QiGong Prison Ministry

For me Qigong is the divine flow of God’s grace manifesting in the here and now inside my very being.

When a group flows together we experience a very real place of communion and harmony.

Grace moving us together.

QiGong gives me a physical relationship with the spiritual.

I know myself as spirit incarnate;

I experience my movements being lead from within,

from the core essence, the inner light.

I learn and practice the alignment of my body and breath,

my emotions and mind, my past and future, my yin and yang …

I can stand in my truth, flowing between form and formlessness.

I never knew how much I loved you
How could I?
All I know is that you and I stood at the edge of the river
Deep inside Folsom prison
Surrendering into its flow
Together we were swept away
Finding each other in the infinite chi
Losing each other in transfers and lock downs
Years later I find you
Locked up in Avenal
And once again we dive into the river
Surrendering to the joy in our hearts.

Have you ever felt, like I have, your heart bursting with emotion, joy, sorrow or just energy, like wings flapping or water swirling, or an inward melting?  I like to use the phrase heart quickening when I think of these times when my hands intuitively rises to cover my chest, as if to keep the vastness of the universe from escaping.  It reminds me of the use of the word quickening to describe those first felt stirrings of a fetus inside your tummy.  This energy seems to have a life of its own, indicative of such vast potential and yet so intimate. When I feel it in myself, when I feel it in another, I am tuning into a vibrating, magnetic and ecstatic fullness that swells in the heart and rises up into the throat.

    I suspect you have felt this way when hearing your lover’s voice after an absence, watching your child graduate, or even in a special communion with the Holy. Have your hands too reached intuitively to cover your heart or your mouth when aroused by a sentimental story, or vision of profound beauty?  Ah  … the sweet fullness. Who are we to contain all this love?  Words are impossible to find and our eyes leak.  

    To be speechless in moments like these is normal.  However, if we experiment with talking and writing about these experiences perhaps our heart wisdom would become more of a collective wisdom.  To this end, I’d like to offer some stories that are not about a lover’s love, or pride of a parent, nor are they moments of awe and rapture as we normally experience them.  Because these are moments with relative strangers I feel they are pointing to a deeper wisdom offering evidence of the web of inter connective ness that holds us profoundly and links us one to another.

    What can these stories have to teach us about the heart’s energy, spiritual bonds and relationships? Perhaps in their sharing, the next steps in understanding and wisdom will arise.

   Let me tell the stories:

    Scene:  Avenal Prison, second visit 5 months after the first.
Nov. 2004.
The chaplain and I slip in the back door to the chapel area, he holds the door open for me so I enter first. There sitting quietly on a bench is M, with his head hanging, eyes on the floor.  
    My heart recognizes him before my brain even registers the familiar face.  There is such a crashing and excitement in my chest. Tears come to my eyes and my brain kicks in quickly to remind me of the restraint appropriate in greeting an “insider”.  My hand grips his shoulder and I lean over to look in his eyes and tell him how wonderful it was to see him again after all this time.  
    He welcomes me back with his energy and eyes.  
    A hug would have been just what we both needed but is not permitted between volunteers and inmates.
    I haven’t seen M. for maybe 3 years.  He had been a regular at Old Folsom, a close friend of one of my senior students.  We hadn’t talked much; I didn’t know anything about him or his story. I didn’t know what had happened to him when he no longer came to class.  I didn’t know he was transferred to Avenal.  Yet years before, we had moved together in that deep space of the QiGong practice (Tai Chi Chih) over and over.  My soul had recognized his and was jumping for joy inside my heart.  
    His assistance in the class that followed was powerful, as the moves came back quickly (he had stopped practicing after being transferred), and he returned to the feelings of wholeness and peace that they provoke.  It did not take much encouragement for him to share with the men about the transformative nature of the movements and the inner peace they bring.  
    I have not seen him since, but remember vividly the energetic response of my heart energy to his.

Scene:  Prison Chaplain’s conference. Motel in Visalia. Fall 2005.
    I was standing with a few other Buddhist volunteers at our tables promoting meditation practices in prison.  Bounding up with great enthusiasm comes a man very eager to see me. His energy leaps out before him catching me up in his excitement.  His eyes are alive with joy and gratitude.  
    My own heart is flipping inside out which my mind observes and is puzzled. What’s this all about?  Who is this beautifully tattooed man my heart recognizes but my mind does not?
He is eager to be recognized and says so, “Don’t you recognize me?” he asks.
    “I recognize your eyes” is the response that comes straight from my heart.  What did my heart know what my mind did not?  
    “Avenal” he said.
    “You were there when I went in?”
    “Yes” he says reaching out his hand to shake.  
    I instinctively reach forward with both arms (He is free now). It was an excited hug, hearts jumping up and down, but not a long one.  We are man and woman who don’t really know each other except spiritually.  Thrilled to behold a student free, I relish looking at him. He has a beautiful Kwan Yin tattoo on his arm that I touch lightly.  “How long have you been out?”  
    “Almost a year, I have a job now with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship guiding the prison program.”  
    Standing in the middle of a group of Buddhists, I fumble finding the right words to ask, “I don’t want to sound attached to results, but I am so wanting to know … did practice groups happen?”  
    “Oh, Yes!” he said, amazed that I wouldn’t have known what an impact my two classes had had on the men and the Yard.  The Muslim group was practicing as well as the Buddhist group and some of the others.  All visitors and the regular Buddhist volunteer had been stopped from coming. He was not surprised that I had not been able to return.
    Later, Helen who had been standing next to me told me that she couldn’t remember when she had witnessed so much love, devotion and gratitude flashing between two people.  “If I ever doubted the efficacy of my efforts, I should remember this moment,” she counseled me.
    For days after, just to remember the reunion and his gratitude would bring so much fullness into my heart that I could only cry out in the wonder of it all.

Scene: Old Folsom walking out after class in front of five tiers of cellblocks, guards and other inmates all finding their way back to their cells before the four o’clock count. 2005.  
    That day in class a new man had come.  We had had a short conversation, perhaps a handshake, but no particularly unique one-on-one interchange.  Perhaps a half hour had passed since class had finished.
    I was walking up behind a group of men. My pace was quicker and I was closing in, but still about four feet away. One of these men startled and whirled suddenly around to look at me.  I recognized him as the new man from class.  
He was reassured once he saw me, but obviously shaken by something that had just happened for him.
    I merely smiled and offered an open, curious look.
    “What just happened?” he asked.  
    “Tell me.” I responded, not willing to guess.  
    “Just now, as I was walking, I was overcome with a deep feeling or peace and contentment.  It felt just like I was back in class.  I couldn’t fathom why that feeling would happen here in front of the cells. What happened to me?”  
    “My guess is that your energy felt mine as I got closer and triggered the memory.”  
    “Oh”, he said, still struggling with the experience.
    “I hope you come back to class,” I said quietly, “you have a natural ability to feel the energy flow.”  
    He smiled having relaxed with my positive validation of his experience.  
    I continued on towards my car awed by the experience.

Scene: New Folsom Prison, C Yard. Chaplains office Summer 2005.
    I am sharing with the Chaplain when and J. walks in.  The previous week, we had spent 15 minutes in meditation together enjoying the communion of stillness and our common trust of the Holy that pervades our lives.  We had each have had deep spiritual experiences with the same Swami.  He is not one of my QiGong students.  Standing to greet him, I get only half way up before my heart starts scrambling inside my chest.  
    Whoa, I think, surprised at the energetic exchange happening between our hearts as mine comes closer to his (I am still several feet away).  I sit back down, looking at him, and say with my eyes, “Did you feel that?”      He says something like, “the Guru has got us.”
    We laughed together and I left to let him speak to the chaplain and get my class started.
    I know only little of this man and his story.  I do know that to meditate with him is easy and peaceful.  

What’s going on?

    These stories illustrate the deep bonds that form quickly within the communion of meditation, especially a body practice such as our QiGong (Chi Kung) classes.  We have surrendered to a communal pulse of energy, sharing ourselves from a place deep within, where there are no words, no judgments, no expectations.  In that we have known each other as the Holy knows us.  Not a knowing of the mind, with thoughts in the brain, but a knowing of the heart, of the core.  We have met each other in the “neutral zone,” in liminal space, the unconditioned void.  Sufi poet Rumi said it best, “There beyond right or wrong is a field, I’ll meet you there.”

    Trusting that more “scientific” explanation would come along, and I received a hint as I read, “We are all Savants” in the December 2006 issue of Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness, the Journal of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Diane Powell in writing about quantum processing in the brain discussed a phenomenon known as “entanglement”:

“Physicists have found that two particles can be entangled, or capable of influencing one another instantaneously while separated at vast distances. Entanglement provides a means for consciousness to be coupled to other locations in space-time or for consciousness between individuals to be coupled – in short, a mechanism for telepathic communication.”

It’s a month into my spiritual sabbatical, and I miss the men inside.  

Home now, suspending the Seattle time with my mother, to tend to my husband who had a chainsaw accident, I knew after it hit our local political gossip column (RE_GRASWICH_7190_1_.pdf), some of my students would find out, wonder what was happening with me, and add their prayers to my own for his healing.  

Thinking of this as I was falling asleep last night, I noticed that my heart was stirring, aching, empty, lonely for the feeling of fullness that came from the journeys inside.  An ache I recognize from lockdowns.  An ache that’s still very present today as I come inside out of the garden and the heat to formulate this blog update.

I wonder about all the wives, mothers and children of these men and their loneliness, how profound a sorrow must lie in their hearts as life events can not be shared.  But my heart’s ache is not as personal as this.  It is a spiritual ache.

I am blessed to find communion with G-d opening easily for me in many venues recently: exploring ridge tops staring into the face of Mt. Rainer, sweet moments with family, quiet reading by a fire in a log cabin retreat, dreams under the stars camping just last week, and  healing hands, blogging Quakers and grateful students at the Friends General Conference Gathering the week before.  I treasure the sacredness all around me, always; but there is a rawness, an edge to the communion that happens in prison.  The contrast of exploring true spiritual freedom with incarcerated men taps into a deep place inside me that I cherish.

The sharing that I have come to treasure with these men inside the prison walls, is a intimacy that comes from meditating together, finding the common thread of spiritual meaning in life that unites us all.  Even though I have come to know a few of the men better than others, our conversation is limited to spiritual practices. Rarely do I come to know anything about their families, their pasts, their dreams; nor they of mine.  Yet there is a intimacy that comes with knowing each other in the silence, in the sincerity of our surrender to the QiGong practice together.  It’s a wordless, story-free, nonjudgmental place of freedom where we know each other not in our fragile, frustrated incarnated selves, but in the bigger picture of our divine potential.  We know each other in that awareness of Truth flowing within and between us.

I made a spiritual commitment to leave the whole issue of my Call to the prison work in the hands of G-d during this retreat, including the option to be finished or diverted.  It is VERY difficult for me to leave it all in Divine hands. Yet I feel that is the most important practice for me now.  To keep emptying and keep listening.  

Listening and exploring the ache in my heart feels like the right thing to do in this Holy Present Moment.  

It’s not just today, I have been querying the universe about this energy that binds hearts that have known the Holy together for several years.  Once joined hearts seem to remain connected without regard to time or space.  This seems to be one aspect of the spectrum of energy that facilitates the working out of our prayers for other people, and the knowing we have, before the phone rings, of who is calling.  Many of us know of this perpetual link from romantic or deep friendships. Experiencing this energetic bond with men very different from me that I did not know other than in a spiritual context has intrigued me.

During some of my last classes inside, we talked together about this connection.  I shared how inevitably when I am in a beautiful place and or in spiritual practice of one sort or another, I think of them, I pray for them, I remember them.  As they seem always to be with me in spirit, so too could I be with them.  They could re-activate what we know together from our practicing and return to the QiGong state and the truths we know whether we have talked about them or not, when I am not coming inside.  As my spiritual teachers guide me from a distance, I too could be there for them and they for me.

I told them a couple of stories of my own experiences with other prisoners that have helped me to respect this heart/mind energetic connection.  Rather than retell them here in this entry, I will try and finish up an essay I wrote quite a while ago and share it as a separate blog entry.

Until then I invite you to listen to your heart too.  What threads, what connections with other people feel full, and which feel empty, twisted or knotted?  Let us listen not just the messages in our own hearts, but in the connective energy that binds us one to another.  I doubt there really is any way to separate ourselves out from our web of relationships anyway.

Yin and Yang:  On B Yard this week, we watched a segment of the Bill Moyers PBS special explaining Traditional Chinese Medicine and Qi. We paused just after the calligrapher explained about Yin and Yang.  

Wanting them to embody the information they had just heard, we focused on just the weight shifts for some time introspectively watching the energy move from one leg to another; feeling the need for one leg to release in order for the other leg to receive; feeling the impulse to return to emptiness even in the fullness.

Then we stopped and stretched the concept out a bit wider… here I was a lone white ‘free’ female, in a Level IV prison chapel with a class full of African- American men inside the worst yard in the California state prison system – a tiny dot of yin inside all this yang.  I spoke of how our own practice contributes to the cultivation of peace and could begin to bring the energetic balance of the prison system into alignment. Some of them gave me the “you’re crazy, white lady” look; others nodded, knowingly participating in this subversive intention.  Playing with opposites brings forth balance.

Flowing from the Center:  Our classes are held in concrete cinder-block, ugly, uninspiring chapels, devoid of art, lit with florescent tubes, air circulating with very noisy fans.  This is the spiritual center, the Yard is the center for the physical activity and violence, and the Watch Office is center for control.  When I first came a year ago, the chapel energy was very stuck, murky and dismal.  I was nervous and new to these men.  I choose to believe that there was positive, healing, life force energy (healthy Qi) here, and with intention, our classes could tap into and nurture its flow.

I had described the place to Sr. Antonia before she got there, (see The Gift of Presence entry) and once there she said, It's not that bad, a little stale, but it’s shifting.”  It was then that I recognized that it was my perceptions that needed shifting, I was stuck in my first impressions. Five months of meditation practice, plus greater care by the Clerks was having an impact. This week I was more conscious about seeing the efforts the men were making, and watching it flow out the door with them. Several guards came into talk, attracted by “something”.  

We have a QiField-setting series of movements we do to see ourselves in the middle of a infinite sphere of energy, grounded, expanded, centered.  This sequence finishes with a simple flowing gesture I call “Pebble in the Pond” that speaks to the ripples of energy each of us send forth from our lives.  

Softness and Continuity.  Effortless Effort:  Yield and Overcome is a difficult Taoist concept in this place.  The 'reality' is yield and be dominated.  To stay alive, as J. writes (see All the Protection I need entry), the men and guards hold ourselves in tightly, defended, suspicious, and prepared for the worst.  Stress is what keeps everyone alert and prepared. Many of the men keep their eyes sheltered, their bodies constricted and controlled.

For the most part I ignore their struggles, thinking it would not serve to draw attention to stiffness, but would serve better to provide an opportunity to experiment with other choices.  It is much easier to “just keep moving” than to make a big deal about it.  So we stay on our feet, keep moving and slowly the softness sneaks in and the smiles come, and by the end of class I have a lot more eye contact as we say good-bye.  When the challenge–du-jour comes I remember to practice flowing.  Water moves around rocks.  If we can soften and flow here, what potential might be released?

Continuity is essential.  For some reason if the men know you are just coming in once in a while they are reluctant to make any effort to come to the program.  From my perspective it seems to take at least three months of consistency to melt a little ice melt.  Lukewarm has taken at least a year.  The flow starts sooner with the men then the guards.  Just now, after 8 years, I am getting comments for a guard or two such as, “oh you’re a regular, its ok.”  I make the effort of consistency, and allow the rest to flow forth in the moment.  It’s all a practice.

 

Old Folsom.
Finally.  5 months later and we were once again able to move together in the Old Folsom Chapel.  It’s always something, but this time the “yard went down” just after a dozen men had gotten into the chapel for class.  Half were new.  We celebrated with a full set of T’ai Chi Chih movements, going slow enough with just enough instruction to keep the new men with us.  When we got into the Pulling Taffy part of the form, S. and I demonstrated and let some watch and others practice behind us.  We had just brought our circle back together and were in the middle of ‘polishing our halos’ (Light at the Top of the Head is the 16th of 20 moves) when the chaplain came in and announced “Yard recall”.  We were so happy to have been able to get the chi moving again in the chapel, to see each other, and flow together that we didn’t let it bother us to have to quit 20 minutes early.

I am grateful for the feeling of communion and peace arose so naturally moving together even after all this time apart.

I believe it’s a synchronization of individual energies into a common resonance, where the vibrational fields merge into coherence. It is where the ‘hum’ of each of us join into a common ‘hum’ that has a special harmonic balance and reaches into the ‘hum or ohm” of the universe singing to itself. It is the frequency where our brain waves shift into a increased alpha and theta pattern, where the shift out of tension opens the doorway to new possibilities.   Together we relax into a willingness, into a natural state of balance and harmony, that really is not that far beneath the surface.  

Together we tapped into the ‘infinite energy source’ and entered into dialogue with the forces of the universe.

In our certification process with the Intergral Institute of QiGong and Tai Chi (see side bar) a paper was required. I wrote on the Teachers Role in cultivating the classroom Qi-Field (the collective and supportive wisdom field that forms when two or more are gathered). I am adding that paper here. Eventually I suspect a book is arising out of this growing understanding. Your reflections will support that emergence.qifield_request.htm

At a recent QiGong Workshop, our teacher asked us stay with one simple movement over and over and over.  As we moved quietly together he asked us to “find the flavor” to “look for the feeling.”    Opening beyond the body mechanics, we found ourselves saturated in delicious flow.  I felt like warm honey or liquid light was moving through my being.  As we stayed with it we knew it was not just inside of ourselves, it was also a fluid peace that we were swimming in, that held us, that was moving our limbs.  As we remained in the same movement opening even wider, we could feel a participation of each of us in this healing elixir.  It seemed we were in the middle of a magnificent song where the ”words of our breathing and the music of our movements resonated in a lovely harmony.  The vibrations of our individual beings had found a group coherence and we surrendered to the juicy, savory feelings of this state of oneness.

To various degrees this state of coherence is a blessing of every Qigong class.  Sometime finding the frequency between the teacher and just a couple of students, sometimes two people moving side by side, or connected across a circle.  When everyone is participating fully, at the level that is authentically possible for that day, the group gets transported to a deeper level.  We do not all need to be at the same skill level. Those who come for the first time are just as susceptible.  The only requirement to participation in this peace seems to be an intention of the mind, or the heart, or the soul to be connected.

This state of coherence, the QiGong State, is the place were we know with out knowing.  The place, as one student on his third class said, “It’s the place where answers come.”  It is a place where we know our brotherhood with each other from a place inside ourselves.  It is a place of possibility, a place were we experience peace from the inside out, and it is no long an abstract concept or a desire. Peace is real. We feel it.  Peace is us and we are peace.  We begin to know and trust a state of deep internal peace that we are able to tap into by our own efforts, our own choice, our own actions.  A peace we know not as unique to ourselves, but a place of peace that binds us all at a common core level.

There is no “story” needed to move into this coherence.  No mutual beliefs or agreement is needed.  We find the deeper pulse of life, and feel the blood of the universal heart moving through us.

In my prison classes, this state comes quickly and easily.  Outsiders are surprised, thinking of the inherently violent nature of the institution.  What becomes quickly apparent to me is their hunger for something different, their deep thirst for an experience of the opposite, so that somehow they might find more harmony in their journey through this prison experience.  With strong intentions, and a learned ability to focus inside of a multitude of distractions, those who choose to come (classes are strictly voluntary), students from a variety of races, gangs and criminal backgrounds, are satisfied quickly.  

Our first classes are a bit jerky.  The unspoken requirement of energetic surrender and openness, gets played out differently within each of the men.  Asking them to relax and trust a flow, is the opposite of always watching your back and trusting no one.   Quickly one or two in the class that have more courage in these energetic matters, or have had some experience with other contemplative practices, experiment with letting go and finding their own flow, or finding and linking with mine.  Once a few men have shifted, others have the courage to experiment. Soon, it is not I holding open the door, but the men themselves.

Occasionally someone is frightened of the feelings or has an inappropriate intention disrupts the class flow and causes trouble in the Qi-Field. When this happens I find that other students, use this as a challenge and dedicate their energies more earnestly to attaining the peace they desire.  The few guys that get squirmy with the slowness and irritated by the stillness, leave, don’t come back, put on a good front, or get asked to sit in the entry.  Those who stay are often challenged by the slowness and gentleness of the movements, but find enough value to remain in the experience.

As the newness of the movements wears off and we all know what is expected, we get plugged into the flow with the first standing meditation or movements of class.  As we get used to the pattern of class within the rhythms of our week some thread of connection seems to always be there.  I am more and more deliberate as to how I spend my time outside the walls, knowing the my peace supports their peace, my joy supports their joy, my release of the tensions surrounding my trips inside, supports their release of the tensions while remaining inside.

Falling in love with the feeling of connectedness, with the warm flow of contentment, with the sense of vitality or Qi (chi is same word, just different spelling) seems to happen between weeks three and six.  As a woman teaching a class of men, I must watch and pray for us.  Occasionally I sense in their Qi glazed eyes, not only the energy of peace and gratitude for my role as their teacher, but a falling in love or  “crush” on me.  I pay attention, seek guidance from teachers on the outside, and pray.  Together with Grace, a shift happens … another teacher to model, … a few appropriate words of guidance, … a partner practice or some other experiment.  We find our way into the flow were we all share the responsibility and the benefits of unconditional love flowing inside prison walls.

We dedicate the peace-filled vitality that we cultivate during class not only to our own healing, but to the institutions healing and the healing of our loved ones and even enemies.    We send it out to those who could not make class, to those who might need to find out about class.  I hold that we are not creating a presence of love and peace inside, but that we are connecting to that which is already alive and well, though perhaps quiet and protected within the hearts of those who live and work there.  As we claim the truth of our experience of peace within us in the chapel class, we claim the possibility of the same peace for anyone, anywhere.

Many conditions, real and believed, prevent the men from freely practicing.  Some have more courage than others.  Each finds their way, even if practicing is just standing with softer knees, or smiling inwardly as they fall asleep.

Another wave of violence has washed over the prisons I teach in and quite a number of students are locked down.  Please join me in prayer for these men, their peers, and the whole climate of violence that pervades the place.  May the peace that we find in the heart of our QiGong practice, find its way and the hope of healing take its place as a priority along side safety and justice.