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Main Index
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shown with big stomachs. unlike our depictions of them where their chests are full and stomachs small.
Tao recognises three centres: one is the tanden (the navel centre), the second is the centre of the heart and the third is the centre of the head (the centre of intelligence). The tanden is the highest and most profound centre of Existence). Next comes the heart and the last and least profound is the centre of the head. Intellectuals, therefore, are the farthest removed from existence. An emotional person is nearer to existence than a rationalist. A devotee is much nearer to existence than the so-called intellectual. He who takes the intellect to be everything lives only on the surface of existence. His calculations are correct, his logic clear, but he never goes deep down because there it is dangerous; there all logic is lost and all calculations fade.
The rationalist lives on the surface, where everything is clear-cut and straight. As soon as we descend to the heart, this clear-cut world of logic and reason is lost. Therefore, the intellectual is afraid to talk of the heart; for with it comes illogic and disorder. But it is here that desire and love may arise, and devotion also. Anything can happen here, for which no explanation can be given.
The more rationalistic a person is, the higher is his centre of breathing. By observing the point of breath of a person, we can find out his type. The more emotional a person, the deeper his breath will go. "But," says Lao Tzu, "the heart is not the ultimate depth. It is necessary to go down even further -- to the tanden."
The breath should arise from tanden. Then a person is united with the existence, just as infants are. When a person, through concentration, carries his breath to the ultimate depth, he becomes as tender as a child. This happens only when he attains a tensionless simplicity and innocence. Observe yourself sometimes as you sit quietly by yourself on a chair. Let yourself loose, -- there should be no tension -- and you will feel the breath rising from your navel. But we do not let ourselves relax even when we rest. Is the idea of having an expanded chest so ingrained in us, or
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