Haiku for Healing Interview – Brijesh Raj and Kashmira Raj

This H4H interview feature looks at what other means of healing are there for poets to explore.  It’s fortuitous that Brijesh Raj, a widely published haiku and haibun poet and editor, and Kashmira Raj, a clinical psychologist, are both practitioners of Tai-qi and Qigong. When this interview was done early in 2025, Kashmira had not written haiku, but later in the year she participated in the H4H Google Classroom course run by Geethanjali Rajan and has also recently shared a few poems in the H4H: Haiga Photo Prompt feature.

Thank you, Brijesh and Kashmira, for taking part in this interview for H4H.

What was it specifically that first drew you to Tai-qi and Qigong as a healing practice?

Dr. Brijesh Raj (BR): Destiny. Both Kashmira and I have been blessed in our exposure to the spiritual and metaphysical. Both of us started our healing journeys independently as Reiki practitioners. Later we joined a class that helped guide and nurture our meditative, psychic and healing abilities. Our mentor, Rohini Gupta, found Sifu Carlton Hill after years of searching for a Tai-qi and Qigong Master. She started a class on her terrace overlooking the sea and urged us to try it. After months of dragging our feet, we finally joined. It promised to help recharge our batteries, which it did. Keep us in good emotional and physical health, which it also did. We discovered later how the balance and harmony worked on so many more levels. It also opened up my creative side, which had been hitherto straining at the leash of professional time constraints.

Kashmira Raj (KR): When it’s your calling, things just fall into place. I had no time to think or decide about Tai-Qi Qigong.  I had only heard about it from Brijesh, who had joined a class. He liked what he was doing and thought that I should start as well.  We were both used to energy work by then and decided to give it a try and see where it took us. This was two decades ago. At one point, work pressures caused a 2-year hiatus but I re-joined and it gained momentum from there. There has been no looking back since.  I must share that I have always been interested in healing modalities and the metaphysical, hence the statement on my calling.

How would you describe the main healing aspect of this practice?

BR: Tai-qi is a ‘wholistic’ healing modality that helps at every level, body, mind and spirit.

From elderly patients to athletes, Tai-qi Qigong helps strengthen the energetic connections between the inner microcosm and the outer macrocosm. It also improves and harmonises the energy (qi) flow through the meridians/channels in the body. Flexibility and endurance improve without the wear and tear more demanding arts might entail.

It is called a meditation in movement and the slower and lower you go (“broad horse-riding stance”), the stronger your legs become, as does your connection to earth qi. The analytical, critical thinking part of the mind is calmed and practitioners might benefit from a heightened sense of intuition and creativity.

The great advantage is that you can take charge of your health. There is no fear, an emotion considered harmful for the kidney system according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). No fear of being unhealthy and being dependent on others. Even if you do face a health challenge, you know what to do, or hopefully have a Master well-versed in Medical Qigong who will guide you, helping you recover faster.

KR: I would say that there are two aspects to healing through Tai-qi Qigong:

The first is where results are seen directly in congruence with the moves, form, exercises and the amount of practice you do, steadily increased repetitions being better. The more you practise, the more qi is cultivated in terms of quality and quantity. The focus is always on the root cause and not on the symptoms. When the root cause is addressed, the symptoms also get treated because the learning needed from a life situation has been achieved.

The second aspect is more internal.  When you continue practising (playing) Tai-qi Qigong, you will find positive changes in your thought processes, decision-making, attitude and thus in your life. Without realising it, you tend to start doing things you did not do before, become more proactive, calmer and stronger in the face of adversity. The inner resilience and self-confidence grow from the knowledge that the qi will look after you once the connection is established and strengthened.

Is it the actual physicality of the movements that brings about healing?

BR: The physical moves help open up energy gates on the exterior of the body, which increases the quantum of qi harnessed. Stretching strengthens ligaments, tendons, fascia and muscles as well as internal organs. For senior citizens or recovering patients with limited range of movement, the exercises are adjusted as per their capacity and can be practised standing, sitting or even lying down. But this is only one aspect of Tai-qi Qigong.

With progress the practitioner incorporates breathing techniques, visualisations (colour), sound and spiritual practices including meditations which help in qi cultivation. All this supports healing oneself. True healing is incomplete without emotional, mental and spiritual healing, inner alchemy and the achievement of harmony between one’s inner and outer worlds.

Tai-qi Qigong espouses a strong connection with nature and its elements, especially with the element of water. One needs all the elements in the body and when you achieve a balance between them, you are in harmony both within and without. Then you are healed.

KR: When the move is done with correct breathing, energy, focus and intent, actual healing takes place. The move might be perfect, but only if the rest is fine, will the qi really take over. When you keep practising the same move repeatedly, different healing aspects manifest themselves.

Please could you share some of your favourite experiences of healing?

BR: The Tai-Qi Touch runs an online course as well. During one class, I noticed a student looking jaded and in discomfort, and intuitively incorporated movements followed by meditation specifically designed to help her. Having multiple practitioners in a synchronous Qi bubble amplifies the quantum of healing. And so it proved. The lady was able to eat after class for the first time in two days. Her hyperacidity and nausea were healed. And the pain in the shoulders of two other students was healed as well. I wasn’t aware of any of these issues. The Qi took care of them.

Another time, a middle-aged gentleman I knew had a bad case of chikungunya, which had left his fingers and toes swollen and painful, and his knees tender. He was well into a course of steroids and a specific drug which had stopped it in its tracks. Eventually, his wife who is a student of ours happened to mention his condition and I offered to teach him the first set of Shibashi, a set of 18 moves. Each week he was taught two moves and asked to practise them daily with his wife. He progressively got better and returned to work before we had completed the entire set.

Another student had chronic severe back pain that sword-finger healing helped ameliorate albeit for a while. It eventually needed a combination of acupuncture and Tai-qi Qigong to help her back on her feet. But prior to that she had been forced to stop work and was under strict bed rest.

My favourite stories will always revolve around our senior citizen students. They gain a renewed sense of freedom, self-confidence and strength where previously there was dismay and depression. It is extremely heartening and we feel very satisfied.

KR: There are several but let me share a few:

A 60-year-old student from the NGO where I work developed Parkinson’s disease. She was on medication and was given exercises to do. However, there was no discernible improvement. In fact, she became more dejected and upset when she went to the Parkinson’s Meet. Her Parkinson’s was at about 67%. She couldn’t do basic things like cook, hold a spoon, fold clothes, comb her own hair, etcetera. She was depressed to the point that she stopped doing anything at home. Her hands trembled so much that she couldn’t eat by herself, resulting in weight loss and depletion of her vital life qi. With guidance from Sifu Carlton Hill, I started teaching her Shibashi Set 1 (a stand-alone compilation of 18 exercises) and hand and feet clapping. Within a week, I noticed changes in her.  Over a span of 2-3 months, she started doing household chores such as cooking and cutting and went back to her old self. She still took her medicines daily. She was categorically told to continue Shibashi for life. Doctors could not believe that she had Parkinson’s as it had gotten almost completely reversed except for a mild tic in two fingers. She then stopped her exercises thinking that she was better. The tremors returned despite the medicines. She restarted her exercises and her tremors stopped. She has now understood and admitted to herself that it is Tai-qi Qigong that is keeping her tremors at bay.

During another class two students complained of having a persistent neck strain. Another complained of a bad neck, shoulder and back pain because of renovation work in her home and the lifting, pulling and pushing she had been doing. Once they started doing the exercises they began to recover. They experienced relaxation, the neck pain vanished, their back pain was much reduced and overall they felt physically good.

Another instance that comes to mind is of a student who seemed to have developed dry eyes and had a bad stye in one of the upper eyelids.  Her vision was getting affected. A protocol was given that had to be followed daily. A meditation done in the class resulted in her tearing up where formerly it just wasn’t possible.

As a haiku poet, Brijesh, would you say that there are some similarities between your practice of Tai-qi Qigong and haiku? Would you share a few haiku or haibun you have written exploring the healing aspects?

Both are meditative and are best practised with an aware, quiet mind. They can be mystical, spiritual (Taoism/Zen) and/or sensorial. Both enjoy strong connections with nature, encourage grounding (cut off the head) and are focused on the now. As practitioners of a healing art, Tai-qi presupposes and encourages love and compassion via an open-heart energy centre. Haiku writing is all about awareness and feeling as well. The compassion Issa felt for creatures like mosquitos and spiders is a case in point.

All creative and healing pursuits have been described as the domain of the right brain hemisphere. I find that the best haiku poems are channelled whilst in the ‘zone’. So frankly, all my writing is born out of being in a meditative Tai-qi Qigong space, with a sensibility that keeps an eye out for the purity and honesty of the experience. It’s a space that makes me feel good and whole. Stillness and lightness are all qualities that make for gratifying writing. Haiku-no-kokoro, to quote Susumu Takiguchi-san, is the soul of haiku that permeates the poet. Not so different from the philosophies of life itself. Observe, imbibe and transcribe truthfully (fuga-no-makoto) with a childlike innocence and alertness. In other words, be a pure vessel and channel the wonders that surround us.

An effective Tai-qi Qigong session leaves the practitioner feeling relaxed and light in body (like floating), mind (rested and renewed) and spirit (enthusiastic and driven). Child-like innocence and awareness, and lightheartedness (of the shen) are treasured. I would think of karumi as having a similar quality, a lightness in form and content which can only originate from a lightness of shen (consciousness).

Tai-qi espouses strong connections with the universe, with nature, i. e. with the earth, human plane and heavenly or cosmic planes. This proximity has had a direct bearing on my work.

Finally, Taoism propounds wu wei, a state of effortless effort. Every once in a rare while a poem is channelled effortlessly, albeit through the poet’s lens. The point of practice is to work towards arriving at that sensibility of quiet preparedness. So, you can witness and be touched by the beauty of creation around and perhaps let it reflect in some small manner via words. I would like to share a few of my haiku here:

waterfall…
the rock-face overrun
by tiny red crabs *1

Koi pond
their reflections too
moving in circles *2

embracing the tree
a jungle babbler
deepens the silence *3

“embracing the tree” is a Qigong movement

What would you say to a poet looking for a healing tool in everyday life?

BR: It’s best to be balanced, and yin like water, soft yet powerful. I would like to share a few methods that we have been blessed with.

Speak with a potted plant if you have one. Tell it how beautiful it is and how loved and treasured. How grateful you are to have it in your life. Watch it flourish. You could easily use the same practice to bless your body and internal organs. Your Heart, Kidneys, Lungs, Liver. Qigong has a meditation where you actually smile to the internal organs, one by one and thank them for being there for you. Ask for forgiveness if you have taken them for granted or not cared enough for them.

Walk barefoot or with thin-soled footwear in a garden. There are important acupoints underfoot. Once stimulated, they can help improve your overall health.

Embracing an actual tree and blessing it with good health works beautifully. At a more subtle level this is a highly effective meditation involving visualisation.

You could visualise yourself in a shower of white light, being purified and energised. See any unnecessary excessive or stale energy moving out as grey water to be recycled and reused by the universe for positive purposes.

For those amongst us who practise meditation, try and become more aware of your breath. Where does it come from? Where does it go? Please do not get lost in this meditation though. Grounding yourself is important. One should keep the focus on what we call the Lower Dan Tian, a point within the body’s mid-line approximately three inches below the navel. Ideally though this should be done under guidance.

Bless or energise your food and water before consuming it. Once you are used to energy work you can actually remove excessive salt or spice Qi from food. After all everything is energy.

Let me take a moment here to express my heartfelt gratitude to H4H and you Sonam for this opportunity for sharing. I hope it helps as many as possible, as it has done us.

Kashmira, would you consider taking up haiku as another aspect of your healing practice?

First of all, thank you for this opportunity to share glimpses of what Tai-qi Qigong means to us. I really enjoyed reading about the overlap between haiku and Tai-qi.

I must admit that I am gobsmacked by the question. No one has ever asked me this before and I hadn’t given it a thought, until now. I would love to write haiku though.

Perhaps it’s time…

Notes

*1. A hundred gourds 5:2 2016, haibun: “EBB”

*2. Narrow Road Vol 10, April 2020, haibun: “Fait Accompli”

*3. Drifting Sands: January 2022, haibun: “Least Common Multiple”

If you have any questions about Haiku for Healing, please use the Haiku for Healing contact form on our Contact page.

Forthcoming on Monday, May 4:

Next month we continue the H4H interview feature with award-winning haiku and haibun poet, and editor, Shobhana Kumar. Shobhana discusses how she has found a ‘safe’ and ‘calm’ mecca in haiku and haibun as she faces a debilitating auto-immune condition and also works with the elderly homeless and the marginalised transgender people in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.

Bios

Dr. Brijesh Raj is a veterinarian, animal acupuncturist and tuina massage practitioner, who feels privileged to be able to integrate the healing modalities and energy harnessing of Tai-qi and Qigong in his work. He is a haikai poet and co-editor for the Mumbai-based group, Cafe Haiku. He has been published and anthologized in international haikai journals.

Kashmira Raj is a clinical psychologist who has worked in the field of health for over 12 years. Tai-qi and Qigong have enhanced her energy harnessing and healing abilities. She currently counsels and teaches conversational English at Hamara Sapna, an NGO for less fortunate women.

Kashmira and Brijesh were introduced to Tai-qi two decades ago and are certified instructors from Pranava & Carlton Hill’s Tao Taiji Qi Gong, and The Tai Qi Touch (TTQ) organisation they have run since 2016 is affiliated with this.

They have been certified by Sifu Wing Cheung of the Tai-qi and Feng Shui Institute, Hong Kong & Canada, as Level 1 to 3 International Shibashi Instructors conducting Shibashi Workshops in India.

The Tai-Qi Touch (TTQ) runs both online and on-site classes for a cross section of people ranging from children to senior citizens. Its area of interest is medical Qigong, the application of Tai-qi and Qigong techniques for health.

Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short-form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing. She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor, and co-editor of haibun for the online journal of Japanese short forms, cattails.

Her chapbook of haibun, The Lure of the Threshold was published in May 2021. Mapping Absences, a collaboration of haibun, tan bun and tanka prose with Mike Montreuil was published in 2019. Another collaboration with Geethanjali Rajan: Unexpected Gift was published in November 2021. She organised a year-long email course in 2024 for The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku for Parkinson’s project.

Read past Haiku for Healing posts here.

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