Small Heavenly Cycle


"Assume a sitting position with your spine and head held erect. Grasp the thumbs inside the fingers and lay the hands lightly on the legs. Begin to inhale slowly (without forcing the breath at any time). As you inhale, allow the breath to come in through the nose and descend through the Jen-Mo meridian into the abdominal cavity (stove_ where the breath will be heated (transmuted) and energized. When you have fully inhaled the breath, lock your anal and sphincter muscles and pull the chin down into the chest in a chin lock. these two movements prevent the energy from escaping the abdominal chamber and help to further energize the energy as it activates the sexual glands. Also, when you hold your breath, the blood vessels tend to constrict, thus raising the blood pressure. The chin lock helps to reverse the process and restore an equilibrium to the body.





"With the breath held, and the anal and chin locks in place, begin to visualize and feel the energy in the stove cauldron (abdomen) beginning to rise upward along the back of the spinal column or Tu-Mo meridian. As it travels upward, it moves through the seven houses (glands) in succession, entering first into the secual glands where it makes a spiraling circular movement, and then passes upward and through the remaining six houses in similar wheel-like movements (see Figure A). The wheel rotations at each house serve to energize the house in which it occurs, as well as transform the energy intoa higher order to be received by the next house. In this fashion each of the glands serves as transformer and generator for the energy of the body.







"When the energy has reached up into the pineal gland, allow it to circulate there for a moment, and then release the anal and chin locks and slowly exhale the breath. Then begin the Small Heavenly Cycle again.

"At first, you will want to hold the breath only for seven seconds, one second for each gland. As you become proficient in the breathing, hold the breath for longer periods of time. As the breath is held for longer periods, begin to make two or more loops around the houses for each period during which the breath is held. So the sequence would become: Inhale the air into the abdomin through the Jen-Mo meridian; hold the breath and lock the chin and anal muscles; pass the energy up and through the Tu-Mo meridian into the sexual glands, adrenals, pancreas, thymus, thyroid, pituitary and pineal glands then back down the Jen-Mo, and so on until there is the need to exhale the breath. With patience the breath can be held for several minutes to several hours without feeling the need to breathe. When the seven houses have been sufficiently energized, the need to breathe disappears and one functions in a breathless state of immortality." [**PLEASE ASSUME THAT YOU _DO_ HAVE THE NEED TO BREATHE. IN THE JOS MEDITATIONS WE BREATH IN ENERGY (i.e. we breath while visualizing energy coming into and/or circulating within us); EVENTUALLY THE ADEPT CAN DRAW IN THIS ENERGY WITHOUT BREATHING B/C IN ACTUALITY THESE ARE TWO INDEPENDENT ACTIVITIES. DO NOT BE STUPID AND TRY TO HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR HOURS.**]

"This type of breathing is often called the 'self-winding wheel of the law.' When first practicing this type of breathing, one must use one's will power to initiate the cycle. However, there comes a time when the breathing becomes automatic and will continue on an involuntary basis. Thus, once the process has been intiated, it becomes something which in a manner of speaking, becomes self-winding, irreversible and beyond your control. In such a way the final stage of enlightenment comes not from something you are doing, but comes all of its own to you." *













* Stephen T. Chang, Book of Internal Exercises

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