a/ The Second Brain
b/ Practice - Three Minds Into One
c/ Hara (Tan Tien) Massage
The first and second brains are linked

Relaxation, Letting Go, Surrender and Ego
Excerpted from Cosmic Healing 1, by Grandmaster Chia


In some religions and spiritual paths, there is a great emphasis on surrender and letting go. This is actually a form of relaxation. Taoist practices emphasize relaxation, letting go, and emptiness. When a person is relaxed, the muscles are open, the breathing is soft, and the energy can flow through the channels of the body. There is no resistance and no fighting. This allows the creative and higher forces to flow into us. Most religions have a similar process. To contact the higher self and the higher forces,one needs to let go and surrender in order to reach the level where one can be in contact and become one with the higher forces. Through the surrender of control, one opens up and touches the forces of nature.


However, if you continue to surrender and let go, you will lose the energy you have sent out. In the long term, this will gradually drain you. The force will suck the energy out of you, rather than help you to bring the energy into yourself. To avoid this, at the moment that one is in touch with the higher forces, one again becomes aware of oneself and his or her own energy. One is then able to project his or her own thoughts, intentions and patterns into the force, integrating the outer with the doubling or tripling inner energies. You can bring this force back toy our place, your house and into yourself.


One must remain open and empty while using one's intentions, mind and Chi to draw the energy into oneself. What might initially appear to be a paradox is reformed as one does the practice and learns how to be empty and open and to simultaneously retain enough consciousness to draw the force into oneself.


Mind, Organs and Sexual Organs

It seems that some people are disconnected from themselves and from their sexual organs. The mind and organs are therefore separate. Taoism believes that the mind,body and spirit must work together. The results depend on a person's practice.


Brain

The brain can access and generate the higher forces, but storing this energy in the brain itself is not easy. We need to train the brain to increase its ability and capacity to store energy. The brain energy, when increased to a certain level, can enable more synapses to grow, and can help turn protein into brain cells. The Tao believes that with training and practice, one can learn to grow more brain and nerve cells, as well as increase the number of synapses in the central nervous system.


Organs of the Body

The organs can also generate energy, but much less than the sexual organs and the brain. They also have a much greater capacity to store and transform energy.


Sexual Organs

The Tao discovered that the sexual organs are the only organs that can generate a significant amount of sexual energy (life force). However, the sexual organs cannot store the energy efficiently. When too much energy is generated, considerable amounts have to be dumped out. And this is the best energy that one has. It is the 'creative' energy.


Three Tan liens

The Three Tan Tiens can also store energy, transform it and supply it to the brain, spinal cord, sexual organs and other organs. The aim of Taoist basic training is to integrate the brain, sexual organs and other organs into one system. If the brain generates too much energy, it can store the energy in the organs. The excess sexual energy can also be stored in the organs and the three Tan Tiens. If the brain generates too much of the higher forces and we are unable to store this energy, we have to throw it away. It is like preparing food for one hundred people, when only one person is eating. The rest gets thrown away. In the same way, when too much sexual energy is produced and there is no place to store it, it is wasted. We do not have enough of this energy to be able to waste it. We have a limited amount of energy and of time. Some practices just deal with the spirit and ignore the body and the sexual energy. These practices can generate a lot of energy, but when one is not connected to the organs, it cannot be stored anywhere. One will end up draining oneself. Some people practice sitting quietly, emptying the mind, with the whole body relaxed and calm, but very little energy is actually generated. When one gets deep into the practice, some people find it hard to come back to society, because they have no energy and their mind power does not work well. These people have to depend on others to support them.


In the Universal Tao, we are learning to create a sacred and holy temple within our-selves. With the simple practice of smiling to all the organs, we can integrate our bodies, minds and spirits. They are no longer separate. The sexual practice connects the mind with the sexual organs and the brain. The separation between these parts of ourselves is bridged and a synergy is created. The Taoist practice provides us with the resources to extend beyond the realm of our senses. By tapping into our internal resources and channeling the energy around us,we can perceive much more than the senses normally report to the mind. We want to extend our perception from the limited perspective of the sociologically conditioned senses to the unlimited awareness of the universe.


For example, our senses tell us that the earth is flat, that we are stationary, and that heaven is above us. In reality, the earth is a sphere hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour and the heavens are above, below and beyond the earth in every direction. The goal of the Three Tan Tiens is to connect with the forces from the six directions - above, below, left, right, front and back - and draw all these forces into the body. Eventually, with practice one can draw upon many different energies and use them as needed, thereby giving form to the form-less energy that is abundant in nature.


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Tan Tien Consciousness: Second Brain
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Already terms have been used like 'upper mind', 'feeling and awareness mind' in the abdomen and lower 'Tan Tien'. In the next phase of practice, the 'conscious mind of the heart' is introduced. For those readers who have not been updated on the scientific and medical revelations of the recent era about a 'second' and 'third' brain, we offer the following information. Along with this, there is the long-standing Taoist practice of cultivating and training consciousness in the Three Tan Tiens, especially the Lower Tan Tien. There is my own experience in participating in brain wave measurements and 'brain energy potential' research in recent years. The combination of all these areas of knowledge and experience in our time, makes Cosmic Healing practices accessible for our minds while also being very 'down to earth.
'

Now let's talk about the Lower Tan Tien. In addition to its importance as the control center for the mechanics of the physical structure of the body, the Lower Tan Tien also houses a treasure of even more far-reaching significance. It has been a well-kept secret in the western world, as well as inmost of the rest of the world: our Second Brain. Most of us who have had Taoist training in Chi Kung, Tai Chi, various Chi meditations or healing practices have often heard the reminder, 'Be aware of your Tan Tien.' But, do most people really 'get' the meaning of the injunction to always be conscious of the Tan Tien? Probably not. Further, do we use our Second Brain as much as we can? Definitely not.


In western terms, do we actually understand "Be aware of your Tan Tien" as being away to train consciousness and awareness, like educating a brain in the abdominal area, in our Tan Tien? Probably not. Throughout the world, there are institutions to train the brain in the head. That is good. But, what about training the 'second brain' in the abdominal area? I didn't think of it exactly like that in western terms, either, even though that is exactly what I have been doing all of my life in my Taoist training and teaching.


Personal Revelation

Suddenly, I came to understand a few things which are so simple and so important, and that's what I am going to share with you. It started in 1994 in Los Angeles when a clinical psychologist there, Dr. Rhonda Jessum, wanted to start testing me. I agreed to do the testing, but the machines at that time didn't tell me much. However, it was discovered that when I did the Inner Smile meditation, my brain waves went down dramatically -but at the same time, my 'beta' waves increased to a very high level. That means the waves showed that I could be driving a car, but that my brain should have been resting and sleeping. So the researchers said, "Hey, how did you do that?" I didn't understand either - because it was not clear to me either.


After that, I was invited to start testing in Europe by the Institute for Applied Biocybernetics and Feedback Research. My name is becoming known there because teach in Europe a lot. One of the biggest institutes for training top athletes in Europe is in Vienna. They developed an instrument that can measure the brain's potential energy,which represents all the energy in the body. The doctors also said that this proves to the west that Chi exists, there is energy and a life force running in the body. That instrument picks it up in the brain and indicates how much potential brain energy you have. It also determines how much energy you have for the whole day and how much of that energy is for mental clarity and body power. They use these instruments to measure the athletes.


It's interesting because the energy I have been describing in my teaching is exactly what they were measuring during their testing. So I went there and did the measurements with them. I just did the Inner Smile, smiling into my abdomen. They picked up these readings very quickly and said, "Your brain waves are going lower, lower and resting - and you are nearly in the sleeping state." At the same time, the muscle tension was very low, the heartbeat was very low and the skin resistance was very low. After that, I surged the energy up to the brain and they started to see that the energy actually charged up there. When we are thinking, worrying or feeling anger, shame or guilt - the energy level in the brain actually decreases, and the brain doesn't get charged up. They were quite amazed, and said, "Hey, this is what we're looking for!" They asked me what I was doing. I said, "I'm smiling to my abdomen.
"

They kept on talking to me and asking me questions. They discovered that this brain (in the head) was not very active at all, meaning that there was not much activity in the brain. It was still in a very light resting state. But, how could I answer their questions? They said,"Hey, look! Master Chia is talking to us in his sleep. How can he talk to us in his sleep?"After that, I said, "Oh, I understand now." Because, throughout the whole practice of the Tao is the injunction, 'train the second brain in order to use the second brain.' It took the westerners a long time to understand that.


So, when the article about the 'Hidden Brain in the Gut' came out in The New York Times, I started to understand that. You cane miserable; you can be happy; you can feel all kinds of feelings. But according to this article, they had also discovered that this brain in the gut, the enteric nervous system,can do a lot of functions. It says that this gut brain can send and receive impulses; it can record experience and respond to emotions. So, it is like a brain. In this article, they had only discovered that the large intestine and the small intestines have the same neurons as the brain cells.
After that article, a new book, The Second Brain, was published.


Now in medical science, I might add, they have begun to discover consciousness in the heart. They found that the heart can record a whole event, and it has its own brain Dr.
Paul Pearsall has written a new book, called The Heart's Code

They have found that people who have a heart transplant actually get the emotions of the donor. They actually experience whatever the donor experienced. One of the cases is that of a girl who was brutally killed, and they didn't know who killed her. But, the heart was OK; so, it was transplanted into another girl. After that, the girl started to get nightmares and described some-body killing her. Then she described how the killer looked. Finally, the mother took the girl to a psychiatrist, and he in turn contacted the police. The girl gave the police an exact description and a police artist drew a likeness of the killer.


With the information provided by the girl, the police were able to go and arrest the man. Afterwards, when confronted with clear details of the crime, the man confessed that he was indeed guilty of this crime. So, from that experience, medical scientists and others came to realize that the heart can record all of an event and remember it.


The Lower Brain consumes less energy and can do a lot of daily work, like send and receive impulse records and experience and respond to emotions. When you lower down the Upper Mind, it will also lower the blood pressure and anxiety.


On the second page of the Times' article, it says that even the large intestine is loaded with neurons. The question was posed, 'Can it learn?' But I say, "Hey,this goes back to 4,700 years of the Tao practice, which says: Train all the organs; train them how to do different things." You can rest the head brain when you're not using it -and use the brain in the gut. Why is it so important? Because the head brain is a 'monkey mind' riddled with doubt, shame, guilt and a suspicious mind. It is always thinking. Worrying, figuring things out things, head trips - it just keeps on, all the time. To be a God, you must let go of the past and empty the mind. Now we are in the information age;anything flits in - we think. Just one word flits in and we start an entire string of thought. When somebody says one bad word to you, you can think and figure it out for three days and three nights.
'How am I going to get revenge? How am I going to get revenge?'

Scientists have discovered that when people worry too much, thinking, planning, etc., this brain actually use sup a lot of energy. Depending on the type of person-some people are very physical types who use very little brain energy, but their physical body consumes a lot of energy. However, most people think and think and think. So the scientists give an approximation, by way of a percentage. This is just a number for comparison, not an exact number. They say that this brain in the head can use up to 80% of the body's energy. So, what happens is you have only 20% left for the organs. According to the information about the brain in the gut, they have discovered that the brain in the head and the brain in the gut can do some similar jobs. For example, this brain in the gut is the emotional and the feeling brain. In the west you have the expressions, 'I feel you from my gut' and 'I have a gut feeling about something.
' Why do people mention a gut feeling?

Obviously people have some feeling in their gut. It's very interesting that the whole Tao practice is feeling, awareness and consciousness - using this gut to feel, to be aware, and to be conscious. You can rest, relax the brain in the head by using the 'brain in the gut.' This is the first step. The first thing we learn in the Tao is to forgive and let go. When we keep on remembering past negative emotions, we will stop seeing the truth. To let go of the past is to empty the mind and use the abdominal mind, the awareness and consciousness. Here's an interesting point in the way of the Tao: This gut brain can do a lot of simple functions that are similar to the functions of the brain in the head. This is a feeling and awareness type of functioning similar to many of our 'right brain' functions.


However, we need to use the brain in the head in order to perform complex functions such as reasoning, making plans and making complex calculations. For rational functions, we need to use the brain in the head for the 'left brain' functions. For our daily life of consciousness, awareness and feeling, we can use either the brain in the gut or the brain in the head. When we use the upper brain less, it will become charged with more energy and its power will be increased - and more power will be available to the body. That is why we say in Taoism, that we have to train the brain in the gut, so that we can use it when the brain in the head is resting. When the head brain is resting, it can be recharged: brain repair and maintenance occurs. Also, it can grow new brain cells. With more charging we have more power for creativity or whatever we want to use it for. If we like, we can use it to develop our higher spiritual nature.


The simple thing is, that for the same job that the head brain or the gut brain can do,the head brain charges you eighty dollars. The gut brain only charges you twenty dollars. So, which one do you want to use? No, of course we are not that silly to use this overpriced person for the same work. But when we come to our own actual life, we don't know how to do it. We always use this mind, this high-priced brain. To add to this,we continue using it and using it, until the brain energy is completely consumed - no more energy. When you get to a certain level the brain is empty. These brain energy measurements are not only for indicating mental energy levels, they also represent energy conditions for the whole body and spiritual energy. Whenever I smile down, the brain waves go lower and lower very quickly - and the transformed energy from the Tan Tien and organs charges up the brain in the head!Just by flexing the facial muscles into the mode we use with a genuine smile, we can produce the effects on the nervous system that normally goes with the natural spontaneous feeling. We can actually make ourselves relaxed and happy by taking advantage of this built-in human mechanism. It's natural.
Just do it! Learning to smile down to the abdominal area and maintain the awareness of the relaxed, smiling sensation in the Tan Tien is the first step in training the Second Brain!

Think about it: Pure awareness and consciousness can change attitudes and emotions carried in the DNA.
Remember:

Number 1: "Empty your mind down to the Tan Tien, and fill the Tan Tien with Chi." An axiom in the Tao is, where the mind goes the Chi follows.
And,

Number 2: "When your mind is empty, it will be filled!" This means that when the organs have extra energy, the extra organ energy will rise up and fill the brain with Chi.


Source: http://www. scribd. com/doc/2678012/Mantak-Chia-Cosmic-Healing-I
 

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Practice - Three Minds Into One

Smile down to the inner universe. Activate the heart's consciousness and empty the mind and heart down to the Lower Tan Tien, the Abdominal Brain. Gather the 'Yi' (mind-eye-heart power), combining Three Minds into One. Fill the Tan Tien with this Chi. Start to spiral the energy. You are then ready to connect to the higher forces of Universal and Heavenly Chi. The Three Minds are the Upper, Middle and Lower, or Three Tan Tiens.


1.
Smile to the Inner Universe
Place your palms together in salutation, in front of your heart. Feel the Laogong points in your hands connect, creating an energy loop running from your heart through your arms and hands and back again.


Activate the heart's compassion Laogong Point (pericardium 8)



2.
Activate the Heart's Compassion Energy
Smile to the heart and feel it softening. Feel love, joy, compassion and happiness. Smile down and empty the mind to the Lower Tan Tien, the Abdominal Brain. Fill the Tan Tien with Chi and start to spiral the energy.


When the abdomen is warm, it is full of Chi. The Chi can then charge up to the Upper Brain.


Combine the Three Minds into One
1. Lower the Upper Mind (observation mind) down to the Lower Tan Tien.

2. Lower the Middle Mind (consciousness mind) down to Lower Tan Tien.

3. Combine Three Minds Into One Mind at the Lower Tan Tien (the Yi).

4. Manifest your intent out at the mideyebrow.


Remember - what you send out, you will in some way, receive back. It may not always be what you expected but it will always be for your greater good. In the Tao we also learn to cease expectations and that there are no promises or guarantees.

2.
Activate the Heart's Compassion Energy
Smile to the heart and feel it softening. Feel love, joy, compassion and happiness. Smile down and empty the mind to the Lower Tan Tien, the Abdominal Brain. Fill the Tan Tien with Chi and start to spiral the energy.


When the abdomen is warm, it is full of Chi. The Chi can then charge up to the Upper Brain.


Combine the Three Minds into One
1. Lower the Upper Mind (observation mind) down to the Lower Tan Tien.

2. Lower the Middle Mind (consciousness mind) down to Lower Tan Tien.

3. Combine Three Minds Into One Mind at the Lower Tan Tien (the Yi).

4. Manifest your intent out at the mideyebrow.


Remember - what you send out, you will in some way, receive back. It may not always be what you expected but it will always be for your greater good. In the Tao we also learn to cease expectations and that there are no promises or guarantees.

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source: http://www. kheper. net/topics/Taoism/tan_tiens. jpg
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How to Find the Hara (Tan Tien; Shaman Brain)
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=gYzCcp4JIJU

How to Do Upper Hara Massage
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=i9ThBrpu-GU

Taoism - a problem of definition

Chinese religion and spirituality has been divided, by both the Chinese and foreign scholars alike, into three great streams: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. In the spirit of Asiatic syncretism, these three teachings were often con-sidered complementary rather than contradictory, Confucianism being concerned with how one should act in the human world, and Buddhism and Taoism with the spiritual and world-transcending path; and Chinese writers would frequently speak of the "three sages": Confucius, Lao-tze, and Buddha. (A similiar approach was taken in India, regarding the reconcilia-tion of the six classical systems of philosophy - the "six darshanas" - which were codified around the time of Christ). But quite apart from the arbitrary nature of such a conciliation, we are faced with the fact that whereas Confucianism and Buddhism could each be considered self-contained religions, Taoism was little more than a "catch-all" category with which to include anything that did not fit within the other two religions: from the sublime philisophico-spiritual teachings of Lao-tze and Chuang-tze (both fourth century B.C.E.) to the magical-occult folk beliefs of the village shaman.

Some Western scholars tried to make sense of Taoism by distinguishing between "philosophical" Taoism (by which is meant the tradition of Lao-tze and Chuang-tze) and "religious" Taoism. Such terms are rather inappropriate. Lao-tze and Chuan-tze's Taoism is hardly "philosophical", but rather "spiritual" in the sense that sophisticated - as op-posed to "popular" or "village" - Buddhism and "Hinduism" are. And "religious" Taoism can itself be divided into many categories, such as Village/Shamanic on the one hand, and Yogic/alchemical/self-transformative on the other.

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Taoism/definition.html

Meditation - Gathering the Light
grafic from The Secret of the Golden Flower
Harvest/HBJ, New York and London, 1962
 

In addition to the purely mystical Taoism of the Tao-te-Ching the one hand, and to village shamanism and magic on the other, there was a third spiritual tradition in China that has also been given the term "Taoism". This is a tradition of yogic transformation of the vital-force; the so-called "inner alchemy", because it uses alchemical metaphors and purports to be a quest for immortality. It is this esoteric Taoism which constitutes the native Chinese counterpart to Indian and Tibetan Tantra.and western Qabalah.

In the West, we tend to think (incorrectly so) of "alchemy" as an early precursor of chemistry. And even when seen from the spiritual perspective, alchemy still entails physical experimentation.

In China, "alchemy" was originally a search for immortality through various drugs, herbs, and chemicals. This is known as wai-tan, external alchemy, and was developed probably around the 4th century b.c.e., half a millenium before the earliest reference to alchemy in the West.

Alongside this, and perhaps a little later, there developed nei-tan, internal alchemy, which was actually a sort of yoga or meditation-practice, not unlike Indian Tantra, which resembled external alchemy only in its terminology (the alchemical terms having a symbolic rather than a literal meaning). Internal alchemy had as its aim the cultivation of the life-force, and the consequent attainment of immortality of the personality.

The basic premise of the the esoteric or nei-tan Taoists is that man has only a limited store of vital-force (ch'i). This leaks away through day-to-day activities, and when it's all gone, that's it, the person's dead. But it is possible to make the ch'i go back inside, rather than outwards, and then up the spine to the crown. This obviously is very like the Tantric Kundalini. In ascending, the ch'i progresses through various stations, which are given exotic names like the Elixer-field, the Yellow Hall, the Heaven. Now comes the difference with Shakta based tantra. Reaching the top of the head, the ch'i then descends down the front of the body, down to the navel, and then around again, forming a complete circuit. This circut is known as "The Circulation of the Light", or "The Microcosmic Orbit".