#1

We all like to be clean :-) and of course when we are clean, we feel better. While cleaning the outside of our body is easy¡ªhow about the inside? How do we clean our inside?

The inside of our body accumulates ¡°dust and dirt¡± just like the surface of our skin does. Each day we wash ourselves off in showers, but our inner ¡°dirt¡± remains. Over the years our inner ¡°dirt¡± piles up. Imagine a person who has not had a shower for 25 years. You probably would not want to get near him or her. Neglecting our inner selves can have an even greater impact upon our lives than not showering for years.

Our inner ¡°dirt¡± manifests as Qi (Chinese's word for 'energy') Blockages. The symptoms of Qi Blockages cover a wide range and include feeling tired often, having pain, our body feeling tight and inflexible, feeling imbalanced, anxious, upset, depressed and more. The symptoms which result from Qi Blockages may be completely undetectable by western medicine for a long time. Eventually, however, the effects of inner ¡°dirt¡± compound and physical manifestations begin to occur. These Qi Blockage manifestations may be minor or major - but they will occur eventually unless we learn to cleanse our inner selves. Sometimes no symptoms are experienced before the physically detectable damage occurs.

The point to this discussion is: we need to clean up our inner body as frequently as we clean our surface! Inner cleansing is for both prevention and healing. Our Qigong self-healing classes focus on improving our health by providing the cleaning tools for each of us. For those who are not able to attend classes on a regular basis, here is the "Light Shower Method" which you can use when you are in a water shower:

2. Empty your mind, close your eyes, let the water run down over you and feel the water

3. Try sensing your body in the cell level (sensing your whole body is a collection of cells
with empty spaces between and inside of each cell

5. Keep imagining the water running over both the inside and outside of your body

        8. The bright light makes your body¡¯s physical structure becomes less and less clear to
           you, your body feels empty, there is not much difference between your inside and
           outside--all you feel is the water and light coming down, rinsing off all the dirt

Even if the above exercise does not makes sense to you, try it anyway without analyzing it. The less your mind is in the way the more effective this exercise will be and the more health benefit you will get. Benefiting from Qigong is about how much you do, not how much you know.

Keeping a pleasant mood and maintaining good relaxation throughout the day helps our Qi run smoothly and healthily in our body. Laughing can help the body relax and give us a break from stress and unpleasantness. (If you have any good funny stories and would like to share, send them to me by email and I will include them in our future enewsletters).

Wow, people in Hawaii are so friendly!
(A true story when Master Yang was visiting Honolulu in 2003)

One day we were driving through a fast food place. My husband, BC, was driving and Mom and Master Yang were in the backseat. We were discussing something intently as we ordered and drove up to the window to pay. As we pulled out of the restaurant, still involved in our discussion, Mom and Master Yang begin talking loudly in the back seat. BC and I did not pay much attention to them, thinking they were in a good mood talking to each other.

Soon, the backseat voices became so loud we could no longer ignore them. Mom expressed a little upset with me for not paying attention to what they were saying, and then Master Yang said, "Wow, people in Hawaii are so friendly! I have met a lot of friendly people but never so warm like this!" I looked back and saw two people with half their bodies hanging out of the food pick up window, waving and yelling at us. Only then BC and I realized we had paid for the food, but driven right past the pick-up window!

How different emotional states are related to our Qi will be discussed in future issues of this enewsletter. Clearly happiness is a state of being which results in healthy Qi. BC has gracefully agreed to share with us his unpublished manuscript. Hope you have fun reading it, and Be Happy!

(An excerpt from an unpublished manuscript by Robert Cowling--BC--currently being edited)

Almost twenty years ago my girlfriend changed my life. Jane and I sat in the kitchen in her San Francisco apartment planning a winter trip to Mexico. I needed to be warm. I had just returned from visiting friends in the Midwest. Jane was about to quit her job to travel with me, hoping to once again find her art. As I sat looking across the white kitchen table at her I felt she was the person I needed to be happy. Describing to her how I had felt trapped and scared on my recent trip back to Illinois, I reveled in the bad feelings. She listened patiently, then said, "It feels to me that you like to be unhappy. Happiness is a choice. If you do not chose to be happy, you never will be."

Jane was right--and her timing was terrific, for I was open to the truth in her words. I found that I could make the choice to Be Happy! Choosing happiness has not proven to be easy, but Jane gave me the awareness that I have the power to chose. For this experience alone--and we shared many wonderful moments--I will always be grateful to her. We lived in Mexico for five months, returned to San Francisco, struggled through the summer, then decided we could not resolve our basic differences. I moved to Hawaii two months later, still seeking warmth.

Why was I able to take the step Jane offered me that day in her kitchen? And why is choosing happiness a constant challenge? Training and habit are my answers. I had grown enough spiritually in the previous few years, opening my awareness, to be able to see the truth Jane offered. I had trained myself to take that step. Training is a continual part of life if we are to grow and learn. We have many teachers, but through our choices we guide our training. Whether we take long bumpy roads or direct paths is our continual choice.

What about habit? Is it your habit to grumble and focus on pain and misery? Many people like to commiserate. Negativity is easy, comforting and self-perpetuating. Being downcast requires less effort than being upbeat. Either positive or negative choices gain momentum as we repeat them. And like so many ironies in life, the choice which begins easy soon turns hard. How many times have you avoided a difficult, but constructive choice and found yourself later in a more stressful situation because you did not deal with your business-at-hand in the beginning?

The positive choice which can seem difficult at first, which is so easy to avoid, usually becomes lighter with practice. Making these positive choices will lead you to light and love. The choice is yours each moment, every day to Be Happy!

Most of us agree that our health is greatly related to what we put in our mouths. An increasing number of people today feel organic food is healthier for us. Since organic food eliminates the extra garbage often found in processed food (preservatives, pesticides, artificial colors and additives) from entering our body, the Qi perspective is that our environment is much cleaner for Qi to move through us. In Chinese medicine, there is also a detailed discussion about relationships between food and our Qi. We will touch on this topic in future issues.

Article Review
We came across the article below online the other day. If you have heard of Marion Nestile or are interested in reading about usa food industry, you might find the article interesting.

DOWN TO A SCIENCE Marion Nestle, the nutritionist and author the food industry wants to muzzle, is speaking freely at UC Berkeley Here is a link to the whole article

DOWN TO A SCIENCE
Marion Nestle, the nutritionist and author the food industry wants to muzzle, is speaking freely at UC Berkeley Here is a link to the whole article