Cheng Hsin Body-Being Principles
The five principles of an effortlessly effective Body-Being:
- Being Relaxed
- Being Calm
- Being Whole and Total
- Moving from the Center
- Being Grounded
Being Relaxed
Relaxing is the best training to start with and the one to constantly come back to. There are many degrees of relaxation and some people are more relaxed than others. Complete relaxation is a state untouched by most. In Cheng Hsin, we train complete relaxation. Inherent in relaxing is letting go of tension. Tension is an activity (we are actually doing tension) and the deeper we investigate into physical tension, the more is revealed about the activity of mind. Letting go of physical tension must also involve relaxing mentally. Whether we are completely relaxed or not is the feedback from which we judge whether we are effortless or not. .
Being Calm
Being calm is essential not only for relaxation but to access the feeling states and dispositions necessary for effective interaction. Being calm is being in a state of accepting everything the way it is. However, this does not mean feeling like a victim or being an unfeeling automaton. Consider the distinction between being responsive and being reactive. Being responsive is being moved by external conditions as they are; reacting is being moved by our internal state, which has been “provoked” by external conditions. Being Calm is necessary for being responsive rather than reactive. In this state nothing needs to be avoided and so situations can be managed based on what is actually occurring rather then to our mental abstractions. Consider this situation: You are driving down the road and suddenly need to perform an emergency brake. The action required is simple: press the brake pedal. Yet how many of us in this situation calmly push down the pedal? The example is extreme yet illustrates how easy it is to “be swamped” by a situation. In pressure situations, we tend to narrow our awareness and try to force through situations by tensing and contorting our body. Sometimes these reactions have no bearing on the action other than a complete waste of energy but often, these unconscious reactions are detrimental to being effective, e.g. in a martial context. Mind-control is often confused as “forcefully caging the mind”. Consider Calm as the principle of mind control. Calm is being aware.
Being Whole and Total
Our body movement illuminates the relationship we have with our own bodies and space. Simply watching people walking down the street tells us much about how they are in their bodies. Being unconscious of places in our bodies or if we split ourselves into parts, we lose contact with our inherent integrity and can feel ackward or clumsy. We need to retrain our nervous system towards effective, relaxed whole body movement so we can move with ease and grace.
Being whole and total is to be complete, There is no forcing or trying to be any other way, nor is there hesitation or holding back. There is no split in integrity and our whole Being is involved in every action.
Being whole and total requires a continuous fresh and intimate experience of our whole body. We need to feel our whole bodies 3-dimensionally from the tips of our toes to the tops of our heads; not only being aware of the space we fill inside but also the space around us.
Moving from the Center
Having 4 sense organs located in our head influences how we relate to the world. If we view ourselves as an intelligence located somewhere in our head, then our movement will tend to be perceived and directed from this body extremity. This is not the most effective relationship. Consider twirling a baton, throwing a javelin, or carrying a ladder; the most natural position to move these objects is the center and we connect there without thinking, we feel the center of the object.
The effective use of our own body is to move from the center. Our center is literally our center of gravity (which we can locate by balancing and spinning on poles), somewhere in the lower abdomen located an inch or two below the navel depending on each individual’s shape and size.For most of us, having not moved from the center, moving from the center will initially mean inhibiting our usual impulses of moving from other places. Of course it will feel wrong to not do what feels natural (i.e. habitual) to us. Initially, moving from the center will feel wrong.
Since we are dealing with a Body-Being and not just a body, we must also place our awareness in our center. We "center ourselves". Changing our perception from behind our eyes to the center takes training.
Learning to move from the center is a discovery. First we need to feel our center and then train to move from there. We have to train not really knowing what it feels like to move from the center. We must be as honest as we can and keep looking for a new way of moving. To move from the center literally means that if the center doesn’t move, nothing moves. Once we discover what it feels like to move from the center, then we can begin training for real. It is the same with most training. First we must train to discover “it”, only then can we start to train “it”.
Being Grounded
Have you ever noticed that we tend to relate to space from the ground up? Of course, we “know” that space extends down and assume that that is included in our everyday experience but fail to question whether this is actually so. How conscious are you right now of the depth of ground below your feet? Generally, we assume that our relationship to ground has no bearing on how we live. However the following common everyday expressions indicate the importance of ground:
“Cut the ground from under him”; “hold one’s ground”; “ground one stands on”; “Stand on one’s own feet”; “Put one’s foot down”; “understand”; “steadfast”; “airy-fairy”; “head in the clouds”; “floaty”; “earthy”; “feet firmly planted in the ground”
The above expressions seem to suggest that our connection to ground has a powerful influence on how we live. The words reveal that our connection and relationship to the ground is connected and related to our integrity and solidity.
In Cheng Hsin, we train to increase our ground! It is possible to be more grounded. The bodily experience of feeling more ground also changes our mental disposition. We become more "present".
One Principle
The five principles actually are not mutually exclusive but are distinctions in the one principle we call the Cheng Hsin Body-Being. For example, being calm is a requisite for relaxing and vice versa. Feeling the whole body calms the mind. Moving the whole body from the center requires that we feel our whole bodies. Limbs can stay relaxed if they are moved from the center. Being grounded helps us relax. In fact each of the other 4 principles interlace with the fifth.