Free Your Spirit and Find Joy

     A question for you: what do you think life is for?

     Do you have a moment to think about that? Maybe not in an abstract way, but for you, personally. What do YOU think life is for? Or, maybe another way to ask the question would be, What is best in life?

     And, while you’re reflecting, maybe you could ask yourself, What is freedom?

     The thing is, at Master Lin’s healing center in Minnesota, we meet a lot of people. Students, clients. Of course, we meet a lot of beautiful people who are drawn to Spring Forest Qigong by their love, by a deep compassion that’s set them on a search. They’re looking for a way to help the people they meet, the people they love, the world itself.

     But we also meet a whole lot of people who are not happy. Not just not happy, but even depressed. Not even just depressed; very often, we meet people who are at what they might call “the worst time of their life.”

     Of course, many of these people have very serious physical health challenges – cancers, immune diseases, chronic bone or joint or nerve disorders. But it’s very interesting to see, again and again, that these people have also been carrying very overwhelming emotions. Deep grief... deep fears... chronic anxiety... long-simmering anger.

     Even more interesting, so many of these same people carrying these same corrosive emotions... are also what you might call “successful.” Well-respected. Wealthy. Commanding. Accomplished. Yet, having all that the world desires, they find themselves in crisis and find that they’re still lacking – in joy, in peace, in simple contentment.

     Again, take a moment to ask yourself: what is best in life? What is life for? What is freedom?

     Now that you’ve had a moment to ask these questions, maybe we can explore some answers together. Couldn’t we call “freedom” the ability to make lots of choices and act on them without anything stopping us? If at every turn in life, you find you can’t do what you want, you’d probably say you’re not free, wouldn’t you? That seems simple enough. But if you had everything in the world, and still didn’t have your health, joy, peace of mind, or simple contentment – would you still say you were free?

     What, then, is life for, if you’re not free to enjoy the life you have? And if the things of life don’t give you joy, where is joy to be found?

     In Spring Forest Qigong, we say, “joy is happiness for no reason.” In Spring Forest Qigong, we also say there’s a difference between “spirit” and “soul.” Everyone has a soul, and everyone has a spirit. The soul is something incorruptible, ever-pure. The perfect expression of unconditional love, it’s something very close to the divine. But the spirit is different; it’s something that can be colored by our life-experiences.

     You can have an aggressive, dominant spirit, or a gentle and mild spirit. You can have a generous and forgiving spirit, or a cruel and spiteful spirit. You might call your spirit an overall energetic expression of what you present to the world – and the state of your body, your mind, your emotions, and the quality of all your life-experiences help to shape it.

     But Qigong teaches us that energy is always transforming. Not only that, but that we can do things to help that energy to transform, both to benefit and to harm ourselves. That means the spirit can be trained, retrained. Or, you might say refined. Refinement is a wonderful way to look at it.

     What is a free spirit?

     A truly free spirit is a spirit free of attachments. What’s an attachment? Imagine, if you have a chain clasped to your foot, and that chain is anchored to a giant stone, you could say you’re attached to the stone, by means of the chain. Attached like that, your freedom is limited. Short chain, long chain, rusty chain, golden chain – still, you can only go so far and see so much.

     In your own life, you might call those attachments stories – the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, or about others. I can’t. I must. I’m like this because. This happened, so that’s why I can’t. This might happen, so I shouldn’t. I won’t, because they will. You might call those stories reasons why. And those stories, those reasons why, are chains anchored to experiences, to feelings, which keep our spirits in bondage. And we know – not to be free is the greatest unhappiness.

     Refinement.

     So, spiritual refinement is like the severing of attachments, the unclasping of bonds. Or, it’s like the purification of water. If a lake is lined with gold, the beauty of the treasure shines when the water is clear. When it’s muddy, the gold doesn’t shine through. The gold never moves; but now we see it, now we don’t. Spiritual refinement is a purification of the water. The gold is the soul. Every story, every memory relived in endless loops, every energy blockage, is like a particle of dirt floating in the water of our spirit, hiding the gold of our soul. To be free in spirit is to be as clear as an unmuddied lake. 

     And when we’re free of these stories, of these reasons why, what’s left? Only the unconditional love of the soul, the joy of the heart – happiness for absolutely no reason at all. Then, to have is a joy, and not to have is a joy. To be well is a joy, and not to be well is a joy. And that’s the greatest freedom of all.

     How do we find this freedom? How do we let go of attachments? How do we refine the spirit?

     Qigong is a great place to start.

     Joy is the emotion of the heart. Unconditional love is from the heart. The heart is the seat of the soul.

     The easiest thing you can do is smile. In Spring Forest Qigong, we say “smile” stands for Start My Internal Love Engine. Smiling awakens the joy in your heart, and in the hearts of people who see you.

     You can serve others selflessly. This is as simple as asking someone how they’re doing when they seem sad, then listening with love. Or, you can make food and share it with your neighbor, just because. Or, you can help your friend with healing – you can show them simple Qigong exercises from Level 1 or Five Elements or Head to Toe Healing. You can do the healing that you learn in Level 2, removing their energy blockages and giving them healing energy.

     Doing these things with unconditional love, selflessly, not only heals you, but slowly, slowly it shifts your focus away from “me and my stories” to “how can I help?” This purifies your spirit, effortlessly cutting the attachments that keep it from moving, from rising. As your spirit purifies, your soul guides you more and more, and you feel more and more joy.

     You can also practice your Qigong every day. Five Elements is a wonderful choice. Not only will this balance your body’s energy, releasing you from the burden of moving in an unwell body, but it also helps you to move your focus to positive emotions – to really feel joy, happiness, gratitude, contentment, and peace.

     And you can also practice the Level 2 movements. As your body finds balance, your mind settles, and you live more and more in the glow of positive emotions, practicing these healing movements develops your spiritual energy even more deeply. Doing this, your soul shines ever more brightly in all that you do. The fire of your joy burns ever warmer, ever wider, bringing more and more of the light of unconditional love to those in the world who need it.

     And you might call this the final freedom: freedom from yourself, and freedom for others.