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Hello,
I’m wondering which kind of concentration are you applying during the microcosmic orbit. Wider, or pinpoint? I read from M. Chia’s books that one should concentrate on points. And, from another book, that ‘with concentration one can obtain the effects of acupuncture’. Yet, this kind of meditation is a little straining to me. Not natural. But the books, you know…thanks!…
I bring my awareness to the pearl with my inner smile. When I meet resistance I spin the pearl and smile. Change is sometimes fast, sometimes slow, I never know. I hope this helped.
May you go with the flow.
Hi Sly-
Never forcing. Always smiling.
The smile is the pleasure of the lifeforce (lifestream, really) flowing through you, and it is CONSCIOUS. Therefore it knows how to moderate itself in all circumstances within us.
What I find is that when I set my intention for working and then relax into Its hands, It guides the process organically, doing what needs to be done to get to the end result. I know its perspective is bigger than my own so I trust It to lead, mostly, unless It tells Me to.Smiling, A
There is a dance between smiling- going with the flow and guiding with your minds intent. If you are experiencing strain using one method ask inside what you can do to open the orbit with ease- your own inner book. (as you are doing here with the outside)
Some answers that have come to me and helped are:
1)The orbit is not a linear loop connected by a series of pinpoint dots. That is only a map to aid the minds focus. Instead it is an emanation from a core place that expresses itself in a back and front manner. There is always this relationship. So it can be thick and spiralic and moist or razor thin according to the moments focus.
2) As such when I strain I can retreat away from the mental construct to the deeper mystery of the living center, trusting the orbit is happening already without my focus. I tend to be led to some sensation or curiosity and the process continues.
3) Rather than get stuck finding a point I concentrate more on circulation and directionality. More like riding a raft in the stream rather than holding my breath trying to find the pearls underneath.
For example from the mouth down is a wonderful way to sober myself from too much mental control. It also supports digestion on all levels to guide and follow this downward frontal flow.
When there is obstruction and resistance the practice becomes to smile and raise above thanking it for its own mystery and how it is so human to resist and isn’t it wonderful to be human. This attitude eventually blossoms this resistance into energies I can digest both emotionally in relationship with the world and energetically within myself.
It is important to remember that this opening only happens when the support systems in life provide enough perceived safety for release and transformation. And that is so personal but is being sped up now in the world and supported by these practices. In this way ‘strain’ could be feedback that we aren’t ready to open this area quite yet and smiling is just more effective than pushing even if counter intuitive.4)If the small orbit tenses than enlarge it to include your legs and soles of your feet like a tree settling down roots and extend out the arms and fingers so you don’t feel like you are in a taoist petri dish all isolated from life’s flow. Invite the earth and stars in. But keep noticing your center and if you are being pulled out or are deepening in. This seems to be the real barometer, for me at least.
Just some thoughts, let us know what answers your inner selves come up with…Barry
Took my own advice and asked and watched with curiosity what is happening as I play in the orbit.
I asked what happens when I notice strain and what is ‘smiling’ in its application?
For example I enter my flow between mouth and belly through narrowing my focus to this area. I encounter resistance and ‘strain’- as well as warmth, color, flow- but is the strain something that is overlaid onto the body by an unskillful technique or am I encountering something held within?
There are times when smiling is a making nice to this unconscious place, acceding to the neighborhood bully. It supports dissociation which may or may not be appropriate according to my level of resistance.
I have had two experiences recently affecting my approach. The first seems so obvious but in practice I see how hard it is to remember when there is resistance.
It can be expressed in the definitions of analog versus digital. Analog experience is a bit fuzzy meaning it has variable measurements and is often analogous to something else.
Digital on the other hand is very exact and discrete. It stands alone.
When I look at books on the Orbit,for example, I tend to see a digital approach and my mind looks to create that. What is experienced though is much more analog…meaning multi-dimensional and always shifting. Sensory rich.
Inherent in this is a tension that becomes strain as I overlay a digital expectation on a living organism which is far from pin point accurate.
This is one sort of strain based on making the map into the territory and not understanding the confusion that results with false expectations. It goes into me quite discrete and is experienced as it is and this is a very curious edge where lots of troublemaking occurs.
This can be somewhat resolved by releasing into the experience once led there by the map but another strain is found, one wrapped in emotion and shadow. It is the strain of inner resistance being brought into awareness. It wasn’t on the map so it is not supposed to be there and so I must get rid of it. Trouble.
The other experience that has helped me with this sort of ‘strain’ was a massage I had recently. It was a variation of chi nei tsang but the point was the resistance in the body was touched and confronted.
It happened to be done with a smiling presence so I wasn’t sent further into trauma, instead I was encouraged to shake my arms and legs (it was deep in the belly) and use sound to allow for discharge.
Emotion arose but this too was released in the shaking.
How does this relate to your question? Whew…lets see. In an overview I am learning how chi kung is about opening space in the body. Not muscle or deep focus or accumulating connections to larger fields of energy e.g. planets etc, but space.
Strain can be my mental category when I find the opposite of space in the body.
Michael’s teaching encourages movement before a sitting meditation on the orbit and also using some moves while focusing on the orbit. This opens space for circulation. It is very useful and effective.
The problem is when obstruction is met internally what is a skillful confrontation that is in the spirit of the taoist approach? While I am a beginner in Fusion and the Kan and Li’s I can see this is their skillful intent to energetically transform old patterned obstructions so there is more space. But avoidance is a strong aspect of the mind and one that constantly taps me on the shoulder.
This morning I smiled and stayed internally focused on the spot in my belly that was as hard as a rock. With inner gaze/smile I allowed subtle vibrations to run through my legs and arms and head like in that massage. As energy released outward the inner resistance lessened, softened, revealed emotion, beliefs…and the balance between the release and the inner focus opened up space for the new.
I think what it boils down to is I can approach growth with a silent contract that it happen as long as I don’t have to change. Don’t have to confront or release the old and find myself in the unknown.
Addicted to maps when the territory is open space.
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