“Yamee!”
It’d been a long night, most of us had trained right through all the classes and with 15 minutes left, Sensei could see that we’d had enough.
“Sit down.” Fifteen hot sweaty bodies deposited themselves on the floor and you could see heat rising from them as they made wet ‘bum prints’ on the highly polished wooden floor with their soaked gi trousers.
Sensei looked around at the tired but still interested faces looking up at him, he knew that they loved this part of the class as it was always thought provoking, and after training, the teaching seemed to go in deeper. He paused for effect looking back…
“I was training in my garden this morning, it was sunny, everything was in full bloom, the scent from the flowers was overwhelming - it was a very powerful session. At the end I did my usual 20 minutes ‘Zhang Dong’.”
“Zhang what sensei?”
“Zhang Dong - standing post meditation.”
“What, you stand on a post to meditate?”
“No… I stand like a post to meditate, stand still with good posture, mind and awareness, but this morning it was special…”
“Why was that?”
“Because the whole garden was bursting with life, I could feel that powerful urge for survival coming from everything around me, whilst I stood still I could feel the trees, the plants, the butterflies, the birds, everything! It was really special.”
“In what way?”
“I was standing still, I was open and receptive, instead of emanating energy I was feeling it in everything all around me. It felt like Mother Earth was radiating an aura of this incredible, powerful urge for survival, it was bursting forth from everything around me…. And yet…..”
“And yet what?”
“Although it’s mid summer and the energy powerful, it was tinged with the sadness that soon it all had to yield to death. It was like we are in full yang in the cycle of the year and yet there was still present the black dot of yin, reminding everything that it was only a part of the cycle…. It got me thinking…..”
“About what?”
“Macrocosms and microcosms…”
“They’re Japanese cars aren’t they?”
“In magical terms we’d say ‘as above so below’, all around me the yin yang symbol was being played out, even in my own body, this powerful yang energy was entering into the governor meridian through my feet, flooding up into my kidneys, up my spine, over the top of my head and filling my eyes with energy, then draining into the conception vessel meridian in my tongue as I pressed it to the top palette and as I softened the throat and chest it drained as yin energy because my body was yielding to it. My whole body was pulsing with health because it was working naturally with the energy.”
“So illness could be when it’s not working in harmony with the energy?”
“Exactly! If you are not ‘connected’ to the energy around you it won’t be as strong, if you’re not ‘sensitive’ to it you can’t guide it with your intention. If your posture is incorrect or you’re tensed you’ll block the flow and therefore sickness will result – you’ll have dis-ease with your body.
But there’s more to it than that. What occurred to me this morning, was that we have this capacity to yield to death. All living things have the urge to live and survive, but when death is inevitable, we can softly yield to it. Watch an animal being hunted, it will do it’s utmost to survive, but when death is inevitable, it quietly accepts it. Plants are the same.
If we reach an emotional point in our lives, where subconsciously we decide that we don’t want to be here anymore, we move into this “yielding to death” frame of mind, where we are silently and subconsciously causing things to go wrong. When I look at some people I can feel this energy, even when they think on a logical level that they are being as positive as possible, underneath I can feel this yielding. They become tired and fed up, lacklustre, develop symptoms of M.E. and get one illness after another. If you told them this, they would deny it because they don’t even know that they are doing it, but just as you can feel it in the browning leaves of a plant, or a dying mouse’s acceptance in the jaws of a cat, so you can feel it in their energy.”
“So you think that they should find the reason for feeling this way to solve it?”
“I’m not so sure about the reason, I think that the first step is to recognise what they are doing and when, then to simply watch it happening, the wisdom alone over a period of time will help it to cease because they have identified that what they are doing is wrong. The urge for survival would arise and is naturally stronger in a living body, the drive for well being and good health is very powerful.
The more that you practise with this balance in the Martial Arts, the more sensitive you become to these energies and you can watch them manifest themselves in harmony through your own living being and all other things. The more that you tease and intensify them within yourself, the healthier and more vibrant you become, but always remember that the balance must be there.”
“You ever thought of becoming a psychiatrist Sensei?”
“This was only an observation of a standing post.”
“Okay…. Maybe you should go see one then! (in a mocking tone) Doctor! I think I’m a standing post!”
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