Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Spring Forest Qigong emptiness

Does anyone have any advice as to how to get into the emptiness. My mind chatters almost constantly. I'll get there for a few minutes at a time and then all of a sudden I realize my mind is off and running again. I know it takes practice, but I wondered if there are any helpful hints, other than "relax". The more I tell myself to relax, the less I seem to do it!

Soli

Yep all you have to do is to stop thinking about it. I’m kidding and chuckling a little it is always a challenge to quite the monkey mind. You are right with practice it will get better. I don’t think there is an easy way but here are some things that work. Master Lin has given you a mantra of sorts in the small universe so focusing on this is one way. To amplify this you could visualize not only breathing into the points but sending light, smiling into the spot, sending healing with each breath and or combinations of all of them. This will keep the mind busy enough and focused on where it is needed. Never struggle against it or get mad at it see it for what it is/was and breathe it out and let it go and realign your focus. Just keep bringing it back to your focus and intention it will diminish.

With the exercise you can reorient your focus by tuning into the energy, breath work, and the magnetic feel between hands and so on. Finding the awe in all this can help with the focus as well. Also for all of the above you can take a moment (5 to 10 min) before beginning and let thoughts wander in and out. Jot them down on a note pad and then let them go with the affirmation that you will get back to it after your quite time. Sometimes there is a lot going on and reminders pop up and jotting them down will help release the chatter.

Good luck, have fun and enjoy the ride.
Much love to you

I believe Master Lin is gentler and says that it's okay to not fully rid the chatter but to greatly reduce it. Kind of the Good, Better, Best approach. By taking the gentler approach you don't destroy the Better or Good by becoming upset that it's not the Best (complete silence).

One of the approaches I'm using is that when I notice chatter, I adopt the peaceful, wise and supportive air towards myself that Master Lin would demonstrate. I smile at myself and remind myself in one of several ways. I really do smile. In and understanding manner I tell myself things like:

Nicely done, now return to the emptiness.

This is my time to experience the meditation (active or not) and I'll analyse later.

I give myself permission to be fully in This experience.

I choose to be doing this, here, now.

I release those thoughts and return to myself.

I've taken on the idea that after 20 years I will still probably not be able to completely stop mental chatter, but I will have reduced it to almost nothing. The idea that after all those years chatter may creep in a few times a year. Isn't an admission to failure, but an acceptance that I will always be a student.

You are perfection.
Iam2

You've tried to relax your body and in the process you subvocalize your command to relax. Anna Wise has an interesting technique. She says that all you have to do is to relax your tongue.

Since the tongue is involved in a lot of sub-vocalization, this should reduce the babbler.

shr33m

Soli,
That is the nature of the unrestrained mind, to run off in many directions and create distractions, etc., etc. It you can get your mind to be still for a few minutes - as you say - then you are already a Master. It is said that if you can still the mind for one second you would have achieved samadhi, nirvana, the Awakening, etc., etc. Yes, the mind is like a drunken monkey who has been stung by a hive of bees.

I think your real question has to do with entering the silence. Don't allow your mind to trick you with its distractions that you are no entering the silence. Laugh, but that is just what is happening here: crazy trick of the mind.

Entering the silence is part of the visualization process. You are actually using your mind to enter the silence. That is, immagine - which is itself a sub play on the mind stuff - you are entering this deep, profound and beautiful silence. Doing this actually preoccupies the mind and sorts of trick the mind into silence by causing it to be purposely absorbed into this immagining or visualization (which ever label you prefer).

By the way, SFQ is particularly effective in accomplishing this effect: the entering of the silence. Why and how? Easy! There are a series of things which comes into play with the proper execution of SFQ as Master Lin presents the teaching. For example, look at what is involved in the Level 1 Active Exercises: the smile on your face, relaxes the entire body; the calling upon the Master's energy or help directs and focuses you in the right direction; the breathing and its visualization of the incoming healing and the outgoing scattering of diseases and blockages, etc., etc. all work to create a synergistic effect of quieting the mind and instilling this silence. Note, also, the profound effect of the gently and slow movements. Working together, they all combind effectively to quiet the mind through what I call this subtle distraction (sort of using the same mind trick on the mind). Many other schools or paths teach the same strategy, but SFQ uses a combination of the best of all the paths. And, most important, it works!

Relax, smile, enjoy the practice, and in time you too will have the experiential-knowledge of THE SILENCE .... Rome wasn't built in a day. The process, the journey and the destination will come together for you, just relax - SMILE!

Silence....

Soli,
You may substitue "emptiness" for my use of the term "the silence."
Please excuse any confusion this might have caused. I do appologize.
Thank you....

Meditation is the key to entering the emptiness. Perhaps you could also try another form of this to complement your SFQ, I know training my mind before doing SFQ has definately been a big help to me.

The focusing of the energy in Small Universe is a great way to keep the mind centred.

I don't like the word "emptiness" either Mike. I like silence too...or "stillness" Emptiness makes me feel like I lost something important.

Thanks for all the good info - I'll keep trying. As for the word emptiness, I think it conveys very well, at least for me, what I'm trying to get to - I guess it's just a matter of semantics. Anyway, I think we're all on the same page. Thanks again.

Soli

I only need to remember standing out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around as far as the eye can see and and then notice the silence.

Lands me in the emptiness

Alex