Gross Sense Impressions of the Transformation Process

[Taiji Bum]

Just some thougts on my part. Anybody else?

 

Jing to Chi- Inner vibrations, quickening, inner heat in the belly

Chi to Shen- Inner lights, feeling the chi rise, kundalini rising type sensations

Shen to Void- Inner peace, insights, realizations

Void to Tao- Emitting light from body, levitations, other siddhis

[styrofoamdog]

Just some thougts on my part. Anybody else?

 

Jing to Chi- Inner vibrations, quickening, inner heat in the belly

Chi to Shen- Inner lights, feeling the chi rise, kundalini rising type sensations

Shen to Void- Inner peace, insights, realizations

Void to Tao- Emitting light from body, levitations, other siddhis

I can't say a whole lot from experience, but from what I understand, siddhis can be gotten at earlier points in cultivation as well. Nan Huaijin writes that they basically come from samadhi, but I can't confirm that this is true for myself. But the 6 supernatural abilities mentioned in Buddhist writings don't come until later, so maybe this is at the stage of Void to Tao. He also writes of people cultivating different phenomena....

 

There are people who deliberately cultivate certain phenomena for esoteric practices. I lived in Tibet for a while in my youth. Once a fellow student wanted to show off his achievements that he could go into deep meditation and make his body disappear into a cloud of lights. On seeing this, I reached my hand into the cloud of lights to tap him, telling him, "Stop this act of play!" Most people would have been very impressed by this show, believing he possessed supernatural power.

 

This kind of things are rather common in places like Tibet, Bhutan, Northern India and the high plateau areas of the southwestern part of China. I always felt these places are like fairylands. Our body feels lighter in those places. The feet also feel light.

So it would seem that people can cultivate different effects / phenomena at lower levels, at least through esoteric Buddhist practices.

[mwight]

Thanks Darin, very interesting. Would you say in your personal experience that the chi to shen rising sensation might feel like a gust of internal wind blowing through your body as though it was empty, blowing upwards? I have a very hard time describing what I feel internally.

[Taiji Bum]

Thanks Darin, very interesting. Would you say in your personal experience that the chi to shen rising sensation might feel like a gust of internal wind blowing through your body as though it was empty, blowing upwards? I have a very hard time describing what I feel internally.

With me it was more like I felt like my entire body was flying upwards but at the same time I felt the liquid lightening ripping up my spine. It was an odd dual perception thingy.

[三江源]

well, this is a very interesting topic.

 

Is that formulation your own, Darin? I am not naturally a classifier or a list maker, but I would find it fascinating to know what is going on, from the things that I feel.

 

At the moment I tend to feel, in my stillness practise, as thought I am on the brink of a crashing orgasm,( no genital arousal) and a load of swirling soft heart energy and love and reverence. Intense heat and yet no sense of body. yesterday during this, water flowing out of my right ( closed) eye.

 

In the night, I felt movement in my central channel - like knocking around, and a tingling in the third eye. These sensations brought me into wakefulness and I went straight back to sleep.

 

I feel very soft in my energy, very very soft and vibrant.

 

Yesterday a lot of crying spontaneously, which was a very generalised remorse for my fallen state.

 

This is presumably all shen stuff... yet there are physical sensations and the eye streaming water..

 

Generally speaking I have very very hot hands and the centre of the soles of my feet is often a burning presence, too. Actually my energy is running very hot at the moment...I have no idea what that signifies, particularly.

 

Looking at a sky full of stars the other night my hands ached with heavy heat.

 

I guess we all feel these things, I just think of it as 'energy work' side effects, without knowing more than that.

[Gerard]

More I can think of subtle non-sensory phenomena recognised as a characteristic of absorption (jhana-nimitta):

 

1. The Divine ear or clairaudience (dibba-sota) which will remain until the meditator experiences physical death

 

2. Divine eye (dibba-cakkhu)

 

2. Sweet smell and/or taste

 

3. Various vibratory sensations on the skin

 

4. Feeling of floating during meditation

 

5. Bliss, ecstasy

 

6. Etc

[三江源]

#6 is sometihng I get a lot of, Dhurkrod.

[Taiji Bum]

Yeah Cat, they're my own descriptions/formulations. The process is Taoist and from traditional souces but the sense impression are what I experienced. So take THAT for what its worth....

[Spectrum]

dibs on the soda.

 

Ntice any differences in the amplitude of your experiences in relationship to your environment?

[Taiji Bum]

dibs on the soda.

 

Ntice any differences in the amplitude of your experiences in relationship to your environment?

Not really. What do you mean?

[hagar]

Just some thougts on my part. Anybody else?

 

Jing to Chi- Inner vibrations, quickening, inner heat in the belly

Chi to Shen- Inner lights, feeling the chi rise, kundalini rising type sensations

Shen to Void- Inner peace, insights, realizations

Void to Tao- Emitting light from body, levitations, other siddhis

 

Darin

 

From my experience, this process is never schematic or causal.

The vast white spots on the map is how these energies, or whatever you call them, blend and separate both chronologically, and "vertically" (meaning Jing suddenly appears separate from Chen then reemerging as chi)

The main point, and for me the only valid one is not to demarcate different signs of the different levels, but the OPPOSITE, how these dimensions in energy can spontaneously, and suddenly blend.

 

At the moment of blending, melting, fusning Jing-Chi-Chen does the process actually jump do a different level.

I, for one, unconsciously viewed this profound process causally and mechanistically, and phew! was I in for a surprise.

 

In addition, we must distinguish between the essential "water" from the decayed water, the essential fire (chi) from the contigent chi, and the essential light from the mental/dependent light.

 

Actually, my deepest and most profound insight in these matters was one of loss. I felt that at one point in my cultivation, everything just dissappeared, and was lost, only to remerge as something completely different, as the whole energetic system had gone through a metamorphosis. At that point I realized I needed guidance, and that I was just a blundering novice. very, very humbling and very scary, really.

 

h

[宁]

Darin

 

From my experience, this process is never schematic or causal.

The vast white spots on the map is how these energies, or whatever you call them, blend and separate both chronologically, and "vertically" (meaning Jing suddenly appears separate from Chen then reemerging as chi)

The main point, and for me the only valid one is not to demarcate different signs of the different levels, but the OPPOSITE, how these dimensions in energy can spontaneously, and suddenly blend.

 

At the moment of blending, melting, fusning Jing-Chi-Chen does the process actually jump do a different level.

I, for one, unconsciously viewed this profound process causally and mechanistically, and phew! was I in for a surprise.

 

In addition, we must distinguish between the essential "water" from the decayed water, the essential fire (chi) from the contigent chi, and the essential light from the mental/dependent light.

 

Actually, my deepest and most profound insight in these matters was one of loss. I felt that at one point in my cultivation, everything just dissappeared, and was lost, only to remerge as something completely different, as the whole energetic system had gone through a metamorphosis. At that point I realized I needed guidance, and that I was just a blundering novice. very, very humbling and very scary, really.

 

h

 

 

Great post Hagar!

[三江源]

Hagar

 

your posts contribute so much. thankyou. you have great clarity of expression.

 

I would love to know more about your loss and regeneration, if you feel so inclined.

[hagar]

Hagar

 

your posts contribute so much. thankyou. you have great clarity of expression.

 

I would love to know more about your loss and regeneration, if you feel so inclined.

 

I must return the compliment Cat.

 

In truth, this is very difficult to talk plainly about, as the subtlety and complexity of this process is so beyond language and in the realm of feeling, vague energetic perception, inner vision and personal connotations that it would prove meaningless if you weren't witnessing the same as myself.

 

For me, I kind of fell apart at a retreat, and realized that I was holding on to all the wrong stuff, and basically was kidding myself. This was followed by a downright crisis of faith, joined with hard-core resistance to the way I was doing my practice. Its so easy to kid yourself in practice. And when doing Alchemy, all these different unrecongized aspects of the inner landscape gains momentum and is granted energy and space. Be prepared. But basically, we are allready there, and if you think you will get there, you will never get there. If you know what I mean.

Its so simple, yet so hard. Sit, connect, freely respond, observe, don't expect, don't accumulate.

 

It's very hard not to become rethorical, and pull an "Obama" on this subject.

 

h

[三江源]

hmm, hagar. I squirrelled away your response and chewed on it, hence my slow response.

 

 

"It's so easy to kid yourself in practise" is the part I am particularly mulling over.

 

 

I also have had layers peeled away by retreats, much crying and dissolving and feeling renewed. And raw.

 

The onion metaphor.

 

The kidding oneself.... is that ignorance rather than vanity? ( rhetorical question) Each new level of authenticity that we reach makes the previous one look ..well, inadequate to say the least...

 

Thankyou for sharing that.

[Spectrum]

GrOss

Sense

Impressions of the

Transformation

Process

LEASE

Edited September 2, 2008 by Spectrum

[hagar]

hmm, hagar. I squirrelled away your response and chewed on it, hence my slow response.

"It's so easy to kid yourself in practise" is the part I am particularly mulling over.

I also have had layers peeled away by retreats, much crying and dissolving and feeling renewed. And raw.

 

The onion metaphor.

 

The kidding oneself.... is that ignorance rather than vanity? ( rhetorical question) Each new level of authenticity that we reach makes the previous one look ..well, inadequate to say the least...

 

Thankyou for sharing that.

 

Actually, I regret posting anything on this. It's just lame for me to even start putting this process into words.

 

What you say about realizations at retreats rings true to me, yet at the same time I know these metaphors are really just that. The dissolving process you speak about is what I always tend to return to as a kind of marker in my practice, as it feels the most genuine. Yet most "progress" is not done gradually. Mostly things happen as shifts, both energetically and on the Shen level. And that's why I dwell on the "kidding". I feel that real practice and ungenuine practice as just a breath apart. In the real stuff, you are letting things start with the end, and in the fake part you are stuck in focusing on the duality of process (feeling pain, dissolving pain, working towards something, gaining energy, realizing something, letting go of something, finding back, hoping, dreaming, imaging, freeing, etc, etc)

 

This has really brought me so much frustation, as I deeply feel this calls for almost constant guidance to be able to discern. Yet, at the same time, that kind of frame of mind is the problem.

 

As for your last sentence: Each new level of authenticity that we reach makes the previous one look ..well, inadequate to say the least...

 

That's frightingly similar to my own experience. As much as I want this to be a process, it really is not. And that is scary. In glimpses a kind of dis-enchanted, tuned, settled, satiated state is possible, yet it really is a shangri-la most times.

 

As for Spectrum:

I guess you're right.

 

h

Edited September 3, 2008 by hagar

[三江源]

Hagar, I'm sorry I drew you into talking about something you regret posting about.

 

I know people edit their posts away on here... if you want to do that, I will also edit mine.

 

And then it will not have to be stuck here in black & white.

[Spectrum]

Mind Sifted

Shift Drifts

Dream Rifting

Swift Ships

Ripple Riding

Chris Krafts

Glide Guiding

Rift Rafts

Share This

Dare That

Complimentary

Care Splats

Come Back

[hagar]

Mind Sifted

Shift Drifts

Dream Rifting

Swift Ships

Ripple Riding

Chris Krafts

Glide Guiding

Rift Rafts

Share This

Dare That

Complimentary

Care Splats

Come Back

 

Cat:

I may have overstated my case. the remark was meant as a sigh than as an actual regret. Where else can one share experiences related to practice.

 

As to Spectrum:

Are you hinting at anything in particular?

[Ian]

I find that there is a danger in knowing that I don't know what I'm doing.

 

It is that I accumulate so much awareness that I don't know what I'm doing..... that I start to assume that the accumulation counts for something.

 

I can only imagine that all teachers just want to shout "Just be there already!"

 

I also keep thinking about this thing my Sifu is quoted as saying, to the effect that it is rare and wonderful for a spiritual teacher to do more good than harm.

 

Not hoping to supply information here, just wishing to claim kinship with the befuddled.

[Patrick Brown]

I find that there is a danger in knowing that I don't know what I'm doing.

 

It is that I accumulate so much awareness that I don't know what I'm doing..... that I start to assume that the accumulation counts for something.

 

I can only imagine that all teachers just want to shout "Just be there already!"

 

I also keep thinking about this thing my Sifu is quoted as saying, to the effect that it is rare and wonderful for a spiritual teacher to do more good than harm.

 

Not hoping to supply information here, just wishing to claim kinship with the befuddled.

Great post Ian. Yes I could tell people what I get up to but we're all different and my methods may have adverse effects on some people here. Ultimately we all build and refine our own practice and when I say practice I don't mean anything in particular. Simply walking may well be the right practice for many!

Edited September 4, 2008 by Patrick Brown