Chapter

9

Sitting QiGong (Jing Gong or Nei Gong)

In This Chapter

If you are a T’ai Chi or QiGong teacher, and you haven’t enjoyed and incorporated Sitting QiGong meditation into your own practice and your teaching, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to deepen your Qi awareness.

This chapter will enable you to experience a profound Sitting QiGong experience that will give you a good start into dramatically expanding the depth and breadth of your T’ai Chi and QiGong journey or teaching. Your T’ai Chi or QiGong moving forms will deepen to an entirely new level as Sitting QiGong is used to prep you or your students for the moving forms. Someone in the UK emailed me after using my T’ai Chi DVD for about a year. He’d gone directly to the Moving QiGong and T’ai Chi instruction, skipping over the Sitting QiGong for a year. Then one day he decided to try the Sitting QiGong and was stunned by how much deeper his Moving QiGong and T’ai Chi experience was after using the Sitting QiGong technique.

It can help make your T’ai Chi forms a deep QiGong experience. I’ve included for this chapter a short exhibition of the Long Form of T’ai Chi I teach in Chapter 13, with “breathing techniques” so you can ultimately learn to make your T’ai Chi experience a deeply relaxing internal one that incorporates QiGong’s Postbirth Breathing into each form. See T’ai Chi with QiGong Breathing in the Web Video Support, www.idiotsguides.com/taichi.

At its core, Sitting QiGong is about tuning into our vibratory rate. As you know by now, we are made of energy. Our thoughts, emotions, and feelings are varying vibratory rates of this energy field that we are, but it may in a way be creating our external reality as well.

An acclaimed book titled The Hidden Messages in Water was written by Dr. Masuru Emoto, a Japanese researcher, who discovered that people’s thoughts affected the water he was studying. When two exactly alike bottles of water were placed on two different tables, one with a group of people directing hateful thoughts at it, and the other bottle on a table surrounded by people thinking loving thoughts, the water looked much different in analysis. The researcher was photographing the water just as it reached the freezing point and was forming crystals. The “hateful-thought-programmed” water crystals looked like vomit, while the “loving-thought” water had formed beautiful crystalline shapes.

If the vibratory rate of thoughts physically changed the water, and we are made mostly of water, what impact does our thoughts, or in other words the energy vibratory rate of our consciousness, have on our bodies? Conversely, as you enjoy this Sitting QiGong exercise and are immersed in acceptance, safety, and nurturing, then consider how this affects your vibratory rate, and in the end, your cells and body. By using techniques like this again and again, day after day, we re-program our energy field’s vibratory rate in a positive way, and this energy field that we are is the most basic part of our existence. Our physical body is built upon the template of that field’s state of being, which is influenced by our state of mind.

Once I became extremely ill after a botched dental procedure, and I thought I might not survive. A healthcare professional validated my years of T’ai Chi practice, when she said, “You must have been super healthy to have survived this; most people wouldn’t have.” During that life challenge Dr. Effie Chow, a great QiGong master from California who’d served on the President’s Council for Complementary Medicine in the early 1990s came to my aid, and reminded me that I must let my mind see myself as getting well. She worked with me to shift my consciousness through counseling and QiGong practices. This close call was one of the most powerful QiGong lessons I ever learned. But this programming of the physical with the mind can affect the world beyond our bodies as well.

In Chapter 21 I’ll detail our ability to use T’ai Chi to change the world on a practical level, but it’s worth mentioning here, because over the 15 years since this book’s first edition came out, science has discovered some amazing facts about our connection and ability to affect the world around us as well.

Scientific research has revealed that subatomic particles thousands of miles away from one another can affect one another, and that our human energy field extends far beyond the body, and in fact that human consciousness actually affects the physical world around us. The Global Consciousness Project’s research (that evolved out of original research at Princeton University) has proven this.

So if Dr. Emoto’s research proves that our energy vibratory rate can impact things outside our physical body, and other research has proven that the world is physically influenced by our vibratory rate of consciousness, then our energy’s condition, when multiplied by 7 billion people, is actually forming the world we see around us in many ways. Mind blowing, isn’t it?

But for the purposes of this chapter, let’s focus on our internal energy field. We can measure the Qi flowing through our bodies in many ways. A common way to see energy flow is through Kirlian photography. This chapter provides some examples of how Kirlian photography captures images of our energy.

QiGong practice isn’t about pretending to be energy; it’s about feeling what we really are, which is energy. Actually, the entire universe is energy. This chapter ends with an exercise of Sitting QiGong, which will enable you to actually feel the nature of your energy and how life energy, or Qi, feels as it flows through your body. You’ll love it!

Energy Medicine and QiGong

Previous chapters explained how Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) works by unblocking or directing the energy flowing through the body. QiGong and T’ai Chi also work to balance and unblock that energy. See Web Video QiGong Facilitates Our Energy Flow.

However, QiGong is also about realizing that the body isn’t a solid entity but, instead, an open, moving wave of energy. QiGong will actually help you realize your energy nature by providing quiet sitting exercises that enable you to feel it. Over time, you’ll begin to feel your energy aspect in your T’ai Chi practice as well. Some of the instructional figures in Chapter 13 include notes on energy flow during T’ai Chi, and when you view those figures/instructional notes while watching the Web Video Support’s Exhibition of the T’ai Chi Long Form, you can get a feeling of the T’ai Chi player’s loosening flow of Qi as he or she enjoys the T’ai Chi forms, which Sitting QiGong helps prepare you for internally.

The Sitting QiGong exercise presented at the end of this chapter enables you to feel the Qi or energy that moves through your body. Before I get to that, however, I’d like to show you how the process works. Then, when you do the exercise, you can let your brain—and skepticism—relax and get out of the way. The energy flows more easily when you are effortless. So don’t worry about memorizing any of these facts. Rather, sit back and be entertained by the fascinating insights into who you really are.

OUCH!

Kirlian Photography: Seeing Qi Is Believing

There is actually a way to take photographs of the energy aspect of our bodies. (You may have heard this energy referred to as aura.) Kirlian photography has been around since the 1950s, but it received a lot more attention as we in the West learned about Qi and QiGong because it seems to be able to take pictures of Qi, or at least aspects of Qi.

When a Kirlian photograph is taken, the person, or leaf, or any living thing rests on a photographic plate, and a mild electrical current is run through it. Then the camera takes an image of the energy or Qi of the plant or person.

The Science of Qi

In China, modern scientific studies over the last three decades have detected that what has been called Qi includes a mixture of electromagnetic field, infrared light, ultraviolet light, and even traces of visible light. However, Kirlian photographic research is what significantly sparked interest in identifying Qi as a scientific reality.

When Kirlian photography was first introduced, skeptics argued that the photography captured nothing more than the electricity running through the plant or person’s hand or whatever was photographed. However, this all changed with the discovery of the “phantom effect.” The following figure illustrates the phantom effect, seen on a leaf.

This illustration represents the “phantom effect” as it appears in a common Kirlian photograph of a leaf.

In these front and back images you see a leaf, but what’s amazing is that the top part of the leaf you see in the figure isn’t really there! The top quarter of the leaf was torn off before the photo was taken. So what looks like the top part of the leaf is actually the Qi, or energy aspect, of that missing top. You can see where the leaf was torn but still see the veins and edges going up. This discovery changed not only the way people viewed Kirlian photography, but also the way science looks at what we are made of.

Having Smooth Qi Means Being in the Zone

Eating right, getting enough rest and exercise, and practicing T’ai Chi and QiGong can positively affect your energy flow, whereas behavior shown to be detrimental to health can negatively affect Qi flow. The following figure illustrates how our behavior affects our Qi, or energy. This is important for understanding the benefits of the Sitting QiGong exercise we will do later.

Kirlian photographs illustrate how our behavior affects our Qi, or energy flow, through our body and beyond.

The figure shows a woman’s fingertip and the energy flowing through and around it. The image on the left shows this woman’s fingertip in a normal state; the Chinese would call that smooth Qi, or a healthful state. However, the image on the right is the same woman after she drank a cup of coffee and smoked her very first cigarette. The energy went wild! In fact, notice that in some places there seems to be no energy.

We all know how smooth Qi feels, as on those days when you wake up and everything just clicks the way it’s supposed to. Every paper wad you throw lands right in the center of the trash can. In basketball, it’s called being in the zone. We all know how it feels when we are there, in the zone, but we might not know how to get there.

T’ai Chi and QiGong offer a way to get into the zone. As we practice our T’ai Chi movements every day, day after day, we find ourselves spending much less time frazzled and wired, like in the second image. And we find ourselves more and more in the calm center of smooth Qi, as depicted in the first image.

T’AI SCI

Don’t Control Qi, Let Qi Radiate

The following figure is very important in preparing you for the upcoming Sitting QiGong exercise because it illustrates how the mind can direct energy. In this figure, you see two sets of hands; both belong to the same man. In the image on the left, you see his hands in a normal state. However, in the image on the right, you see his hands when he’s consciously thinking of allowing energy to radiate out from his hands.

Kirlian photographs illustrate how our energy or Qi flow can be directed by thought.

When the man was thinking of sending energy out of his hands, he wasn’t grunting and straining. He simply relaxed as he let it happen. I mention this before you start the Sitting QiGong to remind you not to “try.”

This is an important point because we often think that anything worth doing must be hard. We want to put our “shoulder to the wheel,” our “nose to the grindstone,” and “furrow our brow” to get something done. However, the energy work, or QiGong, doesn’t work that way. The more you try, the more the muscles tighten up and the less the energy flows through you.

So as the man was sending energy out through his hands, he just thought of it happening and then relaxed and enjoyed the feeling as he let it flow out. You may experience what he felt during the Sitting QiGong exercise, often described as a tingly light feeling.

SAGE SIFU SAYS

The Sitting QiGong is a very effortless process. When it begins, I’ll invoke images, such as a soothing flow of relaxation or light energy pouring over your head and face, relaxing all the muscles. When you read this or hear it on the Web Video Support that follows (you may find it helpful to record the Sitting QiGong in your own voice as well), you will want to imagine the shower of lightness or relaxation pouring over you. But then let go of the image and just enjoy the feeling of effortless relaxation spreading through your head and facial muscles as the lightness spreads through them. Researchers have found that if you think of the image, let go of that mental image, and then let the lightness flow through, you will be more able to feel the pleasure of that flow.

T’AI SCI

E = MC² Means You Are Only Energy

It’s easier to relax and let your Qi flow through you if you know that everything in the universe—including you—is only made out of energy. Einstein’s famous E = MC² equation means E (energy) equals M (mass) times C (speed of light) squared. Don’t get an algebra attack, though, because all it means is that all things, including you, are made of energy.

Actually, we are mostly just empty space, or energy field. To understand just how spacious we all are, consider the following: if you could take an atom out of anything in the universe, like one of your body’s atoms, and blow it up to the size of a football field, the nucleus of that atom would only be the size of a BB in the center of that football field. The electrons that revolve around it would be like dust motes 50 yards away in the end zone. So everything between the BB and the dust mote 50 yards away is energy field, or empty space.

In fact, imagine if you could take all the atoms of all the human beings on the whole planet and somehow smush all their atomic particles together, getting rid of the empty space or energy fields we are made of. All the humans on the entire planet’s smushed-up atomic particles would add up to just one grain of rice. That is it!

The best image to illustrate that we are mostly open, permeable space is found in something called a “particle chamber.” (You might have seen one in your local children’s science museum.) A particle chamber is a big glass box filled with ammonia mist. A plaque on the chamber explains that there are cosmic particles falling through space, through the roof of the building, through your skull, your body, your shoes, and right into the earth as you sit here reading this. However, the particles are too small to be seen with your eyes. So the chamber’s ammonia mist wraps layers of ammonia around the particles and shines bright flood lights on them, making them big enough to see. When you look inside the particle chamber, you see a blizzard of these particles—the same blizzard that’s flowing through us all the time.

I mention all this to set the mood for the Sitting QiGong exercise because it reminds us that we are not a solid, impenetrable mass. We are mostly empty space, and the Qi or life energy can flow through our skulls and brains just as easily as it flows through the air around us.

The only thing that can limit the Qi flow is a thought limitation. So if you invoke an image of a relaxing flow of energy expanding through your head, but then you think, Hold on there—my head is solid mass, your muscles will tighten up a bit. This tightening will restrict the flow of energy that flows through you.

QiGong and T’ai Chi don’t make energy flow through you. The energy expands and flows through you every moment you are alive. Yet as we age, we often squeeze off the flow of life energy, turning it into a dribble rather than the river of life that flowed through us when we were kids. T’ai Chi and QiGong work by enabling your mind and body to let go of fears, tensions, and grudges that squeeze off your energy flow. This Sitting QiGong exercise is about letting go effortlessly with every breath. The energy flows by itself.

OUCH!

On Sitting QiGong, Jing Gong, or Nei Gong

In this exercise, you will begin to feel your flow of Qi, or life energy. The Qi will be referred to as “light” because the Qi flows right through you, like sunlight seems to soak right into your bones on a nice spring day. Sitting QiGong is also called Nei Gong (pronounced (nā gong), which is defined as “allowing the mind to radiate Qi through the meridians, body, and the larger energy field that we are made up of.” Jing Gong is another term for it, jing referring to stillness, or spirit.

Remember not to try. You are not supposed to see or feel anything. You are just going to have a nice, relaxing experience. So as I offer images, read them and then close your eyes and let yourself feel the result. Qi is waiting to radiate through you, as soon as you begin to lighten up on yourself, which is what this exercise is designed to help you do.

As alluded to earlier, this latest edition of this book includes a new Sitting QiGong video in the Web Video Support (excerpt provided courtesy of Anthology of QiGong CD in Appendix C). It will verbally guide you through the following Sitting QiGong exercises, enabling you to sit back with your eyes closed throughout the entire exercise.

SAGE SIFU SAYS

This exercise is best done sitting upright in a comfortable chair that supports good posture. Your feet should be in solid contact with the floor. Also, if your arms and legs are not crossed, the energy flows easier. When you see spaces between text divided by … (an ellipsis), give yourself a few seconds to assimilate and feel the experience with your eyes closed before reading on. The fourth edition’s new Web Video Support Sitting QiGong video/audio experience enables you to enjoy this experience with your eyes closed.

One last suggestion before you dive in. I used to focus a lot on the idea of energy flowing through my body, and you may experience a sense of this. However, over the years I’ve realized that this isn’t so much about “making” energy do something as it is about us just relaxing out of the way so that this silken effortlessness can expand through us, because, as you now know, when you get down to the little bits we are only made of energy.

Before starting the Web Video’s Sitting QiGong or this text instruction, I encourage you to review the Web Video Support’s QiGong Breathing Tutorial. Now, I realize that you’ve already done the Sitting QiGong video experience in Chapter 1, but you now know a lot more about the energetic nature of your being and effortless nature of T’ai Chi and QiGong, so when you do it this time it will be a new experience.

1. Begin by placing your feet flat on the floor, with your palms flat on your legs. Let your eyes close comfortably and naturally. This exercise is broken into sections, so you can open your eyes to read a section and then close them for a few moments to let yourself experience and feel the responses.

Sit with your feet flat, your palms flat on your thighs, and your back straight but not rigid.

2. All T’ai Chi or QiGong exercises begin by simply becoming aware of the breath. Notice how your lungs fill and empty. Let your chest and back relax so your lungs can fill from the bottom all the way up to the top. Notice how, as you release the breath, your lungs empty from the top, or the chest, and then empty all the way down into the abdomen as the abdominal muscles pull in slightly.

3. Let your mind relax as the muscles in your head, neck, shoulders, chest, and back relax. As the body relaxes, the breaths become not only deeper, but also more effortless. Allow your awareness to relax and ride on the rhythm of that breath, as if the whole body was being breathed by the air. Let the whole body relax as you release each breath.

4. As you feel the body let go of the breath, feel the brain let go of your thoughts and worries of the day. Just as the deep exhales or releasing yawns allow the muscles to let go, the exhaled breath can let go of mental tensions. Likewise, the muscles within and around your heart can hold on to fears or emotions. So as you release each breath, yawn, or sigh, allow the heart to release emotions, the body to release the muscles, and the mind to let go of worries. Each breath is a deep letting go on all levels.

5. Notice that as you let out each breath, it feels as though the atoms of the body are actually expanding away from one another. That’s because they are! When we get tense, the body’s atoms actually squeeze together, tightening us up. So as we breathe and allow the body to open, the atoms and cells relax away from one another … feeling as if the wind could blow right through you.

6. Now think of the sun directly above your head. Just by thinking of an orb of lightness above your head, you may experience a subtle lift or lightening throughout your mind, or your presence. This Qi, light, or subtle energy vibrates at a higher, more silken rate than the body’s vibratory rate. Therefore, you may experience a feeling of lightness, or loosening, and a deep letting go throughout your entire being. Good.

7. Let that sun open and release a shower of clear, washing light, or silken energy, to pour over your head and body, and through your feet down into the earth below. Let go of that image and open to the feeling of deep release as you are washed by that silken energy. Like a water hose spraying through a screen door, just let the body open and be washed through, as you release each sighing exhale.

OUCH!

8. Be aware as a feeling of lightness expands through the tissues of the body. Notice the light spreading through the muscles in the top of your head. As the cranial muscles relax, they release their grip on the skull, allowing that permeating lightness to expand through the scalp. Expanding through the sides and back of the head, the entire scalp is lighted, as light flows out through every follicle and every hair on the head. Feel the scalp relaxing around the root of every hair.

9. Now allow the light to expand into the muscles at the base of the neck, then down and throughout the connected muscles in the shoulders and upper back. As they let go of their grip on the bones, experience the airy lightness permeating between muscles and bones … a deep letting go.

10. Feel as the energy expands up the back of the head and over the sides, and feel the hinges of the jaw go slack.

11. Now allow this energy to expand over the forehead, over the brow, down the bridge of the nose, and into the temples. Don’t try to feel anything or make anything happen; just effortlessly observe as the light expands into the left eye socket … and then the right. Experience all the tiny optical muscles letting go.

12. Perceive the illumination expanding through all the soft tissues of the face, nose, mouth, and lips.

13. Experience an airy radiance expanding up through the nose into the deepest recesses of the sinus cavity. Feel that opening release as the sinuses fill with light.

14. Now into the ears: feel the deep skeletal muscles in the sides of the head let go as the silken energy expands into the inner ears, allowing a deep letting go in the sides of the head.

15. As the inner ears relax, the Eustachian tubes open, allowing the soothing energy to flow down into the mouth. As the mouth fills with light, the upper palate, upper jaw and gums, and even the teeth seem to lighten, loosen, and let go. And now the lower jaw.

SAGE SIFU SAYS

16. As you become aware of any saliva gathered in your mouth, swallow it and experience the energy expanding down your throat, through the neck, and into your chest, shoulders, and back.

17. The heart itself can begin to lighten. If you catch yourself trying to feel or make something happen, let all that go. Be willing to feel absolutely nothing as you passively observe the lightness expanding through your heart and chest, permeating all the fibrous tissues of your lungs.

18. This allows every beat of the heart to carry lighted oxygen to all the extremities of the body; in fact, every cell begins to be lighted as the energy moves through the liquid systems of the body. Let the body open to that lightness, even in the tightest places.

19. Allow the light to expand through the abdomen, lighting the stomach … the liver … intestinal tract … kidneys … and lower back.

20. Now think of the sun above your head again. Think of it opening and releasing an even greater flow of light over and through the body. After you think the thought, let go of it and experience the feeling of expanded release … as the bones themselves begin to lighten, the deepest skeletal muscles begin to release their grip on the bones.

SAGE SIFU SAYS

21. As the skull becomes permeated with light, the soothing energy expands right into the brain, illuminating the left frontal lobe and then the right frontal lobe, and expanding into the forebrain, above and just behind the eyes, into the midbrain and temporal lobes, and on into the brain stem, or old brain, in back.

22. Experience as all the billions of brain cells open to that silken effortless radiance. It’s as if the brain were a muscle we’ve held clenched very tightly for a long, long time. And now as we allow the light to expand through the brain, we are finally allowing that muscle to let go, to expand open, and to light.

23. Now let the energy expand through the spine to the entire nervous system. Any nervous tension on the frayed nerve endings can now be released into that silken healing lightness now passing through all the nerves to the farthest dendrites in the skin.

24. Experience the light flowing down to the tip of the tailbone and radiating out, filling the pelvic bowl and expanding on down through the legs and feet. Now think of the feet opening to allow this river of cleansing energy to pour right through into the cleansing pull of the earth.

25. Let the whole body open to be washed through as the feet release any loads or heavy tensions down into the earth’s cleansing pull.

26. As you allow yourself to be washed through by this radiant cleansing shower, you may become aware of blocks in the flow. Tight spots, tensions, anxiety, feelings of restlessness, or thick drowsiness may appear. Any discomfort you feel is due to a block in the flow of energy. Note where you may feel those blocks or discomforts. Take a deep breath, and as you close your eyes, let the breath out. Think of the light expanding in the center of that tightness or blockage. Experience the opening release.

27. This enables the light to expand in the center of the blockage, allowing that area to open. Release the blockage into the cleansing shower that pours through you to wash away the blockage and release it out through the feet into the earth. Breathe and release yet a bit deeper with every exhale, as if the bones themselves could let go of the load they carry.

28. Sit in this cleansing downpour for a while, enjoying the release. As any thoughts, worries, or tensions surface in your mind or heart, release them into the cleansing shower of washing light. Breathe, release, and enjoy.

29. Now think of the feet closing. Instantly that happens, with no effort. By closing the feet, you may experience a sensation of back-filling energy on the soles of your feet as the light fills the feet and the field around, like a silken cocoon of light, coming up over the feet, ankles, knees, legs, and torso, and spilling over the top of your head to fill the field around you.

SAGE SIFU SAYS

30. With the eyes closed, lift your hands in front of you, as if you were holding a giant beach ball between your palms (see the following figure). Think of the palms and fingers opening, and effortlessly the back-filling energy in your body now flows out through your palms and fingers.

31. Take a few deep-cleansing breaths to release all the muscles in your upper body, even though your hands are raised. It’s the letting go that allows the energy to flow through more powerfully.

Be sure to let the upper body relax, even though the hands are raised. Slowly move them together and, with eyes closed, open to experience the sensations of Qi in your hands.

32. Slowly begin to move the palms of your hands toward one another, opening them to the experience of the energy you’ve begun to gather, not only within and around you, but between your palms as well. Move them toward one another until they are almost touching … and experience.

33. Good, now slowly move your hands apart until they are about 3 or 4 feet away from one another, feeling the difference as they move apart. (Repeat moving the hands in and out two more times.)

34. Now gently place your palms back down on your thighs. With each releasing breath, let all that go, relaxing a bit more into your chair with each exhale.

35. As you let go of that experience, reopen yourself to the down-pouring light washing over and through your head and body. With the feet closed, the body is saturated with light. Allow it to spill over the top of your head, quickly filling the field around you.

36. Soon it will feel as though you are floating within a limitlessly expanding ocean of light. With every exhale, allow yourself to be floating more effortlessly within it. Sit back and enjoy this feeling.

37. In doing so, you can begin to feel any remaining loads or heavy energy squeezed within the muscles or other tissues being magnetically lifted up and out of the body in all directions.

38. You can literally begin to feel burdens being lifted up and off of the shoulders just by breathing and being willing to let go. Any worries and concerns are lifted off the temples or brow, again just by being willing to let go and then observing the release. The deep facial muscles release tensions they’ve held on to throughout the day.

SAGE SIFU SAYS

39. Now any heaviness or angst around the heart begins to be lifted up and off your chest. As the body continues to release these loads, you become aware of your entire being filling with a limitless, permeable lightness, refreshing and absolutely effortless.

40. This process of release, cleansing, expanding, and enlightening will continue throughout the day. Even when you’re not consciously aware of it, the rhythm of breathing and the willingness to let go will enable you to be lifted into the lightness of this ocean of silken energy. Here your stresses and loads can continually be released into the cleansing light, and your cells and surrounding field will be bathed in its effortless healing.

41. Let yourself sit within this ocean of light, assimilating and soaking in the light. Let go. There is no need to hold on to the light, for the more we let go, the more there is.

42. After assimilating the light for a few minutes, very slowly and very gently, when you’re ready, open your eyes.

Quite often, the first time you do Sitting QiGong it’s quite blissful.

However, if you noticed any discomfort or dis-ease, tension, angst, urgency, etc., during this exercise, you didn’t do anything wrong. Whatever you feel is whatever you feel; there is no wrong way to do this. Just don’t give up because of encountering any discomfort.

Realize that there is a physical component to all emotions, thoughts, and sensations within us. As you exhale, think of allowing the light to expand within and throughout these physical points of blockage, for beneath this physical sensation or area of discomfort is an energy tangle or knot where we’ve squeezed onto something mentally or emotionally and unconsciously gripped it in the field of energy that we are. When you think about it, there should be nothing at all stressful or angst producing about sitting in a chair, breathing, for 20 minutes.

So if these issues come up, they are issues you’ve been gripping for some time, and the space this exercise provides enables this issue to come to the surface of your consciousness—so you can play with the breath and the light to allow those internal tangles to begin to ungrip. I bring this up because as discomforts come up, if and when they do, it is easy to run away from the exercise, thinking erroneously that “Sitting QiGong made me tense or nervous.” Again, there is nothing stress or angst producing about sitting in a chair and breathing.

The reason you don’t want to just avoid these internal experiences is because trying to stay distracted all the time with TV, etc. seems to help, but it is only putting a band-aid over a cut without cleaning it first. The turmoil that comes up when in meditation is real, and it will stay under the surface until you go deep inside and practice letting go of your grip around it. But don’t get all serious about this; look at it like an internal game to play.

How do I know this, you might ask? A growing number of Americans suffer from chronic sleep disorders. These tangles of consciousness we build up in our psyche during the day have no way of being released so long as the mind is occupied. Even watching TV doesn’t unload this load because the mind is still busy being stimulated by TV. However, when we lie down and our head hits the pillow, that is the first time during the day when we make space, and so all these collected issues we’ve been avoiding come swirling in our minds like stranded planes circling above an airport where they’ve been waiting for a space to land in. By meditating, we create space, and have tools to help the mind, heart, and body ungrip from issues we’ve unconsciously collected. As you meditate a couple of times per day for a few weeks, you’ll notice sleep coming much easier. In fact, you may not even have to wait that long to gain benefit—it could come very quickly—but don’t put pressure on it. Let the goals slip off your shoulders and be pleasurably surprised when you look back and remember you used to have sleep problems.

One caution: don’t think you have to mentally figure out the solutions to all these circling issues that come up in meditation. Meditation is about letting them come up, sensing where you feel them, how they feel, and then on each releasing breath, thinking of the 50 trillion cells you are exhaling and releasing their grip on whatever your mind starts squeezing onto. Don’t expect these things to let go immediately. They may, but don’t expect it because that will be a form of hanging on to them. Just exhale and let go, again and again and again. Many of these issues will release in layers, so as you release the breath and allow the silken lightness to expand in the center of where you’ve squeezed them, let go of outcome and just trust that layer upon layer of these issues are beginning to release.

I think one big thing I got from Sitting QiGong was learning how to “be with” my discomfort and disturbance in this safe place I cultivated by meditating, so these energetic, emotional, physical, and mental knots could have a chance to evaporate. By learning not to judge these internal sensations as “bad” and trying to run away from them by turning away from meditation and toward life’s myriad distractions, I was able to learn to play with them, and little by little loosen my grip around them and feel the lightness, centeredness, and flow these tools offer.

As long as you remember to breathe, and let go, everything else will take care of itself. Think of T’ai Chi and Sitting QiGong as a game. Whatever you feel is whatever you feel; there is no right or wrong to this. Just breathe, and let go again, and again, and again, and your tangles will begin to unknot within, throughout, and all around you as you release them into the expanding light that you are, and have always been.

If you stuck with Sitting QiGong long enough, you’d figure all this out on your own. The reason I bring it up here is so that you don’t “externalize the blame” for these issues if they come up. They may not come up at all, but after 30 years of teaching, and from my own early experience, I know that it’s tempting to blame the issues that come up during Sitting QiGong on the exercise, or the teacher, or on yourself by thinking meditation is not for you and you just can’t do it.

You can do it. Lighten up on yourself. You’ll get it. Remember T’ai Chi and QiGong are games to play for fun. You play QiGong; you don’t work at it. Just like with sports, it’s not all easy all the time, and challenges come at you from all angles. But by sticking with this, all aspects of your life will improve, and you’ll learn to be much more real and self-accepting, even as you evolve into more and more, deeper and wider.