Is there mind without consciousness? If you say yes you will be wrong. If you say no you will be wrong. How is this? Because you have give the answer too soon without having walked through the forest from one end to another.
We fool ourselves on this quite a bit. People often say such things as, “Words just get in the way. They are so much rubbish.” But they have never really examined how very difficult it is to think without words. You may imagine pictures and scenes to your heart’s content, but can you really think without the use of words?
And yet in Qigong and other special practices we are asked to somehow go beyond consciousness, so similar to thinking. Qigong utilizes a very clever method for this, much like the methods of the great Sufi teachers. Qigong never tries to sever the thinking cord too soon. It encourages you to think as much as you like but anchors that thinking deeply in the circle of your experience which, to your surprise, you find unaccountably difficult to explain even to yourself, even though the experience belongs to you.
That, of course, is the source-error. The experiences which is closest to you is the least clear because you spend all day ignoring it. It becomes the “white sound” of your life. And pretty soon you find that you have not only ignored it but even given it away. Yes, and your inheritance too.