The Jade Spring practice

For ancient Taoist cultivators, Jade Spring is another name for saliva. Because white teeth were described as white jade, the saliva, which surrounds white jade, is called Jade Spring.

In modern society, saliva is often regarded as unclean and is associated with germs, especially these days, considering that the Coronavirus can be transmitted through sneezing or coughing.

But Jade Spring is actually very beneficial for your health. It has anti-inflammation properties, can ease pain, stop bleeding, kill germs and it participates in the digestion process with its natural enzymes.

The human body has three important essences to keep itself healthy: Qi (energy), and blood and saliva (fluids), and there are certain practices we can do to keep the three healthy.

The Jade Spring practice:
1. Sit silently.
2. Gently click your teeth up and down, 36 times (to strengthen the roots of your teeth)
3. Place your tongue against your upper palate. When you close your mouth and teeth together, your tongue will naturally touch the upper palate. Then hold a slight smile for one minute.

4. Swirl your tongue around 36 times, massaging especially the palate and gums to generate Jade Spring (saliva), then, divide the mouthful Jade Spring into three parts; let the first part to go down through the left side of your body (visualize it as you do it), the second part down the right side of your body, and the third part down the middle of your body, to settle in your Lower Dan Tian.

You can practice this at any time, the best being in the morning or right before bed.

Taoists often adopt this wellness practice, such as the King of Medicine, Sun Simiao who lived up to 102 years old and Li Chengyu, who lived up to 108 years old.

When you work with your own Jade Spring, welcome it, generate it as a self-healing inner essence and medicine, think of it as clean as morning dew on the flower petal and the fresh pleasant scent of a flower you like, and allow it to moisturize your entire internal body.

Taoist Light Healer Training Program is coming up

Taoist Light Qigong Online Healer Training Program is starting on July 18, 2020, Saturday, from 2-4 pm.

There is still time to register. Please let us know if you would like to participate in the training program and make health and spiritual cultivation be part of your way of life.

Training to be conducted online via Zoom while locals can choose to meet at nice outdoor setting in a private backyard.

Do you like to:

• Learn how to heal your-self and others?

• Obtain the powerful skills on in-person or long-distance Healing?

• Understand the causes of various health conditions so you can undo them?

• Open your third eye and wisdom eye to see what is really going on?

Taoism has its own unique way of life, peace, wellness and longevity. We will be happy to have you on this journey of the Tao.

Qigong Practice and Timing

Taoist Light Qigong is a very natural style of Qigong that can be practiced at any time of the day, although if anyone would like to maximize their results, they can try to practice at its best timing.

The best starting time for section One is between 5 and 7 AM. It is called Mao Shi, which means “the time to show up”. The Sun rises during this period, and Yang Qi (bright and warm energy) also rises, and human beings get up to start a new day.

Thus, if you can start your Qigong practice at 6:59 AM, it will be better than 7:01 AM, since your Qi will start being ignited during Mao Shi, therefore fueled with rising and uplifting energy.

Ancient wizards of health and wellness would recommend to do the following three things during these two hours:

1. Drink a small cup of warm water for hydration.

2. Empty the bowels for detoxification.

3. Practice Qigong to activate your vital energy for the day.

So you can get up before 7 AM, stand facing East, the direction of Sunrise and allow the vital energy from the Sun and the Earth to circulate through your whole body, fill every cell with healthy Qi, and generate essential energy into your Lower Dantian (the elixir field for youth, health and longevity, located in lower abdomen). Your whole day will flow with effortlessness and great ease.

What is remarkable and unique about Taoist Light Qigong Training?

1. An authentic and powerful Taoist practice from Lou Guan Tai Temple in Xi’an, China, the birthplace of Taoism where its founder, Lao Tzu (604-517 B.C.) composed Tao Te Ching, a guidance of the way of life.

2. Personal Teachings (not from videos) on Taoist esoteric cultivation practice, a particular formless and free-flow style which cannot be obtained from anywhere else. The power and effectiveness come from this 2600 year lineage and via direct Transmission of the Qi from the lineage holder.

3. Level I - A six-hour long training immediately places you at a very advanced cultivation level. We welcome people who have no previous Qigong training experience as well as those who have followed certain Qigong or mind-body trainings that are not in energetic conflict with the Taoist Light system.

4. Taoist Light Qigong training is not like Tai Chi Chuan or other Qigong styles, which mostly consist of multiple exercise classes, with a teacher demonstrating the movements and students following them. Our very first class connects you with Tao (the source of energy in the Universe) and your movements will be customized which can be practiced and benefited for the rest of your life.

5. Taoist Light Wellness, located in Santa Barbara, USA is the only official, authorized and legitimate Taoist Light Qigong teaching and healing center international wide.

6. In this training, you receive the “password” to connect to Tao and allow the Qi to flow and to move your body, so your movements are customized to awaken your potential and are suitable to your body nature. These movements are going to change over time, even day by day, thus you will keep making progress until Heaven and Human have become one (Tian Ren He Yi). The highest state of Taoist cultivation.

7. Taoist Light Qigong training comes with a detailed instructional book with pictures that you receive when you attend training in person at Taoist Light Wellness.

8. You can not teach or show others after receiving the teaching. The powerful force is not as simple as it appears. Just like electricity work, if an inexperienced person mishandles this work, it can result in harm for oneself and others. A couple of students who did so in the past have resulted in physical and mental health damages for themselves and others.

9. The instructor, Chiyan Wang, is the Taoist Light Qigong lineage holder with 30 years of healing and teaching experience, she comes from a family tradition of Taoist Light Qigong masters.

10. Supporting groups and progress timeline

 Once you have completed Taoist Light Qigong level I Training, you are encouraged to join guided group practice and group Qi healing Thursday and Sunday morning 10-11:30am (California time) to ensure your practice to stay on the straight path.

Progress timeline:

Taoist Light Qigong level I

Taoist Light Medical Qigong (three month after level I)

I-Ching Qigong Level II ( 6 months after level I)

Stage II Immediate healer (1 year after level I,  only apply to people who participate Healer training program)

Stage III (reserved until one is ready)

 Specialty Training Programs:

1. Taoist Light Healer training Program (one year 140 hour training, meet once or twice a week) Please click here for details.

2. Taoist Light Feng Shui Training Program (50 hour training, meet once a week)

3. Taoist Light Qigong instructor/master training program (140 hour training, meet once or twice a week)

Taoism Study and internal cultivation to become a Taoist Master in life, and a certified Taoist Instructor under the umbrella of Taoist Light wellness.

4. Taoist Sacred Healing Journey ( 2-3 weeks)

    Going to Lou Guan Tai Temple and other sacred Taoist mountains with Chiyan Wang to immerse into Taoist Light and firsthand experience of healing, Feng Shui and the Taoist philosophy.

Editing credit to Simon Rimbert

Departure

  In life, we often say goodbye to different people in different circumstances, though the hardest departure is when a loved leaves the Earth realm.

     When people can’t say good-bye, it can possibly make the other soul linger and unable to leave, becoming Earth-bound. Is it love or attachment?

Attachment can cause more pain but love will give the freedom to let others go. 

Instead people often wonder:

“Why did they leave me alone?”

“I wish they’d stay with me.Where do they go? ”

“How long will I go through this pain?”

“My life will never be the same without them.”

When we lose a beloved one, the sorrow, regret and poignant feelings can be overwhelming and many have described the tears as flowing like an endless ocean. Most people will experience the process of three stages:

Grieving, remembering, and new life-celebration. After all, we will all need to face the departure of loved ones and some day will become our own turn to leave the Earth.

In traditional cultivation, some actually know when they are leaving and even how to leave. One of the most famous true stories is about a Zen master named Deng YinFeng, during the Tang Dynasty. When this master was a little boy, he was too wild to be disciplined by his parents,  so they sent him to a Zen monastery. Later, he became an enlightened Zen Master. When he decided to leave the Earth, he asked his disciples: “Have you ever seen anyone die with their body upside down?” His disciples said: “No, we have not.”

“I will show you how tomorrow.” He replied.

 The next morning, he was found standing upside down, in the middle of the courtyard, so, as they wanted to take his body down, they realized it was unmovable. His sister was also a very advanced cultivator, so she shouted: “Brother! You have always been messing up things and putting things upside down. Now you have passed, you are still doing this, it’s enough.” Then his body fell down flat on the ground.

The true cultivators not only can choose when to leave, but also how to leave the World. That is wisdom and freedom.

Though the majority of people leave unexpectedly, and much sooner than their family wish for. That’s because naturally, it’s very challenging for people to endure the pain from physical separation, and mostly the mental and emotional attachment. 

One phenomena is that afterwards, some people have experienced the deceased loved one coming back in their dreams, talking to them as if it was real life, the saddened family members then feel better and happier that they are still connected.

So, if you can gift a loved one something, what can they receive on the other side?

A good deed in their name, a prayer?

The best gift is wisdom from this Heart Sutra:

jiē dì jiē dì bo luo jiē dì bo luo sēng jiē dì pú tí sà pó hē 

Go! Go! Go beyond! Go completely beyond! Awakening! Hail! 

This way, when you send a spiritual gift to your loved one on the other side.

You both gain wisdom on seeing what life and death really about. Both can overcome the attachment and deeply understand that:

Someday, you will meet again.

Written by Chiyan Wang

Editing Credit to Simon Rimbert

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

One set of practice

Once, a student born with only one right arm went to study Martial Arts. His teacher only taught him one set of movements. Day after day, he kept practicing. Then, he asked his teacher: “Am I ready to learn more?” The teacher said: “No, you need to practice this simple movement until it’s just so precise, fast and powerful. Just keep practicing it.”

The student kept practicing without doubt, for years and years.

One day, a competition among students from different martial art schools took place.

One of his Master’s advanced students had a match with another advanced player from another school, but lost. Then, the Master asked his one-armed student to go up and fight with the champion candidate.

The one-armed student said: “But Master I only have one arm, and he is so advanced.” The Master answered: “You are ready to shine after all these years of diligent practice, you only need to do your one set of powerful move which you have practiced to perfection, this set of movements as far as I know is at the most advanced level!” 

So, the one armed student went up on the stage, and his attack was so swift and powerful and the other person just fell down immediately and the one-armed student won the championship.

The Master explained to him afterwards:“ From my knowledge,  the only way anyone can beat you from your strike is to grasp your left arm, which you don’t have, so for sure they would fall down.”

Now you know, a human being’s imperfection can be his greatest strength! I hope Taoist Light students know why Taoist Light Practice is so simple yet very advanced and powerful, and also why we need to practice and practice everyday. One day, you will find you arrive on the top of the mountain of your cultivation and your energy will just shine and shine.

Translated and written by Chiyan Wang

English Edited by Simon Rimbert

A hundred-foot pole

Once a student went to learn a practice, so the teacher told him to stand at the top of a one-foot pole stuck in the ground and to remain still. When he could do it well without losing balance, the teacher made the pole a foot higher, and so on and so forth.

The student practiced day after day and year after year persistently.The clouds coming in and out of his sight didn't matter; the bird flapping their wings into his hair didn't matter; the wind howling into his ears didn't matter; and it did not matter how tired or frustrated he felt at times. He tried to remain standing still. He made progress one foot at a time and then reached the very high level of cultivation. He stood on a hundred foot pole high up in the air keeping his balance and stillness perfectly.

Here came the master chanting a poem:

To remain still at the top of a hundred-foot pole,

Its entry has been attained yet a state is not all real,

Taking one step forward from the top of a hundred-foot pole,

Then the world in all directions becomes the complete self.

Poem written by Shi Daoyuan in <The Jingde record of the transmission of the lamp> 1004-1007 CE. Translated by Robert Smitheram

Story written by Chiyan Wang, editing credit to Simon Rimbert