After completing the Microcosmic Orbit, I began searching for signs of a broader circulation—the Macrocosmic Orbit described in Daoist alchemy. This post documents how that expansion unfolded through direct experience, moving from controlled loops to spontaneous activation.
From Microcosmic to Macrocosmic: The Question of Full-Body Flow
The Microcosmic Orbit was a highly efficient tool for building a critical mass of Qi. Yet for a long time, I could feel its flow clearly only along the Du Mai and Ren Mai. I discovered mentions of a “Macrocosmic Orbit” that promised a circulation encompassing the entire body, but unlike the well-documented Microcosmic Orbit, references to it were scarce and cryptic.
In hindsight, I see two likely reasons for this absence of clear instruction. The first is simple: once the Microcosmic Orbit does its job, the pressurized Qi begins to move on its own, automatically filling the whole body. At that point, the practitioner’s role shifts from doing to allowing.
The second reason is more historical and perhaps protective: this knowledge was often considered too powerful and too easy to misunderstand, reserved for direct transmission from teacher to student. And inevitably, the question arose: This secrecy is meant to protect the inexperienced practicioner or to keep the sway of the master over the disciple? While this preserved the teachings, it also placed a veil over the process for the independent practitioner.
Faced with this veil, I was left with a simple question: if Qi is meant to fill the whole body, how does it actually happen?
The Missing Instructions and the Role of Confluent Points
I already felt soft, diffuse sensations in my extremities, with hints of flow lines along my arms, legs, and torso. But the key that fully unlocked these circuits came from a friend on a forum — a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She told me about the Confluent Points (交会穴, Jiāohuì Xué), or Master Points, which are unique acupoints where two or more of the Eight Extraordinary Vessels intersect with the twelve primary meridians. She suggested I try focusing on them, just as I had with points on the Microcosmic Orbit.
“Just check it out,” she said. “If it’s not interesting, drop it! But you’re so good at focusing and activating — I’m very curious what you’ll get.”
What I got was a noticeable jump in intensity that made the flow lines appear with much greater definition. For instance, focusing on LU7 revealed channels running along the front of my arms, from my thumbs to my chest and neck. SI3 sharpened a channel along the back of my arms, from my pinky fingers to my shoulder blades and neck. Similarly, P6 traced a pathway on the inner arm, while SJ5 defined a line on the outer arm.
A similar phenomenon unfolded in the legs, revealing four distinct lines. Crucially, these channels didn’t terminate at the limbs but continued along the torso all the way up to the neck. Suddenly, in this central region, I didn’t just have two channels — I had eight. If the Ren Mai and Du Mai were my North and South poles, I now perceived lateral lines to the East and West, and four more running diagonally between them.
I mapped them as straight lines, following a simple geometric logic, and began running “orbits” using the same technique I had mastered with the Microcosmic Orbit — applying intention to ignite these new channels.
From Flow Lines to Gates: When Qi Spills Beyond the Body
Soon, I stumbled upon the crucial difference between the two orbits. While the Microcosmic was a closed, regenerative loop, the channels I had activated were open-ended, terminating at my fingers and toes. When I focused on these terminal points, the Qi seemed to overflow, projecting beyond my physical limits into an external space devoid of any spatial reference. It simply dissipated into a boundless field.
I later learned these points are the “gates” (關口, guānkǒu), interfaces connecting the internal Qi to the external Qi of the universe: Laogong in the palms, Yongquan in the soles, and Baihui at the crown. The key realization was that no single gate is privileged — they are equally vital.
The Moment of Dissolution: When Channels Merge into Space
This network was the foundation. But eventually, I glimpsed something beyond it. As the practice deepened, the very concept of distinct “channels” and “gates” began to soften. The openness I felt at the extremities started to permeate the entire surface of the body. The container itself was becoming universally permeable.
So, the answer to the question I faced from the very beginning: What this energy wants to do? seemed to be that the energetic body had to be perceived as a whole, and not as a set of incoherent parts. As individual structures merged, by stabilizing the macrocosmic orbit and full-body flow, the ‘individual’ and the ‘cosmos’ no longer met at discrete points—they interpenetrated completely and simultaneously. The end goal was becoming clearer: a laminar flow of energy, without turbulence and therefore without spatial reference.
Leave a Reply