I think in my prior practice with other arts, I was applying reversing of the eyes to some degree during practice, as well as outside of practice at times, but I always used the inward focus to place my attention into the area of the lower dantien based on previous instructions and interpretations of other material I had read on the subject. So much focus on that energy center in most of the internal arts and qi gong I learned really influenced the way i related to an inward focus.
I have noticed the focus on the lower dantien in the past having a neutralizing effect on the flow of emotional energy, but it left me unable to interact with people in places where I wanted to be feeling things(children, partner) so I would not sustain the practice as it left me inaccessible to them in ways that didn’t feel right, even though it helped to be inaccessible in other ways that were good due to less emotion to fuel reactions.
It makes me question why the lower dantien became such a focus, can you shed any light on this?
Is using the area of the heart to help maintain the inward focus appropriate, or is it meant to be an inward focus without a focal point?
Thank you for your help and guidance.
Derek
I am going to meet you soon via Skype. It is possible via this method to obtain specific locations by the voice. We will see when we meet.
To answer your question about the lower dantien and the effects that you are perceiving as disconnect; it would primarily have to do with your expectations as a human being in terms of not fully realizing the full scope of your capacities.
Over the last 35 years of teaching, it has become very obvious to me that the social programming, which has beset everybody’s attention, affects the scope of our natural abilities in terms of being limitless. This is really the issue.
Our lower dantien – or first cauldron – which houses our prenatal chi, has a lot to do with our kidneys and this in turn determines our willpower. If the effect of our perception draws upon this – in terms of being fixed on the world in the way that we have been as a collective – then our ability to comprehend is then routed down narrow avenues that have many small tributaries missing from the flow of information.
Then one’s awareness will be trapped by that focus.
If you look at it this way; just say that we have an address and it is within our perception that our location is defined. When you look deeply into somebody’s eyes – not by looking, but by realizing – the signature of their perception will identify their location. It is like a human being becomes like a PO box that has certain items identifying its position. Within this small itemized area, there are limited resources drawing upon its own self-reflective location.
When this occurs, it can be likened to your statement. When you focus on your lower dantien you feel disconnect. This then reveals your programming toward your own potential.
The lower dantien is immense. Even though it has been said in innumerable texts that it is within the center of one’s lower abdomen, this small location can fill the whole room. It can expand to over 200 miles, when relaxed, as a preliminary advancement towards its full potential.
I have a student who lives in Norway. I am thousands of miles away from his location. When I practice Lo Ban Pai, my expansiveness will reach his position if he is sincere within his own gestures, whether it be practicing Dragon’s Tears or Whispering Palms. So in this way I have reached his location, which you could imagine as his mailing address. His heart center and third eye capacity then assume a different posture within his hand movements, which are my gestures that I had not yet taught him physically, but he has already unknowingly learned before he arrived here this week.
As you can see from this small description, my student advances upon his journey, surrounded by me and expanding beyond his own self-limitations, through realizing when he arrived here this week that he has been under instruction via his sincere effort, without even knowing it. His movements filled his heart with joy and a sense of mystery.
So the lower cauldron or dantien upon its expansiveness mixes the jing of the lower dantien with the chi of the middle dantien, which is the heart center that then expansively reaches to the shen, which creates an operational vortex that the shen – the upper dantien, or the third eye – remembers itself, which is my memory that becomes my student’s insights at the moment that they practice through their devotion to their own connection.
Yet within this act, they discover my internal location, or my address. This is the internal art of Lo Ban Pai. Anything other than this is not internal. The dantien is universally expanding, macro-cosmically and simultaneously micro-cosmically bound to its origin.
The secret of internal martial arts is that through reduction of one’s self-identity, our full potential expands to its limitlessness, thereby giving a sense of wonder at all of our potential. This in turn unifies our field of realizations as a humanity.
This is everybody’s journey: to be experienced and witnessed within the confines of this frailty, which is our human body that moves towards its inevitable end. The only way to strengthen this frailty is to know exactly who you are and do exactly what you know you need to do. To claim your power this way is the only worthwhile journey to be undertaken as a human being.
The contradiction is you must lose the social program that defines you within its limited confines so as to discover that you are more than what you ever expected.
I hope this answers your question about this focal point.
Maybe my student that is here now will make a comment below about his experience.
This blog post is most informative, thank you. It illustrates so much about the form
Lujan,I am very gratefull,that you have shared and continue to share your insights. My journey and other have been helped dramatically. I know that I can only speak for myself, but have realized that the time has come upon all mankind to awaken. My journey has been a long one that has brought me to this place in time.I have been a seekerfor many years,as fate would have it have enjoyed many hours in studying your material. I am so grateful that you have chosen to share your insights.I have found you to right on the mark,I havent sought to live vicariously thru others I’ve had so many circumstances that have had simular effects on me personally that are reflected in your writing.Thank you from the center of my being.I know you understand when I say this I have felt that something was amiss with me and have sought confirmations of my journeys.One day I hope to be bless to meet you in person,that will be a day of days.
You’re welcome
Perhaps that “cubic centimeter of chance” is another manifestation of the Spirit which is always knocking.
The “cubic centimeter of chance” can come around as often as you need and as often as you can become STILL to SEE it! OPPORTUNITY ABOUNDS! The EARTH is shiny with it!!!!
And thank you for sharing you question. Its really interesting.
Thank you for sharing your experiences Endre. The idea that devotion to the practice is reflected back to us by the universe is really inspiring.
Thank you Lujan,
This answer really helps. The line about my programming towards my own potential really hit me, the reaction i felt when reading that struck deep. I’ve experienced facets of what I think my true potential might be in the past, and even so I know that I’m plagued with disbelief about my ability to be more than how I’m socially defined. Direct experience of things beyond my ability to explain left me knowing more is possible than I could imagine, but a part of me became convinced it was a fluke or anomaly that it happened to me, after reading things that I made support this idea while searching for answers to what happened. The idea of missing my fleeting moment of chance has poisoned my mind all this time I think. This story I told about what happened has left me unable to commit to my own growth for a long time, but interacting with your community and now you this year feels like a big part of helping me move beyond this. I look forward to meeting you soon, and what you shared above let’s me know how much I want to make opportunities for working with you in person become possible. I want to be part of the world moving in the right direction.
Derek
The fleeting moment of chance which comes from the world of Carlos Castaneda, is an opportunity that lasts a whole lifetime. This is what he failed to communicate and this is how one becomes imprisoned by Castaneda’s works by feeling a sense of loss and guilt of not achieving their potential. This is why your mind appears to be poisoned. You must learn to look for it every moment that it arrives with fresh eyes, and if they are not fresh then you’re are subject to doctrine. And this is what stuns your potential. Read whisperings of the dragon and then you will understand more deeply what I’m saying.
Thank you Lujan, I will focus on finishing Whisperings of the Dragon, I really appreciate your help.
Im with lujan now, I said to him that its amazing that the dan tien can get so big. He said to me yes, the earth has got a magnetic field not to dissimilar of the torroidal field of the human entity. Energy loves to mimick and reproduce in its own unique way upon the variables that defines itself within. These are Lujans words now as I sit with him learning. He continue saying that life is an active devotion and if the movements are practiced sincerely then the universe will devote itself to the practitioner by the heart connected link. This is the essence of internal kung fu. I respond to him by saying that I feel I connect to the internal feeling of applying myself with all I have while practicing.
Yes this has happenend to me. When Ive been practicing I would feel my body want to move in an little different way which felt more connected. It would deviate from what I learned from Lujan at that time, but got confimed by him that my changes has been made and its correct and that by him practicing his art I could connect to his feeling. The movements would feel different and I have often felt this mystic feeling withing when practicing that feel truly special.