Mindfully Meeting the Tao | Part 2
An Orchestra of Organs
Even as I doubted the cosmological basis of Chia’s system and the goal of “immortality” that it drives to, I tried to keep a beginner’s mind for the practices themselves, to let the effects speak for themselves as I had on my first meditation retreat years ago. I soon discovered that despite the new terminology and somewhat fantastical claims, much felt quite familiar from my own grounded practice.
A key goal of the retreat was opening up our Microcosmic Orbit, the term Chia uses to refer to the natural flow of energy through body. Starting from the lower energy center (tan tien) behind the navel, energy travels through the groin into the tailbone, up the spine into the head (upper center), and down through tongue into the neck, heart (middle center), and solar plexus before returning back to the navel; loops around the legs and arms can be added at the groin and upper back.
Some of this has sound physiological basis — there are a lot of nerves connected to the base of the spine, which is of course the central pipeline of information of the body. The gut is increasingly recognized as a potent brain of its own, and the heart sends blood down into the body to supply it with energy. In these currents are oxygen-rich blood and vast numbers of electrons, spinning around with unimaginable energy.
Many of us allude to this energy in mindfulness too. In the body scan, we talk about noticing subtle sensations in the body. Dr. Tara Brach often guides listeners to open to a sense or field of aliveness. In a perfectly relaxed body and mindful presence, the energy should flow regardless of intention; so is it really helpful from a mindfulness perspective to get into the weeds of the system’s plumbing instead of just opening to the whole?
I believe that it can be. Dr. Chris Germer, one of the creators of the Mindful Self Compassion course, recommends in his book learning about the various personal “schemas” that people in modern society often become controlled by. These schemas are “intertwined bundles of intense emotion, body sensations, thoughts, and behaviors that usually can be traced back to early childhood…When we understand exactly how a schema shows up in our lives, we’re more likely to catch it.”
So too if we can recognize how energy flows in the body, we can more easily catch where and when we’re blocked and need to open up. Until my physical therapist Sarah pointed out last summer where I was contracted in my solar plexus, I hadn’t realized how much it needed my kind attention. And even though I had an idea that my spine was tight, until Chia taught how important the sacrum is in this flow I hadn’t prioritized loosening it up. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the book Germer recommends on schemas — Emotional Alchemy — refers to the same alchemical transformational power that Chia often does.
Since Taoists believe (sensibly) that physical openness is key to energetic openness, we spent a lot of time stretching. Some of the exercises moved too quickly or put too much stress on the spine for my liking, but others I found extraordinarily helpful — none more so than the dragon’s tail.
Like most other mammals, our ancestors had tails, a genetic legacy maintained in the tailbone at the base of our spine (some indigenous babies are still born with protruding bones there). In order to loosen our spines that can get so stiff by constant chair sitting, as well as ground ourselves more firmly, Taoist teachers recommended imagining that we have a long tail extending all the way to rest on the floor and then wagging it side to side. Besides giving us all smiles, I continue to feel the heat of release every time I do this and sometimes too the jolt of energy up to the head that Chia told us can accompany the practice. Whether that’s Chi rising from the Earth as he claims or simply stuck energy at the base of the spine that’s suddenly freed to go up I don’t know, but either way my tail is here to stay.
The organs and glands play a central role in the body’s Chi flow too. Similar to the mindfulness teaching that negative emotions are held in the body, Chia told us that negative emotions are held in the major organs, assigning specific qualities and emotions to each one. In order to clean them out and get the Chi flowing properly through them again, we practiced turning our inner eye and smiling into them. In one practice we began by imagining a happy place in front of us and bringing smiling energy in from there to the head, letting it flow down to each organ and gland as it overflowed. In another we invited in specific colors of light to organs, wiping them clean by sending their negative virtues into the ground and then filling them back up with positive emotions. To aid this process, we made one of “six healing sounds” to each organ or group of organs, and each stage was accompanied by movements of the hands and arms.
In large part, I felt right at home in these practices. Sensing into the major organs and smiling into them qualities like love and kindness isn’t far removed from mindfulness practices like self-compassion, the body scan, and Total Relaxation. Breathing in and out positive and negative energy is the hallmark of the Tibetan compassion practice of Tonglen, a potent meditation for me. And from a logical standpoint, it makes sense that getting the organs of digestion, absorption, and elimination running smoothly is good for the flow of energy through the body.
I didn’t sense the particular emotions or virtues to be different in each organ, but researchers have found that people report feeling different emotions centered around particular parts of the body, so the Taoists may be onto something there. I also didn’t feel much extra healing from making the sounds, but Yorie did (she’s hissing as I’m typing this in fact) and is confident in their efficacy from her voice training and coaching experience. The light colors and hand moments I found to be distractions that made focus more difficult and unnecessarily complicated, but others swore by those too. After a few evenings I switched back to my own simpler version of a self-compassionate body scan instead of the lights and sounds, but with more awareness of and attention to my organs and glands.
So in terms of the mindfulness practices we know and love of sensing into the body, letting go of tension, and self-compassion — I found cousins in Chia’s Healing Tao techniques with some wise additions and other perhaps unnecessary complications. Those, however, were just the foundation for the real Chi magic of generating, transforming, and storing Chi in the body.
Check back next week for Part 3: Catching Fire.
