you [Music] so over the course of these lectures in these videos I want to introduce the microcosmic orbit and the theory behind it that there's quite a lot of theory there's a lot of methods as well behind this practice it's very very in-depth so it's going to take me a little while to instruct the different levels so initially I just wanted to introduce what is the shower jyoti end of microcosmic orbit as it's commonly known yeah and what place does it have it in Qigong practice it's one of those parts of Qigong that I feel is often quite misunderstood partially with regards to its functions partially with regards to how important it is also sometimes how difficult it is and to understand the actual mechanisms behind its functioning and that's a real shame because it's one of the most important parts of Qigong training yeah so first of all shelter Thien essentially means smaller or lesser small orbits of heaven this is what it refers to so people love sea call it the the microcosmic because less I have an a small heaven the shoutian is the heaven that's on the inside of your body so one of the key rules for for Taoism any Taoist practice was that which happens on the outside of the body is reflected on the inside of the body and vice versa so what they're referring to the orbit that's established is a circulation of something that takes place within the body it's not quite so simple to just say it's a line of Chi that circulates through two channels which is what most people understand it as it's more complex than this to understand the basis of the microcosm in a bit we need to first understand some of the reasons why people practice it yeah now philosophically the first reason is because that people essentially are an integral part of the environment and this is one of the first rationale behind the use of the of the microcosmic orbit or the development of this principle in practice so basically because there are various rotations that take place with in the larger heaven environment okay within the planets and within the stars and so on and so on these various sort of seasonal cycles and daily cycles and things like this though it must be the same rotations taking place on the inside of the body okay these rotations these cycles and these changes must be taking place inside of us this becomes the basis for much of Chinese medicine and how they work and how they understand the development of disease the development of life and things like this but also it's to do with the circulations and the transformations of Chi of energy within the body I'm also Jing of essence especially yeah so to the Daoists if somebody was to take their body to the peak of its potential you know so he could function in its highest level internally and it would have to match the nature of the environment on the outside so these circulations would need to be established the view was that when you were a child when you're very very young providing you a healthy then you already had these rotations these cycles on the inside but they kind of get lost as you age and mind kicks in so we want to return these circulations with regards to the actual orbits that take place in the larger heaven with regards to what we're looking at it's largely the Sun and the moon that they are actually trying to sync your circulations with with regards to the shadowed iyanya where the microcosmic orbit so the lunar cycle takes place over 28 and a half days whatever it's it's the monthly cycle okay so the lunar cycle is takes place over for a month so there is a circulation that takes place within the body over a month that matches the cycles of the Moon there is also a cycle of the Sun which is obviously a daily thing is a 24-hour cycle that is established within the body as well and the idea was to the Taoist that the Sun and the moon were the greatest representations of yin and yang ultimately in our environment that we could contact through our practice or yin and yang that influences over the course of our lives of our daily lives you know so they were trying to harmonize and sync the Chi and the Jing in the body with these cycles of took place so it's not just that the microcosmic orbit is a movement of Chi that takes place up with your breath or circulates very quickly within the body it actually has a few different timings depending on what aspect of that micro Cosby hope you're looking at so the second reason was that this was the basis for yang Xiong far young so far okay so young Sheng far essentially means life nourishing techniques if we look at it literally but we could call this if we translated in english i call this healthy living and you will get two different types of yang gemfile talked about with in chinese teachings the first of these these healthy living principles will be Mike just call young Shin fire but to do with you know correct sleep patterns and correct levels of exercise and eating the right food and and learning how to balance your rest and activities all of things you would associate with sensible healthy living that's the first I expect of young Jin far but then there is another aspect to yangshin fire which is sometimes called yang Sheng Dao so instead of this being healthy living principles like gangshim fire this would be essentially the mastery of healthy living or the way of healthy living basically if something is a Dao it is a process or a path pathless path ultimately that can be followed as a form of cultivation so it's it implies that it's something much higher than this so somebody who would mastering yang Shan far would mean they knew how to work healthily with their body using like I say their food and their sleep and the rest and Laura somebody who understood young Qingdao understood how to take the body's functioning to an extremely high level so that it essentially functioned very very efficiently and ultimately the idea was that if somebody was functioning very very efficiently with regards to their body there would be very very healthy so the basis of this would be you know regulation of you know the health of the organs design through organs on the inside of the body they would function to a high level the mind would be stabilized and functioning to a high level but on top of this a lot of the things like longevity that you hear about being you know a hallmark of Taoist practice certainly isn't it you know it's not that it was their aim but there's a byproduct of what they did people would extend their youthful vigor for a very very long time this was from yang Cheng Gao and on top of that the ability to generate a lot of energy or a lot of spirit now sometimes people don't understand why you want so much chi or why you want so much connection to Shen why why do you want these things and but it was because to the Taoist to our chemical practitioners these substances these fuels these forms of energy were required in order to take consciousness to a higher level so it was the basis of their enlightenment process now the third reason that we established shadow Tien is essentially for safety and this is a big one it's because Taoism is a tradition always took the stance that everything that you did with your mind was reflected in the body and vice versa so what it meant it's almost like the body was another microcosm of the mind rather than just being of the environment so that if you were to try to cultivate enlightenment or immortality it would involve work with the body essentially you would have to convert these things within the body to transform the mind this was different from some other traditions that were very very much based purely in consciousness but thou ISM did not separate the two so the Taoist it was almost nonsensical to attempt to achieve some kind of liberation while your body was dropping to bits okay they felt the two should be worked on at the same time now in order to work at this level there's a huge amount of energy that has to move through the energetic system through the channel system and as we go through the training of the microcosmic orbit I'll explain to you more about what this actually means because it's not quite as fluffy as you might think from from that phrase moving energy within the channels now one of the by products of moving energy through the channels it said it starts to put a lot more pressure into the body the body heats up and a lot more energy rises and things like this the nervous system can become stressed through this kind of training and over a long term this can be a little bit damaging at first hits drying for the body and then it's a little bit overheating and overstimulating so essentially the microcosmic orbit was put in place to make sure that there was a circuit almost like an earthing wire on the body so the when it energy was raised up that it could also be dropped back down once again because people who engage in very very strong yang based energy practices that don't have the microcosmic orbit in place do run the risk of just burning themselves out because there's nothing to return everything back to the base of the bodies this was another very important for it reason for it yet fourth one was to open the channel system so the microcosmic orbit assists with the opening of the rest of the channels so the channels we're talking about things that exist on different levels within the body so the first one of these would be the sinew channels the jing jing' within chinese thought which essentially are all the lines of connective tissue and elasticated fashio and everything like this that runs through the length of the body now there is a way to activate and open this channel system and ultimately that means to deliver more yang Qi via the microcosmic orbit into the sinew channels until they animate so a lot of the animation and movement and mobilization of the inside of the body the building of the inner environment so it has life in it relies on an open channel system that comes from the microcosmic orbit so that's very very important maybe if I write those down actually because they're quite fight vital it's like for a yeah for a is the sinew channels okay they need to open for us for B okay will you actually have the channels that exist in the energy body so now we are talking about something a little bit more esoteric within Western thought we might talk about the body and then we talk about the mind and then maybe within some traditions we might talk about sort of bioelectricity or Biomagnetism within the body or something like this as well but in Chinese thought as well as Indian as well actually Eastern traditions essentially they don't talk about one body with things in it they talk about multiple bodies so you have a physical body you have an energy body yeah you would then have a the mental body you would have the spiritual body the karmic body the causal body these are all bodies as far as they're concerned because the definition of a body for the Eastern traditions was ultimately something that you resided within or something you experienced yourself through so in the same way that we might say that a body our physical body is a vehicle for us if you like to mobilize around we would also see Eastern traditions they would also say that the mental body and the causal body and the energy body were also further vehicles for the expression of consciousness so they were they were talking about them in a very specific fashion the energy body is made up of all of the channels system you have main key channels but then you have all little subsidiary branches as well they're incalculable some traditions have tried to put a number on a number on it you'll see any number from 108 through to 72,000 branches of the energy channels within Taoism generally they took about 10,000 smaller branches and $10,000 maybe is a metaphorical number meaning there's a lot of them yeah so if you were to see the energy body it would look a little bit like all the little capillaries and everything if you ever looked at a an image or a photo or a diagram of the circulatory system and you see all the little tiny capillaries running through the body it's like a big mass of tangled sort of fibers and pathways the energy body is the same yeah it's it's very very complicated but the energy body needs to have space within it and he needs mobilization of Chi within those little pathways it did the mobilisation of Chi can happen in different ways it can happen via the breath have provide the action of the don.t and it can happen via your movements but one of the key ways is by the microcosmic orbit as these two channels open up they say that the do channel the channel on your back governs the actions of yang within those smaller channels and the rent channel the channel on the front of your body governs the yin actions of those body and again I'll break those down and talk about what those actually mean at a later stage with regards to that with the energy body already getting a little intricate you also have a polarity switch that takes place within the body hour to hour so in some traditions they talk about it being 50 minutes apart it's very very exact some traditions they're talking about it being an hour apart and Taoism talks about an hour every day it switches every hour so the idea is that on the hour your body's polarity switches from you into yang and that's what starts to happen and within the body this is matched by the left and right side branches of the Chong way of the central channel so the idea is of one of your side branches is yang that's the one on my left and one of your side branches is Yin this is one of my right the opposite of what my most people might think and what happens is one of those channels is always dominant within the energy system so during one hour of the day you will be yang dominant during the next hour of the day you'll begin dominant and this is supposed to healthily happen so that somebody moves from fluctuates from unity yang over the course of the day hour by hour by hour essentially what happens if you think of a central point and then you've got these two branches that are either side of the central point and they're switching polarity so this one's dominant that one's dominant this one's dominant this that one's dominant it starts to actually move to create like a spiral through the inside of the body and this is what controls the central channel this spiral is very very important within deep esoteric arts ever s take a specks of that sort of alchemical adds now for most people what actually happens is one or more of those channels are slightly dominant so that switch is not taking place quite so healthily as it should so some people are more yang dominant some people pulling in dominant and you can find these characteristics yourself so someone who is yang tends to be a little more outgoing maybe a little bit more frustrated in their nature if you look at the negative things tend to over he'd be a little bit hot somebody who is Yin dominant might be a little bit more reclusive a little bit tendency towards cold and these kind of qualities you know and essentially part of the reason this is happening because they are fluctuating but staying for longer than that healthy switch on one side of of you know yeah they're getting stuck in one of those polarities when the dew and the rent channel open and the microcosmic orbit circulates properly the idea is that within the energy body that that yin and yang polarity switch is harmonized so it happens equally steadily as it's supposed to so it brings someone more towards a central point within the body so it calms you know yang within the energy system and that's not something you often yes spoken about very much because I think that sometimes people tend to stay away from that kind of sort of esoteric aspect of the energy system but it's definitely a part of the microcosmic orbit teachings now the fifth reason okay so as well as we've got sort of a link into the environment mastering the efficiency of body opening the channel system and safety and so on and so on also for meditation sometimes people don't know that the microcosm a little bit is involved in this so within meditation practices different traditions will use different objects so what I mean by that is for many meditation systems there's normally an observer an aspect of your consciousness and then there is an object something that is being used as the object of meditation so often that object is the breath sometimes that object is the body sometimes that object might be a mantra might be a mental quality like loving-kindness or something like this these are the objects and someone will meditate upon and ultimately what happens is when the observer and the object relate to each other in a very specific way then meditation opens up the state opens up and sometimes this is called absorption or something like this now one of the key objects within our chemical meditation is the movement of Chi within the microcosmic orbit so what I mean by this is once they've established a flow that rotates in a particular pattern within the body there is a conversion taking place then there's actually a mental process of absorbing into that rotation so that that becomes the object of meditation the idea is that then the states of Jannah or chan in Chinese I entered into via the micro cos we've all been meaning that you're the actions the energetics of your body has become the object of meditation so it's a very very high-level aspect to the microcosmic orbit are very very high under the practice sixth reason actually but this in as well to do with the golden embryo Santeria high minded entities I want it so the golden embryo was a practice within alchemy where essentially what would happen as an aspect of the spirit would be fed with enough stillness fed with enough of your mental awareness absorbed into this spirit so that it started to animate essentially of his own accord so the idea is the spirit could exist independently of the body and this was a an esoteric alchemical practice as some people don't believe in anymore but it was the way for harnessing and producing like a carrier for the spirit so that it could elevate out of the body at the point of death and escape the cycle of rebirth this was one method that was used it's a method appears when in Taoism and also within some more esoteric Hindu sects as well and part of the function of the microcosmic orbit if you really want to look back at the original names of it was to actually feed and nurture the golden embryo so somebody was trying to build this highest end of the alchemical training within their body they would require the circulation of Jing Chi Shen that took place within the doing Ren channel in order to nourish and feed this substance this spirit within the center of the body almost like the incubation system you're plugging into if you like if you wanna get no really on artistic fashion now for people who aren't of that belief system I would say that's okay it's fine like some people want to look at things in a scientific modality or a scientific way of looking at things some people not so much you know people come from different camps some people are very much about the sort of I guess kind of belief or faith side of approach of the arts and some people want to know what's actually happening inside the body regards to nerves the endocrine system and so on and so on actually the microcosmic orbit is very interesting as a practice because it touches on both those camps so very much for like the basis for yangshin down the health based aspects of the practice the safety and even the start of the opening of the channel system with regards to the sinew system it's actually very very scientific it's possible to explain all of those process processes through actual movement of substances within the center of the body we can talk about it with regards to the nerves we can talk about where as the cars at a glandular system and you can understand actually so I'm never against people who want to take that stance on I think it's okay there is something physiological that happens in the body through these arts and I'll explain what those things are I want to talk about it with regards to the nervous system especially so you can understand it but then the other reason this practice is interesting because it touches on the other camp as well because things like the deeper aspects of the energy body where I'm talking about the switch from into yang within these two side branches all these little subsidiary branches of energetic movement through the inside of the body for meditation absorption of into the object might sound confusing or unusual to some people or the golden embryo can definitely sit quite far at the esoteric end of things and but the microcosmic orbit is also used to nourish and develop that side of the training as well so if you're the kind of person who you know that is not within your belief system what I would say is that's fine no problem at all but maybe sometimes I look at it and listen to it and try to understand it because it was a belief system of the people that found it to the practice even if you only wish to touch upon the aspect so you can understand physiologically that's okay so the microcosmic orbit does all of these things or this is the basis of it and if we wanted to break it down into its absolute simplest simplest stages more lists and apologize I'm going to renew list down here I'd like to list things because it makes it very clear the first one is there must be the circulation of Yang Qi circulation of Yang Qi this is the first stage of it and it moves through the do and the Ren channels and this is the aspect of the microcosmic orbit the most people who studied some chicken before will be familiar with so ultimately what it means is that a form of energy the yang Qi which actually is a form of bioelectricity must circulate up through the center line of the back and then it comes into the head actually and then down the front center line of the body there are other directions other circulations but that is the key one the first one yeah so that the yang she moves over the back and down the front on your on your centerline this is the first aspects of the microcosmic orbit and it's not actually in that difficult to achieve providing you know what you're doing and you know the methodology yeah the second aspect that I really want to focus on and touch upon is the conversion of Jing within the body conversion of Jing now your Jing as I'm sure many of you listeners are aware is your essence okay it is that fuel within the oil lamp that we don't want to burn out too quickly but it's always moving it's always mobilizing the Jing is always moving into action because of our thoughts our emotions our feelings our you know our cellular reproduction and our physical you know these things process is taking place on the inside of the body this activates and and uses up the Jing as well so the genius always converting it's always turning into something else the essence is producing the potential for all of these functional activities of the body but the microcosmic orbit allows us to contact and govern and regulate that transformation of Jing so little works for us in our favor it's like it refines and makes that process far far more efficient so there takes place in a much healthier fashion there's even at higher levels some people don't believe in this and within Xian but it's definitely true there a way to rip there is a way to replenish the gene through the microcosmic already if you know how to do it and it's not just a case of circulating of the back down the front it's more complex than that but I will show you how that happens I'll explain to you how that takes place so after this there are other stages including the circulation of congenital fluid within the body so once the gene has been refined and converted into a particular substance there is a way that that substance then has to move through the body and what it does is it starts to nourish the body so they talk about that being a spiritual form of Medicine the shan yao and what happens is that medicine the immortal medicine that's produced from your practice moves through the do channel moves to the Ren channel rate passes into the rest of the channel system ultimately what that means is that substance is there acts with the nervous system and starts to transform the body in a very specific fashion and it kind of resets many of the health processes within your body or many of the poor health processes within the body if you like so it is a huge tone of vacation and it is the aspect of the training that starts to move you towards around shame down to this sort of mastery of the body's efficiency of functioning if you look at many of the stories of high-level sages the things they could do or their ages they reached or they're kind of ageless look where you can tell how old someone was the idea was that they have mastered the congenital fluid level of the microcosmic orbit training an interesting one it's one of the later stages and I'll break these down in more detail for you this is just to introduce this to you at the moment is light so the later stage the light is actually circulated through the channels and interestingly enough in some esoteric Buddhist traditions from China that I've encountered it's almost like they ignore the other stages before that and they just focus upon the light whereas in Taoism there's a progression towards that part of the training so part of the reason that they would focus upon the light with an esoteric Chinese Buddhism is because the light essentially is the substance if you like of consciousness to them that is the the root of what everything is made up with a fundamental level so when they are circulating consciousness within the body or they're experiencing how conscious this interacts with the body then this takes place within the microcosmic orbit they have a different name for it actually they call it the Y the winding wheel of law sometimes or the foul on the wheel of wheel of law something like this but essentially it's an aspect to the microcosm a little bit the last one I'll put here because we tend to do things in fives as much as we can avoid the number four it's the circulation of Dan that's not a person that's the elixir so the Dan the same Dan as Dan Tien the alchemical pill that is formulated in high-level naydon again it's the same Dan this elixir is actually moved through the microcosmic orbit and this is how the pill is swallowed if you like so pill is obviously metaphorically it's actually something that takes place within the center of your consciousness but it looks a little bit like a pill and this is moved through those channels and they talk about this being swallowing a pill but I'm not going to touch upon that too much because that's that's like the far far end of Taoism but I just want to show you that that's a part of the training part of it the majority of the work we wish to focus on really I think for most people it's stage one circulation a Yankee in the 2-2 in the rent and stage two the conversion of Jing within the body which is much like the water cycle and you need to understand that a little bit and with regards to which of the rationale for the microcosmic orbit i'm going to focus upon in this training it's actually going to be stage one to stage four so I'm primarily going to be look at the understanding of the microcosmic or be in relation to the environment how it becomes a basis for your health for for regulating Yangtze and fire within the body and young-shin Dao safety I'll look at as well because I don't think it's ever wise to introduce what is essentially quite a complex internal mechanism without talking about safety and then a most thing a look at the opening of the channel system what that means why you want to do it how you know when it's happened and and how we do this for the microcosmic orbit right at the end of the training I'll touch upon these other two the meditation and the golden embryo but just from a theoretical standpoint just to give you a little bit of background knowledge so this is the basis for the microcosmic orbit this is the main reason that we practice it and this is essentially wanted what it is but now we need to look at a couple of rules for the for the microcosmic orbit a couple of rules that were highlighted within classical texts but somehow seem to have been ignored within modern teachings a little bit and I don't really understand how that has happened why that's sort of why that disparity between what the ancient teachers said and what modern teachers are doing quite often so I'll put these here and I'll sit back Simon on the way the board and essentially the first rule is you must be prepared and I don't mean mentally or emotionally like it's going to be some really exciting process I mean you must be bodily prepared there must be foundation work put in place so the idea was that the microcosmic orbit would require a certain foundation level of skill with regards to your breath certain level of skill with regards to your mind and certain level of skill with regards to the functioning of Qi around the lower abdomen and the Dan Tien and when I start looking at the practices for the microcosmic orbit I will show you how to understand if you are prepared if the foundations are in place if the foundations are not in place and the microcosmic orbit is engaged with then one of two things will happen one option one it won't work option two you can actually damage yourself because essentially what you're going to do is you're going to send more energy into the spinal nerves in the early stages now if you think about the spinal nerves and what they do I mean you're gonna send things up through your nervous system pass the kidneys you're going to stimulate the adrenals and you're going to put yourself into fight or flight which your first is no big deal you might feel a little bit sort of jittery but over a longer term of practice you're looking at creating chronic anxiety attacks and mood swings and things like this sometimes people have accidentally thought they've had like a Kundalini Awakening or something which is really not the case all they've done is they've hyperstimulated the nervous system and through these kind of practices so in order to avoid that because nobody wants to do that as I will explain to you the preparation that is involved to make sure that you are prepared enough to practice it the second part of it is you use no imagination the imagination is not used in microcosmic orbit practice you do not visualize anything moving around the body you do not imagine something moving around the body either this is not the case you also don't guide the Qi around the body so there's many people that are moving their mind around the drew and a Ren and doing the Ren so they what they're actually doing is they're bringing their mind into the spine bring up the back over the head and down the front we don't do that you also don't activate the microcosmic orbit by focusing on a series of acupuncture points in sequence so some people will focus on the sacrum and then I'm wingmen and then below the back and maybe the Jade pillow on the back of the orbits and then the top of the head and so on and so on to guide the Qi around that is not correct we don't wish to do that that's like pulling the Chi like trying to guide it with the mind that's not what we do we actually do the opposite it gets pushed from behind from pressurization of the lower Dan Tien and the sinking of Chi and consolidation of something called the furnace around the base of the body so I'll explain to you how we do that within certain classics including one version of the secret of the golden flower which is a you know highly widespread classical text within China but what some people don't realize is there's several different versions of it written in different ways and kind of different teachers take on it and one of the versions of it was very very clear on the microcosmic oven and some of the clearest teachings on the microcosmic orbit are from that text and they are very very specific within there that we do not guide we do not lead we do not imagine the microcosmic orbit circulating within the body so that's not something we do the same problem is arisen within the microcosmic orbit is within many chigi and practices and so what people have done have read read a book that say what you will experience and they might say you will experience Qi moving to the crown what's on there like this so then what they think that means is you must lead the Qi to the crown but it's not the case yeah you will experience cheerleading the crown is not the same the teachings are confirmatory not instructional and I think sometimes people have made that mistake so we do not use the imagination of visualization the counter to that is if I move my mind up my back and down my front I will feel a tingling experience of something moving that's true you will feel that but that's your mind interacting with the nervous system as soon as you walk away and do something else make a cup of tea get on with your life that will stop it will end because that's not the mechanism that we used to establish it yeah third one third rule for the microcode people--but is we don't force anything so kind of going back to that idea of not leading it but there is there's a mechanism we use to consolidate the cheer on the base of the body so that it wishes to move into the do channel and we must understand that we do not use too much force while we're doing it the body is more delicate than you might think with regards to the channel system so and that's not helped by the fact that sometimes you don't have a lot of sensitivity to the inside I mean you might think you do like I can feel all the Chi or something some people might be like this but how is that compared to the outside of the body you know if I if I tap this pen on my hand I feel that really clearly or I tap it on my face I can feel it I can feel though I can actually feel this sort of air pressure change in the room a little bit the temperature is different in different area like there's all these sensations coming from a nervous system from the outside of the body I don't have that same level of feedback to the inside or many people don't have the same level of feedback to the inside even if they feel something it's not quite as strong it's not quite as clear because you're not used to using your peripheral nervous system you're used to using you sorry you're used to using your peripheral nervous system to feel things outside inside is a little bit more tricky so what happens is then when people start to engage with some internal processes because they can't feel it quite so strongly they'll use a lot of force and only when they use a lot of force do they start to feel it but what they don't realize is what you're feeling is the tip of the iceberg to the effects that are taking place on the inside so okay you're feeling it now what that means is enough energy is moving through your body for you to experience that movement and quite often that's a lot of energy because energy is moving around you all the time inside your body all day and many people never feel it so think how much extra force are you doing to take that process and make it so it's very very tangible on the inside it can be quite a lot and the result of this is you can actually put the body into a state of stress on the mind into a state of stress so we don't use force the rules for almost all Qigong in my opinion with regards to internal mechanisms is we always train the causes so we want to understand what is the cause that is created by the exercise or what is the causes created by the principle we're studying right we put the causes in place and that's a lot one of your tools are for so if you have a Qigong exercise whatever it is normally that's a cause what happens is the cause the exercise creates an effect but the effect is created as a byproduct of the cause so what I don't do to make that effect a lot stronger is force it with my mind or force it through through physical tension or anything nothing like this I simply focus on their causes and then listen and the effects will arise and the microcosmic orbit it's an important example of this fourth one there is no upper MCO as a shorthand and just so I don't have to keep writing it but there's no microcosmic orbit exercise so some of you might be familiar with some of my teachings on the e jinjing that's in nu changing classic if you're not don't worry but some of you are one of the things I always tell people it's a sin you changing classic or sin you changing a jinjing is not a set of exercises it is a principle that arises within all Qigong practice so the exercises are just exercises in a named after it the microcosmic orbit is the same there is no exercise called the microcosmic orbit I don't do this exercise this movement and it arises it's not how it works the microcosmic orbit is an orbit that takes place in the microcosm of your body the name kind of tells you it is a circulation of yang Qi the conversion of Jing and so on and so on that naturally unfold as a byproduct of your internal development so what that means is the microcosmic orbit is actually to be expected to arise within most authentic Ngong or Qigong systems might arise at different times might arrive in different quality but it is something that should happen when your body reaches a certain level of efficiency when the Chi hits the Dan Tien to a high enough degree when there's enough pressurization of certain centers within the body when you've conditions the spinal nerves and the do channel in the right way then the microcosmic orbit will start to arise so rather than teaching you a microcosmic orbit exercise in this program that doesn't exist I will get you to understand the causes the principles that are called that establish the arising of the microcosm a little bit and then I'll show you how to build those into your body I'll show you how to establish the causes ok fifth one with regards to the microcosmic orbit and another one of the greatest misunderstandings for me is it doesn't use your sexual energy and this phrase comes up over and over again now you might think I'm splitting hairs but this one actually bit of a bugbear of mine because it does use the Jing it does use the essence and you could say that your Jing or you have already told you that conversion Jing ray you could say that your Jing or your essence is the basis of your sexuality that's partially true actually there are various other parts of your body they're involved in your sexuality various the kidney yang has a large heart to play with it the ministerial and Emperor fires have a large part to play with it the action of the heart the Jing is only one part of this whole process the Jing also carries out all sorts of other functions aside from your sexuality is not just to do with the production of sexual fluids as I kind of mentioned earlier already reproduction of cells production of glad blood in the body body fluids growth like anything like you know your body replaces itself every seven years right that sort of physical replacing of the body takes place is because of the Jing so it's not just to do with sexual energy so as soon as people start focusing you on this one very very specific function of the Jing saying that it's sexual energy it already starts to set up the wrong intent because how you view things will change the intent behind the practice and when I've seen people try to talk about the microcosm in orbit in this way it she starts great a few problems and when I start to look at the actions and movement of Ching will we'll explore why what are these problems that arise and actually they're psychiatric problems quite often sometimes physiological things but generally psychiatric things so you won't hear me talk about apart from in a negative to say it's wrong you won't hear me talk about sexual energy particularly with regards to them microcosmic orbit I will just purely talk about essence but I will explain each of these terms to you in detail so this is the microcosmic orbit or this is the rationale behind it and this is what I want to try and teach so what I will do is through a series of theoretical lectures I will explain to you all of the mechanisms as far as I understand it behind the microcosmic orbit so you can see what it's for I want to demystify it to a certain extent so that it's very very clear for you especially the physiological signs of it so you can know what's happening inside the body I also want to explain very clear signs of progress how you know it's happening and also pitfalls and dangers associated with it as well what I'll then do is make very clear what other causes that enabled it to arise and I'll show you some exercises based mainly on breathing actually and Ngong exercises that actually take your body to the state that when it is ready I'm able to begin the microcosmic orbit circulation this is quite important for me personally to do because I think when you look at Qigong and when you look at Negin we look at the internal arts there are various processes and practices that are mentioned over and over and they're kind of fundamental and foundation everyone's heard the phrases before so previously one for me was the sinew change in the edge in Jing and that I wanted to make sure people understood what that was the next one I want to look at now is the microcosmic orbit because I think it's a term that's people had so and I and I really want people to understand because I feel there's quite a lot of misinformation and around this aspect of Ngong training or ji-hyun training you