1 HongMengYiQi 鴻蒙一炁
Return to the Great Primordial Qi
When I first started learning Lao Hu Qigong I was struck by strong similarities between its first movement and No-Form, a practice from Paratheatre. Paratheatre is a ritual theatre medium taught by my friend Antero Alli. (An entry point is here: https://www.paratheatrical.com/info.html) Though Qigong felt daunting to me as a beginner, I felt at home with this opening.
Master Wu writes
Movement: Stand with your feet together and toes grabbing the Earth. Straighten your back so it is as stable as a mountain. Lift your perineum to seal DiHu 地户 (Earthly Door, CV 1). Tuck the lower abdomen in, slightly. Open your chest. Straighten your neck and keep your head upright. Imagine your head touching Heaven with the TianMen 天門 ( Heavenly Gate, GV 20) remaining open. Place the tip of your tongue on the tooth ridge behind your upper teeth. Keep your teeth held together and your mouth closed. Keep your shoulders down, arms relaxed, and armpits just slightly open. Relax your hands and keep your fingers straight. Relax your eyelids. Bring your eyesight within. Look within. Listen within. Visualize and sense the Qi state.
Visualization: With your eyelids relaxed, look and listen within to visualize the Qi state. Visualize yourself stretching – the top of your head and spine reach up into the Heavens while your feet grow roots that anchor deeply into Earth. Feel the Heavenly and Earthly energies penetrate to mix in the DanTian. Imagine the universal Qi as light surrounding your body. Open all the pores of the skin, allowing the universal Qi to pour into your body. Feel your body merging with the Qi and returning to the state of primordial universe Qi.
Wu, Zhongxian. Chinese Shamanic Tiger Qigong (pp. 67-68). Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Compare Antero's description of No-Form
THE PHYSICAL STANCE Stand in any way that supports vertical rest—find the point of minimal effort to remain standing, relaxing all muscles uninvolved in this standing posture. 1)unlock the knees 2)widen the stance 3)drop the pelvis 4)let the spine drop and be suspended 5)exhale, allowing the inhale to occur as a reflex and continue this connected breath 6)eyes shut or open a slit to minimize external stimuli. Notes on breath: By emphasizing the exhale and allowing the inhale to occur as a reflex, the vagus nerve secretes a transmitter substance (ACh) which causes deceleration within the beat-to-beat intervals of the heart via the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS).
INTERNAL ADJUSTMENTS Once the physical stance and breath are established: 1)withdraw your attention from the external environment and reconnect internally 2)relax the desire to control the outcome of any experience 3)relax the desire to control 4)find your anchor or comfort at being nothing 5)be nothing.
Alli, Antero. State of Emergence: Experiments in Group Ritual Dynamics (pp. 28-29). The Original Falcon Press. Kindle Edition.
The challenge for me is to not go "Oh I know this, this is just No-Form." OK, it's similar, but how is it different? What is HongMengYiQi teaching me? What is it in itself?
(Of course, this is also the challenge presented by No-Form.)
Similarities
Both cultivate a states of deep receptivity.
Both are encounters with an unknowable, primordial phenomenon.
Both place emphasis on experience of the vertical spine as a conduit of energy from above and below.
HongMengYiQi and DaoQiChangCun open and close the practice. No-Form is practiced at the beginning and end of a Paratheatre ritual: to enter a state of deep receptivity as we enter the ritual, to release and discharge any energies as we exit.
Differences
In HongMengYiQi there is some activity or tension not described in No-Form -- gripping the ground with the toes. The stance is narrow, feet together, compared with No-Form's wider stance and more relaxed (though still grounded feet). HongMengYiQi requires us to hold the perineum, DiHu 地户 "Earthly Door", and place the tongue on the roof of the mouth, closing the Microcosmic Orbit circuit, joining the Governing Vessel and Conception Vessel. There is a feeling of containment.
No-Form feels (initially) more like an emptiness practice, preparing to channel an energy, where HongMengYiQi emphasizes an immediate connection to and channeling universal Qi through the energy body. (This may just be a difference in how they are described though? In practice they feel similar.)
I'd be super interested to hear from other Qigong practitioners about experience with this or other opening stances and parallels to other practices. What is is like for you here?
OK, but: I read that over and it's a bunch of book stuff. I also want to talk a little about what HongMengYiQi is * actually like* for me right now in my practice.
It's winter. That means it's still night when I practice, and cold. Not COLD cold, just Bay Area cold. It's ~40F and I'm on the roof under the stars and planets, surrounded by the lights of the city. It's quiet. As quiet as it gets around here.
(No planets in the morning these mornings -- they're all on the underground side of the sky.)
I stand in my soft pants, fiberfill vest, tech bro hoodie, and checkered Vans and Expand Awareness (a la @m_ashcroft). I see and hear and smell everything and feel the force transmitted from bedrock up through the building's century old steel bones.
Then I close my eyes and feel.
I get Piti, pretty strong these days. I feel connected to what Antero calls "Verticality". I have a feeling sometimes of standing at the apex of a light-cone of causation, grounded in the Big Bang, below me in the past, lensing through this exact moment to refract into a sky of possible futures, potentialities.
The Big Tree
I feel for it and when I feel it strong, I open my eyes and activate the primary circuit.
Tiger wakes up.