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The Paradox of Opening and Closing: A Pair of Qigong Meditation Practices

Become aware of the vibratory nature of our body-mind and learn to collect, store and circulate energy (qi, prana, vital force) skillfully, is essential for any yoga gold qigong practice. However, how exactly do we do it? “Collecting” energy would seem to require a kind of “opening” to new energy sources, right? However, “storing” energy implies the creation of a container, of limits: a kind of “closure” … And in fact it is (like most things in a healthy and vibrant yoga / qigong practice) a paradox! To help you explore this paradox, here are a couple of qigong meditation practices: the first one taken from the Taoist tradition of Internal alchemy; the second of From Osho lovely little book, Alma Pharmacy.

One of the bases for practicing Taoist internal alchemy (i.e. Qigong) is learning to access what Eric Yudelove (in his book, Taoist yoga and sexual energy) has called “power of the perineum”: the energy / intelligence of the pelvic floor, the “base” on which our entire torso rests. The first step in doing this is simply to let our consciousness circulate more freely in the lower abdomen (the lower part dantien), and favor an opening or widening of the skeletal and muscular structures of the pelvic floor. Can we really feel the muscles that flow between our two sitting bones? Can we really feel the muscles that connect the pubic bone to the coccyx (coccyx)? Each of these muscle groups is a diaphragm, similar in structure to the better known “diaphragm” located at the lower edge of our rib cage. And in the same way that our thoracic diaphragm (rib cage) helps us breathe more deeply, the pelvic floor diaphragms can help us “breathe” energy: drawing life force from the surrounding environment into the field of our body-mind. We can begin to activate this mechanism simply by imagining that we are “breathing” through our sitting bones (as if they were our “nostrils”) … Try it! (The next step is to “breathe” through your heels …)

So now that you have opened (with the energy of your consciousness) the pelvic floor, and by “breathing” through the sitting bones you have invited new energy to this area of ​​your body, the next step is to seal or store that energy ” closing “what in Taoist practice are called the two” lower doors. ” (Which is at least roughly equivalent to the Hindu yogic practice of applying Mulabhanda.) The basic technique for doing this is simply to imagine yourself moving the seated bones gently towards each other, reducing the distance between them. Another way to work with this is to gently position and contract the muscles that you would use to stop the flow of urination. So we are creating a sensation of tone (like a drum head, taut) through the pelvic floor field … and in this way creating a “container” for the energy that we accumulate in the lower abdomen, a container that prevents this energy “seeps” out of our body. (For a more detailed description of the practice of closing the two lower doors, and in particular how this practice is different for men and women, see Eric Yudelove’s book Taoist yoga and sexual energy.)

A second practice that you can play with, in support of exploring the paradox of opening and closing, is a practice that Osho (Sri Rajneesh, one of the most interesting spiritual Masters of the last century) calls “The wall and the door.” . To begin practice, sit quietly in a room where you are not likely to be disturbed during practice. Now look at one of the walls … and start imagining that you are yourself becoming a wall: feel the rigidity and impenetrability of the wall and allow those qualities to penetrate into the very cells of your body. Feel you become “like a wall” on all sides of your being: letting nothing in or out, hypervigilant, rigid, contracted. Stay in this frame of mind for ten minutes or so.

Now turn to the bedroom door. Let go of those “wall” qualities and allow yourself instead to begin to adopt ~ in the very cells of your body ~ the qualities of a door. Feel within you the ability to be open, fluid, completely relaxed about comings and goings … completely open to each and every one of the phenomena that appear within the field of your senses, the field of your experience as a human being. Be completely open. Stay in this frame of mind for about twenty minutes. See how you feel.

Osho recommends that we do this practice, daily (preferably just before going to sleep at night), for sixty days: familiarizing ourselves with this difference between being “closed” like a wall and “open” like a door … to see. yes, little by little, we can feel more and more comfortable remaining “open” to the experiences, to the flow of our lives. It is also important (in the initial stages of practice, in particular) to note the options we have across a whole spectrum (from 100% closed to 100% open) … and to become more and more experts in consciously choose where we place ourselves, in a given situation, along this spectrum. Ask: what do I think is “safe” and why? And feel more and more comfortable with this (and all!) Paradox.

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