In Tantrayana practices, we often hear about the "inner fire". What are the benefits of meditating on the inner fire? How to develop it?
The Inner Fire...
Inner Fire Meditation is known in Tibetan Buddhism as the most powerful and fastest technique for developing powerful levels of awareness.
The practice utilizes the Lung energy which is known in India as Prana or in China as Chi. Energy is the essence of our vitality, our health, and especially our spiritual path.
The stress and the continuous mental engagement on the path of dissatisfaction, through an incessant search for objects of satisfaction outside ourselves is what kills this energy.
A natural transformation
By learning to develop our concentration associated with breathing exercises and visualization, we can develop this energy and instantly, the understanding of our modes of functioning reveals itself to us. The seizures and dissatisfactions in which we were blindly immersed become obvious and this awareness allows us to change.
End of the time of secrecy
For a long time these practices were kept secret by the Tibetan masters, reserved for certain selected practitioners among the many monks. Today, in these times where negativity manifests itself in many forms through endless consumerism activating the belief that we must always get more to be satisfied, or digital voyeurism where everyone expresses their anger and inner dissatisfaction through the filter of an avatar or an anonymous profile, many eminent Tibetan masters indicate that it is now time to make these practices public and open them up to a larger number of people in order to fight these negative forces.
Energy = Well-being
This energy has the nature of joy and bliss within itself. The more one goes through the practice, the more the effects of the practice are revealed and the more the motivation develops.
Ultimately, this practice awakens one to one's deepest nature, one's innate nature known as enlightenment.
Although the path to awakening is a path that requires a lot of diligence and time to practice, the practice of inner fire is accessible to everyone because everyone will quickly benefit from its first effects.
These first effects will be first of all to discover a certain inner power, a never-ending vitality. Forget the days when you get up in the morning dragging, the mind empty, the body worm-eaten. Instead, optimism invites itself and encourages openness, change, and creation. Nothing seems insurmountable anymore, patience, courage, willpower settles in to work in pure directions.
Opening the channels to reveal the inner fire, from the External Tummo to the Secret Tummo
The path to enlightenment is a journey through a succession of stages. On this path, we have just discussed the inner fire which is in fact the first practice to be put in place.
To activate this inner fire, we must perform practices that allow us to work on the energy channels of our subtle body, or energy body.
The practice of the Inner Fire, or Tummo, is commonly classified under several levels of practice: the Internal Tummo, the Secret Tummo, and the Secret Tummo.
There is also the External Tummo, which is manifested in the practices of Lu Jong. Each tradition of Tibetan Buddhism proposes Lu Jong exercises to prepare the practitioner for the meditations of the High Tantras, and especially for the meditative practice of the inner fire, because they prepare the channels, they start this dynamic of opening and dissolving the energies frozen by the negative emotions.
These Lu Jong exercises are the Tibetan yogas. Different techniques exist, some work on the opening of the channels through an intense relaxation favored by a strong attention put on the feelings through a slow meditative movement, others push towards a powerful and dynamic practice through the retention of the breath, but all the Tibetan yogas will have for common point to work on the spinal column, tree of life of our energy body, and on opening the channels to release the blockages.
Lu Jong, a practice open to all, allowing to initiate the inner fire
The Lu Jong is a Tibetan yoga gathered by Tulku Lobsang Rinpoche, having for means of actions an association of compressions on certain points of the subtle body in order to "boost" the setting in circulation of the energy. The movement, fluid and continuous, goes through 21 movements. Thanks to this circulation of energy, heat develops in the body and with it, many benefits are manifested.
The practice, open to all, will allow you to quickly feel these benefits. The health of the body manifests itself through a better resistance to disease, increased strength associated with a feeling of inner lightness, a gentle warmth.
At the same time, bodies slowed down by problems of arthritis, arthrosis or rheumatism find ease while the pains go away.
The body is more supple, a feeling of harmony in the muscles and organs is created. The senses benefit from this energy with a refinement of their different aspects. A new youthfulness sets in.
On the side of the spirit, the inner transformation operates by installing an emotional balance. Compassion and joy develop and on the other hand, we let go of negative emotions such as anger or attachment. This taking control of our minds allows us to develop self-confidence, to understand our place in the universe, to listen to the other, to break with our egocentrism, our grasping of the world through the needs of the small self.
Sculpture The Zulo by Victor Ochoa in tribute to the victims of terrorism, Carthagena.
"For the record, while I was taking a Tummo break in connection with a Lu Jong movement, a woman interrupts me and says "ah no, it's not like that, you have to put your hands down and have your feet together!". This example brings us back to the fact that everyone sees the world according to their own world map..."