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If you’ve been reading my posts over the years, you’ll have noticed that I’ve never tried to describe the eighth palm change. Well here is my first attempt. I won’t be surprised if I’m thinking something radically different in a couple of hours but such is life.
It is going to be difficult to describe this palm change so bear with me and realize that I’m going to define it in two ways: 1) I’m going to describe what it is. 2) I’m going to describe what it isn’t.
The eighth palm change is the first palm change where you go outside the body to initiate it. The first seven changes are initiated from the point of view of the central nervous system, CNS. For example the single or Heaven palm change is a pure projection out of the core channel. The Earth or double palm change is an absorption into the core channel. The Wind palm change simultaneously projects and absorbs from and into the core channel. The Thunder, Fire, Water, and Mountain palm changes all mix the two primary yang and yin energies in some fashion and that “play” is initiated and coordinated in the CNS.
In contrast, the Lake palm change starts outside the CNS and acts on it. It moves the body. This is radical departure from what you’ve been doing. The point of view is the exact opposite. Heaven is reflecting on the still waters of the Lake.
The seventh was the culmination of all the energies of the CNS moving simultaneously in all possible directions. It has particular qualities just like the previous six changes and like the previous changes, it is working the CNS.
In the Lake palm, you expand the field around the body or absorb into it. There is this interesting balance that has to occur. If something is projecting, something else must be absorbing. In Bagua as a martial art, you use this balancing act to propel the body.
If you really understand the Heaven palm change, I don’t need to explain what this expansion is or how it is initiated. You would already know that. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, your practice should be focused solely on finding the energy of the Heaven palm.
Anyway, I’m sure this gets a lot more sophisticated as you go out significantly further, but at this point you are still in the jing phase of the sequence jing, Chi, shen, wu, tao. You’ve only understood how to open your physical and etheric bodies. You can also revisit all of the previous palm changes and incorporate this new point of view. I’m guessing this will be the basis of the 16 palm changes.
My practice has come a long way since my original post on the Lake Palm Change. Even though I think I missed the mark on the details of the first seven palms in this post, I still think the Lake Palm change requires a totally different point of view than the previous seven palms.
Now, I’m not as focused on the center nervous system, CNS. I think more in terms of the tan tiens and central channel. I see the eighth palm change equally from inside as from outside.
Whether it is really the subject of the Lake palm or not, at some point you have to start realizing that the inside and outside are intimately connected. Your practice has to shift to focus on shrink and grow and how that relates to the interplay between the inside and the outside.
I suspect that in the beginning, you are using the physical and etheric bodies. Later, you’ll methodically work back and forth between all of the eight bodies, but the interplay will still be between the inside and the outside, and the sequence will methodically move out further and inward deeper. The intimacy of this interplay will be like a reflection in a still lake where each movement of heaven will be reflected in the earthly water. Back and forth. The constant interplay of opposites.
The key is the link. Without the link between the two, you only have hallucination – it isn’t real.
Divination using the I Ching uses a random act to reflect the purpose and rhythm of the spheres. But this only works if there is a connection. Without that link, the random act is just a random act.
So the eighth palm change is only as good as your connection between what’s inside and what’s outside.
There are many ways to interpret the Lake palm. One that I like is when you start to create all of the previous palm changes by flipping the yang to emptiness. I think this is related to the expression “form is emptiness, emptiness is form”.
So for example, in the Fire palm I concentrate all of my chi into the middle tan tien and central channel. This creates an incredible condensation that can be used to create an expansive energy like pushing off the ground. Without the solidity of the ground you can’t move: there’s nothing to push off of. This condensation creates a form. It feels like it has substance and shape.
But what happens when you dissolve all of that condensation and instead of pushing off it – you push off emptiness? This is like a balloon where the shape is maintained by air pressure. Here I use emptiness instead of air.
If you can do it, you can create incredible balance which is expressed by the phrase “the only balance that ultimately exists is within emptiness”. “The beginning form of balance is the smooth movement between yin and yang”. The balance of emptiness is the next step in the progression.
So in this interpretation of the Lake palm, it is less about inside and outside and more about emptiness. This makes more sense because the balance that is created in the Mountain palm seems like the culmination of form based on condensation and expansion that is substantive. Here everything is empty.
Note also that I can go back through every previous palm change and revisit them from this new perspective. I couldn’t do this until I completed each of the previous palms. Each built off the ones before getting more and more sophisticated. They lead you to find emptiness by taking you to its extreme opposite. The energy has to flip. That’s one lesson of all the yin / yang crap and the I Ching.
So the Lake palm becomes a study of emptiness.
I just read the special event notice – Bruce will be teaching the Lake Palm Change this year!
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