Practicing QigongDharma with the Understanding and Appreciation of Plateaus
In the process of learning and embodying QigongDharma, you will go through many layers, levels, and dimensions of experience. An important insight in this process is understanding when you are on a plateau in your practice.
A plateau is an essential stage of development when you may feel that you are not making progress or that no substantial change is appearing to occur, regardless of your effort.
Insight and breakthroughs in qigong and dharma practice often happen in rhythms – in ebbs and flows. Gaining greater skill, awareness and sensitivity is a process; appreciating the flow of practice by understanding plateaus is essential.
Insight into Integration
Plateaus in qigong are not just something to be put up with and endured. They are, in fact, necessary to the progress and deepening of your practice. As your practice grows, you gain direct somatic insight. Direct somatic insight means knowing by intuitive feeling and experiencing through the body. Along with this somatic insight comes the ‘time it takes’ to integrate this particular kind of knowledge with the nervous system – with the whole organism. Your dedicated practice facilitates this readjustment and realignment.
Plateaus act as the time and space continuum of this integration.
Part of qigong is learning the principle and the value of “underdoing.” This skill allows a harmonious integration of knowledge from both integration in embodied practice and cognitive study.
Understanding the Foundations of Qigong Practice
Tolerance for the plateaus of your practice is vital for the seemingly unchanging landscapes of experience in your practice.
Perseverance in your effort not only distinguishes the quality of your genuine commitment as a practitioner but is also the ground for your continuing success in practice.
In QigongDharma, more technique, knowledge, and forms do not equate to better qigong or better results from practice. Diving deep through the simplicity of each element – into the embodiment of each qigong principle – yields the true gold of practice. Mindfulness with equanimity reveals the ground, the process, and the result of intelligent and skillful training.
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