The Spirit & Soul of Qigong

Description

The Spirit & Soul of Qigong: The Importance of the Transcending/Transmuting Dialectic on the Psycho-spiritual Path

This Bodymind Healing Qigong class explores the idea that Tai Chi and Qigong can be more than spiritual or energetic practices; they can also become practices for psychological and emotional transformation. “Spiritual practice” is defined as moving upward toward light, transcendence, and connection with something greater, while “soulful practice” involves moving inward or downward into emotions, unresolved experiences, beliefs, fears, grief, insecurity, and other psychological “blockages.” Throughout the class, traditional Qigong and Tai Chi postures are reframed as opportunities for both self-reflection and self-transcendence. Rather than simply noticing an energetic blockage and trying to release it, the practitioner is encouraged to ask what the blockage represents psychologically and then is given tools to transmute the issue.

This class can be considered to be Part II of my Substack article on the Transcending/Transmuting dialectic— as it applies to Tai Chi/Qigong. The Spirit/Soul dialectic is another term for a psycho-spiritual practice, which elucidates two of its essential facets. Without both spirit and soul, the psycho-spiritual banquet of life will be half-baked.

Some Specifics of what you’ll learn:

• Learn how Qigong exercises can be paired with psychological intentions such as becoming more grounded, developing confidence, accepting weakness, recognizing strength, balancing giving and receiving, establishing boundaries, processing grief, or letting go of fear.

• Instead of practicing Qigiong movements only as physical or even spiritual exercises, you’ll be encouraged to notice what issues surfaced emotionally, and be given psychological methods and shape-shifting practices to transmute those issues. From the felt shift that may take place you’ll learn to identify what you want your stance toward life to be during the coming week. Then, you’ll learn to use Qigong stances and movements and psychological processes to anchor that intention.

• Be introduced to “The River of Life” psycho-spiritual practice to transform your issues using the Spirit/Soul dialectic. (The River of Life combines Dr. Eugene Gendlin’s “Focusing,” Taoist breathing, Cognitive Restructuring, etc.)

• Discover an embodied healing tradition that can bring to fruition Jungian Psychologist James Hillman’s distinction between spirit (pneuma) and soul (psyche.)

• Standing Meditation Qigong: What do you Stand for? Practicing Standing Mediation with soulful intent. You’ll experience how “purpose” arises from stillness; and how to cultivate healing images which arise from that stillness.

• In this class you’ll practice the Bodymind Healing Qigong set with the intent of integrating the spirit/soul dialectic.

• Discover how your qigong practice can benefit by incorporating wisdom from various cross-culturalwisdom traditions including Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese medicine, Greek mystery traditions, Native American spirituality, Judaism, Christianity, Sufism, and depth psychology.

• Though this class focuses on the Spirit/Soul Dialectic as applied to Qigong, reference is made to the online, on demand 19 video series Tai Chi Chuan: Four Dimensions of Purpose. There students learn how to apply the Spirit/Soul approach to each of the postures and movements of Tai Chi Chuan.

• Are there historical roots to the spirit/soul dialectic with respect to its application to the internal martial arts? You can explore for yourself the phenomenology of the controversial hypothesis that in early Buddhism the Bodhisattva Warriors were trained by using various postures not only for spiritual andmartial purposes, but to work through their “klesas” (destructive mental states and emotional obstacles).

• For a deeper dive into the Spirit/Soul dialectic with respect to these three internal arts please see: Next Steps in the Integral Chuan Curricula: Yi Chuan, Xing Yi, and Bagua. There you’ll be introduced to how to apply the Spirit/Soul dialectic to a wider array of Taoist Internal arts. For example, one can practice Xing Yi Chuan as a path to practice making whole the five elements of the soulful self (fire, earth, metal,water, and wood).  Bagua circle walking can be practiced around the wheel of the zodiac so that twelve archetypes can be activated to transform areas of weakness or imbalance. And Yi Chuan Qigong can be practiced as a pathway for developing the healing power of intention.

Spiritual Bagua Circle Walking—outside the Circle of Life