Nature – Art – Qigong: Spirit Masters Matter

A cellist plays a piece of music. He hears and feels the music in his mind – with no distracting thoughts. He does not move his fingers and hands consciously – it is the music and his intention to share it that move his body, including his breath and heart. Forgotten are endless hours of practice: he and his instrument are one, are music.A young guy is listening to it; he has switched on the radio because he is used to do so when he does the dishes. He does not really listen, it just makes him hum a little bit, nor does he pay attention to his routine. His mind wanders around between the difficulties in his intimate relationship, the agenda for next day’s business meeting and yesterday’s boring football game. He believes his mind is a secluded inner world with no direct impact on life – and lets his thoughts spin around. He does not know that in the studio across the street, a karate teacher splits a brick, his mind completely focused in his hand.

Next door an elder lady listens to the same music. It makes her cry. Her doctor just has told her she has cancer. She tries to let this message land and struggles with fear and desperation. Her whole life, she was told matter is the whole of reality; so she does not see an escape out of this fatal world. She does not know that outside in front of her window the little snowdrop piercing the harsh layer of snow can do so because its longing for light makes its body do the impossible: the plant produces warmth to let the snow melt.

The guy and the lady, they both are not aware that the birds outside tell them what is possible. Their life intention not only made them develop a revolutionary design: feathers; it went even to the bones and filled them with air, so that they are as light as possible. In all aspects, their bodies obey their wishes: so is the form of their bills adapted to what they eat, the shape of their wings inspired by the flight they want to take, the colours by the male’s want for sexual attraction, the female’s need to hide when breeding.

And who can even imagine that in Death Valley, a relentless hot and dry desert, a tiny mouse has created a big wonder? In countless generations, its yearning for life has been creating a way to synthesise water in its own body so that it never needs to drink.

The musician and the martial artist, the plants and the animals – they all know what Qi Gong can be. It is nature’s secret – and our mind’s ultimate nature.

Thomas de Neve