Making your own qigong?

[Anonymous]

You approach a gorgeous golden field as you walk a narrow path through an evergreen forest. A gentle breeze fills the air with the smell of pine and there is warm sunshine in an azure blue sky above. The path winds through the golden field and you find a perfect spot to settle into some tai chi. There is only the sound of the wind whispering through the trees as you work through your tai chi form.
Practicing by yourself or with friends, a peaceful outside place is perfect.

Sounds nearly perfect, right? The fact is that few of us actually experience this picture, although it certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility. There are so many beautiful places to practice in a serene backdrop surrounded by earth’s natural elements. But more importantly it’s an image that you can create in your mind each and every time you practice. You can construct the entire scenario from the setting right down to how you perform each and every posture.

Creating a peaceful scene can help calm and center your mind right from the start. Then with some imagination, think about your movements and how they might emulate that of some animal, like a cat, a monkey, a crane or a tiger. Not only does this keep the mind focused but it also helps you execute the postures more accurately and with better fluidity.

Tai chi provides us with the opportunity to quiet our minds. When we practice we need to release all external intrusions, random thoughts and other distractions. We do this not by trying to block the flow of these thoughts, which actually gives them more power, but rather by using our imagination and replacing them with other thoughts like our personal ‘beautiful vision.’

What visual images do you use when you perform your tai chi? Even if time or place does not allow you to practice tai chi you can still use your own perfect getaway as a means to escape if only for a few minutes. Can you create your own ‘beautiful vision’ to use in your tai chi practice or simply as a means to step away from the busy world for a moment? Try it!

[Anonymous]

Kent, with your nice contribution and suggestion, you play with “visualization”. When I suggest to visualize the “inner child” (remember: Alice Miller), sitting on the left lap of a patient with burn-out or fibromyalgia (the “I must … and may not …”-type), some of them go along but others are very reluctant. Where comes that blockage from? The same result I expect in this thread: some do like it, some won’t try it, ever (afraid that something wrong might happen? that their cognitive brain would loose some kind of control?)

What you suggest while doing the movements, also counts for the NeiGong part. My own experience lead and leads me to not only visualizing my “inner child” (the non-cognitive brain), but also visualizing my “Immortal Infant” sitting on the lap of the “inner child”. Kent, I assure you, it is a very agreeable but also very powerful shortcut in meditation. When chatting about pure love and eternity without time (and becoming), I feel very small and humble.

Putting yours and mine together: my “inner child” very much likes your suggestion of creating a virtual scene. I will certainly go there! Thanks.

[Anonymous]

After a long time, I am finally posting something again.

It is a very nice image you use there, and well formulated. I almost feel relaxed from reading it.

But for me, this won’t work at all. When I practice, I do not want to train escaping, I want to train being present. Healing only occurs when I am present to it, unlocking of potential in me occurs only when I am present to it, and martial power can only arise from being present to what is, not what I would like to have right now. ( I want martial power, as I am in the security business… and, frankly speaking… because I like it)

The quieting of the Mind I experience not from conjuring up a nice feeling, but from centering and grounding myself. Then a quiet mind and a positive disposition arise naturally and easily even in the face of dire problems – because I consider them the natural state of a human being.

A long time ago I had a phase in my life, where dissasociation was a method of coping for me – but this has led to all manner of problems, and I won’t risk that again.

To answer your question, the only visual image I sometimes, but not always, use is that of a martial application. Whenever the parts of a movement, both internal and external don’t seem to fit together properly, I look to the martial applications to sort it out, because if I know what I want to accomplish, I know how to fit stuff together.

And on a personal note, I think reality can be so much more fascinating than any dream…

Please don’t take this as an offense – I am a different person and what helps one person must not necessarily help another.

I also know the value of visualisation. I have been trained in non-asian energetic/spiritual traditions, and these are very visual, and I am a visual person – I can have visuals to any energetic perception I have, and I am also full of internal pictures representing basically anything within me and sometimes others. But in the same way Mr. Frantzis tells us to make Qi a physically felt thing, so my teachers told me basically the same concerning these visuals. They said: “See, but don’t make up!” In the same way as we can make energy a physically felt thing, we can learn to distinguish between things nonphysically seen and those just made up. Removing this noise of images from my nonphysical perception greatly increased my ability to learn and to apply the teachings. The made-up pictures will dissipate both energy and awareness.

And in the same way Bruce’s statement to make the energy something I feel physically now increases my learning and practical application of Qi Gong and Tai Chi.

Again, this is my personal view, it might be different for others.

Sorry for the long post, I hope you find it interesting.

[Author]

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