centered around centers. networks: general 615

Physical experiences create feelings and thoughts. Thoughts and feelings create physical experiences. Since it is all connected, the one impacts the other. But this kind of circularity extends over all kinds of areas and dimensions. The way your environment makes you feel and experience yourself and the world (in the process of your socialization) shapes all parts of your (conscious and not conscious) existence, your body posture, the way you move, whether your inner organs work and interact with each other in more or less harmonious and balanced ways, your emotional and intellectual patterns (open and cooperative, manipulative,…), the ways you experience and treat yourself, others, and your environment in general,…

In the Taoist tradition, healthy developmental and healing processes are complexly integrative. Taoist philosophy, spirituality, and medicine are reinforcing each other in their practices. This is why in Taoist philosophy-inspired bodymind practices, you start in one or just a few areas that you try to connect better, and then expand the practice to include more and more areas in your being.

You start, for instance, by connecting hands and feet movements more complexly in your practices. This is, for instance, something I thoroughly pay attention to when doing the individual movements within the Shaolin method for transforming the tendons, the 少林易筋經. With the feet, you focus on feeling the support of the ground and the opportunities to receive energy providing impulses. You grow your “roots.”

In the Chinese movement traditions, you often talk about trees and roots. The 道德經 Tao Te Ching talks about grass and trees. You treasure the support of 地 earth, one of the elements in one of the foundational concepts of Chinese philosophy, 天地人 “the universe, earth, and human beings.” The idea of growing roots is an integrative and collaborative practice.

Just to stay with hands and feet for a moment. Impulses from the feet movements run through the whole body into the hands, the fingers, and, in a centrifugal manner, leave the hands. The idea behind this is the opposite of an isolating, compartmentalized anthropocentric approach. Energetically, physically, we feel more alive and more connected. Like plants need the sunlight, like their orientation towards the sun, there is also an upwards orientation in 內功 Nei-kung practices–the 天 universe element in 天地人 “the universe, earth, human beings.” The Taoist focus is not narrowly on improving one’s individual energy and power. It is about empowering the individual to play a fuller and more constructive role in its/her/his environment/ecosystem. The ecosystem is our teacher.

A bodymind practice offers an environment for compressed, inhibited parts of our bodymind to unfold their integrative potential. We experience ourselves as something in a continuum. Such a bodymind practice introduces and offers a wonderful transformative developmental path, integrative patterns operating, and unfolding on a multitude of levels simultaneously.

There is specific technical and practical knowledge in the diverse bodymind practices of how to awaken and strengthen the integrative abilities of “centers” distributed all over our body. To avoid a utilitarian application of this knowledge, an integrative mindset is essential. This is why it is relevant for the physical practice to be embedded in a philosophical, spiritual, and medical context in a Taoist philosophy-inspired practice.

The networks approach does not only span one’s individual body as in simple coordination exercises, as you find them in ordinary physical training routines. With 天地人 “the universe, earth, human beings” as part of the conceptual framework, concepts like 小周天 the microcosmic orbit, 大周天 the macrocosmic orbit, or 內景圖 the map of internal landscapes help to visualize and realize a much more profound approach.

This includes the Taoist attitude towards (intellectual) knowledge and consciousness. Taoist bodymind practices intentionally extend beyond consciousness, as in meditative practices and into unconscious processes in our physical existence, such as organ activities and their multi-faceted feedback and interaction. Such a practice also includes sleep as an experiential space. That is why I say that the network approach is profound in a Taoist philosophy-oriented bodymind practice. The Western concept of physical education is still rooted in a mechanistic worldview, trivializing the body mind relationship.

Talking about Taoist philosophy here, Taoist philosophy there, I want to repeat this again:
I only talk about Taoist philosophy and practices because they are the environment of my experiences. I am not implying any exclusivity in the sense of superiority. I am “aware” of the existence of other, partly much older, like-minded paths. I am also aware of the bonds of Taoist philosophy to indigenous experience. I clearly see the importance of indigenous wisdoms and traditions. I also see the importance of current knowledge. Cultural and ecological diversity are an inherent part of the story…