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Tag: cartography

Mapping internal structures: points, channels, regions

  • The Tongue in Neidan

    The role of the tongue in neidan is one of those instructions I followed without question — until experience made me reconsider. Classical texts describe it as a bridge connecting two main channels, essential for circulating energy. But is it really necessary? And might it sometimes obstruct rather than help? This post examines both functions of the tongue — as supposed connector and as problematic attractor — and what I’ve found actually works.

    The Tongue as Connector

    When I first started reading about the microcosmic orbit, the instructions were precise: to circulate the sensation, you had to close a gap that supposedly separates the Du Mai from the Ren Mai, namely the mouth. To do so, you placed the tip of the tongue against the upper gums, thereby connecting the Du Mai—which supposedly rises from the perineum up the back to the head and then descends through the head to the upper gums—with the Ren Mai, which rises along the front and ends at the base of the tongue. I followed the instruction, and the sensation did indeed propagate. But as the practice advanced, I began to question what was actually true about this procedure.

    On one hand, I had the experience from tantric sex of “making a connection” when the glans touched my partner’s cervix: both of us experienced a clear increase in the intensity of the flow between us, in both directions. It was as if our nervous systems were communicating without synapses, simply through physical contact. This seemed to support the idea that something similar happened when the tongue touched the gums. However, this is a different kind of phenomenon and deserves its own treatment: what occurs between two people in intimate physical contact is intersubjective—both partners observe and confirm the intensification—and involves coupling between two distinct nervous systems. It is not the same as the internal flow of a single practitioner moving sensation within their own body, which is the case of the lingual bridge.

    On the other hand, my experience in solo practice was that the sensation could be generated in nodes that had no other previously activated node nearby—as when I first perceived it at the prominent vertebra, aligned with vishuddha, before the posterior nodes of anahata and manipura 2 had been activated. In practical terms, what counts is attention and intention. Qi goes where attention goes, as the classical texts repeat, without needing to follow a specific route.

    Ultimately, the goal is to train the nervous system to generate the sensation at will in any part of the body, with no blind spots. And the best technique to ensure no zone is left untrained is the orbits. Once the entire path has received sufficient training, it becomes possible to “move” the sensation along any route through attention and intention, and it appears as if something were circulating along it. But it is also possible to put a whole route into yin or yang mode, so that its full length absorbs or emits, with no apparent circulation.

    For all these reasons, at my current point I no longer use the tongue to make a connection that I now consider doubtful. Instead, I let the entire circuit activate, including the two nodes I discovered later—at the base of the tongue and at the chin—which I had never trained before, presumably because I had been focused on the supposed circulation through the tongue.

    The Tongue as Attractor

    The tongue is a heavily innervated region, and I assume this is why it requires more intensive training. What I have observed is that even when the sensation flows fairly freely throughout the rest of the body, the tongue still appears as a constriction: the sensation there does not flow, it feels like pressure. The same happens with another nearby region, segment 13, which contains a high amount of bone tissue (upper jaw, cheekbones, base of the skull). This “thirst” of certain zones makes them tend to absorb instinctively, which does not benefit the practice when what is needed is to apply civil fire—letting the sensation move on its own, observing without acting—rather than martial fire, that is, trying to push or pull it.

    In phases when the sensation already diffuses fairly fluidly throughout the body, that whole area—segments 12 and 13—becomes problematic for this reason. And one thing that aggravates the problem is the position of the tongue. The point is not to bridge it against the gums, but to keep it floating, without touching the sides, which would close off the inner space of the mouth. That creates a vacuum between the tongue and the palate, which the sensation interprets (correctly) as an attempt to force the area into yin mode by brute strength—the opposite of what should be done, which is to apply civil fire only. As a consequence, the sensation of pressure increases instead of diminishing.

  • Cartography: Mapping Energy Nodes of the Macrocosmic Orbit

    After tracing the Microcosmic Orbit, I began mapping energy nodes along the broader network of lines. What started as a simple extension of attention soon revealed a far more complex geometry, with multiple nodes forming rings around the body. This is a personal account of how I had to redraw the traditional maps to fit my experience.

    Choosing the Focus Points in Arms and Legs

    Once the Macrocosmic Orbit opened, I used the same approach that worked with the Microcosmic Orbit: moving my attention along the lines and mapping the energy nodes where the sensation naturally strengthened.

    The choice of focus points was straightforward in the head and torso. I used nodes at the same heights as those in the Microcosmic Orbit. Now, instead of two nodes at each level, there were eight.

    I had no references for where to focus my attention in the arms, so I chose levels that roughly corresponded to those in the torso: Shoulders aligned with Vishuddha, mid–upper arms with Anahata, elbows with Manipura 2 (diaphragm), mid–forearms with Manipura 1 (navel), wrists with Swadhisthana and fingers with Muladhara. For the legs, I chose similar locations: where they join the torso, mid-thighs, knees, mid-calves, ankles, and toes.

    A System of Rings Instead of Single Chakras

    Overall, this created a system of 15 distinct levels from toes to crown. I would consider each level a genuine “chakra,” with the crucial difference that it wasn’t a single node at the spine, as described in many Buddhist texts, but a ring of eight nodes (or even sixteen from perineum to shoulders, if including the arm nodes).

    The interactive figure shows the approximate location of each node: Du Mai and Ren Mai in yellow, the lateral nodes in blue, the front-left and front-right nodes in green, and the back-left and back-right nodes in red.

    Naturally, this map reflects my own estimation of where to place attention along the pathways that revealed themselves when the Macrocosmic Orbit opened. It worked for me, but other approaches might have led to similar results. With hindsight, and considering how the sensation evolved, I would say that moving attention—and therefore the sensation—from one point to another is not a ritual in which order or exact location are crucial. The principle behind the orbit is simply to cultivate the sensation systematically — perhaps by training relevant neural circuitry — so it can spread throughout the whole body

    Orbits are highly efficient because they train each region in turn, reducing the risk of leaving blind spots that later appear as obstructions when the energy attempts to permeate the entire body.

    The Role of the Tongue

    Furthermore, the Ren Mai had two branches: one at the tongue and one at the penis. I had read in several Daoist texts that the Du Mai runs up from the tailbone to the head and down to the base of the nose, while the Ren Mai ends at the base of the tongue. These texts instruct the practitioner to place the tip of the tongue against the upper gums or soft palate to “close the circuit,” supposedly interrupted by the mouth.

    In practice, however, once I discovered the two uncharted nodes in this area, the sensation moved freely through the chin. Therefore, I did not use the tongue bridge and instead understood the Du Mai as running from the tailbone to the upper back of the head, and the Ren Mai from the upper front of the head to the perineum, including the two branches.

    This is not to say the tongue is irrelevant—it required careful attention at a later stage ◊Tongue as connector and atractor.

    The Map and the Territory

    This map is not a prescription. It reflects one practitioner’s attempt to navigate a territory that resists standardization. What mattered was not the exact location of each node, but the gradual emergence of a system — one that trained the neural circuitry until the sensation could spread freely, without gaps or obstructions. The geometry of rings was a scaffold, not a destination.

     

  • The Chakra System Symbolism: Beyond the Standard Map

    When I first experienced the sensation, the Buddhist chakra system seemed to be the right map of what I was feeling. But as my practice unfolded, I realized that interpreting the chakra system symbolism was the only way to reconcile ancient texts with the far more complex, 15-level network I was actually feeling. What follows is not a refutation of tradition, but an attempt to understand where experience aligned with the texts, where it didn’t, and what that might mean for the way we read them.

    When Maps Seemed to Fit

    Like many, I was familiar with the popular New Age Buddhist chakra system: seven neatly stacked chakras (seven being a “cool” number, though traditional texts vary), each with a distinctive color, running from the perineum to the crown. According to this model, they are aligned along the spine and promise miraculous effects once they are “opened.” The practice was presented as a linear progression: open them one by one, starting with Muladhara, and when you finally reached the crown, enlightenment was supposedly attained.

    I was also aware of the three channels — the central Sushumna, flanked by Ida and Pingala with their peculiar crisscrossing pattern, often associated with the caduceus and other esoteric interpretations.

    The First Discrepancies

    When I first felt the sensation exactly where the Buddhist chakra system depicts the first three chakras, I believed my experience fit this schema perfectly. But discrepancies soon emerged.

    As my practice progressed, I discovered far more nodes where I could feel the sensation — not only along the spine but throughout the body. Furthermore, the clear feeling of flow suggested these “chakras” were open, yet no miracles occurred. I was particularly apprehensive about moving the sensation to the crown; if this constituted “opening” it, I expected something extraordinary, for better or worse. When I reluctantly directed my attention there and felt the sensation, nothing special happened. I heard no Tibetan trumpets of the Apocalypse.

    This led me to a critical realization: either I wasn’t “opening” them correctly, or the supposed effects were not to be taken literally.

    The Crisscrossing Mystery

    Another source of confusion was the distinctive crisscrossing of Ida and Pingala. When I discovered my own lateral energy channels, they appeared as straight lines. The energy flowed vertically from one node to the next, up or down; it did not jump from right to left or vice versa.

    A Body of Many Levels

    Now, seeing that at each supposed chakra level there isn’t a single node but a constellation of eight — and discovering a total of fifteen levels instead of seven (including the extremities, which are entirely neglected in the classic model) — I concluded that the chakras are indeed located where the sensations occur, but their common descriptions are largely symbolic.

    To me, they map stages of progress, but each stage must be cultivated throughout the entire network of the body, not at a single point.

    The Elements Revisited

    The first clue was the qualities attributed to the lower chakras: Muladhara to earth, Swadhisthana to water, Manipura to fire, and so on. This progression mirrored the evolving quality of the sensation itself as it refined — first viscous like lava, then fluid like water, next like a burning fire, then like air clearing the ashes, until it became so subtle that “ether” seemed a fitting description.

    But this refinement was not confined to specific chakras. Muladhara, like all the others, began viscous and, through years of training, became ethereal. Swadhisthana did not begin fluid; it too followed the same path of refinement. The same was true for every node in the system.

    Beyond Miracles

    Similarly, the supposed miraculous effects were not tied to specific body areas but to stages in the perception of the energy body. I would say that “Levitation” was not physical but the internal sensation of zero gravity. The experience of being “as large as a mountain or as small as a grain of sand” described profound shifts in spatial perception.

    The Missing Legs

    Another puzzling omission was the neglect of the chakras in the legs, sometimes called the “lower chakras” in rare references and often linked to our primal, animal nature. Reading these texts felt like seeing Hic Sunt Dracones — here be dragons — a territory better avoided. Had I followed that advice, I would never have achieved the full integration of energy throughout my body.

    My interpretation is again symbolic: before serious practice, one must master the basic instincts. This is the spirit of the often-skipped yamas and niyamas, which instruct us to approach practice without desires for power, recognizing our shared identity with others, and cultivating empathy and compassion.

    The Practical Purpose of the Crossing

    Finally, the classic crisscrossing of Ida and Pingala does not match my direct experience, where energy flows straight along the path of least resistance. In light of the procedures necessary for more advanced stages, I now see this is not an anatomical map, but a functional instruction. Interpreting the chakra system symbolically was for me the way from looking for miracles to mastering the practical procedures that awaken the central channel. It see it not as an anatomical description but as a practical instruction: to get results, don’t just move energy straight up the sides; consciously cross it from one lateral channel to the other.

    This trains two opposing nodes simultaneously, a necessary condition for activating sensation in the central channel — where, in my experience, the practice shifted qualitatively. If you follow a straight path, you’ll miss the party.

     

  • The Macrocosmic Orbit

    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.”

    Confluent point LU-7, opening the front of the arms
    Confluent point SI-3 opening the back of the arms
    Confluent point P-6 opening the inner side of the arm
    Confluent point SJ-5 opening the outer side of the arm

    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. The end goal was becoming clearer: a laminar flow of energy, without turbulence and therefore without spatial reference.

     

  • The Microcosmic Orbit: A Training Tool for Refining Internal Energy

    Building on earlier experiments, this post recounts how the classical Microcosmic Orbit became a structured tool for refining internal energy—revealing new centers and teaching that precision is essential to avoid blind spots

    From Channels to Orbit

    My discovery of the Du Mai and Ren Mai—the two channels running along the spine and the front of the torso and head—led me to the practice known as the Microcosmic Orbit (MCO). This is a key technique for refining internal energy: strengthening its flow and improving its smoothness.

    Although once a closely guarded secret, the method is now widely discussed in books and online forums about energy work. The practice involves moving energy upward through the Du Mai and downward through the Ren Mai, focusing on specific points along the way. Of course, to do this one must first be able to feel the energy—something I had already learned to do—and I knew that to move the energy, I simply had to move my attention to the desired spot.

    One of the many diagrams of the MCO
    My own interpretation, based on the supposed location of the chakras

    Many diagrams of the MCO exist, from classical scrolls to modern interpretations. However, I chose a different approach for my own practice. Rather than cross-referencing the often-inconsistent point locations shown on various charts, I applied the method that had served me well so far: focusing on the areas where the chakras are traditionally placed, but exploring both the spinal and frontal aspects.

    The Detected Spots

    This revealed an unexpected pattern. Instead of the seven chakras found in most New Age diagrams, I identified ten pairs of perceptible spots across the torso and head. The three lowest ones—already detected through tantric practice (front) and spontaneous kundalini activity (back)—corresponded closely with the first three chakras: Muladhara, Swadhisthana, and Manipura.

    However, an additional pair appeared between Manipura and Anahata, roughly aligned with the diaphragm — a kind of “Manipura 2.” Upon checking the sources, I noticed that some systems place Manipura either at the navel or the diaphragm, yet these sensations clearly belonged to distinct locations.

    Continuing upward, the next pairs aligned with Anahata and Vishuddha, and the two uppermost with Ajna and Sahasrara. Later, though, two previously uncharted chakras emerged. One connected the base of the nose (front) with the junction of the skull and first vertebra (back). The other linked the tip of the chin with the second or third cervical vertebra.

    I had overlooked these at first because my attention habitually jumped directly from Vishuddha to Ajna, leaving the intermediate nodes underdeveloped. When I came across the Neijing Tu (內經圖)—an ancient Daoist diagram depicting the energy body as an inner landscape—I noticed that it features a twelve-storied pagoda in precisely this region. The symbolism felt accurate: the passage from Vishuddha to Ajna is not a single leap but a gradual ascent, requiring steady refinement at each level.

    The twelve-storied pagoda in the neck

    The Buildup of Energy and its Risks

    The goal of the Microcosmic Orbit is not merely to detect energy and consider the task complete. It is to circulate the orbit repeatedly—like training on a treadmill. This repetition is what refines the flow, making it stronger and more coherent. In my view, this is analogous to training the neural circuits that generate the sensation, progressively engaging new neurons and creating new synapses.

    I committed to this practice, and the result was what Daoist texts describe as a “buildup of energy.” The metaphor fits well: once there is enough pressure, the energy begins to move on its own, like a gas expanding to fill all available space. This was almost certainly what happened when the sensation spontaneously rose up my spine after three years of unintentional training during Tantric sex.

    However, this self-propelling quality can also be risky. The energy flows easily through well-conditioned pathways but meets resistance in less-developed areas. The result is a feeling of pressure that, depending on intensity and the “conductivity” of the tissue, can become painful—or even harmful. This was precisely how the two uncharted spots first revealed themselves to me. I’m still working to make those areas as smooth as the rest. The lesson was clear: skipping regions in attentional training creates energetic blind spots. By consistently refining internal energy through the orbit, the pathways become smooth and conductive across the whole circuit.

    This account documents my own mapping process. Others may find different configurations; the key is systematic attention, not adherence to any single map.