The Bud­dhists see the med­i­ta­tive path as the bal­anced inten­si­fi­ca­tion of three men­tal traits: punya, sila, and samadhi.

Punya is wis­dom or understanding.

Sila is purifi­ca­tion or sim­pli­fy­ing your life.

Samadhi is con­cen­tra­tion or one-pointedness.

Ram Dass, Words of Wisdom

A client, the other day, wrote:

“When am I ever going to “get” this?”

And moments ear­lier, a friend posted to Facebook:

“Truth has to be repeated until you listen…”

There is sort of a pat­tern to really fig­ur­ing life out (enlight­en­ment)— they’re cap­tured in Ram Dass’ words, above.

Dar­bella and I just got back from lunch out. We ended up in a fairly deep con­ver­sa­tion with the woman who seated us. The con­ver­sa­tion started as a riff off of Dar’s hoodie, which says, “Costa Rica.” From there, it went to our Costa Rica plans, then to Qi Gong, then to coun­selling and Body­work.

She said some­thing to the effect of: “Have you noticed that things come up and that Body­work is one way to actu­ally get it out?” Turns out she’s into Reiki!

This is another one of those “get­ting it” prin­ci­ples. Most peo­ple think that get­ting a bit of under­stand­ing about an issue is enough. From our per­spec­tive, know­ing is sim­ply part of the process. Fol­low­ing know­ing is find­ing a way to enact what is known.

I find it inter­est­ing how many “coin­ci­den­tal” con­ver­sa­tions, meet­ings, and projects have emerged as Dar and I have become more clear on “Our New Real­ity.” As we become more clear and more open, we are met with clar­ity and openness.

The Three Terms

I’m not much into learn­ing Pali. So, let’s use the Eng­lish terms, and talk about wis­dom, sim­pli­fi­ca­tion, and one-pointedness. When I first looked at those terms, it seemed to me that there was a sin­gle start­ing place. Now, as I reflect on it, I’m not so sure. So, rather, I think I’ll write them in the order I pre­fer. Your entry point might be different.

One-Pointedness

Since we have wis­dom as one of the three terms, our expe­ri­ence of one-pointedness has to be other than a “thought.” Let’s sim­ply say that to expe­ri­ence one-pointedness, it’s best done phys­i­cally. Ini­tially, this is done by meditation.

One-pointedness might be thought of as dis­cov­er­ing the space between thoughts. Mostly, until we sit down and observe, our thoughts seem to flow like a cease­less stream. No gaps, just one damn thing after another.

As we med­i­tate, thoughts appear more like fluffy clouds drift­ing across a blue sky. Dis­crete, insubstantial.

The same real­iza­tion can come dur­ing Body­work. There is the pain, then the aris­ing of the emo­tion, then the let­ting go and the let­ting out of sound, and then the flow of energy.

If your mind gets involved, there’s going to be a mess of judge­ments: “This pain will go on for­ever!” “Noth­ing good can come of this!” “I’m not sup­posed to be feel­ing like this.” If you can let your mind drift, and not attach to any thought, then you notice the expe­ri­ences mov­ing through you, insub­stan­tial, discrete.

As you sit, more and more clar­ity regard­ing this empti­ness between thoughts becomes obvi­ous. You find your­self falling into the still­ness, breath­ing into it, and in this way find­ing your centre.

Sim­pli­fi­ca­tion

You’ve now had the expe­ri­ence of see­ing through the sto­ries, the dra­mas, and the dis­trac­tions. You learn to let go of dis­trac­tions, and you can do this pretty much all the time, if you choose.

Right now, as I’m writ­ing this, Dar is sev­eral feet away, watch­ing Danc­ing with the Stars. I stuck “con­cert plugs” in my ears, and the noise is decid­edly back­ground. And then, my mind focussed in on one of the judges;’ com­ments, and I couldn’t type. This is dis­trac­tion. I had a breath, cleared my mind, and the sound went back­ground.
This is simplification.

Or one ver­sion of sim­pli­fi­ca­tion, anyway.

We must sim­ply our lives. Less noise, less stuff, less “busy-ness,” less demands. I encour­age my clients to take this to it’s log­i­cal extreme. Here I am, invent­ing the whole thing. I’m telling myself sto­ries about every­thing, and invent­ing dra­mas about every­one. As I pare away my need to tell sto­ries, every­thing becomes one-pointed again. This is the game I must engage in, until I die, if I wish to cre­ate peace for myself.

This is not dis­en­gage­ment. This is being fully engaged with one thing at a time, and the one thing I am fully engaged with is “real­ity, in the here and now.” The rest is noise.

Wis­dom

Wis­dom is “get­ting it.” And the cos­mos really, really wants us to get it. In fact, I believe that the cos­mos con­tin­ues to pro­vide the same les­son, repeat­edly, until we do get it.

Wis­dom, then is both a direc­tion, and a loop­ing point. It leads us to sit more, to be more one-pointed, because wis­dom sees through the drama to the truth of simplicity.

Wis­dom is not about study, being smart, under­stand­ing the words. It’s about an innate under­stand­ing that this way of being is the only way that leads any­where inter­est­ing. It’s the wis­dom that helps us to stop doing the stu­pid stuff that keeps us stuck, that directs us to mon­i­tor our bod­ies for clues when we are bit­ing. It’s the gen­tle voice that nudges us back to sim­ple obser­va­tion of what it.

This week play with these con­cepts. You might just see how pow­er­ful they are!

QiGong Secrets – Week 8 – Smil­ing from the Heart

One of the first exer­cises learned in this QiGong secrets home study course is a very sim­ple exercise.

It is not going to be an easy one to explain or teach to some­one else. If you want to try it then you will just have to do it. No think­ing involved. As in so much of QiGong, your body will be your teacher. You will know that you are doing it cor­rectly because it feels right. 

I think this is one of the most dif­fi­cult lessons in prac­tis­ing QiGong. We are more inclined to look to oth­ers to con­firm that we are doing some­thing cor­rectly. In QiGong, the goal is to use your aware­ness of your body and how some­thing feels to know that you are prac­tis­ing some­thing that will have value to you. Sure, as a teacher, if I was in a class teach­ing QiGong—I can help cor­rect form, and I can teach a new pat­tern. As a stu­dent of QiGong, it is my goal to prac­tice in a mind­ful way—paying atten­tion to how the move­ments feel in my body. Only that way can I know that I am doing them correctly.

Before begin­ning any QiGong prac­tice, my first goal is to relax my body to the best of my abil­ity. Qi will not flow if the body is tense. I usu­ally begin with a sim­ple body scan, start­ing at the top of my head and mov­ing down my body. This helps pre­pare my body to get the most out of my QiGong prac­tice. This also helps with the next step in prepar­ing for my prac­tice—to focus my mind. 

I usu­ally focus on my breath—taking long, slow, deep breaths. As my main prac­tice time is the morn­ing, I need to put aside any thoughts about my work day, what I need to accom­plish, how I will teach a les­son, what prep work needs to be done, who I need to speak to—and on and on and on. I usu­ally take the approach of using a sin­gle thought to over­come all thoughts. This can be as sim­ple as think­ing “in” as I breathe in and “out” as I breathe out. Some­times I count breaths up to ten. I also some­times use words like “ener­gize” as I breathe in and “let go” as I breathe out. Any of these will help to quiet my mind so I am pre­pared to begin my prac­tise of QiGong.

Smil­ing from the Heart

So, now that I have pre­pared my body for QiGong by relax­ing and pre­pared my mind for QiGong by focus­ing, the next step is to pre­pare myself emo­tion­ally and spir­i­tu­ally for my prac­tice. That is where ‘Smil­ing from the Heart’ helps. This exer­cise can be done either from a QiGong stance, or from a sit­ting posi­tion on a chair or a med­i­ta­tion cushion.

Begin by focus­ing your atten­tion on your chest. Visu­al­ize a smile that radi­ates from your heart. This smile starts in the area of your heart and expands to fill your whole body. Keep expand­ing your smile so it radi­ates out into the world around you. You will know when you are doing this exer­cise cor­rectly. You may feel a warmth in your chest area. You might feel like your whole body is being flooded with joy and peace. You will feel this exer­cise with your whole body. It is an expan­sive feel­ing. I feel my chest open. My shoul­ders drop and move back. If I am not aware, my shoul­ders will spend most of there time up around my ears. 

Prac­tis­ing QiGong has helped with my aware­ness of my shoul­ders creep­ing up so I can breathe and con­sciously move them back down.

You might try putting a big cheesy grin on your face. You might imag­ine look­ing at a beau­ti­ful sun­rise or flower blos­som­ing. You might imag­ine the face of some­one you love or a place that is spe­cial to you.
 
Smil­ing form the heart is all of these and none of these.  We are all dif­fer­ent. Through prac­tice we can learn what works best of us. You will def­i­nitely know when you are doing it cor­rectly. Lis­ten to your body. Don’t think about it, just do it. Smile from your heart!

After relax­ing my body, calm­ing my mind, and smil­ing from my heart, I am ready to begin my QiGong prac­tice. This prepa­ra­tion is called ‘enter­ing the QiGong state of mind,’ and is a vital part of my prac­tice. The move­ments I choose to prac­tise each day do not mat­ter as much as this prepa­ra­tion for my prac­tice. In the past, my focus has been more on the move­ments. That was avalu­able learn­ing, and I do believe that form is impor­tant. The learn­ing in this QiGong Secrets Home Study course that has been the most valu­able to me is the ‘how to’ of a QiGong prac­tice. As a result of this course, prepar­ing for my prac­tice and allow­ing the energy to do its work (more about this next week) have had a major impact on my prac­tice and have been worth the cost of the course. Besides, I love learn­ing the new pat­terns too. 

QiGong is a com­bi­na­tion of form, energy and mind. The form is how we move our bod­ies, or the pat­terns we choose to prac­tice. This gen­tle exer­cise stretches our bod­ies and increases blood flow. The energy part is linked to our breath. By sim­ply breath­ing, we are increas­ing the energy flow in our bod­ies. The mind aspect is prob­a­bly the most impor­tant, and will have the most impact on the ben­e­fits you will gain from prac­tis­ing QiGong. When pat­terns are prac­ticed in a mind­ful way, being in the moment with your move­ments, you will more quickly real­ize the ben­e­fits of prac­tis­ing QiGong. Also, being more aware allows us to apply what we are learn­ing to our bod­ies know­ing what works best for us.

Prac­tice ‘Smil­ing from the Heart’ as often as you remem­ber. This is skill that will have ben­e­fits in your life as well as in a QiGong practice.