Tummo

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Question: I think I may have read this somewhere in this thread, but has anyone experienced needing less sleep at night as a result of Tummo practice? This would be a major bonus for me. Thanks."

I find I need less sleep the more I meditate or do energy work practices. If I've done some kind of retreat or workshop, or there's a day when I end up doing several hours of those practices in some combination, I tend to sleep from about 11pm to 4:30 or 5am with no nap needed during the day. I also have less appetite and eat more lightly, and have more energy thus I exercise more, all of which I think contributes to feeling less sleepy.

Wow Loco's instruction's is taking on a life on their own. Thanks Tommy M and of course Loco.

alayapragmatica.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/i...ctions-on-tummo.html

"Just out of curiosity - Has anyone here tried tummo as a pre-noting practice, in the same way I use samatha, i.e. do 15 minutes of tummo then note for 40 or something like that? I am curious to know if anyone has any experience with doing that..."

Hey WSH3,

(the theory says: ) that Tummo is another toolset altogether, so it doesn't really make much sense to do tummo and vipassana. Its a different route. I would do either tummo or vipassana. The thing is that Tummo brings up the inner fire that arouses the 4 joys, the last of the four being associated to emptiness. So you get a glimpse of emptiness with tummo practice, once you get it going properly.

Having said that, after doing a couple of retentions, your mind quites down quite a lot, so it might be helpful in that respect. However that's like using an AK47 to kill a fly. If what you're after is quieting the mind a bit try more basic pranayama!

Hope it helps.

Edit: Check this, I like this explanation thetummoexperiment.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/what-is-tummo/

It would take another ten years to explain everything about tummo, but I hope to at least answer some pm-questions: something about phenomena that can arise for advanced practitioners

At the higher levels of tummo, one practices to hold the breath 3, 6 then 9 minutes and everybody knows somebody who stopped breathing at all truth in my own experience is that the body breaths normally every 1,5 minutes but very gently and invisible. In this thread I recommend not to go over 2 minutes, even if in apnoe-diving we say 3 minutes is still safe.

- A sign for an attainment (winds in the central channel) is also that the belly stops moving when breathing.

the feeling then will be that you are breathing through the ears. the skulls seems somehow to pulse in it's own rhythm.

Anyway:
1. There is a problem mentioned (for nonbreathers) with bowel movement because of tightness that is usually solved with very hot baths, (or some kind of tibetan stretching toy that looks like this traditional ritual dorjething) just in case you have a lama, maybe he doesn't need his dorje as necessary as you )

2. unconsciousness: it can also happen that some overambitious practitioner becomes unconscious at this levels. you may have heard that during dying the same thing happens. there are 3 different kinds of becoming unconscious: red out, white out and black out. they are related to the three lights and different energies. Please don't go there, the practice becomes really dangerous. the game is to stay conscious and experience everything counsciously.

another pm:

Tummo will increase your energetic charge. This means the thoughts you are thinking all day will carry more energy and lead quicker to actions.

If your inner dialogue/selftalk/narrative is normally aggressive or self-critical, etc. you will become more aggressive.

If your inner voice is sad or tired etc you might act this out

If the content of your fantasies/daydreams is sexual, you will feel an increase in sexual desire.

Thoughts are like guidelines or rails for emotions and the more vital one becomes the faster and energetic the systems reacts to those.

If your thoughts are positive, creative, loving and ambitious you will act and feel like this.

After some time, and very often pretty quickly gross thoughts will disappear because they are overlayed by a very pleasant perception of the body.

Until then, my observation is that keeping the lower belly pulled in helps immidiately to get more friendly feelings and get out of the animalterritory of replication/survival (gross sexuality/aggression). it seems that the normal human minds is just a calmed down animal and the moment energy rises the animal shows up again.
Also it might help you to emphasise total outbreath during exercises, see also an exercise called "the shaking dog" at 0:43:16 in

next pm: My experience is that some phenomena in selfinquiry and tummo seem to be related to each other. selfinquiry feels sometimes like a "fleshless" version (positive and negative effects seem "light"-versions) I am not a great mahasi-noting-guy so I can't say anything about that, the higher stages of vipassana in the original non-noting style (in the sense of beeing aware in a feeling/sensual way, without any commentary) seem to be more related. Traditionally Tsa lung is done before various meditations, yes also and especially shamata. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it (I guess we already had a post where I explain in more detail why)

pm:
yes, tummo is said to be the most powerful practice (in celibate-circles), but the consort-practices are.

I could use some additional instructions on "contracting the root". I seem to contract my glute muscles as well. Should the glutes be relaxed or contracted while you pull in the lower abdomen and contract the pelvic muscles?

Did about 10 retentions today. The last few were up to 1:30min and I started to feel warm energy rising a bit. I tried to focus on the secret chakra area but I became too distracted by trying to figure out exactly which muscles to contract and which ones to relax.

"Not with noting But the mind becomes very stable after heavy pranyama and it is a very good place to do self inquiry, investigate. or dwell as the witness. But in my experience there is something forceful about this stableness that feels very solid. And I think noting would feel very unnatural to do. But try it out and see

Quote by Ramana from Upadesa Saram

"The mind may be subdued by regulating the breath, just as a bird is restrained when caught in a net. This practice controls the mind."

But he also says

"Breath control is recommended for the man who cannot control his mind straight away .... It may do as an aid but can never lead to the goal itself .... A more advanced man will naturally go direct to control of mind without wasting his time in practising control of breath.'
"I think that man has to be very advanced and is not very often found However just following the breath is a much more gentle approach that leads to the same goal. I think all people on this forum has first hand experience from doing this on how mind and breath go together. Calm mind = calm breath. Breath retention turns the equation around to Calm breath = calm mind."

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yes, but the goal is not a calm mind but a certain kind of bliss.

And bliss is ceartinly felt. Thanks a lot for making this practice available Loco. Feel such joy and comfy bliss right now and most days have been like this since I started only over a week ago. Only doing 30 Min as well

Been touching the 2 min mark in the end of my sessions. It has sometimes felt like i could go a little longer as well.

Have a bit of trouble with where to focus though. The secret chakra is hardest because I have no connection with it. Chest is good as I often feel bliss there but I'm leaning towards the root as that make's contact with the root lock so I have control if I'm pulling it properly throughout. Have noticed that I lose it sometimes.

But I have to will the mind to any of those three spot's. The natural thing seems to be to focus on the silent blissfull head space that open's up. Is that ok?

Also have a little bit of muscle? ache in the diapraghm after the automatic pumping that starts after about 1 min. Can feel how this pumping generates the bliss. Will watch this and go for slower if it increases.

on a related note: thetaobums.com/topic/11434-tenaga-dalamm-breathing-techniques/

"on a related note: thetaobums.com/topic/11434-tenaga-dalamm-breathing-techniques/ "

Some nice info in that link. Interesting to see that it's so similar, Both a chinese and an indonesian technique was described that where similar. Did a search for vase breathing and found this traditional tummo text. Altough i love to read this kind of esoteric poetic stuff. I'm happy that I don't have to figure out the practice from those kind of texts ha ha

this is a strait forward tips from it though.

"Through the above-mentioned three practices, prana will enter into the Central Channel, but in this connection one may ask what are the unmistakable signs of the prana entering into the Central Channel? (In other words, what are the right signs one should expect to experience if the pranas are on the point of entering into the Central Channel?) This is an extremely important question; there is a great number of different answers. Among them the definite and unmistakable sign is the following experience. After the meditation period, the yogi identifies the particular nostril from which the breathing (or most of the exhaled air) runs. Then he applies the mental and bodily practices as before. In a very short time, the breath running through both nostrils becomes even, and it should not alter within one or two breaths. If there is no other hindrance, the breath should remain even in both nostrils; the strength of both nostrils should be equal. If the yogi is able to do this, he may be considered as having a little strength in leading the prana into the Central Channel. However, this does not mean that, by doing this practice once (attaining even runs of the breath in the two nostrils), the ordinary breathing-process, which unequally stresses the two nostrils, will be forever stopped."

www.sacred-texts.com/bud/ettt/ettt14.htm

Also interesting to see one poster's attitude towards the practice. Is this what is called testosterone practice ha ha i guess this is a sure way to screw your self.


"We always challenge each other in our practice who can hold longer and contract the abs tighter than the rest. Because, longer hold and tighter takan builds up more energy.

Even the promotion to the next level the Takan is what the master is really after. The quality of the takan will determine as to how much energy you can develop and a good takan is a pre-requisite to the next levels.

Strong takan= strong Energy."

I have to tell what my kriya guru told me as a warning from his own practice. He used to practice kumbaka and chant om's at his third eye . When he reached a new number he always tried to reach it the next day or break it. And one times he hurt his lungs so bad he had to go to the hospital because of it. That's how it goes if you bring to much ego and willpower into this kind of thing.

"Ah, ok. I see. no, that one is harmless. I thought you mean the exercise where one jumps in the air, goes in the double lotos at the highest point and falls all the way down on ones tailbone (and can not sit for a half year).

The other exercise I mean has a name, but I forgot it. But we have some translators on the forum, maybe they know.
"

its called a vajra bep

then there are various other kinds of beps, and yes unfortunately put my SI joint out doing them ...

"its called a vajra bep

then there are various other kinds of beps, and yes unfortunately put my SI joint out doing them ...
"

Oh dear! And do you have any links that we can see for those beps? I can't find much! Thanks!

"Oh dear! And do you have any links that we can see for those beps? I can't find much! Thanks!"

I should add that this Tibetan yoga with all its beps and so forth I love to do and got tremendous benefit from it, the back thing resulted from an IT band injury I already had (also gets sore in normal yoga) so I think if I wasnt slowly getting decrepit in my old age (well 35 now!) I would be fine, the Tibetans start early you know, and likely accomplished all this before they turn 30.
Its the Longchen Nyingtik tsa lung we do.

No have seen no videos, its kept very secret, we have some old photos here but sorry cant share.

www.tibetanbuddhism.co.nz

"its called a vajra bep"

yes, great, I want a baby from you. It's called vajra jump.

(To increase the effect one can do it on a cactus. And there is this other exercise in which one wears out ones spine-ligaments, Osho recommended it a lot, before he had his 5 lumbar disks herniated and was on painkillers for nearly 6 years I guess its called cobra or something.)

Well i guess some people call it vajra because it's written like that : 'beps འབེབས་ and it's the tibetan pronunciation...
just my two cents.

Thank you. Would also be interesting from which original texts they "collected" this exercise into their system, because it really reminds of the "yogic flying" that nowadays is tought mainly in the transcendental meditation centers. I also once heard the story that the sense of the jump is, that one day one will stay in the air, especially after dream yoga practice (untrue of course).

LOL they are having tons of fun that's for sure!

I've seen they talk about beps in the Yantra Yoga book, by Namkhai Norbu, but they don't say much about it unfortunatelly. I'm trying to check out their DVDs see if they do something else!

"... I also once heard the story that the sense of the jump is, that one day one will stay in the air, especially after dream yoga practice (untrue of course)...."

What???? Now my heart is broken... I will never fly... sniff...

"What???? Now my heart is broken... I will never fly... sniff..."

I expected your heart to be broken, because I said I want a baby from her... (but no, she would prefer to fly, who would have thought that)

"LOL they are having tons of fun that's for sure!

I've seen they talk about beps in the Yantra Yoga book, by Namkhai Norbu, but they don't say much about it unfortunatelly. I'm trying to check out their DVDs see if they do something else!"

Yes it's really fun. You can try it in your bed at home. There is just some hokuspokus-instruction given around it, to sell it as a 2000USD-seminar. the fun comes from jumping. so fart three times, turn your head 360 degrees and praise maharashis dementia and up it goes (not too high!). It's a mixture of joy and silence afterwards in my case.

"I could use some additional instructions on "contracting the root". I seem to contract my glute muscles as well. Should the glutes be relaxed or contracted while you pull in the lower abdomen and contract the pelvic muscles?" -AnthonyYeshe

Can anyone answer this question? I'm curious too.

"I expected your heart to be broken, because I said I want a baby from her... (but no, she would prefer to fly, who would have thought that)"

Loco darling... I`m honored that you want my babies but actually I`m mostly interested in practicing with those whom prefer to retain their vital fluid. now if you get an interest in the real practice then call me xx

giragirasol - its ok I dont mind to share

but actually nobody taught me any "flying beps" just fall on your but type of beps, no big deal.