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There is a very concrete way of working with the lower, middle, and upper tan tiens that I’ve never heard described. I think these are part of “Developing the capacities and all the uses…” of the tan tiens that is part of neigung elements 14 and 15. You need to have full access to the entire spinal cord to do this and you shouldn’t even attempt this unless you’ve completed the balancing of the left and right channels. Of this I am sure.
This is what I’m finding: the lower tan tien primarily controls the energy of the spine moving front to back. It does a lot more, but this is one of its capacities. I think this is related to the channel that’s been described between the lower tan tien and ming men. The middle tan tien primarily controls the movement of energy from left and right. The upper controls up and down. All of this movement is done in the spinal cord. The directions can feel like pressures.
Put them all together and you can produce a very concrete shrink and grow that has a distinct spherical feel. Basically you are controlling in and out in three dimensions simultaneously. The pressure fills the 5 extremities and has to be very balanced. The sphere shrinks and grows inside and outside the physical body. This opens the spine more, gives you significantly more access to the body and etheric energy, and opens the tan tiens more.
I suspect that doing this work without being incredibly balanced can be a big problem. It can release any suppressed memories, thoughts, feelings, etc. that are stored in the CNS. There are lots of “dark nights of the soul” that have to be dealt with. I use meditation to deal with anything that arises. If I didn’t have a good foundation in it, I couldn’t continue the work. The bottom line is that doing this without significant preparation is just plain stupid.
I put this out there because we need to elevate the conversation beyond lengthening and opening and closing the joints. The BMP has been out for almost 4 years. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
If you are still a beginner, you need to keep practicing to find what the energy of heaven is. Once you find it, the yin side (earth) will quickly follow. Then you can mix these to find the meaning of the eight trigrams.
Wind for example is just yin and yang occurring where they compliment each other. The energy comes in and goes out like a wind blowing through a room. Contrast that to thunder where the yin and yang intersect with each other like a head-on collision.
The purpose of the forms is to give you a way to manifest and experience the energies through your CNS. It isn’t hand waving. Once you get to this stage, you’ll realize how unimportant the external shapes are. The form doesn’t matter: It’s energy mechanics.
I found this note from a 1996 Gods Playing in the Clouds seminar. These were Bruce’s instructions and summarize how I’m working with the spinal cord in Bagua. I don’t practice any of the neigung sets any more and I didn’t find this using Gods. I found it in my Bagua practice. I find the Bagua palms to be a better container for the 16 part neigung. It is through the pressures in the spinal cord that I experience the spherical quality of Bagua. This also explains why I don’t consider opening and closing the joints (or vertebrae) to be very important anymore. The joints open and close, but I focus on the cord and the movement of energy from and to the core channel.
“Bend the Bow. First learn it from the point of view of the vertebrae. Then, once you can move the vertebrae, you go for the cord and forget the vertebrae. You want the spinal cord to pulsate. You want to stretch and release everything that is in the spinal cord. The spinal cord goes up and down and side to side. The cord itself is in motion. You want to turn the spinal cord liquid. The more liquid it gets the less it obstructs you and you become more conscious and aware of what isn’t just body noise. This is the yin phase of Gods. The spinal cord can only be discovered through the yin phase of Gods. Then you can do yang practices. You will feel how everything in your body is joined to the spinal cord. Focus energy into the cord and let it soften. Dissolve those spaces. The cord will feel like it is going up and down and side to side all at once.”
I feel you James. But there’s no online conversation that can go beyond more mechanical things like lengthening and opening & closing. That stuff is hard enough for a beginner to get a handle on.
And for those of us doing it for a while, what is there to say? I’ve enjoyed your descriptions of what you’ve been training, but I don’t have much to add to it or to discuss. I just go practice by myself or with friends and enjoy it when I can. But I mostly talk to people about it in person because over the internet it doesn’t make much sense.
People use the same words at times without a shared experience of the experience. There are many in Kumar’s school who can repeat everything he’s said but can only replicate what he does to a much lesser degree than their intellectual understand.
Thank you for this quote, James. I just wanted to ask you how do you know/are sure that what you feel is spine cord rather than anterior and posterior longitudinal ligaments? In my experience (very limited and much less than yours) I can feel the ligaments and it is them that give the feeling of swaying around.
Because I can feel the ligaments distinctly and separate from the fluid around the cord and the cord itself. The anterior and posterior ligaments are done first then you gain access to the cord. You don’t go right for the cord without that stage because the ligaments have to soften first. If they don’t allow the vertebrae to move, you can’t move them.
Once you have direct access to the cord, the body gets comparatively easy to access/control. There is 100 times more going on at once, but that is solved by the heart-mind.
If anyone attends the Gods seminar next week, see if you can ask Bruce to explain what the yin phase of Gods means during one of the Q and A segments. It is interesting that he says you can’t do yang practices until you have completed the yin phase of Gods.
So, if no one knows what the yin phase of Gods is, then does it follow that no one has done yang practices yet?
My guess is this is the case. It wasn’t until I had softened and cleared the cord that I found how to do the heaven palm. I didn’t make this connection before, but in retrospect that was the sequence.
Ha-Ha,
Just another 5000 hours to go!
Thanks, James, for this clarification.
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