Ep 21: The Wu Zong Transmission

Today we will be going deep into Wu Zong – The Origin of Enlightenment, looking at its core. This isn’t your typical topic, it is a transmission of method. So whether you bought the Jiu Wu Tan Gong scroll 1 or not, stick around.

This may be your first time hearing the name Wu Zong, and rightfully so, for it is the name I gave this practice after thirty or so years of practicing it. Originally it had no name, but its general methodology was similar to Daoist dan tian work, lower, middle, and upper energy field cultivation, and Buddhist Chan/Zen breathwork.

However, for me, when I received the practice, it was only one method, and that method was a simple direction: breathe to the belly, attention to the pineal gland. I did that for five years, and within those five years realized the beginning, middle, and continuation of the practice. Wu Zong, being my first method in this life, is also the first of the three root methods in the Jiu Wu Tan Gong text, Scroll #1.

Through my practice of Wu Zong, for the first five years, from ages 8–13, I learned and realized the foundation of cultivation, of nourishing specific conditions in order to attain clarity, even though I didn’t know what that meant. In time I realized self-introspection practices, breath manipulation, Qi manipulation, deep state cultivation, and the nourishment of unbiased sight, or clarity in insight, on my own, through consistency.

Remember, I had no intellectual understanding of clarity or awakening in the traditional or classical Buddhist and Daoist sense. What I did have was the practice of single-minded focus, what I later called Wu Zong, which revealed what I called “clarity” at the time, and this was from 8–13 years old. Later on in my 20’s, when I learned Buddhist sutras and Daoist texts, I was able to compare and confirm what I had practiced and revealed through self-introspection, single-minded focus, and the other methods I developed and realized through Wu Zong.

When I talk about having clarity in insight, it is the distinguishing between your thoughts and the thoughts, or receiving of energy, from others. This doesn’t mean I read minds or have psychic powers. It means I am clear enough to know the difference between what is trying to influence my mind, and what I am telling myself to influence myself.

In that, perception did become more sensitive, and furthered my inherent observational skills in seeing other types of beings. This doesn’t mean that you will have that kind of sight too. It just means that through the depths of Wu Zong cultivation, these things occurred for me due to the causes and conditions of my mind for this type of cultivation, and, depending on yours, Wu Zong would reveal those for you, because it is your mind, not anyone else's.

All of what I have given to you in Jiu Wu Tan Gong came from consistent practice of Wu Zong, and the text is a layout of myriad practices of cultivating the mind and energy. The meaning of Jiu Wu Tan Gong will be talked about in another teaching.

So going into Wu Zong, we look at its basics. What’s within the foundational stream of Wu Zong? Of course, single-minded focus practice. This is one of the many aspects of Wu Zong. Single-minded focus is the cultivation of keeping your attention on one point. This develops focus, and it also allows one to observe, in the beginning, how their mind is pulled to different types of stimulation like thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, and daydreaming. It is a mirror revealing the cyclic habits of your senses.

So if there is physical and mental fatigue, thoughts and sensations that equate that will be revealed by thoughts and sensations of fatigue. Therefore, sleepiness. The same goes for other things like stress, anxiety, sadness, joy, love, etc. These are revealed when attention is taken away from the momentum of activity in the senses.

In that process, as momentum in sensory production slows down, instances of stillness are revealed. Then activity starts up again. It’s okay that it does, and when it does, by no means have you failed in practice. Every time you practice, you reveal something. As time goes on you begin to reveal ways to maintain focus and investigate the mind, creating questions or insightful ways to untie the knot of stimulation.

Let’s liken this to hua tou, or head phrases, like in Chan/Zen. You may begin to naturally decipher a phrase which allows you to hone in your focus to reveal the root causes of your sensory triggers. In the traditional way, there are phrases like, “What was my face before I was born?” or “Who is reciting the Buddha’s name?” In that sense, you may create your own, which fits the conditions in your mind, like: “Who told me I must feel this way?” “Why did I believe I had to react in this way?” “When did I begin to think like this, or like that?” You get the idea.

The head phrase, or phrase/framework to investigate your mind, is one that resonates with your mind. Wu Zong practice is simply a revealing practice in the beginning, and whatever stage of practice you get to within it is up to you.

While that is happening, more and more you will reveal the ebbs and flows of the six senses, and with that, you begin to realize the framework of the perspectives, personalities, and self-views you have formed. Through such contemplation, you begin to see a choice in whether or not you will continue being that way, engaging in whatever you have been, revealing their influence and seeing clearly the stream of conditions that bring the outcomes you have always experienced. Here is where you cultivate changing, letting go, and where liberation of your mind from cyclic sensory habits becomes a thing.

Because you reveal, you actively, in wise discrimination, make the choice, and then test to see how it plays out in your life. This is the application of planting seeds and nourishing the ground.

All of this is just the beginning, and it stays with you a lifetime. Due to such single-minded focus development, your energy begins to settle and refine. Refine means to be saved up. Since you are not wasting energy on empowering cyclic habits, your energy/mind doesn’t feel fatigued. Your physical appearance of energy begins to strengthen, you feel energized, full, and cognitively capable. This carries over into your everyday doings. Energy saved becomes an empowerment for your body and mind.

Now we take this a bit further into cultivation of that energy. With energy full and focus developed, the mind is still. Like water unmoved, you can now throw a rock in it and watch the ripples spread out. However, with cultivation, because we have a focus unmoved, when we direct our attention, it doesn’t ripple everywhere, it only stays in the stream, the direction we place it, for as long as our strength in focus can hold.

This is where Wu Zong moves from self-introspection and focus development, stillness revelation, to applying the strength of focus to cultivate what is called internal energy, dan tian. This is like taking a fully developed olive and crushing it, pressing it, to release its oil. Sometimes the pressure is enough to get it all out, sometimes you have to apply more pressure, and sometimes precise pressure.

This is the same with cultivating Qi in the body.

Now that we have established Wu Zong at the mind and sensory application, we now bring Wu Zong into Qi cultivation. Because abdominal breathing was already developed over some time, and focus at the abdomen with one’s attention as well, stillness present too, throwing a directive, a framework in the mix can be handled without confusion. In the beginning of this practice, we form the mental imagery/framework of our attention at the lower dan tian.

The Lower Dantian is the primary energetic center of the human body, located about two to three inches below the navel and slightly inward. It functions as the body’s main reservoir and refinement center of Qi, the place where energy is gathered, stabilized, condensed, and strengthened. When cultivated, the Lower Dantian supports physical vitality, emotional steadiness, mental clarity, and deeper spiritual development. In short, it’s the foundation of internal power and true cultivation.

So, we send our attention there, and if you can’t tangibly sense, or even visualize, the dan tian, no problem. That isn’t important. Just place your attention at your belly button. Because you were already doing abdominal breathwork and developing single-minded focus, Qi gathered at the dan tian anyway. With purposeful intent, it does so even more.

Technicalities of how the Qi moves here and there are really irrelevant here. What’s important is that you don’t chase sensations. Because of your developed focus in earlier practices and stages, the impulse of running off on this or that feeling is weakened. And now you place attention at the lower dan tian. The intent is that your mind, your Qi, goes there. That’s it. Don’t visualize entering it, or swirling around, or anything. Just maintain the intention of Qi moving to and staying at the lower dan tian.

This part of Wu Zong can be done for as long as you can maintain the practice. Don’t expect to just be able to do this without your mind moving to sensory stimulation. It is very possible, and usually will happen. However, every moment of absorbed focus in this method is that much more cultivated Qi. You can’t rush this part, or any part for that matter. Maybe you hit 20 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, but you sat practicing for 30 minutes. Eventually your application and absorbed state will become stronger. Don’t chase it, for it runs faster than you.

To check perspective: when you recognize warmth in your lower abdomen, it is a marker of having done the work. Stick with it, and don’t get excited. It happens, and it’s inevitable, just a normal happening during practice. Where the mind moves to, the Qi arrives. That is not only the main point, but one that gets underestimated. Most practice and think if they don’t feel the Qi, they are doing something wrong. What is never explained to them is that Qi is always moving whether you feel it or not. It doesn’t suddenly exist because you were practicing some exercise.

Where you place attention is where Qi will accumulate, and Qi is already doing that throughout the body on its own momentum through the framework of the body’s systems. So, when you deliberately practice cultivating Qi for a specific purpose, just give it a framework, a directive, your intent if you will. There can be no simpler direction, no simpler instruction than that. It is simply overlooked, underestimated, and left to the side due to making exercises appear so complex that it should take the person months or years to get anywhere.

This is the beauty of having realized Qi and the manipulation of it through non-religious, non-cultural, non-dogmatic, non-commercial methodology. Wu Zong is just that, free from such dogma, and that’s how I learned, from straight practice, trial and error, free from made-up course stages and fluffy filler instructions to make things seem complex.

What’s complex is the mind, not the method.

Now what to do after having sat with attention at the lower dan tian for days, weeks, months? It is time to direct that attention/Qi upwards. And be clear here, the time frame isn’t fixed, because in time you will apply all these steps, and future ones for this aspect of dan tian cultivation, in one intent. Right now, we build strength, familiarity, and skill.

As you engage your intent and focus, start from the lower dan tian always, and once your mind, body, Qi are settled and calm, move attention/focus from lower dan tian to the middle dan tian. The Middle Dantian (中丹田 / Zhōng Dān Tián) is the energetic heart center located in the chest, generally around the sternum and associated with Ren-17, but felt as a spacious field filling the heart–lung region rather than a single point. It governs the refinement of emotional energy, transforming Qi into Shen, and is responsible for compassion, sincerity, emotional clarity, and authentic presence.

Where the Lower Dantian stabilizes and stores energy, the Middle Dantian softens, harmonizes, and radiates it outward, regulating breath rhythm, emotional balance, nervous system regulation, and relational responsiveness. When cultivated, it develops warm strength, grounded empathy, calm emotional depth, and clarity without rigidity. When imbalanced, emotions either dominate, stagnate, or numb out. In Daoist cultivation, it is the chamber where human feeling matures into wisdom, allowing the heart’s spirit to shine clearly without being overwhelmed by sentiment or detached into coldness.

So, what to do here? Simple. From your attention at the lower dan tian, you can use an imagery framework. That means creating the image of a stream of your attention/energy moving upwards to the middle dan tian, and remaining there for as long as you can maintain focus. That’s all. The same principle of single-minded focus from the very first aspect of the Wu Zong practice is applied here. Nothing different, just because it is a different energy center.

Only apply your attention at the space, and when you begin to feel warmth and presence there, do nothing but maintain focus. Of course you will be moved by the sensations, emotions, thoughts, images, memories, and that’s okay. Don’t hate on yourself for it, investigate it after you stop the practice. Ask, “Why are you moved by such things? What led you to believe that?”

Whenever you go back to middle dan tian cultivation, always start at the lower dan tian, and work your way up. This is the cultivating, the doing, of refinement in mind and focus. When you are done, always return to the lower dan tian to settle the mind.

The technicalities of how and what happens with cultivating the dan tian, no matter what they are, are irrelevant while practicing, and relevant when you are done practicing and reflecting on the happenings. And the technicalities are individual, based on you. So if things happen as they do, it is because of your mind and what frameworks of experience have been running through the senses.

After some time, maybe a few days, weeks, months, you now have cultivated lower and middle dan tian to a general point of jump-starting and running the engines purposefully. This is good, and definitely not the end. At this point, we now move to the upper dan tian.

The Upper Dantian (上丹田 / Shàng Dān Tián) is the spiritual and perceptual center located in the head, often referenced around the area between the eyebrows (Yin Tang) but actually encompassing a deeper sphere within the brain behind the forehead, associated with the pineal–pituitary complex and the quiet, luminous field of awareness. It governs Shen (spirit), perception, intuition, clarity of consciousness, insight, and the ability to see reality without distortion.

Where the Lower Dantian stabilizes life-force and the Middle Dantian refines emotional intelligence, the Upper Dantian clarifies awareness, allowing thought to settle into direct knowing instead of conceptual speculation. When cultivated, it leads to deeper stillness, intuitive wisdom, stable presence, deeper states of meditation, heightened clarity, and non-dual perception. When imbalanced, it can manifest as overthinking, dissociation, spiritual fantasy, or scattered awareness. In Daoist cultivation, the Upper Dantian is the chamber where spirit becomes luminous through sustained stillness, clarity, and direct experiential awareness.

This is the part of the Wu Zong practice that I received first. It was like this: lower dan tian to upper dan tian cultivation in one breath. Throughout my first five years of cultivating this way, with self-introspection, I learned the nuances of the states that appeared due to my mind, the ebbs and flows of my cyclic sensory habits, and developed a clear sight of things not normally seen by people.

However, because of self-introspection, these instances of seeing what’s not usually seen didn’t blow up my ego. Things are seen, that’s it. No one needed to know, unless they knew about me already, then that was a different story altogether.

So always begin at the base. Here’s how you do it. Apply the method for lower dan tian cultivation, and stay focused with breath and mind for as long as you want. However, I suggest three to six breath cycles, inhale and exhale as one breath cycle, and take your time. When ready, move attention up to the middle dan tian, and remain there for the same three to six breath cycles.

Now, move attention up to the pineal gland. Where is it? I say look up an image of the brain. Why shoot in the dark and guess? After you find where the pineal gland is exactly, it makes it easier to direct attention there. But that’s not all. It serves you to not only know the location, but to feel it.

Here is an even easier route to take. Do this if the more technical instructions are a bit too much at first. From middle dan tian, move attention up to the Yin Tang point, right between your eyebrows. That’s the lazy approach, but hey, I started there as well, so don’t hate. Go to the Yin Tang point and keep attention there. Eventually, just like keeping attention at the belly button instead of tangibly sensing the lower dan tian, the attention and Qi flow to the brain, as they do already, but now a bit more concentrated. It will flow to the brain and influence the pineal gland. This is where being patient and delicate comes into play even more so. You can’t force Qi, you can only give it direction and maintain focus: attention, intention, and the action of applying your intent.

In time, a few moments, days, a few weeks, or months, who knows – and I will always say it like that – you may feel a pressure or presence there. It is just your Qi accumulating. It may feel warm, pressure-like, magnetic, whatever. It’s all good, and it passes, so don’t chase the state, just practice. Stay there as long as your allotted time allows, and then, bring your attention back down to the lower dan tian, stay there as long as you like, or three to six breath cycles.

Whenever you want to cultivate upper dan tian, just begin with lower dan tian focus with three to six breath cycles, then move up to the middle dan tian, three breath cycles, and arrive at the upper dan tian.

Wu Zong seems quite intense, with all these ways for self-introspection and dan tian cultivation, but in truth, this all happens with or without our attention. When we intentionally cultivate this, the natural process of how Qi moves throughout the body is magnified, given another framework, and becomes stronger in such. With that, the body changes a bit, the brain changes a bit, the mind changes a lot more. And the more you do it, the more things are revealed, and there is a lessening of the hold the six senses have in shaping the world you see.

But wait, there’s more. We don’t stop at the upper dan tian, oh no. We go right to the top, the Bai Hui point. Bai Hui (百会), the crown point at GV-20, is called “Hundred Meetings” because it is where countless channels, influences, and levels of awareness converge. In Daoist cultivation it is the highest Yang point and the gate of Heaven, where human consciousness aligns with Tian Qi, lifting the Shen, refining awareness, and stabilizing the mind above emotional turbulence without leaving the body.

In Buddhist cultivation it represents upright awakening, the summit through which awareness becomes spacious, luminous, and clear. Physically, it harmonizes the nervous system and posture; energetically, it connects the human field with a larger field of clarity; spiritually, it reminds the practitioner that awakening is not escape, but alignment. When developed correctly it brings steadiness, presence, and clarity; when forced without grounding it leads to fantasy, dissociation, and instability. Thus Bai Hui stands as the crown gate where human consciousness and Heaven meet, refining perception without severing one’s rootedness in embodied life.

From the lower dan tian all the way up to the upper dan tian, you apply the steps for each one as laid out before. Then, when you are settled at the upper dan tian, bring your attention straight up to the Bai Hui, and stay there as long as you can. That’s it. Remain as long as your attention and focus are capable of doing. If you waver in focus, it’s okay. Take a breath, and bring your focus right back to the top. When you are done, bring your attention straight down to the lower dan tian, and remain there for three to six breath cycles, and either end your practice, or remain there.

If you choose to remain, so much more can occur, and it isn’t occurring because there needs to be more attained. There is a lessening of the hold of the senses, and the cultivating of stillness, which reveals that which is realized, not talked about. But I will talk about it. That revelation is non-separation. And this is where we go to the next and final application in the steps of Wu Zong in terms of Qi cultivation for just the practice of building and applying focus.

After having cultivated each dan tian, though it doesn’t stop at this point – you can always go back to them, which I do even after 37 years of practice – you can do it all in one breath. Because of consistent practice, and integration of breath and focused attention in your daily life, this one application is like a culmination of all you did in practice. All the effort and focus, all the energy saved from wasting away at sensory stimulation is now appearing full and tonified.

From lower dan tian, with one inhalation, your attention settles there and rises straight up to the Bai Hui. It doesn’t “pass by” the other dan tian, it is such that the stream in which your attention is moving has already fulfilled its designated path upwards, connecting, for the sake of understanding, each dan tian. These technicalities, be sure not to make them too complex.

Lower dan tian up to the Bai Hui in one inhalation, and when you reach the Bai Hui and you exhale, remain at the Bai Hui. The imagery, the visual that may be used as a good framework to maintain, is one of a steady stream of Qi running up from the lower dan tian to the Bai Hui. Don’t add color, let it just be, and as it is, it will be revealed. No need to add anything, and don’t add anything. No reliance on extras is the point.

At the Bai Hui, remain. When you're done, direct attention back down to the lower dan tian, and maintain there for as long as you want.

That is the culmination of the full Wu Zong practice from self-introspection to dan tian cultivation. Very simple. And know that as simple as it is, after you begin your practice of it, you will indeed find the simplest way to make it work. This is because cultivation is based on your capabilities, not anyone else's, not on a doctrine, not on other beings, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Immortals, what are considered gods, or whatever else. If you have the capabilities, the method is revealed. This is known as your own power, not external power.

At this point of Wu Zong cultivation, it has taken such a deep root that it is now the fuel of every other practice going forward in Jiu Wu Tan Gong, the sacred platform of celestial embodiment. And celestial embodiment simply means the unbiased thusness of one’s true nature, original wisdom.

Every method practiced requires focus, emotional/mental clarity, and breath control. Because you gain such in Wu Zong, those skills and developments carry into everything you do. In the three root methods, there is Wu Zong first, then Yin Lei Shen Fa, and Yi Qi Zi Fa Dao. Yin Lei Shen Fa – the Hidden Thunder Body – begins as a full body and mind practice, developing strength in body and unmoved will in the mind. Then it goes way deep into Qi cultivation. Such a thing needs what you reveal and develop in Wu Zong. Then Yi Qi Zi Fa Dao, the path where primordial Qi arises of itself, is a way of life which develops skill in manipulating energy to influence oneself in mind and body, as well as doing so to others responsibly. It appears as a Qi transmission practice at first, but ultimately builds one’s mind and prior developed skills from Wu Zong and Yin Lei Shen Fa, to directly be used to influence the world around them with clarity and wisdom through the energy emanating from the mind/body naturally.

Today presents such an in-depth look at Wu Zong, and yes, it can go deeper, but that depth is best revealed through practice. So take it as you will, and perhaps one day you will come to realize Wu Zong.

The Three Roots Method is Scroll One, Volume 1 of 7 of the Jiu Wu Tan Gong scrolls. The book is available on Amazon Kindle and paperback. You can search there, or go directly to awaken24.com/trm.

Thanks for being here today. Peace.