When you get used to the hustle and bustle of city life, it’s hard to feel the bottom of your feet even once during the day. Oftentimes, we have fewer opportunities to walk, or even if we do get to walk, our thoughts tend to be more heavily weighted up in our head and our attention is unable to reach our feet. Then we grow increasingly distant from the ground, and our concern for other life forms nurtured by the earth keeps decreasing.
Try standing up straight on both feet right now. If possible, remove your shoes and socks, and stand in your bare feet. Adjust your position so that you can feel the sensation of your feet sticking to the floor, without leaving any space. If you stand this way and focus carefully on the soles of your feet, at a certain point, you’ll be able to feel the weight of your entire body resting on the bottom of your feet. Try to find that sense of your body weight being distributed evenly to your soles, without obstruction. You can also feel the weight of your body being conveyed to the earth through your soles, as well as the strength of the earth as it supports that weight.
This sensation isn’t merely a sense of physical weight or pressure. It’s a vivid feeling of life. You can feel that fresh sense of being-ness, that sense of “I’m here and I’m alive,” arising naturally from a place deep in your heart, along with gratitude and humility toward the earth that supports you.
The stronger the sensation in your soles becomes, the stronger the sensation at the top of your head, directed toward heaven, will be. Beneath you, the earth gives you solid support. Above you, infinite space is open to you. As you stand with your feet firmly planted, feel your body connect heaven and earth. Below, you can feel your sturdy legs and a lower belly that’s full of energy. Above, feel the refreshing openness of your heart in your chest and the cool clarity of your head.
With your feet firmly planted like this, walk the path of the human, under heaven and upon the earth.
7 Comments. Leave new
Being busy with work and trying to make plans for my vision leaves me feeling upside down sometimes. This message came to me at a perfect time. Just reading this message I feel my energy expand and get brighter. It amazes me how simple principals are and how easy it is to overlook it. Thank you Sambo for coming to me again and again. Through achieving Vision I will begin to repay you for all that you give me. What a perfect and loving system Sambo is. Susuengnim I hope you get the time to hear me say Thank You for everything. Saranghamnida.
Thank you so much for this great message
with feet firmly planted, I will pay attention to the sensation of my body head to toe as it is said and realize more and more the essence of being human. In Joong Chun Ji Il.
Gamsahamnida,
Chun Ae
“…our thoughts tend to be more heavily weighted up in our head and our attention is unable to reach our feet. Then we grow increasingly distant from the ground, and our concern for other life forms nurtured by the earth keeps decreasing.”
Especially this part gives me so much insight.
It is time to get back closer to the ground.
Sometimes when I am in Sleeping Tiger posture my hands and feet feel like they are holding up heaven while my back feels cradled by the earth. With each breath I take more and more heaven and earth come into this human. That is what accumulation of energy means to me right now. Thank you for this wonderful training.
It’s very interesting how we tend to pay attention mostly to our hands and head, but no attention or very little to our soles. We sometimes think that Heaven is more important than Earth (Ji). No it’s not, we’re shared and not divided, we are one, Heaven, Earth and Humanity we are all important in one, as one. I’ve been humbled today by the power of Souhang, after realizing how much I need to work on, I re-read this message and realized that indeed we sometimes think that Heaven is more important than Earth and it’s not. All three: Heaven, Earth and Humanity are all important in one as one. Thank you and thanks to my center manager 🙂
What a simple yet powerful message. I have been walking around with
my socks at home and shoes outside that I have forgotten the simple wonders of walking barefooted. I will try it today and feel like a child again! Thank you Dr Lee!