Great Stillness- B.K. Frantzis

The ability to feel what is actually inside your body, rather than creating a mental picture of what may or may not be present, constitutes a major difference between the fire and water methods of Taoist. Many Taoist believe that the vast majority of human beings do not have the capacity to reincarnate intact. They later combines with parts of other fragmented souls, thereby reincarnating as a mosaic soul. This idea is also represented in other traditions, especially shamanic ones, where it is held that a human's body can be composed from different past lives of various entities. Thus, some Taoists believe that the human desire to become integrated is based on a literal need. The primary spiritual purpose of the preparatory and intermediates chi practices of Taoist meditation for achieving spiritual maturity involves gathering all the energies of an individual into one integrated, whole energy or consciousness. This unified energy/consciousness creates a ling, the Chinese word for "soul." A unified ling can reincarnate intact; a fragmented or nonintegrated human consciousness cannot. When the CNS is cleared completely, it no longer obstructs Consciousness. Then you can become aware of Universal Consciousness twenty-four hours a day. Before this state is reached, the degree of clogging pf the CNS determines for how much of your life, if any at all, you can be aware of Consciousness itself. Thus, the CNS is one gateway to spirit. Since it exists within the body, the Taoists emphasize all work that makes the body healthy and vibrant to free the CNS from the encrustations (prison walls, if you will) that prevent us from becoming fully aware of Universal Consciousness.

During inhalation, you will do three things simultaneously:
1. In unison, expand the front, side, and back parts of your belly, and the back (but not the front) of your lungs.

2. With continuous unbroken awareness, follow your breath from your nose, down the center of your body, to your lower tantien.

3. From the edge of your etheric body (the external field around you sometimes called the aura) consciously draw breath in from the rear, through the ming men point on the spine, and simultaneously from the front, through the skin of your belly, into your lower tantien.

Focus On Practice
Taoist Internal Breathing (continued on the exhale, again do three things simultaneously)

1. Let your lungs and belly return to their original position with the same or slower speed than they expanded.

2. Follow your breath from your tantien up the center of your body to your throat and out your nose.

3. Follow your exhaling breath away from your tantien, simultaneously back through your body to the ming men and forward to the skin in front of your body and from both outside your physical boundary to the edges of your etheric body. At an advanced level of practice, follow the exhale to the point as far out in space as you originally drew energy from. Gradually increase the duration of your breath; relax your body's nerves. Begin with two breaths and rest for a moment. In time, when you can do two breaths with continuous unbroken awareness in a relaxed manner, then progress to three, then four, all the way up to thirty. Once you can do thirty, you can then practice breathing as a meditation and stress release exercise that will also improve your health. How much you want to practice after thirty breaths is a purely personal decision. This practice is an excellent, simple method of learning to discipline your concentration, consciously become aware of your personal connection to inner and outer energies, and overcome the nervous jumping of a monkey mind. Even more ancient than tai chi, this circle-walking method was developed in Taoist monasteries over four thousand years ago and is the forerunner of today's internal martial art called ba gua chang.

* Circle walking is practiced for three intertwined primary purposes. The first is to achieve stillness of mind . The second is to generate a strong, healthy, disease-free body, with relaxed nerves and great stamina, which Taoist monks needed both for normal daily work and to be able to meditate for prolonged periods. The third purpose is to develop balance internally while either your inner world or the events of the external world are changing, often faster than you can keep up with.

This is how to perform the mud-walking step:
1. Stand relaxed with your arms at your sides, keep feet parallel, one foot one and a half to three inches off the ground.

2. Step forward, keeping your raised foot parallel to the ground, heel and toe an equal distance from the ground. (The higher your foot is above the ground, the easier the step is; the nearer your foot is to the ground, the more body control is required.) During this step, your hips and body weight do not move forward.

3. During the last 20 percent of the step, your lead foot simultaneously moves forward an inch or two and touches and brakes on the ground. Also during the last 20 percent, friction is initially applied on the ball of the foot with the toes, bringing the foot to a full stop flat on the ground. When you finish the step, there is no body weight whatsoever on your lead foot, above and beyond the weight of the foot itself.

The heel-toe method is more appropriate for those whose balance is poor or who have back or lower body problems. This method is essentially the one employed in normal everyday walking, only with more awareness than most of us use. Here is how this step should be performed:

4. Stand relaxed with your arms at your sides, keeping one foot one and a half to three inches off the ground.

5. Step forward with one foot and have the heel touch the ground first, making sure there is absolutely no weight on it.

6. As you shift all of your weight forward, gradually roll your foot to the ground like a cat does, clearly feeling every sensation in the sole of your foot until your toes are on the floor.

7. Finish with your weight on the lead foot.

Walking in a Straight Line
Choose whichever of the two previous methods of stepping that suits you, and incorporate your choice throughout all of the following walking exercises. Walk very slowly at first until you have a good understanding of all the various parts of the walking process. Then gradually increase your speed.

Part 1: Begin with your feet side by side and paralled, then step forward. Begin standing with your feet together, your arms at your sides, and your right foot one and a half to three inches off the ground. From feet parallel, your right foot steps forward no farther apart from your left foot than the width of your hips. Keep 100 percent of your weight on your left leg, and slowly step forward with your right leg, owithout transferring any of your body weight forward. As your right foot goes slowly forward and lands on the ground, either heel first or toe first (depending on the method you are using):

(1) maintain awareness of every part of the bottom of your right foot, including your toes;

(2) be aware of every inch of air space your foot travels through, and every sensation, externally and internally, that the step generates; and

(3) no matter which stepping method you are using, be especially attentive to how you put your foot on the ground. Try not to let the act of having your foot touch the ground disrupt your concentration or awareness. Don't get discouraged. Remember that your ability to concentrate will naturally grow with practice. In the beginning, it is a difficult task to maintain complete concentration.

Part 2: Shift your weight from your back leg to your front leg. Keep your left foot flat and steady, anchored on the floor, your right foot ahead of it. Push back through your left heel to push your body forward until 100 percent of your weight is shifted to your right leg and foot. Keep both feet flat on the floor. Feel every sensation as you push your weight forward-when you push from your left leg, when the shifting weight goes through your belly and hips, and when your right leg receives it. Feel every sensation on the bottom of both feet. The forward weight shift finishes on your right leg.

Part 3: Bring your back foot forward until it is parallel to your front foot.
With your weight 100 percent on your right leg, bring your left foot forward, with the bottom of the foot parallel to the floor if you can (otherwise, heel higher than the toe, especially for heel-toe stepping), until both feet are touching side by side, or no more than six inches apart. When you finish, your weight is still on your right leg, and the left foot is one and a half to three inches off the ground.

Part 4: Begin again with your opposite leg. You now will repeat parts 1, 2, and 3, reversing lefts for rights and vice versa.

(a) Feet parallel, keeping 100 percent of your weight on your right leg, step forward now with your left leg.

(b) Shift 100 percent of your weight from your back right leg to your left front leg. You are now 100 percent on your left leg, zero percent on your right leg.

(c) Bring your right foot forward until it is parallel with your left foot. Your weight is still 100 percent on your left leg. Practice as much as you possibly can. Gradually, as your balance gets better, you can let your stride get longer. Your legs will stretch and your blood will pump more strongly as your blood circulation improves. Practice this straight-line walking for a minimum of one week to a month before attempting the next phase of circle walking. The straight line walking you have just learned will become the inside step of circle walking.

Footwork for Figures I to 4
a black foot is 100% weighted
a white foot is not touching the ground
a striped foot is touching the ground but has no weight on it
In figures la, b, e, f, and i, the sole, heel, and toes of your empty (weightless) foot is off the ground, and parallel to the ground. Ideally the ankle of your empty foot does not flex, and your toes do not point towards the ground.
1a Both feet are parallel to each other. Your left foot is full (100% weighted). Your right foot is empty (0% weighted).
1b Your empty right foot moves forward without touching the ground. Your weight remains 100% on your left foot, ideally without our belly and hips moving toward in space.
1c All your weight remains on your left toot. Your right foot steps toward an inch or two, as the friction of the ball of your right toot rubbing the ground brakes your step, stabilizing your balance.
1d You push your rear (left) heel backward into the ground, as your left leg straightens. This pushes your hips forward, until all your weight transfers forward to your opposite (right) leg.
1e Keeping your weight 100% on your right leg, let your hips go forward a little. Simultaneously bring your rear weightless left foot forward off the ground until it is parallel to your full right foot. You finish in a replay of step 1 with lefts and rights reversed. From here to step 1i, reverse the order of the lefts and rights of the previous illustrations.
1f Your empty left foot moves forward without touching the ground, Your weight remains 100% on your right foot, without your belly and your hips moving forward in space.
1g All your weight remains on your right foot. Your left foot steps forward an inch or two, as the friction of the ball of your left foot rubbing the ground brakes your step, stabilizing your balance.
1h You push your right (rear) foot backwards into the ground, as your right leg straightens. This pushes your hips forward, until all your weight transfers forward to the opposite (left) leg.
1i Keeping your weight 100% on your left leg, let your hips go forward a little. Simultaneously bring your rear weightless right leg forward off the ground until it is parallel to your left leg. From here continuously repeat steps 1

2a This octagon shows walking a beginner's 16-step counter-clockwise circle. The left foot is on the inside of the circle, the right foot is on the outside of the circle, A black footprint on the diagram represents a foot touching the ground. This includes the weight shift from the back to the forward foot. A white footprint represents a foot off the floor and moving forward. Step 1 is the beginning of the exercise. Step 33 is the first step of the second time around the circle.
2b Moving from feet parallel to a straight inside step-as previously shown in figures 1e-h.
2c Moving from straight step to feet parallel.
2d Moving from feet parallel to an outside step-outside foot curves inward, making an angle to the inside foot.
2e Moving to feet parallel-curved arrow-shows the turning of the hips to bring the feet parallel.

Curved Step with the Outside Li
1. In basic circle walking, the curving toe-in step is only done by the outside leg and foot. When walking a clockwise circle, after completing a straight step, make a curved step forward with your outside leg. Ideally, your inside foot should not move. As you do so, your outside hip and leg will curve slightly toward the inside, crossing the center line of your body and following the curvature of your circle. The toes of your outside foot should move past the toes of your stationary inside foot. Again, you may use either the heel-toe or the mud-walking methods. When you finish the step, your weight will still be 100 percent on your inside foot. The curve of the step will be greater (60 to 90 degrees) and more difficult the smaller the circle you wish to walk, as in a small apartment or deck, and more gentle (30 to 60 degrees) and easier if you have more space to walk a large circle.

2. Next, keeping both feet flat on the floor and unmoving, push off from your rear (inside) leg and transfer all of the weight to your front leg. (Your feet will not be parallel; the outside foot should be at an angle to the inside foot.) Be sure to maintain some distance between your inner thighs, which allows your perineum to remain open. Do not let your thighs collapse toward each other.
3. Now turn your hips a little, following the curvature of your circle. As you are completing your hip turn, bring your rear (inside) leg forward, until both your feet are parallel (Fig. 3e), with toes facing in the same direction, weight 100 percent on your outside leg, and inside foot not touching the ground.

4. Repeat a straight inside step as shown in Figures.

5. Your next weightless forward step will repeat step 1 and come out completely parallel to your back-weighted outside foot. Then continue through steps 2 and 3, and so on. In this manner walk the circle three times.

Right Outside Step
3a and 3.1a When walking a circle, your outside foot is empty and parallel to the inside foot, which is 100% weighted.
3b and 3.1b Your empty foot-which does not touch the ground-curves inward as it moves forward. Your weight remains 100% on your rear foot, ideally without your belly and your hips moving forward in space.
3c and 3.1c Your weight remains 100% on your rear foot. Simultaneously your weightless foot continues its curving inward step, moving forward 1 to 2 inches, as the friction of the ball of your right foot rubbing the ground brakes your step, stabilizing your balance. Both feet are at angles to each other and not parallel.
3d and 3.1d Both feet maintain the same angles as you had when you finished the previous step. Ideally neither foot moves about nor pivots. Push your rear foot backward into the ground to straighten your rear leg. This pushes your hips forward until all your weight transfers forward to the opposite leg.
3e and 3.1e Use the turning of your hips to bring your inside foot parallel to your outside hip. Your next step will follow the procedures for straight line walking until your outside foot is again parallel to your inside foot and you repeat steps 3.1a-e.

Changing the Direction of the Circle
Figure 4 Ba Gua: Changing from Walking a Counter-Clockwise to a Clockwise Circle
Starting position: You normally begin walking a counter-clockwise circle-you
left foot is on the inside of the circle and your right foot is on the outside of the circle. After you finish reversing directions you begin walking a clockwise circle, with your right foot on the inside of the circle, and your left foot on the outside of the circle. To avoid visual confusion, it must be understood that, even though the images of Figures 4 and 4.1 appear side by side in the diagrams, they arc being executed at one point in the circle
as a 180 degree turn to change direction, not as a movement from one part of the circle to another.
4a Bring your weightless right foot parallel to your left.
4b Continuing your step, hook your empty right foot inward
4c Ideally shift all weight from your left to your right foot.
4d Turn your waist and pivot on the ball of your left foot, until your left toes face
behind where you started.
4e Your left foot steps forward along the circle and brakes, becoming your new
outside foot. Ideally, do not move your rear right foot or shift your hips forward in this turn and step.
4f Shift all your weight forward to your left foot, ideally not moving your rear right foot.
4g Slightly shift your hips forward as you bring your right foot parallel to your left.

Your right foot is now on the inside of the circle, and you walk a clockwise circle as previously described. Figures 4.1a-4.1g on p. 67 will show the same procedure when talking the circle from the opposite direction. After walking the circle three times with your left leg on the inside, it is time to turn around and walk the circle in the opposite direction, with your right as the inside leg. Here is how to execute the turn:

1. Begin the turn when your feet are parallel to each other, weight on the inside (left) leg and right foot off the floor (Fig. 4a). Then, keeping all your weight on your left leg, step forward with your right leg curving across your body, as before. Now, however, let the whole leg turn in farther and cross as far over the center line of your body as is comfortable, so far that your right foot points toward the center of the circle. Your feet ideally should now form a 90-degree angle." You may do this step either by touching the ground with your heel first and then rolling your toes down or by using the mud-stepping technique. At this point your right leg is on the ground and still weightless. You should feel no strain in your knees. If you do, turn your right leg less.

2. Turning your hips, shift your weight forward until your body turns toward the center of the circle and your weight is now 100 percent on your right leg (Fig. 4c). Turn your hips further around to face the direction you just came from, pivoting on the toe of the left foot (Fig. 4d). Let your heel go backward to avoid strain on your knee and lower back. Pivot in any way that does not put pressure on either knee. (Note that only advanced practitioners do not move the left heel backward.) Your left toes should now be pointing in the direction you want to be going. At this point your body and left foot are facing in the opposite direction from that in which you started.

3. Step straight ahead with your forward (left) leg (Fig. 4e) and shift your weight 100 percent onto that leg (Fig. 4f). Then move your back (right) leg off the floor and bring it parallel to your left leg (Fig. 4g), with your right foot off the floor. Your right foot is parallel to your left foot and one to three inches off the floor, or higher if your knees, back, or hips feel strain. Your feet have now completed the directional change: your right leg is now your inside leg, and your left leg is your outside leg.

4. Continue to walk the circle another three times, now with the right leg straight-stepping and left leg curve-stepping.

A basic concept in ba gua is that you make your body into a "dragon body". The metaphor of the dragon, common in the West during the medieval era in Europe, is also appropriate for spontaneous ba gua movement. The dragon in Chinese thought has many meanings: it is the symbol of the emperor (as the phoenix is the symbol of the empress), of good fortune , and of higher aspirations and spirituality. The second form the dragon takes is the descending of the downward yin energy, down from the heavens and into your body. This chi, which feels extremely light and amorphous, penetrates the body to the cells. You then experience the cells and atoms of the body moving apart (the feeling is as if cohesion between cells is being lost). You experience everything inside your bag of skin expanding, changing, and becoming amorphous without any sense of solidity, as your mind implodes inward. With the third dragon, yin and yang combine as yang energy ascends from the earth and yin energy simultaneously descends from the sky. When they mix, a chi is created that becomes a living force inside your body, which physically moves you. The dragon energy literally grabs your body/mind and starts moving and teaching you what to do. This method of freeing bound spiritual energies is called " the celestial teachings of bu gua" these are teachings that come from heaven. It is no that you do a movement; instead, you are moved, sometimes forcibly. Whereas there is a limit on physical stamina as regards standing and moving practices, sitting practices are virtually open-ended on this level. Some people have been known to sit and meditate for weeks on end without moving. The longer you can sit, the more layers you can strip off the contents that hide the nature of Consciousness from your normal awareness.

Then, at a point beginning at the top of your head (or above your head, if you can feel the energy of your aura), slowly feel your way down through your body until you reach your lower tantien, and from there go down your legs to below your feet.

It is important to actually feel your body and not to merely visualize its different parts. This process of internally sensing the body starting at the head and moving down to the lower tantien can take a long time; indeed, you can spend a one-hour session of meditation working on only a small segment of your body.

At this point you should be gaining the ability to actually feel your internal sensations. As you move your attention through your body, you will probably encounter areas that feel full of all sorts of internal content-things stuck, blocked, uncomfortable, agitated ,happy, depressed, and so on. These and all other Taoist meditation practices ultimately involve dissolving and releasing the energy of these blockages, as described in the next chapter, until you become internally free.

Lying-Down Practices
The lying-down practices are the most difficult of the five styles of meditation. To have your mind, chi, and spirit stay fully conscious and to practice for hours on end while your body is totally relaxed is not easy. In fact, you may become so relaxed that you and others become aware of your body's snoring. However, you are not dreaming, but remain wide awake. Ordinarily, the lying-down practices are not recommended until after a person has had substantial experience with the standing, moving, and sitting styles. Consequently, the lying-down style is considered an advanced practice.

The ideal state when practicing lying-down meditation is to have your body be completely motionless. Since you may be lying completely still for more than one hour, it is best to lie on a surface that you find extremely comfortable, one that is neither too soft nor too hard. An overly hard or soft sleeping surface will most likely prevent your body from relaxing completely. Overly soft surfaces will cause your body to sag, putting pressure from internal body weight on your bones, muscles, nerves, and internal organs. These pressures can easily cause irritation that requires physical adjustment for relief. Overly hard surfaces can cause pain, which will again make you want to move. Sofas and beds with sufficient and well-constructed springs or thick futons placed on the floor usually work quite well.

If you opt for a sideways position, it is best to choose your right side so the weight of your body does not compress your heart and impede the blood circulation. You may cross your left knee over your right knee. If your back or hip is weak or injured, you may want to place a pillow between your knees or around your hips or neck for support. As in the third method of sitting in a chair, it is important for the same reasons to adjust your body in such a way as to lightly stretch, rather than compress, your spinal cord.

At the point when your breathing becomes so soft it has seemed to disappear, you will, when you breathe, begin to feel a sense of energy coming into your body. Continue breathing until you feel your body filling up with a clean, strong sense of energy from head to toe. It is this vibrant sense of energy that will keep your mind totally awake, even if parts of your body "fall asleep". The Outer Dissolving Process and the Inner Dissolving Process Compared AU the meditation practices of the Taoist water.

All the meditation practices of the Taoist water method involve dissolving and resolving the bound blocked free. Both the outer and inner dissolving processes begin when you consciously use your awareness to focus your mind on any specific condensed energy shape or pattern within yourself. You then dissipate that shape until it no longer obstructs your mind, body, or spirit in any way. (In all traditions, the conscious use of awareness and attention is a critical basic ingredient to any genuine spiritual meditation method.) You can do each dissolving technique in any one of the five ways-moving, standing , sitting, lying down, or during sexual activity. The phrase used to describe the outer dissolving process has, for millennia, been "ice to water to gas." "Ice" refers to the blocked, congealed energy; "water' refers to the accepting and relaxing of your tension, while "gas" refers to the complete release of all the original bound energy moving away from your physical body. If not completely released, the energy may revert to ice. In contrast, the phrase used for the inner dissolving process of the water method is "ice to water, water to space," where "space" means the vast internal space that exists inside the body, that space being as infinite as the universe. In the ice-to-water phase of outer dissolving (also used in chi gung and tai chi), the solid, completely bound and condensed energetic shape (ice) is released until it relaxes and reaches the surface of your skin (water). In the inner dissolving process, your bound energy is also released at the point of the blockage until it becomes relaxed, soft, and amorphous (water). Water, however, contains the inherent capacity to recondense to ice. Your "liquid" energy can now move in two different directions:

(1) In the outer dissolving process, also used in standing chi gung,* you release your blocked chi from your skin to outside your physical body and then to the edge of your chi/etheric body or even beyond (water to gas). The previously condensed energy is now neutral, unblocked, and shapeless.

(2) When you move into the water-to-space phase of the inner dissolving process, on the other hand, you release all blocked content of your felt sensations by imploding your energy into the inner space that your previously condensed blocked energy shape occupied, thereby converting your blocked energy into Consciousness without content (a stage of emptiness). In the early phases of the sitting mode of meditation, it is important that, as you dissolve a blockage, you release its energy inward deeper into your internal space (that is, Consciousness). The Taoist position is that there is as much internal space inside you as there is space in the whole external universe.**

Using the inner dissolving method to go ever deeper inside during sitting meditation, for instance, is like letting your dissolved energy open a door into a door within a door, leading deeper and deeper into inner space in the point at which you began dissolving. You implode each layer of energy inward into the point however far it extends internally, until you finally reach a place where your being naturally comes to a stop. This process may proceed very slowly and take long periods of time. Depending on your individual nature, you might experience this endpoint as complete and utter yin or yang energy, a feeling or vision of light, or a sense of water, emptiness, calmness, peace, mind expansion, and so forth. Rest within that endpoint and try to develop the ability to return to that spot through all of the layers of your energy at will and especially in the midst of life's most scary and stressful situations. Eventually, if you dissolve deeply enough into any one spot you will sooner or later end up at your true Consciousness, which, you will discover, has been relieved of the "red dust," or source of your blockage. Consciousness still remains when the red dust goes, and it is at this exact point that you have an experience, whether temporary or permanent, of Consciousness itself.

Relationship between Mind and Blockage
In the dissolving process, how does your mind contact and then dissolve the tension or blockage in your body, regardless of how dense or subtle that blockage is? In other words, how can you deliberately contact, become aware of and feel the blockages in your body with your mind only? People with normal nerves will feel pain if you hit them forcefully in a sensitive body part. Sometime later, they will feel the "blockages" inside their body as a throbbing pain. Likewise, a person can be erotically stimulated in a sensitive spot and feel pleasure. In strong emotional situations, such as falling in love, experiencing the death of someone close, or being frustrated with situations beyond your control, you can consciously feel your emotions, positive or negative. With a little bit of concentrated "mind effort," you can increase, decrease or mitigate your physical pain, pleasure or emotions. In short, you can indeed feel what happens inside you with your mind. In externally induced situations, such as those just described, your whole mind, instead of being diffused, ,concentrates, and all your attention is drawn to the "object" at, hand be it pain, pleasure or emotion. The totality of your awareness, "the subjective observer," is directed at this object. For instance, consider a baby that has fallen down some stairs and has real pain from a physical injury that would normally keep it crying for ten to fifteen minutes. The baby's mind is fully focused on the pain. Every parent knows that if you can distract the baby with something more absorbing than the pain, the baby's attention can be diverted to a new "object," such as a favorite food or a toy. Chances are that the baby will stop crying and focus on the new object. If, in a few minutes, you withdraw the item, the baby will again feel the pain from the fall and will often begin crying anew. Where did the pain from the fall go, and from where did it return? The answer is that the pain went nowhere, the baby's mind did. It takes a certain minimum percentage of your mind's capacity to be consciously aware of anything. In dissolving a blockage, your recognition or interpretation of what you are observing, along with your feelings, is affecting you, the "observer." By going deeper and deeper inside the blockage toward its source, your mind moves further away from the original surface point of contact with the blockage. Now, how does your mind enter into and resolve the blockage in the first place?

How to Dissolve Inwardly
To an extremely limited extent, a very minimal dissolving of blockages can occur by concentrating our normal intent and awareness on them in a relaxed way. For truly effective dissolving to occur, however, both the mindstream and presence must be involved. Presence is a specific felt quality that occurs when all (or almost all) of your awareness is fully operational. This presence can be directed at an internal task (such as inner dissolving). When this quality is fully embodied in a person, it naturally exudes outward, affecting others within his or her field; it is this quality that is referred to when we speak of a person "having great presence." The internal groundwork for recognizing the mindstream, the motion of the mind, and presence, and for working with these three distinct phenomena, is developed during the preparatory practices. Likewise, the preparatory practices generate the internal mental environment necessary for that "wonderful accident" that allows practitioners direct contact with Universal Consciousness itself. In order to do the beginning outer dissolving practices, which involve only the first two energetic bodies (the physical and the chi), there is no need to recognize the motion of the mind or the mindstream. Again, pure intent will do some small bit of dissolving on its own, but the application of the mindstream and presence is needed for true effectiveness and acceleration of the inner dissolving process. A critical point for doing all the dissolving practices-especially inner dissolving-is the quality of mind that a practitioner must maintain. Normally in the West when one wishes to concentrate to the utmost, one narrows the focus of his or her mind in a forceful, laserlike manner, which usually creates extreme tension. The inner dissolving practice, in contrast, involves a seeming paradox: you must be continuously highly focused and yet completely relaxed. Your mind releases its strength and opens to maintain the relaxed concentration that lies at the root of Taoist meditation.

This focused yet relaxed state of mind is fundamental and highly valued in both Taoist and Buddhist meditation practices. These two traditions use different metaphors to describe essentially the same point. The Taoists talk about a stone moving through water. The mind is the water: soft, yet capable of moving slowly and calmly or with great turbulence. The stone is the object of your concentration, which the water surrounds. The stone may sink slowly and gradually without obstacle, or be moved up, down, or sideways, depending on the currents that naturally arise.

Shakyamuni Buddha, the story goes, had a talented student who had been a famous musician before devoting his life to meditation. Although he worked immensely hard, the student was not able to penetrate to the depths of his being. When he asked the Buddha what was missing in his practice, the Buddha said he had to tune his mind like a string on his instrument: too loose (too relaxed) and no sound can be made (you might fall asleep), too tight and all you get is a dissonant jangle.

Stage 1. Preparation for Dissolving: Let Your Mind Relax and Settle
In the following pages, the numbered points are instructional, and the bulleted points are suggestions or explanations of more subtle material.

1. Have the intent to do the dissolving process. Volitional intent will predispose, rather than directly cause, your mindstream to move toward your blockages.

2. Sit down. It is recommended that the inner dissolving process be done sitting, the outer dissolving process standing.

3. Settle or relax your mind as much as possible.

4. While the mind is settling, your nerves may (and eventually should) begin to relax and your mind should slow down. Your conscious awareness, which is frequently fuzzy or scattered, begins to become more clear and focused. Because your mind or thoughts slow down, the motion of the mind itself begins to slow down, too, thus showing itself more easily and allowing you to recognize or feel a sense of it.

5. Gently focus attention to the act of moving your mind (that is, your conscious awareness) to the top of your head.

6. Wait until your mind begins to move of its own accord to the crown of your head.

7. Once your total mind focuses at the crown of your head, a generalized feeling of the mind expanding, a feeling that is different from your normal state of conscious awareness, should emerge.

8. Feel the sense of the motion of the mind that should now begin to arise.

** This motion, whether fast or slow, never ceases. It may be smooth and comfortable or rough and at odds with relaxation. Thoughts, ideas, and sensations continuously arise naturally owing to the subliminal content of the mind. Or if there are no discernible thoughts, there is an underlying sense that they are dormant, just below the surface, and sooner or later will manifest as recognizable ideas or feelings.

9. When the ever-growing presence and awareness of the motion of the mind grows sufficiently inside, you become aware of your individual mindstream, which is quite a different thing from the motion of the mind.

** The mindstream is like the airstream beneath an airplane, which supports the craft in flight, or it can be viewed as the road upon which the motion of the mind rides. The mindstream is the bridge, the connection, between your own ability to be aware and the universal all-pervasive Consciousness itself. The mindstream, as experienced internally, has a particular vibratory feel. It will seem to feel less dense than the motion of the mind and more dense than Consciousness itself.

10. Maintaining your intent at the crown of your head, you now wait until two things happen: your mindstream moves toward the crown of your head of its own accord, and your mindstream and your intent begin to commingle.

Stage 2. The Mindstream Reaches the Blockage
1. Beginning from the crown of your head, or the point at which you want to start the dissolving process (which may be above your head at the boundary of your etheric body), move your awareness downward through your body until you first encounter and feel a blockage.

** A blockage is some kind of congealed chi, an uncomfortable or dissonant "something" that is disturbed within the motion of the mind and obstructs some part of it. Blockages can be felt both in the physical body and in the etheric body above your head. If no blockage is present, or if you can't feel one, the motion of the mind will simply continue to move unimpeded.

2. Let your intention to dissolve remain, whether it is subtle or overt.

3. Wait for the mindstream and intention, which are separate, to commingle.

** During the rest of the movement toward emptiness and Consciousness itself, the two will remain commingled like the interplay between a singer (your individualized intent) and the band (mindstream). At different times, either may be a little or dramatically louder or softer, both may be equal, or one, although still present, may be virtually inaudible, while the I other is loud and completely dominates.

Always, however, there will be a flux or flow between your conscious intent, aiding or focusing the ice-water-space process and your felt sense of the mindstream being the primary or sole agent doing the dissolving.

Stage 3. The Mindstream First Enters the Blockage at a Given Point and Begins the Dissolving Process: Ice to Water.
At first, the blockage subjectively seems to be something different from you, a foreign object lodged in your awareness but seeming to be some distance from you, even though it is in your mind/body.

1. As your mind moves downward, put your intent on the first place where you feel a sensation of blockage. This is an entry point to the whole blockage but is also a block itself. As the nature of the blockage is holographic, the whole is contained in all of its parts, or points, and all of its points are linked throughout all of your energy bodies. Simultaneously watch the motion of the mind, until the motion of the mind reaches the blockage and you begin to feel it.*

2. Wait actively until you feel your presence grow, and until your mindstream and your intent join. You want your focus and clarity to grow. Do not succumb to the temptation to get drowsy and nod off.

3. Focus your intent on allowing the blocked energy at that point to turn from "ice" to "water."
** As your presence grows, your awareness of the energetic quality and contours of the block grows along with it.

** From the beginning, in both the inner and outer dissolving practices, focus on the energy you feel behind (underlying) the blockage more than on the energy of the blockage itself, and on the flow of where the mindstream is going, not just on where it is at any given time.

** The growth of your presence further empowers the mindstream to follow your intent and enter the first layer of the blockage at a given point, until the blocked energy there merges with the mindstream, much as an iceberg eventually turns to liquid and merges with the sea.

** The mindstream and your intent become completely commingled. The addition of the mindstream gradually accelerates the inner dissolvi ng process.

Stage 4. The Mindstream Continues Dissolving the First Layer at the Point of Entry of the Blockage: Water to Inner Space
1. Release all the remaining blocked content of your felt sensations by imploding your energy into the inner space that your previously condensed blocked energy shape occupied, thereby converting your blocked energy into Consciousness without content (a stage of emptiness).
2. Let your dissolved energy open a door into a door within a door, leading deeper and deeper into inner space in the point at which you began dissolving. You implode each layer of energy inward into the point however far it extends internally, until you finally reach a place where your being naturally comes to a stop (see p. 97).
** At this time your intent becomes subordinate to the mindstream, which completely dissipates the energy of the blockage inside your body into inner space, and ideally into emptiness. This process completes the first layer of dissolving your entry point: water to inner space. You may be successful or not-see stage 5.
** As the releasing of a layer of the point accelerates, the sense of the mindstream can in the beginning (and usually does when you are more experienced)

The inner Dissolving process become clearer and clearer. When a layer of the point where you are holding your awareness fully releases into emptiness, it becomes possible to become aware of the mindstream and the motion of the mind as two clearly differentiated elements connected to your Consciousness, completely separate and yet not intrinsically different, merely different densities of the same parent material.
** Remember that the mindstream is connected to all, not some, parts of your being simultaneously. You can enter into the mindstream from any part of your body, mind, or spirit. There is no true linear sequence of A to B to C when releasing layers of a point into inner space.
3. As you move and dissolve into inner space, stay grounded in the background of your awareness by continuously remaining conscious of your entire physical body. Don't lose a sense of contact with your physical body and go into a purely mental realm. Continue to dissolve inward into the point at which you entered the blockage, as you simultaneously let yourself experience the dissolving of any associated energies that arise.
** Any blockage located by the inner dissolving process, anywhere in your body, is linked via the mindstream to any other related blockage at any number of points of entry. Any related blockage could be at another point in your physical body or in any of your other energy bodies, and it could either maintain or intensify the effect of the primary blockage. You may temporarily find yourself in such related blockages as you dissolve a layer of the primary blockaa' Move with the mindstream but hold some core awareness of the primary blockage as well.
** Some blockages you may encounter will not be extensively linked to other parts of your being;
others may be directly or tangentially linked to thousands of other subsidiary blockages. Some compose core parts of your individual personality or the underlying assumptions and expectations that make up your worldview, that is, how you experience the world you live in.
** Do not confuse the jumping from place to place of the "monkey mind" with the motion of the mind that guides the mindstream to the next linked blockage.
** Your mindstream is like a golden thread simultaneously present in all your energetic bodies, and can, in a microsecond, move between your various energy bodies-from lower to higher and higher to lower. A given energetic blockage could have infinite tributaries (a door within a door within a door) that ultimately lead to a single ocean, where all dissolve. Because of this circumstance and because the motion of mind also has similar properties to the mindstream, your awareness could stay for a considerable time dissolving any specific single place. Or it could skip forward along different tributaries, dissolving and resolving smaller or larger fragments of bound energy, which are directly relevant to the original blockage and must also be resolved in order for the original blockage to be fully released. This movement could be between different energy bodies, causing the practitioner to have successively different internal experiences. As mentioned, all of this can be simultaneously occurring from the one blocked point you are dissolving.

Stage 5. Dissolving All the Successive Layers within a Given Point of Entry and All Other Points at the Same Height of Your Body within a Blockage
1. When you attempt to dissolve a point in a blockage through the first layer of inner space, there are a few possible outcomes:
(a) You are unable to dissolve to a stage of emptiness, and therefore the point of energy is not resolved to a conclusion. Rather, it feels as though it will stay unresolved no matter how long you try to dissolve it. In this case, go to step 2.
(b) You are able to dissolve through the first layer of inner space into a sense of emptiness. You stay in emptiness as long as it lasts. After a while some sense of agitation or additional blocked energy will re-emerge in the same blocked place (which will feel larger than it was, as though you have gone through a door into a larger chamber of your mind). This is a new layer of inner space. The mindstream then follows your intent and the motion of the mind inward again. The mind attempts to dissolve into that layer and resolve it into emptiness. You now dissolve the new larger sense of blocked energy, maintaining the same relationships between motion of the mind, presence, mindstream, intent, and Consciousness itself. If unsuccessful, go to step 2. If successful, wait again for the next layer to arise, and repeat this process.
** Between the resolution of each layer of the blockage and its next layer will be a resting space where people often feel extremely blissful and at ease with themselves and with creation. This space is where the motion of the mind and the mindstream first make themselves known to your conscious awareness with regularity.
The mindstream and the motion of the mind are usually recognized in one of three forms: specific subtle yet discernible feelings, a level of vibration, or some quality of light.
(c) After successfully dissolving one or more layers of inner space at a point of entry, you may find, after waiting there, that you sense you have achieved resolution into a final emptiness. Feel whether this resolution has also removed any sense of the blockage. If so, go to step 3. If not, go to step 2.
2. Transfer any unresolved energy from the original blocked point to the next blocked point at the same height but in front of, behind, or to either side of the original point of entry. If none exists because the blockage has shrunk or moved down, then move down to the next point of entry you can find. Then go back to stage 2 on page 102, and begin again.
** If you try several points of entry and are unable to resolve any to even a first layer of emptiness, then go to step 3 below. If you cannot get access to a blockage, you cannot use its energy to move into emptiness.
3. With your intent, the motion of the mind, presence, and the mindstream, simply go to the next place down your body where you feel a new blockage and begin all over again.
** Whether you are a beginner or an advanced practitioner, when dissolving (using either the inner or outer process) you move only downward from total blockage to total blockage to ensure that your body's energy channels can handle the energetic load without damage to your central nervous system, that is, damage from whatever energies may be released from your blockages. Dissolving downward is a safety procedure, pure and simple (see Question 10 in Appendix C).
1. Slowly move your intent down your body from the point into which you have been dissolving your lower tantien.
2. Along the way, take a moment to lightly and quickly dissolve inward at any remaining blockages you may feel.
3. Finally, spend a few minutes dissolving into the lower tantien.
This wrap-up process will help bring energy down your body into your lower tantien, helping center you before stopping. The lower tantien is linked to all points in your physical body. This process will help strengthen those links.

Experiences Often Encountered while Resolving the Successive Layers of a Blockage
In any form of meditation, there is no way to state exactly what experiences an individual will encounter. It would be a mistake to think that "this or that should happen to me," or "I am failing if it does not happen to me." There is simply too much individual variation, which is why teachers are very helpful to sort out your personal specifics from the general points that would be relevant to any individual. Here an attempt is made to indicate what is within normal parameters at progressively more advanced stages.

The ice-to-water and water-to-space stages of inner dissolving should be considered as a continuum rather than two completely separate processes.

Ice-to-Water Stage of the Inner Dissolving Process.
1. Feel and observe a blockage.

2. The mindstream contacts the blockage and you have a felt sense of something, possibly a type of vibration or even in relatively rare cases a full-bore vision. Or you start getting various kinds of conceptual ideas, including mental forms or inter pretations of what the feelings mean or to what they are specifically connected: for example, physical problems, energetic imbalances or emotional situations involving parents, relationships, anger, depression, or self-image.

3. Dissolve the initial point of entry. Dissolve through the onion layers of the blockage one by one. How many layers you will eventually go through until a complete resolution occurs, no one can say. What can be said is this: The cause or causes of the original blockage as you continue dissolving will work their way through each of the energetic permutations that are in some way connected to the blockage. The sense of energy within the mindstream may change, getting stronger, weaker, faster, or slower, but no matter what the change, the underlying "something" (the "form") that allowed you to recognize it in the first place will usually remain until it is dissolved. The subtle quality of the vibration will change to some degree as you move through each stage of emptiness and a new buildup to another resolution. As you unbind more and more blocked energy and you become involved with the energetic form of the blockage, it is not unusual to begin to spontaneously recognize and interpret emotional and mental meanings related to what you are experiencing while dissolving. This recognition often results in a variety of spontaneously arising insights into the events of your life and the workings of your interior world. When these perceptions occur, it directly indicates that you are working on the third and fourth energetic bodies-the emotional and mental.

4. The overt vibrational form may vanish, leaving only a very subtle vibration or only the faintest hint of what the blockage means in all its subtle aspects. Once the form disappears, over time, its charge goes and the form of the blockage seems as though it was never there. For example, if you had physical pain from a broken bone, the sense of the bone itself in that blockage would go away. You would be left only with the essence of what the broken bone meant to you, in all of its shadings and interconnections. If your blockage was emotional and related to a situation or person (such as a parent, lover, friend, or enemy), the sense of the specific situation or person would drop away and only the essence of what that emotion meant to you would be left. If it was a thought, the form of the thought, the specific ideas the mind had focused on and recognized, would drop, and only the underlying meaning would remain when you moved into emptiness. If any of these occur, it indicates that you are working on your fourth and fifth energetic bodies, the mental and psychic. From the Taoist perspective, you are now on the boundary between secular and spiritual life. For most people, going as far as dropping the form in the inner dissolving process is more than enough to relieve many of life's physical, mental, and emotional problems. From this point forward, you are now moving into what could be called intermediate/advanced spiritual work, which is extremely challenging. Up to now, your main interest could have been to simply get your inner physical, energetic, emotional, and mental life to work. From here on, the motivation behind your practice must be a sincere interest in spirituality.

5. Continue dissolving to the next stage of practice. Here the meaning of a blockage and all your interpretations drop. The meaning becomes pure energy without being attached to interpretations or judgments as to what should or should not be. When this process occurs, it indicates that you are working on your fifth energetic (psychic) body. What remains, however, is a clear sense of the self, the "I" that is observing this process.

6. Now dissolve this sense of self, the "I," until there is only an underlying vibration without a clear sense of any difference between the vibration and yourself. Dissolving the sense of the "I" is not easy and requires a great deal of sensitivity and relaxed focus. At this level, the volume of subtle distractions that take you away from dissolving seems to expand exponentially. Working at this level does not mean you are transcending your "ego"; however, it is a definite step in the right direction. Taoist meditators consider the dropping of the "I" to be the true beginning of entering the final stage of moving into the personal connection to Consciousness itself.
At this point, it is not unusual for you to start experiencing some level of inner light-not a light you purposely visualize but one that spontaneously arises when enough obstacles are removed between your normal awareness and Universal Consciousness. When this experience occurs, it indicates that you are beginning to work on your sixth (causal) energetic body. What remains, however, is the underlying core of the blockage.

7. In this next plateau, you dissolve the underlying subtle vibration or sense of light that remains after the sense of the gross "I" drops away. This sense will be very clear, and it will be a real challenge to dissolve it into emptiness. At this juncture, the veils between where you are and the full resolution of the blockage will come, one after another, each one being more subtle and difficult to dissolve than the one before. When this situation occurs, it indicates that you are working further into your sixth (causal) energetic body.

8. You have now achieved a complete sense of emptiness, and your inner world is becoming more and more still. The next plateau is exceptionally difficult. It usually takes some time before your sensitivity can adjust sufficiently to working with it well. There are myriad energetic veils between the initial sense of emptiness and Consciousness, each I more subtle than the last. As you clear out the veils one by one, you begin to get glimpses of Consciousness. It is as though there is a light bulb with hundreds of layers of gossamer over it. When enough layers disappear, even if just for a second, you see some light, no matter how obscured. As more veils fall away, as more of your internal content loses its charge, you view Consciousness through fewer and fewer filters. Eventually your mind becomes yet more still and you start experiencing Consciousness in a "now you see it, now you don't" fashion. In the beginning, you glimpse a little, then wait a long time for the next peek. Gradually, the gaps shorten and you become increasingly familiar with Consciousness. When you gain the awareness, it indicates that you are working yet more deeply into your sixth (causal) energetic body and are on the border between the sixth body and the seventh (the body of individuality).

9. In the next phase, your mind finally becomes still and the barriers between your normal awareness and Consciousness dissolve away in every single blockage simultaneously, as you enter into the Great Stillness. You become aware of Consciousness as a living entity that becomes a lifelong companion. Meditation must be continued, however, or more "red dust" will collect, again creating veils that have to be dissolved in order for you to be aware of Consciousness effortlessly and at all times. You have now moved into the seventh body and are ready to begin working with it. An individual who has come this far-to the Great Stillness-has completed the intermediate stage of Taoist meditation and is prepared to learn inner alchemy. When you dissolve your content, two things happen:
(1) the emotional and psychic forces inside you become resolved, and
(2) the hidden and beneficial qualities of Consciousness it self are released so that they permeate the entire structure of your being, as opposed to merely causing a fleeting experience. Something inside you shifts and stays, never to go back. To whatever depth you have penetrated your physical or "psychic knot" (yogic terminology), when you have reached absorption (fully dissolved and relaxed it), you will gain "knowledge of it" (yogic terminology). This knowledge will naturally bring insights into that object, such as its intrinsic nature, where it comes from, the mechanisms of how it interacts and changes under various conditions and stimuli. Ultimately, at the successful conclusion of the samadhi /absorption or ice-to-space process, you achieve freedom from all the energetic and psychic attachments that bind and torture your body, mind, and soul/consciousness. With that freedom comes a release that allows your body, mind, and Consciousness to be totally at ease and comfortable, imbued with a spontaneously arising natural sense of inner stillness, quiet, peace, and joy. The less of your mind you can use, the less ability you have to remain consciously focused on an object of your intentions. This procedure requires a relaxed strength of mind. The strength of mind to concentrate on an object (internal or external) can be likened to the strength needed to lift a weight. To be able to focus on your chi, one hundred units; emotions, one thousand; mental, ten thousand; psychic, one hundred thousand; and causal , one million. As a first step, your mindstream must have the strength to " lock onto" an object with continuous concentration. Metaphorical weight lifting that progressively develops your concentration through repetition and habit. Each time you practice, mental strength (that is, the percentage of your mind devoted to the concentration) increases. Many people's minds are simply fragmented, with many things going on at the same time. This weakens their capacity to pay attention to one thing to the exclusion of all others for a set period of time. In Zen, this ability is called one-pointed concentration. In sports and science it is called focus. Successful people usually have focus and mediocre people usually do not. A major purpose of all classical education from ancient Greece to today was to develop a mind that had the capacity to concentrate and reflect.

Later you start to work with your other five energy bodies and the energy outside your body. The Taoists found that what happens inside you correlates directly with the universe outside your physical body. As you clear your chi by going inside, you can also clear your chi on the outside, as it extends outside your physical form from just a few feet to over one hundred feet. When the chi is bound inside your body, it also is correspondingly bound outside your skin. As far as your awareness can go into inner space, it can go that far outside your body. Since our chi and emotions can be blocked both internally and externally, it is possible to dissolve your chi and emotions inside and outside your physical body simultaneously. If you do not clear out your own energy fields beyond your body, then all energies coming inform an external environment can activate the unresolved energies in your own personal chi. In guitar playing, plucking one guitar string can induce a sympathetic vibration in another guitar string, with which it is not in physical contact. In like manner, an energetic frequency from outside your body can intensely activate a specific energy inside your body that would normally have remained inert or dormant. Your specific internal energy thus becomes active with respect to the specific events of your life occurring at the moment and makes a great deal of emotional noise. This reaction can cause you to be somewhat manipulated (as if you were a puppet) by the energy emanating from the huge chi fields of the stars.

Astrology is based on such energetic interactions. The immensely strong energetic field of the planets exert an ever-changing influence on the earth as they move through space. Such influence does not mean that events will necessarily occur, but it suggests that certain types of energy will be prevailing at a particular time, affecting the first six of your eight bodies. Astrological influences can be overridden by clearing out blockages in your emotional body. Such clearing can be accomplished while sitting or while practicing tai chi chuan, ba gua, chi gung, or Taoist yoga. When you start clearing your emotional blockages it is important to tap directly into your glandular system, as well as into your internal organs. There are so many techniques available that the right one to be employed at any time depends on what is appropriate for a particular type of person or a certain situation. It is not really useful simply to talk about this or that technique in a cookbook approach. Human beings are too complicated to work that way. Taoist thought holds that a woman's heart center, or middle tantien, is naturally more alive and activated than a man's; correspondingly, a man's lower tantien is naturally more activated than a woman's. The heart center is ruler of human emotions; the lower tantien governs physicality. A woman's sexual energy concentrates in the lower, yin part of her body-that is, her feet, ankles, knees, thighs, and buttocks. Regardless of which sexual foreplay or dissolving technique is used, the lower portion of her body is where the man must physically and energetically turn her on and keep her turned on before and during sexual intercourse. The more intensely the energy accumulates in a woman's feet, the stronger her orgasms can be. A woman wants her yin sexual energy to move from being centered in her vagina down to her feet. In the beginning of foreplay, the man should play with the woman's feet, kissing and sucking her toes, in order to draw her sexual energy down to her feet and below her feet to the end of her etheric body. Once her yin energy is warmed up, it can be moved upward to anywhere in the upper yang part of her body. A man is the opposite. Regardless of which sexual foreplay or dissolving technique is used, for a woman to excite a man and maintain his erection, she should concentrate his sexual energy in the upper, yang part of his body (that is, his kidneys, upper torso, arms, and head) before playing with his genitals, buttocks, and legs. For a man's sexual energy to reach its strongest levels of intensity, he wants it to transfer from his genitals and rise to his upper back and the crown of his head and above his head, to the endpoint of his etheric body. In the beginning of foreplay, the woman should first kiss or suck the man's fingers, arms, neck, ears, nose, forehead, or top of his head. Once he is turned on, she can move down to his lower body.