Practitioners of Oriental medicine do certainly benefit a lot from the regular activity of meditation, Tai Chi, or Chi Kung (Qigong). Any of these practices can beef up and increase the circulation of your life energy (chi) as well as give your body additional defense to ward off disease and pain. According to a lot of the masters of these healing arts, selecting an acupuncturist who has the ability and skill to extend chi through his hands and the needles is one of the most important considerations a person seeking Oriental medicine treatment can make. This ability amplifies both the patient’s diagnostic and healing responsiveness. The use of Tai Chi weapons in practice, particularly the Tai Chi Ruler on the sword form and other higher chi fostering techniques may augment the healing potential of chi of the acupuncturist as well as enhance his style of needle insertion. Unfortunately, there are very few who tread this path.
It was believed that about 8,000 years ago, the Nei Kung Chi Liao (NKCL) was rediscovered by the legendary creator of the 8 Trigrams/Ba Gua and Path of Nature-Way of Tao, Fu She. Many would argue that this predated acupuncture by over three millennia and was probably China’s first ever healing art form. It was only around 200 B.C., during the Han Dynasty did Taoism start to become an institutionalized religion established by Chang Tao-ling. This tradition was a tightly kept secret which rarely, if ever, was disseminated outside of family style traditions or Taoist monasteries. Over hundreds of years, this tradition was passed down through generations until it was learned by one of the eight immortals, Lu Tung Bin, around 800 A.D. during the Tang Dynasty. A legendary Chinese Chi Kung-Nei Chia master and healer, Lu Tung Bin is also considered to be a major contributor in the creation of Tai Chi Chuan. Being a widely known Tai Chi master in China, his teachings were integrated by the Yellow Dragon Monastery established over seven centuries before. He was the one who developed the Taoist Elixir Style which contains the NKCL and other various healing arts.
It has been well-known for millennia that Oriental Medicine has a lot of excellent health advantages that a person can enjoy. In the Eight Branches Style of Chinese Medicine, the practitioner and patient can derive certain amazing benefits.
1. The Taoist style of meditation is known to increase chi, which metaphorically is known as “the light”
2. The battery that creates chi is Chi Kung
3. The fuel that moves chi is the Tai Chi Chuan/Nei Chia
4. The lubricant is the reeling spiral activities of Chan Su Jin-silk
5. The light bulb that receives and uses chi for enlightenment is the shen (spirit/mind/heart).
While acupuncture activates the physical energies, the spirit and body are influenced by Tui Na, intellect is augmented by herbal medicine, and the heart shen is excited by touch. More often than not, these elements of the Eight System of the Healing Practices of Taoism overlap.
To allow yourself to easily experience spontaneity, you need to learn the self-cultivating arts of softness, looseness, and openness. Your body has the Shen, Chi, and Jing which play an indispensible role in your alchemical metamorphosis development and self cultivation. They are comparable to the wave, vapor-gas, and liquid states of matter and so are essential in the balancing, reinvigorating, and restoring of wellbeing and state of health of your body and mind. In other words, based on the quality and quantity of your vital bio-magneto-electrical energy (chi) that affects your states of consciousness and nervous system, your body and mind can either be in a state of imbalance or balance.
You can experience consistent changes in states of matter and energy from the base to more graduated levels when practicing Shen Kung practices especially when you are in the Alpha state. The term Tzu Ran is used by Taoists to describe a beautiful image reflecting the meditative state of self spontaneity. Instead of cracking your being or outer shell, soften it and by that you avoid pre-conditioning. Another term used by Taoists is Wu Wei that depicts a flexible body and mind, spontaneity in harmony with nature, and effortless movement that goes with the flow.
Some of the Taoist philosophies that reflect this idea are as follows:
• “The Tao is just nearby, but everyone looks far away.”
• “Work out things by yourself, and don’t depend on any kind of expert.”
• “The truth gets more and more distant of you look for it outside of yourself.”
You can start to experience an Alpha state of mind when you perform advanced chi cultivation techniques every day. It may be the first step of a greater balance in your body/ mind which leads to greater wisdom and knowledge. The advanced Taoist master believes that a person eventually starts to live more and more in Wu Wei and Tzu Ran until they eventually become an established way of life. Through practices like Shen Kung, all of these concepts, which are a part of the ancients’ natural life medicine, can be experienced first-hand.
Basically, chi kung has five major schools of thought: medical, martial arts, Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist. In the United States, spontaneous chi kung practices that have no set forms have become increasingly popular in recent years. Shen Kung, Nei Kung, Chi Kung, and Jing Kung are known as the four degrees of chi cultivation. The lying down, sitting, and standing positions carried out in both moving and stationary forms are the three styles of chi kung practice. The NKCL element of “healing thyself” is administered through Shen Kung which is the higher degrees of chi kung. You first need to learn the 31 foundation exercises of the Taoist Elixir Style if you have no idea what Tai Chi or chi kung is or if you’re just starting out.
The advanced exercises of the Shen Kung are made up of six seated methods and six standing methods, including the “quiet sitting” or Earth Meditation to balance and harmonize the body-mind via the eight psychic or extra energy channels (meridians). These energy channels are the repositories and deeper chi movements that carry the ancestral energy, jing chi that bring about and provide nourishment to the twelve organ energy channels. The jing chi is a regulating energy and plays a major role in the programming of the body-mind at the RNA, DNA, and cellular level.
There are several, more pervasive associations between the Eight Trigrams of the Mysterious Turtle (Ba Dua) and the eight extra energy channels, as gleaned by Fu She 8000 years ago. He was also responsible for enriching all of the Eight Branches, notably Feng Shui, Tui Na, hebal medicine, and acupuncture with the same universal principles that fuse the chi kung-nei chia and trigrams energy channels.
As reflected in the principles of yin-yang of natural harmony and balance, the life-nourishing and Taoist art of Shen Kung is performed to heal oneself. The practitioner uses Medical Chi Kung–NKCL to heal others. This healing without needles technique is a brilliant system deemed to be ancient China’s very first healing art. It is extremely simple to perform but very profound which is congruent to Taoist philosophy. If you have the drive and desire to learn and understand it, you’ll be able to apply it to others.
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