By Master Jace Lee
Chi has always been a mysterious and sometimes miraculous substance. In my experience one of the reasons for this is that not everyone can feel it right away. As someone who does experience it and has used it to heal with great success, I find there are those who are still skeptical because they don’t experience it and if I can’t demonstrate it right away then I feel like a failure. This drove me to really practice and meditate on the nature of my experience and Chi. And how I can get anyone to feel it right away and answer the question as to why people don’t feel it right away. In this article I discuss this further along with how Chi relates to the mind and how you can feel it right now. If you can’t wait, you can scroll down to the title below, How to Feel Chi.
It seems there is a real lack of a true understanding of Chi and what it actually is. There is the general description that everyone uses, that it is a spiritual energy in all things. This is true, but it is much more. As an energy it pervades all things living. It is a primordial substance that seems to have its own programming or purpose that promotes all aspects of life. As a person practices Chi and is able to open themselves enough, can experience it. In my experience Chi is part of us and its own thing, like how we are part of matter but matter is still separate from us. We don’t even need to understand it for it to work. By just holding hands on someone’s body like Reiki Chi seems to flow through and promote healing and wellness. It is that simple and easy to do and teach as well.
Many people have discovered this throughout history but somehow an understanding for exactly what chi is has been forgotten. I see it in every book I read except for a few but only one describes the aspect of chi that is mind and connecting to the awareness of the body. That is Neija Yoga by William Bodri. And in the beginning of his book he Dedicates it to the institutions that are the progenitors of the Chi arts stating that they had all lost this knowledge and with his book he had hoped to restore this information.
I discovered Chi on my own while practicing self massage. When I realized what it was I practiced it for hours a day, sometimes twelve. Since this moment in 2008 I have been practicing, exploring and experimenting with it on my own with the goal of opening and perfecting the alignment of my body as a preparation for the mastery of dance and healing. Since then I have put in countless 12 hour days of practice, using whatever method got me there faster. The thing about me is that I am open to what works. And I find that what works best is using Chi in everything makes everything more effective and expedites the opening, healing and strengthening of the body. Every approach is valid when needed. This is where Qiyoda comes from, the five approaches to health, healing and mastery. Chi is necessary for this but things still need to be worked out on a physical level, via massage, stretching, movement and strengthening. This aspect of Chi practice is working to get the mind into the body in order to reclaim it. Technically speaking, if you can’t feel your body, with your mind, it’s not yours and is most likely blocked. Once the mind is in the body we can activate, contract or relax a muscle at will using Chi.
Mind Energy
This aspect of Chi is the Chi that is related to the mind; It is the Chi aspect in the three types of Chi taught in Chinese medicine and Chi arts; Jing, Chi and Shen. Jing is the energy of the meridians, our physical Chi. Chi is the energy of our mind that we can manipulate using our imagination and will power. Shen is the term for the more common description of Chi, a life force energy. This we don’t necessarily control with our mind. It is more like we can open up to it and channel it like running water through a hose. Once the mind becomes more fully integrated into the body, so does the Chi. When melded with something like the martial arts and the mind, body and Chi become one, then they all seem to act as one. So it is tough to say if the mind is controlling energy. I feel that at this point, there is no mind, mushin as the Japanese say. There is only energy. But like I said, Chi has its own character or purpose, which happens to include the preservation of life. Morihei Ueshiba the founder of Aikido is the best example of this.
So in order to get to this Shen we need to practice Chi, directly. One of the reasons why most people don’t experience Chi is that 98% of them are practicing Qigong or Tai Chi. Which mainly teach breathing, meditation, movement and some visualization exercises. The other reason is that people don’t realize that they are experiencing it all the time. Qigong is a relatively new term used to describe a system of exercises used to prepare the mind and body for the practice of direct Chi cultivation, aka Neigong. Qigong is in essence the beginning practices of Neigong. And the few books on Neigong teach it like Qigong. This is why it is hard to find a direct and clear definition of the differences and between the two and the practices of the two. For the most part Neigong involves more strength training which is part of cultivation Chi strength and Shen. But if a person doesn’t understand the principles of cultivating Chi then they are basically practicing a strong Qigong.
Why I said that everyone is experiencing it, is because Chi is mind, or more accurately, the mind is made of Chi and how it moves is why I describe it as mind energy. And soon you will experience it for yourself. In the most basic terms, when you place your mind on a part of your body, the feeling of awareness that you get, is Chi. Then when I move that awareness around my body it feels and acts like an energy. What Chi arts today don’t realize is that if we feel sensations of Chi through our nervous system and our mind moves Chi, then the sensations we feel at any time must also be Chi. Also, if Chi is affected by the mind and moved by mind and we all have Chi, then it is safe to say that our thoughts are affecting our Chi all the time. Which in turn is affecting our body. This is an extremely important concept to note. I really can’t emphasize it enough. The mind is the root of our life. Our thoughts not only affect our body, they create our actions, create other’s perceptions of ourselves and affects our decisions. This is why mind-body arts are so effective, they are cultivating a relaxed, focused and positive mind and then putting our attention on the body. In effect the body follows the mind. Which helps to battle the constant stresses of life that our mind focuses on and in turn has an effect on our body. There is more to a mind-body practice than this, but this is the main reason that mind-body practices today are so effective. Now if people understood the purpose of a mind-body practice, as a preparatory art, and how to cultivate the mind-body connection, they could be even more effective.
The strangest aspect of mind energy/Chi is that it is not bound by the physical parameters of the body. It can be pushed or transferred into another person’s body with visible physical results that can be physically experienced by the receiver. It can also be projected at a distance, with the same results. This aspect, the transference of Chi through distance, falls into the category of intuition, psychic sense and energy work. This is an aspect of Chi energy that people don’t really feel but by the intention and will power, can have an effect on another person. It can also be projected out to gain a sense of our environment and the people in it. Which we do all the time. We see it when looking at someone and they feel it and look back at us. Like the saying goes, “Where the mind goes, Chi goes.” And what is on your mind, goes with it. Reiki is an example of an energy art that teaches people how to use energy for psychic distance healing.”
There you have it, there are actually a few different expressions of energy (Chi). Both the mind energy and the “life-force” Chi are moved by the mind. Mind-energy is simple, when you are feeling your body and not just what your body is sensing, this is Chi. It takes concentration to feel your body. How many people really try to feel their body? Or go further and feel every muscle to the bone and be able to move each muscle with a thought. We can have such mental control over our bodies and Chi is how we connect and move the body. Now with this information, people can feel and move Chi right away, and cultivate it directly.
Today more people are taught to imagine the Chi doing something as they practice and eventually you will feel it. This is actually backwards. In my experience I feel the Chi first and as I use it and move it, the visuals of Chi start to come naturally and the chi moving my body comes more naturally. In my book “Qiyoda: Qi Yoga Dance”, I describe step by step how to cultivate Chi, use it to heal, release tension, move the body, use chi as strength and how to incorporate it into other arts like massage, Yoga, dance and any other movement practice or at the gym, and just normal life, where every moment, and every action is cultivating Chi.
How to Feel Chi
Here is how you can feel Chi now and begin your journey of cultivating it. I call this the hand technique. Take a moment to take a few deep breaths and relax. Then hold up your hand and feel your palm. Really try to focus on the sensation of your palm. Then move that sensation of awareness to the palm side of your index finger. Then move it to that back of the finger and the to the back of the hand. then move to the forearm and work your way to the shoulder. And there you have it, you just felt and moved chi. You may even have felt your muscles reacting to it as well. Like the muscles relaxing, engaging, twitching or pulsing, this is normal. With practice this awareness will grow stronger and soon you will be able to connect directly to your body and relax or contract muscles by thought/chi alone. This can lead to other techniques like moving the body with Chi and using Chi as strength. And once you can move the Chi using the breath and visualization you can use it to heal. If you have trouble feeling a part of the body you just need to concentrate more. Some areas can be tough, even I struggle with stubborn areas despite the progress I have made. This is where other modalities become necessary and why they are employed by all mind-body arts. Modalities like massage, stretching, standing meditation, movement and strengthening. Physical manipulation combined with energy is an incredibly powerful combination and expedites progress 100-fold.
In the time of the events leading to the discovery of my ability to move Chi, I was practicing a technique where I was using my mind to move each muscle individually. When I was having trouble connecting I used my finger, giving a light touch, and it worked. This led to the realization that in healing, it is not so much the finger that does the healing, but it is the touch that brings the mind to that area to promote healing. On the other side of this, which is all logical and provable, is that we can direct this energy using our mind into another to promote healing as well. Which can all be felt on a physical level. Chi is mind but it is also more than the mind, we just have an ability to use our connection to it to move it to our will. And much like strengthening the body to perform, it takes time and practice. Chi is a skill like any other art or sport or practice. You practice a technique, you get stronger and better. With chi, as one practices it, it gets stronger, the feeling of it gets stronger and the connection to your body gets deeper. You feel your body more and are able to connect to it easier and it becomes more responsive.
The thing about Chi is that it can sound very philosophical or mystical. An energy in all things is accurate but vastly vague. What is energy? What does anyone imagine when trying to define it in their mind? Chi is vast and has many characteristics, just like matter. But it also has specific principles governing its cultivation. Breathing, relaxation, alignment, visualization, will, energy centers, etc. So from that simple technique of feeling the hand the is a whole set of principles and techniques that will cultivate this into something that to me has been a deeply profound experience that has changed and shaped my life in so many unbelievable ways.
One last thing, since Chi and mind are seemly one, by practicing Chi a person is practicing their mind, which strengthens the mind. This is meditation. So if a person is to practice any type of meditation why not practice concentrating the mind on relaxing, opening, moving and healing the body using Chi? And being that Chi is mind, it is everywhere you go, so you can practice it in any other practice or anywhere you go.
So many people practice for decades and never get to this point. I want people to start at this point and practice for decades because there is so much to be achieved from this point on. Experiences like no one could ever imagine possible. Abilities to heal one’s self and others, an aptitude for mastery and connection with nature and people. Or to just feel like you are a kung fu master floating through life effortlessly in a nearly ecstatic state. And just to mention, I’m not at this level yet, but I have had glimpses. If all I had to do was practice, I’d be there by now. But I have life and work and a career and the responsibility to promote this information. At least with this information people can achieve it within a few years to a decade if they aren’t already there.
Innerverse 