On turning the light of awareness around

[Songtsan]

So is the turning of the light around taking the activating, outgoing energies of the body, (the energy which produces efferent activity), and turning them back to the source of the energy expression? Does it also involve utilizing the afferent signal processes? Can one store or somehow alchemically change the energy that comes in through the sense gates?

 

Where is this source (if anywhere), or where should one focus those energies...

 

What happens to this energy? How does it accumulate? Where/how is it stored?

 

How does this lead to immortality in a way different from simply being reborn again unconsciously.

 

Does it somehow trap a program or matrix of tendencies in a way in which one will never forget ones Way again?

 

I am asking from a beginner mind state, but would like explanations in left brained analytical vs. twilight language...

 

Thanks friends

[Wells]

.

Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[Songtsan]

The "light" is the energy of your awareness / consciousness.

 

 

The source of your awareness is in your heart.

 

 

The source of your conscious energy is the bindu (sphere, drop) in your heart. This total potential of your awareness energy ("clear light") is subconscious to your conscious personality. It most likely never runs out of energy and gets it from the universal emptiness.

This energy shines upward from your heart into your head and forms the bindu of the awareness of your conscious personality there.

The energy flows from there to your eyes (and most likel to a smaller degree to all parts of your body) and then possibly outwards.

You turn the energy stream around from your eyes backwards.

The energy is then most likely stored in the bindu in the center of your head.

As the power of your conscious awareness increases, you will be able to direct the energy of your awareness from the bindu in your head downwards to the bindu in your heart to establish a conscious back connection.

 

 

End result of the process described above:

1) Enlightenment .

2) the energy of the bindu in your heart streams to a much larger degree into your head and from there it showers down as "golden rain" and fills up your whole being, transforming even the matter of your physical body into light.

 

 

All your karmic structures will be dissolved into clear light.

Your being will be released from any matrix.

 

 

No problem.

 

 

My pleasure, friend.

 

You are my hero.

 

I'm curious why the energy pouring out of the eyes takes center stage in the method, whereas there are other awarenesses that seem of equal intensity.

 

Should one not focus on contracting the energies of all awareness paths backwards at once?

 

Why the focus on eyes?

Edited September 22, 2014 by Songtsan

[Wells]

.

Edited October 29, 2014 by ZOOM

[Bearded Dragon]

One wouldn't want to fathom how many people have gone cross-eyed or caused eye strain by not understanding this.

 

Turning the light around is setting up the conditions for awareness of awareness. The light is awareness and the source is awareness. How do you become aware of awareness? By chipping away everything else. Whatever process. It doesn't matter as long as you aren't creating more fixations.

 

If you want to do something with the eyes just practice letting the images come to you without looking out for them. Same thing with the other senses. This helps with the process because you feel like you aren't really doing anything (not so much anyway) and your focus can be moreso on awareness.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

The first and most obvious side of it is reverting the awareness to stability in inner virtue. When drawn by beautiful forms, startling sounds, etc., one can lose awareness of the inner stability of virtue in favour of other desirable things.

[子泰]

[joeblast]

the fragrances came after I was able to switch the resonant mode of the olfactory nerves. now they just randomly pop in, a million different smells, what are they but a resonance anyway, its like that whiff you get when driving by an orchard this time of year. except the database it draws from is every smell I have ever smelled (but thankfully the bad smells I have smelled dont come also, though I'll get weird ones every so often, like leather or the smell of graphite. but most often it is more pleasant things like jasmine, honey, citrus...)

 

physical stuff is precursor to the awareness game, the awareness aspect is easier when imbued with the habit energy of having conquered the physical processes.

 

lol, there went a rose

Edited September 22, 2014 by joeblast

[Songtsan]

the fragrances came after I was able to switch the resonant mode of the olfactory nerves. now they just randomly pop in, a million different smells, what are they but a resonance anyway, its like that whiff you get when driving by an orchard this time of year. except the database it draws from is every smell I have ever smelled (but thankfully the bad smells I have smelled dont come also, though I'll get weird ones every so often, like leather or the smell of graphite. but most often it is more pleasant things like jasmine, honey, citrus...)

 

physical stuff is precursor to the awareness game, the awareness aspect is easier when imbued with the habit energy of having conquered the physical processes.

 

lol, there went a rose

 

Interesting!

 

It seems that the architecture already contains all things - pleasures and hells and whatnot...

 

I am getting great feedback here...how I love hearing all the angles.

 

Do you think that focusing on specific areas bit by bit, track by track, gives you the ability to map out and directly connect to the various subtle 'tattvas' (using that word generically) and spark them at will? This is side-tracking of course...

 

I already have enough good info for a long while

[joeblast]

Interesting!

 

Do you think that focusing on specific areas bit by bit, track by track, gives you the ability to map out and directly connect to the various subtle 'tattvas' (using that word generically) and spark them at will? This is side-tracking of course...

 

I already have enough good info for a long while

In a sense, this is what you are doing with dantien breathing ( or any energy center breathing, niwan, taiji pole, whatever) but also, the myriad little physical refinements.

 

It is advantageous to examine the issue from many vantage points as one lives his practice, but always returning to the very basic fundamentals often.

 

This method of turning the light around didnt mean much to me until the experience came - copious amounts of anapanasati, to the point where all physical-ness has disappeared...(maybe I get too far ahead in going straight there, because you will learn and experience much just by getting there) ...but until there is a good measure of noise attenuation from all the anapana work, the signal to noise ratio of the dantien still has refinement to make.

 

With diligent effort, the light comes at the dantien. Fixing my awareness at the niwan prior to that was not what I know as turning the light around these days. But with more work, the light at the dantien, with some focus at the niwan, passes the flame from one to the other... at which point, turning the light around had an entirely new depth of meaning.

 

The way to solidly get there is via rote practice, diligent, consistent effort - for then, the habit energy will shine forth, making a lot of these other aspects something that just naturally happens without attention paid to it.

 

The deepest depths of my practices have always coincided with times I have been diligent in my efforts and amassed strong habit energy - cant stress that point enough.

 

Live your practices.

[Songtsan]

In a sense, this is what you are doing with dantien breathing ( or any energy center breathing, niwan, taiji pole, whatever) but also, the myriad little physical refinements.

 

 

The deepest depths of my practices have always coincided with times I have been diligent in my efforts and amassed strong habit energy - cant stress that point enough.

....

Live your practices.

 

So would you recommend specifically focusing on the Niwan to start with? I have mainly been looking here and feeling the sense of being 'sucked back' into it. If you had to do it all over again, how exactly would you have started?

 

I haven't been very stable in my intentions - sometimes trying to start at dantien and go into the orbit as per traditional Mantak Chia style MCO methods, other times doing Niwan.

 

Honestly I am all over the place creating no real foundation as far as habit-building...playing games with my energy body essentially..

 

As far as anapanasati, I find I can feel the breath anywhere in the body, so I would like to fix myself somewhere outside of the traditional breath pathways involving nose, chest, diaphragm, etc.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Songtsan

[Songtsan]

Also, as far as carrying on the work while out and about, does reversing the light while doing daily activities resemble dissociation? Some days I feel involuted, as if life is a dream, and I feel a real intense inner presence, as if I am feeding the universe back into my self. My body seems to operate as if from a distance, including social interactions. I have a sense as if I am breathing in Reality, or the Universe, and eating it, directing its energies into my being.

 

I understand that everything that is perceived is actually already within the mind, and not really outside at all.

 

I am wondering about the motor cortex and pre motor cortex and how what we give our energies to creates new growth within the brain...does turning the light around create new growth within the reflexive center itself, as well as the source of consciousness within the heart.

 

I am thinking that it would be useful to study the formation of the human embryo from zygote and seeing what develops first, and then perhaps extrapolating from this the pathways of evolution. The term 'Source progenitor' has always enthralled me...I need to look more into that.

 

I want to know these things both directly and indirectly (analytic/theoretic)...

 

Relaxation seems paramount.

 

The opposing force - doing - sending energy outwards is about trying to change the universe. Here is the exhaustion.

 

It seems that by entering fully into presence, true relaxation, and allowing the universe to change ones own self instead, is how growth and rebirth occurs.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Songtsan

[joeblast]

 

So would you recommend specifically focusing on the Niwan to start with? I have mainly been looking here and feeling the sense of being 'sucked back' into it. If you had to do it all over again, how exactly would you have started?

 

I haven't been very stable in my intentions - sometimes trying to start at dantien and go into the orbit as per traditional Mantak Chia style MCO methods, other times doing Niwan.

 

Honestly I am all over the place creating no real foundation as far as habit-building...playing games with my energy body essentially..

 

As far as anapanasati, I find I can feel the breath anywhere in the body, so I would like to fix myself somewhere outside of the traditional breath pathways involving nose, chest, diaphragm, etc.

Well, its not the first technique mentioned in Taoist Yoga for no reason

 

If I had to do it all over again... oh man there are just too many twists and turns in my road to even think about such a thing. So I can port that question into how I teach others this stuff, and for starters, just huge huge emphasis on cultivating smooth coherent breath mechanics, good focus, unperturbed mindstate, diligent practice to build sufficient habit energy. Like Lin said to me once, get the fundamentals down well and you're like a kid at a candy store in terms of what you want or can practice, what flavor fancies you?

 

Nothing wrong with cultivating many different techniques. In my experience, it is like going to the hardware store and amassing a set of tools for some jobs that you will do. Cultivate and realize the fruits of a given practice, then the tool is in your bag. Some tools are used for every single job (i.e. fundamentals) whereas some tools are only rarely used, yet they're such a specialty item so as to be indispensable for its given task.

 

Some tools are proper to initiate a session - anapanasati is a great one to set the stage with, but rarely is it the entire meal - once settled, what then? Set some blocks of practice aside to cultivate a certain thing, and focus mainly on that one thing only, until you get it very well and consider yourself adept at the technique. So the fundamental techniques of breath mechanics and such... when you've really put the time into having mastered it, the gong carries forth in so many different ways, it is amazing. Once I understood the ingredients and how to put that all together, I spent like 3 months straight trying to execute a perfect breath for my state - discovering in the process how much lower dantien breathing adds to the amassing of energy, discovering how much more quickly the phenomena came when turning the light around at the niwan was effectively employed. All of that practice still carries forth to this day when I sit.

 

What the niwan focus does is arrest the energypotential that reaches out into the senses. These inputs, neural excitations, form the basis for thought-form-energy. Doing upper dantien breathing trains this path, ostensibly, a new path of least resistance for certain residual energy to flow toward. The calm, clear mind that results from these practices *IS* the practitioner having trained a better path of least resistance - so what happens is, that path of turning the light around, with a little intention, becomes the default path to follow - and the threshold energy for manifestation of thought-form-energy does not get reached. (This of course does not prevent one from using the thought apparatus, what it does is makes it very easy for just a bit of intention to alter that path of least resistance.)

 

With that energy conserved, your energybalance equation just got more efficient. Its why the phenomena come much faster as opposed to not using it. First immersion or two, did not really "have it"....third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth...well, let me put it this way, things that used to happen at a ~55 second breath would now happen at 35, 40 second breath.

 

Ah, zygote development....what's the first bits that form in the proto brain?? OLFACTORY NERVE!!!

[Songtsan]

I told my therapist about this thread, he has a strong Zen background (I lucked out in finding him), and he referred me to this koan:

 

Ummon’s ‘Everyone Has Their Own Light’

 

Engo's introduction

 

Controlling the world, he allows not the least speck of dust to escape. He

cuts off the deluded stream of thought,

leaving not a drop behind. If you open your mouth, you

are mistaken. If you remain silent, you have missed the way. Tell me, what is the eye that

has pierced the barriers?

 

Case:

 

Ummon spoke to his assembly and said, “Everybody has his own light. If he tries

to see it, everything is darkness. What is this light?” Later, he answered his own question. “The halls and the front gate.” And again, he said, “Even a good thing is not as good as nothing”

 

Setcho's verse:

 

It illuminates itself,

Absolutely bright.

He gives a clue to the secret.

Flowers have fallen, trees give no shade;

Who does not see, if he looks?

Seeing is nonseeing. Nonseeing is seeing.

Facing backward on the ox,

He rides into the Buddha hall.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Songtsan

[Songtsan]

Well, its not the first technique mentioned in Taoist Yoga for no reason

 

If I had to do it all over again... oh man there are just too many twists and turns in my road to even think about such a thing. So I can port that question into how I teach others this stuff, and for starters, just huge huge emphasis on cultivating smooth coherent breath mechanics, good focus, unperturbed mindstate, diligent practice to build sufficient habit energy. Like Lin said to me once, get the fundamentals down well and you're like a kid at a candy store in terms of what you want or can practice, what flavor fancies you?

 

Nothing wrong with cultivating many different techniques. In my experience, it is like going to the hardware store and amassing a set of tools for some jobs that you will do. Cultivate and realize the fruits of a given practice, then the tool is in your bag. Some tools are used for every single job (i.e. fundamentals) whereas some tools are only rarely used, yet they're such a specialty item so as to be indispensable for its given task.

 

Some tools are proper to initiate a session - anapanasati is a great one to set the stage with, but rarely is it the entire meal - once settled, what then? Set some blocks of practice aside to cultivate a certain thing, and focus mainly on that one thing only, until you get it very well and consider yourself adept at the technique. So the fundamental techniques of breath mechanics and such... when you've really put the time into having mastered it, the gong carries forth in so many different ways, it is amazing. Once I understood the ingredients and how to put that all together, I spent like 3 months straight trying to execute a perfect breath for my state - discovering in the process how much lower dantien breathing adds to the amassing of energy, discovering how much more quickly the phenomena came when turning the light around at the niwan was effectively employed. All of that practice still carries forth to this day when I sit.

 

What the niwan focus does is arrest the energypotential that reaches out into the senses. These inputs, neural excitations, form the basis for thought-form-energy. Doing upper dantien breathing trains this path, ostensibly, a new path of least resistance for certain residual energy to flow toward. The calm, clear mind that results from these practices *IS* the practitioner having trained a better path of least resistance - so what happens is, that path of turning the light around, with a little intention, becomes the default path to follow - and the threshold energy for manifestation of thought-form-energy does not get reached. (This of course does not prevent one from using the thought apparatus, what it does is makes it very easy for just a bit of intention to alter that path of least resistance.)

 

With that energy conserved, your energybalance equation just got more efficient. Its why the phenomena come much faster as opposed to not using it. First immersion or two, did not really "have it"....third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth...well, let me put it this way, things that used to happen at a ~55 second breath would now happen at 35, 40 second breath.

 

Ah, zygote development....what's the first bits that form in the proto brain?? OLFACTORY NERVE!!!

 

I really appreciate all the effort you put into this...hearing it described this way helps me greatly..

 

I am wondering whether the heart part of the nervous system forms before the brainstem, etc...haven't had time to do any research, I am having great stress with interpersonal affairs...

 

enteric nervous system also - which nervous system comes first?

 

I will have to find out - it may or may not be useful.....

Edited September 24, 2014 by Songtsan

[joeblast]

If you want to find out how useful it is or not, put it into practice. Got use? Useful Doesnt really apply to practice? Might only be conveying tangential information - but that might also be useful, too

[Songtsan]

I think that having a map helps, but of course one must go into the territory to make use of the map.

 

I am doing this now: relax fully, watch breathing happen without my interference- it generally tunes itself it seems...then once I hit this Shamatha, I start trying to find out where the thoughts originate...I do this for a while with interesting results. Then I spend the last third trying to track backwards to find where the awareness that sees all this stuff is...

[Songtsan]

Ok...updated method:

 

Full relax, undoing all gross (mostly muscle) efferent activity

Observe breath, allow it to tune itself..do not proceed until its smoothed

Attain physical calm abiding

Look to thoughts, find origins, detached and equanimous

Track to underlying feeling state...observe locations in body

Follow it further to the emotional, physiological response in the body

Look for deeper levels of calm abiding in this way

When the calm abiding seems to be firmly in place in the physical, mental, emotional realms, then I proceed to turn awareness back into itself