When somebody asked me some twenty years ago: “What is Qigong or Tai Chi? – without any doubt, in just a few minutes I could precisely explain the goals and characteristics of these practices. Since I had “already” been a devoted practitioner for a couple of years, I was convinced that I knew everything there was to be known about the subject. A few years later I was asked the question again. This time I think I managed to make my unsuspecting victim bored to death by describing different styles, forms, and approaches in Tai Chi and Qigong. I think I could talk about it indefinitely. Fast forward another 10 years or so… and my answers have become shorter and more and more enigmatic. The more I practice the more I realize that I know very little and that our individual goals, perspectives, and interpretations can be vastly unique. At the same time, we have a lot in common when we ask ourselves the same questions and struggle with similar challenges that our daily life can generously provide. We can find many benefits of practices such as Qigong or Yoga. With time, both our understanding and our goals of practice can evolve and change. For me personally, my practice helps me find and cultivate the qualities that are difficult to manifest in a vortex of the everyday pace of life, work, and responsibilities. It is important for me however, to focus at least a little bit of energy on creating some peace of mind, health, and joy in my daily life. How to find my place in this world, in Nature? How to be comfortable in my own body and mind? What is my life’s work? How to accept and like my own self, others, and the rest of the world? These are some of the many questions that my training is helping me to find the answers for. For me, to practice Qigong/TaiChi/Yoga/Meditation means to continuously cultivate the qualities I seek. It means to engage in a process of self-discovery and self-observation. It means to create a quality of being. We don’t need to practice, let’s say: an hour a day. We can practice all the time. Your practice can be your being here and now. Constant awareness and conscious choice of the way you think, talk and act. Noting your posture, your breath, and your tension level. Paying attention to others, paying attention to your own reactions and to your surroundings. Continuous effort to establish an inner and outer balance. It is a practice of transforming the ordinary into the unusual, boring into interesting. It is a way to discover the magic of everyday life! ...
Everyday cultivation of quality.
Every single day you wake up in some place, you wake up in some body, you wake up in some mind and you begin to tell yourself your own story from the beginning, again. You remember where you are. You remember who you are. You remember what you need to do. Remember. It is a nice word but do you realize that human memory is re-created over and over again every time we try to “remember” something?! We do not function like a computer storing memories of yesterday. Every reflection of the past is created anew every time we try to remember it. Amazing! A continuous creative process! Just like our everyday life. Every morning you wake up and create your life again. You put it all together the way you are used to, the way your environment had conditioned you, the way it is convenient or the only way you believe it is possible to do. But of course, you know that there are many, many ways. All it takes is changing your immediate surroundings, social circle, cultural environment, the place where you live or work and it becomes very clear how many different ways of doing things there are. Or.. you can change the way you think. Change the thinking and continuously use this new way, practice, utilize, cultivate it. This is the simplest and yet the most demanding change. It requires our own work, effort, willingness, time and patience. All the things we are constantly running short of. When you wake up – think of something nice, appreciate a good night’s sleep. Stretch and appreciate your body. Get up and appreciate your surroundings. Walk to the bathroom and appreciate the water you have. Go to the kitchen, prepare something healthy, tasty, nutritious and thank for the food you have. Go out, appreciate the world and yourself and do something good, do something nice! ...
What spirituality is and what it is not?
I am sitting on the train watching a father and his ten-year-old daughter. They are so nice. He is so engaged and enthusiastic and has so much fun in a conversation with her. They exemplify how one can be towards another. Full of love. I think it is possible to be like this with everything. It requires attention. It needs cultivation. But it is possible. I think when people see it in someone who doesn’t apply it only towards a family member or a loved one, they think this is spirituality. Perhaps it is. Giving love to everyone. Perhaps feeling love for everyone is spirituality. Perhaps feeling gratefulness is spirituality. Perhaps feeling contentment is spirituality. Perhaps feeling inner peace is spirituality. Certainly showing devotion to a principle, doing things for show, being overly strict to oneself or others, showing no appreciation, showing anger, pessimism, anxiety – is not spirituality. Which one do you practice? ...
Avoid confusion.
Simplify your life and find out what is important for you. Don’t confuse things. We confuse education with intelligence. Happiness with pleasure. Achievement with sales numbers. Real value with popularity. Longevity with a number of years lived. Health with the looks. Facebook likes with real human interactions. Size of the muscle with fitness level. Sex with love. Starchy, sugary, processed stuff with nutritious food. Addictive cravings with hunger. Cockiness with confidence. Aggression with strength. Modesty with shyness. Tax deductible charity with generosity. We confuse surviving with flourishing. Existing with Living. ...
Vipassana – again… (memories from the past)
Vipassana – again… This time my destiny led me to the birthplace of Buddha – the town of Lumbini in Nepal. A small place visited by Buddhist pilgrims from all over the world ( there are estimated 350 million Buddhists worldwide ). A relatively small area became a construction grounds for Buddhist monasteries representing different branches of Buddhism. From Japan and China to Sri Lanka, Thailand and Tibet. It was not the Buddha’s place of birth that was the main reason for my visit though. I came here to take part in yet another experience of Vipassana meditation. While many who had come here would enjoy the beautiful temples and monastery gardens, my journey will take me more “inside”, to the fertile gardens of my own mind. It was time to do some pruning and weeding! The fact that I would not be spending much time admiring what’s outside was readily reflected in the stark architecture of the Vipassana meditation center where I was to spend the next ten days. Actually, the place looked more like a prison than anything else.. The purpose of it being – not allowing the distractions of the outside world to weaken the focus on the world inside.. Vipassana – it is not an experience for everyone. Not everyone is inclined to test his or her body and mind with the severity of silence and intense inner work, meditating ten hours a day for ten days straight. The first few days are always difficult but the results of this tremendous effort can be as surprising as the intensity of the effort itself. Intensity that is difficult to compare to anything else. Ten days of absolute silence, nearly continuous meditation and observation of the many inner processes taking place in each and everyone of us, reveals the truths and realizations about ourselves that sometimes we wish we didn’t know. And all of this takes place in the company of twenty to hundred and twenty silent people who just like me, try to learn something about themselves, figure out why they are the way they are and why their life is unfolding the way it does. It is not very often that we have an opportunity to ask and answer ourselves questions like these. It is not very often that we have the time and environment to go this deep inside. Perhaps it is why many European Vipassana centers are booked full well in advance and every year new centers are built all over the world… ...
Changing mood with movement and posture
Today I stumbled upon a TED talk on influence of body activity (movement and posture) on mental states and emotions It’s an interesting talk and compelling topic for me as Tom and I have been exploring this connection between body, mind and breath for quite some time. In the talk, Tal Shafir explains in simple terms some findings of her research: just like the brain uses information of physiological change in the body like lowering glucose levels to elicit feeling of hunger, information about posture, position and angles of joints and contraction of muscles is similarly interpreted by brain to produce neural or endocrine response. Seemingly put, the brain interprets information on the posture or physical activity and responds to it by generating what can be simplistically described as appropriate feeling or emotion. So not only our emotional state affects our posture (like slouched posture characteristic for depression), but the relation can be flipped over: our posture and movement affect our emotional state. This is what I have been teaching for a long time in our yoga classes. For instance, very popular in yoga classes “chest-opening” sequences produce the feeling of lightness and well-being, gently activate parasympathetic nervous system, providing more energy and awareness. Youtube comments under that TED talk included recommendation of some useful book on the topic of achieving desired mental states through body manipulation. The book is titled “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma”. So I went to check the book on Amazon, and thus fell into the rabbit hole of book browsing which left me with a few excellent books on my laptop: the above-mentioned book by Bessel van der Kolk, “Somatics” by Thomas Hanna and “Sensorimotor Psychotherapy” by Pat Ogden. While I don’t work with traumatic patients per se, the insights in these sources on connection of our psychological world, brain function and mind is a very interesting sphere to me which I have been exploring in my own practice of yoga and meditation. At the moment I’m devouring Thomas Hanna’s Somatics. Especially interesting and empowering are Somatic approaches to treating chronic pains and physical disabilities through educating people to regain sensory-motor control over their bodies. What Hanna wants us to understand is that human beings are not just mechanical dolls with anatomical structures performing defined functions. We are self-regulating systems, equipped with internal sensory and feedback instruments, and we need to learn to use them to live a healthy life. “The reason that physiology and medicine have failed to perceive the myths behind aging is that they have failed to recognize the fundamental fact that all human beings are self-aware, self-sensing, and self-moving: They are self-responsible somas. The somatic viewpoint recognizes not only that human beings are bodily beings who can become victims of physical and organic forces, but also that they are equally somatic beings who can change themselves. Humans can learn to perceive their internal functions and improve their control of their somatic functions.” So our role as instructors or movement educators is not to “cure” people but teach people to cure themselves by listening to their bodies and understanding what is going on inside. So again, it all starts with self-observation. It was a good useful find for my day which gives even more motivation to go do some yoga poses to see what is going on inside and how my body feels today. Resources: Bessel van del Kolk “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” Pat Ogden & Janina “Fisher Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment” Thomas Hanna “Somatics: Reawakening The Mind’s Control Of Movement, Flexibility, And Health” Tal Shafir. Ted Talk “How Your Body Affects Your Happiness” ...
