TCM Psychiatry – Qing Zhi Bing – Inner-Cultivation, Self-Healing, and Meditation

Supportive Therapies

After studying Qing Zhi Bing as a sub-specialty of Traditional Chinese medicine, you can also learn supportive therapies to explore your healing and experience of Life further, or be of service to others in more specific and beneficial ways.

Inner-Cultivation, Self-Healing, and Meditation

However you choose to bring all of your resources and attention to a practice, or to your wellbeing, or perhaps a certain challenge in the world, you are in a coherent state. From this place, you can apply the skills of state shift or shapeshifting. If you can completely direct your intention and embodied state several times a day, your life will change dramatically.

When life moves towards pacing, fretting, tossing, and turning, you will have several opportunities per day to consciously applying your awareness. How you guide your attention, appreciation, compassion, Qi sensitivity and expression, will determine the direction of your Inner Cultivation, and your confidence in your Spiritual Path.

What is Nèi Gōng 内功?

Nèi Gōng 内功 can be translated as ‘Inner Practice or Cultivation’, subtle skills, or what happens beneath what can be seen. The Term Nèi 内 also implies the boundary between Separation and Non-Separation – an essential aspect of Daoist Cultivation.

The term Nèi Gōng can be used in a martial art, a Qì Gōng 氣功, a meditation, or in any other spiritual practice context. For the purpose of easy communication, I will refer to Nèi Gōng as if it is a distinct branch of practice that focuses on Cultivating Inner Awareness.

With regular Nèi Gōng practice, you are beginning the journey of re-discovering your Innate Experiential/Existential Nature (Xìng 性) and your Aliveness Potential (Mìng 命). This practice also brings your subtle Energy Systems, Internal Organs, Meridians, Energy Centers (Dan Tian), and your Six Innate Minds (Yuán Xīn 元心), as well as your Energy Gates into balance.

The Chinese Characters for your Meridians, in general, are Jīng Luò 經絡, which can describe the tension and integrity of the warp and weft of a cloth, the obvious and subtle aspects of circulation, the collagen matrix of your connective tissues and membranes, or perhaps even the fabric of Space-Time.

Each of your Meridians expresses a core instinct and is connected with innate gestures based on ancient animal reflexes, human body language, as well as the behavior, expressions, and experiences of your Ancestors. These subtle, sensual, emotional, and instinctual, qualities of your Meridians also affect your posture, some physical characteristics, the health of the tissue of your whole body, and the free movement of Qi and Blood throughout all your body’s physiological and conscious activities.

Finally, your Meridians express the vitality and functional health (or the challenges) of your internal organs.

At this level of interaction, the more ancient Dao Yin (Trauma Release, State Shift, Down-Regulation, Fascial Tensegrity) practices become essential. This can involve several forms of Breathwork and specific exercises to open each and every joint and membrane of your body

What is Xiū Dào 修道?

Daoist Cultivation (Xiū Dào 修道) involves several practices that focus on Embodied Meditation.

The two oldest, most comprehensive, and most common forms of meditation still practiced today are Chan/Zen (禪) and Nèi Gōng 内功. Chan is focused almost entirely on Apophatic Realisation, while Nei Gong begins with an Embodied Approach to cultivating awareness in preparation for Chan/Zen practice. In some ways they are very different, and in some ways they are the same path.

In the Yi Dao Huan Yuan tradition of Daoist Cultivation that I have learned and now teach, any committed meditation journey begins with the study of both, but with an initial dedication to the somatic, instinctual, visceral, and existential renewal of Nèi Gōng 内功.

A contemporary Nèi Gōng practice begins with learning about and embodying your meridians, exploring subtle aspects of Qi circulation, Qi wounds, and Self Healing (Nei Yang Gong), as well as connecting with your Energy Centers (Dān Tián 丹田), all while opening your Microcosmic Orbit and Energy Gates, Portals, Apertures (Qiào 竅), and becoming very skillful in several forms of Shaolin and Daoist Breathwork.

As these skills come together, you will learn how to ‘induct’ a refined state of embodied harmony and stillness – allowing you to enter into the Mystery Gate of Daoist Meditation. This opening is available to everyone, and is found through immersive states of profound coherence, tranquillity, stillness, and resolve.

While sharing these traditional skills and methods, I also like to include some clinical evidence on what is happening on the levels of physiology, hormonal and neurotransmitter balance, as well as the tone and resilience of your fascia, your immune system, and your nervous system.

Six Initial Grottos of Nei Gong

A Grotto, in Daoist practice, is a metaphoric cave of safety, beauty, and silence; or a crypt to place the aspects of oneself that have died away in meditation. A Grotto can also mean an inner chamber of evolution – you only go in if you are committed to coming out transformed.

Each stage of this Inner Cultivation process is referred to as a Grotto because of the implication of change, the completion of a step on the journey of creative evolution, and the awareness that when you are ready, you can enter the next Grotto. And so, it continues forever.

The Six Grottos are sourced in the medieval source text (1642 AD) the Yi Dao Huan Yuan, which transmits some unique insights on TCM and Daoist Cultivation.

The First Grotto – Life (Qi) exists between Yin and Yang (Sky and Land)

The Second Grotto – Who is Meditating on an Inner Landscape?

The Third Grotto – Many Minds, Many Bodies, and Many Ways of Coming into Being

Fourth Grotto – TCM Physiology of Inner Cultivation and Nei Gong Inductions

Fifth Grotto – Narrow Passes and Inner Openings

Sixth Grotto – Coming Home – Returning to the Source – (Huan Yuan)

Getting to this level of Qi Gong practice and experience usually takes a few years of dedicated and professionally guided practice. This course will give you the tools and guidance to begin and personalize this life-changing and life-extending practice.

Contents:

For a full description of this six-month course, TAP the link below.

https://somadaoqigong.com/opening-your-meridians-and-dan-tian-nei-gong-one/