N.B. For readers who do not practice Qigong yet: Three centres merge, Centres Merge (San Xing Ping) Zhang Zhuan, the standing meditation; it all means the same thing!
400 to 500 hours from 20 January to 7 May 2025
After reaching the milestone of 400 hours, I started the new stage with an hour of Centres Merge per day. That extra quarter of an hour was physically very demanding, so I decided to alternate the length of the exercise every other day. So I stood for an hour 3 days a week and 4 days for 45 minutes. After three weeks I managed to stand for an hour 2 days in a row and from 1 March 2025 I started doing the centres merge for an hour every day.
I skipped the exercise for three days during this period. Twice because I was too tired and once (28 March) because I took an exam for the healing coach course that day. After 28 March I have not missed a day.
Before you know it, you’re already halfway through your super gong…
Strong body, absence of emotions, mind observing
The Qigong state you want to achieve with Zhang Zhuan is that of a strong body, complete emotional calm and a mind that is completely silent. There’s no way that the latter will ever work for the entire hour, but that’s okay; it’s part of the exercise. You only achieve complete silence after you’ve taught your mind only to observe what’s happening in your body. Start by observing your breath; that’s the easiest thing. Eventually you can get past that and your breathing will also become increasingly silent. Almost imperceptibly and you observe the Qi flow, your blood circulation, your organs… (I only manage the latter very sporadically, mind you!)
Emotions – the willpower from your kidneys, the childlike curiosity of your heart, the respect for the exercise from the liver, the courage to live from the lungs and the trust from the spleen – these emotions, not tangible, present far in the background…
Your body will still be able to make a correction every now and then. Your mind observes it and allows it without judging! Your body knows best how to adapt to this heavy training. It is one of the most beautiful discoveries that Zhang Zhuan gives you; that you can and may switch off control. You could also say that you switch off the ego.
For example, I once saw, full of amazement, that my body automatically stretched during the exercise; had slipped out of control for a moment. Like: sorry, I had to do this. After that the flow was noticeably better, so let’s go… I had to try hard not to burst out laughing when that happened.
Using Distracting thoughts to your benefit
When you, as a practitioner of Zhang Zhuan, take on distracting thoughts, you will undoubtedly lose time and time again. The trick is to let them be what they are, without judgement – so don’t blame yourself for the distracting thoughts that come along and accept them – without letting your monkee mind drag you down the tree. Thoughts pass by like clouds in the sky; you see them pass by, they are there but you don’t follow them.
It struck me that the thoughts that pass by are often a kind of loop. Loop in English! A thought is the kind that keeps coming back, a circle of thoughts that keeps pushing and repeating itself. There comes a moment when you realise that it seems as if you are seeing the same films over and over again. Then you get the feeling that you have seen and thought this often enough and suddenly letting go is very easy.
However, there is also an unexpected advantage to distracting thoughts! Your mind is carried away for a short time and during that time it seems as if your body, due to the lack of control from your mind, almost automatically knows how to adopt a perfect, completely relaxed position. Count your blessings. It seems that you can use distracting thoughts as an asset when you just can’t seem to relax completely. – What I also noticed is that this only happens when the thought seems interesting and new; literally captivating. But it may well be that this is purely personal and does not work that way for others. For the reader, the same applies here: find your own way! – I am now quite happy with my mind. It is a beautiful mind. Sometimes it is heavy to carry, but a lot of beautiful things come out of it.
Back to square one
Around the 850th day of the gong with 460 hours on the counter, I had the idea that the training had reached a kind of full circle. I had been struggling with my mind for quite some time. I was fed up with the fact that it would not be quiet and tried to use the ‘plug’ that Arianne had turned us around to use. Unfortunately, that was too forced and had the opposite effect at the moment. A period of much doubt followed that affected my daily life. No fun at all. It felt like I had lost all grip on my life for a while. The growth of my practice was in the doldrums, my house felt like it was about to collapse, malaise all around.
Breakthrough
But at the same time, in the background, the idea played that this was also a phase that I had to go through. Under the influence of the training as a healing coach, I now really started to tidy up. The phase of understanding had been completed, and now it really had to be tidy up. I had let so much lie, stayed in my comfort zone so often for fear of disappointment or loss. Done with the conscious search for isolation, loneliness, retreating into yourself, rejecting everything that is nice about life. Bah, I am done with it, with this uncertainty! Gua Sha! Done with effacing myself. It has to stop with retreating, letting others go first. I know that I am capable of a lot; time to just start doing that instead of just thinking about it. Time for a much more positive image of myself about myself.
So I got to work. Applying Feng Shui in my house. Teaching with a new élan. Observing my students better; really seeing them. I persevered. I started with the gardens in front and back and it was also time for the big spring cleaning. Now everything is tidy and I feel strong.
All this happened in the last 4 weeks of this stage and I was spontaneously rewarded. My time perception changed! I had the feeling that I had not even been working on the exercise for 20 minutes when the kitchen timer that I use to warn me that the hour is up already went off. I looked up at the clock in dismay, but an hour had indeed passed.
From that day on, this happened more and more often and I came to the insight that I can learn to turn this perception of time around; that instead of one hour, I perform the exercise for a day, a week or a month. That I literally end up in a sea of time in which you will find all the space to let happen what you want to happen, what has to happen. That same day, I see a video by Michael Harner in which he describes such a perception of time: We will see…
Finally, a nice gift that a three centres merge supergong gives you; compared to standing for an hour every day, all other Chi Neng Qigong exercises are a breeze to perform. Both in terms of physical exertion/relaxation, keeping emotions under control and the mindful, and fully focused, mental state. And that ensures that you perform exercises with even more pleasure and that each other exercise gets an extra depth. Because it is important not to focus exclusively on the centres merge. In addition to the standing meditation, I do parts of the Body & Mind method daily and do the entire set of level 2 exercises 3 or 4 times a week. Wonderful!
I am glad that I still have 500 hours of 3 centres merge ahead of me.