Brain Meditation

[Trunk]

Latest essay, Brain Massage Meditation: re-claiming visual chi.

Not linked up with my site yet. Wanted to fly it by you guys, give it a whirl if you like.

 

-- later edit --

It's a short essay, straight to the method. But think "brain massage", and consider that our (certainly my) Taoist background has largely neglected the brain in favor of the five elements, LTT, and energetics. (Contrast that with the western medical view of the brain.) I suggest that you try the method, even if you don't have eye issues, and you might be happily surprised by your brain. There's lots lots more that can be said (and www-researched) about all this. I'm in post-essay-frazzled-mode, so I leave it to you guys.

[hagar]

Latest essay, Brain Meditation: re-claiming visual chi.

Not linked up with my site yet. Wanted to fly it by you guys, give it a whirl if you like.

 

Nice T!

 

I enjoy the way the site is evolving. This is taking the practice-oriented approach to your work many steps further towards more every-day situations that in my opinion contain the seed of true practice.

 

In relation to the vizualisations you describe, I really like the use of pictures. I will give it a try.

 

One question though: Why have you not mentioned the overall importance of collecting the Shen that is lost through vizual stimulation and dispersal of awareness through the senses, especially the eyes.

I always start my meditation and qigong routine with "collecting the Shen". What is the connection in your view btw the Yi and Shen?

[Yoda]

Nice... I hadn't considered anything along those lines before. Good to be aware of.

[Ian]

Latest essay, Brain Meditation: re-claiming visual chi.

Not linked up with my site yet. Wanted to fly it by you guys, give it a whirl if you like.

 

 

Yes, it's a HUGE ISSUE, especially for me! I have enormous residual tension in and around the eyes.

 

Generally my approach is not to use attention so high up, lest it compound the problem, but to stay at the feet and trust it all to settle. But just to be aware of the outside the body aspect is really useful.

 

BTW, this essay raises the question of the bases of the senses. This is something I've only heard about from one teacher. (but what a teacher!)

 

Apparently there is a place/aspect of energy whiuch enables each sense. Lacking this, no sensory function, even if the organs of sense are perfectly formed.

 

These places/functions have a very fine, light feeling which I've only been able to reach when guided in person.

For location, they are just in from the physical organs of sense, i.e. behind the eyeballs, inside of the ears, base of the tongue.

 

Check 'em out if you can!!

[thelerner]

Two thoughts. There is a gentle sun gazing meditation. Gentle because its done with the face towards the sun, but eyes closed. You feel the sun rays entering through the eyes, filling them, then coming through to the brain filling it with light. Then flowing down the spinal cord. (I think its from Chei Nei Tsang collection). Chia has some similar meditations. Feeling the suns light transcribing into its component colors throughout the body.

 

Rawn Clark's Center of Stillness Meditation (bardoncompanion.com) uses visualizations to shut down the senses. Taking each sense and separating it from the body. It includes the thinking mind and emotions as two extra senses. Its nice because it gives you a tool to use when you're not meditating. i.e. too much thinking, let me move my thoughts into a shiny metal sphere and let it circle around me.

 

 

Michael

[QiDr]

This looks like a reworking of Ilchi Lee's "Brain Respiration Qi Gong". This has been very big in Korea for several years and Dr. Lee has been promoting it in the West as Dahn Yoga (as well as some other names).

Dr. Lee approached me when I was at PIHMA wanting to know if we could include his teaching in the curriculum. I passed on it at the time and he later went up to Sedona to open the Dahn Retreat Center.

I practiced it for a while, IMO, it is microcosmic orbit and some others packaged together and presented with a West-med slant.

[Treena]

Wow. Love the visuals of the brain on that page.

 

I've been taught that the eyes are directly connnected with the brain, a total connection into the nervous system. In his book Sacred Mirrors by Alex Grey there is an awesome painting of the nervous system, and there staring out at you from a nest of brain and nerves are the eyeballs.

 

BK actually does/teaches an eye tension release massage, which helps drain tension from the nervous system, so giving relief to the entire body.

 

This is similar, even though entirely based on meditation or energy-work if you will.

[sean]

Cool article and meditation. I also have a lot of tension around my eyes and in my face and neck in general. Not sure if this is related or not but I just started working through the eyeQ program. Claims to teach you to double your reading speed, which is neat, but I am also interested in the other claims around more efficient use of your vision. I often feel like I am using my eyes in a terribly inefficient way. For example I notice sometimes, especially when I am stressed, I am awkwardly shifting from one hard focus to the next hard focus in my environment when it's completely unnecessary because everything I need to see is within my visual field and could be accessed easily with a much softer, open gaze.

 

Sean

[VCraigP]

[Trunk]

Thanks for the feeback, everybody. As always, everyone is in a different place, and it takes a dozen people to get a good view of anything. lol

 

After a week or more I'll probably come back and review & revise, based on general feedback + my own biases. Personally, I'm groovin' on the brain massage part of it + the western-informed brain anatomy that I've (surprisingly) not studied much, all this time. Western anatomy says that those various structures of the brain command the whole body, and it seems (and feels) to me that unharmonized pressures in the brain would throw things off, (especially occasionally by the inevitable pressures of jing gong), and that just being aware of those pressures and of the basic terrain of the brain - and allowing circulation (through whatever method/s, non-method/s) feels like a very good thing. The retrieval of visual chi gave me the boost so that the "brain massage" occured effectively, so - just me - I'm experiencing the eye stuff more as a means to get to the brain work. For those of you with your heads already on straight, this will be a non-issue.

[witch]

I apologize for the newbie ignorance, but does this have anything to do with this?

 

http://www.neilslade.com/art/Brain/chap1.html

[Trunk]

I apologize for the newbie ignorance, but does this have anything to do with this?

 

http://www.neilslade.com/art/Brain/chap1.html

Yes. Here's the rather skimpy brain-links page that I have (not including the new essay that is still in testing-phase). Includes reference to Neil's system. imo, Neil's presentation is rather fixated on one gland and misses over-all brain balance (plus there are other glands in the brain that are related to the endocrine system, pleasure, etc.).

 

AlchemicalTaoism.com is a mix of my own essays, plus archived sort of "greatest hits" from this community compiled over the last 6 yrs +. Though it's way too extensive for a single read, it's a good intro to a lot of what's been going on around here.