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I’m sure I’ve got a lot more to learn but looking back I think the jing phase is simply about gaining conscious control of the blood circulation and the Chi phase is about gaining conscious control of the cerebrospinal fluid and nervous system. This maps nicely with the idea of the mind moves the blood, the blood moves the body.
I still don’t have any idea what shen is about other than speculation. Based on the tiny amount of information in the mastery programs, it sounds like you just train what you know and wait.
To add a little more detail to this post. Both phases have similar functions. They both are about circulation. They both bring nutrients to their system and remove waste. Similarly they improve health by improving circulation.
The jing phase is concerned with the blood circulation. The Chi phase is all about the CSF. In the Chi phase you gain access to the ventricles in the brain. The fourth ventricle is connected to the spine and is said to form the central canal (again, not channel). This is how you connect the spine as a single unit and make it about as strong as it can be. I suspect this is likely the final stage of Bend the Bow. There isn’t much more you can do we your spine.
The lateral ventricles seem to be closely related to the side channels and seem to be connected with the foot in Bagua. This would be unique to Bagua. Moving CSF toward the front of the ventricle relates to the ball of the foot and the rear of the ventricle amplifies the effect of the heel. Part of the Water Palm Change is the movement back and forth between the lateral verticles.
The 3rd ventricle is the least distinct for me. It seems to connect and balance them all. If I remember my anatomy correctly it is proximal to the thalamus which is involved with sensory perception and motor control. It is the perfect mechanism for feeling the whole body at once. It is in the middle or heart of the brain and I suspect is the physiological basis for the heart-mind.
Note there are many, many steps to each phase. They shouldn’t be rushed or cheated. I wouldn’t be surprised if jumping ahead is dangerous or at the least detrimental to your health. Our training isn’t an intellectual exercise so each step is important for strengthening the body in a particular order. Bagua is methodical and systematic. The Water Method is using the “water” (fluids) as the basis for exploring spirit whatever the hell that is.
The Thunder Palm Change seems to use the lateral ventricles. You still have to maintain the 4th and the spine, but the form seems to work the lateral ventricles more. The foot, hand, and the lateral ventricle on the same side work like a single unit. When performing the Thunder Palm, it is the fluid that keeps you from getting stuck. At this point the palm change is incredibly smooth and relaxed. The right ventricle is working the foot and hand on the right side and the left works the left foot and left hand.
The Fire Palm Change seems to be where you enter the land of the spooky. It naturally focuses pressure on the 3rd ventricle. The lateral ventricles and the 4th are balancing each other. This appears to be another meaning of the top and the bottom fully open the middle.
So, there were a whole bunch of stages to opening the spine and more specifically the spinal cord. Then, the access to the CSF in the spinal cord opened access to the 4th ventricle, which opened access to the lateral ventricles, which opens access to the 3rd ventricle.
You are progressively gaining mastery over the cerebrospinal fluid and the nervous system.
Just playing on the term heart mind a little more. The term may be comparing the 3rd brain ventricle to the heart. Consider that a ventricle is nothing more than a space filled with something. The heart has two ventricles filled with blood. The brain has four ventricles filled with CSF. Both fluids circulate to bring nutrients to their respective systems and remove waste. So, it might be that the term heart-mind is saying the 3rd ventricle is the pump of the CSF. Just as the heart is the pump of the blood.
Just to be a little clearer: if you randomly jump ahead and start trying to access the CSF as described – you’re stupid. You might as well start hanging weights from your junk. Bruce won’t even teach this because it is irresponsible.
I’m putting it out there for the five or ten people that follow these posts. My assumption is that you’ll take personal responsibility for your choices.
The progression is more like this:
* learn the jing phase
* learn how to balance the physicality of the spine which is more than just the Bend the Bow material that Bruce has taught so far
** First this balance is to specific levels of the spine (this is fairly linear and focuses on the eight directions)
** Later it is sections
** Later still it is the hand, foot, and head balancing to the section
** Next you find the balance of expansion and condensing
* gain access to the cerebrospinal fluid in the spinal cord
* Eventually gain access to the 4th ventricle. At this point everything is integrating
* Gain access to the lateral ventricles of the brain
* Use the lateral and 4th ventricles to gain access to the 3rd ventricle
** Understand how the fluids move between the lateral ventricles
** Understand how the fluids circulate including to the peripheryThis is a quick overview based on my crappy memory but there are some key moments that I’ve captured that make the process move along the steps very naturally. At least that’s how it worked for me. When you get to this point, this should help.
One thing I hope you get from this post is how concrete and detailed the material gets when you leave the ambiguous language of energy channels and chi behind. The steps, purpose, and goals become much clearer and much more precise. That’s why I think this is so important to bring back the art and expose all of the nonsense.
Also remember the land of the spooky is still out there. This material is just the basics that are meant to prepare you for the real stuff and the rigors of discovering first your personal essence and then the big picture.
It seems you have figured out an overarching-pattern that may help integrate and ‘explain’ so different elements, but also perhaps this is related to how you are packaging this info(?) [as below.]
I understood your prior concern about holding back (although personally someone writing about this topic, especially one that is in a system I know about, Bruce’s info background, as well as some-indirect-contact- ie the forum.. I was already going to be waiting to buy a copy, and likely mention it to others..),
but now that you have mentioned some, I just wanted to throw-in a distinction between the concepts you have bullet-ptd and summarized-mentioned vs the overall pitch of:
“not Harry Potter” the chi stuff is all ambiguous” and this bio-anatomical model being somehow related (like the use of Qtm-physics in discussions, or any other scientific or metaphorical model that is referenced, but not used in a scientific way- ie if you reference certain fluid-flows, how have those been measured, in use? (f)MRI? other sort of pressure, or electro-resistance, shifts?
if they aren’t being measured, and shown not that there is thought to be a system of flows, but how those specific flows are used in these specific dynamics- measured and demonstrated to do so..
— if not, that isn’t else but
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience-which is fine, if (as I reference at top) this is a packaging issue, perhaps you are trying to tag into this tendency in pop-culture….. and if you are aiming for people to taken in by this, but this will be seen as either Manipulative, or mistaken, by those that can see what you are doing.
(I don’t know if this was/is intended or not.. just a view.. only to add a different perspective.. just like any other logical-error)– especially as ambiguity is pinged as what that old-chi terms was- thus this “new” shouldn’t be worse, as it i now two steps (chi can be a feeling-felt, while these fluid-flow-ventricles aren’t felt? unless you are attempting to describe in text how a reader can come to feel those ventricles, specifically, and not just a feeling-sense.. which would just be trying to substitute another word for the prior metaphor.. but with even less clarity (as going by an abstract model, not something functionally-derived as relations-linked via auto-biofeedback.
I differentiate between the bullet-pts and concepts you mention.. as those steps don’t get into that mess, its only the overall model (and perhaps could be read as rant) that might not be needed? (could extract that.. unless there was a desire or reason to include)… I don’t think both are needed (unless your whole idea of writing about the different points was primarily to address this overall model-rant.. as developing that argument. Which would be fine..
but either being fully how-to (and each step, and sections, may have different concepts that organize them, but don’t need to be tied to a tradition nor to scientific models and thus measurement), -or- a description of different flows and where they are in the body-system, and why they are listed, and ‘measured’ (with all the required vigor), as well as justification of why a correlation is being made of that outer-objective action, and some inner-subjective experience? (how can that state-feeling or change be connected-causally to that measurable?)
If the first, its all good, but there are many that seem to hint/imply they are the second, and yet aren’t…So if the desire is to create an impression of science by using an anatomical model, vs some-other system model, and thus give a description a sense of credibility, than fine-as that is your intention. Just that it would be noted as not being that- especially if you seek those outside the causal readership to be convinced (ie to be read as rigorous-scientific, and/or in the depth that a visceral-dynamist might expect)..
Either way the progression of steps, and in-depth hinting at experienced relationships-felt is intriguing (and of course, if you have the measurements, and the info, and desire, to go into backing up the above- so be it, you may, but in case you didn’t really mean to go down that path.)
—mainly I write as it seems you have a few different threads wound in there.. (and certain impulses are like additions and other subcon-tendencies that infect and distort, and change the “Voice” of the writing, if not noticed.) I hope it helps, good luck in your discovery and eliciting process (as you mentioned to Robert, you were/are considering presenting info to those with experience in this field.. etc. I hope that goes well (and I hope above might help- or it might not be of interest, as you’ve mentioned in other posts).
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Just to end with a link not directly related, nor a comment upon, but an article-blog post that may help those that read this, and are also interested in this. -below, delving in (not just in subject, but in terms of evidentiary-examples.)
Remember the jing and Chi phases are related. Essentially in the jing phase we are improving our blood circulation. In the Chi phase we are improving CSF circulation.
From a simplistic view, the CSF is nothing more than filtered blood. The choroid plexus in each ventricle filters the blood. That’s how CSF is created.
CSF then circulates from the lateral ventricles to the 3rd ventricle, to the fourth. It then splits and either goes up around the brain or down into the spinal cord. In the spinal cord it flows around it (our “side channels”) as well as down the central canal (our “central channel”). Just like blood it eventually returns and is re-absorbed via the sinuses (not nasal sinuses) into the venous blood. This order isn’t the way you gain control of it. It is the path of CSF circulation.
My real point is the jing phase is key to getting to the Chi phase: again, it sets it up. So you don’t want to skip or cheat the jing phase.
And once again we are back to how do you gain control of the blood flow and more to the point – what’s missing?
Taokua, Point well taken. I’ll have to give this some serious consideration.
I think my way is just another way to express the material (packaging if you will) and it will only have an appeal for certain set of people.
The main advantage of my approach is it eliminates all of the extraneous baloney – and there’s a lot! Take the Hsing-I mastery program, at one point Bruce says that Hsing-I really does just one thing. He says Hsing-I does it really well, but it is really difficult to learn to do that one thing. What is it? What’s the one thing?
Here’s another example. I have a friend who is a good Tai Chi practitioner and has been teaching Tai Chi for many years. When we talk about Tai Chi he uses the more traditional language and is always talking about creating “feelings”. As good as he is, he always leaves our conversations with a better understanding of what he is actually doing. The reverse has never been the case.
I’ve asked the group if anyone can tell me how they generate peng, one of the most basic elements of the internal arts. We know how that’s going. These arts are dying. Bruce says so himself. If the traditional way of teaching is so great, why would the arts be degrading? They are more accessible than any time in the history of the planet. From that perspective, I’d say any alternative is better than what is out there today.
BTW, I have a name for my method: The Fouk Chi Method.
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