Feeling the Energy of Life

In my childhood, long before I found a real teacher, I read volume after volume on Eastern mysticism, all of which used the words qi or prana to describe a life force that may also be translated as circulation or breath. I learned that this force flows through proscribed channels, that we can direct it with intention, that we’re born with it and can also augment it by meditating, breathing correctly, and eating right. I also came to understand that its absence means death, its presence means life, and that all living things are imbued with it. I discovered that its quality can be improved by certain mind/body practices and that it can be diminished by fatigue, illness or stress. Later I was told that in China it is not uncommon to say to a person “your qi looks good today” and also that the entire system of Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on qi manipulation.

I came to intellectually accept the existence of this energy and often cited it when chatting with friends, but deep down I wondered whether it really existed and whether it might be simply a primitive word for the circulation of the blood, the tingling of nerves, the flow of lymph, or, more technically, the bioelectric energy of life stimulated by the charge potential that exists across cell membranes. I was, in short, on an intellectual mission to convince myself qi/prana was real.

I can’t say I did a very good job of it. There was all this literature, yes, but there were precious few scientific studies, the sort of double-blind, placebo-controlled stuff of which Western academic careers are made and definitive conclusions drawn in American minds. What I found was hearsay, anecdotes, passionate pledges, affirmations, mumbo-jumbo, and the occasional wise nod and heavy-lidded wink. All that, I’m sorry to say, did not sway me.

Things did not get much more definitive or clear when I finally got down to the business of a mind/body practice. I did yoga diligently during college, and started martial arts immediately thereafter, but when everyone spoke of all the energy they were feeling, all the sensations, the knowing they were directly experiencing, I nodded as I felt and knew these things too (do you feel it pulsing there in your hands, do you feel it when my punch gets close?) while all the while knowing I didn’t. It was a frustrating feeling, sometimes worse than that, but I persevered because I was certain that when I reached a certain level of achievement, when I had actually learned enough and become proficient enough, I too would feel the energy of life.

I could never be mistaken for a quick study, because it took me decades to realize that all that while I was barking up the wrong tree. I was looking to learn more and more and more, when in fact it was unlearning I required. Yes, that’s right, an awareness of life’s pulsing energy (plus a sensitivity to a thousand other subtle and magnificent inputs) was available to me all the while, but I was smothering, blocking and denying it. I had made what I know feel is a cardinal mistake of modern, technological society: I had let my logical mind overwhelm my intuition.

We don’t live in a culture that exalts the intuitive mind the way some Eastern cultures do. That emphasis on reason at the expense of reliance on subconscious knowing has led us to the moon and cured many diseases, but it seems to me it gets in the way when it comes to tasting the subtleties of life, the energy of mind/body practices, and even the true depth of love. It turns out that what we really need to do to sweeten and deepen our everyday experience with new insights and sensations is to set aside much of we’ve been taught in school, read in books, and learned from our parents.

It’s tough to do this, because the rational worldview is the lifeline of Western culture, even though that view has generated wrong turns along the way, some of which now threaten the existence of our species and our planet. We’re accustomed to yelling down the stethoscope of intuition and stillness found in meditation and mindful practices can be disquieting. Yet I believe it’s necessary if we really want to feel the subtle but magnificent energy in our bodies and our world. Sensing energy is not the same as sensing the rough surface of a tree or the solid quality of an automobile door; energy comes in more as realization, sometimes after the fact, than hit-you-over-the head tactility.

It turns out that what we once considered supernatural is just what we haven’t figured out yet. Researchers all over the world are substantiating, qualifying and quantifying the energies of life. Indeed, scientists are learning more about them every day and soon we’ll know about their work. In the meantime, however, all each and every one of us really needs to do to feel what we have worried we cannot feel and know what we have previously feared is unknowable is to open our minds, suspend our critical judgment, slow down, and listen.

Spend some time in a park or wilderness area. Stop dead still in the middle of a subway station and just wait for a moment. It’s the steady thrumming that is neither noise nor the rumble of trains, the way you’re suddenly drawn to one person or repelled by another. It’s the feeling when you walk into a room that someone is sad there though everyone else is happy. It’s the sudden understanding that creeps up on you as you admire that gorgeous new enclosure at the zoo that the tiger inside is crying for home, the sense that a plan in another room needs water, the unaccountable tickle while you’re working at your office desk that tells you your pet turtle has flipped over on her back and needs help. It’s the creepy knowing that someone died badly in this house you’re looking at with a realtor. When you’re by yourself, it’s that tingle rising up your spine, climbing the back of your head, diving down the middle of your chest, running out along your arms to dance like static and cotton between your palms.

All you have to do is suspend judgment and you’ll feel life’s energy right away. It’s everywhere. Feel free to post your own “energy story” below.