How Can Our Practice Bring Us Joy?
By Jill Gonet and Guan-Cheng Sun
8/15/2002
Our physical body is our way of
being in touch with the Earth, and with the spirit manifested here. If we can't
integrate the spiritual teachings we encounter within our own bodies, it's hard
for these spiritual teachings to take hold and root themselves deeply into the
layers of a fully lived life. Sometimes you can't fit any more tea into the tea
cup because there's already an overflowing ego in that tea cup; then again,
sometimes there's too much old programming in that tea cup (the body), or
painful memories, or illness, stress, tension, or accumulations of toxins and
waste products. In such cases, it can be difficult for a body so full of other
energies to receive spiritual information, and so the person deals with it
intellectually. And this, sadly, creates endless seeking, as long as the person
does not take the time to listen to the body, to acknowledge what has been
stored in it, to cleanse it, and begin to relate to the body lovingly and
mindfully.
Our qigong practice gives us a perspective from which we are
able to review our life, in order to clear things out--like undesirable
experiences, pain, unreasonable expectations, concepts and programs we've been
given that may no longer seem true or useful. We become aware of old or foreign
information and programming that may be holding us back, and to clear that
information from our personal space. And the more of this that we are able to
clear out, the more we are able to find and create our own unique way. The
communications from our deep consciousness become much more easy to hear once
all the noise of old negative information and foreign information and
programming has been cleared.
As we integrate our mind and body to a
greater degree, we also become more able to integrate the life of the spirit,
not just intellectually, but also experientially, and this is a source of great
joy.
With regular and sustained practice, we are on our way to a more
fully functional body, with greater internal peace and silence. The precondition
for uniting the mind with the consciousness of the body is a peaceful mind, and
getting this peaceful mind is a step-by-step process. Through our practice, we
activate and develop the body's energy-information system. By doing so, we
enhance the body's feelings and sensitize the mind; we tell the mind "pay
attention to this place here, and to this place here." In this way, the mind
becomes connected to the body's energy field. By extension, when we pay
attention to our own body and become mindful of it and present in it, we're just
a small step away from attentiveness and mindfulness of our larger body, the
Earth. We feel the consciousness within and we feel it everywhere else, too.
That center is within, without, and it is holding. For example, when we feel the
joy of the birds in their spring auditions, when we watch the buds unfurl, or
stand in awe as a bald eagle suddenly dives with unbelievable speed. When we
notice a really grand tree, or the beauty of rocks rounded and smoothed by
water. By listening to our bodies and loving our bodies, we also come to love
the Earth, and experience its harmonies as our own, and its joys.
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