Here is a great ~ very simple & powerful ~ Taoist meditation practice, which can be accomplished possibly exterior (in a gorgeous pure setting is greatest!), or indoors. It really is very similar in a lot of strategies to Buddhist Shamata sitting down meditation exercise, but ~ and as a result the identify! ~ you’re standing. (So, for one, it’s a lot less probably that you can expect to slide asleep … J)
Start off by standing with your feet parallel and about shoulder-width aside. Get a pair of deep extensive breaths, stating “aaah” (possibly out loud or to by yourself) with the exhales. Permit go of any stress you locate in your shoulders, neck or encounter ~ basically permit it “melt” absent, with the exhale … as although that rigidity were being a frozen river, becoming touched now by a warm sunlight, and flowing downward, like the mild cascade of a waterfall, forming pools at your ft. Really feel your electricity, your consciousness, settling into your toes & legs & hips & tummy, connecting you strongly to the earth. Bend your knees just a little bit ~ just enough to feel a softness at the backs of your knees.
Let your arms cling down upcoming to your sides, so that your thumbs are gently touching your outer thighs (which means the backs of your hands will be experiencing forward). Separate and lengthen your fingers downward, so that they’re straight without having being rigid, and so you can find house involving every pair of fingers (as nevertheless you experienced webbed fingers). Now, float your fingers straight forward, three or four inches, so they are hovering now just in front of (but continue to to the sides) of your thighs. This need to generate a experience of hollowness in your armpits. Permit your elbows be bent just adequate to build a feeling of softness in them.
Now choose a gazing issue, 8 or ten feet in entrance of you. Relaxation your eyes extremely softly on that place (or spot). (The meditation Masters of the earlier have identified that there is a relationship amongst the movement of our eyes, and the movement of ideas in our brain … So making the eyes nevertheless is a great way to serene the intellect.) Check out to permit that location you are seeking at come into your eyes, as an alternative of achieving out (with the electrical power of your eyes) to “seize” it. In other text, enable your eyes grow to be receptive, alternatively of energetic … Take it easy your jaw, so that there’s room in between your upper & decreased tooth, even while your lips are gently closed.
So now that you are in the Qigong Standing Meditation position, stay in this article, for awhile. Once you have arranged oneself in this way, there is very little a lot to “do.” Simply just notice what is actually it is like currently being below, in this situation.
If you are new to the apply, keep the situation for a couple of minutes. You can make smaller changes to it, as this feels important for your comfort, but the idea is to do as small moving close to as attainable. After you have got the proper alignment of the pose, holding it in a pretty “motionless” way will assistance inner movements of qi/lifetime-drive which will be incredibly enjoyable, and therapeutic. As you keep on this apply ~ more than weeks or months or years ~ you are going to be able to keep the posture for for a longer period intervals of time (30 minutes, a hour). But in the commencing, a pair minutes is fantastic!