The Three Pillars of Qigong

The Initial Situation

What can we do?

The Three Pillars of Qigong

The Harmony of Opposites

Thoughts, Breath, Movement

Meditation Exercises

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Qigong is the modern name for a complex exercise system, which has developed from traditions of Taoism, Buddhism and Chinese Medicine. CARSTEN DOHNKE describes the three pillars of this practice for life-care and compares it with western body therapies.

First of all, the aim of practicing Qigong is to promote the flow of life-energy Qi in the human body. Following the Traditional Chinese point of view, the whole cosmos and the human body are indulged and animated by this energy. When this Qi flows fully and harmonically, we feel healthy and balanced, sparkling with vitality and inner strength.
In short: We feel alive and experience a change in perception of ourselves and the world.

People from different cultures and centuries have always experienced that every being tends to contract its own vitality more and more during its lifetime and gradually and inconspicuously put a brake on the gift of possible inner excitement, as we often see in children. This happens, among others, because they have a limited movement of several body parts, they chronically tense specific muscles and their inner and outer attitude towards their own power becomes an expression of a clear dominant feeling, which ignores all other feelings.

Parts of the body that are constantly tense are not properly provided with blood and energy and are only seen as contracted. If you can hardly move your pelvis, you will have problems to access your sexual drive and your main sources of energy. Likewise, somebody who always holds his shoulders high because of fear or always makes an humpback, can never experience a intensive feeling of joy. In common language this connection is often referred too. Turns of phrase like “He carries a heavy weight on his shoulders!” are commonly seen.

There is a vivid interaction between body and mind: attitudes towards life, towards others and towards the world settle down in the body and are held in place there. If the reduction of the personal vitality is always perceived as unexpressed feelings, is still on discussion among experts. Chronically wrong postures might also be caused by bad habits or innate body weakness, which we all know very well.

What can I do to feel completely alive? First of all: I will try to gradually solve the chronic muscle tension and bad postures of the spine or the skeleton. Essentially I’m mainly following this one goal: standing straight and completely natural, without doing anything anywhere. When I stand like that my energy automatically collects in my natural center.
More often than not just a few corrections are necessary. But it takes time. A far-reaching process is taking place: the settled and hidden feelings in the body are surfacing again and must be processed step by step. This process mostly happens on two levels, on a body level and on an emotional level. That’s why it can happen that all of the sudden I feel angry or sad, also when there is no obvious reason. Maybe I will start to sweat, I might feel sick or have digestive problems. All these processes have to be seen in a positive way. These are the answers of the body to the situation and only serve to re-establish a condition of inner balance. As soon as you start to relax mentally and bodily, the body will start this process of self-regulation. Getting rid of chronic bad postures and muscle tensions is however not enough to experience an intensive feeling of vitality. It is only one of three (main) pillars of Qigong. Qigong has this pillar in common with a lot of western bodywork and therapies.

In Qigong however we have two more: Strengthening and purifying the body and sensitizing perception.If you practice Qigong, you will spend a lot of time on strengthening your whole body. This is not only aimed at not being susceptible for illness but the main goal is to absorb a high potential of energy. Normally, strengthening the body will be accomplished by long lasting standing positions combined with special breathing techniques: you stand like a rock and at the same time you have the feeling that from your feet roots are growing deeper and deeper into the earth. The breath calms down and gets lighter. Its strength fills the complete lower part of your abdomen. Why especially this exercise, which is called Standing Pillar in professional circles, serves the build-up of the whole body is often a mystery for layman. Apparently nothing much is happening on the outside.But it is precisely here where the secret lies. The strengthening starts from the inside and from the bottom: the lower abdomen expands to all sides. The deep breath massages and purifies the inner organs. A warm feeling spreads out in the center and from there slowly penetrates into the peripheries. From the feet subtle energetic vibrations ascend into the legs and gradually flow into the whole body. After more and more practice this standing energy field will transform into a pulsing energy field. This effect only can take place when the strengthening of the body in Qigong starts in the center and in the roots: it hits the practitioner directly in his essence.Sensitizing perception is the third pillar of Qigong. Almost every important and well-known Qigong exercise mainly supports the sensitizing, or the always more refined and varied perception of the body, the thoughts and the outer world. Sensibility doesn’t only mean though that the practitioner will become more receptive to the mood of his fellow-man and the excitement of his environment, since he looks at the world more from his center.The essential change in perception occurs on a different, energetic level: The deeper the practitioner enters into practicing Qigong, the more he will observe a subtle energetic field existing around the body. When he starts to experience this field as part of his own being, then the customary boundaries of his body will gradually disappear: the energetic field will develop as a sixth-sense-organ. It will become a sort of scan-zone that will help to grasp the energetic radiation of his fellow-man and the environment directly, so without further imprint of the senses. In stead of intellectual analyzing, intuition will prevail in perception.

 

The interaction between body and mind, which also takes place by exercises to strengthen and sensitize, doesn’t only occur on the level of muscles and skeleton. Actually the whole body is the expression and boundary of my being, so the interaction between body and mind also occurs on all possible levels. Joints, organs, connective tissue and bone-marrow also belong to it as well as muscles, the position of the spine, tendons, skin and all other things.

By understanding this interaction, which spreads out on all levels, a more decisive and often misunderstood point becomes clear: the goal of meditation exercises is not only to reach a deep relaxed state, but to experience all parts of the body as a harmonic combination.
A lot of people attend a meditation or Qigong course with the idea to relax or to quiet down. It is the idea of Qigong to reach inner balance, harmony and a quiet mind. But this goal will not be reached if you only relax. In short: Harmony and vitality need structure.

Tension and relaxation always come hand in hand. In Qigong they say that Yin and Yang always have to act upon each other. True balance will only be reached when opposite aspects are complementary to one another. This is easy to understand if we look at an example like a river: if a person practices for a long time, then he will become a big river. Huge amounts of water flow through a river. When you observe the flow, you experience a feeling of harmony and vitality. Now, when the riverbed or the bank gets distorted, the river will overflow its banks. Maybe a lake will form just there, but the flow and the vitality will stop. The river will not flow without its intact riverbed.
The same goes for people: a harmonic and vital human being is a barrel with feelings, emotions and excitement. The weaker and permeable the barrel is, the smaller the degree of inner excitement.
If we look at this from our example of correct posture it means: it is only possible to stand straight when I stretch certain muscle groups. The body won’t stand on its own. This basic stretching gives me the opportunity for inner excitement. If I diminish it to a certain degree, this will lead to a loss of my vitality. It is that simple.

 If in essence I would start now to practice I would have to use three tools. I will need the power of my thoughts, the ability to regulate my breath and the possibility to move. All Qigong exercises are composed of the right combination of these three tools. For a better understanding they are divided into Basic Exercises and Higher Exercises:
Typical Basic Exercises of modern Qigong are for example stretching exercises comparable to gymnastics, self-massage, special breathing techniques, visualizations, grounding exercises, exercises for a proper posture, slowly performed animal movements, simple meditation exercises, Taija movements and healing sounds.
To layman a lot of these exercises seem a bit mysterious. However, in fact they are in many aspects similar to the health exercises, relax methods and therapy forms that are spread throughout the west nowadays. Included are, among others, a lot of psychotherapies aimed at the body, classic healing massage, autogenic training, biodynamic massage, Feldenkrais training, positive thinking, aura work and a lot more.

The thing that these different methods have in common with the Basic Exercises of Qigong is that both approaches are aiming at re-establishing or maintaining health and vitality: they offer the individual the opportunity to heal illnesses and to free him from his inhibitions and fixed behavioural structures, so he can become a happy and active being. This being has the opportunity to express his feelings, to pursue his desires and goals and to enjoy the pleasure of his senses.

Higher steps of Qigong go way beyond the approach and the idea of the bodily and emotional healing of people. Although they are commonly taught, it’s only after many years of diligent practice that they can be mastered. In these steps you learn techniques for spiritual transformation of negative feelings, to transform sexual energy into consciousness, healing through transmission of Qi and deep, inner retreat. These techniques are not included in conventional western approach to bodywork.  

We do find clear resemblance when we compare with the different Yoga systems, Buddhism and Zen-Buddhism, Tantra systems and  Christian mysticism. The meditation exercises of all of these spiritual traditions can not be practiced, just like the higher steps of Qigong, detached from their spiritual background. They are embedded in the understanding of ethnic attitudes and can only then unfold their complete activity. Not the private happiness of individual people, but the connection of all people with the cosmos, is the ultimate goal of these exercises.
Therefore it is necessary to put the inner willingness of the individual, his ego with all of its desires, feelings and views on the world into the background and to direct his senses completely inwards.

One of the main misunderstandings in the area of Qigong and meditation has risen from the concept of Qi. In China and also among Qigong practitioners in the west, they speak of Qi all the time. However, for many the big unknown is hiding behind the word. That’s why some are asking for a final definition for the concept or think that they already found it.
Even when such a definition is very important and probably could solve a lot of misunderstanding, there’s one thing you should never forget: Qi is just a name. A name for something that you can experience yourself. And somehow it has everything to do with vitality. That’s why I like to re-direct the question: “What then is Life?”
(corrected version, originally published in "Dao spezial:Qigong" titled as "Looking for vividness")