Coming Full Circle
by Shawn Miranda
Recently I completed a Level 2 Yi Ren Qigong class, and while I have some good news about the improvements to my physical health that Yi Ren Qigong has brought me, I'd first like to share with you the unfolding of a process that goes deeper than our physical well-being.
At the start of the first session, Dr. Guan-Cheng Sun gave everyone in the class two handouts. The purpose of one was obvious enough. It gave us a description of the exercise we were to be learning that day. The other, however, was puzzling. On each side of one sheet of paper was a hexagram from the I Ching and its description. One of the hexagrams represented stagnation. On the other side was its exact opposite, or more precisely its inversion, which represented prospering or peace. I wondered how these hexagrams had anything to do with what we were learning, but they were meaningless to me, and even as I pondered their meaning from time to time during the course of my practice, the best I could do was acknowledge the dead energy or stagnation I felt within my own system.
As the class progressed I became fascinated by the details of the movements, the meridians, and the points. I was entering a new world that had previously been unintelligible to me, and, while I felt it useful to familiarize myself with these details, occasionally I found myself getting a little too caught up in them and I had to remind myself to let go and just practice. Also, the feelings and sensations I was experiencing brought up confusion, and there were times when I didn't really know what this energy I was experiencing was. Was it just something being released or was it actually the energy the practice was designed to cultivate?
Toward the end of the sessions I began to experience a state that I feel is best described by the word harmony. My energies were coming into balance, and there were times when the deep calmness I had cultivated during practice made me see the world in a new way. I was seeing the world at work without my usual filters. On one occasion I watched as someone tried to convince me of something that wasn't true in order to maintain their illusion of authority. If I had been caught on the surface level of what he was saying, I might have believed his statements were true, but somehow I was able to see straight through the pretense and into the core.
And yes, my health is getting better. There are times when my joints feel like someone has oiled them. I can stand for longer and longer periods without discomfort. I even believe qigong has saved me a trip to my dermatologist. For the last several years I've had a number of growths removed from my skin, which my dermatologist has attributed to overexposure to the sun. Recently I had one on my forehead that was really beginning to bother me and which I planned to have frozen off sometime soon. Then a few weeks ago I noticed it was shrinking. As of this writing it's totally gone. Obviously I can't prove that this is the result of doing qigong, but it's also quite clear that no other treatment has worked and that the qi is permeating my skin and making it healthier.
Now that I have completed the class at least one meaning of the hexagrams has become clear to me. Let me explain how I came to this realization. I have frequently wondered why Yi Ren Qigong has had such a strong effect on me. I have speculated that it's due at least in part to the fact that the practice as a whole develops the entire energy system instead of just focusing energy on problem areas as I had learned to do in the past. I asked Dr. Sun about this and he seemed to think that there is something to this idea. Then one day as I was practicing I began to understand the connection between movement and energy as I never had before.
Prior to meeting Dr. Sun I had practiced meditation and yoga for years. I had learned to still my mind and concentrate my energy in one area of my body. This has been very beneficial to me and as my life has unfolded I have become increasing calm and compassionate. But even though many of the practices I had learned in the past had promised an overall increase in energy I had watched myself go through one system breakdown after another and had begun to think that this process was inevitable. Yet now I realize that stillness can also equal dead energy or stagnation and that slow, calm movements have the power to generate fresh and vibrant energy and clear away the old, dead energy, the stagnation, and that prospering is indeed the result.
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