Best Practices To Build And Energize Your Hara/Dantien?

[rainbowwarrior]

Anyone have any great meditation, breathing, or movement exercises that work exceptionally well for them? I realize all these modalities of Qi Gong and Tai Chi ect all build this center, but Im curious what is your guys favorite?

Edited November 11, 2014 by rainbowwarrior

[woodcarver]

Shikantaza

[soaring crane]

Anyone have any great meditation, breathing, or movement exercises that work exceptionally well for them? I realize all these modalities of Qi Gong and Tai Chi ect all build this center, but Im curious what is your guys favorite?

 

well... what experience have you got? I would honeslty expect a $7,000 crystal to be able to help with something like this. No joke.

[Asmo]

Horse riding Stance

[RiverSnake]

My favorite??

 

1. Gift of the Tao and Stillness Movement

Edited November 11, 2014 by OldChi

[joeblast]

if you dont do breathwork and mechanics, your signal to noise ratio is necessarily limited. turning down unwanted signal (noise) is the yin to the signal generating yang. yang all you want, without cultivation of the yin aspect, well, say no more.

 

the ldt is there , find the signal, tame the noise, amplify the signal. LDT breathing. wax and wane.

 

but the other key addition is the yin aspect of the lower dantien a la hexagram 23, with the attendant yang aspect of the niwan.

 

driving vitality into the chamber of water

 

yinyang aspect of why it works intending light there at the ldt, or like yan xin's 9 step, the lotus flower at the solar plexus.

 

so yin after yang to produce a more potentiative result, do the ldt breathing and in finishing use the concept of 23 to shine the light of the niwan directly at the lower dantien while it is in a receptive state. this is also why in the mco (the right way) 23 is also the last before 2, and the small small loop working 24 19 23 2, note

and

 

also in master wu's cosmic orbit qigong, note pure yang mudra for 24 with thumb middle pinky touching; whereas 23 is the silver light mudra meant for cultivation of yin qi, thumb and index touching gently, laogung facing lower dantien.

 

yinyangyinyangyinyang...

 

key being that both 23 & 24 are lower dantien cultivations, just yinyang inverted but only in concept, application is most certainly not a mirror reversal, yet the dynamics of outcome are.

 

heh, there's a good analogy, taomeow's nourish yin to generate yang threadidea.

 

that's why I stupidly and ceaselessly thumped the book of fundamentals around here for so long, because I was able to do things like top down spark my metabolism simply by nourishing yin, longevity breathing.

Edited November 12, 2014 by joeblast

[Brian]

My favorite??

 

1. Gift of the Tao and Stillness Movement

Just wanted to second this.

[thelerner]

from Ya Mu's Stillness Movement, I found his simple advice to move my hands from my lap, a few inches closer so they were against my lower dan tien, produced more heat and awareness in the area. Nice change for no effort.

[woodcarver]

I hope to hear more sound engineering analogies from Joeblast hahaha

[Brian]

I hope to hear more sound engineering analogies from Joeblast hahaha

Same basic models and differential equations used in acoustics generally apply to electromagnetics, electronic circuity, mechanical oscillations, hydraulics, biosystems, etc.

 

Vibrations and resonances abound...

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Heres mine, its long and detailed, sorry. Im not sure if it has a name, its more some things i've picked up from my schools sitting in quiet meditation.

 

Cultivate your empty state of mind, the one that comes from when you relax, focus and listen to your body. Dont worry and dont be eager or happy or angry. You're not there to accomplish, or work through something: you there to study your body. You need large quantities of data, dont get stuck on one feeling or being able to reproduce that exact same thing as last time. Listen to your body, dont fidget with it, dont force, dont visualize. If you feel tensing up somewhere try to understand how and its cause and then relax that part if possible. If no, never mind, focus on the whole of your body instead.

Stage two:

Try to find your pulse (as in heartbeat) inside of you, hows that feel, does it stay there or does it move? When you can comfortably find it somewhere in your body, see if you can find it elsewhere or make it move (slowly) from say your palms to your forearm? Can you find it deep in the belly? If so good. Practice finding it in your belly. Let it travel there. Breathe into the pulsating area for a while, then stop.

Stage three adds to see if you feel warm or/and tingly anywhere. If yes listen to that sensation in different parts of your body. Try to find it in the belly, let it if possible mix in with the pulse, breathe into it.

 

Do this while doing abdominal breathing, start with natural (fill and empty) relaxedly. Later go for reversed breathing, even more important to be relaxed while doing that one or youll be lifting your chest and shoulders, tensing up your core excessively, upsetting your sitting muscles,legs or torso from the effort and tension. Useless, take a little break or go back to natural breathing.

Upper torso should be as still as possible, you want the compression in the belly area.

 

Sit on a chair or stool as far to thef ron that your "junk" is not on the chair. If you'd have no pants on it would be "airing out". But please, wear pants. Legs wide (thereby creating a good support for the pelvic area and torso), knees at a minimum of 90 degrees, more is ok, you thighs should be horizontal and the small of your back should be straight. Hands resting on your thighs. Dont slouch.

Erect spine without exaggeration.

Open eyes good, closed eyes can help an empty mind at this point, maybe. Tounge to the palate att he good old spot, nostril breathing only. Shut your mouth, breathe slowly. Breathe softly, make it silent with time.

 

After a while of getting the silent breathing down start to do vigorous breathing, hold your breath for shorter periods of time, on inhale or on exhale. Feel how strong and heavy an inhale can feel and how fluid and liberating an exhale feels. But always have soft, silent breathing as your go to place.

Also, it can be good to slowly tense around the perineum when the mabdomen moves inward, and again slowly relaxing that tension whe its gling out. After a while you can start to help lift the pelvic bottom muscles at the same time, getting some added compression on breathing in during reversed breathing.

Smiling a little helps also, lips should be together. You'll look silly but only to someone who looks longer than a second or two.

 

All of this should, in my humble opinion be supplemented (if possible) with core strengthening external exercises such as tight belly push ups, jack-knives etc etc. And plentiful stretching in the core areas as possible. But not directly before or after sitting and cultivating emptiness and breathing exercises, who instead can be preceded with a short walk and mild and relaxed stretching and loosening exercises to get the blood flowing better without raising the heartrate. Dont get sweaty and dont overstretch. Also some back strenght exercises can be good to complement all the push ups.

 

The more i slack off with the physical exercise, the jerkier and more forced is my abdominal breathing, as is the level of smoothness of feeling and of the empty state of mind.

To me, this is my best building up, getting to know and energizing the ldt, it has helped me increase sensitivity and overall energy.

 

It takes time, its boring as shit sometimes, but regular practice has given me a lot of insight i can use in my qigong and kung fu.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Rocky Lionmouth

[dogson]

hitting a yoga class is the most effective in my experience - it's 60-90 minutes of deep breathing with a group of really vital people. the collective field of intention is very strong, stretching opens up so many blocked spots. it's just a really solid session.

 

other stuff: 10 seconds of sungazing, barefoot on the raw earth, right at dawn, or the last 10 sec. of sunset.

 

cold showers.

 

making out with someone beautiful? just saying and making great art that you're proud of. love and passion and creativity are why we're here. that deep soul connection and expression is the hugest source of internal energy, better than any practice or technique. do what you love!

[rainbowwarrior]

Thanks guys for the detailed replies. I do breath work sessions regularly, its a hour long practice of controlled breathing in a medative state. I also practice yoga and pranayama breathing for a few years, also started qi gong activities and looking to expand with more techniques. Love ya guys.

[Aetherous]

Another type of practice: place your attention within the lower dantian. Keep your focus very light, and make sure that your body's energies are free flowing (so, relax and remain open)...otherwise if you try too hard, it easily causes qi deviation. You can do a visualization/feeling within the area. You can also do it with even breathing, but that isn't necessary. I view this as a direct building method...similar to stillness-movement that others have mentioned, but of course it's not the same thing.

An indirect building method would be completely releasing the mind, as in shikantaza, which then causes the energies of the entire body to flow appropriately...in my experience, the mind will drop from the brain into the heart, then if you're really able to release, the heart will drop into the lower dantian through the taiji pole (central line of energy through the body)...it's as if you're an upright beam of light and the most dense part of the light sinks naturally to the bottom. This way is probably the healthiest, since all of the qi will flow as it should and nothing is being contrived. I personally like to do calm abiding meditation with an external support in order to release the mind, rather than doing it intentionally as in "sitting and forgetting"/shikantaza.

[rainbowwarrior]

I have also wondered how the dantien/hara differ from a chakra, I am able to open chakras with my energy practice, and even pointing one of my crystals at my chakras while meditating has a very mearsuable effect, just like it was mentioned above to place your hands in front of your dantien has a big effect. I feel this is because energy naturally flows out your hands through the meredian lines. Iv had chakras opened in my hands that allow the flow of energy to flow more easily, it could be used to redirect it into the dantien, but I haven't had much practice with this directly, as I have mostly focused on chakra points. I assume that doing the same charges and builds the dantien? Yet it needs to be charged with both yin and Yang chi? Just trying to clarify some questions.

[spiraltao]

I would recommend starting with standing meditation (Zhan Zhuang should be great for you if you have done yoga) and longevity breathing, simultaneous. The five animal frolics are wonderful moving qigong as is the ba duan jin (8 pieces of brocade.) I think sitting is only needed for the elderly to ensure no leaking of the triple warmer. We can move qi with intent, but through moving meditations (some qigongs, taiji, baguazhang) we also move lymph fluids, blood and hopefully wind up circulating fresh oxygenated blood and lymph. Not only the dantian is a great place to store energy, but so are the femur bones! This is something not that many people mention, it was only a matter of intent and visualization to me.

I would recommend getting to know your dantian as Joe said. Not only through breath, but as in moving from the dantian. Like tea cups, or silk reeling for movement. Joe gave a great post, IMO.

The more experience you get the more connected your body will get as one unit! I Quan has lots of wonderful walking meditations as well.

[rainbowwarrior]

 

well... what experience have you got? I would honeslty expect a $7,000 crystal to be able to help with something like this. No joke.

This post is off topic so most of you can ignore it, its just one im passionate about. The $7000 crystal is not mine, but owned by a friend of mine. I actually have a smaller $1000 one In line with my pocket book but its still powerful. Most people just assume its just a crystal so what? And realize a energetic resonance is contained in this exact geometric shape and don't understand the science behind them or the skill to cut them. The top diamond cuttors in world cant reproduce these and only 3 people in the world are skilled enough to cut them to have their proper energetic properies. They really can transfer and cohere Energy, and a lot of pranic healers use them or something similar. I have turned normal people into psychics with third eye openings, extracted negative entities with them(people carry energetic parasites in their auric fields), changed the structure of water. Ect. The scientist that invented them even changed the body flavor and structure of wine in a winery and almost took his special wine to market. these tools are amazing. My friend does a cool trick by structing the liquid in a soda can which removes all the co2 from the liquid. The result is a flat can of soda when you open it. Its actually pretty funny to do when you meet skeptics or when people call you a fake or a fraud because they don't understand anything about energy. But its all good, I'm happy doing what I'm doing to each their own.

Edited November 15, 2014 by rainbowwarrior

[Silent Answers]

If what you say is true...why are you asking for LDT building advice? That should have been handled a while ago.

[joeblast]

I have also wondered how the dantien/hara differ from a chakra, I am able to open chakras with my energy practice, and even pointing one of my crystals at my chakras while meditating has a very mearsuable effect, just like it was mentioned above to place your hands in front of your dantien has a big effect. I feel this is because energy naturally flows out your hands through the meredian lines. Iv had chakras opened in my hands that allow the flow of energy to flow more easily, it could be used to redirect it into the dantien, but I haven't had much practice with this directly, as I have mostly focused on chakra points. I assume that doing the same charges and builds the dantien? Yet it needs to be charged with both yin and Yang chi? Just trying to clarify some questions.

it will be a bit qualitatively different, whether you do it with your hands, or even shine the niwan at it. one method I used was to touch the qihai point with your fav mudra, keep the qihai just barely in the lower peripheral, and...look backwards down at it....look back through the optic nerve, through the niwan, down the central channel, and intimately look and feel it. remember that fierce look from baduanjin, lol, focus intent there.