The way you use your eyes plays a significant role in how energy is directed and stimulated in your body, and so can have a significant effect on your qigong practice. In some exercises there are specific instructions of what you should be doing with your eyes during the exercise. Other times this detail is often not specified. This article will explore some of the principles of how the use of the eyes affects your energy flow, so that you can understand the specific use of this small but important detail in different practices.
We will look at aspects of: Internal vs External Focus, Yin vs Yang stimulation, special awareness, leading the energy with your gaze, brain activation, organ energy activation, harvesting or sending qi, and healing the eyes. When you understand these principles you will be able to make wise choices about how to use your eyes in your regular qigong practice.
Internal vs External Focus In Qigong Guided By Your Eyes
One of the most common questions I get asked about the eyes in qigong is whether the eyes should be open or closed in practice. This article is going to cover other aspects of using the eyes as well, but as this is the title of the article, whether your eyes should be open or closed seems like a good place to start.
The fundamental difference between having your eyes open and your eyes closed is where the focus of your mind, and therefore your energy tends to go. Naturally when your eyes are open, your attention tends to follow your awareness of the visual stimuli out into the world around you. On an unconscious level, the activities of all your organs, hormones, nerves, etc, will be directed to at least some extent to reacting to, or preparing for interaction with the external world.
On the other hand, when you close your eyes, with the strong visual stimuli removed, it is easier for the attention to turn inwards, and therefore for the energy to be directed to the activity of the internal processes of the body. In a small way we are ‘shutting out the world’ so that we can focus more easily on what is within.
Yin vs Yang
This shift between internal and external is part of a broader spectrum of changes between yin and yang. With the eyes open, overall the energy will be more active, and therefore more yang. With the eyes closed, the energy will tend to be more passive and yin. In addition to this, if you do have your eyes open, the direction you look in will also have an effect on how yin or yang the stimulation is. Looking upwards is more yang, the light is brighter, it opens us to heavenly energy, and generally raises our energy. Alternatively, looking down is more yin, the stimulation through our eyes is cooler and darker, we become more receptive to the energy of the earth, and our energy naturally descends.
Finding A Balance
So a few simple changes to the way you use your eyes and direct your gaze will have a significant effect on how yin or yang the stimulation of your energy is. If you have a need, or desire for more yang stimulation, generally you will want to keep your eyes open, and look upward if it fits with the exercise that you are doing. If you want to stimulate your energy in a more yin way, you can close your eyes or look downwards. There are a wide range of situations where we might want more yin or more yang stimulation, and many times where what will serve us best is a balance of the two. And of course if the exercise we are doing includes large movements of our whole body, there are practical special awareness factors that need to be considered. Even if what you want or need is a very yin and relaxing focus, your session is probably not going to be very relaxing, and therefore achieve its objective fully if you are bumping into furniture or knocking things of shelves as you practice! So in these situations we find a place in between yin and yang that allows us to maintain external awareness, while still turning a good portion of our attention and energy inwards. We do this by softening the focus of our eyes, sometimes partially closing them, and by directing our gaze slightly downwards. We can still see what is going on around us, but we don’t focus on it, instead we turn our focus inwards. Often this is more effective at sending the energy inwards than simply closing the eyes completely, for reasons you will discover later in this article.
Yi Leads Qi, Mind Leads Energy – Following Your Hands With Your Eyes In Qigong Exercises
As a general principle where the mind goes, the energy follows, in Chinese this is referred to as the yi leading the qi. Because vision creates such a strong directing stimulus within our mind, directing your gaze is a very effective way to direct your energy. This goes beyond simply whether your focus is inward or outward, yin or yang, into specifically where your focus is. If you look at your left hand, it is easier for you to focus your energy and send it there. If you look at your right foot, the neural pathways to your right foot will open up increasing your conscious awareness and control of it, and you will naturally send more blood and other forms of energy there. For this reason, many exercises recommend that you follow the movement of your hands (or sometimes some other part of your body) during exercises, as this will naturally guide the flow of energy within you out into its intended paths.
It is interesting that even with your eyes closed, this principle still applies. From having taught various qigong meditation practices for many years, I have had the privilege of observing people take their first steps into directing their energy during meditation practices with their eyes closed. For many of us, our sense of sight is so strongly connected to our intention, that even with their eyes closed, many people will still turn their head as if they were looking at parts of their body with their eyes as they direct energy to those areas. This kind of ‘inner sight’ is another valuable tool for working with and developing skill with energy.
Brain Activation Using Your Eyes In Qigong Practice
An interesting aspect of this is that when we look in different directions, different parts of our brains naturally become more active. So, in addition to sending energy out into our limbs and other parts of our bodies as we follow them with our gaze, some exercises contain movements that specifically direct the eyes for the purpose of activating different regions of the brain. Two quite striking examples of this are Dragon Clears a Path, and Dragon Spies its Prey.
Dragon Clears a Path is one of the Twelve Rivers exercises for the organ meridians which you can find in the Qigong Foundation Practices course here. The exercise is specifically for the lungs and the lung meridian, and physically it fully opens and expands the lungs on each side of the body one by one. This helps to release the emotion of grief related to the metal element, which manifests as a kind of holding on and shutting out. Opening the lungs up opens up the ability to release the old and take in the new. This isn’t just physical though, it is psychological too, and so the large circles of the arms in the movement Dragon Clears a Path, also encourage you to look in every direction with your eyes as you follow your hands through the movements. This opens up the pathways of the brain, so that the brain as well as the body can release the old and open up to the new.
Dragon Spies it’s Prey, does something similar but with a slightly different intention. You can find this exercise in the series Waking the Qi, and I also made a recent vlog about this exercise which you can view below.
The exercise is used specifically to bring energy up to the head and release it outwards by looking with the eyes wide in all directions at once. These two exercises stand out and it is easy to see the role of the eyes within them because the activation of the eyes and brain is relatively strong within them. Other exercises use the same principles in a more subtle way, so it is not as obvious, but you miss out on some important benefits from these exercises if you only do the large bodily physical movements and do not apply the principles of using the eyes to direct the energy.
Organ Energy Activation With Your Eyes In Qigong Practice
Another aspect of using the eyes in your qigong practice is how they activate the energy of the organs in your body. The eyes have a strong connection to the liver, so when they are open they tend to activate the energy of the liver. The wider they are open, and the more intense the gaze, the stronger the activation. So some exercises have specific instructions for the eyes because of the effect this will have on the liver, either stimulating or resting it, and these are important to follow in order to receive the full benefit of the exercise.
Earlier in this article I referred to the energy being directed outwards or inwards when our eyes are either open or closed. For those of us with normal vision, we usually tend to rely quite heavily on this sense for an awareness of our position in space and what is going on around us. When we close our eyes, if we still want to maintain this awareness, we do so by activating our other senses more strongly. Our sense of hearing for what is happening in the distance around us, and our sense of touch or proprioception for details of our position in space. For this reason closing our eyes fully is sometimes not as yin or restful as softening the focus and partially closing them. Instead of reducing our overall level of stimulation by reducing our visual input, when we close our eyes fully sometimes we will redirect this energy to the other senses – which can sometimes still leave us just as stimulated overall, it is just that the focus of stimulus has switched from one set of senses to another, a set that we are not as skilled with and actually takes more effort for us to take in the required information from. Which is not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, it can in fact be a very good thing if our intention is to stimulate these other systems and their related organs, it just may not make the activity more yin.
Our sense of hearing relates strongly to our kidneys, our proprioception (awareness of the position of different parts of our body in relation to each other) relates to our muscles, and therefore the earth element and our stomach and spleen. Our subtle sense of touch involves our skin, and therefore the metal element and our lungs. Activating these senses more strongly can be a very effective way to work with the energy in these organs.
Harvesting Or Sending Energy With The Eyes In Qigong Practice
In addition to the various ways that the eyes can affect the way energy is stimulated and directed in different systems of the body, the eyes are also one of our primary openings to the world around us through which we directly take in and send out energy. The taking in is perhaps a little easier to understand than the sending out. We take in light – a form of energy through our eyes. This can have a very significant effect on our wellbeing. One example of a qigong practice that makes use of this is sun gazing. This is usually done at sunrise as the sun just starts to peek over the horizon. The energy of the sun is gentle at this time and can more easily and safely be absorbed into the retina. This then has a beneficial effect on hormone production throughout the body. Sunrise sungazing was one of the many special experiences we were able to have at the most recent Long White Cloud Qigong retreat, you can see some photos and video of the retreat here. There are other versions of sungazing as well, but as a caution, no form of sungazing should be practiced without full instructions from a skilled and experienced instructor, as the retina is easily damaged by too intense or overexposure to sunlight.
The sending of energy through the eyes is possibly a little more challenging to describe in common terms, unless of course you have experienced it. Just as the mouth can both take in and send out, the eyes can also both take in and send out. The energy from the eyes can be quite palpable from someone with sufficient strength, and this can be a significant part of some more advanced practices.
Healing The Eyes With Qigong
And then of course there are qigong practices for healing the eyes. These practices use a combination of all of the principles we have already looked at in this article. Letting in and shutting out light, looking in different directions to activate different parts of the brain and make the tiny muscles of the eyes healthy, and they also often include movements to practice shifting the focus of the eyes from near to far, and sending energy from the palms of the hands to the eyes for their healing.
Conclusion
I apologize if all you wanted was a quick and simple answer of whether you should have your eyes open or closed – but hopefully this exploration of the various principles of how the eyes are used in qigong practice to get the most benefit has been interesting for you, and will provide a basis of understanding that will help you to make wise choices about what to do with your eyes as you practice.
In the end it is your own experience of your practice and the effect that this has on your energy that should be your ultimate guide. You can feel free to experiment with using your eyes in different ways to see what effect this has on your perception of your energy, but understanding these principles will help you to not discard potential benefits you could receive from your practice, because you cannot perceive them immediately. It will give you some clues of what to look for in different practices, as well as ways that you can adapt your practice if there are specific things you are seeking to achieve with your energy. In addition to this, if you are ever not sure about the use of the eyes in a specific exercise, and you feel like there could be something there that would be relevant and beneficial to you, then ask a knowledgeable and experienced teacher for their advice and guidance. Sometimes the use of the eyes is a very specific part of a qigong exercise, and will be emphasized strongly in instruction. Other times the use of the eyes is a more minor detail, there are elements that can influence the overall effect of the exercise, but because they are minor, they may not be emphasized in instruction. And finally, sometimes the use of the eyes is not specifically related to the purpose of the exercise, so it is up to you to choose how you want to use them to influence the overall state of your energy.
Whatever the situation, understanding these principles puts you in a better position to get the most out of your qigong practice!
Yours in Qi!
John Munro
Founder – Long White Cloud Qigong