The Microcosmic Orbit is the oldest and most important meditation of Daoism. This video shows how to use breath and visualization to refine and build Qi within the human energy body.
In the Daoist system the energy centers are called gates or portals. The Microcosmic orbit is an advanced practice sometimes called the SMALL HEAVENLY CIRCUIT, because it rewires your body electrical system in harmony with the cosmos for perfect health. The practice is thousands of years old and there are countless versions of it. We will do it with two kinds of breathing, first with Abdominal Breathing, and then with Daoist Reverse Breathing. This is my synthesis of over 50 years of meditation experience with many fine Masters. I’m a Qigong practitioner and intuitive energy healer, not an acupuncturist. So my way of teaching is unique, looking for the most effective way to link modern needs with ancient cosmogenesis.
- 0.00 Introduction
- 4.50 Structure of the Human Energy Body
- 6:20 Extraordinary Meridians Rule Spiritual Destiny
- 8:25 Description of the Daoist Gates
- 10:30 Normal Chest Breathing and Abdominal Breathing
- 12:06 How to Breathe White Light into the Pineal Gland
- 13:30 The Body Column Connects Heaven and Earth
- 14:25 #1 Microcosmic Orbit with Abdominal Breath
- 19:28 #2 Microcosmic Orbit with Abdominal Breath
- 23:10 More Advanced Practices
- 27:06 #1 Microcosmic Orbit with Daoist Reverse Breathing
- 30:10 #2 Microcosmic Orbit with Daoist Reverse Breathing
- 33:00 Conclusion
Your Future Genesis is Spinning Inside You
When you breathe Qi into the energy gates of your body, and allow them all to spin, you will glow with health and vitality. This practice can heal disease, lower blood pressure, clear toxins, and dissolve negative emotions. This exercise will bring warmth to your abdomen, improve brain function, and vitalize your sensual life. Daoist monks use this to live one hundred years or longer.
Challenging times in the world invite us to light a fire in the belly, for each one of us to become the creator of our own reality, instead of reacting to outside events. When we possess our own inner compass and personal power, we can project that beneficial “operating system” (if you will) out into the world. We do this by first reconnecting and strengthening our own internal energy system.
What is the goal of life? Chinese medicine holds that it is not to make money, to be famous, or achieve all your desires. The highest goal for each person is to learn the lessons, accumulate virtue through positive actions, and to gain enlightenment, or ASCENSION.
To achieve this goal, the human body is finest energy tool in the world. But you must first learn how to play it. Like a musical instrument, the first time you pick up a violin, you get terrible squeaks and squawks. Most people give up at this point. But those few who practice diligently every day, develop the mastery to achieve their highest destiny.
To function in a multi-dimensional environment requires spiritual muscles and a strong nervous system. The physical body is a perfect and complete system. And we also have a spiritual body with its own mechanism that is highly sensitive, however the spiritual body is rarely used. It needs to be worked and trained to become resilient enough to support powerful universal forces for a true spiritual life. This is called inner work, or internal alchemy of transformation.
When you learn to control your breath, you become the master of your Qi, your life force.
Daoist gates are seen as portals, a spinning torus, that rotates much like a galaxy. In fact, all your acupuncture points, chakras, and Qi energy centers are of this form, and even your whole body is a spinning whirlpool of light. This practice helps you get all the primary gates spinning at the same time. It’s like a game that you play with visualization, using your breath, your body, and the living universe in real time.
Chinese medicine sees the human body as a perfect vessel that is both physical and spiritual. The body has a structure of meridians – Qi pathways, energy points, bones, a lymphatic network, cerebrospinal fluid, blood vessels, muscles, and organs. Within your intelligent energy body there are 20 meridians and 361 points, each one portal like a spinning torus.
Your body is a microcosm of the larger universe. If you look inside a cell with a powerful microscope, you’ll see quadrillions of spirals, atoms and electrons spinning in space. And if you go outside into the vast universe, you will also see spirals spinning.
The two most important energy pathways of the body are the Du Mai up the back, and RenMai down the front. These first two meridians keep you alive. They encircle two primary energy points of the body in the lower belly and in the brain center. Like a binary orbit, your energy revolves around these two points. We use breath to guide and build the energy flow within and between these two gates. This meditation is intimately related to the Cerebrospinal fluid that flows up the spine into the brain and back down six to 12 cycles per minute.
The Microcosmic Orbit vitalizes the meridians, like channels of light, in order to detox, heal disease, and live healthier longer. Of 20 meridians in the body, the first 8 are called the Extraordinary meridians that rule, ancestry, development, healing, and destiny. These X meridians are the first to form and the most powerful. However, they are not treated much in Chinese medicine. Instead most practitioners focus on the 12 organ meridians of the physical body, which develop later, after your 8 X meridians.
My practice focuses on the 8 Extraordinary Meridians, because they rule your spiritual destiny, not just your physical health. I see this as a more direct path to healing and ascension. Many Meditation systems start with these FIRST 2 vertical meridians, which are the most direct way to purify the body-mind-spirit and uplift your destiny. Doing the microcosmic orbit just a few minutes a day will connect the natural cosmic energies within your body, to slowly alter your deep awareness toward a joyful life in harmony with your original blueprint.
So the purpose of this exercise is to vitalize the Du Mai and Ren Mai X-Meridians with life-giving Qi to open and activate all the energy gates along the circuit. One way to visualize the energy body is in this ancient diagram of the Neijing-tudepicting a human body as a hologram of nature – an “inner landscape” of mountains, rivers, forests, and stars. Each gate in your energy body has a unique role and a particular sensation. As we go through the gates now, observe and feel how each one possesses its own quality, a living portal to the infinite within your body.
- Xia Dantian (Lower Elixir Field) – Three finger-widths below your navel, and 3 inches inside your body. This is your Kidney ancestral energy and storage gate called the Dantian.
- Hui Yin (Perineum) is at the pelvic floor, DM1, halfway between the anus and genitals on both sexes.
- Wei Lu (Tailbone gate, DU 2) – Between the sacrum and the coccyx in the lower spine, it feels like an opening that initiates the rising energy up your spine.
- Ming Men (Gate of Life, DU 4) behind the kidneys, related to the ancestral Jing you received from your parents and their lineage.
- Jia Ji (Mid back, DU 9) – Behind the heart, a very vibrant point which rules relationships and generosity.
- Da Zhui (Great Vertebra, DU 14) – Between the shoulder blades is the big bone C7 just below the base of the neck. This is the Vitruvian Man point where vertical pole meets the horizontal.
- Yu Zhen (Jade Pillow, DU 16) – Just below the occiput, is a little indentation in the base of the skull close to the confluence of sinuses, where blood and craniosacral fluid channels meet inside your brain.
- Bai Hui (Crown, DU 20) – The top of your head. This is a sacred point through which energy interconnects in the cosmos.
- Shang Dantien (Upper Elixir Field) – Midpoint between the eyebrows. When you breathe light into the brain you touch the pineal gland, which contains light-sensitive crystals.
- Tiantu at the throat, is called Heavenly Rushing, Ren 22, and is a gateway to the heart center.
- Zhong dantien is The Heart center or Middle Elixir Field, Ren 17 of love, generosity, and relationships.
- The cycle ends back home at Xia Dantien, in the belly.
The secret to a vital life is in your breath.
Sit comfortably on the floor, on a cushion, or in a chair. Sit with a straight spine.
Keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose.
Put your hands on your chest now, and feel your breath as you take 3 normal breaths. Feel the flow of air into your lungs, as your chest expands and contracts. This is called NORMAL CHEST BREATHING.
Now put your hands on your belly, breathe deep into your abdomen. Notice how your belly expands and relaxes. Now take another breath as if someone just gave you a delicious rose to smell. It’s a beautiful way to inhale consciously. You will receive far more oxygen when you inhale the scent of the rose and let the belly expand. It feels good. Do this three times, smell a rose and breathe into your belly. If you can breathe this way all the time you will be healthier.
In the very center of the brain are important endocrine glands. The pituitary secretes hormones, the amygdala rules emotions. The Pineal with light-sensitive crystals that connect you to cosmic energy, lies suspended in the 3rd ventricle, a pool of craniosacral fluid. We breathe energy into the pineal, and down into the belly. Notice the image and feel where your Pineal gland is located. As you smell a beautiful rose, breathe light into the vast brain center, this infinite space called the third eye, and nourish the pineal gland.
Qigong masters talk about the secret smile. This is just a way to direct joy and healing into any area of your body. With the secret smile, it’s easy to be happy. Use your secret smile now as you smell the rose to inhale energy into the third eye in the center of your brain.
Now rest the tip of your tongue comfortably behind the upper teeth, to connect the meridians. Inhale again into your brain and this time swallow down into your heart and belly. Allow your thoughts to descend from your brain down into your belly.
Your body energy forms a column connecting heaven and earth, like a tree or a totem pole.
Now inhale into the brain and send a tap root of energy down through your pelvic floor into the center of the earth.
Now inhale again and send a root straight up into the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This gives you a column of living energy between heaven and earth. Feel you are suspended from an invisible string that pulls your spine up long and straight.
Notice that all your centers are spinning now, like so many galaxies nourishing your life orbit. Take a few breaths and center your awareness in the Dantien.
Notice that all your centers are spinning now, Take a few breaths and center your awareness in the Dantien. Good.
This completes two circulation of the microcosmic orbit.
See video for guided breathing.
When you are comfortable with Abdominal Breathing, then you are ready to increase to the next level. Your objective is to more powerfully build Qi in the belly gate, the Dantien. This is the storage center of your personal power, your energy warehouse, which you can either increase or deplete in your life. The problem is that when we use normal breathing or abdominal breathing, we lose a tremendous amount of energy on the exhale. Aha! Today we are learning how the Himalayan monks stay strong and vital to 100 years and longer.
I would like to show you Daoist Reverse Breathing, a gentle method that allows you to build more Qi in the Dantien with each breath, to continually strengthen your physical, personal, and even your sexual power. We will practice the Microcosmic orbit in a moment with Daoist Reverse Breathing.
When you are comfortable with two breathing methods on this video (Abdominal and Reverse Breathing), and all your gates are spinning, then your every cell becomes a torus of light, and your entire body a spinning vortex of joy, drawing magnetic life force into it. In your personal practice if you want to enhance your experience these two breathing methods, you can try adding a swallow down into the belly after each inhale. And you can do a brief breath rentention after each inhale. Be careful, this is just a gentle suspension of your breath, without counting, holding or locking the throat. These two techniques will enhance your progress. After that, let me know when you’re ready for more advanced techniques which include Embryonic breathing, Bone Marrow Breathing, Double-Breath Kundalini meditation of Rudrananda, the X-meridian meditation, and Packing, which will all boost and fast-track your inner work.
Daoist Reverse Breathing is very easy to do, once you get the hang of it. On the inhale simply pull your belly inward, and your chest and ribs will automatically expand outward. On the exhale, relax everything, so that the belly expands, and the chest returns to normal. Be careful to relax completely at the end of the exhale, to not to build tension in your body. Let’s try it now. Place one hand on your belly, and the other on your chest. Inhale and pull your belly in as your chest and ribs expand. On the exhale, relax everything so belly moves outward, and let the chest returns to normal.
See video for guided breathing.
Conclusion
Thank you for your attention. In conclusion, the microcosmic orbit is a personal journey of refinement and joy, However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Each time you do it on your own, your sensations and awareness will become clearer, as your body is busy developing new synapses in your natural energy pathways, to optimize health and spiritual awareness.
In just a few minutes, you can spin the orbit to vitalize all the gates and the two main centers (the pineal and the belly), to set up your day for success. That’s all it takes. this is your personal tool to purify the DNA, cleanse your cerebrospinal fluid, and heal everything in the body mind spirit.
There are many pathways to ascension, and this is a good one. Once you choose your path you do it every day. I love harnessing the power of the breath. We don’t need dogma, not even words. And when you’re ready for the next levels of work I invite you to contact me. PAUSE
Your energy body is powerful. In fact the sheer multi-dimensional power of your body to radiate pure light from SOURCE through every gate, every acupuncture point, and chakra, is so great that it can protect you and make you virtually immune to any misunderstanding or evil that does not adhere to the highest laws of nature. And when we each radiate our personal power, we cannot be distracted or defeated. Together we have the power to uplift our own frequency, that of the Earth, and our galaxy.
Thank you for your attention and best wishes for your success.
Srijana, aka Jane Barthelemy is a medical intuitive, author, and healer. She has practiced Tibetan Buddhist meditation for over five decades, residing in the Rudrananda Ashram in the USA for 35 years. She practices craniosacral therapy, Acunect, and BodyTalk – an infusion of intuitive Chinese, and Ayurvedic wisdom. She is trained in Qigong, Taichi, Daoist sexuality, and Kundalini activation. Her medical Qigong training is with Mantak Chia, Khamto Lee, Daniel Villasenor, Zhongxian Wu, Dr. Ka’imi Pilipovich, Franco Mescola, Richard Leirer, and Lam Kam Chueng. She has her BS in Italian Opera and MBA in financial management. Her two paradigm-changing cookbooks show how to build health with unprocessed foods. Her upcoming books include: “Heal Your Past Lives”, and “Buddha Speaks – Channeled Passages from the Master”. She is on the faculty of NewEarth University and LearnDesk. Her websites are FiveSeasonsMedicine.com and JanesHealthyKitchen.com. Srijana lives in Bali with her Bhutanese husband, Lama D.