Regarding Shen and it's natural properties to restore essence - Why would one work so long on the lower regions?

[4bsolute]

Jing everywhere

 

but why?

 

Nobody says you have to work linearly in life other than the conditioned human mind that actually made up all the terms we have all across the globe. The rest of the Universe surely does not care what terms we have for what natural occurences.

 

If the heart restores essence, like it is described in TCM - why not focus directly on the heart on a daily basis?

 

Sooner or later we will realize anyway that the actual transcendance starts really from the heart and upward.

 

Lets face it: What is life without Heart? Empty, grey, dull. Also known as Modern Days.

 

Yes, many of us human individuals have lost to live from their heart center, therefor either wanting or abhorring. But never accepting what is and therefor being beyond the push and pull, unaffected.

 

The true concepts of Yin and Yang balance are understood from the Heart. They are not understood while being in the fight and flight of Yin and Yang mechanics. Nobody understands the maze while being in it.

 

Heart is known for balancing everything in Qigong. Not the heart organ but the quality of the heart: Acceptance, appreciation, love and joy.

 

Even if most of us have experienced mostly conditional love in our lives, cultivating Shen will lead to the understanding that by doing so ones consciousness expands vastly and in return attracts Unconditional Love.

 

What we all seek. The one feeling that is not from this human plain but contains everything we ever wanted: Bliss. Without having to do anything for it other than re-realizing that we are already complete in this very moment.

 

No this does not stop momentum, but like mentioned above, this puts one out of duality and is entirely tranforming ones core of reality. One has ultimate freedom again in creating and not having to react all the time. It removes the limited shell of the ego, completely. Once and for all.

 

I simply cant follow any teaching any longer. I have a deep yearning insight me that wants to drop all conditions and just surrender to the One found in my Heart Center. All of this to find a life changing experience of how interchangable connected we all are, on a deep embracing way.

 

I am sick of wearing armor. Take it, all of it.

 

All the best.

Edited October 10, 2014 by 4bsolute

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Well taken points. You can find support for your ideas here:

 

Chapter I

1 The vital essence of all things:

2 It is this that brings them to life.

3 It generates the five grains below

4 And becomes the constellated stars above.

5 When flowing amid the heavens and the earth

6 We call it ghostly and numinous.

7 When stored within the chests of human beings,

8 We call them sages.

(Roth, Original Tao, Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 46, Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

I suspect that part of the emphasis on the lower dan comes from the marial arts tradition, where both balance and internal power can be matters of life and death.

[Narew]

If the heart restores essence, like it is described in TCM - why not focus directly on the heart on a daily basis?

Like how exactly is it described in TCM in your opinion?

I suspect that part of the emphasis on the lower dan comes from the marial arts tradition, where both balance and internal power can be matters of life and death.

Lower Dan Tien is linked with kidneys, which are considered the most important organ and the root of vitality in TCM.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Narew

[HoldorFold]

From my experience, if you focus above the waist you get all sorts of problems if you dont have the adequate foundation.

 

Try doing Robert Bruces energy stimulation on your heart for a week and notice how messed up you'll get (I dont actually advise this)

 

My rule is no energy work above the belly button (unless its the arms/hands and going down)

[Bearded Dragon]

You can just maintain awareness. It won't take long to realize whether you have the energy to maintain it. This backward approach makes more sense because you actually understand what you're doing and why.

[katsura]

Part of the reason why the lower dan tien is emphasized so much is because when you open kundalini in the higher centers first, it's not as easy to awaken it in the lower centers. The root chakra is our connection to the earth and what keeps us grounded.

[voidisyinyang]

Study the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality"

 

spirit is lost out of the eyes - the fire needs to be put into the water to create the "yang qi."

 

Emptiness is not the same as "fire of the heart" which is spirit lost out through the eyes as "yin qi" energy.

 

"yang shen" creates "yin jing" - it cycles like this - that is how new physical matter is created.

 

The Emptiness is the cycling of the yin-yang complementary opposites.

 

So to create "yang qi" that is what powers the shen energy and to create "yang qi" you first have to fill the lower tan tien with "yin qi."

 

To properly descend the spirit to the lower tan tien then any heart emotion must be over-come - through the Emptiness - beyond love even. that is the great secret.

 

Lots of people emphasize "unconditional love" but on rare occasion the qigong masters reveal that even love must be transcended since it's still an emotion of the heart as over-excitement.

 

What makes it Taoism is the "three treasures" of the three tan tiens as alchemical training.

 

Otherwise the mind is weak on its own just trying to use mind yoga - it does not properly raise up the water (the sea of chi below the lower tan tien).

 

The lower tan tien exists only in potential only if the Emptiness is obtained to both raise the sea of chi and to lower the spirit energy.

 

The real lower tan tien is then the "tai chi" that opens up the third eye to a holographic reality beyond the physical heart and beyond the physical mind/body - when the body is filled with "yin chi" then the "yang qi" kicks in - the secret electromagnetic "large accumulator" of the tai chi - aka nirvakalpa samadhi.

 

What stops this energy of "yang qi" is the loss of uniting the tai chi either through fear of the kidney energy (turning back into water lost yin jing energy) or loss of the shen energy as over-excitement of the heart (false fire of the heart) as yin chi lost.

 

So to really build up the yin chi energy of the lower tan tien and to "keep the fire burning" of the cauldron of the lower tan tien is the foundation of the real qigong training.

 

That's what makes Taoism so different than the Brahmin-based philosophies which still use a dualistic (phonetic) based logic - so that the "three in one" secret of complementary opposites gets lost. People instead get caught up in dualistic paradoxes of the mind - based on nondualism and then a dualistic approach to nondualism, etc. - without ever really fully embracing the three treasures and rejecting the dualistic phonetic-based language trap.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Who said anything about,

 

energy work

?

If that is the direction in which you think I was pointing, you have a long way to go just to get to the beginning.

Study the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality"

Good Advice. Pay particular attention to the first chapter.

[HoldorFold]

Who said anything about, [energy work]

 

 

If that is the direction in which you think I was pointing, you have a long way to go just to get to the beginning.

 

I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy which is why I resonate with Robert Bruce a lot who is of a similar character.

 

If we're talking about opening up the heart center without developing the lower centers in proper proportion then inevitable issues ensue... this is already pretty widely known and I have plenty of experience with this.

 

You and the OP may be discussing something more abstract and theoretical, but when the OP says:

 

If the heart restores essence, like it is described in TCM - why not focus directly on the heart on a daily basis?

 

That sounds like energy center development or however you prefer to call it.

 

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy which is why I resonate with Robert Bruce a lot who is of a similar character.

 

I have a rather more varied diet than this.

 

If we're talking about opening up the heart center without developing the lower centers in proper proportion then inevitable issues ensue... this is already pretty widely known and I have plenty of experience with this. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

If we're talking about opening up the heart center: I'm not talking about opening up the "heart center" at all. The "energy centers" are a borrowing from the Yoga chakra system, they are only one aspect of human esoteric anatomy and in the sense usually used a very limited and restricted one. The use of "energy" as a translation for qi or prana is also not very accurate, especially in the case of qi.

 

I have plenty of experience with this: I have decades of experience, if you want to count my first experiences with pranayama watching Richare Hittleman's "Yoga for Health" on TV, it is over five decades and you have been working with this how long?

 

You and the OP may be discussing something more abstract and theoretical, but when the OP says: (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

There's nothing either abstract or theoretical about it. It is the a tradition of Chinese Meditation that goes back to the Waring States period, the earliest surviving surviving work to express it in any detail is the Neiye, from which I was quoting. The first several chapters in Taoist Yoga can be seen to be related to this work.

 

That sounds like energy center development or however you prefer to call it. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

That sounds like energy center development; It may sound that way to you, but then there is a whole traditional story about a swan being only an ugly duckling. I don't have the time to go into detail why characterizing it this way is wrong, but it begins with the thread title, "Regarding Shen and it's natural properties to restore essence", reducing this to energy work to open a center is to show that you don't have the background or experience to make any meaningful comment.

 

If you wish to ignore what I have said, that's fine, it's your loss not mine. That's all I have to say on this topic.

[BaguaKicksAss]

http://thetaobums.com/topic/843-neiye/

[Narew]

I have plenty of experience with this: I have decades of experience, if you want to count my first experiences with pranayama watching Richare Hittleman's "Yoga for Health" on TV, it is over five decades and you have been working with this how long?

(...)

reducing this to energy work to open a center is to show that you don't have the background or experience to make any meaningful comment.

And it's your "experience" and "background" that made you write the quite IGNORANT sentence below?

 

"I suspect that part of the emphasis on the lower dan comes from the marial arts tradition, where both balance and internal power can be matters of life and death."

 

Five decades of experience, and you have never heard the TCM view about importance of kidneys and how Lower Dan Tien is linked with them? Or is TCM "martial" in your opinion?

[HoldorFold]

... I have decades of experience, if you want to count my first experiences with pranayama watching Richare Hittleman's "Yoga for Health" on TV, it is over five decades and you have been working with this how long?...

 

...reducing this to energy work to open a center is to show that you don't have the background or experience to make any meaningful comment.

 

I didn't intend for this to become a competition between our experience by the way, just merely pointing out that it can be a problem from my own personal experience and from those of others. I respect you have plenty of experience, I'm sure you are very knowledgable in many areas.

 

Saying I don't have any background to make any meaningful comment is a bit of a stretch though. I'm speaking through my experience and many others as well as Robert Bruce who is very experienced with the energy body and it's psycho-spiritual effects.

 

I assume the confusion here is what the OP means by "working on the lower regions / the heart". I'm sure your method is completely valid from your definition of working on a region of the body. Mine, I assure you, is equally valid from my definition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BaguaKicksAss]

I think part of the problem arising here is that we are speaking of two different traditions. Robert Bruce speaks more from a western magick perspective (though he goes much beyond that thankfully), he doesn't go into eastern ways of viewing things and working with energy, compared with the more eastern, qi, martial and TCM ways of viewing things.

 

The east and the west have some vastly different ways of viewing heart centered practices from what I have found. The west is more about bring energy to point b from point a via visualization and mind, and in a more energetic and astral sense. The east tends more towards have qi move to said areas via physical movements, a focus on the area, or postures. The qi is much more dense than energy, the energy worked with in the western traditions. From what I have found. So each system brings about quite different affects in the long run.

 

So when the east and the west talk about heart centered practices, it really is apples and oranges in many cases.

 

Also there is working with the heart center in a middle dantien sense, in an opening up the heart sense (which is what I got from the OP), and in a chackra sense. Each bring about slightly different affects from the focus.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

And it's your "experience" and "background" that made you write the quite IGNORANT sentence below?

 

The statement is not ignorant it is a speculation, as beginning it with "I suspect" should indicate, nor it ignorant it is the result of some thinking that I did in the mid 1980s reflecting on the teachings of Mantaka Chia and also some early works of Jerry Alan Johnson that I had, and how they related to those of Taoist Yoga which I read in the early 1970s and Saso's Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, which I read about 1976, and my own readings in the emerging literature of Chinese martial arts in the 70s, a literature that constantly emphasized the lower dan. Both Taoist Yoga and Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal emphasized the Kidney's and their relationship to the lower dan, well before reliable works on TCM appeared in English in the late 1980s and early 90s. I bought Giovanni Maciocia's Foundations of Chinese Medicine circa 1993, as well as a large number of other books dealing with acupuncture, herbalism, etc., so that my formal study of TCM is only about two decades.

 

"I suspect that part of the emphasis on the lower dan comes from the marial arts tradition, where both balance and internal power can be matters of life and death."

 

I said this because both the Daoist Ritual tradition and the meditation tradition emphasize different training methods and goals then the Martial arts traditions. In particular Taoist Yoga, emphasizes the importance of shen. This thread is about the importance of Shen for preserving jing and that is a part of the Chinese meditation tradition represented by Taoist Yoga and which has its roots in the Neiye. Daoist Ritual is another matter. In it the lower dan is the dwelling place of the Dao De Heavenly Worthy, who draws his nourishment from both lungs and Kidneys and unifies refined essences of these two organs into jing.

 

Five decades of experience, and you have never heard the TCM view about importance of kidneys and how Lower Dan Tien is linked with them? Or is TCM "martial" in your opinion?

 

You'll note that I said:

 

I have plenty of experience with this: I have decades of experience, if you want to count my first experiences with pranayama watching Richare Hittleman's "Yoga for Health" on TV, it is over five decades and you have been working with this how long?

 

I continued to practice yoga and other did other disciples throughout my teens, this was in relation to claims of "energy work" in general.

 

So, I'm sorry, my direct acquaintance with and early experiences with the Chinese esoteric anatomy which is the basis of TCM is only about four decades and my direct study of TCM only about two.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I think part of the problem arising here is that we are speaking of two different traditions. Robert Bruce speaks more from a western magick perspective (though he goes much beyond that thankfully), he doesn't go into eastern ways of viewing things and working with energy, compared with the more eastern, qi, martial and TCM ways of viewing things.

 

The east and the west have some vastly different ways of viewing heart centered practices from what I have found. The west is more about bring energy to point b from point a via visualization and mind, and in a more energetic and astral sense. The east tends more towards have qi move to said areas via physical movements, a focus on the area, or postures. The qi is much more dense than energy, the energy worked with in the western traditions. From what I have found. So each system brings about quite different affects in the long run.

 

So when the east and the west talk about heart centered practices, it really is apples and oranges in many cases.

 

Also there is working with the heart center in a middle dantien sense, in an opening up the heart sense (which is what I got from the OP), and in a chackra sense. Each bring about slightly different affects from the focus.

 

Every one should read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the is the source of the notion of "paradigm" and what we have here are differing and in many was incommensurable paradigms. This is what BaquaKicksAss is trying to bring out. Newtonian Dynamics and Special and General Relativity seem to use many of the same terms, such as force velocity, gravity etc., but the meaning of these terms has so changed that they are using the same words to describe different things. The difficulty which the notion of "energy work" with a "center", is that it completely leaves out the dynamics of the Dao. The meditater is not using energy to open a center, he is using awareness to connect to shen and then shen sets the Dao in motion to do its own work.

[HoldorFold]

I think part of the problem arising here is that we are speaking of two different traditions. Robert Bruce speaks more from a western magick perspective (though he goes much beyond that thankfully), he doesn't go into eastern ways of viewing things and working with energy, compared with the more eastern, qi, martial and TCM ways of viewing things.

 

The east and the west have some vastly different ways of viewing heart centered practices from what I have found. The west is more about bring energy to point b from point a via visualization and mind, and in a more energetic and astral sense. The east tends more towards have qi move to said areas via physical movements, a focus on the area, or postures. The qi is much more dense than energy, the energy worked with in the western traditions. From what I have found. So each system brings about quite different affects in the long run.

 

So when the east and the west talk about heart centered practices, it really is apples and oranges in many cases.

 

Also there is working with the heart center in a middle dantien sense, in an opening up the heart sense (which is what I got from the OP), and in a chackra sense. Each bring about slightly different affects from the focus

 

I've had a lot of problems with the microcosmic orbit for instance, and I've read about many issues other people of had with it.

 

With Robert Bruce there's no visualisation instead using "tactile imaging" and the stimulation of the energy body is extremely powerful. Because of it's very real visceral effect (far from subtle) he strongly insists on building a strong foundation in the lower dantian and supportive structures (feet/legs etc.). The effects are so strong for me that within about 10 minutes of working on my feet/legs I feel massive buzzing/heat in them with strong physical sensations of energy flow into the LDT.

 

I've done this previously several times (against the recommendation) on my solar plexus and experienced many negative effects in line being ungrounded in the LDT. Same with the higher centers including the heart which can produce psychotic symptoms if not done properly.

 

And I know with some eastern practices, e.g. microcosmic orbit, there can be similar issues. That's why there's the mini orbit (from huyin to door-of-life and back down) to bypass those effects.

 

 

The meditater is not using energy to open a center, he is using awareness to connect to shen and then shen sets the Dao in motion to do its own work.

 

Interesting, thanks for explaining. When you put it this way it makes perfect sense where you're coming from now.

 

Edited October 11, 2014 by HoldorFold

[BaguaKicksAss]

I've had a lot of problems with the microcosmic orbit for instance, and I've read about many issues other people of had with it.

 

With Robert Bruce there's no visualisation instead using "tactile imaging" and the stimulation of the energy body is extremely powerful. Because of it's very real visceral effect (far from subtle) he strongly insists on building a strong foundation in the lower dantian and supportive structures (feet/legs etc.). The effects are so strong for me that within about 10 minutes of working on my feet/legs I feel massive buzzing/heat in them with strong physical sensations of energy flow into the LDT.

 

I've done this previously several times (against the recommendation) on my solar plexus and experienced many negative effects in line being ungrounded in the LDT. Same with the higher centers including the heart which can produce psychotic symptoms if not done properly.

 

And I know with some eastern practices, e.g. microcosmic orbit, there can be similar issues. That's why there's the mini orbit (from huyin to door-of-life and back down) to bypass those effects.

 

 

 

Interesting, thanks for explaining. When you put it this way it makes perfect sense where you're coming from now.

 

 

From all I've been taught, the problems with the MCO come when a person either visualizes and/or forces the qi around the path.

 

Edit to add: .... or has huge blockages! Or starts up the front down the back instead of the other way around.

Edited October 11, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[BaguaKicksAss]

Every one should read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the is the source of the notion of "paradigm" and what we have here are differing and in many was incommensurable paradigms. This is what BaquaKicksAss is trying to bring out. Newtonian Dynamics and Special and General Relativity seem to use many of the same terms, such as force velocity, gravity etc., but the meaning of these terms has so changed that they are using the same words to describe different things. The difficulty which the notion of "energy work" with a "center", is that it completely leaves out the dynamics of the Dao. The meditater is not using energy to open a center, he is using awareness to connect to shen and then shen sets the Dao in motion to do its own work.

 

Thank you ZYD , I was having trouble finding the right words for my description of things.

[HoldorFold]

From all I've been taught, the problems with the MCO come when a person either visualizes and/or forces the qi around the path.

 

Edit to add: .... or has huge blockages! Or starts up the front down the back instead of the other way around.

 

Yeah that's probably the case with blockages or forcing the qi.

 

Personally though, my spine is very sensitive to even very gentle development. If I were to do 1 minute of anything to do with my spine I'll most likely get fire up my spine, 3 hours of insomnia tonight, throbbing forhead and all sorts of issues and it would take a lot of work bringing it back down. This is actually a pattern I've seen a lot in others (I've had to do a lot of research when trying to ease my symptoms before).

[BaguaKicksAss]

Yeah that's probably the case with blockages or forcing the qi.

 

Personally though, my spine is very sensitive to even very gentle development. If I were to do 1 minute of anything to do with my spine I'll most likely get fire up my spine, 3 hours of insomnia tonight, throbbing forhead and all sorts of issues and it would take a lot of work bringing it back down. This is actually a pattern I've seen a lot in others (I've had to do a lot of research when trying to ease my symptoms before).

 

Do you have a teacher? Usually they are pretty good at seeing what is up and giving you some awesome fix suggestions. There are certain exercises which as a "side affect" tend to fix stuff like that up. Root walking is one I like . *Looks over at NAJA* who had some amazing success with this one!

 

I had this one qigong/bagua student who would get dizzy and nearly fall over during practice... we had to sort that out rather quickly! Sure glad we did. He had done years of kundalini work before. I find the same things happen with folks who practice western magic. While I had some troubles, I hear I had less of them from all my hiking, running and other grounding activities I used to spend every free moment doing. Bagua works too though .

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Yeah that's probably the case with blockages or forcing the qi.

 

Personally though, my spine is very sensitive to even very gentle development. If I were to do 1 minute of anything to do with my spine I'll most likely get fire up my spine, 3 hours of insomnia tonight, throbbing forhead and all sorts of issues and it would take a lot of work bringing it back down. This is actually a pattern I've seen a lot in others (I've had to do a lot of research when trying to ease my symptoms before).

 

You might want to get yourself a copy of:

 

Between Heaven and Earth

 

and do the self evaluation. Your problems sound like heat in the Liver/Gallbladder rising. It may be made worse by Yin deficiency. Liver/gallbladder heat is fairly common. There are herbal formulae that you can use or adding some to your food may be useful. The book has a nifty introduction to Chinese health food cooking.

[HoldorFold]

Do you have a teacher? Usually they are pretty good at seeing what is up and giving you some awesome fix suggestions. There are certain exercises which as a "side affect" tend to fix stuff like that up. Root walking is one I like . *Looks over at NAJA* who had some amazing success with this one!

 

I had this one qigong/bagua student who would get dizzy and nearly fall over during practice... we had to sort that out rather quickly! Sure glad we did. He had done years of kundalini work before. I find the same things happen with folks who practice western magic. While I had some troubles, I hear I had less of them from all my hiking, running and other grounding activities I used to spend every free moment doing. Bagua works too though .

 

 

No teacher, bit of a lone wolf with this stuff. Generally bringing chi down helps massively, I use different simple techniques like having my feet suck the energy down, or feeling myself become very heavy or just trickling my awareness down from the head down the body into my feet (picked that one up from a Qigong book). I'll check out root walking, thanks for the suggestion!

 

 

You might want to get yourself a copy of:

 

Between Heaven and Earth

 

and do the self evaluation. Your problems sound like heat in the Liver/Gallbladder rising. It may be made worse by Yin deficiency. Liver/gallbladder heat is fairly common. There are herbal formulae that you can use or adding some to your food may be useful. The book has a nifty introduction to Chinese health food cooking.

 

Cool thanks, I'll check that out