Taoist Breathing for Tai Chi and Meditation - 06/14: Breathing to Your Lower Tantien

Taoist Lineage holder Bruce Frantzis leads you through the 6th lesson in a series of 14, all of which help you to extend the length of your breath and to fully bring oxygen to the back and side of the lungs, areas rarely engaged by shallow breathers.

You will also learn to feel your breath, to avoid holding your breath, as well as how to breath into different parts of the body to strengthen and massage the internal organs and spine. Understanding these techniques enables you to become aware of your emotions and deepen your meditative focus.

*Please note that this track is one of several. We encourage you to treat the program as a whole and recommend listening through them, in order, before practicing. In part, this is because Bruce presents a large volume of information at a fairly rapid rate, but we assure you that as the lessons progress, the guidance becomes less instructional, the pacing slows, and the meditatations become the main focus of the program.

May you practice well!

Transcript

Lesson 5 breathing down your central channel all the way to the lower dandien.

The bells in lessons 5 through 8 will mark an 8 second breath.

4 seconds on the inhale,

4 seconds on the exhale.

Continuing to count with your fingers or with your mind so you know consciously know how many breaths you are taking.

Focus now on letting your mind with each inhale go all the way down from your nose to your throat to your solar plexus and now through the center of your body lower and lower.

First go down about an inch and then when you exhale go from that one inch below your solar plexus back up your body up the center and out your nose going down on the inhale and up on the exhale.

Staying aware of the thoughts and feelings that you're having.

Staying aware of those things which you cannot articulate or verbalize that seem to be behind what you are consciously feeling.

Your hidden motivations.

Those things which you consider to be extremely important but you don't often pay attention to.

Those things which make your inner world comfortable and at peace with itself and those things which jar you.

Going down another inch or two go down gradually a little bit lower each time until finally you reach your belly button your navel and continue inhaling down to your navel exhaling from your navel up your central channel up and out your nose.

Continuing this your lower dandian is somewhere between the top of your pubic hair and your navel in the center of your body.

Continue now to breathe lower until you locate it.

It will have a very strong and tangible sensation.

It's about one-third the distance down from your belly button toward the top of your pubic hair.

What does it feel like?

Breathe into this place breathe out of this place.

Breathing in and out.

In and out.

Do this until you can keep both your conscious awareness of the count of how many breaths you are taking as well as a conscious awareness of what is going on inside of you in a relaxed and comfortable manner.

Completely with continuous awareness and no tension without breaking your awareness.

Reviews

The 8 sec breaths are more comfortable for me than the 6 sec. And thank you for the counting reminder. I’d forgotten to do that!

This guided meditation helps me count my breath and remain mindful.

There is a lot to concentrate on but, if you’ve followed the course right from the introductory session, the method is by now familiar. It’s good to spend several minutes each day focusing closely on how we breathe. I’m glad I persisted, and particularly glad that I’m following the advice to do each lesson several times till I’ve really grasped its content before moving on to the next lesson.

Very cool..Thank you

I need a lot more practice before moving on

Must practice...