Filling the Jade Pond This meditation comes from chapter 3 of the Tao Te Ching,
Written by Lao Tse some 2500 years ago.
He says,
Not praising the talented prevents jealousy.
Not storing up riches prevents stealing.
By not displaying valuable things,
People's hearts are not troubled.
This is why sages empty their hard minds and fill their bellies,
Or dan tien.
They weaken their ambitions and strengthen their bodies.
They are free of knowledge and desires.
By practicing nà duìng,
Or wu wei,
They live in peace and inner harmony.
By working with energetic practices,
Like this one,
Our energy becomes increasingly subtle,
Ultimately leading to union with the subtle source of all life,
Tao.
Although our minds reside in our hearts,
Many thought processes leave us stuck in our heads.
Energetically,
We end up with gigantic heads and no bottom.
In this practice,
We will be taking the fire of the mind and putting it under the water of the lower dan tien.
This important energetic center is about three inches in from our navel.
And by putting our mind and tent here,
Our energy will naturally flow downward and we will become more balanced.
To begin,
To begin,
Sit quietly on the edge of a chair or on a cushion.
Close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply through your nose.
Your breathing should be so light that a feather held in front of your nose would not move.
This will take some time,
So go slowly without worry.
Each inhalation,
Feel your dan tien expand,
Like a balloon in your lower abdomen expanding out to the front,
To two sides,
And also the back.
So as you breathe in,
The balloon is filled with air.
And as you breathe out,
The balloon contracts.
So breathe in,
Abdomen expands,
Breathe out,
Abdomen contracts.
This is called natural breathing in Taoist practice.
Now we put our mind and tent down into our lower dan tien.
The lower dan tien is often illustrated as a cauldron.
And what we're doing is we're putting the element of fire of our mind down into our lower abdomen,
Down under that cauldron into the element of water.
So the fire is under the water.
So that alchemy starts happening,
Transformation starts happening.
So as we breathe in,
Abdomen expands,
Breathe out,
Abdomen contracts.
Let's do that a few times.
Now as you inhale,
Imagine that you're inhaling golden light,
Healing chi,
In through your nose,
Throughout your entire body.
And this light goes anywhere where you have pain or disease or toxicity or stress,
Sadness,
And lights up that area.
And then as you breathe out,
You see in your mind's eye that all that toxicity,
Disease,
Stress,
Pain,
Leaving your body like black smoke,
Which dissipates in the air in front of you.
Breathe in healing light,
Exhale the black smoke.
Breathe in the healing light,
Breathe out the black smoke.
And as you breathe in healing light,
You can direct it to any part of your body that needs healing.
Or if you wish,
You could just let the light find its own way.
The light will find its own way into the dark parts of your body and light them up.
So we breathe in healing light,
Filling our whole being with this light,
And then exhaling all stress,
Sadness,
Pain,
Disease out like black smoke.
Breathe in the light,
Breathe out the black smoke.
Breathe in the healing light.
Breathe out the black smoke.
And now to change it a little bit,
We breathe in healing light,
And then we exhale healing light.
So the light comes in,
And the light goes out.
The light comes in,
The light goes out.
In this way,
You connect to your inner body,
Your outer body,
Your mind,
Your feelings,
Your emotions,
Your thought processes,
All stewed in this alchemy of this cauldron in the lower part of your body,
So that you breathe in healing light from the atmosphere,
From the great ocean of chi that surrounds us with your mind intent to bring healing into your body,
Into your life,
And then see any of the negative qualities that are in your body,
Your systems,
Your thoughts,
Your emotions dissipate out into the world as black smoke,
And then to the point of breathing in the light and breathing out the light.
So you are actually surrounded internally and externally with this healing light or chi.
To finish,
Put your palms together,
Rub them briskly 36 times.
And then place them over your palm points into your brain,
Energizing,
Healing your brain.
And then rotate your eyes nine times in one direction and then nine times the other direction.
To end this meditation,
We give thanks.
We give thanks for the opportunity to connect ourselves both internally and externally to the healing light to the source of all life,
What the ancient Chinese called Tao.
