[Taekwondo & Meditation] Adult Curriculum Whitebelt | Principle of Health, Principle of Concentration

Hello, this is a summary of the principles of training and meditation that can be more effective if you know about it.

 

1. The Purpose and Effect of Body Training and Meditation - Water Up, Fire Down

 

  Many people are vague and abstract about the effects of meditation and why they do it. If you talk about meditation, body training, and qigong, etc., you may have some preconceptions. But this is actually a scientific, rational, and logical field. This will explain what's good about body training, how it's different from other types of training, and what kind of special effects it has.

(1). 3 Energy Systems

  We have already learned about our physical bodies in school. For example, the anatomical location of various elements within the body, such as bones, muscles, joints, and organs. You will learn all the basic information about body systems by learning it in science class or biology class. However, in order to explain the body practice and meditation part, we need to know not only the physical structure, but also the system, that is, the energy system working together in our body. So let's talk about the energy system. There are three types of energy systems in our body.

 

  The first is ‘acupressure points’, a concept commonly used in oriental medicine. ‘Accupressure point’ is a small hole through which energy flows in and out.

Various Accupressure Points

 

 

  The second is ‘meridian’. You can think of meridians as the path through which energy in our body flows and goes back and forth.

 

12 Meridian

 

 

 The third is called the ‘energy center’. The ‘energy center’ is the place where energy enters through the acupressure points, is transported through the meridians, and then gathers and accumulates. This is called 'chakra' in India and 'danjeon' in Korea.

7 Chakras

 

    The energy system in the body is mainly composed of these three parts.

  Now, opinions on the number of acupressure points may differ slightly from organizations, but there are a total of 365 based on the most popularly recognized so far. There are a total of 12 meridians through which energy enters and flows. And there are a total of 7 energy centers in our body, which are connected from the tip of the head to the perineum.

(2). The body and nature are the same.

  If you look at these numbers, they are 365, 12, and 7. Can you come up with a concept related to something? As some of you may have already noticed, that's the same number as 365 days in a year, 12 months in a year, and 7 days in a week. What this means is that our body has an energy system, and these numbers and structures are very similar to nature. Many people say, ‘Our body is a microcosm.’ There is a saying, ‘Your face is a seven-star plate.’ When people meet, their faces have symbols that represent each other. As such, there are seven holes in the face, which also symbolizes the Big Dipper, which represents the constellation. Also, in the East, organs of our body are divided into 5 chapters (liver, heart, spleen, lung, kidney) and 6 parts (large intestine, small intestine, stomach, gallbladder, the three chest) by type and location, and on Earth, there are 5 oceans (Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Antarctic Ocean, Arctic Ocean) and 6 continents (Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Oceania).

  As such, if we search one by one, there are many similarities to the structure of our body, the energy system, and the operating principle of nature. In other words, because our body resembles nature, it means that if we drive together similarly to ‘nature’, health will naturally occur ‘naturally’.

 

  It is not a result that has to be obtained by forcing yourself to run 10km every day because your physical health is very difficult. Natural means not only physically, but also mentally. This includes thinking a little bit out of sync with nature or engaging in unhealthy habitual behaviors. If you have lived a life in which the flow of your energy goes against nature, your originally natural health begins to deteriorate. So, a healthy body is possible only when the mind and body are natural. If you hold on to the big picture from the beginning, these principles will be much easier to understand in the future.

(3). What does it mean to be natural?

  Then you might be wondering, 'What exactly does it mean to be natural?' ‘How is it natural to do it?’ and ‘In what direction is it natural to go?’ And if we find it and our body and mind go in that direction, our health will be restored naturally. So let's take a look at nature.

  First, let's observe the natural phenomena of 'the sun and the sea'. There is the sun in the sky and the sea underneath. Always with light from the sun, hot energy descends to the surface of the sea. This heats the surface of the ocean and eventually creates water vapor. This water vapor is lighter than air and rises into the sky. As it rises, the water vapor collects and forms clouds. And these clouds get bigger, bigger, heavier, and eventually come down as rain again. What we can see in this natural phenomenon is that hot energy descends and cool energy rises, and at a certain critical mass, it comes down again as rain, and then heats up again and rises to steam. In other words, when you look at nature, nature is always ‘circulating’. Nothing is stagnant. The four seasons continue to cycle throughout the year. It also continues to cycle as the Earth rotates around the sun. It is not static or stagnant. Everything is circulating and moving. This is a characteristic of nature.

  Likewise, if our bodies and our thoughts are not stagnant and keep circulating, developing, and moving forward, it will become a "natural phenomenon" that is suitable for nature, or healthy. Then our health will always be maintained naturally without any effort.

  

 

(4). The Process of Deterioration of Health

  Then, let's look at this same principle in our body. There are 7 energy centers in our body that we talked about earlier. Of these, the fourth energy center, this chakra located in the chest, is the most sensitive of the seven energy centers. So that person in front of me didn't say anything to me, but I can immediately sense something uncomfortable about him/her. This is because it is the most sensitive chakra, so you can feel the energy right away. Conversely, even if the other person doesn't say anything to me, I can tell from afar that they are very happy, satisfied, and proud. Because that energy is perceived by this 4th chakra.

 

4th Chakra (Middle Dahnjon)

  The 4th chakra (Heart Chakra) has the advantage of recognizing all kinds of non-verbal information, but on the contrary, it also perceives negative energies such as stress. If you continue to periodically perceive negative energy, stress, up to a certain critical mass you will be aware, but if you exceed that limit, problems begin to arise in this chakra little by little. It becomes insensitive and clogged.

  Let's take an example. That person said something bad to me. If it goes on for a long time, not just a day or two, but a year, two years, three years, and if that happens faster than the chakra is regenerating, the fourth chakra is now energetically clogged. Since the energetic structure and the physical structure are always connected, when the 4th chakra is blocked, the functions of the nearby physical muscles and organs also deteriorate. First, the shoulder muscles begin to harden very strongly. It means you are tense. And the neck muscles are also stiffened together, energetically blocked, and sooner or later physically blocked. So what will happen? Unnatural phenomena will occur. The energy was originally circulating naturally, but now this 4th chakra is blocked, and the muscles of the shoulders, neck, back, and chest stiffen, causing shallow breathing. At the same time, the hot energy in the head cannot come down. So, the head is always full of hot energy. The fire energy will then fill your head.

 

1. Dry eyes cause a lot of fatigue in the eyes.
2. The mouth is dry and crispy.
3. The face becomes flaky and dry.
4. As the energy is constantly in your head, it becomes difficult to stop thinking. This is because various delusions and thoughts keep happening differently from your intentions.
5. Concentration decreases.
6. You become more emotional and are easily swayed by them.
7. In this state, it is difficult to get a good night's sleep no matter how much sleep you sleep for 10 or 12 hours. Even after waking up, you are still tired. This condition continues.
8. Blood pressure rises. Not only energy circulation but also blood circulation is blocked.
9. Tinnitus may also occur. This is because if the above phenomenon is repeated over and over again, a problem will occur even to the ear.
10. If it is prolonged for 5 or 10 years, brain disease may occur.
11. Etc.

 

  So when you look at the person in this state, you can't say it in a pinch, but just by looking at his/her face, you can see that he/she is not feeling well right now, because all of these things happen inside.

  This hot energy causes various phenomena from the top and cannot come down below the neck. But the cold energy sinks and gathers in the lower abdomen. When hot and cold air are together, the cold air is heavier and sinks to the bottom.

  If the head is full of hot energy, the cold energy tends to go downward, so it gathers in the lower abdomen and the lower abdomen becomes colder and colder than usual. Being cold and cold means that the functions of the internal organs become slower, and the internal muscles of the organs are easy to harden.

 

 

1. Because the lower abdomen is always cold, there is a problem with the digestive system. It is difficult to digest and it is easy to get indigestion.
2. When cold energy is in the abdomen, where 70% of the total blood is gathered, blood circulation is not well done, resulting in cold hands and feet.
3. The cold energy affects the functions of the five organs, and the function of each organ decreases.
4. When the function of each organ deteriorates, the body's immune system eventually declines and various complications begin.
5. If this state is maintained continuously, women's diseases may come.

 

  The phenomenon of hot head, stuffy chest, and cold belly begins to occur. Our bodies are similar to nature, but when we cannot go with nature, these phenomena occur. This creates an inverted triangle state with a lot of energy in the head and very little energy below.

  When this inverted triangle state is created, the bottom center becomes very unstable. Even a slight touch from the side can cause it to shake without realizing it. So emotions can come up easily, and you can easily move back and forth depending on what the person next to you is saying. In the East, this phenomenon is called an ‘energy distortion’(Ju-Hwa-Ip-Ma).

 

(5). Naturally Healthy Training

  The longer you stay in this state, the more abnormal your health may be, and the more easily visible diseases you may end up with. The purpose of body training is to create a natural circulation of energy in this state.

  So within the meditation class there are various stages.

 

• Energy Exercise: There is an energy exercise that relaxes the tension or clumps of the body as it moves.
• Relaxation method: In a state where energy circulation and blood circulation are well established, the body is sufficiently relaxed.
• Breathing method: Through breathing, the clear energy is collected again, or the turbid energy in my body is discharged to the outside.
• Meditation method: There are training methods to increase concentration and organize my unconscious information through meditation.

1.  

 

 

1). The Power of Consciousness - the Principle of Concentration

  Now, as to how we can recreate natural energy structures, we need to explain a little bit about how powerful our consciousness is. If you understand the principle of consciousness, you will understand how to stably change back to an equilateral triangle state. In fact, we are using our tremendous power, whether we know it or not. That's the power of consciousness. Consciousness refers to 'Where am I focusing?' For example, the moment you think, ‘What will I have for lunch tomorrow?’, your consciousness is on ‘tomorrow’s lunch’. So where am I concentrating? That's consciousness.

  The important point is that depending on ‘Where does our consciousness go?’, ‘material energy’ that is invisible but filled in the space has the power to follow and gather. Material energy is everything that makes up the space you stay in, the air particles, and the chairs and desks in the room. It means that these material energies converge according to my ‘consciousness’.

For example, you may have read the book 'The Secret'. We will quote the contents of this book because the rules mentioned here are also consistent with training and meditation.

 

①. The Law of Attraction

  Statistically, only 1% of the world's population earns 96% of humanity's wealth. Is this really a coincidence? No, obviously they know something. It's about understanding the hidden secrets. Today we are going to dig into the secrets of wealth and success that only the 1% have known for centuries.

  The secret is The Law of Attraction. Everything that happens in your life is what you've attracted yourself to. Wealth and people are the same. Even health or debt, car, environment etc. Similar things, like magnets, attract similar things. If you think about something now, you'll see the result in front of you with a similar thought. After all, the way you live now is the result of the thoughts you had in the past reflected in reality.

  Most people don't understand that thoughts also have frequencies. Thoughts can be measured. For example, if you imagine driving a new car and the money you need comes in, you will radiate a wavelength of the frequency corresponding to that thought. In the end, if you draw a picture of yourself living affluently, wealth will come to you, and if you complain while struggling because you don't have money, it will naturally appear.

  But the only reason people don't get what they want is because they think more about what they don't want than what they want. People often think, talk, and act about things they hate, and eventually they can’t get out of this link.

  The Law of Attraction doesn't care what you want or not. It just gives you back what you think.

  In short, beans grow where they are planted. If you don't plant it, it won't grow. That's the law of nature. You must start today right away. The start is just to think and talk about what you want. If you focus on something, whatever the target is, you're bringing it in. If you say, "I'm going crazy with a pile of debt," you're bringing in debt. On the other hand, if you say thank you as soon as you wake up in the morning, it will bring you a happy day.

  Just because you don't understand this law right now doesn't mean you have to reject it. Frankly, I don't quite understand how electricity works. But wake up to the fact that electricity can make a delicious breakfast dish.

  When you think of a good thing, you’re calling it. So, rather than feeling good because something good happens, good things happen one by one when you feel good. People have no idea that changing their emotions can change an entire day or even life. You can get whatever you want. There are no limits, just one thing to remember. It's just that you have to feel good right now. If you're in a good mood, it's like standing on the road leading to your destination. On the other hand, if you're in a bad mood, you should be aware that you're on the wrong track.

  Anyone would have had a situation or a time when things kept going wrong. This chain reaction, whether you recognize it or not, comes from just thinking. One bad idea attracted more of that same thought and had it at that frequency, so bad things happened. No matter what you've been thinking in the past, if you change your consciousness from now on, everything will be different. It's hard to accept, but once you open your chest and reach the default good status, you'll get phenomenal results.

 

  As such, tomorrow will change immediately depending on where your consciousness is. So you can say thank you when you wake up every morning. Say thank you when you get up from bed and your feet touch the ground, and thank you when you take steps to the bathroom. Gratitude has been a hidden key to the life taught by all the great prophets in history.

  We wanted to explain the importance of your consciousness. However, these principles are understandable in the head, but difficult to apply in real life. It’s almost impossible. There is only one reason. This is because all these movements of consciousness occur unconsciously and happen unconsciously. That's why you practice and meditate. If you become aware of the unconscious through practice and meditation and gradually catch it, if you can control your consciousness, you will be able to place more consciousness where you want it to be. That's why you practice and meditate to live the life you want. This is the ‘principle of concentration’.

  A lot of these principles are happening around you. There are people around us who always imagine a bright future, imagine what they will do in the future, imagine that it will come true, and often think like this. Then, this person's consciousness continues to focus heavily on the bright side, and invisible energy gathers in the thought. And when the critical mass is somewhat full, it really does come true in this phenomenon. Very similar things happen.

  Conversely, people who unknowingly focus a lot on their worries and anxieties such as 'What if this fails?', 'What if this doesn't work?' are transferring negative energy into that direction. And that energy is actually happening around you.

  In this way, depending on where your consciousness is focused, the energy gathers and has the power to actually make things happen in front of you. This is the power of consciousness. Practice and meditation are meant to develop the power to control this consciousness well. You might think that practice and meditation are very abstract and vague, but it is the opposite. It is a very practical and practical study. So, depending on where you focus, it chooses what lies ahead.

 

2). The Principle of Concentration in Terms of Health

  Like this, the principle is the same inside the body. For example, let's say you have to finish a company project by tomorrow. You have to focus on the task to get it done. If you have to divide the categories, the work is outside of your body. So when you focus your consciousness on that, the energy in your body will follow where you focus. Of course, energies outside the body gather there. So in the end, when energy gathers and crosses the threshold, the project is realized as a result of completion. Because that's how much energy was put into it. Instead, without realizing it, the energies within your body also leaked out through my consciousness.

  Just like this, we spend most of our lives concentrating our consciousness on the outside of our body. However, if this part repeats too much, or if you concentrate with a burden that is much higher than usual, you will lose that much energy inside you. That's because you focus your consciousness on the outside. So, if you only look at the energy state in your body, the energy keeps dropping. If your body's energy is depleted, at some point you can't concentrate as well as before, you’re very tired, your body is very heavy, you feel stuffy, and you unknowingly end up with a reverse triangle state.

  Then, how do we replenish our inner energy? You can use the same principle the same way. Conversely, when you need to recharge or restore your energy, you put your consciousness in your body, just as your energies were gathered there because you focused outside of your body. When you put your consciousness in your body, focus on your body, and feel the body, the energy now flows into your body. If you use your concentration of consciousness well, you can accomplish many things very efficiently.

  It’s not to say that focusing outside the body is bad at all. These are things we must do unconditionally in life. This is because things outside of your body, such as achievement of work and consideration for human relationships, have to be achieved as you live. However, if you can focus on the outside of the body and focus on your inner self when your energy is exhausted, you will be able to recharge and recover yourself, always maintaining the best condition, which means that I am more efficient in achieving many things.

 

  Let’s take a simple example of how to be efficient.

 

  In the middle of summer, you need to circumnavigate the continental United States by car as fast as possible. It's a long round trip from New York to LA, from east to west. Considering you’re trying to get around as fast as you can, the fastest way is to get in a car and go non-stop. But obviously, it can cause trouble when driving non-stop. There may be a tire puncture or the engine may be damaged. But you still drove hard because you had to drive around in the shortest time.  Sure enough, halfway through, you got a tire puncture as you continued to drive on the road heated by the scorching sun. But your goal is to get to LA, so the time you stand still feels like such a waste. It takes about 8 hours to change a tire. So you think you can arrive in LA if you ignore the condition of the car that had a flat or not, and run this eight hours now, so you feel more inclined to go. So you decided to keep driving with that broken wheel. In the end, in less than an hour, more and more parts of the car were damaged and eventually the car couldn’t even move an inch forward. So then you contacted the car repair center and they said it would take a week to fix it. You were going to go 8 hours quicker, but it got delayed for a week.

Flatted Tire Car Story

  In this story, the fastest way to get to LA is to invest those eight hours in tire repair. So it may seem like a waste of time to switch to a spare tire, to a repair shop, to a regular tire, but in fact, it's much more efficient and faster to get to LA. If our bodies continue to go towards a certain goal, we can get sick in the middle. If you ignore your body and keep running towards that goal, your body and health will be ruined to the point where you can't concentrate on that goal. If your energy is exhausted while focusing on your goal, if you can focus on yourself and concentrate on the work again, this means that it can be a more efficient, healthier, and more natural way.

  The meaning of energy depletion is that your consciousness has been concentrated out a lot without you knowing, so you may have succeeded in many things, but your body's condition has changed to a reverse triangle state. The principle of restoring this again is the same. On the contrary, you're focusing your consciousness on yourself.

  So this principle is scientifically and systematically included in the taekwondo and meditation classes of Hongik Taekwondo. Each guide spoken by the instructor is structured so that the attending members can concentrate their consciousness on their own body. So if you train yourself, do body-energy exercise, breathe, meditate, and concentrate enough on you again, little by little, you will have a proper energy circulation, and when you have a good energy circulation, the blocked chakra opens, and the tense and stiff shoulder muscles relax.

 

  What will happen again in this state? The hot energy in the head comes down to the danjeon again, and the cold energy in the danjeon rises to the head. So the head cools down, and the lower abdomen warms up again, opening the chakras in the chest. So when this state is reached, the energy returns to the equilateral triangle. The state of this equilateral triangle is called ‘Water Up, Fire Down’ (Su-Seung-Hwa-Gang).

 

Let's list the state of ‘Water Up, Fire Down’ (Su-Seung-Hwa-Gang).

 

1. The head is very light and cool. So it's good for concentration. It clears your mind a lot.
2. It clears your eyes.
3. The chest feels as if it is wide open and clear.
4. As the danjeon becomes very warm, a feeling of weight is created. So you become calm, prudent, and at the same time able to discern rightly.
5. The body is as light as a feather.
6. Breathing deepens to the lower abdomen.
7. You can feel the current state of your body in real time.
8. Your unconscious thoughts that were not recognized are recognized.

 

  Therefore, this change in the state of the body greatly affects your concentration. Because this sense of concentration is connected to the body, we can manage the thoughts and concentration that we have by taking good care of our bodies. With this principle, the meditation class proceeds.

  As you can see, the health of the ‘Sun and the Sea’ we saw earlier and ‘Water Up, Fire Down’ (Su-Seung-Hwa-Gang) are the same. The hot energy of the sun descends, and the cold energy of the sea rises to the sky. Our body circulates as the hot energy from our head goes down to the danjeon, and the cold energy goes up to the head. It became natural. It means to be healthy.

  As such, if you have the sense that only this state of ‘Water Up, Fire Down’ (Su-Seung-Hwa-Gang) can be maintained, if you know how and manage it well, you can take good care of your body. Health does not deviate much from this direction.

  If unconscious thinking goes in a natural direction, you will be healthy. However, there are many cases where this is not the case. For example, if I insist strongly and insist that any thought is always true, that thought is also hardened. Thoughts don't cycle flexibly. These patterns of thinking can also affect the energy of your body. Because these thoughts occur unconsciously, if you have experienced ‘Water Up, Fire Down’ (Su-Seung-Hwa-Gang), studying your unconscious through more in-depth training and meditation is also an inevitable next step for more effect.

 

(6). Close

  Today, I explained the 'Water Up, Fire Down (Su-Seung-Hwa-Gang) Principle' of the adult Taekwondo class and meditation class. We will do our best to help you get as much as you want through Hongik Taekwondo. Thank you.

Hongik Taekwondo & Meditation

Grandmaster Ray Lee