The first Step of Taoist Practice begins the process of harmonisation: mind, body and
spirit learn to work together, to be at ease together, to live together. Breathing,
structural exercises and meditation turn stress into vitality with Iron Shirt Chi Kung
(QiGong in the modern spelling) the Inner Smile, the Microcosmic Orbit (“small
heavenly cycle” in the traditional texts) and Six Healing Sounds.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:
Chi Self Massage Exercises to transform stress into vitality
Both meditations cleanse the organs, recycle negativity and the effects of stress.
Introduction to the Microcosmic (click) Orbit the ancient foundation for the threefold path of Self-development, Healing, and Meditation.
Awakening the universal (yang), earth (yin), and human-dimension (chi) energies develops and circulates increased
life-force within your Self.
The basic structures of Iron Shirt Chi Kung (QiGong) - see video below - for rooting, centering and body-awareness.
Embracing the Tree
Turtle
Buffalo
Iron Bridge
Golden Urn
Golden Phoenix
The effects are increased vitality, stamina, enhanced ability to fight disease and greater protection from injury, whether physical, emotional or spiritual.
Taoist Breathing
for intense energy-development and internal power
A look at some simple Tai Chi movements: whereas Chi Kung develops rooting and grounding, Tai Chi offers flexibility and adaptibility.
The combination offers the means to cope with day-to-day life and more, to live life to the full
Many students have learned to awaken the universal (yang), earth
(yin), and human-dimension (chi) energies, to develop and circulate increased life-force.
Develop a form of daily practice suitable for you, to integrate with your own personal
life-situation, as I have adapted the practices for my own circumstances, as described in the article below.
Step 1 Foundations Weekend is an ideal introduction for both women and men, singles
and couples, young and old, and is a pre-requisite for Step 2 - Healing Love
Power of Fusion, Advanced Iron Shirt and preparation for Nourishing the Spirit and the
Higher Practices.
Save money by multiple registration: for 2 courses paid in full in
advance deduct 10% from the combined total, for 3 or more courses deduct 20%.
by Kris Deva North adapted from his article in Qi Magazine
Most people starting out on the Way try to copy someone else,
usually their teacher or facilitator. They seek guidance until understanding how to make
their own way, and that too much help can weaken them. In the early stages it is kind -
and productive - for facilitators to to help students along, with their Frequently Asked
Questions representing a quest for reassurance.
Many FAQs are to do with daily practice, how much time to spend in meditation and
exercise, how to integrate the practices into daily life, especially the sexual practices,
and how to introduce these to partners ranging from sceptical to inhibited to plain
jealous. How wonderful if we could just say a word or two to help the asker towards
realisation, but of course that would not be their realisation but just something we are
handing them.
Let me share some aspects of my practice with you. If you are an early seeker, you may
find bits and pieces that are of use. If a seasoned traveller you may have a little fun at
my expense and think how much better your own practice is, or how superior your own
teacher. You will learn something, even if only that you have nothing to learn. It
doesn’t matter really - we are dancing the same spiral with different steps.
Start the day with a Smile. In 1972 - just after leaving the army and before my first
meditation weekend - I went on a sales course, where they said the same, these hard-nosed
business chaps who taught the mindfulness of skilful manipulation. We were advised to
smile at ourselves in the mirror, to set ourselves up for the day. Two decades later the
Taoist Master Mantak Chia was telling me to smile at my internal organs, the Inner Smile
in the tradition of four millenia. Must be something in it! People who live beyond 100 are
generally of a cheery nature, according to Deepak Chopra, who knows these things.
So now, when I wake up, I smile. Nothing formal, not sitting up, let alone in seiza or
lotus, just lying in bed watching the light slip by the curtains. An Inner Smile, to
myself, my being, my energy field. A smile to my mum, long gone, and my dads - I had two,
one who started me off before leaving this world, and his brother who took over for the
hard part. A smile for my kids and theirs. My ancestors and descendants, teachers and
students. No lists, no enumeration, just a big grin of gratitude to the whole energy field
around me.
Time past and present condenses into the now, individuals blend in the moment of a
heartfelt smile, and I am everyone I have known and all that has happened to me. I thank
the universe for the many gifts and blessings - records of my ancestors, knowledge of past
lives, totems of insight and grace, leadership and love.
Thus the day begins with Gratitude, awesome in its power and effect, and flowing naturally
into the sexual practices, the essence of the Tao, honouring the Way which gave me my
ancestors and descendants, opening the gateway through pleasure to bliss. If alone I will
work with arousal energy, opening the microcosmic orbit and recycling the chi. If with a
partner and plenty of time, we might practise dual cultivation, or solo cultivation
together. Sexual practice in the morning has a wonderful clarity and spontaneity.
Throughout the day opportunities arise for moving and still meditation: Chi Kung -
imperceptibly adopting the ready position waiting for a bus or train, Taoist reverse
breathing sitting at the computer, “Tai Chi walking” up a flight of steps. A
patch of green grass offers a place for Bone Marrow breathing, or the powerful
earth-connection of the Tai Chi Chi Kung form, or the “Hands of Light” form of
QiGong Colour Healing Therapy. Parks and avenues become arenas for “embracing the
tree” and the yin-yang breath exchange.
Interacting with people, with other energy-fields, opportunities arise to recycle the
emotions of the Five Energy-Phases or Elements, seeking to transform impatience into love,
worry into serenity, depression to courage, fear to gentleness, even anger into kindness,
thinking of Mantak Chia’s encouragement “every day we get many chances to
forgive”. I use the Healing Sounds individually for each occasion as it happens - a
discreet hiss can dissipate some minor annoyance, or a loud HHHAAA! dispel
impatience....when done with the right intention.
Iron Shirt grounding, rooting and centering taught me how to take a push, physically in
the first instance but, as I progressed through my training, extending my ability to take
an emotional push or withstand financial pressure. I might practise the postures while
waiting to start a teaching-session. One great attraction of making my living from this
work is the limitless landscape of practice. It is my job to do what I love. Can’t
get better than that! Teaching helps keep me keep up my practice. I realised that my
original nature/conditioning (hard to tell the difference when you’ve been doing this
stuff for a few years) swung me between activity and inertia. This helps towards harmony.
Beyond the physicality of the Iron Shirt pushing-rooting, the psychic self-defence of
Fusion of the Five Elements develops a kind of energy-armour. In the higher meditations of
Kan & Li, armour becomes redundant as all pressures are allowed to pass through the
being without harm, as we develop and transform into the light body. What effect can
pressure have when there is nothing to press? No buttons to push! These esoteric practices
are available to everyone, and if applied consistently they work well for everyone. But
the work must be done by the practitioner: use it or lose it.
Travelling around to appointments for teaching or healing, I use the time on bus, tube and
train to read, study and research. On these journeys of the earth I take the journeys of
heaven, discovering connections between the heritages from the cradle of the earth. The
evidence is there if you care to look. Taoists share purification by sweat and worship by
smoke with Native Americans; dream-time with Native Australians; animal (symbolic)
sacrifice, ecstatic flight and shamanic dissolution with the Siberians; tutelary animals
with the South Americans; the protective circle of fire with Wiccans; the tantric circle
with Indo-Tibetans.
The Tao is my personal journey. I prefer to travel on foot or by public transport, to
resist the temptation of a car with its ease and convenience of getting about. Better for
me to do things the hard way, to push myself into discomfort, to try to understand myself
better. What muscle ever got stronger by ease and comfort? So with my own energy-field.
And I am, after all, living the life of my choice - little shocks of discomfort help keep
me awake. Ouspensky would understand.
The bath is my think-tank, wallowing in the womb of water, the ocean of creativity, the
palace of death and conception, inspiration. Archimedes knew it. Stuck on an article, a
business situation, an emotional conflict, I lie in the bath and wait for possibilities.
Few choices need to be made, the right way seems to unfold. Its not always what my
rational mind would have chosen.
Teaching the Tao gives satisfaction; teaching the practices gives me the opportunity to
practice. I offer overviews for those thinking of stepping out on the Way or just checking
it out, courses of meditational experiences from basic initiation into Microcosmic Orbit,
Inner Smile, Healing Sounds and Iron Shirt, through the heart-opening practices of Healing
Love or Taoist Tantra, the challenging self-healing of Fusion, Tai Chi the Dance of Life,
or Advanced Practices - shamanic journeying, meditation on death, and ecstatic flight. Group work helps me with the transmission to
others.
Teaching Shiatsu also gives the chance to incorporate the body of taoist mysticism as a
background or even a bedrock. Chi Nei Tsang, the taoist massage that releases the winds of
stagnation and helps free the bodymind from emotional trauma; Shamanic Healing calls on the energies of the cosmos, to heal
energy-fields.
Mealtimes are occasions for practice too, eating what I choose mindfully and letting go
the strictures and restrictions of any formal dietary system, following the way as it
manifests. If there is a time in the day when I catch myself not practising, I give myself
a pat on the back for awareness.
I prefer the time either side of midnight for the more structured sexual meditations with
their tremendous sense of universal power as the life-force rises and circulates in the
microcosmic orbit. I take time working with the cool unaroused sexual energy,
practising sexual breathing, moving into the arousal energy, staying with it, taking it
with me through some Iron Shirt practices, some Tai Chi, some still meditations, then on
into the orgasmic energy field,bathing in the fountains of Fusion, using pleasure as the
gateway to bliss. On into the subtle clear light of Kan& Li, an altered state, with
ecstatic flight or astral travel, awareness of the possibility of existence beyond sensory
perception, of consciousness of the energy-stream beyond this incarnation. Partnership work is intense, and the greater the intensity of arousal the higher the
experience of bliss.
And very last thing to end, the Healing Sounds. I have used them throughout the day for
harmonising situations or recycling emotions and now, as I lay me down to sleep, the
Triple Heater sound sings sweetly in the three burners, a restful completion to a day of
walking in the Tao.
