Bits and Pieces

Posted on October 10, 2020 by admin

My son Sean is a fan of actor, comedian and activist Russell Brand, a vocal participant, in his own unique way, in the attempts to bring about major changes on the planet. My wife Kate’s favorite teacher is a delightful Jamaican by the name of Mooji, who reminds me a lot of Swami Dayananda, my late Vedanta teacher and spiritual guide. So here is a gift from my family to yours: a video exchange between Russell and Mooji, and if you have yet to run across Mooji, you are in for an Awakening !

Also, my son Sean and I are setting up our own YouTube channel with all sorts of posts. More will be coming on that, but as a teaser, here is a YouTube video film maker and dear friend Charlie Birns produced of a dialogue (more a monologue!) we had last month.

Notes from Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s fall series of classes on the spine:
These are a few observations from my own practice. Each student will have their own unique set of experiences.

Class 1: releasing holding patterns in the spine by mobilizing the pubic symphysis and its two joints. Right and left pelvis bones, continuations of the legs, meet in a large piece of cartilage and each pelvic bone can move independently from the other around this. When you initiate movement of the pelvis and legs from here, at the front of the body, clearly differentiating right and left, the sacral area becomes free of needing to stabilize itself through tension and the hip joints also have more freedom. But, as I have found, although these are not large movements like at the hip joint, the two sides are likely to be radically different. Explore this in as many ways as you can imagine. Allow all movements to be as effortless and free as possible, as the cellular intelligence reveals itself as the root of embodiment.

One of my many discoveries was that with my damaged hip, one of the pieces of my inhibited movement at the pubic joint was a locked up pectineus muscle. As a life long external rotater, I have always been trying to open and release the ‘pectineal gate’, primarily by going into deep forward flexion, but never quite finding the depths of freedom. This is a small and hard to access muscle for me and I realized that in order to mobilize the pubic bones and deepen the action, as Bonnie demonstrated in the class, I had to explore this activation in a variety of other movements. By moving from the two joints (right and left, just like two hip joints) of the pubic bone the post surgical opening is coming more easily and I may actually regain my lost lotus. Maybe.

BTW, CV-2 sits at the top of the pubic notch. Mobilizing the front body is analogous to awakening the points and flow along the Conception Vessel, relieving strain from the yang, governing Vessel, back body/spine.

Class 1 continued: Mobilizing the side body through anantasana and variations. Side body links front and back and also takes away strain accumulation from only using the back body to initiate movement. Side body in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is the Gall Bladder meridian and is also engaged by the girdling vessel (Dai Mai). Rotations come from here, the only horizontally flowing vessel.

Stay Awake, and clear and grounded in the coming weeks. Hold the space of clarity, discernment, light and love for all.
Support small businesses, get out the vote, keep practicing.

Whatever happens, we will make it through these very challenging times.

Yoga, Taoism and the Intelligence of the Yin Organ Systems

Posted on September 25, 2020 by admin

Introduction

In the previous post, we introduced the seven karmic lessons of life and some explorations of these using the microcosmic orbit and some anatomical references on the front and back body. Keep working with whichever of the lessons is relevant to you in your life right now. Our next exploration of these lessons will come from the interior perspective of the yin organs, but that will come in a future post as first we will need some preliminary work linking Yoga, Taoism and the Organ systems to help keep us on track.

Remember that our karmic lessons pertain to every moment of our lives. Fall of 2020 is going to be a turbulent and challenging time and we all need to remain grounded, heart centered and clear, no matter what arises. Keep resting in Being and allow Life to flow through you, as best you can. Stay safe, support small businesses, be kind to one another, and do what you can to help get out the vote. Don’t waste energy worrying about things you have no control over. Keep the the loving open heart channeling into the human energy field and we will get through this.

Before we continue, I have to pass on Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s wisdom, as presented in the introduction to her Fall 2020 series of classes on the Spine, offering us a clear vision of inner dimensions of our somatic explorations. She is the voice of Somatic Spiritual Awakening.

CELLULAR CONSCIOUSNESS
Each cell in our body has living intelligence. It is capable of knowing itself, initiating action, and communicating with all other cells. The individual cell and the community of cells (tissue, organ, body) exist as separate entities and as one whole at the same moment. Cellular consciousness is a state in which all cells have equal opportunity for expression, receptivity, and cooperation. Attuning ourselves to our cellular consciousness brings us to a place in which we can find the ground from which flows the intricate manifestations of our physical, psychological, and spiritual being.

EMBODIMENT
Embodiment emerges from our cells’ awareness of themselves. It is a direct experience. There are no intermediate steps or translations. There is no guide, no witness – just the fully known consciousness of the experienced moment initiated from the cells. Here, the brain is the last to know. The process of embodiment is a being process, not a doing process. It is an awareness process, not a thinking process. There is complete knowing and peaceful comprehension. Out of this embodiment process emerges feeling, sensing, thinking, witnessing, understanding, compassion. The source of this process is free; it is love.

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Patanjali and Lao Tzu: The Meeting of Yoga and Taoist Practices

In general, the cellular consciousness referred to by Bonnie is unconscious in most of us. The journey is to awaken to this always present flow of energy and information and then allow any and all sense of separateness to dissolve into this fundamental embodied aliveness. Patanjali, in the beginning of the Sadhana Pada, the second chapter of the Yoga Sutras entitled “On Practice”, lists three essential practices known together as Kriya Yoga, that guide our journey. They begin sequentially, but then intertwine into an evolving spiral of awakening and integration.

Taoism has many parallels that take us right into the organ systems. Chinese Medicine is process based. Rather than referring to anatomical structures such as kidneys, it refers to organ systems, including all metabolic and integrative processes associated with the organs and their related hormones. Organ systems also have a subtle psycho-spiritual component unseen in Western medicine.

The first essential practice is discipline or tapas in Sanskrit. Without discipline, there is no practice, or no ability to sustain practice when difficulty arises, and this is true no matter what the subject matter, no matter what level of experience we may have. This is very true in spiritual practice, and Patanjali introduces the more advanced expressions of discipline, abhyasa and vairagya, in chapter I, the Samadhi Pada, sutras I-12 – 16. Abhyasa is the constant directing of our energies to create layers and levels of stability. This includes grounding in the world of form, through bones, fluids and mind, and also stabilizing our awakening in the formless. Vairagya is the constant directing of our energies away from habits and patterns that perpetuate unconscious delusion and suffering, and transforming them towards into patterns that are stabilizing and Awakening. Abhyasa and vairagya are tow sides of the same coin

Discipline is a form of will power, and In Taoism, Will is one of the five Shen or Spirits and resides in the Kidney Organ System. In Taoism, will has a yin and yang component. The Yang Will involves both the day to day and major life decisions and its active and dynamic energy helps us stay focused on the tasks at hand. Yin Will is quite different. Ted Kaptchuk, in his book on Chinese Medicine, “The Web That Has No Weaver”, describes it this way.

“Yin Will is the other side of Will. It is the deeper encounter with the inexorable and ultimate destiny that already exists hidden in the undifferentiated seed. It is the recognition that the deepest force requires no effort. The Yin Will is elusive, almost intangible. It is noticed in stillness. It has a quality of irreducible mystery. The Yin Will is about the inevitable, about a direction we each move toward that can only be seen when we turn around and look at how we have developed through time. It is about fate and destiny. It is about the unknown and depth.

Recognition of Yin Will allows for the creation of the virtue of Wisdom. This Wisdom is not about knowing things. In fact, it is more about being deeply connected to the unknown. Wisdom is a recognition of the fact that life is an intertwining of known and unknown.”

We will soon see how Yin Will links up with the third practice, but Yang Will will leads to the second practice of Kriya Yoga, svadhyaya, Self-study or Self inquiry. Yang Will involves choices (when and how do we apply discipline) and for this we need to cultivate discriminating intelligence. The first stage of Self study is the examining the rules and laws that govern the world of form (known as Prakriti in the Yoga Sutras) and the nature of our own habits and behaviors. In learning what aspects of our lives and mental activities to cultivate and what to eliminate, we discover a discriminating intelligence that can be awakened and refined to guide us in our day to day and long term decision making. This is very true on the collective level as well and is a life long endeavor also as our habits have layers and layers going back through our ancestors.

In Taoism, this discriminative intelligence is another of the five Spirits and resides in the Spleen-Pancreas Organ System. The Spleen-Pancreas, in Chinese Medicine, extracts the ‘pure from the impure’. On a biological level, in the digestive process, the nutrients and anything else that is beneficial are separated and absorbed into the blood stream, while the rest is sent along for elimination. The blood is also filtered and monitored for potential infectious agents, engaging the immune system. The Spleen-Pancreas also discriminates at the psychological and spiritual level, helping us make intelligent descisions about all aspects of our lives. This processing is analogous to the Samana Vayu in Yoga.

The second stage of svadyaya is inquiry into Who, or what am I. What is this “I – me – mine” mind set that drives my behavior? What is change? What is stillness? Can I discover my innate True Nature, as and in the Stillness at the core of my heart? Self study includes reading sacred scriptures that discuss this question, such as the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, the many Buddhist Sutras, and mystical poetry. It is about Being and not doing, as Bonnie described above. In the Yoga Sutras II-26 – 27, Patanjali discusses this deeper dimension of discriminating wisdom. In Taoism, is the recognition of the small Shen, the ruler of the Five Spirits that resides in the Heart Organ System and the fullness (purna) of the Big Shen, one of the Three Treasures.

The third practice, Ishvara Pranidhana, is the dissolving of the egoic structures into Being. It is allowing Life in its Wholeness to flow though you effortlessly. This is Yin Will in action. Egoic structures are energetic habits of thought and belief that perpetuate the illusion of ‘separateness’ that causes so much suffering. The energy held in these patterns can be transformed by first seeing them for what they are and then exposing them to the direct realization of True Nature, where they dissolve like a wave returning to the vast ocean. Because of karmic momentum, the egoic patterns will keep coming back. But if we can recognize them as just waves, transient phenomena arising out of the depths of True Nature, and stop feeding them by resisting or giving into them, eventually the karmic momentum resolves back into the Source and they come to an end.

The fact that in Kriya Yoga Ishvara Pranidhana comes after Self Study is crucial. It is easy to ‘let go’ into unconscious habits and believe that the ego is letting go. This is one of the great tricks of the ego. You can see obvious examples in spiritual teachers who have had a powerful ‘waking up’ experience, but haven’t done enough ‘growing up’ emotionally. The results are not pretty. The cultivation of discriminating wisdom helps keep all of us from our own self delusion.

Ishvara is a Sanskrit word that points to Divinity as manifest in the multiplicity of forms in the Universe. It is infinite creativity in action. As my Vedanta teacher Swami Dayananda used to say, “What is, is Ishvara”. There are many layers to the practice of Ishvara Prahidhana as demonstrated by Patanjali using this expression in three different sections of the Yoga Sutras. In the first chapter, sutras I-23 – I-29 are all devoted to Isvara. And all three of the Kriya Yoga practices are included as part of the Niyamas, one of the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga described later on.

There are two more Yin Organ systems associated with the Five Spirits that we need to consider and they are linked together in a quite interesting Yin-Yang way. The Lung Organ System is associated with the Spirit known as Po, the corporeal soul. Po is the denser yin expression of embodiment, associated with the five elements, concerned solely with this body and this incarnation, and returns to the Earth at death. There are seven Po, related on the physical plane to the seven sensory openings: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and the mouth. The are also related to the seven Karmic lessons of life discussed in the previous post.

The Liver Organ System is the home of Po’s yang counterpart Hun, or the non-corporeal soul. The Hun is lighter, more expansive and more subtle than the denser Po. It is the aspect of spirit that has no attachment to the physical body and at death leaves the body to dissolve into more ethereal realms of existence. It is the Hun that is the vehicle for shamanic journeying. There are three Hun, sometimes referred to as three spirits or energy fields of differing densities surrounding the physical body (the 7 Po). The ethereal is the densest, the light and finally the true spiritual plane. Taoist master Jeffrey Yuen also teaches that Po is related to space and Hun to time.

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An Overview of our Inner Anatomy

Let the Kriya Yoga of ‘Discipline/Self Study/Letting Go’ guide our explorations as we use breathing, the leverage of different postures and micro-movements to bring attention/conscious awareness to some of these inner spaces of the body, the organs that embryologically emerge within them and the energetic flow of the organ systems. These micro-thin spaces between fascial layers surrounding the organs are also in relationship to the organs through the flow of fluids, Qi and intelligence. Yang Will focuses the attention and keep sit from wandering. Yin Will allows the innate intelligence of the Qi/Fluids/Cells to reveal itself in Being, without any attempt of the ego to manipulate the situation. The habits of the ego are relentless so be patient and compassionate with your Self when working at this level.

We’ll begin our journey into the intelligence of the organ systems by feeling the the anatomical spaces of the torso. The illustrations above left show the three anatomical spaces of the abdomen into which our inner organs emerge during embryological development. These comes from one of my favorite books, “Spark in the Machine” by David Keown, an English medical doctor and acupuncturist, who tells the amazing story of how embryological development serves as the foundation of the acupuncture channels, and much much more. My fascination with embryology, thanks to Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, has become a spiritual journey into the roots of creation itself as it manifests, here and now, in our embodied Presence.

Translating into Western terminology, Jue Yin, the most anterior, is called the peritoneal cavity; Tai Yin is the anterior para-renal space, and Shao Yin is the retro-peritoneal space. For somanauts, these three spaces provide a way to differentiate the depth spaces of the body, the most challenging of the three spacial directions. Head to tail is simple with the three Dantiens the starting point. With side to side we have the innate bi-lateral symmetry of the human form, i.e., 2 eyes, ears, arms, lungs, legs etc. Front to back is challenging, especially in the upright posture, so we really have to slow down and allow the sensations and perceptions to come.

Frank Netter’s drawing of the a cross section at T-12 , similar to the one above, is viewed from below so you have to reverse left and right, but the cavities are the same. Notice the space behind the stomach, where Bonnie allows her ‘embryonic breathing’ to originate. Also, the liver, kidneys and spleen. These will be key areas in our explorations, as we track the flow of breath/qi, through the micro-thin spaces between two layers of fascia surrounding the volumes and the organs.

In Chinese Medicine, these Yin inter-fascial spaces or channels also have an upper (above the diaphragm) component, as seen above, and are linked to the lower through the three openings in the diaphragm. The Qi flows through these three ‘channels’. These channel also branch out into the limbs to complete the meridians associated with each organ system.

Jue Yin follows the opening for the Vena Cava and links Liver Acupuncture Channel with the Pericardium Acupuncture Channel. Tai Yin follows the esophageal opening, linking Lungs and Spleen/Pancreas; (embryologically speaking, the lungs emerge from a bud on the oesophagus near the vocal cords.), and Shao Yin follows the opening for the aorta linking Heart and Kidney channels.

Exploring the Jue Yin

As an example, we see how the Jue Yin channel combines the Pericardium channel in the arm/upper body with the Liver Channel/leg in the lower body. ‘Absolute’ is one translation of the character ‘Jue’. Others are reversing or returning. Jue Yin runs from Liver-1 on the inside of the big toe all the way to Pericardium 9 at the tip of the middle finger. The pericardium channel also has an inner branch extending down the vena cava linking the three burners.

Dynamic Practice

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana and its variations are great poses to explore Jue Yin. Activate the inner big toes and middle fingers to open whole meridian. For the ‘Leg Jue Yin’ Liver meridian, track flow from the inner big toes along the inner legs and knees and through the groins. (Right and Left) Upper and lower channels meet at the upper front diaphragm.

Feel the liver and pericardium rotating in opposite directions to open space for the vena cava. The Jue Yin channel is where yin has reached its maximum and begins to reverse or return to yang, like at the winter solstice. It is where the de-oxygenated venous blood is returned to the heart and lungs to be re-vitalized. Setu bandha is a more yin backbend allowing the yang to build gradually. As the Jue Yin channel opens, more challenging backbends can be added. This supported (yin) ‘sort of’ kapotasana is still more yang. Without support, backbends become even more yang. Open slowly.

Another way to explore Jue Yin is through the forward bend back bend flow mentioned in a previous post. In fact, you can explore the three yin “Great Channels’, by adding Tai Yin, (Lung and Spleen/Pancreas, the middle layer; and Shao Yin, Heart and Kidney, the inner most layer, anatomically speaking. Iyengar begins all his forward bends in ‘Light on Yoga’ by opening Jue Yin. The completed pose opens Shao Yin with the Tai Yin, the middle layer balancing the two.

Most beginning yoga students collapse in at the Pericardium/Liver junction, and the compensate by over constricting the very outer layer, Tai Yang along the back body to stay upright. By aligning and opening the three inner or yin channels, both back bends and forward bends become organically beneficial.

Inner Practice

In meditative or restorative poses, allow your imagination/attention rest in the opening in the diaphragm for the vena cava as it passes from behind the liver up and into the heart. Bring compassion/Loving Kindness to your heart area so the Pericardium, the connective tissue surrounding the heart, also know as the ‘Heart Protector’, can relax a bit.

Allow you imagination attention follow the Jue Yin as it passes from the feet through the groins. Imagine where the common iliac veins converge to form the inferior vena cava. This is the area of the ‘Hara’. Rest and soften here, bringing Loving Kindness and Compassion. Allow the whole space from the bifurcation up to the heart soften and relax. This is the Middle Burner. Notice the inner link as the inferior vena cava links heart in the upper burner, IVC and aorta in the middle burner and below the navel lower burner. Add inner arms and legs.Have fun with wherever this qi takes you. Be Yin/receptive, allowing, not trying to control, as best you can. Be grateful for having a human body.

For more detailed work and multiple postures and sequences for Jue Yin, see Ruth Knill’s YouTube page. Ruth is a long time yoga practitioner and teacher as well as a licensed acupuncturist working in Arlington, MA. She is teaching a regular ‘Zoom’ yoga class on line every week.

Taosim/Chinese Medicine Background

Foundational to all of Chinese Medicine is the Taoist non-dual principle of yin and yang, representing the three primary realities of creation: dynamism, inter-connectedness and change. The dynamic energy comes from the opposite polar charges of yin and yang. Although ‘opposite’ there is no ‘pure’ yin or yang; each is embedded in the other, no matter how deep you go. There is continuous flow between the two, one waxing, one waning, and then the reverse. What flows is known as qi, (or prana in Sanskrit).

Chinese Medicine describes 12 Primary acupuncture channels, six yin and six yang, that regulate the flow of qi in the body. Each channel is associated with an ‘organ’ (more of a set of energetic processes than the physical organ of Western anatomy), and has points located along the surface of the body. However the channels also have branches that dive into the interior of the body.

In general, yang organs are hollow and move substances throughout the body. They are: (capitalized to differentiate them from the western anatomical organ) the Large Intestine, Small Intestine, Stomach, Bladder, Gall Bladder and a quirky one known as San Jiao, or Triple Warmer. There is no western equivalent, but the San Jiao balances the flow qi through the three burners, which we might see as a regulation of the whole digestive process An ancient Chinese medical text states: ‘The Upper Burner controls intake, the Middle Burner controls transformation, the Lower Burner controls elimination.’ It can also be seen as the mediator of tensegrity in the fluid/fascia living matrix. The San Jiao is a key for our heart/hara balance.

The yin organs include: the Heart (the most yang of the yin organs), Pericardium or Heart Protector, Lungs, Spleen/Pancreas, Liver and Kidneys (the most yin of the yin organs.

One way to group the 12 Primary Channels is in yin/yang pairs of 2, giving us the 6 Great Channels. The six pairs link yang upper body/arms with yin lower body legs. There are three arm yang channels linking with three leg yang channels, and three arm yin channels linking with three leg yin ones. The Great Channels actually arise from 6 embryological, fascially distinct cavities that are arranged spatially from the yang, Governing Vessel back body to yin Conception Vessel front body, in this order:

Tai Yang – Yang Ming – Shao Yang – Shao Yin – Tai Yin – Jue Yin

These also determine a flow with Tai Yang being the Beginning of a cycle and Jue Yin the end of the cycle, which is why Jue Yin is called returning or reversing Yin where

Thank you and credits to Frank Netter for his anatomical drawings
and Marc Ignacio on Upsplash for his candle photo.

As always, questions on practice and editorial and copy editing corrections greatly appreciated.

The Seven Karmic Lessons of Life

Posted on August 27, 2020 by admin

This post is based upon notes from a lecture by Taoist master Jeffrey Yuen (Hun, Po, Shen and Ling: November 2000), Dr. Daniel Keown’s book on acupuncture and embryology, ‘The Spark in the Machine” and my own personal explorations. In a series of posts over the past few years we explored some of the fundamental principles and components of Taoist practice and I highly recommend you review these to help integrate them and this current post into your practice as we progress into 2021 and the Collective Awakening. “The Spark in the Machine” will be very helpful to follow our organ system explorations somatically. A very quick overview will be included at the end of the post.

The Seven Lessons of Incarnation

The Three Treasures of Taoism, Jing, Qi and Shen are the fundamental energies or substances that sustain human life, each associated with both one of the Three Dantiens and some of the yin organ systems. A useful image to help get a feel for these is a candle. Jing is like the wax and wick; the flesh and blood substances and primary sources of our embodied soul, related to egg, sperm and DNA. Qi is the flame, the burning energy of aliveness, also known as prana in the yoga world. Shen is the light radiating out from the flame. We want to come to know these ‘Three Treasures’ in a deeply embodied way. In the Taoist internal alchemy known as Neidan, Jing (matter) is refined and transformed into Qi (breath); Qi is refined and transformed into Shen (Spirit); and Shen is refined, reverting to Emptiness.

From the Taoist perspective, at conception, Shen or Spirit,(the Light), is captured by the most dense substance, Jing, to begin our embryological development. (Embodied Shen is also known as Ling or ‘Soul’.) What also begins is the journey of the soul to fulfill its destiny or life purpose. We all incarnate, consciously or unconsciously with a karmic history, including a set of skills to be cultivated and lessons to be completed in this life time.

In this Taoist model of Karma, there are seven lessons to be learned, unique to each individual and also universal, as the continuation of the CosmicEvolutionary journey. These lessons correspond to the chakra system of India and the Microcosmic Orbit and organ systems of Chinese Medicine which make them a whole lot of fun to explore. The specifics of these correlations will be included after the lessons are listed and in subsequent posts. We can also find equivalent lessons in the evolution of cultures and societies that we are awakening to in our historical moment.

Lesson 1: Can I accept this incarnation, this body, this set of circumstances that I am being born into and that I will inhabit for the course of this life time. Our genetic make-up, the root of our Jing comes from our parents DNA and this lesson is related to our root chakra. Can I root myself in this incarnation, beginning with my 1st chakra, with stability? Can I accept myself as I am, at all times in my life, in all circumstances. Although our primary rooting takes place in the first 8 – 12 years, this is a lesson that is always relevant especially at major changes in life arise. (Can Humans accept the reality of being just one of millions of species inhabiting this planet, each with right to life and habitat?)

Lesson 2: Can I own my own creative processes and their results? Relating to the 2nd chakra, our sexuality is awakened at puberty with a burst of hormonal activity. The re-creating of our selves though our offspring is an obvious aspect of this lesson, but this also includes any and all of what we create in this life time. Can what we say, write and make, at any level come from our own authenticity, from the depths of our own soul ? (Can we as humans accept that our creativity comes with an awesome power to destroy life and the conditions that allow life to thrive? )

Lesson 3: As a member of a society, can I learn work within my tribe/community/country/planet. There is a loss of innocence as we engage with others, with their own sets of issues and challenges. The demands and organizing beliefs of society may lead to sense of shame and embarrassment if we do not ‘fit in’, or fulfill family’s, friends, or society’s expectations. Thus the third chakra is the one of discrimination. We decide what values and life choices to pursue and which to reject, and create a sense of response-ability to others as we find our way in the world as adults. (Can we as humans accept that our power comes with a tremendous responsibility to life itself?)

Lesson 4: Opening the Heart: The heart chakra opens as feelings begin to take over from thoughts, ideas and beliefs. Following up on lesson three, can I (we) hold the course of the heart, even when society is heading in the opposite direction? Can I trust my inner knowing, can I find faith in the Ultimate Mystery of life, even if the world is oblivious. Can I let go of any attachment to even my creations, realizing the impermanence of all creation? This lesson is a major leap from the first three and thus is highly challenging on many levels. Modern Culture is poised at the brink of this lesson. We need ‘all hands on deck’ to keep growing. (Can we as humans open our hearts to not just understand intellectually our responsibility, but to feel it at the depths of our collective heart?

Lesson 5: Lesson four, opening the Heart Chakra , gets the door open to our innate spirit, but to get through the door, and thrive, another set of responsibilities arises. Can I truly honor myself as a Divine Being, not from an egoic perspective, but from my own depths, from the full Realization of my True Nature? The 5th or Throat Chaka opening allows us to fully inhabit our spiritual selves, without guilt or conflict. We speak our Truth easily. It is related to the third chakra’s response-ability, only at a new level and invites us to bring forth the wisdom from all the lessons that have come before. The three questions from the earlier lessons: who am I? ; where am I going? and who is responsible?, are all answered. (Can we as humans take dynamic action to change the direction of destruction we have initiated?)

Lesson 6: An inner tranquiltiy arises. You are true to your unique self, without being attached to the self. We do not need to impose anything onto the world, but just allow the inner light to be. The 6th chakra opening, the third eye, begins the opening into transcendental wisdom. All the teachings of the world are at your disposal. Action flows through you from the spontaneity of wholeness.

Lesson 7: The tao that can be spoken is not the True Tao ….

These lessons are not necessarily linear. I have found myself returning again and again to the earlier ones, even as the later ones are being explored, especially as the embodiment challenges arise. It is a magical mystery spiral of learning. Take them into the world with you. What follows is a more subtle approach to this awakening using a Taoist Spiritual Energy model.

Some guidelines for practice

Even if you have no familiarity with the Microcosmic Orbit, there are enough anatomical references to help guide your explorations. I do them either sitting or lying down and using the breathing. We are not doing acupuncture so we can just looking for the feel our way to the linking of energy (breath) and structure (jing). Being able to track energy flow is required, however. This is perceptual at its core even if we begin with written words and concepts. They are the map. The territory is your embodied spiritual energy field and this is fundamentally a journey of embodied spiritual awakening.

We can palpate the points on the front of the body with the xyphoid process, navel and pubic symphasis as specific references. I highly recommend this as this is a rich region to explore. Eventually the various layers of your abdominal wall will become more conscious. Visualize the fetal blood vessels passing through the umbilicus from the placenta, flowing up into the liver and down into the groins, to help integrate the Conception vessel points.

To find the Governing Vessel points on the back (yang) body, initiate a very subte tucking/untucking action through the pelvis, feeling acetabulae and femurs, sitting bones and coccyx. The activation through the lessons is from the bottom up but feel the current of release as downward. In other words, once you can find the coccyx energy curling toward CV-1, one by one add the sacrum to the downward curl and continue to L-4, L-1 etc. Notice the direction on the front body is also down so both Vessels meet at the root and feed each other. I have found supported bridge pose also to be helpful for this exploration.

You will feel some fluid flowing and fascia disentangling; the organs (front body/Yin) beginning to differentiate from the spinal column (back body/Yang); and the major blood vessels in the core of the body freeing up. This will be more obvious in the next post when we link the organ systems to the lessons. Many years ago, when I first began studying with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, she said something about asana practice that struck me as being very important. “If the pose you are in is not supported by the organs, you have gone too far”. There are many layers to this, but one is the need to awaken the yin/front body/ inner organs to relieve the pressure on the back body /yang/spinal column, by linking and balancing the Conception Vessel with the Governing Vessel in the Micro Cosmic Orbit.

Embodying the Lessons:
The Link to the Microcosmic Orbit

At conception, Shen or Spirit is captured by the most dense substance, Jing, to begin our embryological development. GV-1 and CV-15 are switches that turn on, Qi flows, as yang and yin, sperm and egg energies begin the developmental process and prepare for the embodied soul lessons.

Practice 1: In any seated pose, visualize the whole Micro-Cosmic Orbit and rest for a moment. Feel the three Dantiens in balance, your attention centered in the heart. Rest in Stillness for a moment or more. This will be the starting point (and ultimate refuge 24/7) for all the practices.

Now bring your attention to the pelvic floor. You can start with the sitting bones if that is easier. Oscillate between rolling slightly forward and slightly backward, feeling about a two inch arc. Then do the same with your attention without moving the bones, letting the mind direct the Qi.

Feel the coccyx sitting between the sitting bones and notice it curls forward. With your attention, roll the Qi back and forth a few millimeters and then land at the tip of the tail bone and rest there as a vibrancy. This is GV-1. Move the pelvic bones if necessary. Feel the subtle arc connecting GV-1 (Du-1) with CV-1 (Ren-1) on the center of the perineum. Root yourself here with a quiet subtle attention/sensation/vibrancy. This is the root of all poses, all times etc)

Practice 2: In any sitting pose, find CV-15 at the bottom tip of the xiphoid process, with a finger. Then, using your finger, draw the energy slightly downward, imagining it eventually linking with GV-1. Feel the whole region below the diaphragm as a container.

Practice 3: Lesson 1 begins to stabilize the rooting by activating GV-2 on the sacrum and CV-13 on the abdomen and then adding them to GV-1 and CV-15 the whole Micro Cosmic Orbit circuit. Cv-14 is skipped as it involved with the sovereign ruler, the heart and left alone. Use your finger to approximate CV-13 and your sitting bones to help find your sacrum. Link these two back and forth, letting attention direct the Qi and finally stabilize with a gentle double action. General feel in the area is much more important than precision.

Practice 4: Continue in the same vein as above, adding the following pairs for the other six lessons.

Lesson 2: GV-3 (aka Du-3) at L-4) and CV-12. (With the second chakra connection, there is also CV-5). This section between the sternum and navel is a rich one for me as I carry a lot of subtle (or perhaps not so subtle any more!) tension here.

Herr are two more poses that I have found helpful, alllowing me to access front and back simultaneously. Urdhva mukha prasarita padottanasana ( a combination of LOY plates 148 and 170); try 1: supporting pelvis with blanket or bolster to release upper vertebrae and 2: groin lengthening to bring pelvis down to floor.

Modified ardha navasana (legs supported)
1. Pelvis neutral on floor.

2. Coccyx lifting pelvis like a rising wheel. Experiment with height of head with a mini sit-up action. You can take the pelvis a lot further up than the photo shows, especially when the head is neutral on the floor. These photos are just hints and glimpses into a much wider range of actions that fit your body/mind.

There is a lot of gross work lengthening/releasing the psoas and differentiating psoas major (lengthening down through the groins) and psoas minor and illiacus lengthening upward through the pelvis and lumbar. Stay soft and allow the body to teach you how to open. Feel the ever present Stillness not matter what is arising,

Lesson 3: GV-5 (at L-1) and CV-11 (skip GV-4 – Ming Men)
Lesson 4: GV-6 (at T-11) and CV-10, CV-17 (notice we skip over the ever challenging T-12 but access either side of it.) The transition for lesson 3 to lesson 4 is the most difficult on all levels.
Lesson 5: GV-7 (at T-10) CV-9 (also locally at the throat at CV-22
Lesson 6: GV-8, (at T-9) CV-7 (skip CV-8 – umbilicus) CV-7 in Yin Jiao, the meshing of yin
Lesson 7: GV-9 (Extremity of Yang, at T-7, related to releasing diaphragm and spiritually the release of the breath at the moment death.

Feel free to explore any of these on combinations on their own and in any poses or actions that inspire you. We are looking to help open and integrate pelvic floor, diaphragm, spine and the connective tissue matrix in the core of the body. Next post we will add the organ systems relationships to the seven lessons.

Review

We begin with the integrating capacity of using the Qi/ breath in linking the yin, front body Conception Vessel (ren mai) with the yang, back body Governing Vessel (du mai), to form the Microcosmic Orbit. They meet at the mouth and anus. Feel this at whatever level your sensitivity allows, as specific points, or the flow of qi between them. Root chakra is where GV-1 (not shown, behind the anus) links with CV-1, anterior to the anus on the perineum. Crown Chakra is at GV-20. Root and Crown are linked by the yin ‘Thrusting Vessel’. or chakra line.

The Three Dantiens refer to the energy fields contained by the Micocosmic Orbit that inhabit the three bony cavities of the body: pelvis, ribs and skull. The endocrine/hormonal system is a Western correlate to help feel these fields. These are the easiest to find because of the correlation with the bones.

The Three Treasures, Jing, Qi and Shen are the fundamental substances, each associated with both one of the Three Dantiens and some of the yin organ systems. A useful image to help get a feel for these is a candle. Jing is like the wax and wick; the flesh and blood substances and primary sources of our embodied soul, related to egg, sperm and DNA. Qi is the flame, the burning energy of aliveness. Shen is the light radiating out from the flame.

Jing or essence (there is no good English translation of Jing) is related to the Lower Dantien and the Kidney Organ System; Qi (prana) has its home in the Middle Dantien and the Spleen/pancreas and Liver systems; Shen or spirit resides in the skull, but is governed by the Heart Organ System, which in Traditional Chinese Medicine rules the brain. (Our modern world has totally lost this heart-brain connection!)