Yan Xin Qigong Nine Step Method

Translated by
Longguang Gao and Lance Halvorsen
International Yan Xin Qigong Association
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Beginning

The opening posture should be standardized.

1. If you are sitting on a chair, sit on the front one-third or one-forth of the chair. Your legs should be perpendicular to the ground. If you have illness or low blood pressures, put your knees together. If you are standing, your feet should be a little bit wider than the width of your shoulder and your knees should be bent slightly. If you are sitting on the floor, you should sit with your legs crossed.

2. Straighten your back and contract your abdomen slightly.

3. Straighten your neck and draw in your chin slightly towards the neck.

4. Put both hands in front of your abdomen, palms facing up, aligned on top of each other. Ladies should put their right hands on top, gentlemen put their left hands on top. The lower hand should be at about navel height, the upper hand should be about 1 to 4 inches above the lower hand. The five fingers should be somewhat straightened and about 0.2 inches apart. It is important that the little fingers stretch downward slightly. Your shoulders and elbows should be fully relaxed, but the armpits should remain hollow. The upper arms and hands should be 1 to 4 inches away from the body, and they should not touch the body.

5. At the same time, the lips touch lightly, and the teeth are slightly apart. Don not bite them together. Your tongue should be positioned on of the following four ways:
   1. If you have heart disease or high blood pressure, you should let the top of the tongue touch the back of the lower front teeth (see 2 in Figure 1).

   2. If you have a history of mental disorders, have mood disturbances, or have trouble sleeping, you should curl your tongue downward to touch the ligament underneath the tongue (see 3 in Figure 1).

   3. If you are overweight and want to lose weight, you should put your tongue in the middle of the mouth without touching anything (see 4 in Figure 1). (if you have low blood pressures, this tongue position should not be used).

   4. If you are healthy or if any of the above three situations is not appropriate for you, your tongue should be curled up to touch the gum just behind the upper front teeth (see 1 in Figure 1).

   You should choose only one of the above four tongue positions. Do not change tongue position in the middle of your practice.

6. Then, please partially close your eyes and look at your nose. While looking at your nose, gradually close your eyes completely. Visualize that you are looking at your nose with the middle point between your eyebrows.
   

   Please maintain the same body position. Imagine that there is a light beam coming out from the middle point between your eyebrows, the tianmu acupuncture point. The source of the light is the top of the head, the baihui acupuncture point (see 2 in Figure 2). During the say, imagine the sun light, or at night imagine the moonlight, starlight and electric lights entering the baihui point on the top of your head. The light then emanates from the middle point between the eyebrows, passes through your nose and goes down to your palms. From your palms, the light enters your navel. You should begin to enter a state in which you seem to aware but are not too aware, in which you are listening but not listening. Try to feel and sense the following images. Follow the directions to practice. Breathe deeply, softly, and regularly. Imagine that the pores of your whole body are opening and closing following the rhythm of your breathing. When you inhale, your pores open. Imagine and feel that the pores of your whole body open up. When you are exhaling, if you are not ill, imagine that the pores of your whole body are closed. If you are ill, the pores should remain open, but close them for a moment towards the end of each exhalation. Then go on to the next inhalation. Use your pores to help your breathing. Use your imagination to regulate the breathing. Breathe long and deep. Try to prolong the inhalation and exhalation.

   Next, Please see the image of yourself when you were a naive and happy 6 or 7 year old. Ladies see the image of yourselves when you were 6, gentlemen see the image of yourselves when you were 7. Whether it is 6 or 7 does not matter. Just recall or imagine that you feel the same as when you were 6 or 7 years old. Recall the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes you had when you were a child. Keep the naive, pure, and merciful smile you had when you were a child.

   Gradually advance deeper into the process. Please enter a state in which you are listening but not really listening, you are imagining but not really imagining.

Step One

Based on the above process, further imagine that your heart is contracting while you are inhaling. Your heart is relaxing and dilating while you are exhaling. Imagine that the heart in your chest or left chest is brightly illuminated by the red and golden lights. The lights from the lotus flower are continuously increasing their intensity and the light light up all of your internal organs, especially your heart (see Figure 3). During the practice, using the middle point of your forehead, gradually imagine and observe the changes on your skin and inside the body. It does not matter if you can not create the image or if you do not see or feel anything. Be aware that you are imagining but not imagining, you are thinking but not thinking.

Once you can coordinate the imagination process, start to count your breathing. Count your breaths to the number of your age. Count each inhalation and each exhalation. Count your breaths to the number of your age. Then start counting from 1 again. While you are counting your breath, you should coordinate the imagination process mentioned above. Each time you count an inhalation, you ought to imagine your pores opening, something entering your body and reaching the opening lotus flower. Imagining that your heart is contracting. During the exhalation process, the bad gases are forced out of the body, the lotus flower closes, the heart relaxes and dilates.

Coordinate the imagination and observation. Gradually sense and feel the changes. Breathe deeply, softly, and regularly. After you have counted to the number of your age, start from 1 again. Repeat the cycle once or many times. You may count up to 7 times of your age, or repeat even more times. This is step one.

Ending Procedure

Preparation for Ending

Raise your hands in front of your chest as if you were holding a ball in front of you. Your palms should face each other, finger pointing forward, thumb side up. Your finger should bend lightly, as if you were holding a favorite fruit of yours. Imagine that you are holding a big fruit, your favorite fruit. Imagine that the fruit has colors and lights. Breathe deeply 6 or 7 times. Gentleman should breathe 7 times. Ladies should breathe 6 times. Count one inhalation and one exhalation as one breath. When you are exhaling, both hands pull apart slowly. When you are inhaling, both hands push towards the middle slowly. If you had vigorous spontaneous movements during your practice, you must open your eyes. If you did not have spontaneous movements, you should close your eyes (see Figure 11).

Pay attention to the sensations of your palms and fingers. Feel if your fingers or palms are sore, numb, swollen, heavy, painful, cold or cool, warm or hot, see if you feel wind, resistance, etc. Try to remember the sensations you are having now. If you wish to acquire the benefits of special abilities in your future Qigong practice, you should remember these sensations and add positive thoughts. This will help you to achieve benefits and train for special abilities. Breathe deeply 6 to 7 times while your hands are opening and closing. Do this slowly. When you are inhaling, both hands are closing slowly towards middle, but your hands should not touch each other. When you are exhaling, slowly pull both hands apart. Try to feel the sensations. Remember the sensations. You should remember the sensations of your hands and body. It is important to recall the sensations and feelings you have today when you practice Qigong in the future. The information in this lecture room is good, nearly optimal. You may make your most important wish now. That is, think for a short moment of the important wishes you have as you are attending this Qigong lecture.

After counting 6 or 7 breathes, open your eyes. Put the palms together, wrists touching the chest, fingers pointing forward. Everybody must open their eyes. The formal ending procedure starts from here. The above is done in preparation for the ending. The preparation for ending is also a method of maintaining the effects of the training and raising special abilities. We will now begin the general ending procedure.

General Ending Procedure

Please imagine that you are pushing your feet deeply into the ground. You have the sensation that your feet are inserted 3 feet deep into the ground. Apply force to both feet. Push your feet into the ground and grip the ground with all ten toes. Visualize your big toes, little toes and heels griping the ground. Three points are gripping the ground. Tense up your thighs, tense up all the muscles in your legs, and contact the buttocks and pelvis. Forcefully tense and expand the abdomen and the waist. Gradually bite your teeth together. Relax the tongue and let the tongue circle around inside your mouth. Gentlemen should make their tongues circle 64 times clockwise. The clock is facing forward. Usually, you don't need to count the number of circles, just keep the number in your mind. If you have saliva, swish it around in your mouth then swallow it. Imagine that the saliva goes down to the lower dantian. Next, push your hands against each other, tense the whole body, push both hands together hard, like your whole body is trembling. Imagine that the pores of your whole body are closed, exhale deeply three times. Concentrate only on three exhalations, at the same time, imagine that bad gases with disease are further squeezed out of the body in this process (see 1 in Figure 12). Next inhale deeply three times, imagine that the pores of the skin are closed, and that bad gases can not enter the body, and that the internal energy will not leave the body (see 2 in Figure 12).

Next, rapidly rub your hands together. If you wear glasses, you should take them off. Rapidly rub your hands together until your palms are hot. After your hands are hot, gently cover your open eyes with both palms. Imagine that a red light, golden light, and purple light are entering your eyes to improve or maintain your vision. Breathe calmly for a short time. Then, slowly massage the face up to the top of head while inhaling deeply. Cover your head with both hands, palms on top of each other. Gentlemen should put their left hands on top, ladies put their right hands on top. Then imagine that during the day the sun light, or at night the moonlight, starlight, and electric lights, enter your body from the top of the head down to the lower abdomen. Imagine that the lights are sealed inside the body. Then exhale deeply as both hands massage down along your face. Try to imitate a yawn. It is better if you make some sounds while exhaling and yawning. As your palms slowly massage down to the lower jaw, put your palms together with middle fingers touching underneath the chin, fingers pointing upward. Then, inhale deeply as your palms massage up along the face again, until they cover the top of your head. Your palms should be on top of each other. Repeat this process, breathing deeply 3 to 7 times. Try to stimulate real yawns. Massage your face up and down. Breathe deeply and yawn. The yawning should be deep, loud and complete. Repeat 3 to 7 times. You should feel refreshed after the deep breathing and yawning.

Then cross your hands at the part between thumb and index finger, one palm over the back of the other hand (see 1 in Figure 13). Cover the naval with both hands. Gentlemen should put their left hands over their right hands, ladies should put their right hands over their left hands, palms facing your abdomen (see 1 in Figure 13). Imagine that some lights enter your naval or that the full contents of the imagination process of your practice enter your naval with the lights. Then visualize a light beam circling around the naval. The light beam should circle counter-clockwise 64 times for gentlemen (see 3 in Figure 13), and clockwise 49 times for ladies (see 4 in Figure 13). The clock faces outward. If you have any digestive problems, you may massage around the naval with a circular motion 64 or 49 times. If you don't have enough time, just think of the number of circles. You don't need to count.

Finally, think "I'm done," then pull your hands apart and return to a natural position. Move the joints of your body, the waist, shoulders, legs and arms. If you don't feel refreshed, please repeat the ending procedure starting from rubbing your hands together. You may repeat this 3 to 7 times. You should be able to end your practice completely after repeating the ending procedure 3 to 7 times.

If you had vigorous spontaneous movements during your practice and can not end your practice in a short time, you need to spend more time repeating the general ending procedure, or you may use the compulsory ending procedure.

Compulsory Ending Procedure

If one does the general ending part, but cannot end the practice completely, one can use the compulsory ending procedure.

1. Whenever one needs to do the compulsory ending, one needs not worry about the problem. One should have confidence that one can end the meditation.

2. Think that the whole body is relaxing, loosing and drained of energy. If standing, sit down to do the ending part. If seated, lie down to do the ending part.

3. Men pat the top of their heads seven times with the left hand. Women pat the top of their heads six times with the right hand.

4. After patting the head, use the forefinger and thumb of that hand to twist the inner part of eyes 6 to 7 times. Then feel around the eye balls, the two sides of nose and between nose and mouth for seven times until feeling sour, a little bit paralyzed, and bloated. Then use the middle finger to push and twist the part below the Adam's apple (mihu), to make yourself cough. This can adjust the whole body system.

5. Use the hand that patted your head to make a half fist, and hit the center of the chest (the part between the nipples) 6 to 7 times.

6. Then make two whole fists, placing the thumbs at the first joint of the forefinger. Place these fists on the ribs of both sides, and then make a forward bend, breathing in at the same time. Then straighten the back, and breath out. Repeat that 7 times.

7. Then using the fists with a little more energy, hit both sides of the back from bottom to top, and then hit it in reverse direction. Repeat that 6 to 7 times.

8. Straighten the back and sit. Keeping the hands half fisted, use the palms to pat the left and right chest, the back and the abdomen 24 times each.

9. Bring the palms together and repeat the processes of the general ending.

This compulsory ending is useful for people who cannot stop the meditation. If one still cannot finish the meditation, one can do the compulsory ending several times. It definitely can end the meditation without any problem.