Development of Turtle breathing
Author: Jie Kong
The development of Turtle breathing is an essential practice in Daoist alchemy. This practice helps to understand inner breathing as a source of jing energy. It is an alchemical process associated with the transformation of energy and the nourishment of the brain.
The whole process consists of many steps, from the moment of creating the proper anatomical structure to the transformation of breathing. The foundation of the process is an algorithm that needs to be followed precisely. The first stage of this algorithm is the setting up of the proper posture, which allows to experience specific diaphragmatic effort. Working further with breathing, we have to eliminate existing blockages in the body and restore the necessary functions of external breathing. After transforming blockages, it is important to do attunement, which is the process of activating and increasing mental focus. With enhanced tuning, we can move further to experience deeper levels of respiration.
“Consciousness of Breathing” is the process of transforming respiration into a state where our breath does not depend on the body, but the body on our breathing. This stage allows comprehending breathing as having rhythm and conscious effort in itself.
From then on, energy breathing is activated. In the process of mastery, energy breathing becomes an exclusively internal effort, through which Alchemical, Turtle and Immortal types of breathing can be developed. These types of internal respiration nourish the body through the development of the energy structure of the lower cinnabar field (dantian), associated with the development of Alchemical breathing.
And only after reaching this stage, we can talk about the development of the Turtle breathing. Achievement of this stage means the creation of the source of inner nourishment, transformation and sublimation of energy.
Turtle breathing is one of the most important alchemical practices as it helps to transform breathing into a certain energy, creates a foundation for Immortal breathing and the actual breath of Zhang Guolao, representing the breathing of the All-Encompassing Spirit.
