- Taken from Ron Timm’s talk, 6 Dragons Retreat, August 2024 -
The practice of Qi Gong can be challenging. You will be asked to stand in difficult positions, you will be asked to hold them for a really long time. And at times you will feel wasted and done. However, it has nothing to do with the muscles. It does have a little bit to do with the nervous system, in a way that you have to calm the nerves. Because if you freak out at that point, that's not good. We need to be able to operate the nervous system, just to calm it down, just to keep it balanced.
This is the way. The nature of Dao is to return, to return to the original being. The natural state of things.
The right distance and the right closeness
The essence of Qi Gong is the work with Qi: in the process we open up, things come to the surface and become conscious. This is when you can access them and this is when you can do something with it.
Before that, what can you do? If you don't know it's there, you cannot do anything. Even if you know it’s there somewhere, but you can't access it, you cannot do much. But if it's right in your face, you cannot do anything either. This is where you have to have the right distance. In Daoism there is a phrase that refers to what is happening in the practice. Daoists refer to it as taming the tiger.
Here is what you do: if you don't go close to the tiger, you can't tame it. But if you go too close, you can't tame it either, because you're dead already. This is why you have to be totally present within your practice. When to come closer, when to distance a little bit, when to stay, when to go, so that the energy that we are talking about here can be transformed.
Taming the tiger is a transformation of energy. The tiger that was fierce before becomes a purring cat. This is what it is about.
The set up for transformation
This is about the quality of the energy. We don't like anger, we don't like rage, but it is energy. It’s Qi, it's a hell of a lot of Qi. On the other hand, we often say we want to have more energy. The problem actually is, we are full of energy but we cannot use it, because it is charged. So it has to undergo transformation.
If you just kill somebody, the energy is not transformed. It might help for a moment, but also somebody is dead. And it is hard to get a person alive again. So it needs transformation. This is why this can be done within the inner work, within the method. As it is very difficult in day-to-day life.
It would be recommended to do it within the practice, as it gives you the best conditions. If you want to tame a tiger, you probably have a certain setting, I imagine. It is not as if you can walk through the jungle and the tiger comes at you and at this very point you undertake the task of taming the tiger: ‘Oh, let me tame it now!’. No. You will have no time, basically. You better run. Though if you run, the tiger also runs. So it's not good. So don't run. But how not to run? This is why taming the tiger is probably best done in a certain setting.
Using the anger
The practice we do demands a lot of energy. Especially in the retreats people often say that they are done, it is so tough, and so on. It is demanding work, we are clear about that. Therefore, it will activate all the energy of your body. Because it needs all the energy you have. Because you have to use it. So the energy that is bound to your anger is also needed. This is why it becomes activated. The body decides: ‘The hell with it, let’s go’.
There is a fine point here though: the energy is needed to do the exercise, but the anger itself is not. You can't do this exercise when you are totally angry. It is not possible. So you start to use the energy of the anger now, because it is required, but you have to take the anger out. Or, it is not that you have to, you will, in the process.
You might not know how to, but you do the form. You got the Buddha face. You do belly breathing. You are not killing anybody- as this is not the form. You need that energy, because you cannot do it without it, you need all the energy there is. Because the work is so demanding. But you clean out the anger from the energy. And you will do it through the form. You don't know how. I don't know how, therefore I cannot tell you. I can tell you a little something, about the face and about breathing, but you will do it yourself if you do the exercise.
The exercise will demand all the energy and the exercise will demand that it is transformed. Is this a tough process? Yes, it is really tough. Are you done after this? Yes. But that also means the one that has this angry energy is not there any longer. You are done and you are done with the anger.
Motivation for practice
Anger is a driving force, it can be very useful. I mean, it wouldn't be there if it wasn’t. For example, in the western martial arts a lot is done through the anger energy or emotional energy, no matter which emotion. Emotions move things, they are strong forces. Fear is probably the strongest motivator, though fear doesn't make you a good fighter because it has the nasty side effect that if there is too much of it you don't move any longer, you freeze. So this is the good thing about anger: it puts you right into action.
This way energy can be mobilized through emotions. However, this is the opposite of the stillness practice. The question is: how can you be motivated in this case? How can you have strength and activate a lot of energy without being emotionally driven? Then you must have a direct connection to the Qi and to the energy to move it. So you don't use emotions to move the Qi. This is the trick.
This is why we want to do the Qi Gong forms, especially the Bagua standing structure form. It is the purification of the Qi, you can feel that in your practice. While you are doing it, it probably feels terrible and it should, at least a little bit. And then after, it should be feeling really good. Like the calm after the storm. After a thunderstorm. The charge has been cleared. The transformation has happened.
