Level 3 – Wu Yuan Zhuang
Wu Yuan Zhuang is all about the Qi of the internal Zhang organs (heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys). Each of these organs harbour an array of emotions. These all have a yin and yang side to them. They may seem opposed at first glance, but in reality they complement each other.
For instance the liver harbours anger but also respect, kindness (and humour). Anger has an important use; it makes sure you set boundaries. Without anger one becomes the proverdial doormat. Too much anger will make people avoid you or suck up on you. Not good. So we need to find a good balance between the two. If you use anger in a healthy way you express it immidiatly, don’t let it stagnate! You will find the person that angered you will (most of the time) respect you for it. If you bottle up anger the Qi of the liver will stagate and anger will turn to wrath and even hate.
Now the Qi of the heart is very special indeed. It off course harbours love – the most important human emotion – and the most important in practicing Qigong – You need love for everything and most important: you need to love yourself. To be able to observe yourself without judgement. The Qi of the heart also harbours a keen sense of curiosity. We use that in observing our body, mind and emotions. The heart remembers; it’s able to hide all trauma until comes a time you are in a position to let go. Practicing Qigong will get you into such a state.
The mystery of good tension
When I first started practicing Qigong, I was still working as a manager in music and I wondered how it was possible that my heart rhythm disorder would disappear for days or even weeks whenever I went on tour with a band. It seemed that the tension – exitement and stress – of touring made me more or less forget the disorder. This made me wonder if there was such a thing as ‘a good kind of stress.’
During the tour I didn’t have any problems, not even at times when there were conflicts, with border guards, venue owners or within or among the band(s).
After such a tour always came a moment when I was sitting at home and realized that I hadn’t felt any accelerated heart rhythms for weeks. I was happy and almost euphoric about that. Only to feel lightning strike again a few days later at an unguarded moment, after which yet another malfunction struck.
What exactly happens when an arrhythmia occurs?
After a few months of practicing Qigong, I was able to feel my heart disorders coming from a distance. At the time, I described it as a dark cloud that came out of nowhere. A deep negative form of energy that I could not quite phantom nor find it’s origin. It did not seem like fear, it was more like anger; a very nasty backlash, a feeling of ‘what on earth has been done to me’?
Only now, with the practice of level 3, it is becoming increasingly clear.
The open heart surchery at the age of 14, changed me emotionally and mentally, more than I realized before. I had learned to live with a heart that had to work 3 times as hard to maintain the blood circulation. My body and mind had adjusted to the heart defect. I lived more in my head than in my body. I was physically thin and weak, but had an enormous imagination, an intuition that worked exceptionally well and a great creative ability.
After the operation, my body became more active and I became physically much stronger. But at the same time, the power of my mind weakened considerably. It was as if I had lost contact with my heart. It pumped fine, but in retrospect I think that the neurons in my heart were damaged by the operation. It felt as if I had lost my intuition and suddenly went through life as a half-blind man.
All kinds of emotions, especially negative ones, that I, when I still felt small and weak, I hardly dared to express for fear of retaliation, now bubbled up like a volcano. It was not for nothing that I was attracted to a phenomenon like punk-rock.
Now, it was really not the case that I completely derailed. The last thing I wanted was to turn into a bully. I maintained strong morals. I never got my revenge on friends or in relationships with women. (I hate you know; a lot! But I hate with style and creativity” Henry Rollins). But man, was I angry.
That helpless anger came back years later after a long period with three very stressful jobs in which I had to deal with managers, civil servants and politics. In addition, working in music involved very irregular working hours and tons of stress. I lost myself in my work but a few years later my GP diagnosed a resting heart rate of 185 BPM per minute.
Ten years later I came into contact with André de Fretes and he introduced me to Qigong. Qigong had what I was missing practicing Shaolin Kempo. The spiritual, the self-reflection, the looking inward.
Contact the heart
Practicing level 3 made me feel a direct contact with my heart and gave me the solution to the riddle of why the arrhythmia disappeared as soon as I went on tour. And in retrospect it was (again!) very simple.
Of course it starts with the focus. During a tour I simply had little or no time to think about my disorder and I could easily put those thoughts aside because my attention was always drawn to the here and now. Something that seems much more difficult in a (safe) home setting.
By practicing level 3 it really dawned on me that the organs together also form a holistic whole and support each other by sharing their Qi via Hun Yuan Palace. (area where the Qi of the organs comes together – formless center with a location approximately behind the stomach)
By contacting my organs I became increasingly aware of how the kidneys supported my heart through the alertness and focus from the kidney Qi. That was wonderful, but there was more to it. Because fear never took over, even though the situation during a tour was quite tense and there was a lot of room for potential stress in conflicts.
The Qi of the spleen gave me the confidence I needed. I had already toured many times and although there is of course a difference between a Russian customs officer with a Kalashnikov in his hand and a Dutch military policeman, you ultimately have to get past such a person and a person is a person. When things get really difficult, the liver comes along with some appropriate anger and takes care of guarding your own border. After that, you and the customs officer find respect for each other. He has an unenviable shitty job and you are a poor struggling artist.
That sense of support and balance is beautiful but it didn’t stop the disorder from hitting again after the tour. But that was then.
Trust
My trust in the method continued to grow from level 1 to level 2 and now takes me even deeper, to transformation.
It also happened to me in this phase: information that comes to you at exactly the right time via teachers, books, films or directly from the Qi field. It is amazing how one seems to attract the right information.
I read in ‘the spark in the machine -How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine’ – by Dr Daniel Keown (recommended!) about how the heart is protected by 3 layers of connective tissue and that an arrhythmia from the perspective of acupuncture is caused by the Qi flowing in the wrong direction. At one point I indeed felt Qi turning against the flow.
Then I noticed that during the turning of the heart mudra on Shan Zhong I kept turning the wrong way the first round. That apparently felt more natural, but now that I became aware that a Qi flow can flow in the wrong direction, so it can turn against traffic, I started turning more consciously. First left, up, right and down and the next 3 rounds in the opposite direction and I felt that I could reverse the qi flow in my heart. That also had an effect on the emotion that I felt with it. It felt authentic and no longer forced.
I felt a renewed connection with my heart. A direct connection. Because despite all the knowledge I gathered about my condition, this turned out to be a crucial missing piece. Level 1 taught me to look inside, but level 3 taught me to look at my heart without fear and especially without judgment
Level 2 taught me to recognize what a strong heart I have and to trust that strength. But level 3 brought me softness, connection and acceptance. In addition, an even greater trust in my intuition; literally in what my heart tells me, tells me.
I have (re)learned to love my heart
Every now and then lightning strikes my heart. For example, if I am busy for too long and forget to eat on time, my heart starts doing strange somersaults after eating. That is no longer something to worry about and it passes by itself, usually within an hour.
The dark clouds of angry emotions are pulled apart before they reach their destination. That happens without having to use willpower. I only have to be aware that they are there and let them be what they are. They lose their power at the same moment.
The connection of the organs
From my experiences with the heart Qi it was easy to embrace the other organs and their associated emotions as well.
The fear in the kidneys had been transforming for a long time. Actually from the moment I started practicing level 1 seriously. One of the first effects I experienced from Chi Neng was the fading away of fear, which made the arrhythmia much more bearable.
A disorder no longer triggered a huge rush of adrenaline and that makes a big difference. After that a healthy alertness was added to the emotion. That manifested itself in daring to feel more and more what is happening in my body and mind and makes the 3 centres merge wonderful to do.
The kidney energy also has an effect on my deafness. It is noticeably less. Not only do I suffer less from tinnitus, but I am also much more alert and less afraid of missing something that others say. The ears are strongly connected to the kidneys…
Gaining the trust of the spleen was also an important step. Pondering and worrying? Pff: that was almost second nature for me. But gaining the calmness to trust that ‘everything you worry about later seems small and insignificant’. That is a key to inner peace. Let it go and a feeling becomes ‘just’ a feeling.
Letting anger flow away using sarcasm may take the sting out of anger – it works for me like it works in stand up comedy! – (sarcasm; because beating the crap out of people is illegal). The liver has humor, black humor, but it is good to laugh. I embrace my twists in that respect.
Working with emotions that are in the foreground of your own personality is easy. Coming into contact with emotions that hide deep inside yourself is a lot harder. I know sadness all too well, but I was convinced that feeling compassion would be complicated for me.
Sadness and compassion belong to the Qi of the lungs – courage does too; a lust for life! –
The lung chants gave me a push in the right direction. The sob after the second tone and the vibration of the last tone released something very soft in me.
Music always helps;mankind invented music to express emotions. You can’t be listening to Joy Division without feeling compassion for the singer. Joy Division – New Dawn Fades
I realized that I had never felt much compassion for myself. Sadness was allowed but I absolutely did not want to indulge in self-pity. But compassion is not the same as pity, even if you project it onto yourself. The emotion was released softly and in a controlled manner and therefore it was not a reason to be afraid of it. It was beautiful to allow yourself to be filled without being crushed under it. To let tears flow without falling into a hysterical fit of crying, to experience the beauty of sadness and compassion in a controlled manner.
The movements
Opening the human gateways. Opening Lao Gong was quite painful at first, but using the experience with the claw hands of level 2 it was not difficult to switch to soft force. The tunnel through the arms is now clearly felt.
Tianmen shifted during the gong, but eventually returned to its original place, although the bump I used as a reference point at the beginning has disappeared. The pulsating feeling of the opening remains noticeable for a long time.
Opening the pores in front and behind was difficult, but there is improvement.
The Qi ball sensation during open close and massage of the Qi ball is great. It’s effortless. I immediately feel a Qi ball when I bring my hands together. And I feel it for every pressure point and gateway: Hun yuan palace, the lower dantian or one of the points we go through in the closing of level 2.
Maintaining the midline in the standing crane, so placing the upward-facing arm in front of the face and not in front of the shoulder is crucial to being able to perform the push pull and cranes neck. The turn feet of level 2 also become much easier because of this. Keeping the push pull small was a very valuable instruction.
Closing the heart mudra properly at the heel of the hands remains difficult, but there is also progress here.
Descending from Danzhong to the navel and going from fire to water becomes very easy if you visualize that after a long sauna you step into an ice-cold bath with water that reaches your waist. Alertness comes in at the same instant.
The shiver up the spine during the kidney chant is an awesome sensation.
I had a lot of trouble with my kidneys during spleen exercise when I was bent forward. Stretching the body slightly forward with attention during yu-teng and consciously relaxing the organs in the abdomen helped a lot with this. The chant works much better when I am bent over than when I chant upright.
Making the connection with shangxing and the liver took some time but now it is also very nice and easy. The connection is one with the movement inwards via the index finger.
The lung chant temporarily brought up a burning sensation in the trachea, known from my old bronchitis complaints. The indication that my lungs still had to let go of old information was valuable. I no longer suffer from it.
I perform the chants with a completely relaxed straight trachea, which allows the vibration to move further and further through the body. I only form the tones with my mouth. The open, close and connection with the universe via the sounds work much better with good visualization but I also feel it better and better without it.
