The first was a moment of stillness, emptiness that allowed me to know where I came from and where I will go. I discovered in a moment my connection to my parents and the patterns I’ve either consciously, unconsciously, or genetically inherited. My mind literally expanded beyond the universe and contracted to sub-atomic particles in about 5 seconds because I wondered what it would be like. But I’ve wondered since then, what is my reach, my potential as a self-realized human. Am I really reaching my full potential as a human? Is this temporary form a celebration or a vehicle to something better? It must get better than this?! The awesomeness of human experience is very drawing but it is so tiring. The dramatic unending cycles of fear and suffering have got to stop. I’ve got to stop giving in to this pretentious lie that what we are experiencing is actual reality, and that it is in fact an interpretation. I asked all of this because of a moment which seemed like a lifetime.

The second experience was because the first happened, a natural succession. The second was an ecstatic state. In shamanism, and it should be noted that shamanism is differentiated from traditional medicine by its focus on the ecstatic states aka trances, which is something that cannot be learned but achieved. At the point of this experience I had no idea about shamanism and what depths it could work at, and even now, I’m not capable of what I’ve been told by my teachers as possible. I’m not someone that lets go of events easily partly because I’m curious to explore the depth they can manipulate me; and tied into this I very grounded which adds to the near impossibility of letting the mind go. Interestingly enough, ‘I’ disappeared, completely. ‘I’ don’t know where ‘I’ went, how long ‘I’ was there or exactly what happened, but when ‘I’ came to, my body was paralyzed, but my conscious mind was beginning to ‘boot up’ again as I sit there in my bedroom.

My first thought, “Breathe.” I discovered my mouth, but it wouldn’t move/open. I go up, find my nostrils, “Air.” I go up further, discovering my brain, “Information.” I follow the flows of information, first finding different functions then waking up the muscles slowly and finally my right leg. After I get up my ears hear this very loud stuff coming from the computer and I turn the speakers off. I see a mirror, I wave, ‘I’ call my name, perplexed ‘I’ ask, “What am I?” I recognized myself as myself but the body, it was as if I forgot what form I was in and what a human was.

I’m not sure how to put this more clearly, but from that day on, I’ve always been an admirer of the simplicity of direct experience. We can talk all we like about spirituality. We can go to all the weekend workshops and ‘healings’ we can afford, but really what we need is time in stillness. Nobody can do that for us. Gurus put us on a path, they are not our salvation, we are. The next great business Yoga, is that there’s no business Yoga, there’s actual practice of spirituality not in a class, but at home, at the office, within and without. The great thing business Yoga is doing is providing a stepping stone, but the physical and energy are not all that is there. In the stillness of the mind, we find emptiness, or rather the fullness of emptiness. The terrible wall that is being put up is that Yoga has become business, that it is a physical exercise, that it is a sub-culture to be exploited materialistically. Great, first the body, then the mind, but where is your mind? It’s not going to magically develop from stretching with coordinated breathing, and angels aren’t going to come from the sky presenting you with a golden certificate of enlightenment. These delusions of grandeur need to cease and desist like a bad case of Nigerian spam.

Where are we going depends on what we are doing right now. All the bad habits, decisions, and garbage in the mind can be changed by disciplining yourself to doing something that will engage in self-awareness. The moment you can start paying attention to yourself is the moment you start changing everything. The brain automatically rewires itself during every thought, so we are not hardwired with predispositions; we are in fact taught that we are so that we are prevented from thinking we can change. Some things are harder to change because we don’t have conscious access, but the more we become aware of our self, the more we are able to change and become our own master. It all starts from a stillness, a focus on one thing, forgetting about the outside world, to open the doors to the inside world. In Taoism, and probably any other ideology that is set up for developing human potential, it is vital to understand the small universe, self, before trying to understand anything else.

My main issue is not my back or the prior injuries, but a procrastination because other tasks draw me in more than something I can live with. Later I discovered I can’t really live with the injury because it limits my capacity to grow in the direction that took me away from fixing it in the first place. Without a solid foundation we can never build higher without structural issues that arise later. The body is important to start with because we are bound to it. Anybody that says the body isn’t important is either in perfect health, or at such a high level in a meditation practice that the body is in perfect health because the energy is flowing well, unburdened by stress. The body is necessary to look after because it is our vehicle in corporeal form.

In Taoism the body is the small universe, and if we can’t even understand or look after a small version, how could we ever grow to understand or look after the large version.

So I’ve started doing the self-care exercises I was taught for the Ancient Thai Massage, and the Wudang 5 Animals Qigong at irregular intervals and in varying quantities depending on my energy level. My back problems have been subdued, my energy levels have increased, and my body feels more free than it has in over a year: all of this in 10 days. I’ve coasted on my training over the last 16 years and forgot I need to maintain because my body has always been able to adapt without effort. I’ve now put myself under a higher level of physical and mental stress and all the little problems are pronounced.

Ever since I moved back to Canada I lost my way to practice daily. It was as if I forgot everything I learned in Asia the minute I stepped off the plane. My brain has finally reactivated and I’m pushing myself to get into understanding and correcting habits that are preventing my body and mind from healing itself. I’ve access to states of being that allow for very old tendencies to be changed that up until now have been elusive. The more I choose to actively participate in my own healing, the more it becomes like a puzzle of trying to find the right state of being to unlock the old tendencies and unhealthy patterns so I can grow into something more than what I have ever allowed myself to be.

I learned a longer definition for Kung Fu: skill developed over time through hard work. It was in China I learned this, along with the idea that everything one works hard at is kung fu. The prevalence of the concept, “Nothing is Impossible,” really changed me while I was studying in Wudangshan. Nothing is impossible because everything is kung fu, it’s just that some things require more work than others. This tied into what I learned from my first teacher, that kung fu is a process, something that cannot be perfected, there is always a higher level to achieve.

Greatness in kung fu is achieved by being humble and working hard. The working hard part as my one uncle puts it, “Head down, ass up,” is the wrong kind of mentality. The skill that develops is not only doing things through repetition, but by understanding the body from the inside out through those repetitions; as well, simply executing a technique doesn’t amount to anything, it is the intention or purpose behind the technique that is the first step in generating the momentum for power. Through purposeful actions with the correct physical alignments, extraordinary force can be applied gently.

Qigong is a form of Kung Fu as it requires discipline and patience. Qi flows in the body smoother when the correct physical alignments are present, and can be refined to exude certain qualities. Typically the qualities of Qi acquired through Qigong is harmony, stillness, vastness, and the ability to transmute from one state to another state quickly. Qi translates as vital-energy, because without it, we couldn’t even live 1 second. It is what nourishes us, defines our physical body, and is everywhere in everything. The modern Japanese term Rei Ki was more of a description of Qi/Ki as its definition is universal energy. Qi by definition is universal; remarketing and play on people’s emotions has allowed more people access to thinking about Qi as a tactile play thing.

There’s obviously an infinite number of ways to understand and utilize Qi for our infinite number of purposes, desires, and intentions, so it stands to reason there have been clever people to pass on the ancient wisdom in different ways, calling it their own, some skillful, others idealistic. It’s strange to talk about Qi without context as it doesn’t really have a definition that way and remains elusive, much like an empty intention. When talking about cooking food, we can have good wok Qi because of our intentions and skill behind preparing food, and of course the food itself.

Qi is a vital-energy that is shaped by the mind and the physical form it inhabits. The physical form though is in actuality an idea! Alarm bells, disbelief and rejection were set off when I pondered this idea at first, but we only have that idea because we have delusions about our existence and reality. Everybody’s conscious version of reality is correct only to the capacity they can understand the information they are receiving via their nervous system. If we are more open and respectful of other ideas of reality then our mind is more open to new information so it can grow. However, it is important it takes disciplined practice, and not just wishful thinking for real progress to be made. About 40% of real effects happen from just thinking about them without practice–the placebo effect; just imagine what would happen if you practiced what you want to accomplish with Qi for an hour a day…it goes beyond 100%.

We are a society looking for greatness. It’s sensational, it’s a spectacle that redirects attention from working on our own self. We expect the great people to take care of us, although it’s apparent that trust in those people is falling. People without trust in oneself, nor another become fearful, and regress to a primal state. In this way we are slaves, without reason, and reactionary.

Being able to consciously put effort into doing something everyday, whether it’s physical, psychological, or spiritual, eventually becomes a habit. The discipline to change our habits/tendencies (nothing is permanent) develops self-respect. If we have self-respect we can carry ourselves with purpose. If we have purpose we enact whole-heartedly our intentions.

Taking the ripples a bit further: we have billions upon billions of people that have lived, are living, and will live on Earth, barring the apocalyptic collapse of the human race (or the more positive approach of the Golden Age defined by the transformation of the human race and its society equivalent possibly to a process of enlightenment en masse); imagine all these people, their lives as the ripples quantified in totality when dropped in an ocean at different times. Each of the ripples unfolding their life as they travel further and further out, bumping into other ripples, waves, or splashes becoming changed in some way. I think this is part of the problem when we try to become aware of our self is when we look outward. We cannot separate out what has affected us and the nature of our true self.

It is an immediate reaction to look outward, instead of taking note of internal processes. We look for empirical evidence proving the logical outward interactions as some sort of formula for our existence so we can point to the tangible categorization, “That’s Me.” The ‘is-ness’ of reality is rooted in us from our past generations imprinting their ripples into our immediate entry into ‘reality’. Some imprints are strong, some are weak, but ultimately if we want to find their source we cannot look only outward.

The practice of awareness as I described as Meditation in my previous post is possibly the beginning of understanding this process. There are many ways to address the problem of self-awareness and any method is simply that, a method and which one best suits a person is for each to find out.

Awareness is more like observation without consequence, like a body without the ability to move. Choice offers us the ability to act, and follow a path, any path we are aware of, or not aware of, in terms of its ultimate destination or consequences. The more awareness we have the more choices we can make consciously. Awareness doesn’t mean we can choose the right choice, as awareness is completely impartial. It is our true nature that gives us this sense.

The consequence of being imprinted by billions of other lives coupled with the billions of choices of each life leaves us with a lot of habits, or tendencies in our behaviour. When we aren’t aware we behave with those inherited and acquired tendencies as if we were pre-programmed robots. For the most part the choice to change these tendencies is out of reach when there is only enough awareness to exist and not to live life (as I keep these definitions separate).

It is amazing to note that even modern neuroscience confirms that plasticity of the brain. Anything that we adhere to that defines our reality is our belief of who and what we are–a set of tendencies in our awareness and choices. It doesn’t matter how old we are, any patterns can be changed. It doesn’t take years of meditation to accomplish change from within, it only takes self-discipline and the pure desire to accomplish that goal. Once we decide to do something and create a new tendency or make the one we want to change obsolete, we just need to maintain awareness that our choices coincide with the desired tendency.

Greater awareness leads to more choices; more choices leads to the possibility of more awareness and the changing of tendencies. The more we change the tendencies the more malleable we become, eventually being able to naturally adapt to any and all situations. The ability to adapt is coupled with the ability to understand how to change. Once we can understand how to change through awareness and choice, we are less burdened by what has been imprinted upon us, freeing us from our past, so we can make real progress.

The idea of isolation and perfect seated postures is unrealistic for many forms of meditation. I learned how to meditate next to angle grinders and fireworks (China), and until then I didn’t understand what it meant to be inside. The world disappears into the background and what I really wanted to focus on pervaded. Meditation doesn’t need to be in isolation or seated. It can be walking, talking, eating, studying, or involved with any other activity.

In starting to focus on breathing and quieting the mind, the problems arise with how loud the mind actually is when we try to sit down and quiet it. I’ve had the practice described to me in terms of chaining the heart-monkey and harnessing the mind-horse. It’s a perfect symbolism for what goes on.

The heart is said to be the seat of the soul, but our true-self is overwhelmed by other factors which are attributed to simply being born in corporeal form which are rightly symbolized by a monkey, or a barrel of them. They tug us this way and that, playing on our emotions, making us reactive, distressed, and superficial. It is usually stated that we need to learn non-attachment in Buddhist theories, but from my own experience there is some connotative meaning in that concept which many people reject: the idea is not to not feel, the idea is to be present, to feel what is, when it is, and not hold on to it–nor block it out–so that what has already happened remains in the past, not actively influencing future decisions at an unconscious level.

The mind is like a wild horse that needs to be broken in. It needs to work for you, not play and beg you to chase it down, or be stubborn and not follow when you need it. The usual practice when dealing with the mind is to focus on one thing and one thing only, recognizing deviating thoughts, stopping them, and coming back to the thing of focus. This is tedious and doesn’t exactly draw a crowd. The more active approach is to play with the mind to trick it into doing what you want. This relies on your ability to believe in a different reality, one in which nothing is impossible and everything is permissible.

The easiest example of this is to sit down with a relatively straight back, but still comfortable at the edge of a cushioned chair or cross-legged; take a pen or pencil and hold in front of your eyes between the thumb and index fingers on either end; then focus on it from the middle of your brows, developing a connection between the two.  At first you will probably not feel a connection, so just believe it exists. Close your eyes and begin very minuscule movements to act as if–and believing also–that you can bend the object up, then down. Repeating this exercise for about a minute a few times a day will begin to open the mind.

As Robert Anton Wilson put it, we are locked into reality tunnels. When we think about something we will automatically search for evidence to prove that theory is indeed correct, promoting a self-fulfilling prophecy. So in meditation we try to get to non-thought, but thinking about non-thought is in actuality thinking about all thoughts and pointless. Seeking awareness instead of non-thought is a much easier step. Awareness might be thought of as stillness, and non-thought or the absence of duality is usually thought of as emptiness, but emptiness really means fullness of nothing and nothing is the basis of everything…sooooo…in the beginning we stick to stillness and awareness because the other is a conundrum not conducive to a healthy initial development. There is a time for non-thought, but it is not in the beginning.

There are many different types of meditation and even just paying attention to breathing, speech/diction, typical behavioural patterns are good places to start.

Nearly everybody can benefit from an Ancient Thai Massage; it was specifically designed for people that couldn’t do exercise, namely yoga, to help them get started. I personally had experience practicing on an advanced stroke patient that had been in a coma for 2 years before, and if he could go through the massage without modifications on my part, I’m quite positive that should lay to rest many initial concerns about the stretching aspect. Some styles of Thai massage are rough and painful, but Ancient Thai Massage exemplifies soft power that is fluid, so pain is avoided, but the work done provides health benefits in almost every area.

Athletes, martial artists, yoga practitioners, and active people can think of Ancient Thai Massage as a sports massage in terms that it is good for pre-event preparation of the body to help prevent injury, warm-up the muscles so they can do their job effectively, and focus the mind; for post-event work it can help heal injuries faster and make recovery minimal. There’s a specific 2-hour foot and leg sequence that helps not only athletes but people with lower back pain, joint problems, inflexibility, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, and more.

After spending 18 months at The Healing Hands Center in Kathmandu, Nepal, I’ve been certified to practice and teach Ancient “Thai” Massage, Ancient Healing (the Root of Reiki), Ancient Stretching (Active, Ashtanga, and Hatha Yoga combined for Ancient “Thai” Massage practitioners). All of this takes place at Healing Connections, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. See my site for details.

The theory, simplified to the basics, is that Wuji is considered the void, or infinite emptiness.

Wuji in a process gives rise to the separation of Yin and Yang, which cannot exist without each other, so if either are in excess or depleted the other will create balance. Apart of the same process is the union of Yin and Yang, recycled back to the state of Wuji. The guiding principles behind this whole process is referred to as the Tao, literally translated as the Way. The Way represents the functions of nature.

So as I was mentioning every theory needs a practice, it’s handy there’s something called the Wuji posture to suit the theory. Physically it’s a posture to straighten the spine in order to hold the body in the optimal relaxed position for the natural flow of energy in the body. Although, after learning it, and teaching it to several people, it most definitely doesn’t feel like a relaxed position at first. It’s on the verge of postural heresy!

I like to explain it from the feet up, but there are a few different ways to achieve the correct posture. At first, unless one is coming from yoga or able to isolate certain mechanical features of the body, it will be a slight fight to achieve the ideal position. With patience and practice I can guarantee that you will achieve the ultimate relaxation of the head, neck, and shoulders, in addition to all the other benefits.

• Feet shoulder width apart, pointing straight forward
• Barely bend the knees
• Turn the knees outward slightly
• Do a gentle pelvic tilt,  scooping forward
• Round the shoulders by concaving the chest
• Turn the palms to the back and fingers to the ground
• Tuck the chin in and push the head back
• Concentrate breathing in and out through the nose
• Gently touch the tip of the tongue gently to the front of the roof of the mouth
• At first maintain concentration on having the correct posture
• Use your breath to relax the areas of stress in the posture
• After the posture is easier to hold, concentrate between the eyebrows until there’s a light pulsation
• After the pulsation concentrate three finger widths below the navel in the centre of the body
• Boredom will set it, so don’t let your thoughts carry you, recognize them and let them go
• Physical benefits come from holding this position from as little as 10 minutes
• Internal energy developments come from 30 minutes or more

Turning the knees out will push the head of the femur inwards, causing the butt muscles to squeeze, while doing the pelvic tilt will push out the arch of the lumbar. Concaving the chest is counter-intuitive, but it is balanced by the tucking in of the chin to push the head back and straighten the cervical spine. This is not slouching, so keeping the chin pushed in and head back is the key, as is not allowing the hips to go forward which is typical of straight locked legs. Bending the knees will activate the quads so the legs may get tired quick, and the automatic reaction to release the quad pressure is locking the knees back, so be mindful of the correct posture.

After some practice you’ll have a sinking feeling, where weight redistributes itself from the chest to the abdomen with slight adjustments and diaphragmic breathing is easier. Regular breathing is the best until you have more control over your body. With Taoist practices the breath is meant to become less and less noticeable, so that even the practitioner cannot hear it. Do not force the breath to become one way or another, this comes much later.