The main thing I like about Qigong is not feeling alone. I can be on my own but I feel like I am with the energy. It is not something I can see but I feel connected with it. The energy doesn’t have any boundaries, it has no beginning or end. It doesn’t mean anything is special about me or I am in some lofty position. It is just that I am aware of it and know it is there.

That is why I always check myself and control myself because I don’t want to lose that connection. I have lost it in the past so I know what that entails. It is more important to me to be with energy than trying to gratify myself with money or other insubstantial aims. I suppose that is more important to me than anything else.

Every day I burn incense at an altar in my home and even though I am not on any particularly high level with my Qigong and have to always work on myself I feel that I am surrounded by energy all of the time. I suppose I have mental issues and that would play a part but I am comforted by the knowledge that we are never alone.

It isn’t necessarily a panopticon Christian type of thing or a vague new-age hunch gleaned from a mish-mash of disparate diaspora. It is more like a feeling from the practice itself, it is somewhat practical. I am not trying to achieve empty power but instead, keep my mind and body in working order. I am not the most impressive specimen and far off anything impressive. I just feel connected to nature’s energy.

It is a nice feeling anyway and I love the way energy fills you and surrounds you even if you don’t quite understand why. I suppose it is like how you can get a feeling from a song, that energy is imparted if only for a moment. Some songs or music bring back memories or feelings. Movies are another way to impart a small energy supplement. I suppose it is a supplement as it doesn’t encapsulate the entirety of the energy on offer.

In some ways, alcohol can have a similar effect or drugs, where you then tap into that energy stimulant, it opens pathways, can close pathways then you always want that feeling that moment. I suppose with Qigong and physical practice you realise that a lot of energy is fleeting, sometimes fake. When you have everything though you essentially have nothing, yet as LaoZi says a vessel has to be empty to be able to fill it.