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January 9, 2006
Qigong: Internal Versus External Freedom
As a highly opinionated and uppity student at Cambridge University back in the day, I attended a talk by two Buddhist monks. One monk made the point that when you achieve a level of inner peace, you achieve a type of freedom that no one can take away from you. You could be sitting in a jail cell, but internally you are “free”.
I exploded back in an obtuse way that as good as that might sound, you will still be in prison, damn it, or words to that effect. The monk smiled at me benignly and replied with great grace: “It is good to question your teachers.”
Now, after thirty years of qigong, I have really learned to appreciate that I have something internal that no one can take from me. I have ways to relax into tranquility and well being, whatever has been “taken away” from me in my external environment.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in fighting every day for the preservation and advancement of freedom. In fact I was forcefully reminded of this just yesterday, reading an article on the history of marriage in a local mag called The Rake.
The author, Jeannine Ouellette, references the 1958 arrest and subsequent conviction with a one year suspended sentence of a couple in Virginia. Their crime? Marrying each other. Why was this a crime? One was “black”, the other was “white”. The author points out that over forty states in the US at that time had laws against miscegenation. To quote one US congressmen: “Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit… It is subversive to social peace.”
It got me to thinking…. Amongst other things it made me wonder, from a Yin-Yang interplay perspective, how “black” you have to be to be considered “black”…if one out of four, one out of eight, one out of sixteen of your grandparents was “black”, did that make you “black” and therefore vulnerable to a five year prison sentence if you married a “white”?
The dysfunctional convolutions of the historical human mind are truly a wonder to behold…
So even in a country that prides itself on its democratic traditions, freedom has often been a relative term. Freedom for whom, to do what?
I like to think that the cultivation of our inner freedom, through practices like qigong, has an impact on our willingness to fight with that much more vigor for the external freedoms of others.
The individual who is “chained” internally is the individual most likely to seek the enchainment of others externally.
Practice qigong to liberate yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And hopefully you will inspire the same in others.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at January 9, 2006 6:50 AM
Comments
Dr Taylor says: I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be.
Posted by: Pierre at June 25, 2008 9:23 PM