Zen Wellness Center
Why Heart Cultivation?

Emei Qigong is distinguished from other schools/types of qigong by its emphasis on heart cultivation. It a chan (zen) style qigong, where the energy generated is channeled into self-healing. Emei Qigong is a practice that leads to improved health, development of our latent abilities, and removal of blockages which enables us to reach our full potential.

Every cell in our body is influenced by many things: karma, contamination from greed, our nature, thoughts, mind intention, and habits. Most of us do not even realize this is happening until we become ill. Once that happens we may have the desire to change those old energy patterns that have made us ill. However, there may be obstacles to healing that we are unable to overcome without help. Heart cultivation is the key to helping us break up these old energy patterns, bringing us to a healthy, balanced state. Even if you are not ill, you can still benefit greatly from cultivating the heart, as it is a path to spiritual awakening and enlightenment.

One aspect of heart cultivation you can easily learn and practice is a qigong exercise form known as Wuji Gong. Grandmaster Fu describes the effect of practicing the form as “breaking the old order and making a new order.” The secret is in the design of the form, based on the concept of getting back to our natural state – oneness with the universe. The first portion of the form is “beginning of chaos” where stagnant qi, energy, is broken up. Then you build the new order with specific movements and visualizations which target the three sections of the body (which correspond to the three treasures of the universe) - heaven, earth and humanity. The final portion is wuji state. This is where you integrate with the universal qi and healing occurs. Your movements are guided by the qi. If you are not sure what qi feels like, you can get in touch with the feeling by practicing “qi testing” exercises.

Some benefits of qigong practice are:

• Increased lung capacity and decreased stress levels from learning proper breathing. Stress manifests in our bodies in the form of high blood pressure, headaches, or muscle tension.

• Improved posture – when we have an injury or are under stress, our bodies develop compensatory patterns, which over time will become musculo-skeletal pathologies.

• Improved balance and coordination – good physical balance helps prevent falls, which is important as we age. Emotional balance is how we respond to the juggling act that our lives have become (family, work, recreation, volunteering…)

• These are some physical conditions respond positively to qigong practice: blood pressure, blood sugar levels, thyroid imbalance, headaches, insomnia, arthritis, and longevity.

In these modern times stress can cause problems; or we can be busy having a seemingly high level of stress, but handle it well. When we have unbalanced emotions over stress, it creates a “weak link in our chain”. It starts to show in our bodies as illness or injury or in our temperament (snapping at people, feeling depressed, nervous, worried, anxious, or overwhelmed). The illness or injury is nature’s way of telling us things are out of balance and we need to change the behavioral or emotional pattern that got us to that point. Practicing Wuji Gong is key to attaining balance.