To enter a medicine body and be able to use medicine body to support your state of consciousness,
Your trances,
And to be able to work with others,
You need to cultivate enough of the quality of energy necessary to expand awareness into the space around you.
This exercise is designed to cultivate exactly this sort of energy.
It is a complex exercise and I would expect you to already have read about the exercise in post-tribal shamanism,
But I will describe it as we go along and you can use this to follow along and do the exercise.
Begin with your attention in a ping-pong ball sized sphere of light focused at your lower dantien about two inches below your navel on the surface of your body.
You will be moving this ball of light downward through the perineum and up along the back of your spine,
All the way up over the top of your head,
Down between your eyebrows,
Deep to the nose,
Coming through the roof of your mouth,
Down the tip of your tongue,
Which will be pressed gently against the roof of your mouth,
Behind your front teeth,
And swallow it down through your tongue and throat all the way down the front of your body until it reaches the lower dantien again.
Throughout this exercise you will begin with two cycles of this microcosmic orbit.
This will be done while you are breathing into your nose and then out.
The first breath will be done first of all by exhaling as you lower the ball of light from the lower dantien down to the perineum and then inhale it as you breathe in all the way up through the sacrum,
Through the lower back,
Up through the mid-back,
Between the shoulder blades,
Up through the back of the neck,
Come back of the head,
All the way up over the top of your head and exhale,
This time exhaling through pursed lips as you bring that ball of light down,
Your tongue still resting against the roof of your mouth,
All the way down.
This is a cooling breath to keep from building up too much internal pressure with this.
On the second breath you will continue inhaling,
Bring that ball around again as you bring it up,
This time you will bring your arms up at your sides as if you're spreading your wings and when you bring that ball of light all the way up to the crown of your head you will bring your hands up,
Clasping your hands or clapping your hands,
Palms together above the top of your head and that ball of light will leap from the crown up to between your palms.
When you do this you will have completely inhaled and you will now swallow,
Closing the throat bandha,
The lock at your throat.
This will keep air from escaping and will also contain the chi which you will now begin pumping into yourself by clenching and relaxing the muscles of the perineum.
Each clench will draw more earth chi up into the body,
You relax and reach down for more,
Clench,
Draw more up.
When you can no longer hold your breath,
Take a brief snort in through your nose and then do three more clench and relaxes of the perineum.
Close that root bandha,
The perineum,
Open the throat bandha,
The crown chakra bandha and allow the Xing Chen,
That energy that has built up inside you,
To explode upward taking that ball of light which has been suspended between your palms up into the space above you.
All right,
Now to begin with we're going to start off just doing a little fire breathing.
This is like a bellows breath.
You want to have your muscles relaxed and you're going to be breathing in and out through the nose,
Tongue lightly resting against the roof of the mouth and you want to breathe this way,
80,
90,
Maybe a hundred breaths.
It can be that fast,
It can be slower,
It's whatever is the fastest that you are comfortable with.
If you start feeling dizzy,
Stop,
Slow down,
Let yourself start again.
So begin by doing at least 60 to 80 fire breaths,
No more than a hundred.
As you continue your fire breathing,
Really bring your attention down into that ball of light in your lower dantian below your navel.
When you complete the fire breathing and you've done your number of breaths,
As you exhale through your nose,
Bring that ball of light down to the perineum and then inhale it up,
Coming all the way up along the back of your spine through the back of your neck and over the top of your head and exhale through pursed lips,
Tongue still against the top of your mouth,
Bringing the ball of light all the way back down.
Coming back up again as you inhale through your nose,
Bringing your hands up to your sides.
When your breath is completely in,
That ball is at the crown of your head,
Clasp your hands over the top of your head,
Hold that ball of light between them and begin to,
Of course,
Swallow,
Hold your breath and begin to clench,
Relax,
Clench,
Relax,
Bringing more and more chi into the crucible of your torso.
We do this until you feel like you can no longer hold that inner pressure and then take another quick snort in through your nose,
Swallow again,
Closing that throat bandha,
Three more,
Clench and relax and then hold that root bandha up and explode out through the top,
Allowing that energy to rise up through the crown of your head,
Carry that ball of light up into the air,
Up into the space above you.
Once this happens,
Allow your consciousness to remain suspended by this Xing Sen,
By the Shen that has emerged from this cultivation process,
Until it naturally comes back into your body.
With practice,
You will be able to bring your medicine body out into full awareness without having to do this exercise,
But if you let it go for a while,
Sometimes you'll need to come back to it.
