Kevin Grey quizzed me further about chi kung yesterday (he's studying it as part of a course in TCM). This is my reply, for what it's worth. Like he said in his response to me: "Can't say I fully understand everything you say, but the challenging stuff is part of the attraction." I'm pleased to find a fellow soul who values challenge above understanding.
As you've picked up I have little sympathy for Chi Kung. I also have little sympathy for Tai Chi, the way it is generally taught and presented anyway. You only need to plug Tai Chi into Google Images and see all the shite out there to realise it doesn't amount to much. I sincerely and strongly believe they miss the point. The point is to forget self and become one with the Tao: to become a person better able to connect with other energies. To become a better person. Our researches have revealed, firstly, that connecting energy comes from the heart - or rather, is heart. It is not chi. Chi can connect but only by invading (making an effort), not by becoming - it isn't naturally connected or connecting. (This is why we value softness so highly.) Secondly the only rule is to always go forwards. The feast is forwards as JK so beautifully put it. All those Chinese terms like adhering, sticking, joining, are there to confuse the issue. The fact is that there is you and there is the other and you either get it right or you don't. Getting it right does not depend on technique, it depends on heart. A complete beginner can do it immediately if they are encouraged to do so. Years of Tai Chi or Chi Kung or any other training often simply gets in the way. Worse than a beginner. This is what I mean by spirit cutting thru everything: when the spirit is up you can achieve miracles.
The Chinese and Western approaches are very similar: thru concerted effort and study to develop and accumulate in the hope that it will all lead to a place of enlightenment and natural connexion. Unfortunately this rarely happens. John says he's met so many martial artists who have spent their life accumulating strength and energy only to eventually realise that it is all in fact a hindrance to real progress which is always spiritual. Think of Dr Chi who gave up Tai Chi as a bad job and devoted his day and energy to Jesus. Jesus had saved his life, had given him life, once the Tai Chi had brought him to the brink of death. He later revived it all but only to earn a living.
Stuff like Chi Kung or Tai Chi, which involve daily repetition of the same thing, is inevitably going to create a shell around you. The name of our game is an almost unbearable rawness that comes from daily entering an unfolding and enheartening process that John calls the natural process. At present John is dragging Charles permanently into this world of rawness, where his only true response is to weep, it is that unbearable. But like he says afterwards, never has he felt so alive and so connected.
I don't suppose any of this helps. My advice would be to do what you do, develop a deep suspicion of intellectual structures (which is what the 5 element theory is), all created to protect from reality rather join with it, and trust your own good energy and instincts.
As you've picked up I have little sympathy for Chi Kung. I also have little sympathy for Tai Chi, the way it is generally taught and presented anyway. You only need to plug Tai Chi into Google Images and see all the shite out there to realise it doesn't amount to much. I sincerely and strongly believe they miss the point. The point is to forget self and become one with the Tao: to become a person better able to connect with other energies. To become a better person. Our researches have revealed, firstly, that connecting energy comes from the heart - or rather, is heart. It is not chi. Chi can connect but only by invading (making an effort), not by becoming - it isn't naturally connected or connecting. (This is why we value softness so highly.) Secondly the only rule is to always go forwards. The feast is forwards as JK so beautifully put it. All those Chinese terms like adhering, sticking, joining, are there to confuse the issue. The fact is that there is you and there is the other and you either get it right or you don't. Getting it right does not depend on technique, it depends on heart. A complete beginner can do it immediately if they are encouraged to do so. Years of Tai Chi or Chi Kung or any other training often simply gets in the way. Worse than a beginner. This is what I mean by spirit cutting thru everything: when the spirit is up you can achieve miracles.
The Chinese and Western approaches are very similar: thru concerted effort and study to develop and accumulate in the hope that it will all lead to a place of enlightenment and natural connexion. Unfortunately this rarely happens. John says he's met so many martial artists who have spent their life accumulating strength and energy only to eventually realise that it is all in fact a hindrance to real progress which is always spiritual. Think of Dr Chi who gave up Tai Chi as a bad job and devoted his day and energy to Jesus. Jesus had saved his life, had given him life, once the Tai Chi had brought him to the brink of death. He later revived it all but only to earn a living.
Stuff like Chi Kung or Tai Chi, which involve daily repetition of the same thing, is inevitably going to create a shell around you. The name of our game is an almost unbearable rawness that comes from daily entering an unfolding and enheartening process that John calls the natural process. At present John is dragging Charles permanently into this world of rawness, where his only true response is to weep, it is that unbearable. But like he says afterwards, never has he felt so alive and so connected.
I don't suppose any of this helps. My advice would be to do what you do, develop a deep suspicion of intellectual structures (which is what the 5 element theory is), all created to protect from reality rather join with it, and trust your own good energy and instincts.
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