Spirit Medicine: dantián（丹田）

Dantian（丹田）can be transliterated as the elixir 丹 field 田. “Field” is not the field in the mathematical or scientific sense, but rather, similar to a field of rice. Instead of cultivating rice in this field, we are cultivating the elixir 丹.

Two of the biggest misconceptions about the dantian is that (1) people are born with a dantian, and that (2) you use yang qi（陽氣） to construct a dantian.

Dantians are also commonly confused with chakras. Both dantian and chakras are mistakenly understood as natural energy centers with different cultural (Chinese and Indian) descriptions. This understanding stems from the mistaken idea that one is born with dantians. The second chakra is then understood as the same as the lower dantian.

What we are born with are natural energy centers onto which we might grow a dantian or install a chakra. The commonality is the underlying energy center onto which a dantian is grown or a chakra installed. The distinction isn’t just cultural – dantians tend to be grown in spherical structures, whereas chakras are installations of tantric deities, elemental attributes, and bound to Sanskrit syllables.

This also implies that other kinds of magical and energetic constructs can be installed, even in other energy centers such as the hands and feet.

TODO: Write a blog post linking the dantian and chakra entries together.