The experience of qi, or vital energy, has become a regular experience in my daily life.

To me, this is remarkable, not for its supernatural quality, but for its very ordinariness. Vital energy permeates all of life, so every one of us contacts it in some way, in every moment. Indeed, it’s the fact that most of us are not conscious of it that is most striking. It’s a silence which speaks volumes.

I won’t waste any time here debating the reality of vital energy. I’ve felt it, off and on, since I was young, although it’s only in the past few years that I really got curious enough to start learning more about it. I can do some basic things that are common to those who are attuned to energy, like warm my hands and feet by directing qi there, or make little energy balls, or feel the outlines of a person’s aura, or sense my own energy blockages.

What’s actually more interesting to me than the experience of energy, though, is the pragmatic philosophy of it.

Read the full post

I guess I never got around to describing how describing how my latest foray into the martial arts has gone.

Last year, I started taking lessons with my friend Anthony, who is an instructor under Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit and is also in my class at the Oriental medical college. I actually made quite a big deal about it in a previous post, but then said nothing more about it.

So here’s the story.

Read the full post

Sometimes I’m absolutely astounded at how the simple practice of mindfulness can bring me back home. And I don’t particularly mean a formal Buddhist sitting meditation practice, but rather any practice that regularizes and focuses attention on the myriad, ever-changing subtleties of the here-and-now, including qigong, Alexander Technique, or even just being outside, doing the laundry, or having a conversation in an open, perceptive way.

Life lately has been, as I’ve mentioned, a storm. How, then, to avoid getting caught up in the hurricane? Two ways that I can think of. One is to find a way to flow with it, dance with it. The other is to find a way to root yourself in something beyond its reach. The first way is horizontal, temporal, engaging every challenge as it arises. The second way is vertical, eternal, simply learning not to invest oneself too fully in those ephemeral phenomena, and coming to identify with something that is more than just the next up-and-down.

I find mindfulness to be an intersection between those two ways, actually. It brings me into the present moment, allows me to find my poise in relation to whatever is at hand right now. But, if I practice it with any consistency, it also allows me to develop an awareness of a more objective nature to my experience, something that recurs, that is beyond any particular event; it brings to my conscious attention the experience of existence that does not rely on a victory for validation nor is vulnerable to an invalidating defeat. Somehow, up or down, I survive, and this I is some sort of ineffable essence that is beyond explicit description, but is simple to contact just with that point of open attention.

Seemingly simple, yet essential to living a life that has some meaning beyond “the ten thousand things.”

For the past few years, I’ve been grappling with the questions and issues of the primitivist critique of civilization, both philosophically, and personally/practically.

Initially, I struggled with the effort of living in civilization while knowing that the primitive way of life was superior and inherently more balanced.

Later, I struggled with living in civilization while knowing that many aspects of it are wrong, but knowing also that the neo-primitivist facsimile of primitive life was also imbalanced for me.

My most recent posts on the topic, the series on the evolution of consciousness, were an attempt to build a conceptual framework that would incorporate that awareness of civilization’s destructiveness, without devolving into a reactive embrace of its opposite, a wholesale rejection of collective human development (i.e. “rewilding”).

I felt like I did a satisfactory job for my needs. It may not satisfy most primitivists (after all, that’s why they’re still primitivists), but for me it worked. I feel like I’ve finally gained a measure of independence from that perspective, while still integrating many of its important points into my way of thinking. Transcending but including.

Now what?

Read the full post

Sometimes I have difficulty expressing myself.
It makes me feel like this.

After two months of whirlwind craziness, it feels good to return to a more settled state of mind, and to come back to my body, and feel calmer, and more mindful in my own skin.

My Alexander Technique lessons have assisted me a lot with this. At my last one, I arrived feeling exhausted and weighed down by the world. My teacher could tell immediately. The thing I like about her and this method is that it’s a form of “therapy” that simply asks you to gently notice yourself, and then see if you can consciously allow yourself more ease and goodness.

To me, it has become remarkable how effective those small, subtle ways of attending to the simple experience of being in my body can lead to an increased sense of strength, health, and energy, without herculean efforts or struggling to achieve something Significant.

To return to the awareness of who and where I am, and to let the turbulent waters of my mind and feelings calm after continuous turmoil, is a wonderful relief.

Returning to center also allows me to notice how much more energy I have now after over a year of acupuncture, herbs, qigong, and personal work; and how much better I’m handling such a diverse and densely packed series of events. It’s tremendously encouraging.

I pride myself on my sensitivity. I can appreciate the significance in subtle details. It’s what drew me to the internal martial arts, where nearly imperceptible or ethereal details make a mountain of difference. It’s what drew me to nature awareness and primitive skills — I loved stories of Tom Brown, Jr. tracking mice across gravel and finding lost children by following their footprints across paved parking lots.

This sensitivity is also why I chose the Oriental medicine school I’m attending, with its emphasis on pulse diagnosis and on diagnosis in general — i.e. perception.

I love the idea of becoming a master of perception, a magician. A master tracker, Ingwe, could hear water a mile away. The famous Chinese doctor John Shen once stated accurately, from reading a man’s pulse and face, that he was suffering from guilt for having killed a man in 1943. There are tales of martial arts masters who could fight blindfolded, or could see what was happening behind their backs. Milton Erickson honed his awareness of people’s subconscious so keenly that he could lull them into trance state simply by telling stories.

These are all masters whose abilities I have aspired to acquire.

But you know what they say about men who buy big trucks: Are they trying to make up for something?

Read the full post