Ilchi Lee's Blog, page 36

My Father Showed Me How to Die

[Photo by @vinnikava via Twenty20]

Being born is a blessing, but so is dying. When you die, you should die really well. You can’t die well if you’re clinging tightly to something. Sooner or later, I will die, and so will you. It’s the same for everybody; there’s no reason to feel that it’s unfair. But how will you die? Not many people will teach you about dying well. I learned it from my father, and I’m very grateful for it.

My father passed away two years ago at the age of 95. Until 90, he read books and exercised, but he didn’t later. Dad passed away smiling like an angel. “I no longer want to live,” he said. “I have nothing to do really, and I’m bored.” Mom having passed away five years before that, he said that he didn’t have any friends or anything to live for any longer. Although he’s my father, he is my spiritual friend. When I saw him for the last time, I took a video, thinking, It’s time for dad to go now. I had him say everything he wanted to say, and then we went to mom’s grave together. “I don’t think I’ll make it that far,” he said. So I told him, “If it’s hard for you, I’ll carry you on my back.” Dad and I walked there and back, slowly, hand in hand.

“If my heart stops, don’t resuscitate me,” my father said. “Let me go naturally.” Dad will leave the world now, I thought, getting the feeling that I would never see him again. I felt my father’s spirit body coming and going from his physical form. I told family members that Dad was unlikely to make it another three days, and I had to go to New Zealand because of my lecture schedule.

His breathing shallow, phlegm coming up in his throat, my father went to the hospital and then passed away, smiling, three days later. “It’s amazing that he went this comfortably,” a doctor said. They told me that he opened his mouth and inhaled three times, relaxing and opening his fists, and then left the world, exhaling, “Ha . . .” It was like my father was teaching me a lesson: “When your time comes, die it like this.”

“Coming into the world, I happily did the things I wanted to do and learned,” Dad said on the way back from Mom’s grave. “I’m happy that I was able to live without ever once telling a lie.” My father has passed away, but he is always beside me as energy. It’s important how we meet the end of our lives.

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Take an Energy State Quiz

[Photo by gpointstudio via Envato Elements]

The state of our energy affects every aspect of our well-being. Because we have the capacity to feel the energy in our body, we can tell when it is flowing normally and healthfully and when it’s out of balance. We are also able to determine this by observing other symptoms we may have. This way of checking our energy state is especially useful if we have not developed our sense of feeling energy.

Take this quiz to see if you have Water Up, Fire Down energy flow, the energy flow needed to have a warm belly, open heart, and cool head—our body’s ideal energy state. Broken or reversed Water Up, Fire Down energy flow, leads to declining health in the three energy centers of the body’s energy system, causing various physical, emotional, and mental problems.

The following questions will help you check your energy balance. See how many you can answer yes to:

Does your head feel heavy and cloudy, and do you have frequent headaches?
Are your eyes often blurry and dry?
Are your mouth and throat frequently dry?
Are your shoulders stiff, and your face and neck often hot?
Do you have a stifling feeling in your chest, and is your breathing uncomfortable?
Is your belly often cold?
Do you have frequent indigestion and bloating?
Are your hands and feet cold or frequently numb?
Are you always tired and have trouble recovering your energy, even with rest?
Are your joints often painful and stiff?
Do you have trouble getting to sleep at night?
Do you get anxious or irritated easily?
Once you start worrying, is it not easy to stop?
Do you often feel resentful and angry?
Do you feel depressed and lack self-esteem?

If you answered yes to 0 to 4 of these questions, your body’s energy is in a relatively well-circulated and balanced state. Based on your core’s vital energy, your motivation, and your positive mind, you seem to be building a healthy and vibrant life in your own way. But stay vigilant and continue to care for your health. Hopefully your energy will be further strengthened, making it as strong and resilient amid changing circumstances.

If you answered yes to 5 to 9 of these questions, then pay more attention to your energy state. These symptoms suggest that your energy is easily affected by changes in any event, environment, or information you experience. To stabilize your condition, focus on developing your energy flow, strengthening your core, and opening your chest.

If you answered yes to 10 or more, your energy circulation is considerably reduced, and you’re in a dangerous state of unbalanced energy. Since energy is very unstable in such a situation, you may experience intense fluctuations in your emotions and attitudes toward life. If your situation is even more severe, you may find yourself feeling helpless and desperate. Start by strengthening the energy of your core to prevent further imbalance.

This quiz as well as a detailed explanation of Water Up, Fire Down energy flow and ways to maintain it are found in my new book, Water Up Fire Down: An Energy Principle for Creating Calmness, Clarity, and a Lifetime of Health.

Take this quiz to see if you have Water Up, Fire Down energy flow, the energy flow needed to have a warm belly, open heart, and cool head—our body’s ideal energy state.
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Start Toward Your Dream by Knowing Your Reality

[Photo by korneevamaha via Envato Elements]

Knowing my condition is only the beginning. Enlightenment is simply knowing one’s reality. Everything starts from there.

The root of the visible, material world is your inner consciousness—the world of the mind. Your minds attracts invisible energy. The strength of your focus and belief determines how strongly you pull energy to you to turn the invisible into the visible.

Rather than thinking about the past, look to the future. The past was good if it was good, and it wasn’t good if it wasn’t. It’s a memory, and worthwhile in its own way, but then there is growth and progress. The future is important.

It’s important to know your present state for the future. It’s important to decide the direction in which you want to go.

What decides your direction? Your own dream. Whatever state you are in now, look toward your dream with all of your conviction and focus. You’ll discover your next steps. When you move toward your dream, your real life is created.

That’s how you become the master and owner of your life. That’s what it means to be the master and owner of your brain.

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[Video] Correct Your Posture with Longevity Walking

Improper walking posture can cause various types of pain, including knee, back, and hip pain. Most people don’t care about their walking posture, but did you know that just by changing it you could alleviate a lot of pain in your body?

In this video, I show you how to walk to make your body healthier. I call this way of walking Longevity Walking because by using it, you can not only alleviate pain, you can circulate the subtle energy of your body well. Healthy and balanced energy circulation is the key to our physical and mental vitality—what we need for a lifetime of health.

Walking in this posture can maximize your energy naturally and effectively in your everyday life.

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4 Ways to Step Up Your Exercise Plan

The older I get, the more I feel the need to move my body to make it strong and limber. Lately, I’ve made doing headstands a part of my regular routine.

Although starting younger is better, I think it’s never too late to start taking care of your physical strength. I’m already 70, but I’m always impressed when I hear about people who are even older than I am that have broken records—people like Robert Marchand, who didn’t start cycling seriously until he was 67. At the age of 105, he set a new world record when he completed a 22-km course in one hour. At that point, his heart and lungs were operating like those of a 50-year-old! Harriet Thompson first resolved to run a marathon when she was 76 and became the oldest woman in the world to complete one when she was 92.

Hearing stories like those of Robert and Harriet may inspire you to do more than you’re doing now, or it may depress you. It may make you want to throw the covers over your head or break through your inertia to go outside and walk. There’s no right or wrong response, but it’s important to remember that it’s our choice on how we use the information we encounter, and our choice on what information we feed ourselves.

Some of that information is verifiable facts. Thoughts such as, “It’s not a good time right now,” however, are not facts. They are evaluations of the facts we are paying attention to, and those evaluations are also our choice. If we decide to do something, though it may be hard, and we’ll definitely encounter challenges, we can achieve it. Rather than basing our decisions on the situation around us, we can gradually change our situation to fit our choices.

This especially works when we choose what’s good for our true selves in our hearts, which, because of the inherent nature of our true selves, is always in alignment with the good of all.

Try these four things to help you start making healthy, life-giving choices today.

Carefully look at the information your mind has been playing with. Does it like to dwell on the negative? Does it say, “I have no time; I’m too busy. I’m out of shape. I don’t like exercising. It’s not a good time; I’d rather start later,”? Is this litany on constant repeat? Recognizing the information at work in your mind, coloring your perspective, lets you begin to separate from the information and make clearer choices.
Listen to your heart. Breathe comfortably, letting your chest rise and fall, and turn your awareness to the center of your chest. Continue to breathe until you have a feeling of ease and freedom in your chest. Pose the question to your heart center in your chest: “What do I really want?”
Plan-Do-Check-Act. Stimulate your lower abdomen by rhythmically tapping it with your fists or palms (Abdominal Tapping) or by moving your abdominal muscles toward and away from your back (Intestinal Exercise). Keeping your awareness on this area while you tap, ask your abdomen, “How should I do it?” Answers may pop up in your mind, or at least with time, you’ll gain the mental clarity to make a clear plan for achieving your goal. As you carry out your plan, check your progress and make any adjustments needed.
Give yourself positive praise. Feed yourself a healthy diet of positive information. Recognize your successes and see your failures as means of growth and improvement. Positive praise does not mean being deluded or narcissistic. When you look carefully, you can find the silver lining that prevents you from getting stuck in doubt, fear, and confusion. Positive information propels you toward your goal.

I hope you feel empowered to be strong and choose what you really want without fear.

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Escape from Anguish and Conflict

[Photo by @amirafham via Twenty20]

Many of us are experiencing anguish and conflict nowadays. Money, health, relationships, and ideologies are all showing their limitations. No matter how hard we try or how well we do, matter is finite. We can have something or someone one moment and lose them the next. When the body breaks down, prestige, money, attachments . . . these all become useless. That’s why if we only focus on the material world, it’s meaningless.

Although loss of our material possessions and physical health can make us suffer, more painful suffering comes from a disconnection with our true self—our soul. It’s a characteristic of our soul that it longs to connect to the divine aspect of our being, and both of these strive to reconnect with the One Source from which they were once separated. Our soul’s longing to return to its origin grows worse when it’s ignored.

This longing can be answered if we develop our chakras and energy system to complete our soul’s evolution. If we build up the energy of our first three chakras, which are associated with our physical health and power, the energy of our soul in our fourth chakra can then purify and expand. When that energy becomes pure and big enough, it will pass through our fifth chakra in our throat and join with our divine nature in our sixth chakra in our head. This unified self can connect with the Source, the universal mind and energy, through the seventh chakra at the top of the head.

As we go through this process of growth, we may feel our suffering more acutely. Although these “growing pains” are difficult, we cannot undergo internal development while we self-medicate with comfort food, alcohol, video watching, or cheesy romance novels. It only works if we turn our awareness inside ourselves and face our physical discomfort, faults, and emotional pain head on.

But ultimately, if we do this, we’ll also become more detached from this pain and adopt what I call an “observer consciousness.” With an observer consciousness, we can see everything we have from a distance, a distance at which we can also feel compassion, forgiveness, joy, and boundless freedom amid the pain.

So the way to escape from anguish and conflict in the world is to have something more than power, money, prestige, attachments, and the like. Rather than counting on things that are bound to end, we can count on our eternal soul.

Be Rooted in Energy Principles

To go through this process of personal development through energy development, we need to understand the energy principles that underlie it. But just as you can’t really understand how to swim until you try it yourself, it’s hard to truly get energy principles by just reading about them. They are beyond intellectual understanding; however, they can be experienced.

Yet our five senses are not enough with which to experience them. We need to develop our sixth sense by focusing our mind on our body’s energy. The instant we feel energy is the beginning the sixth sense. Try this meditation for feeling energy here.

Everything is energy, so sensing energy and understanding the principles by which energy acts is the foundation on which we can grow. This sense can distinguish between the energies of our desires and emotions and the pure energy of Oneness. And it can determine the state of our energy system and how to use energy principles to change it. We can make our energy bright and clear, which gets us past the suffering we face from the limitations of the material world.

Zeroing our awareness in on oneness frees our hearts, our souls, from duality and distinction. It’s from this higher, original energy and consciousness that we can genuinely heal, grow, and create what our souls wish.

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Is Your Energy Strong Enough to Withstand Stress?

[Photo courtesy of Body & Brain Yoga and Health, Inc.]

How is your energy right now? Are you able to tell?

Gauging your energy state is an effective way to check your mental, physical, and emotional health minutely, because it affects and reflects all of these.

If you haven’t developed your ability to sense energy, a sense that everyone has, though it may be undeveloped, you can do this simple test to check your energy condition.

Put one hand on your forehead and the other hand on the skin of your belly. Which feels warmer than the other?

The state you want to have is your head being cooler while your belly is warm. This difference in temperature reflects the flow of warm fire energy and cool water energy in your body in its ideal direction.

The energy state you want to have is your head being cooler while your belly is warm.
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If the situation is reversed, and your head feels hotter than your belly, then your energy state, and therefore your body and mind, are not in a condition to withstand the physical and emotional stressors in your life. You may easily get emotional, have headaches or stomachaches, or feel lethargic or unmotivated. The balance of your body is broken, and your immunity is lessened.

There are many exercises to reverse this trend, which can lead to more serious issues. One of the easiest is Body Tapping. You don’t need to be in good condition to do Body Tapping, but this rhythmic stimulation of your body readily opens your energy points, relaxes your muscles and fascia, and calms your mind.

You can tap all over your body with your fists, palms, or fingers and find the stiff or painful spots that indicate your energy is blocked there. Or you can concentrate your tapping to your lower abdomen.

By stimulating your lower abdomen, especially two inches below your navel, you strengthen the energy center there while opening the main meridian down the center of the front of your body—the Conception Vessel. This meridian is often blocked when your energy flow is reversed.

Try tapping this spot in a steady rhythm with enough strength that you can feel the vibrations deep in your abdomen. Feel these vibrations while you exhale your tension and blocked energy through your mouth, breathing comfortably.

After a few minutes, how do you feel? Do you feel clearer, calmer, but more energized? Are your neck and shoulders relaxed? Then you have made a healthy energy flow in your body.

By regularly using simple methods like these, you can create the energy state that’ll keep you healthy and positive, even in times of stress.

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Ilchi Lee’s New Book Now Available for Pre-Order

Ilchi Lee’s new book, Water Up Fire Down: An Energy Principle for Creating Calmness, Clarity, and a Lifetime of Health, will be released November 9, 2020. It will be available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

This book focuses on one major energy principle that underlies our well-being, according to Asian medicine. It’s the basis of the many methods Ilchi Lee has developed over his 40-plus-year career.

The book shows you how keeping your head cool and your belly warm can influence every aspect of your life, and how by creating this energy state, you can improve any physical, mental, or emotional issues you may have.

It also emphasizes the importance of daily energy care, saying it’s as critical as brushing your teeth, getting a good night’s sleep, and wearing a mask in public. Your daily habits, it claims, arm you against the stresses and challenges that come with living, especially in these troubling times.

Donna Eden, author of Energy Medicine, has endorsed the book, saying, “I love this book. It is short, sweet, practical, fun to read, and it is written by a master! Ilchi Lee’s warmth, energy, and passion comes through as he teaches you how to understand your own body’s energies, to read them, and to nourish them. It is an important book for these challenging times!”

Long-time student of Ilchi Lee, Dr. Reed Tuckson, author of The Doctor in the Mirror, also gave props to the book. He wrote, “In Water Up Fire Down, Ilchi provides important and useful guidance on how each of us can take better control over our thoughts and emotions to reduce stress and enhance wellbeing. . . . I recommend this book to a wide audience because I wish for everyone to enjoy the benefits that result from Ilchi’s teaching.”

Ilchi Lee began this book because “now more than ever, it’s become obvious that we need to care for our own health. Making healthy daily habits is the first line of defense against infection and lifestyle illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. They also provide an anchor that helps us weather life’s emotional highs and lows. Water Up, Fire Down is the number one principle that affects our health. . . . If you know this principle, then you can check your energy condition all the time and apply it to your life.”

If you pre-order Water Up Fire Down in any format before November 9th, you can get access to free videos that bring the book to life: morning and evening routines to start and end your day in a healthy way, plus an exclusive qigong form made just for the book release by a qigong master who is one of Ilchi Lee’s students.

You can learn more about the book and claim your pre-order gifts at WaterUpFireDown.com.

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Never Stop Challenging Myself

Horses are something where joy and fear exist together. I enjoy horseback riding, but many years ago, I fell from a horse and almost died, and I had to lie still for nearly two months. I couldn’t do anything. However, I healed myself and developed the Brain Wave Vibration and Longevity Walking methods I teach in the process.

But I still had intense trauma regarding horses. Every time it was triggered, I was afraid to see my scared self just as I was, and every time that happened, I challenged myself. I got back on a horse and worked on overcoming the trauma.

When I lived in the United States, I had re-accustomed myself to a certain extent to riding horses again. In New Zealand, though, horses are trained in a completely different style. Everything is different, from the saddle to the shoes, so it was even more challenging. So I challenged myself to ride horses at the Earth Village in New Zealand. Finally, I’ve succeeded.

Physical and mental limitations come every day. You can’t skip over the passage of time. However, I made the choice not to condone standing by and watching limitations and simply get used to myself. So I keep training and challenging myself, not letting myself become complacent.

For if the spirit to grow and improve constantly, to endlessly rise to the challenge for boundless freedom, falls apart, then it’s over. Then I’ve lost my reason for being alive.

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Join the New Book Launch Team

On November 9th, my new book, Water Up Fire Down: An Energy Principle for Creating Calmness, Clarity, and a Lifetime of Health, will officially release in bookstores, both online and offline.

I wrote this book with the hope of giving more people simple means of managing their own health by showing them the most important energy principle they need to know. Water Up, Fire Down is a law of energy circulation that affects your physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual well-being, so I hope many people can learn it and apply it to their lives.

That’s why I’m asking for your help.

With my publisher’s help, I’m gathering a group of people to join a Book Launch Team. This team will read Advanced Reader Copies of the book before its official publication date and get the word out.

If you’re interested in being on the inside of this project and are passionate about empowering people to be strong in the face of stress and infection, please join us.

You can sign up for the Book Launch Team on this web page. The deadline is October 16, 2020.

After you sign up, my publisher, Best Life Media, will send you an electronic Advanced Reading Copy and keep you informed about the team’s actions via email.

I sincerely appreciate your help and extend my love to you.

You can learn more about Water Up Fire Down here on its Amazon page.