great article on “zhangzhuang from an yiquan perspective”

Yes, let me first say that you are right when you say everyone has their own opinions that come from experience. Also that in TCM there is alot of variance anyway, i don’t think there is ONE big picture. It would appear that way from a uni course i should think, however previously i’m sure there were many great TCM doctors that didn’t use the standard TCM model now taught in uni.

I do have my own opinions but also it’s hard to come across people with alot of experience to discuss the opinions with, or also i haven’t found much info on the topic at all to be honest. So i thought asking for your opinions could help me to see another side which i could perhaps use and test out for myself and then pass on to others. What’s more since you use HT i understand the framework from which you are speaking.

Ok.. now with the inner smile…

I think its very interesting to read what you read, and I think it’s amazing that we could have such a massive difference in the view of what happens in the inner smile. Infact from your explaination i now think it means that it’s more of a matter of how each person thinks as to how the inner smile works on them, because they probably do it differently.

When i first started i just followed Mantak Chia’s free audio download from years ago, and i found my whole body used to become ‘loved up’, like a blissful feeling. That was the energy that came in. I also felt the different organ energies as totally different feelings. Later when i went on a 10 day retreat by myself, after about day 3 it became an effort to keep distinguishing these different energies because they all wanted to go into one energy. It became an effort to feel the seperate original organ energy i felt, instead it just became one smiling energy.

For me it’s more like energy is comming in and energizing. Now energizing can be calming or it can be exciting, depending on what energy is being energized. It increases the depth of whatever energy is present. Changing energy can be done like copying energy. So if i know the feeling of a type of energy i just concentrate on that and superimpose it as the energy of the source of the energy for the inner smile and i then feel the effects of that energy. However things have momentum, and the new energy type doesn’t take hold throughout the day until the momentum builds up over time. To relax and mellow i find reducing breathing, a bit like as in the butyoko technique helps while doing the inner smile. To energize, i don’t need any help, that comes easily and naturally. There are pretty much unlimited types of energy, and i feel new ones all the time, especially from massage workers. However i have a couple of mellow and a couple of energetic energies i like and usually use the same ones.

The energy does build up for me without doubt. If i don’t want the energy to build up, i need to first make sure a pathway is clear for the energy down to the ground then let the energy from the inner smile go down and out of my feet (it could probably come out anywhere but i usually let it go out of my feet), while at the same time using the energy from the inner smile to effect the particular organ / bodypart i am concentrating on, on it’s way through it’s circuit. I find arms / legs, shoulders, hips and the whole of the neck is important to also have the smiling energy take effect on.

Also since the inner smile is usually done in a downward direction, it helps in clearing the channels for the downward direction of energy, especially i find it widens the channel for the mco. As to MCO well i think belt channels are equally as important, since they distribute the energy in a more balanced way than MCO in my opinion. My MCO can be wide open but other blockages cause problems, especially a spleen weakness which i can feel also in stomach and gall bladder meridians on my left side easily. Belt channel, especially around the waist helps fix this. Spending too much time on my phone or PC strongly aggrivates it.

Like how you said you feel like the inner smile breaks blockages, into unconditional love, which i’m guessing is like wu wei? For me wu wei feels like doing push hands with you’re life, your thoughts and with the energy. Thats the easiest way for me to bring about that type of wu wei state, imagine that push hands harmony feeling of going with the flow. Now when i do this i feel like i’m resting on life, much like heavy hands rest on the opponents wrists, when i do this i don’t feel energy effecting me, but i feel relaxed because like you say i am not resisting and letting go. I don’t spend a great deal of time doing this, nice as it is i don’t have the patients, nor do i have the urge to develop the patients. The best thing i do like about wu wei is the surprises of life. Things come along and surprise me because i’m not choosing a direction in life, rather being constantly surprised with what comes my way. I do like that. Also i like gathering wisdom from wider awareness that comes to me when i have high energy while in wu wei, and realising connections between things, however this too can become too stimulating and make it hard to sleep.

In your version, are you actually smiling? If you are smiling then is that wu wei? Isn’t that directing and leading the meditation rather than reacting to the surrounding environment? When i am trying to be in a state of wu wei i don’t smile, i just do what comes naturally, often it’s not a smile. In the audio mp3 i have of Mantak Chia discussing the inner smile, he says we have the power of choice, we can use the good smiling energy to heal ourselves. Now i feel that is true but there is much more to it than aim and smile.

I haven’t spent much time concentrating energy into different charkaras, but from what i have read from others it seems like a recipe for disaster, however i have dabbled a bit unsuccessfully at energising the door of life. I should pick up again and try a bit more to see if that can quickly bring be down to a mellow relaxed state, in other things i’ve read it could be used for that. Also i definately have weakness in my left kidney so i’m sure it would help with that. Putting a spa jet on the kidney area relaxes me massively i think… or maybe it was just the spa in general, i run the jet in different areas.

I’m currently studying Bowen Therapy, it’s great. It’s great to feel what is happening real time with my qigong bodily/energy awareness, and becomes a quick and powerful way to alter the body. I’ve always found physical things very good and powerful, like exercising muscle/tendon meridians. I’m always searching for other new ways of understanding the body and energetics, and other’s interpretations of it so that i can better understand myself as well as to better understand any disease and the best way to apply Bowen to assist others in their discomforts.

Steven, do you have a paypal account? I can send you some lunch money through that?

>>>In my opinion: if there is a God, or higher consciousness, or what-have-you, I >>>don’t think it wants you to be so helpless that it has to look after you all the >>>time. That you can basically do nothing for yourself. I don’t think it wants you to >>>be a baby. Instead, I think it wants you to have a mature adult perspective with >>>true wisdom, while maintaining the flexibility, openness, and joyful curiosity that >>>children have.

In my opinion i don’t care what i should do, only what i want to do, taking in god, my own thoughts, and everything all together. I think each person should look to themselves for answers of what they should do because there is nobody with a deeper understanding of what they want.

Usually i drive the school bus, and do school charters so there are teachers on board to look after the kids, so it’s pretty good. Sometimes on school holidays i do the normal route service but i’ve been lucky, not too many problems. I wouldn’t want to do it all the time though. And now i usually take all the holidays off. Life is for living not working :). My wife wants to work so i let her go nuts on the holidays and i look after the kiddys. Works out well.

Simply doing “what you want” is not always supported by the lifeforce. The ego would like to think that it is the one in charge, but sadly it is not, and it never was.

How do i find your email address? 😛

Cool all done. Aussie dollar is a bit weak but should get you something better than sandwiches 😛 My PayPal name is apparel.

The posture should teach you. That is the purpose of ZZ.

It is not that you do something like a robot in order to get “some result”. That is very bad. Because then you learn to be a robot.

In ZZ the energy itself should guide you … the entire purpose of ZZ is to become the energy – meaning that you become the energy and you have access to the intelligence within the energy and understand what to do … in face the energy does it already, you just have to stop blocking everything.

Any teaching / guidance / technique is just a beginning.

Same like meditation.

If you do a technique in meditation you just train yourself to be a robot. And this is not the purpose.

If you cannot feel what the energy is telling you … it is because you are already a robot and are insensitive to yourself.

But the answer is not to become a robot even more !!!