Chi Gathering

In chigung we work with the ‘70% rule’, to which I was introduced by Bruce Frantzis. The idea is to hold back the effort of doing taichi movements to 70%, allowing space for chi to gather in the body. In living more consciously, it’s similar; we’re not trying to achieve more than can actually be done at any one time. To make a start, it’s enough to hold back our psychological life to 70% of ourselves. But then let’s switch that around and leave 70% free space inside of us. That makes a huge difference. Then we’re really living consciously. The space in us is where we’re most in contact with life. So we become 70% life and the remaining 30% is our struggle with existence.

Life is not existence. Life just happens, as it must. Existence is the struggle to go on. While we struggle to get on in life, the life in us gets on with living.

Life is the cosmic energy that is making everything happen, instantly, swiftly, promoting constant change. Existence is where everything goes on going on and change is slow and creeping. Existence is yesterday and tomorrow. Life is now.  Or more cosmically, existence takes time and life gives time. 

Everything I do my best to impart, in so many ways, is about switching our perception from existence to life; so that it becomes possible to live more and more consciously in contact with life happening now, while being much less affected by the tension of all the ‘goings on’.

We are held in existence by tension, one way or another. In living consciously the tension is only a problem when we make it troublesome - as in thinking about life as a problem. That’s our error, because life is not the problem. Never was or shall be. Existence is where we make problems; where tension turns into the struggle to go on existing. We translate the struggle into problems and in that way make our lives problematic. But in life there are no problems. If you love life, if you’re in love, where’s the problem? Love makes the struggle worthwhile.

This work is about walking the line between existence and life. It’s about drawing on life to sustain us in the ongoing struggle of living. It’s about increasing the span of consciousness. It’s about bringing love to life.

So, on we go!

Clive Tempest