A Million and One Ways To Relax

Top 2. Feb 18, 2000 11:13 AM

» Bigtatoo - How I relax.Bring a lunch you'll be here awile LOL

My ultimate forms of relaxation are three forms of meditation. Chuan Chuang or standing post meditation seated meditation and prone or supine meditation.

Chuan Chuang is a standing meditation and is one of the five major components of Tai Chi Chuan, Grand Ultimate Fist. This is the martial art, Tai Chi is what most of you know as the yin/ yang or Grand Ultimate. Chuan Chuang is a method of developing Grand Cosmic circulation. This is the circulation of chi in an ordered manner through the eight wild meridians. These are not the same as the twelve acupuncture meridians.

In standing post meditation you stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width, legs slightly bowed feet firmly rooted through the yonguan, a meridian cavity located in the center of your foot. Your pelvis is softly tucked under straightening your lower spine while at the same time focusing on relaxing your anal sphincter. With your shoulders relaxed you raise your arms in a circle in front of you as if gently hugging a tree and your middle fingers pointing towards each other. Your hands are relaxed in a natural posture as if holding a ball. Imagine a thread through the top of your head that is gently pulling you upward. This thread connects down through your spine, this posture if done correctly will open and extend the wild meridians and allows smooth chi flow throughout the body. Focal points vary in this form of meditation as a beginner you are taught to focus on the lower dantian, a point centrally located roughly mid way between your naval and you genitalia. I believe in reiki this is known as chakra. The object for a beginner is to learn to calm the "monkey mind" the mind of scattered thought. You all are familiar with this mind, if you think about it LOL. As well learning to relax the body.

As you advance in this form of meditation you will learn other focal points and will discover the chi flow through your body. In time you can learn to control that flow and guide your chi throughout the eight meridians. There is no feeling like this that I have ever experienced outside of this meditation. A great deal of heat can be generated as well. You can sense this heat very early on as a warm glowing orb in your hands and can feel the chi flowing from middle finger to middle finger. As this post was not meant to be a complete dissertation on my forms of meditation I will refer those interested in learning more to the book "The Tao Of Tai Chi Chuan" by Master Jou, Tsung Hwa. It can be found readily at major book retialers as well as alternative book stores.

I practice two forms of sitting meditation. One is the well known lotus posture. In Tai Chi Chuan we are taught to use a modified lotus position as it is less restrictive to good chi flow. The other form is called the "seated emperor posture" in which you sit on the edge of a chair with your anal sphincter off the edge so as to not restrict the "huiyin" the meeting point of the yin/yang meridians connecting the upper and lower parts of the body. The huiyin is located midway between the anal sphincter and the genitalia. With your hands resting on your knees and all extremities relaxed.

The focal point in this form of meditation is the upper dantian, which is located behind the third eye in middle of the forehead. Imagine a point behind the third eye and below the center of the top of your skull, this is the location of the upper dantian. This meditation I know as mandala meditation. If you have ever looked closely at a mandala you will notice that they are made up of symbols, beasts and demons. This form of meditation is to calm your mind so that you can face your own demons and trust me you will see them and it will require a calm mind to face them. At first you will see white light as you focus on the upper dantian, as you progress mandalas will begin to appear. Do not fear them they are your inner self and you need to face them on your journey to inner peace and tranquillity. Again in this meditation you must first learn to relax and calm the "monkey mind."

My final form of meditation is prone or supine meditation and promotes great relaxation and overall good health. Lying in a prone position on your back all extremities relaxed, your focus on your middle dantian, located at the base of the breastbone. In this meditation as with the others it is imperative to calm the "monkey mind." At first you learn to relax the body starting with the top of the head and downward through the body, one level at a time with each breath. Until you have relaxed all the way to the souls of your feet. Once you have learned to relax in this manner you can then begin to learn synovial expansion of the joints. Allow me to elucidate.(like you could stop me LOL). The synovia are the lubricating fluids of the joints and you can learn to manipulate them with the proper focus. This is a very difficult process to learn and an even more difficult process to teach. I will refer you to more scholarly works than this if you have an interest.

By learning to expand your joints through this meditation you open them and relax them in a way that can't be done with any other method known to me nor to the Masters who have taught it to me. This has been extremely beneficial in treating my arthritis. I have a Tai Chi sister who swears by this in the treating of her fibromyalgia.
(sp.) She uses this meditation before getting out of bed in the morning and has found that it greatly decreases her pain and stiffness. Since she has begun using it she has not had a morning where she couldn't get up, whereas before she often couldn't even consider getting up as her pain and stiffness were too severe. In my own experience I have felt the same thing in regards to my arthritis. I have, through the use of this meditation actually been able to expand my joints and have felt my arms increase in length during meditation as much as two inches. You can feel you joints expand and your body will actually move on the bed or platform without any muscular involvement whatsoever.

As a word of caution, as I have been taught these forms of meditation under the supervision and guidance of my sifus (teachers) I must strongly advise similar guidance in learning them as they can be detrimental to your health and well being if you try to advance to quickly. Manipulating chi flow is not something to play with, it is a powerful energy.

It was not my intention to teach you how to use these forms of meditation. That is a task that I will leave to Masters far more knowledgeable than I. I only wished to expose you to them as I can't even begin to relate how much benefit to mind, body and spirit that I have derived from their practice.

If you have stayed with me this far you are A) very bored and need to get a life or B) very interested in which case I will now refer you to some excellent resources where you can learn more about them.

"The Tao of Tai Chi Chuan" by Master Jou, Tsung Hwa.
"Tai Chi Theory and Martial Power" by Dr. Master Yang,Jwing Ming
"The Scholar Warrior" by Master Deng, Ming Dao
"The Power of Internal Martial Arts" by Master B.K. Frantzis
"Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body" by Master B.K. Frantzis
"The Watercourse Method" by Master B.K. Frantzis

The first four books may be found at major book retailers quite readily. The last two I believe are only available through Wayfarer books. Please don't let the martial arts titles of these books prevent you from reading them as they are not meant as means to learn the martial arts but to learn greater understanding of chi and its manipulation.

Chi manipulation is what makes Tai Chi Chuan and the other internal martial arts the most formidable. As most people understand Tai Chi Chuan as a form of exercise I would like to clarify that misconception. Tai Chi Chuan along with Bagua Chang (eight tri-gram palm) and Hsing Yi Chuan (Implicative Fist) are the three internal forms of martial arts originated in China, as opposed to the kungfu styles which are external. Kungfu players learn to use muscular power and slowly learn to internalize their power with chi manipulation. The internal styles are taught as soft, relaxed non-muscular arts using your chi energy for your power. In learning to relax your muscles you allow greater chi flow which can easily be transmitted to your opponent in a devastating manner even capable of causing death. I have witnessed incredible fights between practitioners of the internal styles against those of the external styles and have yet to see an internal stylist lose.

This is how I relax.

The grass is green, the water flows. Tao te ching.

Bigtattoo

-- posted by Bigtatoo

Top 3. Feb 18, 2000 1:47 PM

» mastiffs2005 - BigTattoo

Thank you very much! You know that I am going to bug you silly now until you start writing on Taoism (sp) for Suite101. And thank you too for giving us a tip on Fibromyalgia... we're always looking for those.

I am so glad to see you here at my page, too... I know my friends here can learn a lot from you, as can I... you're creating quite a fan club with your loving way of sharing with us. I will definitely add some of your techniques for meditation to my own practices. Thanks again for the wonderful information.

Big Hugs,
Darlene

-- posted by mastiffs2005

Top 4. Feb 19, 2000 11:03 PM

» Deb_TT - Thanks to both!

Both of you! I think I shared with Cheeky the energy work I had done when I was going through some tough times. And when the blockage (ok please understand I may stumble on terms here) was removed whoa! the fountain burst forth! A counselor I had been seeing at the time suggested I have this Reiki done after I had talked to her about the things that I see (which I have up to this point been reluctant to talk about) and how I was wanting to explore my spiritual side. So I sometimes do breathing exercises when I feel the catch in my stomach and work on drawing the energy up through my body.

Some breathing exercises I have used in the past to help relax I learned in college and also lamaze classes when I was pregnant with my daughter. Both help me focus and release tensions in my body. But until I went through the reiki I was never totally able to let it all go. I hope that is making sense. I am looking forward to starting some energy classes and really learn more about it. I am just a wee grasshopper! smile

-- posted by Deb_TT

Top 5. Feb 19, 2000 11:35 PM

» Deb_TT - Other relaxing things

You touched on a few relaxing things Cheeky, such as gardening. If I could I would be out there 24 hours a day! smile

Today I was taking it easy in the garden and brought a little bucket and went to where I have pea gravel surrounding a little garden area. I sat down in the gravel that felt very cool, and was picking up the hundreds of maple tree seeds. It was mindless work but it was relaxing. The smells of the earth coming to life as the day warmed up added to it. It brings me in touch with the small things that happen in the garden.

So perhaps gardening is relaxing because a day like today sharpened the senses: The coolness of the pea gravel, fingers touching the cool black earth, the earthy smells, the sightings of the miniature life that live in that world, and hearing the sounds of nature. Perhaps it just brings me closer to who I really am, or helps me tune out stress?

-- posted by Deb_TT

Top 6. Feb 20, 2000 9:19 AM

» mastiffs2005 - Hi Deb!

You make it sound so beautiful! You'd make a great hypnotherapist *smile*

-- posted by mastiffs2005

Top 7. Feb 24, 2000 3:20 PM

» Deb_TT - Cheeky

I wanted to share with you how much I appreciate the techniques you have shared in your articles on how to relax, work on self-esteem and healing. I am trying a lot of these out and they are such useful tools! I look forward to more of your articles. THANK YOU!

-- posted by Deb_TT

Top 8. Feb 24, 2000 5:57 PM

» mastiffs2005 - Hi Deb!

Thanks so much for the encouragement. As always, I'm so glad to see you here, and be sure to let me know if you have any questions.

Big Hugs,
Darlene

-- posted by mastiffs2005