Tranquil Sitting

by Yin Shih Tzu

  My adult history

  When I was thirty years old, I went to Shanghai to study philosophy, physiology, psychology, and public health. Using this knowledge, I tried to analyze the effects associated with my meditation practice, to increase my understanding of them. This type of training led me to prefer using scientific terms and analysis to describe the theory of meditation. As a result, to illustrate this theory, I gradually gave up using the metaphors of Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, Lead, Mercury, and I Ching’s terms such as K’an and Li. I published my first meditation book, Yin Shi Zi’s Meditation, in 1914, when I was forty-one years old.

  The year I was forty-two (1915), I went to Beijing for the second time. There I studied Buddhism, and my fellow students persuaded me to learn Buddhist meditation also. At that time, Master Ti-Hsien was preaching in Beijing, giving sermons on the sutra of Yuean-Ju Ching. From him, I learned the method of Zhi Kuan, the secret of cultivating Tian Tai Tsung, one of the branches of Buddhism. Some of my fellow students urged me to write another book about my meditation, so I wrote down my thoughts, based on my understanding of Tung Meng Zhi Kuan (a child’s resting mind) and the practice of Po-Lo-Mi-T’o (The Diamond Sutra). This led to the completion of my second meditation book, called The Continuation of Yin Shi Zi’s Meditation. After this, I concentrated on cultivating the practice of Zhi Kuan.

  Studying Eastern Tantra

  When I was fifty-three years old, ten or more of my devoted religious friends intended to study the Eighteen Points of Eastern Tantra with Master E Yin Li. At that time, I had not developed sufficient faith in Tantra. My friends urged me insistently to join them, and since I was curious to know more about Tantra, I attended those teachings. I found their ceremonies very ornate and tedious. I did not have adequate time to study Tantra, because I was teaching at Kuan Hua university and my teaching duties were quite extensive. Because of my busy schedule, I was obliged to give up my study of Tantra. I did not, however, discontinue the practice of Zhi Kuan principles.

  The changing sensations of my physical body

  In the principles of Tung Meng Zhi Kuan, it says that when one enters into deep meditation, some positive sensations will occur. There are eight of these sensations, which are: lightness, warmth, cold, sinking, pulsating force, itching, dryness, and slipperiness. The first four sensations are without motion; the second four involve motion. Also, in my experience, these sensations do not occur simultaneously. Some come earlier, some later.

  When I was around twenty-seven years old, I had the sensations of lightness, warmth, and the pulsating force. My first sensation occurred after a lengthy period of meditation. I felt my whole body become very light, light as a feather. The next sensation was heat in my lower abdomen, and then the pulsating force arose, moving up my spinal nerve to my brain. It crossed to the front of my head, and came down over my face, along the vagus nerve, and reached my lower abdomen. This circulating pattern repeated, with the pulsating force apparently touching my Conceptional and Governor meridians. In the records of traditional Chinese medicine, there are Extraordinary Acupoints and eight other meridians which include the Conceptional and Governor meridians. The first of these meridians is called the Tsung or Impersian meridian. The second is called the Dai or Belt meridian, and the others, the Yang Chiao, the Yin Chiao, the Yang Wei, and the Yin Wei meridians.

  For the last ten years I had focused in my meditation exclusively on my lower abdomen. I now shifted the focus to the middle Dan Tien. Within only a few days, I felt an enormous change occur in my body. It seemed that six meridians were affected: the Yang Chiao, Yin Chiao, Yang Wei, Yin Wei, Tsung, and Dai. I will try to describe the circumstances in detail.

  The first episode

  Once, after I shifted my focus to the middle Dan Tien, I woke up to meditate at midnight. I felt a sudden tremor in my heart and chest, and my mouth filled with saliva. This continued for several evenings. The tremors in my heart became more frequent, and the pulsating force coursed up to the space between my eyebrows, where I intuitively felt that a red light was emitted. The radiance of this light filled the crown of my head, circulating there for a long time. My whole body felt as if an electric field surrounded me, penetrating at the palms of my hands and the bottoms of my feet. It lasted for one minute, then suddenly stopped at my eyebrows.

  After that, this happened every evening. It seemed as though there were some device in my middle Dan Tien controlling this circulating current. The current moved up from there to the crown of my head, and my crown turned violently as the current spun around. After this violent turning, the current stopped abruptly between my eyebrows. Then my middle Dan Tien trembled again. It seemed there was an electric field surrounding the area in my upper body from my left shoulder to my left leg, making a slanting circle, and my bed and my mosquito net were shaken by this quivering. After the violence, the quivering came to a stop.

  The quivering occurred again at the base of my brain, and the pulsating force flowed down along my spine and lingered at the bottom of my spine at the spot of Wei Lu. Once again, from my right shoulder to my right leg, I felt the presence of an electric field surrounding the upper half of my body with oblique circles. After violent activity, it abruptly stopped. The current had circulated around my right and left legs and made oblique circles which flushed through the paths of four meridians: the Yin Chiao, Yang Chiao, Yin Wei, and Yang Wei. In my experience, the Extraordinary Acupoints and the eight meridians were consistent with the function of the nervous system. This is true, with no exaggeration.

  Every time I meditated and focused on the middle Dan Tien, I felt a change occur. One evening the pulsating force flowed across my face, from one ear to the other. It seemed as if there was a horizontal line being drawn, and this line waved to the left and to the right several times. Without warning, the pulsating force stopped between my eyebrows. Then it started again, surging downwards from the top of my head to my chin, making a vertical line. It crossed the horizontal line it had previously traced, forming a cross. The current went up and down this line several times, then stopped abruptly once more at the midpoint between my brows. Starting up again at my crown, the pulsating force curved downward to my chest, then descended to my sexual organ, making it rise up. Coursing down from my head in this way, the force made my organ quiver several times. I felt this curved line of force was flushing through a path which began at the bottom of my Conceptional meridian and reached the end of the Governor meridian.

  The second episode

  One evening my middle Dan Tien felt hot, and I felt a surge of the pulsating force. My whole body was bent forward, then backward, to the left, then to the right. I was waved in this same manner several times, each time being pushed forward, backward, left, then right, with no conscious effort on my part. Next, the quivering came up through my hands, moving my hands in a circular motion as fast as a machine. My hands moved in tandem from side to side.

  After this, the pulsating force came up through my feet, making first my left foot bend and my right foot straighten, then my right foot bend and my left foot straighten. I could not consciously control this motion, it was totally beyond my physical or logical control. Immediately afterwards this activity in my legs and arms stopped, and I felt my head and my torso swell up to a size of about ten feet. (According to Buddhist sutra, this is the sign of becoming a Buddha—that one has achieved a giant stature.) All at once my head bent backwards and my chest swelled even more, until I felt it was filled with an extensive void. Once again I was bent forward, my back swelled up, and I felt a similar sensation of being filled with a large, void space. At this point I had normal sensation only in my lower body, as if I had no upper torso, and my body and mind were filled with this state of void. This feeling was quite pleasant.

  The third episode

  Another evening, I felt the pulsating force move from my middle Dan Tien to surround my spine, circulating from left to right, then right to left, equally in both directions. I felt it move und
er the skin of my back, from left to right, tracing a big circle, dozens of times. This was repeated in the opposite direction, from right to left. Next I felt it circulate in my abdomen, turning from left to right and right to left around my Conceptional meridian. After this, the pulsating force encircled my waist, moving from left to right, forming a big circle, again, dozens of times, as it had in my back. The circle then reversed directions, from right to left, and repeated the same pattern dozens of times. This sequence indicated that my Dai meridian was flushed through.

  After this, the pulsating force spiraled downwards in several dozen progressively smaller circles, in a cone shape which followed the path of the Governor meridian from the back of my crown to my Jia Ji acupoint, then down to the Wei Lu. In passing, the pulsating force flushed through my Governor and Conceptional meridians, then ascended from my Wei Lu up my spine to the crown of my head. It then flowed down from the base of my brain to the Jia Ji, and returned to the Wei Lu. This happened dozens of times. Once more, beginning at my lower abdomen, the pulsating force followed the Conceptional meridian, rose up to the crown of my head, flowed down from the base of my brain through the Jia Ji to return again to the Wei Lu. It traced this path dozens of times. In this way the pulsating force completed the circuit which it had begun within me, touching my Conceptional and Governor meridians from the Wei Lu in my back, along the Jia Ji points, up to my crown, my face, then dropping down to my abdomen.

  The next time it started, it moved in the opposite direction. I think that because my meridians were unobstructed, the flow was able to follow a natural path within my body—it could flow from the front or from the back, which proved that my Tsung meridian and the Dai meridian were at that point totally unobstructed.

  The fourth episode

  Another night, I sensed this pulsating force in my middle Dan Tien, and it drew a spiral with a diameter of about two inches on the surface of my skin. This pattern started at the center of my middle Dan Tien and extended out to both sides of my body. This pattern went first to the left, then to the right. Each time it started, the pulsating force traced thirty-six spiral patterns. Afterwards, it moved to my abdomen, and made thirty-six spirals in the same pattern on the skin, first to the left, then to the right. Then the force moved upward, to the skin of my chest, repeating the same circular, spiral motion, first to the left, then to the right, thirty-six times. I had the impression that these three events in my lower body, the center of my body, and my upper body, were pre-arranged in a specific order.

  Following this, the force ascended to my crown, and, following a line which spiraled down my spine, it reached my Wei Lu, where it stopped. Then it rose, spiraling around my spine again. In this way it reached my crown, then retracted its path up and down my spine twice. The pulsating force then spiraled up from the left side of my lower abdomen, just left of my Tsung meridian, to my crown, where it started down along the same path. Then it spiraled up from the right side of my lower abdomen, just right of my Tsung meridian, reaching my crown. From my crown, it passed down along the same path.

  After this sequence, it encircled my Conceptional meridian, at the level of my head. Next, it passed back down to my lower abdomen, circulated once more, and ascended to my crown. Sometimes it moved in a left to right circular motion in my head, stopping at my forehead. First it circled around my left shoulder, next it circled around my right shoulder, an equal number of times in each direction. Suddenly this pulsating force reached between my fingers, and my fingertips shook with no conscious control. This shaking was very rapid, yet like dancing, for it had a clear and obvious pattern. Just as suddenly the pulsating force passed down from my crown and reached my two feet simultaneously. Both feet were straightened out at this time, and the tips of my toes moved in the same rapid, circular, dancelike pattern as the fingers had moved.

  The fifth episode

  Another night the pulsating force traced a flat spiral pattern on the skin at the center of my back. Beginning at the center, this moving pattern extended to both sides of my body. First the spiral pattern went towards the left, then to the right, as it had before. Also, just as before, the force traced this pattern exactly thirty-six times. Right after this, the pulsating force created this same spiral pattern with thirty-six repetitions on the skin of my flanks. Next, this pattern was drawn on the skin at the top of my shoulder blades, again with thirty-six repetitions of the spiral. The patterns all seemed to have the same structured form. As I mentioned before, I felt the pulsating force move from the middle Dan Tien down to my lower abdomen, then up to my chest. Each time the motion was circular, from left to right, then right to left, with only three repetitions of the pattern. This motion began again at the center of my back, moved down to my flanks, then arced up around my shoulders and armpits, swirling to the left and to the right, three times in each direction.

  All the repetitions of the pattern were symmetrical. This was my physiological activity—so marvelous, yet quite beyond my powers of imagination! Again, the pulsating force started at my crown, and spread out to my fingertips, and the tips of all my toes. All my fingertips and the tips of my toes then seemed to start dancing again, as they moved in patterns with each of my feet and fingers alternately straight, then bent. In rhythm with this straightening and bending of my feet and fingertips, my cheeks rubbed up and down against my shoulders. These movements were quite rapid.

  Suddenly the pulsating force reached up to my nose and made my nostrils expand and contract. Next it reached my eyes and made my eyelids open and close in a quivering motion, while my eyeballs rotated in a circular motion. After this, the pulsating force touched the edges of my ears, and my ears moved in a circular pattern that seemed very natural, thirty-six times, from left to right, then right to left.

  The sixth episode

  Another evening, my middle Dan Tien generated the pulsating force, which began with a repetitive circular movement. It started at my two flanks, then it surrounded my waist at the level known as the Dai meridian. The motion of the pulsating force was circular, it encircled me from left to right, then right to left, thirty-six times.

  It moved up to my chest, and made a horizontal circle once, then circled first to the left, then to the right, thirty-six times. Next it dropped down to the lower area of my abdomen, made a circle around it, then moved to the left and right, making thirty-six circles in each direction. This circular motion shifted from the lower to the middle to the upper area of my torso and was repeated three times. Then it traced circles vertically up and down the left side of my chest. Next, it repeated this pattern on the right side of my chest. After this, the circles alternated from left to right, consecutively, several times.

  The pulsating force changed location again, touching my hands and feet simultaneously. The feeling of the force caused my hands to open, and both my arms spontaneously made rapid circles through the air, from front to back. Next, the feeling touched my feet, making them bend, then straighten. This movement was beyond my conscious control. Occasionally my feet moved close to each other, and the toes touched, with my heels apart. Following this, my two heels touched, and my feet turned out, pointing away from each other. My knees also alternately touched each other, then separated. Suddenly my knees were raised up, and my hips were suspended in the air, waving from left to right. At the same time, my hands and feet moved three times. Then the pulsating force moved up to my cheeks, my lips, my nose, my eyes, and my ears, just as I have described it previously, but this time it happened faster.

  The seventh episode

  One evening, I started to feel the circulation in my middle Dan Tien, left and right, as the pulsating force traced a design which extended from my chest to my lower abdomen. Like the ones I described earlier, this pattern was also a spiral, but this time it happened more times, at the middle, lower, and upper parts of my torso. At each location, there were sixty repetitions of the pattern instead of the thirty-six I had previously experienced. Suddenly I felt that the spiral drawn on my
middle Dan Tien was expanding. I felt hollow inside. From my chest to my abdomen, this spiraling motion was expanding, and I felt completely hollow. Separately at each of the three levels, upper, middle, and lower, the circles enlarged, approximately six times. Each time a circle was completed, the feeling lasted about five to six minutes.

  After that, the pulsating force went up from my middle Dan Tien to my crown, and circulated there. Then it dropped down to my left buttock and my left upper body, and traced an oblong shape around my torso thirty-six times. Once more it ascended to my head, then dropped down again to my right buttock, and right half of my torso, repeating the same oblong pattern, moving up and down thirty-six times. After this, it ascended to my head again, and from the base of my brain it flowed down my spine to my Wei Lu. From there it continued down, and paused in my left leg. It next encircled my left leg, then switched to my right leg, and encircled it, too. It circled each leg thirty-six times.

  The eighth episode

  One evening, I felt the pulsating force move in my middle Dan Tien, my lower abdomen, and my chest. I felt this force move up to my brain, where within my skull I felt the circling movement of the force, right to left and left to right, thirty times.