Omega II: Visiting with the Sages
Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 3

by Alisa Joaquin

After Rob Moses spoke, Arnold brought us back to the topic at hand and the Taoist perspective. He spoke on the cultivation of energy and what happens.

"In the cultivation of energy what happened is that the Ancients knew that in order to evolve to a higher level, or higher state, they recognized the importance of the physical body as being a vehicle towards that. And the first school out of the three major schools of the energy development was the spiritual school. So the Taoists living up in the mountains needed to connect with nature and in order to do this, they had to make sure that their body was able to maintain a certain level of health in order to sustain that connection. Often times in the cultivation of Tao, it takes many many years for somebody to actually reach one of these higher states. But at the same time, the potential for penetrating into the vastness of the infinity, the universe, was always present. So, what happened is that many of the sages started to develop techniques having to do with looking inside their body, interviewing, looking into the inner organs. And being able to spot different blockages, not only in themselves, but of course, helping others. So, consequently from this spiritual vehicle of energy development, there was a whole medicine that was developed around this."

Arnold then affirmed that some of the people in the group might have had acupuncture and a few people raised their hands. He then asked about herbs. I rose my hand on this one, since I had completed the first part of my herbal training. Arnold also mentioned about bodywork and a few people raised their hands on that one. He then mentioned the second school, which is the Chi Gung school which he introduced to us Friday evening. He then mentioned that the four major branches (spiritual, acupuncture, herbal, and bodywork) evolve from this energy, this state of beingness, and the whole idea was that you had an energy field and from that energy field the Chinese viewed the body just like nature. Arnold stated, "They looked out at the macrocosm and they saw the elements; water, lakes, woods and the vegetation. They looked up and felt the warmth of the sun. And they looked around them and felt the ground beneath them in the mountains, the deserts. And they also looked out and they connected with the air, the atmosphere. So these elements, water, wood, fire, air or metal, became a very very foundational concept that was applied throughout. Not only in their energetic practices for looking in, but for taking care of their body.

Arnold explained, "See what happens is that in the view of Chinese medicine, as you look out and you see the different types of weather, different types of seasons, they saw all the correspondence take care of, or take place inside themselves. So for instance, the element of water connected with the kidneys. The element of wood connected with the liver. Fire, the heart. Earth connected with the spleen. And Air or metal connected with the lungs. So off of this you had the different meridians that I mentioned last night, the 12 regular meridians that are pathways flowing throughout the body. Hooking into the internal organs and flowing inside the arms and into the internal organs and up in the head and through the legs and so forth. So these are the different meridians that we work on. One way is through different exercises. So what happened is as they were realizing portions of this physical body, sustain this physcial body, these different methods; needling the points, or stimulating it through bodywork, acupressure, massage, or taking herbs, drawing energy from the plants for nutrition, were all different ways they could continue to keep the flow of the chi moving throughtout the channels in the correct way. This physical body represented this foundation which when your body's clear . . . My Shoalin teacher and one of my Taoist teachers said, 'Once your body is clean then you will have guests that will come.' Okay. What he was talking about was clearing out on different levels, not only physically, but of course emotionally and mentally. And what happens is that when you clear that negative energy, then the higher energies or spirits are allowed to come in. Remember last night I talked about the Hun and the Po? Remember the objective observer? Well, it's much like that, but what happens is that you do it in many different tiers; one a physical level to cleanse, and of course to connect yourself, and you can also do that on the other levels, the emotional and the mental level as well. So, of course with Chi Gung, which is the main thing of what we will be practicing today, is the major modality for using the posture, the breath, and the focus of the mind we will be doing more of later on in the segment. So, as far as the Taoist view the physical body, it's a vehicle and part of this process of the three dantien connection, so not over emphasizing one aspect but looking at all three simultaneously, looking at the one piece in respect to the other three. . ." At this point Arnold turned to Heidi for the Buddhist point of view.

Heidi began by saying, "I have given this a lot of thought as we were preparing for today in talking about Buddhism and physical reality. Of course I think when we talk about the Shaolin traditions, you guys are very well familiar with the way that Buddhist monks have traditionally dealt with physical reality, training the body to be able to sustain long periods of meditation, and so on. In other traditions of Buddhism the body is a bit more neglected and that's unfortunate because unless someone says to you 'you know you really need to get out and do some movement,' you don't always realize the connection between body and spirit. Body and spiritual development. I have come to the conclusion that it's very very important to use both. In my own practice, yoga has become very important, yoga and tai chi for my meditation practice. And conversely, the meditation practice has really informed and strengthened the way I do my yoga and tai chi. I think for that reason, Arnie and Rob have a lot to say about this. You may not realize from a Buddish perspective as well because of the Shaolin training, but I will say, one thing that we do emphasize a lot in Buddhist practice is the idea of the middle way. We want to follow particular I'm speaking from the Taralota (note to myself-check spelling) but all the traditions of Buddhism, all the major traditions, you kind of want to follow that way of Siddhartha Gautama who became the Buddha and his middle way. You don't want to do a lot of things that are indulgent to the senses because that is not at all healthful. On the other hand, we don't to any real asthetic practices either. What we want to do is find that middle path where the body is functioning to it's proper potential at the same time not suffering. You know for example that when you do basic meditation, it's always good to be in a middle place, not cold, not hot, not hungry, not full, not tired, and not too agitatedly alert. So we are always kind of looking for the middle. That's where we're always heading. And I think that in addition to the physical practices that we're going to be talking about this weekend, meditation training from a buddhist perspective is very important in terms of dealing with so many things that happen to the body. And illness and so on. Unfortunately, I can't talk about Buddhism without talking about illness and death. because we always get to, you know, that's always the end point, and not to focus on that. But a lot of our mental training is to be able to deal with what happens when we get older and the body is in a state of decay and we're going to that end point, that transition end point. And emotionally, how do we deal with that with people around us.

"Now the physical practices that we will be learning this weekend from Arnie and Rob and David, will help us make a stronger physical body. And hopefully one that has abundant life force, prana, chi, however you want to say it, and longevity. Because it's very important. In Taoism I know that longevity is very important and in Buddhism as well because for us human birth is very very precious. We must not waste a moment because it in this that we have the potential to be fully enlightened. To lead compassionate lives in the service of others and to do that we have to be fully enlightened ourselves to be of the most help to other beings. And for that reason we need strong bodies because that is our vehicle. And we would like to have longevity. My teacher used to ask that he would live to be 120, that was his plan. i think he would have, but other things intervened, so he only lived to be 103. But if we could all get to that point and lead healthful and harmonious lives, it would be very useful. Not only to ourselves but to other beings. From a Buddhist perspective, just being aware of the breath, being able to come back to the center point where we have a sense of clarity, we have a sense of calm, and we are at one with our breath and we are not breathing in an agitated way which it the way most people breath. Being able to come back to this point is very very helpful in vanquishing all sorts of physical ailments.

"And I'm thinking particularly of things like asthma and emphysema, and so on, because it has helped tremendously for myself and for other people that I know. To be able to be calm . . . you know one of the problems when we have physical problems, like asthma, emphysema, panic attacks. That's another thing, I've lived through those myself. What we need to do is train the mind and the body to do the opposite of what the reaction is. The immediate reaction is panic. Panic breeds more panic breeds more adrenaline. And the more adrenaline you have pumping in your body, the more panic is going to ensue. Similarly with the asthma, and any kind of respiratory problem, the more panic one experiences, the breathing becomes more and more constricted, the bronchial tubes close and so on. If we can train ourselves and hopefully help other people with this too, to return to the center whenever anything like this arises, and of course other emotions . . . you know we're going to be talking about emotions later on, but this also comes into play. To be able to return to the center and do the opposite of what the reaction is, the immediate reaction of the ego is fear, panic, anger, whatever, we need to come back. We need to do the opposite. So just by way of a taste that's how Buddhism would deal with a lot of physical happenings."

End of Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 3

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2001.
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