"The embodiment of knowledge"

Here's a meditation with a wonderful commentary on what Taoists call the "microcosmic orbit", and what the Tibetan lama Tarthang Tulku called "The Embodiment of Knowledge".
It fits nicely with the "handing over" pattern, in some ways. The differences are intriguing too.

Enjoy!

Maarten

---
A )Sit in a relaxed position, but with your back straight. Let your body be internally very light and unclouded. Visualize an intensely alive, gentle and loving energy - like a very warm nectar. Let this energy flow down the length of your spine. At the bottom of its descent and as it begins to curve forward the energy becomes still warmer and more alive. Then allow it to curve forward and upward inside the front of your body and let it rise to the point above and between your eyes. Finally, allow the energy to flow to the back of the head to the area two inches below the occipital region of the skull, then let the energy proceed downward again.
Continue this circulation, but with an initial emphasis on *feeling* the energy in a very relaxed but attentive manner. Feeling here is more important than watching (visualizing) it.
B) After you have become very well acquinted with this circulation practice, and the energy has become quite intensely present, allow both the upward and the downward columns to widen until they merge. Let the resultant ring or disk of energy acquire greater thickness, spreading to the side of the body, so that it is no longer a two-dimensional circle. Gradually the entire body will be pervaded with this clarity. Finally, let the energy expand to encompass "everything" ordinaily considered to be "outside" the body.
(...)
This excercise promotes an awakening of the body to a more vigorous and 'knowing' condition. Whereas in (..) we saw the body -as a form- to be Space, and as an embodying tendency -  to be Time, here it is revealed in its 'knowledge' aspect. Such a clear and pervading energy has a deep healing quality, for both physical and psychological problems. It will also contribute to the emergence of an infinite clarity and translucence which embraces all presentations and appearance in both teh 'external' and 'internal' realms of existence. Since everything is translucent, 'everything else' is unobscured and shines through. Everything includes everything and no separations or disharmonies are found when appearance is seen as the embodiment of knowledge.
>From Tarthang Tulku, "Time Space and Knowledge" (p 275-277).
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]