Lesson 12 Breathing Energy into Your Lower Dandian Continue to practice everything you have learned from lessons 1 through 11.
To this you will now add breathing from your lower dandian.
The lower dandian is the only energetic center in your body that controls and regulates every energy that affects your physical health.
You want to find this place in your body by feeling for it,
Rather than visualizing it.
The energy center has an initially fuzzy sensation and eventually a clear sensation,
Distinct from everything around it.
It cannot be physically seen by your eyes,
Although it can be energetically felt or even psychically seen by a sufficiently trained or sensitive individual.
The lower dandian may be felt as either a tiny point or a small bowl.
The dandian is a sea of energy.
In the west it is best known by its Japanese name,
The hara.
Imagine energy moving in and out with your breath,
And feel yourself breathing into your dandian in four progressive steps,
Achieving effortlessness in one step before moving on to the next.
This is extremely important,
Especially as you move into the later stages.
Step one.
In the front of your body,
Inhale from your skin to your dandian,
And exhale from your dandian to your skin.
This sensation of your breath penetrating your body and exiting your body will take some time to develop.
So in the beginning,
Just breathe an inch or two in,
And exhale back out to your skin.
Now breathe three or four inches in,
Exhale out to your skin.
In whatever increments you need to feel your breath go into your skin and to your lower dandian,
Breathing in from outside your body,
From your skin to your dandian,
Exhaling from your dandian to your skin and then outside your body.
Next,
You want to do something that's a little bit more difficult.
You want to breathe energy in from your etheric body,
The space three to six inches outside your physical body,
Backwards into your dandian,
From your etheric body to your skin,
From your skin through your body to your lower dandian.
Exhale from your lower dandian through your physical body,
Past your physical body,
And back to where you originally inhaled from your etheric body.
The continuous conscious awareness of your mind should now be moving past a sense of your body as physical matter and into your body as an energetic field.
Breathing in from the energetic space outside your body through your body to your lower dandian on the inhale,
Exhale from your lower dandian to your skin and to the edge of your energy where you first started breathing beyond your physical skin.
Inhale,
Exhale,
Inhale,
Exhale.
The acupuncture point called Mingmen or the door of life is located on the spine directly behind your lower dandian,
Which by now you should be able to feel.
It is often called the back dandian because it is in back of the dandian.
Beside being a primary control point for the elimination of lower back pain and for enabling movement of energy along the spine,
It is also the energetic control point for the kidneys.
The kidneys are considered to be the source of vital energy in a human being in Chinese medicine and thereby the source of energy for the life of the human body.
Mingmen opens up the life force in a person and hence its name,
The door of life.
Step two,
Inhale from the Mingmen point on the lower dandian.
Now exhale from the dandian to Mingmen through your body,
Moving through your skin,
Through your tissue to your lower dandian,
Exhaling from your dandian through your tissue to your skin.
Step three,
Few steps one and two together.
Inhale simultaneously from both the front and back of your body into your lower dandian.
Now from the energy space three to six inches in back of you,
You want to inhale from that space through that space to your skin,
Through your body and into your lower dandian and exhale from your lower dandian through your body to your skin back to the original energetic space three to six inches outside your body.
From the front,
Simultaneously inhale from both the front and back of your body from Mingmen and the front of the dandian into the dandian,
From the dandian exhale to the skin on the front and back of your body.
Next,
When you can do this comfortably and easily,
Front and back from your skin to your dandian,
Dandian front and back to your skin.
Now continue this breathing so that it extends to your etheric body.
Breathe in from the boundary of your etheric body both in front of your dandian and in back of Mingmen,
Breathing into your skin and through your body to your lower dandian,
Breathing from your lower dandian as you exhale out through your body to your skin and to your etheric body,
Going in and out,
In and out.
Upon exhaling,
Allow the breath energy to exit simultaneously in a straight line from your dandian through to your etheric body in both the front and the back.
This will activate your dai mai.
The dai mai is an extraordinary meridian in acupuncture that encircles the body from the dandian to the door of life,
Mingmen and back of the dandian.
It holds a special place in the body's energy system.
The dai mai belt meridian intersects with,
Connects and integrates all the body's twelve main vertical acupuncture meridians.
At first by breathing through from the dandian to Mingmen,
You activate the dai mai,
Energizing all the other vertical acupuncture meridians simultaneously,
As well as the microcosmic orbit which is the circulation between the governing conception vessel and acupuncture.
The energy lines inside your body as well as your external aura to the edge of your etheric body are directly connected to each other in a circular relationship,
One activating the other.
When the dandian breathing continues past your skin to the edge of your etheric body or aura,
It connects the two primary front and back points on your external aura and thus activates,
Integrates and strengthens your whole aura,
The whole external energy field around your body.
When your auric energy is activated,
It reinforces the strengths of your acupuncture meridian lines.
This strengthening forms the door through which you can progressively become aware of the energy in your whole aura and its relationship,
The inside of your body.
This Taoist breathing method was also historically used in Chinese Chan Buddhism,
But was not normally passed down from China to Japan into Zen and the Japanese martial arts.
It performs two functions simultaneously.
A.
It makes the body sensitive,
Healthy and strong and B.
It extends your conscious awareness from your physical body to your chi or energy.
Consequently,
Your ability to be consciously aware of what is happening in your mind for a long time is expanded as the energy inside your body becomes available to you.
Step 4.
This is truly an optional step that should not be done until only step 3 completely stabilizes which usually will only happen after a long period of practice.
If you do not have extensive experience with energy work,
It is best to stick to practicing step 3 for a minimum of 3 months before progressing to step 4.
However,
As this stabilization occurs,
The subtle sensation of the breath moving back and forth along the line between your etheric body and your dian dian should have the clearly felt sensation of being connected and unbroken.
After this occurs,
The dia mai will automatically activate.
As your awareness grows through practice,
The felt sensation of the encircling dia mai should progressively become more clear both on your skin and in your etheric body.
Being able to feel the dia mai will make it significantly easier for you to both increase its strength and consciously join its energy to your dian dian.
Inhale and breathe energy from the entire circumference of the dia mai on your skin through your body and into your lower dian dian.
Exhale and return the breath energy from your dian dian through your body to the entire circumference of the dia mai on your skin.
Next,
Inhale and from the dia mai's entire circumference in your etheric body,
Breathe energy through the air to your skin and through your body into your lower dian dian.
Exhale and reverse the same pathway,
Breathing energy from your dian dian through your body to the dia mai's entire circumference on your skin and through the air to the dian dian's entire circumference in your etheric body.
Breathing energy in from around you into the center of your body into your lower dian dian and exhaling out through your body to the circumference.
In time,
This action will begin to activate the energy throughout the whole external aura of your body.
This then will form a very useful route to recognize the energy that is both within you and without you.
