Below the surface of life a stillness exists. You own that stillness. It is yours. It is below your emotion, thinking, moving and acting out. That stillness is your personal space and it needs nothing, wants nothing and therefore, cannot be taken away.
The stillness I refer to is your immersion in energies before they manifest in any action or form. It is you before you speak, think, laugh or cry. This stillness belongs to no one else but you. If you lost all your worldly possessions and you were humiliated to the highest degree, it is this stillness that still makes life a wonderful and delicious experience. It's yours forever.
To tap, connect and own this stillness is the mission of Yogi's, monks and nuns the world over. Here you can access this space in a few short weeks of practice. This, practice I am about to share with you, is considered the hardest yoga asana of all yet, you'll be adept in minutes. Ready?
Find a place where you won't be disturbed, and where you can cope with the environmental challenges such as temperature, mozzies and brown bears. OK? Safe?
Now, find something fantastic to look at. A flower, a sunset, Mt Everest. Whatever it is, make it the real thing, not a picture or a web site and the other important thing is to make sure it can't move anywhere. Like you don't have to follow it around the park.
Make sure the following posture elements are in place. Your neck is long, and your chin is drawn back toward your neck (in other words your forehead is in a vertical plane, behind your sternum. (we Westerners think so much our forehead is most often the first thing to hit a wall if we walk into it. But really, our chest should hit the wall first) Stretch the neck long by lifting from the top of your head, and looking down 20 degrees or so.
Now, tuck your tummy in below the belly button by rotating your pelvis up. After this, straighten your spine and clench your sphincter slightly. (I know it sounds weird, but really we're trying to clench the muscle in the perineum, but for most people, it's hard to clench one without the other) OK?
Now, Stop. FREEZE.
In twenty minutes, you can start moving again. (or 30 seconds if this is your first try)
In this gap between stop and start you are to freeze every muscle, every reflect and every unconscious movement to scratch an itch. If possible, don't even blink. No tongue movement, lip movement or any such thing. You've seen the street performers freeze and look like a statue well this is your turn. If you can achieve 3 minutes you've done amazing. If you can do 5 you're a hero. 10 well, move over Buddha. It's an exceptional concept that, lying on the floor perfectly still, is going to be a hard yoga pose. But, wait till you try it.
It's this skill that builds incredible power, deep confidence and a connection to your emptiness that will change your life. At first, your body may scream, "scratch me, itch me, move me, roll me over. Push me kick me roll me up in clover," but, no, not you, no you're frozen and you want your body to know it.
The second phase of this skill of power building Qi, is to monitor your mind. Many people think they can stop their mind, but this is called either insane or dead. If your mind stops thinking or drifts into another space realm it is a very, very dangerous misdirection and can end up causing all sorts of emotional and mental illness. Many people get taught this sort of meditation and they often, get lost to life forever. So, there's the early warning. Always keep your eyes open in meditation practice and accept that your mind will think.
The real choice you have is what you think about and how.
In dead stillness energy practice it is the same as life itself. If your mind wanders all over the place you drain energy out of your body. If, on the other hand you can focus on one thing, you build energy. So, find one thing, a leaf, a sunset, a flower, a bird (better it doesn't move around too much) and just watch it. But this watching must be complete watching. Watch with your eyes, your ears, your nose, your finger tips. Watch completely.
This leads us to the more important aspect of this power building skill and that is, how you think. There's so much confusion here for people and I'd like to help you cut through the rhetoric. There's energy draining thinking, there's energy building thinking, and then there's energy directing thinking. Please be clear to remember that there are just three. Grow the tree, look after the tree, and chop the tree. Three different thinking process.
Chop the tree - energy draining thinking
Thinking that drains energy begins with emotionally backed thoughts. The emotions that drain have already been covered in this book and I hope you've recorded them in your mind's eye. They are hate, anger, greed, jealousy, rage, envy, fear and guilt. So, the energy draining thinking can have these emotions, overriding the thinking process and that sucks juice from your body. At the end of a stillness practice with these emotions circulating in the background, even subconsciously, you'll be wounded and more exhausted than when you started. 50% of all western meditators are in this head space when they practice. The way to fix this, is to plant a flower, pull out a weed. Just stick an energy building emotion where the energy draining emotion once was. Say, kindness, joy, appreciation, love, generosity, abundance - they're a good group to select from.
Now, lets talk about thinking that drains energy. Given that we've covered emotions that drain energy, and emotions all come from thinking, we've pretty well got you in the zone, or at least out of the negative zone. But there are some really energy sucking thinking process that sit underneath our conditioned response to life and you're going to have to be aware of them. Monks and nuns read the Dharma, or the Bible or Koran - books that are written in holy language, or they chant certain words in order to fill their mind with energy building thoughts. In nature, it is more simple, we just say, "WOW."
You see, there are people who think the environment is going to the dogs, or global warming is going to destroy us, they are doing a good job, but when you sit in stillness and think like that, you may as well get a hose a syphon off all your good energy. The idea of stillness is to get past all that illusion and sit deep. The best perspective, no matter what you use to cause it is the perspective of beauty. To look and see the most awful branch, a dead rat or even something not pretty, and think beauty. This takes some practice. So, for now, best you find classical beautiful things and appreciate them.
That's energy building thinking, see beauty in things, and appreciate it. To achieve it outside your stillness practice, you'll need to get past the word, should.
Maintaining the tree - energy holding thoughts
Ambivalence is a powerful and most amazing state of human achievement. Many people are afraid of it because of one reason, there's no ego. Ambivalence is completely ego free. Here we are content. Now, content might seem like a frightening idea, especially for people who are motivated by fear or greed or insecurity, but imagine the beauty of it. Totally happy with nothing. There's no emotion, no real desire. It's the most wonderful achievement even for a few minutes a day, I need nothing, want nothing, and therefore, I have everything.
Ambivalence is the greatest state of abundance. Connected to all things, possessing all, but none of them. That awareness alone is the merit of 30 years of practice in most Eastern spiritual practices.
So, ambivalence holds and sustains energy. All your senses need to be activated. Smell good things, taste good things, touch good things, hear good things and see good things. This is how temples, churches and meditation rooms are designed. They are designed to create a place of reception. So, your mind opens wide for reception from priests, teachers, nature and your own higher power in ambivalence. Therefore, given the amount of rhetoric in the world, it's not surprising that people prefer to keep their ego in place most of the time. However, in practising stillness, the ego must go, thinking must be ambivalent, and reception will be at it's absolute highest. There's no ego to block it.
So, if you are looking for answers, guidance, intuition, self awareness, understanding and vision, this energy sustaining, open state of mind is the most perfect. Stillness without loss or gain of energy, but with perfectly tuned reception. The way to achieve energy sustaining, reception in stillness with ambivalence once again involves getting past should. And the process is so simple. Balance.
Balanced mind is ambivalent mind. It's ego-less and therefore emotionless. It's focused on an object without an opinion about it. Ego always has an opinion, "gee, that's beaut, gee, that's not good etc" you'll find the people with most mental health problems have the most ego. Sadly, the ego is also a protector of the innocent so there's usually a deeper trigger than just the presence of the ego. The ego comes to make life safe, and just never goes away.
So, in stillness practice, a strongly ego protected person might be best to aspire to this ambivalence as a massive achievement.
Here's how to sustain energy, reach ambivalence, and become open to your intuition in a stillness practice. First, freeze your body, then, gradually start to open your senses to life: sounds, smells, tastes, beauty, and feel. You might like to construct these before hand so that they are all pleasant for you. Remembering that eventually, you'll be free to experience beauty in everything, but maybe not quite everything yet. Then, open your mind to duality. That means balance everything you see. If you see beauty, look for the balance. If you see life look for decay. If you see smooth look for rough. Eventually, if you keep this observation awake, your mind will enter the ambivalence state, where, although the ego might feel uncomfortable, everything is just still. You need nothing, want nothing but have everything.
So, with the body frozen in stage one, the senses aware of their surroundings and your mind in ambivalence just stay. Do not fall into the trap of asking the holy ghosts for help or guidance, that's just more ego. Just do the stillness, enter ambivalence and then finish when you can't sit still anymore. Remembering you cannot meditate, or be in stillness. You can just put you body, emotion, and mind into a state where stillness can happen. And in this energy sustaining state, your stillness will open you to your intuition, higher awareness, sometimes. You just have to sustain the disciplines and trust that "when the time is right, you'll get your delight."
Grow the tree - Energy building Stillness
It might be wise to master the first two techniques of energy holding, energy sustaining stillness before this one, but, if you're impatient to try, go ahead, no damage can be done skipping a step other than not being able to sustain the practice. In other words, no life threatening disease will come to you by trying and exploring.
Here's the stillness technique for building energy. Place your body into the dead still frozen position, eyes open, senses made active, be happy and comfortable (note, that eventually you'll be able to move around with the mind -emotional element of this practice in place without the frozen body bit, but for now, dead still must be mastered for at least 10 -20 minutes first). Move your mind to ambivalence. So, now you are in a position to start building personal Qi.
Second step in building energy: Now that you're ready, you can start to influence your mind beyond ambivalence, but please be sure to achieve ambivalence first. That way, you leave your ego behind for sure. Now, start to appreciate. Say thank you to everything you see in front of you, all the people you can remember from the past, all life. The more you can say thank you to people, places and things, the closer you get to the awareness of the source of Qi. Here you are undoing the combination lock to the unlimited supply of life forces.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Say this mantra to yourself over and over as you see more and more people, places, things, and that beauty right before you. With your body in freeze, your mind now in a heightened state of thankfulness, (please avoid thanking a creator but rather thank the reality into which Qi energy has taken form - real life rather than imagined)
Now, you are ready to turn on the tap. With thankfulness still running your mind, bring your awareness to your breathing, all done through your nose, while holding dead stillness. Keep returning to thankfulness and visualise your breath going into your lungs, Qi energy and oxygen transferring from the air through your breathing system into your blood and nervous system and be thankful. Now exert some influence over your breathing, (do it as a friend, not a military commander). Slowly increase the length and depth of each breath. Start to count 5 counts in, 5 counts out, 5 in, 5 out. Eventually, add a one count pause at the top of the inhalation, and a one count pause at the bottom of the exhalation. Step by step, with body frozen, increase this to 5 in, 5 hold, 5 out, 5 hold. If, at any time you start to tremble, stop.
The final step is finishing the process, and storing the energy in your body so you have the opportunity to use it to create what you want in your life and those you care for. Just to demonstrate what not to do: I have a meditation teacher living near my home, and when people come out of his meditation class, which must be very good, they're full of energy, and many weren't on the way in. However, they get one step away from the front of his building and they start to babble like chickens with a horny rooster in the cage. All that powerful energy building practice, poured out and down the drain in chatter. You need to be aware that, if you build your energy, you have to know how to store it, and not waste it.
Building Qi Force
Storing Qi Force
Stopping the Loss of Qi Forces
Directing Qi Forces
Chris Walker - http://www.chriswalker.com.au - For 30 wonderful years Chris Walker has helped bring the beauty and harmony of nature into the lives of thousands of people. He has helped people all over the world find, live and work with more spirit, inner peace and personal harmony. Since 1976 Chris has run training programs, guided people to the highest peaks in the world, taught executives about self mastery and helped many young people in his youth programs. He is dedicated to bringing people together in harmony with nature, helping them find their true nature and the nature of life.
Carrying a pack, discovering new trails, exploring the human spirit, dreaming with immensity, and gaining far away horizons: escaping the destiny of the sedentary, loving above all the supreme liberty of the human spirit at one with nature. This is Chris Walker's life!
Like the trails he explores with a pack on his back high in the mountains, unravelling the mysteries of harmony and focus at work or in relationship creates something special for any individual who decides to explore the wonders of it. A uniqueness, a resilience to the instability of conventional attitudes, a real freedom that only the human heart can fully understand.
Chris is a free spirit, a nomad. He follows his heart and helps others do the same. Are you ready to explore it? Chris Walker http://www.chriswalker.com.au Author, Consultant, Guide, Speaker
