Talk/Meditation: Zhineng Qigong and the Eight Verses

Welcome everyone!

Really excited and honored really to be here and my intention for our time together is that if even for one moment you feel that expansiveness,

That freedom of what it is to be present for yourself in your life and also my other intention is for you to take at least one piece of information that you can use in your daily living because Qigong,

In my opinion,

Is really a life practice.

So it's not only the time that you spend in the practice but it's bringing these techniques,

These ideas,

This way of living into your daily life.

And once again my name is Reina Lerma and I'm a Jeunenne Qigong teacher,

Which I'll talk a little bit about,

Based in San Diego,

California,

USA and I've been practicing for about 14 years.

And some of you may be brand new to Qigong,

Some of you may be long-term practitioners and I want to acknowledge that Qigong,

The word itself,

Is only giving just a piece of what this practice is about.

There are many,

Many,

Many systems of Qigong and this is but one of them.

And I believe that every system,

The way it's created,

We can think of it like its own recipe with its own ingredients.

And so each way that each of the systems was created has a certain purpose in mind.

And the specific Qigong system that I share focuses on holistic health and healing.

And that does not mean that we have to practice if there's something that we're looking to heal from.

It's the healing but also the holistic health.

It's knowing that even with any challenges we can continue to allow ourselves to self-heal,

To be our own medicine,

To take these different practices and be able to apply them on a daily basis,

To continue to strengthen the body,

To open up our hearts,

To awaken our minds to our human potential.

So this particular system of Qigong,

Again I mentioned,

Is called Zhen'en Qigong.

So we'll first start with Qigong for those that are newer.

So Qi can be translated as to life force energy and Gong is work or cultivation.

Zhen'en,

The translation,

The Z-H-I is wisdom and Nen is mind.

So in this particular system of Qigong we use the power of our mind to cultivate our life force energy.

And within this system there are approximately 300 different practices.

And these practices can be static,

Meaning no movement of the physical body,

Or dynamic,

Meaning the movement of the physical body.

When there isn't any movement,

We're in the static practice.

That's where we use the power of the mind.

So the mind is moving,

Is going in different places in the body and also going out to exchange life force energy with nature.

And I'll talk more about this maybe in another class.

But just to give you a little bit of an idea of how we look at our practice here.

For the dynamic practices,

We allow the body to support the movement of Qi inside.

And of course we want the Qi in our body to be flowing freely so that all our functions can be at optimal level,

Knowing that our physical body,

Our emotions,

And our mind are very much intertwined.

So within the 300 different practices of Zhen En Qigong,

I would very much be remiss if I didn't talk for our first time together about one of our really our most foundational practice,

Which is called the Eight Verses Meditation.

Now these Eight Verses Meditation is embedded in every single one of these 300 practices.

So this is why I would like to share it with you today,

To be inspired by it.

Because again,

No matter if the body is not in movement or if there's movement in our practice,

Which we will in the coming classes go into more deeply,

That the Eight Verses Meditation is what fuels our awareness.

And so I would like first to just say the Eight Verses as they are,

They're just Eight Verses.

And then I'm going to go through them a little bit more in detail.

So as I say the Eight Verses,

I invite you to open up your heart and open up your mind to just receive them and receive the energy behind them already.

And again,

I'll give more instructions from them.

But the Eight Verses are as follows.

Head touches the sky,

Feet stepping on earth.

As the body relaxes,

The mind expands.

Be respectful and quiet.

The mind expands into infinite space.

The mind shines deeply and inwardly into the body.

Entire body is harmonized with chi.

Harmonized with chi.

And those are the Eight Verses that again will be embedded in each of the practices that I will share in our coming classes.

So to be able to connect to each of the verses,

I'd like to share briefly what they mean.

So the first verse,

Head touching sky,

Feet stepping on earth,

That is focusing on the body posture.

So before any movement in our practice,

We want to adjust our body.

And so we can do this either seated or standing,

Whichever our preference.

So in this posture,

As head touching the sky and feet steps on earth,

We want to focus on a point at the top of the head known as Ba Hui.

This is a hundred point gathering.

So we want to imagine as if a string is pulling the body gently upward.

So as we feel this adjustment,

This expansion upward,

We also want to feel the expansion downward.

And in an upcoming class,

I'm going to talk about more of this expansion,

Which really is relaxation,

Learning the skill of relaxation.

For now,

I invite you to feel this expansion from the top of the head going up and feeling the feet being connected deep into the earth.

As we feel this expansion upward,

Leading with the top of the head,

We gently tuck the chin down and back.

When we do this,

We adjust our heads.

We want to feel as if our head is almost like floating.

So there's no tension in the neck.

Simply the head is floating through space.

We want to relax the chest,

Feel the arms relaxed by the sides naturally,

Allowing some space between the ribs and the arms,

The upper arms.

We want to imagine like a qi ball,

Half inside and half outside.

So letting the qi ball feel a little bit of separation between the upper arms and the sides of the body.

So the upper arms are resting on the qi ball.

We want to relax and hollow the chest.

So in our practice,

We connect diaphragmatic breath,

The large muscle underneath our rib cage.

We want to feel as we're inhaling,

The diaphragm is expanding downward like an upside down umbrella.

This action allows us to massage the digestive and reproductive systems.

As we exhale,

Our diaphragm releases upward and we massage the bottom of the heart and our lungs.

So we want to keep our chest relaxed so our diaphragm can be engaged in our breathing.

We also tuck in the lower abdomen and we want to feel our navel energetically,

Energetically reaching towards the back,

Towards the back.

So as we bring the navel towards the back,

We're going to feel still the gentle curve of our spine but feel our pelvis almost like a bowl.

We don't want the bowl to be tilted too far forward or too far back.

Let yourself experience your pelvis centered.

That's why we tuck in the lower abdomen.

We also relax our waist.

So we want to focus on the lumbar vertebrae,

The low back.

Feel the lumbar vertebrae relaxing downward,

Feeling the tailbone tip pointing to the earth.

In our practice,

We also raise what's called Hui Yin.

This is called the Yin Gate.

This is where the genitalia and the anus,

In between,

There's a space and we feel a lifting,

A lifting inside.

So that's raising Hui Yin and we try to keep this not only throughout our practice but throughout the day.

So we raise Hui Yin,

Continue to relax the pelvis,

Feeling the knees open to shoulder width,

Open to shoulder width.

And I encourage you to move the toes.

Again,

Remind yourself of where your feet are being supported by the earth.

Whole body relaxed and quiet.

For our hand position,

We can have our hands resting on our upper legs,

Palms face down or palms up,

Whatever our preference.

So this is head touching the sky and feet stepping on earth.

Our next verse,

As the body relaxes,

The mind expands.

This focuses on adjusting the mind.

To do this,

I invite you now to focus on a point in front of you at what we call Yin Tong level.

Yin Tong level is also known as a third eye.

So as you focus at a point at Yin Tong level,

You can focus on a point in space,

A point on an object or an imaginary point to the horizon.

Again,

Whole body relaxed and quiet.

Focusing all your attention,

Your intention to this one point.

So the center of the eyes are focused on this one point and also softly observe any objects around the point.

Beginning to soften all borders,

All boundaries around this one point.

Keeping your eyes open for as long as you are able.

Allowing the physical eyes to rest inside the head.

For some of us,

Our eyes might move.

That's natural and normal.

For others,

The eyes might tear.

They might get watery.

Also normal.

This is part of adjusting the mind.

Allowing the mind to grow more quiet.

From here,

We draw this point inwardly.

Gently,

If you're comfortable closing the eyes.

Drawing this point inwardly,

Now to the center space of the head,

What we call the home of the mind,

The Shen Ji Palace,

Also known as Upper Dan Tian,

Upper Elixir Field.

As you draw your awareness into the center space of the head,

Continue to relax the entire body.

Relaxing your forehead,

The space between the eyebrows,

Relaxing the face and the jaw.

If comfortable,

Raising the tip of the tongue to where the soft and hard palate meet in the roof of the mouth.

Drawing the awareness fully into the center space of the head,

Knowing where the mind goes,

Qi,

Life force energy follows.

From the center space of the head,

The mind expands throughout the body.

From the top of the head,

Down to the bottoms of the feet.

From deep inside to outside,

Integrating and harmonizing all layers of the body with Qi,

Life force energy.

Perceive the mind expanding throughout your head,

Penetrating all structures of the head.

Mind expanding throughout the neck,

The chest,

The abdomen,

Penetrating the inner organs of the chest and abdomen.

Mind expands throughout the pelvis,

Legs,

Feet and toes,

Penetrating all structures of the pelvis,

Legs,

Feet and toes.

Mind expanding throughout the shoulders,

Arms,

Hands and fingers,

Penetrating all structures of the shoulders,

Arms,

Hands and fingers.

The entire body is integrated and harmonized with Qi.

Feeling the body as empty,

Yet not empty.

Perceive your mind staying inside your physical body.

So we have done the verses,

Head touches sky,

Feet stepping on earth.

As the body relaxes,

The mind expands.

The next verse,

Be respectful and quiet.

When we respect something,

We pay attention to it.

So we are invited to respect our practice.

This is your training to cultivate and awaken your inner wisdom,

To strengthen your ability to be present.

When you respect something and pay attention to it,

Your mind naturally becomes more quiet.

Continuing in our next verse,

The mind is quiet.

Appearance is humble.

In this quietness,

We perceive the mind like a still lake,

Completely clear,

Transparent.

In this quietness,

We also become humble.

We become humble to our own life,

Humble to the mystery.

In this humbleness,

We become even more attentive to this body,

To this heart,

This mind,

This breath.

Our next verse,

No distracting thoughts.

The saying,

Replacing the 10,

000 thoughts with the one thought.

Remind yourself,

You have set this time aside for your health,

Your healing.

There is nothing that you need to do.

Nowhere you have to go.

No story you need to tell.

You have arrived.

You are here.

Now.

Our next verse,

From deep inside,

We expand out to infinite space.

From the center of your being,

The mind expands up through the top of the head to the blue sky and beyond.

Expanding downward through the center of the legs,

Out of the bottoms of the feet,

Deep into the earth,

Through the center of mother earth,

All the way to the other side,

To the blue sky and beyond.

Opening through the front of the body,

The back,

The left,

The right,

All the way to the horizon,

Beyond the horizon.

As you open,

Forget the physical.

Expand as far as the mind will take you.

Naturally integrating and harmonizing with nature.

As you open,

Expand even more.

You are dissolving all borders,

Boundaries,

Conditions,

Names.

All is merged in oneness.

Our next verse,

From all directions,

Draw the awareness deep inside.

The mind shining throughout the entire body.

From this oneness,

Draw your awareness back from all directions,

Absorbing the powerful,

Positive,

Upright information,

Which is another form of chi.

Gathering,

Condensing,

Cohering by drawing the awareness back inside your physical body,

Knowing where the mind goes,

Chi follows.

Drawing your awareness back to the center space of the head,

The home of the mind.

From the center space of the head,

Again perceive the entire body,

Continuing to send the powerful and positive information to all layers of the physical body.

Now from deep inside,

Once again,

Expand out in all directions.

From all directions,

Step back deep inside.

Deep inside,

The universe is you.

Now I invite you to draw your awareness to the space behind your navel,

Closer to the spine.

This is called your lower dantian,

Lower elixir field.

Now physically,

Draw your palms towards the navel,

Right hand first for women,

Left for men,

Opposite hand on top,

Aligned with the navel.

In this position,

Continue to send your awareness inside the space of your lower dantian.

Throughout our practice,

We nourish our lower dantian for our physical health and healing.

Use your consciousness to penetrate the depths of your lower dantian.

Perceiving your lower dantian is full of chi,

Completely full of chi.

Our last verse,

Entire body is harmonized with chi,

Harmonized with chi.

Now separating the mind from lower dantian,

Returning to the center space of the head.

From the center space of the head,

Send the instructions to slowly open the hands and gently open the eyes.