Doing Qigong while Making Bread

Doing Qigong while make bread

Just about any manual chore can be a meditative practice. Sometimes you call the set of movements a flow or a form. The animated GIF here shows me motioning my two hands in the movements you might do to knead bread dough on a kitchen counter: press and pull.

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

Every Thanksgiving for the last 30+ years, I have made fresh bread by hand for my family. It’s all I do now no matter who makes the main course. I make the bread, simple yeasted bread rolls made with butternut squash and wheat flour. The baked butternut squash puree adds sweet softness that goes great with the brown sugar and butter of the recipe. But it is really all about the love you bring to the task that can make it a meditation. I usually make several batches so that people can take a half dozen or more rolls home. This means making a quadruple batch (60 rolls in total) in time for the dinner feast. I baked again last Thursday, and it made me think about the whole process as a kind of Qigong form.

The "gong" in the word "Qigong" relates to work and skill and how you develop skill over time. You get better at it every time you do it. So, I have come to think of making bread, which is a skill, as a kind of Qigong that you do with your whole self, body, breath and mind that is also a meditative exercise. Anytime you slow down and pay attention to what you are doing, you are doing a kind of meditation. Your ordinary life can be filled with moments of breath and movement practice.

Nine Steps of the Bread Making Process

Here are the nine basic steps of Baking Bread Qigong. Be sure to click the link at the end if you want to do the mini Bread Making Qigong class (it’s about ten minutes). Below, I have also included the recipe as a PDF that you can download in case you might want to bake bread yourself.

1. Step into the kitchen.

Bless the endeavor, bless your work. Set the intention for things to go smoothly. I hold intent for success and deliciousness. I step into the kitchen, hands washed, apron on, ingredients accounted for, my favorite music, usually something atmospheric and spacious, playing on repeat until the work is done. Making bread is a marathon of standing and paying attention to details: smells, textures, weights and measures, and, of course, time. This is an opening move: Stand with hands at your sides, palms open and fingers relaxed. Feet together, to start, and then take a breath to step into activity and open the form.

2.   Gather, pour and stir.

Stay relaxed as you gather your implements and ingredients. The eyes are soft as you make pouring and stirring motions: extend your arms out wide, and circle them in towards your belly as you gather the Qi, and then make circles with both hands, as if to stir and mix the ingredients in front of you. Stay relaxed and shift weight as you circle one hand and then the other. Enjoy the alchemical process of things blending and changing into new things.

3.   Add your vitality: Lunge, press, and pull.

Do what it takes. Kneading dough is very physical and exhilarating, and working the dough with your hands at this stage is the motion associated with making bread. Some dough is pleasant to work with. Lean in in a sort of lunge at the counter and knead the dough until the dough feels right, adding flour and looking and feeling for the signs of smoothness and the right moisture. Kneading dough feels like honest work, because it is messy and requires muscle, patience, and focus. Breathe and be at peace. Don’t rush. This is where you put yourself into it: lean into it, as they say. Put your love and goodness into what you are doing.

4.    Rest actively, and let life double in size.

I enjoy this first break of the process that is the first rise. It is time to wait. But let this time be engaged: clean up the kitchen, run errands, go out for a walk, make conversation and rest. For the Qigong form: Shake your hands and body. Do a little getting your energy back and maybe even sit down. Step side to side while waiting and spread your arms wide to get a sense of expansion into the corners of the room.

5.   Shape and form the future.

After the wait is over, you form the dough into little spheres the size of tangerines. Be efficient and even joyful. After punching down the dough, the shaping must be fast and thorough work: make uniform and consistent shapes without lumps and wrinkles. Do a shaping motion with your hands: form a palm-to-palm connection with a little puff of air in between the palms. Make circle motions with the palms to shape dough. For this movement, notice any sensations between the palms. That empty space is not really empty after all! You may feel a little tingling or maybe a spiraling density. Simply notice. The point at the center of the palm, that little indentation, is called The Palace of Toil.

6.    Rest again for the second rise.

For the second rise, the waiting involves coordinating the next part of the meal preparations. Are you running on time? Is there a need to check in with others? Rest and breathe through the heels as you turn your head from side to side to take in your environment and the situation. Once again, spread your arms wide to get a sense of expansion into the corners of the room as the dough doubles in size again.

7.    Trust the firing process and be attentive.

The oven has been preheating, and fire is a serious matter. The firing process in Qigong practice is about undergoing challenges and ordeals and emerging with wisdom to share. In baking, the minutes are super important: baking time is not to be messed with. Be attentive and track what you see and smell. Don’t “play with fire” or overdo it or get distracted. Fort this form: Stand still and focus on the eyes and the nose: In the form, hands come to the eyes and nose and spread out to the sides as if to survey and embrace the space in front of you as in a standing meditation like Zhan Zhuang. Keeping the focus is on the eyes and nose, then do the motion of placing trays in the oven, waiting, and then removing trays from the hot oven. The smell of bread baking fills the house, and to all who enter the house, the earthly nurturing aroma feels like an embrace. The job is nearly done!

8.    Brush with melted butter.

Express kindness. The hot bread is too hot to eat, but is best served warm from the oven. As the bread cools, make brushing motions with the hands side-to-side. Imagine your hands are little brushes dipped in melted butter that you paint onto the hot bread rolls. Relaxing the fingers so that they are pliant and soft like bristles of a soft brush can relax the mind.

9.    Serve with love and enjoy.

While still warm, the rolls are set in big baskets on the table, and we sway with joy as we eat and say “mmmmm.” Humming in the presence of deliciousness is good for your body, mind, and soul.

Brush the baked rolls with melted butter as they cool

Delicate brushing motions with a pastry brush covers the rolls. Butter, as you may or may not know, melts at a temperature that is lower than our body temperature: 90-95°F (32-35°C). That’s why it literally melts in your mouth when you eat it.

Do let me know your thoughts. Do you want to try making bread using an easy recipe? It is from Moosewood Cookbook, and I actually snapped a photo of the well-worn and spattered page enclosed as a PDF file here. Interested in what the goofy Breadmaking Qigong form may look like? Click here for the mini class.