Several readers have taken me to task for, they said, being too negative. Surely health is not just about avoidance? Surely what we do is more important than what we don’t do?
I can understand their point of view: doing exercises to nourish life is far more interesting than stopping up the leaks, as crucial as this is. It does put me in mind, though, of an old story told in the far west of China, in Chinese Turkestan, a tale of Afanti — the Effendi — who was either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no one could tell which.
It seems that one day Afanti was standing at the pump in the public square, pumping water into a pitcher in his hand. This went on for some time, until one of the gathering onlookers said to him: “Afanti! You will never fill that pitcher, for it has no bottom!” Afanti looked at him indignantly and said, “I am not interested in the bottom of the pitcher, I want to fill it to the top, and so I am looking at the top. Don’t distract me with irrelevancies about the bottom!”
Now that I have had my say, however, a useful technique is described in a number of traditions such as the Daoist and the Zen streams, and probably others of which I am unaware. The aim is to systematically melt away tensions in the body and mind.
The technique
Sit in a comfortable position. Standing is also possible, but is best done in the posture used at the beginning of a Tai Chi set, before any movement takes place. If you do not know what this means, better sit. Once practised with the technique, it can be done in any posture.
Now visualise a slow stream of comfortably warm and fragrant sesame oil flowing very slowly and gently down from the top of your head, dissolving any point of tension it may encounter. At first the warm fragrant liquid slowly covers every part of your head and face, melting away the tensions in your forehead, nose, eyes, ears and jaw, dissolving knots at the base of your skull and in your neck, and then pouring warmly down over your shoulders and back and chest, melting and dissolving as it goes. Its fragrant warmth then gathers briefly in the pelvis and hips before moving on into the buttocks, thighs and knees, down through the shins and calves, into the feet, where it pours into the ground.1
There are two important points: one is that you begin to gently dissolve from the surface of the body, and over time extend this into the interior so that the organs are washed with the gentle warm fragrance of the melting sesame oil. The second is that throughout the exercise you maintain a gently straightened back and do not slouch, so that while everything is melting and pouring downward, there is still an upright centre (this is particularly important if one has low blood pressure). The effect is very much like the Tai Chi ideal: utter relaxation and flexible movement around an upright but not rigid centre.
This is an excellent prelude to a period of meditation or Tai Chi, but balance is the key: no exercise should be overindulged. It has been said that a technique like this, which is very “opening”, is best done when and where the surrounding environment is natural, supportive and beneficial, in order to absorb only the best influences. Similarly, it should not be done just prior to sleeping, but an interval allowed for the everyday self to regroup its usual — but much more relaxed! — self-image.
Another outstanding aspect of Daoist yang sheng exercise is the slow, gentle and deliberate stretching of all the major tendons in the body. Important at any age, it becomes crucial as one gets older, as tendons stiffen and lead to imbalance throughout the structure of the body. Mindful breathing is often coupled with the slow and gentle stretching, which further relaxes the body in depth.
An excellent series of exercises for achieving this will be described in the following post about Ba Duan Jin.
Endnote
1. More on this technique can be found in the following two books: a detailed technical description in B. K. Frantzis’ Opening the Energy Gates of The Body (North Atlantic Press, 1993) and a more personal and warmer description in Wild Ivy: the spiritual autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin by Norman Waddell (Shambala, 2001).
The Fat Monk 