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Don’t Lean and Fall Asleep

You should not continue your Chi Kung training when you are sleepy. Using an unclear mind to lead chi is dangerous. In addition, when you’re sleepy your body will tend to lean or droop, and your bad posture may interfere with the proper chi circulation. When you are sleepy it is best to take a rest until you are able to regain your spirit.

Don’t Meditate When You Have Lost Your Temper or Are Too Excited

You should not meditate when you are too excited due to anger or happiness. Since these emotions scatter your mind, meditation will bring you more harm than peace.

Don’t Keep Spitting

It is normal to generate a lot of saliva while practicing Chi Kung. The saliva should be swallowed to moisten your throat. Don’t spit out the saliva because this is a waste, and it will also disturb your concentration.

Don’t Doubt and Become Lazy

When you first start Chi Kung, you must have confidence in what you are doing and not start doubting its validity or questioning whether you are doing it right. If you start doubting right at the beginning, you will become lazy, and you will start questioning whether you really want to continue. In this case, you will not have any success and your practice will never last.

Appendix 1

Supplementary Practice

Laughing Chi Kung

“When a man smiles only with his eyes, not with his belly, do not trust him.”

My (Mantak Chia’s) wish is for everyone to be spiritually independent and connected personally to the Source, Cosmos, or Primordial Force in our common quest to return to Wu Chi (God). Through this process we can gain inner peace, happiness, and compassion for others and ourselves. We can also develop the ability to heal ourselves and to serve as positive energy sources. Naturally, the first step is to cultivate peace within. The Laughing Chi Kung meditation is a tool that aids in the following:

Strengthening the connection we have to ourselves

Opening to the abundant chi available from the cosmos

Developing the skills of self-healing

I remember one day practicing the many forms of breathing exercises I had learned. After practicing the whole day I had not finished. I asked myself why there were so many different breathing exercises, when we have only one nose and two nostrils? At this point I started to laugh and laugh. After a few minutes of laughing I felt more relaxed, more open and full of chi, than after an entire day of complicated breathing exercises. I realized that laughing is a natural and powerful method for calming the nervous system, stimulating circulation and digestion, activating the immune system, and generating more energy. This is what this meditation practice and breathing technique is: laughing for our health.

Laughing Chi Kung teaches us how to laugh from all the way down in our lower bellies, strengthening the deepest abdominal muscles, the diaphragm, and the muscles of the pelvic floor—the urogenital muscles. When our lower abdomen is enlivened through deep belly laughing, we create a good solid home for our awareness and energy.

Explanation of Benefits

When we laugh from our lower tan tien—our second brain—a vibration moves through the body. This vibration stimulates all the functions of this area and activates the heart brain and the thymus gland. Allowing the laughter to reverberate through the diaphragm, sternum, spine, and all the organs is a fantastic internal workout. All the tension and tightness is vibrated from the inside and is released through laughter. Laughter is nature’s best form of stress release. The relaxation you will feel in your abdomen and the rest of the body is unbelievable (fig. A1.1).

Fig. A1.1. Laughing Chi Kung

Laughing Chi Kung provides the following benefits:

It increases the mind’s attention and improves circulation.

It activates the diaphragm, which in turn activates the abdominal area.

It activates the lymphatic system and improves the immune system.

The Laughing Chi Kung Practice

Preparation

Sit comfortably