All of us know what it feels like to experience emotions. Different and distinct from thinking, the heart’s emotional responses can be very strong. Still, most of our hearts are emotional muscles that remain a bit wild – our emotions are strongly felt but mostly unexamined. There are few tools to help us navigate the depths of our hearts and find the treasures within. In Ren Xue, we are introduced to the Five Essential Qualities of the heart: Trust, Openness, Love, Gratitude and Gongjing (True Respect). Rather than emotions, these are the qualities of our pure, original heart. We have always known these qualities: we were born with them, and they have been present with us ever since, but they are often hidden from us.
Learning about these qualities and inviting them to manifest is essential to living your life in joy, and wonder, and continuing to progress towards realization and wisdom. Deeply experiencing the qualities of the heart is very different than having fleeting glimpses of them! This course is about learning to manifest the qualities of the heart as your constant state -living in them in every moment. When this becomes your reality, it is a completely new, different, and wondrous life.
In this course (as elsewhere in Ren Xue) the use of Chinese terms sometimes better conveys the exact sense than would an English translation – providing you know what the Chinese term means. In this video, Melissa introduces some vocabulary essential to this course. As you come across the terms in use, their meaning will deepen. When you are finished watching the video, you can download a transcript to have the definitions close at hand in written form.
Have you practiced the 7th method of Yuan Qigong, Tong Yuan (Opening the Heart), or do you still?
In practicing this method, we learn to identify and manifest each of the 5 heart qualities. If you are familiar with Tong Yuan, you will know what a difference experiencing even one of the 5 heart qualities can make in your life. When your heart starts to open, a new way of life can begin. Trust, for instance, can unlock creativity, strength and confidence. With trust, we can experience a deep sense of assurance and ease. Each quality brings its own richness to our lives. Without the qualities of the heart, we live in a much narrower, crueler world – in our own heads and hearts, and externally as well.
In this video, Yuan Tze introduces us to the ‘fast lane” of cultivating the 5 heart qualities and to their unconditional nature. Tools that can help us in this work can be found in the Ling Yuan (Changing Patterns) and Ming Yuan (Cultivating Wisdom) methods of Yuan Qigong. These are methods that can be practiced before this course or concurrently.
But there is another important factor in successful cultivation - and that is a true intention.