What is "Buidling the Foundation in 100 days"?

What is "Building the Foundation in 100 days" 百日筑基？ And how to do it? Practitioners who are familiar with Taoist meditation/Neidan (or probably just Chinese internal martial arts) are likely to have heard of this concept, but not all having anything more than a superficial understanding. So what is it all about?

Taoist mediation is called Neidan (内丹). As its Chinese name literally says: the art of Internal Pill. A pill is, again literally speaking, is a tiny spherical object that is supposed to have some healing or magical power. Indeed it is what Neidan is all about: the Pill. And the whole process of Neidan is to build up a stronger and stronger "pill" (later when it gets stronger (and bigger), it is called embryo). It all starts with something smaller, in short, a seed Pill.

And the objective of "Building the Foundation" is to create the seed Pill, nothing more, nothing less. And what is this seed Pill? It is a concentrated chi-energy (felt like a Pill to the practitioner). The distinctiveness of this seed Pill is that once it is created, it will ALWAYS be there! Sometimes it is nowhere to be found inside one's body. During meditative state, and/or during one's awakened and relaxed state, it will (sometimes) appear! And it will move inside one's body, though it will prefer to move along chi-channels WITH proper guidance!

This Seed Pill can also grow in strength, with proper cultivation. But as with all goodies, if this Seed Pill is not managed properly, it can cause chi-kung (or kundalini) syndrome. If managed properly, it can jump-start a person's practice in Taoist meditation and internal martial art.

In classic Taoist meditation, this Seed Pill is created through microcosmic circulation (小周天). And as all classic texts say, it will take 100 days to accomplish the task of creating the Seed Pill (for an average practitioner). My experience is that those with stronger inherent chi (i.e. healthier, able to focus/concentrate easily... etc) can achieve it in less time.

Is it the only way to do chi-kung? The answer is a definite no. But my experience is that it is a very efficient and effective way. One caveat: once activated (through microcosmic circulation or otherwise), a Seed Pill won't disappear easily.  It's a commitment and a life-style change.

Building the Foundation in 100 days

Is microcosmic circulation the only way?

Microcosmic circulation is a very powerful practice to jump-start one's internal martial art practice, deep meditation and "longevity" program. But is it the only way? Recently I came across a little book called Tai-JiChuan Nei-Gung practice method (太極拳内功修練法) by a lineage Yang-style Master Wei ShuRen (魏樹人). Master Wei used a lot of Taoist meditation terminology and his practice resembled Taoist meditation in many respects. Yet, he doesn't do microcosmic circulation in his Nei-Gung practice!

What does he do? Firstly he focuses on Middle Dantian (which is rightly so for martial art practitioners). And then he circulates his chi down the inner thighs then coming up by the side. After chi comes up to the pelvis area, he will direct his chi to move along the side of his body, together with his middle Dantian focus. He then joins this chi at his head, and finally he allows his concentrated chi to flow en-route his eyes and back to his middle Dantian in a diffused manner. His chi thus runs along acupuncture routes, or chi-channels, but not Ren and Du single-mindedly like doing microcosmic circulation.

One thing of interest is that Yang style practitioners usually won't work with chi-channels so explicitly. Anyway Master Wei's instruction in his circulation does make good sense (and I shall go over his other instructions in some future day).

One similar practice comes to my mind, and it is the "forbidden" Fa LunGong (法輪功). Master Li might be quite "eclectic" in his spiritual approach, his chi-manipulation methods do make singular good sense. One of his methods is called Whole-body circulation (全身周天). And it is quite similar to Master Wei's. One key difference is that Wei's chi moves on the side up while Li's chi moves on left-right back up. The down route after the head though is the same.

Different chi practices can be quite similar, if one puts in an effort to try and analyze them: without any preconception about "which is better than which".

Math and Microcosmic circulation

Spiritual practices are rich in imagery and mythological elements. The purpose of which is to aid a practitioner's inner visualization. As explained in my previous post on Wuzhen Pian 悟真篇, such visualizations are fundamentally physical in nature, and therefore they have to work upon one's cultivation of the highest level of morality to reach the ultimate goal of spiritual enlightenment. And for those practices that aim at consolidating one's spiritual strength for selfish personal goals and/or gratifications, classic Taoists would call them "Evil cults" 邪魔外道。 But now let's get back to the main subject of this post: the mathematical-myth of microcosmic circulation.

The mechanism: chi moves up from bottom to top at the back with inhalation and moves down from top to bottom in the front with exhalation.

Definition 1: the 12 Earthly branches are used to signify the equally spaced physical positions (This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter, dividing the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of 歳星 Suixing (Jupiter, the Year Star).

Definition 2: The Kan (坎) trigram and the Li (離) trigram from I-Ching (易經) are used to signify the movement or exchange of Yin (broken line) and Yang (solid line). In particular, the middle Yang (solid) line of Kan is to travel to the top with then the middle Yin (broken) line of Li travel to the bottom.

Definition 3: Based on I-Ching, the solid Yang line is represented by number 9, whereas the broken Yin line is represented by number 6. Mathematically a complete circle is divided into 360 degrees (which by definition being a complete 12-year orbit of Jupiter). Taoist definition: one step forward (up or down) is represented by 4.

The mathematical formula is now obvious:

1. Going up : 9 x 4 x 6 = 216
2. Going down: 6 x 4 x 6 = 144

Total= 216 + 144 = 360 (Bravo, we have perfection!)

The importance of microcosmic circulation

Microcosmic circulation (小周天) is the foundation practice of Taoist meditation. Its relevancy cannot be overstated. One may wonder, if I'm not going to do Taoist meditation, how can it be relevant to me?

It will be relevant to anyone who is doing meditation to any degree of seriousness, in particular one who does so without the daily supervisor of a teacher, which is probably true for most meditators. One takes a few lessons of meditation from a teacher and off one goes. I mean if you do it seriously, one day you might encounter situations in which powerful chi might, without any intention from you, be generated in your body. And without a proper conscious guidance by you, chi might rushes aimlessly and might become stuck in certain area(s) in your body, and worse yet, it might affect your brain causing disturbing hallucinations. Chi-kung or kundalini syndrome.

As we can read about these disturbing, sometimes fearsome, experience even from the biographies of some self-learners who later successfully managed these disturbing powerful chi and who later turned out to become teachers of the stuff. I'm sure many of these self-learned gurus have later found their own way to avoid the disturbing experience.

How should today's self-learners proceed with the necessary preparation and precaution? I think the best way will include learning how to do microcosmic circulation. The objective of doing that is to open the chi channels up one's spinal cord and down the front of one's torso, ending at one's abdomen where the power of the powerful chi can be under one's conscious control. Initially, one doesn't need to build too strong a chi to open so thoroughly cleared a path. The reason is that as long as some form of cleared path is opened (and maintained to be opened through regular practice), one can always use it to channel any powerful chi that might suddenly comes it way during one's meditation - without any fore-warning.

Doing microcosmic through tai chi nei-gung

Tai chi Nei-gung (太極内功) invented by a prominent Taoist has strong affinity with Taoist meditation. In a previous post (Doing microcosmic without doing it), I talked about Tai chi Nei-gung has a method doing microcosmic circulation without consciously stimulating one's pelvic floor muscles, like a Neidan practitioner does. The method is the fourth Yin-style of 24 styles tai chi nei-gung. It is called "Jade rabbit looking up at the (Golden) Flower" (玉兔朝華).

In Wu-style tai chi master Wang DiXian's （汪棣賢) Tai-chi quan nei-gung: Yin Yang 24 styles (太極拳内功：陰陽24式), master Wang mentioned briefly the style's benefit as "stir up one's Dantian" (丹田鼓盪).  He also explained clearly to his readers his version of how to practice this style.

With all due respect to Master Wang, I believe he failed to recognize the connection with Taoist meditation and hence the way he taught the style cannot reap the benefits of using this style to do microcosmic circulation (in a clever way). In Taoist classics, jade-rabbit (玉兔) is a common metaphor for the male element within the trigram Kan - 坎 (the middle solid line inside the two broken lines in Kan: please refer to diagram below). It's position is in the lower abdomen (north in Taoist classics, but geographical south as we know it today, i.e. towards the bottom of a human torso).

And in Taoist classics, (golden) flower signifies Golden elixir, pill, or embryo (ref: "The secret of the Golden Flower" 太月金華宗旨). Just by looking at the name of the style, one who is familiar with Taoist meditation can immediately recognize this style as a training of moving one's chi upwards along the spinal cord to the top of the head and down the front to reach the Dantian again (i.e. opening one's Ren and Du mai :任督二脈). The completion of this circulation is the foundation technique in creating the golden flower (elixir, pill) or embryo.

Going into details the mechanics of this style will not be practical with this post. Interested readers however can refer to Wang's book, and if they are intelligent practitioners, they can certainly figure out how to adjust Wang's method with the objective of doing proper microcosmic circulation. 

Doing microcosmic circulation without doing it

The Taoist way of doing microcosmic circulation is through mobilizing one's pelvic floor muscles, and using sublimation of sexual energy. In addition to further spiritual promises, doing the microcosmic opens one front (ren 任脉) and back (du 督脉) psychic or chi-channels, the opening of which is believed to be beneficial for one's physical health. Some martial artists of the internal styles (内家拳) also believe opening the two channels being essential to form a strong body structure.

The question is: how do the martial artists open these two chi-channels? Or: is the Taoist way the only way to open these channels?

I do believe there are other ways. I find two ways quite useful. The first way is practiced by some I-style practitioners (意拳/大成拳). Essentially it is done by micro-shaking: when a practitioner is practicing eight-direction-force-equilibrium (八面爭力) under a combat stance.

The second way is practiced by some Wu-style tai-chi practitioners, using a style under the 24 styles nei-kung. Essentially it is done by directing the force from one's soles (instead of perineum) and with using one's hands (fingers) to direct or facilitate the chi-flow along the channels. Please check this post for details: Doing microcosmic through tai chi nei-gung

Needless to say these are advanced techniques requiring a good foundation in either martial arts form for a good execution.

Chi cultivation vs chi meditation

Practitioners of meditation oftentimes confuse themselves on the different processes of chi cultivation and chi meditation. During chi cultivation or generation, our mind should be focused on chi generation mechanism, which essential means focusing on certain points (like the perineum) with or without more visualizations (like holding a heavy rubber ball or drawing energy, chi, from a tree). When the mind is thus focused, it actually helps one to go into a meditative zone. But it is not the same as IN a (chi) meditation zone. The question to be asked is: How should a practitioner manages his mind during meditation while maintaining a constant chi level?

Firstly in order that one can do proper chi meditation, one has to be trained to generate enough chi for the purpose.

As mentioned above, one can't do proper meditation if one's mind is still busily doing this and that to generate chi! In Taoist meditation, the first step is for one to do microcosmic circulation. When enough chi is generated, one has to "stop fire", and do meditation using the chi thus generated.

But the above still begs the question. When one breathes-in (without conscious control) chi will fill up one's fringes (e.g. finger tips), but when one breathes-out (again without conscious control, that being required by meditation), chi-level will decrease, making one's chi level moves up and down during the breath-in, breath-out cycle.

The criterion for success is to maintain a constant level of chi in one's body during meditation. The trick is to make use of the Mudra (hand technique 手印). When one breathes-in, chi will be generated and some being stored at one's stretched hands, and when one breathes-out, chi there will be liberated to maintain one's chi-level inside one's body during meditation. Yes, as simple as THAT!

Focus on your perineum

The ability to do point meditation on the perineum (the point between one's genital and anus) is an essential step or hurdle to overcome in a practitioner's route to doing deep meditation. But how to do it? Many beginning meditators can't do it after the first few lessons. They are adamant. They talked to their teacher: I want to do it now, today!

In our age of consumerism, some teachers go along and tell them: If you can't focus on your perineum, squeeze your anus instead! Everybody immediately understands, probably because most have been in long-haul coach without toilet. So everybody excitedly squeeze their anus and do meditation. A teacher may figure that, well, he will move on to his perineum some day, but most never did.

A better way will be to learn from the yogis. I'm referring to the techniques of Mudras and Bandhas. Despite the complex theories behind, they are simply locks executed through subtle muscle contraction with holding of breath to magnify the effect. Whereas classical Taoist meditation frowns upon the holding of breath, I believe the use of which can be beneficial for beginning practitioners, with one caveat: watch out for one's heart conditions before doing lengthy breath holding.

Needless to say, the ability to focus on one's perineum is just a preparatory step towards deep meditation proper. The next step is to transfer the (mind's) control point from the perineum to the Dantian at the lower abdomen. Of course, that will be another story, stay tuned.

Breathing for deep meditation: Yoga vs Tao

Hatha yoga is by far the most popular kind of yoga practiced outside India. It follows a straight regime of first practicing yoga-asana follow by yoga-pranayama before one goes into deep meditation. It is a sound practice. The logic is one has firstly to tame one's physical body (and in the process one's restless mind), than to tame one's breathing muscles (and in the process one's restless mind), and finally start doing deep meditation.

Putting aside other benefits arising from the practice of asana and pranayama, what exactly does a practitioner need to be trained to be able to do deep meditation? It may be difficult to achieve, but the theory behind is quite simple. Physically speaking one needs to train up oneself, so that one's abdominal focus (mind) can control one's pelvic floor muscles and diaphragm.

As one can appreciate, the hurdle of yoga is quite high. For most ordinary students, learning the asana is likely to consume all their training time. And most actually will be quite satisfied with the mind-body benefits derived from doing the asanas. The next stage, pranayama is not an easy hurdle either. For one thing, holding one's breath for any length of time will not be recommended for people with less than normal blood pressure or heart conditions, which unfortunately would be not too uncommon for middle aged people.

The practice of Taoist deep meditation is quite different. The practice has, in all history, been targeting to practitioners of the middle aged (or even middle-aged plus). Therefore its way of practice is more naturally fitted to such people. The theory and way of practice is considerably simply and natural when compared to those of yoga. The first step of Taoist meditation is to do the microcosmic circulation. Through this, one's pelvic floor muscles will be activated. The second step is, after doing many microcosmic circulations and when chi gets much stronger, after chi is circulated through the third-eye and down to the upper abdomen, the practitioner will stop driving up his sublimed sexual energy ("stop the fire: 收火") . He will then use the accumulated chi in the upper abdomen to activate the diaphragm. The third step is after the pelvic floor muscles and the diaphragm have been activated, one can focus on one's dantian and start doing deep meditation. The whole process is natural, and comfortable too!

Mudras and meditation

Mudra is called Shuo Yin (Hand-symbol 手印) in Chinese. And it has been popularly used in Eastern practices, including meditation, religion, simple good health, martial arts as well as traditional dance. The fundamental reason of using Mudra is its ability to generate chi in the body, making a practitioner's body "more in shape" as well as allow chi to be directed to different part of one's body according to different objectives that one may like to pursue. What then is the particular objective of using Mudra in meditation, and Taoist meditation in particular?

In standard Taoist meditative stance, one doesn't seem to see Mudra being practiced, and hence gave people a false impression that there is no Mudra in Taoist meditation. As the photo below shows, the Mudra used is actually a concealed one: covered by the outer hand is the inner hand's thumb touching its middle finger. The primary objective is to generate chi together with directing chi to move along the center line, most essential for cosmic circulations.

This concealed Mudra is however only the form that is best suited to direct one's chi up the spinal cord and down the front (i.e. doing microcosmic circulation 小周天).   To achieve a solid foundation for eventual deep chi mediation, one must also be trained to have chi well balanced within one's torso (or metaphorically called cauldron 鼎) together with strength and power.  To achieve this objective, classic Taoist teaching called this "opening the eight psychic channels" (please refer to my other posts on the eight channels for more exposition). For the uninitiated, it may just mean opening "small ducts", but the actual requirements will be "filling one's cauldron with chi by FIRST [which of course is essential] opening one's eight channels".  What then is the relevancy to Mudra?  To answer this question, we have to ask the martial artists.

A key objective of a martial artist is to build up a strong body ready for combat.  And for those who practice internal martial art, they will use chi to do the strengthening.  As a result, in addition to zhan zhuang stance for health purpose, there are many stance called combat stance in zhan zhuang that aim at thus strengthening one's body, and in these combat stance, the hand positions, or Mudras, are many.

Therefore, I would suggest intermediate and advanced meditators to freely make use of different kinds of Mudra (taken over from other disciplines when required).  The objective is to build up one's total body with balanced and strong chi.  Which to choose?  That is actually rather easy for seasoned practitioners.  Without any limiting thoughts, a practitioner can feel by himself which Mudra works best for which part of his body.  Like a fish knowing exactly where the water is warmer and where it is colder.  If you can't feel it, you are not yet there: practice more!

The mythical eight psychic channels: opening your shouder joints

Those who are familiar with traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture or meditation will likely be familiar with the concept of eight psychic channels. In Chinese these are called mythical eight psychic channels (奇經八脈). The interesting thing about these channels is that these are not "stand-alone" channels supplying nutrients to the organs but rather channels crisscrossing the body and, in totality, connecting all "stand-alone" channels. As a result, different practices have different (but similar) ways of connecting the standalone channels, hence different definition of the eight channels.

In Taoist Yoga, Zhao BiChen presented an ingenious and organized way to clear the channels using one's initial chi-energy generated by microcosmic circulation. Unfortunately, Charles Luk left it out in his English translation, I shall deal with it in a future post. In this post, I shall talked about opening one's shoulder joints using chi along two psychic channels.

Opening one's shoulder joints is very important for a martial artist. Zhao being one, he certainly knew its importance and therefore conceptualized two psychic channels to open a practitioner's shoulder joints. And his way of opening went well with his other purpose of clearing channels for Neidan practice. One stone with two birds killed. Clever!

He defined two channels for the arms:

1. Yang yu (陽瑜): channels in the outer sides of the both arms linking both shoulders with the center of the palm passing through the middle fingers.

2. Yin Yu (陰瑜): Linking the middle fingers to the center of the palm and up to the chest.

Whereas Zhao had a organized way to clear all eight channels in one go, specific attention to individual channels will also be needed. One example is the clearing or opening of the Ren (任脈) and Du (督脈) channels in microcosmic circulation. As for opening the shoulder joints, a practitioner will find it very useful to do chi flow along the Yang Yu and Yin Yu channels as defined by the Master.

I shall talk about other channels in future posts.

A missing link towards Taoist spirituality

In some of my previous posts, I explained the intricacies of doing microcosmic circulation together with the technique of sexual sublimation and its prerequisite of controlling one's pelvic floor muscles. So you can do microcosmic circulation in the classic way. Most practitioners are satisfied. It is good for health and one's mind can be calmed down, for most people.

We learn new things with our reasons and goals, once we have achieved our goals it is only natural that we will stop and will be satisfied to be there. How about going forward? Some practitioners will ask.

As I explained previously doing microcosmic is only the very first step. The problem is whereas classic Taoist Neidan texts (such as Taoist yoga) used a lot of space explaining the mechanics of microcosmic, but used very little space talking about the next step. Therefore I call this next step a missing link.

The missing link is the innocuous stage called Bathing (沐浴)[please refer to my Breathing page for details]. Those without practical experience usually failed to understand the significance of this step.

After one has sufficient practice in microcosmic, assuming that one does it correctly, one will have generated much chi, sometimes too much chi that one feel rather uncomfortable. One must therefore let this accumulated chi to do useful work. What useful work?

Bathing (沐浴) actually looks at it from a defensive angle. Now one is too heated up, one needs to take a bath to cool it down. On the offensive side, as said above, chi can be directed to good use. Point meditation at one's danzhong (膻中) allows chi to be dissipated through activating one's diaphragm. The health benefit is to increase the strength/capacity of one's (upper) lungs as well as loosening related joints (in particular one's shoulder joints). For spirituality purpose, chi dissipated this way can "cook up" one's third eye. With sufficient practice in bathing, one is prepared to do direct chi-meditation at one's third eye, the stage when one truly can say creating the "golden pill" (金丹).

It is most important to note that, like other stages in Neidan, this is a most natural and economic way in building up and managing one's ever increasing chi-power. Like the generation of electricity, when the primary storage is full, electricity must be dissipated (for useful purpose of course), because only then can the generator start again to generate more electricity. It's all a matter of simple logic. Having said that it is no use "just understand" it, only devoted practitioners can appreciate the power of chi (electricity) and the need to empty the first storage tank to the next storage tank before chi can continue to be produced and to be stored in the first storage tank.

PS: This is an advanced article. If you can't get it after your first reading, no problem.

Practices compared: zhan zhuang and neidan (1)

Both zhan zhuang and neidan are legitimate practices of chi. The former is the foundation practice of all internal martial arts. The current form that people practice is mainly influenced or developed from I-style Grandmaster Wang Xianzhai (王薌齋). Primarily it aims at building a sound body structure fit for combat. Because of its relation to chi, the basic forms of which have also been widely used for health and "longevity" purpose (養生). Today it has become a very popular practice in the East. Its benefits for both body structural building and health enhancement have generally been accepted and many people got good results.

Scholars can refer to old literature to show the prevalent of this practice in ancient China. And as far as having a long history it is the same with another important practice: Neidan , some refer to it as Taoist yoga or Taoist meditation. For more technical discussion in which more precision in terminology is required, the use of the word Neidan is to be preferred.

In the East, the most common practice of Neidan is developed from the Dragon Gate (龍門) branch (from Taoist Qiu Chuji 邱處機). One major reason is because of the popularity of the text 性命法诀明指 (translated into English as Taoist yoga by Charles Luk) by Master Zhao Bichen as well as the popularity of the text 慧命經 (Hui Ming Jing translated in English by Richard Wilhelm, an extract was included in his translation of The secret of the Golden Flower) by Master Liu Huayang (柳華陽). Many masters of today claimed to be direct lineage from the Dragon Gate branch, including Taoist master Wang Liping (王力平) in Mainland China who wrote a text called 大道行 (The way of Dharma) on his mythical initiation procedure from a very young age.

Nowadays, however, few people practice Neidan. And many who claim they are doing fail to understand even the first stage of the practice: microcosmic circulation.

The obstacle of Neidan's popularity is its mythical character. The proclaimed objective of any Neidan practice is to become an Immortal. Without a proper understand of the theory behind, one may easily misunderstand Neidan as some kind of secret cult with potentially harmful side-effects (I have written a previous post explaining the theory behind the objective of becoming an Immortal.)

Apart from the Immortality issue, books on Neidan are famous for their many obscurities, metaphors, and sometimes contradicting assertions between the texts. I, however, don't see the obstacle as its hindrance, because masters of later dynasties, like Zhao Bichen had already simplified their approach. The problem is many "practitioners" falsely believe the existence "profound hidden meaning" (ultimately taught or reviewed by some higher-powers) in the old texts, notably Can Tong Qi (參同契). And I personally know some who believe if they can truly decipher the hidden meaning inside these ancient texts, they will "miraculously" achieve the highest level of Immortality! And these people spent many of their precious hours doing this kind of futile search, instead of using existing knowledge, sit down, meditate, read, think and improve.

Another obstacle is, mainly in the west, some practitioners claimed that the requirement of the initial stage of microcosmic circulation doesn't work. Or, the sublimation of sexual energy doesn't work. Based on this faulty understanding, some of them follow certain masters in the West and buy into sexual chi-kung proper. That unfortunately will be another cup of tea, and a cup of tea condemned by major Taoist masters.

A related obstacle is that practitioners fail to understand the intricacies of the sublimation process and/or fail to do the preliminary foundation that will be required to do a successful sublimation. For readers who are interested to understand and learn can refer to my previous post: The secret Taoist concept of the right moment.

Here I end my first comparison. Conclusion: one simple, one (looks) complex.

Standing vs seated meditation

In classic Taoist Neidan (yoga or meditation), a practitioner uses sublimed sexual energy to generate the initial chi-power to do the microcosmic circulation. This is the first step of (significant) chi-generation as well as the first milestone to become a Taoist Immortal. Some classic texts challenged practitioners to reach this stage within 100 days (百日筑基)! It is a pity that some current practitioners, who fail to understand the intricacies of the art, falsely believe that microcosmic is the end of everything and wasted years doing inappropriate practice (worse yet, teaching inappropriate stuff if he is a teacher or sifu!), searching and researching, but yet fail to accomplish anything significant on the right path - at the same time claiming that the "proper" way of doing microcosmic circulation takes decades to perfect!

But is this the only path to do meditation chi-kung? The answer is no. The most popular contender is zhan zhuang or standing meditation as taught by Grandmaster Wang Xiangzhai (王薌齋). Nowadays more people practice zhan zhuang than Neidan. For one thing the former is easier to do, and for another thing "kids won't giggle" when learning zhan zhuang!

Anyway, for purely health-seeking purpose, zhan zhuang does have a decided advantage over Neidan. It is interested to note that Wang's prominent student madam Mi JingKe (祕靜克), who is healthily and actively approaching 100, claimed that zhan zhuang's advantage is that it aims at reaching the final goal in one step (一步到位). What exactly does she mean? And to what extend is she correct?

The initial step of Neidan is have subtle control of one's pelvic floor muscles, activate one's sexual energy and sublime it in the form of chi to move along the microcosmic. Bravo, but this is only the first step. When chi is thus circulated, it is not simply allowed to dissipate. It is made to work. How? To use it to train the practitioner to subtly control his diaphragm. That's where Mi's one step challenge comes in.

In zhan zhuang (standing meditation), a practitioner starts with holding his hands in mid-section like embracing a tree. Assuming he practices things correctly, chi generated by his hands and feet (etc) will activate primarily his diaphragm and secondarily his pelvic floor muscles, in addition to other body parts as the practitioner may like to focus on (e.g. through visualization or point meditation). Mi got a very valid point!

Having said that, Neidan does have the following important advantages firstly it can better open one's pelvic floor muscles, secondly its opening of the diaphragm can also be more subtle, and thirdly a practitioner will then be well-positioned to open his third-eye (upper dantian) for spiritual purpose as a next step.

The secret Taoist concept of "The right moment"

In Taoist Neidan (yoga or meditation) practice, an important concept is the "right moment" (活子時). In Zhao BiChen's Taoist Yoga, the author wrote, kids would giggle when they heard about this secret concept. Why would they giggle? And is there anything unseeming about this Taoist concept?

There has been some confusions in some literature on the meaning of "the right moment". The literal translation from Chinese is the "vivid moment of zi (子 first earthly branch)". The confusion arises from the the use of the character zi (子). Zi and other earthly branches have been used in many systems because of its mythical characters. For example zi when used in hour-system means the hours between 11:00pm and 1:00am; and zi when used in circular location system can mean the bottom point, the South of a map (or, to confuse things more, the North of I-Ching/five elements system!).

Some Taoists misunderstood its meaning and mistakenly consider the "right moment" as meditation between the hours of 11:00pm and 1:00 am. According to my research and practice, the right interpretation is to view zi as a location indication. In other words, the right or vivid moment happens at (I-Ching/five elements) North, right at one's perineum and surrounding pelvic floor muscles.

Some practitioners got it right up to here, but still can't proceed further. Why? Because in order to have the vivid feeling (that I shall explain later), one must first need to meditate to a stage in which one can control one's pelvic floor muscles with one's mind during meditative abdominal breathing.

If one can control the subtle movement of one's pelvic floor muscles, one can subtly move the control point to any focused area along the pelvic floor muscles. And when such focus rests on a practitioner's genital (applicable to both male and female), sexual energy will be subtly aroused, and such energy will seek a route to rush out. And here classic Taoist texts warned practitioners not to engage in erotic thought, but to direct and release such energy along the path of microcosmic circulation, along Du　(督脈) and Ren (任脈). That is a famous Taoist saying: "A forward flow will breed a human, while a backward flow will breed an Immortal (順則成人，逆則成仙)".

You now know why kids will giggle!

PS: The release of sexual energy is also called sublimation of sexual energy. If such energy is not released (or sublimed), it will disturb the calm meditating mind of the practitioner. When such energy is sublimed, it can nurture the body and at the same time allow the practitioner to continue with his or her calm meditation. Hence, this is a natural method of seated chi-meditation.

Advanced breathing techniques in Taoist meditation

The advanced breathing technique in Taoist meditation was explained in a number of classic Neidan texts, including Taoist Yoga, translated by Charles Luk (chapter nine: The immortal breathing or the self-winding wheel of the law). Unlike Prananyama in Indian yoga where withholding of breath being essential to its practice, Taoist method uses a more natural breathing technique with subtle mental control. Needless to say, learning of this advanced breathing technique is not possible without a firm grounding in more preliminary practice. In addition, the classic text was written as training supplement rather than training manual. In this post I will try to lay out the schema of the practice for interested advanced readers.

1. Foundation one: The practitioner needs to have mastered the technique of microcosmic circulation (i.e. breath in and move chi up through the Du Mia, and breath out and move chi down through the Ren Mia), and can do it with ease. （please refer to: The fundamental concept of microcosmic circulation).

2. Foundation two: The practitioner needs to understand abdominal breathing, both straight and reverse type. (please refer to: breathing). And can do both with ease (i.e. without strain and in meditative mode).

3. The name: The name is called "呼吸以踵" (breathing through the ankle) or "呼吸蒂踵" (breathing through the ankle and navel). Both also means continuous breathing. Mentioning the ankle and/or navel meaning chi being activated in the whole body.

4. The concept: The most important concept is continuous breathing whereby the mechanism of breathing in and out of air (through abdominal breathing) is being subtly used to move chi along the microcosmic channels in a continuous manner.

5. The mechanism: (1) Use straight abdominal breathing chi (downward movement of the diaphragm and the pelvic floor muscles) chi is being driven up from the ankle up the perineum and up the Du Mai (督脉) or spinal cord (led up by the third eye). A kind of pulley system: "down" moves "up". (2) Now chi is at the top of the cranium, use reverse abdominal breathing chi (upward movement of the diaphragm and the pelvic floor muscles) chi is being driven down the Ren Mai (任脉） in the front, down to the ankle through the perineum (led down by the navel). In this way, breathing and chi movement is being synchronized into one continuous circulation movement.

Interested readers can refer to chapter nine of Taoist yoga and check up what the classic has to say about this technique.

The hidden secret of sexual alchemy

The subject of sexual alchemy in Taoist Neidan (内丹) practice not only attracts the attention of people who are interested in esoteric subjects, but also drew the attention of our PhD candidates. Professor Clarke Hudson of the University of Virgina did his PhD (in Indiana University) on sexual alchemy of Taoist master Chen ZhiXu of Yuen Dynasty, whereas Dr.Huo KeGong 霍克功, a senior editor of Chinese Government Bureau on religious studies, did his PhD thesis (in Xichuan Univeristy of China) on sexual alchemy of prominent West sect (西派) grandmaster Li XiYue 李西月. By sexual alchemy, both authors meant both corporeal and non-corporeal/"spiritual only" dual practice. Before I proceed with the analysis, a number of points need to be noted:

1. The sublimation of sexual energy is practiced in all Neidan practice, and being called "internal copulation" (内交搆).

2. The practice of sexual chi-kung (chamber techniques 房中朮) had been within the repertoire of traditional "magicians" (方士: literally meaning learned people with magical formula). The issue facing a Neidan master became: should he use/adapt this practice in this Taoist Neidan practice?

3. Most Neidan masters claimed that corporeal sex wouldn't work in Taoist spiritual practice, and many condemned such as evil cult practice giving a bad name to more spiritual Taoists.

4. According to some contemporary lineage practitioners of the West sect (西派), they didn't learn nor practice corporeal dual practice (of course, it should mean this was what they said only).

First, let us look at the practice of non-corporeal dual practice. The subject matter was analyzed in a previous post here: Sexual Dual practice for real?, interested readers can refer therein. The question is: why some Taoist Neidan practitioners find it useful to do such non-corporeal dual practice?

Taoist Neidan is a form of chi-kung (but of course not limited by it). As a chi-kung practice, chi must be aroused and then managed or channeled to flow along certain routes. In Neidan practice, chi is made to flow up the spinal cord and passes through the inner brain before flows back to the abdomen. Like other chi-kung practice, some practitioners find it easier and quicker to generate enough chi to achieve this objective whereas some find it more difficult.

What can done if chi thus generated is not enough to do the circle (called microcosmic circulation: 小周天)? One way of course is to some additional zhan zhaung exercise whereby the muscles in the legs can help to generate more and stronger chi. The problem is however that some Neidan practitioners may not like the sweating-all-over heavy-duty practice of intensive zhan zhuang (rather they prefer the more "relaxed" exercise of folded leg meditation). What can be done for these relaxation-preferred folks? They are "clever", they make use of (conscious and unconscious) sexual energy! But how?

A practitioner of spiritual dual cultivation will meditate (folded leg meditation) together, face to face, with a (younger and better looking!) partner of the opposite sex. It is interesting to note that in such dual practice, the male practitioner is called "spiritual father" (靈父), and his meditation partner is called "spiritual mother" (靈母), and a (spiritual) embryo is to be metaphorically born inside a practitioner's body. If you still don't understand the internal mechanism of such practice, please kindly read a previous post of mine: Ulysses and sexual chi kung.

If non-corporeal dual practice does have some gem of truth (beneficial to the more relaxed or lazy practitioners), corporeal sexual practice boggles everybody's mind. As the Masters mentioned in our academicians' thesis, an important requirement of such corporeal dual practice is "to have real sex but without any erotic thought!" Not too attractive to any lazy practitioner even if it can work! And I rest my case here.

Why most Taoist meditators don't understand the concept of "Mysterious Aperture"?

"Mysterious aperture" (玄竅) is one the most important concept in Taoist mediation or Neidan (内丹), without a proper understanding of which, a practitioner can't proceed at all, not even able to do a proper microcosmic circulation (小周天).  The interesting thing is that many contemporary practitioners simple can't execute the concept in practice, with the result that many falsely believe that doing a proper microcosmic circulation will take years (10+) of practice if can be achieved at all (and to justify their false belief, they further wrongly believe that if they can perform the microcosmic circulation, they will never get sick again for the rest of their lives!) On the other hand, most classic texts said it would only take around 100 days to perfect the microcosmic circulation, and defined this level as the "foundation level".

Recently I browsed a book on Taoist Neidan written by a well-known scholar/teacher/practitioner in Hong Kong (mentioning his name will be unnecessary for my presentation here) and he said that the classics' saying of 100 days was for the brightest students only, normal folks had to spend much more time, some couldn't get it even after more than 10 years of learning (fire the teacher, I will recommend, assuming you're diligent).  And he devised many of his own elementary chi-kung exercises for beginners as preparatory practice (the learning of all these exercises will probably take more than a year).  I flipped through his book more, I noticed that he had a misunderstanding in the process of establishing the cauldron (the conceptual human body defined by the Ren Mei (任脈) and Du Mei (督脈).  The practice as I understand (intellectually and experientially) is as follows:

Only after the establishing the cauldron, the stove (chi center situated at the lower abdomen) can be "set on fire", and the microcosmic circulation need to be activated, and then the mysterious aperture can be established (I shall do in more details in some future posts, otherwise I am going to distract my own logical presentation).

The gist of the matter is, a practitioner has to understand the concept of point-meditation to accomplish the above (In point-mediation, practitioner meditates on a single point (or a coordinated number of points) to establish a chi-center, a prerequisite for establishing the Mysterious Aperture).   And point-meditation has been practiced by some famous internal marital artists, check my previous post: Point mediation in advanced martial art workout).  Fair to say this is an advanced concept, but the puzzling question remains: why many teachers teaching the stuff (like the author I mentioned above) failed to understand the concept?

As a serious practitioner of both internal martial art and Taoist meditation, I speculate as follows.  In the past, practitioners of deep Taoist mediation or Neidan were mostly for the purpose of spirituality.  After years of morality training, these practitioners were still not satisfied with the fact that they would occasionally slip back into the realm of "human selfishness".  They wanted to train themselves into truly spiritual people with their total self (or personality) being transformed into a highest spiritual reality.  And without any better name to name such beings, they called them Immortals.  In short, they wanted to train themselves to become Immortals.  The path however was difficult, as they learned from their masters, got revelations from previous Immortals during dreaming or meditation, or through reading classic texts.  And they understood the gist of the matter was to build up a strong chi.  How strong would be needed?  There were different stages, and the first stage was to build up chi strong enough that the cauldron could be set up, stove being established, chi in Dantian (丹田) bred the first Mysterious Aperture and the chi could strongly circulate along the Ren Mei and Du Mei as a necessity rather than with conscious effort. Even for the initial foundation level, much continual, disciplined, concentrated and focused effort would be needed in a rather short period of time.

And according to the classics, the above initial stage would take about 100 days.  And I can tell you that it can be done in 100 days!  Why many practitioners can't?  And more specific, why many teachers (like the one I mentioned above) said it can't be done? 

Nowadays most people come to Taoist meditation for health reasons rather than spiritual reasons.  Therefore they don't have the determination to do intense practice to generate enough chi.  And without enough chi, the concept of cauldron, stove, microcosmic circulation, point meditation and mysterious aperture will become academic concepts rather than physical phenomenon that a practitioner can experience (with the result the these students may likely to remain fantasizing to be able to achieve the "great" microcosmic circulation for the rest of their lives).

On the coaching side, in all history, this has always been a most tricky issue, actually applicable to all internal practices in which everything happens inside one's body.  As such every "teacher" can claim he knows everything!  In the modern world where every profession is up for query (including our doctors and bankers), it has become more the responsibility of a student to find out what, if any, he is learning or can learn from his teachers, assuming he doesn't want to waste his valuable time.

Taoist meditation and urinary incontinence

In some medical situations, such as after prostate surgery, a patient may encounter the problem of urinary incontinence. This inconvenience can be alleviated through training of one's pelvic floor muscles and the PC muscles in particular. In the practice of Taoist meditation (Taoist yoga or Neidan), activation of the the pelvic floor muscles is an essential foundation training for microcosmic circulation (小周天). Since the pelvic floor muscles are basically involuntary in nature, its proper control can best be trained through meditative practice, and chi-meditation of the Taoist type in particular.

The techniques are as follows:

1. Mental condition: The mind must be in the zone. By that I mean "between sleep and just awake". It is in this mental state, chi can best be created and best be managed or directed by the mind.

2. Posture: seated but without folded legs. Feet confidently touching the ground. Body straight, relaxed but not collaped (check my previous post: Are you on Depression Stance?).

3. Arms position: Basic zhan zhuang position of embracing a tree or meditative position of palms up on the laps (the former can help generate chi quicker for beginning practitioners, but the latter can serve the purpose better ultimately)

4. Hands: Very important. Hands should be stretched but not stiff. This is the Yang (positive), whereas the relaxed body and mind being the Yin (negative). Through the interplay of Yin and Yang, chi will be generated, with our mind observing (and subtly directing) the movement of the chi.

5. Centering: Very important. Meditate at the third eye (position between the eye-lids) and at the dantian (丹田 - one or two inches inside the navel) AND join them with the line by having the third eye "looking" at the dantian. This is essential for the ultimate control of the pelvic floor muscles.

6. Linkage: The linkage with the pelvic floor muscles is from the dantian to the perineum, the latter is situated at the center and therefore, if it can be subtly controlled, can control the total pelvic floor muscles.

7. Breathing: natural breathing in the beginning. In time (and actually quite naturally) change into abdominal breathing. Ultimately, the dantian will become the focal point of breathing (being subtly controlled by the third-eye), and with each breath, the subtle up and down slight movement of the dantian (which is a singular point, not a physical substance, but a chi-center, like the hub of a wheel, which is useful but "empty" in itself) can activate the muscles in the perineum and in its turn can activate any area in the pelvic floor muscles as directed by the mind (or third-eye where the mind is located).

The wisdom of Can Tong Qi (周易參同契) - Chapter 3

日月含符章第三

易者，象也。懸象著明，莫大忽日月，窮神以知化，陽往則陰來，輻輳而輪轉，出入更卷舒。易有三百八十四爻，據爻摘符，符謂六十四卦。晦至朔旦，震來受符。 當斯之際，天地媾其精，日月相擔持。雄陽播 玄施，雌陰化黃包。 混沌相交接，權輿樹根基。經營養鄞鄂，凝神以成軀。眾夫蹈以出，蠕動莫不由。

My rendition of chapter three of Can Tong Qi (周易參同契)

“I” is a signification system to organize the signified
Sun and Moon being the most important signified
Sun contains the yin essence of the five elements whereas
Moon contains the six yang sounds of the system
Six segments of five days each make 30 days and repeat themselves in cycles
Exhaust the power of the "mind" (神) to effect change
Yin follows Yang, hub and spokes cause wheel to turn, in and out, roll and unroll
“I” consists of 384 yin or yang lines, eight lines makes one symbol resulting in 64 hexagrams
During the time of Sprouting (hexagram), this is the time of the Thunder (trigram) to perform the symbolic act of yin and yang union
During such time, Heaven and Earth mate, Sun and Moon embrace, Male spreads its seed that Female receives into its yellow belly.
Chaos meeting with chaos, a strong foundation will be built up
Nourishment will spread to the farthest edge
Focus your mind to establish the embryo -
Every man has this potential
But the uninitiated don’t know how to materialize it

Paul's comment: I Ching's Sprouting hexagram consists of Kan (water) and Zhen (Thunder). It is used to signify the time when Yin and Yang meet. Time-wise it is signified by Zi hour (子時), the two hours between 23:00 and 01:00. However it is signified, it is the time when chi in the DanTian (丹田) gives the practitioner a strong enough signal to do the microcosmic circulation, with the mind totally involved in the signification system of a union between Yin and Yang. The circulation part is physical, the signification part is spiritual. Both are necessary for true Taoist alchemical practice.