Spotlight on the Teachers - Sophie Johnson
Here are a few questions that we thought might be good to put to the teachers in Lotus Nei Gong. This was from about 8 years ago now.
Please tell us a little about your background in the internal arts
I began exploring Qi Gong and Taiji yang style when I was 15, studying with someone whom I was told was one of the senior students of Master Chu King Hung, who had recently set up a school for Yang style Taiji in Drummond street London. I did a little training with Master Chu but was considered too young, whereas his student (who will remain nameless) was wiling to train me. I did a number of years intensive training in Qi Gong, learnt the 108 form and got quite a bit more screwed up than I was already by his ‘training style’…! Let’s just say the teacher had some work to do on his own heart/mind!
So after trying a couple of other Daoist, and other traditions teachers, and encountering more dubious ethics, I looked elsewhere for my internal training. This took me all over the place: psychological work, many different forms of bodywork, movement based approaches, massage, cathartic type group work (big in the ‘80’s in the UK and Europe). It was like a vast Nei Gong session with everyone releasing energy, but with far too much focus on the emotion, it had its uses though!
I studied with Krishnamurti (took myself to his school when I was 17 allegedly to do A levels but I hoped it was somewhere where my need for a spiritual focus might be addressed… I had some great conversations with him actually, although I got myself in trouble there for laughing too much and midnight swimming with ‘inappropriate’ people!) After living in the wild with a native teacher in USA and generally exploring the shamanistic traditions, I finally I found a teacher that combined a profound an insight into internal energy work and a form of tantric style meditation/alchemy. I felt I had found a teacher with more energetic insight than I had found anywhere so far, coupled with an emphasis on developing our nature,heart/mind. So I stopped looking and trained with him for 20 years. Six years or so after his death I found my way to Damo and LNG.
What is the most important aspect of the internal arts for you?
Transformation. Creating a genuine capacity for change. Reaching more and more deeply to truth. To become softly present with whatever we encounter internally, learning the irrelevance of our opinions about most things, and within all of that to let go, and keep letting go within deeper and deeper layers. In becoming more and more still the heart naturally opens, the consciousness becomes spacious and life is a lot more fun!
Tell us a little about your approach towards your own practice?
To bring it everywhere, in every way possible. Sitting practice is a main focus for me obviously, so I have had to learn to carve blocks of time to move my body around enough, do moving Nei Gong forms (Dao Yins are a daily practice, unless my energy is low when I rely on the good old Ji Ben’s), fitness and now I have reconnected with Taiji, which I absolutely love, it deepens the Nei Gong immeasurably, and all of these practices contribute profoundly to meditation.
Tell us a little about your approach to teaching.
Get the foundations as good as possible, be patient, be honest, be kind, work hard, have fun, be serious in what we do but never take ourselves or our dramas too seriously. Understand and enquire deeply into what it actually means to respect and support ourselves, as it is from here that the self discipline that fuels progress really flowers. I attempt to create an atmosphere where people feel they can unveil, be themselves, go to and beyond their edge without external pressure or force.
What is the most important lesson you try to teach your students?
All of the above!
Finally, please share with us your insight into what Daoism means to you and how these teachings can best help people in modern times.
What the label/word Daoism means to me… not a lot! Let me qualify that statement a little. The profound learning, wisdom, and all encompassing nature of the philosophical side of the teachings is truly fantastic. I learn from it, value it beyond measure, consider it an enormous privilege to have access to this depth of wisdom and understanding and will continue to study it diligently. I am just uncomfortable identifying myself as anything…..all that time with Krishnamurti rubbed off! I am not a great fan of ‘ism’s’ even this one. All that being said, vibrationally it is a great relief to be connected to an ancient system, so much of what I studied before resonates with what I am learning with Damo, joins it all together and is taking it deeper……so maybe I am the reluctant, upside down Daoist of the school!
How can it help people……it wakes us up, shakes us up, unfakes us up, and makes us real, deep and still!
It is my belief that any meaningful societal change starts and finishes within ourselves, it is from the ground of personal enquiry and practice that the ripples spread out into our lives, relationships, children, communities, and planet effortlessly without identification and pretention.
Being a older, long term female practitioner is a particular path, one that when I was in my early 20’s I struggled to find other female companions who had not incased themselves into a monastic system. It is lovely to see so many dedicated and young female (and male!) practitioners within the school. Women’s internal development is tremendously important to me, understanding and addressing that our needs as women are in some areas different to a male focused approach, is a vital and often missing component to any energetic training. I am first and foremost a sincere traveller on the path and a mother of three, whilst also wearing some of these hats…. Single woman, a wife, a step-mother, a divorcee, a business woman, ceremonial leader/priestess and a grandmother. I have set up and now run a retreat/meditation center. I have made many mistakes, and, I am sure, continue to do so, but it all informs my work and practice. I work individually and in groups with people, and have done so for 23 years, my work and life is constantly evolving and it is with a deep bow and great sense of privilege that I study with Damo and teach within Lotus Nei Gong. I very much look forward to meeting those of you within the school I have not yet had the pleasure to train with….and now I had better nip outside and take a selfie, as one is needed for this post!
