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I have been studying Anadi for 3 years. He is a meditation teacher that teachers the awakening of the 3 dantiens, each one individually and then the merger of all 3, and then finally the entrance of each awakened centre into the absolute so that you begin to exist outside the universe.
I wonder if anyone is aware of him here.
One critical thing that he teaches is recognition / embodiment. This means that although you can cultivate a centre, for instance the belly, you are not necessarily becoming that centre.
You may feel incredible chi in any dantien, but how do you actually become that centre? Is it just the old ‘I’ that is seeing that centre or are you actually it? Are you still the human?
A very subtle inner movement trigger the recognition of the centre as you. So that you are the centre, rather than witnessing it. It is very subtle but it is dramatic.
Many people who have a high degree of cultivation do not actually reside in the states they cultivate. Like having built a house but you are not the house.
I don’t know Anadi, so can’t comment here.
But from a HT perspective, it is really important to get embodied.
This is one of the reasons I am such a big proponent of the coursework in the Physical Body & Grounding Line, e.g. Iron Shirt, Tai Chi , Tao Yin.If a person is not embodied–and in my experience, most are not–then any alchemy meditation that a person does is complete waste of time. It amounts to nothing more than having a mental daydream or fantasy with no real physical body energetic shifts or true shifts in consciousness. People who don’t get embodied and then take alchemy courses are doing nothing other than paying $1000 to spend a week having daydreams.
If you want to have real energetic changes happen in your body and have real transformation, you need to be in your body, not in your mind.
S
Hi Steven,
which HT courses correspond to the practices you mention (iron shirt, tai chi, and tao yin)?
thanks,
elephantThose ARE the course titles.
See Healing Tao Retreats for this past summer’s 2015 schedule at Michael’s Healing Tao Summer Retreats program.Michael’s homestudy courses only cover the Alchemy Line, because that’s Michael’s specialty. No one does alchemy better than him, so he has little reason or time to teach anything else, especially when the alchemy tends to be the most “fun” anyway. He leaves teaching the material from the other lines to other instructors at his retreat program.
But outside of the Alchemy Line is the Physical Body & Grounding Line, the Chi Nei Tsang Line (clinical massage healing), the Cosmic Healing Line (clinical energy healing) . . .
S
To follow up on Steven’s post, you can read about all of these forms in Mantak Chia’s books, although it is difficult to learn the practice (exception may be Tao Yin). There are excellent DVD’s for both Tai Chi 1 (Marie Favorito) and Tao Yin (Karin Sorvik) which I would recommend (see links below). Iron Shirt must be taught live though, but Steven is an excellent resource…
Interesting. Thanks.
So – if I may attempt to summarize some recent posts on grounding practices
1) the main ones are iron shirt 1, tao yin, and tai chi 1
2) iron shirt 1 may be the “best” but needs to be taught in person
3) standing in stillness practices from CKF4 are grounding practices but in a lesser sense (“wimpy”)
4) tao yin and iron shirt form a sort of complementary pairHave I omitted anything fundamental? What about zhan zhuang? Is that a grounding practice?
>>>So – if I may attempt to summarize some
>>>recent posts on grounding practices
>>>1) the main ones are iron shirt 1, tao yin, and tai chi 1Yes. IS1 and Tai Chi 1 are the biggest. Tao Yin isn’t as grounding as IS1 and Tai Chi 1, but it is an embodiment practice like the other two, and a necessary complement in my view to the other two. Tao Yin is really good for getting you into your body and also releasing the tight psoas muscle which tends to interfere in serious IS1 and Tai Chi 1 work.
>>>2) iron shirt 1 may be the “best” but needs to be taught in person
Yes . . . mainly due to posture issues, body mechanics, and teacher adjustment in helping you to learn to root to the ground
>>>3) standing in stillness practices from CKF4
>>>are grounding practices but in a lesser sense (“wimpy”)Yes. You don’t have a root to the ground in those postures like in IS1, or a moving root as in Tai Chi. So the grounding effect isn’t as strong. Plus, as taught in QF4, those postures are designed for bone breathing, so your attention is typically on something else other than grounding. Those QF4 postures are good practices; they are just designed for something else.
>>>4) tao yin and iron shirt form a sort of complementary pair
Exactly.
>>>Have I omitted anything fundamental?
That’s pretty much it.
Deep Earth Pulsing Qigong from QF3 (QF3 audio course or Sexual Vitality DVD) is also grounding. But it is not rooted at all, so IS1 and Tai Chi 1 tend to be more effective for grounding. I review the Deep Earth Pulsing when I teach the IS1 course. Deep Earth Pulsing is also good for kidney building and activating the sacral pump (which is why it is on the Sexual Vitality DVD).>>>What about zhan zhuang? Is that a grounding practice?
It is. Zhan Zhuang is simply standing meditation (of any kind). Thus IS1 and the standing-in-stillness postures of QF4 count as Zhan Zhuang. But Zhan Zhuang can be any kind of standing meditation. Variants like IS1 that are rooted are highly grounding; those that are not, are less grounding; and some that are not, also involve active visualization meditation, so these are even less grounding, as the mind activation from it acts in cross-purposes to the grounding. However, they are also better than nothing. I teach an Yiquan standing meditation set at the beginning of the IS1 course, as an “easy” intro to IS1 where you don’t need to be rooted. The 3 “standing-in-stillness” postures from QF4 are Yiquan standing meditation postures (different from my set).
S
You’d have to look around and see what’s available by other instructors.
Some of the senior instructors teach pieces of the IS1 in separate workshops, or small bits embedded in other courses, but these are usually sporadic offerings and not consistently scheduled. Another option is M. Chia’s summer/winter basic training courses, where IS1 is part of a larger program (although traveling to Tao Garden is usually cost-prohibitive for most folks). In truth, the most comprehensively covered and easily accessible course is offered at Michael’s Healing Tao summer retreat program.Outside of those possibilities, I always offer private lessons to folks at home here in Michigan. I’ve had this range from a couple of hours to an entire weekend, depending on what the person desired.
Qi,
Steven
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