Energy
Today's question I got in a email:
I have a question about the energy generated from Taoist practices:
I'm a little reluctant about generating so much energy and what is considered dangerous.
Energy is such a confusing term, and used in so many ways. So lets back up and understand what is energy and the different ways we use it in Taoism.
First: Lets look at our nature :
We are physical: matter:
On the surface level people understand mass / matter of their physical form.
We are also energy: We literally are fire:
The body is the furnace, the fuel we burn is food: we are literally a living fire.
We are a process of reaction:
We breathe, to bring in oxygen to oxidize and stoke the fire.
So our very nature is a Yin / Yang mixture of Matter / Energy
Taoism practice considers the three aspects of this situation
Taoists take care of the body: the furnace to keep it clean and promote a even burn. If you burn too hot, you harm the furnace. Funny thing is Taoists, at times, are known to lessen our fire (our burn rate) on purpose to lengthen life and explore spiritual practices. Science has caught up to some degree and has shown how eating less can lengthen the life span. But this process of controlling the rate of burn within life, leads to many interesting Taoist practices. So this is one area of energy work in Taoist practice
Taoists take care in the food we eat. The quality of the fuel we burn makes a difference for both keeping our physical self in shape and access to cleaner energy to work with in our practices. This is very important for the more advance Taoist practices. However, eating well has an immediate impact of the quality of life even when not using it for purposes of focusing clarity into one's practices.
We take care in how we breathe. This is the key step, by controlling the breath, we control the very center of the process of generation of energy. The core of all energy practices are within the breath.
Qi-Gong practice often focuses on the breath and then upon shaping and keeping the body, the furnace, in optimal performance range. Much of the practice teaches a person how to reflect and keep track of their state of being to keep oneself in the form they desire for life.
Energy is a central aspect of our life. You cannot harm yourself if you practice energy work in a moderate rate, since energy is part of our very nature. You only harm yourself when pushing the limits. For going to the limit of any aspect of our life skews the balance of our nature. For instance eating only sugar: it burns too hot and corrupts the furnace (our body) by leaving its residue behind.
Now the original question touches many other aspects about energy I will have to also answer, but I will save that for a series of blog posts over the next week. However, it's important to understand : energy is a fundamental aspect of life. It isn't all crystal new age stuff. This is a fundamental part of our nature. To ignore the energy balance/aspects of one's life is to ignore half of our nature. This is why many in western culture are unbalanced in their life practice.
In this post I am describing energy using more western science aspects and terms on purpose since many of my readers are more based in the hard western style of facts. However, many other valid ways of understanding our energy and working with that energy exist. In fact western terminology and perception are pretty poor about working with energy since it approaches energy in terms of physical processes only. While Taoism understands energy from a physical aspect, it also works with energy on many other levels of practice and understanding.
more later
peace
all
