Qigong is my life-long practice. For me, qigong is about awakening my Primordial Body, the part of our body that resonates with the larger circle of life on Planet Earth. With a vital Primordial Body, I am able to navigate through life with a potent guttural instinct.
Growing up, I was a very sickly child, going in and out of hospital constantly. When I was 15, my dad took me to learn qigong in a park in Shanghai. My teacher taught me for free. After three months, I regained vitality and confidence in my body’s self-healing ability. Since then, I have kept a sense of autonomy of my wellbeing. I rarely seek conventional medical help, keeping myself healthy and strong with a regimen centered around holistic medicine.
Qigong connects me to my Primordial Body, the part of my body that can recharge herself by “plugging” into the pool of vitality held by the larger circle of life on Earth. When I am in my Primordial Body, I experience myself being held and nurtured like an infant in the womb of Mother Earth.
In the last decade, as the research about microbiome exploded, modern medicine just began to recognize the importance of the Primordial Body. The fact that 50% to 90% of our cell population are actually microbial organisms, the primordial life forms, is profoundly shifting how we think about body and health.
However, the very foundation of modern society is built on blocking the awareness of Primordial Body, which reflected in terrible conditions of our gut health. Not only to our health, this blockage of Primordial Body has even more damaging effect to our social life. We identify our body as human-centric, confined to the skin or personal identity. Therefore, we are easily subject to divisions created by opinions and beliefs about things such as vaccine, identity and politics. When we are unable to extend compassion to “the other”, we become further weakened. By our own doing, we are now facing a grim future of our existence as a species on the planet.
When we are separated from the Womb of the Mother Earth, we experience a painful void in ourselves. Because our parents often carry the imprints of that painful void, our own pain can start from infancy. The void compels us to seek attention, compete, succeed, control, strike, and fill our time with sensory-numbing media. We don’t trust that our being itself is abundant, beautiful and precious. We have to do, make, build, acquire, always on the go-go-go.
In the long run, our vital energy is depleted, just like a car running out of gas or electricity. In our dis-ease, we turn to conventional medical establishment. However conventional medicine primarily focuses on chemical and surgical treatment of disease symptoms but understands very little about how to nourish and recharge the body with the larger circle of life of the Planet Earth.
Like many of us, I do choose to connect with the world as it is, because I am bonded with other human beings who are embedded in the culture. My work requires me to interact with larger cultural forces that often deplete me. As a result, I feel this painful void in me as well. I respect this painful void as it teaches me how to be compassionate with others around me.
Through daily qigong, I find my way back to my Primordial Body and recharge myself in the womb of Mother Earth. When I do that, I hear Mother Earth say, “Go out to the world and offer your presence to whatever situation is calling you. Trust that your presence, your being and whatever effortless action you take is enough and well thanked. And, you are always welcome to come back to me for a recharge.”
This is the essence of Dancing Dao offer practice that I offer. If you also choose to love the human world, despite all its imperfection, ugliness and violence, if you choose to offer the gift of your presence to the world, if you are curious about how to conduct yourself with effortless action, I invite you to join me in Dancing Dao. Together we support each other to recharge ourselves with our collective Primordial Body! (To read more about effortless action, or micro-action, or Wu Wei, please read my previous article here.)