The (meaning of the) cauldron in Primordial Qigong

Hi RichieRich,

The volume of questions and the amount of time to discuss even one of them, means that to adequately answer your 3 posts would amount to writing an epic longer than Homer’s Odyssey. 🙂

P.S. I trust that based on prior forum discussions and the 8 hours of privates we did this summer, that you know I’m telling the truth. 🙂

Just joking with you a little bit . . .

The good news for you is that Michael is currently writing a book on Primordial Qigong, that is already at my last check with him, 2-volumes in length and growing. So, it may serve to patiently wait to some extent until this book is completed and released by Michael. You will likely end up with more information than you could possibly hope for, and many of your questions could be answered within these multi-volume set .

So all of these things considered, let me just say a few words in brief.

Cauldron is just a metaphor for any defined “space” in which alchemical transformation can occur and qi “yet to be transformed” is collected. In particular, knowing the definition of dantian, dantian would also serve that purpose, except that dantian traditionally typically refers to the one of the three dantians in the body (e.g. lower dantian, belly center). “Cauldron” does not have such a limitation. In particular, any concentrated area of qi in some defined space in your energy body could theoretically serve as a cauldron.

When you are doing the earth cycle, you have formed a qi ball sitting in front of your lower dantian. Then you take it around the extended microcosmic orbit, out from the front of the middle dantian (heart) to the sides, back to the lower dantian. You rotate this qi ball front-to-back and side-to-side (slightly expanding/contracting appropriately to match your hands). These movements are toward the body. This acts as a vortex pulling in outside qi from the environment into your energy field, like a vacuum. At the end of the earth and heaven cycles, the idea is that you want to gather and collect this energy that you’ve harvested from this inward “vacuum” movement. This is the scooping and collecting business. You collect and gather it, and then pour it into your third eye, so you can add it to the qi you already have in your body. Whether this collecting uses the same qi ball, or a different qi ball, is up-to-you. Personally, I find it useful to imagine the qi ball at your dantian expanding out in all directions as your hands/arms expand, and this qi ball collects all the extra qi like lint sticking to a lint ball as it expands and runs into the extra qi in your energy field. Then you gather it into one concentrated ball at your feet, and you dump the whole thing into your third eye. This then subsequently drains down to the dantian on the inside of the body. However, if you wanted to just do the gathering of the extra qi as a separate action from the qi ball at your dantian (which you could allow to dissolve back inside), I don’t see anything wrong with that either. All of this qi ends up joining you in any event, so how it gets there is not critical. Typically I don’t get too mental about this part, and just focus on gathering the qi, and let my energy body decide how best to manage the whole affair.

I know that doesn’t really thoroughly answer your questions, but let me just leave at that. I think that’s probably already a ton of info, considering time and space limitations.

Qi,
Steven

>>>I’d find it easier not to get too mental
>>>if I felt that, wrt chi balls and elixir,
>>>there was a coherent story running through
>>>Michael’s DVD and audio that I could just
>>>relax into. But I don’t quite feel there is.

Let’s not get hooked into thinking about storylines.
That’s why we do IS1, remember?

Ha ha, just teasing you . . .

But in all seriousness, let’s not worry about trying to make a story that Michael told 11 years ago consistent. 🙂 Michael is very creative and changes stuff all the time, so I don’t want to try to decipher what he may have been thinking 11 years previously and come up with a story.

Instead, let me tell you what I do, and that’s what I said in the previous post.

You have this super-charged qi ball in front of your lower dantian. At the last movement, your arms expand to grab the elixir. It is only natural to just let the qi ball expand outward and forward with your arms. Then as you are scooping, you are compressing the qi ball with your hands as it collects/merges with the qi in front of you. Then qi ball together with collected qi in front of you all gets compressed together by your scooping hands into a single unified liquid elixir. This liquid elixir which you’ve gathered into your hands, you pour into your third eye.

As far as why there is a separate elixir from the qi ball to begin with, that’s as I said in the previous post. The qi that you are collecting is simply the additional qi that arrives into your energy field from the vacuum effect of continuously turning the qi ball toward you. Clearly there is more qi coming into your field from this vortex action, that is not part of the qi ball, right? 😉 OK, that’s all it is. Then you collect this at the end, and you can collect it with (and unify it with) the qi ball, and you have a liquid elixir to pour into your third eye. It pours down to your lower dantian and we are done.

Qi,
Steven

>>>In Move 12 you collect the chi not absorbed by the chi
>>>ball in Moves 8-11 via expansion of said chi ball.
>>>All the chi pulled into one’s energy field during
>>>Moves 8-11 is then contained within this expanded
>>>chi ball – which is then condensed into elixir.
>>>And, thus, the chi ball and the elixir exist
>>>not in parallel but in series. However, according to
>>(my interpretation of) what MW says, the elixir
>>>and chi ball exist in parallel. That is,
>>>MW talks of the “elixir that’s been forming
>>>while you’ve been doing this form”
>>>(CD 2, Track 7, 2m) and of “this wonderful
>>>elixir of balanced chi that you’ve been
>>>cultivating through the whole Earth Cycle” (
>>>CD 2, Track 7, 4m 15s).

You are getting too mental with this.
Rotation of the qi ball brings qi from outside into your energy field. Why would you assume that it all goes directly into the qi ball? Qi ball is simply doing a reverse rotation . . . turning it toward your body doesn’t suddenly make it some kind of super black hole. You’ve got qi collecting in your energy field that is not going directly into the qi ball . . . so what?

What I said is consistent with Michael.
Throughout all the moves up to the last one, qi is collecting in your energy field . . . the elixir. So you have two things: a qi ball and the elixir. I was merely suggesting that on the last move, as your hands expand, the qi ball expands until the qi ball and elixir meet, and then you collect it all together. What’s the issue?
He just doesn’t mention anything about the qi ball when he is scooping the elixir. But what’s your other option if you don’t do what I said? You could just forget about the qi ball entirely and let it dissolve back into you as you scoop. Either way, it is not inconsistent with what he is doing, because he doesn’t talk about that issue, he skips it entirely . . . basically your original question.

>>>Further, I’d observe that whilst you suggest
>>>pouring the elixir into one’s third eye,
>>>MW – in the audio (CD 2, Track 7, 3m 40s)
>>>and, arguably, the video (52m 45s) –
>>>suggests pouring it onto the crown.
>>>And his remark in the audio (CD4, Track 1, 18m 55s)
>>>about pouring the elixir
>>>down the centre line arguably
>>>supports this suggestion.

He says on the video: “you pour it down onto the crown OR the third eye, the front channel, your mouth.” Now watch the video. Do you see him pour it onto the crown (crown is the top of the head!) or do you see him pour it onto the third eye? Answer: he pours it onto the third eye! He is not taking his hands up above his head and pointing at the Ba Hui point, and dumping the elixir there. It’s going to his forehead, the third eye.

But the fact that he says “OR”, means it is irrelevant what the actual location is. The point is is that it is coming in through the head and you bring it down to the lower dantian. To me, front channel only makes sense, because your hands pass down in front of the body, in front of the front channel . . . and third eye is easiest entryway to front channel.

>>>But the fact that, in addition to the
>>>differences between MW’s video and
>>>audio version, there are differences
>>>between your version and MW’s audio version
>>>really just adds to my frustration.

If you are demanding Michael be rigidly consistent in how he teaches something, you will be sorely disappointed. He is not; he is very flexible. And what I recommended is not really any deviation from what he is doing.

If you are annoyed now, you will be greatly annoyed later. He changes the Primordial form when he teaches Greater K&L, then again in Greatest, then again in Star, then again in Congress of H&E. Even from the same class (either Primordial, or the K&L’s) one year to the same class the next year, he changes things. If you get bent out of shape about rigid consistency, then you’re going to go crazy.

If you want something consistent, then do what I said. And in that case, you’ll be within epsilon distance of any of his myriad variations.

S

If a clear answer is not forthcoming, perhaps there is not one available.

One possibility is to collect together your questions, and spend half an hour experimenting on yourself and trying to find out what you would like to know.

What is the difference between pouring the cauldron onto the top of the head or through the forehead ? What happens if I turn the chi ball 50 times … can I feel the effect ? Can I feel an area of chi and also an elixir ?

In this way you can become very much more experienced with your self. Instead of simply following, you walk down the paths that interest you and do a little investigation.

In recent years I have seen several groups of Westerners creating tight conceptual frameworks for various Eastern traditions; which can only be a good thing.