Tired of temporary fixes for your chronic health issues? Discover REAL solutions now! 👉 https://nathancrane.com/ Explore the age-old wisdom of Qigong in this discussion with Master Mingtong Gu. Join us as we delve into the profound insights and remarkable outcomes of this practice, and discover its potential to aid in recovery from persistent health challenges. From its captivating past to its life-changing advantages, this podcast covers it comprehensively. Ensure you don’t miss out on this chance to tap into the potential of Qigong!
Master Mingtong Gu brings ancient wisdom to the west for better health and consciousness in contemporary times. Named Qigong Master of the Year by the 13th World Congress for Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Master Mingtong conducts workshops and retreats at many distinguished institutes, such as Esalen Institute, Omega Institute, 1440 Multiversity, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Shift Network, and more. He is the founder of The Chi Center / The Center for Wisdom Healing Qigong, a beautiful 150-acre retreat center located 20 minutes south of Santa Fe, NM.
Your host, Nathan Crane, is a Certified Holistic Cancer Coach, Best-Selling Author, Inspirational Speaker, Cancer-Health Researcher and Educator, and 20X Award Winning Documentary Filmmaker with Over 15 Years in the Health Field.
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Audio Transcript
(This transcript was auto-generated so there may be some errors)
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:11:08
Nathan Crane
Welcome back to the podcast. I am really excited to be joined by my good friend Master Mingtong Gu. Mingtong. Thanks for coming on and doing the podcast.
00:00:11:13 – 00:00:17:03
Mingtong Gu
Absolutely. Absolutely. I can always enjoy a good conversation, especially with the friend.
00:00:18:00 – 00:00:40:16
Nathan Crane
We’re going to have a really good conversation for sure. Anyone who doesn’t know Mingtong, he’s a master Qigong teacher. He was trained by Grand Master Dr. Peng Ming in China. He came to the West decades ago to bring this incredible ancient healing practice a methodology called wisdom, healing, qigong, and share it with people here in the West.
00:00:41:00 – 00:01:04:23
Nathan Crane
I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. My wife and I and our daughter. We moved to Santa Fe, I think it was 2014. My son was then born the next year. He was conceived there in Santa Fe. Then he was born. And then I think it was about a year after that where I met you, Ming Tong We, I was introduced by a couple of mutual friends, I think Georgia City, and introduced us and I went out to visit.
00:01:04:23 – 00:01:33:16
Nathan Crane
So Ming Tong has a retreat center, an incredible healing retreat center called the Chi Center, not the cheese center. A lot of people think I say GCA, Chi as in Chi Energy, Qigong chi Center. It’s an incredible healing retreat center on many acres there just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, beautiful property. And people come there from all over the world and learn this mind, body practice of qigong and see incredible healing results.
00:01:34:02 – 00:02:07:04
Nathan Crane
I ended up working with Ming Tong for a few years, joining the executive team and doing, you know, marketing and video production and documentaries and all kinds of things. And I actually filmed a few documentaries that are on YouTube following people who healed things from Parkinson’s to chronic pain to, you know, death, all kinds of issues. Tom Lowe’s work, who got off like 13 medications by learning and practicing, you know, this methodology that Ming Tong teaches and we’re going to go in-depth in here on this on this conversation.
00:02:07:17 – 00:02:24:11
Nathan Crane
But, yeah, so, so many times I’ve been teaching for many, many years. You can find them on YouTube, you can find them online, you can learn more about qigong and you know, the history of it and what it is and how it works. And that’s what a lot of what we’re going to talk about in this interview. What is qigong?
00:02:24:11 – 00:02:47:18
Nathan Crane
Why is it work? How is it helping so many people heal from so many different kinds of chronic health issues? How is it contributing to having more energy, less fatigue, feeling better or having more mental clarity, increasing longevity, all these kinds of incredible health benefits that I know we all are interested in. So without further ado. Yeah. Meantime, welcome to the podcast.
00:02:47:18 – 00:02:54:15
Nathan Crane
Thanks for thanks for coming on. I know you’re busy. They’re getting ready for retreat coming up. So you got you guys some retreats coming up pretty soon.
00:02:55:07 – 00:03:11:16
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, in three weeks, you know, I see, you know, well, this season, the main season is in the fall. So it’s about 5 to 6 weeks long. So people come join us for one week long, ten days, up to five weeks, even.
00:03:12:22 – 00:03:13:17
Mingtong Gu
So, it is the most.
00:03:13:17 – 00:03:15:15
Mingtong Gu
Intense, exciting time. Yeah.
00:03:16:08 – 00:03:43:09
Nathan Crane
Beautiful. I did a weeklong retreat there with you. I actually got to experience. Just let everything else go and just do the retreat. Yeah, and I can tell you what it was one of the most you know, I’ve been in my body spiritual practices since about 2006, I would say from meditation to chanting to harikrishna, you know, chanting to sweat lodges and Native American and you name it.
00:03:43:09 – 00:04:04:02
Nathan Crane
And they’re all incredible and powerful. But I think that week long retreat I did there at the Chinese Center was one of the most transformational, powerful experiences I ever had seriously. It was so deep and so profound. And every day you’re just full of like, you know, you go through the challenge of the practice, but then you’re, like, uplifted by this joy and this bliss.
00:04:05:01 – 00:04:33:05
Nathan Crane
Plus just your energy and your wisdom that you’re sharing with everybody is really, really powerful. What did you I want to go back into? I’d love if you would share your time, maybe in depth at the Medicine List Hospital, as it’s been called in China, where you learned qigong and you trained under Grand Master Doctor Peng Ming, can you share a little bit about what that training was like?
00:04:33:05 – 00:04:48:00
Nathan Crane
What led you to that, what your experience was like there, and how that kind of cultivated this this ability and desire in you to, you know, go then through the master teacher training program and eventually start teaching to others.
00:04:48:15 – 00:05:22:17
Mingtong Gu
MM Yeah. So I’m glad we have more time this, this conversation and just hear some of the story or experience, you know, as you experience the power, the depths in one week here in the center, right here. And clearly it’s hard to put into words. Imagine if you engage in this process for one month long, even longer, so difficult to put into words.
00:05:22:24 – 00:06:04:08
Mingtong Gu
You know what’s like for me experiencing them the longer intensive, but also with much bigger cloud at a time, you know, many thousands of practitioner. So the program there in the medicine chicken hospital minimum is one month long, four weeks long and often people extending longer, longer. So I attended firstly as a kind of practical kind of beginning practitioners and focus on my own healing and was really incredible, just incredible.
00:06:04:08 – 00:06:48:18
Mingtong Gu
Then I attend one more, so attend three months teacher training. Then from there realizing this is not only a continuous process but the best thing I want to engage for the rest of my life. So I end up attending the master training program, which lasts about two years. Then I came back to come to us to teach full time in the last 20 my 22 years now and time flies why in a by so fast by going back to the experience, it’s like the best gift I give to myself.
00:06:48:18 – 00:07:30:03
Mingtong Gu
At a time. I didn’t know the profound impact. You know, what I have discover is beyond just healing, even total recovery from these can you in a labelled as incurable condition such as asthma sclerosis. But more importantly I discover myself. I discover my happiness, I discover my purpose, discover the confidence, the deeper meaning of life. So at a time, you know, even I was challenged from childhood, you know, with this condition as Ms..
00:07:30:03 – 00:07:49:14
Mingtong Gu
Goriss is very disability and challenging, have a weak body and but I learned to deal with that level with that. So it’s uncomfortable, even painful being the body. So end up studying mathematics.
00:07:50:04 – 00:08:06:09
Mingtong Gu
It’s the most intellectual, abstract mental activity, you know, on the planet Earth. So I was pretty good at it and so went to graduate school for in China, then came to UCSD.
00:08:06:20 – 00:08:08:06
Mingtong Gu
Then went to Harvard.
00:08:08:06 – 00:08:10:04
Mingtong Gu
And pitched the program.
00:08:10:04 – 00:08:38:16
Mingtong Gu
But then that realizing, you know, I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. So my friend introduced me to wisdom, healing. She came at a time then realizing, wow, a new sense of peace, new sense of kind of a calmness set, honest with myself and now I’ve experienced before. So I realized something special there and then need to explore more.
00:08:38:24 – 00:09:07:13
Mingtong Gu
So I start to learn from her first, then her teacher. They all live in us at a time and then eventually read to me to the medicine as you’re going to hospital in China and you know, meeting my teacher grandpa mass mean is a total life transforming experience. And that meeting, you know, changed my life. And at a time I didn’t know it.
00:09:07:20 – 00:09:54:20
Mingtong Gu
But then reflecting back the moment, everything changed, everything changed. So and I can recall my feeling, the feeling is like it’s like how odd in the way he looked at me and the way he just brief moment his presence. I felt like my whole being melted. Melted. It’s like this drop of the drop of water finding the ocean melting into this big ocean and feel settled, feel inspired, feel a kind of meaning is not defined by the mind.
00:09:55:13 – 00:10:12:00
Mingtong Gu
It’s like, Oh, that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m mental and that’s why I’m Chinese and that’s why I end up hearing this moment. And that’s like a deeper, truly awakening process.
00:10:12:18 – 00:10:15:12
Nathan Crane
To connecting to your. Your deep purpose.
00:10:15:17 – 00:10:19:10
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, deeper core. Call myself essence of myself.
00:10:19:21 – 00:10:37:05
Nathan Crane
So excited about that. Do you think that experience being in his presence was unique to you or do you know of other people? Like, did he just radiate such a presence of wisdom and love that a lot of people had a similar experience when they met him? Or.
00:10:37:05 – 00:11:04:24
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, yeah. Each individual that I experienced can be slight, unique and different. But overall, similar experience happened to so many, so many in obviously his energy, his presence, his wisdom, his depth, and it just it just naturally touched you in a way, you know, playing the mind can understand beyond what are we even expected or prepared for it?
00:11:05:13 – 00:11:45:18
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, it’s like total connection. Total something happen then that kind of experience happen. Continue. You know, even when I attended, let’s say the first tree at your facility here when there was with about 30 some no more than 30 to 40 western students and visiting the medicine chicken hospital only for two weeks. But we stayed outside the medicine checking hospital because the way we are Westerner and the place of the medicine chicken hospital is nearby.
00:11:46:03 – 00:12:20:19
Mingtong Gu
Military base is sensitive at a time politically. So we’re not allowed to stay there, but we can visit. So we were practicing in a gorgeous hotel next to the ocean, then go to the center by the day, chirp back in the force like that. So that’s was the my first experience, first time I met him. And so in the beginning training program, um, he only come once a week, a pair once a week.
00:12:21:10 – 00:12:52:07
Mingtong Gu
So all of the program is read by the teachers trained under him. So he can imagine it’s like only is there there’s thousands of people joining so that smaller classes medium classes then when he shows up everybody shows up with thousands of people. So yeah most time our door and he would teach for you know up to 3 hours sometimes longer even and always like the highlights of the months.
00:12:52:07 – 00:13:23:11
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. So every time he shows up a similar experience what happened and that continuously you know deepening your connection not only with him but also with the tradition, the lineage and the teaching and the practice and they actually most time we just watching the teaching of his video from his video, recorded the video, then applying the teaching to the practice and discussion group and so on.
00:13:23:22 – 00:13:52:23
Mingtong Gu
And so then smaller group have different kind of unique activities sometime. And so a lot of activity happening together, practicing in the morning practice in the middle of day practice the evenings we main large group practice, then other medium size and small size of class coming together, you know, go into the detail of the teaching and the practice of teaching to the practice, improving the practice, the technique in a song like this.
00:13:52:23 – 00:14:11:22
Mingtong Gu
So it’s a variety of these activities. So one experience I can share with you, you know, besides the impact of my teacher in a for me in this process, its on-going process. It’s continuously affecting me.
00:14:12:21 – 00:14:15:07
Mingtong Gu
The process is continuing.
00:14:15:07 – 00:14:50:16
Mingtong Gu
Without even seeing him for so many years and but I know that our experiences really relating to power of the community and in a very tangible way, not only just like every time you are in a large group, you feel this powerful energy presence and everything is easier and the practice become easier. It’s practice is challenging that’s purposely designed to challenge you, but if you do it yourself, it’s like can be so challenging, almost difficult to do.
00:14:50:21 – 00:15:14:03
Mingtong Gu
But when you do it together in this energy field, something somehow, how would I put it? Almost like you are swimming in this ocean of power and energy which is supporting everybody. So the movement you cannot do. Suddenly you can do.
00:15:14:10 – 00:15:36:06
Nathan Crane
I can give a good example for anyone, you know, a tangible example that probably a lot of people have experienced trying to work out by yourself at home, you know, do a challenging workout right? Unless you’re really dedicated, really passionate, really focused with a big goal and a lot of drive. Most people can’t work out at home by themselves.
00:15:36:12 – 00:16:07:18
Nathan Crane
So they go to a gym and being at a gym around other people and in the energy and presence of other people gives a little extra motivation. Gives a little extra energy, gives a little extra boost. Right. And there’s there is something intangible underneath the surface there. And I don’t think a lot of people are aware of of being in a group like that where that energetic support helps you, you know, improve it, whatever you’re trying to do, whether it’s at the gym or in this case, practicing qigong, for example.
00:16:07:18 – 00:16:37:02
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, yeah. You know, we all need a community longing for community with deeply knowing that the power, the benefit of community a in this case is we cultivating community and qigong way in very energetic, conscious way. That’s means not only you’re engaging in the same activity, same kind of practice for hours, hours, every day in the retreat together.
00:16:37:07 – 00:17:07:24
Mingtong Gu
But also you really are connecting with each other in a way in a for most people have never experienced before. It’s like really truly heart to heart. Ouyang You know, our different story, different circumstances in a different individual rhythm song, and it’s like this universal but also personal connection with each other, resonate each other. So there’s this unconditional love, this compassion.
00:17:08:08 – 00:17:39:19
Mingtong Gu
This is also purpose, purpose of supporting each other and benefiting each other. Really, truly help each other. Moving to the next, you know, love of healing, next level of fulfillment of life. So that’s like the spirit of purpose, allow the energy to resonate with each other. So not just presence of each other. And that’s is powerful, beautiful already, but that’s it’s like consciously cultivated energy presence.
00:17:40:05 – 00:18:02:19
Mingtong Gu
So you can feel that every day being together and you become stronger, stronger over time. So that’s the we call of it. She feel that she feel the energy feel. So we that’s is part of the teaching part of the practice. And that’s it’s really from my teacher’s point of view, he often says, you know, I don’t have any personal power.
00:18:03:01 – 00:18:35:10
Mingtong Gu
But with the power experiencing is the power of the community, the power of the group. But the way we organizing the energy, organizing the power allows us all not only to connect excess, but to contribute together. So we become part of the whole part of the unified energy field. And that experience is like so profound for me. It’s like difficult put to the words and is so ingrained in my memory, my somatic memory.
00:18:36:04 – 00:19:02:19
Mingtong Gu
So I know the power of the experience, but I know also how to initiate that and what takes to cultivate that. And that’s what I being folksong ing all the teachings, you know, that’s also it’s important, you know, relating to what I’m doing here is having a physical center at the tree center. You know, I used to I call cultivating the chief feel more like portable chief you.
00:19:02:19 – 00:19:07:23
Mingtong Gu
Know, you know, going to develop occasion, renting a different space, working with a different group.
00:19:08:04 – 00:19:11:22
Mingtong Gu
It’s great, amazing when come together but then have to start over.
00:19:11:22 – 00:19:13:09
Mingtong Gu
Again in different place.
00:19:13:14 – 00:19:41:12
Mingtong Gu
And as a group again. So the power accumulated in one place all of the time, particularly with the TDK group of people with the consistency and that’s is something young most of us have experienced. If had not experienced that in the medicine chicken hospital, even, no matter how much intellectual understanding I may have, I would never know the true power.
00:19:41:12 – 00:20:07:05
Mingtong Gu
I would never be able to do what I’m doing here now. So that’s another important in a piece this you know when we share this in-depth conversation and the next the when is also important is like a tangible and presence of the group. And for example, one practice we did is like it’s called the Tinchy. You know, I think.
00:20:08:04 – 00:20:15:03
Mingtong Gu
This thing you enjoyed, the one is like simple but most powerful, intense practice.
00:20:15:07 – 00:20:18:07
Nathan Crane
Yeah, that was, that was intense. Look. Very simple.
00:20:19:02 – 00:20:31:02
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. Simple being that. Yeah. In some ways as challenge as and if it is fitness you have done you know you have such healthy and the fifth body right.
00:20:31:02 – 00:21:00:06
Nathan Crane
Oh my God you it’s unbelievable how you could be very very strong physically. Yeah. Yeah. And some of these qigong practices, it will blow your mind and how difficult they can be to you. Like all I’m doing is holding my arms here and moving side to side, and your shoulders are on fire. But it’s the incredible thing is, is when you move through that, through the teaching in the chair filled with the practice, something amazing does start to happen.
00:21:00:06 – 00:21:21:01
Nathan Crane
You start to yell, you know, blockages, you know, pains and different things that can start to shed away your body, starts releasing these pent up energies that it’s been holding on to. Yeah. And it is quite a but you have to go through that challenge. It’s just like, you know, if you’re at the gym, you want to build your muscles, you have to go up against resistance.
00:21:21:01 – 00:21:45:00
Nathan Crane
You have to challenge your muscles to build them in this way. It’s we’re not building muscle, right? It’s we’re embracing the challenge to allow the energy within and around our bodies to flow through freely so that we can break up these traumas and stuck energies and things that are causing pain and diseases and all kinds of things that get, you know, trapped in the body.
00:21:45:12 – 00:22:05:18
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. One of the, you know, the story. So inspirational, but especially when you mentioned Tom’s story in recovering from these, you know, more than ten different diagnosis of four is life threatening disease or incurable disease. From the medical point of view, when you’re working.
00:22:05:18 – 00:22:09:11
Mingtong Gu
With energy, everything is possible. And so that’s the new.
00:22:09:11 – 00:22:41:01
Mingtong Gu
Paradigm of qigong. But for him and he, you know, it was like was impossible case It’s totally impossible. CASE If you look at the medically, it’s like impulsive BO No doctor, even no healer can deal with it. And but he possessed it, came to military, then military and continue practiced at home and within two years letting go of all the medication within three years, in a total absence of any disease, according to the medical check out.
00:22:41:06 – 00:22:53:24
Nathan Crane
Well, he went to your he went to your first retreat in a wheelchair because he was weak. He was too weak to walk. He had just had, I think, gallbladder surgery or some kind of spleen surgery or something. He had.
00:22:54:06 – 00:22:56:18
Mingtong Gu
Buying surgery. Many. Yeah.
00:22:56:18 – 00:23:23:21
Nathan Crane
And a spinal fusion lower back spinal fusion. The doctor said he would never twist his body ever again. You know, he had, yeah, like ten different chronic things. So he was ready to end his life. In fact, he was very considering ending. His life is in so much pain. And as you know, he thought his life was over and he goes into a retreat in a wheelchair here I am a few years later, swimming with him in the freezing cold, northern California.
00:23:25:02 – 00:23:38:03
Nathan Crane
And he was swimming, you know, at night, more with me. I’m like, man, I’m used to cold water. And he’s like having no problem with it. He’s a totally different person. His whole life changed. He got his whole life back and it was so yeah.
00:23:38:03 – 00:24:12:16
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. So for the first time in 20 years and yeah, his story is truly amazing, really from the impossible to be possible and but when story you know when the experience he had is in the first literary with all of the severe injury and a surgery in the spine, we start to do this spine, spinal bone marrow is notating the spine opening, you know, the spine energy flow.
00:24:13:05 – 00:24:45:01
Mingtong Gu
And this was extremely painful and seeing the two thing. One is he’s determined, he want to try anything can help him after he did everything alone. Passaic Integrative Medicine mainly spiritual practice. And he’s ready to say, give up and move on. You know. But he discovered she can say, I’m going to give another shot. So he’s willing to try everything, basically after he tried everything already.
00:24:45:11 – 00:25:14:19
Mingtong Gu
So but secondly is somehow I think it’s also from you know, my approach is very direct. Okay, here is a two options available which when you want to choose, one is challenging, but opening the energy open in the potential to heal, to recover. And as it is comfortable, you’re protecting yourself, you’re comfortable. Then you numbing your body, you disconnect from your body.
00:25:14:19 – 00:25:35:07
Mingtong Gu
Use drug use surgery, whatever, you know, working with a body like enemy. Then eventually the disease getting worse. Most of the time, of course, only you know, death sentence, chronic disease in Cuba, disease, whatever it is. So my approach, straightforward approach is also help him to take.
00:25:35:07 – 00:25:37:19
Mingtong Gu
That kind of quantum leap.
00:25:38:03 – 00:26:04:00
Mingtong Gu
So in the third day of solitary, after experiencing all the pain, all the difficult and somehow something opened up a surge of energy. Yeah. From the base of spine shooting up to his brain. So he had that awakening experience. Yes, spiritual awakening process, but feel so energized and more than anything he has experienced before. So that experience. Yeah.
00:26:04:11 – 00:26:49:24
Mingtong Gu
Indicate this process of healing, awakening by going through the challenges, the difficult part of your body. It doesn’t matter what is a diagnosis that you can discover the hidden power, hidden potential, hidden wisdom. Even so, in this case, the question can you move through these challenges? And most of us cannot, unfortunately, by telling the truth, most of cannot you back up when you experiencing discomfort, you back up, experiencing pain, break up, experiencing challenge, you back up or even fighting it, resisting and judging it.
00:26:50:05 – 00:27:37:08
Mingtong Gu
So that’s is a difficult part of the process. But this inevitable, you cannot avoid it. You cannot say, Oh, sitting there, someone fixed me taking my pain away and just numbing my body. Expecting healing, expecting total recovery. That’s is not quite possible. Right? So in my case, in my personal experience, it was a simple but it really affected me is doing the things she practiced in the beginning was so difficult, like last 5 minutes I want to give up then the last longer, you know, then I give up and but a one time teacher said tonight is a form of practice we’re going to do to our practice and the formal.
00:27:38:01 – 00:27:40:15
Mingtong Gu
And of course, we kind of get excited.
00:27:40:15 – 00:27:42:09
Mingtong Gu
But also scary. You know, we know.
00:27:42:15 – 00:27:47:14
Mingtong Gu
How some of the challenging practice might be. But as a surprise, she start to read it.
00:27:47:21 – 00:28:01:15
Mingtong Gu
She practice. I was like, Oh, my God, oh my God. So I was trying to make a Oh excuse pass away my mind to to run away from it. But I couldn’t because, you know, it’s like if to.
00:28:01:23 – 00:28:32:03
Mingtong Gu
Losing face in that sentence. So I start to kind of 5 minutes goes by almost give up continuing sustain myself 10 minutes goes by I’m still struggling. Then suddenly I look at wrong under the form on a big group of was practicing a heavy person is much older than I am and not to mention all of them most of them at least is much sicker than I am.
00:28:32:24 – 00:28:38:01
Mingtong Gu
And they were doing this most challenging Tinchy continuously.
00:28:38:10 – 00:28:43:17
Mingtong Gu
So when I opened my eyes saw that noticing that confusion, there is like.
00:28:43:17 – 00:29:26:05
Mingtong Gu
No way I can give up that. Give me that driving force. Yeah, come back to this. My spirit is like not giving up. And from that on, not only I continue to for 30 minutes when I was and eventually it’s like total bliss. Mm. Total flow and without going slow the struggle of first 5 minutes, 10 minutes, half hour, even built into whatever the timeline you can, making, you know, jump over the hump, opening the energy you never know how long takes.
00:29:26:10 – 00:29:54:11
Mingtong Gu
But that process I see most people give up, right without support, especially so this essential moment in my case, just seeing the presence of everyone. So dedicate it and help me to discover my own. Yeah. Commitment to continue. And these are critical. Critical, yeah.
00:29:55:03 – 00:30:20:19
Nathan Crane
So that’s what’s happened. One story that’s an incredible story. And I know you have a lot of students who’ve studied under you who have similar experiences, where they have big breakthroughs and then all kinds of you know, healing situations. Another example is Bianca Malay, right, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and incurable disease. Progressive disease gets worse and worse.
00:30:21:06 – 00:30:43:05
Nathan Crane
And she found qigong. She found you. She started practicing, went to retreat, went home, started practicing every day. Few hours a day. And before you know it, her tremors are gone. Her energy’s up. She’s a lot, you know, awake and alive again and all this and she goes in and they say, Oh, your Parkinson’s is gone. Wait, what happened?
00:30:43:10 – 00:31:06:05
Nathan Crane
It must have been a misdiagnosis or something. And they’re like, No, they have a clear diagnosis. She had a tremor. She was on track, but she committed to the practice. And, you know, I did a documentary with her that’s on YouTube that people can find is incredible story. But a lot of it is a lot of success in anything I think comes down to that perseverance.
00:31:06:06 – 00:31:37:23
Nathan Crane
Right? The perseverance, the challenge. And in this case, this is a really unique ancient teaching and practice, which I’d like you to talk a little bit about, what is qigong and how is it founded? And help people understand more about the essence of qigong and maybe help people understand why it actually works. But persevering through challenging things when you know that they’re good for you and the outcome on the other side, it is bliss.
00:31:37:23 – 00:31:56:10
Nathan Crane
You know, I take an ice bath four days a week in the morning before I do my morning workout. I do my qigong before that every morning, and then I do an ice bath and then I work out. And right now I’m doing that four days a week with the ice bath for 3 minutes is 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
00:31:56:10 – 00:32:24:17
Nathan Crane
That’s right above freezing. I do it for 3 minutes up to my neck. And yes, it’s challenging every time. Yes, it has gotten easier. But when I get out, the euphoria that I feel, all the benefits I know that are happening with my immune system, with my energy, my workouts are so much better. I stopped having caffeine in the morning and I do the ice baths and I have way more energy for my workouts.
00:32:24:21 – 00:32:48:13
Nathan Crane
The dopamine release throughout the rest of the day, you know, is increased. So I feel better. I think better, but I move through that challenge every single day. And the benefits are extraordinary that qigong practices are the same. It’s, you know, you can do a 15 or 20 minute practice. And if you stop at the challenging point, you’re not gaining that kind of breakthrough benefit that you would otherwise get that right.
00:32:49:02 – 00:33:12:15
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, it’s so chu. So Chu. The determining fact is how you move slow the challenge. And so the energy can awaken open flow again. And often I say, you know, the shortcut to healing is embracing the pain so simple.
00:33:13:02 – 00:33:15:07
Mingtong Gu
But there’s a deeper truth to that.
00:33:15:20 – 00:34:09:00
Mingtong Gu
So more you want to heal the pain, healing from the pain, then more you need to learn to embrace the pain, especially the part of the body experiencing the pain. So come back to what is qigong is on one hand has its own long history, you know, more than 5000 years of long history, even before Lao Tzu, before Confucius, even before, you know, Buddha Buddhism came to China, before martial are even can trace back to you know, even before traditional Chinese medicine and trace back to, you know, emperor time and the shamanism time, prehistoric or shamanism time in China are very, you know, impactful, very strong according to historical record.
00:34:09:09 – 00:34:48:24
Mingtong Gu
And then eventually become a more like a system lies teaching the practice in a mainly slow Daoism and Confucian was traditional Chinese medicine and then martial ah and the Buddhism also become part of the Chinese culture. But an underlying principle of qigong is more like it’s very energetic, very energetic. Simply she means energy, means energy. So when you say she’s energy you asking the question, what is energy?
00:34:49:04 – 00:34:54:12
Mingtong Gu
So you have to discover for yourself is not just interrupt your definition of what it is.
00:34:55:00 – 00:34:56:13
Mingtong Gu
You know.
00:34:56:13 – 00:35:24:17
Mingtong Gu
Energy is continue discovery, slow connecting with your body, your mind, spirit connecting with the presence of the earth, presence of the universe. Discover what is energy? What is energy for? What is the nature of energy? What is a function of energy? What is the deeper experience of energy? So, so this discovery, you all learn to work with energy.
00:35:24:22 – 00:35:52:06
Mingtong Gu
So going gong means to, you know, the practice to work with energy as well. The benefit and the capacity accumulate is a lot of time by practicing these practices, which is simple. So you have the capacity of working with energy directly. So not just like all energy is energy play. We want to understand or one different way, but how to work with energy.
00:35:52:06 – 00:36:31:20
Mingtong Gu
That’s the, the, the important thing. So then learn to work with energy, you know, of your mind, body, horror, spirit, working with energy of life, energy of the universe. Then you’re naturally increasing the capacity of health, capacity of life in general. So so basically, yes, it’s a process of discovering energy as a source of life source of creation, source of healing, and source of your health, and also source of happiness.
00:36:32:10 – 00:37:14:22
Mingtong Gu
So continue discovery of the way, different way of working with energy to increase yeah, increase the functioning of energy. So when the energy increasing function so naturally your physical health, emotional well-being, freedom and mental even mental spiritual capacity naturally improve upgrading yourself. So that’s the kind of simple but direct practical diminishing of what it economy is. So it’s about discover your potential, discover what is not discovered yet.
00:37:15:16 – 00:37:48:10
Mingtong Gu
So it’s very different thinking about, you know, concerning the health from medical point view. We have all of these diagnosis and especially chronic disease means incurable disease. But what incurable disease means, this disease cannot be treated medically from whatever the doctor the medical system knows how to treat the don’t know how to predict the disease to the point of total recovery.
00:37:48:19 – 00:37:59:10
Mingtong Gu
And that’s what in Cuba, bombings. But that doesn’t mean the disease itself is incurable. That’s the means medically incurable.
00:38:00:05 – 00:38:04:23
Mingtong Gu
Is it? But the doctor didn’t tell that. They just tell you say, oh, thank you, love.
00:38:04:24 – 00:38:52:08
Mingtong Gu
All didn’t say, oh, you seem killer. Well, from what I know of medical, I cannot help you, but I can help you manage the symptom, you know, change certain things to certain degrees. So there’s a big misunderstanding. People are taking this diagnosis literally without what the true meaning of that diagnosis. So when you tap into the energy, tap into, for example, power of your mind, power of energy, your power of the earth, power of the sun, power of the universe is not defined by just the medicine, not defined by the medical.
00:38:53:16 – 00:39:22:19
Mingtong Gu
And that’s the where all the power come from to stalwarts. So we are so disconnected, we thinking only the medicine, only something physical has a power and we figure what is the physical come from? Where is physical come from? So the ancient wisdom allow you to discover that experientially through the practice and even the new science, validating that wisdom.
00:39:23:17 – 00:39:37:10
Mingtong Gu
All the physical is made of nonphysical energy, no matter what the name you call it. Yeah, but how to tap into the energy? What can we then energy is about?
00:39:37:15 – 00:39:38:16
Nathan Crane
You’re talking about the quantum.
00:39:39:04 – 00:39:40:06
Mingtong Gu
Physics, right?
00:39:40:06 – 00:40:16:17
Nathan Crane
Physics. Quantum field, you know, string theory, unified theory, all these kinds of things that are explaining some of this at a scientific level of how energy is interconnected between humans, animals, the planets, stars, planets, the universe, and how a single thought, for example, can, can happen here and in another can be sent to another place in the universe simultaneously, not at the speed of light, but instantly without the speed of light faster.
00:40:16:17 – 00:40:46:17
Nathan Crane
The speed of light. There is no speed. There is time. And, you know, the science is fascinating around this, how they’re trying to understand what obviously our ancestors have known for thousands of years. You know, they knew this stuff in ancient China thousands of years ago. They tapped into this. They figured it out that we can tap into this energy inside ourselves and around ourselves to activate our healing potential and to activate longevity and to activate wisdom and inner wisdom.
00:40:47:16 – 00:41:09:18
Nathan Crane
They knew it. They figured it out and have shared it down. And, you know, obviously it’s come to you and you teach it to others. But I think it’s interesting how our scientists are trying to you know, some of the science is starting to explain why this works. And at least they understand how it’s working. Maybe they don’t know why it works, but they’re starting to understand how it works.
00:41:09:18 – 00:41:45:10
Nathan Crane
I looked up some studies on qigong. There was a form of qigong. There was practice on cancer cells in petri dishes, and they did it with pancreatic cancer cells and they saw with 5 minutes of qigong on cancer cells in petri dishes versus the same cancer cells. So the, the plus, you know, the the placebo or whatever they did with that one versus the qigong on, the cancer cells that they were inducing apoptosis, it literally was killing the cancer cells and not harming the healthy cells next to it.
00:41:46:10 – 00:42:06:21
Nathan Crane
It was pretty, you know, pretty incredible to see. There’s a little bit of science like that with qigong and cancer from a while back. And obviously we need more to help explain to, you know, the modern part of us how this works. But at the end of the day, it’s really fascinating stuff.
00:42:06:21 – 00:42:52:12
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. So this understanding can help us and inspire us. And so the practice is really make it possible. So understanding why it’s possible, that’s is a big step already and but how to do that effectively come back to inner workings though these challenges and you know when you are just connect with your body, when you are lost in your story, your diagnosis, when you are emotionally overwhelmed with fear and writing and so on, and then these things continuously affecting you.
00:42:52:12 – 00:43:35:02
Mingtong Gu
Energy conditioning, energy reprograming your energy. So imagine that’s happening. 24 seven Naturally your body breaking apart and so to recover from that all pattern, transforming this old pattern is not an overnight job, but we have the map, we have the process, we have, you know, the support of a community working together. And we’ve been talking about the power of the literary special being together in person so long, but that’s similar power we can tap into slow online program, for example.
00:43:35:02 – 00:44:12:01
Mingtong Gu
You know, even this moment, if you connecting with your body and you may feel the energetic experience inside of you, may our words. Yeah. The way we’re sharing is also affecting your energy directly. Whether you are, you know, even you’re not in person with us. So similar thing happen when we come together online community you know sharing the teaching together, practicing together and sharing deeply or personal experience addressing the question.
00:44:12:01 – 00:44:44:21
Mingtong Gu
So on that support it becomes so experiential, so essential and helping people to move slow these challenges and continuously discover what is possible. So it’s not just saying, it’s not just saying, oh, everything’s possible, but how to make it possible. So I see qigong as like an energetic science creating condition so the impossible become possible. And you’re experiencing it.
00:44:45:09 – 00:45:17:18
Mingtong Gu
Every time you do practice, you feel better, you feel different, you feel more empowered. And that accumulative experience continuously reprograming your mind as well. Your heart as well. You’re in Tai, say, in the body to increase its functionality, its confidence, its connection. Yeah. With the energy, with the power of life, with this creative flow, continue flow of life.
00:45:18:14 – 00:45:26:09
Nathan Crane
Meantime, does does a qigong practice have to be challenging for it to be beneficial to you?
00:45:26:09 – 00:46:05:24
Mingtong Gu
A very good question. So it’s not about the cheekbone. Practice has to be challenging, but it’s more about as human being. You carry a challenge in the body that’s being a cumulatively and as energy imprints for example stress and trauma and emotional fear and pretty suppressed anger and even deeper pain in the physical body, emotional body, even mental, spiritual body.
00:46:06:06 – 00:46:38:05
Mingtong Gu
So this challenge is there. You have to embracing that choice. You have to work with that, choose. So how to work with that, there’s different approaches. So some approach is more like straight. We talk about addressing the challenges right on head to head. So we experiencing the pain, the difficulty, the emotion and you moving slow there, then you discover different experience.
00:46:38:13 – 00:47:20:10
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, the power, the plus, the aliveness, the creativity, the healing. Even total recovery and so on. Yeah, bong out of hand. There’s another approach, more gentle approach, you meditating, you rest, you receiving a healing session, you visualizing the energy, the most loving, most beautiful, most energizing way. You can do that by lying down or sitting a walking and you can making the sound, you know, whether strong sound or gentle sound, you can tap the energy, the gentle side of anything.
00:47:21:14 – 00:48:00:15
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. And that’s also important. So we’re learning to dance with the both. When is like male approach addressing the challenge directly. Another is like female approach. Gentle, soft, compassionate. Loving, yeah. Soft, gentle. Yeah. It’s like so combination of these two is creating the magic. And so that’s really important to understand. From the other hand, what I’m saying is that you’re doing the two different approach, not trying to avoid the challenge.
00:48:00:15 – 00:48:31:11
Mingtong Gu
You consciously working with a challenge which is inevitable. It’s there already in life. So the two approach, whether direct, intense way or gentle soft, the way these to approach allow you what can we the challenge instead of avoiding a challenge. Fighting a challenge. Yeah. So that’s is a way of looking at it. Good question.
00:48:31:11 – 00:49:03:19
Nathan Crane
Yeah. And it makes sense and it’s like in my own experience when I did Qigong in the morning, you know, I don’t do it like right now. I’m not practicing long periods of time. I do short practice, you know, first thing in the morning. And I don’t go through like a challenging experience. It’s more of a gentle, you know, I do some sound healing, some logy, you know, the energy balls, some visualization and and I’m sending energy to, you know, all my loved ones and family and friends and yeah.
00:49:03:21 – 00:49:25:05
Nathan Crane
And colleagues and people all around the world. And it’s more of a just kind of like centering myself in my energy and my mindset for the day. So personally, I don’t, I don’t go through like a 30 minute or an hour long practice every day, which when you when I was every day I was doing that, you definitely go through the challenge and then and then have some breakthroughs to that challenge.
00:49:25:05 – 00:49:36:11
Nathan Crane
So I think right now I’m more of like on the subtle, you know, gentle benefits side of it because I get a lot of challenge in my workouts.
00:49:36:11 – 00:49:40:18
Mingtong Gu
You go out there that right enough.
00:49:40:19 – 00:50:03:07
Nathan Crane
And my body is feeling it every day, feeling that challenge. So that’s what I’m dealing with. A I was doing a heavy, heavy front squat three rep max front squat a couple of weeks ago and it just takes a lot of core stability to lift that weight up. And yeah, it tweaked my rib a little. It started to feel better after a few days.
00:50:03:07 – 00:50:31:11
Nathan Crane
And then this Monday I was doing back squats and then it tweaked it really bad. Two point like it’s like a level nine. Like twisting is like Tom Lo’s work, you know, it’s like I start pushing like, oh my God, I can’t even move. There’s so much, so much pain. I saw a physical therapist this morning, but I’m actually as we’re talking, I’m thinking, you know, I should I should do spinal bone marrow through this pain because I know it.
00:50:31:11 – 00:50:32:19
Nathan Crane
Only I know it’ll help.
00:50:33:03 – 00:50:59:16
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, totally. So it’s like this even, you know, some practice is designed to help you to address the challenge directly, but within the practice, you always have to side to. It’s like best ever, then relaxing to the effort and you proceeding to the challenging, comforting, you know, beyond your comfort zone. Let it be and then relax again. Softening again.
00:50:59:22 – 00:51:14:10
Mingtong Gu
So it’s always the stance looking the young tensing. So that’s slightly different from just exercises, you know. So I think a combination of these two approach is very important, no matter what a practice you do.
00:51:14:22 – 00:51:37:12
Nathan Crane
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew I experience that firsthand with you, especially in the retreat or on the online teachings. Yeah. You’re always saying, you know, give it your best effort, your best. And for some people in retreat, I’ve seen, you know, their best effort is 25% of what other people can do. But for them, that’s their best effort and they’re getting benefit from that.
00:51:37:24 – 00:52:15:21
Nathan Crane
Yeah, but so to recap a little bit about qigong, I mean, it’s really learning how to cultivate and manage and benefit from the energy that is within us that accompanies every set that that makes up every cell of our body, every cell of the universe, and learning how to work with that energy, to create healing, to create our own vitality, to improve our longevity, to increase happiness, to increase energy, you know, for, you know, mental, emotional energy, all these, you know, spiritual experiences.
00:52:15:21 – 00:52:33:19
Nathan Crane
I’ve certainly had spiritual experiences, just blessed, you know, totally like the retreat, for example, just totally blissed out. I mean, you’re just walking around in a total bliss is like, man, this is better than any drugs I ever used to do when I was younger. You know, I was like, there’s there’s nothing there’s nothing like being high like that.
00:52:35:03 – 00:52:54:19
Nathan Crane
And so I think it’s I think the time for qigong in the West is is now is coming, right. Like yoga. And I’ve talked with you about this yoga when it came here, you know, Paramahansa Yogananda was a big part of bringing yoga here. And yoga turned it from a spiritual practice here into more of a physical practice.
00:52:54:19 – 00:53:32:07
Nathan Crane
But some people still teach more of the spiritual and meditative aspects of yoga. But if you say yoga, everybody in the United States knows of it, has tried it, at least understands it. You say qigong? I think most people have. They’re like, What did you say? What language are you speaking? Well, say that again. What my feeling is my sense is and part of my you know, what I’m doing through healing life that you’re a part of and what you’ve been doing for two decades through the Chinese center is bringing healing life to millions and millions of people here in the West, not healing, bringing qigong to millions and millions of people here in
00:53:32:07 – 00:53:58:20
Nathan Crane
the West because I think it’s time is now. I think this is the practice that people need more than anything because of the amount of stress that people are going through, the anxiety, the physical disease, the mental emotional disease, the depression, the rates, you know, that you name is like people are stressed out, angry or more upset, unhealthier than ever before in human history.
00:53:59:04 – 00:54:36:20
Nathan Crane
And what I found with this practice, especially what you teach the whole system of wisdom, healing, qigong, it addresses all of that. It gives people a foundation in a daily practice to help reduce the stress, to help increase, you know, health and vitality. And even better, in my experience and a lot of people who’ve come to Qigong, who I interviewed when I was doing documentaries and their experiences even better than yoga in many ways, because you’re addressing yoga often is just addressing the body with a little bit of, you know, maybe some asana meditation at the end intention in the beginning.
00:54:37:01 – 00:54:47:19
Nathan Crane
Whereas here you’re like, you’re not only addressing the body, you’re addressing the energy, the emotion, the spirituality, the, you know, the subconscious belief systems, everything.
00:54:49:05 – 00:55:27:24
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, I cannot agree more with you is so needed at a time right now. I think the overall feeling is overwhelmed. Yes. And even a deep sense of disconnection, just disconnection in general. And not to mention, you know, after pandemic, we feel more disconnection, a disconnection, isolation from each other, from life in general. But the deeps, the disconnection is from our self, particularly from this body, from this body.
00:55:28:12 – 00:56:04:13
Mingtong Gu
So I think the way, you know, Qigong is addressing that is very unique, very Hasidic, very integrative. And on one hand, it’s very practical. On the other hand is profoundly spiritual. So you have to like really taking wholeness of yourself. The mind, body, horror, spirit, and into the direct experience of wholeness. So simply put, you know what is healing energetically?
00:56:04:17 – 00:56:31:12
Mingtong Gu
You know what is a disease in the body? That’s means no matter what is the story, diagnosis might be is means the energy of that part of the body is not serving the whole body function. And when say a function including physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, so not just like a physiological function only which is part of the wholeness.
00:56:31:12 – 00:57:01:11
Mingtong Gu
So with that simple energetic understanding. Yeah, and that’s is very different from medical diagnosis, you know, dysfunction in the physical dimension, chemical, you know, physiological, whatever. Then you trying to use this similar approach to isolating this part of the body or even taking this part of the body, you know, a part, you know, or even surgery or even numbing this part of the body and so on.
00:57:01:20 – 00:57:36:15
Mingtong Gu
So for controlling the symptom that can be beneficial, but it’s not really healing that part of body we talking about is about allowing that part of the body energetically awake, open, connecting the whole energy body and approaching it, embracing the wholeness of physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, so that part of the energy body can come back to the wholeness again, serving the function of the whole energy body again.
00:57:36:22 – 00:58:14:00
Mingtong Gu
So this is so important approach. Yeah, it’s so direct, it’s so simple. And so the key in a way addressing is really the disconnection of the mind body. So also the disconnection of the internal external. You know, we all looking for this same thing. Happiness, health, yeah. Vitality, longevity and connection, fulfillment of life we’re all looking for the same thing, the right thing by the hand.
00:58:14:00 – 00:58:33:17
Mingtong Gu
We are looking for these right thing in the wrong place. Yeah, we’re looking at it outside us. Someone else. Give me what I’m looking for. Someone else fix my problems and. Something else. Give me what I’m looking for or fixing my problems.
00:58:33:18 – 00:58:36:08
Nathan Crane
Yeah. Realizing alcohol. Food.
00:58:36:09 – 00:58:51:24
Mingtong Gu
Exactly. Your name, the whole list. You know, if you look at the activity of your my activity over your life, mostly engaging externally. Yeah, 90%, if not 99% of time.
00:58:52:19 – 00:59:05:06
Mingtong Gu
We totally forget what’s inside of us already and discover the power, the wisdom, the energy inside of us. It’s like when we say it goes, Oh yeah, I understand that, but.
00:59:05:06 – 00:59:31:18
Mingtong Gu
How many of us are doing it? You know? So when students came to literally just a few days ago in Apollo and she studied with me for a while already online before she came to this literally was a show of pure time that she she she said, I like this approach because finally I realized that I can use my body to heal my.
00:59:31:18 – 00:59:34:14
Nathan Crane
Body.
00:59:34:14 – 00:59:39:08
Mingtong Gu
You know, so just simple things like a no brainer. And he never she.
00:59:39:08 – 01:00:08:19
Mingtong Gu
Never thought about that and no one ever told him that. I heard that way no one else think of that way. Neither using your own body to hear your body instead of go to someone else, go to something else. You know, all the external stuff. Yeah. More You expecting that? More You become some sort of dependency, some sort of disappointment, some sort of victim load.
01:00:09:23 – 01:00:50:22
Mingtong Gu
And so that’s why often, you know, after we experience in diagnosis our, you know, certain issues in our life, we feel the victim, victim of life. So often we analyzing all this, a cause of problem, cause of disease we become the victim whatever way we analyze it. So in qigong is really shifting your world use your effort to become the cause of your healing, cause of your happiness, cause of your healing.
01:00:50:24 – 01:01:39:24
Mingtong Gu
I mean, your health, cause of your creativity instead of continuously analyzing, you know, why am experienced this as victim of someone else, something else. And that’s so important. Until we can do that, no one can save us. No one can save the world. No one can change it all. The problem is happening in the world, including in health care system, including the, you know, all of the disease happening beyond control, including even pandemic, including, you know, all of the social issues, conflict, you know, economical issue, political issue, including all the issue of the environmental destruction, such as global warming, the Mother Earth.
01:01:39:24 – 01:02:13:11
Mingtong Gu
These clearly warning us, no, in so direct a way. So now it’s up to us to wake up. To wake up. So the connection with your own body is the key, as I discover in my healing journey. And that’s what I hear with everybody. Yeah. When people ask me what is the deepest, the cause of my disease or even deep the cause of my problem, my suffering, my simple answer Yes.
01:02:14:09 – 01:02:49:08
Mingtong Gu
The disconnection of your mind with your body, that disconnection continuously reinforcing the old problem, continuously creating new problems, more problems. So that’s just one piece I hear again. Again, you know, in wisdom, healing qigong. Yeah, connecting with your own body, claiming this body as your own body is the most sacred body. Most precious body is the only body you have to begin with.
01:02:49:08 – 01:02:51:08
Mingtong Gu
It’s your home. So it’s a.
01:02:51:08 – 01:03:25:06
Mingtong Gu
Coming home process into your body. Then in this journey, you continue discover the compassion, the self-compassion, self-love. So yeah, connection, self-choose. Yeah. What is true within you, beyond the diagnosis, beyond the story. So it’s also it’s a spiritual awakening process when we say, oh, who am I? You know, what is my essence? Yeah, what do I become after die?
01:03:25:10 – 01:03:58:14
Mingtong Gu
Whatever this question you can engage in to actually even from different spiritual tradition, different faith tradition. But the bottom line, you have to discover slowly experience. So to go help you to discover them. So you experience what feels like being a body beyond the story, beyond the diagnosis, what it feels like in my heart, beyond all the stress, oh, whatever mental story.
01:03:58:21 – 01:04:19:24
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. What feels like when you connect with the universe in awareness. Yeah. What it feels like when you’re letting go of attachment to the physical, to whatever impermanent. So you would discover.
01:04:21:10 – 01:04:22:20
Mingtong Gu
No matter what I say.
01:04:23:11 – 01:04:44:10
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, you have to discover yourself and to go on. Yes, help me. Helping the practitioner, helping all of us to discover that deeper truth, deeper essence, deeper wholeness. And that’s the amazing gift. Yeah. You can discover in this lifetime.
01:04:44:16 – 01:05:08:24
Nathan Crane
It is. It is a beautiful gift. And I’m grateful for you sharing that gift with me, because I learn qigong first through you in Santa Fe, you know, whatever it was or seven years ago. And I still practice it to this day and I’m still learning more and continually being inspired. And even through this interview, it’s like, Oh, yeah, I need to do more of this.
01:05:08:24 – 01:05:27:04
Nathan Crane
Oh, yeah, I need to do is spinal bone marrow. Yeah. You know, I need to add in some more, so I love it. You can always, always go deeper. Hey, I want to ask you, have you seen I know you’ve been crazy busy getting for your get ready for your retreats coming up but have you seen live to 100 on Netflix yet.
01:05:27:15 – 01:05:28:11
Nathan Crane
Live to 100?
01:05:28:21 – 01:05:30:11
Mingtong Gu
No. Haven’t seen the movie.
01:05:30:18 – 01:05:33:02
Nathan Crane
It’s about the blue zones. You know, it’s Dan Buettner.
01:05:33:04 – 01:05:35:14
Mingtong Gu
I’ll have to see you. You have to see him.
01:05:35:16 – 01:06:03:22
Nathan Crane
It’s a documentary series. It’s him actually going back and visiting the blue zones and documenting the things that are in common between all of them, from the spiritual practice to the to the diet, to the, you know, the daily practices. Like it’s really, really good. You know, the series is really well done. But I’m thinking of it because one, I’ve been watching the last few days and I recommend everyone go watch it.
01:06:03:22 – 01:06:15:24
Nathan Crane
But to I remember talking to you years ago and you said, you know, you want to create a blue zone there at your center in Santa Fe. Is that still something your you’re wanting to do?
01:06:16:14 – 01:06:45:10
Mingtong Gu
Absolutely. I’m continuously not only holding the vision, but also more active conversation happening. You know, in terms of what takes to build a community, housing, other resources in a sustainable way of living and how to integrate the spiritual practice into a new life. Stars and of sustainability in how to work with, you know, conscious, aging and so on.
01:06:45:10 – 01:07:15:21
Mingtong Gu
So this conversation is continuing, and obviously the part of the challenge is financial. Part of the challenge is how bridge the practical side and with the spiritual, you know, vision. So and but I think we have really the incredible place to do it. So I want to see, you know, from this movie, you know, getting more insight, more inspiration.
01:07:16:08 – 01:07:53:00
Mingtong Gu
And again, yeah, so that question is ask am also nowadays and obviously when people retire, you know, aging but also working with health challenges coming with aging and how to, you know, discover new way of life and more conscious, more wise, more fulfilling living, you know, to the fullest, whether 100 years or 90 years or 150 years.
01:07:53:00 – 01:08:19:07
Mingtong Gu
So I think, you know, it’s really important piece for humanity. And I feel I’m sure, you know, maybe the then or the film crew interview the people in China and because this really incredible wisdom from one of the most ancient cultures on the planet Earth, this is the Chinese history.
01:08:19:17 – 01:08:27:10
Nathan Crane
It’s yeah they didn’t go to China. They didn’t go to China. But yeah, but I’m interested to hear. Yeah, where is this? What are you talking about?
01:08:27:22 – 01:08:47:19
Mingtong Gu
I mean, just in general. Yeah, and in general, my experiencing these, the quality of people, the elder in China has such greater quality of life than the elder here. It just no comparison. It’s a part of culture.
01:08:47:24 – 01:09:10:16
Nathan Crane
And a lot of play. A lot of plays, yeah. Haven’t been plagued yet by this this modern Western culture of fast. Right. Cheaper you know more processed it’s yeah you know and so one of the things you talk about talked about or they documented was you know in Okinawa is is a blue zone some of the longest lived most centenarians on the planet and has been that way for a long time.
01:09:11:06 – 01:09:39:03
Nathan Crane
That was as of 2009. But when they visit now, there’s still, you know, a number of centenarians and healthy old people there. The number just in the last 20 years has dropped significantly because they’ve implemented all these fast food restaurant. It’s a disconnection from culture. The young, the younger generation wants all the new stuff and the rise technology and understandable.
01:09:39:03 – 01:09:53:00
Nathan Crane
But yes, now, you know, are the way that other cultures around the world are adopting some of these really unhealthy lifestyles, how it’s destroyed, going what totally healthy for centuries.
01:09:53:10 – 01:10:06:11
Mingtong Gu
While it’s happening already. Imagine globally. Yeah it’s show time not to mention the affecting on generations to come. But even the current generation.
01:10:06:11 – 01:10:17:24
Nathan Crane
Would be amazing if this hospital in China that you study, that you know, if that was still open and you could go there and visit. But it’s been closed for quite a while. Right. Then the Chinese to close it.
01:10:17:24 – 01:11:27:15
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. And you know, for complex reason but political reasons. So was close 25, 24 years ago. Yeah, 24 years ago, 1999, end of 1999. And speaking of Blue Zone community, you know as part of the vision of my teacher he started already is creating a second city second city so where a couple thousand people can live there with their family so incorporating education and economical system factories and and what is the new sustainable way of living and on one hand you come from the Chinese ancient tradition which still in relative sense keep it a very, you know, consistent in China but by by incorporating qigong principle go second practice in to health longevity as well
01:11:27:15 – 01:12:10:17
Mingtong Gu
the way, you know, connecting with each other spiritually is literally in your hands, you know, these tradition of living, of life and that was his vision. And the house, all the facility was close to 60% finished by the time he had to close all of the centers, three centers. One is the Medicine Cycle Hospital, Second Center was for training teacher healers, and the third is called the second city is very much, you know, based on same idea of blue zone but even take one step further.
01:12:11:12 – 01:12:58:11
Mingtong Gu
Yeah how to implement in the being you modern way. Yeah by incorporating qigong principle qigong practice qigong connection because you second is not only addressing health longevity but deeply addressing the well-being in every aspect of life, adjusting, you know, the connection with the planet Earth, with nature, with the tree, with animals. You know, with all the plants, and how to, you know, harvesting directly from the rice, cooking the fresh food, you know, every family living on the same land.
01:12:58:21 – 01:13:31:23
Mingtong Gu
So bringing agriculture wisdom from the ancient tradition to modern practice, so on, like that. So it’s all encompassing, it’s incredible vision. And then unfortunately it’s interrupted in China. But, you know, in your heart, we continuously carry that vision and in whatever skill we can, you know, manifest that some time, you know, in families, sometimes in small community, then continue expanding from there.
01:13:31:23 – 01:13:53:02
Mingtong Gu
So just like in last two years, part of my dedication to the Chinese center to this land, um, planted more than 200 trees on this land of 150 acres and takes a lot of effort in New Mexico. Instead.
01:13:53:02 – 01:13:53:06
Mingtong Gu
And.
01:13:53:13 – 01:14:04:01
Nathan Crane
And I’ve seen you out there by hand with your shovel and your pick and make it harder planting the trees and you’ve done how many of those have you done yourself?
01:14:04:12 – 01:14:25:20
Mingtong Gu
All of my guy. I was involved with every single tree to some degree, planting, digging the whole putting the fertilizer and, uh, molds and then supporting these allegations system, the justice system, then continue maintaining them. Now I’m like, Oh, I need him on people to help me to maintain.
01:14:27:09 – 01:14:29:05
Nathan Crane
Yeah, that’s to do by yourself.
01:14:29:05 – 01:14:29:22
Mingtong Gu
Yeah.
01:14:30:00 – 01:14:55:10
Nathan Crane
Yeah. 50 acres. It’s incredible. It’s incredible property. So yeah. I’ll tell you what, the first every time I go, but the first time I went and every time after that I would drive into the property, you can feel the energy shift. I could feel the energy shift because a drive in and you go through that first long driveway and all of a sudden you just feel sense of like calmness and serenity.
01:14:55:10 – 01:15:03:13
Nathan Crane
It’s like, oh, you know, the energy that’s been cultivated there through the building, through the trees, through the planting. But I think just also.
01:15:04:01 – 01:15:04:18
Mingtong Gu
Of all.
01:15:04:23 – 01:15:19:23
Nathan Crane
What you’ve done through the through the tree field in the community and everything, I think it really resonates there because other people say the same thing. I’m not the only one who says that a lot of other people feel that same thing when they drive into that property is pretty incredible.
01:15:20:07 – 01:15:37:17
Mingtong Gu
It’s very magical. Very magical. You know, in my life, when I discovered wisdom, healing qigong, I know that’s the best gift ever discovered. I can cultivate and share this gift for rest of my life. But now I discover second gift.
01:15:38:17 – 01:15:44:17
Mingtong Gu
Is the the cheese center, the land, including all these abundant trees.
01:15:44:23 – 01:15:49:02
Mingtong Gu
The elder trees and the new tree, and planning all.
01:15:49:02 – 01:15:50:12
Mingtong Gu
The flowers and.
01:15:51:01 – 01:16:27:00
Mingtong Gu
Plants and the song and the waters, the fountains and the magical sky and all the facility we have here. And so I’m realizing that’s is the second gift I’m discovering and cultivating continuously as well with others. So now I feel like not only busier but more fulfilled. Now I have two thing to do. Yeah. Cultivating and sharing wisdom, healing qigong and the land of the tree center.
01:16:27:08 – 01:16:40:21
Mingtong Gu
So that gave me like really great joy. Great purpose. You know, no matter what charity may appears, you know, as we are always facing challenges and.
01:16:41:04 – 01:16:48:16
Mingtong Gu
But give me purpose. Give me the energy, give me the deeper fulfillment, no matter what’s happening.
01:16:49:14 – 01:17:06:11
Nathan Crane
You know, I know we’ve only got a few minutes left, but I wanted to. I know, I know in qigong and in the way that you teach it, you know, there’s there is a, there is a time teaching to talk about diet and food and things like that. I know you don’t put a lot of focus on that.
01:17:06:22 – 01:17:29:20
Nathan Crane
The focus is much more on the energy and the practice and and all of that. But I have a I was wondering because I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you if I’ve ever heard an answer to this, but I’m assuming when you were at the medicinals Hospital in Shi in China and living there and people living there for months at a time, I’m assuming the food there was pretty simple.
01:17:29:20 – 01:17:52:09
Nathan Crane
Is that right? Like, was it was it just fresh foods? Was it a lot of, you know, I don’t know, like what kind of food was it? Was it you know, I don’t know. Say rice and tofu and fish and vegetables are like, was it similar to like a Mediterranean diet or a traditional kind of older Chinese diet?
01:17:53:16 – 01:17:59:16
Nathan Crane
And what are your thoughts around. Yeah, the food. Yeah, yeah. In the experience.
01:18:00:01 – 01:18:09:16
Mingtong Gu
When people see me, oh, it’s qigong teacher or chicken practitioner or chicken master, whatever it was like you must be vegetarian.
01:18:09:16 – 01:18:14:22
Mingtong Gu
They’re surprised. I’m. I eat anything, everything. And very flexible.
01:18:15:09 – 01:18:43:00
Mingtong Gu
Um, but I come back to the the question what kind of food we eat in medicine across the board is really simple. It’s like a normal food. People eat in China. But simple, much simple. Like simple fresh veggie. Some me, some fish and not a lot of variety. There’s not a prescription of diet. There’s no any restriction of DAI and everybody pretty much, you know, eating the same thing.
01:18:43:10 – 01:18:59:08
Mingtong Gu
And of course, there’s a little bit varieties of the time. And so home feeling so simple, so nourishing, so earthly and just simple and so.
01:18:59:17 – 01:19:01:05
Nathan Crane
Nothing processed, I’m sure, you.
01:19:01:05 – 01:19:40:00
Mingtong Gu
Know, nothing’s processed, obviously. And even, you know, my teacher was traditional Chinese doctor as well, the Western medicine doctor. And he knows a lot of secret dust, you know, menu for longevity and so on like that. But he didn’t so subscribe any of that and that’s basically simple food and so but more importantly is that yeah so let’s see things I think we emphasize one is simplicity and the enough variety.
01:19:40:13 – 01:19:47:19
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. And no restriction of dietary, no picky kind of attitude whatever.
01:19:47:19 – 01:19:48:16
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. Over.
01:19:49:08 – 01:20:28:06
Mingtong Gu
And secondly is how you’re eating food. Yeah. How you eating food. Not only determine your experience but also determine the outcome of the food. So we practicing mindful eating process and that’s the second thing is really important. And the third thing is more when you working with the energy of your body, including the five organ system digestive system song, you learn to listen, listen your body instead of mentally thinking what is good or better?
01:20:28:10 – 01:20:50:00
Mingtong Gu
What is should or shouldn’t for food. Yeah. So when you deeply listening to the body, for example, if you go shopping or you see tofu, you ask your body, how does your body feel about this food? If you feel good, I feel excited. There must be good for your body. But when you feel stressed above this, the body feels stressed about food.
01:20:50:06 – 01:20:53:11
Mingtong Gu
Most likely body now ready to digest the food.
01:20:54:01 – 01:20:57:16
Nathan Crane
Unless it doesn’t mean unless you’re dealing with a food addiction and.
01:20:57:16 – 01:21:08:07
Mingtong Gu
You’re right or you’re right. So that takes the process. It’s not like overnight you can now listen to your body overnight. Oh, no, I’m practice, Chico. And therefore listen to everything.
01:21:08:07 – 01:21:40:17
Mingtong Gu
The body tells you. You know, you get the wrong message because addiction from the old habit, you have to undo these patterns, these unhealthy information, even so, that’s part of the process. So when you tap into the core of yourself, this is a process again. Then the message you are receiving from the body not only more accurate but healthier, wiser, more effective.
01:21:41:02 – 01:22:19:07
Mingtong Gu
So that’s it’s all about the whole process of qigong discovering the energy, discovering the internal connection, internal. Then from there you’re naturally responding from this place where you’re making the choice of food and how you’re cooking it, how you’re eating it, and how you relating to energy of life in general, not just food. Yeah. How to adapting to the weather, how to adapting even the new technology and how to adapting to the challenge of life so that you can, you know, discover the internal vitality, internal, what’s the words?
01:22:19:20 – 01:22:51:23
Mingtong Gu
Resilience at a time of challenge of life. Yeah. So one of the gifts I discovered most importantly, is how to move slow challenge of life. It’s confidence. This deeper wisdom, deep, energetic, empower the way to work with the challenges. And that’s something we need just so much. No matter. You know, our story may be different circumstance may change us, but the challenge will continue in one way or another.
01:22:52:03 – 01:23:09:20
Mingtong Gu
If you feel confident, feel joy, feel love, feel compassion, feel centered, feel empowered. Why are you moving slow? Whatever challenge may happen today and tomorrow, then you have to.
01:23:09:20 – 01:23:16:02
Mingtong Gu
What’s the world to power? Yeah.
01:23:17:16 – 01:23:36:21
Nathan Crane
I mean, Tong, thanks so much for taking the time. It’s always good to see you and hang out and talk and always. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know we’re out of time, but I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and I always, always deeply enjoy time with you, so thank you so much.
01:23:37:07 – 01:23:55:21
Mingtong Gu
Yeah, likewise. Nathan. Yeah, I appreciate your visionary work, leadership, work and entrepreneur this work right now you’re doing. So luckily we able to share so much not only in this lifetime but continuously in our life. Yeah.
01:23:55:22 – 01:23:57:19
Nathan Crane
So it’s a blessing for sure. Yeah.
01:23:57:20 – 01:24:25:14
Mingtong Gu
And, and looking forward to see when you come down to Santa Fe every Sunday, we have a magical Sunday, a community show up. And as I said, I want to share the this gift of this land. Now we’re doing it consistently. Every Sunday, people come between 50 to 70 people come eating brunch together on the deck next to the the functions of the pound and then live music.
01:24:25:17 – 01:24:44:19
Mingtong Gu
Then we go to the kiva have about when our presentation and often very inspirational very awakening and from different different teachers leaders showing up then we do nature hiking afterwards and has been truly magical. It’s happening we Sunday.
01:24:45:04 – 01:25:17:24
Nathan Crane
Sure you do that after I move away thanks a lot. Oh that’s awesome to hear. And that’s for people who want to go check out the cheese center. It’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s one of the most incredible places you’ll ever experience in your life. The website is g centcom c h i center dot com I’ll of mean tongs know you can find his books, his channels, his videos, his online community, his retreats, everything there is at the website.
01:25:17:24 – 01:25:29:20
Nathan Crane
So make sure to go there and check it out. I look for it. Well, I’ll see you in October here in Jacksonville at the Integrative Cancer Conference. So looking forward to seeing you really soon here.
01:25:29:20 – 01:25:31:13
Mingtong Gu
Absolutely. Absolutely.
01:25:31:13 – 01:25:39:09
Nathan Crane
And then the next time we come to Santa Fe, I absolutely will come out and come out on a Sunday, too. I want to experience that. Sounds like a lot of fun.
01:25:39:09 – 01:25:44:10
Mingtong Gu
Yeah. We get yet to make a trip to Florida to see you guys.
01:25:44:19 – 01:25:49:18
Nathan Crane
Yeah, yeah. Here, man. We’ve been. We’ve been enjoying the fresh water, spring.
01:25:50:12 – 01:25:51:06
Mingtong Gu
Water.
01:25:51:06 – 01:25:57:03
Nathan Crane
A lot of the time and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What has been good to us so far.
01:25:57:03 – 01:26:00:01
Mingtong Gu
So when the when to so yeah.
01:26:00:01 – 01:26:19:01
Nathan Crane
Meantime thank you thank you again and yeah, man we’ll have to have you. There’s so many things we can talk about and I’d love to have to have you on the podcast again down the road, because there’s a million other things I want to ask you and you have so much wisdom and joy to share with the world.
01:26:19:01 – 01:26:35:10
Nathan Crane
So I’m happy to, you know, have a platform to help share that with more people. If people tuning in, you never tried qigong. Go try qigong it out. Experience it for yourself. I think you will love it. So thank you so much to you. All right.