Where in the world is the lower Tan Tien?

[grabmywrist4]

Mantak Chia teaches focusing at the navel in his MCO practice. But most people seem to place the Tan Tien below the navel. I've been focusing at the navel but doubt is arising about whether this is correct. Will I find the Tan Tien whether I focus on the navel or below it? Does it matter? 

[Michael Sternbach]

The Lower Tan Tien is rather a "power space" felt inside the body than a point on its surface. It is however associated with (I think) Conceptor Vessel 3 a few inches below the navel.

 

Don't worry too much. You will feel its location with some practice.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Taomeow]

Not the navel.  You can find your lower dantien using the alchemical formula "heaven above, 32, earth below, 32."  Measure your height, divide by two, measure that length on your body either from the top or from the bottom -- that's where it is. 

 

Meditation on the navel is not part of the taoist tradition.  It places your focus in the "heaven" part of your body, away from the "earth" part, instead of on the yin-yang border between them where the LDT is located.   Mantak Chia is pretty eclectic, he mixes and matches traditions to come up with something, well, different.  

 

The  LDT "vortex" in the front corresponds in location to the mingmen (Gate of Life) point at the back, sitting right across from it.  Horizontally the front and back points get connected with practice.  Later you may want to move your LDT, but not just "anywhere," a practice might reveal a pattern for this motion.  E.g. in taiji neigong, you move qi upward from the back, drop it down to the front from the top of your head, and your LDT will "bow downward-inward" and "release upward-forward" as you do.  But for starters, feeling it where it naturally occurs would be enough.     

Edited December 4, 2015 by Taomeow

[Aeran]

I've spoken to at least one teacher who claims that there are Taoist traditions which work with a lower dantien located at the height of the navel (specifically, that the navel location was the "original" site of the dantien, and it was only later on that people moved onto using the sub-navel location because it worked better for martial applications) - although this teacher never named these traditions, so I take it with a grain of salt, but the concept is at least out there.

 

That said, when I tried utilizing the navel for this purpose, I didn't find it to have much effect. I actually ended up locating my dantien's specific location because whenever I tried to direct energy behind the navel,  it slide down the center line towards the dantien (right where it's almost always described, about 3 - 4 fingers length below the navel), where it would "catch" for lack of a better word, and cause a slight pulse back up the center line and out the bai hai.

 

Damo Mitchell recommends a similar exercise for locating it in his books, except starting at the hui yin and moving upwards.

[Horus]

High level masters claim that the LDT will be higher or lower depending on your distance from the equator.

 

I hear ya though...I got the shits with that years ago too, so I just spiritually projected inside myself and saw it all in there...

 

The lower dantian is spoken of as a general area, a specific lower abdominal area broken into 9 chambers, or an actuall small area within all of that.

 

It is not of huge import to mentally locate it, more to feel it. Where does it feel strongest when you try to root energy into the lower dantian - focus on that.

 

For me its about where Qihai cv6 is, but my Jin Dan is about navel height.

[Songtsan]

I've read a few places that the LDT doesn't exist initially, until it is formed, that the kidneys contain the energy that will eventually be stored in it, when it is created. I've also read that it directly corresponds to the bodies center of gravity when one is in anatomical position (possibly Chinese Medicine's version of such?), about 2 inches inwards....can anyone say anything to these pieces of 'heard information'? Also, when they say it is about two inches inwards, I always assume that they meant not two inches under the skin, but two inches deep to the outer layer of the rectus abdominis, e.g. that adipose tissue external to this should be discounted when determining this.

 

http://www.upwithgravity.net/up-with-gravitysm-lesson-1-locating-your-center-of-gravity/

Edited December 4, 2015 by Songtsan

[Jetsun]

My understanding is that it has to be created

[Andrei]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Surface_projections_of_the_organs_of_the_trunk.png

 

http://www.damo-qigong.net/pics/tu/neijing/neijing.htm

Edited December 4, 2015 by Andrei

[Taomeow]

My understanding is that it has to be created

 

An analogy might be the ability to read.  Yes, it must be created.  And yes, we have the requisite physiological machinery to accomplish this.  And no, not in a random place.  You have to use the appropriate area of the brain to create this ability.  You can't, e.g., create the ability to read in the amygdala, or corpus callosum, or the olfactory cortex.   If children were teaching themselves to read by sniffing the books so as to create the reading center in the olfactory cortex, well...  maybe they could learn to smell the difference between letters ( e.g. L and W have different amounts of typographic paint?..  arranged differently against the sniffing nose?) but it would take them much longer (decades? centuries?) to learn to read by this method.  

[voidisyinyang]

This is a common misunderstanding in the practice.

 

Below the navel is actually the "Ocean of Qi" or the "Yin Qi Vessel"  - this is where the yin jing energy gets coverted to yin qi. So at first that is where the energy heat will be concentrated.

 

Keep in mind that any thoughts about reproduction cause the lower tan tien to convert the qi energy back into reproductive fluid. So that is where the Ocean of Qi comes in.

 

But in fact the real lower tan tien is 3 inches behind the navel - and the Yuan Jing is replenished from the ambrosia fluid that is swallowed while meditating with the tongue against the roof of the mouth. What happens is the yin qi goes up the spine via the cerebrospinal fluid and the pineal gland ionizes the yin qi to create more yuan qi (assuming you have no conceptions in the mind - with the light turned around). So then the Yuan Qi increases the Yuan Shen and this is fused with the cerebrospinal fluid - the jing - which then overflows out of the skull cavity through the sinus - and via the sinus cavity out of the roof of the mouth.

 

This qi-shen water is then swallowed down the throat and into the stomach and that's why you don't eat a half hour before or after practice since otherwise the food digestion would absorb the qi instead of it going into the lower tan tien. So then during the half hour after practice the qi is absorbed through the back of the stomach into the lower tan tien.

 

If the practice goes advanced there is a deeper cell of the lower tan tien - and that's where the alchemical pill is to be stored - what this means conceptually is that the yuan qi surrounds the yuan shen in the lower tan tien. If your yuan shen leaves your body without enough yuan qi enveloping it then this causes a spacetime vortex dizziness - described in chapter 11 of Taoist Yoga: alchemy and immortality. But that problem is not going to happen unless you already have the lower tan tien filled up with yin qi energy and therefore have activated the yang qi. So with proper emptiness focus then the yuan qi holds the yuan shen in the lower tan tien to keep building up the energy.

 

Most people don't ever fill up the yin qi energy of the lower tan tien since it's constantly being deconverted into into yin jing energy - and so that is when you suddenly got a hot feeling from any reproductive thoughts - the yin qi has been deconverted into yin jing (the hot bliss) which then is based on the pineal gland having shot yuan qi down the spine to the lower Ocean of Qi. So then if you don't fix it - at night you'll lose the alchemical pill - and this could happen subconsciously because you could get that blissful heat without realizing it was just your yin qi that got deconverted into yin jing in the lower tan tien. So then while asleep that yin jing will get deconverted to reproductive fluid.

 

Most normal people just eat food - get the heat as yin jing and then deconvert to reproductive fluid - and they never build up the yin qi and their are not consciously aware of the yin qi originated from the Yuan Qi which emanates out of the pineal gland. That is because at puberty the separation of heaven and earth means the yuan shen of the heart and the yuan qi separate so that the yuan shen emanates out of the eyes as materialistic desire and the yuan qi emanates out of the pineal gland which is now closed off - since they are now longer united in the heart. So every time there is reproductive desire - even if it is subconscious this yuan qi from the pineal gland then converts the Ocean of Qi - below the lower tan tien - into reproductive fluid.

 

So yes you don't have any lower tan tien if you're not focused on the Emptiness to build up the yuan qi and restore the yuan jing by uniting the yuan qi with the yuan shen.

 

Sorry for the long answer - but that's why there's confusion about the location of the lower tan tien, and if it exists at different stages in practice, etc.