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Back to the lesson "The Metallic Land of P'o"

The following is an excerpt (chapter 3, pp. 70-72) of the book
The Joy of Feeling: Bodymind Acupressure by Iona Marsaa Teeguarden

Chih is the aspect of the psyche responsible for strength of character, vitality and power of personality. It is the seat of resolution. It is that psychic force which gives us the energy to move through and around obstacles to growth, to being our real Self. The classics say this is the land of the officials who do the energetic work. The physical and psychic energy related to Chih is necessary for maintaining life, and for all bodymind movement and growth. Chih is a realm rich in energy resources.

If we imagine consciousness as a terrain, then Shen is like a mountaintop. In journeying through the lands of I' and P'o, we have been traveling down the mountain. Now, in the land of Chih, we are below sea level and in a land of many waters. The darkness increases as we move into this realm, for we are well into the unconscious here. The image is WATER: a universal symbol for the unconscious. The organs related to Chih, the kidneys and bladder, literally have a "water function", because they regulate water metabolism.

For the Taoists, water symbolizes the vital energy of life. We live in an ocean of energy which surrounds and supports us, and this energy flows within us. The patterns of energy flow in the bodymind are like rivers, streams, and canals; the points of energic concentration are like lakes, seas, ponds, wells and springs. For the Taoists, water is also an image of how to live harmoniously and growthfully. As Alan Watts put it, Taoism is the "watercourse way." If life is like a river, we need to learn to follow the flow of life's river - not to get panicked by rapids, stranded on reefs, or stuck in whirlpools, spinning madly round and round the same thing. Life is an insecure business; everything keeps changing. We are floating smoothly along, and then we run into a rock. How can we accept the difficult as well as the easy, the troubles and turbulences as well as the joys and balmy times? Lao Tzu says:

"Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and the strong, nothing proves better than it. For there is no alternative to it."

Accessing our vital energy means developing awareness of an essential inner power, which we can draw on in the dark and difficult times. This power is even more primal than the power of the instincts and desires. It is the power of life itself, because accessing our vital energy means accessing the universal ocean of energy, of which we are a part and from which we can be replenished. To continuously flow around obstacles, we cannot rely only on our own individual energy reserves or else, having depleted them, we start running on "nervous energy" and damaging the bodymind. Knowing that we are part of a grand matrix of energic forces can lead to the trust that there is always energy available to us if we just tap into the energic Source. This is generally less stressful than trying to push the river of life.

When our reserve energy is deficient, we feel less able to navigate the rocky parts of life's river. We are liable to feel fearful, timid, inadequate and inferior. In a sense, these feelings are appropriate when our vital energy is low. The problem is the vicious cycle in which fear and inferiority feelings lower our energy level, so that we feel even weaker in relation to our environment, and so are more prone to fear and inferiority feelings. To compensate, we might project our fear outward, mistrusting or being suspicious of other persons or things. Disowning the fear can also lead to foolhardiness, which tries to override fear for ego-gratification.

The outcome of fearfulness and foolhardiness can be similar. Imagine three people in boats traveling down a river, fast approaching some forbidding rapids. The first person is fearful and feels inadequate to the challenge. S/he panics, drops the oars, and has a wet awakening as the boat enters the rapids. The second person is not in touch with any fear. Foolhardiness generates an impulse to just shoot the rapids at their fiercest point. S/he has a wet awakening too. The third person has plenty of reserve energy and resolution. S/he assesses the best way of navigating the rapids, moves through them with maximum awareness, and has a rather better chance of staying dry.

All this wetness reminds me of a personal encounter with fear, courtesy of a wet awakening. I had been feeling inadequate to the challenge of writing this book, among other things, and my reserve energy was low. I was hiking with friends, feeling weak, but not wanting to slow them down. We walked over a little dam, and then had to jump to a rock a couple feet away. Rather than listening to my fear, which was saying I presently lacked the balance and energy for this feat, I jumped - ¬and missed. Feeling the cold water against my bruised back was shocking, and feeling unable to save myself was very scary. I was dragged out of the water, and felt a painful muscle spasm in my back (precisely in the Chih-related point). As this place was held with a few acu-points, I suddenly felt a wave of fear. As the feelings focused, I saw that they came from a part of me that wanted to give up, because it felt helpless when not understood. After a while, my inner voice suggested, "Maybe you don't need to be understood by everyone; maybe you can trust your Self" I resolved not to give up on the attempt to be myself in the world.

The aspect of the psyche which the Taoists called Chih is the most yin, or passive and receptive; it has to do with resting and with absorbing and storing energy. Paradoxically, it is this most passive part of ourselves which allows all our bodymind activity and movement. The project here is being in touch with our own energy, and being receptive to the energy we can absorb from our surroundings, from Nature. This produces a feeling of resolution.

Forward to the lesson "The Wooden Land of Hun"