Be Calm : Fear Not : Mudras

Welcome to Mudras

A mudra is a hand gesture meant to be a wordless connection with deeper consciousness. In meditation, yoga, qigong, and other forms of energy work, mudras help to complete the energy circuit inside us and allow our life force (chi) to work within the body.

How They Work

Even if you've never heard the word, you are already familiar with many mudras. For example, the Hakini mudra places the fingertips of the left hand in contact with the fingertips of the right. This mudra is used to focus the attention. If you haven’t done it yourself, you’ve seen others using it, even when they aren’t aware of its significance.

You may have seen pictures of people in yoga classes, sitting in the lotus position, with their hands resting on the knees and the tip of the thumbs touching the tips of the index fingers. 

This position is known as the Gyan mudra and it helps to clear the mind and enhance awareness.

There is a particular meditation that utilizes four-finger mudras that I have found useful in calming the anxious mind and reducing fear and trepidation. It’s a simple movement performed while sitting quietly and focusing the attention on the hands. 

It’s called the Kiran Kriva and it’s performed like this: first touch the tip of the thumb to the tip of the index finger. Then moving to the next finger, one after another, touch the thumb tip to the tip of the middle finger, then the ring finger, then the little finger. To enhance concentration, you may touch each successive finger, you may also sing or chant the following, drawing out the sounds: ‘Saaaaah’, ‘Taaaaah’, ’Naaaaah’, ‘Maaaaah.’

Repeat the movement several times, and hold each finger position for a few seconds before moving to the next. It is more beneficial to hold each position for a few minutes rather than doing them quickly. It is possible to do it so quickly that you lose the benefit. It is impossible to do it too slowly, but you will intuitively know when to move to the next finger.

The mantra that's repeated while practicing Kirtan Kriya is intended to be emotionally uplifting. The sounds come from the mantra ‘Sat Nam’, which means “my true essence’.

Are They Effective?

Clinical research has shown that practicing Kirtan Kriya for just 12 minutes a day can improve cognition and activate parts of the brain that are central to memory. For that reason alone, The Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation recommends practicing this meditation for 12 minutes each day to fully reap the benefits of the exercise.

https://alzheimersprevention.org/research/kirtan-kriya-yoga-exercise/

From an Eastern perspective, it is believed that the placement of the tongue on the roof of the mouth while making these sounds stimulates 84 acupuncture points on the upper palate.

By activating those points, a beneficial bio-chemical transformation occurs in the brain. Western research has revealed that utilizing the fingertip position in conjunction with the sounds enhances blood flow to particular areas in the motor-sensory part of the brain.

The Energy Center

The Dantian
The energy center of the body is important for the proper handling of vital energy and emotions. This center is recognized in various traditions: In traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts it's known as the Dantian, the Japanese name is Hara, and in the Sufi tradition, it is known as the Kath. 

The location of the dantian, which is your power center, is in the lower belly, about 4 inches below the navel. When you focus attention there, you can expand your awareness to your entire body. Once you're aware of your bull body, energy or power can be directed to anywhere it's needed. 

 

Martial arts practitioners focus their attention on the diantian in order to easily direct power where it is needed. People recovering from mood disorders can benefit from paying attention to the dantian because all emotions can be sensed their. To be in touch with the body requires paying attention to the dantian.

Dantian Meditation
Mindfulness may be practiced by focusing attention on an object, a feeling, or the dantian. This type of meditation is practiced by sitting or standing erect and keeping the attention at the level of the lower belly. By practicing belly breathing, it's possible to focus the attention on the breath and the dantian simultaneously. When you notice that your attention has drifted away from the dantian, simply take a deep belly breath and return the attention.

(It may be helpful to revisit the post on Noticing the Breath or Belly Breathing.)

The practice of qigong may be considered to be a specialized dantian meditation. In addition to the mindfulness benefits, qigong also provides physical and mental healing while building and storing a ready supply of vital energy in the dantian.

 

Moving from your center
In Eastern martial arts, the practitioner not only keeps his attention at the Dantian to more easily move his energy, but also to be able to move from the center. By letting one's movements come from the center, the movements are more powerful.

In the West, we teach the concept of utilizing the dantian power center but our teaching is indirect. For example, in baseball we teach players to swing the bat by swinging through the lower belly--because that's the center of power. The same concept is taught for swinging a golf club and tennis racket. There are countless other sports activities that use the conecpt of the lower abdomen being the power center.

Breathe Deeply, Live Fully

Syncing the breath with body movements can lead to transformative results. Here’s a simple exercise to illustrate the point:

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and perform the following movements in slow motion. 

• Bend your knees and bend at the waist slightly to gather a mound of invisible flower petals in your arms. 
• Straighten your legs and raise the flowers over your head, releasing them. 
• Hold this position for a few seconds and visualize the flower petals falling through the air around you. 
• Repeat the movement two more times.

It's a simple movement and, without conscious awareness of your breath, it's nothing more than bending slight and then lifting the arms overhead. The magic lies in synchronized breathing. 

Perform the exercies again but this time, take a full normal  breath--not a deep breath--to begin

Then, as your knees bend and your arms scoop the petals, exhale fully

 Next, breathe in as your legs straighten and your arms raise over your head. 

Pause for a moment at the top of the movement before bending your knees and breathing out again. 

The sequence is: breathe out, breathe in, pause; breathe out, breathe in, pause. Notice that the pause occurs between breathing in and breathing out but not between breathing out and breathing in. Pausing with full lungs is powerful, while pausing with empty lungs can be distressing.

Conscious breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system—a term that describes a complex system responsible for calming emotions and the physical body by suppressing stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. When breathing is synchronized with body movements, we maintain our focus and equilibrium.

Modern life can sometimes become a pressure cooker of stress and anxiety. The best hope for maintaining concentration and equanimity lies in our resilience under pressure. Remembering to breathe regularly and evenly is a helpful--and sometimes necessary--skill for success.

Incorporating conscious breathing into everyday activities isn’t difficult, but it does take practice. A simple way to begin is by matching your breath to your walking stride: inhale for a comfortable number of steps, then exhale for the same number of steps plus one additional. For those seeking to become truly proficient, consider enrolling in yoga or qigong classes.

Why Senior Qigong

Why Qigong?

Qigong (pronounced chee-kung) is an ancient healthcare system, which integrates physical postures, breathing techniques, and focused intention. It's practiced for health maintenance, healing, and increasing vitality. Qigong energizes and renews the mind, muscles, tendons, joints, and inner organs, helping to improve circulation, relieve stress and pain, and restore health.

Qigong is especially beneficial in areas of:

• Balance and coordination

• Enhanced immune system

• Flexibility and range of motion

• Greater stamina and vitality

• Improved cardiovascular, respiratory, circulatory, lymphatic, and digestive function

• Focused attention

The distinguishing feature of qigong, compared to other healing movements, is the gentleness and ease with which the movements are performed. Qigong can be practiced by almost anyone, regardless of age or physical limitations. Young children practice qigong, and seniors in their nineties also practice it. Kung fu masters in the Shaolin Temple in China practice qigong, as do people recovering from serious injuries.

Summary of Health Benefits

• High blood pressure: In a study lasting 20 years, patients with hypertension experienced a drop in blood pressure that stabilized over time as a result of practicing qigong twice per week.

• Immune system: Just 30 minutes of daily qigong training for one month is found to produce a tangible impact on the body’s immune system. In one study, blood samples taken the day before training started and after it was completed showed a statistically significant difference in white blood cell counts, indicating a more active immune system.

• Stroke: In one study examining mortality among patients who had suffered a stroke, the group practicing qigong had a 50% reduction in death from any cause, including death due to stroke and illnesses related to stroke.

• Arthritis: My personal experience with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis is that the daily practice of qigong has given me a greater range of motion, significantly less pain, and a reduction in the frequency of painful episodes.

• Stress and Chronic Illness: According to a study from Pennsylvania State University published in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine, researchers found that individuals who were more stressed and anxious about everyday life were more likely to have chronic health conditions (such as heart problems or arthritis) compared to those who viewed things through a more relaxed lens.

In fact, qigong’s ability to relieve stress without exhausting the body has made it an increasingly common recommendation for seriously ill patients. At the Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine, cancer patients are offered weekly qigong classes. Doctors at the University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, prescribe qigong to patients with severe heart disease.

In summary, Qigong is a holistic practice that merges physical movement, controlled breathing, and focused intention to promote health and well-being. Suitable for individuals of all ages and physical abilities, Qigong offers many physical health benefits, as well as enhanced emotional resilience. Integrating Qigong into daily routines is an excellent pathway toward better health and vitality.

You Are Enough

You are amazing!

Stars are giant fusion reactors that transform hydrogen atoms into all the other elements in the universe. Millions of years ago, when stars went supernova, they spewed those elements throughout the universe. That’s where the oxygen in our lungs, the iron in our blood, and so much more that makes up our bodies come from. You are made of stardust.

I am here today partially because the descendants of the Maya moved north from Central Mexico and then east into what is now the southeastern U.S. around 800 AD. I’m also here partially because a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Ferdinand to precipitate the First World War. You are here, with your bodies of stardust, as the result of your own very amazing stories.

Accept All of You.

Most of our experiences, good and bad, are incorporated into our unconscious in what is called implicit memory. Implicit memory shapes our inner world and determines what it feels like to be ourselves. It gives us expectations, models for relationships, emotional tendencies, and our general world outlook.

Being mindful of your inner world—what you feel and sense and interpret about your outer experiences—helps to heal the damage of past injustices, even those that occurred so long ago you may have forgotten them. 

Mindful attention to your own daily experience activates many of the same emotional circuits that are stimulated when a child receives caring attention from parents.

Treat Yourself Kindly

It soothes anxiety and improves the immune system to deliberately bring kindness into your actions, your speech, and, most of all, your thoughts. Try to notice and interrupt negative, anxious thoughts and replace them with themes of kindness and well-being. 

It's not new-age philosophy; it's measurable, proven fact.

Those default thoughts in your mind are similar to a computer simulation--the longer the simulation is active, the more support your mind gives to the themes that fill your thoughts. Negative, anxiety-building thoughts create negative, anxious behaviors. Kind, supportive thoughts result in more kindness and support in the real world.

Qigong is Not T'ai Chi

Qigong is often confused with T'ai Chi, and the reason for the confusion is understandable. The two practices do have an intimate relationship. Both cultivate and balance Qi--the vital life energy--both are mindful of body mechanics, they align the breath with body movements, and they use meditation techniques to produce fluid motion. 

 

The mental outlook when performing either of those arts is similar: a quiet, focused mind is essential to gain the maximum benefit. T'ai Chi practice usually involves performing a series of movements one after the other until the entire series is complete. Qigong practice involves repeating a specific movement several times before moving on to a different one.

T'ai Chi is fundamentally a martial art. We usually see T'ai Chi practiced in slow motion for the same benefits that Qigong provides. However, when the movements are executed rapidly, it becomes a superior martial art. T'ai Chi is called "the mother of Kung Fu" in China.

Legend tells us that in the 4th Century B.C., a Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma came to China from India. He found the monks of the Shaolin Temple in a wretched physical and spiritual condition. He taught them Buddhism and the exercises we know as Qigong. 

This new healing practice evolved through the centuries. Then in the 14th Century, a Taoist priest named Chang San-Feng was awakened from an afternoon nap by a loud screeching made by a crane in mortal combat with a snake. 

The snake could coil and uncoil in smooth, fluid movements and strike at the crane with speed too quick to follow with the eye. The crane brushed aside each strike with a deft movement of its wing. The crane would then strike at the snake with its beak. The snake nimbly avoided each of the crane's attacks and their combat continued.

Eventually, the two combatants gave up and ended their struggle, but Chang, who had been locked in rapt attention, decided to develop a fighting style based on the movements of the animals. T'ai Chi was born.

(There are many different versions of this story.)