CAUDAL 49 l/s

This exercise is most effective when done after massaging or after energizing the hands.

Sit cross-legged with your hands on your knees. Slowly lift your arms to chest level, with your elbows bent and your palms down. Relax your elbows and move them away from your body a little. Breathing softly and evenly through both nose and mouth, begin moving your hands up and down a few inches. Move softly, slowly, and casually, until you feel heat underneath the hands, a steady fire. With eyes half-closed, use your peripheral vision to look at the motion. Relax the shoulders and slow down the movement of the hands, until you can hardly see any movement. Can you feel heat in your palms, at the back of the neck, behind the spinal cord, in the chest?

If you do not feel heat, you may be moving too quickly. Let the hands just hang down from your wrists, and relax the elbows. Move lightly, as if touching the texture of space.

Make the motion smaller, shorter, softer, gentler. The movement becomes even slower,

until it is like a pulsation, almost imperceptible, a tiny bee buzzing. Do the palms feel hot? Do you feel something up and down the fingers? Perhaps a tingling with a special quality?

Once you feel something in your palms or fingers, keep your hands in front of you and slowly turn the palms up, holding them as if they were supporting air. Press the elbows into your sides and push the chest out a little. Keeping the palms up, slowly move your hands toward each other, feeling the sensations of heat and energy; then, before they touch, move them apart and separate them as much as possible. Can you still feel the energy? Your elbows stay in the same position throughout, firmly pressed into your sides.

Continue, three or nine times.

With your palms up and your elbows pressed into your sides, now move your hands toward and away from each other in a very fast, short, strong motion. Relax your belly and let strength pass from the shoulders into the hands. Your neck is straight and strong;

your hands are shaking as fast as possible. Continue this movement for thirty seconds to one minute.

Gradually slow down the movement of your hands and let them come to rest in your lap, the back of one hand held in the palm of the other, your head bent slightly forward. Relax your shoulders. It is as if your hands encircle the energy and bring it to rest. Sit for five to ten minutes, expanding the sensations in your body. After you have practiced this exercise ten times over a period of a week or two, go on to the following exercises.

● Sit cross-legged with your hands on your knee. Breathe gently and evenly through both nose and mouth. Slowly lift your arms to chest level and begin to move your hands in unison in any way you feel like, sensing energy inside your palms. Try moving them slowly up and down or from side to side. You may feel sensations of coolness or warmth.

Feel the energy in different ways. Perhaps lift your hands as if you were raising a heavy lid. Or push something down with great effort. You may be aware of a kind of feeling-form, an energy shape. You may even be able to feel inside the form of the energy.

Now slowly begin to play with the energy. Twist it, pull it, put it together, disperse it, make solid forms-play with it in any way you are moved to do so. As you play, let your mind become united with the feelings until there is nothing other than these sensations of energy.

Now grip your sides with your elbows, and with your palms facing each other and the fingers pointing forward, begin to vibrate your hands rapidly back and forth. (Keep the fingers of each hand together.) Start with your hands wide apart and push the energy together, making it denser and stronger. Let strength come from your shoulders into your hands, so your hands become heavier. Feel the sensations of energy, the different weights and textures. You are contacting air as well as energy; behind the air is the energy. Feel the different qualities of energy-perhaps a quality like fine cloth, or like drinking water.

Now slowly lessen the movement, and bring your hands near (without touching) different places on your body-the top of your head, your throat, your chest, the area below the navel. Move your hands very slowly and feel the different qualities of these energy fields.

Then gradually allow your hands to grow still and come to rest on your knees. Sit quietly for several minutes, feeling the energies of this `hand magic'.

Over a period of several weeks, do this exercise twenty-five times, for ten minutes each session. Then you will become familiar with these different qualities of energy.

● When you have have become familiar with one of the preceding exercises and feel energy in the hands, rub the palms together vigorously and distribute the heat energy generated by this motion to the rest of your body, even to each organ. Rub very quickly and strongly with light concentration. Draw your hands up close to your chin and look directly at them as you rub, breathing gently through both nose and mouth. Rub faster and faster, passing the energy into your body.

Now slow the movement down and make it heavier. Slowly cover your eyes with your palms without actually touching the eyes. Feel the energy pass into your eyes. Sit quietly for three to five minutes with your hands over your eyes, feeling the movement of energies within. You may feel sensations in many parts of your body. Let your breath merge with the sensations and amplify them.

When you release your hands, very slowly open your eyes, and look around in a gentle, open way. Do you notice something different, perhaps a feeling or quality? What is the quality of your breathing?