Maintaining Awareness

by | Aug 26, 2015 | Taoist Meditation, Tai Chi, Taoism | 4 comments

Your ability to feel and control energy depends on maintaining continuous internal awareness inside your body. Without some minimal level of continuous inner awareness, you cannot focus long enough on your movements or energy flows to gain most of the wonderful benefits of chi gung (qigong), tai chi and other Taoist energy arts.

The first challenge is to learn how to simultaneously pay attention to your energy, breathing, emotions and how your body is feeling. The second step is to use that awareness to benefit your health and reduce your stress.

Western Education is Outward Oriented

From kindergarten through the university system, Western education focuses primarily on training your intellectual and mental capacities for external tasks and activities. Many intellectually brilliant people—from physicists to lawyers to social thinkers—can maintain focus on the problems at hand and come up with solutions. These same people, asked to focus inside themselves and simultaneously engage with their emotions, energy, breathing and deeper parts of their mind and spirit are unable to do so.

Taoist Education is About Internal Orientation

The primary orientation of Taoist education is to teach people to have an internal orientation. In these practices, you must learn to track the effect of your physical movements on your breathing and emotional moods and gain the sense of your mind being clear on the patterns by which you consciously move energy within yourself. Taoists call it making the body conscious. In an increasingly difficult and complex world, many external and internal circumstances can break your ability to maintain inner awareness.

Chi gung, and other Taoist energy movement practices, train you to look inside your body, mind and spirit. Eastern philosophy has the point of view that until you learn how to feel deeply inside your body and become consciously aware of the deeper recesses of your mind, you will not be able to improve the quality of your life.

Internal Awareness Prepares you for Meditation

Increased and focused awareness will prepare you for the more challenging work of meditation. In the Taoist meditation tradition, spirituality involves more than having health, calmness and a stable, peaceful mind. Meditation helps you take spiritual responsibility for yourself so you can become a relaxed, spontaneous and fully mature and open human being. It helps you reach a place of inner stillness, a place deep inside you that is absolutely permanent and stable, whether you are quietly sitting or doing several things at once.

Your ability to feel and control energy depends on maintaining continuous internal awareness inside your body. Without some minimal level of continuous inner awareness, you cannot focus long enough on your movements or energy flows to gain most of the wonderful benefits of chi gung/qigong, tai chi and other Taoist energy arts.

The first challenge is to learn how to simultaneously pay attention to your energy, breathing, emotions and how your body is feeling. The second step is to use that awareness to benefit your health and reduce your stress.
Western Education is Outer Oriented

From kindergarten through the university system, Western education focuses primarily on training your intellectual and mental capacities for external tasks and activities. Many intellectually brilliant people—from physicists to lawyers to social thinkers—can maintain focus on the problems at hand and come up with solutions. These same people, asked to focus inside themselves and simultaneously engage with their emotions, energy, breathing and deeper parts of their mind and spirit are unable to do so.
Taoist Education is About Internal Orientation

The primary orientation of Taoist education is to teach people to have an internal orientation. In these practices, you must learn to track the effect of your physical movements on your breathing and emotional moods and gain the sense of your mind being clear on the patterns by which you consciously move energy within yourself. Taoists call it making the body conscious. In an increasingly difficult and complex world, many external and internal circumstances can break your ability to maintain inner awareness. Chi gung/qigong and other Taoist energy movement practices train you to look inside your body, mind and spirit. Eastern philosophy has the point of view that until you learn how to feel deeply inside your body and become consciously aware of the deeper recesses of your mind, you will not be able to improve the quality of your life.
Internal Awareness Prepares you for Meditation

Increased and focused awareness will prepare you for the more challenging work of meditation. In the Taoist meditation tradition, spirituality involves more than having health, calmness and a stable, peaceful mind. Meditation helps you take spiritual responsibility for yourself so you can become a relaxed, spontaneous and fully mature and open human being. It helps you reach a place of inner stillness, a place deep inside you that is absolutely permanent and stable, whether you are quietly sitting or doing several things at once.Your ability to feel and control energy depends on maintaining continuous internal awareness inside your body. Without some minimal level of continuous inner awareness, you cannot focus long enough on your movements or energy flows to gain most of the wonderful benefits of chi gung/qigong, tai chi and other Taoist energy arts.

The first challenge is to learn how to simultaneously pay attention to your energy, breathing, emotions and how your body is feeling. The second step is to use that awareness to benefit your health and reduce your stress.
Western Education is Outer Oriented

From kindergarten through the university system, Western education focuses primarily on training your intellectual and mental capacities for external tasks and activities. Many intellectually brilliant people—from physicists to lawyers to social thinkers—can maintain focus on the problems at hand and come up with solutions. These same people, asked to focus inside themselves and simultaneously engage with their emotions, energy, breathing and deeper parts of their mind and spirit are unable to do so.
Taoist Education is About Internal Orientation

The primary orientation of Taoist education is to teach people to have an internal orientation. In these practices, you must learn to track the effect of your physical movements on your breathing and emotional moods and gain the sense of your mind being clear on the patterns by which you consciously move energy within yourself. Taoists call it making the body conscious. In an increasingly difficult and complex world, many external and internal circumstances can break your ability to maintain inner awareness. Chi gung/qigong and other Taoist energy movement practices train you to look inside your body, mind and spirit. Eastern philosophy has the point of view that until you learn how to feel deeply inside your body and become consciously aware of the deeper recesses of your mind, you will not be able to improve the quality of your life.
Internal Awareness Prepares you for Meditation

Increased and focused awareness will prepare you for the more challenging work of meditation. In the Taoist meditation tradition, spirituality involves more than having health, calmness and a stable, peaceful mind. Meditation helps you take spiritual responsibility for yourself so you can become a relaxed, spontaneous and fully mature and open human being. It helps you reach a place of inner stillness, a place deep inside you that is absolutely permanent and stable, whether you are quietly sitting or doing several things at once.

4 Comments

  1. Endre

    Hi!

    Thanks for reading such a great article. I’m very happy about reading this.
    Thanks again Bruce

    Reply
  2. Peter Dove

    Internal awareness is a practice that I really feel I need to develop, and that’s why I’m looking at getting some training in Tai Chi, or Qi Gong. I’ve recently become far to focused on my thoughts/rational mind, and it’s making me feel really stressed out and crazy.

    I think Tai Chi would be really good for me. Thanks for the site, I’m just starting to read more of your stuff now.

    Peter

    Reply
  3. David

    Thank you for this great insight into the mind and body work loads

    Reply
  4. sundar

    This is a superb article on awareness and mindfulness. Meditation is not something one does for a period of time and forget all about it once it’s done. Learning to watch the energy inside me has given me a lot of insight. For example, many times I have watched milk boil over even though I thought I was alert. Just a split second preoccupation with me has brought about this mishap. Watching everything as it is being done, for example making tea, doing the chores etc is also a meditation. Being aware is a lofty goal to achieve, also the first step to master!

    Reply

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