A Common Mis-Conception

Hence, many people, especially in the West, regard sugar and rich food like cake and chocolate, meat and eggs, with dread. Going on special diet, including macrobiotic, has become very popular. They often regard sugar, cream and oil as arch enemies; and some even go to the extent of literally beating their food to drive out the nutrients before consuming it. Some diet enthusiasts call sugar, which is an important source of life, white poison.

It is interesting to recall that when I was at school about fourty years ago, virtually all health science teachers told their students that if they wanted to be strong and healthy they must take rich food like meat and eggs, cake and chocolate. My first aid instructors taught that to retrieve a person about to faint, give him black coffee with a lot of sugar, as sugar provides energy. Among gourmets who like Chinese food, particularly Cantonese food, considered by some to be the best in the world, a common comment for poor food is that it is "mg kow yau sui", which means "lacking in oil"!

The crucial point is that cholesterol-conscious moderners are in reality not healthier and fitter than old-timers who believed in the nutrient value of meat and eggs, life-savers who believe in the life-sustaining properties of sugar or gourmets who enjoy Chinese food well cooked in oil. Indeed it is actually quite easy to see the invalidity of the albeit popular beleif that cholesterol is a (or the) contributing factor to cardiovascular diseases, or that sugar a contributing factor to diabetes. It really amazes me why so many intelligent people still believe in it.

Look at those who suffer from cardiovasuclar diseases or diabetes. You will find that their diet is very carefully controlled. They eat food with little or no cholesterol, yet they still suffer from cardiovascular diseases or diabetes. It is self-evident that if cholesterol were a contributing factor, drastically reducing its intake will eliminate or at least minimize the diseases. That, of course, is not so; in fact in some cases taking food lacking in food-value make the patient weaker and less able to cope with the diseases.

Two Illuminating Case-Histories

Doing normal chi kung was out of the question for her. I had to give her special exercises and she practiced while sitting down. After about six months of daily practice, not only she had recovered her health and strength, she could enjoy an eight-course dinner like other students of her class at a graduation celebration.

Here is another case from Spain. Juan, about 30, was overjoyed when I told him that his diabetes can be cured. He said I was the first person to give him hope; everyone had told him that diabetes could not be cured and that he had to live with it, and with its supportive medication, for life.

I opened his energy points, transmitted some chi to him and taught him some Shaolin chi kung exercises which he diligently practiced everyday. Before I left Spain about five weeks later, his friends who attended my chi kung classes reported that Juan had recovered from diabetes and his recovery had been confirmed by medical tests. Juan's recovery was exceptionally fast; normally it would take about eight months of daily practice to effect a cure.

These cases, which are common in my chi kung teaching, may sound incrediable to many people used to conventional medical thought, generally regarding cardiovascular disorders, diabetes and chronical, degenerative diseases as "incurable". But from the chi kung perspective, their recovery is expected.

Viewing Health and Disease from a Different Perspective

The Chinese medical paradigm has been successfully used to maintain and describe health for more than 5000 years, whereas the western medical paradigm has been used for less than one tenth the time. According to this time-tested paradigm, although there may be countless symptoms which may be described in westerm terms like cardiovascular disorders, diabetes or tubercolosis, there is strictly speaking only one dis-ease, and this disease is called by the Chinese as yin-yang disharmony.

Yin, here, represents the natural abilities of our body (and mind) to adjust to constantly changing environment, and yang represents all the factors that may cause illness. Yin-yang disharmony, therefore, means that the body fails in its natural abilities to arrest disease-causing factors. Happily, yin-yang harmony is the norm; yin-yang disharmony is unnatural and temporary.

If you have yin-yang harmony, which is another way of saying if your body systems work naturally, your body will adjust itself to the changing environment in the body caused by constantly changing factors. For example, if you have eaten two pieces of cake instead of just a bite, or three teaspoonful of sugar instead of just a pinch, you body will produce just that much chemicals to change the cake and sugar into useful material for the body. But if you have taken half a cake or just a teaspoon of sugar, then the necessary chemicals produced will be proportionately less.

Chinese medical scientists and chi kung masters are not interested in such details like the types or amounts of chemicals produced, or the manner and composition of their production, simply because such information, while interesting by itself, is not necessary for maintaining health. What they are concerned is to maintain yin-yang harmony. In other words, they are concerned that if x amount of chemical y is required for z minutes, then the body will produce x amount of chemical y for z minutes -- nothing more and nothing less, otherwise there won't be yin-yang harmony. They are not concerned whether x is 500 c.c. or 2600 ppm, y is called insuline or hydrochloric acid, and z is 10 seconds or 52.8 minutes. If p, q, r are required, then their concern is that p, q, r are produced instead of x, y, z; they do not even bother to find out what actually are p, q, r, or how they are produced, as long as they are produced. In other words, Chinese medical scientists and chi kung masters are interested in practical results, and not in academic issues.

Yin-Yang Harmony in Western Terms

After processing the information, the master mind sends a flow of instructions to the appropriate organs or glans to produce the necessary chemicals of the right amount and at the right time and place to change the cholesterol or sugar into useful ingredients for your body. This flow of instructions is also a flow of energy, and is regarded as a yang flow. So long as your yin flow and your yang flow are in harmony, you will not have cardiovascular disorder or diabetes, irrespective of whether you take just a mouthful of cake or two pieces, a pinch of sugar or three spoonful.

For the sake of easy understanding, let us quantify the flows. Let us say you have taken 5000 units of cholesterol or sugar. If you are healthy, i.e. if your body systems work the way they are meant to work, 5000 impulses will flow to inform your master mind of your new bodily environment. You master mind will send out 5000 units of instruction to tell the respective glans to produce 5000 units of chemicals to metabolize the 5000 units of cholesterol or sugar.

You need not have to practice any special exercise for this process to happen. The process is natural; the fact that you are alive entitles you a right to the process. You also need not have to know how the transmission of impulses or instructions work, or what chemicals are produced, or what ingredients are necessary to make the chemicals -- just as you need not have to know what the composition of your gastric juices is, or how your lungs regulate the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, you are still able to digest food and breathe.

If, for some reasons, the yin flow of impulses is blocked, then you will be unable to produce the right amount of chemicals. Let us say 1700 units of impulses are blocked, and only 3300 units can get through to your master-mind. Your master-mind therefore will have incorrect information regarding the amount of cholesterol or sugar present in your bodily environment, thinking that only 3300 units instead of 5000 units of cholesterol or sugar need to be metabolized. The master-mind will generate a yang flow of 3300 units of instruction, resulting in only 3300 units of chemicals to be produced. If this yin-yang imbalance persists, cardiovascular disorders or diabetes will occur.

The blockage of energy may happen at the yang flow, in which case even if the yin flow is clear, illness will occur. For example, 5000 units of impulses along the yin flow reach the master-mind, and so the mind now has the right information concerning the amount of cholesterol or sugar in the body. The mind therefore sends out 5000 units of instruction to the respective glans along the yang flow. But if 2100 units are blocked, only 2900 units of instruction can pass through, resulting in the production of only 2900 units of chemicals when 5000 units are needed. This will also cause cardiovascular diseases or diabetes.

Treatiang the Cause, Not the Symptoms

If you take pharmaceutical drugs to dilate your blood vessels or dissolve your sugar, you are merely treating the symptoms not the cause. As soon as you stop taking the drugs, the illness recurs. That is why doctors who practice this form of treatment regard high blood pressure, diabetes and other organic disorders as "incurable".

Chinese medical treatment, like chi kung therapy, attacks the root cause of the illness. The forte of chi kung is to generate energy flow which will break through energy blockage, thus restoring yin-yang harmony. When your body can adjust to changing conditions, which is actually your natural birth-right, you will adjust the production of the right chemicals of the right amount at the right time and place according to the amount, time and place of cholesterol, sugar and other substances that have enetered your body.

For various reasons, some people may have lost their natural ability of adjustment, and therefore suffer from organic disorders or other forms of illness. Chinese physicians and chi kung masters are generally not concerned with what these various reasons are; what they are concerned is to restore the patients' natural ability of adjustment. In other words, the physicians and masters are not concverned with whether the patients have taken real milk instead of de-cream milk, or white bread instead of brown bread, but they are concerned that the patients' yin flow of impulses regarding the exact conditions of the body is in harmony with their yang flow of instructions resulting in the production of the right chemicals. Once the patients' yin-yang harmony is restored, their illness will be overcome as a matter of course -- without the need of pharmaceuticals, surgery or psychiatric persuasion.

Practicing chi kung is an excellent way to restore yin-yang harmony. But one must practice genuine chi kung, i.e. exercises that involve not just form but also mind and energy. If you practice gymnastics or dance, which may be mistakenly called "chi kung", you may acquire strength and stamina, or grace and elegance, but you may not necessarily acquire the yin-yang harmony that symbolizes the ability of your body to adjust to constantly changing environment.

Many people have written to enquire about the possibility of learning Shaolin Kungfu or Shaolin Chi Kung from Sifu Wong Kiew Kit. Please refer to the following for details

• Intensive Shaolin Kungfu Course
• Intensive Shaolin Chi Kung Course
• Intensive Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) Course