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Mencius’s pictogram
1: spiritual
2: intelligence (human beings show that they know how to use their intelligence to make tools with their arms)
3: emotional
4: physical
5: organs
6: material, flesh
I really love the way the ancient Chinese, the Taoists, understood the human being. For them, human beings are a bridge between Heaven and Earth, the union of the heavenly breaths and the earthly breaths. They are where Heaven and Earth meet: head in the stars and feet on the ground.
They are not glued to the earth, yet cannot live without it; they are not lost in the sky, yet cannot live without it either. They are the union of the two, the intermediary between Heaven and Earth, the materialisation of the breaths into a form of life.
The centre of gravity of the human being is the Dan Tian, a point located two fingers’ width below the navel, which the Chinese call the « sea of energy ». It is the starting point from which energy is distributed throughout the whole body.
Mencius’s pictogram represents the verticality of the human being, expressing the balance between Heaven and Earth. Starting from Heaven, which is a less manifested energy, pure energy, we move down towards Earth, which is the most manifested energy: matter. The human being is therefore the link between the two, which means we carry both within us, the Dan Tian being the place where the alchemy takes place. Hence the importance of this energy centre. No, the centre is not in the brain, as one might think.
If our actions start from our head, if we act on the basis of our ideas and our thoughts, we are acting beside ourselves rather than from within. Thoughts come from outside of us. That is why I strongly advise against spending time on social media: through our thoughts, it carries us into someone else’s life and creates a desire: « What a cool life, I want the same! »
Suddenly my own life seems weak and unimportant; I step out of myself, out of my centre. As soon as the desire for what I don’t have appears, I am off-centre. Then I no longer have access to my energy, and my head, my thoughts, become more and more consuming. A gap opens up between my life and the one I would like to have, and the bigger the gap, the greater the suffering. I am using social media as an example here, but even without it, simply wanting something outside of myself throws me off-centre.
Of course, I can have concrete plans to change my life, and if I want to change my life I have to take action. But between now and the moment I carry out this plan, even if it is a project I am moving towards, I need to stay in my current life and not wander off into my thoughts and my desires for a future life. Action allows me to make things happen; thought can be the impulse, but it must remain free and in the present.
During a session, I look at where the person’s energy is blocked. These days it is mostly at the top, which means that Heaven, which should be free, is full, while Earth, which should be full, is empty. This is very symptomatic of our times: everything is upside down!
The centre should be a blend of the two, which is generally not the case.
So what we need to bring about is a complete reversal.
I won’t analyse the whole pictogram, but note the rectangle in the centre, with one side facing Heaven and the other facing Earth.
This is where the emotions are. Emotions are what is specific to human beings: they are immaterial when we feel them, yet they translate into measurable physical changes in the body, that is, at the level of matter. They are what lies at the centre of the human being; this is where energy becomes matter, where nothing meets everything. Understanding the nature of our emotions is our main task as human beings. It is the key to being in our centre. Emotions throw us off-centre, and yet they are the key, and we have to live them. So how can we live them without being thrown off-centre?
That is what we have to discover throughout our lives, and there is no recipe! However, there are many ways to get there and, depending on each person’s sensitivity, some paths are longer than others. In shiatsu we take the path of the body, since emotions are there too, but also the path of energy, since they are there as well. We seek to rebalance the two by starting from the centre and strengthening the centre. Start from the centre, return to the centre.
Throughout the day, we can also observe where our thoughts, our ideas and our desires come from. At every moment we can re-centre ourselves by coming back to our base: not following the thoughts that come from the head, but returning to the thoughts that come from the centre, from our belly. That is where the fusion takes place, and that is where intuition, inspiration and the knowledge of what is real are born, the knowledge that allows us to live our emotions fully.
It means playing, having fun and not being a slave.
