Shen is the awareness that shines out of our eyes when we are truly awake

 

Shen is best translated as Spirit. It is an elusive concept, perhaps because, in the medical tradition, it is the Substance unique to human life...Shen is the vitality behind Jing and Qi in the human body. While animate and inanimate movement are indicative of Qi, and instinctual organic processes reflect Jing, human consciousness indicates the presence of Shen.

Shen is associated with the force of human personality, the ability to think, discriminate, and choose appropriately, or, as is commonly said: "Shen is the awareness that shines out of our eyes when we are truly awake."

--from The Web That Has No Weaver by Ted J Kaptchuk, OMD

Ringing the Temple Gong | QiGong Warm-up

What follows is taken from the book, The Healing Promise of Qi by Roger Jahnke, OMD

Ringing the Temple Gong is a classic practice with prehistoric roots. No one knows who developed them, and they are used in medical, Taoist and Buddhist QiGong as well as many Tai Chi traditions. The primary purpose of warm-ups is to awaken, excite and accelerate your inner self-healing resources--Qi, blood and internal water--as prelude to deeper cultivation practices.

Historical reflection This practice is used by almost every practitioner of Tai Chi or QiGong as a beginning warm-up to get inner resources circulating. It has a powerful effect on the spine. Notice that is is very rare to actually make this movement under normal circumstances. This suggests that the movement was designed for us by the architect of the universe to allow us to improve our health. The twist sends a strong stimulus into the connective tissue of the spine, which fosters flexibility and generates very low level electrical potential. As the hands strike the body, it sends a mechanical stimulus to the organs.

Repetitions and focus  Do as many repetitions as you feel will awaken and accelerate your Qi. Six or nine repetitions to each side is in keeping with traditional numbers from ancient Chinese philosophy. After some time of using this method, most people will tell you that they can tell when the practice has done its job.

A quiet place is the think tank of the soul

 

Krista Tippett, host of the public radio show On Being, interviews acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton about his lifelong adventures in the sound and silence of nature.  Hempton is founder and vice president of The One Square Inch of Silence Foundation. He has produced more than 60 albums of natural soundscapes. Shih Fu Catherine recommends you listen to this interview with earbuds to enjoy the natural sounds that are woven throughout the hour.

Silence is an endangered species, says Gordon Hempton. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise. The Earth, as he knows it, is a "solar-powered jukebox."  Hempton says to really listen, whether to nature or another person, you first have to quiet your mind.  He says "Quiet is quieting."

Take a hike with him through the Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula.

"Good things come from a quiet place: study, prayer, music, transformation, worship, communion. The words peace and quiet are all but synonymous, and are often spoken in the same breath. A quiet place is the think tank of the soul, the spawning ground of truth and beauty.

A quiet place outdoors has no physical borders or limits to perception. One can commonly hear for miles and listen even farther. A quiet place affords a sanctuary for the soul, where the difference between right and wrong becomes more readily apparent. It is a place to feel the love that connects all things, large and small, human and not; a place where the presence of a tree can be heard. A quiet place is a place to open up all your senses and come alive."

http://onbeing.org/program/last-quiet-places/4557

Chapter 30 Tao Te Ching

30

Use Tao to help rule people.

This world has no need for weapons,
Which soon turn on themselves.
Where armies camp, nettles grow;
After each war, years of famine.

The most fruitful outcome
Does not depend on force,
But succeeds without arrogance
          Without hostility
          Without pride
          Without resistance
          Without violence.

If these things prosper and grow old,
This is called not-Tao.
Not-Tao soon ends.


(from Tao Te Ching translated by Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo)

Directions for folding origami peace cranes here.

The Face in A Raindrop

The cultural anthropologist and non-fiction author Richard Nelson is also the host of an Alaskan radio program called Encounters. In each area of his work, he explores human relationships with eh natural world.   Here is an excerpt from his 1991 book, The Island Within. Thanks to Bill Douglass for bringing this twenty-year-old gem to my attention.

"Today I stand face to face with the maker of it all, the sources of its beauty and abundance, and I love the rain as desert people love the sun. I remember that the human body is ninety-eight percent water, and so, more than anything else, rain is the source of my own existence. I imagine myself transformed back to the rain from which I came. My hair is a wispy, wind-torn cloud. My eyes are rainwater pools, glistening with tears. My mind is sometimes a clear pool, sometimes an impenetrable bank of fog. My heart is a thunderstorm, shot through with lightning and noise, pumping the flood of rainwater that surges inside my veins. My breath is the misty wind, whispering and soft one moment, laughing and raucous another. I am a man made of rain.

At this moment, there must be more raindrops falling on the surface of the island than there are humans on earth,  perhaps more that all the humans who ever lived. I've thought of raindrops as tiny and insignificant things, but against the scale of the earth itself, they're scarcely smaller than I am. On what basis, then, can I consider myself more important? Koyukon (Alaska Native) elders say that each kind of weather, including rain, has its own spirit and consciousness. If this is true, there must be a spirit within every raindrop, as in all else that inhabits the earth. In this sense, we are two equal forms of being, who stand in mutual regard. I bend down to look at a crystal droplet hanging from a hemlock needle and know my own image is trapped inside. It's humbling to think of myself this way. In the broader perspective of earth, I am nothing more than a face in a raindrop."

Hua Hu Ching - The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu

Thirty

Words can never convey the beauty of a tree;
     to understand it, you must see it with your own eyes.
Language cannot capture the melody of a song;
     to understand it, you must hear it with your own ears.
So it is with Tao: the only way to understand it is to directly experience it.

The subtle truth of the universe is unsayable and unthinkable.
Therefore the highest teachings are wordless.
My own words are not the medicine, but a
     prescription; not the destination, but a map to help you reach it.
When you get there, quiet your mind and close your mouth.
Don't analyze the Tao.
Strive instead to live it: silently, undividedly,
     with your whole harmonious being.

Meditative Sitting

"There are two kinds of sitting. One is for the purpose of rest. For this, you may sit in any position that you find comfortable. More important than posture here is a serene mind, free from anxious thoughts. Direct the mind and the breathing to the tan-t'ien or abdomen in order to feel restful.

The second kind of sitting is Meditative Sitting. It affects many neural meridians, from the feet to such areas of the upper body as the kidneys, liver and spleen. The heat created by this exercise increases blood circulation and helps the stomach digest food. Rheumatism and arthritis can be cured and prevented by this method.

In Meditative Sitting, correct posture is very important. After you have finished eating, sit erect in a chair of sensible height, enabling the feet to rest comfortably on the floor. Direct the mind and the breathing to the tan-t'ien and place the tongue against the palate to gather saliva. When swallowed, the saliva reproduces the vitality or sexual essence.  Cover your knees with the palms of your hands, with your fingers against the indentations at the bases of the kneecaps. Exert a light pressure with the middle three fingers of each hand. Press the ring finger of each hand against the outer hollow, the middle finger against the inner joint.

Meditative Sitting is convenient and easy to do. It can be performed anywhere, even when you are sitting in an office or in your bedroom before retiring for the night. You may continue to apply pressure to the meridians of the knees as long as you like, to improve the circulation and help the inner organs of the abdomen function well."

--from T'ai Chi Ch'uan & Meditation by Da Liu