Lightbody and the Internal Arts
of China and Japan
(email exchange with an indoor student)
Simha: Been making some wonderful personal discoveries lately with regard to Amrita Asana and its relationship to inner martial arts/inner hatha yoga.
A few weeks ago when traveling to Finland I practiced standing meditation at the airport. As I stood past the first minutes, I started naturally applying the principles of Amrita Asana to the standing posture. More specifically, I understood the importance of "expanding" in all directions (up/down, front/back, left/right). At first, I was thinking of it as kinda pushing to fill the whole frame but soon realized I might as well just allow myself to be pulled.
Whichever perspective you take, what I am describing is sort of intentional settling into the whole "frame" of the posture. This very quickly unifies the whole body in the standing posture and thus activates the meridian field.
This week I made the same discovery with regard to various aspects of pranayama. I've always loved breathing techniques, and have regularly practiced Bellows Breath (bhastrika) and Shining Skull (kapalbhati), combined with breath retention and yogic locks (bhandas).
First I connected the actual inhalation and exhalation with the "expanding" in all directions. This wasn't entirely new, of course, as it's how Vajra Breath is taught in RBY, but I felt a deepening in the sense of the whole body breathing 360 degrees regardless of intensity. This feels effortless (and very empowering!) when all muscles are working in unison.
Then, with regards to yogic locks, more specifically root lock (mula bhanda), abdominal lock (uddijayana bhanda), and chin lock (jalandhara bandha), I realized that I have been doing these three locks separately from one another. This has caused unnecessary effort required in holding the locks. When applying the principles of Amrita Asana, on the other hand, the body (and thus the locks) become united, revealing the great lock (mahabhanda), which again instantly forces open the meridian system. It's a subtle point but makes all the difference.
The above discoveries have also led me to experiment deeper with the basic posture in sitting meditation. It seems obvious when I say it, but of course, the very same principles apply to just sitting as well. By intentionally filling the frame of the seated posture, the meridian body is forced open and sitting becomes effortless.
I know Baba has been talking about these things for a long time, and I've had glimpses of it myself too. Nevertheless, the practice of Amrita Asana has propelled the maturation of this understanding like nothing else. It feels like it has naturally opened up a whole nother dimension to the practices I've been doing for years. Very much looking forward to exploring this further. Thank you!
Baba: I remember when I first taught you standing practice (c. zhan zhuang) in Tammisaari in 2016-2017. We've come back to it every now and then at retreats and when hanging out. I've also lead qigong and zhan zhuang sessions at retreats for years and years but I saw a problem there: that it was too hard (unpleasant) and too difficult to people to understand what the practice was about. I've done that work when I began internal martial arts 25 years ago and it took me years to even get the basics right, even with lineage teachers, and it was just uncomfortable to grind all those hours. So seeing this problem with my students I wanted and needed to find a way to make the training much more enjoyable than the grind or die-traditional training style so that you'd even get interested in internal arts and their principles as they are taught in East-Asia, namely China and Japan.
After having learned a wide variety of internal practices it took me a number of years to come up with a sensible structure that my students could learn and start practicing. So I took some bits that I had learned from internal martial arts, such as Yi Jin Jing, Second Course Yiquan of Han Jingyu and hard Shaolin qi gong, Indian yoga postures, basic elements of yoga tantra (prayer and mantra) and subtle centers that have long been forgotten by the yogic culture and put them all together as the first level of Amrita Asana Yoga (abr. AAY). I've gotten so many positive comments about the practice, people really love it but the thing is that if I had taught under the name of "internal martial training", people would have had no interest, I am certain. So I tricked all of you, ha, but as you know the results are great. There is no yoga or qigong style that puts all these elements together but I suspect there might have been in ancient China in the days of the ancient immortals.
What you describe about realizing how to activate the frame (after just 6 months of regular Amrita Asana practice) took me years of traditional internal martial arts practice to understand. I got glimpses of it and of many other things but I didn't really understand it but after a number of years. Through your AAY practice you have now developed a connected physical frame that you can apply your intent (c. yi/意) on, to affect changes and transformation in the meridian field. Adding yi to AAY is taught on level 2 but you already got it.
I have made quite a few posts about yi recently because it is one of the key practices to transform the meridian field which condition as you know is the ground of immortality/lightbody/rainbow body. Yi is physicalized concentration. Being able to focus one's mind mentally is one thing but to focus (yi) with one's whole body mass, the whole skeletal structure, muscles and tissues harnessed behind it, like a pack of horses in reigns, is entirely different thing. The principle of yi is entirely unknown in Indian and Tibetan yogas and their traditions but developed into a key principle in China and Japan, and their many arts and traditions.
From the perspective of hatha yoga, without yi you're just doing a physical workout with moments of mental focus here and there through dristhis, bandhas and so on but what is typical is that even highly regarded professional of hatha yoga never develop a frame as it is understood in China and Japan. If you don't have a connected internal frame, even if you could put yourself into very complex and advanced postures, the effect on the meridians that makes a great part of our psyche will be very limited. With a built frame, yoga asanas will immediately take a different gear because the frame allows one to not only work on the physical field but also the meridian field which is really really important from the common perspectives of health and wellbeing, but also from the point of view of trauma healing and preparation of the lightbody. In Amrita Asana Yoga you start with postures but through the tensing of all muscles at once in each posture, you actually start building that frame effectively from the start and work out the whole meridian field. It makes the body very strong very fast because you're doing a gym workout (without weights) through the tensing and flushing the whole system with prana/chi that is spiritually charged because of the preparation in the beginning of practice and during through mantras or whatever techniques from RBY you might be using. The difference between level 1 and 2 of AAY is that it just becomes subtler and with yi-without yi is given more emphasis.
That phrase "with yi - without yi" is something that I could say a few words. It is written all over the Taoist classics, this thing about "marvellous alive non-doing" or wu wei and it has been extensively written by zen artists of Japan during the past over 1000 years. My master Terayama Roshi dedicated his life to studying and writing about it, as did the masters before him in the lineages. But just like on the side of dharma or spirituality this principle is vastly misinterpreted in various ways. Not having to do anything about it for one to realize or to successfully wu wei just like the immortals or that if you just sat immovably like the Buddha that'd be the same as being a buddha are two of them.
One great gift that mahamudra and dzogchen texts by Tibetan masters such as Gampopa and Longchenpa have to give us is the clear definition about the most fundamental spiritual part of us. It does not matter whether we discuss of the Tao, Christ, God, buddhanature or whatever, it makes sense that regardless of beliefs and opinions we are all built the same way and have the same basic nature of mind. Understanding this was made into science by the master yogis and while I can see many others from other traditions speak about it sometimes identically or similarly, I think it is because of the unreligious pragmatic nature of buddhadharma that makes it more understandable and therefore better accessible than any other system I know about. Poetic, mystical and glorificational sources definitely give as much benefits as they do harm because of the option of (mistaken) interpretation. My point is that without knowing the ground of all beings or the mind common to all beings, it is impossible to understand without yi (c. 無 意) but you know all this already.
So, next in your practice, now that you have grasped all three: the frame, yi and without yi; next step is to play with them. Form doesn't matter. I stand, do yoga, sit, dance, walk, do crossfit and lift weights applying "physicalized intention together with basic awareness" and "basic awareness together with movement but without intention". This strikes the main teaching of Garab Dorje.
Rainbow-light blessings,
-Baba, 30 March 23
