Rock Solid Tranquility: Using the Ancient Practice of HARA�

to Create Unshakable Inner Peace,

Abundant Energy, Personal Success,

And a Stress-Free Life

© 2005 by Dr. Symeon Rodger

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means � electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise � without prior

permission.

Published by Core Systems Press,

Ottawa, Canada Special market editions of this workbook, with or without modification to cover, layout and content, are available for corporate or institutional purchasers at volume pricing.

Please address all inquiries to:

Phone: 1800-648-1546 Website: www.rocksolidlife.com

Write: Rock Solid Life 2251 Courtice Ave.

Ottawa, Ontario K1H-7G5 CANADA

Disclaimer:

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of the author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subject matters covered. The content of this workbook is not meant to replace the advice of mental or medical healthcare professionals or qualified counselors. The author and publisher specifically disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and / or application of any of the contents of this workbook. Please note that if you have any pre-existing medical or psychological condition for which you are receiving or have received treatment, you should not embark upon this or any other system involving physical exercise or mental work without the approval of a qualified medical professional. Please note that the title is not to be interpreted as a guarantee that you will achieve deep calm, tremendous energy or a stress-free life in 30 days. Achievement depends on correct practice and dedication, as well as on the starting point of the individual.

Important Notice for Women! If you are pregnant or think you might be, you should not attempt to use the system contained in this workbook without the express approval of a qualified practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Pillar 2

Of the 5 Pillars of Life

Successful completion of this unit satisfies the requirements for the 2nd Pillar of Transformation, as explained in

The 5 Pillars of Life:

Reclaiming Ownership of Your Mind, Body and Future

Further information on ordering The 5 Pillars of Life and other Rock Solid Life products and services is found at the end of this workbook.

�The man who gains Hara enters into a new relation with the world which makes him both independent of it and yet connected with it in an unforced way� �The man without Hara is dependent on the world precisely because he lacks real connection with it; a man with Hara is constantly connected with it because he is independent of it.�

�It is in astonishing thing to see how such tensions can be wiped out at one stroke if the sufferer simply dares to let himself drop down into his a vital abdominal center and to yield to it, especially if he can be brave enough to admit that he cannot free himself from suffering by his own efforts. It dawns on him then that the basic reason for his rigidity and strain lies in his I.

�But a man may have realized for a long time that his tensions were caused by nothing but his I and its fears for its own existence. Even so he still cannot cope with the fear nor rid himself of his I. Only by learning to relax from his deepest level will he find that in full relaxation he is free of all fear. He will realize that complete depth-relaxation is the same thing as the neutralizing of the I. But the practice of deep relaxation can be significant and efficacious only when it is carried out in full awareness of its inner meaning and not merely for the relief of bodily symptoms.�

- Karlfried Graf Dürckheim Hara: The Vital Center of Man, pp.96 & 133

Table of Contents Introduction�������������������.���8 Feature: The Meaning of HARA�����������..�.�9 Chronic Stress is 100% Fatal:

Either You Kill It or It Kills You��������.��11 Your Stress-Killing Alternatives:

What Works and What Doesn�t��.��������..16 The Fallacy of Modern Stress Management�����.��...17 What Modern Psychology and Religion Don�t Know about the Real Cause of Stress��...���19 Feature: The Occidental Difference.....���������..�.20 How Rock Solid Tranquility�s HARA� Method Works�.�..21 The Foolproof Method

to Rock Solid Tranquility����������...�..�24 The Miracle of True Breathing����������....�.�24 The 9-Step Method for Mastering True Breathing��.�...�.25 Sitting Still Doing Nothing:

The Key to the Riches of Life�����������...29 Meditation Methods on the Market����������.�.29 The Safest, Most Reliable and Most Powerful Method.��..�31 Panoply of Possible Postures�������������.�.31 Where to Do Your Practice�����������..���..36 What to Wear�����������������.���..37 How Long to Practice���������������.��.37 The 12-Step Path to the Riches Within���������..�38 Draining away Your Stored Physical Tensions: The 9-Step Body Scan �����������������.39 Frequently Asked Questions and Problems��������..42 Turning Your Body into a

Powerful Anti-Stress Weapon����������..�..43 Feature: The Physical Imperative in Beating Stress

and Becoming Real���������������..�44 The 5 Step Method to Perfect Postural Alignment�����.�..46 Embracing the Tree:

The Infallible Guide to Postural Alignment..........................50 Moving from the Dantien����������.����...�.52 Moving from the Spine�������������.��..�..60

Rooting: Cultivating Physical and Emotional Stability����������������.��...61 The Miracle of HARA� � Harmonious And Regenerative Action�������������....65 Transforming the Daily Grind into HARA��������...68 MAKE A COMMITMENT TO YOURSELF, YOUR LIFE AND YOUR LOVED ONES������....69 Other Ancient Secrets for Turning

the Daily Grind into a Tranquil Paradise�������..70 The Winning Strategy:

Combining Energy and Spirit ����������..�..70 Auxiliary Method 1: Segmenting������������....72 Auxiliary Method 2: "Life is but a shadow and a dream"������.��..���.73 Feature: A Personal Journey to Haragei�.��.�����...�..75 Conclusion�������������.�������...��.77 Appendix 1: Your Suggested SSDN Training Schedule������..�.��.79 ORDER FORM: The 5 Pillars of Life �����������..81 About Dr. Symeon Rodger ������������..���...82 Endnotes���������������������..��.84

The Unseen Saboteur

• Are you living under chronic psychological stress? • Do you feel that your life is out of control? • Too many things to do and not enough time? • Do you feel guilty for relaxing? • Are you enslaved to other people�s demands? • Do you suffer from chronic anxiety or frequent panic attacks? • Do your nerves feel like a system approved for 110 volts that�s got 220 volts

racing through it all day long? • Are you suffering stress-related physical symptoms, like gastric problems, chest

pains, insomnia, ulcers, heart palpitations, skin problems, headaches, memory lose, poor concentration, or others?

If you�ve answered �yes� to any of these questions, it�s because our culture is not

working for you. To put it bluntly, our culture is killing you slowly.

IT�S TIME TO BITE THE BULLET, TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH, AND�

FIRE YOUR CULTURE! Yes, you really can fire your culture. After all, what�s your culture anyway? It�s the whole matrix of attitudes and interpretations of reality and teachings about who you are and how you should act and prioritize your life. This matrix has been foisted on you and reinforced by nearly everyone around you since the day you were born. As you�ll see in the pages that follow (and in even more detail in The 5 Pillars of Life), the stress that you�re suffering from isn�t some accidental product of your particular job or family situation, nor is it something unique to the last few decades. It�s rooted in dysfunctions that are innate to our Western culture. And so the only way to be completely free of the pain these dysfunctions cause is to adopt a different cultural paradigm for your life. Others will continue to do what they are conditioned to do. But you don�t have to. It takes guts to leave what you know and to choose a better way of life. This workbook will show you how to do that in a very concrete, physical way. How far you go with it is up to you.

Introduction This book is a very personal way of introducing you to the most powerful stress-killing methods that have ever existed � the ancient practice of HARA�. Actually, there�s much more to it than �stress-proofing�: HARA� is a way of helping you to discover an entirely new and vastly more satisfying approach to life in general. Following this system won�t just leave you much calmer; it will really open the door to some incredible possibilities. You may wonder whether this claim is wildly exaggerated. After all, we�re all bombarded by some pretty ridiculous advertising hype on a daily basis. So how is this different? Because what you�re about to learn has been proven clinically effective in dozens of cultures for more than 25 centuries. In other words, none of this is my own invention. All I�ve done here is to make it more accessible for you. You could figure it out on your own, if you really wanted to, since most of the information you would need is available. Of course, it might take you a quarter of a century to do that � it took me about that long. If you�re like millions of other people in the Western world today, you�re probably living out your life under unbearable psychological stress. And you probably have at least some physical and emotional symptoms that make your life very uncomfortable at times. You may be running away from an unbearable inner emptiness and deep lack of fulfillment, which you try unsuccessfully to avoid by immersing yourself in distractions and "entertainment". The endless and trivial dialogue in your head may be tormenting you with reminders of a thousand and one things you need to do right away. And, if you think about it, you may realize that you live in your head, out of touch with your body and your emotions. Then you�re surprised when the body and emotions rebel, explode or collapse. Emotionally you may be crippled by fears, anxieties and panic attacks, saddened by unfulfilled desires, ruled over by past traumas and depressed by factors you can't even identify. Perhaps you�ve noticed that even your attitudes and reactions to people and situations are not your own - they have been foisted on you by your culture, society and personal history - so that you�re left asking where the real "I" is anyway. In other words, if you�re a typical specimen of contemporary Western humanity, the real reason you�ve picked up this book can be summarized this way: Our Western way of life doesn't work and it�s slowly torturing us all to death.

The Meaning of Hara You either live in and from your Hara or you don�t. You �have Hara� or you don�t, at any given moment. If you have Hara, you cannot have stress. It�s impossible. If you have Hara, you cannot have fear. It just can�t happen. Falling into anger, jealousy, greed, or any other negative emotional state can only happen if you�ve lost your Hara first. Hara describes how the human psycho-physical organism is designed to function, so unless you live from your Hara, you�re damaging yourself daily. Hara is not mystical mumbo-jumbo; it�s a tangible physical experience you enter into when you readjust your physical and mental processes. If it were really obscure and esoteric, whole civilizations could not have been built on it. Western culture teaches us a particular way to relate to our bodies and minds. Because we�re surrounded by it, this way seems self-evident and beyond question. But this way is the opposite of Hara. And it has left behind it a trail of mental and physical pain on a civilization-wide scale. In my recent book, The 5 Pillars of Life, I talk about the common teaching of �Authentic Ancient Traditions� (especially Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Mahayana Buddhism and Complete Reality Taoism) on how to heal and perfect your life. Experience shows, though, that the Westerner is seldom able to make real progress in these traditions unless he first regains his Hara. _____________________ Hara means "belly" in Japanese. Functionally, it's a synonym of tanden, the direct Japanese equivalent of the Chinese dantien or �elixir field�, and signifies a location just below the navel that is the body�s physical center of gravity and its main energy storage area, according to Oriental medicine.

The concept of Hara has enormous importance in Japanese culture (as does the dantien in China). People who �have Hara� are spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and even physically sound, solid and centered. Conversely those �without Hara� are off-balance, out of touch with the depths of their being, and are unable to control their thoughts and emotions. When Westerners learn that Japanese conversation consists in trying to feel the intent of the other person, they usually assume the Japanese are either psychoanalyzing them somehow or just trying to sense emotional undercurrents in the conversation. Neither of these is true. Rather, the traditional Japanese is instinctively and without conscious thought evaluating the Hara of the other person. �Hara de kangaenasai� means "Please think with your belly." And this is but one of dozens of idioms in everyday Japanese speech showing the centrality of Hara. People also need to "speak from the belly", meaning the Japanese are not easily swayed by words, however noble or seductive, if the words come only from the rational mind. When you encounter someone who speaks from his Hara, you can actually feel the difference. The word Haragei (Hah-Rah-Gay) literally means "belly art". The seemingly bizarre name refers to an existential practice of the utmost importance and profundity for modern people. This practice is the art of cultivating Hara, of unifying all aspects of your consciousness in the very ground of your being. Because of this, Haragei can be applied to any action or any daily task at all. Even the most mundane tasks can be done with or without Hara. And while the untrained eye wouldn't notice any difference, the difference for the person performing the act is incredible. So far as I know, this course is the only viable �how-to� course on Haragei available anywhere at the present time. In this workbook, we use Hara to denote the physical location of the dantien or the concept of Hara, and HARA� as the name of this specific program of Hara Cultivation. Nevertheless, most of the foreign terminology used in the program is actually Chinese, since these labels already have wide currency in the West through the popularity of Chinese martial arts, exercise and medicine. I�ve used Hara and Haragei as convenient labels though, because

the Japanese at least had the good sense to give a convenient name to the whole teaching.

Chronic Stress is 100% Fatal: Either You Kill It or It Kills You When I was a kid, cereal boxes used to come with little cardboard or styrofoam airplanes in them. Each little airplane had a little plastic propeller, and to make it fly, you attached the propeller to an elastic that ran the entire length of the airplane and then you had to wind to propeller as far as you could until the elastic was so wound up that it couldn't be wound any more. If you really know what stress is, then you know what it feels like to have your body wound up like that rubber band. But unlike that little model airplane � where the rubber band releases its energy quickly and easily, and then returns to a relaxed state - the human body just doesn't work that way when it's under continual stress. In The Five Pillars of Life, I tell a story about St. Anthony the Great from the fourth century. In this particular story, a wandering hunter finds St. Anthony and his disciples gathered around a fire and enjoying themselves. Scandalized that the great holy man should be seen acting so frivolously, the hunter expresses his surprise to the old man. Anthony then asks a hunter to put an arrow on his bow and to shoot it into the air. The hunter does so. Then Anthony asks him to do it again, and then a third time. Finally the hunter protests, saying that to keep shooting like this will break the bow. Anthony then says that his disciples are like the bow string: if they're forced to work hard all the time with no respite, they too will break. Your nervous system is much like the hunter�s bow: if it is placed under severe psychological stress over a protracted period of time, it will begin to malfunction and break down, taking the health of your internal organs with it. So what do we mean by stress? In a technical sense, external factors such as heat and cold, physical injury and the resulting pain, and many similar things cause stress on your system. But this is not the kind of stress that we�re talking about here. What we're talking about is the interplay of high external demands on your time and energy, your own high self-expectations, and your perceptions of the expectations of others. These create acute psychological stress, and it is this kind of stress that has become epidemic among the whole population the Western world. The most common causes of this kind of stress are the following: the perception of having a great deal to do and very little time to do it in, the perception of having very little control over your life, the perception of having to live up to other people's expectations and the perception of immediate danger, real or imagined. And if we add to

this your anxieties about the future, about relationships, finances, other people, certain social situations and your spouse�s choice of wallpaper for the bathroom, we have a really explosive combination!

Figure 1

A recent pole revealed that forty percent of the adult population has jobs that are �very or extremely stressful� and that twenty-five percent are usually �burned out� or �exhausted� by the end of the day. And the data suggest that job-related stress in our culture is markedly worse than it was just two decades ago when Time Magazine first devoted its front cover to the problem. These factors can easily lead you from occasional psychological stress into chronic psychological stress. And the result is a severe mental and physical dysfunction which can bring on any number of symptoms, the most common of which are: gastric problems of various types (constipation, diarrhea, gas, and possibly much more severe conditions

such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Crohn's disease), ulcers of various types, hypertension and circulatory disorders (leading to real or imagined cardiac symptoms, as well as stroke), skin disorders, headaches, insomnia and depression. And of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list. There is certainly plenty of evidence to support the contention that chronic psychological stress plays a key role in the development of many forms of degenerative disease, including various types of heart disease and cancer.

Figure 2

The situation is especially explosive when it combines psychological stress of the kind described above with severe emotional repression and / or a deep, generalized anxiety. Stress causes the so called "the fight or flight response". You already know this, but you may not know exactly what that involves. When this mechanism kicks in, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) part of the brain is activated. It releases steroid

hormones called glucocorticoids, including cortisol. Cortisol is the main stress hormone and it immediately snaps all of your bodily systems into line to face an immediate threat. Your circulatory, respiratory, immune, digestive and nervous systems, together with your sensory organs are all reconfigured for immediate action within very narrow parameters. The HPA also releases certain neurotransmitters, including dopamine, norepinephrine, and adrenaline, which activate a part of the brain (the amygdala) which triggers an emotional response - some variant of fear. The neurotransmitters also tell the hippo campus to store this in long-term memory. Besides all this, these hormones also suppress frontal lobe activity, which means your short-term memory, your concentration and your ability to think rationally are all compromised. And, of course, the body begins taking in more oxygen. In other words, your breathing becomes heavy. At the same time your blood flow may increase by up to 400%. The spleen begins to discharge red and white blood cells for more efficient oxygen transportation. In this scenario, production of all nonessential fluids is stopped and that's why your mouth dries up and saliva disappears. Blood flow is diverted from the skin to the heart and muscles. Digestion is effectively shut down Your immune system is reconfigured as well. Parts of your immune system are effectively shut down in order to send more immune boosting substances to the surface of the body where injury is most likely to occur in a scenario of real physical threat. That means fewer immune resources are available for your internal systems and organs. If you've ever watched Star Trek, this reconfiguration of your body's resources could be summed up with a memorable command, "Divert all power to shields and engines!" And, just as on Star Trek, there are certain systems that suffer during this diversion of resources. On the glorious Starship Enterprise, it meant that life support was shortchanged. In your body, something very similar happens. When you�re under stress, the reconfiguration of your immune system means that it produces far fewer white blood cells, the cells devoted to fighting infection internally. This leaves you abnormally vulnerable to cold and flu viruses. Your heart can also be directly affected via the sympathetic nervous system. Stress can lead to arterial constriction, arrhythmias, blood clots (in preparation for the imagined injury to come), lowered estrogen levels in women, and damage to blood vessel linings over time, which contributes to hypertension. All of these increase the risk of stroke.

Figure 3

The fight or flight response was perfectly suited to more primitive times when human beings very often faced real physical dangers, whether from wild animals or other people. This automatic response to danger "rewired" your body for immediate physical reaction over the course of next few seconds or minutes. After that, the body would return gradually to its normal resting state. Unfortunately, in our modern world where stress has become chronic, the body doesn't return to this normal resting state. Instead, abnormally high amounts of cortisol and adrenaline are pumped into the system - as is normal during the fight or flight response - this becomes a chronic situation rather than a onetime event. Whereas normally these excess stress hormones would be flushed out of the bloodstream within a short time, in the current scenario they remain in your bloodstream and decay there, forming toxins. In other words, chronic stress has a way of poisoning you slowly over time.