Last night I taught the third session of a four session course on the nine breaths and tsa lung. It’s been really interesting to teach as the group is not only quite large (50 - 125 people), but it is made of experienced yogis, people with no background in subtle anatomy at all, and the whole gamut in between. At the end of the second week, though I’d tried to keep things simple, I could see how much it was to take in for many folks. So, I essentialized what needs to be known. There is so much that can be studied and known about the subtle body, but the below six points are really all that one needs to grasp.
What is the purpose of spiritual practice? Shardza Rinpoche says it is to separate the innate luminosity of awareness from the dregs of the mind and then to rest on the side of awareness. This is self-realization.
Working with the channels, winds, and chakras, such as with tsa lung and the nine breaths, is a way to move our attention toward that luminosity and rest in it.
The winds (chi/prana/lung/psyche/spirare) are not the physical breath. Just as sunlight has the physical quality of warming and the subtle quality of illuminating, there is a physical component of the breath and a subtle energetic component of the breath. We visualize the channels to learn to distinguish between these two aspects of the breath.
The chakras are centers where the wind energy resides, like horses in stables within a barn. Each chakra has certain qualities or properties that you can discover through practice of the tsa lung that resides in each chakra.
Tibetans use the metaphor of a blind horse and a lame rider. The mind is the rider, and can go nowhere on its own. The mind is at the mercy of whatever comes before it, sensations, thoughts, feelings, experiences. The horse is aimless and can’t find its way. This is the wind/energy of the body, and it blows any which way along the paths of the channels, not knowing where to go. When the mind rides the wind, they can both move with intent along the paths of the body/mind complex. The rider guides the horse and the horse carries the rider.
Uniting the mind and the winds along the paths of the channels, we gain familiarity the energies of our being and develop skill in working with and expressing them. Our mind grows more clear and calm. We become increasingly free to choose how to be in the world and how to relate to all that arises in our experience. Our bodies are more supple and healthy in mind and (maybe) body, and we are not so destabilized when we are sick. As we connect to our innate luminous, spacious nature, our self-realization grows and wisdom and compassion manifest.
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