A Long Time Ago in a Seminar Far, Far Away….

[Anonymous]

A long time ago at one of Bruce events at the Anvil Ranch, I came up with a theory about transmission. I shared it with Eric Peters. Basically, the theory was that in order to transmit anything (the way Bruce does transmission), you had to first connect to it and feel it. Then you simply amplified it using your consciousness.

The better you could feel it, the clearer your transmission would be. I’ve never heard Bruce talk about this. Years later he wrote “The Power of the Internal Martial Arts” and somewhere in the book he talks about connecting to an object in a way that is similar.

I remembered this because it is similar to the Bagua practice I’ve been describing lately. I’m basically using layers of tissue to connect to the etheric field. I don’t memorize a “frequency” or “feeling”, I’m simply putting attention on the layer and then trying to feel and notice how that is connecting to my etheric field. If you get it right, when you put attention on the proper layer in the etheric field, you can feel and work with the physical layer better. That’s the “chicken and egg” relationship of the physical and etheric field that Bruce describes in his book.

In the BMP Module 4 level 12, Bruce describes how to connect to the etheric. The practice I’m doing requires more precision. My goal isn’t just the etheric body it is to methodically connect all of the energy bodies. My hope is that my current practice will help me connect the way Bruce describes but with far greater clarity than I can with just pulsing from the center. I’m basically breaking down the layers palm change by palm change to make them more discernible.

Bruce says “When you really complete this process, all the energy gels and becomes like one interconnected force that can equally be expressed by either hands or feet for physical purposes.” That’s the etheric body. How to open the emotional body is still a mystery.

[Anonymous]

I re-read my post this morning. I think it implies that Bruce’s instructions are correct. I thought I’d clarify and point out that (as usual) I can’t quite do what Bruce describes. not yet anyway. My practice is a way to bridge the gap. I ultimately want to do the pulsing exactly as Bruce describes but I can’t. So, I came up with a way to break it down and make it workable. I continue to make steady progress. Again, this is unusual.

All also repeat how I’ve broken down the palm changes as it is getting more precise.

In the single palm change I’m basically going just outside the skin and working a yin/yang lengthening. It is important to note that I only work one side or the other. I can move energy in either direction on each side, but I only choose one side and one direction at a time.

In the double palm change, I’m going a little deeper into the physical tissue, but I work both the yin and the yang sides at the same time. I’m also working a little further outside the body. The energy can move in either direction in each channel. This results in four pairings: yang/yang, yin/yang, yin/yin/, and yang/yin. You have to be able to work them all and you have to be able to work the entire body at that depth: arms, legs, torso, and head.

In the Wind palm, I start working deeper. I’m effectively opening and closing from and to the internal organs and cavities. I’m working further outside the body as well. I’m doing everything that I was doing in the double palm change but here I’m concentrating on the the center to periphery flow. The perineum is important because the legs are completing lengthening and the yin lengthening enters the body there as it moves to the internal organs (at least that’s what I feel). This is matched by the flows coming in bai hai and down the body as well. The Wind palm really emphasizes the spinning when this is done well and the flow out the central channel gets much stronger.

The Thunder palm focuses even deeper in the body. It concentrates on the spine and nerves. Obviously, I’m going out a little further, but this is getting vaguer and vaguer as I go out. That is why I concentrate on the internal layer. It is felt more concretely. I ensure that it is done completely, evenly, balanced (in all directions) and I’m simply trusting that it is opening the etheric better. The Thunder palm does several things that build on the Wind palm. The center to periphery flow starts going in both directions simultaneously. The closing action isn’t balanced the same way. In the Wind palm you close and open. In the Thunder palm it is more like close, close more, close even more, close even more, bang!

The Fire palm starts to penetrate the bones. It uses everything that the first four palm changes use, but it adds spiraling. In the first four palm changes you can perform them with an emphasis on yin/yang lengthening. You may use twisting and spiraling, but you don’t have to. In the Fire palm you have to. Otherwise, you can’t penetrate the bones. Also, yin/yang lengthening changes a bit. It gets more sophisticated. The opposing twistings start to connect but the yin/yang lengthening starts to just be two sides going in opposite directions. In the earlier palm changes, yin/yang lengthening was more linear, more straight lines following the yin and yang surfaces of the body. Here they corkscrew around the limbs and torso but the opposite flow is always on the opposite side. Again, I’m not good enough to feel the etheric further out so I’m concentrating on making the spiraling connected, and smooth.

The Water palm works the bone marrow.

Mountain is the tai chi space.

Lake is integration. That’s where you complete the process and have the jing phase completed.

[Anonymous]

Direct transmission: Spooky!

Cool bagua riffing James; Thanks.

Another theory of “transmission:”

Eastern philosophy puts great emphasis on “direct transmission;”
that is, a direct transmission from teacher to student.
This is why there is the admonition to find the right teacher.

So you want a direct transmission to your (or someone else’s) emotional body.

So occasionally we see Bruce “transmitting” to students.
For example:
Bruce, introducing the Lake Palm Change (Module 17, Video Lesson 01, at 8:27) lets us know that he is entering the realm of the “spooky.”
He asserts that actual energy work in bagua (8:35) has always been done by direct transmission (8:35-8:38).
It is done between teacher and student (8:40).
He says this is why you study with a master.
The teacher is not passing on “information.”
The teacher is quiet.
See also Video Lesson 29 at 4:45 where Bruce informs us that he is “transmitting.”

So, you want to understand your emotional body.
But, you see the emotional body as an “it” to connect to.
This is dualistic.
On the one hand, there is “it'” your emotional body and on the other hand, there is you (and your consciousness.)
“You” want to “connect” to “it.”
Dualistic.

In Bruce’s book, “The Power of Internal Martial Arts,” Bruce describes his experience with his teacher, Liu Hung Chieh.
Lieh was able to have his mind nonphysically contact Bruce’s body and move him around the room when Bruce practiced Circle Walking (page 241).
Liu would move him with his Chi.
Liu’s own teacher did this to Liu while the old master was sitting in meditation.
Liu relied primarily on such chi transmissions.

One of my favorite Zen teachers, Kosho Uchiyama (1912-1998), with whom I had personal communication, analyzes monk Dogen’s treatise, “Bendowa” (written in 1231 A.D.).
Dogen’s theory of “transmission” is his most important teaching.

The Japanese word for this transmission is “tanden,”
“simply transmitting.”

First, it means that each and every teacher transmit nothing but the wondrous dharma.
(Pardon me for throwing in something that may sound like religious dogma. But I think that Taoist meditation is in the same league.)

Another connotation for the term “tanden” is that the person who transmits and the person who receives the transmission, both teacher and the disciple, are ONE, not separate persons. (page 21).
So the transmission takes place from one person to one person (direct transmission between teacher and student).

It cannot be transmitted through Video or Audio tapes, or books or Mastery courses.
So it is not something substantial like a video or book; it is not something that can be grasped with our intellection.
Hence, Bruce calls it “spooky.”
We cannot grasp it, so it seems “strange” for us because we don”t understand.

Liu and Frantzis are ONE, not separate persons.

They could not create it. It is already there, already given.
We can’t make it by our efforts.

Yet, our life, our physicality, our energy, our etheric field, our emotional body, our psychic body, our body of individuality, our delusions, our discriminations, is a kind of manifestation of reality, the body of Tao, the unknowable, the unnameable.

I am confident that you have the ability to transmit bagua,
even though Bruce says that “yin” and “yang” are false, and that “They’re Bull Shit.” (at 9:34-9:37).
True, the fact that “we’re Bull Shit” is the reality for us human beings.

Keep truckin.

Bob

[Anonymous]

I remember that when I did this “transmission” well, I could feel both myself and the other person. I could literally tell when they could feel what I was doing. It was as though you connected with their consciousness directly. I also remember that you could literally affect the other person viscerally. Eric immediately “got” what I was doing. In fact, he could do it better than I could. He had been studying with Bruce for at least 10 years longer than I had and I had only been a student for 5 years or so. Back then all of this came out of my Taoist meditation practice.

[Anonymous]

I wanted to note that in the Wind Palm Change, I start with the cavities and then move in deeper to the internal organs. Also, the change over point seems to be important.

First, I’m concentrating on eight cavities: armpits, kwa, midriff (that’s 6), throat notch, and finally the lower tantien (as a cavity. Bruce has said that it is both a tantien and a cavity.) Although it isn’t concrete, I’m getting better at feeling the close and open from the cavities and how it gathers and disperses from them. Although vague it does seem to be getter clearer. This appears to be a step along the way to the internal organs. When you go to the depth of the internal organs, you have to go through all of these cavities. The energy that is gathered is coming from further out, but I still can’t discern it clearly.

The change over point (the place where yin changes to yang or yang changes to yin) becomes more important. If you disconnect or don’t fully complete the change, it just doesn’t function correctly. I also feel like the change over point is unique to each palm change.

I’m wondering if my lack of clarity outside the physical body is directly related to not staying properly connected to the expansion going out and finding the change over point outside the body that corresponds to the change over point inside the body.

That will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m going back to bed.

[Anonymous]

Best wishes, and luck on each of your investigations, I hope the below thoughts might add something (more if any others read).

-Bob, I apprec your quotations in this post .. Truckin on
……………..
In regards to Transmission… perhaps:
靜中觸動動猶靜。因敵變化示神奇。
勢勢揆心須用意。得來不覺費工夫。

Espeically the second line (one translation follows), the transformation (Hua jin becoming Dong jin?) appear wondrous… the opponent being in combat (or partner-contact-flow), or in communication, both are give and take, send and receive…
but rather than being X Y Z.. abc concepts, pictures, words-verbal… or even a direct from this to that.. the mind-state of knowing something itself is given (feel that, from the inside, and you have the context without the content.. )
[vs the usual way of trying to convey an understanding- giving content, and then the receiver/student trying to figure out the viewpt from which that makes sense -the context- as one wishes to understand and “see” the way that the master, the expert, does.. not the details, but how it fits together..] — the AHA itself (then you need to “Try it on” and see-thru it).

But that is still an action of the Yi-intent (often the effect of an action-of Yi-intent is confused.. or even the action-of Yi-intent.. rather than the “Strange Attractor” Yi-intent. To recognize that directly, one can better understand what Yi operates in/from. -but it seems that Transmission works even better within the realm of Hsin-intent, but to listen and then know at that level.. when the first above is a step..)

===================
” In the midst of stillness one comes in contact with movement, moving as though remaining still. According with one’s opponent, the transformations appear wondrous.”
from – Song of the Thirteen Postures

ps in regards to comments about transmission not working through videos, audios, recordings (and thereby also not through books/texts).. I’m not sure why you write that, although many may think that is the case, I haven’t found that to be true in practice. -I actually find on the audios (as below comment) and also the videos (Training Circle and BGM) definitely have zings of that for me, I’ve seen some content covered that I’ve seen from him in the past shown in pretty much the same way, but as I watched (and after pondered) other insights unravel.. perhaps just percolation, but the downloading “channel” feeling of transmission is distinct… I don’t know, but as “wondrous” as that seems, how can it be? -but it seems to be the case, then what does it imply that transmission can be captured on a recording and played-re-played, without the teacher needing to do it each time? (as that changes things)
Now whether that is from my having been impacted by personal instruction with Bruce in the past, so that when I hear his voice (and on video also see) whether that allows reception of insights, that I wouldn’t if I hadn’t been acquainted via prior ‘teaching’ (beyond just having met.. as well as the time I spent reading and re-reading, etc.)

One thing I found was The Tao of Letting Go audios (the liturgies, but at times even in the verbal instructions) I found quite powerful.. -I actually was there at the event where those recordings were made, it was a learning experience then, but I found that listening on the CD was ‘more’ powerful than being there live (again, as I was there, I could compare, but if I hadn’t been there, would it have been as powerful? but if I hadn’t been there, I couldn’t compare/contrast

………….
[ One thing I found interesting, as a test- way back when I first received those CDs; I actually put on iTunes and set to random so that a track arose and without looking I just felt, and noted, was in spine, or breathing here.. etc. and then checked and see that was the track.. -perhaps I’d memorized all the tracks, and recognized? perhaps, but otherwise (Occam’s razor) the feeling evoked by listening being the listed intent of the liturgy seems to be the noticed affect. ]
……….
-the ability to focus, and not being amongst people, etc may augment it for me (just as watching the BGM material, seeing it and sit and watch, I could observe more on video.. as in-person I get overloaded a bit..
-of course, I have sensed that at live-events, when I arrive I feel an altered-state during the whole time, which I’m not sure if is a transmission affect (during the event-retreat overall, vs just in spurts during a teaching… that later being what may usually assumed about “communication” is N-msg sent-received.. but the underlying-connection Robert references being preexisting rather than just a conveyance- as in speaking a sentence to during a specific conversation-interchange.
(thus my comments in above about effects of the action of Yi, vs action of Yi, vs Yi-itself… contrasted to Hsin, and whether Transmission can be done without acting from-thru the Hsin is a question.- although there are always steps.. as that underlying-connection is there.. irregardless. -irrespective of whether that is a correct word..)

-but this is commented upon (how one reads-receives info and sends-“transmits” to the other), and the basis in Double-palm and the Wind-palm (inside-outside combined, spherical connection).. which is different than the viewpt that the Eight Palm changes are like belt-levels where one advances in rank and skill-understanding up the 8-steps.. just like some step “which of the NeiGung forms are the most advanced?” what is the progression, and are the 16 neigung like steps-grades? -a different “system” than the circle, walking-spiral, different categories-compartments that focus-upon different subject-principles, and then continue around again.. each time layering and enfolding…
[ so in that regards I’d have a different view than trying to set up the layered advancement steps of the 8, as a climbing.. (a bit more of a fire-path organization, than a water-path, in my view), but that might just be personal-preference, as well as how I have come to see the system.. just put out there for two-cents, and for alt-contrast]

…
what might it mean to “accord -with- the Other” and transform (which is not just to follow, even to lead, but to change- in its nature.. and yet still stay on track, ie not get lost- distraction- and yet not “Predetermining” -much of doing a palm-change as I do here and there, may miss this flow, as it is separating I see/I interp/I decide/I do, then I look (to see…) all that is losing-presence, (and a way of doing an action in the same way that “other martial arts” (as Bruce said and demonstrated ~post-heaven) decide I’m going to do this, vs flowing with the movement.. (don’t miss the near, for the far… )

======
“The Journey of the thousand miles begins with a single step.” (and what is that step? – referencing a specific, not just the first- most commentator-translators reference that is just do anything, but “off by an inch, off by a mile” … to start correctly is to be halfway done, and to not start correctly (to have missed the foundation of fundamental-basics)…

To any that might be still working Bagua per the BGM and perhaps reading this forum.. keep heart, (and thanks to James for his putting his thoughts out there.)

[Anonymous]

There appear to be several ways I can go. One is to explore and try to find how an expansive yang changes to yin outside the physical body in the etheric field. I’d be looking for how this operates at each layer. Basically, the yin to yang change that happens inside the physical body would define 8 changes, one for each layer. The 16 would include another 8 that is the corresponding change over outside the body. This would make sense in terms of learning sequence because I don’t think you have a change in hell of finding the yin changeover outside the body without having extraordinary clarity with the first 8.

Another direction goes after the 64. Basically, each layer (yin/yang lengthening, cavaties, internal organs, spine/nerves, bones, bone marrow) representing the first six energy bodies would be worked independently. Each would simply either open or close. A hexagram would be a simple encoding of which layer is doing what.

This might seem like a big leap but it comes directly out of my practice. For example, you can perform the double palm change by working with the yin/yang lengthening separately from the cavities. You practice and explore being able to lengthen out while the cavities close. This looks like and feels a lot like yin/yang lengthening but here I’d be making both sides lengthen out in contrast to the cavity closing. This is very different and work the body much deeper.

You can have the internal organs opening or closing at the same time or in combinations. And then add the spine or bones or bone marrow. This is the separate phase. You get very clear about accessing each layer.

In Mountain you would be able to work them all simultaneously. In Lake they would integrate.

I’m not sure which is correct or whether any of it makes sense at this point.

[Anonymous]

There is some fun stuff here in keeping with working with the layers. This is play. I’m trying to work out how these might be used to create distinct changes.

In single palm change, I’m playing with yin/yang lengthening. Simply open on the yang side, close on the yin surfaces. Basic stuff.

The double palm change adds the cavities. Now I can make the yin/yang lengthening lengthen out on both sides while opening or closing the cavities. You can also start separating the body into left and right sides where all combinations are possible. I can open or close the cavities on each side in unison or independently as well as in combination with using the yin/yang lengthening and all of its possibilities.

In the Wind palm I following the trigram. The outer layers are opening and the inside layer (the internal organs) are closing. The yin within the yang. So, yin/yang lengthening is lengthening outward on both sides, the cavities are all opening, and the internal organs are getting the compression. I like to close them and emphasize the lateral twisting.

In the Thunder palm I close the yin/yang lengthening on both sides, close the cavities, close the internal organs with a twist, and then open the spine and joints at the last second. So, it is close the layer, close the next deeper layer, close the next deeper layer, bang! Open the spine and joints.

In Fire open each of the outer layers and create compression on the bones. This is in contrast to wringing a towel technique that I used to penetrate the bones when working with the physical body. Here I’m working the etheric. All of the expansion is going outward and creating a sort of rebound in the etheric that makes the bones more awake. So, this follows the trigram as well: all of the outer is opening and the inner is condensed.

The Water palm is just the opposite. All of the outer layers compress the bone marrow. The bone marrow just takes the compression. It doesn’t care. It can take as much pressure as you can create.

Mountain balances the in and the out. You start access both simultaneously in the same space in the central channel.

[Anonymous]

This morning I was able to get through the first six palm changes and then work the Mountain Palm Change. I’m becoming more convinced that Mountain works the tai chi space and there you find various levels of stillness.

I can’t think of a good way to describe the palm change; however, I found that working it helped me to work on the other path I described: staying connected to the expansion and not disconnecting so I can find the change from yang to yin. This is outside the physical body in the etheric field. I was able to do this with the Single Palm Change which implies that I was working the layer closest to the body.

This practice improves the Single Palm Change dramatically.

[Anonymous]

“transmission”

While teaching Opening and Closing in Bagua
at Module 17, Video Lesson 18, 22:36-22:41,
Bruce says,
“I’m transmitting like a Mother.”

[Author]

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