100 days?

Hi frechtling,

The “100 days” is a common theme in many traditions,it can be considered one of four steps depending on the traditions/lineage or teacher. Regular practice will be ideal to practice daily; but if you miss a day to whatever reason, one should not be guilty or beat one self up in the process. Work with the cycle of 100 days.

It can be viewed simply as to sticking to a time frame to sticking to one style of practice also. Its not be stressful or rigid either. In many Chinese Cultivation systems its known as Liang Jing Hua Qi (Lian Ching Hua Chi) a step of refinement to develop tangible chi. There’s alot that goes with this training also; so depending what kind of practice one is doing the many particulars go along with it also.

A 100 days is also a great gauge to measure how deeply you can go with a type of practice also. A 100 days is a great way to tune up a form or an current practice and refine it. I always tell people use the 100 days as a way to gauge your experiences with the practice/tradition. So theres my 2 cents on this, I hope that helps.

Below is a barage of 100 days viewpoints throughout the web also.

Snowlion

google 100 days

If you are using the 100 days as a learning tool, i.e. “I want to learn XYZ qigong form”, then I would count the 100 days as being 100 actual days of practice. In other words, if you miss some days here or there, then you might reach day 100 on the 137th day. Thus, you need to actually have had 100 days of actual practice. It is clear that need to count actual days of practice. If 100 calendar days go by, and you’ve only done 14 days worth, you clearly have not done a 100 days practice . . . you’ve only realistically done a 14 days practice. In short, a 100 days practice is 100 actual days.

On the other hand, if you are using the 100 days practice as a devotional tool, i.e. a tool to help yourself learn more about yourself, and to go deeper within (in the vein of deep retreat), then I consider a 100 days practice to be a practice period of 100 consecutive days with no lapses. If you undertake a 100 days practice in this fashion, then if you miss a day (no matter how far along you are), the next day you start again counting at 1.

The former (of these two different 100 days practices) I recommend to anyone who wishes to devote themselves to a particular practice to learn it. I do this from time to time myself.

The latter, I only recommend to those folks that are *serious* about going deep into their own personal space, as it is clearly much, much more difficult. It’s not such a good approach if you are trying to learn a qigong form or something new. That’s best saved for the former approach. The latter approach, as I said, is more for digging deep within yourself and making a serious commitment. I’ve done this myself before. The true learning comes in, when you’ve had a busy day, you are quite tired, the day is coming to a close, and you still have not gotten your practice commitment in yet. The internal struggle that then ensues when you realize that you risk ruining your 100 days commitment provides a ripe opportunity for self-learning. It provides an interesting insight into your own self patterns of self-sabotage and resistance. Overcoming that resistance when you are tired and doing your practice anyway is insightful. So, yes, I am familiar with this as well, although I make such an attempt on this less frequently for obvious reasons.

Qi,
Steven