Primordial Tai Chi: Whole-body Beliefs vs. Head Trips

Primordial Tai Chi atop the Great Wall on the 2010 China Dream Trip. (Mantak Chia is at far left of photo). We first attuned to the dragon line, the ley line of the earth followed by the wall. We used the form to capture the dragon Qi and absorb it into our personal Energy Body. The Primordial Tai Chi form is designed to capture Qi from the Cosmos – wherever you do it, or whatever you focus on, that is what you absorb.

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    Dear Lovers of Deep Embodiment,

I would like to share an excerpt from the book I’m getting close to completing, called:

Primordial Tai Chi: The Way of Enlightened Love.

Tao Cosmology & Sacred Movement

An 800-Year Lineage Qigong for Radiant Health

The two chapters before this excerpt below define the importance of Primordial Tao Cosmology as a belief map for navigating our way through life and organizing our spiritual practice. They compare the Qi-based Tao cosmology with the belief maps from other cultures and discuss the battle between modern science’s material cosmology vs. most traditional spiritual cosmologies.

I am careful not to judge any particular belief system, just poiint out the huge gap historically between religion and science. My belief is that Tao cosmology offers a systematic energetic science that bridges the gap between the two.

In this excerpt, I go deeper into the differences between the knowledge that arises from whole-body beliefs of the Taoist and mental beliefs that typify modern science. Science and modern technology are head-driven, and produce fantastic short term results.

But science will never deliver us the experience of returning to Origin (Source). To connect to the heart of the cosmos, one must follow something with heart. Qi is alive, it has heart, it flows from Source and can be tracked back to Source. Science has no heart. So cosmologically, it is a dead end, we should not put our deepest faith in it.

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                                                                Chapter Four

What is Cosmological Qigong?

Dance the Sacred Rhythms of Time, Space & Beings

“Our modern world dismisses ritual as mere convention. But rituals allow us to create “as if” worlds, similar to play. Our ritual ability to cross between imagined worlds is central to the human capacity for empathy and entering into creative realms like music and literature. Rituals thus help us live together in a broken world. Ritual is work, endless work. But it is among the most important things we humans do”.

– Ritual and its Consequences, by Seligman, Weller & Puett.

Wu Ji Gong is a sacred movement ritual that awakens our memory of a natural cosmology. These are beliefs embedded deep within our body about who we humans are in relation to the spiralling cycles of Time, the geometric matrix of Space, and the task of Human Beings to creatively express love for life in a unique personal Way.

A fundamental of Tao cosmology is we must each create our own personal Way by harmonizing the Yin and Yang Qi forces we encounter in the world or that we generate from within. Can we accept Primordial Tai Chi – in Chinese Wu Ji Gong – as a gift that can assist us in discovering our unique creative connection to the cosmos? Only doing ithe ceremony can answer that question for each of us.

Wu Ji Gong helps to cosmicize our innr space, filling it with Qi from whatever level of the cosmos we focus upon or invoke during the ceremony. Image: Rianna Skywalker 

What I seek – as my personal Way – is to download the subtle energy of Primordial Heaven into Later Heaven (Earth). I want to breathe Original Breath or Yuan Qi – the parent of Yin-Yang Qi – into the physical plane, and into my physical body-mind. My process is to cultivate heaven-on-earth-inside-my-body. It is a practical vision of a long healthy life.

I plan to live 150 years, minimum (with possible further extension to be reviewed at that time). That will give me enough time to complete my unique creative destiny in the world. Increasing the flow of Original Breath in our physical body gradually restores in us the original feeling of Pure Love from Source/Tao. This high frequency of Qi gives us super-longevity, and allows us to radiate the loving presence of Tao /Source into all our physicl relations. The ancient Taoists knew this well:

When your body is not aligned,
The inner power {de} will not come.
When you are not tranquil within,
Your mind will not be ordered.
Align your body, assist the inner power,
Then {inner power} will gradually come on its own.
— Nei Ye, Inner Training, 5th cen b.c.e, trans. by Harold Roth in his book, Original Tao

The effectiveness of Primordial Tai Chi for Enlightened Love relies upon the innate power we hold as “whole-body beliefs”. These activate Qi flow in a very different way than culturally constructed “mental beliefs” arising as ideas or thoughts in our head.

What’s the difference? Mental beliefs are patterns often received from outside us and imprinted on one layer of our soul or personal Energy Body. The totality of these brain-centered thought processes are often called the Mental Body in the West.

A whole-body belief is a pattern that is imprinted on each of our twelve vital organ spirits and on every layer of our subtle body. In Western cosmologies these layers would typically be called the physical, sexual, emotional, mental, low astral, soul-etheric, and oversoul or causal subtle bodies. In yogic cosmology, it would equate with having all chakras aligned and prana flowing smoothly through them into higher lokas (spiritual planes).

Wu Ji Gong is a cosmological form, a hybrid of qigong & tai chi. It is designed to concentrate Yuan Qi from source to flow effortlessly through the core channel of all our energetic bodies without distortion. As this neutral force of Yuan Qi flows into lower dimensions it polarizes and converts itself into the True Yin and True Yang Qi. These give each layer of our Energy Body a specific function or shape.

These pure patterns of Qi get expressed as our ability to spiritually intuit, think clearly, feel deeply, radiate sexual magnetism, and physically move with ease, etc. This gradual polarization and stepping down of higher-dimensional Original Qi into body and Original Shen or spirit into ordinary mind is what allows us to co-create our physical reality.

All of Nature is energetically stepped down in a similar way. But stars and planets and mountains and trees don’t have interfering mental body patterns like we humans do. These natural forms are programmed to directly express the will, the energetic shape of the collective (Da Shen, Great Spirit). A planet or a tree has a different kind of Free Will than us humans. We can think both negatively and positively as part of the gift of Creative Free Will we’ve been given to explore.

         12 Organ Spirits = 12 “Little Wills” of Our Ego

                 I don’t want to believe. I want to know.
– Carl Sagan, astronomer and cosmologist

When we deeply connect to our personal cosmology, to our path to Source, it feels like our truth, or knowledge, as Carl Sagan put it. That feeling of self-knowledge is what happens when we shift from head-centered belief to trusting our whole-body experience. No amount of external data (which Sagan was probably happy with as an empiricist) can substitute for that feeling of embodied self-knowledge. When that is stabilized internally as a continuum between our lesser self (personality) and Original Self, we call it Self-realization.

An easy and popular method for activating Qi flow in our vital organs are the Six Healing Sounds. For over two millennia Chinese have used them to release sick Qi from different organs. These are taught in my Medical & Spiritual Qigong Fundamentals 1 & 2 course, along with a moving version I created called Five Animals Play the Six Healing Sounds. Practicing these will also increase feeling of Qi flow in conjunction with doing Wu Ji Gong.

In the Taoist Internal Medicine model each of our 12 organ spirits has its own personality and agenda. This means we have twelve separate wills to harmonize within the overall framework of ego or personality – obviously no small task. These twelve organ spirits, linked via meridians, are held together in one body-vessel by our soul (ling). Managing them is like trying to discipline a family with twelve children, each with different interests.

A whole body belief involves aligning the creative will of all twelve organs (collectively called xin, heart-mind) to a single cosmology or set of core beliefs about evolution. This is not easy, as there are many internal biological, psychological, and ancestral influences, plus numerous external forces (social, political, economic, astrological) pulling the twelve body-spirits in different directions.

The heart spirit is considered the ruler of the “heart-mind”, thus it has the most influence amongst the twelve. The head has no independent will, but is merely a processing center for the wills of the twelve organ intelligences, and is largely guided by the heart. This view of the heart dominating the brain is matched by modern science. The Heart Math Institute studies show that the majority of nerve signal traffic is from heart to brain). But other organs may exhibit dominance through personality traits. Someone’s stubbornness would likely come from their kidney’s strong will, even if expressed verbally through the head.

Thoughts are just a frequency of Qi arising from different organ spirits. Thought Qi is polarized and shaped by the left-right brain hemispheres into our cultural language (e.g. English or Chinese), and from language into ideas. The heart controls the tongue, so the verbal expression of our thoughts still requires that we “speak from our heart”.

Because the heart is the leader of the 12 organ spirits, when we speak from our heart we are really speaking from our whole body. If the heart spirit is very strong it’s power arises from its potential for its clear expression of Original Spirit (Yuan Shen) flowing through all twelve of the regular meridians as well as through the eight soul channels, known as the Eight Extraordinary Vessels.

       The Limitation of Originating Thoughts in Our Head

When mental thoughts are properly coupled with the flow of deep channel Qi in our body, they can be cosmologically focused with great beneficial effect. A cosmological qigong couples our intent (Yi) with our Qi. Without this energetic coupling, thoughts generated from the head rapidly dissipate and are ineffective in manifesting change. This fragmented, anxious state is called Monkey Mind. In this case, thoughts leap frantically about, seeking attention, but dissipating energy. It produce drama but ultimately gets us nowhere because the scattered thoughts do not reflect an integration with the will of the 12 organ spirits.

Our head is a small part of our body, but it has the stubbornly commanding viewpoint of controlling major sensory openings (ears, eyes, nose, mouth). Eventually, any whole-body 12-organ truth wins out over the human mental body patterns expressing through our head. The head’s position of power is like the two edges of a sword. It can cut through mental illusion to swiftly create clarity and allow linkage between Qi flow, thoughts and creative action. Or the head can act out our resistance and chop up, create static or otherwise short-circuit information flowing between our soul (via the inner Qi field) and our body-mind (via the senses & outer Qi field).

The deeper truth of the whole-body vs. the manipulations of the intellectual or rational head was expressed well by political essayist Chris Hedges, who equated the head with technological progress:

“The naive belief that history is linear, that moral progress accompanies technical progress, is a form of collective self-delusion….Technical knowledge must not be confused with wisdom. Artists, sages, and philosophers, who expose the mercurial undercurrents of the subconscious, allow us to face an unvarnished truth. Works of art, philosophy and life itself, informed by the intuitive, unarticulated meanderings of the human psyche transcend those constructed by the plodding conscious mind. The freeing potency of visceral memories does not arrive through the intellect. These memories are impervious and not limited to rational control. They alone lead to wisdom”.

Taoist philosopher-sages and qigong movement artists who sculpt their Energy Body into an ever-changing work of life-as-art would agree fully with this modernist essay. Whole-body beliefs have the potential to elevate the subconscious into consciousness, and restore our direct connection to soul and beyond that to over soul and Source. When our whole personal Energy Body resonates with the whole Energy Body and/or Spirit Body of the cosmos, then we can directly grasp its eternal wisdom.

This is how whole-body beliefs help us to shed our old, lesser cosmologies. These lesser half-truths and old mental beliefs float around in our subconscious, and may interfere with or disempower our belief in our creative free will. Our power of causality is always flowing to us from Source/Tao, even if unrecognized. We need to bring it into consciousness as our personal cosmology. Cosmological qigong helps us to gather the deep frequency of Qi needed to truly accept affirmations like:

• “I shape my highest worldly destiny”.

• “My actions and relationships express my core values of love and harmony”.

• “I dissolve all ancestral or acquired patterns of reactive fear and struggle”.

                          Subconscious Beliefs May Resist Qi Flow

 

                                  

Surreal painting depicts the struggle between subconscious voices within us. Here the different “animals” (symbolizing vital organ voices) are in denial they are about to drown, and continue talking politely.

Without a clear cosmology, we may not recognize the subtle experience of high frequency Qi or Yuan Qi itself, even when it is flowing through us. Having a clear cosmology brings our consciousness into sharper focus, and allows us to better recognize our own inner resistance to change.. Having a clear Tao cosmology is what allowed me to recognize the intrinsic value of Wu Ji Gong when I first experienced it with Zhu Hui in 1997.

Inability to recognize their own resistance is the  reason why many who purchased the internet fad DVD “The Secret” some years back were NOT able to manifest their dreams. “The Secret” method of visualizing success seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to activate the Law of Attraction. It was based on using a positive visualization + strong emotion to attract a positive materialization.

But their method did not account for subconscious resistance. It did not even discuss that whatever one calls into manifestation should not come from our personality’s desires, but be in alignment with our soul’s Highest Destiny. Then the Qi flow is much higher in frequency and more powerful in mobilizing the entire Qi field to align with our intent.

I believe a deep understanding of Tao cosmology will help any Primordial Tai Chi player to more quickly awaken their true inner nature and support its flow in their daily life. Even if we  only subconsciously absorb into our body the Tao cosmology embedded within Wu Ji Gong, i.e. without any verbal explanation and through sacred movement only, the form can still evolve us in a very grounded and deep way. I’ve found it extremely useful in focusing my intent and manifesting what my soul truly needs.

–end of excerpt.