One Love, Many Faces

     There is a saying attributed to Jesus: “I am the light that is above them all. I am the all, and the all came from me, and the all attained to me. Cleave a piece of wood and I am there; lift up a stone and you will find me there.”

     There is a gospel song that Blind Willie Johnson sang like this: “God don’t never change. He’s God, always will be God... God in creation, God when Adam fell, God way up in heaven, God way down in hell.”

     And there is a traditional saying that, when you throw a stone at dog, the dog leaps on the stone, but when you throw a stone at a tiger, it leaps on the thrower.

     That is to say – please do not miss the point here.

     Because this is not about religion. Just come along this winding path, with all its gentle twists and turns. Smell the flowers. Listen to the birds. Feel the sun. Do not worry about where we are going, or whether we are lost; when we get where we are going, you will see we were headed there all along.

     So, what is Jesus saying? What is Willie saying?

     Because they seem to be saying the same thing.

     In different ways, in different voices, they are saying that there is a source from which all things come, and to which all things return. It is in all things, and can never be separate from them – because it is all things, and all things are it.

     Now, that is interesting.

     In fact, it might sound familiar to you as a Spring Forest Qigong student, even if you have only taken a Level One for Health class. Master Lin says time and again that in Qigong, whether we are helping others or practicing on our own, we want to go into the emptiness.

     He says, “everything in our world is from the emptiness and will go back to the emptiness. You might call this place the mind of God or the source of all creation. It does not matter what you call it... It is a state of pure energy where we are one with the universe.”

     This is one reason why we also begin healings or Qigong practice by saying the password: “I am in the universe. The universe is in my body. The universe and I combine together.” This helps us remember our source and return to the emptiness, where all things are possible and deep transformations take place.

     Now, consider a couple more things.

     One, “Qigong” means working with energy. In the Qigong view, everything in the universe is simply a form of energy, and “there is no such thing as bad or negative energy.” The energy that causes pain, suffering, and sickness is really only energy out of balance, not energy being “bad”; the goal in healing, then, is simply to restore out-of-place energy to its proper place.

     Two, in Spring Forest Qigong we talk a lot about “universal unconditional love.” Why? Because Spring Forest Qigong is all about healing, and there is no more powerful healing energy in the universe than unconditional love.

     Why?

     Quite simply, unconditional love is a very high vibration of energy, something higher than the three dimensions we live in and which we usually take as the whole of “reality.” It is something very close to the divine; the nature of that source from which all things come and which we tap into for healing is unconditionally loving.

     Where are we going with this?

     All these polished little ideas, arranged deliberately, but with no seeming design... like a mosaic, but seen with your eyes too close to it. Step back – ah! The meaning emerges at last.

     Spring Forest Qigong is all about healing. Whether it is for themselves or for others, whether it is at a practice group, in a private healing session, or through a home-study Qigong course, most people come to Spring Forest Qigong because they are looking for healing. As you might expect, those who need healing often bear the burden of emotions with them.

     Maybe they are depressed, resigned to the burden of their pain and the misery of living. Maybe they are afraid – the shock of an unforeseen diagnosis, the sudden confrontation with the truth of mortality. Worry about outcomes, anger with oneself and the world. On and on. Sometimes, the health challenge these people find themselves with gives rise to the emotion. Sometimes, the emotion goes deeper, further back, and gave rise to the health condition; in the Qigong perspective, this is usually the case.

     On top of that, these people then begin – as Spring Forest Qigong Master Gadu Schmitz often says, – to have feelings about feelings. Like, “I’m so angry that I’m sad.” Or, “I’m worried that I’m so angry.” Or, “I hate that I’m so afraid.” This quite easily becomes a self-turning wheel of self-destructive emotions. It also becomes easy to hate these emotions themselves.

     Qigong moves beyond all that. It helps you to move beyond that. And everything we talked about before this is meant to help you move beyond all that. No judgment, just understanding.

     If we are always in the universe and the universe is always in us... if, in Jesus’s words, the light that is in him is equally in the lowest of things... if, in Willie’s words, God is both in Heaven and Hell... if, in the Qigong perspective, all things come from emptiness and return to emptiness... if the nature of God, the Universe, the Oneness is unconditional love... then, in the enlightened words of the butcher carving up a fat boar for a crowd of picky buyers, “What’s not a prime cut on this thing?”

     Could it be... it’s all love?

     Couldn’t you call pain, suffering, anger, hatred, sadness, worry, and fear... divine wisdom and love in action, exquisitely designed instruments, instilled in you to keep you healthy and happy and bring you back to balance?

     It’s true.

     It’s all good, it’s all love, and it’s all there for a reason.

     Sometimes people misunderstand – even practicing students of Spring Forest Qigong. “Those emotions are negative.” Well, yes, in a sense, but not in the highest sense, and not with respect to a person’s whole life.

     Anger, hatred, sadness, worry, and fear are survival-emotions. So, they go deep, deep in our being and in our history. They are there to keep us alive. If we are not alive, then not much else is going to happen for us on this earth, good or bad.

     Anger is love, love in action. Its essential energy is to push and push away. In moments of danger, of life and death, anger gives us the impulse to push the threat away from us.

     Hatred is love, love in action. The passionate fire of hate is a potent catalyst, a consuming, transformative energy for initiating change. Without this energy, one is paralyzed, stagnant, impotent.

     Worry is love, love in action. What would your life be without the gear-turning, the slow rumination, of worry’s energy to goad you, both to introspection and to action? Complacent, complacency. “Who cares?” “What does it matter?” Do you think you can live a long life like that?

     Sadness is love, love in action. In grief, in longing, in sadness are the seeds of compassion, itself one of the highest flowerings of being. Without the keenness of the sense of loss that sadness brings us, we would not know the value of what we love, nor the value of loving itself.

     Fear is love, love in action. Fear deeply activates the kidney energy, and in Qigong, kidney energy is the most central, vital energy of the body, the energy with which all other things are sustained and accomplished. Fear wakes and warns us, giving us full presence and the opportunity to take life-saving action. You must have heard of the “fight-or-flight response.” That is the gift of fear.

     Where is the bad in any of that? Where is the evil?

     These things are blessings. These are reflections of perfect wisdom in the body. With these gifts and guardians, we have the means by which we may preserve our lives, then to express higher vibrations of emotional energy, to engage in higher pursuits, to fulfill the desires of finer spiritual promptings.

     Without the lower, none of the higher is possible.

     So, it is a matter, first, of understanding.

     In the Qigong perspective, it is not a question of whether energy is good or bad, but whether it is in balance or not.

     A little hatred, perhaps upon realization of your squandered time and abuse of the precious life-gifts you were given, is a powerful spur to total self-transformation. A lot of hatred, all the time, destroys your body, your mind, and your relationships. So, balance: right amount, right time, right reason. This goes for all the survival-emotions.

     Then, as we learn to see in ourselves where we are out of balance with emotions, as we begin to understand that all these things are energy, neither good nor bad, and that energy can be transformed to serve us in our healing and spiritual growth... we can use tools (like what Spring Forest Qigong teaches) to put our survival-emotions in their proper place and perspective, and start to cultivate higher, finer emotions. This way, we heal faster. We grow spiritually. We improve all aspects of our lives.

     Just as there are “negative” survival-emotions, there are “positive” healing-emotions. At the highest level, these are neither good nor bad, either, but as far as living a fulfilling, healthy, and even spiritually enlightened life goes... nothing beats happiness, joy, peace, contentment, and gratitude.

     You know that. Everyone knows that. But sometimes... living those emotions is a challenge.

     You know what? You can do it, though. Everyone can. Those emotions are always there for you, and you can never exhaust their wells within you. If you need a little help tapping into them, Qigong Master Chunyi Lin created a series of healing Qigong movements to help you do just that. You can even learn them at home – we have a home-study course for it.

     All we’ll say is, at Master Lin’s healing center, he and his healers recommend those Five Element Qigong Healing Movements to almost everyone they see. Thousands of students have learned and practice them every day.

     You want to see love in action? Spend a little time every day focused on happiness, joy, peace, contentment, and gratitude and see what kind of changes that brings.