1. The First Exercise
The first exercise is called Buddha Stretching a Thousand
Arms. Just as the name suggests, it’s as if a thousand-armed Buddha or a
thousand-armed Bodhisattva is stretching his or her arms. Of course, it’s not
possible for us to do a thousand movements—you wouldn’t be able to remember
all of them, and performing them would wear you out. We use eight simple,
basic movements in this exercise to represent that idea. Though simple, these
eight movements enable the hundreds of meridians in our bodies to open. Let me
explain something: Why do we say that from the outset our practice begins at a
very high level? That’s because we don’t open just one or two meridians, the
Ren and Du meridians, or the eight Extra Meridians. Instead, we open all of
the meridians, and each of them moves in sync from the very beginning. We thus
start practicing at a very high level right from the outset.
You have to stretch and relax the body when doing this
exercise. The hands and legs need to be well coordinated. Through stretching
and relaxing, the areas of congested energy in the body are unblocked. Of
course, the movements would have no effect if I didn’t plant a set of
mechanisms in your body. When you stretch, the whole body is stretched
gradually to its limit—even to the extent that you feel as though you are
splitting into two people. The body stretches as if it becomes very tall and
large. No thought is used. After stretching out to the limit, the body is to
relax abruptly—you should relax right away once you stretch to the limit. The
effect of such movement is like that of a leather bag filled with air: when
squeezed, its air gushes out; when a person lifts his hand off the bag, the
air is drawn back in and new energy is taken in. With this mechanism at work,
the blocked areas of the body are opened.
When the body is stretching, the heels are pressed down
firmly and strength is used to push the head up. It’s as if all the meridians
in your body are being stretched until open and then relaxed abruptly—you
should relax abruptly after stretching. Your whole body is immediately opened
through this type of motion. Of course, we also have to plant various
mechanisms in your body. When the arms are stretching, they’re stretched
gradually and forcefully until the limit is reached. The Daoist system teaches
how to move energy along the three yin and three yang meridians.
In fact, there aren’t just the three yin and three yang
meridians, but also hundreds of crisscrossing meridians in the arms. They all
have to be stretched open and unblocked. We open all the meridians right at
the outset of our practice. Of the ordinary cultivation ways, the true ones—so
this excludes those that harness qi—use
the method of bringing hundreds of meridians into motion via one energy
channel. It takes these practices a long time—countless years—to open all of
the meridians. Our practice aims directly at opening all meridians at the
outset, and, by virtue of this, we begin by practicing at a very high level.
Everyone should grasp this key point.
Next, I will talk about the standing posture. You need to
stand naturally with the feet shoulder-width apart. The feet don’t have to be
parallel, as we do not have things from the martial arts here. Many exercise
practices’ standing stances originated from the Horse Stance of the martial
arts. Since the Buddhist school believe in saving all beings, your feet
shouldn’t always be turned inward. The knees and hips are relaxed, bending the
knees slightly. When the knees are bent slightly the meridians there are open;
when you stand straight up, the meridians there are rigid and blocked. The
body is kept upright and relaxed. You need to completely relax from the inside
out, but without becoming too loose. The head should remain upright.
The eyes are closed when performing the five sets of
exercises. But when you’re learning the movements you have to keep your eyes
open and watch to see if your movements are accurate. Later on, once you have
learned the movements and are performing them on your own, the exercises ought
to be done with the eyes closed. The tip of the tongue touches the hard
palate, a space is maintained between the upper and lower teeth, and the lips
are closed. Why does the tongue need to touch the hard palate? As you may
know, in real practice it’s not only the superficial, skin-deep cosmic orbit
that’s in motion, but also every meridian in the body that intersects
vertically or horizontally. Besides there being superficial meridians, there
are also meridians on the internal organs and in the gaps between the internal
organs. The mouth is empty, so it relies on the raised tongue to form a bridge
inside that strengthens the energy flow during the meridians’ circulation and
allows the energy to form a circuit through the tongue. The closed lips serve
as an external bridge that allows surface energy to circulate. Why do we leave
a space between the upper and lower teeth? It’s because if your teeth are
clenched during the exercise, the energy will make them clench tighter and
tighter during its circulation. Whichever part of the body is tense can’t be
fully transformed. So any part that’s not relaxed will end up being excluded
and not transformed or evolved. The upper and lower teeth will relax if you
leave a space between them. These are the basic requirements for the
exercises. There are three transitional movements that will later be repeated
in other exercises. I would like to explain them here.
Liangshou Heshi (Pressing
Both Hands Together in Front of the Chest). When doing Heshi, the
forearms form a straight line and the elbows are suspended so that the
underarms are hollow. If the underarms are pressed tightly, the energy
channels will be completely blocked there. The fingertips are not raised as
high as the front of the face, but just to the front of the chest. Don’t lean
them against the body. A hollow space is kept between the palms, and the heels
of the palms should be pressed together as much as possible. All of you need
to remember this position, as it’s repeated many times.
Diekou Xiaofu (Overlapping
the Hands in Front of the Lower Abdomen). The elbows should be suspended.
During the exercises you have to hold the elbows out. We emphasize this with
good reason: If the underarms are not open, energy will be blocked and unable
to flow through. When doing this position, the left hand is inside for males;
the right hand is inside for females. The hands must not touch each other—a
palm’s width is kept between them. A two-palms’ width is kept between the
inner hand and the body, you don’t allow the hand to touch the body. Why is
that? As we know, there are many internal and external channels. In our
practice we rely on the Law Wheel to open them, especially to open the Laogong
acupuncture point on each of your hands. In fact, the Laogong acupoint is a
field that exists not only in the flesh, but also in all of our bodies’ forms
of existence in other dimensions. Its field is very large, and even exceeds
the surface of the flesh hands. All of its fields have to be opened, so we
rely on the Law Wheel to do that. The hands are kept apart because there are
Law Wheels rotating on them, on both hands. When the hands overlap in front of
the lower abdomen at the end of the exercises, the energy carried on them is
very strong. Another purpose of Diekou Xiaofu is to strengthen both the
Law Wheel in the lower abdomen and the elixir field (dan-tian).
There are many things—more than ten thousand of them—that will be evolved from
that field.
There’s another position called Jie Dingyin. We call
it Jieyin (Conjoining the Hands) for short. Take a look at the
conjoined hands: it’s not done casually. The thumbs are raised, forming an
oval shape. The fingers are joined together lightly with the fingers of the
lower hand positioned against the grooves between the fingers of the upper
hand. That’s how it should be. When conjoining the hands, the left hand is on
top for males, while the right hand is on top for females. Why is that? It’s
because the male body is one of pure yang and the female body is one of
pure yin. In order to attain a balance of yin and yang,
males should suppress the yang and give play to the yin, while
females should suppress the yin and give play to the yang. So
some of the movements are different for males and females. When conjoining the
hands, the elbows are suspended—they need to be held out. As you may know, the
center of the elixir field is two finger-widths below the navel. That is also
the center of our Law Wheel. So the conjoined hands are to be placed a bit
lower down to hold the Law Wheel. When relaxing the body, some people relax
their hands but not their legs. The legs and hands have to be coordinated to
simultaneously relax and stretch.
2. The Second Exercise
The second exercise is called Falun Standing Stance. Its
movements are quite simple, as there are only four wheel-holding positions.
They’re easy to learn, but this is a challenging and demanding exercise. How
is it demanding? All standing-stance exercises require standing still for a
long time. Your arms will ache when the hands are held up for a long time. So
this exercise is demanding. The posture for Standing Stance is the same as
that of the first exercise, but there’s no stretching and you simply stand
with the body relaxed. All of the four basic positions involve wheel holding.
Simple as they are—only four basic positions—this is cultivation of a Great
Way, so it couldn’t be that each single movement is merely for cultivating one
particular supernatural ability or one minor thing; each single movement
involves many things. It wouldn’t do if each and every thing required one
movement to evolve it. I can tell you that the things I place in your lower
abdomen and the things evolved in our cultivation way number in the hundreds
of thousands. If you had to use one movement to cultivate each one of them,
just imagine: Hundreds of thousands of movements would be involved, and you
couldn’t finish them in a day. You would exhaust yourself, and maybe you
wouldn’t even remember them all.
There’s a saying, “A great way is extremely simple and
easy.” The exercises control the transformation of all things as a whole. So
it would be even better if there were no movement at all when doing still
cultivation exercises. But simple movements can control on a large scale the
simultaneous transformation of many things. The simpler the movements, the
more complete the transformation is likely to be, as they control everything
on a large scale. There are four wheel-holding positions in this exercise.
When you are holding the wheels you will feel the rotation of a large Law
Wheel between your arms. Almost every practitioner is able to feel it. When
doing Falun Standing Stance, no one is allowed to sway or jump as with the
practices where possessing spirits are in control. Swaying and jumping are no
good—that’s not practicing. Have you ever seen a Buddha, Dao, or Deity jumping
or swaying like that? None of them do that.
3. The Third Exercise
The third exercise is called
Penetrating the Cosmic Extremes. This exercise is also quite simple. As its
name suggests, this exercise is for sending energy to the “two extremes.” How
far are the two extremes of this boundless universe? This is beyond your
imagination, so the exercise doesn’t involve directing with thought. We
perform the exercises by following the mechanisms. Thus, your hands move along
with the mechanisms that I’ve placed in your body. The first exercise also has
these kinds of mechanisms. I didn’t mention this to you on the first day
because you shouldn’t go seeking this sensation before becoming familiar with
the movements. I was concerned that you wouldn’t remember all of them. You
will actually find that when you stretch and relax your arms they
automatically return, by themselves. This is caused by the mechanisms placed
in your body, something known among Daoists as the Hand-Gliding Mechanisms.
After finishing one movement, you will notice that your hands automatically
glide out to do the next one. This sensation will gradually become more
obvious as your exercise time lengthens. All of these mechanisms will revolve
on their own after I’ve given them to you. In fact, when you’re not doing the
exercises, the gong is cultivating you under the function of the Law
Wheel’s mechanism. The subsequent exercises have mechanisms too. The posture
for this exercise is the same as that of Falun Standing Stance. There’s no
stretching, as you merely stand with the body relaxed. There are two kinds of
hand movements. One is a one-handed gliding up and down movement, that is, one
hand glides up while the other hand glides down—the hands switch positions.
One up-and-down movement of each hand is counted as one time, and the movement
is repeated for a total of nine times. After eight and a half times are
performed, the lower hand is lifted, and the two-handed gliding up and down
movement begins. It too is done nine times. Later on, should you wish to do
more repetitions and increase the amount of exercise, you can perform it
eighteen times—the number has to be a multiple of nine. That’s because the
mechanism changes after the ninth time; it has been fixed at the ninth time.
You can’t always count when doing the exercises in the future. When the
mechanisms become very strong, they will end the movements on their own on the
ninth time. Your hands will be drawn together, since the mechanisms change
automatically. You won’t even have to count the number of times, as it’s
guaranteed that your hands will be led to turn the Law Wheel upon finishing
the ninth gliding movement. In the future you shouldn’t always count, for you
need to perform the exercises in an intention-free state. Having intention is
an attachment. No thought is used in high-level cultivation—it’s completely in
a state free of intention. Of course, there are people who say that doing
movements is itself full of intention. That understanding isn’t right. If they
say the movements are full of intention, then what about the mudras
done by Buddhas, or the conjoined hands and meditation done by Zen Buddhist
monks and monks in temples? Does the argument for their “having intention”
refer to how many movements and mudras are involved? Does the number of
movements determine if a person is in a state free of intention or not? Are
there attachments if there are more movements and no attachments if there are
fewer movements? It’s not the movements that count, but rather, it’s whether a
person’s mind has attachments and whether there are things he or she can’t let
go of. It’s the mind that matters. We perform the exercises by following the
mechanisms and gradually abandoning our intention-driven thinking, reaching a
state free of thought.
Our bodies undergo a special kind of transformation during
the upward and downward gliding of the hands. Meanwhile, the channels atop our
heads will be opened, something known as “Opening the Top of the Head.” The
passages at the bottoms of our feet will also be unblocked. These passages are
more than just the Yongquan
acupuncture point, which is itself actually a field. Because the human body
has different forms of existence in other dimensions, your bodies will
progressively expand as you practice and the volume of your gong will
become larger and larger such that [your body in other dimensions] will exceed
the size of your human body.
While you are doing the exercises, the Opening of the Top
of the Head will occur at the head’s crown. This Opening the Top of the Head
that we do isn’t the same as that in Tantrism. In Tantrism it’s about opening
a person’s Baihui
acupoint and then inserting a piece of “lucky straw” into it. It’s a
cultivation technique taught in Tantrism. Our Opening the Top of the Head is
different. Ours is about communication between the universe and our brain. You
know, general Buddhist cultivation also has Opening the Top of the Head, but
it’s seldom revealed. In some practices it’s considered an achievement if a
fissure is opened at the top of the head. Actually, they still have a long way
to go. What extent should genuine Opening the Top of the Head reach? A
person’s crania have to be opened completely and then forever be in a state of
automatic opening-and-closing. The brain will be in constant communication
with the vast universe. Such a state will exist, and that’s real Opening the
Top of the Head. Of course, we’re not talking about the cranium in this
dimension—that would be frightening. It’s the crania in other dimensions.
This exercise, too, is easy to perform. The required
standing posture is the same as with the previous two exercises, though
there’s no stretching as with the first exercise. Nor is stretching called for
in the exercises that follow. You just need to stand in a relaxed way and keep
the posture unchanged. While performing the up and down hand gliding, everyone
has to ensure that his or her hands follow the mechanisms. Your hands actually
glide along with the mechanisms in the first exercise as well; your hands will
automatically glide to Heshi when you finish stretching and relaxing
your body. These kinds of mechanisms have been installed in your body. We
perform the exercises along with the mechanisms so that these may be
reinforced. There’s no need for you to cultivate gong by yourself, for
the mechanisms assume that role. You just perform the exercises to reinforce
the mechanisms. You will sense their existence once you grasp this essential
point and perform the movements correctly. The distance between your hands and
your body is no more than 10 centimeters (4 inches). Your hands need to
stay within this range to feel the mechanisms’ existence. Some people can
never sense the mechanisms since they don’t relax completely. They will slowly
come to sense them after doing the exercise for a while. During the exercise
you shouldn’t use intention to draw qi upward, and neither should you
think of pouring qi or pressing qi inward. The hands should face
the body at all times. There’s one thing that I wish to point out: Some people
move their hands close to their body, but the moment their hands are in front
of their face they slide their hands away for fear of touching the face.
Things won’t work if the hands are too far away from the face. Your hands have
to glide upward and downward close to your face and body, as long as they
don’t get so close that they touch your clothes. Everyone has to follow this
important point. If your movements are correct, your palm will always face
inward when your hand is in the upward position during the one-handed
up-and-down gliding movement.
Don’t just pay attention to the upper hand when doing the
one-handed up-and-down gliding movement. The lower hand also has to reach its
position since the upward and downward movements occur simultaneously. The
hands glide up and down at the same time and reach their positions at the same
time. The hands are not to overlap when moving along the chest, or the
mechanisms will be damaged. The hands are to be kept separate, having each
hand cover only one side of the body. The arms are straightened, but this does
not mean they’re not relaxed. Both the arms and the body should be relaxed,
but the arms need to be straightened. Because the hands move along with the
mechanisms, you will feel that there are mechanisms and a force leading your
fingers to glide upward. When doing the two-handed up-and-down gliding
movement, the arms may open a little bit, but they shouldn’t be spaced too far
apart since the energy moves upward. Pay special attention to this when doing
the two-handed up-and-down gliding movement. Some people are accustomed to
supposedly, “holding qi and pouring it into the top of the head.” They
always move their hands downward with the palms facing down and lift their
hands upward with the palms facing up. That’s no good—the palms must face the
body. Although the movements are called upward and downward gliding, they are
actually done by the mechanisms given to you—it’s the mechanisms that assume
this function. There is no thought involved. None of the five exercises use
any direction with thought. There’s one thing about the third exercise: Before
doing the exercise, you imagine that you are an empty barrel or two empty
barrels. That’s to give you the idea that the energy will flow smoothly.
That’s the main purpose. The hands are to be in the lotus palm position.
Now I’m going to talk about turning the Law Wheel with your
hands. How do you turn it? Why should we turn the Law Wheel? The energy
released by our exercises travels inconceivably far, reaching the two
extremes, but there is no thought used. This is unlike ordinary practices, in
which what’s known as “collecting yang qi from heaven and yin qi
from earth” is still limited to within Earth’s boundary. Our exercise enables
energy to penetrate the Earth and to reach the extremes of the universe. Your
mind is incapable of imagining how vast and distant those extremes are—it’s
simply inconceivable. Even if you were given a whole day to imagine it, you
still couldn’t grasp how large it is or where the boundary of the universe is.
Even if you thought with your mind completely unrestrained, you still couldn’t
know the answer by the time you were exhausted. Genuine cultivation is done in
a state free of intention, so there’s no need for any directing with thought.
You don’t need to be concerned with much in order to perform the
exercises—just follow the mechanisms. My mechanisms will assume this function.
Please note that since energy is emitted very far during the exercise, we have
to turn our Law Wheel manually at the end of the exercise to give it a push
and return the energy instantly. Turning the Law Wheel four times suffices. If
you turn it more than four times your stomach will feel distended. The Law
Wheel is turned clockwise. The hands shouldn’t move beyond the body when
turning the Law Wheel, as that would be turning it too widely. The point two
finger-widths below the navel should be used as the center of the axis. The
elbows are raised and suspended, and both the hands and forearms are kept
straight. It’s necessary to do the movements correctly when you first start to
do the exercises, or the mechanisms will become distorted.
4. The Fourth Exercise
The fourth exercise is
called Falun Cosmic Orbit. Here we’ve used two Buddhist and Daoist terms
so that everyone understands it. This exercise used to be called Turning the
Great Falun. This exercise slightly resembles the Daoist system’s Great Cosmic
Orbit, but our requirements are different. All of the meridians should have
been opened during the first exercise, so while doing the fourth exercise all
of them will move in sync. Meridians exist on the surface of the human body as
well as in its depths, in each of its layers, and in the spaces between its
interior organs. So how does the energy travel in our practice? We require all
meridians of the human body to attain simultaneous motion, rather than having
just one or two meridians circulating or the eight Extra Meridians revolving.
That makes the energy flow quite powerful. If the front and the back of the
human body are indeed divided into a yang and yin side,
respectively, then the energy of each side is moving; that is, the energy of
the entire side is in motion. As long as you’re going to practice Falun Dafa,
from now on you have to let go of any thoughts you have used for guiding the
cosmic orbit, since in our practice all the meridians are opened and put into
simultaneous motion. The movements are quite simple and the standing posture
is the same as that of the previous exercise, except for your having to bend
at the waist somewhat. Your movements should follow the mechanisms here as
well. These kinds of mechanisms also exist in each of the previous exercises,
and the movements need to again follow the mechanisms. The mechanisms that I
place outside of your body for this particular exercise aren’t common ones but
a layer of mechanisms that can bring all of the meridians into motion. They
will drive all of your body’s meridians into continuous rotation—rotation that
continues even when you’re not doing the exercises. They will rotate in
reverse at the appropriate time. The mechanisms rotate in both directions;
there is no need for you to work for those things. You should simply follow
what we’ve taught you and should be free of any directing thoughts. It’s that
layer of large meridians that leads you to finish the exercise.
The energy of the entire body has to be in motion when
doing Cosmic Orbit. In other words, if the human body is indeed divided into a
yin and a yang side, then the energy circulates from the yang
side to the yin side, from the body’s interior to its exterior, back
and forth, while hundreds or thousands of meridians circulate simultaneously.
Those of you who used to perform other cosmic orbits and used different kinds
of directing thoughts or had different kinds of ideas about the cosmic orbit
have to let go of all of them when practicing our Dafa. Those things you
practiced were really minor. It’s simply ineffective to have just one or two
meridians in motion—progress will be too slow. From observing the surface of
the human body it’s known that meridians exist. The meridians actually
intersect vertically and horizontally inside the body, just like blood
vessels, and their density is even higher than that of blood vessels. They
exist in the layers of the human body in different dimensions, that is, from
the surface of your body to the bodies in deep dimensions, including in the
spaces between the interior organs. If the human body is indeed divided into
two sides, one yin and one yang, it must be that the whole side,
either the front or the back, circulates at the same time when you perform the
exercises—it is no longer one or two meridians. Those of you who used to do
other cosmic orbits will ruin your practice if you perform our exercise using
any directing thoughts. So you must not cling to any of the thoughts you used
to use. Even if your previous cosmic orbit was opened, that still means
nothing. We’ve already far exceeded that, as all the meridians of our practice
are set in motion from the outset. The standing posture is no different from
those in the previous exercises, with the exception of some bending at the
waist. During the exercises the hands have to follow the mechanisms. It’s just
like the third exercise, in which the hands float up and down with the
mechanisms. You should follow the mechanisms during the entire circuit when
performing this exercise.
The movements of this exercise need to be repeated nine
times. If you’d like to do them more you can do them eighteen times, but you
have to be sure that the number is a multiple of nine. Later on when you reach
a certain level it won’t be necessary to count the number of times. Why is
that? It’s because repeated performance of the movements nine times will set
the mechanisms. After the ninth time, the mechanisms will make your hands
naturally overlap in front of the lower abdomen. After you’ve been doing the
exercise for some time, these mechanisms will automatically lead the hands to
overlap in front of the lower abdomen after the ninth time, and you will no
longer need to count. Of course, when you have just begun to do the exercises,
the number of times still has to be counted, since the mechanisms aren’t
strong enough.
5. The Fifth Exercise
The fifth exercise is called
Reinforcing Supernatural Powers. It’s something of high-level cultivation that
I used to do on my own. I’m now making it public without any modifications.
Because I don’t have any more time… it’s going to be hard for me to have
another opportunity to teach you in person. I now teach you everything at once
so that later on you will have a way to practice at high levels. The movements
of this exercise aren’t complex, as a great way is extremely simple and
easy—complicated movements are not necessarily good. Yet this exercise
controls the transformation of many things on a large scale. It’s a very
challenging and demanding exercise, as you need to sit in meditation for a
long time to complete this exercise. This exercise is independent, so you
don’t need to perform the previous four exercises before doing this one. Of
course, all of our exercises are flexible. If you don’t have much time today
and can only do the first exercise, then you may do just the first one. You
may even perform the exercises in a different order. Say your schedule is
tight today and you just want to do the second exercise, or the third
exercise, or maybe the fourth exercise—that’s fine too. If you have more time
you can do more, and if you have less time you can do less—the exercises are
quite flexible. When you perform them you are reinforcing the mechanisms that
I’ve placed in you, and you are strengthening your Law Wheel and elixir field.
Our fifth exercise is independent and consists of three
parts. The first part is performing the mudras, or hand signs, which
are for adjusting your body. The movements are quite simple and there are just
a few of them. The second part reinforces your supernatural powers. There are
several fixed positions that deliver your supernatural abilities and
supernatural powers from the inside of your body to your hands for reinforcing
during the exercise. That’s why the fifth exercise is called Reinforcing
Supernatural Powers—it reinforces your supernatural abilities. The next part
is sitting in meditation and entering into deep stillness. The exercise
is comprised of these three parts.
I’ll first talk about the meditation. There are two kinds
of leg crossing for meditation; in true practice there are just two ways to
fold your legs. Some people claim that there are more than two ways, saying
“Just take a look at the Tantric practices—aren’t there many ways to fold the
legs?” Let me tell you that those are not leg-crossing methods but exercise
positions and movements. There are only two kinds of real leg crossing: one is
called the “half-lotus position” and the other is called the “full-lotus
position.”
Let me explain the half-lotus position. This position can
only be used as a transition, as a last resort, when you can’t manage to sit
with both legs crossed. Half-lotus is done with one leg below and the other
above. While sitting in the half-lotus position, many people hurt in their
anklebones and can’t bear the pain for long. Even before their legs have begun
hurting, the pain caused by their anklebones has become unbearable. The
anklebones will shift backwards if you can turn your feet over so that their
soles face upward. Of course, even though I’ve told you to do the exercise
this way, you might not be able to achieve this at the very beginning. You can
work on it gradually.
There are many different theories about the half-lotus
position. Daoist practices teach “drawing in without releasing out,” which
means that energy is always being drawn in and never released out. The Daoists
try to avoid dispersing their energy. So how do they achieve that? They’re
particular about sealing off their acupuncture points. Often when they cross
their legs they close off the Yongquan acupoint of one foot by putting it
underneath the other leg and tuck the Yongquan acupoint of the other foot
under the upper part of the opposite thigh. The same is true with their
Jieyin position. They use one thumb to press the opposite hand’s Laogong
acupoint, and use the other hand’s Laogong acupoint to cover the opposite hand
while both hands cover the lower abdomen.
The leg crossing in our Dafa doesn’t have any of those
requirements. All Buddhist cultivation ways—regardless of which cultivation
path—teach the providing of salvation to all beings. So they’re not afraid of
giving off energy. As a matter of fact, even if your energy is released and
consumed, you can later make it up in the course of your practice without
losing anything. That is because your character will have reached a certain
level—your energy won’t be lost. But you have to endure hardships if you want
to raise your level further. In that case your energy won’t be lost
whatsoever. We don’t have many requirements for the half-lotus position since
we actually require the full-lotus position, not the half-lotus. But there are
people who can’t cross both legs yet, so I will take this opportunity to speak
a little bit about the half-lotus position. You may do half-lotus if you can’t
yet sit in full-lotus, but you still need to work to gradually put both of
your legs up. Our half-lotus position requires of males that the right leg be
below and the left leg above; for females, the left leg is to be below and the
right leg above. In fact, genuine half-lotus is very challenging since it
requires the crossed legs to form one line; I don’t think that doing
half-lotus is any easier than doing full-lotus. The lower part of the legs
should be basically parallel—this has to be achieved—and there should be space
between the legs and the pelvis. Half-lotus is hard to do. These are the
general requirements for the single-leg crossing position, but we don’t ask
this of people. Why is that? It’s because this exercise calls for you to sit
with both legs crossed.
Now I’ll explain the full-lotus position. We require you to
sit with both legs crossed, which means that from the single-leg crossing
position you pull the leg from underneath to the top, pull it from the
outside, not the inside. That’s the full-lotus position. Some people cross
their legs fairly tightly. By doing so, the soles of both feet face up and
they can achieve Five Centers Facing Heaven. That is how the true Five Centers
Facing Heaven is done in Buddhist exercises in general—the top of the head,
the two palms, and the soles of both feet face upward. If you want to cross
your legs loosely, it’s all right to do it however you like; some people
prefer a loose leg crossing. But all we require is sitting with both legs
crossed; crossing the legs loosely is fine, and so is crossing them tightly.
The still meditation requires sitting in meditation for a
long time. During the meditation there should be no mental activity—don’t
think about anything. We’ve said that your main consciousness has to be aware,
for this practice cultivates your own self. You should progress with an alert
mind. How do we perform the meditation? We require that each of you must know
that you are doing the exercise there, no matter how deeply you meditate. You
absolutely should not enter into a state in which you’re aware of nothing. So
what particular state will occur? As you sit there you will feel wonderful and
very comfortable, as if you were sitting inside an eggshell. You will be aware
of yourself doing the exercise, but will feel that your entire body can’t
move. This definitely happens in our practice. And there’s another state.
During the meditation you might find that your legs disappear and you can’t
remember where they are. And you may find that your body, arms, and hands
disappear, with only your head left. As you keep meditating, maybe you will
find that even your head is gone, with only your mind—a trace of
awareness—knowing that you are meditating there. You should maintain that
slight awareness. It’s sufficient if we can reach that state. Why? When you do
the exercise in that state, your body undergoes full transformation. That is
the optimum state, so we require that you achieve it. But you shouldn’t fall
asleep, get in a daze, or abandon that slight awareness. Your meditation will
be in vain if you do those things, and it will be no better than sleeping and
not meditating. After completing the exercise, your hands are put together in
Heshi and you come out of stillness. Then you are done with the
exercise.