by Claire | Sep 6, 2007 | Uncategorized
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!
by Claire | Sep 6, 2007 | Uncategorized
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!
by Claire | Sep 6, 2007 | Uncategorized
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!
by Claire | Sep 6, 2007 | Uncategorized
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.
by Claire | Sep 6, 2007 | Uncategorized
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.
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