We do it in some circumstances and then forget that we do it at all. My wife thinks I am like a dog because, when I am sick, I don’t need nursing so much as retiring to a dark room to lie and wait. My world shrinks and my “being” does, too. I draw inward: which is a little different from just withdrawing. Everything is still in there. I’m not pulling away from anything, I’m just consolidating my-self. (more…)
January 27, 2010
January 18, 2010
Some Happiness
Happiness has many approaches. Some of them take us far away from the happiness we feel into a land of speculation, almost like gambling. There are some paths to happiness that are shorter, more direct. To see these more direct ways it is often helpful to look at our present life, our real life. And when we do that we notice (more…)
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December 25, 2009
Spiritual X Rays
We see, or rather we do not see, the world in highly restricted terms. We experience in a thin band of perceptions which constitute only a slit in the fabric of reality. We crouch and peer through the slit and think what we see is everything.
(more…)
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December 11, 2009
Quiet Sitting and its Distractions
请坐片时 (Qingzou pianshi) Sitting quietly for a while
Some styles of Qigong, such as Blossoms in the Spring, start in a seated fashion. This is known as “quiet sitting” or Qing Zuo. It is also called “sitting and forgetting”. At first this seems like the easiest thing in the world. Unlike meditation you don’t even have to do anything. Just sit there like a cat. (more…)
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October 12, 2009
October Warning: Don’t Sweat the Negative
There’s an expression making the rounds lately among beginning Qigong practitioners. Some times you will hear, “Wow, he just like dumped his negative qi all over me.” In a society like ours where some of these ideas are very new there is going to be a lot of slop-over at first. There’s no way around that. (more…)
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September 1, 2009
The Yin and Yang of Yin and Yang: Part 2
Here’s the rule we were talking about: Stillness engenders movement and movement creates stillness. Stillness itself is considered yin and movement is yang. But as the yin/yang symbol (known as the Taiji Tu) shows, when stillness reaches an extreme it starts to turn over to movement (like the moon waning after fullness). (more…)
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August 31, 2009
The Yin and Yang of Yin and Yang: Part 1
NOT the simple story. Getting the basics right in the beginning.
For thousands of years (and before) the Chinese have used the idea of yin and yang to explain reality. It is the versatility of this idea which has kept it alive for centuries. (more…)
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August 25, 2009
The Most Radical Health Program
No one should feel bad that the Chinese did it first. After all, they’ve had 5000 years to noodle with these things. But before we go on we have to take a simple test. If you still believe that the quality and kind of health care we have is dependent only on the attempt to supply the finest care for the most people then this new (old) approach may be too much foryou. If you can see the influence of such extrogenous factors as money, status, power and-very important- convenience then you are ready.
This absolutely radical approach which the Chinese employed for millennia was this (and as we will see it directly relates to the practice of Qigong): you pay the doctor when you are well, not sick. If he keeps you well forever, so much the better. If you get sick his fees stop until you are better.
Let me take a second to recover myself. And I know about this. Whew, better now. Well, first off some could say we already have this and it’s called insurance but of course that’s not true because insurance you pay when you are sick OR well (there’s that convenience issue again, but not for you).
We could discuss this plan for days and turn it around a hundred ways but I want to address just one little twist in the road. Doctors weren’t stupid. They figured out pretty quickly that people really didn’t want to be sick and, better yet, if they could enlist the patient’s cooperation they would be more assured of their fees. So Chinese doctors actually encouraged their patients to do healthful practices.
Such as skiing, bungee jumping, locking and space dodge ball, right? No, they helped to design exercises which were consistent with the medical practices of the culture with a different emphasis such as longevity, conservation of energy, rejuvenation, balance, optimization of movement, reduction of stress. Qigong, Tai Chi and other studies were seen as perfectly grooving in with the needs of the people and, as far as fees continuing to trickle in, with the needs of the medical community.
We somehow think that the pursuit of happiness is tied to returning to the slopes for the fifth time after your fourth ACL operation. I wonder if our medical practitioners would be less likely to feed this delusion if their income were tied to preventing our whimsical self destruction?
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August 21, 2009
Health Care: Free, Simple, Self Reliant
The health care debate at present has moved into the realm of fantasy, a very dark fantasy. Besides ridiculous misrepresentations of what each side intends, cross accusations of wrong doing, sloppy thinking and name calling on the level of kindergarten there’s a problem no one mentions. This problem, pandemic to modern culture–particularly in America–is the persistent misrepresentation that money equals quality health care and vice versa.
Nothing could be further from the truth and, in fact, it’s a sad day when a nation acclaimed for its “know-how” equates health care with pocketbooks. But let’s be frank, health care is shifting from an honest attempt to help people to strictly a money game. Insurance companies dictate doctors’ fees, legal departments compel malpractice rates, insurers routinely refuse to pay claims just to see who will go away.
And then there’s the national shame for what some people believe to be a great health care system. There has never been a proper encouragement of preventative care. The action-oriented, antagonistic, results-craving mentality finds it hard to comprehend that the best approach to any illness is to not let it happen in the first place. So little effort and money is spent on preventative medicine—not the prejudiced studies, mind you, but the medicine—that any health care model must always resolve itself into a major obsession with who gets the pie instead of how good the pie is.
Enter Qigong and other practices like Tai Chi. Even if Chinese medical terminology seems confusing, or the theory strikes you as mystical, these practices have fundamental strengths to recommend them. Take Tai Chi example, an exercise partly designed by a doctor. Its great benefits come from the fact it is slow, careful, strength building, rhythmic, calming, highly efficient, posturally correct, pleasant, age and sex suitable, engaging and, with slight modifications, can even be aerobic. It requires no equipment and, once learned can be practiced for the length of one’s life. Qigong is the same with the added advantage of having a modularity which allows you to learn very small exercises one at a time rather than memorizing the more intricate and complex routines of Tai Chi.
Once learned the cost of either is exactly nothing. The movements are very safe, encouraging good respiration and reducing stress at the same time. It can be communal or solitary; requires no special area to be built, like a stadium or a court; it encourages an efficiency and grace that is expressed in everyday life.
And there’s another bonus which could be huge. Qigong encourages people to reflect on themselves, to take a bit more responsibility for their own health. One of the most disappointing things about the health care debate is its top-down, condescending, hierarchical, money-dominated orientation. The people are left wondering which “provider” to bow to (forgetting that, according to some of their own beliefs, there is only one health care provider ultimately). It certainly doesn’t encourage the kind of self-reliance so many people pride themselves on but which crumbles like a dirt tower when it comes to the topic of health. We are, instead, encouraged by this system to be dependent, about something so fundamentally ours as our own health and well-being. We have become a nation of people afraid of self-examination, unfamiliar with our own bodies, only capable of asking the doctor which pills go in which combination.
Don’t expect anyone to pick up this noble banner soon, though. In this scheme there’s no one except a few underpaid Qigong instructors to make any money and, like they say, if cars were free and ran on water instead of gasoline we’d still be riding bicycles.
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August 18, 2009
Joy and Qi
The Nei Jing is the oldest medical record in China. Here’s a section from it:
“It is known that all diseases arise out of the upset of Qi.
Anger pushes the Qi up,
Joy makes the Qi slack,
Grief scatters the Qi,
Fear drops the Qi down,
and Anxiety stagnates the Qi.”
Of course we can see the etiology of disease in other terms, such as the germ theory. But let’s consider this ancient approach for a minute. We know, for example, that fear can make someone pee in his pants (down), or that anxiety locks up the whole person (stagnates). We recognize that strong emotions can affect the entire metabolic system and, in this case, we regard Qi in its funciton of representing the whole human being, not just a fuzzy energy floating around inside body.
The idea of strong emotions affecting people isn’t new. But the concept of the benefits of nothing in excess, a basic attitude not only of Chinese medicine but of Chinese culture, can be a little confusing to over-reved modern man.
Let’s take a telling example: Joy. How can you have too much joy (other than knowing it has all got to end sometime)? Well, let’s push the idea a little and see if it pushes back. Imagine someone on drugs or drunk who has begun to feel “real good” and starts to jump around, dance wildly, annoying people in a friendly way, spilling drinks, etc. in his ebullience. Well of course the first negative result might very well be a punch in the mouth. On another level the part of the character which “holds us together” is so weak that the over-joyed (think about that word) person stars going off in ten directions at once. Waiting for a fall? Of course. What about joy at that new relationship that just took you over by storm? Heartache in the morning? Scattered so much by that inheritance that you ignore your friends? Definitely hidden shoals ahead. Joy can be as dangerous as other emotions- in excess. Remember all those lottery ticket winners who fall over with heart attacks. And, as the medical sages always said, joy attacks the heart.
A good, rational look at the emotions convinces us that the developers of the ancient medical theory had at least something right in their observations. As we explore the uses and meaning of Qi we might be surprised at just how right they were.
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