Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Spring Forest Qigong What do you change into smoke or butterflies, etc?

I want to know what it is that we should visualize changing into smoke, butterflies, etc., during Active Exercises and Meditations. I find contradictions between advice from others and the Level 1 Manual. For example, some advise not to visualize changing SYMPTOMS into smoke, etc., but rather to visualize changing ENERGY BLOCKAGES into smoke. Yet the Level 1 manual directs us in Active Exercise 1, Beginning of the Universe: "When you exhale, visualize any pain or sickness changing into smoke and shooting out from every cell of your body to the end of the universe."
Now I am confused. This is essential to know. Can someone informed on Chunyi Lin's thinking about this clarify just what it is we should do?

Hmm.. tricky... I will await more insightful answers but I'm thinking... energy blockage is not always at the same place as the pain? Personally I don't visualize this away, I focus on circulating the qi and overall opening of all channels. Then I believe that body takes care of the rest.

Energy is limitless, so in visualizing you can create your own techniques. Chunyi's, being Masterful at integrating information, simplified the techniques for the layperson to understand. Once you get the basics of qigong down (keep practicing, even if you don't fully understand what you are doing) and it'll click together at some point. Once this happens and you grasp the concept, there is no limit to what the energy-intent particle/wave can accomplish.

~Z

A few questions regarding your intriguing statement.
1. By "concept," do you mean that the Universe, love, and intent can heal anything?
2. Are you saying that, as I practice Small Universe and Self-Concentration, I can visualize whatever I want to disappear (symptoms, energy blockages, etc.)?
3. Does my choice of what I visualize changing into smoke, etc. have any bearing on how effective SFQ will be for my health problem?
4. So far in spite of trying SFQ for a long while, nothing physical has permanently healed. Is there still hope?

1. Absolutely. Love will heal all things. But love itself is beyond understanding, however energy balancing practices like SFQ can help remove the blocks to love's presence. Then with love's presence restored, you will fully understand what love is.

2. Yes. Everything is energy, even the "impossible" symptoms. Keeping in mind, that the idea of "impossible" is energy as well. With that in mind, is there really an impossible, or did you make it up?

3. Choice is irrelevant in visualization. What it really comes down to, is your choice of how healed you want to be. Do you feel that you are going to be healed while you are practicing, or do you have some unknown doubt? If there is doubt, than what method of visualization is useless because you are not feeling that you are healed. If you feel that you *are* completely healed, then the method of visualization is irrelevant (not necessarily useless) in comparison to what you know and feel about the process. What it comes down to is your feeling, more than the process. Remember the techniques are just that, techniques.

4. Of course, looking at #3, we see that it comes down to not the method of your visualization, but rather your conscious and unconscious choice of healed you want to be. If something seems "impossible" to heal, or "unlikely" to heal, it is because you chose it to appear that way. While it would seem drastically 'harder' to heal, knowing that it is you and not some outside source. It actually becomes FAR easier. I have spoken of this before.

When meditating, find the idea or part of your mind that thinks/feels that completely healing is impossible and dissolve that. Remembering that when you join with your Source, nothing is impossible and everything is complete.

Also, it's important to remember, that the symptoms are the effect of the cause (energy blockages) so trying to get rid of a symptom, is as useful as medicine that only treats the symptoms and does not actually do anything about the root or cause of the problem.

I'd also like to add that our energy should feel completely transparent/clear, so anything that feels hazy, fuzzy, or even slightly off, could be a blockage in it's early stages. Blockages aren't always associated with pain, pain is a response from our body telling us something isn't right. The goal is not to remove pain, but what the pain is telling us is there. Pain is like a warning message. When the blockages are gone, our systems disable the pain--because there is no need for the warning message to be there.

I'd check out the CDs with Level1 again, you might grasp a few things that you've missed before. Listen closely and you might learn something new, or hear something that you heard, but may have overlooked before.

~Z

Thanks for sharing your valuable insights about transforming symptoms and other energies into smoke, butterflies, etc.

Your insights about the role of doubts and one's attitude about being healed are helpful to know. Also, it is useful to realize that healing symptoms only is about like modern medicine focusing on symptoms and not root causes.

You spoke of one's attitude about being healed. Some who practice Spring Forest Qigong fear that by being healed, and thus feeling good instead of miserable, something bad will happen to loved ones. Sure it's irrational, but there are a lot of such beliefs. It obviously would interfere with healing. What would you suggest to someone with this fear?

That raises a good point. Think of it this way...

Let's say you get a scratch on your arm. You have given so much power to the scratch that it has become part of you, it thinks and acts on it's own. If you were to heal the scratch, it thinks that it will die and cease to be. In itself, it has no mind other than the extension of yours, that you have given it. In the process of healing, it will do practically anything to keep you from healing it, it will even try to convince you that if you were to heal it, you could accidentally harm others in the process.

This is how energy blockages seem to work sometimes. They will "try" to convince you of all sorts of things. However, when healed, you realize that there was NOTHING THERE that was trying to prevent you from healing, other than yourself. The self can be tricky like this. We seem to get caught in our ways, that we don't like to change--even if we are better off if we do so.

Don't worry about the subtle "fears" that arise in the beginning stages, we've all been through those at some point or another. The best thing to do is forgive yourself for the silly feelings or worries that arise and work through them, knowing that everything is alright and you are doing what's best for everyone because the love of your soul is with you.

Hope this clears things up.
~Z

Thanks so much for your excellent reply. You have given me much food for thought, which I will try to incorporate in my SFQ practice. Your guidance has helped me progress faster. Time will tell what the healing results are. May you be richly rewarded for your generosity in giving me insightful help.