YIN-YANG HARMONY IN SMILING FROM THE HEART
Smiling from the Heart
Question
I have heard the Chinese saying, "Too much joy hurts the heart." Does this saying apply to our Smiling from the Heart? Can Sifu explain, if, how, and why smiling from the heart may need to be moderated?
Sifu Charles Chalmers
Answer
Anything excessive, including good things like kindness, energy flow and cash flow, are harmful. While smiling from the heart is excellent, excessively smiling from the heart brings harm. The person may become delirious with joy. He may go mad.
If, how and why smiling from the heart may need to be moderated can be explained using the concept of yin-yang. Yin-yang harmony brings health, yin-yang disharmony brings illness. At any one time, yin or yang may be more than the other, but on a whole they should be equal or harmonious.
In the case of smiling from the heart, yin represents the body, and yang represents joy. If there is too much joy, yin and yang are not in harmony. There is too much yang, resulting in disharmony.
Both yin and yang were low when a person started chi kung. As he learned to smile from the heart, yang increased. Yin followed, which meant the body also learned to adapt itself to more joy.
Over time both yin and yang increased together remarkably. As long as yang did not increase too much at one time, the body represented by yin would be able to cope with the increased joy.
Eventually, as a result of practicing chi kung regularly, the practitioner becomes more cheerful.
Everytime we start our practice, we smile from the heart
The above article is reproduced from the thread Applying and Deepening the Fundamental Skills of Chi Kung in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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