Chi Kung and Meditation for Peaceful Living

By Akhil Palanivelu

June 2023

Introduction

Over the past three years as a 2nd Degree Black Belt, I have been through a pandemic, finished high school, started driving, started going to college, and been introduced to many other things that were completely new to me. With life unfolding, I realized that there were still a lot of things I didn’t know, about myself, about other people, and about life itself. For example, my ideas of independence, relationships, and maneuvering through society were not as complete as I thought they were. Going through those experiences put me in a place of confusion and constant thinking and feeling. But, with the help of Master Bell and my parents, I was able to see where I could humble down and understand more than what I had.

I realized that my parents and Master Bell had more experience with life on earth. They knew how things worked and how to get around. To bring me out of my confusing place, it would be in my best interests if I could use their wisdom and combine it with my youth and intelligence, to allow me to live the best life I could.

This writing is my way of documenting what I’ve learned in the past years growing into a young adult, and how I’m going to carry myself for future life to unfold.

How I Was Existing

• “Independence”

When I joined Tang Soo Do as a 9-year-old, I was a very impulsive kid. Growing up in a stable household, I was able to communicate and express myself freely, which I misused by competing and talking down about my parents. I did not have the maturity back then to understand that whoever I was, it was through the efforts of my parents. One of the phrases I used against my parents at the time was referring to them as “You Indians”.

Back then, my impulses were getting curbed and I lashed out at my parents, annoyed at them because I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. Normal kid behavior. I did not have good self-esteem or cultural pride at the time. I was lost in the world of “America”, comparing myself to my peers. All the glamour and glitter I saw my friends being a part of led me to think that the stability my parents were providing me was “boring”. I was referring to all the clothes, food, T.V. shows, birthday parties, and video games my friends were a part of. Compared to my ordered and uncluttered life, the “American” lifestyle seemed so much more appealing.

I did not have the logical understanding that all these “cool” things my friends were a part of were just shallow and surface level. They did not have any solidity to them, and could come and go with the wind. What my parents were giving me would be longer lasting and wouldn’t just come and go with the wind. But, it would not look as appealing from the outside. As the impulsive kid I was, I wanted what my friends had. When my loving and responsible parents didn’t give it to me because they knew it wasn’t good for me, I lashed out at them, labeling them as “You Indians”.

Getting the car to drive to college started the idea of independence for me. But even before that, I enjoyed the freedom of being able to ride around the city by myself, even though it was usually with groceries in the trunk because my parents had sent me to the store for errands. But still, those 15 minutes of riding with the windows down and the volume up were 15 minutes where I felt independent. That is, until the car didn’t start one day. When it came to the actual upkeep of the car I took so much pride in driving around, I let my parents take over. I wasn’t taking full responsibility for the car. I had to learn that owning a car wasn’t just the driving part. It was the whole thing. Independence didn’t mean just being impulsive. Independence meant there were responsibilities that I had to learn to go with the “freedom” that I wanted.

This desire for “independence” was fed by what I saw on social media, with my friends. They were posting pictures and videos of them going to concerts, hanging out with friends, and most importantly, going to university, away from their home. Watching all this from my home, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing out on things I should’ve been a part of. I started to resent the place I was in, at home going to a community college. I started to look forward to the day I would get to move out and do things my way. I thought I was ready to be “independent”.

As a 19-year-old 3rd degree Black Belt, I have the maturity to understand that who I am is because of the efforts of my parents. My impulses tell me that I need to be independent, and distance myself from my parents as much as I can. Master Bell was able to clarify to me that it would be in my best interests to use the stability and guidance of my parents as long as possible, because I was blessed to have two parents who loved me. Also in reality, I was in no place to be independent because I was financially still dependent on my parents. I was driving the car around feeling good, but the gas was paid for by my dad. This solid fact allowed me to really understand the difference between being independent in this society, and just impulsively wanting to do things by myself.

In my pre-teen years, I grew up as an impulsive kid. This was pretty typical of me, because I was young and I was immature. However, this behavior showed up in my relationship with my parents. I used to compete a lot with my parents, especially my mom. Without maturity or the knowledge of all the love and attention my parents were providing for me as a kid, I did not respect them enough to listen to or follow them. I saw myself on an equal plane as them. Although this kind of relationship continued for most of my elementary years, the effects of it were not big enough for me or my parents to do anything about it. I was still little, and my life was very protected, so not too many problems were caused because of it except for the unhappiness of my parents that I didn’t listen to them.

I did well in school because I was intelligent. As a kid, my parents invested time and energy in teaching me, reading to me, and allowing me to express myself creatively through art and music. This love and attention manifested itself into me turning out to be a great kid who did well in school. But me being a kid, I did not understand that it was my parents who grew me into who I was. I only saw the part where I was good at everything, and so an arrogance and ego about myself grew in me from a young age. As a result, I grew up comparing myself to others and placing my self worth on the outcome of that comparison.

After joining Tang Soo Do in fourth grade, I started to see a difference in the lifestyles of me and my peers. Tang Soo Do allowed my parents to structure our lives and eliminate clutter. We got rid of habits that fed into emotions but had no real value. Habits that satisfied our impulses but did not enhance the quality of our living. Things like going to parties and get-togethers, playing video games, and eating out. All these activities looked cute from the outside, but they had no substantial value to me as a person.

It was hard for me to accept at first, because it felt like I was being isolated from my peers and from society by not doing the things they were doing. All throughout my middle school and high school years, I grew up with a nagging doubt and resentment towards my parents, thinking that because of them, I was missing out on a lot of life. I was comparing the glamorous lives of my peers to my simple and grounding lifestyle, and I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed by it.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school. I still had feelings about not being a part of what my friends were a part of although I wasn’t isolated from my friends, because I saw them, talked to them, and had class with them everyday. Senior year was when a lot of developmental experiences happened to me. To start, I got a phone. This connected me to social media and the internet and allowed me access to pretty much anything at any time I wanted it. I had the initial impulsive period where I thought I was free to do whatever I wanted, but eventually realized that I needed to maintain control to keep myself balanced. I took part in senior activities, like going to prom, senior nights, and other interactions within the glamorous world I felt so apart from my entire school years. Rather than feeling included when I got all of this new exposure, I felt even more out of place. What I didn’t have the maturity to see was that I was raised in a very clean and structured environment. When I was placed in the emotionally filled, “glamorous” things that were normal for others my age, I didn’t really fit in.

All these experiences were new to me, and triggered a lot of emotions in the process. For example, going to prom. I thought I knew everything about having someone to call my “girlfriend”. But when I actually went through the experience, I realized there was more to the story than just the appeal of going to prom and taking pictures together. I had to understand what it meant to build a relationship with someone else. I didn’t really have that knowledge.

Lessons like these and many more were new and unfamiliar to me. And they hit me pretty hard. I started to become unsure of this world. I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew. In fact, stepping into the real world for the first time, I realized that I didn’t know much. I started to become unsure of myself. Master Bell pointed this out to me one day, when I was standing. My shoulders were not as set and broad as they used to be. I was kind of slouching. My aura was not as confident as it once was.

Luckily for me, I had very strong supportive forces in my corner. I had two dedicated parents, multiple arts centered around personal development, and a Master Instructor I was seeing three times a week. Whatever had happened to me, I had consistent logical forces and a profound philosophy to explain and guide me through my process of learning. With this, I was able to clearly see what exactly was happening to me from a broader perspective than just my emotions.

Stepping back from it all and looking at the broader picture was hard for me to accept at first, because my emotions were so strong and real. Looking back now, I recognize that my emotions were very raw because they were new. But over time, once they simmered down, I was able to think again and make sense of my new experiences.

Chi and Meditation played a big role in my growth since 2nd Degree Black Belt. The main principles of Chi and Meditation were already familiar to me, because they were part of my Tang Soo Do training, like mental discipline, maintaining a quiet mind, balance between mind, body, and spirit, and having awareness of myself and my surroundings. With all these tools, here is my learning and growth.

What is Meditation?

In my high school world, I had a lot of things to think about that kept my mind busy. I was juggling my learning in classes, my perception about looking good for others, keeping up with my peers and my interactions with them, my feelings of missing out on social media trends or extracurriculars everyone else was a part of, etc. There was always something for me to think about throughout the day, which promoted split thinking and a noisy mind.

Meditation on the other hand is bringing the mind to a place of no thought. When I have enough mental discipline to give authority to thinking and reasoning, I find that my emotions fall in line. My experiences with meditation did not actually start from Chi. I learned about keeping the mind quiet and focused through Tang Soo Do practice.

When doing a form, for example, the mind has the purpose of creating the opposition. Doing the technique with an opponent brings the form alive because it creates purpose for the movement; it gives a reason for the block, an impact point for the punch. Oftentimes, especially in the early years of my training, I would memorize the pattern of the forms, thinking that I was doing good if I could make it look good.

It was later on in the higher ranks of the belt system where the concept of “studying” the forms changed my way of doing them.

Master Bell would just show up during class one day and throw a monkey wrench into the middle of a form. If I was doing the form by memory, I would not be able to work around whatever the challenge was, and would be completely flustered and confused. An example of this was doing the form to the opposite side, or doing it backwards. Memorizing the form and its pattern did not allow me to properly learn the movements itself. So when I had to rearrange the movements to go to the right, or to do it backwards, I had no idea what to do.

I understand that when I engage my mind, I take full control of how I do what I do and how I approach what I do. By using my brain, I can handle whatever external hiccups that might happen. When I’m fully mentally engaged, I take control of my form and actually learn the movements as they relate to an opponent. Then, when I am faced with a challenge, I can work around it and in the end, I don’t end up disappointed.

To be able to go through a form without memorizing it requires a different part of the brain. As Master Bell points out, memory is only a small portion of the brain. When we use the brain as a whole and visualize an opponent, we are using more of the brain. When I did my forms this way, I felt quiet and focused at the end of the form. My mind was quiet because I was focusing the whole brain on one thing only, which was the form.

A quiet mind is something different than the way I existed when I was feeling a lot. My mind was noisy and cluttered with new experiences that I did not sort out and learn from yet, and it created lots of space for emotions to come in. I am able to see now that when I don’t clearly give authority to my logic, I end up reacting emotionally to things.

Being present in one task at a time also lets me focus my energy on one thing at a time. Multi-tasking or splitting my energy leaves me feeling drained, as I’ve noticed.

Experiences with Meditation

The structure of a basic Tang Soo Do class starts with 5 minutes of meditation. However, I have found over my years of training that in a 90 minute class, I am able to do 90 minutes of meditation. By definition, meditation is bringing the mind to a place of no thought. Throughout class, every breath, every jumping jack and situp, every stance in drills and forms has a way to be done. When the mind can purposefully follow the structure of how something is to be done, the mind is focused only on one thing. This is meditation.

In the process, a bunch of other thoughts bombard me. Most obviously, the thoughts concerning how hot it is, how much my legs burn from holding these stances, or how much homework I might have once I get back home. These were all impulsive thoughts. Just because they came into my mind, I did not have to give energy to each and every one of them. I developed my mental discipline by learning to keep my mind on one thing only during class; and that was class itself. Whatever feelings I had, they were there for me after class for me to indulge in if I really wanted to. But most of the time, they just went away.

Being able to have control over my emotions like this leads to a higher quality of living for me. Master Bell has given this example: When looking at a situation, 8 different people might have 8 different feelings about it. But irrespective of how any of them feel, the situation will remain the same. Still only one situation. Allowing myself to see the situation as it is, with a quiet mind, keeps me connected to reality. Otherwise, every impulsive thought coming in pulls me in different directions each time.

Having this quiet mind really allowed me to understand my living better. It would’ve been too easy for me to get lost in my emotions, thinking that that chaotic way of existing was a normal part of life. I would’ve got used to the draining emotions like the rest of society. But having a quiet mind made the difference between logic & reality vs. emotions very clear.

For example, when my brother was poking me to get my attention. If I had a quiet mind, I would be able to see the situation as it was: he was younger to me, he looked up to me, and he wanted my attention. Seeing this, my life would be simple because then I just find a way to give him attention. But if I made decisions based on how I felt, I could have multiple different feelings about the same thing at the same time. I could think that he’s annoying, or that he never gives me any time to myself, or that life is too hard on me and is asking too much of me, or that I never get any peace in the family and I should try and move out. These reasons sound absurd when I’m writing them down, but it does not take much to realize that this is a true reality for a lot of people, including me at the time. When my mind was not quiet and I was impulsive, I wasn’t able to see any of this. My reality was a messy reality. But when I learned to relax, let life unfold, and approach things with a quiet mind, my reality became the same as the actual reality, and my living simpled down.

What is Chi?

In its simplest definition, Chi is energy. The body’s energy. Chi is not carbohydrates, not necessarily that type of energy. Chi is the life source of a person, the aura surrounding and within someone. This concept was hard for me to understand at first, because I couldn’t see or feel Chi like I could the wind or someone’s touch. I had to quieten myself down to the moment to really experience Chi.

To practice Chi required a higher level of concentration from me. I had to calm down to become sensitive to things that I wasn’t normally sensitive to in daily living. First, without the discipline to maintain a quiet mind with no thoughts, the practice of Chi would not be effective. The noise of my thinking, and probably also feeling, would blunt any sensitivity to Chi. Second, Chi required me to be very honest with myself. I would not be able to fake Chi; meaning that the only way I could practice it is if I was honest with myself. If my mind wasn’t present, I wouldn’t feel anything. If there was some disturbance in my emotional state, I wouldn’t be in an appropriate place to elevate my Chi. Without having that honest relationship with myself, I wouldn’t be in the proper place to take Chi seriously. Thus, Chi was a tool for me to develop a more honest relationship with myself.

Becoming sensitive enough to feel my own energy meant I had a responsibility to maintain good energy in myself. I would now be sensitive to low energy, or toxic energy like anger or laziness. Being in these states would not be acceptable for me. It was different at first, because throughout the day, I would have to connect periodically with how I was doing and check myself, then breathe or walk it off if my energy was low or I was feeling drained. Eventually, I learned to have that sensitivity to my energy all the time. Whatever peace or calmness I felt when I had good energy, I learned to keep that as my standard. There is a line in the Sip Sam Seh that summed up this new learning for me: “Pay attention to the slightest change from full to empty”. This meant that I would be attentive to the slightest change in my energy. When water in a pond is completely still, even dropping a small pebble into it would cause enough ripples to disrupt the stillness. These waves would be easy to see, no matter how small. Likewise, when I was sensitive enough to feel my energy in a calm place, the slightest change from full to empty—from peaceful to chaotic—I would be able to acknowledge and fix.

When my energy is elevated and peaceful, I can always count on a sense of lightness in my existence. There are no nagging thoughts, no tension or tiredness in my body, and no emotions pulling me this way and that. I can feel blood flow and tingling in my hands and my face. My breathing would be slow and full, and all my yawns would’ve already been out, meaning I would be in a very relaxed place.

On the contrary, when I feel tired and lethargic, I know my energy is low. There is no presence in reality because I am in my feelings, and my energy is getting spent on those feelings. My body might be stiff or aching, and I am not conscious of blood flow or anything.

Carrying good energy with me in whatever I choose to do would be like maintaining the stillness of the pond. When I can elevate my energy and maintain it, I can excel in whatever I put my mind to. A high energy approach to a task would always yield something better than an approach with no consciousness of my state of being. In this way, I am able to give all of myself to whatever it is I decide to do, and the quality of the things I do increases. This is how the quality of my life as a whole also increases.

Where do we find Peace and Joy?

Through meditation and Chi, I am able to keep myself in the reality of situations, not in the trap of how I feel about things. I can maintain my elevated energy, and give all of myself to whatever I’m doing, not being held back by emotions. When I have this way of living, I can create peace for myself with anything I do.

One of the biggest problems for me in high school was letting the outcome of situations affect my self-esteem or my happiness. The score I got on a test or the reaction I got from a person that was not what I wanted were the kinds of things that determined whether I was happy or not. By giving so much power to outside forces, I completely disrupted the peace of my living.

I had to learn that I could never control how the world would work, and if my sense of worth was placed on that, it would constantly guarantee disappointment for me. Instead, I learned to approach life with the idea of living by a way.

“I woke up like this” is a line I often heard Master Bell use in class. I always took it as kind of a joke, but the true meaning and simplicity of that statement is only hitting me now. When I have a way of living and existing, it doesn’t matter what is happening in life. I don’t have to stress about outside factors that I can’t control and I don’t have to look for joy in those same things. The joy comes from me understanding that I’m doing the best I know, I’m in a relaxed state of being, and whatever does happen, I can trust myself to handle it in a logical way based on reality and not how I feel about it. When faced with a test, I can be at peace knowing that I spent the time actually learning the material. That way I don’t have to stress about studying. When interacting with my peers, I can be at peace knowing that we’re all human, and as long as I’m connecting to that part of them, there’s no need to stress about following norms or fitting in. With that approach, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is or how much I’m prepared or not to deal with something. The way I’m existing itself is enough to handle whatever life has in store for me. Living that way is how I create peace and joy for myself. I’m free to just wake up and live.

Conclusion

Humility was very important to me in this learning process. For me to get more than I had, I had to first understand that I was coming up short on things and I needed to learn more. Humbling down allowed me to listen and receive messages that were not easy or pleasant to hear. Humbling down allowed me to get something more than what I already had. In the end, I was introduced to the broader view of reality. This reality was not easy for me to accept at first, because it went against how I felt. But being humble and looking for more made me go past my feelings, to try to logically understand what was happening to me. In the end, that process is what allowed me to grow from everything that I went through.

If I didn’t have that humility, I would continue to hold on to how I felt and I wouldn’t be able to make sense out of my experiences. The lack of humility would keep me comfortable, but it would also keep me stagnant. And being stagnant would only lead to the risk of those same disappointments repeating themselves over and over again.

When I humbled myself, I was able to understand more of reality. To do that, I learned to get past my emotional state. In the end, I came out stronger and wiser, because I was able to learn from my experiences. This is the way of living I want to have for myself, that would lead to peace and joy in my life.