Taoism and the internal strenght

Chi Kung

Chi Kung is a term used to describe various forms of exercise where breathing is of central importance. However, the term is generally used to refer, not simply to any breathing exercise, but only to those which make use of the breath to either increase, balance, or control the chi (the essential life-force of all living things) . Chi means air. Chi Kung means to practice the process of breathing to increase chi pressure (life-force pressure). It is this awareness and concern of this chi that set Chi Kung apart from orthodox physical or mental exercises -which treat the mind and the body as two separate entities. Reference may be made to the study of Kinematics - the science of motion without reference to force: therefore considering the curing of illness through muscular movements.

Why do people perform Chi Kung as a keep-fit exercise? The "average" person who is not a professional athlete will find Chi Kung the ideal keep-fit exercise that comes closest to satisfying the needs of modern criteria of what constitutes a "good', exercise. The term "keep-fit" has now come to be understood as being "fit" to perform your normal day to day activities. "Fitness" is therefore a relative rather than an absolute term. Ultimately, the underlying aim of a good exercise is to prolong life and make life more enjoyable. On a physical plane, Chi Kung exercises the limbs and gently massages the internal organs which most orthodox exercises ignore. The relaxed and slow tempo of the exercise calms the mind while the full awareness of the mind, during the exercises, helps to promote growth and repair of nerve cells. Perhaps the greatest advantage of Chi Kung as an exercise is the total freedom it affords you in terms of conditions for training. It can be practised in sickness as well as in health; in old age and in youth; indoors or outside; alone or in the company of others; and does not require any expensive equipment or special premises. Hence, Chi Kung can be practised regularly for short periods every day. To perform Chi Kung in clement weather is great fun and allows you to draw chi from the environment. You would not need to warm-up at the beginning or to cool-down at the end. While you would feel refreshed and fully alert at the end of the exercise your heartbeat would not be racing away and you would not be puffing and panting. It becomes a habit. This is what exercise should be like - a little every day.

Chi Kung is grouped into two main divisions; stationary exercises and moving exercises. In both cases no fast or jerky movements are involved. Stationary exercises are practiced in a standing, sitting or lying position. The head and limbs of the body being maintained motionless during the exercise. Moving exercises involve the movement of the limbs and body, e.g. as in Tai Chi. Moving exercises are less monotonous than static exercises. The mind is more easily occupied through the movement of the limbs and body. However, stationary exercises, if practiced in the correct way, can normally produce much quicker results than the moving exercises. Chi Kung has long been used in many hospitals in China as a form of therapy. There were (and still are) specialist healers who employ Chi Kung to heal. As part of the cure, the practitioner would teach the patient a particular sequence or a general set of Chi Kung movements (exercises) that influence their particular illness. This would eventually clear up the diagnosed "blockages" and then continue to maintain an overall good health. The types of illnesses that are particularly suitable for Chi Kung therapy are generally those of a chronic nature and those due primarily to bodily malfunctions. Among the problems reported to respond are insomnia, diabetes, constipation, anaemia, hypertension (high blood pressure), some forms of rheumatism and arthritis, headaches which persistently recur and are seemingly without cause, gastric disturbances, unusually slow recovery from illness and bruises, hyperactivity, mental stress, impotency, etc. Is Chi Kung then a panacea? (a cure for all things). It will be noted that most of the maladies listed above are without cure, the orthodox treatment being either the use of drugs to suppress the pain and symptoms, or the introduction of chemicals and hormones from an external source into the body to try to make up deficiencies due to the body being somehow unable to produce them. It would not be true to say that Chi Kung can directly cure such ailments. The positions and techniques are designed to effect the movement of energy, and help it to circulate around your body and to nourish you internally and externally. Therefore with regular practice you will feel stronger and will notice an improvement in your energy level. What Chi Kung does is to get the body back along the right track, so that it can go about the business of curing itself and carrying out its natural functions. This holistic approach, in that the patient is part of the healing process, has met with world-wide acceptance.

Chi Kung is the most fundamental of the martial arts and is sometimes used by people with a quest for "supernatural" powers. But on balance, people who practice Chi Kung do appear to have certain abilities not enjoyed by others, or by themselves before they seriously took up Chi Kung. Most schools of martial arts employ Chi Kung to increase striking power of their fighting techniques. Some martial arts experts seem to enjoy giving demonstrations of their skill in inviting audiences to strike their unprotected body with heavy punches and kicks. Obviously there is no such thing as a really indestructible body, as these people will readily admit. But it cannot be denied that kicks, punches and strikes by blunt instruments dealt out by skilled hands seem to cause neither pain nor injury on these exponents of the art of Chi Kung. Masters can perform extraordinary feats of strength and endurance by developing the use of chi. In practising Chi Kung for such "powers", you are going far beyond the simple needs of good health. Serious study under close supervision is required. There are some systems of Chi Kung (Iron Shirt, Iron Palm, Dim-Mak) designed specifically for such goals, but potentially harmful if they are practiced incorrectly. These systems are quite different from the type of Chi Kung performed for health and meditation.

Chi Kung Breathing :
1. Tummy Breathing
Find a comfortable place to lie down with your arms by your sides, the palms of your hands facing up, the feet a little apart, legs uncrossed, and allow yourself to feel the places where the floor underneath you supports your weight, the backs of the heels, the backs of the legs, the buttocks, the shoulders, the back of the head, and just allow yourself to relax into that support. Whether the body is tense or relaxed, the weight of the body is always completely supported by the floor, just as much as if your body were a sack of potatoes that someone had dropped on this floor. 
Start to breathe using your tummy, so that as you breathe in your tummy gets a little fatter, and as you breathe out it goes down again. The feeling is as if you were drawing air into your tummy. What's actually happening is that you're using a muscle called the diaphragm, underneath the bottom of your lungs, that's gently pushing your tummy out. So every time you breathe in, let your tummy get a little fatter, and as you breathe out, just let it go. 

If you can, start the breath down from rather low down towards the pubic bone, so that the feeling of getting a little fatter in your tummy is starting way down towards the pubic bone, and coming up towards the navel or even the solar plexus. 

As you breathe out, take the opportunity to relax your body even more. As you breathe in, you can become more aware of you body, and as you breathe out, you can let it relax even more, trust the support of the floor beneath you. 

2. Complete Breathing
Now I'm going to ask you to switch to another breathing pattern, using both your tummy and your chest. For this one I want you to start with the pattern we were just doing, breathing into your tummy, and when your tummy's full, start to breathe into your chest as well. Fill the chest, and as you fill the chest, you can even allow your tummy to contract a little. So first as you breathe in, your tummy gets fatter, and as you continue to breathe in more, your chest gets fatter and your tummy goes in again. So the feeling is as if there's a wave that's going up the body, staring at your pubic bone and going through your tummy then going up through your chest then going all the way up towards your neck. It's like a python swallowing an egg, as the egg moves through the body. 
As you breathe out the same wave goes down again, so you're breathing out of your chest, then out of your tummy. 

So there's a big, full wave that's moving up through your body on the inbreath, and going down again on the outbreath. 

You may notice that you take in a lot of air with each breath this way, maybe even four or five times as much as you usually do, and just one cycle of your breath can last maybe 20 seconds. See how much you can relax your tummy muscles. Every time you breathe in, see if you can fill your tummy a little more, and every time you breathe out, see if you can empty and relax the chest even more, so that you can really fully breathe out all the old stale air. It may feel a little unfamiliar to breathe out that much; just allow it to be a little unfamiliar. 

Take a really full breath in, starting with the tummy, then moving up through the chest, and then as you breathe out really empty the chest, really let it go, just let all the muscles of the chest and the ribs be soft, breathing out all the way. As you breathe in, you're taking in all this Chi energy from the air, and the good Chi, the energy that you can use, you send down to your tummy as you breathe out and store it for later. And the energy that you can't use, the old, stale air, or just stale energy anywhere in your body, you breathe out. So you take in all this Chi, and as you breathe out, you breathe out the stuff you don't need from the top of your lungs, and the stuff you wanna keep, you pack down into your tummy and save for later. 

As you continue to do this, you get the feeling that your chest is relaxing more, and you're getting more and more energy around your midsection. 

Once you can breathe like this using the front of your body, start to use the back of your body as well, starting to breathe into your lower back, using the muscles of the lower back, expanding the lower back just in the same way as you expand your tummy to make room for the breath, and just in as when you breathe in you can feel a wave going up the front of your body, so you can feel a wave going up the back of your body as well. This big breathing wave is going through your whole body, front and back. 

Let every part of your torso be loose, let your tummy be loose, let your chest be relaxed and soft, and let your lower back and your upper back both be relaxed and easy so that this wave can go through them. 

In the Chinese system, the first type of breathing you did, just in your tummy, is called 'post-birth breathing,' or Tan Tien breathing, and the second type is called wave breathing, or 'pre-birth breathing.' 

3. Circular Breathing
Now I'd like to move on to a third type of breathing, called 'circular breathing' and for this type of breathing you don't use as much control. Just take a full, deep breath IN (Breathes), and then let it go - just let it go anyway it goes, take another deep breath in,[B] and just let it go using your tummy, your chest ,whatever. 
Breathe continuously with no gap at all between the inbreath and the outbreath; that's why it's called circular breathing. 

Breathe in actively, so you do the inbreath, and just let the outbreath go, let it happen naturally, let it happen at its own speed. You can use either the mouth or the nose to breathe through, but choose one or the other - don't mix them. You may start to get a little high, exhilarated, energized. You may also start to feel tingling in your fingers and your toes. If these sensations start to get too strong, just ease up some. 

These three types of breathing all have their own usefulness. The first type of breathing where you're breathing down in your tummy is good for calming, centering, relaxing. The second type, where you're using your whole torso in this very slow, even wave, is good for building up energy in the body, and I'm going to refer to this later in some of our later exercises. 

The third type is good where you have a lot of energy moving already, maybe emotions coming up, tensions - lots of stuff is happening. This type of breath is very good at unblocking that and letting it come out, free it up. 

Chi Kung Relaxation in a Standing Position :
Find a comfortable and convenient place to stand, with your feet about shoulder width apart. 
Soften your knees slightly so they're somewhat bent, and imagine - or rather create - a Golden Cord holding you up from the top of your head, held by Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of compassion, who supports us all with her unconditional love. Feel the support of that Golden Cord holding you up, and allow yourself to just relax into it, just accept that support from above, allow someone else, something else, to do the work of holding you up, so that you can relax. 

You can allow everything to hang off that Golden Cord, your shoulders, your spine, your pelvis, your legs. Everything can just hang off that cord. 

Now I'd like you to imagine your body as full of a heavy fluid, - your whole body, your head, your shoulders, your neck, your arms, your chest, your back, your pelvis, your legs, your feet, full of this heavy fluid that is responsible both for the weight of your body and also for any tension that you may experience in it. 

You can imagine this fluid as being a little heavier than water, maybe 20% heavier than water, and as you stand here supported from above by the Golden Cord, allow that fluid to start to drain out of your body, 

It can drain out of your head - perhaps you can even feel it draining out of specific places in your head, out of the back of the neck down, down, out of the forehead, the nose, the eyes and the muscles around the eyes, the cheeks, the jaw, the front of the neck, down into the shoulders. 

From the shoulders, some of the fluid can drain down into the arms, through all the joints of the arms, the elbows, the wrists, the knuckles, dripping off the ends of the fingers down to the ground. 

Some of that heavy fluid can drain down from the shoulders into the chest and the back, from the chest and the back down into the tummy and the lower back, from the tummy and the lower back down into the pelvis, from the pelvis down into the thighs, from the thighs down through the knees, the lower legs, the ankles, the soles of the feet, and from there down into a reservoir about three feet under the ground. You can feel it like a steel tank or something like that, three feet under the ground. 

All the weight of your body, and all the tension in your body, is now sunk down underneath the ground, and you can feel that like a strong, powerful, heavy counterweight. You can start to move your body, to move and sway in different directions, forward and back, side to side, and because you have that counterweight underneath the ground, you're much more stable, you can lean much further in different directions. You can be softer and more stable, you have much better balance. And if at any time you lose that stability a little, just sink even more of that fluid out of your body into that tank underneath the ground that serves as a counterweight. 

When you've had a little fun with that, just come back to a central position, and feel again the support you're getting from the Golden Cord, feel the stability you're getting from this big counterweight, underneath you, three feet underneath the ground. 

You can feel the duality between the Golden Cord holding up the crown of your head and the weight sinking down underneath the ground as it gently stretches you a little bit. Kuan Yin is lifting the crown of your head upward, and your tailbone is sinking downward, so you're getting a little taller, getting a little stretched, both from the top and the bottom, like a duality between the sky and the Earth, and yourself just in the middle, as a balance point. 

You can intensify this stretching feeling by visualizing the vertebrae of your spine as a string of pearls on an elastic thread that is being slowly stretched from above and below. 

If you spend a lot of time in a seated position - for instance, if you have an office job - you may want to try this in a seated position. Just sit down comfortably on a chair, perhaps the chair you normally use. Feel the support of the Golden Cord from the top and allow the fluid to drain out of your body. You can allow some of it to drain out through your arms and your fingertips, some of it through your feet, and some of it through those two little bones that you sit on, down through your chair and even down through the legs of the chair into the ground and underneath the ground. 

This is a good exercise to do any time you feel yourself under stress at work, or if you're sitting in rush hour traffic and getting frustrated with it, just allow whatever that is that's upsetting you to drain out along with that fluid in your body, under the ground. And notice that it's still there for you, it's not like you get rid of it, you store it there, underneath the ground. If you need it it' s available, it helps your balance, it's a resource for you, it's just that you don't have to carry it, you don't have to use any of your muscles or your body to carry it. 

So just in the same way as the Golden Cord means that your support is effortless, this counterweight underneath the ground means that your balance is effortless. 

Standing Chi Kung-2
This exercise comes in five, ten, fifteen, and twenty-minute versions, each version going a little deeper than the previous one. I'll inform you at the end of each five-minute period, and whenever you decide you want to stop you can just take a brief walk around the room to stretch your legs. 
Find a comfortable and convenient place to stand, with your feet about shoulder width apart and parallel, and start to feel the support of the Golden Cord holding you up from the top of your head, held by Kuan Yin, the Chinese Goddess of universal compassion. Just allow your body to relax and hang off that cord. Allow Kuan Yin to do the work of holding you up, just trust her to do her job. 

Allow the weight of your body, and any tension in your body, to start to drain out, starting from your head, through your face, your neck, your shoulders, your arms, your wrists, your hands, your torso, your belly, your pelvis, your thighs, your knees, your ankles, your feet, all the way down into a reservoir three feet under the ground. 

Allow even your feet to relax, with your weight going down into the ground just forward of the heels, so the front parts of your feet don't have to exert any force on the ground, and can sit easy and relaxed on the ground, king of like the webbed feet of a duck. 

Imagine you have a horse between your legs, and that the very bottom part of your body is resting on the saddle of that horse. So there's a feeling of the weight being taken on your perineum - that's the very bottom point of the body. Relax into the support you're feeling there. Relax the buttocks and the anus - create a feeling of everything opening down to the ground. 

Feel your pelvis like a bowl full of water. 

BREATHE - take a lot of energy into your body with your breathing. You can use one of the patterns described in Exercise 1 or any other pattern that works for you. 

Now imagine strings attached to your wrists, held by Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of compassion. 

In a few moments you will feel her lifting up your wrists by these strings.And as she lifts up your wrists, allow the shoulders to relax and open as much as they can. One good way to do this is to imagine all the joints of the shoulders expanding, just a little more space in all the joints of the shoulders, as if every bone in the shoulders is getting just a little further apart from all its neighbors. 

[2 sec pause] Now feel her slowly lifting up your wrists using those strings, till your wrists come to about the height of your heart. 

[8 sec pause] 

Have your palms facing your body at around the height of your heart, so that there's a round space between your arms and your body, as if you were hugging somebody. By the way, one of the Chinese names of this position is 'Hugging the tree.' You can even do this while really hugging a tree if you want to. 

Allow the shoulders and elbows to roll down and back, making more space, as if opening your arms to hug somebody, greeting a long-lost friend, opening your arms, saying 'AAAAh!, good to see you!' 

This is the end of the five-minute version. 

Phase 2
Start to use the breath to soften the chest. Every time you breathe out, let the chest go just a little more, let go of the old, stale air. 
The energy you let go of from the chest can sink down into your belly and the small of your back. Every time you breathe out, energy sinks down into your belly and lower back. 

Relax into the position more and more. Your pelvis is a comfortable chair and the rest of your body is just sort of plonked down inside it, relaxing in it the way you would in an easy chair. 

Let every part of your body be as relaxed as it can be given the position you're in. The shoulders and elbows are as soft as they can be, just hanging from the body and from the strings holding up your wrists. 

Relax your legs, like a mushy suspension system on an old American car. If your legs relaxed any more, you'd just collapse in a heap on the ground. As your legs relax more you may start to feel tremor; if you do, it's a healthy sign, just allow it to happen by itself. 

There's a soft place where the top of your spine meets the base of your skull, called the 'Jade Pillow'. I like to imagine that this place is a lake slowly filling with water. As the Jade Pillow expands, you may notice a slight change in your mental attitude; you may even notice that your normal personality is not there in quite the usual way. 

You may perceive things differently; you may feel a little spacy. Just relax into the feeling, that different feeling. It's a letting go of control of the body, and also a letting go of control of the mind. 

Another way to open this place is to imagine a pivot for your head running through your temples. Imagine your head tipping a little by itself, so that your chin goes down and in a little, and the back of your head goes forward and up. Don't DO that, just notice it happening by itself. 

As you stand here, you can feel an aura extending about nine inches away from your body in every direction. Your presence Filling the air to a distance about nine inches away from your body, away from your legs, away from your arms, your head, your torso. It's like that figure of the Michelin man, made out of tires, everything very fat, very expanded, very blown up from within. 

Imagine a chain attached to your tailbone going down a thousand feet into the earth. And at the end of that chain is a heavy weight, a heavy steel ball, that you can feel like an anchor in this position. 

[DING] This concludes the ten minute version. 

Phase 3
Feel a connection between your fingertips, like an electrical spark gap between the two hands. Perhaps you can feel a tingling like electricity ready to flow across. Use the outbreath to send energy to the fingertips. 
The energy pathways to your fingers will open as the Chi flows through them, in the same way that small kinks in a hose straighten out when the water starts to flow through that hose. 

If you're feeling any kind of tension, stress, or strong sensation anywhere in your body, perhaps in a shoulder or a thigh muscle or a place in the middle of your back every time you breathe out, and send the energy of your breath, your Chi, to that place. Send your love along with the breath; let that place know that you love it and you care about it. You can think of what you're sending as oxygenated blood, if you wish, that's clearing away lactic acid, or as CHI opening up a meridian, or just the energy of your attention and your awareness that is, perhaps for the first time in a while, starting to feel that place, feel exactly what's happening there, understand what's going on. 

In any case, know that whatever you do is healing, healing for that place. 

Sometimes in this posture, there are places that you held tight for a long time, where you start to feel the tightness. Feeling the tightness is the first step to letting the tightness go. Just allow it to be the way it is, send it your love, send it the energy of the breath, send it the CHI, send it the oxygenated blood. When that place is ready to let go, it will. [SHORTEN, REWRITE?] 

Allow every place in the body to be exactly the way it is, send it your Chi on the outbreath, send it your love. Bring your awareness to any place in the body that asks for it, notice exactly what your sensations are without interpreting or judging them. Notice exactly where you are having the sensation and what the sensation is, but without attempting to label it, for example, as painful or pleasant. 

Just let go of control of the body to the maximum possible, just stand here and relax into the experience of standing here. Make sound if you feel to. Keep the Jade Pillow at the back of the neck open. Allow your body to do whatever is most comfortable for it. 

Recheck all the fundamentals of the position. Recreate the golden cord holding you up from the top. Sink the weight one more time down through the body through the feet to that reservoir three feet under the ground. Relax your chest. Use the breath to relax it even more, sinking the energy down into your belly and your lower back. 

Can you still feel that horse between your legs? Can your still feel your legs very soft and relaxed, like the suspension system on an old American car? Can you still feel the openness at the back of your neck and the Jade Pillow? Can you still feel your arms soft and round as if hugging someone or something? 

This ends the fifteen minute version. 

Phase 4
If you've stood here this long, you don't even have to do the exercise right any more. Just be willing to allow what needs to happen to happen, and allow your body to do what it needs to do to heal itself. The suggestions earlier on may help for most people, but your body is special, and it knows much better than you or I consciously do what it needs to do to heal. Be ready to be surprised by what your body does and willing to go along with it, take it as an adventure, even if your mind finds it wrong, unfamiliar, or strange. 
This position always works. In the long run, it's easier to relax in this position than it is to stay tense. If you stand here long enough the mind and the body are going to let go. The more you can relax and stay present, the quicker and more enjoyable that process is going to be. 

How much you can enjoy standing here, how much pleasure you can get out of the breathing, out of the sensations in the body, out of the feelings that you're having, and the changes that are going on. 

This is what's happening right now, how much can you enjoy it? And how willing can you be for the process to work itself through? How much can you enjoy what's happening with your body, your mind, and your spirit right now? And how willing can you be for it to change, in the next moment and the next and the next? 

Relax into the position as if you're going to be here for a while longer, so you may as well relax- there's nothing to wait for, so you may as well take a break, sit down inside your own body like a comfortable chair. 

Take a few seconds to notice exactly how you are breathing. 

[10 sec pause] 

Check through your whole body, starting at the top of your head, feeling each place in your body, noticing how it is, noticing the state of the muscles. Don't be too quick to relax anything or change anything, just notice it as it is; if it relaxes by itself that's fine. 

You can check out the muscles of your face, the muscles around the eyes, the cheeks, the jaw, the forehead, the neck, the shoulders, the upper arms, the forearms, the chest, the upper back, mid-back, lower back, the tummy muscles, buttock muscles, the muscles of the thighs, both the upper thighs where they attach to the pelvis and the lower thighs where they attach to the knees. The calf muscles, the ankles, the arches of the feet, and the toes. 

This ends the twenty-minute version of standing Chi Kung. 

Now slowly drop your arms, or allow them to drop, place your feet together, place your hands behind your back, and stretch out your legs by raising one of your legs, say the right, straight and then bending it as you bring it in. Then the same with the left. So you raise each leg keeping it absolutely straight, then bend it as you bring it in. Do four of those on each side. Now continue to breathe slowly and easily as you walk around the room. Check out how you feel, how your body feels. 

Take it easy for the next few minutes as you slowly make the transition back to your normal life. 

[10 sec pause] 

Purifying the Body, Mind, and Spirit :
In this exercise we cleanse the five components of the bodymind in the Chinese system. These don't correspond exactly to our Western ideas: some approximate definitions follow. If you click on e.g. Shen, you will go to the part of the exercise that purifies the Shen. 

Li Physical strength, the physical body. 
Jing Sexual/spinal energy - Kundalini in the Hindu system. 
Chi Breath energy, subtle circulation of energy through the meridians. 
Yi Intention, purpose, focus. 
Shen Spirit, soul, true nature. 

Just as in Exercise 2, find a comfortable and convenient place to stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart. Feel the Golden Cord from the top of your head holding you up, and allow your weight and any tension in your body to drain out into that reservoir three feet under the ground. 
[10 sec pause] 

Cleansing the Li
You're now going to cleanse the five components of the body and the mind in the Chinese system. First, you'll cleanse what the Chinese call Li, physical strength, the physical body. 
To cleanse the Li, I'd like you to allow your hands to slowly float up to your sides, left and right, floating up in two half circles either side of your body until your hands are over your head, and then start to allow your hands to slowly sink palm down as if gently pressing down on something. 

As they reach the level of the top of your head, imagine your body full of a heavy fluid, just as we've done before, holding weight, holding muscular tension. Allow that fluid to slowly drain out so that it remains below the level of your hands, so your hands are gently pressing and squeezing that fluid down. Allow them to sink down at their own pace, slowly, gently, easily, feel that fluid draining out below the level of the hands, kind of in the same way as kids will sometimes use a hand to wipe a funny expression off their face. Let those hands, as they sink, take any tension in your muscles with them down through the legs, the feet, and into the reservoir three feet under the ground. 

I'd like you to do that one more time - again, bringing the hands up to the side till they come over your head, keeping the shoulders relaxed, allowing the hands to sink palm down, wiping off any tension from the muscles of the face, feeling any physical tension or anything in your physical body that you don't want or don't need slowly starting to drain out, leaving your body light, clear, and relaxed. 

Cleansing the Jing
The second component that you're going to cleanse is what the Chinese call 'Jing'. The word means energy or power - it also means sexual energy. Specifically, it means the energy that runs through your brain and your spine, through your spinal column. As we do this exercise I'm going to ask you to visualize a separation of that energy happening. The parts that belong down below, in the base of the spine, are going to go there, and the parts that belong up above, in the head and the top of the neck, are going to go there. 
Maybe right now this energy is mixed up, it's got some sexual elements, it's got some more spiritual elements, all mixed together, and you're going to do the separation, so that the sexual parts can go to the sexual areas and the spiritual elements can rise up to the crown of the head. So it's like a precipitation process. 

Again, allow the hands to float overhead, and allow them to slowly float down, palm down. As they float down, feel the energy in your brain, the back of your neck, and your spine. Let the parts of the energy that want to rise, rise to the crown of your head, and let the parts that want to sink be massaged down by your hands to the bottom of your spine and your tailbone. 

Your spine may feel a little different as a result of this. Again, allow the hands to float up, 

[8 sec PAUSE] 

and gently press down, again separating the energy in the spine and the brain between the crown of your head and your tailbone. 

[PAUSE] 

Cleansing the Chi
The next system you are going to cleanse is the 'Chi.' 
Chi is a term that crops up a lot in T'ai Chi and Chi Kung - breath energy, life energy. 

Allow the hands to float up either side of you over the top of your head, and let them sink palm down. This time, pay attention to your breathing as the hands come down. Every time you breathe out, feel the stale Chi, and also any energy that you don't need in your body, being breathed out from the top of your lungs, and the energy from the air that you do want to keep being compacted down into the lower half of your lungs - you may even want to think of it as being packed down into your tummy. 

So with every breath you're purifying the lungs by breathing out stale air. You can breathe out stale air from different parts of the lungs. As your hands pass your lower lungs, for example, you can see if you can squeeze out any old air from the lower part of the lungs. Then of course as you breathe in, you take in as much fresh air as you can. 

Repeat this once more in your own time. 

[BIG PAUSE] 

Cleansing the Yi
The next component we're going to cleanse is the Yi, or 'Intention'. Your intention is like a clear picture that you create in your mind, of where your focus is. The point associated with the intention is between and a little above the eyebrows - what the Hindus call the 'third eye'. 
What you're going to wash off, cleanse away, is any distractions, complications, side issues, anything that has as it were gotten stuck onto your central purpose, perhaps things you do just out of habit or to pass the time like watching TV or daydreaming, so you're coming back to your central purpose in life, what your life is about. And also to your core intention right now - what are you doing right now, why are you doing it? 

Let the hands float up, and slowly let the hands float down again. See if you can wash off any accretions to your fundamental purpose, any distractions, stray thoughts, random mental activity, wash it away with your hands, so that what remains is your true purpose. Do once more in your own time. 

[Pause] 

Cleansing the Shen
The last component we're going to purify is called Shen, spirit. The Shen is what the Zen people would call 'the face you had before you were born'. It's your true, essential nature - who you really are. What we're going to wash away is anything that isn't really you but may seem to be - things your parents or your schoolteachers may have told you about who you were, decisions you may have reached yourself, any idea or theory about who you are, that may be limiting you in some way. Again, allow your hands to float over your head. Let anything that is not your true nature be washed down by the hands, down through the body down through the feet into the ground. 
When the hands come the bottom you're just left with who you really are, your true self. 

As you do this next washing you can notice what you ARE washing off, some of your programs, your habits, your beliefs - just loosen it up, separate it, feel it washed away. 

One more time 

Tao Te Ching excerpts