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Dropping the Mind - Week One - Emptiness is Form

My mother often used to say, "be kind to yourself". Such profound and simple wisdom. Those words echo in this moment as I respectfully acknowledge you for grounding yourself in this weeks discipline of self loving kindness. Thank you.

Dropping the mind, as an embodied action and dynamic meditation, is a fundamental practice of loving kindness. It helps to invite experiential awareness of a process of ‘emptying oneself’. It seems there is always more to let go of and that’s ok. That is the practice - a continuum of letting go. This is dropping the mind. The focus of the form is emptiness.

The Nurobodi based on the Hwa Yu ‘jointless’ approach to Wuji stance is an embodied practice of not only continually dropping the mind but also an opening to spontaneous cultivation and refinement of Qi. This cultivation and refinement of Qi, is Qi Gong.

Remember that your stance is alive. Always changing at a micro muscular level. Although when use our eyes and look at others in the stance it looks like nothing much is happening it is quite the contrary. Wuji stance Qi Gong is an embodied practice of Śūnyatā, which is both a meditative state and phenomenological analysis of experience. Wuji and Śūnyatā are essential both referring to the practice of merging with primordial space; emptiness.

Remember to breathe up the insides of the legs and exhale down the outer sides focusing on the exhalation and dropping/refining/distilling of Heavenly Qi into Earth awareness from which refreshed and enlightened awareness arises and eventually manifests in the hands. Our hands are a key instrument and expression of our Will but what exists beyond that we have to feel our way into, not think our way into. Reach with your feelings through the fingers as the Qi manifests in your hands.

Below are some recap notes on Week One of Dropping the Mind:

 
 

Qi Gong/Dynamic Meditation

1. Standing Meditation

2. Warming and loosening up the joints - Getting the internal juices flowing

3. Golden Flesh - Consciously breathing/massaging and nourishing Qi activation in the flesh, tendons, fascia and bones (NB bone focus requires hitting with the hand or bamboo).

4. Posture and Alignment - Jointless Wuji Stance - Dropping the Mind - The feet are as the roots; the force passes up through the thighs and is controlled by the waist, manifesting in the fingers.

5. Microcosmic Smoothing - Starting at the Thymus Gland perform the smoothing down the arms, front line of the body, moving down the outside of the legs, connecting with earth, smoothing up the insides of the legs, up to the perineum and under to the tailbone, up the back (spine), back of the head and over to begin the cycle again. Finish at the Dantien.

6. Wuji Gong - Week one - Sinking and Rising - A movement has its seeds in the state of stillness before it is seen. Before we rise, we sink our awareness deep into the earth to contact the roots.

8. Seated meditation and OM

 

Want more to explore?

Nada Yoga

The following drone can be used to support the beginnings of your Nada Yoga practice

  • Try deeply sighing

  • Slowing start to pay more attention to shifting tone and pitch of your voice and continue until you find a resonant note you want to explore

  • Explore the relationship between the shape of the sound using not only your voice shaped by your mouth, throat and vocal chords but also your entire body. Go with the flow.

“You cannot get directly from thinking to being. Thinking, feeling, being. Feeling is the bridge between thinking and being.” - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 

 

Introduction to Pashyanti in Seated Meditation

Paśyanti or paśyantī (Sanskrit: पश्यन्ति or पश्यन्ती), the Sanskrit term which means 'see' is derived from the word paśya meaning 'to see' and paśyat meaning - seeing, beholding a particular sound.

In Indian philosophy the notion of individuality, which is the third level of personality and the seed of all thoughts, speeches and actions is called Pashyanti , meaning 'that which witnesses'. Thus, Pashyanti refers to the visible sound which is experienced as a feeling or a mental picture.

  • After you have finished your Nada Yoga practice just sit with the after effects of the luminary resonance. What is there? What are you witnessing in mind-body continuum?