SOME FINAL WORDS AS A PARTING WISH |
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When I was creating this site and working on the text content, I wanted it to be of use and assistance both for newcomers and for people already practicing Qigong. This is not an easy task: beginners are looking for one thing, and those who have some basis of their own sensations and understanding, need something different. Changing someone’s ideology or their world view was not part of my agenda; I only wanted to share my opinion, based on the level of my current development. I wanted people to find peace of mind in my work and to feel at ease and more comfortable after the reading. I hoped people who read it either would want to try Qigong, or understand their own practice deeper, as it happens sometimes this way.
There are different people and different websites. For somebody, maybe, this very site will be useful.
I wrote some articles in the first person; it seemed right to me to express my ideas in this style. I intended to share my personal experience and tell once again that everything is possible because I, an ordinary person, for some years of practice that sometimes was far from correct, could achieve what I am writing about.
If someone noticed some overly harsh expressions in my writing or some really stupid statements, please, do not take offence. In fact, I cannot keep up with editing the content of this site every time as my own understanding keeps changing all the time.
In general, I didn’t show my authorship for a long time. I tried to describe not my personal understanding of the world, but rather some fundamental things connected with concept of our School and to the practice. I am writing much here about correct practice to encourage practitioners to get the experience and the understanding of their own; to get acquainted not with me personally but rather with the School method. I don’t even think about entering this site after it’s completion, except for the active page of my city, which is to provide Tomsk students with info on the schedule of workshops. And who knows – maybe by now I won’t enter even the “Tomsk page”. Hey, maybe I am doing something completely different altogether!
It is of no use to pay too much attention to the past. Let us rather evolve together and observe our mistakes and our achievements. Join the practice of Wu Chan Zhong Qigong and Snow Dragon Club.
Here I would like to express deep gratitude to some people.
This is the founder of Zhong Yuan Qigong Association and simply a good person –Mingtang Xu. If it was He introduced me to the practice of ancient me of organization methods grew apart,but thanks to the work and teaching of Mintang Xu and his students and fellow supporters, myself and now my own students and fellow supporters – achieved our results. Our lives now are more full and clear, we keep developing our creative side – having taken in our hearts and our minds the fundamental principles that our first teacher made known to us.
This is my colleague and friend, and simply a very good person, former Zhong Yuan Qigong instructor from Tomsk, Sergey Kudryashov. He left teaching Qigong long time ago, but even while still teaching he never liked being called an “instructor” and never associated himself with any schools. Now he just enjoys his happy life, doing things that are interesting for him, practicing his own Path and his own methods. He is also keeps working as a scientist in an academic institute.
For several years Sergey has been by my side, always ready to share his experience anddiligently explaining errors. He taught me to think and re-think, keeping me from committing really stupid things. Of course, I neither listened to him nor heard him. But something, yet, was gradually penetrating my mind, so now I can be really grateful to him. Though I don’t always remember whether some things that you are reading on this website are coming from my head or they come from him. Sergey started practicing in total isolation; he was the first and the only person in Tomsk who practiced Qigong. So, following this difficult Path all alone, he achieved definitely high results…
And finally, and most importantly, -this is my family, which patiently and bravely survived the stage when I was new adept, obsessed with Qigong and not seeing anything except “my practice” of “my Qigong”.
I also want to express my gratitude to those people who call themselves my students. In fact, today, while this website content is written, I am just a regular guy. There is a joke about an old professor who used to shout at his students: “You blockheads! I have explained this three times already!.. For the dumb ones I have written it on the blackboard… I have even understood it myself!” That is my case… Asking me questions during the workshops or by email, some people, and my colleagues too, made me search for the answers within myself… When I finally found the answers it always gave me the feeling of fullness and entailed new understanding... This is how I started to understand my practice and my path deeper … However, it is very difficult to express this understanding. I am never satisfied with what I say or have to say, I never get it right, even these words sound obscure, incorrect and far from perfect. Whatever I could express, I did. Whatever I couldn’t express, whatever is beyond expressing – you are able to comprehend only by yourself.
In the parable Where Yama Concealed the Truth, which I wrote once after the deep meditation, I tried to put in a belles-lettres style what I failed to express at this site in a usual “technical” language...
In the end, I would like to say some heartfelt wish to those who are reflecting on the Way or practicing some system of spiritual development.
***
Many say that the main thing is not
energy, not exercise, or not even meditation,
but self-awareness and moral power of Te.
Moral qualities are what must be practiced:
doing good to people and living a life of awareness.
This is enough for the practice
of spiritual development.
Is that right? And what is Te?
/from the letter/
The truth is that many people say the same thing, referring to the words of the Great Teachers – Buddha, Lao-Tsu, Christ…
Do not be attached to the words; all the modern “Holy Texts” are not originals but translations. And it so happened, that some translations were done by quite ordinary people who might not have reached the higher level of understanding and, therefore, misunderstood and misinterpreted the core of teaching, no matter what position they used to take in the hierarchy of their Spiritual System.
Such texts may mislead the unprepared reader instead of helping him to understand.
This site already mentioned that Self-Awareness is the right thing, the thing we should be aiming for from the start of our practice. It also mentioned that a group of special exercises would help to stimulate certain processes, to understand yourself and the world better; to find Awareness inside yourself and make it deeper, broader and steadier.
Generally speaking, it doesn’t matter what we do, at what time of the day, where we are, what we eat and what we believe in. The most important thing is not to get attached.
Rather than talking now about Te, I would talk about positive emotions and about psyche comfort…
My doctor friend gives interesting statistics: if you are a physician specializing in sports medicine and have been dealing a lot with hip injuries, after some time in medical practice you develop problems with your own hip joints . If a doctor has been working for all his professional life with peptic ulcers, he finally develops an ulcer himself, and so on.
OK, if it’s a specialist in infectious diseases, one could understand how it happens; but what about orthopedic surgeons or neurologists? There is no “direct transmission” from patient to doctor.
From Qigong point of view the explanation is simple: if the doctor keeps having these diseases on his mind, keeps thinking about the diseased organs and the processes happening in it. Therefore his imagination starts to affect his own energy field.
An ordinary person’s energy field is usually not that strong, so destruction goes on slowly. But sooner or later the disease catches up with you, and now doctors joke between themselves: “whatever we treat, we die of”.
People with a positive attitude to life or, maybe, those who are more “light-hearted” are less subject to destructive thoughts. They are not able to get attached to accidents and discussions of tragedies; - these people tend to live longer and are healthier.
If a person is eating meat while thinking that meat-eating is sinful or more harmful than a vegetarian diet, then this person will end up with problems. It is not the matter of nutrition itself, but rather of the attitude towards it; of attachment to some artificial beliefs and concepts.
An ability to create the concept of the world and then get fixed on the created image is the only thing that is wrong; it can hinder the development and cause problems on your Path.
Wu Chan Zhong Qigong uses this very ability. The first steps of this system teach our mind to create positive images and substitute “bad” attachments for “good” ones. It also contributes to development of certain structures. And one day we just find ourselves on the next level. Later, when we practice the higher levels, there will be no involvement of Mind and Images at all…
The real Way to self-awareness starts only when we shake off our attachments. Then suddenly we realize that we cannot understand some simple thing: “Aw! Jeez!...This… This thing – is it good or bad”? Earlier I could confidently say “this is good” or “this is bad”. But now my head just cannot digest it; it rejects any judgment, cannot come to the conclusion…
This is not your analytical mind failing to summarize it's attitude.
It’s just that there is no attitude at all.
When that happens – then it’s irrelevant what to eat, or what time of the day to practice, or what religion to follow, or what to practice altogether.
But before it happens – you have to practice …
As for your Te… Your Te is conditioned. All the discussions of Te now remind me of Levi Matvei in the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita”... Levi Matvei failed to understand his Teacher... “Absolutely nothing that was written there did I ever say”-Christ exclaimed referring to Levi notes... Do you remember?
What about the last dialogue between Woland and Levi?
- What do you want, slave?
- I am not a slave, I am a friend...
But he was indeed a slave! Levi failed to follow his own way; he could not break free and become liberated... He blindly followed his own interpretation, the concept of what, according to his current perception of Jesus, was right, and what was wrong. Yesterday it was right for him to collect taxes; today it is right for him to wear rags. I dread to think of what he might do with this planet tomorrow being given such a possibility! He will tailor everything according to his own preferences and will make everybody march for their limited portions of “what is good”. Both book characters, Pilate and even Woland, were closer to Christ than many of His “official” disciples and followers... They both were looking for their own way and their own truth. “Cowardice is the main sin!” –says the book. The Way of Master starts with the decision to take responsibility for his development...
Countless “Levi Matveis” occupy their designated places. They are not searching for anything and not going anywhere. They are satisfied with the “already provided”, with their new concepts of what is “good” and “right”. Their Te is conditioned by their ideas of good and evil and depends on their current existence, quite ready to attune obligingly to conditions and needs... Their morality will never be the morality of Christ.
Conditioned morality grants no good, it brings only suffering.
Why is there suffering on Earth? Where does it come from? The essence of this lies in Tension, that comes from attachment to personally invented concept of good. Lao Tsu was wise to note: where good appeared, there evil immediately emerges, the first engenders the second…
It’s about refusal to accept The Law of Universe. Either you suffer because you can’t change it, or you are happy because you accept it and relax. Refusal to accept Universal Laws creates lots of different Tensions. These Tensions happen because people create in their heads different images, beliefs and firm opinions about how things should be. Why should these things be like this? Why not different?
Who are we to give instructions to Existence on how it should flow? No wonder that sometimes Existence chooses to teach us a lesson by rubbing our nose into various matters… Why all of a sudden you decided to “practice Te”? Have you seen this Te? May be you met Buddha and he told you about it in person? Maybe we all should meet him? We’ll just chat and get it all sorted out… You know, there is this special practice to help us meet him… Oops! I forgot – you already decided against any practice, you already made up your mind because you read about this subject somewhere…
OK, you may tell me that I am wrong, that Buddha ( i.e.somebody else’s experience) won’t help either. Zen masters say “if you see Buddha – kill Buddha, as only your own experience matters”. But here is the rub: this truth is not your own truth either! You just read it somewhere, so you can’t really personally verify it!
Erudition and knowledge hinder us!
They clutter up our poor heads and give us a possibility to compare our practice and our life – to life and practice of different practitioners or to the dude next door. Up until we learn that this dude next door just got himself a new Mercedes, we thought we were doing just fine and were making wonderful progress. Lao Tsu wrote: “Everybody gains something, I am the one who loses everything. Everyone wants to learn something, I am the only one who tries to forget everything...”
When Eve tasted the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge - immediately the fabric of the Universe ruptured in her head, and The Indivisible got divided into her “silly feminine” fantasies about Good and Evil… She managed to lead Adam astray too! … And immediately in his head The Indivisible got divided into “smart male” concepts of Good and Evil. It wasn’t God who turned away from people. It was people who turned away from The Indivisible One. We can continue to show off how smart we are for the rest of our lives, but what’s the use? “We don’t need Qigong, we only need Te!” But do you even know what Te is? What Mind is? What Soul is? And do you know who You are?
Qigong is a simple science of life. This science helps to get direct personal experience and precise knowledge of mysteries that stay sealed with seven seals, under lock and key for most theologians, philosophers, mystics, monks, truth-hunters of all sorts and adepts of all religions...
Reading books about practice is useless; you should practice yourself.
There is nothing as funny as the word combination: “scholar Buddhist”. Buddha did not ask to create Buddhism, moreover, he did not ask “scholar Buddhists” to study it so thoroughly; this contradicts the very Teaching of Buddha.
The real Buddhism is Chan… Zen… silence… meditation…the state…
The same thing happens in Christianity, Mohammedanism and other religions. There are theologians and various researchers etc.
What is there to study? The words about becoming more light-hearted, being like children, not to steal, because in this case you do not have time for meditation and state “silence”?.. about sweeping all the concepts and models out of mind, creating no idols and attachments, because this is the root of suffering? About never thinking in your pride: if the world could be better then it is, it would make our existence much easier?
Teachers gave the method of creating favorable conditions for self-development; it is really simple, what is to study here?
Getting attached spoils the life because it is just “vanity, vanity of vanities and all kinds of vanities”.
We have to liberate ourselves.
I quit trying to understand what the result is, what it should be, and whether it is even necessary. And this is really great result of my Wu Chan Zhong Qigong practice, because since then I became relaxed.
Those who got certain ideas into their heads and now consider “the result” to be some such and such - now they perceive life to be a regress as it doesn’t meet their ideas. They are full of tension and suffering…
Well, from the point of view of evolution and Qigong practice, there is no such a thing as regress. There is only moving forward. It is one of the Universal Laws.
It also happens that some people keep practicing for decades and still consider exercises to be the most important thing, that “the more energy – the better”, “the longer you stand in Big Tree - the better results”.
Instead of liberating themselves, they ever so tightly get attached to the thing that can no longer be called a practice. They created an artificial false life and let this life swallow them whole.
Here is an example of some people from Zhong Yuan Qigong Association where I first started. They dream of Shaolin…
Every year they obsess about finding a way to save some money and travel to Shaolin to attend the autumn retreat with Master Mingtang Xu. Besides the money problem, there are issues at work and in the family – the person is going away for six weeks, and it’s a long time!
A trip to Shaolin is not necessary.
Egregore works regardless of time and space. You may come to Mingtang for the less expensive retreat, when he visits your country.
Look at rabid followers of various schools who put their teachers on pedestal; who long for trips to Mecca, Jerusalem, or Benares, or Vatican… and each and every one is obsessed with his ideas! And this is called practice?!
When you have spare money and free time, when you don’t expect anything special from your trip – then it may be useful, but not more than this.
I have not met a single one whose trip “specifically to Shaolin” helped to find liberation. But I have seen many people who achieved great results without leaving their own town.
All these tea ceremonies, special music for meditations”, special costumes... – what for?
Imagine some Chinese or Hindu adopting Orthodoxy - nowadays it is not such a rare occasion... Nobody appreciates anything that is near. There is no prophet in his own country. Europeans are running to Yoga, people from India turn to Qigong, Chinese people are all carried away with Christianity... and it’s all with respective attributes and imitations… Well, people are free to follow any religion and spiritual system, but it's silly to think that specific clothing or sets of external attributes have anything to do with practice.
In every system and every branch of any practice sooner or later the same things start: when people have no results, they get busy with nonsense. They go nuts about Rishikesh, Varanasi or Shaolin and follow everywhere the stories of visitors to these places.They create on their websites beauty contests, jokes about practice and practitioners, online stores with the goods for practice.They create their own blogs and edit their sites constantly. They devote all their spare time and all their life to criticising other systems or to study of obscure Chinese or Hindi dialects.
THEY HAVE GOT NOTHING TO DO.
That’s why they have no results. That’s why they replace practice with various substitutes; with all sort of trash... This is how many traditions, rites, religions are born… Artificial parallel life…
In the world of science there are people whose life is consumed by science, who are barely aware of the world outside of it. And there are people “in a business of science”, who are busy with administration, promoting, management etc; people who don’t even remember when they made their latest scientific discovery (or whether they made any at all)…
The same thing happens in self-development practices: along with masters there are people “in business”, and there are lots of them. Usually they are the majority.
If someone achieves the result of their practice, then right from the start they get the understanding of who they are, what they need from life, what they need to do in their life. That’s what result is. These people find their favorite work and leave web-forums and other public places. They practice quietly, and nobody sees them anymore.
Now they are busy with THE REAL THING. And it happened with the help of special (applied!) instrument - QIGONG. Now they are busy with whatever was worth devoting their time to self-development practice. Somebody writes poetry, somebody decided to go for mathematics,
or chess, or creating their own business, or street cleaning. Others devote their time to raising a family. It doesn’t matter what they are doing. Their life is full and rich, and they enjoy it. That’s what my first instructor Kurban Gadjiev was like.
Now, after a long time, I have found the new understanding of my teacher’s words: “life is not for practice, practice is for life” and “you need to be your own master”. I realized that I don’t have to help develop any School directly by organizing one workshop after
another, producing the line of new adepts.
The right thing to do is to follow your own vocation, to find your true self. It would be wrong to copy anybody, even the most famous guru, missioner, teacher, saint or “savior”.
That is why there are “old”, “experienced” adepts of any school or system, who have been practicing for 8, 10, 12, 15 years and have got no real “result”.
They may be famous in their own group, but they – I can see it – have no result of their practice. Speaking about the “result” I mean not only “high bar level,” but even usual results in physical health.
Why is it so?
First of all, we are all created different and, therefore, it’s useless to compare anyway… As well, in my opinion, these people have well hidden severe tension within. This great tension stems from the great desire for getting the result of practice. This great desire has driven them to the idea that the more they practice, the better. And they have come to the conclusion they should unify their profession and their personal life with the teaching or with organization itself, to be “in the business” – all for the better possibility to “practice”. It is nonsense, by all means… But how should this mistake be explained to them?
Their hunger for result and their tension never vanish. The tension became part of them, and they no longer see or feel it, but this “blindness” does not make them more relaxed… Tension stays… What kind of “silence in the head” can we talk about then? If they had something in their life more interesting for them, then the results of their practice – like a football , for example… Then, while playing a football, they could just forget themselves… and then – ka-boom! – they get it… It happens like this in Qigong as well as in football. Find something to distract your mind.
Take it easier. There is no linear correlation with time and length of practice.
It is more important to find you place in life. Your Path. We are all alone on our Path, we have nobody to outrun and no one to be oriented towards. Comparisons makes no sense. You don’t have to be tormented with a desire to repeat the Way of any Master and become Master of whatever School or System. You have to find yourself and do whatever is YOUR WORK IN LIFE, to what you have abilities, inclinations and talent. Qigong will help you: 1. to find this real work of yours, 2. to manifest and develop your talents 3. to become real Master in whatever thing you do.
This Work of Yours, in turn, will help you to become more relaxed and natural… This is like a toothbrush and teeth. One makes no sense without the other… There is nothing to talk about… Qigong is just a toothbrush… Teeth are our occupations, problems, actions, - our real life…
If it finally happens, if we become real Masters of our Work, it will be the best assistance to explaining to other people what Qigong is all about and why it’s good for you. Otherwise it’s just empty words. Let people see by your example how Qigong practice works and helps. Or whether it helps at all. If the main business of any School or System is based on commercial interests or hunger for fame – this is not even worth being discussed.
To become happier due to Qigong practice, to be doing what you love and achieve great success in it, to wake up every morning ready to sing, to cherish every minute of your wonderful life – that is the main thing. This kind of life will help to promote Qigong much better then becoming the instructor, talking endlessly to people about benefits of Qigong while it’s painfully obvious to others that your own life is a failure: your health is still poor, you still don’t like your job, and your marriage is still on rocks.
I have found my work in life, my true calling. To be exact, I have found it a long time ago. But I have been neglecting it for 15 years. Now I returned to it. I can’t know ahead of time how far it will take me and whether I will become The Master in this particular work. But I don’t care about it. I am only interested in the process itself. I love feeling of complete support from the Universe from all different levels and directions when I am busy with “truly mine” work. That’s when the most effective development starts.
It is possible (and pleasant) to teach people as a hobby, say, once every two months if there happen to be a group of 10-15 people… Then you have a workshop with them, just because it is interesting...
All these advertising, book-keeping, expectations, counting how many people should come to recompense the rent of hall, whom else to call to start persuading... keeping the rented room, planning how to make it work all day long – and, as a consequence, turning your life into
some kind of a network sales a-la Herbalife,… pulling people by the sleeve in the street and screaming: ‘ What!!! You haven’t joined Qigong yet?! Why?! Qigong is the best thing ever! Wu Chan Zhong Qigong is THE best Qigong!!!' –I don’t know about you but it seems pretty boring
and nauseating to me…
Why some practitioners don’t get any result?
Because they try to make their Masters and their School responsible for their progress, and this is wrong and unfair.
The first thing you do when you start The Path of Master is to hold yourself responsible. Qigongers call it “to be the Master of Oneself”. No one is going to walk your Path for you; no one is ever to make decisions for you. If you come across such people - just run away from them,
for this is not the Path of Self-Development; this is the way of sectarianism!
I hear some instructors say that an organizer or instructor has to be like a good geisha. They should create conditions, motivation, the desire and the mood to come to the workshop, to go to retreat now and come back next time.
In my opinion, it is only when you are a bad master, when you occupy the wrong place, when you cannot provide students with the good result, - that is when you have to be a whore.
If you are a real Master, people will come to you despite all the obstacles, they will cross the oceans and overcome high mountains. Sometimes it is painful to see some retreat participants wrinkle their noses: they do not like this, they do not like that... And it is sad to see the instructor making fuss over their whims, him trying to find the flatter place for their butts, asking the organizer to make some calls to arrange a sauna at a lower price or to recall everybody to remind them to take camp-chairs or warm underwear… should everybody be instructed to take spare underpants?
Is that what you call “to be the Master of Oneself”? Are these responsible adults who have come to the practice of self-awareness development?
Now, when I am gradually withdrawing from “this business”, I feel easy and comfortable. I feel as if great weight has been lifted off me. Qigong is an excellent tool, but nevertheless it is merely a tool, like a toothbrush. There is no use in never-ending talks that teeth should be “optimized”, should become white, strong, clean and healthy; should smell nice... You just need to brush it every morning and before bedtime, with toothbrush. And in-between, that is - during the entire day, you should do other things, “real things”. Things that make you wake up with the smile every morning. Things that bring you joy in life.
However there are useless people that simply don’t understand it, no matter how long they have been practicing and how famous they are within The School. They make a toothbrush to be the object of worship! They strive to be The Toothbrush masters.
Just to make it more clear, I will cite (for them) their favorite statements about Qigong practice, but I’ll put the word ”toothbrush” instead of “Qigong”.
- Toothbrush is my life! Everything’s changed since I discovered Toothbrush and understood how important it is to brush teeth! I want to devote all my life to the toothbrushing!
- Hello! My name is John Johnson. I have been brushing teeth for the past three years. I have covered all four steps of ascension in the art of tooth-brushing. To brush teeth most effectively, I decided to combine my profession and tooth-brushing. In Godforsakenville we have opened all- year-round centre for tooth-brushing. You may come to us to brush your teeth. Please consult our
site for the schedule.
- My name is Joe Blow. I am looking for the tooth-brusher girl for brushing together.
- Our toothbrush is the most right one!
- Attention! We are starting the contest Miss Toothbrush!
- I am a professional instructor of tooth-brushing. That’s all I do. Very professionally! A good instructor should be like a good geisha - he has to create such an environment for people, so they would want to brush teeth; and I am the one to teach them!
Well, if people don’t want to brush their teeth – it’s their problem! I am certainly not going to waste my life running after them with a bunch of toothbrushes.
I wish some people would take a pause and take a look at themselves. Qigong may be an excellent instrument of self-development, but first, you have to find within yourself WHAT is there to develop. How can you develop something that you do not have in a first place? The first
thing you need to do is find your true self and never forget that we are all different, so don’t try to walk somebody else’s path.
Be the Master of Yourself.
And it won’t take long to get the result!
To find your own place in life – that’s the thing to do! Qigong may assist you in this. Therefore it’s silly to state that “only such and such thing is enough for practice”. I doubt very much that you are more special than Buddha Gautama, and even he required 7 years of meditation (and few decades of practice before he actually understood how to practice correctly).
On the other hand, you should not put all your hopes in practice. Yes, you do need to practice, because you need to take the path of Dao. At the same time you shouldn’t get too worked up about it. And in any case you should not get stressed about bad examples of other people.
Every school has both Masters and ”people in business”, the latter creating opportunities to learn
self-development for the others, promoting and developing the School, organizing workshops,
seminars, master classes… I would like to thank them for the difficult work they do.
But they often do not have any result of their practice. They haven’t changed in a sense of being free of attachments . However they do have lots of energy and sometimes can be good instructors. You must learn from them as much as you can, and then – continue with you own
Path.
Nothing changes instantly. Changes are always for the best. All living things are constantly evolving. Everybody who is practicing regularly, even if not perfectly, - keep changing for the better, that’s for sure…
A pig may keep eating and getting bigger and fatter, perfecting it’s vital energy, but it will never “eat it’s way up” to become a human being, as it will never fundamentally change it’s consciousness and inner being. So please remember that practicing exercises by themselves are
useless; you need cardinal change, an opportunity to outgrow your former self.
I wish I had never had to write about it. I wish I could write only about pleasant things, about success stories...
I am sure that at this very moment some “experienced” Qigong practitioner, or even instructor (regardless of system or school) is reading this and thinking me to be presumptuous and cheeky, and that these matters do not relate to him (or her) at all. But what I hope for is that somebody else would read it – somebody who is almost ready, somebody who almost understands and just needs a little push for re-evaluating. I am writing about these matters somewhat ruefully, remembering my own hard experiences and mistakes. And if because of what I am writing, someone will gain understanding and will achieve results of practice faster and with less complications – I will know that all my negative experience were not in vain.
One can spend years practicing without understanding the essence.
Many people wish for some “instrument”, of “device from outside”, which they allegedly do not possess. It doesn’t matter what can be considered such a device. It could be props for Iyengar yoga to assist the lower back stretching for proper Uttanasana posture. It could be
spiritual assistance of “guru-shishya parampara field” or lotus posture. It also could be the Son Of Man rushing to be your “rescuer from outside”, solving all your problems for you… All of this exemplifies a mechanistic approach, regardless of whether we talk about one’s hip joint or about one’s faith. If we take this approach, both topics are the same – mechanistic thinking of a rationalist; victory if Mind over Spirituality. Yox conceals the truth again...
You always need to take The Middle Way – Zhong.
On one hand, we have to walk our Path and to practice. On the other hand, we shouldn’t be fanatical, thinking that we now have a “ special device”; that without this device nothing would have happened. We also shouldn’t think that now we have to work this device left, right and center…
On one hand we should be more carefree. On the other hand, we shouldn’t be couch potatoes – we need to practice. We could, for example, practice Qigong. It stimulates certain processes, forms certain structures that assist us in relaxing and getting rid of certain “issues”.
We could also take sports, go swimming or take family ski trips. When you are tired after physical exercise, you don’t care so much about “the issues”. Meditations alone, combined with sedentary lifestyle, again lead to tension. It’s like a pendulum: after it reaches a maximum point of tension – it drops to relaxation. After getting tired in Big Tree stance we enjoy quiet practice.
If tension doesn’t go away, if a person is constantly scheming how he can get a bigger and better “device” – at the next level, in the next school or method, on the next retreat at a sacred location with the Dalai Lama or Pope, - it’s just plain wrong. Then, upon achieving no result, the person naturally would start exchanging one “device” for another, and a practice of collecting and searching for “devices” will start…
What to do then?!!!
In any case, what you shouldn’t do is to think that the next person has “personal experience” and results, and you don’t have any. First of all, why do you even believe the other person with his “personal experience”, be it myself or someone else? Second, why you don’t believe yourself? Are you blind? Don’t you have a sense of smell or touch? Can’t you hear? Have you never experienced love, joy or happiness? Have you never suffered? You already possess vast personal experience, much vaster than the other 150 billion of living creatures on Earth. You have such an enormous arsenal of sensory organs, that they seem extraordinary and miraculous compared to spiders, ants, chickens, pigs, fishes, snakes and other creatures of God, who have living soul but are not blessed with any consciousness. You are lucky! You came into the world of chosen ones, into the circle of advanced abilities! You are able to practice your Consciousness, and through this to develop your Soul. Look at yourself in the world and at the world around you from this point of view: you must have been incarnated billions of times, and you have come a long way. Now you came as a human; got all you need for practice, you even found the School and Method of Practice! Not many people are that lucky; trust me. You already know so much; you have so much! You already are able to create, write poetry, sing songs, admire the starry sky, and to understand it! You have started the real Path! Now everything is in your hands; now you can simply relax and let things happen in a right time… Who cares if you are unable to hear and to decipher the language of flowers from the world above us? Who cares if you cannot see our brothers the dragons? For God’s sake – there always will be something out there that you are unable to see… The world is huge, and The Path never ends. But even now you have all these amazing gifts – just ask an ant, or fish, or blind legless beggar, or somebody terminally ill with AIDS. They would tell you that yes; they would love to be a Great Master like yourself, with
your great mind, amazing abilities and perfect health… But no, it’s still not enough for you! How do you expect to get anywhere in life with this attitude? Whatever you get, whatever other wonderful experiences you gain, it can never be enough –there is always something else out
there. Here is what I think: see your amazing gifts right now, feel this great joy and happiness – and keep walking further without stressing out. When you are showered with presents, there is no desire to keep getting more and more; you just enjoy sitting at this festive table. So keep living your life with this festive feeling. Your practice will help you with this, as without this feeling there is no point in going anywhere. The first thing we need to come to is this joy.
Qigong practice helps with this, at least it did for me. But only much later I came closer to my consciousness and self- awareness. Not through books, as I haven’t read about it much, - but through meditation, practice, and my own experience and understanding. Otherwise it would be just empty words: ”one needs to practice awareness” - but what is this awareness? What is it about? But with meditation practice, one day inside you The Observer awakens, and then you clearly can see: this is Mind, and that is Something Different. And then you can start practical studying of your own self and gain an understanding what to do next. There is nothing more interesting than studying your own self and the world around you. You are able to have a clear understanding of such wonderful things and your own qualities!
Qigong is a simple science of life.
Do you want the words “Te”, “Qi”, “Awareness”, “Soul” to be more then words or a combination of sounds for you? Do you want to know for sure instead of just repeating the memorized terms without real deep understanding?
For a deep practitioner it’s a nonsense when somebody, when asked what the soul is, confidently answers: ”There is no ultimate answer to this question as everybody has his own understanding of this concept!” That’s the answer I heard from one girl. She asked me why I practiced Qigong, and I wanted to approach my answer from afar, so I asked her what the soul was…
My dear readers! Can you give the answer: “This question has no ultimate answer, as everyone understands it one’s own way!” to my question: “What is a glass of milk?” Of course, a glass of milk is a glass of milk. There are no and there cannot be double-edged understanding or ambiguous answer… One either knows exactly what it is, or he does not – if he has never seen or
tasted milk. I would cut philosophy now, just to underline that we are speaking about an ordinary glass of milk and the information taken from your experience about a glass of milk…
The same goes for soul, the ordinary soul. For some people this is an ordinary world; you are welcome, if it is interesting to you. The same concerns Karma, Te and many other things.
Qigong is a simple science of life. Practicing Qigong gives you the answers to these and an uncountable number of the other questions. It helps you to study yourselves and to find your place in the Universe.
If you are interested in health only, then Qigong is a splendid instrument of self-regulation. That is why I am amused when people who have read in the books about Te tell me that “practicing only Te is enough in itself” … Enough for whom? For me? Do you know what I want? What I am? What is my Way? Do you know your Way? What you are? Do you want to know who you are?
With the practice of Qigong you get different answers…One day you get understanding that everything in this world is an integral whole; Yin and Yang, good and evil are indivisible. The virtue is just one side of the world of phenomena and illusions; therefore it makes no sense to
cultivate it for its own sake. Te is not a morality in a sense people understand. Te is a certain Power allowing our energy to evolve. And Te evolves itself, too. This is benevolent power of our mind. It allows us to be less reactive, to navigate the sea of our own hard judgements, emotions and beliefs. It is the power opposing our ego. It's because of ego we sometimes even do some seemingly good deeds, - but in our pride consider ourselves to be the best experts in the world, trying to conduct our world according to our crazy and rigid views, and then suffering from an inability to get the results we hoped for, as the Universe has it's own plans for everything… Te is
the power allowing us to accept the reality and to stay is Zhong, the golden middle, and not in the extremes of Yin and Yan…
But if you get attached to the idea of Te and deliberately try to make this Power grow by committing kind and noble deeds, it will never come. Te is not about it at all!
There is no reason to speak about Te. It will come on its own if you do not get stuck on it.
The way of nurturing virtues may lead to sectarianism and fanaticism, toward sullen levimatveism... Let your Mind be free from all the attachments, and then there will be space for God to enter...
Without Wisdom (God, Dao, Absolute, Transcedentality ) the power of Te, when starting to wake up in our mind, has to go through certain milestones and phenomena. And sometimes it may get dangerous. You may get swept away by powerful desires to do something good, but right now you do not know the Truth and do not really understand the good and bad even for one particular person and particular case. First you need to become stronger and wiser yourself - and only then you can help others. Now 99 times out of 100 you will do somebody a bad favor , as you judge “ right” and “wrong” according to you today’s behavior models and today’s attachments to memorized lessons given to you by equally unconscious people… The blind person cannot be a guide…
Who told you that to give money to beggars is a kind deed? Christ did? But he died long ago. You could not have heard it from Him! You read it in the books that He never wrote. “Levi Matveis” wrote them...
What if a beggar gets drunk on your money and freezes to death on the street? Will you then say that it couldn’t be your fault, that “everything is in God’s hands”, and that must have been his fate? Why then at this interval of his fate you interfere and take upon yourself the responsibility of “helping” this beggar? And why at another interval - when you realize that you killed this person instead of helping him – you transfer this responsibility to God and wash off your hands? Maybe you shouldn’t have meddled until you really possess an “inner eye”, intuition and understanding of subtle, “hidden” things? Maybe you should influence the world only when you know for sure the outcome of your actions? In the earlier days we could always say that we were really unable to tell the outcome anyway. But I am telling you now that there are methods out there; you just need to practice. First – get wise, then – start helping others. Otherwise you carry full karmic responsibility for all your bad favors. The fact of not knowing about it is no excuse.
Then passing the beggar on the street and seeing with your “third eye” that he is a new Michelangelo – well… buy him some clay and order a sculpture. Help him rise up and flourish. Then - it will be completely different story!
What you are doing now is just buying your way out with small change. And, anyway it’s not morals; it’s just empty talk, “doing the right things” according to current norms, it’s your conditioning – this is good and that is bad… Yesterday something else was good. And tomorrow, whatever used to be good today, will be considered bad…
Morals, conditioned by society norms, by upbringing and ideas – this is not Te. And there is no use in talking about Te. The most right thing is just to start practicing, so you sooner or later understand The Laws Of Universe; and after you receive such Knowledge, you will be able to help other people follow these Laws.
As for now - the best is to empty your mind of all these models, as attachments give birth to duality. Our goal is to sail our “Argo” ship between “the good “ and “the evil” like between Scylla and Charybdis. Now is not a good time to think about Te. Rather you should try to become calmer, more benevolent and positive. You need Time, and you need Wisdom…
If you get too attached to Good – Evil immediately appears. Young Anakin Skywalker was too attached to results, he wanted too much to become the perfect Jedi, and that transformed him into Darth Vader.
I feel sorry for him; he had a hard life. He was very attached to his mother, and losing her was a terrible ordeal for him. He lost something within himself, and that’s when he made one of his biggest steps towards the Dark Side.
Later his attachment to his beloved and desire to save her – finished him off. He was not an ordinary man; he possessed a great amount of Force (Energy) , and his attached (tense) Mind transformed his Huge Energy so fast that he didn’t realize what was going on. Only moments
ago he was walking with the Light, and now suddenly he swore his allegiance to Darth Sithius. Sensei Yoda had warned before: Young Skywalker had much Force, but there was much tension in him. It was really dangerous. Not the energy itself is important but rather it’s quality. Energy may heal. It also may kill if the person practices a lot, while his thinking is pessimistic, negative and destructive; overwhelmed with fear, tension, and attachment to results. Why had Anakin given up so fast to swear to the Dark Master and turned into Darth Vader?... Was it a logical outcome?
When one works with powerful energy, everything goes rather differently from that of ordinary
people.
A pendulum may swing faster. You may not be able to control it once you miss the crucial moment. If the swinging force is too rapid, at some moment it becomes irresistible, the pendulum will swing to the other side, and you will not be able to stop it…The natural Law is: until you quiet your mind and your emotions, you can’t attain real Force. You will only be able to thrush about in the lowest level, having just enough energy for gradual evolving inside you. And one day the quantity becomes quality… And everything will happen…
But even with time-proved techniques, if a student does not follow the advice on safety and on entering the practice gradually, he or she might exceed the safety bounds... When the amount of energy exceeds the ability to cope with it, it triggers destructive processes beyond control; they, like an avalanche, fall upon the practitioner, transforming his nature...
Only yesterday it was safe to long for the unattainable, to think of vengeance against your archenemy, to wish to gather like-minded people around you and to re-do the world according to your idea – create an ashram for a yogi or a village for Qigong practitioners or to become a politician and reshape your suburb, or town, or an entire country...
Only yesterday the tension was only human… But today, with so much Power, - passions and tensions of such an adept re-build his energy structures with new dangerous quality. The change is so monstrous that it shakes his very core, creates diseases for him and even spreads to people close to him, changing their body, their energy and fate…
Then indeed good intentions will pave the road to Hell!
The visions Christ was having in the desert while being tempted by the Devil, - it was an excess of Force while his Consciousness was not entirely consolidated and still influenced by emotions, thoughts and desires…Had he not had this imperfection, he wouldn't have had this ordeal. He would simply not see this visions that floated from the very depth of his subconscious where
they still were present…
Christ managed to deal with it. However, His level is His level… What any of us would do in such a situation – we don't know.
Here is a true story for you. A married guy was coming from intensive Qigong training, and had to be on time for an important meeting. He was waiting for his train at the railway station when he received a text message on his cellphone from one of his friends, a woman.
Sexual desire, which got intensified by his powerful energy practices, pushed him into initiating a racy chat with this woman. After a while he started to feel really unwell. He walked to his platform and to his horror realised that his train had left. It took him really long time to get to his destination, with much much difficulties and huge financial expense. All the time he was suffering from nausea, chills and convulsions.
What I am saying is that you've got to pay for everything. Ordinary folks pay at their own time and according to their level, but retribution for deeply practicing adepts is instantaneous, unavoidable and rather harsh. It has both pros and cons. With help of positive emotions we heal ourselves, but on the other hand with negative thoughts we may harm ourselves. The Mind grows more powerful and affects the body faster. For the sake of self-preservation, your own safety, your physical and mental health - you need to live honestly, act fairly and not to give your consciousness and soul reasons to worry. Don’t think about esoterics, Te, karma and “hidden, subtle” things. Common sense is enough. Don’t let your guilty subconscious, self-reproach and negative thinking influence you energy, which is more powerful now compared to
ordinary people. The effect on the body will be destructive! That’s what is sometimes meant by Te, though it’s only a simple common sense and incorrect use of the term. Just live with clear consciousness, be more peaceful… so you don’t harm yourself, so your mind doesn’t start
defending itself from self-destruction caused by improper behavior. Your mind can place protective filters between it’s own different sectors or between itself and your body, thus ceasing development, cutting off feedback systems, making it impossible to change its abilities through practice, out of self-preservation.
You have to understand the difficulties of your Path; you must not vow against anything and must not blame anybody.
Seven out of eight of all Yogins, Qigong practitioners, Krishnaits, young Sufis and other adepts
of all kinds spend a lot of time at porno-sites... one can only wonder what is going on in their
heads!..
Lots of Qigong masters who ignored safety rules, causing their students to stop being normal adequate people, were imprisoned in China. Lots of Indian Sithas and Raja-Yoga masters often cannot control their disciples. Lots of religious wars, lots of fanatics who burn dissidents at the stake…
And what do you think of someone who used to be an adequate and family-loving person yesterday, that suddenly denounces everything and joins a rural monastery?
All these come from notorious “Te nurturing” while the Mind has not won the victory over its attachments and is still in captivity of dual existence, phantom vision, imposed ideas of “good” and “evil”. Such things happen when the hunger for doing something “for the sake of it” has already awoken... It is not yet for the sake of Goodness, God or Love..., but rather for the sake of current individual ideas of what Good is, what God is or what Love is... When there is no True Wisdom yet, these concepts and ideas may be so wild that many people’s brains just “crack”!.. Sometimes it seems that all mankind consists of those who do not give a damn and those who are “cracked in the head”... There are very few real Masters and those who Truly Achieved, because it is not enough just to start practicing, but also not to stop half-way. Human Passions keep singing in the human souls with false but sweet voices, they call you to turn from a dusty path to golden temples... It is so joyful to picture oneself a hero, a Messiah, a participant in some special deeds, a possessor of new qualities and rights... Not many are so patient that they manage to keep on with their Path; that is why there are so few real masters. Some people see nothing
interesting on the Path, and they quit after practicing for some time. Others see wonderful visions far ahead and end up chasing after empty mirages – now they are saviors of mankind, not less...
The real Way is only forward!
The real practice is the Path to Wisdom.
You have to be very precise and be very vigilant on this Path. The Way of Bodhisattva is straight, perfect and clear of attachments.
The Power is coming, and this Power brings the Storm. Let it come in its time... There is no Way without the Storm, and one may only pray for It to come in its time… in the wake of Wisdom…
When the Storm calms down, then we may look back and see who stayed and who took a false step and now has to start from the very beginning...
To restrain the Power from playing pranks, the Existence gave birth to Te. Te helps the Power evolve and creates the capability to Walk the Path.
Don’t wreck your brains with it and don’t get attached to this. All you have to do is accept The Universal Laws and follow the Integral Whole.
The Way of Bodhisattva is not toward the Light, not in the sense what people usually give to Light. The Way of Bodhisattva is neither towards the Light nor towards the Darkness. No need to tear the fabric of Universe and cut The Integral Whole to pieces.
The Way of Bodhisattva is toward the Liberation, and this is the Middle Path, - Zhong, the Way of DAO.
And this is only Beginning. Good luck on your Way!
Yours faithfully
Oleg Nazarov.
Tomsk, January21st, 2007