Hi Richard. Nice to see you here.

The short answer is that if you just practice, you’ll answer your own questions. But the following articles may help:

For some of the science proving that qigong works: https://flowingzen.mykajabi.com/13-proven-benefits-of-qigong-and-tai-chi

On meridians:

https://flowingzen.com/19897/making-sense-of-the-meridians/

https://flowingzen.com/20707/are-the-qigong-meridians-even-real/

One healing:

https://flowingzen.com/9287/what-we-can-and-cant-heal/

This is an aspect of qigong that I find gets in the way of me fully engaging with it. I have only recently started with your ideas and practice and really enjoy the meditative, breathing and movement aspects. But I am also a rational being and trust (western) science, so discussion of meridians and dantian produce a friction in my enjoyment / learning.

Have you written more about your thinking / experience of this? Or can you recommend other authors who have covered this in a way that enables the two perspectives to co-exist in one brain?

Thanks,
Richard

And I really like that you included a transcript too. That must take a bit of extra work (unless you decide your script in advance, or have a cunning speech to text converter/Siri thing).

Hi, really enjoyed your talk, clear and consist.
Like you , my T’ai Chi /Chi Gong journey started 25 years ago , in the face of depression, ptsd and a serious internal bleed from duodenal ulcers that hospitalised me.I was told l would be on meds for years and some for life.I was very very low.
I took up tai chi as l had a martial background and so some aspects felt comfortable and familiar so therefore l felt safer than trying something very new to me.
It was hard for me to keep practising but l did and slowly the benefits accrued.Within three years l was clear of all medication and l felt better than l had ever felt in my entire life. All these years later I still feel good and l have now been teaching both arts for the last 15 years.
Periodically l sit my students down and l ask them to ask themselves “why am l still studying/practising tai chi chi gong?” And we share our thoughts, after all , there is no reason to continue any practise if the benefits are zero.
The answers vary but rotate around the real sense of wellness we all feel despite some of us having long term health issues and conditions.
I feel that continued practise gives rise to people that may be unwell as diagnosed with this or that but are “well” within the parameters of their conditions, l like to refer to them as a very “well” unwell person as opposed to some people who have no serious conditions but are “unwell”/well people who claim to feel under the weather, a bit low, not up to par etc… and do not practise-self improvement through energy arts.
As you say the mechanisms may not be fully comprehended but the results are there to see as l know through my own experience and that of others.
Keep the discussion going , regards , Terry

Re: the analogy of the cell phone and Qigong: It is true that we don’t have to know how it works (technologically speaking) in order to use it. But we do have to know how to turn it on, select the phone app, and how to store and retrieve phone numbers for specific parties before we can communicate with them. My thought is that just as we don’t connect with Tom when we dial Bruce’s number, if we want to activate a specific area of Qi flow, it might be helpful to know which technique did that. E.g., why do a technique that activates the meridian that services the kidneys when we want to activate a meridian that services an organ/gland that responds to another meridian? Also, so far I have looked at two books by other recognized masters (your peers). One is Mantak Chia, and the other is Robert Peng. Both of their books describe, in details, that pathways of the energy flow that we want to cultivate along with detailed diagrams. I have read your approach to the subject of viizualization. And they seem to be very largely about visualization. LIke you, stress on a life of benevolent behavioral precepts, positive mind states, smiling from the heart , etc. But when it comes to the intentional flow of Qi in various “pathways” they are very much about a conceptual model, or visualization, with which the Qi is guided by the principal of “energy follows thought.” I will only add at this point that I am very much a beginner in Qigong. You are my first teacher. I am reading those other books to expand my comprehension. But I am taking practical instruction and implementing practical application under your guidance. Please do not take this as a challenge. I simply want more understanding.

As far as western medicine goes, you are a lot kinder than me in your evaluation of it. I actually think that allopathic medicine is like the dark ages as compared to Qigong or Ayurvedic medicine. Western med is all about symptomatic relief with very little if any understanding of what makes people ill. It has almost nothing to do with preventive medicine. In this way, the patient has to become dependent on the drug (or poison) for life, and the side effects are almost always devastating, and have to be counteracted by taking other meds. The education of the doctors is very largely under the control of big pharma that gives grants to the educational facilities. And if a real cure is found, that is natural and inexpensive, big pharma arranges to take that cure and its producers off the market. This is my conviction.

I see that you hesitate to use the word “cure”. And I can understand that is at least in part because “the law of the land” which is very much under the control of agencies like big pharma, and the puppet government that is controlled by big business, etc., wants to cut out all competition (like Qigong). My basic rule of thumb is that the best way to stay healthy (in relation to allopathic medicine) is to stay away from it as much as possible, as in “an apple a day keeps the doctor away – if you aim it right.

A case in point: I have had chronic diarreaha for about five years. Making it to the bathroom (in my case, to the outhouse across the back meadow) has been a challenge. I have had scopes down my throat, up my rectum, every kind of lab test on my gut and stool, etc., etc. No findings. No help. Just use drugs that induce constipation and have horrific side effects. Then I began learning from you. Within a few months, it all began to get better. Incredible but true. Not actually incredible – just wonderfully surprising, wonderfully rejeuvenating. I have twice as much energy. And I am a happier person. With the cultivation of the lower dantian, I am taking on projects that previously were beyond consideration. So I am a true believer. But I still desire more conceptual understanding – because that is my nature. I can see that it works without that understanding. But I am also sure that with more understanding I could practice in ways that surpass what I have learned so far – like learning how to direct the flow of energy in specific ways – through understanding those pathways and how to implement that. If we don’t call that visualization, that is O.K. with me. Whatever it is called, I strongly suspect that it would be very helpful, long term.

With gratitude and big-time respect, Peter/Ishan