How Siddhi Energy Healing Works

Buddha’s Alchemy utilizes an ancient form of healing called Bhaishajya yoga that has been passed down through oral yogic traditions in the Himalayan region for centuries. Our healing system is relatively unknown in the Western hemisphere, as one must have received the teachings directly from a qualified Master, of which there have been few in this part of the world. Our healing practices were developed from knowledge and skills that were shared between Tibetan, Indian and Chinese Buddhist Masters of mind and energy in a time period when travel and movement across the Himalayan borders was more fluid than today.

Knowing the Qualities of Energy

Our bodies are energy, like everything else around us. Energy in its most basic, fundamental nature is made of the infinitely small, and infinitely great. The infinitely small can be compared to what is called the plank field in quantum physics. It exists all of the time, and all other possibilities come from it. It is the pure energetics of physical vibration and is sometimes called the life force. The infinitely great is the movement of life energy within which mind in its pure nature exists. It is beyond consciousness, without subject and object and terms of reference. It is the pure force which moves everything, or the pure energetics of mind itself. These two energies are literally life giving energies. Without these energies, there could be no form of existence. These energies are considered the essence of what we are, and are formless and limitless in potential. They are invisible to us. With training and practical experience, the mind begins to perceive what is not visible to the senses. The original Source of these energies is infinitely beyond that which we can comprehend. We ourselves, are never the source of energy.

When formless energy manifests some – thing, it coalesces into certain qualities and characteristics. These qualities are common throughout all manifested form in nature, but “look” different in each because of our ways of perceiving and labeling phenomenon. The ancient Himalayan healing systems commonly reference these qualities or building block energies of life in relationship to the natural elements and their qualities. For example, water is cool, heavy, and damp. Earth is cool, heavy, and stable. Fire is light, sharp and hot. Air is rough or dry, light and mobile. Conceptually these pointers make it easier to grasp the qualities and functionality of energies that make up all of existence, including the human form.

Very briefly, in Tibetan medicine and Ayurveda, the elemental bases of material form and function are water, fire, earth, air, and space. Each system uses its unique and distinct classification structure to further break down the constituents of health and disease, and prevention and treatment strategies. Chinese medicine incorporates a different elemental structure with, wood, metal, earth, water and fire forming the five phases theory. Intuitively the ancient healing practitioners of these traditions could feel and work with these energetic qualities in the human form. They also recognized distinctive patterns and structures which governed the behavior of the energies and how they interacted with each other.  This awareness was used to develop very advanced and sensitive diagnostic and treatment criteria within each medicine system.

All phenomenon, including body parts, organs, normal physiological functions, and diseases or bodily dysfunction have a combination of these characteristics and energies. We find the elemental energies coexisting in a constant dance to maintain homeostasis (or balance) within the human body. When disease or dysfunction occurs, we seek to restore the balance. Treatment within the Tibetan, Chinese and Ayurvedic systems includes various unique types of remedies, with nutrition, herbs, external physical therapies, and spiritual focus all playing important roles in healing.

How Energy Exists from Gross to Subtle

In all living things, there is a hierarchal structure of how energy enters into reality. At the grossest level, there is the energy that forms physicality. It is the energy that constitutes material form. This energy is influenced by our parents’ state of health and their energy at the time of conception (genetics), and by what we eat or take into our bodies by any other means (what is physically in our environment). In Chinese medicine, you hear this energy referred to as “jing”. This energy is what most of us can recognize with our senses, and label as real. It is this energy that Western medicine recognizes, and upon which their ideas of health, diagnosis and treatment are founded. Jing patterns supersede all other energies, unless and until mind and heart strength are developed to the extent that they then become the determining force for reality. This is very important, and a critical component of Buddhist siddhi medicine and healing.

There is a more subtle, higher frequency energy than jing that is invisible to our eyes, although as people become more sensitive and learn how to perceive differently, they can feel the vibration of this energy with other senses. We are talking about chi (in Chinese medicine), prana (in Ayurvedic medicine) and rlung (in Tibetan medicine). Chi is a biomagnetic energy that is a conduit between the physical and mental-emotional (mind). When there is a state of disease in a person, chi changes prior to physical symptoms being present. This is because a depleted physical energy (jing) will pull the chi in an attempt to replenish itself as a mechanism of homeostasis. In this sense, we can say that chi mirrors jing. Chi takes on many different qualities. There are 19 in total recognized in our healing system. Each chi quality evokes a different energetic response in the body (and in the environment). The qualities can be used to change each other, and consequently, change material form and jing. So we can see already, that by being aware of these subtle invisible qualities of energy, we are in a much better position to affect healing.

There is a fast path to becoming a healer, or to being healed. It is to fall in love with Love itself. That is, to have no reasons not to love. It is to become so entwined with the Source of everything that you lose your limited sense of self to something much more vast.

Working with Subtle Energies

But what allows us to become aware of chi, and use and change its qualities? We now must introduce yet a more subtle energetic force than chi. As stated above, chi is the conduit between mind and body, and hence submits to individual, and ultimately the universal aspects of mind, otherwise known as shen. When developed, shen qualities take on forms of movement that influence chi, and therefore ultimately change jing (form). Therefore, to have health and to be able to heal, we must master the workings of our minds.

The individual mind is a transmitter and transceiver of the universal awareness and life force energy. When we can access and communicate with this infinite, vast store of limitless potential, we can witness freedom from conceptual limitations. In other words, anything becomes possible. The individual mind is made up of the conscious and subconscious. It is in the understanding of how the two work and determine our functional reality, that we find the beginnings of “supernatural” abilities and shifting of form. Once we recognize that all learning is done by the subconscious and just how to influence it (there are very particular ways to communicate to the subconscious), and that we can learn to turn our conscious focus intensively onto what we wish to change, we witness the beginnings of miraculousness. As we progress in the more advanced stages of mind mastery, we come to know awareness of awareness, which deposits us outside of time and space. In Tibetan Buddhism, this is called the realm of “the Bardo”, which refers to the state of existence between one change and the next. In the Bardo, one is able to become a form shifter and determine more precisely where and how movement and change will happen.

What are Chakras?

At this point, I would like to mention the idea of chakras. In our culture, chakras have become somewhat of an obsession in healing. There is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about what they actually are. Chakras are portals where the primordial life energy and mind enter and leave the body. Mind pervades the entire body, and life energy takes on different qualities and ways of being depending on its functionality and purpose within the body.  Chakras are not themselves responsible for the health, well-being, or spiritual growth of a person. Nor do they produce any physiological or mental effects themselves. As stated, they are the gateways for mind energy. They also cannot be “blocked” in a living person as is commonly believed, for with complete cessation of primordial energetic interface with the body, we would die. If a chakra was truly blocked, the physical body would indeed be dead. Without supporting formless energy, the material cannot exist.

The chakra itself is an emanation of Infinite life force, and cannot be restricted or limited by the projections of human consciousness or emotions. Therefore it is not a “blocked” or “dysfunctional” chakra that causes a mind state or emotion or a physiological or mental problem. So, when we are told that we must heal our chakras to get better, we are being misled. We cannot use our imaginations to magically overcome problems without doing some work. The chakras themselves, being an emanation of Infinite life energy, are untaintable. What we must do to heal or get well is master our minds, and even better, open our hearts.

The Pinnacle of Healing

This leads me to the last and most important part of our discussion. At the top of our energy hierarchy, we find the emanation of the heart. In Tibetan Buddhism, the heart is referenced as the seat of the mind. For it is in the heart that we truly make connection with the Infinite and life force energy. There is a fast path to becoming a healer, or to being healed. It is to fall in love with Love itself. That is, to have no reasons not to love. It is to become so entwined with the Source of everything that you lose your limited sense of self to something much more vast. It is to recognize that God is not in you, but that you are in God. The boundaries of the limited self are eliminated, and thus limitless potential and access to it are immediately present. The funny thing is, if there is even a brief glimpse of this Omnipotence and Beauty, healing and healer may be concepts that disappear. A minute of this existence is worth a lifetime thrown at the feet of Love, and all else becomes mute. As the Sufi Hafiz said, “All I know is Love, and I find my heart Infinite and Everywhere”.

Regardless of the path we choose to health, or to help others heal, it is always a never ending journey of learning. Learning never stops, not even after physical death. Life, which is everlasting, is always moving towards growth. Growth is achieved by true understanding, which is arrived at through the process of real learning. We cannot stop it. It is a self-propelled destiny that each of us shares, whether we see it or not. It is the karma of our species. To choose a skillful way of learning is to align yourself with Universal Will. This is the Way of Bhaishajya yoga, and Buddhist siddhi healing.