Eye exercises for Inga

[yat_chum]

Hi Inga, I’ve read about these exercises which I recall are part of the of a group of exercises to be done after tiger claw training but they are good to do by themselves. Begin by standing a suitable distance from a tree or plant with green leaves. Use your eyes to count the leaves, starting with fifty, gradually working up to two hundred over next few weeks. After counting leaves roll your eyeballs slowly in wide circles without moving your head, three times clockwise and three times anticlockwise. Then close your eyes and enjoy standing meditation for a few minutes, resting your eyes, relaxing without thinking about anything and letting your mind expand. I am afraid I can not remember where these exercises are sourced but hope that they are useful. It may sound strange but finger exercises are also beneficial to the eyes. Jo

[Inga]

'ay our kid, definitely will give it a go. should also have the benefit of calming me down..i have the tendency to get a bit hyper sometimes and the mind races..meditation does help but emptying my mind is a nightmare task. i like the idea of giving myself something to focus on (like counting sheep but instead it's leaves!) nice one, ta very much.

[yat_chum]

Aye up Ingeur, I’m personally not a big advocate of emptying your mind meditation because even though this can lead to enlightenment, I believe you are also open to dark forces. I didn't change the exercises because I know not a lot of people share my view and I wanted to write the exercises as I remembered them.

Here is a visualisation that I found on the taichi18.com forum that you might find helpful. Jo

During the Wuji Stance, you should empty your mind totally. But it is almost impossible for beginners.

So, instead of empty your mind, try to close your eyes and visualize you are standing at a very beautiful place (somewhere you have been to). The sun is shining all over your body. You feel very warm and relax. The energy from the sun is vibrating every cells of your body. You feel very comfortable. Just relax your whole body and enjoy the peacefulness in this beautiful place. Do it for as long as you want.

If any parts of your body start to wobble, just let it move, don't stop it unless the movements become very violent. The chi is helping you to clear the blockages.

This visualization qigong exercise is very safe and simple, yet still very powerful.

Sifu Cheung

[Inga]

hmmm, okay, i'll try this too. i have had success with this type of visualisation when there is a second party involved (yoga in corpse pose or shiatsu massage) but perhaps i could manage it on my own..it would be a relief to not get cross with myself for being unable to empty my mind. life is too busy - stuff keeps crashing in! and, of course, guess what i am doing at the moment..yup, procrastinating..thanks again jo

[DOM]

chapter 10 in the root of chines chgung goes into great detail about regulating the mind.In chapter 14 it is rule number 3 avoid miscellaneous thought.it says even though you have eliminated the flow of random thoughts.Other thought are generated durring practice.dicovering you tandian is warm your mind emidiatly remembers were this is metioned in the book or that you master described it and you may start to compare you exsperiance with this.or you mite start woundering what the next step is.all these thoughts will lead you away from peace and calm and you mind will end up in the domain of the devil.This is another deviation that seems to be exstremly important.But there are those that feel you should be brave in your training and not worry about this stuff.What does being brave have to do with this.No body realy wants to talk about these issues but they are quick to give advise on training chigung.So should we just take anyones suggestions on how to train chigung and to dismiss the rules and not worry about deviating from them.I am not trying to cause panick or be overly cancend in practice for this is another cause of divation as stated in chapter 14.But if we are to take the rest of this training as the gossable then why should we not do the same for these rules.

[maartenm]

http://www.altguide.com/therapy/info/bates.html
(don't know how accurate this is, just googled for an introduction, this seems nice)

and
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155643 ... 5&v=glance
is what I'm reading now, and will be for a while because it's a big book, you probably need this method to recover from reading it I can't tell you much about it though, I've just started the book and I'm new to the whole 'natural vision improvement' thing. What I've understood so far: the worst things you can do to your eyes are surgery (lasik, ...) and exercises that strain your eyes even more, and vision has "nothing" to do with your eyes and problems are certainly not hereditary, but it's "all" in your brain/head/mind (proper "relaxation" & technique).

I don't know about any qigong exercises for the eyes, I haven't searched or asked for them.

edit: by the way, I'm nearsighted and at -11 now, so you can 'see' why I'm interested in this

(by the way, Bates says you should never say "I'm nearsighted" but something like "I am a person who currently has what they call nearsightedness" or something, and not just say it but really believe it, leaving the door open for improvement etc etc, all in your mind, etc)