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I’m going over the material on sinking chi from the first round and there are several exercises where you only go as far as the lower tantien. However, whether standing, or sitting with my hands on my knees, some part of my arm is lower than my tantien. Seems my options are: 1) stop at the height of tantien and ignore rest of arms/hands (which feels a bit “incomplete” somehow), 2) ignore arms altogether and focus on head/neck/torso, or 3) dissolve/sink as far as finger tips even though they are slightly lower than my lower tantien.
Does anyone know the “official” answer to this, or have enough experience to give me a useful answer from their own practice?
I would also be very interested in an answer or ideas to this question
I don’t know if this is an “official” answer, but there are a lot of different applications of sinking and dissolving. I think the best source for information about standing and dissolving is in Bruce’s book, Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body. In this book, he teaches how to sink and dissolve from above the crown of the head to below the feet. For sitting meditation, a good source is his two books an the Water Method of Taoist meditation. I think anyone serious about working on Bruce’s methods should probably get pretty much all of his books. His teaching contains a vast and comprehensive body of knowledge and there are multiple approaches and presentations of the same material. Considering that he’s taught this material over quite a long time, it’s remarkable how consistent and coherent his system is.
As an old song says: “my arms are just two things in the way (until I can wrap them around you).”
The info is not in the books AFAIK.
I’ve asked several people this question, including Bruce, but only got partial answers.
One (from Bruce) was: “sure, you can dissolve your hands, after all they’re part of your spine. Having your hands on your belly loops the energy through the top your body, while having them on the thighs loops it through the whole body.”
Paul Cavel once said (regarding how to end a dissolving session): “let the energy move “as the crow flies” into the lower Tan Tien. If it’s inner dissolving, you probably won’t be in the arms anyway, as most of the interesting stuff (ie 3rd body and higher) is in the torso.”
Of course the above are paraphrases, not exact quotes.
Still, I get confused and distracted by this issue. I don’t want to change my hand position because then I would need a hand-cushion always available. But feeling my hands on my legs makes me aware of my legs, and also of a much wider ring around my waist and hips than I want to focus on if I’m working with the lower Tan Tien.
It’s hard to just “switch” off the awareness of my legs, and also to know if actually I should be allowing an “upward and inward” flow towards the center, or letting the energy from my hands continue downwards until it’s “off radar.”
Even though this may seem like a small detail, I think it’s an important one and I would still love to hear from someone (preferably a senior instructor?) who can clarify the issue.
Hi Robin,
you might try asking bruce in the Q&A section of this forum. You’ll get the answer straight from him in his next Q&A video.Erwan
It seems this question keeps getting asked, not sure why but I can see how the imagery can make it confusing, but an example that came-up in the past- say you have one arm reaching up, and the other arm reaching-down and out to the side (some different shaolin-type poses like this- say the right arm-palm is up above head, and left-arm-palm is out to the side of hip…
just to give a picture: thus starting in a descending manner.. have a flat plane- -first the right-hand, then the right-wrist and right forearm.. about there, the right-elbow is at the level of the top-of-head.. as descend through the head/face (front back and ears-sides as if a circle- not jumping “up and down”)..
while through this part of the head down through the neck- “simultaneously” through the bicep-tricep-sh…(some can say how do you jump from arm to head back and forth? -that is only an issue if “visualizing” -pretend one is standing in water- with the level of the top of the water is say at just below your nose, cheekbones, below-ears, and also a second “ring” around the right arm..
at this pt there are two-“circles” (where the body is breaking the water’s surface-tension). and then have the water “drain”… thus -in the above pose- when the water has descended to the waist-height (the water only descend a millimeter by fraction, as you scan-feel all among all the parts at the lvl of the surface of the water– what can you feel? (not just the “front”.. unless you can’t feel sides and back.. and not just “torso” and then oops jump up to shoulder to “get into the arm”.. (as if can only travel through the fleshpath.. so skip the arm, and then get to it.. rather.. as you get to the hip -lvl, the above posture would have the middle-of upper left-forearm (thus again another two circles- and depends how depend into the flesh can you feel? just the skin-surface, or deeper in? -dead-spots)..so then what about the right arm? -at the pt where the “water” is below hip lvl (in this posture) the right arm is all dealt-with already (it is above, so finished with it.. if you went past it, you either couldn’t feel a spot, or just 70%.. not parts of right-arm remaining -in this cycle)… as continue to descend- down-mid thigh lvl towards knees, this brings at the lvl of the left-wrist-palm.. etc.
[again, above is based upon an example posture of right hand-palm up-above head, and left-hand-palm down and a bit out to the side…]
a question can be- if I am at the level of my shoulders-neck.. what about my hands? (if in santi, or a TaiChi pose.. and the hand-fingers are near this “height” say in brush-knee, or golden-rooster, etc.. – at the same lvl).. but what if when I’m at the lvl of my shoulders-neck, I think about feel my hands (either, or both, hands at the lvl of my hips, or folded in my lap).. well, not at that lvl.. so not there ‘yet”
what if I am at the lvl of my hips- and my hands are folded at my lap? what is at the lvl of the “water’s surface”? what is above or below? hips- and wrist and palms (if hands folded at lap) are at that lvl? how get from hips and jump over to the hands? (not go through shoulder-arms? wuh?))-if dealing with hands folded at lap, what if feel your shoulder shift (or tense)- jump back-up and adjust and sink/dissolve there? (likewise if at lap-lvl, jump down to ankle and then back up, similar to jump back up to shoulder and back down to lap? )..
these sort of questions- what-if I want to __ heck can do what you want, doesn’t mean it is a good idea, but not “forbideen” sure make up a different concept and experiment, but that is not how this is taught and done. Taoist-methodology, as taught be Bruce EArts
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Other related questions seem to be questions like below..
(but what if I want to monkey-mind jump my mind down and then back up? or I want to fix-adjust, ie fidget? – relate to the last pt above..so to return to pt- sort of related to pt 1– . but dissolving to the lvl of the lower-dantien is different than feeling to that lvl, and different from sinking to that lvl.. dissolving (is based-upon the prior to, but then feeling further).. entering into the lower-dantien is a Place- which doesn’t feel or experience as if it is a place you can touch or “see” in the lower dantien (in the same way that if you touch a pt on your forearm, and then close your eyes and touch that same-place and feel-it.. what does it actually feel like “inside that place”? -it isn’t the distant-indirectly experience of what seeing a place and imagining what it feels like there.. (only by feeling a sense somewhere, and then overlaying the visual-mapping.. or “where” it is can we identify where on the body it is.. other wise- really feel it, and it just sort of is… its like a large-room with a small-door entrance…
thus awakening the lower-dantien links the energy of the body- but the lower dantien being in the core of the body- is actually in the center-line of the body (the phy lvl of the central-channel)… thus to do that, one is able to feel to that depth in the areas above (and below) the body? can you feel, and dissolve, down into the bone layer, feel into and through the jts.. -feel and awaken the internal-organs? (as the liver is not as deep in the torso as the Lower-dantien in the center axis.. also the spine is not as deep in as … so can feel those? if not feel that deep inside (concentric-rings-wise.. like rings on a tree).. then how reach the innermost pillar of the concentric-rings (where the lower-dan-tien is rooted…
…. but perhaps the concept of sensing-feeling-connection to (to connect to, to contact, to link-to is to wake-up and be “directly” explicitly feeling it.. just as if you lay-upon your arm-hand so that it “falls-asleep” you can’t feel your hand.. so you can move and control it.. (also it is cold, circulation cut off.. “ice to water…”) .. then as you gain sensitivity and you can “put your mind INTO that part of you”.. you can move that hand,,, feeling a part of body- awakens.. (can have not only sensitivity into the lower-dantien, but also have the aspect of mind inside of that part- waking up.. stabiliizes.. and the affects of it).. that is what occurs.. and seems many interpret it as “look down, in your mind’s eye and see that area of body… ” -check are you feeling there, or is there a ‘seeing’ picture.feeling-sense (from an image in the subconscious.. vs actually being inside it)
anyway- above is a quick covering of many thought-question on this, I hope all above was self-evident, as likely it will be responded to as- not what was meant in above-original-post …. but to not just answer this one question-thread.. but related issues…
and my response above (in the layers I intended to weave together in writing this), some false-turns I experienced in the past (related to many article-concepts in the modern sub–pop-culture of these topics I think get this confused..
-as if these arts are conceptual actions that one can sum-up in a few phrases and ‘do’ (vs it being ‘actions’ which we don’t have terms for.. and also it being an action “from” a different place of mind– if you doing actions of Visual-pictures (tension in the eyes) or speaking-words (subvocalized, explicit self-talk descriptions), let alone the surface-mind, vs acting from deeper-mind (a coherent mind place).. and let alone from Hsin (heart-mind) depth…
Thanks Erwan,
Trouble is I’m only subscribed to the first round, so I won’t get to hear the answer. If anyone from the current round would like this answered and would be willing to ask and pass on the answer to me, I would be delighted!
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