Where is the Tan Tien, is it a physical 'thing' with exact physical location?

[thelerner]

This came up in The Pit. We're talking about the lower dan tien, the hara, belly area.

 

What is it? How physical is it? How physical is the location?

 

In Ki-aikido, my main art, it was a center of focus and balance, it shifted depending on our physical stance. In chi gung descriptions its been in roughly the same spot, an inch or two under the belly button, considered a chakra and/ or storage area. Being energetic I never thought of as physical with an exact physical location.

 

I'd like to find out what others think. What are your thoughts?

[Flolfolil]

recently while storing energy there i have felt a nerve become excited and send pleasurable feelings down to my penis, which then twitches. i can either allow this to happen or i can do the storing more mindfully with intent to keep the nerve calm and just observe it

[hydrogen]

This came up in The Pit. We're talking about the lower dan tien, the hara, belly area.

 

What is it? How physical is it? How physical is the location?

 

In Ki-aikido, my main art, it was a center of focus and balance, it shifted depending on our physical stance. In chi gung descriptions its been in roughly the same spot, an inch or two under the belly button, considered a chakra and/ or storage area. Being energetic I never thought of as physical with an exact physical location.

 

I'd like to find out what others think. What are your thoughts?

 

Can you clarify your question?

 

What do you mean by "physical"?

 

Did electricity "physical" exist before we figure out how to measure it? Did bacteria "physical" exist before we have miscroscope?

[thelerner]

I'd like to leave it open ended. What is the nature and location of the tan tien?

[i am]

From what I have read, it is not a "physical" thing. It's not something I have firsthand knowledge of. But my understanding is that if you cut open your abdomen, you aren't going to find something there you can point to, and say "there, there's my dantien". It's more of an energy center. So...in theory, it's very much there, but it's not something you can point to, like a liver or kidneys.

[cheya]

Hi thelerner,

 

Kind of funny, since I spent a good part of the afternoon reading up on dantien rotation. Then I check out new posts and find yours.

 

Dang if I know where it is! I've only recently started having spontaneous experience of it. The first thing I think to answer is that I experience it in a chi state, which is a different state of consciousness than normal, and the dantien is located in the energy body, which varies.

 

Actually, that sounds familiar, and I realize I read that in Meredith's Juice book, but he was talking about locating the niwan in the head. He says it's not a physical location, but a point in the energetic body, so not to fixate on a specific physical location, as the energetic body and physical body slide around a bit (my words). But now I have the experience when I'm in the chi state, and I don't have the energetic sensation when I'm not in that state, so hard to locate physically. I'll try to switch back and forth fast enough to see if I can locate it in the physical realm, but I got a feeling it's not gonna happen that way. It's a very physical sensation, but not identifyable as a specific location.

 

Curious... In Ki-aikido, did you experience a physical energetic sensation in tantien, or was it more a theoretical thing?

[rene]

thelearner. Aikidoka by chance? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on your topic, when the time is right.

 

[Taomeow]

Everyone please ponder:

 

Is your ability to read and understand what I just wrote physical or not?

 

If it's physical, where exactly is the organ reading this located?

 

If it's physical and has a location (e.g. in your head, though you couldn't use this location in your head without your eyes -- close them for a moment and see that you can't if you don't believe me -- so, is it "also" located in the eyes? so, you need at least two organs for this one function?..),

 

then why doesn't someone who's illiterate have this physical organ?.. Is part of the brain tissue missing, or the eyes refuse to inform the brain "what this means" when looking at printed text, or the eyes inform but the brain ignores the information, or is unable to recognize it? What exactly is different about these organs in someone who didn't learn how to read -- were they born with different organs (eyes and brain) than those who did?

 

If it's a physical organ that creates the ability to read English, why someone schooled in Bulgarian doesn't have this physical organ? Why does he or she have a different organ in the same location, the one that reads Bulgarian?

 

If it's not physical, is your ability to read English metaphysical?

 

If it's metaphysical, what nonphysical phenomena account for its manifestation?

 

[MERCELESS ONE]

this is what i can give to help out all who may have wonderd the question at hand-

 

in the book Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on Taichi Chaun by Chen Man Ching one of his doctor friends called him up and told him that he thought he had found the fabled dantien in multiple cadavers. he said the searching in the area where it was said to be he found a spongy tissue there. and that the membrane of the tissue was thicker in althlets than in normal people. other information that ive read throughout the years was on monks that practiced chi kung/nei kung in the mountains that when they were cremated after death, all that remained was pearl like balls or crystals. observing the anatomy of the body and all the nerves in that part of the body that create part of a feed back loop in the nervous system can hold lots of energy. which is a natural occurance. i.e. when your sexual energy is high. so what ive understood through my practice is that through practice the spongy tissue of what may be a membranus sack of spongy nerve tissue becomes thicker and stronger due to practice of the internal arts. then over some time crystalize, and yes nerves can crystalize, but this is in a controlled manner. other forms are deseases that malform the body and kill. the reason i took this into account is my dealings with piezoelectricity and piezoelectric devices. what this is, is getting electricity from crystals. how does all this apply lol im getting to that. well if my hypothesis is correct then through systems like mo pai, the progression is while developing the dantien, the tissues become thicker and stronger then crystalize i.e. hardening then it can be moved i.e. breaking the cords, then mixing yin and yang, sending it down to the pernium this adds another frequency to the crystal yin and yang frequency. most tests with crystals grown in labs were destroyed when trying to add multiple frequencies to them. only when the structures were made more dense were they able to sustain a second frequency. so what is the dantien lmao you tell me?

[Celestial]

It boggles my mind how people hear things like, "Dan Tian" and "Mud Pill Palace" and automatically assume it's some invisible sacred thing that cannot be located without "feeling" it. Do you guys even realize that all of these words originated centuries ago before modern medicine?

 

Then what makes it worse is they read a book like Magus of Java or Taoist Yoga and they (people who assign levels to gaining power like it's a video game) then copy/paste the information on this forum without doing any further research/discovery on their own.

 

To answer the OP:

 

Dan Tian is located in the center of the small and large intestine. It's often call the Chi Reservoir (or Chi Ocean) because of the 6 layers of fascia/muscle which act as conductors for bio electricity (Chi).

 

Bonus Round: Mud Pill Palace is your Pineal Gland.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Celestial

[Jetsun]

Its the centre of gravity in your body, so in that sense it can be felt as a place

[Rara]

In recent practice, I have been told to, once feeling warmth in that area, to imagine it as a ball of purple light and to bring it out in front of me to see before placing it back. I assume this visualisation exercise is just to help us to focus on the area?

[h.uriahr]

I can't say much on the lower dantian but since coming to Christ I have a ball of heat that sits in my heart/mdt, it's not there all of the time but when I start Praying or Praising God it flares up and leaves me toasty warm. Also, my ability to Love has been increased and intensified to a level that I truly cannot describe. 1 John 4:8 He who loves not knows not God; for God is love.

 

Didn't mean to derail but I believe that the mdt is physically the heart.

[SonOfTheGods]

There's 3 organic capacitors, not mapped on the physical body.

[Flolfolil]

what do you mean by organic

[dwai]

The lower dan tien is a vortex of energy and it spins and moves around, albeit in the vicinity of the navel. It's location, intensity etc varies from person to person. My teacher tells us to think of it like a star, and more so, with practice of arts like taiji chuan it should condense and become more and more densely packed with energy (like a star with it's mass collapsing into itself)...till it can become as tiny a point as it can.

 

Dan tien discussions, imho cannot be valid without experiencing Qi and knowing Qi.

 

In the system that I learn, the dan tien is the seat of Te (as in Tao /Te) and is the Tao at a microcosmic level. When one truly connects with the Te (by refining and strengthening the dan tien), they also truly connect with the Tao.

 

Master Waysun Liao (my teacher's teacher) likens the Te to a radio receiver/transmitter that needs to be tuned to the same frequency as the Tao.

Edited August 24, 2013 by dwai

[SonOfTheGods]

Horizontal or vertical axis?

Clockwise or counter?

The lower dan tien is a vortex of energy and it spins and moves around, albeit in the vicinity of the navel.

Edited August 24, 2013 by SonOfTheGods

[dwai]

Horizontal or vertical axis?

Clockwise or counter?

All directions

[寒月 Hanyue]

What is your hand, or arm?

 

How different are peoples arms? What about their experience of them?

 

I've known labourers, bouncers, martial artists (of various persuasions), farmers, gym rats, all people with 'developed' arms, but all through very different means, some intentional, others not.

 

Why are there various descriptions of 'dantian'? Is it because it is esoteric and so hard to define? No. It is no different than the above. Different people and different 'approaches' will yield different development and different 'experience' of YOU.

 

Explanations and descriptions serve the training of a method, nothing more.

 

I listen to my direct experience, to my teachers, and to the lineage. The latter informs my experience, it doesn't dictate it.

 

I have not seen in print anyone fully discuss dantian as I've had it taught to me. And the 'pop' qigong books are more often than not quite different in their approaches. Yet both Ya Mu's teachings and my classical Chinese medicine teacher pass on remarkably similar explanations, I wonder why that is?

 

Best,

[teknix]

I'm pretty sure it's the urachus. It's where the embryonic stem cells formed a blastula before they began to differentiate, making you. It's sort of where all the atoms in your body started in the womb.

[Iskote]

In my own meditation practice, I experience the lower dan tian as being in the area of the navel, but a bit lower than the navel (viewing the front of the body when a person is upright) and inside a ways. From what I have encountered from different references, various people place it in this general area but the exact location given can vary by an inch or two or so depending on the source.

 

 

The following excerpt from "Opening the Dragon Gate" may shed some light on why this is:

 

Excerpt from "Opening the Dragon Gate", Chapter 7, page 89.

"Taoists regard Earth as a universe, and they regard the human body as a universe. Just as the Earth has longitudinal meridians and latitudinal parallels, the human body also has longitudinal meridians and latitudinal parallels. The question of "acupuncture points" on the Earth's meridians has already been raised; this is in itself a major breakthrough in the domain of theory. The Chinese theory and application of longitudinal meridians in the human body are known to the whole world, but the theory and practice of the latitudes of the human body has long been held secret by Taoists, completely unknown to the world.

 

When we first visited Master Wang Liping, he told us about the existence of the latitudes of the human body. The phenomenon is sure to provoke the interest and attention of people all over the world., and inquiries into the mysteries of the human body should make a major advance.

 

Earth has a central line, which is the equator; the human body also has a central line. Taoists divide the human body into three elixir-producing segments, which are the upper, middle, and lower elixir fields everyone talks about. People who do meditation exercises generally know the lower elixir field is in the lower abdomen, below the naval, but they cannot accurately determine the precise location. Taoist practitioners over the ages have also given many different explanations of this point. The conclusion at which Master Wang Liping has arrived through his own personal experience in training is that the exact location of the lower elixir field in the human body varies according to the geographical location of the individual. In Chinese people, it is between 1.2 and 1.5 inches below the navel; in people who live nearer to the equator, the lower elixir field is closer to the navel; while in people who live farther away from the equator, the lower elixir field is further from the navel. "

Edited August 25, 2013 by Iskote