Ancient Chinese Yin-yang Philosophy delivered us infinite wisdom.

One of the Yin-Yang view points is: Yin is inside, Yang is outside; Yin is entering, Yang is exiting. Yin is giving, Yang is receiving. Open and close.  The most important theory is that they need to ‘balance’.  Trouble would come if imbalance occurs and things can go wrong with health and life. Human beings have nine holes on the body: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, mouth, anus and urethra (females have one more: vulva). Our body is designed to open and close these holes.

To achieve harmony and prevent depression we need to use our senses to apply the “two directions” philosophy to keep inner environment balance and harmony around us.

1. Wisely using eyes in two-directions.

Everyone use their eyes to observe the outside world, like mountains, rivers, flowers, plants, and other people’s appearance, behaviour, attitude, facial expressions etc. At the same time, we should use our eyes to observe the appearance, behaviour, attitude, facial expressions of ourselves too. A terminology in Qi Gong is “picture the inside ”, it’s also called “visualising the inside.”

Physically:

We open our eyes during day time and close them at night.

If we are not sleeping or using the eyes too long, not resting we will damage the vital Qi. (Energy)

Spiritually:

Use wise eyes to observe in a “two-directions” method. Normally people only use eyes to observe the outside world, people don’t pay much attention to the inner world .We need to use our eyes to appreciate not only to observe the mountains, rivers, flowers, plants etc, but also use the wisdom eyes to look at the kindness and inner beauty of other people and things, at the same time, realise the kindness, capabilities, strengths and beauty of ourselves.

We should ask ourselves “what am I looking for,”  “why is my behaviour like this? “ Thus we change and improve ourselves. In contrast, if the eyes do not go “two- directions”, we only look into the mistakes made by other people, ignore the ones made by ourselves. Pointing at others by our forefinger,  we are not aware that the other three fingers are actually pointing back at us.  This would affect the inner harmony and it would lead to depression and hatred in the long term. However, if we blindly blame ourselves with enormous compunction, aren’t we easily getting into “one-way” and putting ourselves into depression? The wise way is that after looking into the weakness of ourselves from inside, we try to improve ourselves in the future. Meanwhile, accept reality and face it objectively. Seeing things in “two-ways” enables a peaceful mind and allows us, to treat people and our self sensibly so we won’t feel depressed.

2. Wisely using ears in “two-directions”

Physically:

Generally speaking, we physically use our ears to hear various sounds from the outside environment. We listen to the opinions, suggestions, and judgement from others. We ignore external sounds when we are sleep. If we listen twenty four hours a day we will damage the vital Qi (Energy).

Spiritually:

If we are just listening from the outside it makes us feel lost and negative, not knowing which way to go or distinguish right from wrong. It will make us feel depressed and sad. If we only listen to the negative things, we will get depressed, if we only listen to the positive things, we would lose touch from reality. So we need to use our sense of hearing in both directions, listening to our heart, feelings, intuition, needs and opinions. With the “two-directions” listening we can balance and judge what we hear from the outside, combined with what we hear from our heart. This allows us to achieve the wisdom of listening.

…continued in Part 2

Prevention and wisdom are the two principles of Traditional Qi.

Written by:Angela Zhu (Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Qi Gong & Tai Chi Instructor)

Translated by:Alan Huang

© Copyright Angela Zhu 2011

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