Door IX · Part Three · The Center: Of the Sun That Turns Two Ways
«When the light learns two paths, the heart grows still in the middle».
Touch the door to open it.
The Great Bird Spreads Its Wings
The book describes this form step by step. The description accompanies learning with an instructor and, afterwards, helps you remember the movements.
«I have decided not to teach these arts to anyone under eighteen». Common Guide to the Practices.
- Opening
- Sense, soften, and smile from the heart.
- Repetitions
- The choice, frequency and repetitions of each form are learned with the instructor.
- Closing
- When you finish, release and leave room for the flow of Chi and for stillness. Complete the common closing at the lower Dantian and the facial massage.
- Care
- If a movement causes pain or dizziness, stop.
The photograph of this door
There is a photograph of that moment. I did not know it was being taken; Sifu Anthony Korahais, a disciple of Sigung and a teacher in Gainesville, took it in the garden where we practiced. My head is thrown back, my mouth open, my arms open as if my chest had opened by itself. Behind me, two workshop companions carry on with their own practice. The photograph showed the gesture. The rest I had lived within.
The full story is in the book.
To carry into the day
«I offer myself as a temple»
A personal gesture for this door, independent of the school’s exercise:
- Sit with your soles on the ground; a back that holds, a chest that softens.
- Name, very softly, a person you would like to speak with again. If there is something to ask their forgiveness for, say it; if not, their name is enough.
- Incline your head a little and stay that way for a few breaths.
- Place one hand on your heart and the other on your forehead, and say inwardly a phrase of your own. Mine is: “I offer myself as a temple.”
- Breathe without haste. Stay a moment with the name you have spoken, then return to what you were doing.
Seven days
Each day, name very softly a person you would like to speak with again. Then mark the day.
0 of 7 days
«If something does not serve you, let it go». What you mark stays on this device.
Write from there
If you can, write on white paper with a graphite pencil. If you don’t have them at hand, write here and then print your notebook.
What you write here is neither sent nor saved: it is erased when you close the site or reload the page. Print it before you leave, and read your journal again often.
More about this door
- Disciple
- «How may I come to the supersensual life, so that I may see God and hear Him speak?
- Master
- If you can lift yourself for a moment to where no creature dwells, you will hear what God speaks.
- Disciple
- Is that near or far?
- Master
- It is within you; and if you could be silent for one hour from all your willing and all your senses, you would hear the unspeakable words of God».
Böhme was a shoemaker in Görlitz. In the dialogue he wrote, a disciple asks his master how God is heard.
- Eighteen Lohan Arts
- A series of the Shaolin Wahnam school, distinct from the Eighteen Hands; from it come the exercises the author chose for Doors VI, VII, IX, and XIII (Open the Window and Gaze at the Moon, The Golden Leopard Trains Its Claws, The Great Bird Spreads Its Wings, Father and Son Together).
- Trance
- The author uses the word in a personal sense: an entry into immensity, “where all is nothing and nothing is all,” and a descent into the depths of the unconscious to approach wounds, fears learned in childhood, and painful experiences gathered since; that learned programming he calls the programming of the mind. “Cleansing,” when he says it, means recognizing and working with those wounds; not erasing memories or promising a cure. The book does not teach how to induce it.
- Sigung, Sifu
- Grandfather-teacher and father-teacher, respectively, in the school’s forms of address.
- Kuan Yin (Kuan Shi Yin Pusa)
- Bodhisattva of compassion, “she who hears the cries of the world.” The author links her presence with the maternal dimension of his own devotion.
- Oblation
- A surrender or offering to God. In Door IX, the author uses the word for the giving of himself during prayer.
- La Montaña Azul
- A retreat center in the mountains of Costa Rica where the author practiced with his master; the mountain of his mother’s dream (Doors II, VI, VIII, and IX).
- March 21, 2013
Gainesville: a workshop with Wong Kiew Kit.
- December 25
The family gathers to make pasta by hand.
- November 2, 2025
Las Vegas: he writes down what he lived that Thursday in Gainesville.
The full story is in the book.
A letter every month
Once a month, a short letter from Sifu Carmine «Tony» Colarusso, in Spanish, English, or Italian. You can unsubscribe from any letter.
«You can read one door a week, or stay longer in the one that asks for it».
How to walk through the doorsBack to the thirteen doors