The hourglass of cultivation

    The Earth we live on is an interesting place, and is very different from other consciousness realms. There are days and nights, light and dark, yin-yang polarities and even TIME! In the past, humans used hourglasses to measure time. Today, I would like to use the hourglass as a symbol for an important teaching. 

    You can imagine that when you started an inner cultivation journey, the hourglass of your spiritual life started counting as well.

    Cultivators come to Taoist Light Wellness for various reasons:

Healthy people looking for peace and longevity;

Individuals with illnesses looking for health and recovery; 

Healers studying abilities to master Qi and help others to heal;

Spiritual students looking for an ancient and authentic inner alchemy cultivation practice;

Taoist enthusiastics looking to obtain Tao...

During the process of Qigong practice, teachers usually emphasize on this: “ Please don’t let your Qi leak! (Lou Qi)”.  You might remember what we learned in Taoist Light practice: contract the perineum, keep your fingers together, don’t have a runny nose,  let Qi settle in the lower Dan Tian (a Qigong term for the area in the lower abdomen) and don’t let your thoughts wander a thousand miles away, etc.

Through sincere and diligent self cultivation and following correct guidance from a teacher, most students soon start to obtain transcendental abilities. For example: The third eye opening to precognition (ability to perceive the future), retro-cognition (ability to perceive the past), telepathy (the ability to transmit or receive thoughts) or even teleportation (going from one realm to another instantly), etc.... but these are certainly not the goal of cultivation.

Then what is it?

It is best described using this expression: “Lou Jin Kong”... the hourglass is empty!

All the sand in the hourglass has finished flowing through and one has reached the end of practice in this lifetime. You have the experience and awareness that everything is empty; the earth and everything on it are illusions. The sand represents the thoughts, perceptions, senses which bring up affliction/frustration (Fan Nao) and confusion/unknowing ( Huo Ye)... so when the sand is done falling through, it means that your affliction and frustration have come to an end, and your cultivation on the Earth plane has come to completion.

This state is not about how many followers you might have, how many books you have written, nor if you have any special power to move an object with your intention or you can fly in your dream or walk on water... Here are some simple beginning guidelines:

1.  No irritations by outside world/people or internal feelings;

2.  Being with open-heart and compassion;

3. No anger or cynical ideas toward the human world, and not acting in extreme ways.

If everything on the Earth is an illusion, we can not let ourselves become caught up in it, even including the hourglass eventually.

Yes, they seem almost too simple and boring, and that is the reason so many cultivators could go on an extreme or askew path. Especially, if you are still angry and feel irritated all the time, there is a long way to go… :)

For Taoist Light cultivators, I want to say this: keep your practice going and keep your hourglass empty. The Tao is always simple and clear.

Written by Chiyan Wang

Edited by Simon Rimbert