Crow Calls To Us To Remember

Crow is sent to remind us. Always and everywhere, remember to return too, and keep, a spiritual perspective.

"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." -- Japanese Proverb

Lady Fxi ( Yulan Fucius) Taught Me This Chi Kung

Lady Fxi, who is currently teaching in Beijing China, ( may her life always be beautiful) in the above photo, taught me this wonderful chi kung exercise. I give it to you as her gift to us all.

Sit in a comfortable position.Place the tip of your tongue on your upper palate just behind your two front teeth. Women, place your left hand over your lower abdomen and your left hand over your right hand. Men, place your right hand over your lower abdomen and your right hand over your left hand.

Intend to open your Bhi Hui. Connecting with the energy of the Heaven move your awareness down through the top of your head to your upper dan tien. From your upper dan tien move your awareness down through your head and on into your throat, neck and into your shoulders. Simultaneously move through the trunk of your body and down your arms. Pass through your middle dan tien and into your lower dan tien at the same time flowing into your hands being aware of both Laboring Palaces in the middle of your palms.

From your lower abdomen and lower dan tien move your awareness down through your legs to your feet. Be aware of both Kidney Ones or Gushing Springs. From the bottom of your feet imagine energy roots are flowing deep and wide into the middle of the Earth. From the middle of the Earth imagine your roots moving through the other side of the Earth into the Heavens.

You are now united with the Heaven and Earth and ready to start your chi kung practice.

Move your awareness to your heart area or middle dan tien. Place a loving smile in your middle dan tien. Let the smile spread from your heart area to fill up your whole body. Let the smile grow from your body to fill up your room. From your room let the smile fill up your house. From your house let the smile fill up your neighborhood. From your neighborhood let your smile fill up your village or town or city. Intend for your smile to fill up your state or province. Let the smile spread throughout your country. Intend for your smile to spread through out your hemisphere. Let your beautiful, loving, healing, smile spread over and lights up our world. From our world let the smile radiate out to our moon and throughout our solar system. From our solar system intend to spread the smile throughout the cosmos. From the cosmos spread your loving smile to the edge of creation and beyond. From beyond the edge of the cosmos notice or feel or imagine you meet a radiant beautiful smile. That smile merges with your smile and you and us and all creation. We smile the One Smile.

Rest in the loving, healing smile that has spread from your heart to the edges of the cosmos and beyond and united with the smile you found there. Every inhale of breath strengthens the smile. Every exhale radiates the smile in waves from your heart through the cosmos spreading love, peace, strength, and beauty.

Now when you are ready, bring your awareness, now united with the smile from beyond the edge of the cosmos, back from past the edge of the cosmos. From the cosmos return to our solar system. From our solar system bring your awareness back past the moon to our mother Earth. From the Earth bring your awareness back to your hemisphere and back to your country and province or state, From there flow back to your city or village. Back yo your neighborhood and into your house and room. From your room flow back to your body and into your smiling heart area or middle dan tien. Smile and move your awareness to your lower dan tien. Now, it is time to gather the excess chi generated from our chi kung practice. Inhale and exhale three times from your feet, hands, and the top of your back through your body to your lower dan tien. The intent is to gather excess chi throughout your body and store it in your lower dan tien.

Remember the connection between you and all creation and beyond and smile. If you cannot smile just turn the sides of your lips up for awhile and rest in love and peace.

"We Can Cower In A Corner Or We can Stand And Fight

My prayers and heart go out to John and Elizabeth Edwards. I believe that John Edwards would be an incredible President when we desperately need an incredible President. I feel compelled to write this because I saw on the news that Elizabeth's cancer has returned and I know how I would feel if the love of my life. "My" was in her place. The tears would flow and my love would be overwhelming in it's intensity. And we would not "cower in the corner either. " I spent the night before last in Children's Hospital working with a young student of mine who I wrote about in an earlier blog. He had to take a feeding tube down through his nose and into his stomach. He had chosen to take the tube the day before. But when it came to the actual experience he froze up in panic. So his mother asked me to come down and stand with him through the difficult experience. Placing a feeding tube through your nose and into your stomach is not easy for a fourteen year old or for most people. It would not be something I would want to experience. He not only had to face the fear and pain of the tube going up his nose, he also had to face the experience of leaving it in long enough for his body to get the nourishment he needs to live. He did it. He is doing it. I am very proud of him. I told him that the ability to stay in a painful situation and do what it takes long enough to bring forth good results is one of the key abilities he will need for the rest of his life. Difficult and painful situations are just a reality of being human. Sometimes it is physical pain that comes and demands our attention. Sometimes we suffer psychological or social pain. Sometimes it is spiritual pain. During a lifetime all of the above pains and more will come knocking or kicking down the doors of our lives. We can run away and cower in corners or just throw up our hands and freak out or die. The choices are always ours. We can run or we can fight. If we chose to stand and fight than we must be true to our intention no matter what may come or how long it may take. I learned this in my study and practice of chi kung over the last sixteen years. The Sufis say'"Without Mary's pain, Jesus could not have been born." My student had to face this lesson the night before last in a very real way. His intent was to take the tube through his nose and down into his stomach. The reality of the tube going into his nose freaked him out. He told us he changed his mind and wanted to go home. I worked with him to help him understand his experience in a different way. This was not just about a tube going up his nose and down into his stomach. This was about a boy learning a series of very important lessons about becoming a man. It was in fact a part of a long series of initiations a boy must experience in his journey from boy to man. As Buddha said, "Life is suffering." All our lives suffering will come. How we handle what comes will determine the kind of life we will live. One of the most important lessons this young warrior faced was learning was how to handel on going physical irritation and or pain. I helped him learn experientially that when in pain or fear, the tendency is to tighten up our muscles and breathe to our upper chest. In fact we have to learn to do the opposite. We need to stop as soon as possible any panicked reactions. Then we need to regulate our breathing so it is lower belly breathing. Then we must move through our body noticing and releasing any unnecessary muscle tension. When he did that he was better able to tolerate the physical/mental pain. Every time he tightened his muscles and changed his breathing pattern I pointed this out and he was able to go back to proper breathing and relax his muscles and adjust his posture. I reinforced this behavior with words of praise and encouragement to do the same when the fear and pain returned. He is a good student.
The young warrior had many difficult lessons and rites of passages to go through that nigh. He had to learn how not to be overly influenced by his thoughts and emotions. Holding to his intent was the key to a return to health. He had to take the tube if he wanted to have a chance to live. In chi kung study and practice my teachers use to say during any practice,"Thoughts and emotions come and go. Always let go of the thoughts and emotions and return to the practice." I was taught to always ask myself if my thoughts and emotions served my real interest and intent and if they did not, to let them come and go and return to actualizing my intent. I was taught to consciously explore and cultivate thinking and emotions that did serve my intent. Fortunately my student is a swimmer and his swimming coach has also worked with him about how undisciplined thinking and emotions can sabotage training and performance. The mind will almost always want to stop before the body really needs to stop. I experienced this reality when I was a runner many years ago. What is true of physical pain is also true of psychological, social and spiritual painful situations. One of my teachers use to say that the mind was always the last to be able to understand but was always the first to demand understanding NOW. So what happens a lot is that the mind finds it's self in a painful place. What is causing the pain or what can resolve it is not at all clear or possible to comprehend. So the poor little mind being impatient and undisciplined grabs onto the first thoughts and emotions that comes its way and runs with them as its guides. The results are predictable. Life is not easy. It demands a lot of us human beings if we are going to be able to navigate the seas of life in difficult weather. Understanding the nature of the thinking/feeling mind is one of the first steps to mastery. I recommend the study of Buddhism for understanding the thinking/feeling mind. I am not talking about Buddhism as a religion. I am speaking of Buddhism as a study of the nature of the thinking/feeling mind. Go to the bookstore or library or Goggle and explore. Our ability to tolerate and work through difficult and often painful situations is Vital. I face this reality all the time in my life. How about YOU? Let us be good examples to ourselves and others of what to do when pain and suffering comes into our lives.

A Good Chi Kung Exercise

Stagnant chi is a problem for everyone. And our channels and meridians get clogged up just like silt accumulates in rivers and streams and harbors. The following chi kung exercise is good for clearing stagnant chi and dredging our channels and meridians and strengthening our whole energy/mind/physical body. You can find the locations of the channels, meridians, and acupoints at the following link; http://www.yinyanghouse.com/acupuncturepoints/locations_theory_and_clinical_applications

This chi kung practice, indeed any chi kung practice, will take time and effort to learn. But it is worth it. I recommend moving through your body as directed while you read it. In other words, read a section and move your awareness through the area of your body it is referring to and then go on to the next section. The idea is to ground the experientially in your body. Sit in a comfortable position. Ladies place your right hand over your lower abdomen. Place your left hand over your left hand. Men place your left hand over your lower abdomen. Place your right hand over your left hand. Open your mouth slightly and relax your jaw. Place the tip of your tongue on your upper palate just behind your front two teeth. Place a smile in your upper tan tie. Place a smile in your middle dan tien. Place a smile in your lower dan tien. In chi kung every step must be consciously intentional. Your first intention is to root yourself in Heaven and Earth. Bring our attention to the top of your head. Intend for Bhi Hui to be open and receive the Heaven energy. Imagine Heaven energy flowing though Bhi Hui and into and down your Center Channel to your lower dan tien. Inhale and exhale three times paying attention to your lower dan tien. Regulate your breath so your belly goes out on the inhale and in on the exhale. After three conscious breaths too and from the dan tien you are ready to start any internal chi kung practice. First an important note. The Center Chanel is an area of energy that flows from Bhi Hui thought the center of your body to the area between your anus and your sex organ, the perineum. In the middle of the perineum is an acupoint named Hui Yin. Now let us return to the top of your head and back to Bhi Hui. Remember yi or intentional movement leads chi. Your intention is to first lead Heaven energy into and through your body. Next, to consciously send your energy roots into the Earth and therefore place yourself consciously in the energy fields of Heaven and Earth. So let us root ourselves between Heaven and Earth. Bring your awareness to the Heaven above your head and lead Heaven energy through Bhi Hui down your Center Channel and fill up the first third of the trunk of your body called the heart area. Be aware of your middle dan tien. Next, move your awareness down to the second part of the trunk of your body to the belly button and fill it up with Heaven energy. Now move your awareness down to your lower abdomen and fill your entire lower abdomen with Heaven energy. Be aware of your lower dan tien . Move your awareness from your lower dan tien and fill up your upper left leg. Move your awareness down and fill up your lower left leg. Fill up your left foot being aware of Kidney one or your Gushing Spring. Let your awareness flow into the Earth and imagine your have energy roots that are sinking deep and wide into the Earth. Return your awareness to lower dan tien. From lower dan tien flow into and down your right leg, filling up the upper right leg. Fill up the lower right leg. Fill up your right foot and flow through Kidney one, Gushing Springs and root yourself deep and wide into the Earth energy. Bring your awareness to your upper left jaw. Let your awareness flow down and fill up your left jaw and continue down through the left part of your throat and into your left shoulder. From your left shoulder fill up your left upper arm. Than flow down into and fill up your left lower arm. Fill up your left hand paying attention to the middle of your left palm an area called Laboring Palace. Move back to your right jaw. Flow down and fill up your right jaw, throat and right shoulder. Fill up your right upper arm, Flow into and fill up your right lower arm. Now fill up your right hand paying attention to your right Laboring Palace. Move back to your jaws and let your awareness flow up and over your forehead and fill up the rest of your face top of and back of your head. Fill up your brain cavity paying attention to your upper dan tien. Bring your attention to Bhi Hui. From Bhi Hui move down the last part of your Governing Chanel or Vessel to the start of the Conception Vessel where your tongue touches your upper palate just behind your front teeth. This is where your Concepton Channel starts. Let your awareness flow down and fill up your Conception Chanel. I will refer to this vessel as the front channel. The front channel ends at Hui yin to the middle of the perineum. From Hui Yin move your awareness and fill up the Governing Channel or back channel. The back channel starts right after Hui Yin and flows up between the skin and the spine, over the top of the head and to the tip of your tongue. Now go back to Bhi Hui. From Bhi Hui flow down and fill up your Center Channel. Back to Bhi Hui and inhale and exhale down your center Chanel to your lower dan tien filling it with chi. You have now rooted yourself between Heaven and Earth and filled yourself with chi. You are ready for the next step. From Bhi Hui, inhale and guide chi down your center channel to your lower dan tien. Exhale from your lower dan tien and as you do so imagine exploding the chi from your lower dan tien throughout your whole body like a sun going nova. Repeat this step for about five minutes. Inhale and guide the chi down the center channel to lower dan tien. Exhale and explode your awareness and the chi from your lower dan tien to fill up your whole body. After five minutes return your awareness to Bhi Hui and you are ready for another step. When you are good at this you will inhale down the center channel to lower dan tien. From lower dan tien go up and circle you waist or girdle channel twice from left to right and return to the center channel and move the rest of the way down your center channel to Hui Yin. My Tam called it "Down Around and Around, Down and Back Up." From Hui Yin, exhale up the center channel back to Bhi Hui. Eventually you will do the entire movement in one complete breath. For now use as many breaths as you need. Your intention is to move from Bhi Hui down the Center channel to lower dan tien. From lower dan tien move up and circle your waist twice. Pay attention to your Ming Men on the middle of your spine parallel to your belly button as you circle your waist. After circling your wait twice from left to right return to the center channel and go down to Hui Yin. From Hui Yin return up the center channel to Bhi Hui. Repeat this pattern for ten minutes. Return your awareness to Bhi Hui. Now, move down your awareness down the last part of your Governing Channel to the start of your Conception or Front Channel. Inhale down your front channel to Hui Yin. Exhale as you move your awareness up your Governing or back chanell to your front chanell, where the tip of your tongue meets the roof of your mouth. . Repeat for ten minuted. Inhale down your front Channel, exhale up your back Channel. Pay attention to or be aware of Ming Men and Bhi Hui as you pass them. After ten minutes return your awareness to your lower dan tien. During a chi kung practice you generate a lot of excess chi. It is important that you always store any excess chi in your lower dan tien. Bring your awareness to the tips of your fingers and the top of your head. Now from those areas, bring your awareness through your body leading excess chi back to your lower dan tien. Repeat this movement three times. You can pace it with three complete breaths or just do it with your awareness without pacing with your breath. The important thing is to do it. You have now completed your chi kung practice. I urge you to do this practice once a day, every day for at least 100 days. More about this later. I urge those who want to get the most

Who Do You Ride With And Why?

Crazy Horse Never Rode For Buffalo Bill.

Crazy Horse
never rode for
Buffalo Bill
And neither will
I.
Who do you ride with,
and why?
Our Mother and
Her children,
call to us
in helpless Pain.
Who will answer
their cries?
Your choice.
Our choice.
Stay in your lodge?
Mount your war horse and ride with us?
I say,
It is a good day to fight.
It is a good day to live.
Leave your gun
and bow and knife.
Bring your heart
and mind and spirit.
It is a good day to change.
It is a good day to help.
Crazy horse never rode for
Buffalo Bill
And neither will
I.
Who do you ride for
and WHY?

Stagnant Chi Can Be Felt As PAin

Combing or brushing out stagnant chi.

One of the many causes of physical and mental pain as defined by the Chinese paradigm is stagnant chi. The strong, smooth flow of chi through the body is vital for health, happiness and natural physical/emotional/spiritual development. Stagnant chi means that the smooth flow of chi through your body becomes interfered with and the area of interference cause all kinds of manifestations, including but not limited to, pain.

One of the most difficult aspects of Chinese chi medicine for most people to grasp is that a person is seen as a dynamic energy field. And, that we as energy fields exist within greater interpenetrating fields of dynamic energy. If we do not begin to comprehend this reality our understanding of how energy healing works will be very, very limited. As a result of our ignorance we will doubt the reality of the work and either ignore it or give it only a half hearted effort for a very short period of time. Mark Twain once said, "It is not what we know that will hurt us, it is what we know that ain't so." We think we understand who and what we are. We do not. We act or do not act on our understanding and the results are sadly predictable.

I would like to add here, that I believe nobody really understands completely what "it" is all about. However, those with better understand can produce better results in any field compared to other who understand less. One of my teachers once said that we are to young as a species to have any real deep knowledge about who and what we are and where we are. Fazal Inayat Khan once said that we are like pioneer explorers. We follow certain paths of other explorers and soon we are where the paths fade into animal trails and than we find ourselves confronting the wild wilderness. Our work is to explore and create new paths and give the gifts of our exploration to those who come after us. Than one day our species will have the possibility of real self knowledge. We will probably never really understand very much in this lifetime but the effort to understand is in itself worthwhile and our greatest gift to our world and our species.

Now back to stagnant chi. If you begin to see not with just your eyes and feel not just your physical body than you can begin to understand how and why chi or energy healing works.

Remember energy flows from a high gradient to a low gradient. And energy is responsive to intent and can be led by your moving awareness. Now take an area in pain. Visualize the area in like a stream that has rocks or other things inhibiting the free low of water. Imagine you can increase the flow of water through the blockage. With enough strong flow of water moving into and through the blockage most of the debris will be sooner or later cleared and the flow of the stream will once more be smooth and strong. Another way to picture it is to see the painful area as a dark cloud and project enough strong flowing wind light into the area to disburse the cloud and let the sun shine freely through the whole river of your being.

Now perhaps you can see and understand a little better why chi healing can work. As you move your hand or hands over an are of pain or other types of medical problem you are dissipating blockage of stagnant chi. Than as you move your hands to another area or away from the body you are directing the stagnant chi from the blocked area to move to areas that needs strengthening or out of the body and into the earth. You can see the movements as like combing knots out of your hair after a warm vinegar bath.The earth will turn any toxic chi into healing chi so do not worry that your bad chi will hurt hurt the earth. It will not. If you are treating anyone you must be sure to clear yourself after you are done with the treatment. You can do that in many ways. A simple one is to imagine that you are standing under a warm wonderful waterfall and it is flowing through you clearing cleaning and strengthening you for at least three complete breaths.

The Universe Is Intentional and Why That Matters in Chi Kung. Yi Leads Chi

The picture above illustrates the The Microcosmic Orbit and can be found at the following link;
http://www.naturespathcenter.com/pages/Intermclass.html I like to inhale down the Conception Vessel and exhale up the Governing Vessel. You do as you wish. Try one way and then do it another.

The above picture can be found at the following link;
http://tantricshamanism.com/i.a.m



The above picture can be found at the following link;

http://www.eservice.com.au/clients/intentional/docs/archive/20051027-newsletter-The_Power_of_Intention.html





We live in an Intentional Universe. Many people myself among them, believe that the Universe or Creation or Goddess/God is intentional and responds to our intentions. That is to say that the Universe has something it intends for its creation and responds to the intentions of it's creations. That does not mean that the Universe, a.k.a /Creation/Heaven/Goddess/God always responds positively or the way we expect. Obviously it does not. Sometimes it does. When that happens we all smile. When it does not respond as we hoped, we sometimes get sad or hurt or angry or all of the above and more.

I could go into how quantum physics and other aspects of the scientific community are exploring the possibilities of an intentional Universe. But if you are interested in that, the web, bookstores, and libraries are full of good information. So go and explore. I will just say that I believe that the Universe responds to out intention and the clearer and stronger our intention the more the Universe responds.

Now why do I say the Universe or as the Chinese call it Heaven, is responsive to our intentions? Because I want to talk with you about a chi kung principle. " Yi" or intention "leads chi" or energy. This principle is VERY IMPORTANT. What does Yi leads Chi mean? It means that energy or chi will follow or be guided by our intentions. One of my teachers said that yi was like deciding that you wanted to move water from point A to point B. Once you decide or intend you must than ACT on your intention . You start to dig a ditch between where the water is and where you want the water to go. If you dig the ditch and the ditch is graded down towards point B, the water will flow from point A to point B. That is an example of yi leading chi. Intention must be acted on to produce results. Committing to practice any good chi kung exercise for at least a half hour a day is VERY IMPORTANT if you really want to swim in the sea of chi and be a good chi healer. You can get good results in healing without doing a daily practice but you will never know the beauty of the Ocean of Energy that is our real existence. I realized that when I started my practice almost sixteen years ago in Cleveland Ohio. I was paying Mr Hilton Tam, my teacher one hundred dollars a lesson. He wanted us to practice twice a day for a hundred days. More on this later. I practice about three times the first week. When I came the second week. He gave me another lesson. As he took my money, he smiled at me and said, " Expensive lessons if you do not practice." I went home and thought about what he said. I realized I would never really experience chi kung if I did not practice with intent and dedication. I practiced everyday after that, twice a day for about two years. Because I did that and kept up my practice, I can write this kind of blog and feel confident about what I write. Even more important to me, I now know I live in a vast beautiful, loving and Intentional, Ocean of Chi and I am a loved part of that Ocean. Human society gives me trouble. But The Universe constantly gives me love and comfort and encouragement. My wife does that as well. I love them both with a passion and commitment they have both earned many times over. When I wrote on this blog about how to exercise and develop you energy body I said that it was important to stay focused on your practice no matter what practice it was you were doing. The Microcosmic Orbit, Sky nourishes Earth, Whole Body Breathing and all other Internal Arts exercises require you to stay focused on your movements. The movements are all internal. That is moving your awareness through your body on predetermined paths for a predetermined amount of time. During any practice your mind will wander away and you will find yourself thinking about something else. You will not know you have wandered away at first. Than you will become conscious that you are thinking about the kids or a friend or bills or a movie or situation. As soon as you realize you are not moving your awareness through your body let go of the thought/emotion and return gently to your practice.

The forgetting what you are doing during practice and suddenly finding yourself thinking/feeling something else is part of any practice or meditation. It is just as important as any other part of the practice. That is to say, adjusting posture, regulating breathing and relaxing unnecessary muscle tension all during the chi kung practice.

If we drift through a practice and do not pay attention to our wondering minds, or our posture or breath or muscles than we will get very little befit. If we catch ourselves often when our minds wonder and return to focus and do the other adjustments as needed we will get very good befits from our practice. Try both and experience the different results for yourself.

The quicker you can become aware that you are thinking/feeling instead of moving through your body the better and stronger your energy/mind/body will become. Learning to resist the seduction of thoughts and emotions and returning quicker to moving awareness through your body is like resistance during weight training. Resisting the thoughts/emotions produces a stronger mind or Yi or intent.

What is true for chi kung practice is also true for healing work. You must have an intent in mind before you start your treatment and you must return to intentional focus during the treatment. This holds true for the one doing the treatment and the one receiving it.

When you do internal chi kung not only are you making your energy body stronger you are making your mind and intent stronger. The more you can guide the chi though your body during practice the more you can guide it when you need to in healing. First you learn to guide the chi in your own body then you can guide chi in other peoples body during a healing session.

Chi kung and chi healing is not easy for most people to do because we are not use to focusing for any long or constant period of time. It is because we are not use to disciplined focus that so many or our problems on all levels of our lives occur. Chi kung is one of the ways we can turn our lives around and become a lot more happy, healthy and successful. By successful I mean more at peace with ourselves and our loved ones.

If I had to sum it up and I do, I would say the following. If you can learn to focus your awareness for long periods and your intent or Yi is strong and clear than your chances for a good on going relationship with the Universe in all it's myriad forms are excellent. One of the best ways to accomplish this, is to study and practice chi kung every day for at least a half an hour. I advise doing it first thing in the morning. That is when I do my internal chi kung practice. It gets done that way. If I do not do it the first thing in the morning, I often do not do it at all that day. I find that the day has ways of making me forget to do my chi kung practice later. As an added bonus, it also makes my day go better, inshAllah.