chi pathways necessary to regulate for excess chi flow in the body.

 

The Micro Cosmic Orbit is a common practice in chi kung and tai chi, sometimes it can lead to congestion if done incorrectly. By moving chi on the surface of the skin or about 3" - 4" out from the body can reduce any side effects for students. I like to 'drain' chi into the dan tien using this practice, its a nice way to flow between the 2 exercises, dan tien breathing and MCO.

 

If the novice becomes too congested in any body organ or meridian, the pathways to the dan tien, the feet, and the hands, is already developed and congestion is easily dissipated out and away, safely. This is a safety mechanism, if at anytime congestion occurs due to poor posture, injury, poor diet, or organ failure. Its a safety mechanism for congestion of chi anywhere in the body.

 

When chi moves it stimulates the nerves themselves. Nerves travel along pathways like electric wires, and by forcefully pushing chi along these pathways the nerves become stimulated. Chi has been said to be 'nerve energy', chi and nerves are buddies, best friends, they associate with each other comfortably. You cannot have chi without nerves to feel it.

 

I work with people who have too much chi in their heads, this congestion leads to anxiety, headaches, migraines, panic attacks, delusions, paranoia, dissociation, dizziness, loss of body sensation, tingling of the scalp, sore spots on the head itself, racing thoughts, negative thoughts, restless sleep, disturbed sleep, waking several times at night in panic, nightmares, night terrors, etc.

 

Westerners live too much in their heads, when you consider that most of us work on a computer in a building all day then go home and live inside our house watching TV and playing playstation, we never get out of our heads. We are 'head heavy' and if we have a tendency to worry, to stress we can easily become too congested in our heads.

 

What I do professionally about this can go into another thread, but what I am trying to pass on here is that congested chi in the head is dangerous. As taoists many of us want to astral travel, to OOB, to move energy in fascinating ways like we read on the forum and in books and see on Youtube. But many of us are still novices, and these advanced chi techniques are actually very dangerous.

 

Any exercise that draws chi into the head is dangerous unless your physical, mental and energy body is ready for it. And that is only after years of hard and diligent work building a safety mechanism into your practice. Training each day to centre at the dan tien, to earth out thru the feet and to be able to push chi out thru the hands and of course the Micro Cosmic Orbit. This is 'safe practice', and unless you can do all three in your sleep you should stay away from any practice that moves chi into your head.

 

Below is the DSM VI, the diagnostic manual for psychological disorders used by psychologists to diagnose mental disorders, it is the 'Bible' for all psychologists. It has a section for Chi Kung disorders, Qi-gong Psychotic Reaction, which is also known as Kundalini Syndrome.

 

Links:

 

http://psychscoop.wo...hotic-reaction/ - personal experience

 

http://www.thehumani...MaryGarden.html - personal experience and article

 

http://en.wikipedia....dalini_Syndrome

 

http://homepage.mac....cbs_qigong.html

Edited June 9, 2012 by astralc

[Birch]

Good to read your contributions Astralc:-) May I permit that they also have a bit of the 'too rapid' in them? Don't get me wrong, I think what you're saying is spot on:-)

 

I guess also maybe timely

 

Where do you teach out of?

[astralc]

Good to read your contributions Astralc:-) May I permit that they also have a bit of the 'too rapid' in them? Don't get me wrong, I think what you're saying is spot on:-)

 

I guess also maybe timely

 

Where do you teach out of?

 

Hi K, I worry about those students who rush into the advanced techniques and get burnt.

 

I don't teach any more, at this stage of my life I realise that there is still way too much for me to learn about myself and my relationship with the tao

[Jetsun]

Your conclusions pretty much match my own, the modern mans sense of gravity is too high up in the head probably due largely to our modern lifestyles and culture, in previous cultures people would do a lot more physical work like farm work and just basic things like collecting water and building things with our hands which naturally brought people down to the earth a bit more, but that is no longer the case. So the question is whether the spiritual techniques designed for those more grounded people are useful or even applicable for modern people, certainly the first thing most of us need to do is to come down to our bodies somehow.

 

This is what Gurdjieff realised when teaching his students, he went to Tibet and learned a lot of advanced meditation techniques but he found that they were not suited for many of his western students because they were too cut off from their bodies so he would prescribe body sensing exercises as preperation with "I Am" sensing so people could sense where their sense of "I" is usually located in their body and bring it down, he would say that most of us have greatly advanced mind development now but our emotional development is stuck usually at about 15 years old or younger so all work needs to begin with coming back to your body and emotions and away from the head otherwise you develop in an unbalanced way .

Edited June 10, 2012 by Jetsun

[astralc]

Your conclusions pretty much match my own, the modern mans sense of gravity is too high up in the head probably due largely to our modern lifestyles and culture, in previous cultures people would do a lot more physical work like farm work and just basic things like collecting water and building things with our hands which naturally brought people down to the earth a bit more, but that is no longer the case. So the question is whether the spiritual techniques designed for those more grounded people are useful or even applicable for modern people, certainly the first thing most of us need to do is to come down to our bodies somehow.

 

This is what Gurdjieff realised when teaching his students, he went to Tibet and learned a lot of advanced meditation techniques but he found that they were not suited for many of his western students because they were too cut off from their bodies so he would prescribe body sensing exercises as preperation with "I Am" sensing so people could sense where their sense of "I" is usually located in their body and bring it down, he would say that most of us have greatly advanced mind development now but our emotional development is stuck usually at about 15 years old or younger so all work needs to begin with coming back to your body and emotions and away from the head otherwise you develop in an unbalanced way .

 

Jetson, thats an awesome post, thanks. I agree wholeheartedly about being in the body more, spiritual practices from the East tend to push the energy upwards for greater conscious awareness. This is fine for people who spend their day outside in nature, in their physical body, working physically, lifting, cleaning, scrubbing, hoeing, planting, digging, carrying, chopping... but for us Westerners who spend our day inside our heads sitting down inside a building cut off from nature, thinking, talking, typing, planning, organising, etc. we are already in our head, we have great conscious awareness already.

 

Westerners, however, have little physical awareness, just look at our obesity problem. Something as simple as looking into the distance, as opposed to looking at a wall 10 feet in front of you, makes a difference. Long distance vision encourages the brain to produce slow wave activity, mostly alpha. Alpha brainwaves are called 'the resting state of the brain', they put us into a calm, thought-free state. Looking at things close-up encourages the brain to produce beta brainwaves, these are fast brainwaves and encourage faster processing of information and can lead to anxiety and worry, racing thoughts and difficulty in stopping thoughts when trying to sleep.

 

By going outside and getting in touch with nature we can slow our mind, just looking into the distance is calming. Traditional cultures living with nature are naturally more settled, calmer and have fewer mental health problems. But go to any western country where people rarely leave their houses we find much higher rates of mental health problems, suicide, etc.

 

Doing tai chi outside or with a view of nature is always going to be better for our health than doing it inside staring at a wall.

 

Nature rules