The practice of Nei Gong is Embodied, which suggests that a lot of your attention will be on sensations, intuition, memories, emotions, and the discomfort that comes with sitting still for hours at a time. This means you will need some in-depth embodied awareness and healing skills, and you will also need to shift your Qi Gong/Dao Yin practice inward, toward some new places and spaces.

As your Inner Landscape (Nei Jing) begins to open, cultivating a daily interaction with the Sky (Yang) and the Land (Yin), and a curiosity about the interplay of the 24 Solar Seasons, the Weather, the constantly changing Five Phases, your meridians, your breath, and your three Dan Tian, will open your practice and your Universe to the unseen.

As your sensitivity to subtle (Nei) qualities of Qi activity increases, and as your movement practice attains a quality of 'stillness in motion', you will also need to open all of your meridians (Regular and Extraordinary), some energy gateways, as well as build an active and agile Dan Tian system. Rediscovering your meridians, Qi circulation, and how directly we are all connected to Nature, the Universe, and each other, can be a reality-shifting process.

As you journey deeper inward with your practice, and within every fiber of your body and being, you will inevitably also find places and 'spaces' that are overly constrained or collapsed.

The First Grotto of Nei Gong is an invitation to connect with Reality/Dao and to explore where the Yin, Yang, and Qi of your Life may be stuck or exhausted and respond skillfully and patiently. You will learn all of the skills necessary to go inward towards your authentic self/nature (Xing), and to move beyond all boundaries on your journey home to the infinite potential for aliveness and healing (Ming).

天地心論

Tian Di Xin Lun

"Coming into Being as Consciousness Between (and as) The Sky and the Land."

Webinar One 

Life Exists Between Yin and Yang

"Between Yin and Yang, between the Sky and the Land, Qi comes into Being through the Five Phases."

Saturday, Sept 13, 2025 -  9:00 - 11:00 AM (PST)

Learn about Nei Gong (Daoist Embodied Meditation) and the skills necessary to prepare your Body, Mind, and Soul for the work ahead.

Nei Gong – History, Meaning, and Context in a Personal Practice

Three Interactions or regulations (San Tiao) of Qi Gong and Nei Gong

Lineages and Modern Life

Daoist, Shaolin, Zen, and The Yi Dao Huan Yuan Village Tradition of Daoist Practice (Xiu Dao)

Why Start with Meridians?

Standing Qi Gong, Dao Yin, and Nei Yang Gong Practices:

The Willow Dance

Nei Yang Gong 12 Gesture Form

Five Element Qi Gong

The Greater Regulation (Tai Li Fa)

Restoring Harmony Between the Sky and Land - (Tian Di He Yi Fa form)

Seated Nei Gong Practices:

Meridians of the Microcosmic Orbit - Xiao Zhou Tian

Daoist Shaolin Breathwork

Yi Nian - Cultivating Perceptual Capacity and Directed Interactive Attention 

Starting with Your False Dan Tian

First LIVE class:

Wednesday, Sept 24, 2025 - 6:00 PM (PST)

Cultivating awareness and sensitivity to Qi changes the way you experience the world, and the way you experience being a Self.

At first, you will notice that perception itself can be trained, directed, and opened. Over thousands of years, the skills needed for cultivating open perception and unwavering interactive awareness (Yi Nian) have been refined, are easy to learn, and very effective. Working with subtle energies and qualities of Aliveness needs to be tangible and needs to be familiar. The skill of Listening (Ting Jin) must be developed in the beginning because it ensures that you are not adding to your experience. It can be easy to do your practice 'in your head,' so Daoist practice ensures that almost every stage and technique involves your Body, Breath, and sensation, and finds meaning in Nature and in the beauty and challenges of normal life.

Second, you will begin recognizing some Universal patterns about Life, embodiment, and Consciousness itself. As your Nei Gong skills evolve, you will begin interacting with inner structures and systems like your Three Selves and the Three Paths of Life, Your Meridian System, your Three Dan Tian system, your unique Inner Landscape, and your vitality through an awareness of the Five Phases and your Three Treasures (Jing, Qi Shen).

The form of Nei Gong that I teach comes from the Yi Dao Huan Yuan Tradition - which comes from Lin Tou village in southern China. This tradition is rooted in the Healing arts (TCM) and naturally sees any Spiritual path as a process of resolving imbalances and transforming Qi Wounds - at least initially. Even the healthiest people eventually have to resolve the conundrum of 'Who is the one meditating.' This is why so much time and skill is dedicated to questioning and resolving unconscious instinctual, social, and existential conditioning.

The Second Grotto invites you to open your mirror of perception, see the innate and acquired patterns of your existence, take a deep breath, and let go of the anticipating Mind.

五氣心法論

Wu Qi Xin Fa Lun

"The Five Expressions of Qi in Conscious Awareness Training"

Webinar Two

Who is the one meditating on/as an Inner Landscape?

Saturday, tba

The Nei Jing Tu - Your Inner Landscape, Celestial Boundaries, and Universal Circulation

San Bao - Three Treasures

San Dao - Three Selves and  Three Paths

Three Dan Tian Nei Qiang Breathwork

Shaolin Chan/Zen Meditation

 Feeling in, Listening, and Becoming Sensation

(Gan Qi, C’an, De Qi, and Ting Jin)

Four Extraordinary Meridians of Your Sacred Embryo

(Du, Ren, Dai, and Chong)

Embodied Instinctual Distress

(The first three layers of Embodied Trauma)

Progressive Relaxation Breathwork

(Ting Dong Li Xing)

State Breaks and Locating Awareness

(Clacking Teeth and Swallowing Jade Dew)

There is an old Daoist adage about trying to cross the Ocean on a raft with a paddle. At first, we stab and pull against the ocean (Truth/Unity) with fear and anger. Cross this dangerous ocean and get to the Land!

After coming to the realization that you can only surf the waves, you may choose to throw away your paddle and just enjoy the ride, sitting on the edge of your raft, with your feet in the Ocean.

If you are fortunate, and choose to go inward with your Nei Gong skills, you will naturally release all of the instinctual, visceral, and existential distress of your Life. Free of a conditioned and separate existence, you will no longer need a raft. Then you can dive off the raft of separation and become both the Ocean and the Land of Life.

The Third Grotto takes you deeper into the Nature of existence by attending to several innate structures (Xing Gong) of embodied awareness (Ming Gong), cognition, and consciousness. This is a natural process. The gradual but imminent attrition (Wu Wei) of all obstacles is the path of Dao. It is similar to the death of a loyal friend - and yet it is the gateway to a conscious Life.

These innate structures of embodied awareness include instinctual guarding/flinching/cringing patterns that change the potential of Qi and Jing in your Lower Dan Tian. As well, all humans have embodied awareness capacities for subtle communication (See Polyvagal System) that can become the most visceral aspects of intuition, trust, and bonding - or the opposite. These aspects of conditioned behavior and experience often disorient the Qi and Shen of your Middle Dan Tian. 

The Yi Dao Huan Yuan Tradition is unique in its practical devotion to restoring the deepest energy systems in the body to their innate potential. This is done through inquiry and interaction with how a Mind and Self are organized, and often limited by, unconscious behavioral patterns.

"Spiritual maturity begins by bringing the unconscious into consciousness."

How do you bring the unconscious into consciousness? Through a skillful interaction with your Six Innate Minds and Six Pain Bodies. These are contexts more than literal structures of Being. The Innate Minds and Pain Bodies of this Healing and Self-cultivation tradition offer another experiential landscape to assist people in moving through and beyond the most challenging and formative experiences in their lives - as well as unconscious patterns that are passed down through generations of familial drama and trauma.

"The Body is the Mind before the Mind is the Mind."

As you peel back the layers of your conditioned experience, you will regain the wisdom of your Ancestors while healing both your and their wounds.

Nei Gong is Embodied Meditation. The one meditating must clear unconscious patterns that cloud perception before presuming to perceive Reality as itself (Zi Ran). This is the beginning of a Return to the Sacred Mystery.

無礙心印論

Wu Ai Xin Yin Lun

"The Attrition of Obstacles is the Heart’s Unlocking"

Webinar Three

Many Minds, Many Bodies, and Many Ways of Coming into Being

A Return to the Sacred Mystery 

Stirring Cauldrons and Balls of Qi

Walking (or Sitting) with Inner Alignment

(C’an and Zhen)

Xing Ming Shuang Xiu

(Xing Gong and Ming Gong)

Receiving the Gifts of Your Ancestors

(Zu Qiao – ancestral apertures)

Embodied Visceral Distress

(Embodied Trauma - Self as State, Self as Story)

Three Dan Tian Become Six

The Six Innate Minds

The Six Pain Bodies

The Nei Jing Tu - Your Inner Landscape

(PDF – Second Pass – Top to Bottom)

Four Extraordinary Meridians of Connection, Communication

(Wei and Qiao – Antenna Meridians)

Progressive Relaxation

(Li, Xing, Tong, Fa)

Pore Breathing

Believe it or not, Daoist practice can be considered a science - or, at least, a system of cause and effect, experiment and advancement, process and progress.

In Daoist 'science,' there are many simultaneous manifestations of Qi.

For example, there is Qi (氣) - often translated as Life Energy or Qualities of Aliveness, and there is Universal Qi (炁) - which is the Qi manifesting as or through the process of Creation and Entropy. In Nei Gong, there are practices for interacting with both kinds/states of Qi. Over time, one's practice naturally returns to interacting with the Source of both Creation and Entropy - Dao.

Certain aspects of Inner Cultivation (Nei Gong) and Inner Alchemy (Nei Dan) are either innate to life or they are made up in the mind. The only way to find out is to discern and deconstruct the unconscious patterns of cognition and meaning. As a meditator, or a trained observer of conscious existence, you will find solace and profound guidance in the wisdom of the ancient masters, awakened ones, and immortals. Teachings like The Wheel of Cognition, the wisdom of Embodied Existential Distress, the necessity and limitations of Inner Reflection (Nei Guan/Guan Xiang), and the consistent journey all practitioners experience through their Inner Landscape (described in the Nei Jing Tu diagram), have endured the test of time because they remove the barriers and boundaries of separation - one layer at a time.

Any faster tends to cause imbalances between Jing and Shen, creating deviations in Qi flow and function. This can be mistaken for a mental or emotional breakdown - or even a psychotic break.

One of the more challenging aspects of Nei Gong to communicate is called Fertilizing Your Spiritual Embryo. Some Inner Cultivation traditions endeavor to create an Alchemic Elixer that supports the transmutation of Jing, Qi and Shen, while reverting certain aspects of Yin and Yang. Other traditions, like the one I teach, focus instead on the invitation, generation, fertilization, and growth of a Spiritual Embryo. There are many ways to describe what happens through the decades-long journey of Inner Cultivation. As long as you can form a Dan Tian, and bring your unwavering interactive awareness (Yi Nian) to the source of unconscious behaviors and beliefs, you will reawaken to a direct experience of conscious co-creation-ing.

As modern practitioners, we are fortunate to also have the precise and measurable understanding of medical science. We are aware that our left brain experiences life as a process, and our right brain experiences life as a state. If you get attached to your story, the story of enlightenment, or any other outcome, you are experiencing anticipation. If you dive off of the raft of separation, accept the truth of your inherent belonging, and trust that there is nothing to accomplish, you are interacting directly with the living and conscious Universe.

The traditional wisdom and skillful use of Breathwork will become more and more important at this point in your journey. The science of why these ancient practices have the effects they have is astounding.

The Fourth Grotto takes you deeper into Nei Gong practice through consciously embodied inductions and then residing in extended periods of Stillness and Tranquility. At this point, Nei Gong requires regular 3-hour sessions of seated Meditation practice. The first 45 minutes is an induction from peripheral alertness to internal reorientation - and the remaining time is a sustained and sincere complete Mind, Body, and Breath interaction with existence.

性命洞源論

Xing Ming Dong Yuan Lun

"Conscious evolution (practice) is the Original (only) Grotto."

Webinar Four

Cognition, TCM Physiology, and Nei Gong Inductions

Saturday TBA

Embodied Existential Distress

Separation and Non-Separation

Your Three Selves

Inner Reflection

(Guan Xiang, Zhen Guan, and Zhi Guan)

Barrier of Sitting - Zuo Guan

(Opening Ren and Du – The Lions Roar)

Outer Tripods and Inner Tripods

(Shou Yi - Inner and Outer Listening)

The Physiology of Breathwork

Qi Chen Breathwork

Bone Breathing

Bellows Breathing

Embryonic Breathing

Four Seas of TCM and Four Oceans of Nei Gong

Nei Jing Tu - Gradual Inquiry

The Qing Jing Jing  清靜經

(Clarity in Tranquility Classic - Overview)

Effortlessly Dissolving Form - Becoming Universal Entropy

(You Wei and Wu Wei)

Daoist Heavy Hands Form

Fertilizing Your Spiritual Embryo

(Shen Tai, Ling Tai, Tian Tai, Di Tai, Ren Tai, Xuan Xian Tai)

The Wheel of Cognition

Meditation could be compared to watching an iceberg melt while you tread water in the Ocean.

There will be times of reverie and dreamlike states, the causal mind will get creative with 'if and then,' and sometimes the spontaneous visions are disorienting. If you are not a hermit or a monk, you will eventually need to find a conscious and meaningful balance between your daily life and habits and your Qi Gong, Nei Gong, and Meditation practice. Although, on one level, you are the ocean returning to itself, you are also playing with fire.

With or without your intention, you are gradually learning to experience and conduct more qualities and more quantities of Qi. Friction and Fire are a bad combination. With longer meditation sessions, a more coherent Dan Tian system, and the potential of an Embryo or Elixer forming, the more important it becomes to ensure all of your circulatory and capacity systems are open and free of blockages. This is why so much of the focus is on your Meridians, your Microcosmic Orbit, the Macrocosmic Orbit, and other limiting factors like unconscious conditioning and disorientations of the Heart and Mind.

Once again, the wisdom and experience of countless generations has some general and some very precise guidance. Daoist Ne Gong practice always commits a certain amount of time to open the Classic San Guan or Three Narrow Passes. This process begins with refining your embodiment and posture, and is facilitated by conscious Breathwork and state shift practices; but at a certain point, we all have to open the places that are constrained by human nature and individual/identity consciousness.

The rules change when your practice becomes Sacred.

To go beyond the mundane possibilities of Inner Cultivation, you must find a meaning greater than your personal awakening. To make anything Sacred, one must sacrifice some aspect of themselves.

Being a Self in an Ocean of Selves will always be a good teacher. Right Relationship, as a practice, can save you a lot of energy and probably extend your life span and health span by 5 years. The lessons you learn, finding balance in your relationships, your compulsions, and any addictions, will guide you through the journey of finding balance within the stories in your Mind and the Existential truths and lies they tell.

This Grotto invites you to prepare for the long term by being clear on where your Qi is stuck, and how your vitality is wasted, as well as including more advanced Nei Yang Gong (Self Healing) practices to improve your awareness, vitality, and longevity. <?> XING MING <?>

修性復命論

Xiu Xing Fu Ming Lun

Becoming your Nature Restores Your Innate Alivenss

Webinar Five

Narrow Passes and Inner Openings

Saturday, TBA

The Classic San Guan (Narrow Passes on the front and back of each Dan Tian)

Nei Guan - Inner Reflection and Inner Dialoguing

Seated Willow Dance and the Da Zhou Tian (Macro-cosmic Orbit)

Xiu Dao – Masculine and Feminine Needs and Challenges

Nu Dan – Alchemic Practice for Women

Ming Gong, Shen Ming, and Yuan Ming (Innate Aliveness Potential)

Xing Gong – Shen Xing, and Yuan Xing (Innate Consciousness Potential)

Qi Deviations and the myth of power

Heavy Hands and San Guan

Heavy Hands and the North Star

(Inner and Far Listening, Inner and Far Seeing)

State Breaks and Locating Awareness - Clacking Teeth and Swallowing Jade Dew

 Five Virtues (De) of the Internal Organs (Zang) 

Inviting Xuan Men Tai (Mystery Gate Embryo)

It is not easy to transcend your ego or your instincts.

It is almost impossible to value the numinous nature of existence in a world of consumers and commodities.

Some truths can be experienced, but they cannot be spoken.

Sometimes the mind needs a gradual and liminal process to finally let go of being in control, or knowing the answer - or asking the right question.

Some experiences and memories are dependent on your State of Being. The deeper the stillness, the deeper the release, and the deeper you reside in the Universe, as the universe, and for the Universe.

The wisdom, skillfulness, beneficial biochemistry, and humor that arise from within a developed Nei Gong state can slow how fast you age, while training your Mind like a monk in a monastery, a hermit in a Grotto - or a Shaman in a trance of reunion.

As Awakened Consciousness, you are an Immortal, or beyond the conditioned response to Life and Death.

In village Daoism, Immortality simply means a life of wholehearted mortality.

As a Human Being aspiring to longevity and a continued Nei Gong practice, abandon delusion through discernment, and come home to a layer-by-layer reunion with the Source (Huan Yuan) through Non-Separation and Non-Interference (Wu Wei).

This Grotto prepares you to begin the Zhu Ji (Foundation Building) stage of formal Daoist Inner Alchemy. This final part of your immersive training will also introduce you to the other branches of Xiu Dao in the Huan Yuan tradition (see above).

You will have access to direct translations of several classic documents, as well as the guidance and practices of several other branches of Daoist Cultivation.

真體圓成論

Zhen Ti Yuan Cheng Lun

Authentic Embodiment and Cycles of Reunion/Completion

Webinar Six

Coming Home and Returning to the Source - Huan Yuan

Cultivating a Life-Long Qi Gong and Nei Gong Practice

Reading and Understanding the Classics

Daoist Immortality – and Wholehearted Mortality

Tortoise Breathing and Daoist Heavy Hands 

Yang Sheng Fa – Nourishing Life for Longevity

Ri Yue Feng Shui – Reconnecting with Nature, the Seasons, and the Weather

Shen Ming Zhi Dao – Spiritual Luminosity

Wu Yi Zhi Dao – Shamanic Healing and Contemporary Life

Zuo Wang - The Howling Silence of Now

Xin Zhai - Smelling Rainbows

Xian Xian Tai (Bring the immortal Embryo Into Being)

Zhu Ji (Foundation Building)