NOVEL EFFECTS IN CHI KUNG
Patience in chi kung
Question
I was training “Pushing Mountains” and I achieved a very good chi flow to my arms. But I cannot continue now. I have no patience any more. I feel depressed because my flow is too weak.
-- Gasham, USA
Answer
If you wish to practice chi kung, you need to have patience. Otherwise, chi kung is not for you. On the other hand, patience can be cultivated by practicing chi kung, especially if you have a good teacher.
You have a mistaken concept of chi kung. You seem to seek novel effects in chi kung rather than its practical benefits. We practice chi kung not just because we want to enjoy powerful chi flow or other novel effects like seeing beautiful lights and feeling rooted to the ground.
Although these feelings are enjoyable and indicate that we are practicing correctly, they are not the real reasons why we practice chi kung. The real reasons are that we want to be free from pain and illness, have mental freshness and vitality to enjoy work and play, and live to a ripe old age healthily.
If you have powerful chi flow in your arms or experience other novel sensations but still remain sickly or are in pain, you would have wasted your time practicing chi kung. On the other hand, you may not experience any special sensations but enjoy good health, vitality and longevity, then you would have spent your time practicing well.
On the other hand, even for dedicated practitioners there are ups and downs in chi kung training.
Don't be discouraged when sometimes you feel you are not getting good results. Some good advice generations of masters have given is not to worry about your result but just enjoy your practice. If you practice regularly and correctly, the good results will sure to come. Hence, you need to have patience, and practicing chi kung develops patience.
Even when you are deriving good results from your regular training, there may still be times when your results are not as good as usual. In other words, there may still be ups and downs, except that the ups are much more than the downs. Besides, the downs now are better than the ups in the past.
We shall have a clear idea if we use numbers to represent results, the higher the number the better the result. Suppose you start at O. After a few days of practice you arrive at 1 and 2, but there may be a day or two when you are at 0 or even -1.
After a few weeks you may be at 3, 4 or 5 but there may be occasions when you may be at 1 or 2. After a few months you may be at 8 and 9, but once a while you may drop down to 6 or 7, or even 4 or 5. Now 6 and 7 are your low periods, and 4 and 5 your very low periods, but they are still higher than 1 and 2 when you first started.
LINKS