7-8:30 PM: The Tao of Natural Breathing & Liangong in 18 Exercises
The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: "He lives most life whoever breathes most air." And the Sufi poet Rumi wrote: "There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted. Then there's another way: a breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity." For most of us in our busy, stress-filled lives, our breathing is generally so "shameful and constricted" that it undermines our health, vitality, and consciousness. Based on the highly acclaimed book The Tao of Natural Breathing: For Health, Well-Being and Inner Growth, this class will help you learn how to observe and open up the constrictions of your breathing to improve your health, increase your energy, and support your quest for self-knowledge and self-transformation.
As a support to this work, and to support your overall health, you will also learn Liangong in 18 Exercises. This set of 36 therapeutic chi kung related movements and postures, which gently exercises all of the joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles and fascia of the body, was developed by chi kung masters and medical doctors in China to improve our overall fitness and to prompt healing. These chi kung exercises can also help open up the various breathing spaces of the body.
You will also learn the fundamental principles of chi kung standing and some other simple chi kung postures and movements that can be used both for healing and for meditation.
8:45-10:00 PM: Awakening to the Miracle of Ordinary Life
Exploring ideas and methods from Gurdjieff, Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism—and from his own continuing search for what is real—Dennis Lewis will lead an exploration of the inner work necessary in order to begin to awaken to ourselves in the midst of our "ordinary" lives and live in the extraordinary light of consciousness.
Using sitting, standing, moving, and floor postures, you will learn how to strengthen your inner attention and presence through self-observation and self-sensing. You will learn to see and differentiate your various internal functions and to let go of unnecessary tensions in your body and psyche. You will also learn how to begin to free yourself from your identification with what Gurdjieff calls "false personality."
As you work in this way, going beneath your usual self-image and experiencing deeper and deeper levels of your own being, you will learn how to experience your inherent "spaciousness" and to welcome the various aspects of yourself into an ever-expanding sense of "wholeness." Participants will be given specific ideas and exercises to work with during the week between classes.
Instructor: Dennis Lewis is the author of The Tao of Natural Breathing: For Health, Well-Being and Inner Growth. He has co-edited two books with Jacob Needleman: Sacred Tradition & Present Need and On the Way to Self Knowledge. Lewis is a long-time student of Gurdjieff's teachings, and helped lead groups for several years through the Gurdjieff Foundation of California. He is a certified (by Taoist master Mantak Chia) Healing Tao instructor, and Chi Nei Tsang (internal organ chi massage) practitioner. He worked for two years with chi kung master Dr. Wang Shan Long, who gave him permission to teach Liangong in 18 Exercises. Lewis is certified by Taoist and chi kung master Bruce Kumar Frantzis to teach Opening the Energy Gates of the Body. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Stress. He has spoken widely on the relationship of breathing to health and spiritual development, and also on the theme of "Awakening to the Miracle of Ordinary Life."
Location: GGMC, 1508 Church Street (between 27th
Street and Duncan), San Francisco.
Cost
& Registration: The Tao of Natural Breathing
& Liangong in 18 Exercises: $95 (in
advance, not refundable) for 12 weeks, or
$10.00/class; Awakening to the Miracle of
Ordinary Life: $95 (in advance, not refundable) for
12 weeks, or $10.00/class. Classes begin Monday, March 2,
1998, and go through May 18, 1998. Enrollment
is limited. (Visa or MC accepted for pre-registration
by phone, fax, or mail; only checks or cash accepted at
the door.) Call 415-282-4896 to register, or click here to
view and print a sign-up form that you can mail or
fax to us. If you have Acrobat Reader and would like to
view and print out our class flyer, please
click here.
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Last modified: January 27, 1999