The essence of Creating Your Own Luck is positive feedback. When we cultivate our powers of qiand love, good things are attracted to us. When we pay these forward without asking anything in return, a powerful spiraling effect is produced called “Laughing Heart Advantage™.”
We can observe the effect in an enhanced sense of community vitality, resilience, renewal and connectedness. (1) If we were to describe Laughing Heart Advantage mathematically, it would be the sum for a defined time period of each player’s enhancing vitality, multiplied by that of every other person, continuously compounded by the influence of the enabling IT system. In other words, the Intelligent Guide itself learns and supports each player, thereby itself becoming a contributor to the community’s Laughing Heart Advantage. An additional element is increased synchronicity, or chance events appearing spontaneously that have special significance or meaning for those involved. It is not certain whether synchronicity is an expression and/or a contributing cause of Laughing Heart Advantage (2).
Laughing Heart Advantage comes from a world based on abundance rather than scarcity. There is no more powerful way to celebrate its exuberance than the creative and performing arts, festivals, and storytelling. By making Laughing Heart their theme communities can set in motion expanding circles of health, wellbeing, kindness, and joy. (3)
It is interesting to ponder whether it is possible to describe mathematically what begins to happen when entire communities start to embody and implement the principles of Laughing Heart or Big Heart Intelligence.
Author’s commentary
How can the Intelligent Guide enable this “emergent” process? We will write a software program with three objectives:
1. Develop a rich database of individual contributions taking many forms—ideas, audio, images, threads and so forth.
2. Analyze, map, and aggregate the individual contributions into a coherent interconnected network.
3. Express these individual contributions in a coherent “big” picture.” One example is the Apollonian gasket portrayed directly below. Participants will have many other metaphors from which to choose depicting their position in the overall process—a mandala, garden, starry night, or a future-scape. (4)
Below is an artistic embodiment of Santa Barbara’s creative Laughing Heart.
Move # 10—The last move is easy: simply ask yourself “What are some imaginative ways I can expand my own Laughing Heart Advantage by enhancing the Laughing Heart of the community?” We welcome your ideas and suggestions. There is an interesting “happy rider” quality in all of this: whether you decide to engage or not, Laughing Heart cannot be constrained. It cascades like happiness. As the writer Shawn Anchor suggests in his best seller The Happiness Advantage, happiness is not an end but a cause. It is the same with Laughing Heart. The more a community’s Laughing Heart opens, the more everyone will enjoy a Laughing Heart Advantage.
Most of us navigate through life on the premise that there exists an “external” or “outer” world and an “inner” one, and they are divided somehow by our skin.
The separate “reality” of these two realms comes very early to our consciousness. It is helpful that we view the world this way. It is self-protective. Otherwise all manner of hostile visitors, people as well as microbes, might invade our space and do us harm. Although it is helpful, it is entertaining to realize this view is in large part a great fiction.
I came upon this discovery some years ago when designing the Graph program for the first edition of Piloting Through Chaos. I noticed that when I fell away from integrity, any “move” I made that helped me to reverse course would influence every other element in helping me to recover integrity, or as I defined it, my sense of connectedness and dynamic balance. But then, and here’s the point, I noticed wonderful things started to happen in my “external” life, when I regained a state of high integrity. They came to me, as it were, unbidden. With my new program I had a way to track the process. There is an axiom in biofeedback, a field I have studied deeply: what you can measure, you can influence. In biofeedback training the key to influencing is “passive volition,” the art of allowing or giving in control.
This simple exercise teaches an invaluable related life capability: “field independence.” In other words, by simply allowing things to happen and not attaching to them—whether good or bad—you begin to develop a sense of balance and equilibrium. You are no longer tossed around by other people, events, or circumstances over which you have no control, notwithstanding the illusion that you do.
This art is greatly refined when we add Laughing Heart consciousness to the mix.
Author’s commentary
Playing the Game
You can have fun exploring this new frontier by playing the Create Your Own Luck Game. Please review the two short videos (in the Footnotes) and print out the two included forms, and you will be ready to play. In the short form all you do need to do is to track three lines. The first bar is your external life. Above the line “Up” means “good” things are happening. “Down,” means the opposite. The second bar tracks your Laughing Heart state. “Up” means you are flowing, joyful, powerful, and happy. “Down” says you are overly busy, constantly in motion, and most importantly, stressed out. The third bar tracks paying forward. “Up” means you are taking some action to lighten someone else’s burdens or enhancing their quotient of joy. “Down” means you are unengaged, or worse. In the next few months we will be able to send you Version 1.0 of an app to trace and remember the “wave form” of your day, week, or month. It will enable you to discern the deeper currents in your life.
Some will argue that we/you are stacking the deck. In other words, the game is subjective—you are just “thinking” you see that this outer shift is “positive” or “negative”. Your personal view has no “scientific” significance. This challenge opens an opportunity to explore more deeply the question of “inner” and “outer” boundaries.
Of course, your experience is subjective, because your perception and awareness are expanding. What previously you might have concluded was an “adverse” event, you may now see as potentiating good things; conversely, you may be more careful not to become inflated by success, because you understand that good things in life are often momentary, and can give way to troubles. The key point is when you are more able to surf the waves, you begin to see the potential for light in everything. And the data becomes more reliable, because your propensity to delude yourself diminishes. I call this the “principle of increasing fidelity.”
Qi passes through boundaries. Some qi masters maintain that the qi moves faster than the speed of light. We are continuously bathed in qi. Laughing Heart is a state of high flow of clean, balanced, bright and powerful qi, infused with love. As you practice Laughing Heart you may discover that your integrity (or consciousness of boundaries) can be strongly maintained, even as the perimeter of the boundaries moves outward. This state is closely associated with a sense of powerful resilience.
What I believe may be happening in the Creating Your Own Luck Game is that players are tapping into what modern physics is calling “quantum entanglement.” Here is a short video explaining this concept. The core premise is that we are all, at least at a quantum level, profoundly connected. Is it possible that this quantum entanglement at times “seeps” into our “ordinary” state of awareness?
This brings us to a further question. What does it mean to say “you” are “creating” your own “luck”? The Game at least invites the interpretation that “luck” (from Middle Dutch, a shortened form of gheluc) “good fortune” may be creating you as the reverse. Laughing Heart is both a dance and a conversation.
If qi can really move through walls and across space and time, and if you can learn how to influence qi fields by Creating Your Own Luck, what might be the larger implications of these discoveries for enhancing community health and wellbeing? What if you and I and all our friends and colleagues were to combine what we have learned and discovered from practicing the 10 Essential Moves in a continuous stream of creative expression? One result might be a new kind of community narrative we are calling “Emergent Art” introduced in Move 10.
Life has many colors and wave forms. The Art of Laughing Heart is to work with what is. In this way every moment in the wave becomes an opening and a gate. Here is how Laughing Heart can be applied in especially challenging circumstances.
The above diagram “Adversity’s Spiraling and Creative Wave Form” traces the hero’s and heroine’s journey. At the upper left an event occurs. It may be a slight shift we interpret as a movement “downward.” This gives rise to a vague sense of unease, an amorphous fear. Then, something untoward happens, and we see a pattern developing. We call this “bad luck” or “adversity.” Often the spiral intensifies. As Shakespeare writes in Hamlet “Sorrows come not as single spies but in battalions.”
We descend. Our journey into the wood becomes thicker and darker. We try to find firm ground, but we falter. Pretty soon we are approaching a place of despair. King Lear (Shakespeare again) warns: “The worst is not so long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’” At this final place without a name all we have left is a choice: to surrender and give up; or to accept what the world appears to be giving us, with a generosity of heart and with compassion to ourselves and others. And then, in these difficult straights there comes a moment of grace; a tender mercy in the form of a subtle shift– a kind act, a gentle word, a slight glimmer of light, a quiet recognition. If we can listen to the signal and hove to this glimmer of light, it will uplift us.
All of a sudden there is an opening, a loosening in the fabric. We begin to sense our power, inexplicably. We find our power inside our pain. Now we are on a creative upswing. More discoveries ensue; they come in flocks like butterflies. Our creative energies coil and thrust. We emerge, gloriously from the darkness, and arrive at a new and higher peak of life force and power. We are ALIVE! There can be no doubt of it, and our vessel is sturdier. Like ancient mariners in a storm at sea, we have held the tiller firm and found an opening in the waves. We have “Created Our Own Luck.”
A single act of kindness can ripple through a social network, setting off chains of generosity reaching far beyond the original act.(1) What is uncertain is whether simply witnessing an act of kindness, or whether the giver must actually receive and want to reciprocate a benefit. A recent study concludes that the observer effect works up to a point—receiving is not necessarily a condition of giving–but thereafter, especially when paying forward appears to benefit large numbers, it falls off. So called “bystander” or “free-rider” effects take over. Apparently players believe their contribution is no longer needed when simply observing, although they will continue to engage when they are active recipients.
It is highly likely that Laughing Heart will fundamentally alter this bystander or free-rider effect. The reasons for this lie in the nature of qi and the unusual economics of Laughing Heart. Qi is the quintessentially free good. Its supply is unlimited. It is never depleted. Moreover, the feeling of Laughing Heart combines a sense of peace and power with ecstasy. This is a potent combination that produces a remarkable infinite progression: the more you pay forward, the greater the bounty that returns to you.
Paying forward can take many forms. Some people associate paying forward with financial contributions. But this is only one form of paying forward. Volunteering is a hugely popular form of paying forward. The extraordinary economic benefits to communities of volunteering are only recently being documented.(2)
Tracking Paying Forward
Paying forward is the most direct way to build Laughing Heart power. All you need to do is track the relationship of the joy and vitality of Laughing Heart and pass this life force (qi and love) outward to help others. Track Paying Forward for one week and see what you can discover when inner and outer processes align.
You can practice playing forward by yourself, or you might experiment with your friends. It doesn’t matter. The key is to have fun and to sense your new power and potentialities. Below is a template to keep track of your discoveries in the field.
Author’s commentary
Field Notes
(Note: You can enhance your Laughing Heart (L/H) power by using these Field Notes to track any L/H move. In this instance we suggest you track Paying Forward) If you have a printer, download/print this PDF of the below Field Notes template you can use).
Move or Principle: Paying Forward (Date:………)
Goal: To Enhance Laughing Heart Power in one Week by Paying Forward (Record Week/Day:…….)
A. WINNING
Case # 1: I implemented Paying Forward and the result. (Please describe)
1…….2…….3…….4…….5…….6…….7…….8…….9…….10
Case # 2: I implemented Paying Forward and the result. (Please describe)
1…….2…….3…….4…….5…….6…….7…….8…….9…….10
Case # 3: I implemented Paying Forward and the result. (Please describe)
1…….2…….3…….4…….5…….6…….7…….8…….9…….10
Comments and Discoveries:
B. FALLING OFF
3 times this week I didn’t bother Paying Forward after a great win and the result.
Case # 1: (Please describe)
1…….2…….3…….4…….5…….6…….7…….8…….9…….10
Case # 2: (Please describe)
1…….2…….3…….4…….5…….6…….7…….8…….9…….10
Case # 3: (Please describe)
1…….2…….3…….4…….5…….6…….7…….8…….9…….10
Comments and Discoveries:
C. RECOVERY
3 times this week I didn’t bother paying forward, became conscious, and recovered, and the result.
Suggested Pay Forward Opportunities—The following is a list of paying forward opportunities that are especially beneficial to our pilot community, Santa Barbara. There are many paths to paying forward. No one way is preferred to another. Some explorers may seek “strategic” or “high impact” opportunities. Others may simply prefer “random” acts made spontaneously to momentary occurrences in your life.
There is something quite magical about this dance of serendipity. It confirms our sense that we are engaged in a generative process far greater than ourselves—at once profound, mysterious, and wondrous.
How might we materialize serendipities before our very eyes? Let’s have some fun with Move 9, Creating Your Own Luck.
Paying Forward Opportunities to Enhance Community Health and Wellbeing
As we move on in years our immune system is increasingly challenged. Here are some moves to enhance your life force and immunity.
Our bodies have two basic forms of immunity—innate immunity and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity is what you are born with. When a foreign body enters your body—a bacteria from a cut—your innate immunity responds; an example: white blood cells mobilizing to neutralize the bacteria. Adaptive immunity is based on cellular learning. Your cells learn about the individual chemicals that have invaded before and develop precise and specific action modalities to cope with the invader.
An interesting question for us is: Can Laughing Heart enhance innate and adaptive immunity, and what role in particular might love play in this process? As noted in the introduction, in exploring this question we elect to view love as a special, most powerful form of universal energy working in close partnership with qi.
There is already a substantial body of evidence that our brains are actively involved in all the attributes we associate with love, kindness, compassion, generosity, and trust. And Professor Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina has done some fascinating research documenting the biochemistry of love. A next scientific frontier is: What is the role of the heart as a systems integrator and modulator of brain, biochemical, and other processes?
In the meantime here are several exercises and practices by which you can explore and easily confirm for yourself the centrality of the heart.
Opening the Heart—All you need do is Quiet the Heart (Move #1), and then allow your heart to open. As your heart naturally opens and expands, qigong Grandmaster Li Junfeng suggests you repeat this mantra: “I am a big body of love.” You let your heart and mind soar. Your heart expands with love and qi. You have the feeling of connecting everywhere. Your energy body, inner and outer becomes very strong. Your power of perception deepens and clarifies. You can See the Big Picture.
Be Kind to Yourself—Love begins at home and joy is the default state. Asceticism is unnecessary of Laughing Heart explorers. One easy practice is not to waste your life worrying over trivial things. (Shakespeare, Richard II, “I wasted time and now doth time waste me.”) The secret to not wasting time is to focus your heart and mind on what is really important and not sweat the small stuff. Another useful practice is to listen deeply to your body. It is a close and beloved friend. When your heart is open, you are very powerful.
Cultivating Love as a Skill
It is somewhat odd to think of love as a learned skill but actually it is fun to explore it in this way. Here are a few guidelines.
Creating a baseline–First, explore your personal experience of love, particularly unconditional love, by asking this question regarding the love you feel toward those you most cherish: your wife or husband or primary partner in life, your children, your best friend, your pet, and then ask yourself this question:
How does it feel?
(Not how do ‘I’ feel, but how does ‘it’ feel.)
Explore the experience of love by opening all your senses: sight, touch, sound, taste, hearing, smell, etc.)
See if you can detect love’s special flavor, and then, see if you can differentiate its subtle nuances and changes as you encounter your loved one each new time.
Can you detect something fresh and new each time? —for love has own distinctive forms of light, color, emotional nuance, imagery, and meaning.
Expanding the baseline
What happens when you open your Laughing Heart to increase the joy or lighten the burdens of others beyond your immediate circle of loved ones or your friends, for example, a business partner, a total stranger, even an adverse party? Ask yourself: How does it feel? Can you detect the same energetic/emotional signature or pattern?
Now explore this week, just as an experiment, in the simplest, most modest and most easily verified way expanding your sensory gates by opening Laughing Heart to whom you haven’t considered in these terms. Keep an Explorers Log and note what you discover.
Playing with the Universe
You can conduct this simple experiment: See yourself as the happy Hotei Buddha in Move 2 and send your love pouring from the cups in your hands (laogong in Chinese) out to the farthest reaches of the universe, way beyond our solar system; pour it out from your heart, and watch what happens. I have discovered the more love I send out, almost immediately a cascading beam of energy comes back, it seems with compounding interest. What is this all about? What do you discover when you play with the Universe in this way?
Author’s commentary
Energetic Practices to Enhance Immunity
Standing Like a Tree
You can learn how to develop health and vitality simply by “standing like a tree” (Zhan Zhuang).
This meditative practice combines the “no-thinking” mind of Zen Buddhism, with mindfulness training and energetic (qi) power training of qigong.When you practice this form in a Laughing Heart state with love, and pay attention to the flow of energy from your solar plexus (dantian) to your heart and then outward throughout your body, you will have a palpable discovery of your life force.
Try standing like a tree for one (1) minute 3 times a per day for the first week, and see if you can reach 10 minutes, 3 times by the 10th week. Keep a Vitality Journal recording what you discover about your health and life force.
For a variation on the theme of standing like a tree try tree-gong as described in Julian Gresser, Piloting Through Chaos – The Explorers Mind (2013), Book II, section on life force.
Now that you are beginning to have a direct experience of Laughing Heart and have explored its potentialities, you are ready to extend its vitality energy to helping your family, friends, tribe, organization, or community. The most direct and powerful application is to combine Laughing Heart with the simple act of “paying forward” in Move 8.
Zhan Zhuang
Tango is an art form that combines big heart energy, exercise, a sense of deep connection, and love.
Move #6 The Explorers Wheel Connecting Laughing Heart with Everything
The Explorers Wheel and Intertidal Thinking
Just as Laughing Heart can be a step down transformer, as explained in Move 5, so also it can become a step up transformer, increasing the creative voltage of everything it touches.
The first step on your journey is simply to click into the Explorers Wheel website—and to familiarize yourself with the exciting possibilities of the Wheel. I recommend that you simply hover your mouse over each “moon” and ponder the question it poses, beginning with the enso image in the middle. You might view the enso as a connecting channel between realms of consciousness. It invites you to explore. Every epic myth in the world has its heroine or hero encounter such passage ways.
You can test the system by writing an important question or idea inside the enso and then explore your question from the vantage of any of the eight (8) moons. (You are developing a kind of human/octopus awareness!) You may be especially drawn at first to some of the moons as opposed to others. Let your intuition be your guide.
Now start exploring the relationship of several of the moons to your question simultaneously. As explained in the audio, the Explorers Wheel will naturally guide you to the “innovators gold” which can be found in the “intertidal realms” at thepoints of convergenceof some or all of these 8 moons.
What might you discover or invent by this kind of stereoscopic or intertidal thinking?
Explorers Wheel audio:
Author’s commentary
Laughing Heart
Everything transforms when you infuse this process with Laughing Heart. You can test this proposition by presenting some version of the following question to the enso:
How can the Explorers Wheel help to enhance my vitality at every moment, in every situation?
Look for the points of intersection, the “intertidal zones” where Laughing Heart can infuse new life and creative insight.
You may enjoy recording and sharing your discoveries with fellow explorers. Simply click the blue moon before you and type in your insights and questions.
In the near future the Explorers Wheel itself will begin to spin and learn and provide additional useful insights to you and other explorers in your network. This process may have unanticipated beneficial side effects. An axiom of neuroscience is neurons that “fire together, wire together.” Here the Explorers Wheel process may not only foster a (re)connecting of nerve cells in your brain but also create new neuronal and energetic pathways between your brain, heart, solar plexus (roughly comparable to the Chinese dantian–thelargest radiating nerve center in the body one point below your navel), and the qi field that connects you to all that is good and nourishing in the Universe. (1)
Now that you have the means to connect Laughing Heart virtually to everything, how might love enrich the process further? Might love even enhance your immune system, as suggested in Move 7?
Since ancient times many cultures have recognized that certain frequencies of sound, embodied in chants, chorales, sutras and mantras, have special healing effects or enable us to enter states of empowerment and expanded awareness. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, for example, was among the first to see the close connection of the “harmonies of the spheres,” mathematics, and healing. The energy field of the heart is fine-tuned to receiving and transmitting the special qualities of sound.
You might therefore find the following experiment interesting. Select any musical piece that particularly moves you at the level of mind and heart. Listen intently and ask yourself, “What is happening here? How does it feel inside your body?”
I have had the fancy for many years— perhaps only a fancy and nothing more– when listening especially to the works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Handel that their musical genius was flowing directly into my cells, like a magical herb, transforming everything it touches. Have you ever had this experience? Please send us your ideas after listening to the excerpts recorded in this Move # 5.
If, for example, it is really possible to “step down” the promethean creative energy encoded in Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, to where would you want to direct your newly discovered power? Just go to the next Move#6 and have some fun with the Explorers Wheel. (1)
Downloading Mozart’s, Beethoven’s, and Handel’s Life Force Directly into Your Cells!
Listen intently and ask yourself, “What is happening here? How does it feel inside my body?”
Jupiter Symphony Toscanini conductor
Kreutzer Sonata
Allison Bascom
The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff)
How Does It Feel? (Bob Dylan)
Sean Rowe – To Leave Something Behind – Live at McCabe’s
You can increase your Laughing Heart power directly by connecting to nature. This is because qi or nature’s life force is everywhere. And it is free and unlimited! All you need to do is learn how to open the gates and balance your qi.
Try this simple exercise:
Simply take some time off, each day, whenever the spirit moves you, to find a beautiful, peaceful, or awe inspiring place where you are surrounded by the natural world – the dawn, a sunset, a grove of trees, a quiet walk, a tranquil place in the mountains, by a stream, or the seaside before the tourists come.
Open your heart and just the let the beauty of nature flow into you. Simply pay attention and see if you can differentiate this unique experience from any other you have ever had. It is a gift.
A discovery question:
Is not your inner nature and the beauty of ‘external’ nature essentially one and the same? (1)
And what might be the link between vitality, beauty, and the power of sound? Read on to the next move “Harvesting the Creative Genius in Music.”
What if Beauty starts to appear in your life at every moment…even in the most improbable places and circumstances?
Just note three Beauty points in this day, pause and go inside, and ask:
How does it feel?
Beauty reveals itself by hints in our ordinary life, in nothing special. Laughing Heart cultivates this openness and deepening of perception.
Author’s commentary
Hint # 1: “I visited and returned; it was nothing special. Mount Ro veiled in misty rain; the Sekko River at high tide.” (Zenrinkushu)
Hint # 2: “Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. Hummingbirds open our eyes to the wonder of the world and inspire us to open our hearts to loved ones and friends. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover and to savor each moment as it passes, embrace all that life has to offer and to celebrate the joy of everyday. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.” (Papyrus)
Hint # 3: Begin what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We only have this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake. (Francis Bacon Sr)
For a few moments….
Arleen Auger. Softly Sweet in Lydian Measures (Alexander’s Feast)
Move #2 Finding Your Power.. Becoming a Great Wave
Laughing Heart connects you to a universal life force
Imagine you are the Great Wave of Hokusai. Then ponder the story below. Now write down your experience, share it if you like. What happens to stress or worries when you become your own Great Wave?
Great Waves
In the early days of the Meiji era there lived a well-known wrestler called O-nami, Great Waves. O-nami was immensely strong and knew the art of wrestling. In his private bouts he defeated even his teacher, but in public he was so bashful that his own pupils threw him.
O-nami felt he should go to a Zen master for help. Hakuju, a wandering teacher, was stopping in a little temple nearby, so O-nami went to see him and told him of his trouble. Great Waves is your name,’ the teacher advised,’ so stay in this temple tonight. Imagine that you are those billows. You are no longer a wrestler who is afraid. You are those huge waves sweeping everything before them, swallowing all in their path. Do this and you will be the greatest wrestler in the land.’
The teacher retired. O-nami sat in meditation trying to imagine himself as waves. He thought of many different things. Then gradually he turned more and more to the feelings of the waves. As the night advanced the waves became larger and larger. They swept away the flowers in their vases. Even the Buddha in the shrine was inundated. Before dawn the temple was nothing but the ebb and flow of an immense sea.
In the morning the teacher found O-nami meditating, a faint smile on his face. He patted the wrestlers shoulder. ‘Now nothing can disturb you.’ he said. ‘You are the waves. You will sweep everything before you.’ The same day O-nami entered the wrestling contests and won. After that, no one in Japan was able to defeat him. (From Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones 1957)
There is an amazing practice from the Shaolin monks of China who discovered a root of power and vitality. It is called the “horse stance.”
Aim to concentrate your power for 1- 5 minutes each day. There is an easy way to begin. First, concentrate your energy around your navel and simply lower down into a semi-squat that its comfortable for you, similar to the picture above. Imagine you are holding a great beachball in front of you with both hands. Now turn the palms of your extended hands to point towards your navel (in Chinese this power center is called the dantian). At the same time you can “drink” the power of the earth (qi) through the “spring of youth,” the arch of each foot. The rest is ecstasy. See the following Q&A from grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit.
Merging with the Universe
A third exercise is to imagine yourself for a moment as the happy Buddha Hotei who wanders the world open to what it brings. You simply stretch your arms over your head as in the image or extend them outwards at about 55 degrees, and imagine that you are holding a Great Ball or a Great Bowl, and that you are collecting the finest and purest qi of the Universe. The qi descends on you like showers of apricot blossoms in spring time. In this state of delight you forget yourself and merge with the Universe. There are no more boundaries.
A Note on Physical Exercise
Just as Laughing Heart can be an elixir or tincture to add to what you love most to do, so also with your favorite exercise. Laughing heart is closely tied with “movement” both in its physical sense and metaphorically. There is ample evidence of the adverse effects of sitting, which causes the qi or life force to stagnate. The 10 Essential Moves are directed toward cultivating life-nourishing qiand love on behalf of ourselves and our community. Try combining Laughing Heart with the “horse stance” described in Move # 2 Finding Your Power. The horse stance demonstrates how powerfully the qi can move even when we are simply standing still.
When you practice Moves #1 and #2, you may begin to experience Beauty in surprising places, as you can explore in Move #3.
Quieting the Heart is the tonic—the first musical note. It is the foundation state. Quieting the Heart enriches all other moves. When the heart becomes quiet, your Mind also settles down.
How to quiet the heart?
Simply relax. Be loose. Empty your mind. Forget yourself.
Now bring your attention to the area of your heart: not only your physical heart, but also an energetic field surrounding your heart at the center of your chest. Ease into this place.
Imagination
Imagination can help. Imagine the quiet of a bright moon shining over a silent lake. The bright moon and the lake are inside your heart.
Now imagine that your heart field is opening, very slowly, and a clear mist is rising from your heart. Ask yourself, “How does it feel?”
Combining Age and Youth
When your heart quiets, you see more clearly. It is easy to demonstrate this. Slowly open your eyes and observe. You needn’t do anything. Things naturally become clearer. This is a new way of perceiving with your heart, and your eyes, and your mind simultaneously. You see, feelingly.
Now return to the exuberance of your youth. The two states merge. You possess the wisdom of age and this bubbling vitality. It is a gift, available to you, anywhere, anytime.
Laughing Heart as an Elixer or Tincture
There are many tributaries to Laughing Heart. Imagine yourself doing what you love most. You can think of Laughing Heart as a special tincture or elixir that you simply add to what you already love to do.
Now, Stop, Look, and Go! Pause to experience this gift of life and savor the radiance of this special moment with gratefulness for your life. You might want to replay this extraordinary video by Brother David Steindl-Rast. (“Stop. Look. Go.” Note: please scroll down.)
How do you know you are in a Laughing Heart state?
Here’s a check list. Note: It is the combination of these elements that gives Laughing Heart its unique quality. How many of these qualities can you experience simultaneously? See if you can catch the special flavor.
When practicing the qigong forms in these videos it is interesting to explore them as metaphors for the ebb and flow of life. See what you can discover.
Li Jing – Calming the Heart
Return to Spring by Li Junfeng
Awakening the Soul by Li Junfeng
Quieting the Heart tonifies and sharpens all the senses. You can see and feel more clearly and expansively. Your intuition deepens. Thus Quieting the Heart is closely linked to the next Move–Finding Your Power.
