Simple Chi Kung_ Exercises for Awakening the Life-Force Energy - Mantak Chia [15]
In classical Asia, there were places where this health care model was reversed: clients paid their health care practitioner a monthly fee as long as they stayed healthy. When they got sick, they stopped paying. Imagine a system where your health care practitioner is thus motivated to continually keep you healthy. It is a complete paradigm shift. How different would our Western medical system be if this were the practice today? As the saying goes, what you put your attention on grows.
When a health care model immerses itself in prevention and wellness, these qualities flourish. It is like the sports coach telling his players that a good offense creates a good defense. By being proactive and focusing on health, we become stronger and more resilient, so that even when we do get sick, it is for a much shorter period of time.
True healing goes to the source of the problem and uproots the pattern of disease. If you only focus on symptoms, it is like trying to hold Ping-Pong balls under water: they eventually spring up in many different directions. In the same way, masking symptoms often creates other health issues. For example, those who take anti-inflammatory medicines for an extended period of time can sometimes cause life-threatening damage to their internal organs. Real healing solutions lie in our ability to prevent problems before they arise and to attain long-term transformation of existing problems in a holistic manner.
Pharmaceutical drugs can temporarily alleviate pain, diminish anxiety and depression, or kill hostile germs in the body. Yet the root causes of these ailments are often left untouched. The containment, suppression, or elimination of symptomatic problems does not sustain vitality or vibrant health. Pharmaceutical treatment of secondary symptoms prunes the branches of our health problems while ignoring the roots. And these short-term solutions often come with long-term costs.
Despite continual advances in medical technology, we have more illness and pain than ever before. This is not to say that Western medicine is not truly amazing. It is. Just look at all the medical wonders it has achieved. Nothing compares to Western medicine when it comes to emergencies, vaccines, or finding solutions to life-threatening diseases. But this approach falls short when it comes to creating abundant energy, intrinsic health, and a sense of integration within. The East reminds us to focus on enhancing our life-force energy and becoming healthy from the inside out.
Eastern medicine and Western medicine are starting to move closer together in philosophy, as Western medicine takes an increasingly holistic approach to health. Recently, Western medicine is recognizing how stress and negative emotions can cause all kinds of problems in the body.
There is a saying in Chinese medicine that trying to get healthy after you’ve become sick is like digging a well when you are dying of thirst. The idea here is to focus on your health while you are healthy. That is not to say that if you are sick or in pain there is nothing that you can do. It just means that wherever you are on your path to health and vitality, now is the best time to begin.
From an Eastern perspective, and more and more from a Western medical perspective as well, prevention is the key to lasting health and happiness. In encouraging you to take charge of your own preventive health, we are not suggesting that you start performing acupuncture on yourself or that you start concocting herbal potions. Let the professionals do what they do best. But controlling your own health destiny is real. By doing a little energy cultivation and stress clearing each day, your entire system will become much more resilient and strong. That is what Simple Chi Kung is all about—a little bit of water and sunshine every day.
STRESS = STAGNANT CHI
Stress has become a modern epidemic. Our lives, despite modern technology, are busier than ever and full of all kinds of stress. In