Everyday moment-to-moment QiGong practice (?)

[Lataif]

Anyone care to share what default QiGong practice they are currently working with . . . in everyday, moment-to-moment situations (?) Driving the car, working at computer terminal, walking down the street, etc . . .

 

I myself am working with a version of "skin breathing" . . .

Edited November 15, 2013 by Lataif

[soaring crane]

nice, I was just thinking about this while driving home from a qigong session last night. I do a lot of qi work while driving, I drive a lot and I'm always doing something. I think modern car seats have become so ergonomic that they can in fact be very helpful for breathing and posture. And with cruise control, with both feet flat on the floor, the position is very fortuitous

 

I often hold the wheel with the left hand and gather qi with the right, for example. I like chanting while driving, too.

 

Computer work, otoh, is deadly to me, I hate it. The only way I can use a computer anymore is with the laptop, leaning back on the reclining sofa, feet up on the table. Like right now, lol, and I'm actively belly-breathing as I type. As soon as I sit at a desk and use a mouse, my right shoulder stiffens up and I feel rotten. We got a tablet recently and I'm getting used to that and can see it taking the place of the laptop in future, but it'll still be a while.

 

Good topic!

[Brian]

I practice stillness-movement (jingdonggong) almost constantly.

[Kadesdes]

I think that the more skilled you become at doing qigong, the more relaxed your body and nervous system become and the more efficiently you manage your internal energy, you start to automatically do qigong all the time without trying although having said that, additional techniques can be used to supplement that but I think constant all round practice is dependent upon how much of an expression of Qigong your every movement and life in general is.

[BaguaKicksAss]

Beating and drumming the qi .

[thelerner]

I practice stillness-movement (jingdonggong) almost constantly.

Could you tell us more about this. Not the technique, but how much is it mental, how much physical, when it comes to such constant practice.

 

Thanks

Michael

[RiverSnake]

Could you tell us more about this. Not the technique, but how much is it mental, how much physical, when it comes to such constant practice.

 

Thanks

Michael

Awareness on the LDT. Tongue to the roof of the mouth. Turn of the monkey.

 

My 2 cents, Peace

[Vitalii]

Ma Danyang said about daily practice:
http://thetaobums.com/topic/32561-the-teaching-of-quanzhen/page-2#entry497094

Edited November 19, 2013 by Vitalii

[Neophyte]

I think that the more skilled you become at doing qigong, the more relaxed your body and nervous system become and the more efficiently you manage your internal energy, you start to automatically do qigong all the time without trying although having said that, additional techniques can be used to supplement that but I think constant all round practice is dependent upon how much of an expression of Qigong your every movement and life in general is.

 

I fully agree with this. My body is more deeply relaxed and pleasant now than before I learned qigong. My moment-to-moment qigong practice is incredibly deep and varied: every moment I'm watching my thoughts and controlling what I think about, paying attention to, etc. My qigong work, though, is mostly unconsious. I regulate my body, breathing and mind.

 

There's an old maxim: "The real regulating happens only when you don't need to consciously regulate." This is true, and I've reached the stage of "the real regulating without regulating." I'm doing everything unconsciously. I am constantly performing either Buddhist or Daoist Breathing, and I always keep my tongue on either the hard or soft palette (usually the soft), and it's all totally natural and unconscious. I also often focus my attention on my upper dan tian and keep my attention there, even while I'm doing things throughout the day. My breaths are long, slow, thin, and silent.

 

I also practice "letting go." This part still requires some of my attention. I immerse myself in whatever I am doing, I make myself forget, and abandon my worries, plans, hopes and all of my emotions. I concentrate on what is going on around me. I listen to everything; I see everything; I piece everything in my environment together. I become engrossed in my activities, even those I find to be boring. I am constantly cultivating my mind. Becoming more in tune with my surroundings actually greatly enhances my ability to calm my mind and to reach the fringes of the void, when I sit to meditate.

[Brian]

Could you tell us more about this. Not the technique, but how much is it mental, how much physical, when it comes to such constant practice.

 

Thanks

Michael

Sorry! Just noticed the question.

 

Awareness on the LDT. Tongue to the roof of the mouth. Turn of the monkey.

 

My 2 cents, Peace

What OldChi describes is a big part of it but let me back up a bit...

 

The Stillness-Movement neigong system includes a number of components, including (but not limited to) sitting stillness-movement practice¹, standing stillness-movement practice, lying stillness-movement practice, Gift of Tao qigong², walking qigong, tree qigong³, running qigong, sleeping qigong & dreamtime qigong. The two-fold objectives of the system⁴ are to discover one's own destiny or purpose, and to gradually align one's self with the Light in wu wei. The methodology involves daily practice which raises one's vibrational energy, increasing one's personal energy in both quantity and quality and thereby burning through filters and slowly allowing one access to higher levels of existence. Along the way, one might discover latent talents -- things like profound healing abilities, and the ability to "see energy," and the ability to interact with other beings of light (including ascended masters). One also discovers (in addition to varying degrees of these latent talents) calmness, serenity, a holistic view of one's environment, a fading away of interest in the mundane, a decreased desire for explanations of things which become apparent, etc.

 

So, long introduction...

 

Think about the raising of vibrational energy I mentioned above. This generally accompanies⁵ the "shifted" trance-like state many of us associate with deep meditation. In Stillness-Movement, one learns to maintain that shifted state, to hold onto it outside of meditation, to keep one foot in the shifted state and one foot in the mundane state, and to adjust one's "balance" -- splitting one's attention between one's energetic practice and one's physical activities.

 

I do my formal sitting, standing & Gift of Tao qigong daily. I also practice walking qigong and spend time in nature. I do lying S-M (or spiral qigong) almost every night at bedtime and occasionally that translates into sleeping or dreaming qigong. In addition, though, I also maintain that shifted state throughout the day -- I am getting closer to 100% of waking hours and am told that it will expand to include sleeping hours in time, too. Whether I am in business meetings or sitting in a waiting room at the dentist's office or watching TV with my wife or cutting the grass⁶, I am balancing my awareness between the mundane and energetic states according to my needs within the physical.

 

Does that help? It isn't exactly an answer to your question...

 

 

¹ Wherein "stillness-movement practice" refers to the meditative component of the system which includes calming/quieting and spontaneous movements, among other elements

² "Gift of Tao" is a collection of qigong sets which have essentially been "reverse-engineered" from energetic patterns and movements experienced during stillness-movement (and/or during dreamtime) -- Gift of Tao is likely to be misinterpreted by the general public as "some weird kind of tai chi."

³ The transition between intellectually considering plant life to be "life" and having a personal interaction with an alert tree's energy-body is an eye-opening and life-changing experience...

⁴ At least, as I currently understand it!

⁵ Or is accompanied by or whatever

⁶ Raking leaves is more likely, this time of year

[Brian]

I don't really use the word "trance" to describe the shift but I have heard others on the forum describe experiences that sound very similar to what I experience in stillness-movement and THEY often seem to talk about being in a trance-like state. I was just trying to draw a comparison.

 

When I do my stillness-movement, I am definitely NOT in a trace state. My eyes are generally closed, and I've heard some practitioners say they have fallen asleep, but I am fully aware of my surroundings. It is not a shutting-down of the external senses or a complete internally reflective state, by any means. In fact, it is precisely this NON-trancelike quality that makes it possible to keep one foot in both realms.

 

(EDIT: I know that Ya Mu has been wired up in a sleep lab and transitioned through the first several phases of sleep-related brain-wave activity in just a few minutes of standing stillness-movement.)

 

That said, there are elements of the system which shift one so profoundly that it can be disorienting and operating heavy machinery might be unwise for a few minutes. Always shift responsibly...

 

The spiral qigong technique is a very powerful restorative method. As such, it can be a wonderful supplement to sleep (a 20-minute session at lunchtime, for instance, is better than any "power-nap"). Additionally, I find it is very relaxing and I often drift off to sleep at night before completing the sequence. I sleep very restfully and my dreamtime has become much more interesting and engaging. Hard to say how much of that is due specifically to the spiral qigong and how much to the stillness-movement system as a whole, but the spiral qigong technique is most assuredly restorative and relaxing!

Edited November 21, 2013 by Brian

[Kadesdes]

I fully agree with this. My body is more deeply relaxed and pleasant now than before I learned qigong. My moment-to-moment qigong practice is incredibly deep and varied: every moment I'm watching my thoughts and controlling what I think about, paying attention to, etc. My qigong work, though, is mostly unconsious. I regulate my body, breathing and mind.

 

There's an old maxim: "The real regulating happens only when you don't need to consciously regulate." This is true, and I've reached the stage of "the real regulating without regulating." I'm doing everything unconsciously. I am constantly performing either Buddhist or Daoist Breathing, and I always keep my tongue on either the hard or soft palette (usually the soft), and it's all totally natural and unconscious. I also often focus my attention on my upper dan tian and keep my attention there, even while I'm doing things throughout the day. My breaths are long, slow, thin, and silent.

 

I also practice "letting go." This part still requires some of my attention. I immerse myself in whatever I am doing, I make myself forget, and abandon my worries, plans, hopes and all of my emotions. I concentrate on what is going on around me. I listen to everything; I see everything; I piece everything in my environment together. I become engrossed in my activities, even those I find to be boring. I am constantly cultivating my mind. Becoming more in tune with my surroundings actually greatly enhances my ability to calm my mind and to reach the fringes of the void, when I sit to meditate.

 

I have found that "letting go" is one of the hardest things to do - ironically - because of what the word implies. It is like Squeezing a stress ball in your hand until the skin goes pale and then you realise that you can just let go and relax. But the mind is so needy and paranoid with its throughts trying to control everything your hand soon clenches up again....and then you again remember to just let go and jump off the cliff without holding back. Keep to the black, but know the white.

[Neophyte]

I have found that "letting go" is one of the hardest things to do - ironically - because of what the word implies. It is like Squeezing a stress ball in your hand until the skin goes pale and then you realise that you can just let go and relax. But the mind is so needy and paranoid with its throughts trying to control everything your hand soon clenches up again....and then you again remember to just let go and jump off the cliff without holding back. Keep to the black, but know the white.

 

Yeah, it's hard at first. I'd say impossible at first, but it's something that improves by slow degrees. Eventually, the change is profound. All of my life, I unfortunately did the opposite: I held onto everything, over-analyzed everything that I learned about. This led to obsessiveness and brooding over things that I could not change. I began to worry incessantly about everything and tried to come to terms with all of my concerns by learning everything I could about what concerned me, and then trying to fit it into the context of the world. This approach to life was all wrong and when I learned about the concept of letting-go, it was a very novel idea to me.

 

And so began the long process of letting-go. This was the simplest but most important thing I've ever learned. All of my worries, concerns and attachments and interests in life used to seem inextricably bound up in me and rooted me down. Now, such things seem "outside" of me and minor, fleeting things. There seems to be an outer world of fleeting form, and then a formless inner world. I guess this is the beginning of what is taught about in books like Taoist Yoga.

[Kadesdes]

Yeah, it's hard at first. I'd say impossible at first, but it's something that improves by slow degrees. Eventually, the change is profound. All of my life, I unfortunately did the opposite: I held onto everything, over-analyzed everything that I learned about. This led to obsessiveness and brooding over things that I could not change. I began to worry incessantly about everything and tried to come to terms with all of my concerns by learning everything I could about what concerned me, and then trying to fit it into the context of the world. This approach to life was all wrong and when I learned about the concept of letting-go, it was a very novel idea to me.

 

And so began the long process of letting-go. This was the simplest but most important thing I've ever learned. All of my worries, concerns and attachments and interests in life used to seem inextricably bound up in me and rooted me down. Now, such things seem "outside" of me and minor, fleeting things. There seems to be an outer world of fleeting form, and then a formless inner world. I guess this is the beginning of what is taught about in books like Taoist Yoga.

 

It certainly is a profound change - I think this obsession with controlling everything can be seen at large as the underlying pattern of modern civilisation and its insane and rampant consumption of the planet. We have enough resources and technology now to feed everyone but we have people in cities running around in circles striving, struggling to make as much money as possible, working ridiculous hours and living imblanced lives whilst turning a blind eye to the people lying on the side of the road with nothing but rags. I think we all DESPERATELY need to slow down, I think humanity has become obsessed with "doing" and "growing" due to to the sheer opportunities that our discoveries and developments have opened up for us. We have basically created a living environment (cities) that is in complete opposition to nature and moving at a scary pace. I watch nature documentaries sometimes and note to myself how the narrators sometimes say "We (humanity) have conquered nature" - I think it is quite an arrogant statement and reflective of the immaturity still inherent with us.