Neither Man, Nor Butterfly

My Adventure with Tienko Ting

(and Gilbert)
Marcin Fabjaski, PhD

About Tienko, Gilbert, and Me

This is a story of a process of change that took place within one organism (by the name of Marcin
Fabjaski), was initiated by other organism (named Tienko Ting), and involved the basic power of
nature, which is still mysterious to the modern mind. All we can tell about this power comes from
observing how it acts. Seen from the Taoist perspective, this process involves the whole universe. As
the author, however, I do not assume any position. Rather, I aspire to describe what happened between
us during the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013.
Staying at opposite ends of the process, feeling the process clearly within our bodies and minds, we try
to understand its mechanics, logic, and nature. Being children of our respective cultures and histories,
our views and understanding are different. I start writing the text not knowing what to expect. I take
nothing for granted, not even the above-mentioned Taoist philosophy. I have no more made my
books, than my books made me, French philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote. The same is true
about this publication. This is more a spiritual diary than a text designed to be published as a book. Its
conclusions come as a surprise not only to its readers, but also to its writer.
For what is happening to me now, I hesitate to use the word healing. Healing, in its modern Western
usage, means something very close to repairing. And what is happening to me is not repairing at all. If
I had to put a name to it, I would call it attuning. I would love to leave it at that attuning. Our
language, however, demands that I give the verb an object. Imprisoned within its demands, I propose
that the process that Tienko and I have been engaged in is attuning to the process of life.
It all started in China both the concept of Tao and this story. On May 3, 2012, I went to the Chinese
tropical island of Hainan for a month-long course in Chinese meditative gymnastics called chi gong.
My neurons stored snippets of books on the subject. One of them was Tienkos Natural Chi
Movement. I bought the Kindle version, lured by the word natural in the title. My secondary reason for
going to Hainan was to write an article about chi gong for the Polish magazine Coaching. Ill explain
my primary reason for going in a moment. First, I think this is the right place to introduce myself.
When I went to Hainan, I was forty-two, slightly overweight, the holder of a PhD in philosophy, and a
Buddhist. Id written five books, made a few documentary films, and coached several hundred people
in methods of self-development that I created. I was also in a long-term relationship with Gilbert.
Gilbert is fairly well known, at least in medical circles. Gilberts full name is Gilbert-Meulengracht
Syndrome, and it is often referred to as GS. Wikipedia describes GS as the most common hereditary
cause of increased bilirubin affecting up to 5% of the population. It causes people to be tired all the
time. Unfortunately, fatigue is not all that it causes. According to Wikipedia, other symptoms of GS
include difficulty maintaining concentration, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, loss of weight, itching
(with no rash), and others. I had them all, except the ones I would not mind having the loss of
appetite and weight.
The major reason for my trip to Hainan Island was to improve my health and develop the habit of
daily physical activity. For someone like me a not-sporty person with a history of meditating for
long periods in Buddhist monasteries in Asia chi gong seemed to be a perfect answer to my need for
activity. It is physical, yet meditative. And it helped. I learned a sequence of movement that made me
feeling lighter, younger, and happier. Still, I wanted more.

I wanted to heal and to have the healing be as natural as possible. So while on Hainan, I went to a
website (www.naturalchimovement.com) that was listed at the back of Tienkos book and sent an
email to an address I ,found on the site, asking for what I wanted.

Movement Without the Employment of Will

A few days after contacting Tienko Ting, I was standing in the middle of a room in an apartment in a
block of flats in Singapore, not knowing what to think. The time was 5 a.m. I was standing on loose
legs, relaxed, as Tienko had instructed. In the state of Connecticut in the U.S., where he was at the
time (standing as well, I imagined), it was 5 p.m. Twelve time zones separated us. In terms of time
zones, you cannot be more separated on this planet than Tienko and I were at that moment. Tienko was
aware of my presence, as well as that of nine other people in different parts of the world who had
chosen to be remotely activated on that day. He did nothing. As he explained in one of our subsequent
conversations, chi activation takes place by itself by virtue of natural processes.
Standing in that flat before dawn, I had very few thoughts (just as Tienko suggested), but the ones I
was aware of were rather skeptical. The theory of natural movement of chi, which Tienko expounded
on in his book, was fresh and philosophically elegant. According to this theory, every system in nature,
including our psychophysical system, follows natural laws and tends to maintain balance. The energy
of chi in every human being always works to bring the individuals spiritual and physical energy into
balance or at least into pseudo-equilibrium, which is balance at a low level. Once we know how the
phenomenon works, we can act in a meditative way to make it more smooth and effective in order to
enhance our health and well-being.
Tienkos theory makes sense, does not contain logical errors, and agrees with my practice of
meditation. Nevertheless, the idea of remote activation smelled to me a bit like a cheap New Age
scam. It appeared that way until my body started to move without the employment of my will. For a
few seconds, images from The Exorcist came to my mind, only to be quickly replaced by a feeling of
ease and pleasure, as my body started to rock gently from side to side. I could easily get tuned into the
movement and then relax. For most of the session, my body swayed rhythmically, causing my hands to
strike gently against my sides and shoulders. After an hour as I had been instructed I finished, or
rather the process finished itself.
What had actually happened to me? That was one of the questions I asked Tienko on Skype a few days
later.
I have several theories, but Im not entirely sure, he answered, using words that seemed strange for a
healer. What he said got me thinking for the first time of possibly writing a book with him.
The expression I dont know has long been for me the vocabular equivalent of Here comes a chance
for adventure.
What he said next told me that whatever might happen between us would not be just any adventure. It
might just transform my life. He said, We live in chi, being always surrounded by the flow of
information transmitted differently than by direct contact or various devices. The way you moved
during the activation was meant by nature. You moved in a way that was best for your body.
If some ancient stoic philosophers were to listen to this explanation, they would no doubt shake their
heads. They just loved to do what nature wants. Well, East and West sometimes do meet.

Tienko and I agreed that from that day on, he would work on me remotely every day and I would write
about my experience of being the recipient of remote chi healing. My job seems to be easier than his,
to write down how it affected my days. I will also continue to practice Natural Chi Movement every
day. For more than a year, we each did what we said we would.

With Tienko on Skype

Tienko, what happens to you during activation?
Activation does not require me to feel or be aware of the specific illnesses of the people involved or
any special intervention, as there is during chi healing, where feedback is important. Activation is
more like spiritual communication, which is not based on specific knowledge or getting parts of the
body into a response. Saying that it does not involve anything physical in particular, I must add that it
does involve the whole world.
Do you feel different during activation than in your normal being in the world?
I am just there.
Does it have any phases a beginning, increasing intensity, and an end?
There is a kind of engagement, like a sense of waking something up. I feel the connection with others
is a little bit as if Im testing a piece of new equipment. There are some sensations.

Returning Home
Returning to my apartment with bags full of groceries hanging symmetrically from my arms, I realize
that something is different. Tension in my chest disperses. My lips curve to smile without a command
being consciously sent from the part of my social brain that has evolved for this very reason.
My smile continues.
Not good. When you smile at people on the street in Poland, they sometimes take it as an act of
aggression. It is so unusual that it threatens them.
Still, I smile. Well, something smiles.
I am lighter and lighter, more euphoric. I feel as if Im coming to some borders and hitting against
them. Something blocks the process from overflowing outside of my mind. There is one thing I would
like to break the limits of normalness.
My body is light and vibrating.
I enter the kitchen, put the bags down, sit down, and look at my wife. She is cooking smiling at me.
When she smiles, it resonates with my mind-body state. Now I laugh. I cannot help it.
She looks at me and frowns.
I tell her, Honey, this is a strange state, one you wouldnt find described in a proper scientific book of
psychology. Youd have to refer to fiction to find any mention of it.
My wife says, Honey, Im starting to worry about you.
Part of me still controls it. I try to comfort her by saying that.
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What I dont say is that I wish that part of me wasnt controlling it.

Nocturnal Realization
My body leads me to moving while I practice Natural Chi Movement. It suddenly comes to me that
this is the right way to do things. To live more naturally, one needs to reverse the chain of command.
Let nature give the orders, and let the ego obey them. Remove the ego from the captains deck.

What Moves This Body?

Why am I surprised that my movement during a Natural Chi Movement session is symmetrical, as if
somehow ordered? Why do I expect it to be chaotic? Just because I am not the mover? Just because
there is no discursive intellect behind the movement? Because IT moves itself intelligently?
My surprise tells me a lot about my metaphysical beliefs. According to them, the mind is thinking and
capable of intelligent action. The physical body, on the other hand, is chaotic and irrational.
There is an intelligent design in the pattern of a sunflowers seeds, yet the sunflower has no intellect.
There is an intelligent pattern in a way a toad reaches out its tongue to catch a fly, yet we know that
action is not planned by the amphibian by means of discursive thinking. The toad does not go through
the mental mess that we people experience. Its thoughts do not go into spinning a mental labyrinth as
it catches sight of the fly: Should I move a little more to the left to increase my chances of a tasty
breakfast? What if I dont catch any flies today? What will sustain me then? What will become of my
wife and family? The fight she and I had this morning was awful. And it was not necessary at all. I
admit it. Shit, I missed the fly, and it flew by so close. Focus, toad, focus!
I know nature is intelligent. It demonstrates intelligence without what we call thinking. Ive
observed it million of times. Yet I am surprised that there are intelligent patterns in my own
movement. It seems that I assumed that all intelligence in my own body should come from my
thinking. In that regard, I am a child of and a victim of Ren Descartes.
Now I see how important it is for my freedom from illusion, for my emotions, and for my sanity
to realize that there is intelligent movement within me, and that movement is not intellect-conceived.
The only way I attune to the process of life while doing my practice is by virtue of NOT being the
agent of the movements. This very fact takes me from the place of ego and puts me into a larger
picture, in which I am part of an ever-changing process.
Then is the principle that organizes my movement while I do Natural Chi Movement outside of
myself? The only answer is that this question makes no sense, just as the idea of outside and inside
makes no sense.
What does this conclusion mean for understanding the process of my healing, for understanding what
is initiated/ symbolized/ performed by Tienko Ting working on my organism from the other shore of
the Atlantic Ocean? What he does changes much more than how I feel. It changes the universe. If there
is no real I being a subject to change, and if there are no other selves, all possible change is a
modification of the whole cosmos.
Everything changes all the time in nature. In fact, Nature could well be called Change. These two
words are synonymous. Putting aside tons of scientific evidence and the teachings of sages from the
past, we can learn the truth from our daily experience: losing jobs, loves, close ones, being forced to

leave places we like, losing touch with the world of younger generations. Our experience teaches that
Nature is Change.
Yet we dont think so.
We resist. We get anxious. We revolt. We insist that there are non-changing entities. An example?
Well I, the agent of the whole experience, am one of the non-changing entities. Denying the reality
of change results in even greater suffering. In real life, unlike in some sports, we cannot form our
hands into a T sign and demand a moment of reprieve. Nature gives us no option like that.
Is resistance to change the only strategy possible? How would it be to speak the most universal
language on Earth the language of transition? Would speaking it fluently mean befriending change?
And finally, would it result in experiencing the joy of change?

A Note After Sitting Meditation

Following a Long Session of Natural Chi Movement
My body relaxes all over but not my eyes. In contrast, they became very tense, almost painful. They
start moving rapidly by themselves, as if they would like to break free from the tension, independently
from me, this bodys agent.
I get it now. There is a self-referred experience, and some other kind of experience. And the second
one is good.

With Tienko on Skype

I was surprised by the intelligent movement of my body, which was not dependent on my will. What
does it come from?
There is a mind and there is a nature. There is a physical and a spiritual part of you. They are
synchronized. They cannot call each other or understand each other. The medium of communication
between them is chi, which has both features physical and spiritual. Chi bears messages between
the two. Spiritual mind is called nature. It is intelligent, yet it does not perform conceptual thinking.
You reached this nature, your spiritual mind. And the mind was processing your quest, gave you
feedback, and sent your message back. I call it inspiration. You are a writer, and I am sure it happens
sometimes when you write. During Natural Chi Movement, spiritual energy transforms into physical
energy, and that is what produces some kind of movement. It can be chi movement or physical
movement.

Neither Man, Nor Butterfl y

Twenty-four hundred years ago, the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi, who is also known as Chuang Chou,
wrote the following story, which is still famous today. Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly,
a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didnt know
he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou.
But he didnt know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming
he was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is
called the Transformation of Things. [Burton Watson, translator, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1996), page 45.]

I have read this passage many times. When I read it through my Natural Chi Movement experience, it
says something new to me. Natural Chi Movement is all moving one hundred percent. Even if I stay
motionless, there is something moving on: my breath, the atoms building up my body, chi.
I am a constant transformation, perhaps not from butterfly to man and the other way around, but just
from one body-mind state to another. It does not really matter from WHAT to WHAT is being
transformed. What matters is THAT I am a process of transformation.
Zhuangzi, you should not be surprised or confused. You are what you identify with sometimes man,
sometimes butterfly. If you do not identify with either, you are neither of them. What dreams is as
illusionary as what is dreamed about. It does not matter which of the two is a butterfly.

IN & JAN
Jan is
I was about to start writing the story of one of my clients by stating his age and profession. After
two words Jan is I realized that would be wrong. Jan is not his age or his profession, and my story
is to illustrate exactly that point.
Let me start again.
Someone looking at Jan from outside his neighbor, lets say, or a journalist writing for some reason
about him would see a handsome man of fifty-five; owner of a nice house in Warsaws suburbia and
a small successful graphics company; father to twelve-year-old Ja and husband to Julia, a beautiful
forty-five-year-old actress and Jas mother. He is also a stepfather to Julias two teenage kids Ania
and Jerzy from her former marriage to a man who disappeared abroad a long time ago.
A successful man, living his comfortable suburban life. A HAPPY life.
Is he?
He himself says no. That is why he came to me for a few sessions of Mind-Body Bridging, the method
I use to work with clients.
When he starts telling his story, you stop wondering why you dont see a smile on his face when he
drives his Volvo.
There is no affection in his marriage. He thinks his wife is with him for his money. His company is not
doing so well in this time of economic crisis. Thats even worse than before when it was profitable but
made him unhappy. To answer his clients needs, he says he betrayed his artists soul. He lost the
wonderful feeling of being a creator that he had in his youth. He no longer thinks of himself as a
painter. He just works and earns, and he would like his life to be more of an adventure.
He dreams of having one real conversation with his son, instead of a series of fights. He would like to
divorce his wife but is afraid that would affect their son badly.
Is he then AN UNHAPPY one?
He himself says yes. I do not think this is the case either.
Recently he told me this story. A week ago he took his wife to a fancy restaurant in a beautiful
mansion outside Warsaw. He made sure no one would disturb their meal in a corner of a garden. His
8

plan was to talk with her, as they had not talked for years to make sure that she loves him or to get
clear that she doesnt, and subsequently to decide whats next in their relationship.
He started by saying how much he cares. And then he stopped.
She was not interested in that kind of conversation. She directed the exchange into the usual trivia. He
tried again, but she made sure their discourse stayed shallow.
He gave up. But as he agreed to her terms on how they would converse with each other, he suddenly
felt something.
Here is how he put it the words of a graphic artist: I gave up and let myself become involved in the
casual talk with her, and I felt as if I was being erased by an eraser from reality.
Interesting choice of words, isnt it?
Erased from reality.
What actually was being erased?
His story of being a successful man? No, that story remained in the banalities of their conversation.
His story of being an unhappy man? Not that one either. That story was a shadow to the first one.
Whatever was being erased was neither of his two stories. Yet it was what he himself considered his
real, true self.
We are not our stories. You realize that while you practice Natural Chi Movement. The choreography
of the movement does not originate from your biography. It comes from some other source. We are
one with the process of life. And when something cuts us off from the process of life be it a trivial
conversation, or thinking habits, or worrying about what will never come we no longer are.

Red and Black Bugs

The entire herd of them. They run around the gravel alley like crazy. Seemingly randomly, but as if
with a mission. They have the most beautiful color Ive ever seen. Wow, they are fast! Where did they
come from? Where do they rush to? They are beautiful and disgusting at the same time. I have never
seen anything so fascinating. The sun shines, spring smells with all its odors. Red and black bugs have
my full attention. Im on a spring walk in the park with my mother. I am three, maybe four years old.
Although this happened a very long time ago, I see those bugs still before my eyes.
Unfortunately, it is just a replay of the old faded picture under my eyelids. I do not feel today as I felt
then. I check in the picture book of insects. It seems that the red and black bugs I saw years ago were
red firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus), which live in the branches of deciduous trees. They live in herds,
and some adults exhibit maternal qualities in caring for offspring.
My experience of those bugs in childhood and my current knowledge about P. apterus are two
different types of cognition. Should I watch the bugs today, I would never experience the wonder I felt
some forty years ago. The first experience seemed authentic, the second contaminated with concepts.
The first direct, the second filtered through the cotton wool of thoughts. Is it possible that adult human
life consists only of second-hand experiences, or rather experience-like situations?

And if so, can real experience be restored by some meditative means? Can we design a device, or
better yet a line of devices that help induce the process. My first session of Natural Chi Movement
was a returning to the freshness of a childs experience. In subsequent sessions, that was not so. What
should one do to get rid of adult thought-filtered perceptions for longer periods of time, to experience
wonder again?
At the moment, that question remains for me unanswered.

In-vacuuming
Here we are again, waking up in the morning. Myself, my wife on my left side, and Gilbert within. In
the morning, Gilbert assumes his nasty form. He fills up my whole trunk with a dulled, stable, slightly
vibrating ache. A feeling as if there were a vacuum inside, making sure that no well-being or energy is
left un-sucked. Not the nicest thing when you must get up and continue living.
I will not entertain the depressive part of my psyche with imagining what kind of terrible and
incurable illness would cause such pain, since I noticed some time ago that this line of thought does
not color the rest of the day pinkish. I will rather wait for the pain to lessen. I know that my awareness
makes the pain slowly cease. If I am lucky, Gilbert will never fully wake up. Awareness is for him
what a lullaby is for a baby.
Sleep, Gilbert. Sleep.
Not this time, he answers. Dont be selfish. Let me have something of the day. And so the clutter
in my head wakes up, to its own, semi-independent life.
Am I becoming crazy, having my imaginary dialogues with Gilbert?
Yes, if talking is the interaction of two existing selves.
No, if words are just one form or aspect of some basic communication process that goes on all the time
within a human being and between a human being and the environment. One of the meditative
experiences I had makes me believe that the second explanation is what is happening with me.
A note from my meditation notebook from May 2011:
It is late night, and I am the last one sitting in a chair and meditating in an empty room. Most people
that came to this retreat in the Czech Republic to learn meditation from the Burmese master Saydaw U
Tejaniya are already sleeping.
Silence.
I notice good equanimity and strong awareness within. Then I have this impulse: to go to bed. I decide
not to. Why waste such a nice awareness? So I keep sitting.
Seconds pass. A new impulse to go to bed comes. This time I see that what wants to go to bed is not
me. Just a few seconds ago, I would swear, it was me wanting to sleep. The realization comes: this
first me was a lie, a mask, a trick by which the process of life (mind-body in environment) tried to
get a desired result to put this body to sleep.
The Process of Life speaks many languages, depending with whom It talks. When It talks to a self, it
uses words or pictures or feelings, because any self can only understand words or pictures or feelings.

10

These are entities, which self can relate to, since it only gets into relationship with something that
confirms its existence. Self does not understand other languages, such as the language of silence. It is
also blind and deaf to the native language of the Process of Life, which is the language of transition.
The Process of Life is intelligent. It could keep sending me messages: Marcin, go to sleep. This is a
natural thing for a tired body to do at this time of the night. Act rationally, man.
I refuse by saying: I know. I am tired, but I need to keep meditating to get enlightened. I am not so
young any more, you know, and time is running.
To avoid my resistance, the Process of Life disguises itself as mySelf. So the first impulse to go to bed
expressed in my consciousness as words suggesting going to bed and the feeling of tirednesswas
seen as mySelf wanting to go to sleep.
A few seconds later awareness allowed me to see through the disguise. And when the impulse came the
second time, I knew it did not come from mySelf.
Self is just a languageor, to put it more precisely, a multi-language built out of words, pictures, and
feelings. It is not a subject speaking the language, or a container in which the language is spoken. Self
IS the language. Self is just a message, which the Process of Life installs in discursive areas of
consciousness. It is a tool to navigate in reality. And it is not necessary.
Pavlovs dogs probably believed that it was their decision to produce saliva when they heard the
buzzer.
Gilbert is not part of this whole disguise, because I am aware of his fictional nature. Gilbert is just a
coping strategy to allow me to produce a slight inner smile from the bitter jokes he and I exchange to
deal with the pain.
It is a safe procedure. As a measure to remain sane, I need to lecture him from time to time about his
fictional nature. And so I do now in the morning, when he tries to lure me into thinking about all those
horrible diseases I must have.
Must be cancer, he whispers. The symptoms match. He hopes I will forget that I was never trained
as a medical doctor.
You could be right, I say to Gilbert. Except that you do not exist. You are just a voice in my head,
and I allow you to speak to have some fun before I open my eyes and see all the shadows of grey
behind the window and think of all the usual dull stuff to be done. You are just a hereditary cause of
increased bilirubin found in up to five percent of the population that I fancy to anthropomorphize.
Hereditary causes cannot speak. They have no selves, or for that matter, no mouths.
Youre right, Gilbert answers unperplexed. I cannot speak. And I am not a self. But we are not that
different, you know. Thats right, you can speak. But you are not a self either.
Tienko on Skype, during some longer conversation on other topics, says casually: The awful feeling
that wakes you up will soon cease.
I am afraid to engage into the subject. Or perhaps it is Gilbert who is afraid.

11

Leave the Movement Alone

Natural Chi Movement, a night session: There is movement, and there is what expects. There is
movement, and there is what comments. I want what expects and what comments to dissolve into the
movement.
Now there is movement, and there is what wants.

Waking Up with My Wife Only

I wake up, and Gilbert is not there. Just my wife and me. This morning is the first time in years there is
no awful feeling in my chest. I am not tired. I am not crashed by pains in my body. I could just stand
up and live.
I do not stand up, just to contemplate the moment. My wife is still sleeping. Morning light comes
through the window. There is no pain. Do other people experience morning this way? Do they wake up
ready to live without pain? Do they know how lucky they are?
It is easy in this painless state to feel that life itself is meditation. That was a conclusion I arrived at a
long time ago, when I woke up from the confusion that meditation is being mindful moment by
moment. It is not. When I try to be mindful moment by moment, time becomes the subject of my
meditation. And time is a concept, not reality.
The second thing I tried, based on the assumption that meditation is being in touch with the senses,
piece by piece, including the sense of mind, was not working either. When I try to be mindful piece by
piece, the subject of my meditation is space. And space is a concept, not reality.
The realm of my meditation effort is being. It is everything, and not time or space or breath. When I
focus on breath, I reject what is not breath, so that is not a meditation either. Now, having not Gilbert
in our bed, I do not have to reject anything. Life itself is meditation.

With Tienko on Skype

What is the ultimate goal of Natural Chi Movement for a practitioner?
It is very straightforward. It is what Bodhidharma called getting above all physical attachment, all
physical appearances. It is the elevation of spiritual movement. It is the same goal all Taoist sages
had: the transformation of energy into the spiritual realm before the body dies. What is nice is that you
do not have to practice anything painfully. The process develops itself. You will know that by the
increased sensitivity of your mind. More and more inspiration comes to you more freely spiritual
inspiration, not just physical.

Old Buddy, You Shouldnt Be Here

I should not expect so much the next morning. Gilbert is back, weaker that before he disappeared, but
SO present. The intellect of a trained philosopher takes it easy. It whispers to my ears that if I had had
no expectations, I would not be disappointed now. That might have persuaded my reason, but only my
reason. And thats not enough.
The allover feeling is full disappointment. And dis-appointment means that my expectations and I
have not met. I need to get rid of one of the two to be fine.

12

Since reality is what changes all the time, alternating painless mornings with painful ones,
understanding should also change. You cannot understand something once and for all. I had this
concept that I was ill, and now thanks to Natural Chi Movement and Tienkos efforts I became
healthy. It might have been a good concept for yesterdays morning, but it is not good enough for
todays.
And here it is, my Identity System, ready to defend the truth that I was healed, using spinning thoughts
as a weapon. It argues that todays pain may be just an illusion. It wants me to defend yesterdays
position, even though my consciousness has changed, and I do not believe it now. When I get bored
with I am still healthy, my Identity System assumes the opposite position: I will never be healed. No
difference for him. He just wants to have a position, since a position guarantees his identity. There are
no positions in reality, so my Identity System is in constant need. When you are a constant lack, you
need to produce tension.
And it is not true that I have not gotten something. I have learned that illness and health are just like
man and butterfly illusions on the two side of an ever-changing process.

Child Among Monks

There is a version of the following story describing the quest for enlightenment that you can read and
reread in thousands of spiritual books on the subject. And then there is an unromantic version of it that
may happen when you stop reading and pursue the quest.
Shwe Oo Min monastery in Myanmar was where I went on the quest in 2002 and 2003. I stayed there
for two months, following three months of strict retreat at another Burmese monastery near Yangon.
After about a month, something changed in my perception, and it wasnt subtle. It was radical. I
noticed the change first while facing the concrete wall at the end of my walking meditation route.
When I initially came to the monastery, that wall was all gray and flat. After a month, it stared
shimmering with colors and became three-dimensional.
That was just the start. The main course was what happened inside myself what I can describe only
as becoming a bunch of vibrations, which turned into fluctuations of energy. On one particular night, it
all stopped both the energy dance and the me that observed the energy dance. It was as if I was no
longer. After that, surprisingly enough, I continued living.
That was new and big. That was a first-time experience. I experienced something I had not
experienced ever before. Ever.
The last time I experienced something I had not experienced ever before was when I was perhaps three
years old. It might have been a brand new taste or scent or observation. Perhaps it was my first
thunderstorm. Maybe it was when I saw the red and black bugs. I dont remember what it was. I dont
remember what I did. Most probably, I ran to my mother with an expression on my face that gave her
no options. She had to hug me.
In the Burmese monastery, there was no mom. There was no one I could run to except monks, and
they spoke little English and were not really impressed by what I had experienced. The monastery did
not offer me any mechanism of integrating this revolutionary experience, and my life after the
monastery offered even less. I wanted to be sure of what had happened to me, to be able to name and
communicate it in any language to myself or others. But I never got the luxury.

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Is a need to have all-experience explained and expressed in words an obstacle when it comes to
integrating Natural Chi Movement into my life? Would it be possible just to move without
understanding what it means?
To be free and to be certain these are contradictory aspirations. To be free is to be uncertain in a
special way. To be free is to be uncertain fearlessly.

Two Kinds of Sadness

They are sometimes called oncological patients, a euphemism to cover the probability of their death
soon. Sometimes I work with them. I teach them Mind-Body Bridging or tell them about stoic
philosophy. They teach me wisdom.
A woman, about fifty years old, with recurring lung cancer, told me about two kinds of sadness she
experiences: one good and one bad. They both make her sad, but they each make her sad differently.
When she is sad in a first way, she feels the emotion in her body as soft, healthy, and cathartic. Sure,
she is still sad, but naturally sad. The second kind of sadness is stiff, sharp, and devastating. She feels
as if her body were armor. Engaging awareness, she said, is the best way to switch from bad to good
sadness. You can unfreeze from the armor of bad emotions. Stiffness of the body resembles stiffness of
mind.
This story and Natural Chi Movement even more teaches me that my body is at my disposal, in a
very special way, as a potential gift. I can offer it to the realm of egoistic congestion or to the realm of
nature. The feeling, which the body offers in return, is distinct in both the cases. When put into
egoistic congestion, the body may return itself with anxiety, sometimes panic, an overwhelming
feeling that something went terribly wrong. Offered to nature, the body just is. When sick, it is sick
nothing more or less.
During Natural Chi Movement, I offer my body to nature. Nature takes it, for most of the session,
from the false egoistic self. This is why practice feels so good. It cannot be wrong, because nature is
never wrong. Only self can be wrong.
We are bodies. We may be something else than bodies as well. But each of us humans is a body for
sure. Being so, instead of searching for wisdom outside the body (as most philosophers do), we can
simply offer our own body to wisdom or to nature, which is the very same thing.

An Open Process, or Giving a Hug to Gilbert

Hi, Gilbert,
Did you know that the concrete phenomenon of the body may belong to the realm of ego or the realm
of nature? Consciousness determines which realm the body is in. One can shift realms through a shift
in consciousness. What matters isnt WHAT happens to the body, but HOW what happens happens to
the body.
When I started working with Tienko Ting, I considered him someone who would perhaps heal me,
engaging in the process the whole cosmos if required. During our adventure, I was happier when I felt
better and sadder when I felt worse. I always hoped for feeling good and for a final farewell to you,
Gilbert.
Was this a way of nature though? No.
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So now, Gilbert, welcome back. I do not have to hate you. After all, you are nothing but a ridiculous
level of bilirubin. I no longer need to pay exaggerated attention to you. I am not healed, but my
consciousness has changed. In the future, I may get completely healed from you or I may not. It does
not matter.
Perhaps now is a good moment to stop writing this text. Writing is a process and not writing is a
process as well. What if I cease putting letters on the page? Nothing really. Writer, not writer
butterfly, man. Does it matter? Life continues to write itself freely.
Your Old Buddy, Marcin

Why My Letter to Gilbert Was Not the End of This Story

Thats it. Gilbert is gone, Tienko told me on Skype.
I was not so sure. I felt better, but the doctors and Wikipedia said that Gilbert is a genetic illness that is
impossible to cure. Besides, I already had an ending for this story, which was both open and
philosophically balanced: Gilberts still here, but I am okay with him, my awareness widened. You
know that, if you read the letter above.
Do the medical examination, Tienko said. My skepticism must have reached him, despite the fact
that we used no cameras this time.
So I got tested. Two months later, I am ashamed to admit. When the lab technician handled me the
results, I had this thought that I was receiving an answer to my letter from Gilbert. It was in a proper
envelope. He did not reply by e-mail. It will not be eloquent, I knew. It will consist of names of
substances, of which we humans are carriers, and some numbers. Does that make it any less a letter?
What a crazy world. You write a letter to your anthropomorphic illness as part of a not-yet-published
Kindle single, and the illness answers you on paper folded into an envelope. What a charming
comeback.
Then I looked.
You should know that referential value in medical jargon means a norm. Now, this last paragraph of
this story belongs to Gilbert, concerns me, and tells a lot about Tienko: Full bilirubin: 1.1 Mg/ dl,
referential value [. 02 1.2].
It was the first time in my life that my bilirubin tested within the normal range.

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About Marcin and Tienko

Marcin Fabjaski, PhD
Marcin has worked as an academic lecturer and researcher, as well as a journalist and a director of
documentary films. He is the author of seven books (in Polish), including the philosophical self-help
books Street Stoicism and Trust Your Life: Do Not Fall in Love with a Sparrow Flying By. Marcin is
the creator of SELFOFF, the philosophical school of attunement to the process of life.
(www.selfoff.com)
Tienko Ting, PhD
Tienko is an aerospace engineer who discovered more than 20 years ago that he has the gift of being
able to detect spiritual energy and direct its flow in a way that is precise and profound. He uses this
gift for activation and healing. Tienko is the creator of Natural Chi Movement a daily practice that is
the simplest and most direct way to access the power of chi for health and rejuvenation. He created the
Natural Chi Foundation and is the author of Natural Chi Movement: Accessing the World of the
Miraculous. (www.naturalchimovement.com)

For more information about Natural Chi activations and healing, please visit
www.NaturalChiMovement.com
or email us at
info@ naturalchimovement.com

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