Discovering Original Spirit—Harmony Talks with Dr. Liu Dong

Harmony:  From your perspective, what is Qigong?

LD:  The definition of Qigong for me is vital breathing—it's not just the general meaning of Qigong from the translation from Chinese to English.  Qigong comes from the word "Qi," which means energy.  If we translate word for word, it means "energy work," but I want to give a deeper meaning.  For me, Qigong means "vital breathing," which is the original breathing that humans have without emotions.  When you have emotions your breathing is influenced by them.  

Harmony:  Is original breathing the type of breathing that we had as babies? 

LD:  After we are born, because of education and the influence of society, we lose vital breathing.  We are influenced by the energy from the outside and we lose the capacity to breathe vitally.  There are too many emotions.  From the point of view of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), there are seven different emotions [anger, joy, worry, sadness, grief, fear, and terror], and they can influence your breathing.  Originally we breathe with our abdomen, but after years of influence from the external world and our emotions, we begin to breathe with just the upper chest.  So the area of breathing is smaller than before—it becomes very limited.

Harmony:  Many people think of Qigong as only a physical practice or movement, but isn't it also a movement into other aspects of being?

LD:  Yes.  We can say that it's not just movement.  There is, of course, physical movement but we need to go further into the mind, and also to get balance between the mind and the physical body.  The harmony between the mind and the body is very important in Qigong.

Harmony:  What is the name and origin of this type of Qigong?

LD:  Jade Body Qigong and Wisdom Qigong.  The lineage is from my grandfather and the theory is from the traditions of China . . . of traditional Chinese medicine.  The practice, the discipline, I learned from my grandfather, from my family. I had a very serious lung problem—tuberculosis— when I was very young that is why I learned Qigong.

Harmony:  If someone wants to learn this type of Qigong, what would the process be like?

LD:  There are three elements in the practice of Qigong in general.  The first is to harmonize the heart because the heart is the master of the mind.  The heart is very important.  It is the basic element in the practice of Qigong because the heart is the master of all in Chinese medicine.  The purpose of harmonizing the heart is to develop "intention," which in Chinese is called "yi." 

There is a kind of intention inside your body.  There is a difference between the intention inside and outside the body.  What we practice in this kind of Qigong is to create intention inside your body without adding outside influences.  So just one concentration replaces all other intentions.  In everyday life, for example, to drive or to work, we need a different kind of intention—we do different things at the same time—but in Qigong we do one thing:  concentrate our energy so at that moment we have just one intention.  One intention can be pure; two intentions cannot be pure.  The reason why we are so stressed in modern society is that we have so many intentions together at the same time in our body and in our mind.

The second element in Qigong practice is to harmonize the breathing—the Qi.  So we do "exercises" to rediscover our original breathing:  breathing long, smoothly and deeply.  The third element is to harmonize the movements.  The physical element comes in at the end.  We can say that harmonizing the physical movements is a result of the first and second elements.  And as a result of the first and second elements, we can have a relaxed body and move slowly to be strong inside and soft and relaxed outside.  With a calm heart your body becomes more healthy and gentle. 

Harmony:  Is the heart the most important organ in this type of Qigong?

LD:  We can say that for a Chinese medicine practitioner, to heal the heart is the most important point in his or her treatment—for any person.

Harmony:  And when you say, "heal the heart," do you mean heal the heart on all levels?

LD:  It's the mind, it's intention, for me—that's the meaning of heart—it's not just the physical heart.

Harmony:  When you reach the state of having a calm, peaceful heart is that the same thing as original spirit?

LD:  At the moment when the heart is calm and quiet, you can listen to the sound from your original spirit (yuan shen).  Otherwise you cannot listen to this voice of your original spirit—you cannot hear it because you are so exhausted and un-centered.  After we're born we don't use our original spirit anymore, we use knowledge, education, information from the outside . . . .  There are three kinds of spirit:  original spirit, knowledge spirit, and the spirit of desire.  Only the original spirit is the pure one.  This original spirit was given by the cosmos at the moment of conception.  That is why it is pure.  Original spirit exists when the subconscious works without any work on the part of the conscious mind.

Harmony:  So it's beyond the conscious mind?

LD:  It's Universal—without any definition, without any concept.  In this very moment you can discover your original spirit and you can heal yourself because you can hear the real voice of your body, your mind, and also, the real voice from the universe.  Buddha, Jesus—all of these great people—found their original spirit, so they had the capacity to transform all of their emotions to compassion, to transform everything to compassion.  And this is why they are great.  Of course, this is difficult for everybody, but we all have this seed—this tiny seed—in our body when we are born, so little by little, through our practice, we can approach this seed in our body.

One concept of the Taoists is that just as we can focus outside on the external world, we can also move easily inside into our internal world.  Qigong practice is like taking a shower . . . to purify our mind, our body, and to transform our emotions into something better, into something pure—into compassion.  When we go outside of the practice and go back to society to continue our daily life, our body and mind have been transformed.  And just like after taking a shower, we feel much better than before.  We feel more centered, more pure. 

Harmony:  Do the benefits of practice accumulate? 

LD:  At the first stage it is just like a battery, you need to recharge and refuel the battery by your Qigong practice.  Little by little, you approach closer and closer to your original spirit, and you will feel much better.  Physically, from a therapeutic point of view, we can say that with the practice of Qigong your body will be more and more soft and relaxed, and flexible, so that accumulates, of course.  And your mind will become more and more stable, so that also accumulates.

Harmony:  Does a person, in order to be a true healer, have to connect to their original spirit?

LD:  Yes, absolutely.  In the history of China, we can say that there are lots of good healers, practitioners of energy.  They work from the original spirit.  In order to be a good healer you need to be connected.  Otherwise, you just feel the person's condition by the pulse—you cannot feel the whole body.  You treat the sickness but do not really heal the person.  A good acupuncturist—somebody who practices Chinese medicine—does not just use technique but also connects with his or her original spirit, and connecting the needles with his or her original spirit can heal the patient.  This means that the function of the intention of the healer has a very important place in healing.  Otherwise it's just technical, which anybody can do—it's not enough.

Harmony:  Has this type of deep healing been lost in China and throughout the world?

LD:  Originally, this kind of practice was found in ancient China—before the revolution in China—but now there are fewer doctors that can practice at this level.  I believe there are more energy practitioners in Western countries now, and I realize there are more and more people interested in this kind of practice—they are ready for it.  For me, that is the real value of traditional Chinese medicine—it's not just some technique.  I believe it's important to develop the original sense and value of TCM in the world now, and to let people know what the real tradition is.  More and more TCM doctors realize this—that the healing of the mind is very important.

Harmony:  To treat the root cause and not just the physical symptoms?

LD:  That's it.  This is why I think a good acupuncturist—somebody who practices Chinese medicine—or a good healer does not just use technique but also connects with his or her original spirit, and connecting the needles with his or her original spirit can heal the person.  This means that the function of the intention of the healer has a very important place in healing.

Harmony:  So the actual needles or the person's hand or the herbs—all these modalities—they are just really like a vehicle to convey the spirit of the healer?

LD:  Yes, that's very important.  Otherwise it's just technique—it's not enough.

Harmony:  Can you speak about the five organ spirits organs in terms of healing?

LD:  This is a very complex subject—it's a special topic, but I can give you some ideas about it.  There are five souls corresponding with the five organs.  Each organ has its own special soul.  For example, the Heart is the soul for the spirit or, we can say, contains the spirit.  There are five "containers."  The second is the Lung, which holds the soul of decisions—you use this soul to make decisions in your life.  The third is the Liver, which is the soul of imagination and dreaming, meaning that you use this organ when you dream.  The Spleen contains the spirit of intention.  When you have intention, your Spleen is working.  The last one is the Kidney, and it holds your will.  When you have will, your Kidney is working. 

In Taoist medicine, each organ is not just a physical organ, each organ has a soul that "lives" in the organ, meaning that each organ contains a special soul.  Each soul has an interesting image.  The image for the Heart is a red bird.  We need to put this red bird in a cage.  Otherwise it will fly away.  This is why we need to center and nourish our Heart.  The Lung's image is the white tiger.  The nature of the tiger is very dynamic, but what we need in the Lung is to calm this tiger down, make it soft and control it.  Otherwise it will be too dynamic, too "noisy," and there will be a problem with the Lung—you may cough more.  For example, the problem of asthma is a problem of the tiger.  If you can hear your breathing—if it is noisy—that means you have a problem.  Your breathing needs to be very smooth and without noise.  The third image is for the Liver.  There is a blue dragon that lives in the Liver.  We need to control this dragon to be gentle and not to be angry, because the nature of the blue dragon is anger.  This is why we need to calm this dragon down.  Otherwise we will have a problem with the emotion anger.  The Spleen's image is a unicorn.  The nature of the unicorn is to be very centered.  When the unicorn walks, for example, he is very focused.  This is why we need the soul of our Spleen to be very focused.  That's why the intention needs to be focused on just one idea.  The last is the Kidney.  There is a turtle that lives in the Kidney.  The turtle walks slowly and has a very long life.  He doesn't like competition with any animals.  He chooses a dirty place to live.  This means he doesn't like competition and he doesn't like luxury.  The turtle has a very strong will.  He conserves his energy, and that is why he keeps a very strong original energy to achieve his will and to have a long life.  

Harmony:  How would you diagnose by understanding the dynamics of these spirits? How would a healer understand illness from the nature of these spirits?

LD:  Regarding these five organs and the five souls, this is just the first step.  After that, of course, all of these five organs and five souls relate together.  So, for example, you need to think about the dynamics between and among the five organs and these five souls.  It's not just one.  The spirit of my Qigong is this—the work to relate to this harmonization among the five organs and the five souls.

Dr. Liu Dong is an internationally recognized Qigong Master and Doctor of Oriental Medicine.  A graduate of the Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, he has conducted scientific research on the medical effects of Qigong in China, Japan, the United States (Harvard School of Medicine), and in France (National Health and Medical Research Institute in Marseille and Marmottan Hospital in Paris).  He is a Qigong healer with many years' experience treating patients, including China's former president, Deng Xiao Ping, and other dignitaries.  The author of several books and articles on Qigong, he founded Liu Dong's Qigong Method, which is registered in the Official Repertory of Chinese Medicine.  Visit www.linggui.org for more information.

A heartfelt thank-you to Hua Zhang for her invaluable help with this interview.