Why Chinese Tradition Says to Gather Inward in Autumn

Gather and conserve. That's important. Gather and conserve the spirit and the vital energy. You don't want to do a lot of activity, have a lot of activity, too ambitious to do a lot of things as you were doing in summer. You wanna gather them back, take them back, take your energy back and take your spirit back. That's 精神(jīng shén). Now the next one, we move to the three routines. All these routines are for the purpose of the last one. The first one is you go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Retire early and rise early. Well, go earlier to rest and rise earlier with the morning. 早臥(zǎo wò). 早(zǎo) means early. 早(zǎo), early. 臥(wò) means go to sleep, go to bed. 起(qǐ) means rise, get up, okay? It's the same. It's the same kind of time schedule for spring. Spring, go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Go to bed before— at least there's a deadline. It's a red line. It's a deadline. It's 11:00. 11 p.m. You have to go to bed before that, but it's better to go to bed between 9 and 10. And you get up at 5 a.m. And the same schedule in spring and autumn. But in summer, you can go to bed late, but not too late. Then here you can get up, say, even 5, 5:30, or 4:30 in summer. But in winter, you want to go to bed— go to bed early and get up late. Usually you have like six or seven hours' sleep. Then in winter you can have eight hours, because that's the time for storage, for nourishing. Okay, so here's what happens starting in the autumn: sleep earlier and wake up earlier. All right, that's the first thing in the daily routine. And also, purposely, purposely, you— you're gonna, you have to have a very clear conscience, okay? To what? To— Gather and conserve. That's important. Gather and conserve the spirit and the vital energy. You don't want to do a lot of activity, have a lot of activity, too ambitious to do a lot of things as you were doing in summer. You wanna gather them back, take them back, take your energy back and take your spirit back. That's 精神(jīng shén). 精神(jīng shén). This is 精(jīng), 精神(jīng shén). Gathering back and gathering back. And you may still have a lot of things going on in your mind. You're thinking this, thinking that, and worry this, regret this, you know, all kinds of activity in mind. Now you wanna keep your mind and intent, the mind and intent, let the mind and intent remain calm and settled. That's very important, okay? Calm. Mind and intent, mind and intent remain calm and settled. 安(ān), remember, we explained this character. Every— no matter man or woman, we have 陽(yáng) side and 陰(yīn) side. Even you are a very strong man, you have your soft, gentle, gentle side. That's a lady. You have a lady sit peacefully, gracefully, feminine, in the center of the household. Means this body is your house. You gotta have that, no matter you are very strong, like Stallone, like Schwarzenegger, okay? You still have that inside, peaceful side, gentle side. You have to have that side of your emotion and spirit calm down, calm, okay? And the rest is settled and all of things. Then have a big good result is you keep the lung qi clear, or keep the lung qi clear and pure, because now outside, between heaven and earth, Mother Nature is cooling down, cooling down. At the same time, the air is getting clean, getting cool, and also getting clean. if you have a habit to observe Mother Nature, the water, the water in spring, the water in summer, and the water in autumn, the same river, the same lake, the color is different. If you pay attention. If you're not, you can try that, do a test, do an experiment. In autumn, the water becomes more clear, clearer, even to the— almost towards the end of autumn, the water seems crystal clear compared with in the summer. Summer is easy, because a lot of rain, so it's always, like, not clear. All right, and in spring it's better. It's not that mixed, because it's just the old ice and snow melt, okay? And it's still cold. There's not a lot of activity under the water. I mean, it's still cold, so that's how fish, all kinds of fish, their activity is not that much. So relatively clear. But in autumn— it's getting really crystal clear. And based on the Chinese philosophy of 五行(wǔ xíng), the color, the quality of all the substances carries— carry different kinds of energy, okay? So you wanna— you want, because the autumn changes the 氣(qì), and the cosmos changes, you want to calm down, take back, and synchronize your inner 氣(qì) with whatever 氣(qì) outside, because the organ, lung, 肺(fèi), pronounced as 肺(fèi) in Chinese, fourth tone, 第四聲(dì sì shēng), 肺(fèi), the organ linked to autumn, linked to autumn, linked to fall. You want to clear out the 氣(qì) inside of your lung by synchronizing the energy form or the property with the cosmos. And that can help you to improve the function of the lung. How to reach this point? If you're not—the three— these three steps, routines, these three routines help. Unless you have some—you're suffering, suffering from some disease of this organ, you wanna go to doctor. In general, you're healthy, you do this, it's good for this. Okay, that's the routine. You wanna calm down, okay? This is —the burning incense is another way, has shared a similar kind of function with drinking tea or cooking or do whatever. But because drinking tea, you want to make it have all those step-by-step rites, okay, kind of ceremony thing. And burning incense in your seat, doing meditation in a tranquil state, it's easier, it's more efficient to get yourself like gather the spirit, like calm down, okay? So that's how in this picture we have this burning incense. Okay, that's the routine, daily routine.