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fwiw, Michael discusses kundalini in great detail, contrasting it with Taoist practice, on page 151 of Chia’s “Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao”
Is there any trick to enticing Michael Wynn to jump into a thread? As a Taoist master with awakened kundalini, there’s nobody in the world more fit to pronounce authoritatively on this.
On the other hand, he’s busy….so hate to bug him….
Is there any trick to enticing Michael Wynn to jump into a thread? As a Taoist master with awakened kundalini, there’s nobody in the world more fit to pronounce authoritatively on this.
On the other hand, he’s busy….so hate to bug him….
Michael (who’s awakened Kundalini via a similar yoga practice to my own, way back when) says that it’s all about fire channel, but I don’t know about jing or shen.
You’re over my head here, but I’ll research the terms and puzzle it out. There is just enough equivalency between the models to tempt exchange of ideas, but not always enough to really do anything about it 🙂
According to yoga, kundalini goes up the shushumna, or the central spinal channel….if it’s functioning properly. If not, you can have serious problems. I’m not having any problems (except with my landlord).
One more thing…kundalini (aka shakti) is highly contagious. And it’s on a very steep upturn right now. Sages from different traditions seem to agree (though with different reasoning) that we’ve entered an age of spiritual acceleration, where it’s easier to get stuff going. I’m no sage, but I intuitively agree. Even from the most prosaic level – observing that myriad previously secret practices are now in their second or third generation of dissemination – it totally makes sense.
So what was true thirty or three thousand years ago about the speed and rarity of any given level of spiritual development may no longer be relevant. And, in any case, much as I’m not inclined to measure my penis (sorry, Michael!), I’m not measuring my attainment by the Ancient Thunder Scale or any other yardstick. I’m just letting go and enjoying the delightful discovery that we don’t fall, we float.
We’re living in a popcorn popper. Enjoy the inspiration from your fellow kernals. Pop, pop……
It’s one of those things where if you’re not sure then it’s not kundalini, and if it’s kundalini you’re quite sure.
There are all sorts of descriptions floating around, but the one that rang most true for me is the feeling of every cell in your body being in a state of continuous orgasm.
The other thing one reads that’s turned out true is you no longer stink. I moved into a 4th floor walkup on a 100 degree, 95% humidity day in glaring sunlight. Shirt was drenched (and then some) by end of day. next morning, it smelled absolutely clean. Really really weird.
But on the spiritual path it actually doesn’t mean much. In fact, it can even be an obstacle, because 1. the crashing bliss can interfere with your ability to cultivate silence in meditation, and 2. if kundalini awakens before your pathways aren’t somewhat clear, it can be a rocky trip indeed (delaying your spirtual practice while you recover). There are ways to handle both issues. I’m not here to evangelize, so I’ll refrain from linking to the system I’ve found (extraordinarily) effective. I’m here to learn more about the Taoist stuff, which I also think is extraordinary 🙂
Oh, another downside: Michael (who also awoke kundalini) says kundalini is a fire path. So there are all the issues with that (I’m doing kidney pulsing qi dong to try to restore balance….see my other postings on this site about that).
This sub-topic is large enough to merit its own board…its own site, in fact. I don’t mind discussing further, but I do hope someone out there can help with my original query. For example, is there some way to read about what happens at Thunder Path Level 21?
I don’t practice kundalini, it sort of practiced me. Since it awakened, I’ve practiced yoga in a way that includes a few kriya techniques in order to have some small level of control and insight over it.
I don’t fully understand what Kundalini is, intellectually, though i could easily restate lots of stuff I’ve read. And I have no idea how it fits into the Taoist model. But one thing I know for certain is that whether the difference is in amplitude, quality, and/or source, kundalini energy is different from the chi energy we normally move around as part of our daily lives and in our practices.
I’m not really looking for a discussion of that difference (though, by all means, if folks want to have that discussion, go ahead!). I’m just wondering if anyone out there who has experienced kundalini can place it for me within the model of microcosmic orbit practice. Because as I’ve cleared my front channel, the K is starting to run the orbit. And I’ve seen nothing written on this, and am curious to know more.
Anything that bridges the Taoist practices and yoga practices is good to get out there. There’s a lot of cross-pollination, but it’s pretty haphazard (IMO).
I didn’t notice that the “practice” header indicated a separate forum section. If there’s a moderator who can move this, I hope they do!
As for anger, I live in NYC, so anger coming up is indicative of nothing but being alive and breathing! 🙂
Ha! Fair enough! 🙂
But I wasn’t fishing for proof that “I’m right”. Just interested to get at least some basis of agreement that what I powerfully intuit might not be entirely nuts 🙂
My feeling is you can’t really do all that much from the strictly gross level. Spiritual systems that have you enter via the gross level seem to do so as a skillful means to “trick” practitioners unfamiliar with the energetic level into engaging there….over time.
For reasons I stated above, my feeling is that qigong is the same. However! I’m new to qigong, and am sticking with the gross movements for now (I’m having kidney issues, and am practicing deep earth/kidney pulsing qigong from Michael’s DVD). I may have some questions for y’all in the near future…..
Interesting. I just came upon the following Michael Winn quote, which seems to indicate he feels the same. He’s speaking here of breathing rather than qigong movements, but I’d be pretty surprised if he’d say this doesn’t still apply:
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There is a relationship between an energy field and a physical process. The pattern in that energy field is what determines the pattern in your physical breathing; it is not the other way around. You can change your physical breathing pattern around but in order to do that you have already made a shift energetically. The energy field shift always precedes the shifting pattern of physical breathing.
——–Of course, I’m not saying the “boostrapping” (of learning the motions, be they asana or qigong) isn’t useful for the vast majority of people who need to work with coarse gross movements. They learn to inhabit those empty patterns, and then, in time, learn to “add” intent and attention. There’s no shortcut, unless you have an innate sense of your energetic body.
But what I’m proposing is that swinging your hands and twisting your torso don’t ground your kidneys. The grounding of your kidneys make your hands swing and torso twist.
That’s my intuition, anyway, for whatever it’s worth. I may be wrong, but hope it’ll provoke insightful discussion.
I can agree with the notion that it works both ways. What I have trouble with is that a given motion creates an effect…just like that. If that were true, traffic cops and violists would be creating all sorts of energetic mayhem for themselves day after day (that’s not the crux of my point…mostly just making a joke).
I come to this from yoga, where it’s widely believed that the poses were originally spontaneous movements by people in very high states of consciousness. Even today, less cultivated people exhibit “automatic yoga” during deep meditation or spiritual arousal. The pose is effect, not cause. And yoga practice is, therefore, a sort of boostrapping whereby you emulate the movements and try to find your way back to their original germ of inspiration, which creates both the movement and the energetic/spiritual/therapeutic effect. In other words, movement and effect are both consequences of attention and intent.
Watching Michael’s Qigong DVD, I feel the effects from just watching. It’s contagious. Same with yoga…strongly visualizing a pose can bring a profound sensation of having actually done the pose, and even some of the therapeutic effects.
And that brings me to the heart of what i’m suggesting: it’s not the movement that does the healing/opening/energizing. It’s the intention. The movement is an aftereffect, a relic, an empty pattern in and of itself.
Let me put it this way. I’m supposing you all would agree that a dry, cursory practice of qigong, with no internal focus, breathing, and all the rest, would have little effect. I’m also supposing you’d all agree that great focus and breathing applied to an inner experience of the motion without the gross physical acting out of the motion would have pretty good effect (or even the full effect). I’m wondering if you’d all go a tiny bit further and agree that the physical movement itself is really nearly beside the point.
