Literally, xin (心) refers to the physical heart, though it is sometimes translated as "mind" as the ancient Chinese believed the heart was the center of human cognition. For this reason, it is also sometimes translated as "heart-mind". For this blog, that is exactly how we want it translated.

If you recall back to the post on Using the Mind, you may think that Yi was translated as mind, and this could appear confusing. But it is really about the right terminology to describe differing aspects of mind.

Thought

Firstly, and the most superficial part of mind is thought. I say superficial, as you don't really have your own thoughts. I say this because I believe that most thoughts you have are simply and output from what you have experienced through the senses. If it is just an output from the senses, then it is not really yours now is it?

Intention (Yi)

Another layer of mind is intention, or Yi. This is commonly referred to as 'will power'. You can will your body to move, or will your mind to think along the lines of a type of thought. Say, think about thoughts that remind you of the beach.

Concentration

We touched on Concentration, when I introduced the 5 Principles. It is the ability to use the Yi or will-power to focus the awareness aspect of your mind.

Heart-Mind (Xin)

Underlying all the above aspects of mind is what is called Xin, or Heart-Mind. It is a substratum of habit energy that is much deeper. Hence, why in modern psychology it is referred to as the unconscious-mind or subconscious. It is this area of the mind that requires change if we wish to experience true transformation in our life.

But How to Change One's Heart?

The ability to change your destiny requires first that one change their own Heart-Mind. In short, you need to create a new way of being or a new 'habit energy' that will act as a trajectory to change your destiny.

This is achieved by using the Will-Power (Yi) to transform the Heart-Mind (Xin).

Much like how I described in the previous post how Yi is used to lead the Qi to perform Qi Gong, one can just reuse this formula over and over to program in a new behavioural pattern. It's really all about repetition, and that is why concentration is so important.

So say you are unhappy but you want to be happy. Then how do you do it?

Well, using the above, the mind is having unhappy thoughts because the heart-mind is programmed with unhappy thoughts and feelings. Like seeds in soil, these are manifesting up into the conscious mind as unhappiness. This then can lead to unhappy actions like tiredness or a rejection of society.

So to change the unhappiness into happiness, one needs to start thinking of things that make them happy (and also physically remove themselves from the unhappy situation if one exists). With daily focus on producing happy thoughts, combined with infusing this into the energetic system (Qi Body), one is literally re-programming themselves like a computer. They are planting new seeds in the Heart-Mind (Xin), that will then produce fruits of happy thoughts.

Learning More

If you would like to learn more on this, then please revisit my earlier posts on the 5 Principles of Wing Chun Qi Gong.

Up Voting

Hit the upvote button if you like this post, or this post has helped you in anyway. This not only helps me, but also helps more people to learn about Wing Chun Qi Gong.

Sincerely,
Sifu Jordan
(Don't Worry, Relax, Be Happy, Concentrate and Do Your Best)