5 Element Meditations How to Cultivate the Water, Fire, Wind, and Space Elements Through Various Meditations to Achieve Samadhi By William Bodri
The "five elements" -- or earth, wind, water, fire and space essences -- are the fundamental building blocks of the physical, material world of phenomena. The most basic idea in cultivation, which people typically have a hard time expressing, is that this material world of phenomena as well as spiritual mind come from the same single source, and that neither will ever be destroyed. Mind will always existence and the physical realm will always exist although as a ceaseless soup of effervescent transformations lacking in substantiality. That also means the five elements come from the same source as mind, and therefore because of this connection, mind can affect the elements when it taps into the source nature. On the one hand, we can say that all sentient beings and Buddha are of one absolute nature called "true mind" (because It gives birth to consciousness). Within this stainless fundamental nature (true mind) there is no such thing as birth and death, or change and variation. Within this true nature there is no such thing as the five elements since they are transient phenomena.
On the other hand, we can look around us and easily perceive a phenomenal world of transient events undergoing ceaseless transformation … forever being transformed. For not a single moment is anything still, non-moving and peaceful in the material cosmos. Hence the world of mundane existence is comprised of the five elements, yet this realm is “false” or “unreal” since there is nothing we can grab onto that stays. Conventional existence is a false existence, rather than "true" existence, because "true existence" by definition is "never changing." That’s what makes it true. The conventional realm, on the other hand, is empty of true existence because there's nothing within it that's fixed and unchanging -- it contains nothing we can depend upon. If there was something real in it, there would be something that would always remain and which we could hold onto forever and depend upon. Search the universe and you will never find such a thing. All the talk we hear of “cyclical existence” is just pointing to the phenomenal realm of birth and death--this dreamlike world of appearance without any true substance. We sentient beings become confused by this realm of conventional existence that lacks substantiality, and attach to this phenomenal realm thinking it's what's real. We mistakenly think that the life we ride through these experiences is our true spiritual life when what we think of the "self" or "ego" or "identity" Is just a tangled ball of thoughts we cling to without a real nature. Whether you are male or female, elephant or mosquito, a god or human, … or whether you're talking of the past, present or future lives, these are all soup-like components of the phenomenal world which are undergoing the ceaseless process of never-ending transformation. We call all these classifications “beings” but they don't have defined
barriers as "beings" because they are tied into all other things by virtue of interdependence. They aren’t beings, but just names and labels. If you can find that ultimate original thing behind them that doesn't change, however -- the absolute original or fundamental nature which allows everything material to change by virtue of the fact that the unreal doesn't block the real -- then you've found the Tao. The way to reach a realization of the Tao is through the mind, and in particular through meditation. The practice of meditation to realize our true nature -- variously called God, Brahman, the Tao, fundamental nature, Allah and many other names in the world religions -- is the process we call "spiritual cultivation." Sages say our original nature that we try to realize through meditation, or spiritual practice, is "empty" or "formless." If it had a fixed form that's unchanging, it would offer resistance to the unreal realm of phenomena that are always changing. Being formless and empty it lacks any phenomenal characteristics, which is why it can support an unreal realm of interdependent origination with characteristics, so we also say it's stainless and "signless without marks". The top secret in cultivation is that mind and body are really one: our original nature and this entire phenomenal aspect of false appearances really belong to one whole. The various phenomena in the realm of form each have different functions and names, but they're actually one with mind, and thus the two realms are equivalent to one another. Since the five great elements of the material world--earth, wind, water, space and fire--are one with the mind, they actually share the same ultimate characteristics of the mind
in that they are neither born nor destroyed, neither pure nor impure, and neither increasing nor decreasing. As to the material universe itself, cultivation science explains how it got there. Before the earth was formed, the universe was just empty space. Empty space still has lots of things in it, but we call it "empty" because it's tremendously still. As to the creation of the material cosmos, eventually the wind element started to arise in this great stillness. Yin (stillness) gives birth to yang (movement), so that is a natural result in the realm of duality. After all, nothing stays the same forever in the conventional realm of unreality, so change was inevitable and peaceful space had to become its opposite. Wind represents movement, for out of this extreme of yin, movement (yang) therefore started to arise. The same process happens in mediation because if you can empty your mind and stay in that free emptiness, your yang chi will eventually arise from below. In the cosmos, at first the wind element was small, and then gradually it grew larger just as will happen with meditation. The friction of the wind element with itself created the fire element, and the heat of the fire element caused agglomeration so that the water element formed. Eventually the water element cooled and congealed (solidified) to form the earth element, like water transforming into ice, and the earth element contains a little bit of all the elements. Is whole process is encapsulated in the Zhunti mantra sadhana you can find on the website, and has important correlations to the physical transformation one experiences on the spiritual path.
Following the same process, before conception you can say we have no body, so we say "everything is empty." Since the body's initial cause is a thought of sex on the part of parents, this is the wind element arising. When the egg and sperm come together and unify through the process of sexual intercourse, this is the fire element of sexual activity and then the water element of cohesion. Then of course we have the earth element appearing, which is the embryo. As the fetus grows, that's the wind element exercising its functioning again, and the process continues. As to the process of death, we can analyze the disintegration of physical life through an analysis scheme of the five elements. First we get thinner and feel heavier because the earth element starts to disintegrate. As the water element leaves our body, we become thirsty and have difficulty talking. Next the body begins to cool, which is the fire element leaving us … and when the wind element goes, we finally breathe our last. If you study cultivation, you must match its principles with scientific observations such as this to make progress in prajna wisdom understanding. Buddhism does this, as does Taoism to some degree, but ordinary people don't realize these principles at all. All the stages of cultivation--that pertain to purifying the five elements--can be found in the external world of phenomena. They can be found in the microcosm as well as the macrocosm. If you know this, it will help you with your own cultivation. In cultivation science, it is very hard to explain how the five elements are ultimately co-joined with the ultimate nature unless you have a certain stage of wisdom and spiritual achievement. The best we can do is read the Surangama Sutra and understand that the fundamental nature of all the five elements is empty.
Modern physics is gradually understanding a bit of this, however, for it has finally discovered that the energy in the shimmering cosmos is always conserved and never destroyed. Everything is basically empty energy, and this energy simply undergoes a process of ceaseless transformation without ever holding still. Thus it never increases nor decreases, is neither pure nor impure, and has no beginning nor ending. Try to analyze the components of energy -- what it's made of -- and in the end you only find emptiness. After you smoke a cigarette it becomes ashes, but the original energy of the cigarette is never destroyed whereas its material aspect is extinguished. So the visible material aspect of the fire, water, earth and wind elements may change in the universe, but their energy aspect is always conserved. The material realm simply becomes transformed. What supports or underlies all these changes never dies, and is always there too. The underlying support never changes, never moves, never transforms itself. That's why we call it “empty” or “void” because when you think about it using thoughts, you can see that everything is supported by emptiness and emptiness doesn’t change. However, that mental image of emptiness is not the Tao. The thing we're looking for … that one fundamental prepositionally thing -- call It God, Brahman, fundamental mind, Allah or whatever -- behind all these phenomenal realms can only be reached through a wisdom realization that is absence of thought, and you can only reach that realization through meditation practice. The Surangama Sutra and Complete Enlightenment Sutra of Buddhism say that these four elements that comprise the physical universe have distinct properties, meaning that they each have their own independent domain. Buddha
described this by saying, "The four elements are distinct." However, this just describes the phenomenal, material aspect of things. What enables the four elements to transform is emptiness, so you can say that emptiness is their purity aspect whereas material form is the impurity aspect of the fundamental nature. Emptiness is the support while form is the appearance. How form arises in the first place is the marvelous function of the original nature. You can also say that forms and phenomena are perfectly pure and clean as well, rather than one side being the pure side and one side the impurity aspect. You can say that in the sense that fundamental ignorance doesn’t exist. Neither clean nor unclean, pure nor impure, neither increasing nor decreasing, neither real nor unreal--these are all possible explanations of the realm of phenomena and the Tao. Yet whether you cultivate form or the no-form of ultimate emptiness, when you come to the ultimate final end, there is only one Tao. There is only one underlying, fundamental, absolute original nature, and you can only awaken to it through spiritual practice. This is our "fundamental face" we try to realize through the process of cultivation, namely meditation.
CULTIVATING THE WATER ELEMENT One way to cultivate in order to realize the Tao is to practice the water visualization samadhi, which focuses on the water element, and then to proceed onwards to higher samadhi from there. In ancient times, people liked to cultivate by lakes, so they would live by the water and then watch it. The famous scientist Viktor Schauberger achieved a mild form of the water samadhi by doing exactly that. His report runs as follows: In my earliest youth my fondest desire was to understand Nature, and through such understanding to come closer to the truth; a truth that I was unable to discover either at school or in church. In this quest I was thus drawn time and time again up into the forest. I could sit for hours on end and watch the water flowing by without ever becoming tired or bored. At the time I was still unaware that in water the greatest secret lay hidden. Nor did I know that water was the carrier of life or the ur-source of what we call consciousness. Without any preconceptions, I simply let my gaze fall on the water as it flowed past. It was only years later that I came to realise that running water attracts our consciousness like a magnet and draws a small part of it along in its wake. It is a force that can act so powerfully that one temporarily loses one’s consciousness and involuntarily falls asleep. [This conclusion is actually incorrect and arose due to Schauberger’s improper form of meditation.] As time passed I began to play a game with water’s secret powers; I surrendered my so-called free consciousness and allowed the water to take possession of it for a while. Little by little this game turned into a profoundly earnest endeavour, because I realised that one could detach one’s own consciousness from the body and attach it to that of the water. When my own consciousness was eventually returned to me, then the water’s most deeply concealed psyche often revealed the most extraordinary things to me. As a result of this investigation, a researcher was born who could dispatch his consciousness on a voyage of discovery, as it were. In this way I was able to experience certain things that had escaped other people’s notice because they were unaware that a human being is able to send forth his free consciousness into those places the eyes cannot see. By practising this blindfolded vision, I eventually developed a bond with mysterious Nature, whose essential being I then slowly learnt to perceive and understand.1
1
Living Energies, Callum Coats (Gateway Books, Bath: UK, 1996), p. 4.
Even Confucius knew how to watch the water for he said that life is like a ceaseless flowing stream. Lao Tzu also taught people the philosophy of water, for he said that water nurtures the myriad things, is naturally pliant, and always flows to lower places where it collects, like the sea which holds everything. Lao Tzu taught people to be soft and moderate to imitate the nature of water. Though soft and pliable, water is also the strongest element in the world because through gentleness it can wear away mountains. Softness is actually stronger than iron or steel, so Lao Tzu taught us to influence other people through pliancy rather than through force. This is actually a high stage Mahayana water cultivation method, yet people do not realize it. As to the Hinayana water element cultivation method, Lao Tzu said that people are reflected in still water, rather than in flowing water. If you therefore reach a state of mental stillness without random thoughts -- with your mind being still like peaceful water -- only then can you see yourself clearly. Only then can you find your true self, which means original mind. Confucius also mentioned that compassionate people have minds which are peaceful and grand as a mountain (the earth element), whereas wise people have minds as clear and still as water (the water element). Thus, not everyone is suited for the water visualization we'll describe; those who can succeed at this method usually have a calm, peaceful character as hinted at by Confucius. To practice the water visualization meditation method, you must sit beside a clear body of clean water such as a large lake. Your eyelids should drop like curtains, but your eyes
should also be able to see your nose naturally, without force, through the remaining slit. Old cultivation texts also say that "your nose should observe your heart", which means that you should be sitting upright with your spine erect. After you assume this position with comfort, you start looking at the water without too much intent (no force) and you gradually become absorbed in the observation of water (not the fish, rocks, or other stuff inside). You lose your consciousness in the water. Practice so that your mind eventually becomes peaceful and quiet as you sit there observing (or visualizing) calm and serene water, feeling it, becoming one with it and then letting your mind go. Eventually you'll reach the stage where you forget about your body and mind (you don't think thoughts or follow them but give them up to the deep stillness of water) and become unified with the water. When your mind becomes peaceful and clear and you can forget your mind, your body, your thoughts, the earth and sky, you'll become one with the water. That's the achievement of the water visualization samadhi. Eventually with practice, you won't need to do this by sitting next to water anymore. If you successfully achieve this samadhi, to others it may seem as if your body disappears and changes into water. Or, your body may become a bit swollen, which you can adjust through employing the skeleton visualization technique, or by imagining that water coming from the top of your head washes away all your internal obstructions and bad karma.
Another variation on the water visualization technique is to visualize the whole world transformed into water. Once again you must visualize it, then feel it, then get lost in it and then give up the mind to access emptiness. Above you, below you, in the front and back--everything you initially imagine becomes water. Everything is water. Yet another variation is to visualize an endless stream of water coming down from the top of your head and cleansing the body so that only your white skeleton is left, similar to Zen master Hakuin's soma cream visualization practice for harmonizing the chi of your body. One advantage of this particular method is that you can visualize the water coming from the top of your head washing away any sickness you might have. This visualized stream of water can serve as a blessing -- a type of internal baptism -- to clean the body and mind and wash away disease. It’s a way to harmonize your chi and cultivate your chi channels, but you have to thereafter switch to emptiness meditation, just like with everything else. In your visualization practice, you must imagine that all your body cells are washed by the clean, fresh water and become clean and pure and clear as crystal, after which they disappear into nothingness. In doing this practice, eventually you'll reach a state where you are the water and the water is you, but you must still match this state with prajna wisdom so that there's no such thing as water or your self. Both disappear -- there is neither water or mind. Thus you'll be able to enter a true stage of cultivation emptiness. This method is really unique and human beings rarely use it. But even if you succeed in this method, you must still return to cultivating the mind. The rule for all meditations
is emptiness, and these other methods are just entry way, or doorway techniques. Let's explain this further. The physical transformations brought on by the water visualization technique are all possible because the mind can indeed transform the material realm. But when the body appears as if it's transformed into water, this is not the highest stage possible of the water samadhi, for it's only attaining the stage of the "visualization achievement." To go past this stage and attain the Tao, you must come back to focusing on the mind. Once you successfully achieve the water visualization attainment, you must realize that everything is achieved through the mind, and that the mind and the body are one. Thus you must experientially prove through further meditation that the fundamental nature of water is, like anything else, fundamentally empty. You must keep practicing and investigating to find the ultimate fundamental nature of water, and realize that it is empty. In other words, after achieving the water visualization attainment, you must turn to the wisdom cultivation of prajna which will enable you to let go of you’re achievement to realize the true underlying nature of the mind which can give birth to such an attainment. Then you can realize the real emptiness nature of water where there is no self or water either. This happens when you use your prajna wisdom and attain the middle view in cultivation, the correct view which isn't falling into either extreme of existence (mental busyness) or non-existence (the peaceful stillness, or emptiness we
call samadhi). True emptiness … real emptiness rather than a false constructed image of emptiness (no matter how refined) is free of everything, including the thought of its realization. All water is generated from the fundamental, absolute selfnature and therefore, the fundamental nature of the water element is emptiness. So when you reach the state of true emptiness rather than a thought construction or refined image of emptiness, that's the real fundamental nature of water. Our fundamental nature spans the entire dharma realm, so a sage with high enough attainment can make water appear anywhere whenever they like, or they can easily change water into fire or wind or earth and all sorts of other transformations. If you master fundamental mind you master the five elements, including their appearance and transformations in the realm of phenomena. The extent to which you can understand this depends upon the degree of your spiritual cultivation--your karma, kung-fu, and your prajna wisdom—and the Surangama Sutra of Buddhism explains that quite clearly. If you cannot make that happen, it’s not that it’s a lie but that your stage of cultivation and your gong-fu just aren’t high enough. We can also say that water is a phenomena while real emptiness is its opposite, but whether we're speaking of existence or emptiness, Tao is all-pervasive. Since mind and body (form) are linked at the source, the mind can indeed effect matter. This achievement is only possible at a high stage of cultivation, nevertheless now you know how to use the mind to meditate on water -- one of the five elements -to realize the fundamental nature of the mind.
CULTIVATING THE FIRE ELEMENT The fire visualization samadhi is attained via the same principles as the water visualization samadhi, but is unique in that it is related to the kundalini phenomena. In most cultivation schools, students (practitioners or meditators) usually focus on cultivating the wind and water elements of their physical natures before they try to ignite the fire element of the physical body, and afterwards they go on to truly realizing the empty nature of the mind. If they try to activate the kundalini fire element directly without prior preparation, it can ignite but since the chi channels will not have been cleaned, the process will entail lots of heat, pain and friction as the chi tries to pierce them. The kundalini or fire element of the body, once activated, will bring about all sorts of physical body and chi transformations that help one cultivate the meditation path. These transformations make cultivation success that much easier, and they all depend upon activating the body's fire element. In Mahayana Buddhism, activating the fire element is simply called the stage of “Warming” amidst the intensified practices of the spiritual path. A big barrier stands in the way of this kundalini achievement, however, which is the phenomena of sexual desire. When men have sexual desire they usually lose their semen (jing, or the water element) through sex or masturbation, and without jing (the water element) it is not possible to cultivate the chi energies necessary for kundalini activation. Jing transforms into chi on the
spiritual path, and if you lose your jing (semen) there is no chi or kundalini arising. In the Surangama Sutra, Buddha's student Ucchusma had very strong sexual desires which he realized were like a fire blazing in the mind. Like anger, if you can't control this fire it will eventually destroy you just as the universe will eventually be destroyed by a great cosmic conflagration (fire catastrophe). Therefore Ucchusma decided to cultivate the fire visualization technique, in conjunction with the white skeleton visualization technique method, to bring the fire element of his mind and body under control. To cultivate the fire element visualization, you must first be able to imagine and hold in your mind an image of the fiery energy of the sun. You also need to bring a remembrance of the light and heat given off by an ordinary fire into this visualization. As modern psychology and NLP training suggests, the more sensations you can bring into your visualization, the more powerful will be its effects. So remember that when you observe a burning candle flame, the hottest part of the fire belongs to its blue and white flames rather than the yellow or red flames. The same fact holds true for stars in a galaxy, where the hottest stars are bluish white and the older, cooler starts have turned yellow and red. This is useful to remember when we're practicing the fire visualization, and it has implications for why we sometimes visualize bright lights on our chakra locations, for if we focus on a point within the body, our chi will amass at that point and the friction can cause a tiny chi flame at appropriate locations.
Some beginners for this visualization practice start by visualizing a small bright flame or fire in the region of their tan-tien which gradually, in their imagination, grows bigger and bigger until the entire body burns just like it's being cremated. It's best if you can make this flame a shiny silver color. As in kundalini cultivation, you can also imagine small tongues of flame at each of the major chakra locations and focus on these white hot flames. That will pull chi to these locations and the chi, if you cultivate emptiness, will help to open up the chi channels that run to these locations; by fixing your concentration on one point while being empty, you can draw chi into your chi channels to those very locations. But you must never do this sort of practice without a master, and women should especially avoid doing this in their belly otherwise they can create menstrual difficulties. The book, Tao and Longevity, provides further instructions and warnings. Unless you practice breath retention exercises, such as the nine-bottled wind practice, and emptiness meditation this can be quite perilous unless you know what you are doing. Nevertheless now you know the principles of practice. The best explanation of this I ever found come from the great Tibetan master Tsong Khapa: In general, all systems of highest yoga tantra’s completion stage involve the preliminary process of controlling the vital energies flowing through the two side channels, rasana and lalana, and redirecting them into the central channel, avadhuti. This is indispensable. There are numerous means for accomplishing this, based on the traditions of the Indian mahasiddhas, who drew from the various tantric systems. In this tradition (i.e. the Six Yogas of Naropa) the main technique is to arouse the inner heat at the navel chakra, the “wheel of emanation,” and then through controlling the life energies by means of the AH-stroke mantric syllable (lit., “the short AH”), to draw the subtle life-sustaining energies into the central channel. When these energies enter the central channel the four blisses [emphasized in Tantric cultivation] are induced, and one cultivates meditation on the basis of these in such a way as to give rise to the innate wisdom of mahamudra. Otherwise, if one does not rely upon a profound path of this nature (i.e., in which the basis of the meditation is not the innate ecstasy conjoined with wisdom
awareness), but instead engages a samadhi that merely maintains a state of nonconceptual absorption for a prolonged period of time, no great signs of progress will be produced [this is dry Zen or dead Zen, a stage of clear equanimity without the circulation of the vital force]. Firm concentration placed in a state of pleasant, clear nonconceptuality is a practice common to both the Hinayana and Mahayana; and, within the Mahayana, it is common to both the Paramitayana and Mantrayana. It is important not to confuse the two types of samadhi. Thus, when Milarepa and Gampopa met for the first time and Gampopa commented that he could sit in meditative concentration for many days at a time without distraction, Milarepa replied to him, “You cannot get oil by crushing sand. The practice of samadhi is not sufficient in and of itself. You should learn my system of inner heat yoga, which redirects the subtle life-sustaining energies into the AH-stroke mantric syllable.” One should understand this point well. In this tradition the expression “the inner heat, the foundation,” is well known. This is because in the completion stage yogas one uses the inner heat technology from the very beginning in order to collect the subtle life-sustaining energies into the central channel, and thereby arouse the innate great ecstasy. This is the actual basis upon which all practices rely, and upon which all later completion stage yogas are founded. The inner heat doctrine establishes this basis. [One cultivates the wind element of the body to ignite the warmth element of the body which is only activated during the state of hsi, or respiratory cessation. All the transformations that come about are due to this state of hsi.] The practice of the inner heat doctrine entails directing the life-sustaining energies into the central channel. Here the energies enter, abide, and are dissolved. When one trains well in this technique, the strength of the experience has the power to give control over loss of the bodhimind substance [jing]. Then, based on this power, one can rely upon a karmamudra as a conducive condition to arouse the four blisses. On this foundation, innate ecstasy is aroused. Arousing this innate ecstasy is the purpose of the practices of the inner heat yoga [kundalini yoga practices] and karmamudra yoga [sexual cultivation practices]. … One reflects, “For the benefit of living beings as vast in number as the measure of the sky I will achieve the state of a Buddha Vajradhara. For this purpose I now take up the practice of chandali, the inner heat yoga.” Meditate like this until your stream of being is infused with the bodhimind [the compassionate objective to achieve enlightenment for the welfare of all beings], the bodhisattva aspiration. Visualizing yourself as the mandala deity, sit on your meditation seat, put on your meditation belt, cross the legs, and set the backbone erect. The neck is bent slightly forward, and the eyes cast downward at the angle of the nose. The tongue is held gently against the upper palate, and the teeth and lips set in their natural [closed] position. The body and mind are postured alertly, with the chest somewhat extended, and the hands in the meditation posture, placed just under the navel. One now visualizes the three energy channels. Firstly the central channel, avadhuti, is envisioned. It begins at a point four fingerwidths below the navel at the center of the body just in front of the spinal column. To its right is the channel known as rasana, and to its left is lalana. These channels proceed up the body to the head, like pillars supporting the four chakras. One imagines that the lower tips of the side channels curve up into the base of the central channel. This is done in order to draw the vital energies into the central channel. Not understanding this purpose, some teachers have said that the three channels just come to an end and stop at a distance four fingerwidths below the navel. Others have said that the two side channels just stop there (at the navel). (One visualizes the channels in this way for the purpose of meditation. But in fact) the channels continue on down, eventually coming to the tip of the jewel [sexual organs]. Above the central channel comes to the point between the eyebrows [which is why this is a common focus point for meditation], and the two side channels [ida and pingala] come to the inner passages of the two nostrils.
At the sites of the four chakras, the two side channels, rasana and lalana, wrap around the central channel, forming knots. Otherwise they (all three) run straight (up and down the body). As for the size of the channels, this varies at times of meditating and not meditating. There is no certain, fixed size. Moreover, as for the colors of the channels, a Harvest of Oral Tradition Teachings (Skt. Amnaya manjari) quotes The Mystic Kiss Tantra (Skt. Chaturyogini samputa tantra) as stating that during the meditation for arousing the inner heat, the central channel should be seen as having the color of the flame produced by burning sesame oil. Prior to that point in the training, however, the right channel should be seen as being red, the left white, and the central channel bluish. Now one visualizes the four chakras. Firstly at the navel is the chakra called “the wheel of emanation.” Its shape is somewhat triangular, like the (Sanskrit) syllable EH, and it has sixty-four petals. They are red in color, and stretch upward. Meditate upon it in this way. Here the arrangement of the petals is only roughly described. Details are not mentioned; but this is enough. At the heart is the chakra known as “the wheel of truth.” Its shape is somewhat circular, like the (Sanskrit syllable) BAM, and it has eight petals, white in color, extending downward. At the throat is the chakra known as “the wheel of enjoyment,” also somewhat circular in shape, like the syllable BAM. It has sixteen petals, red in color, reaching upward. At the crown is the chakra “the wheel of great ecstasy.” It also is somewhat triangular, like the syllable EH, and has thirty-two petals, is multi-colored, and its petals extend downward. The meditation should hold each of the (two) pairs of chakras within an according embrace of method and wisdom. When one begins the training of visualizing the three energy channels there are two aspects of the practice to which one should attend, namely, the radiance of the image and the meditative placement. That is to say, one must produce a collection of two factors: the radiant appearance of the envisioned channels; and the firmness of the meditation. The most important site for the placement of one’s awareness at the beginning of practice is the point in the region of the central channel where the three channels join. Based on this, one proceeds to visualize the four chakras, with their according number of petals, and to fix the mind on them. With persistence in the meditation the chakra petals become increasingly clear (in one’s mind), and the mind more firmly placed upon them. If after considerable effort no clarity is achieved with the chakras, place the mind solely on the image on the three channels. Concentrate especially on the portion above the heart chakra. If still no progress is forthcoming, prolonged application can incur dangerous obstacles. One therefore should relax the application, and place the mind instead on the point where the three channels join (at the lower part of the body). In this tradition there are two approaches to the practice: first to establish stable clarity in the radiant appearance of the channels and chakras for a prolonged period of time; and not to do so. The former is the most effective approach. The (Indian) mahasiddha Lawapa also gave the advice that we should cultivate the radiant appearance of the channels. Here if one wishes to conjoin the practice with that of retaining the breath, one should do as explained earlier (with the breath technique instruction). It, the physical exercises, and the meditation on the body as an empty shell, can be engaged in rotation. This should also be applied to what comes later. … Meditating … on the inner heat yoga has the purpose of inducing the four blisses. To effect this, first the bodhimind substance in the channels must be melted, and together with the vital energies in the channels must be brought to the chakra at the crown [of the head]. This generates the first bliss, known simply as “bliss.” The substances in
the channels again flow, and then collect at the chakra at the throat; the second bliss, known as “supreme bliss,” is aroused. Again the substances flow, and then collect at the chakra at the heart; the third bliss, known as “special bliss,” arises. Fourthly, the energies collect at the chakra at the navel; the bliss known as “innate bliss” is induced. It is important in each of these four chakra meditations that the mind is held on the mantric syllable at the center of each individual chakra, which is (located at) the center of the central channel, called avadhuti [sushumna], as this makes it easier to collect the vital energies (at the specific chakra being meditated upon). At each of the four sites a unique experience of bliss is aroused, and one must cultivate the ability to consciously recognize these in one’s own experience. The bodhimind substance [jing, or endocrine hormones] that resides in the upper chakra is melted and brought to each of the four chakras, where it must be retained. If one cannot hold it in the chakras for a prolonged period of time one will not be able to appreciate the uniqueness of each of the four experiences of bliss. In particular, one will not be able to discern the uniqueness of the fourth, the innate bliss. If one can achieve stability in the technique of holding the mind at the four chakras for prolonged periods, one will be able to control the movement of the bodhimind substance for an according degree of time. This is an important key to progress. … In general, ecstasy may be experienced either by meditators who melt the bodhimind substance by means of the [Tantric] yogas described earlier, or by those who have not meditated in this way. In both cases there will be the kindling of the inner fires at the navel and secret place chakras, and from this heat the bodhimind substances will be caused to move; but this does not necessarily mean that the flow will be contained within the central channel. Thus some practitioners experience melting of the substances and also the blisses, even though they have not generated the ability to direct the energies into the central channel. This frequently occurs when using certain techniques of meditation that focus on particular points of the body. Once the bodhimind substance [jing] begins to move one should establish firm control over it before it arrives at the vajra jewel chakra, or it will prove very difficult to retain. From the beginning one applies the outer and inner methods to cause the bodhimind substance to move downward. While it is passing through the upper chakras, and before it arrives at the jewel chakra, one must exert strong methods to control it. Similarly, the moment it arrives at the jewel chakra one must exert this control forcefully in order to halt its movement. Here one must take care, for if these methods are applied too vigorously the drop may be incorrectly diffused into the bodily paths, causing any of a variety of illnesses. A number of methods of correctly diffusing the drop have been discussed by various lamas. What we want here is to discern the process of dissolving the vital energies into avadhuti, the central channel, and thus melting in other ways. A discussion of crucial distinctions, such as the ease of difficulty of retaining control of the drop, often is not found (in Tantric manuals). One must understand the principles of how much force to apply in the controlling process, precisely when such application is required and not required, and how to avoid incurring physical illness through incorrectly diffusing the drop into the bodily paths. These are not discussed with sufficient clarity (in some traditions of tantric practice). The main purpose behind these meditations that ignite the inner heat and melt the bodhimind substances is to arouse the innate bliss. In this process one melts the bodhimind substances and causes them to descend. In general, when they arrive at the chakras below the navel, and in particular when they arrive at the jewel chakra, they must be prevented from being ejaculated, and must be held at that site for some time. Otherwise one will not experience the authentic innate bliss. To arouse the innate bliss of the completion stage yogas one must first dissolve and then retain the vital energies in the central channel. …
As explained earlier in the description of the descending process, the bodhimind substance is melted and arrives at the chakra at the tip of the jewel. If one can retain it without ejaculation, the innate ecstasy will be aroused. At that time one must engage mindfulness of the view of emptiness to be ascertained, and must place the mind firmly there. Rest within the inseparable ecstasy and (wisdom of) emptiness. Even if you do not have a profound understanding of the emptiness doctrine, at least avoid all distractions and rest in the singular ecstasy of the experience until the absorption becomes stable, mixing this with the beyond-conceptuality consciousness. While doing this, retain the bodhimind substance in the jewel chakra for some time. Then reverse it, bringing it back up to the crown chakra. This gives rise to the “rising-from-below” innate wisdom. Identify this clearly in the awareness, and then fix the mind in the sphere of ecstasy conjoined with (the wisdom of) emptiness. If this is impossible, then simply try to rest the mind in the ecstasy and to blend this with the beyond-conceptuality consciousness. Remain in that state for as long as possible. This is the manner in which one cultivates the experience during formal meditation sessions. [In other words, you must not only cultivate the descending blisses, but must cultivate the reverse process of the ascending blisses as well. In this process you bring the energies, meaning the chi and drops, up through the central channel from below so that the stage of “bliss” is generated by the navel chakra, “supreme bliss” is generated at the heart chakra, “special bliss” is generated at the throat chakra, and “innate bliss” is aroused via the head chakra.] As for how to cultivate the training during the post-meditation periods, one should note that in general merely the presence of the innate ecstasy in meditation does not mean that the realization will automatically carry over into the post-meditation periods. The ecstasy that was experienced will not necessarily become manifest in (perception of) the objects that appear during everyday activities. That by itself is not enough. During the post-meditation periods one must consciously cultivate mindfulness of the experience of ecstasy and emptiness, and stamp all objects and events that appear and occur with the seal of this ecstasy and emptiness. This application causes a special ecstasy to be ignited, which one should foster. Although this approach is not clearly elucidated in some of the oral traditions, it is explained in detail in the Marpa lineage as transmitted to Lama Ngokpa. Also, it is taught in several of the original tantras, including The Hevajra Root Tantra. Therefore it is important not to ignore it. Thus one practices both during meditation sessions and in the post-meditation periods. In this way one proceeds by conjoining meditation on the inner fire, uniting the vital energies, and invoking the four blisses.2
Just as water can wash away impurities, in the fire visualization you imagine that all your internal obstructions and body impurities are burned away by a blazing fire. That's the key point -- everything becomes a mass of white and Is burned away so that there is only dust, and then emptiness. Crystal clear, pristine emptiness.
2
Tsongkhapa’s Six Yogas of Naropa, Glenn H. Mullin (Snow Lion Publications, New York, 1996), pp. 139-164.
You might choose to visualize that everything is burned away until even the atoms are destroyed, and only emptiness is left or you can adopt an Esoteric School technique and imagine that your body conjoins with the image of the sun, which radiates an irrepressible shining light that purifies your body and mind. Linking with that light, you become light which is invisible, formless, everywhere. The Tao school talks of transforming jing into chi and chi into shen, but here you imagine you are transforming your entire body into the brightly shining silvery light of a large round sun. Stay with that visualization. Hold the brightness. Later, you can turn into emptiness … emptiness with no thinking clarity. This is a tremendous visualization for purifying the physical nature and entering samadhi. People who are sick often use radiation or lasers to become cured, but you can also use a fire visualization to imagine that you are shining fire or light energy on any part of your body that's sick to help it get cured. You want to imagine that you burn bad chi away, and consciousness concentrated on a point will tend to bring chi to that point. This is a minor offshoot of the basic fire visualization method which has been adapted for healing purposes. Does it work? For some people yes. An article on the website about cancer meditations can explain more in detail. Some individuals try to cultivate the fire element by absorbing the light of the sun, which is practiced in
Taoism. Yogi ascetics and orthodox Hinduism also have their own various fire, or Agni practices. In Esoteric Buddhism, there is also the method where you imagine that you are sitting in the center of the sun and become unified with its being. You imagine your body and mind melt and merge with the sun, while remembering Buddha's saying that "The true nature of fire is emptiness. Because our fundamental nature is empty it can give birth to fire. Originally our fundamental nature is clear, calm, and peaceful extending across the entire universe. The extent to which you can understand this depends upon your wisdom, practice and experience." If you can attain the fire visualization samadhi, you can burn things at a thought or transform your body into a pillar of fire, as the Tibetan master Gampopa often demonstrated. However, if someone looks at you quite carefully, they will still see the shadow of a person sitting there in the flames. You can find mention of this also in a book called Maharaj, but recognize that the Indian master in that book, despite his experiences, never made it to the genuine first dhyana. All of the four elements have a purity and impurity aspect to them; because of its purifying aspect, fire can thus be used to clean ourselves, and each of the other elements can be used to "clean" (purify) the body as well just as water does. Birds, for Instance, often wash themselves with dirt. Each of the five elements can thus become a doorway to entering into a stage of peacefulness and calm. They can all become entryways Into samadhi. For example, water makes us clean but for other beings it's fire (warmth) which makes them clean, earth or wind (air).
The four elements all have an aspect or dirtiness as well as cleanliness which we can make use of to enter samadhi. If you can combine the fire visualization results with prajna transcendental wisdom, then you can achieve real emptiness. Remember, the fire visualization technique is to imagine that you are a bright sun and to lose yourself in that visualization to cultivate emptiness. Or, you can cultivate the kundalini element as instructed, which is another way of cultivating the fire element. Or you can imagine that fire burns away your body and karma so that what is left is empty and pure. Use what works once you know the principles. Understand, and then develop a method yourself. What you use as a meditation doesn’t matter so much as long as it is virtuous, nonharmful and effective. Using what works, along these lines, is what Buddhism calls “expedient” or “skillful means”.
CULTIVATING THE EARTH ELEMENT Lao Tzu said that "Man should harmonize with the Earth, Earth harmonizes with Heaven, Heaven harmonizes with Tao, and the Tao harmonizes with what is natural". Tao doesn't follow anything, for that's just its nature. "Natural" means it Is supposed to do this and that's why it's the self-nature. All living beings survive on this Earth by depending on this Earth, and when they die they return to this Earth. The Earth is so great to us because it gives us life, food, and happiness. It supports all the other elements, which is something you find in Chinese fortune telling (all the other elements can be found in earth). But the way we reward the Earth is to give it back dirty things, like pollution. Human beings take away everything good, but return nothing good to Mother Earth at all. And yet Earth continues to give all things to every being without complaining. She just continues her compassionate giving and never stops protecting and providing life. If we can transform our mind so that it's as grand and generous as the Earth -- always giving so that it is holding onto nothing -- then this is the Mahayana way of earth cultivation. It’s the cultivation of earth generosity, just as we have the Mahayana method of water cultivation. In the long run, it all comes down to behavior which is why I’m stressing these techniques. The Hinayana method of earth cultivation is a different meditation method entirely, and not many people have been
able to successfully cultivate this practice in the past. You can read about one or two in Tibet that have succeeded with it, and martial artists in China, but not many can do so. Typically they demonstrate the mastery of the earth element although they achieved their samadhi-dhyana through other cultivation methods. To practice the earth visualization, you must first go into the mountains, or find a suitable cave or wall to face because you have to sit facing some solid earthen obstacle. You must find a location with good chi, because you will not succeed if the area is uncomfortable,. One of the secrets to the Tibetan rainbow body practice, for instance, is the fact that it is more easily accomplished in dry locations of high altitude, and locations with a particular feng shui. When you finally find a suitable location without distractions, assume the standard sitting meditation position, relax your body and mind, and then begin. First you let your eyes become still as you look at the earthen barrier in front of you. Next, relax your eyes so they naturally recede a bit and are soft instead of stressed, and your forehead doesn't have the wrinkles of eye strain or mental strain. Then you visualize the earth element in front of you as becoming empty. That's all there is to the method. When you can finally achieve this to what we call a "stage of attainment," which is accompanied by various special signs, you then extend this emptiness to your body, and then the entire world, and then the cosmos. If you can do it successfully then you'll obtain the "foot superpower" whereby you can walk through walls or mountains
without obstruction, or be able to travel unimpeded under the ground; nothing will present a physical, impenetrable obstacle for you. When you achieve this stage, it's equivalent in Taoist terminology to the point where the body “becomes full of shen (spirit),” and your body and shen become integrated into one. That’s a big secret. A BIG secret I just told you. The most complete description of this method of meditating on the earth elements, and all the other elements as well, can be found in early Buddhist Hinayana texts on the "kasinas". These texts, In particular The Path of Purification, discuss the meditation methods of concentrating on the elements, and the "counterpart signs" or stages of gong-fu which arise when you are successful in their practice. For instance, mastering the earth kasina, or earth element meditation, is responsible for the ability to sit on space or on water through creation of the earth element, and it enables one to make duplicates of the physical body. When a master flies through the air it’s one thing, but when they seem to walk through space it’s because they generate the earth element beneath their feet so that they can stand in the air. The water kasina is the basis for being able to cause rain, storms, create rivers, and dive in and out of the earth. The fire kasina is the basis for the ability to burn only what one wants, countering fire with fire, and so on. The air kasina is the basis for causing wind storms and being able to go with the power of the wind. The space kasina is responsible for being able to travel unobstructed through
walls, creating space inside rocks, and revealing the hidden. Further information on these meditation methods can be found in: The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa, trans. by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka, 1991. The Bodhisattva Dharanimdhara practiced and succeeded in attaining the earth element samadhi through a slightly different technique than just described, and I personally favor his technique. It is reported in the Surangama Sutra. He imagined that his body was made of atoms, which he knew did not connect with one another, and the Surangama Sutra records of his attainment method The Buddha Visvabhu at one time placed his hand on Dharanimdhara Bodhisattva’s head and said: “You should level your mind-ground, then all things in the world will be on the same level.” Upon hearing this, my mind opened and I perceived that the molecules of my body did not differ from those of which the world is made. These molecules were such that they did not touch one another and could not even be touched by sharp objects. I then awakened to the uncreated, unborn nature and attained enlightenment.
Think about it -- atoms are not only empty, but don't tough each other either and yet things appear to us as being solid. Since the air around you is also made of atoms which do not connect with one another, where does your body stop and your not-body begin? If that's the case, stop holding onto what you previously perceived to be your body because now you know that that thought construct is in error! The elements of your body pervade the universe--everything is your body in the material. If you contemplate this realization and continue letting go of both body and mind,
like the Bodhisattva Dharanimdhara you will be able to achieve samadhi. This meditation method, or dharma doorway to realizing the Tao, is realizing the sameness of the earth element pervading existence, and you can use the same method for the water, fire and wind elements as well.
CULTIVATING THE WIND ELEMENT "Anapana" or "pranayama" practices, are the cultivation practices for the wind element. Basically they are just breath retention exercises to clear your chi (energy) channels. Alternatively, they can be practices to calm your breath and thereby calm your mind so that you can reach emptiness since both are interlinked. If your breath stops and discriminative thinking stops, your real chi (kundalini) will be activated and you'll become initiated on the spiritual path. By training your body to attain this state, and by practicing this state directly, you can attain samadhi. By cultivating the wind element, namely your chi or vital energy (prana), you can also gain superpowers as well. Most spiritual schools use breathing methods, such as mantra recitation, because of the five elements of the body the wind element is the easiest to transform. From that foothold in transforming one's chi, or wind element, one can go on to transform the other four elements of your physical nature. It's not that the physical nature is important to spiritual cultivation, but that you must transform your body so that it does not represent an obstacle to the path and by transforming it, you make it a more fit vehicle for succeeding on the path. This is so important that we should take a short recess and review some important cultivation principles that apply to all these five element cultivation techniques.
Remember that the major principle behind the five elements schema is that the entire universe, including the physical body, is composed of these five great elements, each with their own independent domain, and that the path of spiritual cultivation--as far as it concerns the physical body-involves the progressive transformation or purification of these elements. One of the questions in cultivation are: how do you purify these elements, in what particular order do you proceed in purifying the elements (if there is one), can you use concentration son the five elements to attain samadhi, what are the principles behind this, what are the instructions, and why should you do this in the first place? In general, the various cultures of the world take the earth element to represent the aspect of material solidity, meaning the supporting structure of physical matter. In terms of our bodies this means substances such as our hair, nails, teeth, bones, skin, flesh, muscles and marrow. As to the fire element, it represents the factor of heat and warmth that we find in life and nature. The kundalini phenomenon is the activation of the body’s fire element, and in so activating it you can use that to gradually enter into samadhi. That is, if you know the proper practice principles. Anything to do with movement, change and expansion represents the wind element, which is therefore called the “wood” element in Chinese. Our respiratory functions correspond to the wind element, but so does the factor of human growth since it represents the wind factor of expansion, transformation and movement. Chi, or prana, is the wind element of our physical nature that you can cultivate to attain samadhi.
As to the water element, it represents the principle of cohesion between objects as well as the factor of liquidity as one would naturally expect. Our body’s saliva, tears, blood, semen, hormones and urine all belong to the realm of the water element. Our chi mai, chakras and hormones to some extent belong to the water element. During the process of spiritual cultivation, you already know that the physical body will undergo tremendous transformations. These various transformations represent physical purifications that correspond to the progress you make in spiritual development. If you achieve these transformations you’re making progress, and if you don’t achieve these transformations then you haven’t yet reached that particular stage of spiritual attainment. Read that again: if you achieve these physical transformations then you’ve reached that stage of spiritual progress, and if you haven’t experienced or achieved these transformations, then you haven’t reached that corresponding degree of spiritual advancement. It’s not that they don’t exist. If you don’t have them you haven’t practiced enough to reach that stage of transformation, so don’t kid yourself. I cannot stress that enough. No matter what cultivation school or religion you may practice, the physical body will definitely undergo these physical transformations as you scale the ranks of spiritual progress and if you don’t experience these transformations, then it’s actually because your practice is deficient. There is no other explanation, and there is no denying this fact.
That’s why it’s important to publicly reveal these phenomena as one of the many independent measuring schemes of your spiritual progress. The form-based cultivation schools of the world--such as yoga, Esoteric Buddhism, Taoism and modern science— especially emphasize these physical yardsticks of the spiritual path and spiritual progress because that’s the basic nature of schools. In short, they emphasize physical rather than mental transformation since they are form schools. Unfortunately, that very focus on form is why their adherents have a tougher time achieving great spiritual illumination, which is a warning to us not to become too trapped to focusing on any of the five elements. The Tao school has described one mechanism for cataloging these physical-spiritual transformations, but this is not the only mechanism possible. We can also describe these transformations – called “gongfu” -- by referring to the gradual purification of the body’s five elements, and many of the world’s cultivation schools have chosen this schema. They describe the spiritual path in terms of a progressive purification of the five elements that compose the physical nature, and so this is another way to measure spiritual progress that we should consider. So while you purchased this book thinking you would just get meditation techniques, you are also getting lessons on this five elements schema. Through Taoism we know that an individual first starts out on the spiritual path by cultivating their jing, chi, shen, and then by achieving a profound state of genuine emptiness.
If we translate this process into the system of the five elements, it means that a meditator first cultivates the wind, water, fire, earth and then space elements within their physical body and esoteric structures. That’s the typical order of sequential cultivation practice: one first purifies the wind, then water, fire, earth and finally space elements of their physical body. Some spiritual schools explain this same sequence using the names of planets (such as Mercury, Mars and so forth) having elemental correspondences, and some describe it in terms of various mythical gods or literary figures as we find in Medieval Christian alchemy. Nevertheless, this same general sequence of cultivation is what’s usually experienced throughout the world’s cultivation schools. Wind → water → fire → earth → space. We can more readily understand the five elements method of describing the cultivation path when we examine the various transformations that occur, as catalogued by Taoism, when an individual devotes himself to an intensive path of meditation practice. As Taoism states, after one year of successful practice, the chi of your body can then start to be transformed. This, as we know, corresponds to the wind element of the physical nature. After several more years of devoted practice an individual’s blood, mai and muscle fibers can be transformed which correspond to the body’s water element. After about seven or eight years of practice, the individual can finally work on truly transforming their bones and hair—the earth element--and then finally the entire body itself along with all its inter- and intracellular spaces (the space element) can be transformed.
We’ve left out the fire element in this sequence because it doesn’t correspond to a physical structure, but all the other sequences are correct. As to the fire element, we’ll get to it in a minute. The first question to ask, however, is why does this entire process first start with the transformation of the wind element? The simple answer is the following: because it’s the easiest of the five elements to transform, and this is why most spiritual schools emphasize breathing practices for beginning cultivation practitioners. Most cultivation schools use the breathing practices because the wind element is the easiest of the five elements to transform, and from the spiritual and physical transformations of their chi and mind it brings about(since the two are linked), they use that foothold to enter into the higher spiritual trail. Breathing exercises, such as the pranayama of yoga or the chi-gong practices of the Tao school, are targeted at igniting your vital energies so that they arise, and this is cultivating the chi and then warmth elements of the physical nature. Hence the reason most cultivation schools start with this form of practice is because the wind element of the physical nature is the easiest of its five elements to transform, and from this you can ignite the warmth element. If you cultivate the breath you can readily affect your chi, and in turn you can cultivate consciousness since chi and consciousness are linked. Cultivating the breath is therefore considered the easiest inroad into the overall
process of achieving results in spiritual cultivation. As even modern psychology explains, Since our brain is fully saturated with blood at all times, and our blood chemistry is affected by our breathing style, it follows that our pattern of breathing affects our consciousness and thus our conscious states. In other words, by affecting blood chemistry, our breathing style changes our neurology and consequently our attitudinal state [and consciousness].3
Of course the science behind spiritual results is more complicated than this, but this is a very good way to understand the power and reasonings behind this form of cultivation practice. There are all sorts of ways people use to ignite the warmth element of the body, including pranayama and even dancing. Of course the best and highest kundalini practices don’t involve force at all but simply getting your real chi to arise because you cultivate mental emptiness. Once initiated, the phenomenon should be maintained all the time for a period of months until the purificatory process is completed. If you get quick progress on the cultivation path then you’ll likely be encouraged further on the spiritual trail, so it’s logical to initially teach people breathing cultivation exercises for cultivating the wind element because they usually produces the quickest results possible. Being quite simple about it, that’s one reason why most schools push practitioners toward breathing practices. Of course the other big reason for this preference is the fact our chi (the wind element) and consciousness are interlinked, and chi is linked to our breathing. The linkage is the following: if you pacify your breathing then you can pacify your chi and in turn your mind stream, and since this is the main objective of most spiritual 3
Instant Rapport, Michael Brooks, (Warner Books, New York, 1989), p. 25.
practice, most schools therefore teach you to achieve this objective through the angle of cultivating the breath. From any humble inroads you make because of chi cultivation achieved through breath work, a spiritual student can then move forward from this foundation onto more difficult cultivation tasks. Since cultivating your chi can produce substantial changes in the physical body that appear along the proper lines necessary for cultivation success, it’s quite understandable that most cultivation schools will instruct their practitioners to practice various pranayama or breathing exercises. Breathing practices will quite readily affect the wind element of our body (the chi), from which positive gong-fu transformations will easily be initiated, and so this explains why breathing exercises are commonly stipulated as the initial road of practice in many spiritual traditions. In short, cultivating the wind element is perhaps the easiest way to enter into an experience of mental “emptiness,” but the initial result of such practices isn’t the real emptiness of spiritual cultivation. Instead, the type of emptiness you can initially achieve from cultivating the breath represents only a minor form of mental stilling. However, if a practitioner learns how to let go of that initial mental calming and seeks to learn what stands behind it, then they can pass onto higher stages of cultivation. To make things more complicated and yet still illustrate the point, the Tao school says that “cultivating life” requires you to restore your lost jing and energy, and it also says that “refining life” will require the use of fire to refine these substances.
Fire cannot exist without air (the wind element), so successful cultivators will never be able to bypass cultivation of the wind element if they want to cultivate their internal life. To cultivate the kundalini or fire element, you must have already ignited transformations affecting the wind element of the body. That’s why various spiritual schools use various breathing practices at the initial rungs of cultivation practice. Kundalini cultivation, which is often referred to as cultivating the body’s warmth element, is actually just a type of breathing practice that jointly involves the wind and fire elements of the body. Remember here that for life to exist there needs to be warmth, consciousness (which entails chi, the wind element, or movement) and duration. Kundalini cultivation, for the purposes of cultivating the spiritual life, is what links the warmth and wind element involvements within this trio. So from this shortest of discussions we can already correct many modern misconceptions about kundalini and its importance in the overall cultivation scheme of things. We can now recognize that kundalini cultivation is just a cultivation practice that focuses on physical form, whereas the greatest of cultivation methods focus on prajna wisdom instead! Did you get that? The methods of cultivating the five elements are not to be clung to. They are simply entry ways into samadhi, and the physical nature is not something that you aim to cultivate. You only use meditations involving the five elements to gain mental emptiness and samadhi.
So far I have not discussed many details on the state of “hsi” or “tai hsi” which occurs when the external breathing stops during meditation due to real achievement in meditation practice. Patanjali of the Indian yoga tradition defined pranayama as the gap between your inhalation and exhalation, and this gap will occur naturally if you meditate properly or follow your breath properly. This gap of respiratory pausation corresponds to what the Tao calls “hsi.” This particular gap of no-respiration is the place where the real chi, real prana or kundalini of the body arises, and so this is why Shakyamuni Buddha commented, “Life is just between the inhalation and exhalation.” The Tantraloka of Kashmir Saivism also says, “Do not worship the Lord during the day. Do not worship the Lord during the night. The Lord must be worshipped at the point of the meeting of day and night.”4 In other words, the proper thing to cultivate is the junction … whether it is the junction between the thoughts, or breath. Remember that point. It’s the most important principle so far. What all these spiritual cultivation schools are trying to tell us is that there is definitely something wonderful, something of extreme importance about this particular state of respiratory pausation that you can achieve by cultivating the wind element. In fact, when you analyze the purpose of various breathing practices in the world’s spiritual traditions, you’ll find that their main purpose is to help you clear your chi channels and to train you to encounter and then naturally dwell in that pausation gap for a prolonged period of time without strain.
The reason you want to do this is because that’s when the real chi of the body will become activated, and when the real chi (life force) of the body becomes activated, that’s when all sorts of spiritual transformations can start to take place. Kundalini arises only in this instance. The yoga schools usually train you to achieve this gap of respiratory cessation by having you practice various breath retention exercises that can be quite forceful in nature. Nevertheless, they can indeed help you to clear your chi channels of internal obstructions. So while the point of these practices is to train you to become able to reach the point where you’re not externally breathing anymore, most people miss this critical principle entirely. They miss the whole point of these exercises. This type of cessation is the important thing, and is called the “fourth type” in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Actually, it’s the most important type of cessation: Different techniques [of yoga] involve holding the breath within (after inhalation), or without (after exhalation), or the suspension of the breath, with conscious effort. There are different types, too, some prolonged, some subtle (short) – different also in regard to the place where the breath is held, the duration of the retention, and the number of times it is practised. There is a fourth type which is the spontaneous suspension of breath, … Then, the veil of psychic impurity and spiritual ignorance that covers the inner light is thinned and rent asunder.5
In all schools of spiritual cultivation—no matter what they are—when you are meditating you must reach this point of breath cessation naturally without force because it’s the very beginning of a new spiritual life. The Tao school even calls this point of cessation the beginning of “internal embryo breathing” because it sets into motion an internal circulation of chi while external respiration ceases. 4
Self Realization in Kashmir Shaivism, John Hughes, (SUNY Press, Albany: New York, 1994), p. 39. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Swami Venkatesananda, (The Divine Life Society, Himalayas: India, 1998), pp. 243-245. 5
Since a baby in a mother’s womb doesn’t engage in external respiration and yet lives in peace, then when you activate this stage of hsi and initiate your internal chi circulation, the result is that you’ll be able to survive without external respiration as well. That’s why this stage is called internal embryo breathing. This is actually the stage when the true kundalini is initiated, whereas what people usually identify as “kundalini” is just the frictional phenomenon you typically feel when your chi first begins to clean your energy channels. That’s’ a yin kundalini awakening that’s painful, whereas the yang-type awakening is warm and blissful and felt in every cell of your body. That type of experience arises only with emptiness cultivation. The entire point of the various yoga pranayama practices is to help you clear your nadi and mai so that you can more readily enter into this particular emptiness attainment naturally. But you don’t need to practice these exercises if you want to reach this stage, because it can be reached even more simply through spontaneous mental resting! Cultivate emptiness and you gain everything. Become transfixed on the body or five elements of the body, and you can create detours and side attractions that keep you from the path forever. So use your wisdom, use your wisdom. Don’t cling to form. Get this—if you just learn how to combine your breath with your thoughts and watch them so they’ll calm down together, then over time your chi mai will all open up and you’ll reach this stage of respiratory cessation quite naturally. That sort of result is true wind element cultivation, is inherent in Zen school practice, and if this sort of
practice can be inculcated into a society’s culture, in time a people will become more wise and successful in spiritual cultivation and all their other mundane efforts. The Gherand Samhita of Hinduism says “When the nadis [mai] are full of impurities, vayu [chi] does not enter them,”6 and thus the first stages of successful meditation always involve opening the chi channels and clearing them of obstructions. How do you clear the mai, which correspond to the water element of the body? By cultivating the chi, which is the wind element! When you cultivate the wind element, you’ll naturally end up cultivating both the body’s water and fire elements. While all the chi mai channels of the body are important-just as all our nerves and lymph and blood vessels are important—you must understand that the most prominent chi channel of the body is the central channel called the sushumna. This channel is emphasized in most cultivation schools because if it is blocked, you cannot enter into samadhi. Thus the Hatha Yoga Pradipika says, The vital air [prana] does not pass in the [sushumna] middle channel because the nadis are full of impurities. So how can the state of unmani arise and how can perfection or siddhi come about? … Therefore pranayama should be done daily with a sattvic state of mind so that the impurities are driven out of sushumna nadi and purification occurs. ... By proper practice of pranayama, all diseases are eradicated. Through improper practice all diseases can arise ... According to some teachers, pranayama alone removes impurities and therefore they hold pranayama in esteem and not the other techniques.7
What I wish to emphasize in this quotation is the following, “According to some teachers, pranayama alone removes impurities and therefore they hold pranayama in esteem and not the other techniques.” In Hinduism and yoga we also encounter the following commentary as well: “The soul purified by pranayama realizes the Supreme Spirit, the Para 6
Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Swami Muktibodhananda Saraswati (Bihar School of Yoga, Bihar: India, 1993), p. 140. 7 Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Swami Muktibodhananda Saraswati (Bihar School of Yoga, Bihar: India, 1993), pp. 140, 144, 160, 200.
Brahman, hence, according to the scripture of Principial Revelation, the Shruti, there is nothing higher than pranayama.”8 We also find in the Shiva Samhita, “The Lord of yoga, through breath control, gains the eight superhuman powers. He crosses beyond the ocean of sin and virtue and freely wanders in the three worlds.”9 All these texts are taken from Hinduism just to show you that the major cultivation schools of the world all agree on the same thing. Turn to Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and even mystical Christianity, and you will find the exact same cultivation lessons. It’s clear from this yoga quotation that the purpose of various breath retention exercises is to help you purify your body’s chi channels so that you can naturally reach a stage of cessation wherein your breathing peacefully stops without the use of effort, and you thereby enter into samadhi. The only reason you practice forceful breath retention techniques in spiritual training – such as pranayama techniques from Indian yoga -- is to help speed the purification process of opening your chi channels, but that’s not the actual true practice of pranayama. You’re only really practicing pranayama when you reach this stage of natural respiratory cessation, and can dwell within it for a prolonged period of time. That’s the true form of pranayama practice, which is to reach a state of respiratory cessation with internal embryo breathing going on inside.
8
Yoga: Mastering the Secrets of Matter and the Universe, Alain Danielou, (Inner Traditions International, Rochester: Vermont, 1991), p. 72.
This is when you’re really cultivating the true chi of the physical nature. This is when it becomes truly active. The chi or wind element that is initiated at this time is the body’s true life force. Because your life force has awakened at this time and becomes active, you don’t need to resort to external respiration when it’s initiated and roused from its slumber. Doesn’t it make sense that you’d have to in some way cultivate your life force if you want to climb the ranks of spirituality? This is where this requirement is actually satisfied, and most people try to get to this state by cultivating various breathing exercises! To this end, most people in the yoga schools practice kumbhaka, which is a forceful retention of the breath involving conscious effort and willpower. However, we must emphasize once again that the real yoga kumbhaka is kevala kumbhaka, meaning that the respiratory cessation becomes spontaneous. This is the point which the Taoists call “hsi,” which is when the kundalini starts to arise and you gain the genuine chance to enter into samadhi. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika confirms this in saying, “When exhalation and inhalation both cease (and the movement of prana ceases), the enjoyment of the senses is annihilated, and when there is no effort, then a changeless state (of mind) occurs and the yogi attains samadhi.” It also tells us that the method which brings about the arousal of the kundalini is the mentality of non-clinging we find in meditation, for “The yogi who has raised the kundalini and has freed himself from all clinging karma will
9
Yoga: Mastering the Secrets of Matter and the Universe, Alain Danielou, (Inner Traditions International, Rochester: Vermont, 1991), p. 72.
reach samadhi naturally."10 This explains why various Christian contemplatives would exhibit spiritual insight, healing powers, or the “gifts” of prophecy and clairvoyance after passing through this preliminary stage of cultivation. Unfortunately, because so many yoga practitioners attach themselves to artificial techniques requiring force, then in not knowing of any other routes of cultivation they begin to think that this forceful means of practice is the one and only true means of spiritual practice. Founding all their practice upon this particular misconception, it’s understandable when their latter practice goes astray or reaches a limit as to its highest stage of attainment. While such artificial cultivation techniques do indeed result in a more healthy physical body, they don’t necessarily lead to realizing the true Tao as it is. Rather, by themselves they usually just lead to phenomenal rather than mental attainments, or just the lowest of samadhi attainments. After all, the effect of air moving in and out of the body is only a type of movement, and where is there any chi accumulation, alchemical refinement, or spiritual immortality in this? To really attain the highest of spiritual perfections, you absolutely must choose the route of cultivating prajna transcendental wisdom, which means mastering the empty universal awareness present in a moment of mind. On the other hand, what you really want to do with forceful breathing techniques is ignite the inherent, internal potential energy of your body that comes along with life. When you can ignite this inherent life force, or kundalini, then you can also start down the road of achieving genuine 10
The Yoga of Light, Hans-Ulrich Rieker, trans. by Elys Becherer, (Dawn Horse Press, Middletown: California,1971), p. 147.
spiritual results, but nevertheless the highest road of practice is to cultivate prajna wisdom. This doesn’t mean that cultivating your breath (the wind element) is wrong, for it’s a wonderful way to practice. This little dialogue only serves to emphasize its importance in the overall scheme of things. Remember that all types of successful cultivation, even in the Zen school, will end up initiating the kundalini phenomena. Since all practitioners must pass through this stage of achievement, there is nothing wrong with cultivating the breath as long as you know what you’re doing. It is a wonderful way to practice, and quite suitable for most spiritual practitioners. But you have to know how to practice correctly. As the Netra Tantra (8:12-13) of Kashmir Shaivism says, If when breathing in and breathing out you maintain a continual awareness on the center between the incoming and outgoing breath, then your breath will spontaneously and progressively become more refined. At that point you are elevated to another world. That is pranayama.11
On the negative side, the prolonged use of forceful form school techniques may lead to various harmful attachments, and they can even end up producing misleading “semblance dharmas” rather than the genuine stages of cultivation gongfu which are desired. Semblance dharmas are artificial cultivation attainments that mimic the real spiritual attainments because they look almost exactly the same, but which are not the real thing. Many in fact, are unnatural in that they can only be maintained through force. Since the Zen school, as well as the authentic schools of Taoism and Esoteric Buddhism, avoided the use of any artificial cultivation techniques, they usually bypassed this problem of creating forced
semblance dharmas. Nevertheless it’s a principle you must become aware of. Now people usually think "wind" just refers to the nostril breathing of the lungs, but there are actually nine holes in the body (seven in the head and two below), and all of them are constantly breathing. Even the pores of our cells are breathing but human beings are only aware of their coarse nostril respiration. Cover your skin cells with paint, however, and you'll die. Now for most people, thoughts and breathing usually function a bit independently even though they are linked (when you are calm your breathing is calm, when afraid or excited your breathing gets excited, etc.) but in cultivating the wind element, you try to reach the stage where they become perfectly unified and totally combine into one. This is a cultivation method that Shakyamuni Buddha told his son, Rahula, who succeeded using this technique. You can also find a free article on our website, www.meditationexpert.com , where Master Nan Huai-chin instructs a student on how to practice anapana correctly. When your mind calms down then the mind which is able to know, and the object of your knowing, both become clear. So to start cultivating the wind element, every moment you should observe your breathing. If your breathing calms down to the point of cessation and your mind becomes clear, this is more powerful than thousands of other cultivation methods combined. But you must first start this process by understanding the inhalation and exhalation of your breath, and the point of cessation between them.
11
Self Realization in Kashmir Shaivism, John Hughes, (SUNY Press, Albany: New York, 1994), p. 41.
All the esoteric meditation methods -- In Tantra, yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, and Taoism -- rely on the cultivation of the wind element. The fire visualization technique, for instance, should be matched with the cultivation of your breath; when the wind element (breath) arises during the fire visualization, you imagine the fire getting bigger and increasing in size. You can use anapana, which is cultivating the wind element, to break open all the obstructions in your body, which makes it a method of chi and chi channel cultivation. When your chi mai (chi channels or acupuncture meridians) start to open, you'll feel bodily bliss and joy and at this time, your need for external respiration will decline. Your breath will calm down naturally and seemingly disappear. As the obstructions in the body are eliminated, you also won't get drowsy anymore because now the chi can flow freely. On the other hand, if the body pains you in a certain location, this is because chi cannot pass through that location. The chi mai aren't open or there is some sort of obstruction. The wind element is very important to master in cultivation because it can free your body of all these obstructions. You don’t have to guide your chi at all, which qi-gong people mistakenly do, but simply cultivate the fullness of chi and then activate your chi so that It can do all the chi channel cleaning itself. The Tien-tai school heavily relies upon the method of cultivating the wind element and Indian yoga relies on wind cultivation, too, but both schools fail to emphasize some of the important principles. For instance, wind has no specific form. It has no material form, no sound, no shape, no structure. Sometimes we say we can "hear the sound of the
wind," but that's not wind. Rather, it's the resistance of wind hitting an obstruction that we hear … we only hear the frictional experience of wind with some blockage. Wind has no sound or smell, but smells and scents flow with it. Rightfully, we can therefore say that the wind is empty. The flow of wind is very significant but to really understand it you need to know lots of science. Only people who cultivate the wind element can really understand it. In fact, people who cultivate the wind element usually develop all sorts of superpowers and because they become expert at chi, can usually know when they will die (because they can judge their chi). If you want longevity (a long life) you need merit for that attainment, but when you can merge your mind with your chi, then you can cultivate longevity quite easily. In cultivating your chi you can open up all the chi channels in your body, and that's the key to getting rid of sickness and cultivating longevity. You get rid of obstructions so that your chi can flow smoothly, and that frictionless state – of less tear and wear – produces longevity. Taoism has a saying that when something disintegrates, it becomes like chi and that when the chi collects and assembles, it has form again. You must remember this principle when certain cultivation phenomena appear to you on the spiritual path due to your meditation efforts. For instance, emptiness marks the initial start of life and creation. Emptiness is not the nothingness of an absolute vacuum, for there are an infinite amount of things in emptiness and the wind element is the closest element to emptiness other than the space element. Why tell you of all these miscellaneous principles? Once you know the theory, you can use this knowledge in your
cultivation and start upon the road of cultivating the wind element correctly. In esoteric Buddhism, yoga, and kundalini cultivation, none of these schools deviate from the practice of cultivating the wind element, which is the easiest element of the body to transform. Mantra practice, when correctly done, has you matching sounds to the rhythm of the breath so that you can more easily enter samadhi; on exhalations the mantra stops so that the mind remains quiet. The basic method of cultivating the wind element for you to practice is to combine your mind with your breathing during normal respiration. You first watch your inhalations and exhalations until your mind calms down. Or, you can count your breaths from one to ten, with the numbers corresponding to the out-breaths, until your breath calms down. Count the out-breaths because that helps lower high blood pressure whereas low blood pressure people can concentrate on the inbreaths. Whatever you do, don't practice accounting but practice calming! Just counting your breaths, as some try to teach today in imitation of ancient Zen practice, will get you nowhere. Eventually, the stage you reach in following your breath and combining it with your thoughts won't be one of drowsiness or torpor, because if your mind is drowsy and unclear then you can't watch your mind and the breath. Samadhi isn't a state of excitedness, and it isn't a state of sleepiness, fogginess or the unclarity we call torpor. At the initial stages of this practice you'll feel drowsy because your chi isn't smooth and your chi channels aren't open, but after practicing for some months this problem will
go away since your chi channels will all open. Naturally you have to be practicing emptiness meditation along the way. The inherent idea of cultivating the wind element is to focus on your breathing so that your random thoughts will gradually decrease. Focusing on your breathing is like using a rope to bind a wild monkey and prevent it from running around so that it gets into trouble; you follow your breath and nothing else. After you do this roping of the wild monkey by watching our breath and staying with it so that breath and mind both calm down, you won't have too many random thoughts anymore. Hence that's the basics of this method. A point to note is that the most difficult type of breathing to stop is brain breathing. When you reach the state where your outward breathing stops, you reach the Initiation of the embryo breathing In the abdomen called the kundalini. With further practice you can start to detect the "breathing of the brain". When that finally disappears, your body becomes empty. At that time, however, there is still the "breathing of consciousness", for there are still thoughts coming and going by themselves--there's still the birth and death of thoughts. If you can stop the "breathing of the mind" (reach the state where thoughts stop arising), then you'll be able to use the wind element to transform the material nature and obtain superpowers. Qi-gong practices are basically pranayama practices where people try to push around their chi with their thoughts. This is not proper cultivation practice because you are mixing thoughts with sensations, and becoming attached to the process. However, people develop small psychic abilities through these technique for exactly the reason mentioned,
because thoughts and chi are interlinked. However, this is not correct practice. The correct way to cultivate the wind element is the following. First, practice breath retention exercises simply to clean out your chi mai. Then your chi doesn’t have to waste lots of energy doing this when you pre-purify some of the task. You want to also practice the state without breathing because it will happen naturally during the course of your cultivation. Second, you practice calming your breath and your thoughts so that both become one and disappear. That’s when you enter into samadhi. That’s the proper way of cultivating your wind element. Lastly, remember that cultivating the wind element, which corresponds to the chi of your physical nature, involves the transformation of jing to chi. If you want to cultivate your chi, you cannot carelessly lose your jing through sexual excess. You must learn some sexual tantric techniques of sex without ejaculation, and practice the discipline of the path. Without retaining your vitality, it will be impossible to succeed at spiritual cultivation. People may not want to tell you this but it’s true, and its one of the cardinal tenets of the path. All those who succeed on the path for at least some time refused to squander their vitality, practiced emptiness mediation, achieved the transformation of jing to chi, and it was that fullness of chi which brought about physical transformations and enabled them to reach samadhi.
That’s how you cultivate the wind element to attain samadhi.
CULTIVATING THE SPACE ELEMENT In Tibetan Buddhism there is a space visualization technique that even has its own particular mantra. In this cultivation practice, you use your mind (consciousness), which means wisdom, to observe space. When we say "observe space", this actually means cutting off thoughts because between each thought there is an empty gap or space. That's the gap you try to realize through cessation-contemplation practice, commonly called “vipassana” meditation today. Vipassana involves watching thoughts to try to realize that empty point of pausation, and to expand it until it becomes bigger and the whole mind becomes empty and you blend into samadhi. This gap is the small road "Hinayana emptiness" because it still has form, and so we call it a space. Nevertheless, to realize this phenomenon is still a commendable spiritual achievement since it is the beginning of the higher Mahayana cultivation. It's basically the achievement of realizing the empty gap of mind between thoughts, and then watching that gap so it expands while thoughts (mind) drop away. However, you must certainly realize that this end state of "emptiness" isn't yet the fundamental emptiness where space doesn't even exist anymore. It's still a semblance of emptiness -- a refined conceptual image of emptiness -which is still being grasped mentally. Only at higher stages of cultivation does this gap expand so that the whole mind becomes empty, and that emptiness explodes (is dropped) so that you can realize the true, true mind.
That realization is called awakening, seeing the Tao, or Initial enlightenment. It is not a samadhi attainment, but a realizing of your formless original nature. You need the right sort of environment to properly cultivate the practice of space visualization correctly. It has to be done in isolation, preferably on a high mountain top or on an open plain where there is a vast, unobstructed expanse of empty sky in front of you. The method is to first use your eyes to view space by looking at an open, empty sky. Then you visualize that you and space become one so that whether your eyes are open or not, you are one with this endless expanse of space. You become one with empty space rather than use it to clog consciousness and damper your internal dialogue. To practice correctly, you first start by contemplating this in your mind, and then you extend this experiential realm to your whole body, and then you merge your emptiness with the entire universe. You realize the emptiness of the whole universe and you become That, it becomes you. Then you are space, and space is you, and there is nothing in existence except space and only space. This will eventually lead to achieving the "infinite space samadhi", one of the four formless samadhi of emptiness which have abandoned the grosser characteristics of form. It's also called the "infinite form samadhi" because space is still a characteristic belonging to the realm of form! Once you reach the infinite space samadhi, your meditation job (spiritual practice) isn't finished because you must still move forward to attain the Mahayana emptiness by cultivating prajna wisdom. You've only attained a bit of samadhi or seen a fraction of the Tao. The Mahayana stage of
attainment doesn't even have the scenario of space and form because prajna wisdom is formless and cannot be described. The Heart Sutra says that all the dharma doors are empty, but infinite space still has a form while prajna doesn't. Thus the samadhi of infinite space may cheat you into thinking you're enlightened, but it isn't enlightenment yet. This simple method of space mediation also involves the discipline of not losing your jing and chi, and you must practice it in the high altitudes where there is empty sky all around. Usually people practice this in a lying meditation posture where they are lying on their stomach and holding their head in their two hands. The point of this practice is to simply get you to the point, once again, where you combine your mind with empty space and forget both your body and your mind. That’s how you will achieve emptiness and samadhi. As to which meditation technique you use to successfully cultivate samadhi is up to you and your karmic endowments, as well as practice in this life. You now know the various principles for cultivating the five elements, how the various practices work, and recognize that the end result always involve emptying thoughts and forgetting both body and mind. The five element meditations are simply ways to access this entry way into samadhi. The methods to Tao are numerous. Dharma doors are endless. Nevertheless there is one principle at every step of the way, even up to ultimate enlightenment or Buddhahood. That principle law or rule is “emptiness all the way.”
Please remember that principle throughout these techniques and you will be able to guide yourself correctly through practice and through any gong-fu that arises. Qi-gong people seem to have forgotten this principle when they spin their chi and visualize this or that. The only purpose of visualizations or imaginations is to enter samadhi where you forget both body and mind. If you can do that, and cultivate virtue, merit and discipline, you can raise the level of your samadhi and ultimately achieve the Tao. If you keep holding onto thoughts and sensations and playing with your chi, you will never enter into samadhi. That’s why most Hindu yoga and Tibetan masters never make it past the first or second dhyana – they are always still subtly clinging to their bodies. The best of luck to you. For more information always check back with the Articles page of www.meditatinexpert.com. ========================================================== Copyright 2004 by William Bodri. All rights reserved. Top Shape Publishing, LLC www.MeditationExpert.com Phone – (718) 539-2811
