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Machik’s Complete Explanation
channels develop downward from the navel, [forming] the cakra in the genital area, the channels of lust. It has three tiers with fourteen spokes on the outside, eight within that, and four within that, like a seat. It is called the bliss-generating cakra. Spreading down from that, the channels of the ‘jewel’ (penis) develop sixteen spokes, the shaft eight spokes, and the tip four. Those are the channels of lust. “In the navel, four channels branch out and become the four limbs. Then six channels spread out from the navel to form the liver, two kidneys, heart, lungs, and spleen. Channels spread out from each of those: the eye channels arise from the liver, the two ears from the two kidneys, the tongue from the heart, the nose from the lungs, and the lips from the spleen. Then channels spread from the navel to form the stomach, colon, white and black intestines, gallbladder, urinary bladder, and esophagus—all the hollow viscera. In the joints of the twelve main segments of the four limbs there are two-tiered cakras—that is, twelve outside and twelve inside evenly, making twenty-four. Each bone segment has five channels along its length, and in the joints at each end there are five inner and outer channels that have the shape of a wheel with two layers. There are also two-tiered cakras in the two soles of the feet and two palms of the hands. That is twelve on the outside and six on the inside. Along the length of the minor joints there are two straight channels. “In the center of the four cakras that give rise to the energy currents there is the so-called central channel (dbu ma; Skt. avadhÒti). It is white outside and red inside, about the thickness of a bamboo arrow. Its lower end reaches the center of the genital cakra, and the upper end exits at the crown and remains open. To the right of that is the roma channel that generates water, and to the left the kyangma channel that generates earth. The channel incidentally arising from that, which generates fire, is the crystal tube.6 Both [roma and kyangma] are similar in color and length to the central channel. Their lower ends terminate between the eight spokes and the four spokes of the genital [cakra]. The upper ends go up to the crown cakra and then turn back down into the central channel, becoming one. There are two very fine tips like little branches that bend back and reach to the two eyes. Where these three channels converge, a very fine branch channel of the central channel divides back and reaches to the hair-tuft at the midbrow point. Those three channels are wide and clear, straightened by the energy currents. Inside the central channel, the four cakras are shaped like the joints of bamboo. In the center of that is what is called the ‘central channel of reality.’ It is the color of quicksilver,