Effortless Power in Connecticut

Sunday's "Effortless Power" seminar David Shaver's Peaceful Wolf T'ai Chi in East Haddam, CT was a real pleasure. It is always an honor to be invited to David's wonderful school to share. He has a beautiful studio way off the beaten track in an idyllic setting. Autumn was in full throttle and the colors were spectacular.

Most of the participants had not worked with me before so it was a rare opportunity to start from zero and present a large chunk of information in a day. Ideally, one learns a small piece and has time to integrate it through practice. That's what happens in my regular classes in Staten Island. But there is an advantage to getting the full adult dose too. Higher level internal arts can only be fully appreciated in a transrational state of consciousness, and it takes some practice to be able to get there easily by yourself. In an intensive learning experience like this one, you climb aboard TransLove Airlines early in the day and stay there as we explore some of the remote outposts of the internal arts. Fortunately, we had Maria there too to keep things real and grounded and to explain from another perspective. A demonstration of effortless power takes on additional weight when performed by a 5'4" grandmother.

Here's a synopsis of what we covered:

*"Three thumps". Got this one from a Donna Eden Energy Medicine workshop. (See YouTube vid: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDgwNTE0NTY=.html) You use your fingertips or knuckles to vibrate energy points to unstick and enhance energy flow. K-27: Located in the corner of the chest on both sides of the sternum just under the clavicle. Meridians run backward and get clogged when we get stressed out. Thumping K-27 unsticks them.
Thymus point: On the sternum at the level of the second rib. Energizes the immune system.
Spleen: Metabolizes stuff. Not just food, but also life experience. Stress collapses our spleen energy and makes it tougher to deal with the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

*Energetic coherence: Consciously reaching with the index fingers to restore a sense of wholeness to the body/mind. When energy is more coherent there is less entropy in the system. (This is explained in detail in Taijiquan: Through the Western Gate.) I demonstrate the power of energetic coherence in this YouTube vid: http://youtu.be/oRJu_u2EWKs

Most of the stuff to follow was discovered/developed after the release of TTWG. I was taken aback when I noticed that.

*Central Equilibrium: This concept is a central pillar of taijiquan and I assumed I knew what it was for 20 years of so. I wrote about central equilibrium in a couple of blog posts already, so I won't cover it here. This vid demonstrates "effortless power" from central equilibrium: http://youtu.be/V28HRFsB3YA

These two, energetic coherence and central equilbrium, are essential for establishing effortless power. Energetic coherence unifies your body/mind and central equilibrium opens the valves to connect with the Big Qi, the energies of earth and sky.

*Ball/Knee/Kua: This is a sequence for establishing a firm foundation and maintaining central equilibrium regardless of the body's position.

*"The Edge": This is a five part exercise that develops the ability to handle energy without freaking out. Most of us have a hard time receiving energy without contracting, resisting, or avoiding. This exercise helps to overcome our fear-based responses and receive energy and information consciously, with an open heart.

*Martin Buber: Empowerment through relation. Shifting consciousness by entering a state of reciprocal respect with another...and so much more. I consider Buber's I and Thou to be the most important book of the 20th century. Who knew it had application to martial arts, peak performance, and creativity?

*Center line: Using intention to interrupt or enhance the energy in the central meridian. Disrupting an opponent's energy field can create an advantage in push hands or sparring. Energizing the field is a powerful tool for healing yourself and others.

Of course, this only skims the surface of what we covered Sunday. Effortless power is a by-product of doing things that are virtuous in their own regard. It takes gongfu. The stuff we covered is a map. You still have to walk that road.

Many thanks to David Shaver and the whole gang at Peaceful Wolf for a wonderful day.

Tai Chi Alchemy XVI Report

Tai Chi Alchemy XVI in Sedona astounded and delighted in ways earlier chapters could not have anticipated. Writing about it is a bit like piecing together a dream: the few markers that stand out in the memory are but the tiniest fragments of what happened. The high octane information that is shared provides a context and a structure for the real miracle-- the incredible interactions of people in a vibrant, intelligent natural setting. The level of dialogue has evolved to where even newcomers are comfortable discussing and working with energies that seemed distant and elusive in our earlier meetings.

In 1997 or 98, I announced in my opening comments that I wanted everyone in attendance to "feel their qi" before the weekend was out. My partner at the time told me I was nuts to suggest such a thing. He said it took years to develop that kind of awareness. Well, everyone got a taste, and have every year since. Now the level of certainty has risen dramatically and we work with qualities of energy with confidence.

Just a few years ago Stephe Watson amazed us by "moving" people without touching them. This year, Rob Mann helped the whole class understand how to execute this remarkable skill in a drill called "Search Center". It's actually a cooperative exercise, where the "pusher" directs intention and the "pushee" feels the intent and goes with the direction of the flow. We start out with eyes open and physically touching, then gradually gain confidence and do it eyes closed at a distance. The exercise teaches us to direct intention coherently and to sense intention before the actual physical execution (ting jin).

Each year we add to our vocabulary for describing and clarifying what was only recently quite ineffable.

New Venue: Poco Diablo

TCA XVI was held at a new place, Poco Diablo Resort (about 4 miles from Bell Rock). The resort was easily accessible, the surroundings were exquisite, the accomodations were very comfortable, the food was good, and you couldn't beat the company.

I liked the energy of this place--delightfully mellow. It didn't crackle like some of our other locations, but I think that allowed for more attention on the really cool stuff being presented. The usual open-hearted joy pervaded the group. Where else do you find adults of all ages hugging spontaneously and laughing unabashedly at 7 am? Seems you were never so happy to be reunited with people you just left a few hours ago.

The Presenters

We had quite a few contributions from unexpected sources this year:

Friday night
Noted author, teacher, filmmaker and film critic, and contributing editor for Inside Kung Fu Magazine kicked things off by stressing the importance of developing a "mental kung fu" in our lives.
Since the most challenging opponent we'll meet is our self, then we have to prepare to meet this worthy over and over. He emphasized that "the only one Bruce Lee couldn't defeat was himself."

I followed by taking the group through "The Edge"--an exercise designed to increase our ability to calmly and consciously handle incoming energy without contracting or flinching. It takes the triggers that would ordinarily produce a fear response in our nervous systems and re-programs our nervous system to respond from higher centers of consciousness.

Saturday Morning

Lynn Sharp and Nick D'Antoni got us started Saturday morning with some powerful energy exercises, focusing on stretching, strengthening, balance, and qi flow. Rich Szeligowski showed how the Taiji Tu (yin/yang symbol) can be used to heighten awareness of shifting energies in sparring and push hands (This was a subject for a recent article he wrote for Inside Kung Fu.)

It is a TCA tradition to take a field trip Saturday morning to Bell Rock and
Courthouse Butte, two of the most powerful and popular vortexes in Sedona. (As many times as I've been there, I am always blown away by them.) This year we were honored to participate in an amazing Native American blessing by kung fu teacher and shaman, Tom Delacy. He invoked the spirit of that sacred place in a special smudging/drumming ceremony that brought many to tears. It was as profound and moving a religious experience as I have had, and it set the tone for our vortex explorations with reverence and humility.
Saturday Afternoon

After lunch I reviewed how to use "energetic coherence" and "central equilibrium" to access effortless power. Once you establish these two, many of the seemingly miraculous taiji tricks become understandable and available. For example, I showed how pointing at your opponent's center line in push hands or sparring will strengthen you and weaken him. If you trace a meridian backwards, even at a distance, you can weaken or strengthen it. The same principle can be used for healing or fighting, depending on your intent. We used this technique to hone our intention.

Guru Mike Casto took it a step farther and showed how to use intention in sparring. Using slow, no impact drills we practiced reaching through our partners' guard to make contact.

Energy Heaing

Saturday Night at TCA is reserved for energy healing. Anne Buhlig took us through Self Healing with Jin Shin Jyutsu. Catherine Carrigan presented Healing Your Hara. I found myself blissfully transported during a delightful group healing led by Rob Mann, called Wei Qi Gong. He learned it from Professor Duan Zhiliang.

Sunday Morning

Great stuff in the early session (7-8 am). Rich introduced exercises for Hemispheric Brain Synchronization. Ethan DeFord opened our heart chakras with mudras and meditation. Tom followed with a section of Bodhidharma's Yi Jin Jing (Muscle Tendon Changing Classic). Very powerful.

After breakfast, Maria Barrett led a meditation, then the transformative "Healing Your Voice". Valarie Gabel shared an ingenious set of exercises for accessing the "light and insubstantial energy" above the baihui (crown point of the head). Balancing small baggies with a few ounces of rice on top of our heads, we practiced our forms. When the bags were removed, the sensation lingered for a long time. Simple, yet profound.

Rob's "Search Center" was a huge hit. Everyone got a real sense of transpersonal play at a high level. Then we finished up with Maria and I leading "Small Changes" (an exercise created by Don Miller and I, a crowd favorite). The group divided into two teams, the "Marias" and the "Ricks", and played push hands. I would pose a challenge to Maria (the smallest movement needed to establish an advantage) and all the Ricks would do that to their partner. Then Maria would counter with the smallest change necessary to reclaim the advantage. We took turns posing questions to our partners, and answering in turn. The Marias won.

TCA XVI for me was an exquisite, illuminating, radiant experience full of surprises and opportunities to connect with loving, creative, passionate people. Thank you all.

Central Equilibrium, Part Two

Larry Cunningham, Yale University scholar in Chinese and Western philosophy recently sent me this quote from Confucius in The Doctrine of the Mean (4^th or 3^rd century BCE). He said it “seems to be the earliest use of the term ‘central equilibrium’ or ‘equilibrium’. The character chung (now zhong) means the center, the mean, hence central equilibrium.”

The Way cannot be separated from us for a moment. What can be separated from us is not the Way…There is nothing more visible than that which is hidden and nothing more manifest than that which is subtle.

…Before the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are aroused it is called equilibrium (chung, centrality, mean). When these feelings are aroused and each and all attain due measure and degree, it is called harmony. Equilibrium is the great foundation of the world, and harmony its universal path. When equilibrium and harmony are realized to the highest degree, heaven and earth will attain proper order and all things will flourish.

Larry went on to state, “The definition of chung here certainly seems to regard it as a transrational reality.”

(Thanks Larry!)

In the last post I wrote a little about how establishing central equilibrium enhances your power and efficiency by aligning your body/mind to the earth and heavens. Like wu wei ("Doing based in absolute non-doing"), the idea here is that if we establish some degree of central equilibrium first, then all our actions will exhibit greater harmony. (Equilibrium is the great foundation of the world, and harmony its universal path. When equilibrium and harmony are realized to the highest degree, heaven and earth will attain proper order and all things will flourish.) This might sound a bit too woo-woo when only viewed from the perspective of the Western Gate, but proves out very nicely in the doing. As shown in the last entry, even beginners can feel a substantial improvement by applying it. It establishes the foundation to develop “effortless power” and greatly enhances rooting.

So how is this done? Here’s the short answer: You bring your center of gravity over the balls of your feet and extend awareness up through the top of your head. Unlock your knees, relax your lower back and drop your sacrum (all without shifting your weight back into your heels).

Sounds easy enough. It’s actually pretty simple. But simple doesn’t mean easy. The above formula is only a rough sketch of the substantial (shi) body shape that can lead us to central equilibrium. It’s like saying you balance a bicycle by keeping it moving while steering in the right direction. What we are looking for is an insubstantial (xu) quality, and it’s one that we want to have in whatever position we put our body. Just as we must explore the insubstantial quality that keeps a bike from falling down before we pop wheelies and ride in traffic, we need to establish our central equilibrium in neutral positions before we use it in sparring or running.

Central equilibrium is not just balance. I made that mistake for years. It is something much deeper and more subtle. Something insubstantial.

And it is cultivating that awareness of the insubstantial that gives us insight into Confucius’ words, “There is nothing more visible than that which is hidden and nothing more manifest than that which is subtle.”

Hidden in Plain Sight

There’s a hidden factor that pretty much guarantees you won’t find it on your own without a lot of work. It’s hidden in plain sight and even when I show it to people, most reject it. Why?

Most of us learn how to walk within a couple months of a year old, give or take. It is during that time that we establish the basic template for an activity that we now expect to perform for decades. A toddler just wants to get moving and not fall down. Lots of minute adjustments are made each moment to make that happen, and after some practice those adjustments are established as an unconscious pattern. Under ordinary circumstances we don’t think too much about how we stand or walk. We trust that our body/mind will remember. (That changes when we get falling down drunk or are walking an I-beam fifty feet in the air. Then we might get very interested in how this walking thing works.) For most of us, though, we simply add to the basic program without really inspecting it.

In practical terms what this means is that 99 out of 100 people you meet will spend most of their ambulant time with their body mass centered on their heels. Most of us are unaware of where in our feet we take the load. It’s been on automatic for so long it just feels “natural”. It’s far from natural, however. It’s just the devil we know. Actually, it’s about as far back in our base as we can go: like standing at the edge of a cliff with our muscles tensed to keep from falling backward. And this acts as a constant stress on joints and connective tissue.

Our bodies are most efficient when we load up the balls of our feet. Anyone who has played a sport has been admonished by the coach to get on the toes. A tired boxer is in his heels and halfway to Palookaville; a fresh one has his weight forward. Of the five primary energy gates in Chinese medicine, two are located there. The “Bubbling Springs” (yongquan) are in that part of the foot and are the gateway for earth energy. When the yongquan is open, a circuit is completed and our energy can be grounded. Fresh yin ch'i rises from the earth and supports, calms, and replenishes us.

My high school football coach didn’t know this, of course. He just knew from experience that a linebacker or a center is going to be much more effective with his weight centered in the active part of his feet than rocked all the way back in his heels. I knew I could match up against a bigger, stronger opponent if I did it, and I’d get grass stains on my butt if I didn’t. My reaction time was much faster and I even felt stronger.

The Booby Trap

If it’s so great for sports, why don’t we do it all the time? Ah, there’s the rub!

Proprioception!

That’s the internal sense we have of body position and movement. We are constantly adjusting our bodies for comfort and/or efficiency. We get a sense of where we are and what we’re doing, and try to fit that in with what has worked in the past. Oftentimes our idea of what our bodies are doing is quite different from what is actually happening (as any neophyte in t’ai chi finds out).

Our nervous systems draw maps of where to find our feet or ears. It records the nuances of catching a ball or typing a letter. It has volumes of information on standing and walking. And it’s not going to revise the basic program for the latter without a very good reason. There’s too much at stake. We established our comfort zone a long time ago and when our center of gravity goes outside a narrow range, the alarm bells go off. It doesn’t feel “natural”. Even athletes and performers who dramatically challenge the limits of human performance don’t necessarily translate that to their off duty lives.

When I adjust someone’s posture to get close to central equilibrium, there is an initial distrust. We have been doing it one way for so long that doing it differently feels really weird. Whenever I walk students through this, adjusting their weight to center on their feet rather than all the way back in the heels, they almost universally resist it. Why? They have been leaning backward so long that true vertical feels like they are going to nosedive into the floor. Their bodies get frightened.

When they finally let go and trust the process, something magical happens: not only is their balance dramatically better, but also an “effortless power” pervades their whole body. Whereas before I could easily knock them over with one finger, now they are able to withstand many times that force with little apparent effort.

I’ve done many demonstrations (one is on YouTube) where I stand in central equilibrium and a bunch of guys try to push me backward. As long as I can maintain it, I can usually handle hundreds of pounds of force coming at me. I must find my central equilibrium and maintain it in a swirl of dynamic forces. This allows me to remain calm in the presence of various challenges.

When humans respond primarily from fear-based consciousness bad things usually happen. Fear has its place, but let’s save it for situations where it is of value, like saber tooth tiger attacks. Fear usually clouds our judgment and makes us act dumb. With our weight way back in our heels our bodies already have to work very hard to keep us upright. Long-term health problems can result (sciatica, back pain, sacroiliac joint pain, neck problems—the list goes on). More insidious, though, is the unconscious stress we rack up moment by moment as our bodies execute the simplest of actions. And that stress drags us down, collapsing our consciousness.

When we are centered and rooted, the opposite can happen. We replenish our energy and feel just a bit better about life. Our spirit is calmed yet energized. Expansive.

Good stuff happens.

Central Equilibrium-Part One

Central equilibrium is an essential quality of all internal martial arts. Once you get the hang of it, it makes everything else you do easier too. When centered and balanced it is easier to function with grace and efficiency.

For the first twenty years or so of my martial arts training I assumed I knew what it meant to have central equilibrium. It was humbling to find out how superficial my understanding was, but really exciting to stumble upon a treasure that great. I had heard the term “effortless power” bandied about, but those few who actually could do it couldn’t or wouldn’t share the secret. As I approached true central equilibrium in my t’ai chi practice, I began to get glimmers.

The term central equilibrium means establishing a powerful central axis and aligning all movements to that. Body is erect and balanced. You must become aware of your center of gravity at all times and use it to create stability from which you can generate power. It’s something similar to the effect a gyroscope has on anything attached to it. You can see this effect in a bicycle. An unmoving bike won’t stay upright, but when the wheels start spinning it can go for miles. The spinning wheel stabilizes the two-wheeler. Central equilibrium does the same for your body. Your center becomes the hub of the wheel.

Something unexpected happens as you tune into it. You aren’t just better balanced: you get rooted. By that I mean you generate a powerful energetic connection with the earth. Your feet get nailed to the ground (until you decide to move them). Your effective power gets seriously amplified. That is, you can learn to increase your apparent strength dramatically without increasing your muscle power. In this video, students are introduced to this idea and get to feel its effect for themselves:

(If you can't view this video go to YouTube)

An even subtler (and maybe more powerful) effect is that you also connect up to the yang chi from the sky through the crown point of your head. It takes a lot of practice to discern this quiet flow, but it is powerful nonetheless. This “heaven ch’i” replenishes and restores us. It descends through the crown chakra like white light through a prism, and each chakra receives vital energy and information at the appropriate frequency.

Central equilibrium allows you to tune your relationship between the earth and the heavens. As you approach optimum alignment, you begin to tap into the Big Ch’i. You start to ride the wave of a bigger energy than your own.

That’s where the fun begins.

How do we do it?

I’ll give some hints in my next post.

Ultrasound Therapy at Home

I've collected numerous injuries in over thirty years of martial arts and a lifetime of recreational sports. In the past couple years I've gotten back into tennis after a thirty year layoff and that brings numerous challenges to my joints. When I got tennis elbow it was unresponsive until I started using a portable ultrasound device. There was an immediate reduction in pain and a slow but steady recovery, even though I didn't reduce my playing time.

Ultrasound therapy has been used by physical therapists for decades, but only recently have portable devices become available and affordable to people like me. I bought mine online from Sonic Relief for about $200 a couple years ago. Now I see other models on Amazon for less than half that.

What is ultrasound therapy? High energy sound waves above the threshold of human hearing. When directed at soft tissue injuries like joint and muscle sprains, tendonitis, and bursitis it has been shown to relieve pain and inflammation, speed healing, and increase range of motion. When the ultrasound waves vibrate tissues deep in the body heat is produced, which increases circulation. Blood circulation is relatively slow in bone and connective tissue, which usually means slower recovery.

You apply a lubricating gel to the skin and gently move the head of the device in circles on the surface of the skin for 5-10 minutes. Most devices have a timer that shuts off after 10 to prevent over exposure. It is safe to use up to three times a day. Most units come with a gel, but I have been substituting Blue Emu and Traumeel therapeutic creams. The ultrasound seems to bring the healing elements of both these fine products deeper into the troubled area.

Areas to avoid: NEVER use around the eyes, ears, ovaries, testicles, or spinal cord, or where there is an active infection.

When I have an inflammation like tendonitis or a sprain I like to alternate ice packs (to reduce swelling) for 20 minutes with ultrasound treatments (to increase circulation). Ultrasound can relieve the pain of osteoarthritis and may have long-range healing benefits.

So You Wanna Be a Sage

I was talking to my son Devon recently about Taoism and how many people, when they read some Taoist texts, automatically want to be the Sage. Devon's comments really resonated and I asked him to do a shorty piece for the blog.

Check it out.

So You Wanna be a Sage...

Taoism, particularly in the hands of Chuang tzu, is unlike most other philosophical and religious doctrines in that it isn't really a doctrine. It doesn't set out to establish a school of thought or a movement. Instead Chuang tzu seems to take questions, both esoteric and commonplace, essential and frivolous, and answer them with whimsical anecdotes about things that probably never happened. The style is itself part of the lesson. If one were to miss the point entirely and try to reason out what the most important principle of Taoism is, an argument could easily be made that first and foremost you must understand relativity. If you begin reading with an eye for prioritizing, you will find that that is one of the first things called into question. If nothing else, Chuang tzu's Taoism is an elaborate and extremely intricate Rosetta Stone for human pattern recognition. It strives to help us recognize and understand the patterns of thought that we cling to, the patterns inherent in the Universe and whenever possible it attempts to help us align our own patterns in a natural and coherent way with the patterns of everything else.

Chuang tzu endeavors to question some of the most thoroughly entrenched notions that human kind has come up with, one of which is the idea that we must place a value on everything. The concept of abandoning subjective value repeats so often throughout the writings because valuation is so thoroughly entrenched in our patterns of thought and action, and yet it is one of the most limiting of concepts we've developed. You won't find Chuang tzu claiming that to be a Sage (or to be a Taoist, for that matter) is inherently better or worse than anything else. To assume that one way of being is right and another is wrong only limits your perception and traps you in a singular mindset. This is the opposite of the desired outcome. Through several anecdotes he reiterates that each thing finds balance in its own lifestyle, and to try to force one thing to be like another is foolishness that will only cause imbalance and suffering. To tell a a person that they must go out and become a Sage would do as much good as to yell at a caterpillar to hurry up and become a butterfly. Instead he explains what a Sage is like in comparison to a normal person, and allows the reader to decide for themself whether they believe it would be better to be a Sage. Implicit is the idea that trying to make one thing into something else can be futile and/or dangerous, however you can help a thing to grow into the most balanced version of itself.

Rather than trying to establish a rigid doctrine of thought or action through which we can become "better", Chuang tzu tries to trick our minds off their well worn paths and into the strange new areas where unknown truths lie. Rather than telling us how we should be, he asks us to come with him on a fun little journey. While on that journey, we ask ourselves at each step whether or not we are willing to take the necessary leaps of consciousness to continue following him. We are not being told to change, but instead being given happy incentive to continuously change our perspective of our own volition. Rather than claiming to hold dominion over the most powerful and important information, Chuang tzu is simply trying to answer questions that he has been asked or has asked himself. How does one obtain supreme tranquility and balance with the Universe? Oh, that's easy. Just accept everything for what it is and do not believe you must force it to be something that it isn't. Next question. In this fashion he treats a question that some would consider to be the pinnacle of enlightenment with the same importance as deciding what type of soup to have with dinner. Again, the method is part of the answer. Placing supreme and undue importance on the question you are already distancing yourself from it, objectifying it, creating a barrier of thought between yourself and the Universe around you. A Sage isn't an inherently better person, but their method of aligning themselves with the Universe has many facets that could be considered advantageous. Some of said facets could be seen as answers to certain questions that people have been asking themselves for many years, such as that pesky "LIfe is suffering" quandary. Be a regular person until you get tired of what that has to offer. When you're ready for what comes next, just ask the next question.

Hemispheric Synchronization

I was talking with my friend Ingrid (who is also my cardiologist) the other day and I casually mentioned something about hemispheric synchronization. I was surprised that she had no idea what I meant, and I explained it as best I could.

This got me to thinking. How widespread is this concept? I’ve been using it since the mid 1980s and have employed various electronic devices to assist me. There used to be a loft on Broadway in Soho where you could go for an hour and plug into light and sound machines that could take you away while you relaxed on comfortable couches—like a cyberspace opium den. I thought it had worked its way into the mainstream, but maybe not as much as I had thought.

What is hemispheric synchronization? Here’s the nickel version (forgive me brain scientists for oversimplification):

Most people know that our cerebrums have two hemispheres. The left hemisphere largely controls the right side of the body. It’s the logical, talkative side. The right hemisphere largely controls the left side of the body, and it helps us in seeing patterns, the Big Picture. It is mute. Sign and Design. The two sides don’t generally communicate well with each other. The left side literally does not know what the right side is thinking (and vice versa). Most information passes between via a fissure called the copus callosum, the largest white-matter structure in the brain.

I have plugged into brainwave mappers that show real time activity and you can see that our normal thinking state is a confusion of frequencies. Many people believe that thoughts “just arise” and they have no control over these random energy outbursts. I don’t think that is true.

If we can get our hemispheres to resonate with each other, something cool happens. Where our thoughts may have been a bunch of bumper cars at the amusement park, they now start to exhibit coherence. They don’t collide as often and can be directed in meaningful ways. It is as if a higher consciousness is directing our brain activity, using it as a tool rather than identifying with it directly. Like a well-tuned orchestra, we find ourselves functioning at a higher level, since we don’t spend as much energy fighting ourselves. Without as much mental noise, we can be calmer and happier.

Binaural Beats

One of the easiest ways bring about this resonance is through the use of binaural beats. Simply put, one tone is heard by one ear and a slightly different tone is heard through the other. The brain taps its toe to the differential. For example: If I hear a tone 440 cycles per second in my right ear (using headphones) and a different tone 450 cps in my left ear, my brain will eventually entrain to the 10 cps difference. When that happens both lobes will start dancing together in an alpha wave state (approx. 7-13 cps). Alpha states are relaxed, receptive, alert. (We like to do our t’ai chi in an alpha state). Beta (14-33) is characteristic of the alert waking state (anxious and apprehensive in its non-coherent form). Theta (4-7) is associated with meditation, dreaming, creative inspiration. Delta (0-4) is deep, deep meditation or dreamless sleep. Some say it is the key to profound healing of body and mind, release of anti-aging hormones and melatonin, and access to spiritual insights. (Ken Wilber does a great demo on YouTube where he uses meditation to synchronize his brain wave at delta. An EEG shows his brain activity while he describes the significance of left and right activity. Ken Wilber Controls Brainwaves

The Good News!

Used to be you’d have to spend hundreds of dollars to get a device to generate binaural beats. Now you can download apps from ITunes for a coupla bucks. I just picked up Tesla Audio Science’s “100 Binaural Beats and Isochronic Tones” from the ITunes Store. Lots of ambient tracks. Go crazy. Try em all.

There are tons of CDs that use this technology. I have just ordered a Gamma wave MP3 from noted sound therapist Dr. Jeffrey Thompson. Gammas have been recorded by Buddhist monks in meditation (with Dalai Lama approval). Also in ayahuasca sessions. I’ll keep you posted about that one.