How to nourish your spirit

What is spirit? For example, some people stay up late to watch football and wake up in the morning feeling sick and listless, which means they have no spirit. During military training, one can hear the spirit of the troops just by hearing “Stand at attention” without even looking. People still need to be energetic, especially young people. Otherwise, they won’t be able to do anything well. How can they maintain their energy and spirit? This time we will look for the answer in traditional Chinese culture.

Full essence, sufficient energy and strong spirit are the guarantee of health; deficiency of essence, weak energy and exhausted spirit are the causes of aging. Although essence, qi and spirit each have their own characteristics, the three are an indivisible whole. If one survives, only one survives; if one dies, all die. Zhang Jingyue said: "Those who are good at keeping healthy must treasure their essence. When the essence is full, the qi is strong. When the qi is strong, the spirit is complete. When the spirit is complete, the body is healthy. When the body is healthy, there are fewer diseases." Chen Jiru of the Ming Dynasty pointed out in "Health Preservation Skin Language": "Essence can generate qi, qi can generate spirit, and essence and qi are the basis for generating spirit. Preserving essence can store qi, and storing qi can nourish spirit. This is the key to longevity."

Some doctors believe that essence, qi and spirit are the "three internal treasures" and ears, eyes and mouth are the "three external treasures". To maintain health and longevity, one must "keep the three internal treasures from being lost in the pursuit of material things, and the three external treasures from being disturbed by temptations". Therefore, to preserve the three treasures of essence, energy and spirit, the key lies in self-cultivation, clearing the mind and reducing desires, so that the mind will not wander, the thoughts will not wander, the spirit will not wander, the emotions will not be agitated, and the energy will not be wasted.

The quiet resting exercises in Qigong are a good means of nourishing the human body's essence, energy and spirit by controlling the mind and body through self-regulation. It requires a high degree of concentration of the mind, calming the mind, eliminating distracting thoughts, relaxing the whole body, reaching a state of emptiness of thoughts, and putting the cerebral cortex in a state of protective inhibition. If you do this for a long time, it can help maintain your energy and spirit. If the essence is sufficient, the energy is strong and the spirit is full, then the spirit will be refreshed and the movements will be vigorous. The elderly can have white hair and a youthful face and prolong their life, while the young can maintain their youthfulness and delay aging.

In short, maintaining sufficient essence, energy and spirit is very important for maintaining human health and prolonging life, and we should pay special attention to the maintenance of the "spirit". In daily life, we should always keep a cheerful spirit, a broad mind and a stable mood to avoid the invasion of mental illness.

Money, sex, fame, food and sleep were called the five desires in ancient Buddhism. In fact, they also correspond to the five elements and five internal organs. Money is gold and corresponds to the lungs, sex is water and corresponds to the kidneys, fame is fire and corresponds to the heart, food is earth and corresponds to the spleen, and sleep is wood and corresponds to the liver. Among the five desires, sex, food and sleep are the most difficult to eliminate. Buddhism has corresponding methods and realms to transcend them. The ancient Taoists said: When the essence is sufficient, one will not think of lust; when the qi is sufficient, one will not think of food; when the spirit is sufficient, one will not think of sleep. In fact, it is a process of constantly enriching the corresponding organs and finally achieving the balance of water and fire and transcending the five desires.

When the essence is full, one does not think about lust. This corresponds to the initial repair stage of the Taoist 100-day foundation building. After passing the four barriers of wine, sex, money and anger, one cuts off the evil thoughts of lust, constantly consolidates the essence, and recovers to the state of a child who has not ejaculated or had sex.

When Qi is sufficient, one will not feel the urge to eat. This corresponds to the Taoist practice of refining essence into Qi, which is the advanced stage of the Taoist 100-day foundation-building. It eventually transforms lust into the Samadhi of Fire and Light, opening up a channel for direct communication with the energy of the universe - the so-called "gathering Qi". This can achieve the effect of not feeling the urge to eat. In ancient times, there were also concepts of fasting and eating Qi. A careful analysis shows that general foods also correspond to the functions of the stomach and spleen. The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine believes that they correspond to the heavenly stems Wu and Ji, and the two earths form a jade tablet, which must be closely related to the connection with the earth position in the center palace.

"The spirit is full and you don't want to sleep". The ancients called it "slaying the sleep demon". In Taoism, it corresponds to the process of refining qi and returning to the spirit. If this process is practiced well, you can stay awake at night (no sleep). In fact, this is related to the fact that qi returns to the internal organs and enters the central channel to make the central channel transparent. Most people can only have qi go through 12 meridians, which follows the law of noon and midnight flow. There will also be the rise and fall of qi at specific times, which causes the psychological and physiological rhythm of people in a day. Sleep is also caused by this reason. When qi enters the central channel, the qi of the internal organs and meridians of the whole body is relatively sufficient, and it is not restricted by the rise and fall of qi caused by the rhythm, so you don't need to sleep and are not restricted by it. Generally speaking, only when the initial stage of building the foundation and filling the leak is completed can the essence be full and not think about lust, and only when you don't think about lust can you refine the essence into qi; only when the refinement of essence into qi is completed can the qi be full and not think about food, and only when you don't think about food can you refine qi into spirit; only when the refinement of qi into spirit is completed can the spirit be full and not think about sleep, and only when you don't think about sleep can you refine the spirit and return to emptiness.

The above is an introduction to the methods to nourish the spirit. I wonder if you understand it. In fact, it is what we usually say: eat well, sleep well, have less lust, and don’t be greedy for money and fame. This sounds quite grand, but this question itself is quite abstract. Can you bring me a bowl of essence, energy and spirit? No, so, how to cultivate it depends on personal opinion, so you should figure it out for yourself.