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I’ve been working on the Lake Palm Change lately. I thought it would be worthwhile to relate some of what is going on in my training because it starts to make sense of one of the fundamental concepts in Taoism, our essence.
If you look at the Lake Palm concepts that Bruce overtly presented, you know that there is a big focus on simultaneously creating an upward spiral and a downward spiral. If you only get the hand movements, this is equivalent to learning line dancing. IMO, the external hand patterns mimic what you are supposed to be doing deep inside the cerebral spinal fluid. But the more interesting material can’t be seen or described: “You’re now entering the realm of the spooky.” Module 17 Video 1 at 8:23.
What I’m finding is that the opening and closing as well as the upward and downward spirals are designed to make the wonderful accident happen. They are designed to help you get past the mind, find spirit, and discover your essence.
How does it do it? First, the Lake Palm presupposes that you have a lot of skill. It assumes that you know how your central nervous system switches back and forth from yin to yang to yin to yang. It assumes that your body is open, connected from head to foot. It assumes that you basically have the chi of your body online and working smoothly.
From there, I see a simple pattern: open one side while closing the other. Then allow each to flip. The opening side flips to closing while simultaneously the closing side flips to opening. There is a rhythm. We turn from one side to the next to the next to the next. Back and forth, back and forth. At the same time the upward and downward spirals are happening. They are making similar transitions. The down changing to up. The up changing to down. Both are happening at the same time but they are 180 degrees out of phase with each other.
It is when the flows join in the central channel that the magic is supposed to happen. The odd thing is that the harder you try to do it, the further away from actually doing it you’ll be. You are trying to go beyond the mind. If you use the mind (that’s what “trying” implies), you are not going beyond the mind. You’re stuck in the same place or mode that the first 7 palms used.
Once in a while you just perform the form and something happens – you see your essence. Just a quick glimpse. The mind engages again, it is masked once again. But that moment changes you. It opens you up at a far deeper level. The next day or week might be spent dealing with the fallout. You are unlikely to stumble on this again until you clear out the muddy waters that were stirred up. Not only that, you also try to recreate the experience which makes it impossible to see again.
So the form is designed to make the accident happen. It is pure genius. The flows, the opening and closings are clear in the side channels, but when they intersect in the middle, deep inside the cerebral spinal fluid, inside the central channel – you can see your essence and if you are lucky emptiness. Yin, yang, both yin and yang, neither yin nor yang.
The side channels are where you manifest your ideas. The central channel is the tai chi space where they come from and go to die. You are creating yin on one side and yang on the other. How do you bring these into the center without finding the state where both yin and yang exist simultaneously? That’s the accident you want, but it can’t be contrived.
If you are more successful, you can take this into the other palm changes. Thunder for example can be done like you are doing the switches back and forth at an incredible rate inside the central channel. That’s where the real shaking comes from. You could consider it a extreme version of Lake. In either case, it seems as though the “energies” of the palm changes are discovered and understood after you are working with the tai chi space or central channel or your essence. Call it whatever you want – you’ve entered the realm of the spooky.
I just thought I’d add that the tai chi space is where yin and yang exist in the same space.
I’ve practiced for years and learned how to create yin and yangs that exist in different parts of the body. One part manifesting a yin action and another part manifesting a yang. But this is different. The tai chi space is where they are both in the same space. Literally.
In the Lake Palm Change, we try to find this in the central channel in the torso, but it is equally present in the arms, legs, and head. Look at the diagrams of the side and central channels that are in many of Bruce’s books. There is no difference between the side channels in the arm and in the torso. That’s how and why the Lake Palm Change can be condensed into the single palm change movement at the end of the Lake Palm form that Bruce taught. He shows it very clearly but didn’t teach it in depth because of time constraints.
My experience is that when you do this in the torso, you also start finding the in and the out. You start finding and exploring the tai chi space from the pressure going out and going into the central nervous system simultaneously. That’s when I start to notice emptiness (or what I think it is). It is everything and nothing.
So, what’s the ultimate extrapolation of all this? It is the all and everything: all possibilities (yin and yangs) existing simultaneously in the same space.
Or it could all be BS. Who knows?
Great stuff, and neatly written up.. appreciation for presenting this write-up on this forum… Hopefully it will help and inspire all those here in the Bagua-work (as not as many other voices posting, but I’m sure there are those receiving both ideas, but even general support/encouragement from).. cheers
Thanks. I don’t think what I’m posting is particularly useful for most at this time, but it will be important later.
Bruce’s teaching is much better than I ever thought, but it is often mired in a bunch of extraneous minutia. Sorting out the jewels from the trivial is not always easy. Knowing what to train, how to train it, and when is an art unto itself.
That said, I’m open to commenting on anything people need help with. I’ll only reply if I think I have something to offer. And, don’t take offense to my answers. I can come off as an opinionated jerk, but that isn’t my intent. I have simply found my particular way of processing everything that Bruce has taught me. Right or wrong – it is what it is.
Bruce didn’t teach it, but what I’m finding is that the Lake Palm opens the middle tan tien and the heart-mind. The balances from top and bottom, left and right, front and back, in and out setup the “flux field” that Bruce talks about and equates to the tai chi space.
The lower tan tien and upper tan tiens create pressure in the middle. They wrap over the top and under the pelvis to join in the middle like a big “C”. This may be the full expression of Bend the Bow. The same “C” is made in the horizontal plane by our wrapping. The field doesn’t feel like the fluids though. It is lighter but no less distinct. The Lake Palm form challenges your ability to maintain the spherical nature of the field while expressing it out the arms in legs in every direction.
I’d suggest you watch the YouTube video “Liu Hung Chieh Ba Gua”. You’ll see how Liu never stops lengthening in and out in any direction and never stops: everything furthers.
There is a little secret to this – you make the “C” in all directions simultaneously.
I’ve never met anyone other than Bruce that can do this. If you watch any student or instructor, their chi quickly gets stuck whenever they are trying to do this stuff. Particularly when they try to make it strong and their anxiety goes through the roof.
Bruce doesn’t do that. He balances everything in a way that opens his heart-mind.
In Module 16 video 2, Bruce describes how he uses the flux field, how it relates to the three burners, and even the vertical “C”. I don’t understand all of the implications he mentions in this video but I do get how the top, middle, and bottom are separate and how they flow through the middle and can be controlled by the middle. Interesting note that he says this is unique to Bagua. Tai Chi doesn’t do this.
I finally got it. This works exactly the way that Bruce has always said it would: first open the lower tan tien, then open the upper tan tien, then use the lower and upper tan tiens to open the middle tan tien.
The culmination gives you access to the sphere, full body spiraling, and you can go in both yin and yang simultaneously in all directions.
There is one unexpected thing. You can choose whether the energy movement connects with the physical body or not. When you do, you get shrink and grow. The physical tissue actually condenses or expands.
Another strange experience is that when you extend out, you are equally going in. Its just strange to balance the two to get more power. In other words, when I want to be particularly nasty, I would both expand and condense at the same time. That’s just weird, but it is the presence of that balance that allows you to instantaneously switch from emphasizing yang to emphasizing yin.
I think at the end of all this you are supposed to understand the four: yang, yin, both yang and yin, and finally neither yang nor yin.
I think neither yang nor yin is referring to spirit. Once you arrive at the ability to perform yang or yin or both yang and yin simultaneously – you begin to “see” what is beyond them but can’t be described. It isn’t so much describing that thing but your presence of mind that is important.
That presence is what allows you, gives you the ability, enables you to choose to connect the movement of chi to your body or not. What happens is you condense your chi and your body at the same time and it begs the question, what’s left? What’s going out that balances the in? That’s when you start to look for emptiness. Whether you perceive it or not is another matter.
Finding emptiness becomes a bit tricky at this point. It is far easier to juxtapose two opposites than to work with emptiness. Mountain is the juxtaposition of opposites that creates the necessary stability of mind to make the next leap.
We crave the feeling of strength that comes from creating inertia. We crave it like an addiction.
So, the Lake palm is trying to do everything that the Mountain Palm Change did, but without inertia. We want to find and work with nothing, neither yang nor yin. When you go out and in at the same time, there can’t be a sense of solidity. It needs to be empty of inertia. The movement has to be empty.
But, how do you do that without simply hallucinating?
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