You’re asking three questions Fairy Princess – “what is the midline” – “how does one apply it” and “what “other” uses there are for the midline?” There are some very good answers here. But I feel the midline, the solar plexus and the dantien are three different things. What’s more, I believe the midline in the context of your question and its application in the realm of healing physical and emotional issues the way Dr. Yuen and Paul Wong apply it has little to do with philosophy. Course, I could be wrong. But I have purchased Paul Wong's first teleclass and gone through it several times to learn how to apply the midline principle and it is quite an in depth class. Very instructive and I highly recommend it.

The solar plexus is located just below the sternum and the Dantien is located about two or three inches below the navel. On the page at the link Stingray provides above to the Wikipedia site about the dantien, if you read down where it says “Major dantians”, the first one, or Lower Dantien is described as about three fingers below the navel. This is the dantien most everyone in the world of Chi Gong and Tai Chi are familiar with. And the solar plexus is located just below the sternum. See the picture below. And although the midline runs through the solar plexus and the dantien, it also runs through the energy meridians, the chackras, the brain, the heart, the spine and more. It's the blue line in the picture below.

For your first question, “What is the midline?”, in the Yuen Method, if you visualize a line running down the center of the body that separates the right half of the body from the left half and imagine a slight space between the two halves, that vertical line or space is the midline and is where you put your thought or awareness to do the work in Chinese Energetics or as I call it, Midline Therapy.

A partial answer to your question about other uses, the application of the midline as taught in the Yuen Method can accomplish many things, as for example, look here… http://www.yuenmethod.com/store/cart.php?m=content&page=12#27 and here… http://www.wholeharmony.net/Testimonials.htm

You can also use it to change beliefs, remove emotional baggage, tune up the bodies processes, do distant healing with it and more. How you use it is quite an in depth class but it basically comes down to – feel the pain, put your thought into the midline for a second, and then recheck the pain. It will be different or better. You can align with what you want and disentangle from what you don’t want and much more. Pretty neat stuff, but it is best to take a class to be able to understand and use it effectively.

I'm still pondering over the significance of the Mid-Line itself and what I'm wondering is whether it is really the Mid-Line that is important or perhaps just the Solar Plexus region.

The Solar Plexus region has been known for millennia as being the "seat of emotion" within the body. It is literally the "emotional sensor" within us...the sixth sense, you could say. I've previously written about it here: During breathing exercises, what am I supposed to look out for with regard to "activating the Solar Plexus"?

I've had fairly consistent results with the Mid-Line (using myself as a subject). I may start testing just by activating the Solar Plexus region instead and see if that makes any noticeable difference.

That Solar Plexus region is very well known in the Eastern energy traditions (like Qi Gong, Tai Chi etc) and goes by the name of the Lower Dantian.

fairy princess the middle line his in everything. it is the balence and harmony in everything (mind,heart,life). the simple fact that you are standing up his a proof of this balence:with out balence you would fall down.

The Middle Way or Middle Path (Pali: majjhimā paṭipadā; Sanskrit: madhyamā-pratipad; )[1] is the descriptive term that Siddhartha Gautama used to describe the character of the path he discovered that led to liberation. It was coined in the very first teaching that he delivered after his enlightenment.[2] In this sutta - known in English as The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma - the Buddha describes the middle way as a path of moderation between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification. This, according to him, was the path of wisdom. The middle path does not mean a mid point in a straight line joining two extremes represented by points. The Middle Way is a dynamic teaching as shown by the traditional story that the Buddha realized the meaning of the Middle Way when he sat by a river and heard a lute player in a passing boat and understood that the lute string must be tuned neither too tight nor too loose to produce a harmonious sound.

Theravada contextsIn Theravada Buddhism's Pali Canon, the very phrase "middle way" is ascribed to the Buddha himself in his description of the Noble Eightfold Path as a path between the extremes of austerities and sensual indulgence. Later Pali literature has also used the phrase "middle way" to refer to the Buddha's teaching of dependent origination as a view between the extremes of essentialism and annihilationism.

[edit] Noble Eightfold PathIn the Pali canon, the Middle Way (majjhimā paṭipadā) was said to have been articulated by the Buddha in his first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11):

"Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. (What are the two?) There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. "Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata (the Perfect One) has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path realized by the Tathagata...? It is the Noble Eightfold path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration."[4] Thus, for the attainment of Nibbana (Pali; Skt.: Nirvana), the Middle Way involves:

abstaining from addictive sense-pleasures and self-mortification nurturing the set of "right" actions that are known as the Noble Eightfold Path. In this discourse (Pali: sutta), the Buddha identifies the Middle Way as a path for "one who has gone forth from the household life" (Pali: pabbajitena)[5] although lay Buddhists may center their lives on this path as well.

In regard to the Buddha's admonition against the "indulgence of sense-pleasures" (Pali: kāmesu kāma-sukha-allika), Ven. Dr. Rewata Dhamma has written:

"...This kind of practice is the concern of so-called 'urban civilization,' which condones sensuous pleasures as the highest attributes of bliss; the greater the pleasures, the greater the happiness.... "The Buddha taught that indulgence in sensuous pleasures is not the practice of enlightened, noble ones (ariyas). Noble ones who live the worldly life do not have attachment to sense objects. For example, in the first stage of an enlightened noble life, the sotāpanna, or stream winner, has not yet overcome lust and passions. Incipient perceptions of the agreeableness of carnal pleasures (sukhasaññā) still linger. Nevertheless, the stream-winner will not feel the need to indulge in worldly pleasures."[6] According to the scriptural account, when the Buddha delivered the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, he was addressing five ascetics with whom he had previously practiced severe austerities.[7] Thus, it is this personal context as well as the broader context of Indian shramanic practices that gives particular relevancy to the caveat against the extreme (Pali: antā) of self-mortification (Pali: atta-kilamatha).

[edit] Dependent OriginationHarvey (2007) writes, "Conditioned Arising is ... a 'Middle Way' which avoids the extremes of 'essentialism' and 'annihilationism': the survival of an eternal self, or the total annihilation of a person at death."[8] In Theravadan literature, this usage of the term "Middle Way" can be found in 5th c. CE Pali commentaries.[9]

In the Pali Canon itself, this view is not explicitly called the "Middle Way" (majjhimā paṭipadā) but is literally referred to as "teaching by the middle" (majjhena dhamma) as in this passage from the Samyutta Nikaya's Kaccāyanagotta Sutta (in English and Pali):

"'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle...."[10] Sabbamatthī'ti kho ..., ayameko anto. Sabbaṃ natthī'ti ayaṃ dutiyo anto. ... [U]bho ante anupagamma majjhena tathāgato dhammaṃ deseti.[11]

In this discourse, the Buddha next describes the conditioned origin of suffering (dukkha) – from ignorance (avijja) to aging and death (jaramarana) – and the parallel reverse-order interdependent cessation of such factors (see Dependent Origination and Twelve Nidanas).[12] Thus, in Theravada Buddhist soteriology, there is neither a permanent self nor complete annihilation of the 'person' at death; there is only the arising and ceasing of causally related phenomena.[13]

See also: Anatta [edit] Mahayana contextsIn Mahayana Buddhism, the Madhyamaka ("Middle Way") school posits a "middle way" position between metaphysical claims that things ultimately either exist or do not exist.[14]

In the Tendai school, the "middle way" refers to the synthesis of the thesis that all things are "empty" and the antithesis that all things have phenomenal existence.[15]

In Zen Buddhism the Middle Way describes the realization of being free of the one-sidedness of perspective that takes the extremes of any polarity as objective reality. For example, in the Platform Sutra of the Great Master Huineng, in Chapter 10 he gives instructions to be handed down about how to explain the Dharma. Huineng enumerates 36 basic oppositions of consciousness and discusses how the Way is free from both extremes.

"If one asks about the worldly, use the paired opposite of the saintly; if asking about the saintly use the paired opposite of the worldly. The mutual causation of the Way of dualities, gives birth to the meaning of the Middle Way. So, for a single question, a single pair of opposites, and for other questions the single [pair] that accords with this fashion, then you do not lose the principle. Suppose there is a person who asks, ‘What is taken for and called darkness?’ Reply and say, ‘Light is the proximate cause and darkness is the contributory cause. When light is ended, then there is darkness. By the means of light, darkness manifests; by the means of darkness, light manifests. [Their] coming and going are mutually proximate causes and become the meaning of the Middle Way.’" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_way

And what, monks, is the Middle Way realized by the Thus-Come-One, which gives vision and understanding, which leads to calm, penetration, enlightenment, to Nirvana?

It is just this Noble Eightfold Path, namely: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. – The Buddha, Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

http://themiddleway.net/?p=230

But how does one proceed in daily life in order to seek and to follow--indeed consciously to become--the Middle Way?

Perhaps we should first be conscious of the danger of extreme, exaggerated attitudes in daily life--not in other people (which is easy) but in ourselves--though others may be holding up a mirror to us in which we condemn our own faults. When we have recognized extreme tendencies in ourselves, we can ask ourselves why. Is it due to conditioning by environment and upbringing? Is it because we accept some authority? Or is it a reaction against those?

What we do not understand and therefore perhaps reject in ourselves--be it selfish love or hate or personal desires or our fanatical opinions--torments us. What we have understood and accepted will simply drop away, like leaves in autumn. We can forget it. Then we can 'walk on...', on the Middle Way, on the razor's edge. But do we want to rise above the extremes? Is their constant influence important to us?--tickling our nerves or providing us with motivation? If so, we shall not and should not wish to change. The need for change will come in time. Perhaps we shall be like the little ant on the pendulum:

A little ant, clinging to the tip of a pendulum, was swinging giddily to and fro, just as we swing to and fro, clinging to our emotions: love and hate, joy and sadness. We identify ourselves with them, we are them. After some time the little ant tired of the ceaseless, relentless movement and discovered that he could climb further up the pendulum to a different and more restful world. If we emulate the little ant, no longer identifying ourselves with extremes, the pendulum goes on swinging but somehow we know that we are not that constant movement. We see our emotions indulgently, like the actions of a naughty child. So let us not be too hard on ourselves and others caught in the passionate pendulum game.

To summarize, the Middle Way between egocentric love and hatred is impersonal or universal love. The Middle Way between fanatical acceptance and rejection lies in wisdom, discrimination, common sense. The Middle Way between taking things and ourselves too seriously on the one hand and flippancy on the other perhaps lies in an awareness of the right proportions, expressed in a sense of humor, especially in the ability to laugh at ourselves. The Middle Way between clinging to memories and taking refuge in hopes lies in living in the here and now, that is, remaining wide awake. But is this not the very end of the way our goal? The end, however, lies in the beginning. For the Middle Way is not a way in the ordinary sense but a way of life. Like the spiritual path, it lies within us. It is us! So let us be what we are.

http://www.teosofia.com/midway.html

so find the middle way and walk on the razor edge experience and enjoy.

you might also like those video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBWmKDjzRcs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBWmKDjzRcs

I read this when it was first posted, and experimented with midline meditation with some success. I've revisited it again the past few days and practised this more, and now this technique amazes me.

I've always liked the idea of release techniques, but sometimes I find that I release and release (using various methods such as EFT, Sedona Method, etc) but it doesn't work that well. Midline clearing is something different, I think because there's an emphasis on being centered. Perhaps people who have regular success with other clearing methods are already centered? I'm quite uncentered, and regular release techniques can leave me feeling even more so.

What I do is something similar to what @releaser99 mentioned in a comment above. First, I find the midline. I do this by imagining a plane midway through my body, like the illustration @Rindor posted. Sometimes I just imagine a pulsing energy from the bottom of my spine that flows up through my spine and out of my head.

Next, I find the energy blockage in my body. I let the feeling just be for a few seconds, and then I shift my awareness back to my midline. The trick is to not push it, it's all very gentle - simply resting my awareness back in my centre while simultaneously letting the negative emotion rest in my body without judging it or trying to change it. As I continue focusing on my midline, it feels like the emotional energy in the blockage slowly gets sucked into the midline. I know I am there when I feel complete neutrality.

Sometimes - if I am able to get into my midline easily (it becomes easier throughout the meditation session, I usually spend about 30-40 minutes clearing while listening to binaural beats), I will focus on the blockage, go into my midline for a second and place an intention there. Depending on what I feel is needed to alleviate the discomfort, I will use an intention such as "balance" or "soften" or "disperse", to give a few examples. Then back to the blockage to check it, and back to the midline again. I usually go back and forth no more than three times before the energy blockage disperses.

To me, the midline feels like the place in my body where non-duality rests. I'm not good at no-thought meditation, but when I am in my midline, everything else clears away and it is all that exists. No fear or anxiety, just a feeling of strength and oneness with everything.

I've already used it to clear away discomfort from one stubborn memory which I had tried EFT and various methods on many times without success. The emotional charge is mostly gone, and I only spent a couple of minutes on it.

I'm really excited about this technique, and I think the good thing about it is that it isn't just a clearing method. When you strengthen your "midline muscle", you naturally become more centered. It's been less than a week since I started practising this seriously, but I have already cleared a lot of emotional charge on various issues, and I feel a lot more centered and strong.

I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a good clearing method, especially people that have had inconsistent results with EFT and other methods.