The Fasting of the Thoughts  – Violet Li Tai Chi

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We’re all acquainted with the concept of meals fasting. However what’s the fasting of the thoughts and why is it related in at present’s world? And the way will we really conduct the fasting? Sifu Lindsey Wei of Oregon offered this important and profound thought and a fasting methodology within the latest 2022 Qigong World Summit. 

Chinese Calligraphy by Cliff & Patricia Ling
Chinese language Calligraphy by Cliff & Patricia Ling

The fasting of the thoughts or Xin Zhai is an historic philosophy in addition to a apply to domesticate the advantage in oneself. Xin in Chinese language means the center in addition to the thoughts; Zhai means the fasting. Xin Zhai was advocated by Sage Zhuang Zi or Zhuang Zhou (roughly 369-286 BCE), who’s acknowledged as two most essential philosophers in Daoism or Taoism together with Lao Zi Zhuang Zi can be a ebook title authored by the thinker. It consists all of his essential ideas advised in fables. His tales are filled with creativeness and overpowering ideas. He made up characters’ names simply to encapsulate the concepts and he additionally “borrowed” well-known individuals’ names so as to add sarcasm or seize consideration. In a single well-known story, sage Confucius (551-479 BCE) gave his disciple Yan Hui an recommendation, the later was going to influence a brutal warlord the right way to rule the nation so his folks might dwell peacefully and fortunately. It might be a really harmful effort. Confucius urged Yan Hui to quick his thoughts or apply Xin Zhai first by liberating the thoughts of ideas and letting go of the ego to achieve the state of the thoughts of vacancy. Solely when the thoughts is empty and quiet, individuals are capable of take in the actual data, see issues in readability, and the true knowledge will emerge.

Nonetheless quieting the thoughts and letting go ideas is definitely mentioned than completed when we live in a extremely related period. Folks together with myself continually test on our cellphone and pc for e-mail messages, texts, information, and social media postings by household, pals, co-workers, curiosity teams and even folks we don’t notably like. We’re endlessly multi-tasking and our consideration switches out and in at nano second. Sarcastically, with extra methods to attach and talk, typically occasions we don’t hear what different folks say and we lose contact with family members and even connection to our true self. I as soon as noticed an indication in a restaurant saying “The longest distance between two folks sitting on the identical dinner desk is when each are their cellphones.” Our senses are overloaded and our nervousness degree has risen accordingly. Prior to now two years, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, places of work turn out to be digital, so do colleges. We attend wedding ceremony ceremonies and funeral companies on Zoom or Webex. Folks spend extra time on screens of sensible telephones, pill computer systems, PCs, video video games and TVs. Extra display screen time means extra sedentary life-style and fewer bodily actions. There are reviews of extra instances of weight problems, despair, insomnia, suicides, and substance abuse.  Because of the digital world that we live in with much less bodily workout routines and true human interplay, folks really feel stressed. It’s actually the time to quick the thoughts.  

Sifu Lindsey Wei

Sifu Lindsey Wei is masterful within the therapeutic facet in addition to the martial facet of the Wudang inside Kung Fu, Tai Chi, and Qigong. As a twenty fourth Era Chun Yang Sect of Wudang Daoism and thirty first Era Wudang Lengthy Males Dragon Gate, she was a senior teacher on the 5 Immortals Temple in China and is the founding father of the Wudang White Horse Academy. She has authored “The Valley Spirit – A Feminine Story of Daoist Cultivation“, which wrote about her discovery of the hidden data of Daoism, reality, and herself and “Path of the Religious Warrior”, which is the true story of a non secular warrior Kru Pedro Solana. 

In accordance with Sifu Wei, calming down the thoughts or fasting from considering is the core of the Daoist apply. Folks can do both meditation or Qigong to quiet the thoughts. There are numerous methods or types to meditate or apply Qigong as a result of there are a lot of sects and colleges within the Daoist system. She has targeted primarily on Yang Sheng Gong (life nurturing), Da Gong (Grand Approach, just like patting therapeutic massage and exhausting fashion Qigong), Eight Therapeutic Qigong, and 5 Animal Qigong (Dragon, Tiger, Snake, Crane, and Turtle). In the course of the Qigong World Summit, she shared the Dragon Qigong. In Chinese language, there’s a saying Xiang Lengthy Fu Hu, which implies subduing the dragon and taming the tiger. In Daoist apply, dragon is the image of the spirit and tiger is the physique. The Dragon Qigong could be very appropriate to quick the thoughts. You possibly can watch at no cost Lindsey’ presentation through the Summit and study the Dragon Qigong by clicking the hyperlink beneath. 

Sifu Lindsey cautions us that if our thoughts nonetheless produces ideas, it is not going to work regardless how a lot Qigong individuals are training every day. If the thoughts is energetic, then we will’t get right down to the roots of our true knowledge. Our physique is an ecology and it’s contaminated. Lindsey thinks that we’re hooked on the digital world and closely influenced by it. The society removes us from the pure landscaping and put us within the man-made construction and we lose contact with the character and our personal soul. With out common mind-fasting, it’s exhausting to revive the ecology inside. 

Final 12 months, the State of Oregon suffered from a number of giant fires and Bootleg Fireplace was one among them. The Bootleg Fireplace broke out on July 6 within the Fremont-Winema Nationwide Forest and was not below management till Mid-August. The Wudang White Horse Academy had a nomadic coaching camp there and was burned down. Within the connected video, you’ll be able to see Lindsey and her college students apply on the burnt website with ashes after the hearth. There was a way of loss and emotion however I clear see the tranquility inside and the willpower and knowledge to revive the ecology. Sifu Wei additionally wrote a robust poem:

Witness the Wild Spirit After Demise Nonetheless Alive        

Rebirth in ashes

There was the erasure of a whole panorama 

that I had liked,

the incineration of a forest, 

the drying up of rivers and the lack of wildlife. 

It was a micro-apocalypse, large enough to cease me in my tracks, 

catapult me into a brand new path of planting seed. 

Awaken me to my very own participation within the fast paced practice of society, self promotionalism, 

digital habit, 

greed, discontent and competitors. 

In the meantime the Earth is forgotten.  

As we sit distracted, 

staring into the rat race, 

the soils of the nice nothing flip to sand

exterior of our metropolis partitions for nobody to see.   

The silver lining?  

Witness the wild spirit after dying 

nonetheless alive.

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