Qigong: meditationand mindfulness


The Twelve Lunar Cycle meditation postures.

The Way of Meditation in Qigong is remaining mindful and being constantly aware of the environment and our interaction with it.
For example:
Taoist meditation In the Third Lunar Month of Spring Rain, the Taoist will enhance her/is Liver Qi/energy by raising the right arm and stroking the liver.  For the Third month is the beginning of Spring, the moment when liver Qi becomes abundant in our body.
This typical representation of Taoist meditation depicts the correspondence between the small universe of a human being and the larger universe of the heavens.
By aligning the two, the Micro with the Macro, the Taoist achieves a deep sense of unity between the illusion of the physical self and the reality of the foundation of all beings which is immortal, beyond our human constraints of time and space.

Taoist meditation involves an open awareness rather than concentration.  Much misinformation has been propagated about Taoist meditation.The following is a "do and don't" list to help guide you in your practice.

Do:

  1. Let your breathing be natural, with no partial closing of the wind pipe, the esophagus or the larynx.
  2. All joints of the body should remain in a slight state of supple motion rather than being locked.
  3. Let awareness permeate every single pore of your body like mercury.
  4. Gather in consciousness, the spirit, Shen.
  5. Let the Qi circulate outward.
  6. Let the external Qi filter into the body through the pores of the skin.


Don't
  1. Do not try to fix your awareness on any part of the body.  This will cause unusual symptoms and stagnation of Qi.
  2. For women it is especially harmful to fix your awareness on the lower Dan Tien, just below your navel.  If you want to place your awareness on a body part, for women it is better to place it on the space of the solar plexus, the Alter Point.
  3. Do not try to direct your Qi flow consciously, let it flow out and let your awareness follow the Qi.
  4. Do not try to imagine fire or movement anywhere within your body.
  5. When you have been doing seated meditation, make sure you get up slowly when you finish.


In conclusion:
Remember: live life as it is. The suchness of life is utterly complete.  Meditate with this sense of completeness and you will put away your begging bowl.  Taoist practices have a long history of abuse and harm.  Keep in mind that the early materialist alchemical Taoists who ingested mercury literally hoping to achieve immortality actually killed themselves at a young age.  Many of the emperors of China died from alchemical poisoning.  It is due to these deaths that the later Taoist movement of organic alchemy was established.

Forget about hard and subtle Taoist texts; begin by reading the Tao Te Ching first and foremost.  The Tao is in all that is natural.  So many beginning students try the complex and ignore the simple.  Starting with just yourself is enough.
 
 

by Sat Chuen Hon
April 1, 1999
 

 Back to home page