Suggest edit — Inner Ecosystem

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related:
- wiki/concepts/sparks-of-motivation.md
- wiki/concepts/dukkha-as-cognitive-dissonance.md
- wiki/practices/qigong-arms-up.md
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title: Inner Ecosystem
type: concept
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---

# Inner Ecosystem

The Taoist / Chinese-medicine framing of the mind as a **multi-actor inner society** rather than a single point of consciousness.

## The buoyant mind and its counterweights

> "In Chinese medicine, in Taoism, they see the mind as having an infinitely upward quality. And when you sleep — how does it go down so you can sleep? Well, there's the pericardium channel, the protector of the heart, which kind of goes up and grabs it and is like, 'Oh, pull down.'"

The architecture being described:
- The mind itself is **infinitely buoyant** — naturally tends upward
- Other systems (in TCM, the pericardium / "protector of the heart") **counterweight** it down so sleep is possible
- Both are needed; the mistake is conflating them with a single thing called "self"

## The clarifying move

> "When we can clearly detect the qualities of the different aspects internal to us that are acting and say, 'Oh, the mind part is infinitely buoyant, and there's something else that holds it down,' you can start to see the inner society, the inner dialogue, the inner inside-out kind of discussion group happening at all times — with what's counter-balancing in your inner ecosystem."

The skill being trained: distinguishing *which inner actor is acting right now*. Without this distinction, all internal experience reads as "me" and the dynamics are invisible. With the distinction, the dynamics become legible and **channelable**.

## The meristem

> "The mind itself is buoyant. Our true nature is always trying to be there, and we're rest of ourselves needs to relax like the skin of a snake and sort of slough off. And then the meristem — the fresh part of ourselves — can blossom outward."

(*Meristem*: in botany, the undifferentiated tissue at the growing tip of a plant.)

The model: **true nature is always trying to express**. Old patterns (the snake skin) need to be released, not destroyed. The new growth happens at a meristem-like edge. Healing is the process of helping the snake skin slough off so the meristem can blossom.

## Connection to physical / emotional healing

> "When we are in touch with that, a lot of healing can happen, both emotionally and physically."

The claim: physical and emotional healing are not separate processes — both are downstream of the inner-ecosystem dynamics. Blockages at one level express at the other.

This is the rationale for the [[Healing Arts Grant]] — funding integrative healing for those who can't access it.

## Sparks revisited

The [[Sparks of Motivation|spark-of-motivation]] framework is the inner ecosystem viewed from the **attentional** angle:

> "The sparks of consciousness itself, of sparks of spirit, as it were. Whatever this is from a neurological standpoint, it's a consensus of neurological activity so powerful it's capable of moving you."

A spark is a momentary high-coherence event in the inner ecosystem — enough actors agreeing for long enough that motion happens. Most of them dissolve. Some, captured and clustered, become the substrate of action.

## Reintegration as healing

> "How good can it feel to have all that power reintegrated? That's what you get — moving with no internal resistance, no internal conflict, lining up all the energies, all the confused energies inside you."

Health, in this framing, is **alignment of the inner actors**. Not silencing any of them — *aligning* them. The "river of integrated self" is what flows when alignment is good (see [[Attachment and Liberation]]).

## Practical entry point

The [[Qigong (Arms-Up Position)|qigong arms-up position]] is Jacob's recommended diagnostic. Holding the position for seven minutes makes blockages in the inner ecosystem **physically palpable** — chest tension, energy congestion, emotional charge — so they become available for release.

> "I have a lot of chest tension. It's emotional tension, idea tension. And you kind of want to go through a Qigong system so you have a clean bill of health energetically. It's like, what is blocking you from doing this system? If you can't do it, it's a concern. So you're doing an entire audit of, like, entire body, energy, emotional system, everything."

## The acupuncture-points language

> "In Chinese medicine and Taoist philosophy, they call the acupuncture points 'gates' or 'apertures' — and they say it's where the light enters. And if some of your eyes are closed to the world, you're missing dimensions of reality. So that's why we're trying to open these gates."

The metaphor: each acupuncture point is an **eye** that, when blocked, makes a dimension of reality invisible. Cultivation isn't adding capacities; it's **opening the existing eyes that have been closed**.

## Related

- [[Sparks of Motivation]] — attentional view of the same architecture
- [[Dukkha as Cognitive Dissonance]] — the felt sign of inner-ecosystem misalignment
- [[Qigong (Arms-Up Position)]] — diagnostic and practice
- [[Attachment and Liberation]] — what unblocks the river of integrated self
- [[Three Levels of Coherence]] — Level 1 of the coherence ladder