- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
It has been a crazy month of training for me. I had been working on a method of using the torso like a big master cylinder and started working through how to use leverage and the fluids of the body as a force multiplier like hydraulic fluid in a automobile brake system. Just when I thought I had it all worked out the chi flows of bend and stretch took on a whole new dimension and I started using it to teach my whole body how to move in a completely new way. From there I stumpleed on something entirely unexpected – the celestial.
I haven’t trained this enough to be sure if I’m really doing what it feels like, but, it would be great to have Bruce weigh in on this at some time to verify whether I’m on the right track. So, here it is.
When you are performing the single palm change you don’t push your opponent – the earth does. You dissolve from the feet up essentially allowing the boundary of the earth’s etheric field to penetrate your body going up and the earth pushes/hits/fa jins the opponent. When you are performing the double palm change, you dissolve downward from above the head to the below the feet allowing the energy of heaven to penetrate your body. You still have all of the neigung in the middle but all of the power is borrowed from heaven and earth. I’ve been aware of the ground before and how you ultimately push off it to generate power, but this is completely different: you don’t have to move to utilize this power and it has nothing to do with you. Your ability to use is it is consonant with your ability to let go and allow it to flow through you. If you try to control it (beyond dissolving the boundary), you screw it up. The interesting thing is that the earth and heaven seem to have their own consciousness. It is like meeting someone. I know that is wierd and it may very well be imagined, but that’s the way it feels. Strange.
When I first found this I went back to Energy Gates and the Spiraling Energy body practices, dissolving down then up the body to prep for Bagua practice. I then started dissolving up to generate power in the single palm change and then down to generate power in the double palm change. I dissolved from the below the feet to above the head and above the head to below the feet. The feeling in the body is different and quite unique to each palm. There is also a shortcut that comes from a practice that Bruce taught 15 years ago in Tai Chi as Taoist Meditation. If you’ve done all the work to support it, you can simply dissolve in the cerebrospinal fluid up and down. If you’ve developed the proper body connection, you can get the same power without having to move your mind through the whole body, however, you still connect to it exactly the same way.
This is the first practice that seems consistent with how it feels when Bruce pushes. I remember one time I was pushing with someone and Bruce walked over, placed his hand gently on my back, and the next time I pushed the guy went flying. I had absolutely no clue how he did it. I never felt and ounce of pressure or force from him. The guy just went. If I were to guess, what I just described is the basis for what Bruce did. I just pushed like I always did. That’s the neigung in the middle. Bruce was borrowing energy from the environment and passing it through me. Why use your own energy when you can borrow some from the earth?
Hi, James. thanks for the post. I’m not at the level where I can really experience what you’re talking about, but I wanted to add two things. In the bagua guided meditations, Bruce talks about why it’s called a celestial art. He describes how the descending energy of heaven powers everything and for this reason is called celestial. It’s part of a deeper discussion and I think it was in the intermediate meditation dealing with the Golden Thread, but I could be wrong. I haven’t worked up to that level yet but I’ve listened to and read everything so I have an understanding of the complete picture of where this is going.
The other thing is that the energy of the earth is a very interesting thing. You can feel it concretely and it really helps sink into to your body. I can see how this could transform the martial applications you describe. It will be a few years before I start on the meditation dealing with dissolving both up and down (I think it’s the 2nd intermediate meditation in the BMP text). I’ve been working on just getting the foundational practices very solid.
Your posts are interesting, even though beyond me, just so I know that some of you out there are experiencing some of these things that I might one day encounter. This is a deep art and it’s a lot of fun (understatement or perhaps incomplete adjective) to practice.
If you remember which audio CD this discussion is on, I’d be interested to know where it is.
Thanks in advance.
Bruce discusses why bagua is called a celestial art in the Intermediate Meditation “Sinking Your Energy With Stepping” on disc 5 of installment 2. It’s a pretty interesting meditation.
Thanks so much. I hadn’t listened to any of the audio material except for one of the very first CDs.
This particular meditation makes me feel saner. Bruce describes a flow pattern that is different then what I’ve been doing but no less complex. He separates the flow in each leg. I’ve been splitting each leg into two parts along the yin-yang meridians. It won’t surprise me if both are valid. Interestingly, I also feel the collateral meridians waking up which get used much more in the Wind and Thunder palms.
The other thing that struck me was his detailed description of how the yang descending energy of heaven is absorbed in the body as a dispersing yin energy. I was confused why heaven felt so yin. Since it wasn’t making sense, I had speculated that heaven was the consciousness that awakens rather then the feeling in the body. I think this is what Bruce says but in a very different way. So I had assumed that this was the beginning of the internal light. Although this may be experienced as visible light at a later point, I experience the “light” as extreme consciousness. I substitute the word perceive for see. Seeing is an externally oriented concept. Perceiving is internal. Anyway, it, the extreme consciousness, gives you the capacity to do all of the wacky things that are possible with relative ease because if you feel it, you can muck with it. If you can’t, you can’t.
Who knows, I could be full of shit.
Also, Thanks for the outline.
Very interesting.
Can you describe the cerebrospinal thing a bit more? I’m at a stage now where I’m just starting to get my spine aligned and relaxed such that I get that automatic lifting feeling where energy naturally fills up my spine. It’s still not connected and I seem to just feel connected in localised parts. Where does the fluid thing fit in after that? I’m presuming I have to get it to a stage where my spine feels wet, and then attach my mind to that particular feeling? I haven’t felt the wetness that Bruce describes yet in my training.
I think this relates to the 3 layers of the spine that I was asking about a few months ago. You shouldn’t worry about the cerebrospinal fluid for a long time. It doesn’t sound like you’ve worked through the muscles, ligaments, and tendons yet. I believe that’s layer 1. In my opinion it is the most tedious and difficult to open up and it is a whole body thing. Your not done until all of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons of the body have opened up sufficiently.
Layer 2 comes after all that tissue in the body is fairly open. The fascia really starts to break up and you gain access to the organs and the membrane around the spine and brain. There is a huge difference between these stages. It isn’t incremental. It is a quantum leap.
Layer 3 is working directly with the fluid. I’ll describe what I’m doing but I don’t advise practicing it. Skipping ahead too soon can retard the overall process. I think that’s why Bruce makes it sound as if you’ll explode if you work out of sequence.
I’ve figured out how to activate the body very directly. The bend and stretch I described recently is basically my ability to feel and activate the electro-chemical soup that controls my muscles, ligaments, and tendons. It is as though the process is conscious. So I can control the contraction like everyone else, the relaxation, and both simultaneously. The big difference is a feel it and it starts to be more like I’m playing directly with the chi. All of these “chi” travels out of the spine via the nerves. So, what I alluded to was being able to go into the spinal fluid and create movement by consciously playing with the fluid. In this case, I’m just dissolving it down or up. I can access the whole body without moving my mind through the limbs. It only works because I’ve established all of the connections already. Without that work being complete and stable you are highly unlikely to get the same results.
Ok cool. It’s always good to have a bit of a road map rather than the “just relax” that I hear so often.
I’ve been working on this more and I’ve gone through the audio material that Matthew clued me into. I think I understand better why I flipped the yin and yang around in the palm changes. If you haven’t listened to the meditation audio, Bruce mentions that heaven, the big yang, activates the yin of the body. So the downward dissolving practice nurtures the yin of the body and indirectly strengthens the yang aspects of the body by making the yin stronger. All I felt was the soft, yin energy.
Although I don’t recall Bruce saying it, it makes sense that the yin of the earth’s energy would activate the yang of the body. This is consistent with my experience. The truth is it doesn’t really matter which one you use for each palm change. It seems more important that you can use either at will.
I thought that I’d add a couple of comments that may help you bridge the gap to practicing Bagua as meditation. I’ve been incorporating dissolving into my practice and in particular using the energy of heaven an earth to fuel my practice. I try to complete a pass of dissolving up or down with each change. The problem is I get stuck. When this happens, I simply change again. The trick is to continuing dissolving in the direction you were going without disconnecting from the place you got stuck. Something happens and it seems like the twisting grinds into that place and helps you to work through the stuck place. Invariably, a change or two is all that is needed to drop to the next place and dissolving continues as through it was a smooth flow up or down the body. I don’t reverse the direction I simply hang until the mind works through the block.
This is a great way to get your dissolving practice (meditation) in while working with the energy of heaven and earth while doing everything else you want to work on.
Congratulations JIM,You have tapped and found out how to use the Heaven and Earth energies for personal use.Aka body charging and application. I know of these energies ,but don’t use them just yet. I am still in the meditation stages working on becoming this as opposed to just a splash and knowing they are there. My meditations are mostly drawing down the white and warm heaven energy and the cooler and dark earth energy into the core{middle pillar} central channel.Bruce stated in one of the books that Liu Chieh Chen did not impart the magnetic atract and repel Tai Chi, an older book and perhaps Mr Frantzis know how presently: but if you could learn it and impart it to Mr Frantzis????, the theory is know the magnetic charge of the object in question and either oppose or coincide such to either repel or attract the object, Animate objects are easier than Inanimate objects,I know what it is but have not pursued this type of thing.As per the words in the Book, Go For It ????. Thanx Al Ray.
This is an archived forum (read only). Go to our active forum where you can post and discuss in real time.