by Diana Keener, LAc
When I was in acupuncture school more than twenty years ago, we were told that this brilliant form of energetic medicine can have profound effects beyond the mere elimination of unpleasant physical symptoms. It is medicine that has benefit for the body, mind and spirit. Being a person who does not take anything on faith, I began to question what that actually meant. What is this “body-mind-spirit” that gets repeated so often that it starts to sound like one meaningless word? And if it really does mean something, how can we access it palpably? When the needle makes contact with the acupuncture points on the meridians that we learned about in theory class I wanted to actually feel, not intuitively, but tangibly, the flow of energy that the needle is supposed to be manipulating.
“You are the needle that affects the healing”, I was told. I appreciated the acknowledgement that who and how we are as practitioners makes the biggest difference in the healing presence we bring to the world, but besides the good advice about basic self-care, (eat well, sleep enough, stay hydrated, etc.) I didn’t understand what I needed to do to cultivate myself as the agent of change for someone else’s healing. I kept feeling that there was something missing in my practical understanding of the ability to move Qi. Although I did have an introduction to Qi Gong and Tai Qi in acupuncture school, those classes were very basic, short-lived and not at all emphasized. “Do No Harm” is the Hippocratic oath that western medical professionals are bound by. That seems like a low bar for a practitioner of medicine of any kind. I wanted to do better than that.
After some research into Taoist philosophy and a closer reading of the Chinese medical classics I came across something that indicated that the only people who were qualified to practice acupuncture in historical times were Qi Gong masters. A lightbulb went off.
Through a series of coincidences soon after that ah-ha moment, I found a wonderful teacher who was giving a week-long residential retreat and I began the lifelong learning curve of self cultivation in the Chinese inner arts. After many years of study with that teacher (Master Zhongxian Wu), I began a rigorous 3 year teacher training course with my current teacher, Damo Mitchell in his Lotus Nei Gong School. Since completing the teacher training course, Damo has come to the US every year to help us build our skills. Qi Gong creates increasing awareness of the body’s potency and elasticity, illuminates the mind’s processes that can hinder and help the flow of Qi and ultimately the practices give rise to spiritual transformation. Even after many years of life changing study and practice, I still feel as if I am just starting off on this road.
I am greatly privileged to be able to go to Bali, Indonesia, where the base of operations for Damo Mitchell’s Lotus Nei Gong School is now located, to do intensive ongoing training in Qi Gong, Nei Gong and meditative arts for the month of August. Although a month will not lead me to mastery, it’s bound to be a step towards a more comprehensive direct experience of the full expression of Qi flow through the body, mind and spirit.
I will be teaching an introductory Qi Gong class at Ruscombe starting in October. If you are interested, please contact me at dianakeener@earthlink.net
Diana Keener has practiced acupuncture at Ruscombe since 2002. Before her training as a practitioner of Chinese medicine, she worked in Hospice care and the arts.