Curiosity in Action: Integrating Depth into Daily Life with Tai Chi and Qigong

Chapter Nine | Free One Million Minds: The Quest for Depth: Cultivating Curiosity

12/23/2024

Duration | 4 minutes 34seconds
Guest: Dr. Symeon Rodger

synopsis

In this chapter, Jamie Meyer and Dr. Symeon Rodger discuss the importance of cultivating curiosity and going beyond surface-level practices in personal development. Dr. Rodger explores how individuals can integrate deeper practices like Tai Chi and Qigong into their everyday routines, even with limited time. The discussion highlights how the principles behind these practices can be woven into daily life without the need for long periods of dedicated time. Dr. Rodger also explains how small adjustments in posture and awareness can have profound impacts, emphasising the potential for transformation through curiosity and mindful inquiry.

dialogue summary

Jamie Meyer:
People are not naturally inclined to be as curious, and they’re also not as naturally inclined to set aside time just to be curious about something. You know, like the fact that they go to a yoga studio and they have a yoga class, that’s enough of a tool or a resource for them as it stands and as it is. And so how do you get people to go from being able to make just 20 minutes for a yoga or 30 minutes for meditation to that deeper level of inquiry that you’re talking about?

Dr. Symeon Rodger:
Yeah, and that’s really… you’re hitting on really the key to all of this because it really is time, and especially in the modern world. I mean, you look at, I don’t know, you look at the monks in China. Well, okay, if you’re living at the Shin temple and you’re a monk, you can train in Chung and martial arts for six hours a day or eight hours a day, because you have nothing else to do. Good.

99% of the planet is not like that. So you really have to look for… okay, if this is a profound approach, whatever the approach is, if it’s meant to be kind of a blueprint for living life, if it’s meant to have a profound and deep effect, then obviously that has to go beyond the 20 or 30 minutes I can dedicate to it, right? And so how do I take the fundamental principles that are here and incorporate them into my everyday life so that I don’t have to invest more time?

And that’s the whole thing. So the whole purpose of the way I’ve been teaching Tai Chi and Qigong has been to get people to understand these principles and incorporate them into their everyday life, their everyday movement, their everyday approach to everything, because you have unlimited time to practice. It’s just you need to be able to do this in such a way that you’re leveraging those other 15 hours and 30 minutes that you’ve got instead of just letting them go down the drain or reverting to your default setting.

Now, that’s easier said than done, obviously, and it’s a constant—it can be a constant challenge, but it is doable. At least to a considerable extent. I mean, think about it… you know, a lot of Qigong and Tai Chi has to do with, say, just to take one element, is how you adjust your posture. Well, the ideal posture that, you know, Chinese medicine talks about, that makes everything in the body flow properly, is not what we think of as ideal posture in the West. We think ideal posture in the West is to stand at attention, which is a very rigid, upright posture in which, actually, you cannot breathe. You just simply can’t.

And yet, what you can do is you could be standing at a bus stop, right? And you can play with your postural adjustments, or a certain number of postural adjustments you make from, say, top of the body to the bottom, to make sure you—or just throw yourself into a better postural alignment. You can do that at the bus stop. You don’t need to just, you know, stand there and play iTunes. You can actually do something useful.

So there’s endless possibility for this. I mean, you can do it just, you know, sitting at your desk. You don’t have to, uh, you know, sit at your keyboard and become super stressed out because you’re just holding yourself in a particular alignment. You can learn to kind of rotate the alignment as you’re doing your work. You can keep your body lubricated, you can keep things moving. You don’t have to be absolutely rigid. So it’s just learning little things like this.

Credits Roll

references

Posture in Chinese Medicine: posture is believed to influence the flow of Qi (vital energy) throughout the body. Proper posture helps maintain balance and harmony, promoting physical well-being.
Source: The Healing Power of Qi: Qi Gong, Acupressure, and the Five Elements by Robert Doane.