On Living

My Blog moving While I am in China

2009-12-28T23:00:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,
I will be flying to China tomorrow, and still haven't found the "perfect" way to continue this blog from China. So I will try two ways, and see which may work better.
I have started a google discussion group which I like even more because then it's a dialogue between all of us. The address is: http://groups.google.com/group/heart-centered-image-therapy?hl=en
Please email me and let me know if you would like to join us.

Another option is a Chinese site, which all of the manuvering unfortunately are in Chinese. If the google discussion site is not available to me in China, I will utilize this Chinese site to continue my writings on traditional Chinese medicine and my practice. The address is: http://blog.sina.com.cn/claireg

Either way I hope to continue to share this journey with you in the new year.

May the new year bring peace, joy and light to you all,
Claire Johnson

Another Confirmation of Direct Experience

2009-12-01T02:54:00.000-08:00

I had a client recently who seemed to have the perfect life. I saw her a year ago and she still believed that her childhood was perfect, and her parents were perfect. This year things fell apart for her. Both her children got into trouble, and she began to re-examine her life, little by little. When I scanned her, I didn’t know any of these.

First instead of seeing her aura bubble, I saw her energy all going downward, shaping like a pyramid. That was a first for me and made a strong impression. I saw her liver energy all suppressed downward, although a tiny bit were like pins, trying hard to rise. I asked her to face down which was also not how I usually treated the liver and gall bladder. There was a point in the back of her liver that was not on any chart that looked very blocked. I woke the point up with softness, and she was already crying. Then the energy jumped up to underneath her armpit. Another surprise, I thought, there is no channel that went this way. I followed what I saw and worked on the point under her armpit. The thought that came to my head was “self hate.” I relaid the information to her, and she said how she felt that her father never approved who she was. I see. It was a good session, but the intensity of emotional release was still scary to the client. She decided not to come back this time and waited for next year to continue this work.

The story continued with me. One day during the Thanksgiving holiday, I felt a painful point on my back that was familiar from collage days. It was so annoying that I asked my dad to help me. When he needled it, I almost jumped off of the table! My right arm swang up without my control. The qi sensation was so strong I had to breathe deeply to keep the needle in. Then I noticed a point below my armpit started hurting. Another needle there may be of relief, I thought, but I was still having to breathe so hard to get used to the other one, I chickened out. A bit later I also felt a pain in my elbow. Why is that? I kept on asking myself.

Things didn’t dawn on me until I was brushing my teeth absent mindedly. All of a sudden a light came on. I was just reading my current favorite Chinese medicine book in Chinese, and the author talked about how for women, the small intestine channel is very important. Suppressed anger is vented through the small intestine channel, and especially for menopausal women, there may be very painful points along this channel. So massaging, pounding and scrapping along this channel help women release old, piled up suppressed anger.
Aha, again experience made sense of knowledge. Again the scanning was able to pin pointed the necessary healing at that specific time. How nature works, how our bodies work continue to fascinate me.

Continuing from Previous Writing

2009-11-29T15:11:00.001-08:00

Knowledge is dialectic. It can always make sense simply by shifting the circumstance. Knowledge can be used well when combined with one’s intuition that may come from extensive practical experience. Knowledge is endless, and too much can become tiring. Our scanning abilities are before duality. It may simply be an image. It just is in the moment, not depending on the past or future circumstances. Using our abilities and intuition in life energize us, and furthur expands our capacity. Knowledge can be used as a communication tool after but not before we have checked with our abilities.

Trusting Our Scanning Abilities

2009-11-29T00:54:00.000-08:00

Here is another reminder of trusting our scanning abilities versus what our mind currently know. I have been working a lot with the spine lately in my healing work. As it is our back bone, it literally tells us how we are standing up for who we are, and how we are giving our power away. Different vertibraes signifies different psychological patterns of giving away our own power. Releases in physical and energy blockages unleash psychological patterns we have been holding in our bodies, perhaps since childhood, or perhaps in many life times.

An Image Therapy student asked me if I also work with points along the bladder channels. I said yes, since they hold gates to the organs. Yet there is something else I didn’t know how to explain at the time, because I actually used points an inch from each side of the spine more than the bladder points. My hands feel their blockage, and my third eye sees stored information in them. Yet they are not on any acupuncture charts.

Then my father told me about the Hua Tuo Jia Ji Points that he uses often that treated everything. Oh, I said to myself, so these points do exist to others, not just me. So again trusting my scanning abilities served us practically versus just following the knowledge I had at the time. It’s always good to get these little reminders from time to time. It’s impossible for us to know all the existing knowledge. But it is possible for us to feel and see the thousands, perhaps millions of energy points in the body.

Heart Medicine Part I

2009-11-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

Most Chinese words consist of two characters, therefore there are always two meanings contained in one word. For example the word illness is “ji bing.” The character “ji” implies an arrow shooting at us from the outside, such as coldness, dampness or viruses and bacteria. The character “bing” implies heart fire, which explains why an arrow from the outside could stay within us, and turn into chronic illnesses. Our heart fire could be caused by an imbalance in our emotions such as excessive worries, unexpressed anger, hidden fears, prolonged grief, over fatigue, unprocessed and repeated shocks, long term stress, or even on going adrenoline rushes. These emotions create weakness in our body that invites external enemies to stay. This is why in the ancient medical books, they say all illnesses arise from the heart and can be healed from the heart.
In the Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic, it states obsessive thinking knots our vital energy, anger raises our energy up (into the chest and head), fear brings our energy down, shock makes the energy irratic, happiness slows down energy, grief decipates energy.” Normally energy would naturally flow throughout the body, making our blood flow and the organs function. If we chronically suppress qi flow or habitually make it move a certain way, soon we invite unwellness. For example when people chronically suppress their anger, they tend to have hot heads, maybe pain and dizziness, also heart burns and chestache. People who are chronically fearful may experience heaviness in their legs, even water retention in the leg and feet. When qi always go into one area, it would at first create excessive pressure and pain in that area, which turns into internal “fire” (i.e. energy fighting with the blockage trying to get through). If fighting goes on for long enough, qi and blood slow down and stagnate in that area, becoming cool and congealed. Blood in that area would come out dark and unhealthy. The area would easily be painful and bruised. In this case we would need to wake this area up physically and energetically, and help release the initial pent up emotions to complete the healing.
One of my client once said, “I thought I was being kind to my legs and feet by not touching them because they hurt so much. My mind was trying to avoid paying attention to the painful areas. But the evidence shows differently, doesn’t it?” Long term avoidance turns pain into numbness, and thus chronic stagnation that slowly clogs up the organs energetically, physically and emotionally. Another student told me after attending two consecutive weekend workshops that she was amazed, by simply pressing into a chronically painful spot, breathing into it and paying deep attention, the pain decipates. Two weeks after the workshops she was still off of her pain medication and doing well.
In our daily lives, if we can let our qi flow smoothly, expressing our emotions in healthy ways in a timely manner, illnesses may only pass through us and never stay. When our energy has become strong through qigong practice and natural eating habits, the arrows would not even be able to go through anymore. (To be continued...)

Thoughts

2009-11-02T20:55:00.001-08:00

Enthusiasm is an external façade. Faith is the inner drive. A steady peace and joy come with the inner faith. Unwavering faith brings about focused, clear intent and perseverance, not burst of enthusiasm in different directions. Enthusiasm may bring extreme actions that could hurt us whereas faith keeps us taking each step firmly, trustingly and joyously. We feel increasingly grounded and well.

Conquering Fear with Joy

2009-10-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

It was amazing fears were coming up. Before going to bed I was wondering to myself, why am I attracted to a Mongolian? I myself am already split between China and the US. Whenever I am in China, I miss the greenery, the clean air, the spaceousness in nature, and the curteous attitude, the deep, individually inquisitive spirituality of the Americans; whenever I am in the US, I miss the wonderful array of foods, the abundance of different kinds of fresh, in season greens, the richness of tastes from different provinces, the warm connection of the ordinary people in China and the long history of wellness, spirituality and wisdom. My fear was, am I getting more unstable by marrying a Mongolian?

Then it donged on me, I am of both places. I couldn’t just be in one place for the rest of my life. My life is fabulously rich because I am of both places, and I enjoy going back and forth! So it’s perfect that I am marrying someone who would also enjoy going back and forth with me. I am of China and the US. He is of Mongolia and China. Together we are of all three places. We are not less. We are more. Our children will be more. And since our hearts are happy together, our home is with our hearts. So I might as well feel right at home migrating through our three homes! Voila! Spontaneous explosion of joy blows out the fear yet again. Always, always remember joy and gratitude in each of my steps.

(In the five element theory of TCM, fire of the heart system controls and regulates water of the kidney system. When the heart fire is constantly vibrant, it can turn excess water into steam. But if we seek out adrenoline joy rides, ridinng on the ups and downs of the heart, we can burn up rest of the water, and deplete our kidneys and our energy. Again it’s about finding our personal balance in specific times.)

Back in the US--Back to Posting!

2009-10-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,
I am finally back in the States, and eager to put more writings onto my blog. China had blocked many western sites such as youtube, facebook and google blog. This was why all of a sudden I couldn’t post any new writings anymore. That is something to be thankful for living in the North America. In the future I will find a Chinese site to host my blog so I can continue my conversations with all of you.

Thank you all for your patience. Your feedbacks are precious to me, so please leave your words! It’s good to be back!

Preventing Lung Cancer Two Years Ahead

2009-05-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

Western medicine believes lung cancer has no early symptoms. It’s not so with TCM. First of all, when qi and blood flows in the lung channels from three to five in the morning, this is the time early symptoms show. Some people would naturally wake up during this time and cannot fall back to asleep until five am. If this continues for about a year, these people would start coughing, and have phlegm that is light white with bubbles. Even though this already is the early stage of lung cancer, western medicine would not be able to diagnose yet, and could only give the patients antibiotics. The symptoms would have to go on for yet another year before western medicine could be sure. Therefore on average TCM can diagnose lung cancer two years before western medicine.

If you go to a TCM doctor when you consistently start to wake up around three am, disease can easily be prevented. The TCM doctor doesn’t even have to use herbs but only use acupuncture needles on the yu2ji4 point (LU10) on the lung channels, symptom would be gone. This is also for acupuncturists because many may not know such simple and effective way of treatment.

Lung Channel—the channel easiest to get hurt

2009-05-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

When people wake up at night between three and five am often, one should consider if there is a problem with the lungs because this is the lung time. If someone feels hot and sweaty around this time and feels cold during the daytime, it means the external cold wind bonds up his/her exterior, while there is excess heart fire that is being contained by the cold layer. This case is called “ice encasing fire.” It is caused by lung qi deficiency, not having enough power to help heart fire go outward to get rid of the cold on the surface. Only when it’s the lung hour does it have enough power to sweat it out. Going with the flow of what the lungs are trying hard to do, just using one dose of the herb bu3zhong1yi4qi4tang1 can solve the case.

People usually catch cold and flu when they are upset emotionally but couldn’t express or resolve which causes a qi blockage and thus a low in one’s immune system. Catching a cold could be seen as a challenge that is good because it’s a chance for the body to get rid of toxin, including toxin from the upset emotions. It’s a time to rest up, to sort through stirred up emotions and let them process consciously and subconsciously during rest, and to store up enough qi to push out the cold and toxin through sweating, sneezing and nose running. Therefore it’s good to let the cold run its course, and follow our bodies need in detoxification. To take medication that stops sneezing and nose running may temporarily stop the external symptoms but store up internal toxins in the long run.

We can cure the cold and flu easily and naturally and help along this detox process in several ways. One, intensify the sneezing by inserting thin rolled up tissue paper tip into both nostrils and tickle until they no longer itch, and we no longer have the need to sneeze. This will cause light sweating on the forehead which is a sign that the surface cold is being pushed out by lung qi through the nose.

Two, we can massage several points along the lung channel according to different cold symptoms and point sensitivity. For example, yu2ji4 point (LU10) is effective for asthma. If one could not get enough breath, press the original point of lung channel tai4yuan1 (LU9). Chi3ze2 point (LU5) is best for tonifying the kidneys through lung qi descending into the kidneys. This is effective for people who have excess above and deficiency below which high blood pressure people commonly have. Jing1qu2 point (LU8) treats all kind of coughing. Kong3zui4 (LU6) is especially good for coughing and swollen glands from wind cold. Healing sore throat very effectively is the shao4shang1 point (LU11), by using a three sided needle to release blood from the point, one gets immediate relieve.

Three, if we are coughing without phlegm, we can take herbs such as tong1xuan1li3fei4 to loosen the phlegm from the lungs.

(For healers especially) Studying Chinese medicine is not about memorizing hundreds of points and thousands of formulas. From the famous poems you can see, it is about tasting a tiny cup of water and know the entire river’s flavor, seeing one fallen leaf and understand the fall coolness felt amongst all people. Start with a few points and through using them repeatedly on many people, you will understand many others.

Going Forward

2009-04-21T05:10:00.000-07:00

I really like this inspirng message I read today from "The Universe":

The few who look forward, while always knocking on new doors, no matter how futile it may seem or how insignificant their progress, will carry the many who just keep waiting for things to get better.

And the few will "suddenly" become overnight legends within their families, 'hoods, and countries, while having the most fun, with the most friends, at the most after-parties.
Win/Win, baby -
The Universe

The Quickest Way of Learning TCM and Using it Effectively

2009-04-21T04:54:00.000-07:00

If you want to learn TCM in a way where you can use right away, and get results right away, the best path is to learn about the channels. There are twelve main channels connecting to organs, and many sub channels. They form a web that covers the entire human being, from the core to skin and hair. Whenever an organ has problems, it manifests on the web as if lights light up. Correlating points will have discomfort, for example pain, soreness or numbness. But there are more than three hundred sixty points altogethers. Memorizing them seems a daunting task. Actually to resolve common illnesses, just knowing twenty some points can be amazingly effective.

For example on the stomach channel there are four points often used. For acute stomachache and chronic stomachache, massaging the Liang2Qiu1 point (ST34) can stop the pain immediately. If the pain is lower than the stomach more in the small intestine area, massage the xia4ju4xu1 point (ST39). If the pain is above the stomach and below the chest, massage zu2san1li3 (ST36). If it is chronic stomach and intestine pain, massage feng1long2 (ST40).

The important thing is, only when the point is uncomfortable and you massage the point until the discomfort is gone, the treatment is effective. If the point is not sensitive, there could be three reasons. One, you did not correctly locate the point. Two, the illness does not match this point. Three, qi and blood are too weak that it cannot reach this point on the leg. Both the sensation of pain and soreness means the channel is still flowing, but there is stagnation or blockage in this point so the flow is not well. Soreness usually means qi and blood is weak, need tonifying, therefore one cannot use strong force. Pain means there is qi and blood there but is blocked. Qi and blood is trying hard to open the blockage, therefore using stronger force in massage can help this effort.

Learning TCM, it’s best to learn something and be able to use it right away and see results immediately. Because the human body is complex and there are so many points and channels, if you waste your attention on things you don’t understand, you cannot use and wouldn’t understand it. It’s like carrying around a bunch of tools that you don’t know how to use. It’s much more effective to know the few tools you have well. Knowing these few points deeper will help you understand other points later. This is why TCM is best taught through apprenticeship and not in class with books. In a working clinic, you get an intuitive sense of how the environment and season change also is part of the whole picture as well. And you learn how your experienced teacher intuitively use points rather than through known knowledge.

Our Bodies R Us, We R Our Bodies

2009-04-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

When our heart/mind (same character in Chinese) and our body are the same, we are in harmony. When our thoughts and actions match, we are using the least energy to achieve the most. If we act without knowing what we think, how we feel, or we cannot act according to what we think and feel, our energy is fighting and therefore wasted. We would not be able to achieve as much as we can. Therefore balancing and harmonizing our body and heart/mind is the foundation for best usage of our energy, achievement in life, healing illness and being well.

Illnesses reflect one’s believes and one’s life style. We can say our believes and our life style create the kind of environment that is suitable for that specific illness. Our believes and life style construct an ecosystem that manifest the kind of life forms living in it. For example if we cut off a burst gall bladder without changing our thought patterns, our emotions and life style, the same problem would only manifest elsewhere, perhaps even deeper into the next layer in our body, in this case it may be our liver. Whereas if with the help of natural remedies, our blocked energy start to flow again, our emotions start to flow again, our thoughts would naturally change, thus our life style.

It’s like when we wake up completely rested, our energy fully recharged, our body soft and supple, our mind clear and focused, of course then our mood would be good. We are more likely to smile and be helpful to others. Others are likely to return the help. We feel more able to achieve challenging tasks. Thus our self esteem is higher. We may begin to lead a more active and productive life style, and thus happier and more prosperous life, etc.

Energy must flow, in the natural world or in our body. If it stagnates or is blocked, there is disease. We can choose how to let it flow. If we stop the symptoms such as pain or itch through numbing it or cutting off the nerve, the illness will only spread to other areas, organs and go deeper.

When we get a cold, we can get well easily by opening some channels and points and warm up the inside. This way we let our immune system practice. Many western cold medicines harm our blood making system. Using these natural practices make us stronger instead of weaker.

This is true with any kind of illness. If we think of our body as our house, and there are mice invading, but our house cat has gotten lazy and sleeps too much when its natural instinct is to catch mouse. We can either wake up and exercise our cat to let it become healthy and regain its instinct—this is the natural practices that wakes up our energy system and immune system; or we can temporarily train our dog to catch the mice, which is like asking a traditional Chinese doctor’s help to come in with herbs and natural remedies. If the mice are overwhelming the house, we can spray chemicals which is the western medicine approach. This approach may quickly eradicate the mice but our cat may get poisoned and even ourselves. Nature already has ways to get all things in cycles of check and balance.

Our bodies are us. We are our bodies. Our body functions just like our emotions. Sometimes when we are so upset we become like unreasoning children. We yell, we whine and cry. Our bodies, too, when there is a condition that’s not dealt with for a long time, our body may start whining, crying and yelling. If we stop the noise, the problem only goes deeper and more difficult to solve.

When we get ill it’s not the bacteria or virus’ fault. They are like mosquito looking for still water. So who created that still water that attract mosquito? It’s time we take responsibility for our own illness and not blame it on an external source. Only then can we start on the path of self healing.

Releasing Control

2009-04-06T23:34:00.000-07:00

One lesson I have been receiving repeatedly is humbleness—being open to life’s constant changes, listen, let life course through, release any resistance. When something feels hard to “me”, when life is not going “my way,” when what someone says is not what “I want” to hear, when the outcomes are not how “I imaged”, this is when the “I” is called for to release, let go, and change, transform. When I let “what is” courses through me, let it change me, transform me, my ego gives up, my ordinary spirit relaxes. I feel resistance easing in my body, my psyche and my emotions altogether. I feel life as a being, an energy, an awareness that flows, and me, the expressive conduit of the life inside. I feel the web that connects all of us, all events and all life times. I feel the immensity of the oneness, and gratitude for being a speckle on it. Imagine the care of creation it takes so that all of us are eternally unique. All of our lives’ unfolding beauty continues in all directions. The wonders! The magic! Ecstasy shivers through me as I feel the miracle of life, alongside shadows, darkness, sadness and suffering. This is life. It is, simple, in the now.
(This was written last year.)

Exercising

2009-03-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

The five liquids that correspond to our five organ systems are: sweat to heart, tear to liver, saliva to spleen, nasal mucus to lungs, white layer on the tongue to kidney. This white layer comes from our bladder yang which changes jing into qi, bringing kidney qi upward.
The Classic says it is best to exercise the body but not to tiredness because sweat comes from the heart. To have a thin layer of sweat all over the body is good for blood circulation. But to sweat profusely taxes our heart and blood system which depletes blood from other organs and body functions. This kind of exercising is not good for our health.

Spicy Food

2009-03-16T23:21:00.000-07:00

When people are under lots of pressure or their lives are too busy, they tend to crave food with lots of flavor. Too much salt brings out too much of our original qi and depletes us in the long run. Spice help us temporarily melt stagnation in channels but our body may need more and more in time. This is why lightly flavored food, not too salty or spicy, in the long run is best for wellness and longevity.

Nutrition

2009-03-16T23:14:00.000-07:00

To improve nutrition is an individual art. Depending on people’s ability to break down and absorb nutrients, if too much is taken, it not only becomes garbage, it also takes much energy to get rid of this garbage and make these people weaker and possibly sicker than they started. Therefore improving the function of one's organs is just as important as taking nutrition. When one's stomach and spleen function is strong, one can get enough nutrients from the least amount of food, and the simpliest food.

Our Menstrual Cycle Can Heal Us

2009-03-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

March 10, 2009 (In celebration of the International Women’s Day on March 8th)
I finally got it! It’s such a good thing to be a woman, even when we are having our period, even when we are having our menstrual cramps and mode swings. For the first time I understand, wherever I feel pain, my body is telling me there is a blockage. And with the help of the strong flowing of blood each month, I have the opportunity to address these blockages. This could be part of why women tend to live longer than men because our body gives us a monthly check up!
Wherever it hurts, press the points, massage the areas and pound on the achy lines down the legs. It’s likely for many of us that these points and lines are on the liver and gall bladder channels. As soon as they are open, we’d feel a rush of electricity or cold qi run down the channels and out of our feet. Sometime our feet may stay ice cold for a while until all the cold qi the body could push out at this time is gone.
On the emotional end, some of us tend to have outbursts before our blood flows. Some men around us may not appreciate it. But it is precisely these outbursts that show us our suppressed upsets and anger. Like the physical body, these emotional outbursts are also signs that perhaps during the rest of the month we have been blocking, numbing and not dealing with some issues in our lives. Don’t discredit these outbursts as nonsense, rather, treasure this messenger and listen.
We have such wonderful help. If we ignore them, we waste our natural abilities to heal ourselves. Our menstrual cycles are a gift that can help us prevent future diseases such as uterine, ovarian and breast ailments. If we can promptly open our liver and gall bladder channels, we also avoid pent up anger that hurt our liver and destroy our gall bladder.
For many of us, our mind may want to avoid facing pain and doing something to change it because it does not get the body logic. But our body, our heart and soul want it, need it, flourish because of it. We have nature helping us through this process. The pull of the full moon, the push and pull of ocean tides, the pulsation of earth all nurture us women to be fully women. Accepting this natural process, celebrating it allow us to come into our full power as women, and allow the interaction between men and women to be fuller, truer and more profound.

Losing Weight & Gaining Wellness

2009-02-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

I have a number of very good friends who are overweight, and it’s affecting their heart health. This worries me quite a bit since they are all such wonderful people, and I want them to be well, happy and energetic, and be around for a long time. So one of my first priorities on this Chinese Medicine study research is to find ways they could use in regaining wellness and vitality. Here I have translated some very useful information especially with their common symptoms in mind, and hope many can find this process useful.

We gain weight not from absorbing too much nutrients. We gain weight from absorbing garbage that could not be processed out of our body. The more we couldn’t process our food, the more starved our body feels and need more food to get the needed nutrients. The more garbage our body accumulate, the more blockages, and our elimination process weaken more. Because it’s garbage not nutrients we are accumulating, we would gain excess fat instead of getting more energy and stronger. This is why overweight people tend to have less energy and get fatigued faster. The more blockages and stagnation also cause more illnesses. This lessening of function of our organs forms a vicious cycle.
The best way to lose weight is to improve our nutrients absorbing function and get rid of garbage efficiently. The organ that breaks down food and turns it into energy and nutrients is our spleen. Then it stores the energy and nutrients in our muscles. Our muscles act as our storage unit until the organs need the nutrients and energy. But when the spleen functions low, has little or no energy, it half breaks down food or not at all. Then these half or not broken down food becomes garbage that doesn’t move or contribute to the rest of our body. They become excess fat that actually blocks flow and causes illness. Because spleen governs muscles, weak spleen also causes lack of muscle tone.
In order to burn the excess fat, it takes extra nutrients and energy. It’s like a factory full of half done and not assembled products that tie up its cash flow, it takes more labor, energy and cash to sort them through and finish them and move them out. This is why the starvation weight loss technique always rebounds. It burns up existing muscles, and with it stored nutrients and energy so organs get weak. But it doesn’t produce the extra nutrients and energy needed to process the fat. This can weaken and harm our vital organs such as our heart. With it we may experience more loss of muscle tone, skin elasticity and general energy level.
An even worse situation is when people take weight loss medication that increases their metabolism. In this case it is as if not only the half done products are moved out but the factory itself is being sold off cheap as well. It could result in thyroid disorders and heart muscle damages, worst it could even cause kidney failure.
Losing extra weight is a self-healing, caring, loving and joyous process. It should be a process where all or our vital organs work better so we feel well and more energetic. We can start this process by eating food that heals our spleen such as a porridge of three herbal grains: huai2shan1yao4, yi4mi3 and qian4shi2 (all three could be found in common Chinese Medicine stores. This is a great combination meal that can be taken every day for a long time). Avoid any over processed food including rice and bread. We can eat as much energy rich organic food such as beef, lamb, eggs, salt water fish and nuts, and fresh, in season, local vegetables and fruits. Avoid pork, chicken, fresh water fish, any sugary food and cold, refrigerated food and drinks.
If you are the kind of person who loves meat or nuts, sometimes it could be your body’s way of telling you that you are lacking major nutrients. You don’t need to control yourself too much as long as you chew two big hawthorn pills (this can be found in all Chinese herb stores) afterwards to aid the breaking down of the meat so they don’t become more garbage.
With this method you will feel more energetic all the time, your body producing more qi and blood to activate the organ restoration and the garbage cleaning process. At first you may experience a weight gain. Do not be discouraged. This is your body producing more qi and blood to store in your muscles and giving you more muscle tone. Other people may say you look thinner because you are more solid.
This time we can massage and hit a few spleen points on our lower leg to wake up our spleen. The more sensitive the points, the more time and focus we need to give them. It’s good to start with twenty minutes after each meal. With more nutrients absorbed, we will naturally feel our energy shift. Our body would want to move more. This would be the right time to add on more exercise. Depending on each individual’s condition, we can start with gentle exercises such as slow walking and taichi.
To avoid snacking sugar rich processed food, we can carry some Chinese red dates, dried gui4yuan2 (both can be found in all Chinese grocery stores) and some nuts. The two dried fruits both help increase our blood and qi while reducing garbage in our body.
If our elimination process is slow, blocked and weak, we can take two kinds of herbs, one to help cleansing, another to aid our energy and qi during the cleanse, such as shi2 quan2 da4 bu3 wan2 or bu3 zhong1 yi4 qi4. Both can be found at any Chinese herb store. These herbs can increase the power of the cleansing while not hurting our stomach and spleen functions. To keep the out and in process balanced also helps the cycle.

How to Prevent Pimples or Breakouts

2009-02-28T06:54:00.000-08:00

This little bit of information could be useful for so many teens in the west! Indeed some modern ways of living have taken us far from our roots, our natural way of being. This is just another reminder of the draw backs of not using modern technology with ancient wisdom.

Pimples, or breakouts on the forehead and cheeks are usually caused by too much cold in the stomach meridian. Two common reasons causing stomach cold are too much cold drinks or refregerated food and unexpressed or suppressed emotions. Our human body keeps a steady temperature. If we often takes in cold drinks and food, our stomach must produce extra heat to normalize its temperature. This stomach heat would cause more thirst, thus the vicious cycle continues. After a while when there is more and more stomach heat built up, it travels upward in the stomach channels which pass through our face. The pimples are merely external manifestation of an internal imbalance. To stop it from the surface is like telling the messenger bearing the bad news to shut up. Pimples can be cured from treating the stomach channels, by simply massaging or pounding on the channels and points, especially ones that's sensitive. Even in the summer, drinking warm water can from the root cure our thirst, whereas cold water would only increase our thirst.

our Body Structure and Function Determines Our Destiny

2009-02-28T06:46:00.000-08:00

I have started translating some contemporary views on traditional Chinese medicine today in China. I find many of them refreshing, and fit our current needs perfectly. I will start to post some of these translations and my own thoughts from now on. I hope many will benefit from these practical tools for everyday life. Below is a good introduction on traditional Chinese Medicine.

The Yellow Emperor’s Internal Classic suggests that a wise person is one who has control over oneself, one’s own life, one’s own nature, one’s own desire and body. In this world, the human body is the most precise self regulating eco-system, which means it depends on its nature to exists, to be in balance, to harmonize, not depending on any man-made thoughts or objective ideas.
An ancient Chinese saying goes, “Cultivate one self, unify one’s family, oversee one’s nation and then one may bring peace to the world.” Cultivating the self comes before all. In this case, the saying is not talking about our brain but our body. Our body is “smarter” than our brain because the brain thinks therefore there is action; whereas the body does not think yet knows therefore it is of non-action, in Daoist term, “wu wei”.
Our body is a microcosm of the world. To know our body is to know how the world works. To know how to balance our own ecosystem is to know how to keep the macrocosm in balance, in harmony. This is why the Chinese says, “The lowest level doctor heals disease; the middle level doctor heals human being; the highest level doctor heals the nation, the world.”
Everything in the world has changed over hundreds of thousands of years, except human being and its nature. All thoughts and knowledge come from the human being. This is why the Chinese says the highest understanding is to understand the human being. And this understanding comes from the body.
Chinese medicine understands that one’s body not only determines one’s physical state, but one’s emotional, mental and spiritual states also evolve out of one’s body. For example the book “Da Xue” from about twenty three hundred years ago says that the ultimate compassion comes from a heart spirit that is calm and centered. Another popular Chinese idiom says, “The state of ‘Ding’ produces wisdom.” The word “Ding” can be translated as pause, cease, which in meditation practice means when the heart-mind stops, when it ceases churning random thoughts. Chinese medicine says, when one’s liver qi is stagnate, one easily irritates and therefore cannot calm down to finish projects. When one’s kidney qi is weak, one doesn’t have enough brain power to think things through, therefore can fail easily. Even Napoleon was quoted that one’s fate is determined by one’s body structure. Chinese medicine adds that our body structure and function determines our destiny. From this view we can say the highest science is the science of the human body.

Taking Responsibility in Life--“Seven Pounds” with Will Smith

2009-01-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

Some reviews say the movie Seven Pounds with Will Smith has a “graceful, moving revelations at the end.” I beg to differ. The writer of the film makes several assumptions. One, the assumption is doctor knows best. Two, transplant is the answer. Three, killing oneself can be martyrdom. Four, many years of upbringing by parents and loved one plus years of higher education plus a newly gained awareness to serve others is less than seven pounds of organs.

The main character is presumed to be a real person, which feels like an insult to my intelligence because the story cannot possibly be real. In comparison to another well debated movie, “The Curious Benjamin Button,” in which the main character is presumed to be fantasy, I respect the writer’s creative thinking though not perfect, but it provoked thoughts of “what ifs” in me, which is a sign of success for a movie I think. Because the main character played by Will Smith in “Seven Pounds” is so not believable, this is why Smith would shift from one character to another completely different person in seconds, playing an impossible role that is way beyond bipolar.

The Chinese culture renders suicide the most selfish act one can commit. How does one weigh one’s responsibility for his upbringing by parents and so many people’s hard work? One is most inconsiderate of his loved ones and irresponsible to life itself to end his own life. Even Jesus who knew he would die did not end his own life. A life is most precious because we can do so much good with a life on this Earth than any THING we can give. According to Buddhism, when one commit suicide, one is stuck in the middle realm for the rest of his natural life span, only an observer of the trauma his untimely departure has cost to others, but not able to live or change anything. It’s a compulsory time and space for inner observation. In Smith’s case, he’d have lots of time to think over whether seven pounds of organs is the most he could give to this world.

Psychologically when one wants to commit suicide, he is hopeless that there is anything more for him in life, sunk in darkness, shrinking away from living life and detaching from connecting with others. When Smith cannot forgive himself for killing many people, he would be incapable of forgiving others and therefore cannot be capable of giving to others, reaching out and connecting to others. When he cannot recognize the goodness in himself, how could he recognize goodness in others? When he is hopeless, how could he offer hope, inspiration and power to live their lives to others? We can see that dark, hopeless, disconnected and tortured expression whenever Smith thoughts of killing himself.

When he was thinking of helping others, his facial and body expressions completely shift to another character, one who is strong, powerful, making things happen, connected to his own feelings and others, able to love himself and others. In reality our thoughts are manifested into our words and actions. Our inside and outside are mirrors for each other. Smith’s character is at odds, conflicted because the story is trying to patch two impossibly opposite characters into one. No wonder the character felt like an extreme split personality to the extent of unbelievable.

Another aspect of the film is the western modern medicine’s myth that one can be instantly saved by a doctor, and one can be magically healed from a transplant. In modern alternative medicine, most of the heart diseases can be healed with nutrition. Some studies show that Congestive Heart Failures can even be caused by blood pressure medication. Whereas in traditional Chinese medicine, even the most debilitating heart diseases from birth can be healed easily and quickly from the subtle energy/emotional realm. Even if one receives a new transplanted heart, if one’s diet and emotions don’t change, the new heart will fail just like the old; whereas if one changes one’s diet and emotions, one does not need to go through a heart surgery or transplant at all.

Indeed it’s the patient’s responsibility to look at his life, how his past has made his present condition. If we go into spirituality, birth defects come from past lives unresolved issues that can be healed now in this life as well. Again we can help ourselves, and we are the only one who can truly change ourselves, not an all-powerful force from the outside of ourselves, like a doctor or a God that lives in heaven.

It’s unfortunate that actors have to portray such unreal characters in such impossible storylines. I hope as we shift into new energy, more movies will be more in touch with people’s lives and hope to inspire people to empower themselves through a process of taking charge, how people makes living responsibly for ourselves, our community and environment a daily practice. Because we could all use reminders from time to time.

Trusting into Safety--Driving through a Blizzard

2008-12-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

Driving through Portland, OR in the blizzard, a stretch of black ice on I-5 made most cars pull over to the shoulder to put on chains. A few were in the ditch and a couple overturned. I didn’t have time to get chains. The car in front of me suddenly started spinning, all the way across three lanes, into the ditch. I stepped hard onto my break. Luckily my anti-lock brake saved me from spinning. None the less rushes of adrenaline made my legs feel weak. I desperately wanted to pull over or even turn around. But the storm was just going to increase from now on, and I only had this small window to get home for Christmas. So I bit down my teeth (a Chinese expression), repeating the mantra “I will get home. I will get home.” Then my back started to straighten without me trying, and my grip on the steering was more stable yet relaxed. I didn’t feel scared and tight anymore. My intent became focused and clear, and my car was steady. It was as if I was driving in the qigong state, a state of relaxed focus, or focused relaxation.

Oh yes, reality is the state of mind. Or more precisely, it’s a state of being, or a coherent energetic shift that aligns the mind with the body. In this sense I determine my own fate, I make my own reality. I am the driver of my life. I have the power to manifest what may or may not happen. Yet it’s more than just me. It’s bigger. When I drive safely, my example can give others encouragement and power. Just like when I follow the red taillight of a steady driver, I feel secure. The snow storm, the fear from accident and my mantra brought me to such a feeling of our fated connection.

On the radio Thomas Murdock was quoted, “When I find perfection in God, God finds perfection in me.” The synchronicity gave me a smile. I am the creator, and the creator is me. I live God’s life, and God lives mine. We are all Gods with infinite potential. Living my life responsibly and to the fullest extent is not just for me but for everyone, and with everyone. The word perfection strikes me as profound. It has a meaning of complete acceptance. Nothing is perfect. Life is not perfect we say, yet everything, everyone is.

When fear strikes, I have a choice to either give into the feeling as if it is the reality, or I can become greater than it, rise above it. How do I be greater than fear? Stiffening up my spine wouldn’t do it. But when I let go, relaxing the tightness from fear, from dissatisfaction, from irritation, I release into peace. That peaceful place of acceptance, accepting who I am and what is. How do I release? It is trust, faith in the great goodness that is. I have felt it in my meditations.

To love is to trust. To accept life as it is, as it unfolds is trust. To relax is trust. To breath deep is trust. To smile is trust. To forgive is trust. To look forward is trust. To look at the positive is trust. To be thankful is trust. To tolerate is trust. To open heart is trust. To continue, to persevere through challenges is trust. To keep on giving my best is trust. To not give up is trust. To see pain and feel pain to its deepest core is trust. And to release the pain from its root is trust. To see perfection is trust.

Trust rests the heart and mind in peace. To be reminded of the divine, I get a sense that I can trust life, fate and my destiny. In fact fate, destiny and individual will intertwine in creation. Fate and destiny may be seen as my creation from an earlier part of the fabric that is my life.

A rare snow storm, challenging driving conditions and my fears, another situation in life for me to practice: release into trust, trust to carry on.

"Come to the edge, he said. They said:
We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said.
They came. He pushed them,
And they flew..."
- Guillaume Apollinaire

What is Dying, What is Living--thoughts after viewing Synecdoche, New York

2008-12-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

To me, a good movie either leaves a strong impression years after, or brings up heated discussion after. Synecdoche, New York definitely brought the second reaction. As our family walked out of the theater, mom noticed one woman who came alone, was walking with such desolation, such loneliness, such sad expression on her face and in her posture, as if the movie was talking about her life. It seems to me that many Americans are resonating with that desperation of loneliness, a just beneath the surface unhappiness, even if their lives on the surface seem perfect, or not bad, even if they had enough money and things.
I noticed at the end of the movie, I had to sit up in my seat, and tell myself, “He (the main character Caden Cotard) got it all wrong. Death is not that bad. Death doesn’t have to be that scary that it ruins one’s life!” But I notice the character did strike a chord in me, and I see from the reviews this movie got that it did with many Americans, whether they strongly liked the film or strongly disliked it. It didn’t do so much with mom. Mom said, Chinese wouldn’t get this movie at all.
To me the superficial layer of influence on this film can be traced to culture, i.e. what’s important culturally, what does living life to the fullest means, what is death, etc. To make some broad comparisons between the US and Chinese views, there is a cynical edge to most American jokes; Chinese usually don’t get these jokes because Chinese jokes tend to be on the earnest side. That cynicism to me has a hopeless flavor in resolving problems. The mainstream American culture is afraid of aging; whereas Chinese traditionally love to brag about how old they are. Americans avoid talking about death generally; Chinese make it a point to talk about death often. In the movie, although Caden talks about he was dying all the time, yet he does not investigate all the way through his health crisis, nor does he take any preventive measures. He talks about it to get attention but don’t want to look at it himself. Instead he gets into new relationships as an escape. The Chinese culture focuses on prevention health-wise, and there are many spiritual teachings in Buddhism and Taoism about death.
A deeper influence on the film may come from family uprising, specifically how one is raised to faces challenges. The older generations either in China or the US had to face severe challenges early on in their lives, having to strive to survive. They had no choice but to persevere. They are survivors which makes them unafraid of challenges later on in their lives. For the generations growing up with plenty of material riches, many of us are shielded from challenges and strivings early on. We have never seen or came into contact with desolation early in our lives. So when we are adults, when we fall down, it’s much harder and scarier for us to get up. This is why we tend to get depressed easily by the smallest difficulties. Sometimes we are so afraid of failure that we actually don’t get up, stop living. This fear of failing seems to be more prevalent now in young adults than earlier because of the material wealth.
The deepest layer of influence on this film is still on the personal level, how one chooses to live. To me the main character Caden was never quite in his own life. He was either regretting the past or having fantasies about the future. He didn’t look into what is wrong now. He didn’t do much about his own health, his fear of dying, or his grief and anger of losing his family. He did not face what’s going on inside him in that moment. He was not alive when the movie started. He was as good as dead, so his life from that point on was fictional, unreal, like a movie, a mental fabrication.
Many of us may have stagnated into non-living at some points in our lives when we got too comfortable gliding across life that we forget what we actually wanted in life. As this under the surface unhappiness permeates our life and builds up, some of us may snap, like Caden’s first wife did. She subconsciously desired some kind of death, so rebirth may happen. This is usually called the dark night of the soul, which is really not a bad thing at all, because we must go through this period to raise from the dead, to be reborn. These people who desired real contact and a more present life would leave the un-present behind, like the wife did with Caden. And he was surrounded by a movie set with other fake, unreal people like himself. Indeed the movie and his life shared a very sad ending.
But I am glad someone showed us, showed me how horrible an unlived life can be. The more I thought about the film, the more it gave me motivation to shift some existing holding patterns in my life, areas where I have been ignoring, numbing or depressing. I think it’s necessary for all of us to be reminded over and over, because when I actually look, I see that not being present is more prevalent and insidious in my own life than I’d like to admit. Just the last couple of days, I notice myself uneasy, constantly having an underlying, quiet but persistent nagging feeling of unease. I know on a mental level that it is about the uncertainties a big change in my life is bringing, about all the loose ends that need to be tied up, about waiting to start a new kind of life in China… so much so that my emotions have been tugged and pulled by the smallest things! Finally while giving someone else advice about how to relax, I got it myself!
I had an “Aha” moment, not on the mental level, but on a gut level, “Oh, this IS my life!” My life doesn’t start a month later. My life is not waiting for me in China. My life does not start when I have time to really sing, really write, which of course, places unnecessary pressure on “really” living. My life does not start until I have my home. My life is right here, among chaos, among other people’s existing lives, among chores, among unfinished businesses. My home is right here, where I can choose to relax, where I can choose to release into my life, living my life right here right now. My life doesn’t start when things are perfect, when things are in order, when I am at where I want to be. My life is not a fantasy of beauty and perfection. My life is where I am now—here. My life is in progress, in the unfolding process, in uncertainties, in change. My life is how I live, this moment. My life is trusting, being at home, relaxing into this moment, into the flow that is life.
For those of us who had to move often as kids, the concept of home may have been an elusive one. It seemed that home was always a continent away, a house away, a partner away, a different kind of, better kind of work away. This time I felt I got it in a tangible sense. My home is where I am, where I relax, where I accept, where I release into actually, fully enjoying this life, MY life, wherever I am, whatever I am doing, however I am being.
My practice is clear to me. It’s a practice I can do anywhere anytime. It is where I am. I make my life, with how I choose to do, to act, to think, to speak right now. It’s about accepting what is right here right now, who I am, what I do, how I do here and now. It’s about accepting life, myself and the imperfections as they are. This is peace, inside and out. And this peace allows me to not only enjoy my life, but also fully tap into who I am, and make absolutely the most out of my life now, and thus creating MY future.
All of these thoughts come right back physically and energetically to our most fundamental practice of Level 1: relax. Aha!

Drop into our Gut, Clear Confusion

2008-06-24T01:49:00.000-07:00

I love my group of people! They have hearts of gold. So generous and their intention with ZYQ so pure. I am proud to claim, these are my people.
--right after our third board meeting.

It also came to me at a point in our meeting that whenever we feel confused or conflicted, we have lost our connection to our gut, our essence, our foundation, the core of what is most important to us. Then it's time to drop the mental fog, and drop down into our dantian, and feel our core truth. This is true for the organization, for any individual's life decisions and for me, very much.

Life extends our internal practice externally. It's just beautiful how life unfolds.

Comparing My Twenties & Thirties

2008-06-22T13:15:00.001-07:00

One great thing about moving is I get to look through old things, old clothes, old photographs and journals. I get to throw out what’s not me anymore, and I get to look back again at what I used to be.

The biggest sigh didn’t come from trying on clothes that don’t fit anymore, and letting go of the style I used to love and feel proud of. It came from looking at photos of me when I was in my late teens and early twenties. I was beautiful and I didn’t know it. Nobody told me in a way that I actually heard it. Somehow the praises went skin deep and didn’t penetrate my deepest core of self confidence.

At that age, anyone is beautiful, just the sheer life force, the youthful exuberance shines through any external clothing or shield. This is probably my drive to want to be a teacher of some sort, because I want to be the one who tell the young people, look them deep into their eyes, so they actually hear me, believe me and let it permeate their core self esteem.

Looking back now I just know, I had boundless potentials then. I could have pursued any path whole heartedly, without giving up early, and succeeded. But I lacked that confidence then. I stopped short of success many times. I never did move to New York, like my youthful heart desired. Of course that is the past. Now that I am in my mid thirties, I have eventually gained my own grounding, and feel more solid inside about myself. I will never regain my youthful shine again, unless I become a Taoist hermit and single mindedly practice the art of age reversal. But that is not my primary goal in life.

Now what I have is experience, knowledge and the confidence to convey them. Imagine when I will be in my mid forties or mid fifties… When I was in my twenties, I never even tried to imagine myself that old. Now it’s doable. It’s actually easier to imagine myself in my fifties or sixties, with peppered hair and a kind smile, saying wise things that make young people stop their activities and think deeply. Let’s imagine I was in my forties or fifties, what would I tell myself in my thirties?

You have lots of energy now to do, to accomplish things with a focus that you didn’t have when you were in your twenties. This is a decade in your life that you can actually complete a project of your own, for example, building a sustainable village, or write a book, or put out a CD of your songs. You are not yet at that place of not needing to do anything which you get when you are in your sixties. You can use your experiences and energy to manifest a worthy goal in this world. So use your experiences and ask yourself, what is a worthy goal for my life? What do I, my authentic self, truly want that can be of contribution to others around me? Let’s drop my martyr self, my altruistic self, because I am not there yet. The “I” still needs to be heard, validated and fulfilled. Then this most authentic desire of the self will naturally come out and others will benefit from it.

Just do. Create. Let God take care of the how. Accept where I am right here right now, and let this self shine in its own way. Let my thirty-something self shine in its own light, create its own miracles and realize its own boundless potential.

Courage Right Next to Me

2008-06-22T01:58:00.000-07:00

Taking a walk on the longest day of the year, the sun is setting in a clear blue sky on a calm blue sea. Light spring breeze kisses trees and blooming flowers gently. There is nothing to worry about, on this beautiful day.

Then I started noticing groups of three, five people walking past me wearing the same T-shirts. They are not strolling. They are walking briskly with a purpose. “Are you going to a gathering at the park?” I asked one of them. “No. We are walking to prevent suicide.” “Oh.” It’s a heavy subject, suicide. We let the conversation end quickly and continued in our opposite directions.

More and more people kept on walking past me. The more people the more I felt the lump in my throat building. I started to look at each of them carefully. I noticed photos of their deceased ones on their T-shirt. All of a sudden I wanted to turn to the side and cry. These people on the t-shirts had already left.

Then I noticed there are usually four or five people wearing shirts with the same photo. The deceased one had left a circle of loved ones. Once I heard someone say that suicide is the most selfish act because it leaves their loved ones with all the grief, sorrow, questions that cannot be answered. My heart turned toward these faces that were walking past me. Many of them looked ordinary, if they didn’t wear the same t-shirts in the group, I wouldn’t have given them a second look. But now I saw something behind those ordinary faces. I could feel layers underneath, the depth of live they have lived through. I wanted to cry even more, not out of sadness but because of their strength, their determination to carry on, to walk on even in the deepest grief, supporting each other walking out of darkness.

So often we walk amongst many people, yet we feel alone in our own life, our own challenges, our self imposed solitude. So often we forget the people walking past us, completely oblivious of their presence. So often we don’t even look into their faces to see that there is life underneath, there is much living, difficult and happy, just underneath the façade. So often we forget that everyone around us has their own story, not necessarily easier than our own. So often we forget that somehow we are connected far beyond what our logical mind could fathom.

How do I live my life being reminded of this today? I am not alone. My decisions do not just affect me. Even when I feel weak, it’s not just me. When I give in to my addictions, it’s not just me. Millions out there are also struggling against addictions, struggling to not give in more, fall more. Millions are trying to choose light, choose to walk out of darkness, choose courage. I can, too, this moment, choose courage.

On Giving

2008-06-15T16:34:00.001-07:00

When someone expects me to give, I don’t feel so driven to give. In fact, sometimes I want to limit my giving. When someone doesn’t expect anything in return, when she is simply offering, serving, I genuinely want to give whatever I could offer. When someone kind of wish I could help her, I don’t feel so inspired to give my help.

When I feel I have enough, I give freely, I am glad to be serving others, and I don’t need anything in return. This is when others would do anything they could to give back. When I don’t count on others giving back, this is ultimate trust. This is ultimate confidence in life. These are the most beautiful people, ones who don’t need love back, don’t need recognition back, don’t need compensation back, because they already have. This is what religions talk about.

Beauty of the Present

2008-06-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

When I commit to what is now, my life energy moves in that clear direction. Confusion, unclearness and indecision stagnates the flow. When I commit to right here right now, magic happens. I experience my life to the fullest, more beauty and love than I could have ever imagined. The present hold more potential than anything in our memories or fantasies. Our present is infinite.

Stopping Time, Expanding Space

2008-06-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

First Draft Feb. 08, Final Draft June 08

He is a rarity. There are only so few of them in any generation. His purpose here is pure, untainted and stronger than anything else. He has one purpose—to sing. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t experienced many things the songs talk about. He sings with the purest emotions that we all have, we all share, grief of loss, anger of unable, despair, hope and love. He may not even know what loving another person means yet. He is only a very innocent twenty. But he feels his love for singing, so he pours it right through every song. He is completely uninhibited when singing because in that moment there is only music in his entire world. Nothing else exists. Nothing else disrupts him. Nothing else matters. His presence is singular. There is no time anymore. We listen and watch in awe because we have stopped in time with him. The pure power of his presence brings us into that single moment.

When he finishes singing, we all sigh with envy. How could he sing with such expansiveness? Where is his power coming from? How come we become focused when listening to him, as if our busy mind has stopped for that time being? How come he is not self conscious when he is singing, as if he’s lost a sense of the self and gained something greater? How come he seems to be in a world of his own when singing, one he reigns with pure confidence, and he brings us all in with him? There is no worries of the past, no fears of the future, no judgments from the others, no comparisons with others, no limitations placed on the self, no contradictions of identities, only one simple, natural doing: singing. The moment is pure. It is contagious.

We wish we could be like him. Because with that wild abandon, that undiluted focus and strong passion, we know we could achieve anything. Yet most of us, myself included, feel our own limitations, our social bondages and the domestication of our true nature. We frequently question our choices, our talent and don’t persist with our passion. We tend to settle for second best because then we don’t “shatter” our dreams. We are afraid of challenging our own potentials. Most of us don’t believe our dreams could actually come true. We have given up too early on, so we settle for safety, comfort and boredom.

Yet deep down all of us always have that connection to our truth, so we gravitate toward someone pure and fearless like him, someone who hasn’t lost his original passion for living. He has become like a hero, an inspiration for us to work hard and go after our heart’s desire. His heartfelt expression breaks us out of our own boredom, our suspended animation that we have been calling life. His fearless voice reminds us of the vividness of life, the beauty of the moment, and the excitement of abandon, and the release into the unknown.

It is no coincidence that just as I began to break out of my own old life, at the beginning of this year, I heard his powerful voice. Previously because of my all consuming attention on work, I considered web surfing a waste of time. When I sought change, I began to expand my horizon with the brethe of online videos. As soon as I listened to a couple of songs, I saw this strange young man wearing a girly bib, playing the piano singing a Chinese pop song that was part deep manly voice, part piercing women’s Chinese opera. The situation was so funny yet the singer sang with such earnesty that brought up my fascination. There was an immediate presence in his focus despite all else going on around him, and this presence transmitted through his relaxed voice a magnetic force that galvanized my attention. Soon I found myself looking up all of his video clips like a teenage maniacal fan. For a while I was embarrassed to admit that I am actually a mature, professional thirty-five year old.

He reminded me that music is universal. He reminded me of that tiny, long ago buried voice in me, a voice thirsts for life, a voice that desire to live authentically, without any of the social baggage I have accumulated with degrees, titles and identities. I craved a life that is natural and free, 不刻意不做作not controlling, not pretending.

His singing acted as a spark awakening my life passion. From the way he wishes for lots of people to hear his music but do not hope or expect, I am reminded to live my life with love, to live each moment genuinely without expectations. Listen to my heart instead of all the voices outside, and go for it, and go for it, and go for it, persevere because I love my path, I love my life, not because I want life to give me something in return. Give my one hundred percent to living in the present. And live on with a smile because I love life.

Finding this singer is no coincidence. I am thankful. This kind of synchronicity makes me feel others’ presence in my life, influencing my life. And I know my choices also affect others’ lives. Indeed we are all one continuous fabric of life, each one’s choice affecting all others. Next time when I choose fear or courage, there is so much more reason to choose to live my most radiant life, to choose to shine my most brilliant beauty, and have the audacity to be the creator of my life in each moment.

Thank you for living your life fully, fearlessly, lovingly, luminously.

Layers of Reality and Our Healing

2007-09-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

2006
Existing knowledge is based on different layers of reality, all of them true to their specific circumstances or limitations. They are true for different consciousness levels, or parameters of that consciousness. The knowledge becomes obsolete when the limitations are gone. Thus is the case with Newtonian physics and quantum physics.
The ultimate reality has no limit, no circumstance, no parameters. To know it one cannot have limits or parameters. The ultimate reality is unspeakable, for language itself is a parameter, a limitation. The ultimate reality can only be known through direct experience, a full perspective view of the universe. We are all innately connected to it at all times. Once in a while when we are truly open, without conception of our worldly knowledge, without being colored by our desires and attachments, we tap into the ultimate reality momentarily, this sheer magnificence, this pure elegance.
Teaching and healing can exist on different layers of reality.
The highest level of teachers and healers operate from the ultimate reality. They do not need any tools for all tools can limit as well. With their own ultimate reality, or the Buddhist call it the Buddha nature, to illuminate another. And they see the Buddha nature in the other. As soon as they see it, the other is enlightened, literally, his/her Buddha nature becomes the reality. This ability to see Buddha nature is called “Tong Shen Ming” in ancient Chinese texts such as the Yellow Emperor’s Classic. It can be translated as probing or penetrating spiritual light. The highest level of teacher and healers see the core of this world, the essence of life. They see through the condition of a person, 360 degree view of the person, his/her true nature. They know the condition of this world. In this level, the boundary between seeing and knowing and being is gone.
It is the reason Mingtang calls this form of healing Image Therapy. We are directly seeing the healthy image in another person thus the image becomes the reality. The image level of vibration is the highest and purest, as far as we know in this realm. The sound level of vibration, resonating, like mantras to create change, create new reality is the next level down from the image. This is the method of healing and practice Mingtang is trying to teach us. It is a practice of cultivating our own inner seeing, inner light until the light is pure and high in vibration so it illuminates all reality and cut through to the ultimate reality. Through “know thy self,” one becomes enlightened. This “know thy self” is not from the mind, the superficial level, or limited psychological levels. It is from the tangible experience of the penetrating spiritual light.

Letting Go Greed, Anger & Ignorance

2007-09-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

2003
In late July mom and I boarded a near empty plane to Beijing. The World Health Organization had just lifted travel bans for China due to SARS. Unlike what we usually do during the fifteen-hour flight—sleep—I stayed up and watched all four movies though not much stayed with me. Mom’s behavior seemed even stranger to me. While she was meditating, she would hit her head with her hand from time to time. I wasn’t just jittery about SARS. I somehow knew there was much waiting for me, and this trip could change my life.
We spent two days indoors in Beijing, getting over jetlag while avoiding the other nineteen million inhabitants of the city. Next came the packed train ride to Lanzhou, twenty-four hours of sharing the same air with seventy other people in a sleeper car. Lanzhou is a city in the sparsely populated region of western China. Immediately after arrival, we rode in a taxi for four more hours on a mountain road with rivers running across it. Being tossed against the roof of our taxi wasn’t as bad as when we got stuck in potholes half its size. But somehow the tiny flimsy car always climbed out of them. We arrived in a pitch-black village on top of the mountain at midnight.
When I woke up the next morning and opened the blinds, my eyes were overwhelmed by gushing greenness. Emerald green mountain ranges embrace endless rows of tender fields. A crimson wall stands in front of the hotel window, decorated with bright, characteristically Tibetan designs. The luxuriant greenness seems to drip with dew, with an infinitely open, high and powdery blue sky as the backdrop—just like what you would see in Tibetan photos. The mountain is on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, 2,500 meters (about 7,500 feet) in elevation.
We met Rinpoche Duoshi at his summer home in the monastery and were invited at stay there. The living situation was far from comfortable. The beds were so hard that we woke up stiff and sore night after night. An all-pervasive dampness compressed all four layers of extra bedding we got into wet, hard, cold lumps. The first week, I wore everything I brought, five layers, and was still cold. During the day, we were followed by swarms of flies, and at night the mosquitoes took their shift—Tibetan Buddhism forbids killing of any creatures. And when the power was out, there was no running water.
Rinpoche Duoshi is the best-known contemporary Tibetan scholar in China. He has translated the most esoteric Tibetan Buddhist texts into modern Chinese language. During the school year he is a professor of Tibetan Buddhist studies at the Lanzhou University. He is often summoned by politicians, CEOs, religious and social organizations for private meetings and public speeches. Every summer the Rinpoche comes to live at the Tiantang Monastery for peace and quiet. Yet he receives several groups of visitors a day, and gives lectures in Tibetan to the more than sixty monks of the monastery.
He is an elderly man in his late sixties, with a close shaven head, smallish eyes and big, slightly tinted glasses. He wears a dark red cardigan that is the same color as monks’ robes. During the Cultural Revolution he was forced to marry—according to the Yellow Sect of Tibetan Buddhism, he may no longer wear a monk’s robe. When he looks at you, his eyes are at times stern and serious, and other times most kind and grandfatherly.
At first I was a bit afraid of him, knowing how he was chosen at age seven to be the re-incarnation of an earlier Rinpoche, then studying and teaching all his life to many thousands. I felt unsettled that someone could predict where, when and into which family he would be reborn, and then as a small child, he would recall things used in his last life. I couldn’t tell if he could read my mind or if he had extraordinary powers. At one point, mom being as direct as she is, actually asked him whether he had extraordinary powers. He said no, and I wanted to believed him. Mom didn’t. She said that in Tibetan Buddhism, one is strongly discouraged from showing special abilities. So I continued to wonder about Rinpoche Duoshi.
Two Cantonese men had been staying at Rinpoche’s home for a few days. During dinner conversations we found out that one of them is the head of his county’s urban planning department, and the other man is the Communist party leader of that department. As party members, they are not allowed to belong to any religious sect. So they had been praying to hidden statues of Buddha for decades. Unlike mom and I, they seemed to be familiar with and follow the rituals of Tibetan Buddhism. Mom never follows rituals. She says that the most important thing is the heart. The two men played their familiar roles as the initiator and the conciliator, all through the days we spent together.
Then there was Little Ding, a computer whiz and head of a small computer distribution company. He had been here three summers in a row, and he played the enthusiastic advisor role to us newbies. Rinpoche appointed Little Ding as his computer advisor. He often asked Little Ding to come up to his office for hours at a time. Rinpoche has always been fond of learning new things.
I agreed to accompany mom on this trip with a clear purpose in mind. I had been feeling that the three miseries of humankind described in Buddhism—greed, anger and ignorance—were indeed the cause of all my unhappiness and the biggest obstacles in my spiritual and personal growth. I wanted to learn practical ways to lessen these characteristics in me.
Mom met Rinpoche Duoshi last year on the tail end of her Tibet tour. She discovered his book at a metro stand, and thought that he was an enlightened being. So she changed her plans and went to meet him. As a result of that meeting, she started to organize a group to study with the Rinpoche. That plan had to be canceled because of SARS. So she and I came by ourselves.
Mom is a scholar and practitioner of Taoism, Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, and Confucianism. She came to the Rinpoche with many questions about the differences and similarities between the three practices, and about her own practice and teaching. She was persistent in getting answers. Though Rinpoche is a well-read scholar of other practices, he evaded her questions. When she wouldn’t settle for a vague answer, he seemed to get a little angry and said that he is within a strict practice tradition. I inferred that he is not allowed to talk about other practices. After a period of silence, the topic changed back to current politics.
People working for and around the Rinpoche are all very formal with him. They offer him tea in his special palm-sized bowl with both hands and head bowed down. They stay attentive throughout the meals so that before the Rinpoche takes his last bite of food, they are already standing beside him with their head bowed, waiting to refill the bowl.
A couple of days before leaving, the elderly woman who served us meals told us proudly that the Rinpoche is her older brother. Then we found out that the younger female cook is also a relative. And the man working on the re-construction of the courtyard wall is Rinpoche’s brother. Rinpoche’s sister was born just a month apart from my mother, yet she looked a generation older.
The assistant manager of the house is a young man nineteen years of age. As one of the Tu minority, he is one of the few monks who have to learn Tibetan from scratch. As he manages the day-to-day operations, he looks so serious that he seems to be in his late twenties. When he was playing badminton in the courtyard with us, he talked animatedly and laughed heartily, trying in vane to hold shut his maroon and yellow monk robe that flies about him, he seemed barely adolescent.
The head administrator of Rinpoche’s house is a thirty-two year old podgy monk named Aka Gadan. He also manages Rinpoche’s bookstore just outside of the Monastery. He always seems unbothered by any event, and chuckled at everything. He is also of the Tu minority, and became a Tibetan monk at age eleven. In his late teens, he walked barefoot across Tibet to India and back. Perhaps this is one of many things that differentiate him from others.
Visitors of the day and the five of us, Little Ding, the two Cantonese men, mom and I, always filled a large round table at mealtime around Rinpoche. When there are few visitors, Aka Gadan and Aka ____ also joined our table. Rinpoche’s relatives almost never did. They formed another table with less number of dishes. Our table was the chatty one. We chatted not only about our practices and philosophies, but a smorgasbord of topics. Heated talk of politics and the world situation often moved from the meal table into the flower filled courtyard. Talks went on for hours until we were summoned for the next meal. On sunny days, our talks were accompanied by trying some of the freshest and tastiest local fruits picked the same day and delicious homemade white yak yogurt, a true delicacy. These are all gifts to the Rinpoche by his daily visitors.
A particular thought stayed with me from these discussions. While discussing world religions, Rinpoche commented that science is a religion, too, with plenty of theories that are not supported by hard data. Because science is not based on compassion, he said, technologies end up hurting humanity and the world more than helping. Without compassion, more technology can mean more suffering.
Rinpoche paid daily attention to his flowers, and they responded with blossoms all summer long. The tall, blue orchids especially were full of blossoms and they became more and more vibrant each day. Everywhere, sunflowers grew from unintentionally dropped seeds. The soil here is not only rich for plants but also for spiritual development. Tiantang Monastery was the largest Tibetan monastery north of the Yellow River at the turn of the century. The Cultural Revolution wiped everything out. Now it’s in a rapid process of re-building, with support from newly rich Chinese business people. But it still isn’t on foreign visitors’ maps yet.
The Tiantang Monastery consists of four temples, two houses for two rinpoches, a house for the head manager of the monastery Aka Zanzhou, and a few dorm-like houses for the sixty monks. All the courtyards are among muddy, uneven paths and overgrown wild flowers. The Tiantang Monastery houses the largest statue of Zonggeba in the world, also the kindest face of a Buddha I have ever seen. Everyday mom and I visited him. He always looked directly into me. My heart quivered every time.
The monastery also has the first and only temple dedicated to Dumu. The temple house huge statues of _____--a monster looking ____ mating with the Dumu. These statues are usually hidden behind curtains in other Monasteries because visitors might misinterpret the posture. The unusual monastery was built last year by a couple who are qigong teachers and business people from Beijing. They have became dedicated to Tibetan Buddhism and to their teacher, Rinpoche Duoshi. The couple also built a vacationing village near the monastery with their own power generators and the only upscale restaurant in town. So they had nice hotel beds, bathrooms and always had power and hot water. Although mom and I were invited to stay there ahead of the trip, staying at the Rinpoche’s house was a chance that cannot be turned down. At the time we lived at the Rinpoche’s house, the wife of the couple was in Biguan—behind closed door—for two weeks, practicing red _____ the entire two weeks. Three meals are delivered into the room. In the past, practitioners usually did Biguan in caves deep in the mountain where there is no human disturbance. The concept of Biguan seems so mysterious to me that I wondered exactly what determined if one is ready. I yearned for the time when I would be ready to Biguan.
On the third day I got a strange headache. I rarely get headaches. This one was so different that I couldn’t tell what was wrong with me. The headache kept on moving from one spot to the next the entire night. I woke up many times whimpering with pain. The next thing I knew someone was knocking on our door very loudly, saying that we were going to climb the Maya Mountain and pay reverence to the holy Buddhist sights. It was six am. My ears were ringing, too. So mom got up and went. I stayed home pouting. The headache and the ringing ears went away hours later. I realized that I wasn’t sick. It was just high altitude reaction. That day seemed to have gone on forever, especially the couple of hours I waited at the dinner table until the slew of climbers finally came back. They kept on talking at a high, excited pitch all through the meal and kept on repeating how I had missed the chance of a lifetime. Was that it? Did I really miss what I came here for? I kept on wondering.
Before bedtime, mom told me in details about the climb. The angle of the climb was mostly at forty-five degrees. A few times, it was more like sixty degrees. On one of these steep and slippery hills, she fell on all fours to stop from rolling down. Her wrist was bloody and stained her sleeve. But the snowy mountains, the water falls, the caves and the lusciously green lakes were all so beautiful and touching that it was worth pain in her muscles and the bad high altitude reaction she got when she came down. The next morning, mom woke me up from my deep sleep, “Look, Claire, look!” The bloody scrape that was vividly on her wrist is nowhere to be found. Her skin looks perfectly smooth. “It must be the miracle mud we brought back from the cave.” When she was collecting the mud, a bit of it was spread on her hands and wrists. “And, I have no muscle pain whatsoever!” Mom was getting so excited that I tried to be the nonchalant one, and said, “Okay. Okay, mom. Fine.”
After about a week, Rinpoche gathered the five of us for the morning, and taught us the Green Tara practice. It seemed all quite straight forward. Rinpoche taught us the practice without much mystery, almost like any kind of exercise, step by step. After Rinpoche finished, the two Cantonese men gave their Gongyang—providings—to Rinpoche as the Rinpoche protested, “You don’t need to be like this, so formal.” Then the two men proceeded to do full body prostrations. As they kept on prostrating right in front of me, the minutes seemed sticky and long, and I was more and more embarrassed, maybe for them, maybe for myself. Then, we were on our own to practice whenever we chose to. When we asked about group practice, Rinpoche simply said, “Just practice in your room.”
We had been here for eleven days now; I still didn’t feel that I believed in Tibetan Buddhism and its practices. Mom’s miracles are hers, not mine. Every morning when mom and I chanted mantras as we turned the wheels, and then went around the temples to pay reverence to the Deities, I still couldn’t bring myself to do the Tibetan full-body prostrations. My body was killing me from all the discomforts. My urges to leave were getting stronger and I felt antsy. That afternoon in Rinpoche’s bookshop I saw a young woman—perhaps in her mid thirties—exchanging Tibetan jewelry and buying an expensive set of beads. Little Ding gave her lots of smiles, and called her his Little Buddhist Sister. That evening at dinner I learned that her name is Ms. Zhang. She lives in Canton. She had donated six hundred thousand yuan to build the Wenshu (Manjushri) Hall and Library. That’s about seventy five thousand dollars. She is thirty-nine. Aka Gadan, head administrator of Rinpoche’s house, invited her to the biggest and best dinner we had had so far at the vacation village, with spicy Sichuanese rabbit dishes and a variety of seafood. After dinner, Rinpoche received her privately in his study.
All this made me feel more and more uncomfortable. I told mom that Ms Zhang seemed successful and very capable to me. She was also definitely the center of attention which made me feel jealous. Mom said she felt it too, but she hit her head to get rid of the idea as soon as it appeared. She told herself to “yu ren tong le”—to be joyful along with others when they are happy. Yes, that is the right way, I said, because she is doing such a good thing. So what she has characteristics that I don’t care for? That’s another matter. I should feel glad and show my gratitude toward her. Then I hit my head too and decided to adopt mom’s method. It’s funny that mom had told me about this method of hers many times before. But this was the time I finally let it in. Right away I felt happy because perhaps this was why I needed to come here, to learn from mom how to get rid of the seed of negative emotions by knocking the beginning of a negative idea out of my head. I was thankful.
To continue to benefit from my newfound modesty, mom taught me how to sit without back support by visualizing the Green Tara and chanting the mantra. I sat on a pillow cross-legged and began the practice. I started by cleansing myself through breath, and as usual I yawned a great deal. As soon as I saw the Green Tara and started chanting, my entire body became instantly quiet, then calm, deeper and deeper. I felt as if there were weights between my hands and on my tongue. They became heavier and heavier as the rest of my body became less and less felt, until all the rest of my body seemed to have disappeared except the two heavy weights like solid iron balls resting on my tongue and in my hands. I saw the Green Tara smile and I felt happy. I saw Rinpoche smile at me, so clearly. I was thankful to Ms. Zhang. I felt really thankful to mom. And I felt thankful to everyone. Then emptiness. Just the mantra and Green Tara. Complete emptiness. Time disappeared. Space disappeared. I disappeared.
I became the Green Tara. My heart expanded. Joy and thankfulness to everyone and everything filled the expanse. Then it changed. Joy melted into immense sadness for everyone and everything. Tears filled my eyes and rolled down my face. Is this the Bodhi heart I hear about? I, the Green Tara, extended my green light to every living being, helping them ease the sadness in their heart and their suffering. I extended my green light, offering to all my teachers and Buddhas, all the two thousand nameless Buddhas who came before Bodhisattva and taught him… In my own body and spirit, I experienced and understood why the Buddhist method is correct and has been the path for many for so long. I gave my thanks to Rinpoche’s teaching. He smiled again, full of benevolence and compassion. All through the sitting, Rinpoche appeared seven or eight times, each time smiling kindly. When the existence of my body came back, I felt that the kinks in my back had eased, and I was sitting straight without effort. My body felt warm and my heart full of love.
The next day I told my experience first to mom then to Rinpoche. I felt that I had learned methods to work on the three miseries of humankind, from a day to day practical method to stop the thoughts before they began, to a meditation practice method to grow my own compassion and feel the connectedness with all. Of course just when I thought I had got it, some thoughts became words and actions before I could jump on them. After briefly feeling defeated, I smiled again. My life is my process. As long as I keep on working on my practice, day after day, there will be gradual results. So this trip didn’t bring me instant enlightenment. I shall be patient.
During the two weeks, there were times when I found myself simply standing there, not thinking, just looking at something, nothing. Plenty of times during the day, mom and I lied in bed fully dressed, covered with a layer of blanket, talking about many things that we haven’t brought up in the past. I couldn’t remember the last time we talked like this—like old friends, equal, without the usual mother-daughter dynamics. It didn’t take much effort to get along. Time slowed down.
Just like any other practice, I also learned the disadvantages of the Tibetan practice from the cramps in my pelvis. I have been only sitting and meditating and completely neglected my movement qigong practices. I also learned that Rinpoche has high blood pressure. So great masters are not necessarily perfect either, and certainly not all achieve longevity, enlightenment and realization. Heart-mind cultivation and body maintenance are both necessary tools for attaining realization in this world.
Time accelerated the last couple of days we were there. I had forgotten or had gotten used to all the inconveniences and discomforts of the remote area. But it was time to go home. Saying goodbye to Rinpoche wasn’t easy because he had become my grandfather in my heart. Soon we were driven to the hand-built, swaying and dilapidating suspension bridge on the edge of the village, walked across, got into a pre-arranged taxi, and two and half hours later mom and I were in Xining. We took the twenty-eight hour train back to Beijing the next day.

Back in Beijing, mom introduced me to Professor Fuyin Chen, a doctor, scientist and qigong master. Professor Chen, his wife, a sociologist, mom and I met in a quiet teahouse one afternoon and began talking about anything and everything. Professor Chen is in his sixties and looks like an ideal scholar with a thin build. He spoke with clarity, precision and an undeniable passion. As wonderful thoughts poured out of his mouth, sparks danced in his eyes. A few simple thoughts stayed firmly in my mind. I asked him what he thought of the quality of compassion in Tibetan Buddhism. Professor Chen began to talk about how we all know how much work it was for our mothers to bring us into this world. Just imagine carrying several pounds of weight for nine months, walking, eating, and sleeping without any break. All her organs are making room for you; her skin is stretched to the limit, the nausea, the need to eat often and go to bathroom often, the change of diet… And finally the pain at birth. How could we not owe our mothers and be thankful always?
What we also forget is that we wouldn’t have the kind of life we lead without other human beings and other living creatures giving us a roof to live under, warmth, food, and all the comforts of modern living. The moment we are born into this world we already owe everything to every living creature before us and around us. How could we not give back? How could we not be serving others?
A question had been on my mind for quite a long time. So I took the opportunity to ask Professor Chen. I had an unresolved question about teachers. In the past, I would find a teacher who is really good at teaching something. A while later I would find qualities that I don’t like so much about the teacher, for example, too rigid, too traditional, or philosophical with no real practice, or lack of compassion or principle, etc. I wondered what to do with these weaknesses I perceived in my teachers. I once read a book by an American Tibetan Buddhist teacher who talked about the Empty Teacher. He said to list all the good qualities and all the weaknesses of your teacher. Then go down the weaknesses list and use it as a mirror for yourself. Whatever you see as a weakness in others resides in you, too. As soon as you have gotten rid of a weakness, you won’t see it in others anymore.
I asked Professor Chen how he sees the search for the right teacher? He smiled. His eyes shone, and said finding the right teacher is not difficult; finding the right practice for you is not difficult; attaining enlightenment is not difficult. It doesn’t even take that long to attain enlightenment. The key and the most difficult step is to go into yourself. Ask yourself what it is that you really want. Clarify, clarify and clarify. Once you are clear about your life goal, you’ll know clearly who your teacher is, and your practice will progress fast as well. Perhaps in two to four years you may attain enlightenment.

Now I am back in the States. People tell me that they see or feel changes in me. “You have this peacefulness in your eyes,” they would say. They ask me what I have learned on my trip. It’s not so easy for me to notice my own progress because I often still find myself in negative thoughts and feeling miserable about something without catching the thought at its bud. The peace in my heart gets disrupted more often than I like—though my heart does seem to return to peace sooner now than it used to. But my awareness is coming in sooner now and it comes from the heart.
Then, day after day I come back to what I’ve written, I fill in more changes I have noticed in myself. Now when I practice qigong, some unfamiliar, deep feelings rise up from my heart. This thankfulness, this connectedness, shows up during many of the exercises that I have been practicing for years. I not only know but I FEEL the big picture. I feel the presence of the living universe. I feel the present moment in my body, in my heart, in my spirit.
When I am teaching, oftentimes tears rise up in my eyes. I feel my heart directly communicating and receiving warmth and compassion with others’ heart. I am thankful and glad that others are on this path, sharing their heart with me. I am thankful that they are coming to class. It’s not so easy to stay on this path in our modern society, everyone working harder than ever, with inhumane schedules and workloads. I am so thankful. There is something that I know I have learned. That is without giving up on the practices I have learned, this progress will continue, step by step.
The summer trip to China was a lamppost on my path. I want to share my experience and learning with you. Perhaps something will click for you sometime down your own path. When that happens, it would add to my joy. I would like to share something I read the day after my return to Seattle, conclusions from recent findings in biology. It summarized what I have learned in a simple, elegant way,
“Think of each organism as an entity that is not really confined within the solid body we see. The visible body just happens to be where the wave function of the organism is most dense. Invisible quantum waves are spreading out from each one of us and permeating into all other organisms. At the same time, each of us has the waves of every other organism entangled within our own make-up…each of us is supported and constituted, ultimately, by all there is in the universe.”
—Mae-Wan Ho, PhD, Reader in Biology at Open University, UK

Claire GuYu Johnson grew up in Beijing, China in a family of qigong, taichi and herbal medicine practitioners. Her playground was among the ancient trees and temples. Through her parents’ Qigong Association of America, she met and studied with a number of Taoist and Buddhist qigong and taichi masters. In 1999, she traveled with Grandmaster Mingtang of ZY Qigong to many cities in Russia, Ukraine, Germany and China, while Mingtang taught seminars and saw patients. In 2000, she set up the first ZY Qigong office in the U.S. in Seattle, WA. Since then, she has been expanding the non-profit organization, teaching classes to practitioners and the general public, seeing clients, and sharing this simple tool for healing and spiritual development with all. She also brings teachers of many different practices to the ZYQ Center so she and her students can learn from different areas and perspectives.

Pilgrimage to an open horizon:
o To see the world from a different point of view,
o To jump out of our daily life and immerse in a different way of life, with different rhythms and cadence.
o To forget the monkey mind and to remember the comprehending heart.
o To receive and to give.
o To communicate with thousands of years of information stored in these dynamic landscapes.
o And to learn from a well designed, time-tested system.

Out of Loneliness

2007-09-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

2002
Woke up feeling that emptiness
Puttered around the house, no connection
Turned on the radio to fill the space, the grey corners of the house

Morning elongates into afternoon
no boundaries
no demarcations of minutes
hours

Dragged out of this void of a house, finally
Shin bumped car door, no pain
Legs rubbed by cat, no feeling

Saturday afternoon
Driving down crowded Queen Anne Ave
Cut off from the actions and flow outside
by this box of metal housing me

Me.
Suddenly, “I” makes itself aware in my chest
A fluttering spirit above finds its way, settles within
A smile creeps up from the “I” onto my face, bright, fast-climbing morning glories

The weight of the body is
The solidness of “I” is
A clear boundary between body and world…is

In one moment
The bigness of the universe is “I”, beyond buildings, cars, the city
A gladness spreads in me
A deep weep from the chest into the vastness of me…

I thank you
For letting me feel that switch in my body
Out of unfeeling out of disconnect out of loneliness.

Simple Lessons from a Tree at Goldmyer

2007-09-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

Oct. 03
I was invited to spend a weekend at the Goldmeir Hot Springs. The five of us arrived Friday evening. Saturday after breakfast, the other four decided to do the eight miles hike up to Snow Lake. I stayed, taking my time wandering amongst the old growth forest. The big trees, more than four arm lengths in girth, beckoned me.
Ten minutes up the trail, I stood in front of one of the largest trees I have seen in this area. It had rooted itself on the bank about four feet above the trail. Its roots were exposed above earth like tangled serpents. A smaller tree grew out of this mass of roots. The uncle tree and the nephew tree seem to have a communicative relationship that keeps both healthy and vibrant. I put my hands on the uncle tree’s coarse bark and felt its masculine energy, stable and calming. When I put my forehead on the tree, I realized that my head and hands were stuck there by tree sap. I laughed out loud, put a drop of the clear sap onto my tongue and enjoyed the clearing fragrance throughout my body.
Trees are more like human beings than most of us think. They have a physical body; they have energy; and they have spirit and soul. They have personalities and character. Each kind of tree has its unique configurations of energy. They get ill from time to time. They get physical injuries like us. They get worms, bacteria and viruses just like us. They learn lessons and grow knots around the injured and ill areas. Once in a while, one gets eliminated by lightning.
I raised my head and saw the biggest knot on the tree. That moment I understood that trees face obstacles just like us. This knot bigger than my two hands testifies to that. The old tree adapted itself to the change and continued to live. I grew up in the Temple of Agriculture in Beijing and played among trees more than three hundred years old. They had so many knots all over that they were easy to climb for a six year old. We all had our own preferred tree as our ”houses,” and invited other kids to be our guests. I didn’t appreciate those gnarly trees then because at night the moonlight made them look grotesque and frightening. Now to me, the knots mean courage to heal and to continue to grow.
We are like trees. Trees are still intrinsically connected with their surroundings. We forget. Trees must give and receive to live. The more they give, the more they receive. Just as they give off oxygen and take carbon dioxide, they give off energy we humans need, and take away unnecessary energy in us. We know that especially well when we practice qigong by trees, or do healing around a plant. The plants get healthier and more vibrant from us sloughing off our “sick” qi. Information in many shapes and forms are exchanged when we calm our running minds and attune to the trees. Every moment of their lives they are constantly connected with earth, sky and their surroundings. We forget. Sometimes we forget for years and generations, until something in us and around us goes terribly wrong. The less we give, the more our happiness diminishes. One day we wake up and ask ourselves, “Why am I alive? Am I needed?” Ask a tree.
Trees cannot hoard. They cannot just get and not give. They don’t have bank accounts. All they have they store in their roots, their trunk and their leaves and branches. Few human beings still have that kind of confidence, trust and faith in the bigger. I remember one autumn afternoon, walking with many thoughts around and in my head, I looked up and was stunned by life. A baby tree with its trunk barely a handful in girth was in flames—its leave in every shade of red: orange red, apricot red, fire red and blood red—the purest and boldest colors of life. Behind it, the sky as if answering to the baby tree, illuminated itself into a transparent blue. The essence of life flashed itself in a moment, like the most touching drama on the stage of life, the moments you can recall to your friends but could never quite catch with words.
The next morning after a night of storm, I walked on the same path again and saw only thin, bare and lonely branches. All the flames have faded onto the ground, though still touchingly red, orange, apricot, fire and blood. The colors are unchanged, but location has changed. The sky behind the bare branches continued to be blue and pure and an expanse of life. Another tree next to the baby tree had just turned a glorious golden yellow, assuming the center of the stage of autumn. I felt my brows furrowing, don’t I remember seeing this tree and that tree last year this time? Yet every time, my sigh joins the earthbound leaves after my exclaim decorates the changing leaves on the tree. The beauty of the leaves last but a year. The beauty of humans last but a few decades. I exclaim and sigh every year with the leaves, while the trees continue living year after year. And what about the sky? It continues being for millions of years, millions of life times. So how can my heart be with the sky? Can my heart understand the expanse of the sky? How does one have the faith and trust of a tree winter after winter? Thoughts went around and around. My head began to ache.
That evening in our Image Therapy healing class where we usually go right into healing related practices, I wanted everyone to practice the Big Tree standing meditation which is more of an individual qigong practice. Students were surprised of the sudden change of curriculum. We stood for half an hour. In one moment of that half an hour, I became an old tree in the winter, with dark, bare branches against a grey sky. An understanding spread through my body. The confidence, the trust, and the faith don’t come from the head, or reasoning. Being connected to the earth and sky, it’s a knowing, a knowing that every tree is born with, a knowing that we are born with, too, but forget. This knowing is found again by a few people who live and wonder on earth, with nothing but their connection to the earth and sky. They have come in touch with the flow of eternity. Taoists call them immortals because they are free from fear, free from disconnect.
I understand now why for years we practice being a tree. It takes time to relax our body so it’s open. It takes time to relax our energy so it’s calm. It takes time to relax our spirit to truly, unjudgingly feel, exchange, and understand. Openness allows one to give and to receive. Pay respect to the tree and the tree will open up. The respect in you will open your body and heart for receiving as well. The oldest trees in the world have been living for four to six thousand years. They live in the White Forest of California. They live in the desert oasis of Africa. They live in the tropical forest of Mexico… These endless wells of living wisdom are here, living with us, and open to us to connect and remember with.

Big Tree Standing Meditation is one of ZY Qigong’s central practices, where one stands as a great big tree, connecting with the Earth and the cosmos. For more information about qigong (ancient Chinese practices with vital life force), visit our website: www.zyqiogng.org

Truly Delicious Practice

2007-09-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

The deliciousness of feeling earth qi entering the feet and body for the first time;
The deliciousness of feeling the mind calming and the relaxed awareness releasing from the brain into the entire body like stardust;
The deliciousness when feeling weightless, formless, nothing and everything;
The deliciousness when the heart opens and quivers as it feels another person’s deep emotions;
The deliciousness when warmth radiates outward from the lower Dantian like a small sun warming the universe of our body;
The deliciousness when I am an ageless, great, Big Tree;
The deliciousness of opening our eyes to a brand new beauty of the world after a vibrating practice;
The deliciousness of knowing in the bones, understanding beyond time…

Teaching & Healing: a Full Circle

2007-09-06T18:47:00.000-07:00

March, 04
In Level Two of ZY Qigong practice, we let our energy naturally raise from my Lower Dantian to activate our Middle Dantian—middle energy center in the heart area. These exercises activate and strengthen our emotional empathy. We work on building our Middle Channel, and get external information beyond ourselves, we gain wisdom. We work on our second respiratory system through Body Breathing, and we gain physical empathy for others. We work on our yin-yang ball of qi as a tool to gain empathy and understanding in all above ways. We literally feel others’ pain, and joy.

Then we grapple with all these pain others feel, physically and emotionally. We eventually learn that we can feel others’ pain all we can, but we cannot change the pain—fundamentally. We can help lessen the pain, but we cannot change the people experiencing the pain. We cannot change the course or circumstance of their lives. It’s absolutely their choice in whether they hear or not, see alternate routes or not, take up the helping hand in changing direction or not.

We can feel their pain, but we cannot attach to the pain, to the people, and to the outcome of their circumstance after we offer help. We can feel the pain whether we decide to say or do something or not. We can say or do something, but be okay with any kind of response—whether it’s utter ignoring, not hearing, or hearing with utter indifference, or hearing with angry attacking response, or hearing and misunderstanding the advice while believing that they got it…

Once you choose to teach, to heal, you cannot be attached to the responses. Stay with your integrity, and detach from your ego. Of course this is an utmost difficult thing to do. Because even when we first sense someone else’s pain, our own pain get hooked and dragged up from our past. Then sometimes we can start with the right intention of lending a helping hand, but our kind advices all of a sudden began to be charged with our own emotionally pain, fear, anger, despair and sadness.

Or we began to pour our attention onto the other in an obsessive passion to try to get away from feeling our own pain. We make others our projects of hope. We get utterly distraught when they sense our own emotionally imbalance and run the other way. Have you noticed that you can say the same exact words but have totally different intentions behind them? It’s all in the intention. And the intention could change from good to evil from one moment to the next.

How can we be aware that we are coming from the right intention? We can ask ourselves, “From where I am now, am I doing what I now know is right? Is my self watching my ego, keeping it in check?” The definition of what is “right” will change with our own growth and understanding. That is why it is important to give ourselves space and time to learn from our interactions with others, to understand their pain and our own, to assimilate the learning, to integrate into oneness. Let go of rigidity. Let go of resistance to change. Let go of fear based controlling. Let go of divisions in the mind. Become oneness within. Know what is right in that moment. And have integrity.

Once you have practiced Level Two exercises, you almost cannot avoid teaching and healing because you feel others’ feelings, and their pain. When you are outside others’ confusion and can see the whole picture, when you can see where they are coming from and where they are heading to, how can you not say anything, not do anything? The clearer the picture you see, the more responsible you feel, and the less likely you will turn your head or leave the person behind when the person is actively seeking help. You become more empathetic to even strangers, because they are no longer strangers when you feel them. All their sufferings and enjoyments take on new vivid dimensions.

This is when you also feel responsible to root yourself, so you can say or do something from a deeply connected place, and stay connected through and beyond the response you will get. That’s why I always tell my students that teaching and healing roots and grounds me. They take me out of my own dramas. I become more even, balanced emotionally and physically, little by little. We come into a full circle of learning and helping.

To Know the Truth about Life

2007-09-06T18:46:00.002-07:00

March, 04

Life is simple.
The essence of life can be known.
We can understand each other and ourselves.
We can feel the connectedness always.
How, you ask.
We need to unlearn things that are untrue in ourselves,
and re-learn our internal truth again—

Children sometimes say things that embarrass us adults because they are telling the truth. They always tell the truth about whether they like or dislike something until, one day, they are trained not tell the truth all the time. “Say you like auntie’s gift.” “Tell grandma you liked her dishes.” This is when children learn to disconnect their words and their thinking from their feelings. When this continually happens, we loose touch with our true feelings, and eventually our body and mind disconnect. This is when gifted children lose their extra sensory abilities—when they reach social age.

When we systematically ignore, suppress and try to forget our true feelings, one day we don’t know that our feelings are there anymore. We cannot tell what we need or don’t need anymore. When our body feels uncomfortable, we don’t catch the early signals. We wait until we cannot possibly deny the symptoms anymore. For some, this might be too late. Continual denial of our true feelings lead to sickness. Disconnection does not allow our body to activate its self-healing abilities.

Some of us learned to be diplomatic with our answers and evade questions. When asked whether the tea is good, we coyly reply, “It’s hot.” When this type of miscommunication persists, our body eventually would tell us we are cold when indeed our body feels damp; When our legs feel heavy, we tell our doctor we feel pain in the legs. We are denying our own intuition when we don’t say what we think. Then we certainly won’t be able to develop our intuition and extra sensory abilities.

You may be thankful for that someone is offering you something of theirs. Then be thankful and separate it from whether what they offered is what you like, or what you need. Telling them the truth can help them get in touch with their sensitivities as well. Or it may help them face whether they are giving out of true generosity or it is to serve their selfishness.

So you say, “We cannot always tell the truth. We would make a lot of people uncomfortable, and hurt people’s feelings.” From Level II Image Therapy Body Scanning, you learned that there is no secret. We are all able to develop the ability to feel how others feel. As soon as you think, the thought is in the universe. It’s in our collective consciousness. It’s no longer just yours.

When we are trained not to tell the truth, our lives become more complicated. Relationships are difficult because we simply cannot believe someone completely. When we don’t tell the truth, how can we trust others? We over think, over-analyze because we cannot trust others, and we cannot hear our own feelings and intuitions clearly. When we deny our emotions, we become disconnected from others and the world. We feel unhappy and unwell on many levels. We lose our integrity on the most basic level.

So the children who embarrassed us with their truth are our teachers. People who can still tell the truth are here to help us. When we feel embarrassed, we are given the gift of peeking into our own fears. When children say some socially unacceptable words in public, such as sexual words, parents get embarrassed because fear has been installed in them as children, so we would all obey social orders, control. Social rules are set up to take away freedom. They got set up out of fear. The more rules and law a place has, the more corrupt the morality is among people. So when someone gives us a gift by bringing up our embarrassment, stay with it and look at the fear behind it. Eventually truth emerges out from the fear like fog clearing and we can see the land.

Someone once asked me, “So where does our rational mind fits in in this practice of telling the truth?” Our rational mind is like a computer, or a complex analytic tool. Its parameters are often already set up by social conditioning, like an equation based on societal rules. When our ego feeds the equation, we become societal models of success, climbing the corporate ladder and accumulating material things. When we feed the equation with truth however, it might jam the computer at first with fear. That’s why enlightenment happens when the mind is still, resting, out of the way. An enlightenment clears up some social conditioning in our rational mind. We can see the truth clearer. We can see a clearer and broader picture of what life is. When our extraordinary senses develops, when we can see with our third eye, our mind must be calm. When the mind is busy, we do not see.

Indeed, life can be simple. We can be in touch with our true voice and feelings. We can understand and trust each other. We can be connected to our world—
The first step is to develop our internal honesty, believe in it, strengthen it so that our intuition becomes stronger and clearer. We become intoned with our internal truth, our integrity and the truth of the universe. Our extrasensory abilities develop so we don’t just see the material world but also the energy and spiritual worlds. Then we can begin to understand what life is, and we can understand others, people, animals and our natural world. That is when we don’t just think we are connected to others and the world, we feel it, we see it, we know it with our own senses, our own experience. Then the essence of life and self will be revealed.

This is the first step of healing and self development—telling the Truth. It is the first step on the path of a life-long spiritual journey, an adventure in discovering the ultimate truth of the universe.

How to Find Happiness

2007-09-06T18:46:00.001-07:00

March, 04

Things are just fine, we say.

We like to keep things the same.
We like security.
We like the familiar, routines.
We like an easy life.
We like our ways.
We like to stay with what we know.
We like people who are like us.We don’t like new things.
We don’t like big changes.
We don’t like adversity.
We don’t like obstacles.
We don’t like pain.
We don’t like upheavals.
We certainly don’t like our enemies.

Or do we?

Can we switch our likes and dislikes?
We all like happiness.
But we don’t agree on what makes us happy,
or how much something makes us happy.

Everyone pays attention to happiness. Even scientists who are supposed to be dispassionate, are churning out studies. They assigned numerical values to happiness and let people rate how much something would make them happy:
Before they got it,
When they get it,
And after some time.

They found three outcomes on happiness.

Everything material, people tend to rate them high while expecting. When they get it, the rating is almost never as high. And the value depreciates in time.

When people rate the time they spend with loved ones, the outcome is just as high if not higher than they expected. As time goes on, people recall these memories and the happiness value goes higher and higher. In another word, the value appreciates, or high ROI—return on investment.

So how do we spend time with our loved ones?
Some of the deepest pains are also caused by some of our closest family and friends.
How can we continue to find happiness, grow in happiness
when we argue, we get mad, irritable, disappointment, sad, hopeless, fearful…
with our closest loved ones?

One way of modern thinking must be changed—
the way we think pain is bad.
We avoid, we suppress, we do everything we can
to not have pain, not even discomfort.
We bandage, we drug, we numb our pain and discomfort
instead of finding out what causes the pain.
We stay right on top of pain and darkness in ourselves,
sometimes all the way until death.
We become more and more rigid
from deeper and deeper layers of fear of pain.

3. The third outcome the psychologist learned from their research is that whenever people expect something to be really bad, when it happens, it’s never as bad as people thought, even when it is the death of a loved one. We always get over the pain sooner than we could image. Almost without fail, happiness returns sooner than we expect.

If we are not forced to look at pain and always run away,
more and more fear and rigidity builds in our psyche and our body.
Emotional and psychological pain becomes physical.
When we suppress physical pain, it doesn’t really go away.
It continues to build, cause bigger and deeper pain and more severe illness
in our body.

How to get out of this endless vicious cycle?

Reverse the spiral—
Choose to look at the pain.
Look right into the pain, physically and emotionally.
Know that we are strong and resilient,
that we will survive the worst healing crisis.
Know that the pain is never greater than who we are.
When you trust yourself, and let go, release,
you go through the pain.

Then we are a layer lighter. Brighter.
We feel our strength as ever-flowing water, not as aging concrete.
We become truer.
We can be with our loved ones closer.
Our enemy can become our friend.
This is when
Happiness can build,
Endlessly.

Coming into the "Zone" through Qigong

2007-09-06T18:45:00.001-07:00

The first step qigong teaches is body awareness, this inner relaxed alartness that you see in masters of qigong, taichi and internal martial arts. In sports, we learn the concentrated body awareness. When we become unaware or in our head, it’s easy to sustain injuries. But concentrated focus does not last long. We usually forget the body awareness and get in our head right after sports. I used to be a dancer, practicing everyday and also performing. I had very good balance and elegance of movement, but I got many injuries in and out of dancing. It’s not due to lack of balance or bad motor movements. It is the lack of the relaxed, sustained awareness. This is what qigong brings into us. This relaxed, sustained awareness will prevent future build-up of stress on our organs and injuries on our body.

When you are constantly in the sustained relaxed state, your vital energy can flow more easily, bringing blood and nutrients to all the areas that need healing. This is the beginning of our self-healing process. Then we learn to bring a slight focus, still relaxed, to our energy centers, so we can begin to gather and store energy, build up our energy level and our immune system.

This is also “the zone” many athletes, writers and artists, even scientists talk about, this relaxed openness, sustained alertness. This is the present state. When we are in our head, we are often in the past or the future. Being in the state allows us to be open to the flow of cosmic energy into our body, carrying new information, wisdom that heightens our creativity. To systematically opening our energy channels and points so we are more connected to the cosmis is part of our personal and spiritual development in qigong.

Relaxing the Mind through our Body: Thoughts from the Big Tree Standing Meditation

2007-09-06T18:43:00.001-07:00

Feb. 04
The mind is such an interesting character!

It wants to get in the middle of everything, here and now, past and future, and everywhere else.

I find it easier to relax the mind during standing meditation rather than sitting for novice meditators. When I practice standing meditation, my body adjusts. Different parts of the body shows discomfort, letting me know that there is something wrong there and need some healing attention. I learned along the way to hear my body, notice the subtle communication. This is when I surround the areas with relaxed awareness. Some of them let go, release. My body realigns, bit by bit.

Some areas are stubborn and continue to build to ache. This is when my mind starts to chatter. The volume gradually cranks up to a low roar, then sharp screams, all in the best tradition of “dramatizing” the pain.

This is when I relax the muscles around the brain, especially the frontal lobe, the forehead. Then the mind has to give up control. Thoughts get dropped—like puff of smoke disappearing into flowing air.

Right away, pain lessens by more than half. Tightness melts. Locked places open. Areas that were just screaming a moment ago relax, release, let go—fast.

I smile at my self-assumed busy mind. The smile naturally relaxes the muscles around the brain, takes power away from the mind. Relaxed awareness, like air leaking out of a blown-up puff fish, releases into the rest of the body—long, soft, smooth breaths, circulating and opening all the tense, not-yet-relaxed areas in the body.

The body calms. Energy flows freely and calmly. My spirit eases and comes into a stillness. The brightest clarity ensues.

When the body, energy and spirit stay calm for a while, time as we know it doesn’t exist anymore. It becomes expansive like the universe. Our physical matter becomes lighter. We feel the distant space between and within atoms in our body. We feel qi—the quantum connective tissue to all in the universe. When we feel this essence of self and everything else, a sense of elated joy permeates all of our awareness.

We are expanded into time and space, ageless and connected.

Isn’t it lucky that we have a body, that it does not let us ignore it too easily. So perhaps we will eventually learn our lessons, learn about ourselves through our tool.

The Complete Healing Process: Integrating the Physcial, Energy and Spiritual Anatomies

2007-09-06T18:41:00.001-07:00

People come to me for healing when in crisis. I do the same. We think, “Fix me! I am uncomfortable!” “I am out of my normal range of comfort. Put me back to my comfort zone again!” What we forget is that these crises are mere reminders. There is no such thing as an accident. Behind the area where we got hurt is a long history of past incidences. Why do we have such weak areas or organs that always give us trouble? Even behind hereditary cases, there are deeper reasons, causes that we need to become aware of so we can change the family patterns and heal. No wound is too deep to heal; no illness is too late to heal. That is why we are here, that is why we have a body this time, is to use our body as a tool to heal our soul. To heal completely, to heal the integral being, my latest experience gave me more clarity on how this is possible.

I have been praying much to overcome one of the hardest lessons in my life. Finally that day I understood why I threw out my pelvis the week before, plus all the injuries I have been sustaining from “accidents” throughout the years. It’s time to understand the connections in my body so I can finally heal.

The Healing Story

When the healer (Richard) started on my achy pelvis area, I felt that unbearable ticklish feeling under my right hipbone that says “stay away! Don’t touch!” I knew better to give in to the surface defense. By breathing into the area, I relax and defuse the defensive layer. The ticklishness fled down my legs--with it waves of a subtle sensation spread through my whole body. I knew from past healing experiences that this is how I feel fear, and I could tell that this one is big. “Stay with it. Go deep,” I tell myself and the healer.

As soon as layers of ticklishness and fear faded out, a sharp, pin-size point of excruciating pain emerged out of nowhere. I drew my breath into the pain and release, release, and release some more, like giving birth, letting go of a body memory that no longer serve me. The pain began to spread and lessen. It spread to my chest and released a well of sadness. This is the point when clients tend to shut down because the feeling is so overwhelming. I relax some more and let it come out. My right hip opened more, more grief, until the grief finally overwhelmed my breath. I couldn’t breathe. I started coughing uncontrollably. My body convulsed. My healer padded my lungs. Much coldness came out, more uncontrollable crying. When the ocean of grief subsided some, I felt anger, then intense, vehement bitterness that I much prefer not knowing.

I saw myself at forty-four years of age, in a long dress with a bonnet standing by the sea, grieving and angry over the fact that my husband didn’t return. I didn’t know if he ever would. My heart closed up by years of sorrow and layers of anger. I locked the door and threw away the key to my heart with endless bitterness. I died alone at seventy-three, anger and resentment destroyed my liver functions and caused much pain in my hips and legs.

This life prompted another, similar life during WWII when I was a beautiful dancer, much admired. I fell in love and was engaged to marry so I didn’t have to dance for money anymore. Then my fiancée was drafted. He never returned. I became nonchalant, and drank, smoked and danced with any man who would pay me, and eventually died alone, from lung and bronchial complications.

So this life I am back to the same lesson—separation—learning from my body memories in hips and lungs. It started early in life with my beloved father when I would only get to see him once a year, and see him leave again and again. At fourteen I left father for America. Our emotional lie dried up for many years. It was just in the last few years we are getting close, communicating from the heart again.

How Energy Enlivens the Physical and Carries Information

Though the issue has been clear to me psychologically for many years and I have had years of counseling on it, the physical and energetic memory of grief, anger and resentment has not yet been dissolved. They still get triggered and create more problems in my life, both emotional and physical. I know I must overcome and heal completely, physically, energetically and emotionally, to change course of my life, now and in the future. Forgive and let go and become open. (Trust that I will be fine. When I am open and loving, life will be different. My soul which is connected to the One can point me in the right direction, the direction of health and wellbeing. Without that self-fulfilling fear of my man leaving me, I wouldn’t attract that learning pattern anymore. With this lesson learned, I will love and be loved.)

With the physical and emotional pain coming out and then lessening and leaving, I experienced energy (qi) flowing in patterns in my body. Energy is the carrier of information, emotional, family, environmental, etc. When emotions are stuck and not flowing, the energy carrying it gets stuck as well. In Chinese medicine, we call it stagnant qi. When qi gets stuck for a while, the physical environment gets stuck. Blood doesn’t flow well. Nutrients and oxygen cannot get to the area. Muscles and membranes get stiff, non-elastic or numb. For example, I often find the cause of knee problems to an energy point that is on the gall bladder energy channel; I often trace right leg problems to liver, left hip to the spleen/pancreas system, low back pain to kidney/adrenal system, etc. So when there is a physical injury, like a torn ligament or a hernia, usually that area is become stiff so it cannot move in a flow with the rest of the body. To heal such physical injuries, we work specifically in that torn area to first open the blocked energy point, then the sluggish energy channel. Secondly we bring more vital qi and blood into the area to flush out the old. Thirdly, to deal with the problem from the root, we need to work with the organ system to bring all players back into full functioning.

This time during healing, I was able to trace distinct qi flow patterns. I felt how stagnant qi travels from one point to next, out of which specific toe it is releasing from, and from which part of the organ the stagnant qi was being pulled out. There was once a point felt extremely painful on the inside of my right thigh. Then all of a sudden a puff of stagnant qi drained out of my left second big toe. I was perplexed why it jumped legs. Then I realized—I have a sprained ankle on the right so it wouldn’t go out that way. Another time I felt qi draining first on the outside of the leg then changed to the inside channel then changed back to the outside again. So I verbalized each change to the healer. We realized that changing from the thumb to the fore finger changed how a healer would push the stagnant qi out of either the yin or the yang channels.

What It Takes to Heal Completely

This healing session lasted three hours. And we were only able to release about ninety percent of the layers on the right side, and ten percent on the left. The complete healing process seems daunting. To uncover all the energy, physical and informational (emotional) layer by layer not only takes time, it’s a process that requires commitment and patience. As a client:
First, we need to say, “I want to heal.” We have come to a place of respect for ourselves, our body so that we are already to hear the signals. We are ready to look inward, examine ourselves and change old, unhealthy physical and emotional patterns. We are ready to let go of these old patterns.
Secondly, we need to say, “I trust the process.” We cannot hesitate on how much time and energy we dedicate to our healing. We listen to ourselves, our body’s signals, and do whatever it takes to reverse the unwell. We enlist allies, support and helpers, which is healers who support your process. Having patience means having trust that the healing process is guided by our soul, our high Self, so that we are given lessons we can handle, and we are going at a speed that is right for us. As long as we keep on at it, we will get there—wellness in our physical, energy and spiritual self.
Thirdly, we trust the power of the Oneness. We are aligned with our image of wellness. We do not affirm the illness or our past. “The pull of the future is stronger than the push of the past,” a Sufi teacher once said. Let the perfection of the Oneness pull you towards it and accelerate you toward wellness.

For healers, we need to know that it’s a dynamic relationship between our client and ourselves. We ourselves need to have became aware, looked at, and healed these areas of issues. We need to recognize it before we could help another with it. And we need to be open to listen, and ready to open that door for our client. Lot of times a client is standing in front of a door, needing just a little more encouragement to walk through. We as healers offer our hand.

Present Pain vs. Memory Pain

To change and heal takes tremendous courage. We must shed many layers of pain in order to completely heal. Then you may ask, how do I know when I am actually hurting and when I am healing? I’d like to refer to a point made in the documentary “What the Bleep Do We Know?!” Scientists found that our brain cannot tell the difference between what is happening in the present versus a memory. So our brain actually cannot tell whether something is hurting us right now or something is reminding us of pain stored in memory. Then what differentiates past versus present pain? Who is the observer that makes the differentiation? Scientists have been looking for the observer in the brain for decades and found none.

As this finding ties into our emotions, there are two situations. The first is the straightforward one, when our emotions serve as a motivator to change our condition so we wouldn’t get physically hurt, such as when seeing a lion, our fear kicks in extra adrenaline so we can run for our life. Or when we see a child being hurt, our anger motivates us to do something to get the child out of the situation. These are situations when the pain is happening in the present.

Then there is the second situation when we feel overwhelming emotions such as fear, anger and grief because the current condition is triggering a pain memory. Since our brain cannot tell between present pain versus memory pain, strong emotions tend to overwhelm the “observer” and we confuse the past for the present. In these memory situations reacting from triggering painful memories, we only hear the specific triggering words instead of the overall context, then misinterpret others’ intentions, and creating unnecessary conflicts and hurting others.

The same is true with physical pain. There is pain that is currently hurting our body so we know to stop it. When an area becomes chronically painful due to qi stagnation, we tend to stop exercising this area, fearing more pain. This reaction creates more stagnation, therefore more pain. In order to heal the chronic pain, we first need to wake up the body so the body knows there is something wrong in this area. Then we can release layers of pain.

How to stop this vicious cycle of hurt? We need to strengthen our observer so that we can differentiate between present versus memory pain. Ancient practices say that our observer sits in our heart area. So sinking our awareness from our brain into our body can help us tap into our observer. Once our observer tells us that it is a memory trigger, we can let this trigger help us dissolve our past pain. To do so we need patience.

Let our entire being be involved in healing the past hurt. Pay attention not to repeat the same action from the past so to add onto the past pain, or not to absorb the current trigger event into the ball of painful memories. For example, when someone says something that triggers angry memories, try not to absorb the anger into the area of body we have been using to store the pain, like the concave area right below our solar plexus. Instead, feel how the angry sensation runs through our entire body. Then usually our observer would show us the context and we see that our sensation has nothing to do with the other person’s remark, but comes out of the ball of anger we are still holding tightly in that area of our body.

Then what to do? Give yourself time to let the ball of painful memories surface, and dissolve into the entire body. It’s often easier to start this process with the help of a healer. Later when the process becomes instinctual, you can do it on your own. Let ourselves experience the past emotions, and let it change into other emotions, going through a process. Let it go from fear to grief to anger to resentment to deeper grief again. Feel the sensations of fear leaving our kidney/adrenal area through its system of energy channels and points; feel sadness dissolving out of and leaving the lungs system; feel anger leaving the liver system; feel resentment dissolving out of the gall bladder; and then back to lung system again…

Physical: The ache is a sensation we much go through to heal the past pain. Experience that initial excruciating point of pain, then feel it coming to the surface, dissipating into a larger area with less intensity. Then finally, feel it rush down the extremities, like a puff of smoke, out of the fingers or toes. When you have experienced physical pain disappearing in the form of stagnant energy, you will know for yourself how this process works.

Integrating All Three Anatomies to Heal Completely
This spiraling of the energies cleanses the stored information out of our physical system. It will take time. Be patient with each lesson. Sometimes it could take life times before we even become aware of a repeating lesson, and it could take some time to cleanse all the layers out of our being. This is the total, comprehensive, energy/information/physical healing process we must go through to grow as a soul, to come closer to the Oneness.
We can let go of stored, stagnant energies and information just like we can with material. We need a good elimination process so what we don’t need can be bio-composed into Earth to support other forms of life.
We are each multi-dimensional capacities for manifesting the Oneness. That is why we each came from such different past and experiences. We are each an unique resonator. Whatever is in us, it is what we resonate to, what vibration draw to us, what situations, who participate—all manifest by our vibration around us. When we shed these blockages and stagnations little by little, we become less and less charged by things around us that vibrate at the same level with the same blockages and stagnations. The more we let go, we empty, the more capacity we have to let the Source, the Oneness through. The Oneness is always there. When we are blocked, the lower and denser vibrations are like clouds covering the blue sky and shining sun that is a higher and finer vibration. As soon as we release the blockage, the sun shines on us. The more we release, the greater of scope we resonate with, and our manifestation is more encompassing. We move at a faster speed. Our growth goes at an exponential rate. As we release all blockages, we are the perfect and unique resonator of the Oneness. We are inline with the Universal Energy. We are the Oneness.

The instant way to be with the Oneness is complete surrender. Realizing all our physical and emotional pain is a manifestation of our ego’s attachments, we surrender our ego to our greater Self. This is the instant enlightenment, and it takes the most courage.
In order to live a life at a normal pace in this world of duality, we need a balance of both paths, undoing the ego attachments and letting go, and keeping a continuing connection to the Oneness through a sustained practice.

The Difference Between Knowledge and Wisdom

2007-09-06T18:39:00.001-07:00

Progression in learning knowledge is like a linear line going up and up. It’s about logic, thinking with the frontal lobe of the brain. You learn existing solutions to past problems.
To practice qigong is not about learning knowledge. It’s about opening up wisdom. It’s about rising creativity and intuition. Qigong practice develops the back lobe of the brain, the areas of the brain that’s not about thinking and knowledge. It’s about coming up with creative solutions when new problems occur. When one has wisdom, one never needs to worry about the future. High level scientists such as Einstein came up with equations that other scientists are still trying to come up with logical explanations for their existence and usage. High level artists often have done their best work when inspirations came from somewhere outside of logic and thinking. Best writers always talk about how the stories came through them. They were just the vessel. Even top athletes reach beyond known knowledge of human limitations, and achieve states of being that seemed before impossible by logic.
Qigong learning therefore, does not follow a linear progression. Practitioners find themselves from one plateau reach a higher one suddenly. This usually happen in intense period of time in their lives. Almost all ZY Qigong students find themselves reaching a higher plateau during their intensive practice at the Shaolin Monastery in China. Long after the intensives, we still feel and observe changes in many areas, physically, energetically and mentally.

Hearing My Soul--Trip to Delani

2007-09-06T18:38:00.001-07:00

June, 05
Mingtang has been talking about needing to go to Alaska for years. His teacher has told him that there are eight places in the world that hold the same teaching. Shaolin is one. Of the other seven places, Mingtang was only able to remember Tibet, Alaska and French-Swiss Alps. So when he said we are going to Denali (Mt. McKinley), I was ecstatic. Several people wanted to go but one by one, they dropped out. By the end, it was just Mingtang and I. Many people asked me, what are you going to do up there? I said, I don’t know. In fact, I don’t have the slightest idea what crazy wild things could happen to Mingtang, and if I would be able to feel anything at all.
The first three days got harder and harder. Later I realized that it was like waking up layers of numbness, the tingling sensation was unbearable and irritating. But during the three days I wondered many times why I volunteered to come, why I am here at all, and what I am suppose to be doing.
The days felt much colder than Anchorage, on which we based our packing. And the nights were freezing. I caught a cold the very first day, and my menstrual cycle had to start, too. I piled up both sleeping bags, and my nose froze when it was outside. Curling up in a tight ball, I fantasized about stretching out on the grass under the sun back in Seattle. It rained day and night. There were even thunders one night. I was trapped, bundled up in our tiny RV truck.
Mingtang spent most of the time in the cab. I was left alone. I fidgeted around for most of the days before settling into reading, with all my layers, hats and two sleeping bags wrapped around. Of course it was impossible to get comfortable enough to meditate.
The fourth day I woke up kicking sleeping bags off of me. I walked out of the RV and was dumbstruck. Not only was it not raining, there was not a single cloud overhead. Along the horizon, there were an edge of white fluff, like ruffles. We took a couple of long bus rides and saw many kinds of wild animals including seven bears within feet. The old majestic—Denali was clearly in view. Every worker there commented on how abnormal this clear weather is for this area, and how rare the mountain showed itself so completely.
For the next three days, the sun remained out. It not only warmed my physical body, something else melted in me and around me. How do I describe it? I woke up. I heard myself. I heard my soul speaking to the rest of me. I was being with ME. For hours and hours I was simply being. There was no anxiousness about time, about being here or about being alone. That lonely feeling I got often when I was in the city alone in my house, it never rose.
I was moment by moment, constantly and always fascinated by ME, hearing ME. It was a most content feeling that I don’t remember ever experiencing. I inhabited every cell of my physical being, without effort. I constantly felt qi flowing, easily and deliciously. My mind acted the most strangely—it was not busy. It did not have seven continuous thoughts weaving and wondering. It was at ease, too, more like a sparingly decorated blue sky—thoughts were weightless, and they drifted in and out like ethereal clouds. They didn’t hold on to me.
For the first time I physically felt my heart easing. I didn’t know that for the most of the time my heart was actually tense and lifted until it dropped into its place, its casing, its home. I never knew before this physical experience that the Chinese saying “to lay down one’s heart” is not just psychological. When this happened, my spirit thanked me. And I drifted into meditation, time and time again, without intentionally doing so. My entire being came into the meditative state in the middle of reading a sentence, in the middle of thinking a thought, and in the middle of writing a word.
While this complete easement was happening to me, Mingtang got the direct transmission he came here for, during the night of the thunder. By the sixth day, his mission at Denali was complete and was ready to move onto the next place by the sea. I did not want to pick up and go. There was no desire to do, only be. My soul, my whole being wanted to remain in this place, a place that enabled all the space for my soul to roam free, for ME to feel the most freedom I have ever felt being in my body.
Driving back to Anchorage, both Mingtang and I felt the surround air thickening, vibrating faster, and more chaotically, the noise increasing to eventual grating and deafening level for the tender soul. Layer by layer, my qi field and my body numbed, until an hour north of the city, I could no longer hear or feel ME. Sadness felt numb, too, and it turned into a low level, constant aggravation. I wish we could turn back. But Mingtang needed to continue his mission by the sea.
Mingtang completed his direct transmission from the lineage after our trip around the Turnagen Arms. He learned that in order to heal human beings, we must know the ocean lives. Our bodies are like the earth, seventy percent of it being water. Most diseases are caused by micro-lives in the water. To be a shaman as the very first shaman—the medicine man, one not only need to be connected by the animal and plant spirits to go into the underworld, one must also know the essence of the lives in the ocean in order to heal. He now has tremendous amount of material downloaded and need to be digested during meditation. Shaolin will serve just that purpose. I am sure Mingtang will bring much teaching next year to us on healing.
Before the Alaska trip I was feeling anxious about my next planned trip to Tibet. It’s not a tourist trip. I turned down several people who wanted to go with me. I plan to spend much time in silence, alone, meditating, being open and listening. I didn’t know if I could do as I planned. I thought I could easily disappoint myself by distractions such as talking to other tourists, or socializing with the monks and pilgrims. I had already asked Mingtang several times whether he thought I was ready for this lone, four-months meditation trip. He said yes, I will get what I need, and this is the time for my spiritual pilgrimage.
I did not trust myself until my Denali experience. Now I know I am ready. I cannot wait to be with myself again, completely open and available, in the present moment, giving my soul all the space to roam and be free with all of me. Writing and talking about this experience brings me briefly into a similar though not as deep state of awareness, of connection with the deep inside ME. It still feels delicious, and my heart quivers with delight. It brings joyous tears into my eyes. I am grateful.

Switching On Bliss

2007-09-06T18:36:00.000-07:00

June, 05
I found the on/off switch to the bliss in meditation. I am not joking. I have been meditating for six years now. Lots of you probably could relate to my progression: at the beginning, more than five minutes of meditation used to be aggravating for me; then, more than fifteen minutes of fantasizing/meditating used to get boring; later more than half an hours of sitting used to hurt my bottom…
I kept on meditating because in general, it made my life more functional. I felt better afterward. People around me benefited from my meditating. More importantly though, there were these mystery moments of vibration, of presence, of life, of bliss, of deliciousness that fascinate me, and I kept on wanting to be in that moment again. These moments used to be so rare and unpredictable that it may only happened once or twice a year.
I have tried my best to describe to my students how they may get there in Big Tree standing meditation practice and other sitting practices (see Relaxing the Mind through the Body). But this time at the Memorial Weekend Retreat with Mingtang, I literally found the switch! You relax one muscle in the body and boom! As if a whole body orgasm is gradually building and moving through my body.
Now I am sure you’d like to know what muscle that is. Remember how there is a saying that sexual excitement is all in your mind? Well, this is not only true for our sexual energy, since our sexual energy is an intrinsic part of our vital energy system. There is a Chinese saying, “Letting go the control of your spirit through your mind, your energy flow naturally.” It’s impossible to control our mind so it stops thinking. Thinking is what our mind does naturally. We can never altogether stop thinking. But there are ways to relax, slow down and calm our mind so the pause between thoughts gradually becomes longer.
Our mind also directly feed into how we experience our chronic physical discomforts and pain. I came to this realization during the Big Tree standing meditation last year. I became aware that when the muscles on top of my head are tense, the physical pain feels louder, unbearable like deep suffering. And as soon as I relax the muscles, the pain level instantly lessens to bearable. Then I can feel qi flowing through the problem area. If I continue to relax my mind and relax the area, the pain gradually lessens as more qi pushes the blockages open. After meditation, the area feels much better than before. It is healing.
At the retreat during sitting meditation, I discovered the next layer of muscles to relax. They are on my face, around my temples and especially in between my eyebrows—the muscles that indicate intense pondering and deep suffering. At first I had to fake a big smile in order to stretch the muscle out. Then eventually the fake smile relaxes into a real, whole-hearted smile. It takes a certain trust and surrender to smile genuinely at nothing particular, at the present moment. And it’s not an easy place to remain. I had to constant go through the process to come back to the relaxation of this muscle.
Without a doubt with Mingtang’s strong boost of qi, I was able to stay in the deliciousness. He flooded our bodies with so much fog qi that our mind instantly quieted without a chance to argue and waver. A teacher can focus the collective group energy and channel direct transmission from the lineage into the collective field.
My qi first rose powerfully from the perineum up the Central Channel to my upper dantian and Baihui point. Then the qi pushed its way from the tip of the tailbone up the spine, through blockages in between the shoulder blades, the neck and back of the head, to the top of the head. When I practiced on my own, it was not as powerful but the qi always flow to blocked areas in the pelvis, in the knee, going down the ankles to the tip of the channels in the toes. It always pushed through the stuck shoulders to elbows and wrist and to the tip of the fingers. After practice, my entire body alignment shifts.
I was able to stay in the state of deliciousness long enough that my energy calmed, and my entire being entered into the pause state several times, which I could not yet replicate to the depth and length on my own. But once I have physically experienced a state, it is possible for me to get there again and again on my own. It’s a physical memory like riding a bike that you never forget. This is true with all qigong practice, once you experience a state, you won’t lose it even after many years.
Conceptually to explain what I mean by “deliciousness,” if the lower dantian was the interpreter for the mind, it calls it delicious, like taking in the most wonderful food, the finest chocolate. If the middle dantian was the interpreter, it feels like the most warm and fuzzy sensation, like love. The upper dantian sees a white light, clear and translucent, like luminescent clarity and wisdom. The deliciousness moves like a fog, light and ethereal. So any tenseness in the muscle or activity in the mind blows it into nothingness. But when the smile is big, the mind has no power to be active, the muscle naturally relaxes, and the fog moves to areas need to be healed.
After the retreat, I had a continuing experience of loosening the muscles of the mind, and allowing the body to feel its innate pleasure, the natural internal massage. At first the mind as if scolds the body for having such “sinful” feelings. The minds judges that to feel this way in broad daylight alone must be wrong. Then when I realized there is nothing to be ashamed of being delicious, that the sexual energy is as natural as our energy to run and to jump.
The mind then pulled out its next trick, moving into the future, “You must always be prepared, meaning be in the tense state at all times for the inevitable bad thing to happen, like running for your life or dealing with an accident.” The mind got laughed at right away for worrying about something it can do nothing about. The body can react much faster if it’s in a relaxed alert state, like a cat. The mind doesn’t have to be constantly active to keep one safe. In fact, it’s our connection with our body, our gut, and our gut instinct that keep us out of unnecessary trouble.
Convincing the mind to let go of control cannot be done through rationalization alone. Each and every part of the body needs to learn how it feels to relax. It’s a doing process. When our body is relaxed and comfortable, the muscles on our head and face can release. Then qi flows freely, and we enter into the delicious state naturally. Of course this is only a state of being in the process. So we cannot be attached to it. When we try too hard, we cannot relax our mind. So it’s actually about letting go, not trying, releasing into the next natural state of being. That’s why our attention is always seemingly there, seemingly not, next concentrated or focused. It’s a paradox for the mind, but not for the body.
The letting go, the releasing, and the relaxing of this muscle opens me physically, energetically and spiritually. It opens my gate of trust to the universe, so the exchange of energy and information can begin, so natural healing can begin. I suppose when I can sustain this letting go state, I would be most present, in the moment, spontaneous, creative, open, and connected to all. Eventually the smile is not needed. Then I would be able to sustain this relaxed state even in crisis. I would trust and enjoy each moment, life’s perfection unfolding. I would be in perfect unison with the flow of life, which to some would be the enlightened state. I laugh out loud from this realization. Human has been designed so perfectly that the purest pleasure is also the most effective healing, and is the most pragmatic path to enlightenment.

I Only Have NOW

2007-09-06T18:35:00.000-07:00

The Past I do not have.
The Future I do not own.
All I have is Now.
All there is is what I am creating Now.
All I am is the “I” in the Now.

See, feel, accept, bless, release, let.

Trust. Truth. Will (Courage). Love (Compassion). Peace (Being).

Dear friends,

Through my months of solitary inner observation, I went through layer after layer of complexity that my ego has created. In the end, I saw the essence of me. I feel the same reflection from within to without—my inner essence is the same as the essence of life, so simple, so beautiful, so easy, yet the most difficult to get to. It took myself choosing to take away all life’s distractions: all other people, all activities, including eating and drinking (no food for twenty eight days, and water for eight of those days).

Then nature took me over. Energy took me over. Spirit took me over. The practice practiced me. Life coursed through me… I was, simply being in the bliss that is now.

Life is simple now. All fits in these simplest of simple notions. Practice is simple, just being. And the steps to bring one into the now is natural. Each and every moment in life becomes a practice of presence, in our body, in our heart, in our whole being.

I can share the concrete steps to being present with you:
Relax completely;
Breathe thoroughly;
Smile
You are present.
Repeat when needed.
Never give up the process.

Easy, isn’t it? Yet you find yourself drifting into your head, into your thoughts of past and future often? Come and practice with me. Let your body feel what it is to completely relax. Let your mind feel what it is like to be calm. Let your being feel what it is like to be breathed like a puff of smoke. Let your spirit and heart and whole self feel what it is like to smile.

Join me for a weekend retreat at the remote and gorgeous Breitenbush Hot Springs. Once you have experienced the state in your whole being, it is easy to replicate.

The Empty Teacher

2007-09-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday after a weekend retreat at Breitenbush which thirty-five people attended. The whole day, there was a part of me that wanted to write down this most amazing experience I had while teaching this retreat, but I felt out of sort and could not quite capture the phenomenal feeling.
Finally after my Monday night class, I got what was bugging me. The experience was so incredible that my ego wanted to hold onto it. But the more I wanted to define this experience by my mind, the more it was slipping through my fingers. I was losing the feeling I sustained all through the weekend. I felt frustrated.
Then all of a sudden, a wave of thankfulness opened my heart that was gripping. I was presented a gift—the gift of emptiness. I am so deeply grateful for letting it happen through me.
Being in the role of the teacher for thirty-five widely diverse and unique souls, I was “forced” into the most neutral place I could possibly hold through every moment of the weekend. I became an empty space, resonating for the thirty-five collective souls. When one needed resonating, I became the empty space for that one soul. I held an empty space of openness, relaxedness and calmness with no judgments, no preference, no personal agenda, no personality, no pre-conceived notions… Every time before I spoke, I came into this space of emptiness. The information that came through was always most simple so that all could resonate with. Each moment, I continued to practice letting go of pre-conceived ideas of what should be taught, and simply accessed what was present in that moment of time and space for the collective.
I was given the gift of no ego (the closest I have yet experience among people) in a prolonged period—the lightest, most effortless and open feeling. I am thankful to Mingtang, thankful to the path, the lineage. I am thankful to the Oneness. And I am thankful to all thirty-five of you. All aspects are intrinsic in giving me this profound experience. I am blessed and humbled.

If you would like to bring your deep practice experiences and realizations into your daily life, don’t try to hold on to it. Each and every moment, practice releasing your thoughts of the past and future, letting your mind relax into your body and become one with the body. Relax and release any holding. Breathe and let vital energy come in to open up old patterns. Smile and trust that you are okay as you leave comfort zone into new terrain. Experience your life fully in your oneness each moment. And when the moment rises when you are moved to share, your sense of emptiness may become fuller.
Qigong is the perfect practice to look within, feel and know what are the old patterns of fear on the cellular level that’s been holding us back from changing, from opening, from healing, from growing. Vital energy naturally follows this new awareness, changing closed cells into open cells, waking up organs that are asleep. We become more and more open and connected to the universal energetic matrix.
ZYQ have a series of weekend intensives coming up, which allows us to go deeper into our practice, so we have more resources to come into realization of old patterns, and give our body and mind the time and space to effectively release and become open. These long workshops are great for people who are ready to make true change in their lives. So give yourself the time and space.

Going Within for Spontaneous Change

2007-09-06T18:30:00.002-07:00

Feb. 06
To use physics terms as a metaphor about qigong, our five senses are oriented toward the outside, in receiving and interpreting the external stimuli with internal information from our past experiences and knowledge. These five senses interprets information based on Newtonian physics—that the world is solid, is material in specific states. When we practice meditation, we turn our five senses inward. All external stimuli are gradually severed and our mind becomes quieter and calmer. Our sense become more refined and broader. So-called extra senses emerge. These finer sense have always been there but only dulled by external and mental static and noise. It is as if these extra broad spectrum of senses begin to see, feel, taste, smell and hear into deeper and broader levels of reality, material is not just matter anymore, but energy and information. Perspective broadens into the sub-atomic level, where reality is not a state but all possibilities co-exist. The deeper and longer one remains in this level of reality, the quantum physic level of reality, spontaneous change happens—changes that should not be possible in the Newtonian matter state. The deeper one’s awareness, the greater the change can happen.
With recent scientific discoveries, we know that our mind does not know the difference between a current image or a memory. External input being received by our five senses are being interpreted by past memories therefore different people can have entirely different account of the same event. The same event can make one happy while making another sad. Our experience and our emotions are just as strongly influenced by who we are within than what is happening to us. Therefore we are co-creators of our reality. The content and the context mutually affect and form each other.
The book “Power v Force” tells us that 90% of human beings still believe that their life is made solely by the external circumstances, and to go from this powerless state onto the self-empowered state beyond the two hundred line (see the Map of Consciousness) is one of the most difficult jump for people. Each step relate to the next by exponential.
We know that dense matter attract other dense matter. Fear, closed-ness is dense compared to love and openness. Allowing one fear to manifest attracts other fears exponentially, like a speeding downward spiral. Therefore between the closed state of powerlessness to the open state of self empowerment, many people fluctuate between the two from day to day, from moment to moment. That’s why people would oscillate between practice and not practice even though they have experienced spontaneous change in their body, their mind and their experience of life.

Level I Workshop Description

2007-09-06T18:30:00.001-07:00

How can ZYQ practice serve us in our daily life? And how can we incorporate the ZYQ practice with other modalities we may be practicing?

I have been developing a spreadsheet attempting to explain, in a big picture sense, the stages of spiritual development we attain through ZY Qigong practice and how this process is comparable to that of other spiritual disciplines. You may get a sense that all paths lead to the mountain top, the same panoramic view, though each process may have a different emphasis. Please see attached document “Stages of Spiritual Development in ZYQ and Other Spiritual Disciplines.” (If you’d like to peruse a more complete chart, please go to our website: www.zyqigong.org Your input from your own ZYQ practice and your experience with other disciplines is warmly welcomed!)

This weekend at our Seattle ZYQ center, we will be offering our Level I workshop, or Stage I in the three-stage spiraling process. This marks the beginning of our ZYQ yearly curriculum with consecutive workshops in Level II and Image Therapy I, II and III following. At this workshop, we will be developing our “gut instincts” from our lower dantian (first, second and third chakras), focusing on our relationship to Earth, our feminine within and our maternal energies. We will work on our rooting, our physical wellness—the foundation of total well-being, physically, energetically/emotionally and spiritually.

Work in this area opens the main energy channels which decreases pain, leads to general physical wellness, and helps us experience deeper levels of relaxation that lead to the next stage: stillness. Other benefits:
· creates our sense of security and general well-being
· provides us with a supply of raw energy and is directly related to our instinctual nature
· works with our knees and feet, energetically to keep us connected to our planet
· gives us the feeling of being grounded
· reduces fear, strengthens trust
· reflects our connection with our mothers, and how we feel about being on this planet
· determines the sexual disposition and appetite for men and women. The lower dantian is associated with the reproductive function. The blockages and stagnation of this energy center are common to many modern day citizens.
· helps us express creativity, dance and movements especially in the pelvis and hip area
· regulates our personal power, vitality, confidence and self-esteem
· increases our "gut instincts"
· helps the digestive system
· offers characteristic of fire - with the qualities of expansiveness, warmth, and joy
· especially important for those engaged in healing work of any sort, because this is where we build foundational energy for healing
(Please see attached document “Correspondence between Yoga and Qigong Energy Centers” for expanded info.; above bulleted info. taken from http://healing.about.com/od/chakratheseven/Seven_Major_Chakras.htm)

In western spiritual practices and healing modalities (including alternative), energy is a pervasive blind spot. This is why qigong complements most other spiritual practices and healing modalities. The physical and spiritual aspects of qigong also complement many energy healing modalities.

On Friday evening, we will tap into our intention. Why are we on this spiritual path, this wellness path? What do we want to transform? What is our vision of our complete wellness? By the end of the weekend, we will release more deeply into our true self and our soul, and our inner voice will become clearer, firmer and more powerful.

The Level I Workshop Schedule:
Friday the 24th: 7—9pm; Saturday 25th: 10am—6pm; Sunday 26th: 9am—3pm.

$180 for students new to ZYQ. $100 for ZYQ students repeating Level I. (This will be our last discounted pricing for workshops since we will be renting space for workshops after this weekend.)
ZYQ Center on Capital Hill: 626 Malden Ave E #2, Seattle, 98112 (206)726-0088
Instructor: Claire GuYu Johnson

We look forward to sharing this experience with you!

NW Qigong Forum & Member-based Community Center

2007-09-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

My dear community,

Wow! With eight people’s incredible dedication, we finished all the major parts of ZYQ’s move in ten hours! This gives me such enthusiasm for our community’s new beginning. After a day of vigorous work, we all sat around boxes, resting, eating fruit, drinking tea and laughing together. I looked around and felt in my heart such a strong and clear principle—the material things don’t matter that much, it’s the people who truly matter.

You, too, who are reading this right now, are the most precious part of this organization. Each one of you is essential to this community.

Then the vision came through so clear and simple in three steps:

I. A Non-profit to hold a general structure
II. A NW Qigong Forum to bring teachers and students together
III. A Community Center for Wellness & Spirituality for its members, supported by its members

I. The Non-Profit Kundawell Institute
a. With ZY Qigong as the foundation and open to incorporate other teachings
b. Bringing complementary teachings together
c. With a general qigong blog site to share info.

II. NW Qigong Forum
a. Short presentations on all the styles and lineages of qigong
b. Students can then go to following workshops by different teachers
c. Will bring qigong into the general consciousness of Seattle and the Northwest by:
i. Having the mayor declare a Seattle Qigong Day
ii. Getting wide publicity for qigong (press releases, radio shows and other media coverage)
iii. Bringing qigong to a wider audience
d. Will bring Northwest qigong teachers together to form a collective to better serve the larger community

III. Community Center

I would always like to practice more. When I do, I feel more relaxed, energized, inspired and emotionally balanced. When there is a group of people, my practice is deeper. Many people have told me they feel the same. There is more than enough interest to have our own center, to support a vibrant common space. Together, we can suggest times and types of classes. We can all lead practice groups which expands our own learning in the most effective way. We can all get involved and make it happen!

· Classes and practice groups will be going on 14-hours a day, 7 days a week.
· All different styles of qigong, and other supporting programs and practices will be taught. DVDs of different styles will also be available for practice groups.
· It will be a place to simply relax and be in the moment, nurture process, and detach from goal oriented approaches.
· It will be a place to mutually support each other in practice.
· It will be supported by membership (you can vote for the best times and practices for you).
· You can invest in your wellness, spiritual growth and that of your community.
· It may have other amenities to support process oriented practices such as a tea house, a library, individual meditation rooms and a play center for children.
· There will be different levels of membership: General (one class per week $60/mo, 10% off weekend workshops), Deluxe (unlimited use, $90/mo, 15% off wrkshps), and Sponsor (can propose programming and sponsor low-income members, $150/mo, 20% off wrkshps)

Now that these preliminary ideas are released to you, our community, please offer your input, ideas and help, and please invite others who have such visions into our community so we can realize our manifestations together! I look forward to the unfolding of a new life for our community!

Level II Workshop Description

2007-09-06T18:28:00.001-07:00

I will be offering a 3-day Level II workshop in three weeks at the Ocean Park Retreat Center. Being close to the ocean will deepen our healing, connecting us to the natural rhythm of our breath, the strength of our breath and the expansiveness of our energetic boundaries. This workshop will bring integration within our being, and connectedness to the outer world.

Level 2: Integrating and relaxing the energy body, quieting the mind
The first aim of Level 2 practice is to integrate and relax the energy body. This involves continued work with physical blockages but at a more detailed level than in Level 1. Increasingly, the energy body works as a unified pattern rather than a set of more or less separate flows. As this integration develops, the energy sensations become smoother. The energy body, just as the physical body, feels more spacious and refined. There is also the realization that many of the sensations we interpret in Level 1 as energy are actually resistances to energy.
The second aim is to quiet the mind. This is a natural result of relaxing the energy body. In Level 1 we experience the physical body calming down and no longer responding to the mind's agitation. In Level 2, the relaxation of the energy body influences the mind: the mind slows down until it simply stops; its construction of space and time stops. This is the calm state, also known as the qigong state.

Level II Practice Benefits:
Integrate within and without physically, energetically and spiritually
Increase personal power, strengthen and clarify boundaries
Improve self authority
Increase contentment, joy
Expand a sense of generosity
Gain openness, non-judgment, leading to compassion for self and others, unconditional love
Work with the thymus gland
Release the web of conflicting desires and emotions which characterizes the ego
Restore our natural, relaxed breathing patterns. Increase our oxygen intake in our body and brain.
Effectively heal illnesses such as cancer through oxygenation.
Develop the qualities of wind (in the five elements) - airiness, mobility, gentleness, and lightness, communications.
Express our creativity, manifesting in the physical world.
Bring emotional healing through self-expression, voicing thoughts and feelings.
Relax the busy mind. Release pensiveness, obsessive and circular thinking. Decrease cravings for refined sugars and carbohydrates.

Time: Friday September 21st 10am to Sunday 23rd 4pm

Taught by: Claire GuYu Johnson

Price: $330 workshop fee, plus $93 for three nights lodging and $75 for food (Thai Vegetarian). Total $498 due by Sept. 17th. (It is $25 extra for beddings and towel, or you may bring your own.)

Place: Ocean Park Retreat Center and Camp, www.opretreat.org in Long Beach, WA (about 4 hours southwest of Seattle)Nestled on 80 beautiful secluded acres on the north end of the Long Beach Peninsula in southwest Washington State, the Ocean Park Retreat Center and Camp is located among evergreen forest, grassy sand dunes and green fields with 1800 feet of Pacific Ocean beach frontage. Families are welcome to accompany.

Register soon! Spaces are limited to 18.

Both Level 2-A and 2-B will be taught.

Level 2A: Integrating the energy bodyAt this level, we continue Level 1 training to increase our energy but with a new emphasis on improving the integrity of the energy body. We add Level 2 preparatory exercises, Level 2 Big Tree, and other practices to open the hips and the back of the pelvis, activate and build the middle dantian, and open and build the central channel.

Level 2B: Relaxing the energy bodyWith the central channel open and the energy field beginning to work as a coherent whole, we now practice how to open and close, expand and contract the boundaries of our energy body and modulate its pulsing intensity. This pulsing is also called body breathing, and we learn to use it in different ways for specific purposes. Its primary application is to relax the energy body and quiet the mind in preparation for pause state in Level 3. Training also continues for gathering energy and increasing the capacity of our central channel and other pathways.

This will be a special workshop. I look forward to rejuvenating by the ocean and big trees with you!

Layers of Reality and the Ultimate Reality

2007-09-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

Existing knowledge are based on different layers of reality, all of them true to their specific circumstances or limitations. They are true for different consciousness levels, or parameters of that consciousness. The knowledge becomes obsolete when the limitations are gone. Thus is the case with Newtonian physics and quantum physics.
The ultimate reality has no limit, no circumstance, no parameters. To know it one cannot have limits or parameters either. The ultimate reality is unspeakable, for language itself is a parameter, a limitation. The ultimate reality can only be known through direct experience, a full perspective view of the universe. We are all innately connected to it at all times. Once in a while when we are truly open, without conception of our worldly knowledge, without being colored by our desires and attachments, we tap into the ultimate reality momentarily, this sheer magnificence, this pure elegance.
The highest level of teachers and healers operate from the ultimate reality. They do not need any tools for all tools can limit as well. With their own ultimate reality, or the Buddhist call it the Buddha nature, to illuminate another. And they see the Buddha nature in the other. As soon as they see it, the other is enlightened, literally, his/her Buddha nature becomes the reality. This ability to see Buddha nature is called “Tong Shen Ming” in ancient Chinese texts such as the Yellow Emperor’s Classic. It can be translated as probing or penetrating spiritual light. The highest level of teacher and healers see the core of this world, the essence of life. They see through the condition of a person, 360 degree view of the person, his/her true nature. They know the condition of this world. In this level, the boundary between seeing and knowing and being is gone.
It is the reason Mingtang calls this form of healing Image Therapy. We are directly seeing the healthy image in another person thus the image becomes the reality. The image level of vibration is the highest and purest, as far as we know in this realm. The sound level of vibration, resonating, like mantras to create change, create new reality is the next level down from the image. This is the method of healing and practice Mingtang is trying to teach us. It is a practice of cultivating our own inner seeing, inner light until the light is pure and high in vibration so it illuminates all reality and cut through to the ultimate reality. Through “know thy self,” one becomes enlightened. This “know thy self” is not from the mind, the superficial level, or limited psychological levels. It is from the tangible experience of the penetrating spiritual light.

Four Stages of Spiritual Development

2007-09-06T18:24:00.000-07:00

There are generally four stages of spiritual development. All stages in our spiritual journey are at the right time necessary, but at other times they can cause spiritual stagnation, becoming yet another form of attachment.
At the beginning of our spiritual journey, we like to look at all different forms of spirituality, different methods of practice to see which suit us best right here right now. But if we became attached to this stage, it becomes spiritual materialism, which stems from greed or fear of true commitment to working within. This spiritual materialism can end up draining our energy, time and resources outwardly without much internal growth.
When we first became aware of all the areas that we have been in denial of, revealing our hidden pain, this is a necessary awakening stage. But if we get obsessed about our own pain, we lose sight of the journey.
The next stage of empowerment, gaining power of intention, power of healing, power of energy and mind, it is also easy to endlessly play with becoming more energetically powerful, or experiencing that blissful, estatic state, and forget about our true spiritual journey.
There are also practitioners who try to slip the becoming aware stage and the becoming powerful stage, and try to go from being unaware to emptiness. Many meditators do this. They may lose a lot of time getting no where.
This is why it is important to have a teacher who have walked this path, and can shine light on our obsessions, our attachments, our blind spots along the way.

Releasing Emotions

2007-09-06T18:23:00.000-07:00

Nov. 07
We cannot resolve emotions through the mind. The mind is merely the receiver of information. The sender is our body. That is why when we get angry, it rises faster than our rational mind could catch it.
To resolve anger, we must release our awareness into our liver. We will learn tangibly how to finely and fully tune into how our liver is feeling when we are angry. When our awareness become more and more sensitive, we could feel more and more strongly that anger releases such toxin, such poison, such destruction force in our liver, into our own body! This bodily sensation becomes so overwhelming that we are horrified at how we abuse ourselves when we get angry with others.
This is when we break down in grief for ourselves. This is when past anger that’s been stored in our liver can begin to release. Then there is space within to feel the tenderness and gentleness for ourselves. Compassion can arise within ourselves. This is when we would never want to commit such atrocity, unleash such violence on ourselves again.
The next time when something outside of us shows injustice and wrong doing, we can firmly put down our principles of what is right and just without anger. This is the ultimate way to end anger—through tuning into our body, through deep meditation when we release our awareness into our body, keeping it there so the awareness becomes finer and finer, until we truly hear our own body, truly know our own body, and truly understand our own body, what it wants and how to gain balance and harmony. This peace within will manifest to the without. This is the true change. Our mind will follow this change of our being.

Releasing into Life

2007-09-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

November 7, 2006
We tend to think of breathing harder to get more oxygen. We try to bring in more energy, suck in more life force. We try to get healthy. We try to attract more wealth. We try to find love and happiness. We use all these active terms, breathe, try, bring in, suck in, get, attract, find, etc. This thinking of working hard to bring in the good is based on fear.
The truth is there is endless amount of oxygen for all. The universe is filled with energy. There is enough material goods for everyone on earth. And joy and love is in every moment everywhere.
When we relax, release the tightness, oxygen naturally flows in. When we release our body, let go holding patterns, energy floods into our being. When we release blockages in our body and being, health and wellbeing is ours naturally. When we relax, smile and trust, all goodness come into our lives, and life becomes easy. When we relax and let our heart open, we discover love is all around us. When we surrender to the moment, we feel joy and peace.
This is the natural way. Being with the flow of nature is effortless. This is our place in the universe. It is eternal, limitless. This is true freedom. This is the essence of life. This is we.
We do not need to try hard. Tap into the effortless flow of nature. Our original soul is connected to the infinite. It is part of the limitless light and power. It always has been and always will be. All we need to do is to release our holding patterns, our tightness, closedness, blockages. Each tightness residing in our body is part of our mind-heart soul, our ego. It takes energy to hold each pattern. When we exhale and release the tightness, light rushes in, life force floods in, energy and power pours in.
It takes a lot of life force to hold all the patterns and controls in place. This is when we feel tired, depleted, uncreative, tied up. It feeds into the tightening spiraling of fear. Each time we release a tightness, a holding pattern, we feel more spacious, more free and more energized.

The key to releasing is our body. Our body is the perfect tool for developing our awareness, deepening our awareness to the state of awakening. The release does not happen from thinking, from our mind. Our mind’s job and training is to be in charge, hold structures and patterns for control. It is very difficult to work with the busy mind without feeding back into it. What we can do is to smile at the mind and relax it. This releases our awareness into our body, into our whole being. This is a reason why we have a physical body in this physical world. When our body communicates pain and discomfort, we can follow that signal for releasing. Then our body would naturally flow into the healing path.

Surrender our ego control. Let our body come back onto the natural way. Water does not struggle. It just is. Trees do not fight. It follows nature. The planets and stars do not try hard. They just are. When we release, we are on the effortless path, the natural path. When we let go, we are bio composting our waste energy, and completing the natural cycle. When we surrender, we are with our original soul. We are light. We are eternal.

Becoming Present through Osmosis

2007-09-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

Before I left for Peru Karen invited me to Ecstatic Dance—an open free form session moving to world music. Since I have been back, I have been going regularly. The space is perfect for my spontaneous movement and Zhenggong practice (A level four ZYQ practice) where I receive teachings directly through movement. Many times during these practices, I feel the divine coming through me.
At the beginning of the dance, I turn the center of my awareness within, using my peripheral awareness throughout the room. I stretch out stagnant energy channels and points, shake stagnant qi loose and out. Somewhere along the way when I least expect it, the divine touches me, moves me, and becomes me.
Last time I was meditating while dancing, I abruptly had to open my eyes. Near me I saw a man kneeling; his head was bowing all the way down to the floor. His full awareness in his movement was palpable. He surrendered with his whole-being, whole-heartedly, fully present in each mille-second, which slowed time around him, and around me too. All of a sudden, the air around me became tangible. All of a sudden, the beauty of the moment shook me lose, shook me open. All of a sudden, the air above me opened. Divineness came through my being. Tears ran down my face.
Then the energy changed. I felt the Earth energy coming into me. I was pregnant with a great ball of qi in my belly. I held it with my whole being. I adored it. Every cell in my being revolved around it. I loved it with my whole heart, with every bit of my being. Suddenly a thought lit up in me, this is femininity, this is unconditional love and nurturing. This is how our Earth feels about each and every one of us. I am our Earth’s child. More tears streamed down.
After these repeated experiences of deep connection, it became clear to me that by coming into a group, such as this one at Ecstatic Dance or a class or a workshop, I choose to step beyond my personal awareness and merge with a larger, broader group awareness. The group awareness helps me to step beyond my own identity, my own routine ways of thinking.
The group awareness also helps me to make a definable containment, a firm boundary which makes my ego feel safer to explore beyond its usual territory. I, and all of us in the group, can dance/leap/shake and bound outside of our norm and still feel cuddled by the gentle holding of the group. This is the benefit of group practice. If one is already able to meditate in any situation, for example among the fifty thousand children practicing martial arts in the Shaolin Monastery, one learns to use any environment as a tool for focusing one’s awareness more deeply.
This is also why when we come to a qigong meditation class, the teacher offers that broader yet firm boundary that lets us, as students, grow in a nurturing and constructive way. Our spiritual growth needs both the wild intuitive power and the structured disciplined practice.
When one person in a group becomes fully present, everyone around him/her has an easier entry into presence themselves. The change of vibration in the air is noticeable. This effect is another benefit of group practice, especially when practicing with advanced meditation masters. Many of us have had that bliss by osmosis experience while meditating in Mingtang’s presence. But practicing with our peers also can create more chances for deeper awareness.
In the sharing after the dance that night, a woman talked about feeling her spine for the first time. She was beginning to get to know her spine after an accident. These words brought up similar vibrations in me, in my understanding. Only after we have lost something or somebody do we begin to know the importance of that thing or someone. It’s the contrast of having and not having, the duality of this world, that offers us the understanding and awareness of the duality and yet the oneness of God. This is why we go through the challenges that we do in life, isn’t it? Verbalizing our experience clarifies for ourselves that experience, connecting and strengthening the energy channel between our heart and the back of our brain. And at the same time sharing the words brings about understanding and resonance of similar experiences in those within the group as well. The cascading effect of the “Aha!” moment occurs within the group on multiple levels for each individual.
I hope to share our presence, our awareness, our awakenings and our understandings with you in our group practices.

Going through the Dark Night of the Soul

2007-09-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

Lately it occurred to several of us healers that a number of people have been going through a challenging time. (I would be interested if any astrologers can give me some insight on what planet going through what stage may be causing this deep inner work.) I myself have been going through one of my darkest nights of the soul for a few weeks.
A fellow Image Therapist Deb gave me a book called “The Red Lion.” There is a statement in there that struck me. It’s something like this—our world is like a mirror image of the higher realms. What we think is good such as pleasures, luxuries and desires can actually lead us toward the lower realms; whereas what we think of as bad, such as hard work, minimal material things and emotional challenges can actually lead us toward the higher realms.
It also is clear to me that going through the dark night of the soul gives me the opportunity, the doorway for new realizations and horizons that there is something limiting in ourselves, physically, in thought, energy and emotional patterns, that may release and transform for us to become lighter and freer. It is a necessary progression of growth.
That moment a light came on in me. It is not darkness itself that lead us to see our darkness. It is in fact when we have light, when we have the resources to shed more limitations, the challenges appear. And when we go into this challenging period, we are surrounded by light! Only so are we able to see shadows that we were oblivious of before. It is so important to remember the light around us as we tumble and wrestle with our own shadow. When we ask for help, pray for light, our eyes open to it, our heart feels it.
It takes courage and perseverance to change, to transform and to be free. Know that there is no shadow that cannot be penetrated by light. Continue to ask, to pray for help in everyway possible. Light and love comes through, and permeates us.