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I was just doing a little qigonging and I got to thinking that it can be a much deeper qi gong when you use a mirror. I mean, you are forced to look at yourself: fingers, toes, and all. Who uses mirrors? Maybe you gotta balance the mirror gong with the nature gong, at a waterfall or something.
I don’t know how much of this is a trick of the mind or eye or Chi. If you stare at your image in a mirror in dim light, where you can mostly just see your outline, after a few minutes your outline fades out. Its not that hard to do. It helps to either defocus your eyes or put them into ‘wide vision’ mode.
If you relax, you can stay w/ the empty mirror, but if you get excited about it, you pop back.
That practice is from Michael Crichtons (Jurrasic Park, Timeline etc) bunch of autobiographic stories. I think Glenn Morris might mention it too. They explain it in terms of aura.
It might just be a trick of the eye, ie images blocked by after images. Crichton also talked about seeing the Chi of trees. Yet if you page through books on visual illusions, you find if you stare at green long enough you get an after image of RED. So stare at a green tree intently, and you might end up w/ a ghostly red plummage above it, but its really just an after image. Or is it?
Peace
Michael
when i first learned wuji qigong i used mirrors. being a parapatetic bum, i had to use the tv at my mom’s house, who is totally into feng shui. so she had these mirrors arranged so that no matter which direction i turned during wuji practice, i could see the tv in one of the mirrors, big mirors. after i no longer needed the video, i kept doing it with the mirors, and it was a very good practice. being such a novice at the time i didnt really analyze it, but i did get the sense something was going on. i started to lose appetite but remain evergized, slept less, etc. the only lifestyle change was the wuji with the mirors.
i used to practice the microcosmic in front of a mirror.
I concentrated on points in my mirror-image, and strangely
found that the effect (the sensations) on me were much more stronger than concentrating on points on my real body…shabd
I do use mirrors when I can but have weaned myself off of them like one would a valuable crutch. There was some sort of leaving my body when observing my reflection, very subtle, that I had to train to remain. It was some subtle split. It helped me stay focused and learn the forms and intensify my inner mind field, but eventually I found I couldn’t get the same effect without the reflection and I got curious about that.
I went cold turkey on them and bone breathing and spiraling inside really helped me go deeper inside and circulate from there. I was no longer the reflection. babaI’ve always shied away from using mirrors during meditation because I thought it might, as baba said, take me out of my body a bit.
I’ve also read things about how a reflection or a shadow can influence you (e.g., some taoists diagnose and treat illnesses by working with your shadow). So I was nervous about doing something that might screw me up.
But overall your comments imply that it was a helpful addition to your practice, even if just for a little while. So I may try it.
Thanks
Very interesting discussion. I haven’t personally explored it.
But know that mirrors are used extensively in magical practices; they are one avenue to contact your low astral/energy body.The metal element causes a condensation of chi that mirrors your own physical body, much as metal/gold element is used in alchemy to condense your spiritual essence so it survives transition to other diimensions (immortality).
michael
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