The Chi Connection Code

The fountain lives by virtue of the water that flows through it.

- David Peat

Imagine energy flowing deliciously through your body. Your warm feelings create a sense of wonder about the world around you. Your vitality is strong. We all enjoy moments when we experience this. And we want to stretch them, recreate them, to feel really good more often. Do we have to create such feelings, pump up such energy? Or is there a way we can attract them to come to us? Speak a magic word to invite them, like a genie out of a bottle?

When I and my fellow classmates joined morning exercises with teacher Mantak Chia a few years ago, he told us the secret, and I have nevery forgotten it. In fact, I think about it often, and I use it successfully. Master Chia said that it is as if we are swimming in a pool of Chi. "It’s all around you, he said, wherever you go. But most people don’t see it, don’t know it. That’s the secret," he said. And with his body shaking with laughter as usual, he told us “It is so easy, just connect to the Chi that’s all around you. You are swimming in it!”

I guess all of us who had gathered on that field at Tao Garden outside Chiang Mai in the early morning wondered quietly if it could really be that simple.* We smiled politely, and we tried. And in the following days, our smiles sometimes hid the agony of stretching muscles and tendons as we bent our bodies into ancient postures of peacock looks at its own tail, monkey prays with elbows and several other Tao Yin or “guide and pull” exercises that are older than Tai Chi. The Chinese already found out millennia ago that revitalization and longevity come with daily physical exercises that open up our spine. Stretching is good!

On the other hand, I have come to see that the worst thing we can do to live better is trying too hard. Trying hard is not enough to create good energy and nice feelings. This is also true with exercise. The real benefit comes afterwards, as you relax and consciously open up and focus your awareness on the moment. “Chi follows where our awareness leads it,” Master Chia explained. After we open up, as we focus our attention one by one on different parts of our body, Chi follows as if magically attracted to those parts. Try relaxing and focusing on the crown of your head, lift your closed eyes upward, and you will feel energy coming in. Stretch out your arms and twist your wrists, and you will feel energy entering your body through your hands.

Chi is all around us, and it follows our lead, our focused awareness. We live at a time when the Da Vinci Code has aroused the interest of millions around the world for the mysteries that surround us. Many other authors have jumped on the bandwagon and wrote about other codes. Yet one of the most powerful codes of all has been with us for as long as millennia. I would call it the Chi Connection Code. We can tap into it anytime. It used to be the secret of Tao alchemists and spiritual recluses. Masters who only passed it on to their most trusted pupils. Yet in this age of Aquarius, where spiritual growth is spreading like never before, modern masters like Mantak Chia have decided to disclose the secret way to anyone who wants to hear, all around the world. Just visit your local bookstore and you will find out. Look under New Age, Self-Enrichment, or Health.

* To watch Master Chia lead an early morning exercise, visit the Tao Training Center website and click on “internal exercise for morning” to see the video clip.

Photograph: Tao Fountain of the late Frank Polman.