In Week 1 of his Tricycle Retreat, “Touching Enlightenment,” Reggie Ray has been discussing meditation techniques that involve working with the body. In response to his instructions on lower belly breathing, a participant asks:
Is the lower belly meditation similar to awareness of the bhandas in yoga, mula bhanda and uddiyana bhanda., which radiate from the perineum and the lower part of the belly towards the heart..? feels similar when sitting , although more released and 3 dimensional.. its almost as if the sushumna is porous…fascinating and fantastic! Thanks Reggie for this deep teaching.
to which Reggie responds,
Yes, there is much correlation with the bhandas in yoga, with the inner physiology and process of tantric yoga (on which much of my own work is based) and also with the inner body and its pathways and centers in Qi Gung and taoist yoga. It is interesting that the inner body is not quite as definitive as our physical body. Depending on the practices you are doing, different dimensions and even different realities open up. Generally, I just tell folks, “follow the instructions and see what you find out about the experience and the possibilities of your own body.” Generally, I think we find much interesting correlation and illumination of other somatic disciplines we may be familiar with but, beyond that, we often find out a lot of sometimes astounding things, within our so-called physical body, that we never even dreamed were possible. It’s an amazing journey and becomes more so the more we go on.
To participate in this and every Tricycle Retreat, become a Tricycle Community Sustaining Member.
![](https://tricycle.org/wp-content/themes/tricycle2022/assets/img/site-icon.png)
Thank you for subscribing to Tricycle! As a nonprofit, we depend on readers like you to keep Buddhist teachings and practices widely available.