SPEAKER_05 1:04

I'd like to start with an opening invocation and a closing blessing. And it goes, may the spirit flow freely through this gathering and this conversation, allowing it to be both energizing and edifying. Then we have our special guest, La Slare. He's actually a uh cousin, a second cousin in in Europe in London. And he's a uh Key Kong teacher. We'll be doing a little demo when we get a bit maybe halfway in. And uh yeah, also a musician and has a fascinating way of uh integrating those two vocations. The other thing I like to lead with is an opening quote. This is from Tara Bracht, the Buddhist teacher, in a beautiful book called Trusting the Gold. I just opened it randomly, like today, this morning, like an hour ago, and landed on the perfect quote for the theme of the month, which is related to energetic centering. And it she says, Our bodies live in the present moment, but our minds travel. When body and mind are in the same place at the same time, we discover the creative presence that animates our being. So Laz is one of the specialists in bringing us into the same place at the same time in an embodied way, right, Laz?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

That's a tall order to start on. Um, yeah, that's what we're aiming at, I guess, isn't it? A lot of the time. Yeah, that's where we that's where we that's where we try to get. Yeah, even if we can get uh occasionally closer to it, it's a huge benefit. Yeah. The mind is in the body, in the center, in the mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Deanna, feel free to jump in with your Yeah, I'm listening and I'm taking it in and liking the dovetail of well, creativity, music, and energetic practice. Like Qiyong. So my question to start out with is I think in the intro you say that there's there's a spiritual overlap for you with the music and the energetic practice. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the spirit behind your work.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Wow, okay, yeah. Um well, before I even heard about Qigong, I I read a book when I was about 20 called Zen in the Art of Archery. And um later found out that Zen came from Chan Buddhism in China, which very much had roots in Taoist practice and the same roots as Qigong basically. Um and at the time, you know, I was getting into, and I'm still into I was um improvised music, jazz, and improvised music and playing, playing trumpet and trying to um and I saw an enormous parallel between what was going on in this this book was Zen and the Art of Archery, was written by a German guy who went in the 1920s, I think, went to Japan and studied the art of the Zen art of archery with a Japanese master in the 1920s, you know. So, and then he was um I saw the parallels between that and trying to play spontaneous music and the training that goes into the way you train and the way you have to forget your training to actually do it. Um so it kind of that was like a key thing for me, that realization that it was really the same thing you were after in both those practices, and then it took another 10 years before I discovered Qigong itself. Although I did some Aikido before that and other things that led in that direction.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Um Qigong is is a form of martial arts.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

No, it's uh it's more like martial arts, a form of Qigong. Um Qigong is a foundation of martial arts, and it's a very broad term. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

There is a discipline to that, from from what I understand, like a discipline that I've heard that some people even say meditative or spiritual about the process.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Which are you talking about martial arts or qigong or both? Qi Gong. Yeah, definitely. I mean, qigong, you know, it has different aspects. It's certainly meditative and spiritual, and it's that's the core of it, really. And then it goes into um Chinese medicine, goes into martial arts, goes into artistic practices, and it can be taken in all those directions and it pulls all those things together. It's like at the root of martial arts, it's the basis of martial arts, and it's also you could, I mean, it in certain kinds of meditation practice, like it's very much at the basis of Taoist type meditation, and it's draws on Buddhist meditation as well. These things are I don't know too much about the history to be honest, but in China, um ancient Chinese culture is kind of Taoist and Buddhist, and a complex kind of blend of them, as far as I understand it, that goes back in history a long, long way, you know. And before that, shamanic practices, they're kind of the origins of Qigong. And I've heard it said could be 7,000 years ago. There's references. Well, there was a talk by another Qigong master translated by my Qigong Master from Chinese because he was talking Chinese. Um, soon after I started, which is 30 more 30 years ago, this was Dr. Shen speaking, he said he said that um there are references to Qigong in the Yi Qing, which predates Chinese writing, you know, that book of divination, which is very very, very ancient. Um and he reckoned that some of the I mean you can see it, I can't remember where it is now, but I did look them up and yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:41

Yeah, so the the interface here, I mean, the interface with therapy, let's say, is the whole realm of energetic healing, right? Like working with the energy body. Yeah. Is that right? Uh also I studied a keto, so like I have to get the pronunciation right. It's qigong, not qigong. Qi gong.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Qi gong, yeah. Yeah. There's been this standardized standardizing of Chinese um words into English letter uh, you know, European letters, so they use a q for some reason for that sound. But yeah, it's sometimes spelled ch.

SPEAKER_05 8:21

Right, yeah. Yeah. So was there a watershed moment for you on your personal journey when you realize this is it, this is your path?

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Um, there have been a few of those, but um well yeah, one of them was kind of as I described, that reading that book actually. And then I mean at the time, that's another story really, but um at that time I actually had a lot to sort out, and it was pretty pretty difficult time in my life. Um beginning in my twenties. And then yeah, and then quite a journey from there to sort of finding my jig finding Xi Xing Wang, who was the founder of Hua Gong style Qigong, the founder of the school of Qigong. Um that was in twenty yeah, 20 years, no, 10 years later. So I I was like 31 or two, 32, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

Um Yeah, there's different lineages, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

So you're yeah, that it's a very Qigong is a very broad term, and there are many different schools, and different masters have different lineages of teachers going back in history. Um and many of them might relate to each other, but things are also different between different schools. Um so um Xi Jing and his wife Zhen Di founded Huangong when they came to England in the mid-80s, I believe it was, or maybe late 80s. Um and there came a point not long after I started in 1991 when they said um they said they were gonna stop teaching exercises they'd been taught and just teach practices they'd discovered in their own practice through their own channeling of the teachings. Um because it was more immediate, not because it was necessarily better, but it was just more immediate because they had discovered those things. And so yeah, it's I saw it evolve. I mean, I've been doing um I've been studying the Xi Shing and some of the time with Gendi since then, so seen it over a long span and seen the school go through various changes and done and uh teaching training that he used to do and all sorts of things, yeah. It's long yeah, it's really that there are many different um kind of channels of or ways of practicing within Huagong. Like it's quite a broad school. There's two or three meditation practices, there's various moving practices which are more active, there's standing meditation, and they're all kind of once you get inside the school and just start doing qigong itself, there's kind of all sorts of different ways of practicing it that maybe have different benefits and different aspects, you know.

SPEAKER_05 11:34

Yeah. And what is it? Yep. Well, I was gonna say the interesting aspect is how it applies to therapy, like an adjunct or a complement to talking therapy, since it's all about the movement and the energy.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Oh well, if you're talking about talking therapy, yeah, I tried some of that first to try and sort myself out after the um I had a I had a big kind of crisis um when I was like 20, 21, a bit of a breakdown, really, and um there was a certain kind of logic to it, and I always knew it was it was not just like a failure in a sense, it was more like um uh although it was on the surface, but it was more like a searching thing, and I was kind of pretty lost, but but looking for something else that looking for a better state, and I knew that even when I was going through it some of the time, even though it's very difficult. Anyway, after that, I did I had some talking therapy. There was a lot of stuff in my mind. And I was very young, you know, I was early 20s still, only recently out of university, and um took probably probably didn't choose a very good therapist for me or for my particular situation, didn't know much about it, and um did that for a while and then discovered really that what was going on for me was even though there was a lot of mental stuff going on, it was really more in the body what I was up against. Um and I I kind of realized that by by accident, by actually having a bike accident and finding had an injury that sort of aggravated my got aggravated by holding the trumpet, which is my instrument, um, and then had to go to a massage practitioner, and that started to teach me that there was a lot more going on, you know, from the massage, it was by biodynamic massage she did. Um so I kind of realized from that and from talking with her um that perhaps I needed to take that approach more than the talking approach to sort myself out and to get where I needed to be. And and then through her, I met an Alexander Technique teacher, and that was another revelation. This was all through that period, kind of between early 80s and early 90s. Um, and my after my very first Alexander Technique lesson, I had this experience of being in this kind of zen state, as I would would have described it then, that kind of it reminded me of that book I mentioned, um, and the state you try where your mind is clear and you're totally in the present and you're in your body, and there's no fancy stuff going on, it's just you're it you're living. And I remember being in a park, sort of cycling back from this lesson, just feeling like um like a realized being kind of thing. It's incredible. Um but trouble is with I found with that practice I could only I I didn't get that kind of experience again. You could get to a good state, but you're dependent on the teacher. So I wanted something I could actually do on my own, you know, um, in between times. Um, and then I went to Aikido, and then and but meanwhile I'd long ago I then stopped the therapy for a while, although I had some more later. Actually, in answer to your therapy question, because I'm rounding a bit, um I did find there was a period in the 90s, I think, where I had some more, some kind of counselling, and I was already doing qigong, and that was actually very powerful for me. Um, the combination of the two, and there was a lot of change going on for me then as well. Um yeah, yeah, I had some kind of quite visceral kind of energy experiences during the talking therapy. There was a yeah, it was quite powerful. I think it made made it more effective for me.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Um yeah, I can certainly see the combo because it's yeah, well, a lot of people attest to talking therapy being improved by including some sort of side practice of body work, somatic work. So that makes perfect sense. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_05 15:53

Yeah, like staying embodied, like embodied and then working with the movement of energy the way you do, it's a real antidote to the very common symptom of dissociation. You know, people who've been abused in the past and dissociate and bringing them back into their body, it's it's a safe method.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Well, yeah, I've had yeah, I've had that experience. I mean, yeah, I can vouch for that.

SPEAKER_05 16:22

Um and in your students, when do you work with your students? Do you do you see that same kind of shift in them that that you went through?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

You know, I even see it in my trumpet students. Well, that's the crossover that I but yeah, I see I I see I see the the air clear and the light come into the body and that kind of thing. Yeah. Like the it's interesting because I spend part of the main part of my living for the last the like my bread and butter has been teaching teaching kids in schools, teaching music. And um, I can you know I I used to sit, I used to do this thing which involved quite big groups, so and then there'd be a group of five kids with trumpets, and the first thing I would try to do is get them to sit right because they're sitting like all over the place. Um so in order to, you know, I had the excuse of a trumpet to make them sit up because they could hear that it sounded better when they did that, and I'll still have to do it all the time with them. Um, you have to remind them, but once it gets to that point where you just feet on the floor, because they'd be tucking their feet up under the chair or something, um, or twisting them around, feet on the floor. After a while, it was I only had to say that, and they'd suddenly be sitting up, and their the light would change around their heads. I could sort of see that. I was doing I realized I was doing a kind of practice with the energy field surreptitiously. School would never know, and my boss would never know, but and the the excuse was to play trumpets, but that that's actually what was going on. So they were learning to be um how being in their bodies in a in a good possi good position would sort of actually make them more awake and collected and actually happier, you know, they looked happier, although they might not have admitted it.

SPEAKER_05 18:15

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

So, but that's yeah, that's not tricky qigong teaching, it's kind of secret qigong teaching.

SPEAKER_05 18:22

Well, because it's a real great integration, but it's the same for me.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

I can't really I can't really stand playing the trumpet unless unless I've done my Qigong practice. Um it's a very exacting measure of where you're at, you know, and how centered you are for me anyway. I maybe some people just pick it up and it comes out perfect. But um this has been my driving motivation for a long time, you know, to just that's a that's a good segue if you're if it's a good time to do the exercise.

SPEAKER_05 18:56

The little the oh give us a little demo of your teaching, the energy for that.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I can't teach you to play the trumpet right now, but okay. Um is now the time for that.

SPEAKER_05 19:10

Yeah, the annuity did you have a question?

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Just want to see.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

I did have a qu I just want was curious, and you just said that before you play the trumpet, you do qigong. Um, can you talk just a little bit about how it's integrated into your daily spiritual practice? Like, is it something you do like some of us meditate at a certain time, or do you do it as needed, or is it is it scheduled? Is it you know in practice?

SPEAKER_05 19:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Well, it's it's flexible according to what I've got to do. Sometimes I do something quite quick if I've um um I mean actually these days I've been starting mostly starting with Feldenkrais technique, which is really just dealing with body mechanics. Um and more than that, of course, but it's not dealing with any energy in the qi sense. We haven't actually talked much about the qi practice, but anyway, we'll come to that when we do so. So I I tend to do that first to sort of um get the mechanics working and then do some qi practice, moving practice qi gong, starting with the kind of more usually not necessarily, but very kind of methodically, because there are different levels within the qi gong practice. There's the the jing and the qi and the shen, which are the three treasures, as they're called in the tradition, where jing is the closest to the physical, and qi is more like air and um warmth, it's more static, but it's it's everywhere, and then shen is spirit and light, and it's a finer level, and each one is a finer level than the next. So I tend to work through that kind of framework and end up with a meditation, and then I'm ready to do anything that I have to do, you know. I mean whether that takes an hour or half a day, uh depends on what I've got, what I've got going on.

SPEAKER_05 21:06

But it is a morning practice, right? Something you do every day?

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah, yeah, every day, usually in the morning when I can, or I make up for it later if I can't, you know. So sometimes I have to go and like if I'm going off to teach, I'll do the most basic thing and then go off and teach and play trumpet for kids and then come back and you know sometimes that's more involved and have to come back to I uh I would have to come back to Qigong later to really practice music properly. If I've been busy all day, so that can happen. But I'm not doing as much um of that teaching as I used to do, so I've got more flexibility. And you know, if I've got if I've got a gig, I will do uh a lot of qigong practice in on the day, if possible, or the day before as well. Um depends what's going on, you know.

SPEAKER_05 21:58

Someone said a man is a success. And a woman too. If we get up in the morning and do what we want to do all day, that's a successful life. You know what we want we're called to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah, what we really want to do, not what we think we want to do at the time. Yeah, I mean, I took you know, if I've got loads of time, I I might sort of distract myself quite often and take longer to get to it. So it's good when something happens in the morning. Um lately there's a guy who's who I think might be here somewhere because I saw his name come up, um, who's been running some early morning qigong sessions that I've forced myself to attend sometimes, um, which actually get to the qigong, the qi part of the qigong and the chen part of the qigong too early for me. But it's good to disrupt the routine and get to it early sometimes. You know, it's uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_05 22:52

So yeah, so can you give the group a little sample, a little experience?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah, I've got a feeling there's some quite experienced people out there, but there's probably some people who've never done it as well. So um, I will assume that everybody, you know, this is a intro session for for the people. Let's let's try something, yeah. Okay. So I'm gonna we can start sitting, but let's actually um if you're sitting on an upright kind of chair, it's best to sit on like on the front half of the chair, so the legs are off the chair and the sit bones are taking the weight, and then you let the weight of the legs go down to the feet, so you you become upright just by letting the weight sit down. And let's just do just do this just shake shake the hands to loosen all the fingers. So we're trying to loosen between the fingers, loosen one finger from another, so not shaking all in a block, shaking to loosen between the fingers, loosen the knuckles, and then yeah, just for a moment, and then we're gonna just leave the fingers extending into the space and the arms a bit, like loosen up, open up the armpits, empty the armpits, and just sense the effect very quick. So it's like fingers extending into the space and the space extending into the hands between the fingers, so it becomes like breathing from between the fingers on the knuckles, and you feel a bit of that. The fingers, the hands are very sensitive, very quick to um sense the chi. It feels like breathing from the fingers, and it's also like plugging into the space, like the fingers reaching into the space in front of us. Um I'm trying to low the screen down a little bit. And the hands don't need to be high, it could be lower. So we're not trying to lift anything, we're just extending the fingers into the space, could be you know, the level of the navel or the legs. And open up allow the arms to open up lengthways, so the arms are also extending into the space and rounded. Maybe you feel something coming like the fingers extending and something extending back right through both ways. Like the space between the fingers extending back through the body. So this can quite quickly open up the sense of the qi. It feels like breathing, it feels like the body breathing. Chi is like air, warm air. And it makes space in the body. You feel the space between the fingers extending back to space between parts of the body. Alright, and then let's let's close the fingers again. Just leave that for a moment, and um shake them down towards the ground, shake the hands towards the ground. Might want to stand up, just shake the body, shake the shoulders by bouncing on the heels. And then shake the hands towards the ground. And then shake the hands into the space, and then across the body. And then let's try the same thing again. Just wherever the hands go comfortably, they don't have to be I'm mine and I'm trying to keep mine in view, because I'm but yours don't have to be in view, you can go lower. Um you can go really low. Arms extending and fingers extending. And just imagine you're holding something between the hands, like a ball of energy. It's like the palms of the hands are resting on something that fills that space between the hands. And it also kind of rests against the front of the body and through from the front to the back. So if you're sitting upright or standing, feel it go through to the back. Ball of energy filling that space. And you just this is a very um widely practiced qigong practice that common to many different schools of qigong and probably goes back many centuries. Um just tuning into the energy in that space, in the empty space. And you feel that like the ball goes through the body, from the front to the back, from the inside to the to the skin of the back. And also it can be it can sit on the ground and come up to the shoulders. It doesn't have to literally sit on the ground, but it there's an element of it, if we're standing, normally this is done standing, but I I was kind of assuming everyone would be sitting because we're computers. So we're doing we're trying to do it sitting, which is a bit harder actually. But sitting upright with the feet on the ground, feet about shoulders width, and you let the ball kind of sit into the front of the body, so the back the base of the spine might tuck in slightly around the ball. Through to the back. The back becomes the curved surface of the ball as well. So the back and the back of the arms and the back of the hands are all extending. That's the the yang side of the body extending, and the yin side is absorbing. And the hands are sitting in that balance between the yin and yang, between the expansion and the container. So we would a good practice would be like a at least maybe half an hour. There's a traditional um thing that Xi Shen quoted once. Somebody asked him how long should I practice for? And he at first he said he couldn't answer that. And then he said, Well, there's a traditional saying that says you it takes 31 minutes for the Qi to work right through the body. Um and funnily enough, the first audio tape he did is 31 minutes long. Um so we would normally, you know, this is like a slow cooking process. It takes takes time to happen. There's some of the other practices are quicker to to have an effect. There's some of the shen level, more light level practice are quicker. But this is um this is a qi level, so it's about warm air cooking through the body. So then we can go around this ball. Let's go around the ball. Feel the hands resting on the surface. We're gonna we're gonna wrap it up rather than do 31 minutes, and just feel you can bring all that energy from that big space that's kind of body size to a smaller space below, lower down, the lower part of the body, abdomen area, like below the chest, and just hold it there for a moment, like a little bit wider than the hips, and through to the back, and then smaller to the lower abdomen, below the navel, just within the width of the hips, half in, half out of the body, like a ball of light that's been gathered together, and then the hands can close over the lower abdomen, just below the navel, so the the ball gets absorbed into the body. Like the lower abdomen, which is like the lower tanti energy center, and then from there you can go further in to a small small like a ball of light within the lower abdomen. Then you then you get to internal alchemy practice, which is more deeply centering, and which is like one of the core meditation practices. So we finished finished that very short taste the session then. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 31:47

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

That was lovely.

SPEAKER_05 31:49

Yeah, great. Great job of condensing.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Did you sense the qi? Did you sense that breathing? Yeah, it's not difficult, right? Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:02

I really liked when you said expansion and containment. I'm used to hearing expansion and contraction, and that was that was really good. Reframe expansion and containment.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah, it's the balance of the two, like the the yang wants to get bigger, and the containment keeps it contained. Because that's kind of me, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:25

That's life, right? It's all about expansion and containment.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

It's pretty basic, it's yin and yang, right? Yeah, and it applies, yeah. I mean, it unfolds in everything, as you can see from the yiqing.

SPEAKER_05 32:38

People can feel free to jump in with any questions or comments in the chat, and we will read them. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

I'm also aware of it's the same. Um, like I do Reiki. So when I'm experiencing Reiki with somebody, I don't do hands-on Reiki, but I can feel that energy field. And that's what I was feeling with.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Yeah. Yeah, we're working with the energy fields at all different levels, around, you know, in the body, around the body, close to the body, further away from the body, in a whole group. It's all energy fields. Um, yeah. And there's a collective one that you know, when a group of people, even online, there's can be quite a strong collective energy field. It works really well online. Uh you know, since COVID time I've been teaching online, but some couple of my colleagues have been teaching online for quite a long time before that.

SPEAKER_05 33:45

Um so there must be collective healing groups for our troubled world doing that doing that practice. Uh the global healing that's the best.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Well, that's what we hope, yeah. That's the hope, isn't it? It should it should work, shouldn't it?

SPEAKER_05 34:10

We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Technology does not stop the interwebs, do not stop the energy from flowing.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

No, apparently not.

SPEAKER_06 34:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Xi Chang used to teach um um once a week, uh once a month a weekend in London, but since COVID time, um he's been the weekends have been online, all of them, and he's continued that.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

So there's a question in the chat. Um, Rosie says, can we do the light meditation?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Um, how do you mean? What now? Which one?

SPEAKER_05 35:00

It would have to be a short one.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Um no, it's not Qigong class. It's a this is a podcast, it's a chat session. So um, yeah, that would I it also I think to go if you mean the internal alchemy one about that I referred to at the end. Um I think it I wouldn't want to teach that like straight off. I would lead a group through a fairly thorough Qi Gong session first. If people if it's people who haven't um done qigong, maybe can you can just some people know that meditation really well, but um most majority of this group I don't think have done much qiong.

SPEAKER_05 35:43

So maybe you can just say what it is, just uh the headline of what it's oh well.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I could talk about it, yeah. I suppose so. Um well, yeah, then I wonder whether. Yeah, I could I mean there's this concept of an energy how can I describe it? Um there comes a point, you at first the the first thing you have to do is kind of bring the energy into the body at all, like the energy of the internal organs can all of the parts of the body can be quite scattered, apparently. So that even the fundamental qigong, we're bringing we're centering the energy in the physical body, like with this outline, you know, that that already does something. Um, there's quite a lot of that to do, but then to take it further is to the idea is to center it into the core of the body, and it's more dealing with the light, the shen, which is the spirit, the the highest level of the energy. Well, they're all all these levels that are constantly interacting, I think. The jing is the more physical aspect of the energy, but uh yeah, it the one transforms into the other, so the jing transforms into qi, and the qi transforms into shen. And in the course of a practice holding the ball, that can happen a lot. It becomes more and more about light um and sort of intelligence of the qi, and then there's a point where you need to kind of centre the energy deeper than than even the physical body. So you're trying to, and then that there's this concept that was perhaps the word is discovered by the Taoist masters way back that you could that there were energy centres within the core of the within the central central channel of the body. Um there's one which is the most widely talked about one is the Tantien, which is like below the navel on the inside, just just below the navel on the inside at the front, or it could be in the center. There's different versions of this, and they can be coexisting. Um, and then there's a series of points around, most of them are like up the inside of the spine. There's one behind the heart, well, there's one at the center of the lower back called Ming Men, like opposite the naval, and then the heart center, behind the heart center on the spine, um, back of the head, crown of the head, here, here. There's there's a series of points around that center line, and the internal alchemy practices traditionally, I think it's just focusing on those points in a certain kind of way, not focusing hard, but focusing gently.

SPEAKER_05 38:29

Is that the same or different than the chakras in the Hindu tradition?

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think it's kind of both. It's definitely related, but it's not the same. Um, and then there's I've heard it talked about spoken about larger energy centers that are more in the middle, because these ones are around the orbit. Um, and I think the larger ones are more perhaps closely related to chakras, but it's a bit of a different system, but it's basically the same, it's the same but different. And I think the one can lead to the other, yeah. Like if you've got four points front and back, and they connect across, like the well, there's a meditation I do like this. This is really like a key thing for me. There's a connection across here, there's a connection across here, and there's something happens in the middle when you bring them together. So actually that's my um take on internal alchemy. I'd I'd be teaching it sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Is that what you just described sounds like Merkaba? The Merkaba. It's like an um well, a ball of energy, but it's geometrically formed. I don't know enough about it to talk intelligently, but what you just described sounds like it.

SPEAKER_06 39:53

It's like a mandaba.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

No, Merkaba. M-E-R-C, I believe C A B A. Merkaba.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Okay, I'm not a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 40:04

What's the role of the emotions? For example, in medi in in traditional, you know, with five minutes to go, in traditional meditation with thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

I think we had a quarter of an hour to go.

SPEAKER_05 40:16

We're taught to, oh yeah, you're right. To we're taught to witness our thoughts. Uh that's a classic medit meditation posture. But so emotions in Qigong. How are they viewed or how are they?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Did you just say was it witnessing emotions?

SPEAKER_05 40:36

Well, witnessing applied to thoughts in a classic you know, mantra meditation or um contemplative mode. But um, but I'm asking about the emotions from the point of view of qigong. How are they viewed or managed?

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Um well that's probably quite yeah, there's a there's a short answer, but I just put quite a complex question. Um, I think the the idea is not to get carried away by them, but be able to witness them like you like you as you just described. Um and they've been to the answer.

SPEAKER_05 41:16

Um is it part of the flow of energy? Like how is how is you know the emotions which can be all over the map? Is it part of streamlining the flow of energy?

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Um it's connected with the body. I think it's recognizing that they're it's the body and the mind, and it's um that there's a traditional thing that connects them with the five elements, which connected with the the organs of the body. Um when when I I think the first Qigong retreat I did was actually with my with Jixing, master of the school of Qi Gong. Um he used to run a retreat called the Five Emotions. And the idea was that you you channel an emotion, like an energy, that you go right into it and allow whatever happens, happens. Noise, sweating, um, shouting, all kinds of things might happen, or very quiet, could be very peaceful, and then you go through that and you you kind of in the process of the meditation, the idea was to convert it into pure energy that you could absorb and can be contained, but you allow it expression. So um yeah, later he stopped teaching that course, but then then I did five animals qigong, which I actually is a sort of speciality that I that I have in in my workshops that I teach, um, and in my own practice, and again there are emotions in the classical like five elements. Um Chinese medicine is they have a concept of five elements, it's connected with five emotions, and most emotions are kind of covered by that or mixture of them. Um, and they would be you could represent and channel an emotion by taking on a particular animal form. The animals, the animals are very interesting because they're very physical, but they take it to a very um kind of they you're dealing with a spirit energy and with the energy of particular aspects of of the five elements, like which can be particular internal organs, and then you can um bring that to a meditational state also. It kind of takes you further than doing general qing on for everything. You're kind of going into a very specific energy that actually covers a lot of things. So it's a bit like that with the emotions, and but yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.

SPEAKER_05 43:49

No, completely that completely answers it. I'm wondering whether the emotions line up with the animals like one to one, like you know, sad, bad, claim.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Too to some extent, yeah. But each animal has more than one element. Like the each animal has a more physical practice level, like tiger is um wood energy, which is expansive, reaching out. Um bird is uh um metal, which is relates to the lung and sorrow, and that's the negative emotion, and and so on and so on. But each animal also has a symbolic level, um, which is more just more symbolic. The tiger is the white tiger, so that is metal, which is lung, and the birds there's a little red bird that comes into things, and the or the red beak of the bird, and it's the heart, and the bird form opens up the heart and the lungs. So they're kind of each one of them is quite complex and covers, but they they do deal with different areas and different elements and different emotions, like deer is the water element, and that's connected with the kidney energy, and that's um as you know, that's connected with the uh negative emotion of fear, so transforming fear by having strong kidney energy by strengthening the kidney energy. So you know, there's a whole approach to emotions through the organs of the body and through the energy of the body, but it's not like who's the animal for the one you just described, the fear and water. That's that's deer. Okay, deer is the kidney energy, primarily, but then yeah, there's another level to the deer, which is more to do with the wood element symbolically. So yeah, they're kind of all quite quite rich in elements and functions.

SPEAKER_05 45:45

And can you list the five five animals?

SPEAKER_01 45:48

The other I've mentioned five animals, yeah. Yeah, the other ones are the monkey and the bear.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:56

Okay. Monkey, bear, deer.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Bird, tiger, deer, bear, and monkey.

SPEAKER_05 46:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

So what I find fascinating as we're having this conversation, it's it's my um new age geek brain going off, I guess, but it's the overlap of all of these traditions. But I hear you talk about a certain tradition in practice. And in my brain, I'm I'm being rem reminded of other things that are different but similar. And so when you were talking about the animals, the red bird, cardinals are red birds, and they're known for showing up after somebody has passed away, and it's directly related to the heart chakra. So I just I find all of those commonalities and threads very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Yeah. With the animals we're dealing with archetypes, I think. Yeah, and those come up in all cultures, don't they? And some of them connect across, some of them might be a bit different, but broadly speaking, yeah, humans sort of know they recognize it's like an a language beyond language, isn't it? That speaks to everybody.

SPEAKER_05 47:15

Yeah. Do you have a totem animal yourself?

SPEAKER_01 47:19

No.

SPEAKER_05 47:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

No, I can shape shift and do different ones. Um yeah, well, the the in that practice, it's it it it probably does go back to ancient shamanic practices where you what you what you do in the five animals extra to the qigong form, is you you become that animal, you take on that energy, um, and you channel it's channeling. You're channeling a animal spirit, which is an archetype, it's not just um some random animal. Um, so it's however you see that, and it might change during the course of one practice. It could be a different bird or a different, you know, different kind of tiger. Um, and then you that's that brings a certain energy beyond, and then the movements you do um cultivate it as well. So it's quite a powerful practice, you know, but for the physical, it's also can be quite demanding physically. The forms are a little more complex than a lot of the qigun forms we do. Um, although there's some other demanding ones too, like the sword, which I've never done.

SPEAKER_05 48:33

Usually shamans have um a central totem animal aside from the shape-shifting and the others.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Well, I maybe, yeah. Maybe I do then.

SPEAKER_05 48:46

Which one would it be?

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Oh, I'm not sure. Um I've I seem to have got myself a reputation of doing a particularly good bear, but I think that's by accident, really, because it's I just happen to have led that on a couple occasions when there's a big gathering um of my cheek on school, and they all think I just do the bear, but I do the others just as much. And um, but yeah, maybe I don't know, maybe something in that.

SPEAKER_05 49:18

Okay, now now I can do the doorknob question. You know, in therapy they talk about you know something the client read uh reveals that's really important, like core issue, and they're as they're leaving, their hand on the door. So it's called the doorknob effect.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

What's the question then?

SPEAKER_05 49:38

Uh what happens after death? Wow.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

In four minutes or less. You're asking me.

SPEAKER_05 49:50

You as a the qigong teacher.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

Obviously, you can't can't really answer that, can I? Well, in terms of the energy, the energy fields we go back to where we go back to where we came from, which we don't know where it is. We go back to the Dow in whatever form we can, if any.

SPEAKER_05 50:15

Well, when you were describing the energy bodies and the different layers, I was thinking, yeah, that that's what we carry forward after the body drops away.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to think, but there's an idea, there's an idea that through um practicing you can center your energy enough to still be centered through that transition, that last transition, then um, you know, I I'm pretty sure there's some kind of reincarnation going on. It seems to be a truth that's been arrived at from so many different sources, including our own Jewish tradition, it's definitely there. And um it's just a question of how that happens, and who knows, you know. The Tibetans seem to have a great deal of knowledge about it. Um, and actually that's quite a the Qigong tradition is quite close to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, I believe. Okay. Certainly our teachers, qigong tradition. A lot of the my colleagues in the school have also practitioners of that. Um, but what can I say? You know, I think you the internal alchemy practice is supposed to be is something maybe I believe that's something um a Taoist practitioner would like to be doing that when they die. Same way as a Jew would like to be saying the Shema when he dies. So I put the two together. It's supposed to be every day.

SPEAKER_05 51:48

You've got it covered.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

Just before we close, I just want to make sure anybody that has a question um to come forward now. I I did um I did look up because I got myself curious. I looked up Merkaba and it says it's a sacred geometric symbol primarily derived from ancient Egyptian and Hebrew traditions, representing a divine chariot or vehicle of light, light body. So that's what came to me as you were describing.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Yeah, that sounds good.

SPEAKER_05 52:42

Well, Lazi certainly fulfilled the invocation to be edifying and energizing.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Oh, well, good. That's good.

SPEAKER_05 52:50

So we appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

We didn't touch much on the um how I see this combining with the music, but I'm sort of mentioned it at the oh yeah, yeah. Um lately doing some workshops where we practice both. We do some qigong and then take it into improvising music in various ways and then come back to the qigong and put the two together. But that yeah, that's been quite an interesting experiment just lately, last year.

SPEAKER_05 53:17

And where's the best place for people to find you if they're interested in your groups or your workshops?

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Well, you can my name at gmail.com, that's my email. But also, I've got I haven't got a website for qigong of my own, but I've got a Facebook page which is called um centerline qigong. So you can look it up there. I don't always post everything, I forget, but yeah, you can always contact me through that or through the email. And the my teacher's website is called Chinese Heritage. Um I don't remember whether it's dot co uk or anyway, it's Chinese Heritage and it's Xixing Wang. But spelling that would you have to spell that Chinese Heritage Qigong should get you there, I should think.

SPEAKER_05 54:07

We can put these we can put links in the library.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Okay, we can put those links in then, yeah. Yeah, my one is centerline qigong.

SPEAKER_05 54:20

Great.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Okay, it's it's Hua Gong school, Qi Gong, as as taught by Xi Sheng Wang and Zhen Di Wang.

SPEAKER_05 54:29

Okay. There's a thanks, Laz and everyone, for wonderful discussions, is Dominic.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Thanks, Dominic.

SPEAKER_05 54:37

So the closing blessing, may we change some of the madness of this world into meaningful relationships.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

Amen.

SPEAKER_05 54:48

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

Thank you for having me, Cedric. Great, and Diana. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 55:00

John Red, do you want to step back in, John? I do. I want to say thank you to you both, Cedric and Deanna, for another wonderful conversation. And Lords, yeah, wow. Even even connecting with what happens after death in less than four minutes. I mean, that is very, very impressive. Cedric's fault. It's been lovely to be in the discussion and be in the exercise. So thank you so much, Laz. It's been really wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Um Thank you for hosting it.

SPEAKER_04 55:37

I want to say thank you to everybody who's been with us too, um, here live, and who will join us on the podcast and the library and enjoy the conversation in the future.