« The Five Essentials for Restoring, Maintaining and Generating Qi | Main | The Importance of Working with a Good Qigong Teacher »
October 17, 2005
The Ultimate Goal of Qigong
If you ask the average person what brought them to qigong, you'll most likely hear some combination of stress-release, better energy, enhanced flexibility, greater strength or the healing of disease. Martial artists will be looking for explosive power and resilience. Healers will practice qigong to boost their healing capabilities.
These days, with a significant portion of the population over the age of fifty, many are drawn to qigong for its contributions to anti-aging.
All of this is wonderful and my personal experience over thirty years has confirmed qigong’s ability to deliver on all these counts. However qigong has a greater promise, the promise of enlightenment.
And what is enlightenment? Qigong teachers point to a state that essentially defies verbal description: a merging with the Dao, a sense of union with universal energy, a dissolution of egoistic attachments, a state of deep, abiding peace and tranquility.
Sounds great, but sounds like a lot of work to attain. Well, yes and no—as most mystics will be quick to tell you.
Enlightenment is not something you can make happen. But you can engage in practices that will open you to the possibility of this its realization.
The barriers to enlightenment include mental preoccupations or busymindedness, emotional imbalance and physical disease.
Qigong practices ideally act to seduce us out of our preoccupations and allow us to enter a quiet, energy-based state of simple awareness.
Qigong practices help smooth out the rollercoaster of our emotional addictions to achieve a less needy, grasping state of being.
Qigong practices help cleanse us of the toxins and physical blocks that create a burdening, distracting pain for us.
The more we practice, the deeper our sense of presence and the more we can rest in a state of relaxed attentiveness.
This relaxed, attentive openness allows for the possibility of enlightenment to arise naturally.
Fortunately, whether or not we realize the qigong Holy Grail of enlightenment in this life, the practice of qigong makes that quest thoroughly enjoyable. Qigong takes great discipline to maintain, but the pleasurable rewards are there for the taking… practice qigong every day and it is almost impossible not to feel lighter, more energetic, more balanced and generally happier.
My personal final goal with qigong is definitely that of enlightenment. In the meantime I am enjoying its ancillary rewards: enduring vitality and well being.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at October 17, 2005 6:31 AM
Comments
I've been reading The Code of Life that I got from Dragon Door, and was interested in John's view of reverse breathing as described in the book.
Thanks.
Posted by: Bob at October 19, 2005 10:20 AM