Commusings: Softness Is Strength by Mimi Kuo-Deemer

Dear Commune Community, 

It’s my great pleasure to preamble a wonderful missive from qigong teacher, Mimi Kuo-Deemer, while also giving a nod to my roshi, Alan Watts.

I begin with an inquiry: Have you ever seen a person with a front and no back? Have you ever been on an elevator that only goes up? Can there be an ending without a beginning? Would you even be able to determine what is hot without experiencing cold?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, well, then you are quite strange. But how would I even know “strange” without knowing “normal?”

All phenomena in the universe inherently exist as a coincidentia oppositorum — a co-incidence of opposites that arise mutually.

Up. Down. Right. Left. Front. Back. Hot. Cold. Day. Night. Sun. Moon. Summer. Winter. Wakefulness. Sleep. Abundance. Scarcity. Male. Female. Fire. Water. Growth. Repair.

This coincidence of opposites is represented by the ancient Chinese symbol, the yin yang, the origin of which relates to the sunny and shady sides of a mountain. You cannot have a sunny face without a shady face. And this co-existence creates a great irony. The duality of opposites, like sunniness and shadiness, points to an ultimate non-duality. This paradox is known as the “unity of opposites.” The unity of opposites defines a situation in which the existence of a thing or situation depends on the simultaneity of at least two conditions that are opposite to each other, yet reliant on each other.

A “deal” implies a seller and a buyer. And, in this sense, your body is a “deal” – brimming with mutually arising countervailing forces – at once explicitly distinct while implicitly unified.

Of course, opposites exist along a spectrum and in a constant state of flux. The sunny side of the mountain is not always sunny. At times, depending on the season, time of day and position of the sun, the sunny side has a bit of shade. And, on the flip side, the shady side may have a dollop of sun on it.

This, too, is represented in the yin yang, as the white of the yang has an eye of yin in it. And the black of yin has an eye of white in it.

The mutually-dependent duality of the yin yang sits atop of an empty circle known as tai chi, the ultimate reality, the emptiness from which the phenomenal world instantiates.

The mutual arising of opposites is everywhere to be found and is central to all forms of energy. Electricity is dependent on the attraction and repulsion of negatively and positively charged particles. Electro-magnetic radiation exists as waves characterized by crests and troughs. Sound energy also has a wave structure with amplitude defining its volume and frequency revealing its pitch. On, off, on, off. Up, down, up, down.

Nature, when unimpeded, brings opposites into a sensitive order. This is the foundational cosmic intelligence, the Tao, the force that pulls polarities into tenuous balance.

This very same concept can be applied to your body. The yin yang of your physiology is omnipresent. Nearly every function, hormone, neurotransmitter and cellular pathway has its counterpart. Your entire organism exists as a series of crests and troughs, yangs and yins.

Many of our physiological contrapositions are hidden in plain sight. Growth, wakefulness, alertness, extraversion and pleasure reflect our yang. Repair, sleep, dreaminess, introversion and serenity suggest our yin. These states sit atop mechanisms like on/off switches with a dimmer. One state rarely exists without a glimmer of its opposing state waiting in the wings. And, when it does – when we are all growth and no repair, for example – there is generally a significant imbalance.

As Mimi points to: Even strength can contain suppleness. The branches of a willow bend flexibly under a load of heavy snow, allowing the snow to slough off, where the stiff boughs of an oak may snap.

Here and absent at [email protected] and strong but supple on IG @jeffkrasno.

In love, include me,
Jeff

• • •

Softness Is Strength
by Mimi Kuo-Deemer

Beijing, December 2003. I’m standing in Wuji, or Emptiness Stance. Though I’m new to qigong, standing still in a relaxed way should be easy. But within minutes, my legs start trembling. This eases as my resistance to the shaking softens. Ten minutes later, I’m transformed. I am now a 1000-year-old oak tree, rooted and vast as the sky. I didn’t know it then, but those few minutes of standing still began dismantling everything I once believed about power and strength.

Fast forward to April 2019. I’m back in Beijing, studying qigong and Baguazhang, an internal martial art. My shifu can see I’m trying too hard, which depletes my vitality and strength. “Shou rou yue qiang 守柔曰強 –– Guarding softness is called strength,” he advises. This is not a commonsense, problem-solving invitation. I consider this, then the words flow through my body. My breath eases. My eyes soften. I reframe what strength means. This alters my way of being in the world.

• • •

When I was younger, strength meant leaping over tall buildings in a single bound like Superman. Muscle meant means. Power meant assertion, domination and force; it was what enabled people like the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher to wield her might.

In U.S. schools, I was taught Western Enlightenment views. Humans and nature were separate. Mankind was given dominion over the Earth. Our sins caused disharmony and struggle in the world. Nature was dangerous, or she needed protection; she was to be conquered and plundered, or placed under our stewardship. Whoever had the might and right could also subdue and exploit the voiceless and weak.

I also learned that my body was like nature: not to be trusted. Depleting it was necessary. Like many, I believed in pushing myself and striving to get more out of whatever I did. I was like a machine that would keep operating until it broke down. I didn’t like these ideas, but until I was in my early 30s, I wasn’t exposed to alternative paradigms.

Qigong changed this. It gave me a radically different perspective. Rather than seeing nature as something to dominate and control, qigong takes the classical Chinese view that nature is our home. We can live in harmony with it, align with its energies. Nature is not to be feared, but respected and embraced. I experience this in qigong practices like the 18 Forms, where I dance with rainbows, fly like wild geese, and separate clouds. This creates a connection to – and kinship with – everything around and within us.

Qigong has helped me remember that I am the clouds, the geese, the sun, the trees. They are also me. My body is no longer untrustworthy or machine-like. It feels dynamic, responsive, and more fully alive. It has given me access to an inner strength and power unlike anything I imagined in Superman or the Iron Lady.

Qigong is actually a modern word, but one that encompasses thousands of years of Chinese energy practices. It means the skillful, steady cultivation of life energy. The origins and evolution of qigong have been primarily shaped by Taoist and Chan Buddhist philosophy.

Although qigong started as a practice to support my health, it has matured into a vehicle that allows me to embody the teachings of Taoism, which emphasize living in harmony with the Tao, or the natural way of the universe. It champions nature’s simplicity and beauty. It encourages us to embrace the balance of opposites within the whole. It teaches that effort without struggle and strife is possible. It helps us align with the transformational processes of life. Dao is the nameless and the named, the Source and the manifest, the subtle and the bounded. It tells us to be like water, which flows to the lowest places and nourishes all things. Everything is equal in its eyes. Its strength is in its softness.

• • •

Highcliff Beach, England, December 2023. I’m at the ocean. My feet root into sand. I watch gentle waves crest and fall against the shore. My breath attunes to their rhythm. I think about how water carves canyons and polishes jagged metal and stone. I begin a practice from the Qigong Taichi 18 Forms called Pushing Waves. In the same way that Tao is everywhere yet impossible to grasp, water is impossible to push. Yet as my hands move with the invisible energy of the ocean, the movement feels familiar. I merge with the wave’s soft power and force. Together, we flow in a seamless harmony without beginning and without end.

May my softness be strength, and my strength be softness. May I safeguard this as I move through this world.

*Guarding softness is called strength is a line from Chapter 52 of the Daode Jing (Tao Te Ching), one of the earliest Taoist texts. It is also believed to be the first ecologically conscious text to be written. 

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Mimi Kuo-Deemer, MA, is the author of Qigong and the Tai Chi Axis: Nourishing Practices for Body, Mind and Spirit and Xiu Yang: The Ancient Chinese Art of Self-Cultivation. She teaches meditation, qigong, and internal martial arts (6th generation lineage holder in Baguazhang). Born in the United States, she lived in China for 14 years before settling in the British countryside with her husband and their dog, three cats, 5 chickens and 60,000 bees.