Qi

All posts tagged Qi

Do You Know Your Yin from Your Yang?

Published 28/02/2015 by inspiringyourspirit

My Dear Friends,

Living in China and having a long personal history of martial arts, Chinese history, culture and my own spiritual practice embedded in China for the past fifty years, has; over the years made me very interested in Daoism/Taoism, Lao Tzu/ Lao Zi, the Dao De Jing/Tao Te Ching, I Ching..there are so many ways they are represented globally 🙂 The difference between Daojia 道家 , Taoist Philosophy and Daojiao 道教, Daoist Religion brings even more confusion to the western world let alone understanding the I Ching (The Book of Change), the oracle of fortune, a guide to success and a dispensary of wisdom. The ancestor of all Chinese philosophy, it is the primary source for the pragmatic mysticism of the Tao Te Ching, the rational humanism of Confucius, and the analytic strategy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War and of course the wonderful Yin 酓 Yang 昜 in traditional Chinese and Yin阴Yang 阳 in modern simplified Chinese.

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Yin is the black side with the white dot in it, and yang is the white side with the black dot in it. The relationship between yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and a valley. Yin (literally the ‘shady place’ or ‘north slope’) is the dark area occluded by the mountain’s bulk, while yang (literally the ‘sunny place’ or ‘south slope’) is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed.

Yin is characterised as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity , and nighttime.

Yang, by contrast, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and aggressive; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime.

Yin and yang applies to the human body. In traditional Chinese medicine good health is directly related to the balance between yin and yang qualities within oneself. If yin and yang become unbalanced, one of the qualities is considered deficient or has vacuity.

Anyways, I could go on forever trying to explain Yin Yang, The Dao/Tao so I thought I would share with you this very short cartoon animated Ted Talk video explaining Yin Yang, I hope you enjoy it and that it will inspire you to learn more about Daoism 🙂

Namaste with Love

Always

Mark

Inner Peace, What is it?

Published 24/11/2014 by inspiringyourspirit

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It is so easy for us to talk about Inner Peace and what living in the ‘Now’ does for your life, how it brings an end to our suffering and allows us to live in contentment and look at our lives and the world around us with a different set of eyes!

But how easy is it for us to reach this state of ‘Inner Peace’? Well I guess there is no short answer to that question because some of us find ‘Inner Peace’ very quickly whilst others look for it throughout their lives and never actually find it. And for some they gain ‘Inner Peace’ then slip right back into their old ways of living like they are on that never ending diet, loosing weight, gaining fitness only to return to old habits, gain weight and on goes that perpetual circle of life!

I know I have struggled throughout my life, battling with Ego, past life issues, memories of terrible relationships, pain and bad experiences in life but when i actually ‘walk the talk’ and live in the now, when I stop focussing on ‘how stressed I am’ and remember ‘how blessed I am’, my life changes immediately for the better, my health improves rapidly, my smiles bring about other smiles, my laughter heals my pain and I see the world how it should and could be and I gain strength each day to get out there and do some good for mankind and mother earth.

Inner Peace is controlled by you and you alone, once you realize this and start to manage your mind, your life can, and will change for the better…

Go on, give it a try, for once the old saying is true…’The Grass Is Greener On The Other Side’

Namaste with Love

Always

Mark

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