New I Ching Video: Hexagram #9 - Small Nourisher

Here is the latest commentary video in the I Ching series. This one covers Hexagram #9 - the Small Nourisher.

Members of the Yi Fa Society get access to additional I Ching video and text commentaries that go into more depth on the symbolism and divination uses of the I Ching's Hexagrams. If you are interested in joining the Yi Fa Society, please get in touch.

Health Issues and Qi Gong

Most schools of Qi Gong today sell themselves as being about health and healing. This is because mainly the people promoting those schools either have no real grounding in what Qi Gong is for, or are aware but felt obliged to keep the real purpose hidden.  In China, Qi Gong was very badly persecuted during most of the Communist period. It was only allowed to be revived in the time after the terrible persecutions of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, when the Chinese Government eased away from attacking traditional Chinese culture, and when the nation was facing a health-infrastructure crisis.
In fact, there was no such term as "Qi Gong" before the  modern age, this was a name created to unite concepts in traditional Chinese healing, cultivation practice, and internal martial arts. The government began to promote Qi Gong, not as a spiritual practice of cultivation, but as a system for improving health and wellness. So many opportunists who had little or no real understanding of cultivation set themselves up as "qi gong healers", while some of the genuine teachers began to teach again by hiding their more esoteric training behind the facade of "health and healing". In fact, this fit in nicely with the historical tradition of "secret schools", where serious Qi Gong masters would hide the nature of their teaching.





But regardless, Qi Gong was not meant to be about health, or healing. It was meant to be about cultivation for the purpose of eventual enlightenment.

So how useful is Qi Gong, for someone who is only interested in preserving their health or healing some kind of ailment?
Regarding health issues and Yi Fa Qi Gong; or health issues and Qi Gong in general, you have to consider the sources of various health problems.  They are caused by one of a selection of sources:

0. Accidents or short-term illness: a broken leg or a cold or upset stomach are not really caused by anything in most cases, except misfortune. These problems do not really need Qi Gong to heal.

1. Genetics: This is one of the most common causes of non-acute health problems. Recent medical studies have found that a great number of health issues are largely caused by genetic predisposition. This is a product of birth.  Qi Gong can't really do anything to prevent these problems. There's not really anything Qi Gong needs to do about these, in terms of prevention, and only limited amounts it can do in terms of treatment.

2. Environmental issues:  These are health issues caused by where you are, by elements of your environment.  This also includes things you might have a genetic predisposition toward, but would not be affected by it without being exposed to some environmental trigger.  These health problems can sometimes be resolved by changing your environment.  Doing Qi Gong without making changes in your environment won't be of any real help.

3. Lifestyle/choice issues: Some health problems are caused as a consequence of your lifestyle or behaviours, related to eating habits, sleeping habits, drinking, drugs, smoking, or other choices. Again, if you don't change your lifestyle, Qi Gong will not be of help here.

4. Stress or emotional issues: some health problems appear as consequences of mental stress or emotional tension manifesting in the body. The best resolution to these problems is through relaxation, meditation, and the expanding of your own consciousness until your attachments disentangle themselves. The exercises of Yi Fa Qi Gong are effective at dealing with these issues, if properly practiced.

So this is why I do not put very much emphasis on 'health' in Qi Gong practice. Anything related to health that can actually honestly be helped by Qi Gong can and will be helped by performing Yi Fa Qi Gong correctly, even though Yi Fa Qi Gong's primary goal is not health but Enlightenment.

None of the other sources of health problems can be significantly helped by any Qi Gong, even those forms of Qi Gong that allege to be about health.

Video: An Example of an I Ching Casting in Process

This is a video showing the performance of a casting, for reference purposes.

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Undoing Emotional Attachments Through Yi Fa Qi Gong

Someone at one point asked about how to best handle 'negative' emotional issues that they feel attached to, using Qi Gong.  The following was my reply:

The technique would be very simple: when you begin the level 1 exercise, bring those feelings to mind; engage with those feelings as you do the practice.

Bring your active consciousness into your body, your movements, and your stillness, as usual.

So at this point you bring up the emotional energy trapped by the attachment, and then start to focus on a totally different use of energy: the practice.

"Energy" here really means intensity; the 'intensity' of your feelings tied up in your attachments is a kind of effort(energy).  Give them a different direction, and it can gradually untie the knot of that attachment by putting that same level of intensity into your practice.

Why "Plum Blossom" I Ching Numerology?

The macrocosmic changes of the I Ching, those that exist on a cosmic as opposed to a personal scale, can be deciphered through the use of Shao Yong's Plum Blossom Numerology.

 Generally, this particular name is attributed to a story that Shao Yong realized this system in a flash of insight while observing a Plum Blossom.

However, some people in the West might not realize the depth of symbolism the plum blossom has in Chinese culture.

In Chinese cultural art and poetry, the plum blossom is associated with moral fortitude, with perseverance, and with auspicious good fortune. 


It is, in fact, taken as a symbol for the Superior Individual. It has these qualities because of it's beauty and ability to endure even in harsh climates, and its self-reliance in needing very little care.

The Plum Blossom was in fact associated with four qualities, which could be summarized as "yuan", "heng", "li" and "zhen"; the same four words which commence the I Ching, and which embody Virtue among spiritual cultivators.


In the plum blossom, these four words are associated with the four stages in the plum blossom's growth, and the cycle of the seasons:
Yuan: it is born in union with the new year.
Heng: when it blooms this marks the time of steady gain
Li: in its seeding time, there is harmonious bounty
Zhen: in its time of wilting it is the time of contemplation


Thus, the symbol of the Plum Blossom is not just a product of some coincidence, but an ideal image to represent the macrocosmic changes embodied by Shao Yong's numerological system.

At the same time, this sheds light on the significance of Yuan Heng Li Zhen in the larger context of the I Ching as well. As the first four words of the I Ching's text, and a summary of the entirety of the I Ching, the imagery associated with the plum blossom expresses how "Yuan Heng Li Zhen" is a depiction of the entire process of Time, from beginning to end.

On the Scope of the Great Work

On a personal level, the Great Work involves each individual's progress to manifesting the Superior Individual, and attaining to the level of the Sage (Enlightenment).

But on a greater scale, the Great Work involves the spiritual evolution of humanity as a whole.
In that greater scale, the work you do applying Virtue in the world is not meant to change the world at this present time, but to lay down currents of Change that will change the world over the course of cosmic Time. 

Presidencies, nations and whole civilizations will come and go while we perform the Great Work.
Things happening in the world now are the ripple-effect of things Initiates did 300 years ago.

The things we do with consciousness now will ripple forward to change the entire world 300 years from now.
The Great Work on this scale is done not for one's own gratification, because it is not anything any of us will live to see.





It is work to change the future.

The Magician's I Ching Facebook Group now has Over 2000 Members!

The Facebook group created in honor of The Magician's I Ching, but which is a general discussion group for all I Ching related subjects, has now reached just over 2000 members!

So if you haven't already joined the Magician's I Ching Facebook Group, please consider joining!  It's free, and filled with interesting conversation and material related to the I Ching and I Ching studies.  It's open to people coming from western or eastern traditions.  It's very welcoming to newcomers to the I Ching, and you can get questions answered or useful advice. But it also has many very learned and highly experienced advanced students of the I Ching, and if you are one of those people you'll find some excellent higher level discussion about some of the finer points of I Ching study.

While you're at it, please consider joining the Yi Fa Society.  Members of the Yi Fa Society also have a (secret) discussion group, and benefit from a complete and detailed training program for studying Yi Fa Qi Gong and the I Ching.   Members of the Yi Fa Society are taught additional Qi Gong and I Ching secrets that are not available anywhere public.

At higher levels of membership, the advanced exercises of Yi Fa Qi Gong are taught, and students are provided large numbers of instructional materials (whole books, like "Secret Techniques of the I Ching", "Universal Yi Fa", "The Yi Dao", and "the Great Book of Yi Fa", among others) on how to deepen their work with Qi Gong and I Ching for self-transformation and the work of enlightenment.

Members of the Yi Fa Society can work personally with me to keep up their practice, to resolve problems in their practice, and to develop discipline and structure in their spiritual path.   Members also have the opportunity to have monthly Skype meetings with me for the same purpose.

Yi Fa Society membership is not free, but basic membership is on a monthly donation basis set by each student.


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