Presence in movement: Qigong according to Eckhart Tolle

 

In October 2013 I had the rare opportunity to join the intense full week of teachings that Eckhart Tolle and his life partner Kim Eng held in the wonderful Italian city of Assisi. Not everybody knows that Kim is a Qigong teacher who blends this age-old tradition that I love with the deep teachings on Consciousness given by Eckhart.

I transcribed for my Qigong students (and then translated into Italian) Eckart’s introduction to Kim’s DVD called Presence through Movement: Qi Flow Yoga, that I recommend if you like Qigong. You can also purchase it directly from Eckhart’s new official site . I love the way Eckhart says that the Source of Presence and the Source of Creativity are one and the same! This is also what I experience when uniting inner presence, conscious mouvement and intuitive creativity in my daily work alone and in groups. I’m so happy to share these wonderful words of pure Wisdom with you! (N.B.: the bold type highlights are mine).

A wonderful thing about movement, is that it puts you in touch with the Inner Energy Field of the body, and for many people movement can be used as a useful tool for accessing this Inner Energy Field. What we are talking about here is not any kind of movement – and what Kim will be practicing with you is not any kind of movement but CONSCIOUS MOVEMENT.

We’re always moving – not only physically, but also mentally. We’re moving about, in our daily life, running from here to there, and our mind is constantly moving and active, and most of that movement is actually unconscious movement: it has its own momentum. The mind has its own momentum, your daily activities have their own momentum, and usually, when unconscious movement happens you are never actually Present where you are. You are always projecting yourself to the end of that movement.
This is how people go about their daily life. This is how stress arises, and many people live in continuous stress, because they are never fully Present in what they do, they mentally project themselves forward to where they want to be, to the end of the doing.
There’s an enormous qualitative difference between action that is a means to an end – which is normal unconscious action or doing – and action that is conscious and an end in itself. In other words, action that you are giving your complete attention to. So, even when I raise my hand a few inches, the normal tendency would be for me to project myself to where I want the hand to be (he points to the last section of the movement). So, while I move my hand upwards, I’m really wanting to get to the end of the movement, and when I lower my hand I’m really wanting to get to the end of that movement: that’s movement as a means to an end AND THE END IS ALWAYS THE FUTURE. That’s how people lose themselves in movement. So, mostly lose themselves in movement: both in physical movement and in the movement of their mind. They are lost in mental movements and they are constantly running around fixing things and getting things, always missing the power that is inherent in Consciousness itself.
A different dimension arises when you are totally and fully present in what you do. So, let’s go back to raising my hand: if I raise my hand consciously, then every moment I’m fully present with every moment of this movement (he slowly rises his hand). I don’t want to be here (pointing at the end) while I’m here (pointing somewhere in the middle of the trajectory). At the same time, when I do that, there is an energy that I feel flowing through the hands, because my attention is there, and that’s the activation of the Inner Energy Field, which we can call Qi, or whatever we want to call it. So, when I move my hand consciously, and lower it consciously, there’s an energy there that wasn’t there before. That’s the miracle about “moving consciously”, and this is what Kim will be practicing with you today, which is bringing that Conscious Attention into small movements of your body, structured movements.
Now, one of the great benefits of this is that when you bring your full attention to a movement, there is not enough attention left for you to be thinking at the same time! So, what conscious movement does, is it eliminates mind activity, because you cannot be performing these simple exercises that you will be doing, you cannot perform them well if thoughts are going through your head. If you’re thinking about the imminent collapse of the stock market, you won’t be present in the movement, and so you won’t be good at it! And it won’t be fun! You won’t enjoy it, because you want to be somewhere else, and I have other things to think about.
Here, you are bringing your attention to this movement – whatever that is. And so, as you bring your attention to the movement, attention is withdrawn from thinking, and that is the key. By withdrawing attention from thinking, not only do you become alert, you also become still at the same time. Still doesn’t mean that you have to sit still: there can be stillness in movement, because what stillness really refers to is the cessation of thinking without loss of Consciousness. In fact, there is an increase in Consciousness. You become alert, much more alert that you were in the usual state when you were involved in thinking. So, what Presence through Movement does then, is that it takes your attention out of the way. Usually it dwells in the movement of thought. It frees it from being trapped in the movement of thought and then what arises is Pure Attention itself. And that’s a miraculous thing: this arising of Pure Attention – which we may call Presence – is also the arising of the unconditioned dimension in you. There’s an Intelligence there, that has nothing to do with your past or your future.
So, as consciousness detaches itself from thinking and suddenly is there as Pure Consciousness, this dimension of depth arises from within you, that was always there but that you didn’t know it, or you only had glimpses of it before. Another word for that is, of course, spiritual awakening, or whatever we want to call it: this is what it is. The emergence of that deeper dimension of Unconditioned Consciousness. So, this is why we are practicing Presence through Movement. Of course, you could also become present sitting still, but for many people that is a problem, because when they sit still, they don’t have much to put their attention on, so they start thinking, or rather they continue thinking.
So, enjoy this practice of being totally present in these simple, structured, beautiful movements, and let it become something that you also practice in your everyday life, not only by doing these movements again and again, once you’ve mastered them for yourself, but gradually bringing that Presence, that complete attention, into little things that you do in daily life, so that fewer and fewer things are a means to an end, so that the doing is an end in itself and thereby there’s an enormous enhancement of qualitative difference in the doing. It could be a simple thing as making a cup of tea: you don’t want to get to the end of the doing, you are completely present in every movement. So, there’s a power that flows through you as you begin to live like that. The power that wasn’t there in the ordinary unconscious way of living. It’s that power out of which creativity and intense aliveness arise. So it’s vital to find that in yourself, because if you don’t find it, you have missed the most wonderful thing that can happen to a human being, in this incarnation on this planet, that is the Awakening, the flowering of Consciousness. That’s why we are here.
So, enjoy!

Eckhart Tolle – Introduction to Kim Eng’s DVD Presence through Movement: Qi Flow Yoga

I also add another quote from Eckhart about the same subject, that I took from the book Perles de Conscience/Pearls of Consciousness, page 124. This enchanting book unites exquisite photographic portraits of the most outstanding spiritual teachers of our time, taken by the French photographer Dominica, and some deep quotes of every teacher, both in English and French. The director of Aluna Editions , Jean-Pierre Chometon, a dear friend, is the mind-heart behind the scenes of this poetic collaboration.

The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body-to feel it at all time.
This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes, much like a light that grows brighter as you turn up the dimmer switch and so increase the flow of electricity.
At this higher energy level, negativity cannot affect you anymore, and you tend to attract new circumstances that reflect this higher frequency.
If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won’t lose yourself in the external world, and you won’t lose yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions, fears and desires may still be there to some extent, but they won’t take you over.
Your spiritual practice consists only in saying yes to the now.

La Jolla, United States (California), Mars 2000

Eckhart Tolle, from Pearls of Consciousness

My wish is that you may anchor your luminous Presence in your miraculous Body, so that you may draw on the mysterious Source of Life and Creativity!