definition of the word energy.

This is my first post here. I have been reading the messages on this forum and have come across the term "energy" quite frequently. AugustLeo has mentioned in his practice notes, "energy shot up my spine"

What exactly is the meaning of energy, is it the current like feeling that runs around the spine and especially the head?

There are several instances where the term energy is mentioned in connection with the Chakras. what exactly does this mean?

Can some one please clarify?

Thanks

Upekha.

Well this is going to be fun!!

It's a great question uphekha - one of my favorites in fact.

Let's just take the model on it's own terms first, and then we'll discuss what may really be going on. Basically, the energy model takes the view that the world - and you - are pervaded by vital energies, life force. This force has gone by a variety of names - chi, orgone, vril, prana, pnuema, etc. All phenomenon are energetic by nature. Chakras are rotating vortices of this vital life force in your body, circuitboards that relate to spheres of activity in our consciousness. Life force is always flowing, but meditation may stimulate certain channels through which it can flow. The flow of energy in certain channels can also trigger changes in consciousness. On a phenomenal level, there are specific sensations and often visual experiences of energy either flowing through parts of the body and so forth - these sensations can be highly individual, but most often people report warmth and tingling. Kundalini refers to a specific type of primal vital energy (and there are many theories and flavors of energy which are not always self-consistent, or consistent with other systems) that lies dormant at the base of the spine - Kundalini yoga attempts to waken this energy and raise it up the spine to the level of the seventh chakra. Here's a link that explains the energy model and it's relationship to other possible models www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos065.htm

The Tibetans have a sophisticated approach to chakras and energy - they still hold the view that all phenomenon have an energetic basis (Sambokaya-land) but take the view that focusing the mind on a particular part of the body affects the quality of consciousness, and that is responsible for the chakra experience. To me they seem to be a system of anchors of particular consciousnesses.

Cont

What I have noticed is that experiences of energy are always accompanied by (generally high) concentration states - or that they anchor the concentration or trance state. Like Mesmer, I can induce energy experiences through hypnosis. I believe they are unconscious experiential metaphors for what is happening to our consciousness - a way of representing what is happening to ourselves. The different qualities of energy are reflective of the different information that it conveys.

While many have looked for this life force, no one has yet found it. I believe they never will, because it is an epiphenomena of consciousness itself.

Nevertheless, it can be a quite handy experiential metaphor at times with this kind of material.

David

Hi David,

Thanks for your explanation. In the Theravada school,would the tingling sensations be described as Arising and Passing away?

Upekha

"Hi David,

Thanks for your explanation. In the Theravada school,would the tingling sensations be described as Arising and Passing away?

Upekha"

Very likely. Shinzen Young thinks of energy as the force of impermanence, which he believes has two main aspects - expansion and contraction. All change involves these forces or some combination: expansion, contraction, or vibration as he says. All phenomenon arise and pass in the Theravada school.

In terms of the Nana stage of insight, "The Arising and Passing Away", however, it is highly associated with experiences of energy and light in some form or another, to a greater or lesser extent. Nevertheless, experiences of energy are not confined to this stage of insight but may persist through the rest of the Dark Night nanas, and certainly could be experienced voluntarily in Equanamity, I would think.

D
Edited for grammar

Thanks David for the clarification.

Upekha.

I would think there is probably an implicit connection between "energy" and the concept of the Sambokaya.

Would anyone else want to try to comment on that?
My Buddhist philosophy is weak.

The correlations that I've heard are: Dharmakaya/mind/sphere of unconditioned potentiality; Sambhogakaya/speech/sphere of realized energy; Nirmanakaya/body/sphere of realized manifestation or realized form. I can't say I'm personally clear on the similarities and differences between this use of 'energy' and current colloquial usage. It is an interesting area of inquiry.
Kate

One basic definition of energy is 'that which facilitates change', and for many people, 'energy' seems to refer to the subjective sensation of change.

It seems to be a kind of catch-all phrase for the sensations associated with all kinds of change.

One thing I've found, on a personal note, is that when my qi starts to get flowing, my nasal passages pop open. This has occurred pretty normally ever since I first started practicing qigong back in 1998. And it happens now when I sit down to do vipassana.

Ok, here it is, I got it:

ΔE = W

where W equals force multiplied by distance.

Well that was much simpler that it appeared at first...

But seriously, the energy model didn't really get popular until the industrial age when people were focused on it (with some precursors like mana and ashe') - models of the psyche and metaphysical tend to mirror the current technology.

I was actually thinking of how with qi and prana, the cultures that produced and really developed these concepts were ones in which first-person experience and subjective observation were probably more valued and integrated. Today we rely so much on machines and measuring instruments; and it seems to affect how we think and perceive even when we're not using machines. In contrast, there have been times and places where people had to really develop their subjective abilities to sense, perceive and estimate. I suspect that people who developed those capacities are more likely to have bumped into the value of paying attention to 'energy'.

I feel like that same kind of spirit is what runs through contemplative practice in general.

We use the modern word 'energy' as an analogy for what used to be called 'breath', also by analogy (qi means breath in Chinese, like the Sanskrit word prana).

When we are identified with body and mind, assuming that we are a center of awareness located in the brain of a physical body within a material world of solid objects, this energy is sleeping. It awakens when we are able to see through the illusion of solidity to realize that the mind, the body and the world are nothing more than a flow of sensations, a dynamic (self-aware) flow of energy.

Getting back to Pali Buddhism, is is interesting to note that Anapanasati is often translated by mindfulness of breathing. In fact, 'ana' is the Pali for 'apana', while 'pana' is the Pali for the Sanskrit word 'prana'. In the early yogic tradition prana and apana stand for the two energies (rising and falling / expensing and contracting) at the source of physical breathing. When they are fully balanced, the physical breath seems to stops, together with the mind (manolaya), leading to samadhi or jhana. The purpose of Anapanasati is therefore to balance and unite these two energies through mindfulness of breathing in order to enter into samadhi, parcifying Kaya, Vedana and Citta with the four rupa jhanas (first tetrads of the Sutta), before switching to Vipassana to investigate the three characteristics in the last tetrad of the Anapansati Sutta.

Alex,

Thanks for this.

Thanks Alex, this is very helpful.

Upekha

"
But seriously, the energy model didn't really get popular until the industrial age when people were focused on it (with some precursors like mana and ashe') - models of the psyche and metaphysical tend to mirror the current technology."

Now that I'm reading it, this statement seems pretty inane. My apologies for that. It is true in some cases, like Freud's ideas about "unconscious forces" that it was influenced by the physics of the day - and it is certainly true that energy models had a resurgence in Western Occultism in the 19th and 20th century.

Still, it's actually already been around - even the Medieval Rennaisance's view of magick was based on the "pnuema" - again, air. Maybe then energy is some sort of indication of exchange of a system with it's environment.
D

"I would think there is probably an implicit connection between "energy" and the concept of the Sambokaya.

Would anyone else want to try to comment on that?"-haquan

OK, David, I'll bite. I'm aware of a subte, rainbow colored energy underlying everything that we normally think of as solid. If I "look" in a certain way, it reveals itself. Seeing it doesn't take any special effort and it's always accessible. It's just another way of looking at the world around me. Every physical thing, e.g. computer, tree, insect, human, has a corresponding rainbow body of energy. I guess this is what the Tibetans are referring to as Sambogakaya. The energy bodies are not constrained in the way the "meat" bodies are, and the whole rainbow universe is unobstructed, by which I mean things don't bump into each other and anything can move at the speed of thought. But although the rainbow bodies, including the one corresponding to my own meat body, respond somewhat, at least temporarily to my whims, they are ultimately not amenable to my manipulation; they spontaneously arise, and do what they do independent of my wishes or imagination. Weird? Yeah, but I'm used to it, and it doesn't conflict with my life in meat space. I go for days at a time without thinking about it or noticing it.

Kenneth