Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Spring Forest Qigong emptiness

I had some difficulty getting into the emptiness/stillness today and I think it was because I was worried about something but didn't know what it was - this happens to me sometimes. The smiling does help and becoming absorbed in the movements and the sensory experience of them also helps. Sometimes I notice this thought forming: 'yes I think that I am truly in the emptiness now'. Then I realise that that thought in itself means that I'm not at that moment in the emptiness but that I was in the moments before it. How long the moments before it might have been is not really a question that can be answered because I suspect that awareness of time is suspended when are in the emptiness and you only notice time again when you come out. I am reminded of the experience of waking up early, say at 4 am, and feeling that you have never really been back to sleep until you have to get up at 7 am, even though you know that you could not really have been awake for 3 hours. Consciously you recall the times when you wake up and your irritation at being awake again but ignore the times when you were asleep because you were not conscious of them. In a similar way I think our consciousness and perhaps irritaion at not being in the emptiness attracts our atention more than the time we spend in the emptiness.

Did that make sense to anyone else I wonder?!

Love,

Kev

Kev - it made sense to me, and that's kind of scary!!

Kev, it makes sense to me too. You're actually on to something, and it is BIG! You're on the right track, so far as you just shared. Keep up the good work.

Soli, I sense there is something further lingering with respect to your original question. I'm sure it pertains to SFQ, so please don't hesitate to share it or to further elaborate. We're all here together, we learn from each other and we help each other. If we can help, we'll be happy to assit you in moving to the next higher place, or else just soften any seeming veil or cloud.

By the way, Soli, I too like the word "emptiness." It works just fine for me. But as Mayflower indicated, I've come to learn that some of us associate it with less than positive connotations. It is for this reason only that I've tended to use the some what more neutral and easier to digest (by some) word "silence."
Until....

For those that don't like 'emptiness', how about 'oneness'.

This is my preferred saying and conveys that we become one with the universe and all the energy within it.

It seems to me it isn't a word but an experience of pure being when you feel 'at one' with the universe and everything present. The emptiness to me is the absence of the earthly bagage we carry around in our minds.

Alex

Kev, it did make sense and the analogies are great examples.

Soli, Here is what I learned over the past couple of days. I have had a lot on my mind and found that during the small universe I would always get lost a blank moment of babble time only to return and not be sure of where I was in the flow. Boy I do appreciate the difference in the breath and ohm at the lower dantien more so now than ever before. I found that I would repeatedly loose place down in the lower energy centers and up around neck to head area. There are a lot of possible reasons for this but definitely related to a drifting or distraction of the mind. Sometimes depending on where I thought I was in the cycle I would breathe into the whole body (seeing new revitalizing energy enter all centers) letting all unwanted energies dissipate on the exhale including distractions of the mind. I would do this until the dantien then try and get back into the cycle again. This was an extreme approach if I was totally clueless and loss in the pattern in most cases I would continue where I thought I should be and was usually pretty close.

I have tried a couple of approaches to help focus the mind that might help someone if they encounter the same obstacles I have been experiencing. One approach was to take a couple of cycles to physically connect to each of the points with gentle pressure. So at the point of ohm and inhale I would put my hand or hands on that point with gentle pressure. This I found help to increase my awareness of the points and the sensation of touch seemed to last for quite some time after. This was especially helpful at times when I was tiered and seemed to help sort of wake up the body for the process of mental relaxation.

The second approach I tried today and that was to use each point as a mantra. So I would call out the name as I was inhaling, repeating over and over sort of in rhythm with the ohm. On the exhale I would say the new points name over and over, (as the mind shifted awareness to the new point) and then inhale the name and so on. This helped to quite the babbler and distractions of where the mind wanted to go and refocus where I wanted it. I found that once the flow started and I relaxed into it that I could also focus on the breath, the visuals and the energy work which distracted the babbler allowing me to focus my intentions where it was needed.

I feel that this is not something I would do all the time but may try on occasion depending on what the situation calls for. Eventually I would hope that the need for these methods would diminish as the discipline of the mind comes into a more habitual effortless focus.

Anyway I hope this helps someone in someway at some place,,, ahhh sometime

[This message has been edited by Ascending1 (edited October 30, 2003).]

I find that getting fully into the experience cuts out the babble best.

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Emptiness for me is connecting with the entire universe. The universe and I combine together. I conceptualize every atom being fully connected to every atom in the universe. Hence I'm mostly emptiness. I don't know if I've achieve what Master Lin has set out for me, but that's what I do.

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Small universe: I always identify, whether subvocally or visually the next destination as I push the energy. My perception is that as soon as I identify the destination the energy starts flowing. So the pushing is sometimes more of a pulling, depending on were I consciously am relative to the main body of energy.

You are perfection.
Iam2

P.S. I did touch each of the destinations the first couple of times I did small universe.

[This message has been edited by Iam2 (edited October 30, 2003).]

The emptiness for me is a place of silence and stillness. It is a place where the "chatter" in my mind ceases (still difficult to achieve with any consistency, but improving with every meditation). I find the Small Universe meditation very helpful for focusing because it takes me "out of my mind" (so to speak) and into my body and breath.

Starfish, I find this a very special aspect of the Small Universe meditation too. Because it is so absorbing in terms of its focus there is somehow no time to have much chatter - I still manage it though! I suddenly realise also that I must re-visit the other meditation on the tape as well because it has very different but useful qualities.

Another thought: sometimes I feel that I haven't been anywhere near the level of stillness that I desire. But even so I notice that after a meditation or the active exercises that whatever my 'intellectual judgement' of the 'depth' of the stillnes is, I am in a very different state to the one in which I started - calmer, more integrated, breathing very differently and thinking more clearly. This is one of the wonderful things about deciding to commit to a period of time doing this 'work'.

Love,

Kev

Aloha,

Much Love, Shawn