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September, 2009 Archives Blog ProtocolPost Date:September 26, 2009 | PermaLink | Comments A few words about the hows and whys of Still Mountain's BlogEveryone is encouraged to leave comments and questions on Still Mountain's blog site, but keep in mind that if some of the comments are off topic, they may not be posted immediately, especially if they merit extended discussion. Just because a comment that you have posted does not appear immediately, this does not mean that it has not been approved. Rather, it may be being saved for a future, detailed entry. Also, my intention is to post new entries by Sunday evening so that each week will have at least one new essay. So keep reading and commenting.
The Nature of Chi Kung--or is it Qigong?Post Date:September 26, 2009 | PermaLink | Comments The Nature of Chi Kung (or is it Qigong?) Blog #2
Since Chi Kung (or qigong) was featured on the Oprah Show in November of 2007 (via Dr. Oz), a wider range of people are now curious about Chi Kung and its health benefits. While I am pleased that Chi Kung has entered into the consciousness of a broader swath of the American public, it is vital that making Chi Kung available is not done at the expense of maintaining its authenticity and, therein, its real value as a health modality. After all, as anything enters into the mainstream, it is often diluted and transformed even as it is absorbed. The German philosopher Hegel named this the “Dialectical Process” wherein a major idea (thesis) encounters resistance (antithesis) and from which emerges a new idea (thesis). Given this process, many serious practitioners of Chi Kung worry that as it melds with other practices, Chi Kung will lose its authenticity as a bonafide medical and therapeutic modality. The remedy, of course, is to pay careful attention to the philosophy and theory that informs Chi Kung in order to maintain its integrity. My intention here is to provide a quick gloss of Chi Kung’s rich, and very interesting history as a way to counter only a superficial understanding of this great art.
[(Big Aside): By the way, I spell “Chi Kung” as “Chi Kung” instead of “Qigong.” Both are acceptable renderings of the Chinese characters into English, but I opt for “Chi Kung” in order to maintain the symmetry with my use of “T’ai Chi” a la the Wade-Giles transliteration system. If one writes “Qigong” using the Pinyin mode of Romanization, one should write “Taiji.” Very few people write “Taiji” perhaps because the general populace might not be as familiar with that rendering as it is with “T’ai Chi.” Can you market “Taiji” if few people know that it is still “T’ai Chi”? But those individuals who use “T’ai Chi” often use “Qigong,” but since Oprah promotes “Qigong,” I guess it is best to follow that public relations coup instead of aiming for accuracy. (Do you see the danger in such inconsistency, though?). One might even go so far as to suggest that if a person doesn’t know the correct way of pairing of “Taiji” and “Qigong” or “T’ai Chi” and “Chi Kung,” then what else does that person not understand about T’ai Chi (Taiji) and Chi Kung (Qigong) and its philosophy, theory, and history?]
Chi Kung has a rich and extensive history that stretches for thousands of years in China, and it is sometimes named Daoyin (Healing Exercises) or Taoist Yoga. The comparison with Yoga is a useful way of beginning to comprehend what Chi Kung is: like Yoga, Chi Kung is based upon an elaborate philosophical, spiritual, and medical structure that is founded upon a dedicated study of the body. Moreover, Chi Kung can be used for multiple ends—like Yoga—in order to promote overall health, healing, or for spiritual cultivation.
Because Yoga and Chi Kung are based upon different ideological and medical systems, the comparisons are not as incisive once pushed beyond the general, though. The fundamental essence of Chi Kung is that the Chi (or energy) of the body travels through a network of channels (or meridians) that connect with the organs, muscles, tendons, and the nervous system. Think of the Chi System of the body like a map with highways, roads, streets, and driveways. And if there is a blockage at the ramp for the highway (or merging to go through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, for Pittsburghers), there are problems that develop from the ramp and into the streets and roads that are connected. A blockage not only affects that area, but all of the other pathways and organs that feed into or out of that channel.
The circulation of the body can be manipulated and harmonized through a number of movements that are coordinated with the breath. The muscles function like a pump to increase the blood/chi flow to a particular organ or area of the body. The movements affect an organ through stretching, bending, and massaging, thereby reharmonizing and invigorating that organ.
In this sense, Chi Kung is an effective means for overall health. More importantly, exercises also can be used to correct major forms of disharmonies of the body that manifest as disease. Subsequently, medical and therapeutic Chi Kung has been in existence for thousands of years—long before even the Pinyin, Wade-Giles, or Yale systems of Romanizing Chinese—to either maintain health or to promote healing.
To answer how Chi Kung works in relation to physiological principles of the body merits much more attention (and words) than can be used here, and perhaps a future entry on “How Chi Kung works” will make its way here. Suffice it to say that Chi Kung’s rich tapestry is woven from threads from Taoism, Buddhism, the I-Ching, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Western Medicine. It is a highly-effective means of maintaining health, which the thousands of years of its continued use testifies.
To quote Dr. Oz from the November 1st, 2007 Oprah show: “If you want to be healthy and live to be 100, do Qigong.”
Welcome to Still Mountain's Blog.Post Date:September 22, 2009 | PermaLink | Comments Welcome to Still Mountain’s new blog, a moderated site where people can pose questions, tell stories, add their own perspective regarding the discussion topics, and join into conversations about the world of T’ai Chi. For those of you who are already familiar with essence of T’ai Chi, you are aware that these discussions will be broad and far-sweeping since there isn’t any facet of this world and our lives therein that isn’t imbued with the principles and philosophies of T’ai Chi—the “grand ultimate.” So relax, sit back, and take in the vastness of the horizon.
This blog grew out of what I perceived as a need to have engaging, interesting, and human discussions about what it means to be a person negotiating the act of living in this era. The catalyst was an experience I had over the summer and my reflections on the nature of Facebook. A friend of my son died in a freak accident in July, and in response to this tragedy, I wrote on my Facebook page that I was lighting incense for her and her family. As the day went by and I read the status updates and commentary by others on their Facebook walls, the inherent limitations of a social networking site to do what I wanted to do began to dawn upon me. Not that Facebook is bad; it just wasn’t fulfilling what I perceived as a need to engage each other beyond the surface. To me, Facebook was like to people passing each other on the sidewalk, where each person says “Hi, How are you doing?” without pausing to listen to the others response.
I was seeking a forum where people could comment about the depths of living and not fill out quizzes to see what breed of dog they are or which Michael Jackson song typifies them. I deactivated my Facebook page, not in protest so much as to spend some time “off-line” pondering my intentions behind joining Facebook in the first place. What I discovered was that Facebook functions on a number of levels: it is a pleasant diversion from life the way that watching people playing Frisbee at the park on a summer day is; it is an expedient means to connect to friends and family that live far away; and it is an exceptionally speedy means to zing out messages and announcements.
It wasn’t so much the communication dimension of Facebook that chaffed me, but rather the “pleasant diversion” aspect. One of my Ch’an Buddhist Monk vows is to “abstain from intoxicants.” While I have never been much of a drinker and have avoided drugs, I have a great proclivity to “escape” into my head. Facebook was becoming just such an escape. As Henry David Thoreau, my very first Buddhist teacher, writes, “In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office.” I decided to unplug in order to reconnect with my very real friends and family and refocus my attention upon this world, and then to offer others a way to engage in dialogues about what matters; I wanted to break the pattern of people passing on the street saying “How are you Doing?” without stopping to hear the others person’s answer. I wanted to reassert our humanness in taking the time to say “I am well and this is what I have been pondering. How about you? What do you think?”
All of that said, it may seem ironic that I am now using technology to “reconnect,” but this time, the intention is different. (And for those students of Buddhism reading this, you know that intention is everything.)
The blog is my attempt to offer a forum for discussion on the world but especially T’ai Chi and the philosophies of Buddhism and Taoism that inform it. To dig deeply into what T’ai Chi is beyond a sequence of choreographed moves. My hope is to post regular entries to which people may comment, post questions, and add their own stories. (By the time this actually makes it on-line, I have already written at least the next five entries on paper; sorry, but you will have to wait until next week though. [and yes, I write everything first on paper with a fountain pen. How Ludite!]) I do have another motive as well for these blog entries though: I would like to jump start my writing again and flex those muscles in order to get back into shape to finish my T’ai Chi/Buddhism book, tentatively titled: The Life of Chi: Living Energy/Energizing Life. There may even be excerpts I will post on-line, so watch carefully.
So Welcome to Still Mountain’s Blog. I hope that you visit often and find that these discussions contribute to your day to day life. But for those of you still missing a pithy status update on Facebook:
David Clippinger is washing his hands with great determination since his fountain pen burped navy ink on him while refilling it. But it is worth it.
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