Qigong meditation

Note in the meditation below, the Pranic energy is being called the Heaven energy and Kundalini energy is Earth energy.

Meditation copied from the source
http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/qigong/meditation.htm
copying allowed by the site

Meditation is an exercise that can be both the simplest and the hardest to perform. It is simple in that all you need is yourself. It is the hardest because it requires the discipline to do it. Having a partner really helps; doing meditation with a group makes the experience even easier with the added effect of the creation and exposure to the massive healing energy of the group.

Meditation has been compared to self-hypnosis. Guided meditation is very much related to (some feel it is) hypnosis. There are many tapes or CDs with a myriad of guided meditations, each one created for a specific purpose: quitting smoking, stress relief, building creativity, building intuitive/psychic abilities, praying.

Some feel that meditating is listening to your creator, while praying is talking to your creator.

At a seminar conducted by Deepak Chopra, he described the purpose of meditation is: to slip between the cracks of reality to that place of unlimited possibilities.

In this section, we will teach you a basic meditation, the Qigong Small Universe Meditation, and probably the most healing meditation of Qigong, the Rainbow Meditation, which is used for serious illnesses such as AIDS and Cancer.

The Setting

Quiet is the key. You may choose soft music, which most people like because it does cover up the outdoor noises. There are some wonderful selections to meditate to. Stephen Halpern has created some of the best healing and meditation music available. A lot of people like to use music with subliminal messages, though there is very little evidence that subliminal tapes and CDs do anything beyond make money for the producers.

The current music playing is called "Dreams," written by Margi Harrell. You can visit her and her son's site at http://www.llerrah.com.

Most like to meditate at night. Lighting a single candle to focus on while settling your eyes is a very good technique.

Find a comfortable chair. Your body should be sitting upright, so put something, a pillow, in the small of your back. You can sit on the floor; the lotus position (legs folded over each other) is supposed to produce the highest states, however, if you’re new to this, just crossing your legs is enough. If you are sitting in a chair, both feet must be on the ground. In the Qigong meditations, both feet must be pointed straight ahead. Your tongue is resting against the roof of your mouth, just behind the teeth. Your chin should be pulled back so that your spine is straight. The reason for the "straightness" of this position is to allow a smooth flow of energy. Your hands should rest on your legs, face up.

Breathing is from the tummy. It is called baby breathing. As adults, when we take in a deep breath, our chest expands and our shoulders rise. Watch a baby when it is breathing: its tummy expands, because it is breathing into its tummy. When you breathe in, breathe into your tummy. Let the diaphragm expand downward.

Focus your eyes on a distant point (or on the candle, if you have one), and listen to your breathing. Listening to the breath is the best possible technique to keep focused. Let the stress of the day roll off of you. If something comes into your mind while meditating, don’t scold yourself; just acknowledge it and push it aside. Then focus on your breathing.

Grounding

Though not necessary, this is a particular technique that I and many others employ: connecting oneself to the earth. Picture a chain dangling from your coccyx. It can be any color of your choice. As you begin to relax, focusing on that point in the distance, picture a chain dangling from your coccyx, write your name and date on the chain, and picture it going through the floor of your home, (through the rooms below, if there are any), through the ground, through the water table, and down to the center of the earth. If you are particularly stressed that day, when you breathe out, with each out-breath, picture the stress and negative energy being expelled down that chain to the center of the earth.

Progressive Relaxation

This is a technique used widely by hypnotherapists. You start by focusing on your feet. As you breathe in, feel the energy enter your feet. It is relaxing energy. Then progress up the leg. With each breath, pull healing, relaxing energy into the next higher part of your body, and breathe out the negative, stressful energy. Do this for every part of your body to the top of your head.

You will find after a while, or perhaps right away, that you can actually feel the healing, relaxing energy enter the part you focus on.

While focusing on this process, your eyelids will get heavy, your focus on that distant point will waiver; just let your eyes close and continue on.

The Meditation

Once relaxed, now what do you do? Nothing. This is the purpose of meditation: to go within and simply listen. Again, if something comes into your consciousness, acknowledge it and push it aside. You can think about it later. For now, you are merely concentrating on your breathing and listening to the universe.

The Cleansing Meditation

This meditation fills your body with earth (yin) and heaven (yang) energy. It recharges the two external meridians (not associated with any organ systems) called the Governing Body and the Conception Vessel, both of which hold recharging energy for the organ systems. I've seen this meditation practiced using "grace" instead of "qi." You simply fill each cell in your body with "grace."

When you are ready, relaxed, and focused, picture energy traveling progressively (like the progressive relaxation) up your legs, thighs, hips, etc. Feel and picture the energy recharging, filling the organs; in your mind you can name the parts. As the energy reaches your perineum, that point between your genitalia and your anus, picture it meeting the energy coming straight up from the ground to that point. Continue up and when you reach the shoulders, picture it going down your arms and up out of your hands. When that energy reaches your shoulders, continue up your neck, face, to the top of your head, where like a water sprout, it spills out (a foot or so) above your head then splashes over you and through you back to the earth where it starts the cycle over again.

Next you will picture the heaven energy coming down through the top of your head, neck, shoulders, into your back, down your back, and when it reaches the hands, comes into the palms of your hands (which are face up) and up your arms to your shoulders where it travels down your body to your perineum. At this point, it continues straight down the ground and down your legs. I finally spills out your feet (about a foot or so) into the ground where it splashes up and through you and out your head where it starts its journey again. The really tough part of this meditation is to try and picture both energies traveling through you at the same time. Spend five, ten, fifteen minutes picturing this flow of energy through you and about you.

The Governing Body and Conception Vessel meet in your mouth. This is why during Qigong, Tai Chi, and our meditations we keep the tongue at the roof of the mouth: to make this connection. Focus on your mouth, and then follow an imaginary line down your chin to your throat, and rest your attention there for a bit, and then to your heart. At each point mentioned, keep your focus there for a small bit before moving on. Next to your diaphragm, then to the Tan Tien (pronounced Dan Tien; just an inch below your navel), then to your perineum. Next to your coccyx, then lower back, mid back, between your shoulders, base of the neck, back of the head, top of the head, forehead, and back to your mouth.

Take your time during this exercise. You’re not in a hurry.

Finally, take a deep breath and spread your hands out to your side (as you do at the end of Spring Forest Qigong), and as you breathe out, bring your hands together gathering energy between them. If you’ve felt this energy during Spring Forest, you will probably feel it now. This is a time to do some specific healing. If you have a part, an organ, something that needs healing, in your mind, take it from its place and put it (with your mind) between your hands, and let it recharge within the energy of the field between your hand. Do this as long as you feel it necessary. Then, before returning that part to its normal place, send healing energy to the area around it, healing the edges, and return it.

When you end your meditation, some like to lean forward with both hands and touch the ground. Sort of a small grounding gesture. Then, as always, you will do a self massage, the minimum being the face, hair, and ears.

The Rainbow Meditation

Color is very healing. Many hospitals have redecorated to avoid the white, sterile, hospital look and feel. Here we will be using the full spectrum of the rainbow for a deep, deep healing.

After you have relaxed, done your progressive relaxation, your eyes are closed and you are focusing on your breathing. Picture a rainbow off in the distance. As you gaze and meditate on the colors of the rainbow it begins to turn. Rainbows don’t turn. We see them only in the "broadside" view. But this rainbow will start to turn. One end will recede away from you while the other approaches you. It gets nearer, and nearer, and nearer. Finally it is resting over you. The energy and color from the rainbow pass through your body (very much like the heaven energy does in the Small Universe Meditation), goes into the ground and comes up at the other end of the rainbow, again flowing into you, passing through you, until this one time when the energy reaches your feet, like the graphic below, it stops at your feet and begins to fill your body with its color and light and healing. Let it slowly fill your body. Up, up, up. When you are full, you cap it off and bask in its energy. Feel the color and light and energy and grace fill every cell in your body, healing every cell in your body. Meditate on this.

The secret to healing is intent. You don’t have to believe anything, but you must be open minded. Open to the unlimited possibilities of the universe. You can block Qigong healing if you want. In fact, you can block the effect of antibiotics if you want. The mind is a wonderful and powerful thing. Be open, be free, and strengthen only your intent.

Qigong, An Introduction to Chinese Medicine
Medical Qigong
Spring Forest Qigong
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