The Unmistakable Force of Qi

Chronicles of Tao

by Deng Ming-Dao

It was hot in August. Even the dark summer mornings seemed warm on his skin. He stood in the black shadow cast by the pavilion's upper level and made himself absolutely still. he thought of his dan tian, a spot of concentration in his lower abdomen. According to the classics of Taiji, this was the moment analogous to the void that preceded the universe. It was wu wei, Nothingness. He held no thoughts.

The first moment of the universe, when time and energy and matter were all set into motion, was believed to have been trigged by thought. In the same way, he decided to begin. This was volition. There could be no movement without it. He inhaled, and the breath stirred the respiratory of energy in his dan tian, just as the first ray of though that flashed through the void had generated breath.

His arms rose. The energy rushed up his back and out to his hands with a tingling sensation. His fingers filled with blood. breath and blood and consciousness all flowed from his center out, as the universe had first expanded from a single point of infinity. He lowered his arms, bent his knees, and the energy sank back to his dan tian, descended to the bottom of his feet. He established upper and lower, rising and falling, expansion and return. In the movement of two arms, he distinguished yin from yang. All this occurred in the first movement of Tai Chi Chuan. It did not need discourse or philosophical speculation; it taught by doing. It taught on a level that the conscious mind did not acknowledge. 

He began to move his arms and take a variety of stances. Outwardly, the postures seemed similar to other styles of martial arts. After all, the science of footwork and strikes was already well established before Tai Chi had ever been created. It was a relatively young martial art, which had reached the zenith of its form only within the last one hundred years; it was natural that it should resemble other styles. But inwardly, it was much different. 

Other styles had features that were outwardly apparent. This was part of the reason that a fighter like Saihung could observe the patterns of a style and adapt even during the heat of battle. Taiji, however, could only be appreciated by the person doing it. 

So much of its qualities lay within the mysterious arrangement of its movements, the slowness that encouraged healthy circulation, the deep breathing that became automatic when the postures were done correctly. What was hidden in Taiji was the secret that only the practitioners knew: Energy could be circulated in a special easy if one took the trouble to keep certain alignments of the body. 

These alignments were a straight back, rounded shoulders, pelvis tilted upward, head straight, feet firmly planted, and body relaxed. This simple set of concordances set the gates of the body open; and if one had not clogged the pathways of the body by poor diet or indiscreet living, the energy would spontaneously move on its own. The first thought in the first posture set it into motion. Throughout the rest of the movements, it would flow on its own. No ordinary person could see this on the outside, but inside, the practitioner could feel the movement and enjoy the sensation of life force itself. By relaxing and letting go, he gained everything. He love feeling the movement deep beneath his skin.

Here in the process of Taiji was the sensation of life itself. It was no just blood flow. It was not just the simple tingling of nerves. It was the unmistakable feeling that a force was flowing like at tide throughout the body. Not only did this force leave one feeling fresh, alert, and renewed, but it also responded to consciousness. 

The quality that made him a living human being was not simple energy like electricity from a socket. It was something more subtle, more complex. It would respond to his thoughts, and it could be disrupted by his thoughts. That was why there was meditation. The more focused one's thinking was, the more one could direct and learn from the forces within.

When the energy flowed, the channels were purified, the organs were regulated, and the subtle channels of the nervous system were cleansed. Consciousness had set the universe in motion. The motion in Taiji did the opposite. It could affect the consciousness of the individual. Both sides of the body were moving, the eyes were following the hands, the spine was continuously being rotated and stimulated, and it was inevitable that both sides of the brain would be opened at the same time. All of this happened through the gentle movements of a set of more than on hundred postures. 

Uniting the Three into One

The Chronicles of Tao

By Deng Ming-Dao

The poor temple room was a simple cell. Whitewashed walls had been so worn by time, so abraded by dust, and milky layers that they ceased to be dirty or coarse. They had acquired a patina of antiquity. A distant bell sounded and a faint scent of sandalwood lingered far in the background like ancestral memory. The atmosphere was dense in its stillness. Quietude was a heavy, palpable presence. Serenity had pooled deeply within the confines of the temple and he submerged himself in it. He sank to its very depths and came to rest in a perfect pyramidal posture.

Perhaps this was what it was like to drown; to feel the liquid invade your nose, your mouth, every aperture down to your pores and soak to your bones in a few seconds time. Only here, he breathed in the temple air, heavy enough to feel liquid. He became a rock. A large stone icon at the bottom of a sea of tranquillity.

Outside became inside. Inside became indistinguishable from outside. Nothing existed save the world of his meditation. Was time the cycle of the universe, or merely the measured cadence of his energy moving up his spine? He felt it was true when his masters had told him that the body was a microcosm of the universe. Wasn't he now the universe?

In the first darkness, it was his thought that created a thousand suns, a hundred galaxies. It was his breath that set the cosmos whirling. His universe evolved into five elements, the ten thousand things. He could hear his body's functions. He could listen to his nerves firing and even detect the subtle electrical flows. He could smell different smells, some fragrant, some putrid, as they rose from the complex worlds of his organs. He could taste the flows of liquids and gases. The universe was not a mechanism. It couldn't be compared to the pathetic inventions of puny men. It wasn't an organism. It was eternal. It wasn't a divine being. It embraced both thought and nonthought, being and nonbeing. All those definitions and metaphors had to be inverted. The universe was of an infinite magnitude. He was a microcosm of the universe.

The masters said the world was illusion. By simple logic, if a human being was a microcosm of the external world, he also was illusion, a phantasm imagining himself to exist in a nonexistent reality. He understood that meditation was not merely a state, but a vehicle to understanding. Existing or nonexisting, he commanded the forces inside him, concentrated them, directed them to one point. Illusion nevertheless had substance. He would pierce the veil to find the answer to his question.

The flow of his breath rose in his body, and he felt warm. He concentrated deeply, inhaling deeply. His mind seemed to dive deep into his body, down to its base, stirring the sexual fluids. Conserved by a lifetime of celibacy, trained since childhood in meditation, it was easy to stir his basic chemistry. He unified semen, breath, and spirit - what the Taoists called "Uniting the Three into One," and directed the resulting essence upward like a flow of liquid light. The brilliance ascended to his skull.

His meditation was succeeding. He quickly realized that the ascension of energy meant that he was similarly rising toward the spiritual heights. The movement of energy was perfectly precise. He felt his psychic centers opening, whirling. Saihung felt great power.

All the abilities of his masters, which had seemed so unattainable before, now seemed within his grasp. In fact, they seemed absurdly simple. They were as easy to grasp as toys were for a child. He was ecstatic. But in that moment he understood that, even then, pride and ego had leapt up. By reveling in the power, he knew that temptation loomed all the more strongly. Balanced at the top of that slender shaft of high-voltage human energy, Saihung finally understood how easy it was to topple off.

The brilliance grew like a sun condensed, contained, but now bursting and burning. Flowing. Here was the golden light streaming through the Mysterious Portal. Here was the blinding stream of infinity. He felt a hesitation. A great inner tension. He knew these feelings were the "guardians." It was his self objecting to its imminent negation. He wanted to go, but something held him back. The light flickered.

Saihung saw the light again, flooding through the portal. It built in power. All he had to do was give in. All he had to do was let the light take his being over. He paused only a moment this time, and then plunged into the rising radiance.

He felt a brief but powerful sensation, like being torn by a great explosion. And then he felt nothing. There was no longer a he to feel. There was only golden light and the trace of his surrender.

The Joy of Meditation

Monday Qigong: February 6, 2012
10 min gathering qi
10 min turning cow
10 min cow post (#5)
10 min natural post (#1)
5 min left strength testing (shi li)
5 min right strength testing (shi li)
5 min moving zhuang (#1)
seal/wash
*link to 8 zhuangs
    

The Chronicles of Tao
by Deng Ming-Dao

     Six months of practice had elapsed, and Saihung, writing in his diary, tried continually to assess his experiences. He now genuinely enjoyed meditation. He laughed in amusement. Huashan had trained him for a decade before he had reached that point. Now, the serenity, the joy, the feeling of absolute health, and the thrill of learning had literally become addicting. There was no boredom. Meditation had made him sensitive. Far from missing human beings, he relished the solitude. His senses and feelings had become so sharpened that there was more than enough stimulation. Art and music were diversion enough. Self-discovery was learning enough. And his unusual experiences, real or visionary, were wondrous enough. In the months ahead, he experienced events so powerful that the question became more and more indistinct. No matter where the source of reality lay, he knew that it could affect him physically, mentally, and spiritually.