05-29-2007, 12:00 AM
"One of the marks of the Rainbow Body practise is excellent physical health and lately I'm reminded that this is important. I've been shoveling snow and chipping ice and today it was very clear that I needed to spend some time dealing with my own health. So I called in and told my boss I'm home for a day to get well. Makes me feel much less guilty knowing the storm cleanup is done and the only people who showed up today spent the storm riding around on snowplows.
I spent some time this morning doing my Rainbow meditations, and I began them in a very tired and worn and painful physical condition. I sat in full lotus, focused on a point in the sky miles away from here, and kept my attention on that point. I think the simplest rules are the best and the one that applies most often is that chi follows mind. If you place your attention on your fingertip and hold it there, your awareness of your fingertip intensifies and it begins to accumulate energy. If you place your attention on a point a few thousand feet up and a few miles away in the early morning sky, and hold it there, chi flows to that point and your awareness of that point intensifies. But you've placed your attention outside yourself so the energy that gathers there is universal energy, not personal energy.
I did that until without trying to, I saw a point of golden light come into existence there, and I kept my attention on it and watched what happened as rainbow spectrums of light swirled into it. It kept growing in intensity, radiating as much white as gold, with spikes of energy shooting off in six directions, a diamond pattern of light. After I held it a considerable length of time I began to bring it back, and I noticed as I drew it closer that it naturally traveled in a spiral path. It settled into the top of my head finally and, well, that's hard to describe. Felt good, though, and right away it seemed that the damage of the past few days began to right itself. So I got up and put on water for tea and stood in Embracing the Tree a few minutes while the pot worked itself up to a boil.
I hadn't expected anything to happen, just stood there and focused on the dantien as we do in that practise, but in the dantien I began to see something new, a very complex shape like a double pyramid created from smaller pyramids. I've seen the pattern in pictures of crop circles I think, and I saw something like it when I was first encountering the crystal console back at the Lost City. But I didn't expect it, a very complex multi faceted crystalline shape of electric blue energy etched with lines of golden light, with points of golden energy on the tip of each pyramidal point.
As I watched, a point of greater radiance appeared on the southern side of the structure and the radiance expanded outward in a circular pattern. A beam of golden light shot out of that opening as though the core of the structure had been revealed, and slowly the entire thing began to rotate, sweeping that beam of energy into the far distance and completing at least three slow revolutions.
OK, I admit that I don't know what this means, and that I'm likely the only one who saw it, but it was a great experience. For me, the Rainbow meditations are like that, they develop into forms which are consistent with ancient traditions but with which I am not familiar, and I see the effect by living it. I don't reject what happens, and I don't try to hammer all this flat so it fits the form of the traditions I have been taught. This is a process of evolution and it should acquire changing forms, so I let it do that.
There's a simple way to start, a method called Precious Vessel Qigong by some, and simply Pot Shaped Breathing by others. It's very likely a Tibetan method, meaning it may date back to the Dakini. Many of the old Tibetan yogas begin with it as a way of charging the energy body, and in Chi Kungs we have done already we accomplish much the same purpose with bellows breathing or dantien breathing. This is said to be a more powerful method but with more powerful methods comes more risk. The wiser teachers were satisfied with calmer methods, and I find the calmer methods more to my own taste.
Anyway, here it is:
Sit or stand in a comfortable meditation posture. Imagine that the air around you is charged with energy, that literally it glows with spiritual light. When you breath normally that charged air goes in and out and does not accumulate within you. Instead, breathe from the dantien in bellows breath for awhile, nine deep slow breaths from the lower abdomen without moving the chest, equal emphasis on inhalation and exhalation. On the last breath, fill your dantien almost full and hold. Do not press down forcefully with the chest during any of this breathing exercise. That can cause harmful increases in blood pressure. Do this sort of thing gently.
As you hold, pull your belly in until it almost flattens against your backbone. That expands the chest in a relaxed way, not a tense way. If you've taken in too much air you can't do this. Take in a few sips of air as you hold this posture, until the chest is full, and then visualize that your lungs are filled with the luminous energy of the air. Very gently press down into the left lung and push the energy farther into it, then press down into the right lung and do the same thing. Guide the energy of the lungs into the heart chakra at the center of the chest and into the middle channel that links the front chakras together. When you've seen the energy enter the channel, then you can exhale forcefully, breath normally for awhile, and begin another "pot shaped breath."
Other precautions associated with this method are that once and only once during a practise session you visualize the middle channel as full and the energy soaring up to the crown of the head but not beyond it. During the other breaths of a session you visualize the energy shooting out your nose like arrows. You pay attention to which side of the nose most of the air enters and leaves. If the left side dominates, you are OK. If the right side dominates, you can't do this practise. I don't know the reasons but it likely has to do with which side of the brain you are energizing and maybe you could fix the trouble by closing the right nostril with the pressure of a fingertip. I don't have that problem because Freddy Trueblood flattened the right side of my nose way back in sixth grade. You also do not do this in order to hyperventilate or experience oxygen starvation so if you are doing that you haven't got it right. This is an energy practise and the physical part of it should be gentle, not forced. It's a good initial practise for any other form of meditation or chi kung.
Keep doing this until you feel your body so charged with light energy that it radiates from the pores of your skin and every strand of your hair. With repeated practise over long periods of time, this energy will manifest in the lower dantien as a hot point of red light, four fingers width below the navel. When you have that ball of energy you can will it to move upward from chakra to chakra by being aware of where it is and being aware of where you want it to go next. It follows your attention. You lead it up and out of the top of your head and into the sky, and that is the energy vehicle which is used in the Rainbow meditation. Ask politely for energy to come to it, and wait awhile. If nothing happens bring it home again and try again some other day. Mostly a warrior waits, anyway.
I think that many of us who practised the Academy training have already done things this complex and already have the essential energy for this. It's a simple outgrowth of what we've already done. The benefits accrue over a lifetime of practise. I get really cranky when ordinary life interferes with it in any way.
Last night was an uncomfortable night for me because I kept being awakened by stabbing pains that were not supernatural in any way, had more to do with heavy lifting and a very humourous fall on the ice. Times like that I often dream more intensely but the memory of what I dream is murky, so I just now remembered something from all of that which seems to apply to these higher meditations in some strange way.
I was helping to prepare a meal for the Dalai Lama, who wanted to eat turtle meat. It seemed strange to me that he would want meat for supper but who am I to argue? so I collected a sea turtle big enough for an individual's meal. The turtle seemed rather unhappy about it and I didn't want to dwell on the problem so I put him in a box and closed the lid. I had no more to do with the dinner beyond catching it, and was grateful I was not the one who slaughtered the hapless victim. The cook was someone we know from the forums, who is a rampant vegetarian, and I was surprised and disturbed that this person would even participate, but who am I to argue? so I just sat down respectfully at the table and did as the Romans do, in Rome.
The cook brought in the turtle in a big covered silver dish and set it before the Dalai Lama, who was beaming at it with anticipation, and then removed the cover with a wonderful flourish. To my great surprise the turtle was very alive, decorated with flowers of many colors, sitting on a bed of rainbow gemstones, radiating the purest white light as it spoke respectfully to the enlightened fellow before it. "Master," the turtle said politely, "as my humble gift to you, I ask that you spare my life."
The Dalai Lama laughed and clapped his hands and said, "My! What a wonderful meal that was!" The staff came to collect the empty dishes, and the turtle rode off to his eventual liberation in some peaceful sea.
I was still hungry, but who am I to argue? Some people understand these things better than I do.
I've been privileged to meet some good teachers in my time here. I'm surprised when I read back over these higher practise meditations, that I have encountered many of them already. In the short descriptions of the Great Perfection meditations that are the core of the Rainbow practise I see many things that I know. The practise of the first month is to face the sun (but not directly) and visualize a white spot of light exiting your heart and rising into the sky to unite with the Luminous Spots that circle there, globes of energy in many colors that dance around in the sky.
I used to have a garden and worked very hard at it until I learned that yields were unlikely. Few things prosper in this climate and this poor soil, even with six inches of turkey litter on the ground, but for a few years I had a nice green spot that was half strawberries and half veggies for the groundhogs and secluded enough that I could take a lawn chair down there and do some Taoist sunbathing, which is naked sunbathing because the sexual organs are the most receptive areas for energy of that kind. It was a nice thing to do on a summer afternoon when the bees were humming about in the strawberry patch.
Dozing in my chair there in the garden I would be looking up but not quite at the sun, through closed eyelids and a pair of sunglasses, and after awhile I would see a spot of light that I couldn't quite associate with the sun. That's not unusual, because I see flows of energy when I do the Greater and Lesser Heavenly circulations and I use those flows in many ways. They happen on their own most of the time and are not a surprise to me. But one day, lying there in the garden, it occurred to me that Don Juan had mentioned something about gazing at the sunset in order to acquire the energy for Dreaming. He taught a passive practise, leaning against posts driven into his front yard, and he taught an active practise which was a vigorous "running in place" while facing the setting sun. I don't know the details because he didn't teach the details, he just did those things. I wondered then if I might put that concept into practise somehow from my lawn chair. I began to visualize that spot of light as moving away from me into the sky, and after awhile I thought of it as connecting with the solar energy. Then it came back to me intensified and I saw a constant flow of energy from it to me, a white light that was hot but not too hot and which lasted so long as I kept my focus without becoming very excited about it. It just seemed a natural thing to do, and I found that it helped my Dreaming.
Then there is Pore Breathing, I already mentioned that. Some call it the Golden Light method, which fits the visualization I've used most often of a sun like sphere of golden light in the center of my body that radiates through me as a tangible expanding pressure of golden energy. I've read several versions of this practise and many speak of it as though it were very difficult to achieve. Maybe it is, or maybe you have to become aware of it.
One day I was sitting in an easy chair doing trancework, not expecting anything to happen, when I suddenly felt I should get up and did, leaving my physical self in the chair and walking out onto the front porch in my spirit body. To my surprise I had visitors, men for whom I have acquired great respect over the years, two of my Elders were there to meet me, wearing their ceremonial clothing, fringed white deerskin and beaded moccassins, headdresses of eagle feathers sweeping behind them, patterns of porcupine quills across their chests. They each had their war lances with them, a feather bound to the shaft for each brave deed they had done as warriors, and each lance carried maybe fifty of those white feathers. Without a word the man to my right handed me a simple stick with one feather on it, a gesture of great honor to me, and I accepted it feeling that I might not deserve even that much. I told him that. "Thanks," I said, "but I don't feel like I earned this." He smiled just a little and did not argue with me.
I turned to go back in the house, and then he spoke. "Hey," he said, "Are you blind? Look over there." He tilted his head toward the West and when I looked that way I saw an old man sitting crosslegged in the dirt beyond the concrete porch. When I saw who he was I forgot everything and rushed to him. I did not know what to say or do, I fell to my knees in front of him and bowed my head almost to the ground. "Grandfather," I said in a breaking voice full of tears, "Please teach me." He sang some words for me in a language I do not understand and as my tears fell to the ground I felt the touch of sacred feathers on my shoulders. He radiated a light that was purest gold.
I experience these things but I do not always understand them. The next day I was sitting in that chair again, wondering at what any of this meant, and again I fell into one of those "enforced naps" as Kookaburra got to calling them. I stood up without me, as I did the day before, and I went out onto the porch. The dog spirit was with me this time, and when we went through the doorway into the open air there was only golden light. We soared into it like birds, the earth disappeared from beneath our feet, and we were golden light in a universe of golden light. I stopped thinking of it as something I had to achieve. We are all blessed.
I used to meditate on the concrete floor of a garage, surrounded by dust and farm tools, and very often in the edges of my vision that golden light would manifest without any fanfare and I would just sit in the glow for awhile, not knowing anything to do with it or caring that I should. Sometimes spirits would visit for awhile as I did that, sometimes I played with contacting people who seemed to be knowledgable. One day I thought of a Reiki healer whose books I had enjoyed, tried to make contact with her through meditation, and out of a cloud of golden light she appeared for a moment, sitting in meditation a couple of yards in front of me. She raised her eyes and for a very short time was obviously coming to grips with a new reality, a strange man in front of her and a strangely decorated temple around her. Then I guess I grinned too much and she realized she was only wearing a string of beads and vanished out of embarrassment. It was a nice moment, though.
I've had a lot of nice moments. Once doing that golden light meditation I opened my eyes to see a small Asian man sitting in front of me, an older fellow with a long white wispy beard and eyes that glinted in the half light. He didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Chinese so we were having some trouble holding a conversation. Then he waved his hands in polite dismissal of the problem, sat up straight and held my attention with his eyes. He put his hands out to either side in the light gathering posture of Tsai Shen, and as he bowed forward he swept his hands to the front, scooping up that golden energy and pressing it into his forehead with his fingertips. It reminded me very much of some of the things I've seen Tensegrity people do. I watched for awhile and then he paused and waved me into the practise, with a silent Here, do this! gesture of his hands. And, for long minutes we bowed and practised there together even though I was a little embarrassed about it, until finally he smiled widely and, sitting in a relaxed meditation posture, vanished. I saw his picture on a book cover later. He was a noted master of Hsing Yi when he was alive.
I suppose these things are secrets, and I'll likely get into trouble for talking about them."
-Heyoka
I spent some time this morning doing my Rainbow meditations, and I began them in a very tired and worn and painful physical condition. I sat in full lotus, focused on a point in the sky miles away from here, and kept my attention on that point. I think the simplest rules are the best and the one that applies most often is that chi follows mind. If you place your attention on your fingertip and hold it there, your awareness of your fingertip intensifies and it begins to accumulate energy. If you place your attention on a point a few thousand feet up and a few miles away in the early morning sky, and hold it there, chi flows to that point and your awareness of that point intensifies. But you've placed your attention outside yourself so the energy that gathers there is universal energy, not personal energy.
I did that until without trying to, I saw a point of golden light come into existence there, and I kept my attention on it and watched what happened as rainbow spectrums of light swirled into it. It kept growing in intensity, radiating as much white as gold, with spikes of energy shooting off in six directions, a diamond pattern of light. After I held it a considerable length of time I began to bring it back, and I noticed as I drew it closer that it naturally traveled in a spiral path. It settled into the top of my head finally and, well, that's hard to describe. Felt good, though, and right away it seemed that the damage of the past few days began to right itself. So I got up and put on water for tea and stood in Embracing the Tree a few minutes while the pot worked itself up to a boil.
I hadn't expected anything to happen, just stood there and focused on the dantien as we do in that practise, but in the dantien I began to see something new, a very complex shape like a double pyramid created from smaller pyramids. I've seen the pattern in pictures of crop circles I think, and I saw something like it when I was first encountering the crystal console back at the Lost City. But I didn't expect it, a very complex multi faceted crystalline shape of electric blue energy etched with lines of golden light, with points of golden energy on the tip of each pyramidal point.
As I watched, a point of greater radiance appeared on the southern side of the structure and the radiance expanded outward in a circular pattern. A beam of golden light shot out of that opening as though the core of the structure had been revealed, and slowly the entire thing began to rotate, sweeping that beam of energy into the far distance and completing at least three slow revolutions.
OK, I admit that I don't know what this means, and that I'm likely the only one who saw it, but it was a great experience. For me, the Rainbow meditations are like that, they develop into forms which are consistent with ancient traditions but with which I am not familiar, and I see the effect by living it. I don't reject what happens, and I don't try to hammer all this flat so it fits the form of the traditions I have been taught. This is a process of evolution and it should acquire changing forms, so I let it do that.
There's a simple way to start, a method called Precious Vessel Qigong by some, and simply Pot Shaped Breathing by others. It's very likely a Tibetan method, meaning it may date back to the Dakini. Many of the old Tibetan yogas begin with it as a way of charging the energy body, and in Chi Kungs we have done already we accomplish much the same purpose with bellows breathing or dantien breathing. This is said to be a more powerful method but with more powerful methods comes more risk. The wiser teachers were satisfied with calmer methods, and I find the calmer methods more to my own taste.
Anyway, here it is:
Sit or stand in a comfortable meditation posture. Imagine that the air around you is charged with energy, that literally it glows with spiritual light. When you breath normally that charged air goes in and out and does not accumulate within you. Instead, breathe from the dantien in bellows breath for awhile, nine deep slow breaths from the lower abdomen without moving the chest, equal emphasis on inhalation and exhalation. On the last breath, fill your dantien almost full and hold. Do not press down forcefully with the chest during any of this breathing exercise. That can cause harmful increases in blood pressure. Do this sort of thing gently.
As you hold, pull your belly in until it almost flattens against your backbone. That expands the chest in a relaxed way, not a tense way. If you've taken in too much air you can't do this. Take in a few sips of air as you hold this posture, until the chest is full, and then visualize that your lungs are filled with the luminous energy of the air. Very gently press down into the left lung and push the energy farther into it, then press down into the right lung and do the same thing. Guide the energy of the lungs into the heart chakra at the center of the chest and into the middle channel that links the front chakras together. When you've seen the energy enter the channel, then you can exhale forcefully, breath normally for awhile, and begin another "pot shaped breath."
Other precautions associated with this method are that once and only once during a practise session you visualize the middle channel as full and the energy soaring up to the crown of the head but not beyond it. During the other breaths of a session you visualize the energy shooting out your nose like arrows. You pay attention to which side of the nose most of the air enters and leaves. If the left side dominates, you are OK. If the right side dominates, you can't do this practise. I don't know the reasons but it likely has to do with which side of the brain you are energizing and maybe you could fix the trouble by closing the right nostril with the pressure of a fingertip. I don't have that problem because Freddy Trueblood flattened the right side of my nose way back in sixth grade. You also do not do this in order to hyperventilate or experience oxygen starvation so if you are doing that you haven't got it right. This is an energy practise and the physical part of it should be gentle, not forced. It's a good initial practise for any other form of meditation or chi kung.
Keep doing this until you feel your body so charged with light energy that it radiates from the pores of your skin and every strand of your hair. With repeated practise over long periods of time, this energy will manifest in the lower dantien as a hot point of red light, four fingers width below the navel. When you have that ball of energy you can will it to move upward from chakra to chakra by being aware of where it is and being aware of where you want it to go next. It follows your attention. You lead it up and out of the top of your head and into the sky, and that is the energy vehicle which is used in the Rainbow meditation. Ask politely for energy to come to it, and wait awhile. If nothing happens bring it home again and try again some other day. Mostly a warrior waits, anyway.
I think that many of us who practised the Academy training have already done things this complex and already have the essential energy for this. It's a simple outgrowth of what we've already done. The benefits accrue over a lifetime of practise. I get really cranky when ordinary life interferes with it in any way.
Last night was an uncomfortable night for me because I kept being awakened by stabbing pains that were not supernatural in any way, had more to do with heavy lifting and a very humourous fall on the ice. Times like that I often dream more intensely but the memory of what I dream is murky, so I just now remembered something from all of that which seems to apply to these higher meditations in some strange way.
I was helping to prepare a meal for the Dalai Lama, who wanted to eat turtle meat. It seemed strange to me that he would want meat for supper but who am I to argue? so I collected a sea turtle big enough for an individual's meal. The turtle seemed rather unhappy about it and I didn't want to dwell on the problem so I put him in a box and closed the lid. I had no more to do with the dinner beyond catching it, and was grateful I was not the one who slaughtered the hapless victim. The cook was someone we know from the forums, who is a rampant vegetarian, and I was surprised and disturbed that this person would even participate, but who am I to argue? so I just sat down respectfully at the table and did as the Romans do, in Rome.
The cook brought in the turtle in a big covered silver dish and set it before the Dalai Lama, who was beaming at it with anticipation, and then removed the cover with a wonderful flourish. To my great surprise the turtle was very alive, decorated with flowers of many colors, sitting on a bed of rainbow gemstones, radiating the purest white light as it spoke respectfully to the enlightened fellow before it. "Master," the turtle said politely, "as my humble gift to you, I ask that you spare my life."
The Dalai Lama laughed and clapped his hands and said, "My! What a wonderful meal that was!" The staff came to collect the empty dishes, and the turtle rode off to his eventual liberation in some peaceful sea.
I was still hungry, but who am I to argue? Some people understand these things better than I do.
I've been privileged to meet some good teachers in my time here. I'm surprised when I read back over these higher practise meditations, that I have encountered many of them already. In the short descriptions of the Great Perfection meditations that are the core of the Rainbow practise I see many things that I know. The practise of the first month is to face the sun (but not directly) and visualize a white spot of light exiting your heart and rising into the sky to unite with the Luminous Spots that circle there, globes of energy in many colors that dance around in the sky.
I used to have a garden and worked very hard at it until I learned that yields were unlikely. Few things prosper in this climate and this poor soil, even with six inches of turkey litter on the ground, but for a few years I had a nice green spot that was half strawberries and half veggies for the groundhogs and secluded enough that I could take a lawn chair down there and do some Taoist sunbathing, which is naked sunbathing because the sexual organs are the most receptive areas for energy of that kind. It was a nice thing to do on a summer afternoon when the bees were humming about in the strawberry patch.
Dozing in my chair there in the garden I would be looking up but not quite at the sun, through closed eyelids and a pair of sunglasses, and after awhile I would see a spot of light that I couldn't quite associate with the sun. That's not unusual, because I see flows of energy when I do the Greater and Lesser Heavenly circulations and I use those flows in many ways. They happen on their own most of the time and are not a surprise to me. But one day, lying there in the garden, it occurred to me that Don Juan had mentioned something about gazing at the sunset in order to acquire the energy for Dreaming. He taught a passive practise, leaning against posts driven into his front yard, and he taught an active practise which was a vigorous "running in place" while facing the setting sun. I don't know the details because he didn't teach the details, he just did those things. I wondered then if I might put that concept into practise somehow from my lawn chair. I began to visualize that spot of light as moving away from me into the sky, and after awhile I thought of it as connecting with the solar energy. Then it came back to me intensified and I saw a constant flow of energy from it to me, a white light that was hot but not too hot and which lasted so long as I kept my focus without becoming very excited about it. It just seemed a natural thing to do, and I found that it helped my Dreaming.
Then there is Pore Breathing, I already mentioned that. Some call it the Golden Light method, which fits the visualization I've used most often of a sun like sphere of golden light in the center of my body that radiates through me as a tangible expanding pressure of golden energy. I've read several versions of this practise and many speak of it as though it were very difficult to achieve. Maybe it is, or maybe you have to become aware of it.
One day I was sitting in an easy chair doing trancework, not expecting anything to happen, when I suddenly felt I should get up and did, leaving my physical self in the chair and walking out onto the front porch in my spirit body. To my surprise I had visitors, men for whom I have acquired great respect over the years, two of my Elders were there to meet me, wearing their ceremonial clothing, fringed white deerskin and beaded moccassins, headdresses of eagle feathers sweeping behind them, patterns of porcupine quills across their chests. They each had their war lances with them, a feather bound to the shaft for each brave deed they had done as warriors, and each lance carried maybe fifty of those white feathers. Without a word the man to my right handed me a simple stick with one feather on it, a gesture of great honor to me, and I accepted it feeling that I might not deserve even that much. I told him that. "Thanks," I said, "but I don't feel like I earned this." He smiled just a little and did not argue with me.
I turned to go back in the house, and then he spoke. "Hey," he said, "Are you blind? Look over there." He tilted his head toward the West and when I looked that way I saw an old man sitting crosslegged in the dirt beyond the concrete porch. When I saw who he was I forgot everything and rushed to him. I did not know what to say or do, I fell to my knees in front of him and bowed my head almost to the ground. "Grandfather," I said in a breaking voice full of tears, "Please teach me." He sang some words for me in a language I do not understand and as my tears fell to the ground I felt the touch of sacred feathers on my shoulders. He radiated a light that was purest gold.
I experience these things but I do not always understand them. The next day I was sitting in that chair again, wondering at what any of this meant, and again I fell into one of those "enforced naps" as Kookaburra got to calling them. I stood up without me, as I did the day before, and I went out onto the porch. The dog spirit was with me this time, and when we went through the doorway into the open air there was only golden light. We soared into it like birds, the earth disappeared from beneath our feet, and we were golden light in a universe of golden light. I stopped thinking of it as something I had to achieve. We are all blessed.
I used to meditate on the concrete floor of a garage, surrounded by dust and farm tools, and very often in the edges of my vision that golden light would manifest without any fanfare and I would just sit in the glow for awhile, not knowing anything to do with it or caring that I should. Sometimes spirits would visit for awhile as I did that, sometimes I played with contacting people who seemed to be knowledgable. One day I thought of a Reiki healer whose books I had enjoyed, tried to make contact with her through meditation, and out of a cloud of golden light she appeared for a moment, sitting in meditation a couple of yards in front of me. She raised her eyes and for a very short time was obviously coming to grips with a new reality, a strange man in front of her and a strangely decorated temple around her. Then I guess I grinned too much and she realized she was only wearing a string of beads and vanished out of embarrassment. It was a nice moment, though.
I've had a lot of nice moments. Once doing that golden light meditation I opened my eyes to see a small Asian man sitting in front of me, an older fellow with a long white wispy beard and eyes that glinted in the half light. He didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Chinese so we were having some trouble holding a conversation. Then he waved his hands in polite dismissal of the problem, sat up straight and held my attention with his eyes. He put his hands out to either side in the light gathering posture of Tsai Shen, and as he bowed forward he swept his hands to the front, scooping up that golden energy and pressing it into his forehead with his fingertips. It reminded me very much of some of the things I've seen Tensegrity people do. I watched for awhile and then he paused and waved me into the practise, with a silent Here, do this! gesture of his hands. And, for long minutes we bowed and practised there together even though I was a little embarrassed about it, until finally he smiled widely and, sitting in a relaxed meditation posture, vanished. I saw his picture on a book cover later. He was a noted master of Hsing Yi when he was alive.
I suppose these things are secrets, and I'll likely get into trouble for talking about them."
-Heyoka