Into the world of QIGONG

By SL Luo in the China Daily

The ancient self-healing Chinese art of qigong (Chinese breathing exercise) is set to scale new heights as health awareness intensifies in HK and on the mainland. Renowned HK taichi qigong master, Yuen Chiu-kwan, is aiming to create medical wonders with an ambitious project to give cancer and heart patients a new lease of life. SL Luo reports.

'He went down hard on his knees thanking me as if I were a god, saying if not for me, there wouldn't be him," renowned taichi, qigong master, Yuen Chiu-kwan, recalls. The words were spoken to Yuen by a patient dying of liver cancer.

That was way back in 2000, when Yuen heard about the 56-year-old patient by word of mouth. Yuen felt a "calling" to seek out this ailing man, to perform one of the most humane missions of his life.

"He was already on his death bed after having had one-third of his liver removed, and was given only a few months to live," says Yuen.

"I immediately applied five of the 18 taichi qigong principles I had formulated, and taught him how to use them in exercises for 10 months. That man recovered after that and went on to live another four-and-a-half years before finally succumbing to his illness.

"Although the respite wasn't terribly long, it was enough time for him to do things he wouldn't have been able to do otherwise," Yuen says.

From an illegal immigrant to a registered Chinese medical practitioner, Yuen is a globally-recognized authority on taichi qigong. Now in his mid-60s, he maintains a low profile in Hong Kong, despite his achievements.

Yuen, who is also a director of the World Society of Medical Qi Gong (WSMQG), claims to have attended Hong Kong celebrities, though he declined to name them. His string of accolades is long, arising from his deep-rooted ties with the WSMQG, which has been organizing regular international qigong symposiums on the mainland since its inception in 1989.

The history of qigong dates back as early as the Zhou and Han dynasties, when the art was taken up as a form of meditation to purify the body, mind and spirit.

The practice became popular with the founding of the People's Republic of China, and was thought to be therapeutic, holding the power to enhance the body's natural immunity against disease and to reduce stress.

Yuen calls qigong one of China's national treasures but, to this day, there's still no official definition for it. "The term was actually coined after 1949 by the mainland's first health minister, Li Dequan, and has been used ever since. Theoretically, it's a combination of aligning breath, movement, healing and meditation," he says.

Historically and, in theory, there are five established categories of qigong - medical, Taoist, Buddhist, Confucian and martial arts. The most widely practiced today is medical qigong, with an estimated 50 million practitioners worldwide, while the martial arts type is restrained, and appears to interest only the young and able-bodied.

Master Yuen's expounded qigong principles come under the medical category, with their primary aim to treat and heal illnesses.

He calls them the "18 forms of taichi", and has given them colourful names like "Rowing a Boat in the Middle of a Lake", 'Pushing the Waves" and "Flying Wild Goose". The set combines all three elements - temperate and soft exercise, breathing and meditation.

"Taichi qi ong comes from taichi boxing, with the three principles of revitalizing the body, aiding breathing and enhancing mental capabilities," he says.

"It's easy to learn, allows for rapid building up of the bodily system, and is very effective for people with insomnia and heart-related problems.

"In the process, I found that qigong, together with good food and medical care, offers a powerful weapon against cancer. The exercise stimulates and increases oxygen supply to the cardio vascular system, thereby eliminating potential cancer causing cells, especially those causing lung or liver cancer."

Yuen has been an ardent advocate favoring official recognition for Chinese medical practitioners. In Hong Kong, the traditional healers have waged a long campaign to win back their status and rights.

At the height of the SARS outbreak in the city in 2003, Yuen called for herbalists to be brought in to fight the disease, citing the success of Chinese doctors in Guangzhou in treating SARS and keeping the mortality rate of the illness to a minimum.

But, the appeal fell on deaf ears.

"Western medicine and drugs deal only with combating bacteria. They're unable to get to the root of the problem - controlling the spread of disease-causing cells. Chinese medicine has its healing qualities and excellence," Yuen argues.

Yuen's association with qigong arose from his own poor physical condition at birth. "I was sick most of the time with headaches, due to under-nourishment. At 12, I had liver problems which aggravated my condition", says Yuen, who was born in Zhongshan, Guangdong province.

Qigong struck his mind after he had read books on the ancient art by a former vice-chairman of the National People's Congress. "I religiously followed the rules laid out in his articles and tried meditation. After a year, my health problems disappeared and I began to love and preach qigong", says Yuen.

In 1970 - at the height of the "Cultural Revolution", the chaotic period from 1966-1976 - Yuen decided to make a break. He fled Zhongshan and swam for five nights, surviving on peanuts and leaves, before coming ashore at Taipa in Macao.

Yuen describes his ordeal as a "journey back from the grave", adamant that he wouldn't have survived had it not been for the meditative art he had picked up as a boy. "That shows the hidden power of qigong".

He continued his qigong practice in Hong Kong and at the age of 43, sought the aid of Shaolin and Buddhist masters. "I plunged immediately into taichi qigong (a branch of qigong). It took me more than a year to establish the basis and ideals of the '18 forms of taichi'."

His ties with the WSMQG have been close. Since 2004, Yuen has remained the only taichi qigong master from Hong Kong and the mainland to have staged demonstrations five times at international qigong symposiums in Beijing and Shanghai.

Currently, there are an estimated 50,000 practitioners of taichi qigong in Hong Kong, many of them graduates of the qigong classes that Yuen started in the city in 1999.

"The qualities and aims of qigong are real. Hong Kong is an ideal place to practice it, as it requires very little space. The awareness of maintaining good health has grown immensely with an aging population. The art must be publicized to help the people overcome old age-related sicknesses," Yuen says.

He strongly believes that a real qigong master must devote himself to do a better job on a full time basis.

Yuen's next step is to take the art back to his roots - Zhongshan - the birthplace of Sun Yat-sen, widely regarded as the founder of modern China.

Yuen is teaming up with a mainland entrepreneur to run a hospital-cum-herbal center to provide "convenience store-style" medical care, treatment and facilities.

The five-story facility, located in the eastern suburb of Zhongshan, will be one of the most advanced and comprehensive in the world in terms of medical care, rehabilitative and herbal treatment and qigong training. The center is to become operational by the end of this year. It will include one floor to be used entirely for qigong teaching under Yuen's supervision.

China Daily was taken on a tour of the facility, which will be supplemented by a 1,000-hectare (660,000 square meter) farm planted with about 1 million herbal plants, vast in their varieties. The hospital will be staffed by Chinese medical specialists and nurses with equipment based on Chinese medical principles.

"Zhongshan is now home to thousands of elderly people from Hong Kong who have settled down here. We also have in mind the tens of millions of ethnic Chinese abroad who may return to Zhongshan one day for medical care.

"We will use our resources to give our people the best medical services, train talent in the Chinese medical field, help orphans and make a greater contribution to the country", says a source close to the project.

Yuen's ultimate goal is to spread the art of qigong, not only across the region, but to all mankind.

"I want to have a real dialogue with the relevant government departments in Hong Kong to explain the meaning of qigong and let the world know and understand its benefits", he says.

But, he warned practitioners against expecting miracles overnight, or harboring the illusion that the art is magical. "I want all practitioners of the art to understand that this is all about body building. Qigong cannot resolve all your problems at once. You must be resolute and remain totally committed to practicing it", Yuen adds.

Mindfulness: The Basics

http://www.mindful.org/mindfulness-practice/mindfulness-the-basics

Whether you're new to mindfulness practice or not, this collection of articles is a great foundation for your daily practice. Never lose sight of the basics. Below you'll find some of our touchstone articles on mindfulness practice.  You'll want to come back here time and again to keep your daily practice well-tuned.

Mindfulness: The Basics

Getting Started
Norman Fischer proposes a two-week trial run to get your meditation practice started and looks at some of the obstacles that will come up.

Five Steps to Mindfulness
“Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in.” Mindfulness can transform your life. Meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches five exercises to help you live with joy.

Here, Now, Aware: Practicing Mindfulness
Mindfulness teacher Joseph Goldstein offers this simple yet profound meditation instruction to embrace our mind’s natural awareness.

Body and Mind Integration
Yoga practice and meditation work extremely well together, say Cyndi Lee and David Nichtern. They show us how.

Mind Your Mind
So you're practicing mindfulness, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like it's working. That's natural. In order to stay on track, says Donald Altman, it's important to stop now and then and recalibrate your thinking. Here's how.

Setting up a Mindfulness Meditation Group
Betsy Nelson on how she did it, why it helps, and how you can too.

Demystifying Qi Gong

By Joseph Davis, LAc
Acupuncture Today
December, 2011, Vol. 12, Issue 12


Qi Gong is broadly recognized for its therapeutic effects in the Chinese medical community, and increasingly in the modern medical community as well, yet it remains a practice shrouded in unnecessary mystery.


What will it take to bring Qi Gong to the place yoga is now, where one can find regular classes at most fitness centers across the country? The question can't be answered in one short article, but our first priority must be in clarifying what makes real Qi Gong different than other methods of health cultivation. After successfully building aQi Gong class in the strange environs of a modern gym, I have a few basic insights to share about how to bring our methods to the mainstream.

Unfortunately, we are starting at a significant disadvantage, as the phrase "Qi Gong" is a long way from having one commonly accepted meaning. For some people it evokes images of exotic people in silk pajamas, moving slowly on a clifftop by the ocean. For others it might be a practitioner laying hands on someone else, using their breath, intention, and energy to heal. And for others it might mean a solo practice of meditation, hard training and creative visualization to build martial and psychic power, or to foster spiritual growth. Frankly, for most Americans, it probably doesn't mean anything.

As Traditional Chinese Medicine providers, it is incumbent on us to approach Qi Gong with an understanding that is not mystical, foreign, or other-worldly. So what is the essence of Qi Gong for TCM practitioners? It is a method of fostering basic awareness of body and breath, coordinated with simple movements, with the aim of cultivating smooth flow of qi to promote health. It is critical to communicate to our patients and students that the gateway to Qi Gong is not through some portal bedecked with dragons and tigers in some far-off land. It doesn't demand faith, special uniforms, ineffable transmissions, or beautiful landscapes. Foremost, it is vital to explain that qi isn't some magical force that emerges once we've purified the body, silenced the mind, and harmonized the emotions. Qi Gong begins with connecting with how your body, breath, and mind feel, exactly in this moment.

If we want people to follow us through the gate of Qi Gong practice, we have to keep it incredibly simple. So, let's try a basic exercise together. Take a deep breath in, then release. No really, do it! What's there? The pressure of your weight on your seat, if you are sitting. The space inside your body changing as the breath moves in and out. Perhaps some tension in some muscle groups. The patter of thoughts, up in the brain. Our mind will naturally come up with names for these experiences. For our purposes, we are just trying to connect with the quality of feeling awareness that is before these names - that, which experiences these different levels of our being. It's critical that we do not try and change anything at this point. Rather, we start with what is actually here right now.

With just a little bit of attention, we begin to see that these sensations, feelings, and thoughts occur in a spectrum - from the very dense sensation of embodiment in gravity (down/earth/yin), to the rarified realm of ideas (up/sky/yang), and the subtler nuance of breath and emotions that happens between these two poles. And here's the real transmission - it is this whole collection of experiences that is actually our qi. This recognition is the portal to real Qi Gong, and it certainly does not require some Qi Gong "master" to point out. Yin, Yang, and qi are experiences that we all have, all day long.

Instead of introducing our patients and students to qi as something distant and mysterious, we start right where we are. As I noted above, I find the phrase feeling-awareness, or aliveness are often better to use than something from a different language. What we are looking to get our patients and students to recognize is this basic subjective sense of being alive, which is the most immediate and concrete thing in the universe. Without trying to define or capture it too tightly in thought, we can then begin working with it in the context of simple movements, coordinated with the breath.

Most everyone agrees that the breath is a great way to bring more awareness to the mind-body connection. Breath is the great mediator between the denser "body" and the lighter "mind" ends of our mind-body spectrum. Respiration is unique because it will conveniently take care of itself if we don't pay attention to it (involuntary/body), but will also obey our commands if we choose to give it a specific task (voluntary/mind). It impacts our emotions, as taking a few deep breaths to calm down clearly demonstrates. Breath is also affected by emotions, as the shortened breaths of someone anxious or stressed shows us. So if we move the body in a simple pattern while coordinating the breath, and pay attention to what's happening, we begin to "fill in the blanks" between the mind and the body, and see that there actually never was a separation.

For many this may seem rudimentary, but then the people reading this periodical are steeped in the sophisticated language of meridians, elements, and different kinds of qi. Our patients, students, and friends may come from a very different place, where it may be a radical idea that doing an activity while actually paying attention to it differs from doing the exact same activity while listening to headphones, reading a newspaper, and watching a television out of the corner of your eye. It often seems like the job of the modern fitness center is to distract you from your body any way possible while you get your time in and your calories off! One day the cable TV was out at my gym, and there was practically a riot.

As non-specific as the phrase "Qi Gong" may be, the key is that we recognize that it is this quality of making the effort to be with your sensations (a practice called "mindfulness" in some communities), which makes it different from other activities. We can do any manner of convoluted visualisations and complicated techniques, but if we aren't starting from basic feeling-awareness, we are just playing mental games. We can push our bodies to the limit, but if we aren't with our sensations, we are also still standing outside of the gate. We spend so much time embroiled in fantasies about places we aren't, planning for the future or stewing over the past, looking to embellish or mask what our basic existence feels like right now. The simple act of coming into our own present-tense can be a profound therapy to address the many ills that result from this preoccupation. We may very well find that in cultivating this habit of presence, a sense of space and ease reveals itself to have always been right here all along.

Qi Gong practice has a long way to go before it becomes as mainstream as other traditional methods of health cultivation. It will have to adapt, just as yoga has, to meet some of the expectations of our fitness-oriented culture. I'm confident that if we can lead our students and patients to the gateway of feeling-awareness, we can preserve what is unique to these time-tested methods. As the baby-boomers age and the gym-going culture realizes that peak fitness is not a viable (or even desirable) goal, Qi Gongwill become an increasingly attractive alternative.

Over the past couple years, I've built a class of very dedicated students in a traditional gym, without turning my class into "Power Qi Gong," or "Qi Gong for a Great Butt." As long as we keep it simple, focus on the present moment sensations of qi, and not lose ourselves in esoterica, Qi Gong's future in the West is promising.

---

Joseph Davis is an enthusiastic practitioner and instructor of Tai Ji Quan and Qi Gong. He teaches at the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences, and at several gyms in the Oakland area. He is also a co-founder and Licensed Acupuncturist at Octagon Community Acupuncture Clinic, where he holds periodic introductory Qi Gong courses for patients and practitioners alike.

Classics

The body is the temple of life. Energy is the force of life. Spirit is the governor of life. If one of them goes off balance, all three are damaged. When the spirit takes command, the body naturally follows it, and this arrangement benefits all Three Treasures.  Wen Tzu Classic (First Century BC)

Heaven is clear and calm, earth is stable and tranquil. Humans who reject these virtues perish, while those who adopt them thrive.   Huai Nan Tzu (First Century AD)

The Tao gave birth to the one source, The one gave birth to two things, Then to three things, Then to ten thousand...   Tao Teh Ching (Third Century BC)

The yang transforms and the yin conserves. The yang and the yin manifest as movement and rest; yang moves to its utmost, then rests; yin rests to its utmost, then moves. Therefore, yin rests within yang, and yang moves within yin; the two are inseparably interwoven. It is thus as a single unit that they are one with the Tao.   Chu Hsi (Eleventh Century AD)

Relax your Mind, Establish Root, Cultivate Qi.

Qigong General Training by Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming

Every qigong form or practice has its special training purpose and theory. If you do not know the purpose and theory, you have lost the root (meaning) of the practice. Therefore, as a qigong practitioner, you must continue to ponder and practice until you understand the root of every set or form. Remember that getting the gold is not enough. Like the boy in the old Chinese story, you should concern yourself with learning the trick of turning the rock into gold. You can see that getting the gold is simply gaining the flowers and branches, and there can be no growth. However, if you have the trick, which is the theory, then you will have the root and you may continue to grow by yourself.

In Chinese qigong society, it is commonly known that in order to reach the goal of qigong practice, you must learn how to regulate the body (tiao shen, 調身), regulate the breathing (tiao xi, 調息), regulate the emotional mind (tiao xin, 調心), regulate the qi (tiao qi, 調氣), and regulate the spirit (tiao shen, 調神). Tiao in Chinese is constructed from two words, "言" (yan, means speaking or talking) and "周" (zhou, means round or complete). That means the roundness (i.e., harmony) or the completeness is accomplished by negotiation. Like an out of tune in piano, you must adjust it and make it harmonize with others. This implies that when you are regulating one of the above five processes, you must also coordinate and harmonize the other four regulating elements.

Regulating the body includes understanding how to find and build the root of the body, as well as the root of the individual forms you are practicing. To build a firm root, you must know how to keep your center, how to balance your body, and most important of all, how to relax so that the qi can flow.

To regulate your breathing, you must learn how to breathe so that your respiration and your mind mutually correspond and cooperate. When you breathe this way, your mind can attain peace more quickly, and therefore concentrate more easily on leading the qi.

Regulating the mind involves learning how to keep your mind calm, peaceful, and centered so that you can judge situations objectively and lead qi to the desired places. The mind is the main key to success in qigong practice.

Regulating the qi is one of the ultimate goals of qigong practice. In order to regulate your qi effectively you must first have regulated your body, breathing, and mind. Only then will your mind be clear enough to sense how the qi is distributed in your body and understand how to adjust it.

For Buddhist and Daoist priests who seek enlightenment or Buddhahood, regulating the spirit (shen) is the final goal of qigong. This enables them to maintain a neutral, objective perspective of life, and this perspective is the eternal life of the Buddha. The average qigong practitioner has lower goals. He raises his spirit in order to increase his concentration and enhance his vitality. This makes it possible for him to lead qi effectively throughout his entire body so that it carries out the managing and guarding duties. This maintains health and slows the aging process.

If you understand these few things you can quickly enter into the field of qigong. Without all of these important elements, your training will be ineffective and your time will be wasted.

Before you start training, you must first understand that all of the training originates in your mind. You must have a clear idea of what you are doing, and your mind must be calm, centered, and balanced. This also implies that your feeling, sensing, and judgment must be objective and accurate. This requires emotional balance and a clear mind. This takes a lot of hard work, but once you have reached this level you will have built the root of your physical training, and your yi (mind) can lead your qi throughout your physical body.

Regulating the Body (Tiao Shen, 調身)

When you learn any qigong, either moving or still, the first step is to learn the correct postures or movements. After you have learned the postures and movements, learn how to improve them until you can perform the forms accurately. Then you start to regulate your body until it has reached the stage that could provide the best condition for the qi to build up or to circulate.

In still qigong practice or soft qigong movement, this means to adjust your body until it is in the most comfortable and relaxed state. This implies that your body must be centered and balanced. If it is not, you will be tense and uneasy, and this will affect the judgment of your yi and the circulation of your qi. In Chinese medical society it is said: “[When] shape [body’s posture] is not correct, then the qi will not be smooth. [When] the qi is not smooth, the yi [wisdom mind] will not be peaceful. [When] the yi is not peaceful, then the qi is disordered." You should understand that the relaxation of your body originates with your yi. Therefore, before you can relax your body, you must first relax or regulate your mind (yi). This is called "shen xin ping heng," (身心平衡) which means "body and heart [i.e., mind] balanced." The body and the mind are mutually related. A relaxed and balanced body helps your yi to relax and concentrate. When your yi is at peace and can judge things accurately, your body will be relaxed, balanced, centered, and rooted. Only when you are rooted can you raise up your spirit of vitality.


Three Levels of Qigong Relaxation

Relaxation is one of the major keys to success in qigong. You should remember that only when you are relaxed will all your qi channels be open. In order to be relaxed, your yi must first be relaxed and calm. When the yi coordinates with your breathing, your body can relax.

In qigong practice there are three levels of relaxation. The first level is the external physical relaxation, or postural relaxation. This is a very superficial level, and almost anyone can reach it. It consists of adopting a comfortable stance and avoiding unnecessary strain in how you stand and move. The second level is the relaxation of the muscles and tendons. To do this your yi must be directed deep into the muscles and tendons. This relaxation will help open your qi channels, and will allow the qi to sink and accumulate in the dan tian.

The final stage is the relaxation that reaches the internal organs and the bone marrow. Remember, only if you can relax deep into your body will your mind be able to lead the qi there. Only at this stage will the qi be able to reach everywhere. Then you will feel –transparent—as if your whole body had disappeared. If you can reach this level of relaxation, you can communicate with your organs and use qigong to adjust or regulate the qi disorders that are giving you problems. You will also be able to protect your organs more effectively, and therefore slow down their degeneration.

Rooting

In all qigong practice it is very important to be rooted. Being rooted means to be stable and in firm contact with the ground. If you want to push a car you have to be rooted; the force you exert into the car needs to be balanced by the force into the ground. If you are not rooted, when you push the car you will only push yourself away and not move the car. Your root is made up of your body's sinking, centering, and balance.

Before you can develop your root, you must first relax and let your body "settle." As you relax, the tension in the various parts of your body will dissolve, and you will find a comfortable way to stand. You will stop fighting the ground to keep your body up and will learn to rely on your body's structure to support itself. This lets the muscles relax even more. Since your body isn't struggling to stand up, your yi won't be pushing upward, and your body, mind, and qi will all be able to sink. If you let dirty water sit quietly, the impurities will gradually settle to the bottom, leaving the water above it clear. In the same way, if you relax your body enough to let it settle, your qi will sink to your dan tian and the bubbling wells (yongquan, K-1, 湧泉) in your feet and your mind will become clear. Then you can begin to develop your root.

To root your body you must imitate a tree and grow an invisible root under your feet. This will give you a firm root to keep you stable in your training. Your root must be wide as well as deep. Naturally, your yi must grow first because it is the yi that leads the qi. Your yi must be able to lead the qi to your feet and be able to communicate with the ground. Only when your yi can communicate with the ground will your qi be able to grow beyond your feet and enter the ground to build the root. The bubbling well cavity is the gate that enables your qi to communicate with the ground.

After you have gained your root, you must learn how to keep your center. A stable center will make your qi develop evenly and uniformly. If you lose this center, your qi will not be led evenly. In order to keep your body centered, you must first center your yi and then match your body to it. Only under these conditions will the qigong forms you practice have their root. Your mental and physical centers are the keys that enable you to lead your qi beyond your body.

Balance is the product of rooting and centering. Balance includes balancing the qi and the physical body. It does not matter which aspect of balance you are dealing with; first, you must balance your yi, and only then can you balance your qi and your physical body.

Qigong has always been an important part of Chinese martial arts training. Without qigong training, a martial artist will have lost the origin of martial power, and what he or she uses will be only muscular power. This will make Chinese martial arts no different from the Western fighting arts. The most unique elements of Chinese martial arts are in qigong training and the buildup of internal energy (i.e., qi). From this, you will begin to understand the way of your life more deeply.

Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming, is a renowned author and teacher of Chinese martial arts and Qigong. Born in Taiwan, he has trained and taught Taijiquan, Qigong and Chinese martial arts for over forty-five years. He is the author of over thirty books, and was elected by Inside Kung Fu magazine as one of the 10 people who has "made the greatest impact on martial arts in the past 100 years." Dr. Yang lives in Northern California.

Pranayama and Qigong

Notes from Wikipedia:

Pranayama (Sanskrit: प्राणायाम prāṇāyāma) is a Sanskirt word meaning "extension of the prana or breath" or more accurately, "extension of the life force". The word is composed of two Sanskrit words, Prāna, life force, or vital energy, particularly, the breath, and "āyāma", to extend, draw out, restrain, or control. 

Qigong or chi kung (气功) is the Chinese philosophy and practice of aligning breath, physical activity and awareness for mental, spiritual and corporeal health, as well as the development of human potential. The word is composed of two Chinese characters: qì (氣) and gōng (功). Qì is translated as "breathe", "air", "gas", but can also be used to describe the relationship between matter, energy and spirit. Gong (or kung) usually involves "force" or "power", with success implications like "achievement" and "results".

Prana is a subtle invisible force. It is the life-force that pervades the body. It is the factor that connects the body and the mind. The body and the mind have no direct connection. They are connected through Prana only.

Qi is the invisible force that gives life to all living matter. Only through developing the mind-body connection, can we gain awareness of qi and awaken the spirit.

Three Treasures (San Bao): Essence, Energy, Spirit.

By Jim Roselando, Jr. 

The body is the temple of life. Energy is the force of life.  Spirit is the governor of life.  If one of them goes off balance, all three are damaged. When the spirit takes command, the body naturally follows it, and this arrangement benefits all Three Treasures. Tzu Classic (First Century BC)

***

In the Taoist view, the Three Treasures upon which life depends are essence (jing), energy (qi) and spirit (shen). Essence refers to the physical body of blood and flesh, including all its basic material constituents, particularly the essential fluids such as hormones, enzymes and neurotransmitters.  Energy is the primal life force which suffuses every cell and tissue of the living body and activates its vital functions. Spirit encompasses all aspects of the mind, both human and primordial, including AWARENESS and cognition, thought and feeling, will and intent. Together the Three Treasures (san bao), also known as the Three Marvels (san chee), function as a single unit!  

The alchemy process of Qigong reverses the constant, debilitating depletion of essence, energy, and spirit caused by ordinary life in the material world and transforms it into a process of accretion that preserves the Three Treasures and PROLONGS LIFE!

Some notes from Master Wang XiangZhai:

Although there are many methods of cultivating health, they can be divided into two groups – moving and static exercises. Generally moving exercises are strengthening body and bones and static exercises mostly serve training the zhen qi (true qi) inside body, creating abundance of three treasures (shen, qi, jing). Zhan zhuang is a method of training spirit and body at the same time!

***

Some details from Coach Jim Roselando:

Open/Close: Your body must be in motion at all times. The movement is not noticeable to the outside eye as this is happening ever so slowly with the breathing. As you breathe in the body will delicately OPEN. As you breathe out the body will delicately CLOSE. 

Rise/Sink: In the Yoga arts there is a concept of Mulbund.  The forced pinch of the lower area to close off the bodies pathway. In natural Qigong arts we call this area Hoi Yin with the difference being that the Hoi Yin is not forced closed. As you breathe in the Hoi Yin will SINK and when you breath out the Hoi Yin will RISE.