Gut Response
In Touch With True Emotions
So often, emotions that we long to express get stored in our bodies instead. The space where this most often happens is in our bellies. Rather than telling people, our even ourselves, the way we truly feel, we may stuff our true feelings deep inside of us, where they take up space until we are ready to let them go. Stuffing our feelings in our bellies may feel like the "safe" response, since we then don’t really have to deal with our emotions. Yet, doing so can actually be detrimental to our emotional well-being and physical health.

One way to connect with and release your emotions is to do a focused exercise with your stomach area. Take a moment to center yourself with some deep breathing and quiet meditation, relaxing your body fully and turning off the chatter in your brain. With your right hand on your stomach, tell yourself three times: "Please reveal to me my true emotions." Listen for the answers. Repeat the exercise as many times as you would like, allowing yourself to drop deeper into your body each time. Notice any physical response in the stomach area, whether you have a warm, relaxed feeling in the middle of your body or if you feel tight knots in response to any emotions that do come up. You may even want to write down any answers that come to you. Remember that the body doesn’t lie.

Releasing our pent up feelings from our bellies can prevent disease and allow us to live more authentic and expressive lives. Sometimes, if too much emotional energy builds up inside of us, a blowout can result that can cause discomfort. You can help to alleviate this compression by doing the same exercise and adding sound to your emotional release. The more guttural the sounds released through your mouth, the more emotions you are likely letting go. Releasing your emotions from your belly doesn’t have to be painful and hard; rather, it can be organic and effortless. It’s important not to judge whatever comes up for you. We tend to stuff our feelings in our bellies when we are ashamed of them or not ready to express them. There is nothing wrong with having feelings, whatever they may be. You can’t help your feelings; if anything, you can help yourself by acknowledging the truth of your emotions so you can set yourself free.
(I have this book and the exercises are very easy, can do in a bed, or on the floor. Ana)
This book is my way of sharing my thoughts with you. For a long time, I have been considering how to present the more advanced aspects of Kum Nye in a practical way that can benefi t individuals in their daily lives and also support those who wish to engage more profound meditative states. Recently, I worked with Elizabeth Cook to compile my ideas into this book, and added exercises designed to convey a sense of the physical, sensory, and mental experiences possible through Kum Nye.

While some orientation is helpful, words alone cannot connect you with Kum Nye: it is the practice that gives you the direct experience, and it is the experience that enables you to transform the quality of your life. Since the benefits of Kum Nye accumulate with regular practice, it is important that you select four to fi ve exercises from this volume about every three months and remind yourself to practice one or two of them at least twice daily. In all you do, remember that Kum Nye is your armament against negativity that scratches from within or afiects you through others. It is knowledge that you can master and sustain through mindfulness.

Eventually, when you are familiar with the Kum Nye way of intensifying feelings and sensations, you will not need any reminder-relaxation will come naturally, because you embody the knowledge and attitudes cultivated through Kum Nye. Whatever you are looking for-power, positive feelings, a companion, or love-these are nothing in comparison to the richness of spirit Kum Nye can provide. There is no need to renounce or to give up what you cherish. You can accommodate all manifestations of mind and make joy out of whatever you do.
Your body/mind embodiment is your personal treasure house, a source of beautiful feelings and profound satisfaction. If you appreciate its value and learn how to nurture it well, Kum Nye will show you how to enter the heart of your being and cultivate your inner riches more fully. Kum Nye will awaken the joy of being; Kum Nye will bring you home.



Kum Nye Relaxation has been published around the world in fifteen languages and a photobook edition entitled Tibetan Relaxation has been issued in English, Dutch, French, German, and Portuguese.

I hope The Joy of Being inspires new practitioners and encourages experienced ones to allow Kum Nye to touch their hearts more directly. May these essays inspire your practice and ease your journey through life.

Tarthang Tulku Odiyan, August 1, 2005

The Working Basis

In all this world, there is nothing more important than appreciating the preciousness of our human embodiment and doing all we can to increase health and happiness for ourselves and others.
Those of us caught in the confusing currents of modern life may tend to set aside this priority until we become ill or exhausted. But here is where Kum Nye can be most helpful. Its exercises awaken the knowledge we need to enrich our lives and benefit all of humanity, yet they also fit easily into our daily routines. If you love yourself, if you love others, the rewards of practicing Kum Nye will be greater than you can imagine.
So it is important to make strong efforts to develop this knowledge and apply it. You can do this by reminding yourself daily: There is beauty that you have not yet seen. There is sound that carries consciousness into heavenly spheres. There is fragrance more exquisite than the rarest incense. There is joy that expands beyond ecstasy and dissolves the seeds of suffering. You deserve to experience all these treasures and manifest their significance to all humanity.


Kum Nye is Life
Kum Nye is a way to relax body and mind, to awaken the senses, to nurture ourselves with enjoyment and create a rich foundation for all life activities. While the exercises presented here begin simply, with a focus on the body, their benefits extend to all aspects of our lives. Whatever our interests, occupations, or personal situations, Kum Nye develops our ability to heal and energize the whole of our being. It refreshes the senses and cultivates their higher capacities, opening gateways to experience savored by yogic practitioners of ancient times. Experience accumulates and deepens, unfolding meaning that finds expression in happiness that improves the quality of our actions and our relationships with others. Developing from this foundation, meditation reveals new dimensions of bliss, far beyond what we may now be able to imagine. This kind of knowledge is missing in modern life, where people tend to equate happiness with having an abundance of money, power, or material possessions, or a prestigious job, or work that one considers important or takes great personal pleasure in pursuing. They may have thought they were living the American Dream by working hard and striving after material goals, only to discover that these goals cannot in themselves produce satisfaction or meaning. Even with hard work, the road to success may be long and beset with problems.

Those who reach their material goals soon find their time filled by job and family responsibilities, by the drive to acquire and maintain possessions, and by a complex array of social and personal obligations. However easy it becomes to possess the latest technology or luxuries unknown to previous generations, many people are not really happy or content.
Shortages are appearing in every area of modern life: shortages of funds, shortages of opportunity, shortages of joy and satisfaction. Day after day, our time is taken over; every moment seems pre-determined, every activity scheduled. Even our entertainments are governed by the pressure of time's constraints. Time seems to be ruling us, squeezing the juice out of every experience.
Simultaneously, distractions abound. Hunger for sensation, or perhaps for escape, leads many to abuse their bodies further by indulging in excesses that complicate their lives still more. However intense these pleasures may be, they tend to be short-lived, and may only increase the driving intensity of desire. At some point we may realize that we are not getting enough enjoyment in life.


Kum Nye awakens joy and helps us make life worth living. Its physical, breathing, massage, and mental exercises promote health of body, mind, and spirit, empowering us to create a positive and productive way of life. We learn how to stimulate the nerves and activate the body centers (chakras) through simple postures and movements. Blockages release and chakras open; vitalizing streams of energy flow through them to and from the senses, supporting the vitality, creativity, and wholeness that expresses the abundance of the human spirit.

By developing the capacities of our senses, we can satisfy the eye hungry for beauty, the mind hungry for meaning, and the heart hungry for love that does not disappoint. We can experience the wealth of pleasures that our senses can provide, so we will never be anxious or lonely, dissatisfied or depressed, yearning and looking for something to fill the emptiness inside. Then it may be possible to manifest the abundance inherent in our nature: abundance of life, abundance of knowledge, and abundance of bliss. If we are inspired to give abundantly as well, we may experience the joy of generosity free from obligation and self-interest. In all these ways, physical, mental, and spiritual, practicing Kum Nye can help us to manifest the bright promise of human being.

The benefits of Kum Nye are fulfilling and convincing; when you experience them for yourself, you will need no further motivation. The yoga of Kum Nye unifies the different aspects of our being and makes us whole. Fully in touch with our own bodies and minds, we can rely on our own resources for happiness. Free of neediness, we can be a good friend to self and others. We will not be so concerned with ordinary problems, but will be sustained with joy in all we do.

Meditation can elevate the yogic practices of Kum Nye into sources of inconceivable bliss so rarefied that it goes beyond thought and beyond any sense of self or location in time and place. Since we can become attached to such rapturous experiences, they too will eventually have to be transcended, and accomplishing this will take the guidance of a qualify ed master. But from where we are now, we need the pleasure that Kum Nye can give to relieve the shortages in our lives and break the patterns that bind us to frustration and pain.

For now, it is important to continue to build and strengthen the Kum Nye experience. These practices stimulate the subtle energies of body and mind. Sensations are likely to become more intense; they may well up spontaneously in ways that enrapture the mind and brighten perceptions, and they may manifest in dreams that communicate deep levels of significance.

If you persist in your practice, you will find that mind and heart have more openness for joy and less and less room for pain and negativity. All these changes are signs that you have begun to embody Kum Nye. From there, you can connect more fully with the spiritual path and follow in the footsteps of the great Bodhisattvas.
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Copyright 2006 Dharma Publishing International. Printed with permission of Dharma Publishing