Zhineng Qigong.

It has been many years now that I have devoted myself to activities concerning so-called energy. Over the years I have studied and practised quite a few disciplines, some better known and some less so, which are defined as energetic; I will leave out their names because I do not think it is useful to know which they were. What I think is useful to know, instead, is that many disciplines that today are sold as means for achieving healing, the opening of the third eye and other similar goals are in reality little fragments, sometimes very incomplete, of something that is called Qigong: practised in China (but, in other forms, also in numerous other countries) for a very long time, and whose existence, use and usefulness we are only now discovering.

Precisely because of the spread of energy therapies — given the fluctuating results and the not always kept promises of the various masters and gurus of such disciplines, and given my innate nature as a seeker — I felt it important to look more deeply into what this Qi or Prana was, of which there was so much talk and of which people recited almost by heart little formulas taken from this or that book. This led me to the discovery of various very powerful and effective systems of working with this Qi (energy).

Being a lover of "psychic things", one day I came across a book on so-called psychic healing (that is, the ability to alter the body with the mind) that advised, among other things, devoting oneself to a form of Qigong as an internal discipline to maintain and increase one's capacities for "vision" and "control" of matter and energy. Searching here and there on the internet I found numerous very valid resources; the curious coincidence was that, among the DVDs of an energetic discipline I was studying at the time, a DVD with the complete description of a fine form of Qigong also reached me from the USA. For me it was a clear message: I had to begin devoting myself to this activity.

Qigong — in the style I am studying now, Zhineng Qigong, to which I am dedicating almost all the energies of my research — represents for me the quintessence and the completion of what we call work on oneself. Qigong, which we might translate as the cultivation of energy, means that every day, for a fair amount of time (from 45 minutes to 3 hours or more), we turn our attention inward, directing it within, to work on and perfect what is called our energetic system: that tangle of channels, points, accumulators and flows that sustains, creates and characterizes our physical and subtle body.

This has the effect of healing the physical body, of increasing our psychic capacities, and of carrying us further along in the state of our centeredness, intensity and evolution. We do it through apparently simple exercises, some dynamic, some static, whose power and effectiveness are not immediately perceptible, since the first effects of the work occur below the level of consciousness. And they are hard exercises, at times.

Qigong is not for channelling fake angels or guides who reassure us that we are one, we are peace, we are God — on the contrary. There is work to be done, breaking your back over positions, movements, concentration, the study of texts and theory, over giving yourself discipline. But in the end the results come. Some symptoms disappear. Energy grows beyond measure: we tire less and less, we eat less and have more strength, we are intuitive, fresh, no difficulty knocks us down. The mind and the emotions calm down, and we truly begin to "see" something more — not as an ultimate promise for which to shell out thousands of euros for a weekend course, but as the result of a long work on oneself.

We become aware of energy as a real and not imaginary fact. We see that it is with us all day long, we perceive the field of Qi as something that has a consistency and a relevance not only for ourselves but for all those we have near and around us; and ultimately we understand that we are part of a "whole", of a "system", and that our practice does good to everyone, not only to ourselves. These can be some of the consequences of the prolonged and intensive practice of Qigong.

In my opinion there are few other systems that push people to work on their own blocks and on their own presence as effectively as this one. That is why I invite anyone who has their own physical and psychological health at heart to get down to it, to learn a style to their own liking and deepen it gradually while seeking these results — and not just to feel a little better. In my life and experience I have not so far encountered anything that works better and that is more all-encompassing than Qigong — and especially than Zhineng Qigong — for the purpose of empowering oneself, healing oneself, controlling one's own mind and accessing "special" capacities.