rudimentary questions pertaining to scanning, sinking, and dissolving

[imb]

Hello, bums. First, excuse my English. For whatever reason I always choose to write these at the end of the day, when my brain is barely functioning. I'll try and keep this as concise as possible. I had to take a break from meditation for various reasons. Now I've come back to it, I want to focus on the basics for the time being. I hope you'll forgive these, what are probably quite silly questions. Any insight will be much appreciated, even if you can't answer all of the questions. To aid you, at the moment I'm doing 30 mins of Tai Chi a day; probably about 15 mins of Chi Gung as per Master Lam's way of energy; and about 30 mins of meditation, following the line from my nose to my dan tien, and back. I'm following Frantzis's books for the sinking, scanning and the like.

 

1. When scanning, sinking and dissolving, or at least while dissolving, I gather you need to focus in on the energy blockage you come across. So how exactly, do you navigate through your body? It's clear you follow a route downwards, intuitively it seems you would go from one blockage to another at a certain level, and then make your way down to the next. So what exactly, do you do when you reach your arms and legs? If you follow a specific route, let's say you work down the arm, then you're going to leave the torso and other arm out. Do you do one route at a time, or somehow do the entire body as a whole in one downward passage? Are there differences in how you go about it, depending on whether you're sinking, scanning or dissolving?

 

2. And there certain milestones you should reach before proceeding to the next stage? All I have done is scan so far.

 

3. How often should one sink? Should one do it a few times in a session before dissolving, and then perhaps end the session sinking too?

 

4. The more I practice, the more I get the sensation that energetically, the body and the etheric body will merge, the lines between them becoming indistinct. In that case, eventually, when sinking, scanning and dissolving, do I treat them as a whole?

 

5. With regard to the metaphor, ice to water, water to gas. If one focuses in on a block, continually goes behind the energy, wears it down, to the point where it becomes water, does the gas stage happen automatically. Or do you need to expand to the limits of your etheric body using your intent?

 

6. You end at the bottom of your feet for sinking, and below the ground for dissolving and scanning? How does one find the limit? Will it automatically stop at a certain point if you scan downwards?

 

7. Sometimes when I finish meditating I get the sensation of sorrow. Any idea what could be going on?

 

8. I almost forget to ask this. Frantzis talks about sinking being about releasing physically. However I'm at the stage where I can feel quite clearly energetically. I take it you sink energetically?

 

Much obliged. Once again, I'd like to reiterate how helpful and friendly I find the people on this forum.

[寒月 Hanyue]

These are from my experience, for what its worth.

 

Bruce has altered the methodology of getting into the outer dissolving provess over the years as he teaches. Bottom line it isn't fixed in stone. Take the guidelines and practice, then go over the guidelines again, then practice more and repeat.

 

Its all a natural process, your energy bodies want to, we need to allow them. It's different than doing something to them.

 

1. Whole body in one. Consider your body to be in a water barrel, unplug the bottom of the barrel and let the water drain out. The level of the water will drop evenly. Now consider the level of the water to be consistent through the body rather than just around it. Follow? So when you hit the arms you are going down through the arms and torso all at one level together, same with both legs. Scan, sink dissolve the same.

 

You can simply get a feel for the energy body dissolving and then follow the process that outlines the specific gates. Bruce explains the difference bewteen going through the gates like this and then putting it all back together again in his book. You want to dissolve the outside and slowly work deeper over time.

 

2. Follow the book, be aware 1st ed is different to 2nd ed (second edition has more stages to it). You can treat it like layers. Settle in, scan, then sink. Once that is working for you, settle in, scan, sink, dissolve.

 

3. Eventually it is pretty much continuous.

 

4. Good. They are three aspects of a whole, and delineated that way to help people get into it. The scanning allows you to learn to feel and to move the intent-awareness through the bodies, sinking allows the physical and energy body to release and let go, dissolving is a three dimensional energetic expansion allowing the energy body to open and release stuck qi.

 

5. The dissolving process is a natural state of the energy body. You are learning to allow it to occur. The energy body has a natural 'pulse' or rhythm. Intent can help start or initiate.

 

6. To start just use baihui and yongquan, later feel above the head for the energetic boundary and below the feet.

 

7. Freeing up trapped emotions, very common. Be gentle with yourself and do not push the release and put yourself off the practice. If emotions come up, allow and try not to attach or indulge, let them be and take their course.

 

8. "Chen qi dantian", sink qi to dantian. Yes you can 'sink' the physcial or energetic bodies. Sinking means downwards, simply aligning with gravity and releasing superfluous tension (mush easier said than done! ). The downwards flow is the one that helps us release and let go of things. The outer dissolving is the energetic process where the energy body releases outwards to the edges of itself. By allowing the stuck body to expand and dissolve ouutwards you free up the ability to allow qi to sink downwards strongly thereby grouding yourself and so on.

 

Hope this helps,

[imb]

Thank you snowmonki, I wanted to practice a little before I got back to you. I think the important points probably to re-emphasise are not to force things, and to settle in and let things occur naturally, without over-thinking. A few final questions if I may.

 

Back to point 1, I appreciate what you're getting at here, but it still seems like you need to focus in, especially at the dissolving stage, on the block. So how do you reconcile a need for a broad awareness when you travel down, with a more focused awareness when you reach a block. If you focus in, then you're at one specific part of your body, say your torso, and then you lose your awareness of say your arms

 

The sinking is very quick right? One downward flow should take less than a minute say?

 

It seems sometimes when I practice, I get the sensation of a kind of pressure building up, feeling perhaps a little light headed, what's happening inside me becoming noisy, and sweating a little. I break off the practice at this point, because as it's a building sensation, I don't know what point it will reach. Getting these sensations is what stopped me practising last time. I do have some ailments if you will. It seems to be the stomach region, or so the doctor says, in the upper abdomen anyhow, it is sore when pressed, coupled with a lot of belching. I do have a referral for it from my GP. It also seems to obstruct my abdominal breathing a little, it feels constricted and like I can feel a solid object there. I feel it is weakening me significantly as I have also been feeling light headed while doing exercise. Blood pressure and bloods normal. Oh, and also, sometimes that region is drawn to me, and I feel a natural urge to focus on it and dissolve it, even though I probably shouldn't if I haven't yet sunk Any advice?

[寒月 Hanyue]

Thank you snowmonki, I wanted to practice a little before I got back to you.

 

I've always been taught that it's best to seek an understanding through experience and practice, it makes more sense than other peoples words. Then you have something to help you understand the words when you hear them. Glad you are seeking answers in practice, I still forget sometimes hehe

 

Practice, then re-read the relevant parts of the book again. Try to get a feel for the whole, the overall picture of the practice, and then where you are and the step you want to working with.

 

Back to point 1, I appreciate what you're getting at here, but it still seems like you need to focus in, especially at the dissolving stage, on the block. So how do you reconcile a need for a broad awareness when you travel down, with a more focused awareness when you reach a block. If you focus in, then you're at one specific part of your body, say your torso, and then you lose your awareness of say your arms

 

Good question!!

 

There are several aspects to my answer, some are from my direct experience, and so do not necesarrily comply with the process Bruce uses to teach the method.

 

The process outlined by Bruce is not fixed in stone, in that it is a teaching tool. Something to help YOU get into working with the dissolving process.

 

In the first ed;

 

• 
   
  
• Stand and align yourself
  
• Scan the energy body
  
• Qi dissolving process
  
• Opening the energy gates
  

 

In the second ed;

• 
   
  
• Stand and align yourself
  
• Settle in
  
• Sink your qi
  
• Scan the energy body
  
• Qi outer dissolving process
  
• Opening the energy gates
  

 

This process is to learn to slowly scan down the body one 'level' at a time. Consider the body to be a series of stacked levels, a vertical version of Hirst's artistic bent but without the stacks being seperated and held apart

 

 

You will also be working from the outside, and over time dissolving closer and closer to the central channel.

 

As you feel the first level, you feel for any blockages that exist there. If you find one, you allow your intent to settle onto the blockage and wait. The intent pulling the blockage into your conscious feeling-awareness will begin the process of "melting" that blockage. Once you have dissolved that blockage as much as you can, you dissolve the next blockage in that level and so on, until that level is done. You then allow the freed energy to drop into the next level and you feel that level and continue as before. The locations of the 'energy gates' are locations where you want to feel to see if the gate is stuck or open. Placing intent on these can encourage them to open if they are 'blocked' or 'stuck'.

 

Regarding broad to focused attention. The blockages will have a sense of expansion and opening as they naturally dissolve to the edges of the energy body. As they expand allow your awareness to expand with them and become aware of the whole picture again before focussing in on the next blockage.

 

Over time you as you go through each layer you will also be feeling deeper into the body at each layer, and the depth of the layers can become smaller and finer (Bruce talks of millimeter by millimeter). In the same way we begin with groups of vertebrae in the spinal work and then later individual ones.

 

This is the step by step process. I will say here, that I have been informed by more than one student of Bruce's that one of his longer term students opened all the energy gates and dissolved their energy body by simply fully dissolving the gates and energy of their head.

 

Feeling the whole body before doing this process, as well as afterwards will improve the efficacy of the step by step process.

 

Additionally, the energy body has this downwards 'waterfall' flow to it. It is constant. This means the whole energy body has a sense of downwards movement and tapping into and feeling that is different than moving your awareness around on a layer releasing blockages and then moving down a layer. Simply because while you have so much intent on one level, or one blockage at one level, you can actually begin holding the energy up at worst and at best are not encouraging the downward release.

 

What I mean by that is that some seem to forget that just because they are working on one part, that the rest is still dissolving and the energybody is sinking. You have just zoomed your attention in to a part of the overall picture to help it work more deeply in that area or on that blockage.

 

I prefer to tap into the natural downward sense of the energybody as a whole and get some momentum with that. Then I may draw in part of my attention and scan finding blockages and deal with those. This involves a split awareness that is usually taught later. So don't overly complicate things. If you establish a whole-body sense and the overall downward flow first, then allow that to play in the background as you do the step by step it shouldn't be too hard. We all do this split attention thing, listening to music while reading or writing or driving etc.

 

But you don't crash the car because you put more attention on the music!

 

The sinking is very quick right? One downward flow should take less than a minute say?

 

Sinking can be quick, or you can keep sinking, and sinking, and sinking, snd sinking and playing with it.

 

It seems sometimes when I practice, I get the sensation of a kind of pressure building up, feeling perhaps a little light headed, what's happening inside me becoming noisy, and sweating a little. I break off the practice at this point, because as it's a building sensation, I don't know what point it will reach. Getting these sensations is what stopped me practising last time. I do have some ailments if you will. It seems to be the stomach region, or so the doctor says, in the upper abdomen anyhow, it is sore when pressed, coupled with a lot of belching. I do have a referral for it from my GP. It also seems to obstruct my abdominal breathing a little, it feels constricted and like I can feel a solid object there. I feel it is weakening me significantly as I have also been feeling light headed while doing exercise. Blood pressure and bloods normal. Oh, and also, sometimes that region is drawn to me, and I feel a natural urge to focus on it and dissolve it, even though I probably shouldn't if I haven't yet sunk Any advice?

 

I am not a medical doctor, and so will not answer anything directly relating to medical issues.

 

What I will say is that the while the body may be drawing your attention to a place of discomfort, working directly on the area is not always the best way to release or dissolve it. Often the blockage that is holding what you can feel is elsewhere and under our radar. Work on gently dissolving the whole body from the outside downwards, work on letting go of what feels like it will release. Do what is easy first!, as these release and open, the harder blockages will already have been affected and will begin to release and open.

 

It sounds like you may be trying to dissolve too much too quickly.

 

First of all, you should always finish your practice feeling like you could have done more. You also always want to finish this practice at or below the feet.

 

Work on establishing a standing practice of 20-30 minutes before working level by level or getting to working on the gates. Lightly dissolve downwards letting go and allowing the body to sink and settle and open deeper and deeper. Don't rush the scanning downwards, but don't be too slow with it either. Like moving practice you have to find the right speed for you, in that moment. The mind moves faster than qi, qi moves faster than blood and so on.

 

Before the pressure builds to any sense of discomfort, or you get light headed you should brush down and shift to moving practice. Don't force anything. If you do get light headed, brush down from the top of the head, face, neck, torso into dantian. If you can, walk slowly and gently a little with awareness on the soles of your feet. If too light head to walk, sit down brush down again, rock the feet gently onto the balls and then let them drop onto the heel with a little bump. This is not a "how hard can I whack my heels into the floor" thing, you just want to stimulate the heels to draw your qi downwards.

 

Once you can comfortably stand for 20-30 minutes with no issues arising and lightly dissolving, then work on going more deeply into the blockages level by level.

 

Breathing in this zhan zhuang is natural, do not focus upon or worry about the breath in this practice. Practice the longevity breathing separately, either lying down or sitting.

 

Hope this helps,

Edited June 26, 2012 by snowmonki

[imb]

Wow, some excellent advice. I appreciate the time you put into your responses. Again, I need to digest this and practice a little, and as you say, refer to the book again. One thing that sticks out immediately though, I appreciate what you're getting at with the downward layers. But you also talk about starting from the outside and going inwards (starting from the skin say, and going deeper and deeper). Does that apply simply to when you get to the opening the energy gates (I have not studied that chapter in too much detail as I am trying to settle on these three basics), or does that apply to everything? I tend to start at the top of my head at the baihui and don't discriminate how deep into the body I go.

[寒月 Hanyue]

Wow, some excellent advice. I appreciate the time you put into your responses. Again, I need to digest this and practice a little, and as you say, refer to the book again. One thing that sticks out immediately though, I appreciate what you're getting at with the downward layers. But you also talk about starting from the outside and going inwards (starting from the skin say, and going deeper and deeper). Does that apply simply to when you get to the opening the energy gates (I have not studied that chapter in too much detail as I am trying to settle on these three basics), or does that apply to everything? I tend to start at the top of my head at the baihui and don't discriminate how deep into the body I go.

 

You're welcome. It is only my view, read and listen to Bruce's descriptions and those of his senior students. You will get subtle different flavours and nuances.

 

Be aware that this can lead to expectation and even colour your experience in practice. Be open to what you feel at the time of practice regardless of any knowledge of a 'supposed' "process" or "method". Ok

 

Guidelines for practicing standing qigong [pg 76 (1st ed) pg 146 (2nd ed)]

 

2. Dissolve from the skin inward

 

My comment is, do not worry if you are able to feel more deeply into the body without trying at certain levels, or conversly not feel very deeply into the body at other levels. Simply aim to be able to easily feel the whole of the outside, skin etc for that level and dissolve that. If deeper in shows up in places, fine. Bruce's method starts at the skin as we can feel it easily and simply allows our awareness to melt into the body deeper and deeper over time.

 

As a quick comparison, the old Buddhist practice is working with "atthi, mansam, taco" or "bones, flesh, skin" these three 'depths' allow everything imbetween to light up. You can work with them as a whole or with 'scanning'.

 

All the best, and happy practice,

Edited June 26, 2012 by snowmonki

[Benji]

Hey there,

 

I also recently started this practice and had a question or two if you don't mind I am not new to Qi Gong or meditation, but have never before brought such concentrated attention so systematically though my body.

 

I am still working predominantly on my skull and face after about a week of practice but have had some great (though not yet totally stable) results including improvement of my vision and hearing.

 

My question is this: After spending a lot of time around the level of the temples and eyes, I feel like I cannot dissolve the area further (can't seem to get to the gas stage) without moving downward. The tension in the temples and eyes feels obviously connected to the gates of the ears, jaw, and occiput. I suspect that the patterning may go down even further, perhaps all the way through the body. Is this the point of diminishing returns that Bruce speaks of? Should I keep on trucking in the head or explore further down and return to the skull on another sweep somewhere down the line? Asking because I have a tendency to rush it! Thanks,

 

Ben

[Alchemistgeorge]

Thanks Snowmonki for excellent (and long) answers.

 

The only point I'd add is to emphasize that it is - in my experience - about "allowing" - you surround a blockage and allow it to dissolve. You don't do anything to it, you don't "dissolve it."

 

I've found this to be quite mind twisting, but it seems to work (for me) and it seems to result in things releasing at a rate that I can deal with. FWIW I stand and dissolve for about 30 minutes a day.

[Benji]

Thanks both of you. Patience and surrendering the doer is key!

[Jetsun]

Bruce's CD set on the Water Method is quite good, might be worth getting if you are finding the book instructions are not clear.

 

But you have received some excellent advice here. I can only add that it sounds like you may be trying to do too much too quickly, I have heard that it takes weeks to dissolve the most obvious blockages in the head, personally (I am an extreme example and this is no exaggeration) I have been trying to dissolve some of the blocks in my head for many years! and that is considered the first stage! I haven't even made it to the main part of my body yet. The point in the top of your head is open as a baby then closes as you get older so many primal blockages are held there, dissolving that gate is very important.

 

I have personally found the softer you are, the less you try to do the more powerful it is, so the process is opposite to most other things you do in life. I began by trying to dissolve with effort and make things happen, but it only started to work when I stopped my doing and just allowed the process of my attention and breath to do the work, the lighter you do it the better. Snowmonki once told me you use your attention more like caressing your body and blockages with light silk rather than attacking them with an aggressive lazer beam of your attention.