John Du Cane's Weekly Qigong Tip for Health and Well Being

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May 23, 2006

"Life is short - stay away from it" -- tales from the qigong crypt

Okay, I admit it. I'm addicted to the sweet slam of a black, double espresso, once or twice a day.

No doubt, when I'm eighty-five, my kidney/adrenal system is going to rear up and bite me back for all the abuse. And perhaps my liver will join in with some choice name-calling and blaming.

Meanwhile, I’ll go on living out my contradiction and go on gulping down these daily hits of espresso.

One of my favorite local coffee shops in Minnesota is Caribou.

Caribou has a great slogan: “Life is short. Stay awake for it.”

One day, while I was waiting in line for my daily fix, an overweight, overwrought and apparently rather whacked-out lady in front of me misread the slogan.

In a loud and slightly crazed and certainly bemused tone, she exclaimed:

“Life is short – stay away from it! Huh!”

No one kindly corrected her on her misreading of the slogan, and she was abandoned to shuffle off, pondering the deeper meaning of this warning from the Coffee Gods.

Once I had choked down my own chuckles and my latest double espresso, I was struck by how rich in meaning both statements are, from the perspective of my qigong training.

A lot of this has to do with the distinction between vertical and horizontal time…

In spiritual traditions, enlightenment or the “eternal life”, or immortality, is associated with a vertical time sense. Linear, or horizontal time, with its progression from past to future, dissolves into the eternal moment of the present, the now.

One interpretation of the Christian cross explains it as a representation of these two dimensions of time, the horizontal, associated with our normal consciousness and the vertical, associated with divine consciousness.

After thirty or so years of qigong practice, I can say that qigong has dramatically helped me to shift more into the experience of vertical time.

Longevity, from a qigong-spiritual perspective, is only very superficially associated with a longer lifespan. Qigong longevity has to do with going deep in the moment—the eternal moment—enriching the present.

Our preoccupied mind lives in horizontal time and fears vertical time.

Qigong practice helps to quiet the mind and bring us into the realm of deeply felt experience that is vertical time.

Yes, life is short—when we spend most of it either living in regret about the past or in worry about the future.

And yes, it’s best to stay away from that kind of “short life”…

And yes, the activity of awakening, the process of awareness, will lengthen that “short life” by deepening your engagement with life…

How richly are YOU engaged in your life?

I recommend qigong as a wonderful method to deepen and strengthen that engagement.

And thank you whacked-out lady, wherever you are… here’s hoping you are having a great day, or should I say, moment…

See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.

Posted by james at May 23, 2006 4:48 AM

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