storing up energy in your consciousness

[Wells]

.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[Jeff]

With seeing past the limited body mind and direct integration (as/in/being) consciousness energy is effectively unlimited. The belief or sense of it being "your" energy or that it needs to be stored is itself a limiting belief that creates boundaries.

[Chang]

Whilst different schools define the workings of the three dantiens in different manners most look upon the dantiens as a means of transmuting and refining energy.

 

The upper dantien is related to spirit and/or consciousness but the idea of storing up energy directly in the consciousness itself, whilst an interesting concept, is rather like putting the cart before the horse.

[Aeran]

I don't see the difference because I don't see the mind and body as being separated in that fashion - rather just as different layers of your whole being. eg. if you look into the Hindu yogic systems (they serve as a better example since the concept is expanded on a bit more there, although the same concept applies to Daoism as far as I know), you'll see that the different chakras are related to not only different physical processes and energetic processes, but also to different mental processes and aspects of the consciousness. 

 

Imo there's no firm divide between where the physical body ends and the energy body begins, and there's no firm divide between where the energy body ends and the consciousness begins, it's a spectrum we break down artificially so we can more easily understand it.

[thetaoiseasy]

I can't speak for Mo-Pai.  But I can share another view.

 

1) Placing intent on the body is a means to generate energy, not to store.  The body is a great generator of energy, and each location in the body generates a different type of energy. So you generate different types of energy by placing your intent on different locations of the body. 

 

2) The purpose of placing the awareness at the heavenly heart is this.  It is posited that the heavenly heart contains all the vibrations of the entire body, and by placing your awareness there, in effect you place your awareness at the LDT, MDT, and UDT all at the same time.  This is what is hinted at in the TTC, when Lao Tzu speaks of mystery gate, the concept of wholeness, the One energy, and achieving everything by doing nothing.

 

3) There are two types of consciousness.  The first is mind consciousness. This is related to intent, which allows you to place your awareness at certain points. This type of consciousness is easy to understand, because it is our everyday awareness.

 

The second is pure and formless consciousness.  What is this?  This is energy itself.  Energy is a type of consciousness, though this statement may confuse many people.  At the early stages, one does not necessarily need to feel the energy to be in this type of consciousness, but one's understanding and experience of energetic consciousness can become highly robust, when the entire body's energy consolidates, crystallizes, and matches the vibration of the heavenly heart. 

 

4)   The mind is the fire of intent, and the body is water.  There has to be engagement and interaction between the two. Learning how to mix water and fire is an analogy of unifying the mind and body, which is done by placing your intent on the body.  That said, learning how to use mystical points to generate energy is a good way to start but it also not the end. At the same time, any meditation that does not have this starting point will have limited benefits, because it only engages in mind consciousness. 

 

 

 

[dawei]

Conscious focus attracts energy, that's how these traditions work,

which makes the theory plausible that the energy could be stored up and held

directly in the consciousness itself,

possibly allowing a 100% direct control of the consciousness over the energy,

as the energy is then possibly "fused" directly with the consciousness.

 

attracts... stores... fuses...

 

So what is the ultimate relationship between energy and consciousness ?

 

 

added: I see that thetaoiseasy just answered it

[Aetherous]

I wonder if there are old systems,

which store up energy directly in the consciousness itself,

 

Yep, totally. Although perhaps it's limiting to say "consciousness itself"...just as it's limiting to focus only on locations within the physical body.

 

Realistically, we can cultivate literally anything we decide to.

[Wells]

.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[SonOfTheGods]

It can be uploaded/downloaded via the cloud - "Void"

[Bearded Dragon]

Consciousness is uncreated. It already contains all energy so you don't have to merge anything.

 

What is actually meant by storing energy in this manner is actually just seeing potential and not acting. It's really a different ball game to what people typically think.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

As far as I am concerned the idea of "storing up energy" begins with some bad metaphors and analogies and goes downhill from there.  I was going to write something to that effect when this silly fellow beat me to it and saved me a lot of time and trouble:

 

When we do MCO or He Che training, we need to be aware of its relationship with pre natal jing qi and shen.
Remember that in the Dao De Jing, Laozi uses the terms xi, yi, and wei to describe something very subtle, something minute and hard to sense, and something that exists but is so subtle it can't be noticed.
Many early Daoist texts such as Ling Bao Jing used the idea of xi yi and wei to talk about jing qi and shen, and the is especially applicable to the pre natal state, which is very hard to sense in a tangible way.

When our MCO opens, we want it to happen naturally, and not by force of intention.
If you just randomly cycle your intention through the MCO, it is usually called "Kong Zhuan He Che," or "empty circulation of the MCO." I made another thread about this a while ago, so you can check it if you need reference.

The correct way to work with the MCO is subtle, and can be achieved by entering the pre heaven state. While I am aware that there is some disagreement here about what the pre heaven state is, I think that a very good description for it is summed up in various Daoist classics (including Ling Bao jing, and yuan shi tian zun liao shen jing) as "not see, not hear, not listen, not speak," (bu shi, bu wen, bu ting, bu yan). this means that when you enter the pre heaven state you will be in "Hun Dun," or the chaotic state and you will forget your sense of self (Chen Yingning called this "Wu wo," or "no me.").
This sense of losing self has two important stages:

- the mind becomes calm and you stop paying attention to your thoughts,
- the mind enters a turbid, distant, and chaotic state where it is no longer aware of the pressence of the body (Chen called this "forgetting the meat body").

This is when xi, yi, and wei are doing their work, or another way of saying it is this is the time that the pre birth jing qi and shen are being cultivated subtly and without the interference of your post heaven mind.

Zhang Boduan said "the three familes meet to see the baby... the baby is one genuine yuan qi,"
so when pre heaven jing qi and shen meet, then the mind naturally cultivates yuan qi, or the genuine qi.

This goes much deeper, but basically, when this process is ocurring, you may not notice very much, actually it may seem like something has been taken away. The way to guage this is what Laozi called "Dao ji," or "the trace of the Dao," which in the context of opening your energy body is the feeling of post heaven qi moving through the various meridians.

This movement of Qi often manifests first in the du mai and later ren mai meridians up the back and down the front of the body. It can also occur in the central meridian, yin qiao, or anywhere else, but what we usually refer to as MCO or He Che is the connection of du and ren mai.

Having said all this, this type of practice is not Qi gong, and the Qi gong approach to cultivating the MCO is radically different. Many qi Gong styles such as Zhineng Gong will ignore the complete rotation of He Che in favour of gradually opening it by indirectly working with other parts of the energy anatomy such as accupoints in the appendages, and the external energy field around the body.

While I recognize that different schools contextualize this practice slightly differently, they moslty point to the same concepts, which are that getting the mind to enter the pre heaven state is how to give birth to useful post heaven energy, and that the conncetion of the MCO is something which shouldn't be done through active visualization ("Cun Xiang").

I hope this is useful, and naturally, all are welcome to chime in and correct me if you think I made some mistakes :) :) (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

Thank Dao for silly fellows.

[Taoist Texts]

As far as I am concerned the idea of "storing up energy" begins with some bad metaphors and analogies and goes downhill from there.   

yes.

 

 

This goes much deeper, but basically, when this process is ocurring, you may not notice very much,

....

 

This movement of Qi often manifests 

so which is it?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I'm sorry to be so long to get back to you on this, but I have been kind of busy and preoccupied.

 

 

This goes much deeper, but basically, when this process is ocurring, you may not notice very much,
....

This movement of Qi often manifests

so which is it?

While I think the person you should really ask is the person who wrote it, my interpretation of the text would be, both. If we look at the whole quote:

 

so when pre heaven jing qi and shen meet, then the mind naturally cultivates yuan qi, or the genuine qi.

 

This goes much deeper, but basically, when this process is ocurring, you may not notice very much, actually it may seem like something has been taken away. The way to guage this is what Laozi called "Dao ji," or "the trace of the Dao," which in the context of opening your energy body is the feeling of post heaven qi moving through the various meridians.

This movement of Qi often manifests first in the du mai and later ren mai meridians up the back and down the front of the body. It can also occur in the central meridian, yin qiao, or anywhere else, but what we usually refer to as MCO or He Che is the connection of du and ren mai. (Empahsis mine, ZYD)

 

Two things are being talked about, the "pre heaven jing, qi and shen" and how when they meet the mind "naturally cultivates yuan qi", this is really rather more a state of emptines, which is why "it may seem like something has been taken away", but then there is the "trace of the Dao", which is "post natal heaven qi moving through the various meridians".  It is this movement of the post heaven "Qi" which "often manifests", so to me it seems like he is talking about two different, but complementary processes, one which seems more like "emptiness" and the other a slightly noticeable movement of post heaven qi that arises spontaneously in response to the "mind naturally" cultivating yuan qi and it is this spontaneous motion which is the trace of the Dao.  At least that is how I would interpret what he says.

 

When I asked SillyBear about the Dao De Jing in relation to this he specified Chapter 14.  You might want to check out the original post.

 

 

 

 

Edit: Added "about" to "being talked about" and italicized Dao De Jing.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Taoist Texts]

I'm sorry to be so long to get back to you on this, but I have been kind of busy and preoccupied.

'tis the season to be merry;)

 

 

 

While I think the person you should really ask is the person who wrote it, my interpretation of the text would be, both. If we look at the whole quote:

 

 

Two things are being talked about, the "pre heaven jing, qi and shen" and how when they meet the mind "naturally cultivates yuan qi", this is really rather more a state of emptines, which is why "it may seem like something has been taken away", but then there is the "trace of the Dao", which is "post natal heaven qi moving through the various meridians".  It is this movement of the post heaven "Qi" which "often manifests", so to me it seems like he is talking about two different, but complementary processes, one which seems more like "emptiness" and the other a slightly noticeable movement of post heaven qi that arises spontaneously in response to the "mind naturally" cultivating yuan qi and it is this spontaneous motion which is the trace of the Dao.  At least that is how I would interpret what he says.

Your take on this is interesting, so i am glad i asked the rather rhetorical question, which was not directed at you specifically, but still thanks.

 

 

  You might want to check out the original post.

Well I did, you see, the neidanists have this intriguing mode of reasoning which i term the 'word fungibility', meaning that any word can be substituted for another word according to the neidanist's likes and dislikes. The corollary to which is 'words do not have meanings'. Fascinating!