My Understanding ofZhineng Qigong.The mystery of lifeZhineng Qigong turned up when I became interested inthe great mystery of life itself. You know, all the wayback to before what the scientists describe as the BigBang; the Taoist term is Wuji before it gives birth toTaiji ; in Genesis, “The earth was without form, and void;and darkness was on the face of the deep.”; theemptiness, sunyata described by the Buddhists; what isdescribe by the Hindus as before Shiva the creator anddestroyer created the physical world; what Lao Tze callsthe beginning of the beginning.I had learnt from Eckhart Tolle about the illusive worldof the thinking mind, termed the world of ‘maya’ by theHindus, contrasting with the unadulterated and simplereality of ‘suchness’, what the Buddhist call ‘tathata’.Alan Watts highlighted the limitation of the technologyof the thinking process, which is only capable of whatEckhart Tolle terms as ‘Object’ consciousness leavingout ‘Space’ consciousness. We forget to realize thatspace is an essential function of the things that are in it.You can’t have separate stars unless there is spaceseparating them. Eliminate the space, and there will beno stars at all they are two aspects of a singlecontinuum.Alan Watts writes of the thinking process as ‘Spotlight’consciousness instead of ‘Floodlight’ consciousness. Inthe natural evolution of mankind, from the moment welearnt how to think before we acted, we somehow choseto specialise in the technology of separating reality intobits and pieces in order to appreciate it in a certain way.To enjoy eating a chicken, you need to cut it up intopieces and ingest part by part, but the chicken comeswhole. We have forgotten that.The oneness of beingThe oneness of being is a common theme of many wisemen from all ages. But that knowledge has some howslipped through the net of modern man’s lifestyle,creating what Gautama called ‘duhkha’, suffering.‘Suhkha’ means what is sweet and delightful and ‘duhkha’means the opposite, the bitter and frustrating. Which iscaused by not having the complete view of being. Notseeing the entirety, the oneness in apparent diversity.But they are only talking about it. Is there a way ofdirectly experiencing and feeling the oneness and livingit? Then explanation becomes redundant, just like I

don’t need to convince my son that there is infraredlight interacting between the apparently separateremote control and the television set. He is experiencingit all the time. He keeps changing channels with it!Hunyuan lunZhineng Qigong based on Hunyuan lun, hunyuan from thedictionary means primeval chaos and lun is theory, seemsto me to be the answer.My experience with qigong is not exactly new. I took myfirst lesson in taiji when I was sixteen years old. Myfirst feeling of the mysterious qi was nearly twentyyears ago, one and a half months into the KongjingQigong course I attended. Qi is real! It can be felt likewater in the swimming pool surrounding you, embracingyou within and without. So I knew that qigong is apractical way of experiencing the oneness of being thateverybody has been talking about.Hunyuan lun speaks of the hunyuan entirety theory,human hunyuan qi theory, yishi theory, dao de theory andoptimising life theory, which includes hunyuan medicaltreatment views.The hunyuan entirety theory speaks of the oneness ofexistence; that the entire physical world came out ofhunyuan and that though there seem to be separateforms i.e. things that exist separate from each other,from a more fundamental perspective, there is only anentirety, oneness. An analogy is whether the organs of ahuman being are separate things within the body ortogether are one with the body. Increasing themagnification, can an individual cell of the toe say “I amseparate from another cell located in the head.” If youzoom out, then the same could apply to individual humansas connected. If you zoom out further, the same appliesto the solar system and the entire cosmos.Zhineng Qigong explains that hunyuan qi was right therein the beginning of the beginning; is that which powersthe initial creation and is still powering everything thatexists in creation. The process of creation neverstopped, it is going on. It’s like all electrical applianceswhich, despite differences in apparent outer forms andapplications, are powered by electricity. But qigong goesone step further, that this energy can be frozen intosolid forms, seen by the human eye as things. All thingsare but different manifestations of hunyuan qi andhunyuan qi is alive, filled with intelligence and evenwisdom. That is why Professor Pang called his new qigongform Zhineng Qigong. Zhi stands for Zhi Hui, whichmeans wisdom and Neng stands for Neng Li, capability.

Together Zhineng Qigong would mean developing one’swisdom and strengthening one’s capabilities. It is aqigong method for strengthening man’s normalintelligence and developing paranormal intelligence.Hunyuan qiThe qigong’s perspective is that hunyuan qi is the basicenergy that powers life.We normally define things as inanimate or animate. If itis inanimate it is not alive, but is a rock animate orinanimate? At the atomic level, the rock is comprised ofelectrons and protons racing around nuclei; somedescribe this as vibration, like the dancing of Shiva. Ittakes form and disintegrates too. So it is only a matterof perspective. From a normal human mind’s perspectivea rock is dead, the human alive and the world is full ofseparate unrelated things. But according to hunyuantheory, the world is one big energy exchange, a dance ofyin and yang not as opposing enemies but ascomplementing partners.

InformationNot only is hunyuan qi the building blocks of everythingthat exists, it also exists in the dimension of non-thingsor the formless space in between things. In this realm ofthe formless, there are again many aspects. One ofthese is xinxi, Information. This is not unlike theinformation we associate with that which is captured bythe written word or printed materials, pictures andsounds captured digitally or otherwise and thosetransmitted over the airwaves like the internet, radioand satellite television, etc.In qigong terms, there exists a much subtler form ofcapturing, transmitting and receiving of Informationbetween ‘things’. Today I can hold up a piece of plasticthat was cut in a certain way – I am talking about a CD –and say it contains the Information of an entireencyclopaedia that you can retrieve, and you know that ispossible. A qigong adept can hold up a personal item thatbelonged to a person who lived say a hundred years agoand can receive a lot of Information about that person.Unknown yet to modern science, such Information isbeing transmitted and received both consciously andunconsciously by humans and by other beings too.

YishiThrough their qigong practice, the Ancient Chineselearnt that hunyuan qi can be manipulated by yishi. Thedictionary describes yishi as consciousness, mentality,

thought processes.A qigong teacher gave me the following analogy: think ofhunyuan qi as soldiers and yishi as the commander. Ifyour gongfu is weak, as in the army you are only acorporal, you can only command a squad of eight men. Butif your gongfu is strong, like a five-star general, you cancommand the whole army to do as you wish. He told methat persons of particularly high gongfu who lived in thepast could leave behind very powerful Information. Thisseems to make some sense of the meaning of curses andblessings. Incidentally, that is also why in ZhinengQigong we say, write and generally use ‘hun yuan lingtong’ so much, because there is a lot of good healthyInformation attached to this slogan by thepractitioners. There is energy attached to it if you knowhow to use it.All these are useful for us to understand a little bitmore about why, despite apparent advances in medicalsciences, there seem to be an increasing number ofserious illnesses that modern medicines cannot cure.Modern medicine has become outdatedAgain, a Zhineng Qigong teacher explained as follows. Inthe past, humans lived very close to nature andeverything was basically very physical, from earlierhunting, nomadic life to a later more settled agriculturallifestyle. Medical care would probably be provided by a‘medicine’ man in the tribe for physical ailments like cutsand broken bones with remedies that were close tonature like herbs etc.Then as we progressed in sophistication, we learned howto mechanise and industrialise. So medicine alsoprogressed in a similar physical science way. And it waseffective! Studying the physical aspects of the bodytaught us a lot about how each part of the bodyfunctions. So intelligent and clever ways were found tomanipulate physics or chemistry for medical purposes.They worked very well. One good example is learning thetechnique of immunisation, which saved us from manyviral epidemics.But man has progressed from there. Man’s lifestyle hasgone from the physical and industrial lifestyle to moreand more of a mind-dominated, psychological existence.We have brought mental stress to new heights, which isthe root cause of many ‘incurable sicknesses’ of the bodyin the eyes of modern medicine.We have developed a lifestyle of competition based onfear, seeing the self as ‘me’ against others. Our societystrives on creating discontentment. New is good, old is

bad. First is good, last is bad. Racing into the futurebecause tomorrow will be better than today. Todaydoesn’t count! If I don’t race ahead I shall be leftbehind. Bombarded by media introducing new models ofall kinds of desirable things to own, even if you buy anew model of, say, a hand-phone today, you know that itis already outdated. Manufacturers probably have newermodels in the pipeline ready to be launched the next day.So instead of encouraging contentment and happiness,we breed discontentment, thinking that this is progress.People were happier in the days when they were withouttap water or even electricity at home. Clothes werewashed in common washing areas and drinking waterprobably was a distance away. Compare that with nowwhen we live in such luxurious material comforts whenchildren scarcely teenagers have hand-phones and evenget to change them probably every six months for ‘thelatest features’.There is a Chinese saying – Zhi Zhu Cang Le. When one iscontented, happiness happens often. Contentment isalmost a dirty word these days. Contentment now meansyou are not progressing and if you are not progressing,you lag behind.So mental stress adds up, causing qi blockages and toxicqi accumulations in the body leading to health problems.This is one interpretation of how diseases like cancerare formed in the first place. As you can see, if you putthe two, xinxi and yishi, together you can guess whatkind of harm that can do to the body.Modern medicine has become outdated. The currentmedical problems are no longer that of the physical orcaused naturally but manmade mind-made. Currentmedical view is that the body is like a machine with manyparts, the kidneys as one part and the heart the otheraltogether unrelated part. Like an engine that has aproblem with its spark plugs, they could be replaced andthe engine will operate as good as new. That is amechanical view, which is outdated.On the other hand, Zhineng Qigong medical treatmenttakes the view of the body as a whole and acknowledgesthe effects of xinxi and yishi on the body’s health andwell being. This, unlike modern medical science, is morein sync with today’s mind-made sicknesses. You just needto learn how to tune in to hunyuan qi. Your yishi cancommand and manipulate it for good health and healing.

Xin and Fa qiThere are a couple of terms here that I would like to

highlight. The first term is xin means both mind andheart. Xin literally means heart. Ancient Chinesebelieved that the heart was the organ for thinking andso xin was used as a term for the brain and the thinkingprocess. It is common for a Chinese person to point totheir heart when saying ‘I think’ as much as they wouldsay ‘I feel’. For the Westerners, the mind thinks and theheart feels but for a Chinese both thinking and feelingcome from the xin.The next is fa qi. Fa qi literally means emitting qi. Theqigong practitioner mobilises his internal qi outwards ormoves the hunyuan qi from the universe, to act on apatient or an object. Zhineng Qigong practitioners donot use personal internal qi for fa qi but use external qi(mainly the hunyuan qi of nature). Zhineng Qigongbelieves that fa qi for healing others is part of theprocess of developing one’s gongfu.I would like to end here with the words of a Belgianstudent when asked by China Television how he feltabout Zhineng Qigong. He said “In the beginning, Ithought that it was only a method for regaining healthand well being, but now I feel that it is also a way forspiritual cultivation, a way to explore the mystery oflife.”Samuel Lau

Introducing YishiUsing yishi is of utmost importance for ZhinengQigong Using yishi is of utmost importance for Zhineng Qigong,the most important thing. Why do we place theapplication of yishi as the top priority? Because when wefirst defined what qigong is, we mentioned that qigong isa practice and cultivation of inner yishi so as to achievea healthy body and mind, raise the health level of thepopulace, eventually be free of illness, have healthybodies, and ultimately open up to the realm of wisdombeyond the realm of the intellect. Achieving the sameresults without inner yishi practice cannot be calledqigong.This is to say that in qigong, the use of yishi occupies avery important position. So we can go on to ask how,through the use of yishi, can one raise one’s level ofhealth? How it can allow a person to develop even higherhuman potential? How can human potential be developedthrough the exercise of yishi?To answer these questions, we must start from yishiitself. We must start from the activities of yishi. Whateffects does yishi have? What are the effects of

particular practices using yishi? Everyone needs tothoroughly understand all this.So when we say ‘using yishi’ we are talking about usingour attention and thoughts; it can also be called thoughtactivity. There could be a number of students asking:are we not going into idealism when we study yishi?Because in the past it was thought that yishi is the sameas mental activities; an inner activity of the mind whichit is impossible to study.I shall quote from the 1984 philosophical text publishedby the Central Government to explain this: “… In thepast, not many studies were conducted on yishi. Fromthe studies conducted recently with qigong and personswith paranormal abilities, yishi activities have validity. Itis a subject that is worth researching.” This points tothe fact that even philosophical circles are beginning toresearch yishi activities. Further, they recognise that itis a valid and fundamental topic to look at the effect ofyishi activities on matter. It has indeed been emphasisedthat this subject is worthy of particular effort.

So as students of qigong, when we discuss therelationship between yishi and its effect on matter, oreven the further step that yishi itself is a type ofmatter, there should be no hesitation. Even our CentralGovernment has confirmed this in its publications. Thequestion of how this philosophical approach will developwill be for philosophical circles to tackle. We areconcerned only with understanding things from theqigong perspective.So let’s approach this from the high realm andperspective of qigong. From the position of qigong lookat yishi and ask why it could have such a big influence onhumans. I must first say to students, the use of yishi isnot something that only qigong practitioners can do butit is in fact used by ordinary people too. In fact it canhave a big effect on the entire activity of life itself. Sowe shall talk about this topic: yishi’s effect on lifeactivities.Yishi itself is a special high-level mental activityavailable to humans. It is built upon the activities of thebrain cells. It is formed through the process of humandevelopment, a high-level sensory activity. Presentmedical studies and psychological studies recognize thatyishi has a controlling effect or a commanding effect onour entire life activity. When we look at it from thehigher perspective of qigong, it is not as simple as that.There are even more levels of effects that yishi can

have on life activities.

Chapter OneThe first aspect of yishi: theeffect of yishi on life activities.Yishi can change the strength level of a person’sinner body

Firstly, yishi can change the strength of a person’s body.To re-state this, yishi can change the strength level of aperson’s inner body.That is to say, through employing yishi one can increaseor decrease one’s bodily strength. Some of you may feelthat there is something not right about this statementthat originally there was strength in the body but thatthrough the activity of yishi, that strength diminished.Or vice versa, originally there was little strength butthrough the activity of yishi, strength increased. Howcan that be? Can the state of the mind change a person’sstrength? This doesn’t sound logical but there are manyeveryday life occurrences showing it to be so.

An ordinary person (*)An ordinary person, when their mind is highlyconcentrated, can increase their bodily strength. Thereis a common term, ji jing, urgent power. When webecome anxious, we experience a big surge of strength.An action or activity that could not normally be donebecomes possible when a wave of anxiety occurs. Thisoccurrence usually happens in emergency situations.Under normal circumstances one is not too anxious, sosuch occurrences do not usually happen. But during thetimes before Liberation, these things happened moreoften.I remember in my home, Baoding District that wasunder the occupation of xx, our Liberation Army - morerightly called a guerrilla army then, was sometimeschased in the night by the enemy. There was a smallriver about 6-7 metres wide. There were severaloccasions when they came to the river and the guerrillassimply jumped across the river. So the common populacesaid that they were blessed by Buddha. But in realityhow can this be explained?The guerrillas weren’t really blessed by Buddha. Undernormal circumstances, nobody is capable of jumping over6-7 metres. But they did it! How do we explain? The key

lies in the extreme urgency of the situation then. Theenemies were closing in from behind; the situation wasdesperate, very pressured. There was a river below, itwas dark, it could not be seen how wide it was. The factthat its width was not clearly seen was an advantage.What was this advantage? They didn’t get to see howwide the river was and so did not have the concept thatthey couldn’t jump over it. In that extreme urgency,there was no time to consider; enemies were rightbehind; only one thought – just do it! In fact there wasnot even the thought of ‘just do it’, there was justconcentration of intention and execution of action.So there was this concentrated intention issuing acommand, this intention directly affecting the body andin this way creating massive power. Some authors ofnovels would describe such a situation as: ‘Seeing theenemies behind, seeing the wide river in front, thoughtswere on the future of the revolution or the happiness ofthe people; these thoughts brought a rush ofdetermination and people jumped across.’I have interviewed many of the old-timers. They saidthere was simply no time to think. Only the writersimagine that. In fact if they had been thinking, it wouldhave been impossible to jump across. So there was nothought of whether it was possible to jump across ornot, but just getting to the river and jumping across:transforming intention into action, and it was done. Thatis an example of a concentrated intention creatingmassive power. Try that in everyday life and it would notwork. Many of you have experienced this ji jingpersonally. Isn’t this quite simply thought affecting thebody’s strength, effecting a change in the degree ofstrength of the body? This is a normal event.

Power originating from illnessOn the other hand, when one is in a sickly conditionthought activity could also strengthen the body. A goodexample is women having a fit called xie si di li. Thereare quite a few women who are skinny and weak but whenxie si di li occurs and they go into a fit, even two youngmen couldn’t hold them down.Where does this power come from? In the past it wasnot understood and people believed they were affectedby demons. The medical explanation is that the sicknesscreates activity at the surface of the brain, an‘excitement light-up’. When the brain is calm, this‘excitement light-up’ occurs, like a lamp, lighting up allaround. It expands outward. In the brain there is only

one thought and that creates a very powerful strength.52So this is power originating from an illness. The commonnames for this are mad power and mad wave.Through concentration of thought, strength is increasedThe next example relates to qigong practitioners. Quitea few Hard (External) Qigong practitioners, withfocussed concentration, have massive power. They canlift heavy weights or use their head to break objects. Ihave two friends who, when they mobilised their qi andconcentrated their minds, could hold on to a smallvehicle in Shanghai; despite being at full throttle andthe wheels spinning continuously, the vehicle could notescape their grip.Where did their strength come from? Through trainingin concentration of thought, they were able to createthat massive power and strength. The only difference isthat they had developed it to occur at will. With theconcentration of thought one achieves that power; whenconcentration is lost, the power goes away. If you hadobserved them, they had to prepare, mobilise qi,concentrate attention and then carry out thatconcentrated action, but they had a time limit. Whatthey did could not be sustained for a long period of time.53This is an example of the concentration of thoughtcreating an increase in strength.With dispersal of concentration, basic life strength isdissipated and weakenedOn the other hand, when thoughts are dispersed,strength can be lost. Some disagree: how could a personoriginally full of strength lose it through dispersal ofconcentration. They think this unlikely.In fact examples of this happening in ordinary life areeverywhere. Let me use a typical example. Some yearsago in Beijing a young couple was approached by a gangof robbers waving knives at them for their valuables.These two youngsters were so frightened that theycouldn’t even stand and they collapsed to the ground.How could a youngster be so weak as to not even havethe strength to hold up their body? The loss of strengthcame from the great fright they received. What is theexplanation? When one receives a fright it is notpossible to concentrate one’s attention/ thoughts, and sostrength becomes dispersed and cannot support thebody. The result was they could not even stand up.54There is a folk saying: when one is frightened, the body

shivers. Why does it shiver? There is no strength left.One can even be so frightened that one loses control ofone’s bowels. So this shows that with the dispersal ofconcentration, basic life strength is dissipated andweakened.You should give this more thought and experience thesethings personally. This is what is meant by using yishi inqigong to increase one’s understanding of things.Some will ask how to use yishi. Start by understandingthe effect of yishi. Understand how it affects the mindand strength. Start by thinking of it, and when this isthought through clearly, when you ‘fa qi’ to treatanother, it will have a positive effect. If you are able tofocus your yishi well, then the qi emitted will bepowerful. On the other hand, if you do not concentratewell, the qi will be very weak and so will not be effective.This is because yishi affects the changes of qi.So yishi equals strength, they are the same thing. Whenyou have completely understood this, you will be able todirect qi more effectively.The first effect of yishi on life activity is that it canalter bodily strength. The second is that yishi can55change the state of matter within the body. In factyishi can change matter.Yishi can change the state of matter within the bodyFeeling happy and sadYishi can change the state of material conditions withinthe body. When you hear this, you may feel it is evenmore unlikely. Yishi and physical matter are two opposingand unrelated things, so how can yishi change the body’smaterial condition? Again, to tackle this problem we haveto use examples from everyday life.You can think about it. When we are feeling happy, whatis it like? When we are sad, what is it like? There is asaying, ‘When one meets with joyful events, the spiritfeels good’. When you are happy, you smile often andyour face lights up. You look healthy and strong. Whenyou are down and troubled, how do you look? You frown,your face looks unpleasant, full of ‘hui qi’, foul qi. Thereis no more light in your face. You may even look run-downand lose weight.So aren’t these happy and sad phenomena simply mentalactivities? There is a saying, ‘Once the heart opens up,56the body grows fat’. There is a Chinese Classic about twolovers parting, in which the woman feels so sad that thebangle on her wrist suddenly feels loose. (She suddenly

loses weight due to her sadness). Although this is just astory, it indicates that ancient people observed thatwhen mental energy is dispersed and sorrowful, thiscould lead to weight loss. If there had been no suchknowledge, the description wouldn’t have been written.Hair turning white overnightThere are other examples. There are many examples ofpeople whose hair turned white when they becameanxious or worried. An historical incident is when Wu ZiXu’s hair turned white overnight due to sadness. To havethe entire head of hair turn white overnight due tosadness may not seem likely, but it is known fact that itdoes happen.Why does your hair turn white when you are feeling sad?Isn’t this a case of mental activity affecting the stateof the body?There is an even better example. There was a particularillness just after Liberation called qi lei bo. When onegets angry, the anger can cause lumps to grow on thelymph nodes. This is due to mental activity creating57changes in the body. We spoke about this previously,about building the qifield. There was a femalepractitioner who tried using mental concentration tomake her breast bigger but instead created a lump inher breast.Isn’t this also mental activity causing a change in thebody? This is to say, whether one is sick or in normalhealth, it is possible to change the state of the bodythrough mental activity. When we practice qigong, weare practicing this process so as to strengthen it andmake it into something that we can use directly as acapability.For example an External Qigong Master, withconcentration, mobilising qi, could create a lump that isso hard that it can take slashes and all kinds of attackwithout him being harmed. How does he do it? He toouses mental control to gather the qi together. So fromthe perspective of qigong, whether it is changes tostrength or changes to matter, it has to do with qi. Yishi(mental activity) is able to effect changes through theuse of qi.The mind effecting changes in matter58You may say, “The examples you have given are notcommon and we have not personally seen or experiencedthem and so we can’t decide whether they are genuine ornot. Thus we are unable to understand in depth this

lesson on how mental activities affect matter. Can wehave examples that we can identify with?” Yes of course.You bring something delicious home for your youngchildren but don’t let them eat it right away, saying tothem, “Daddy or Mummy has bought some chocolate foryou…”. On hearing that your children will produce salivain their mouths. There was a story from the ThreeWarring States, that Cao Cao (leading an army throughthe desert with the soldiers considerably weakened dueto thirst) said to his soldiers: “See, look over the hill,there are many plum trees.” Upon hearing plums, salivaformed in the soldiers’ mouths and they weretemporarily relieved of thirst. Aren’t such examples verycommon? When you mention something that is deliciousor something that is sour and sweet, the body reacts toit. Isn’t this a case of the mind affecting the body’smaterial conditions?Speech is a mind activity and yet in the end effectschanges in the body. So isn’t this the mind effectingchanges in matter? Isn’t it simple to understand? If youstudents consider this thoroughly and understand it59completely and use it in qigong, your qigong capability willbe raised. When you meet a patient with a lump, yousimply think for it to disappear and it will disappear.With a fat person, if you think of him getting thinner,concentrating on the fat dissipating, it will happen. Orthe reverse, to put on weight, it’s very simple. Withinthree months an increase or decrease of ten to twentypounds would not be difficult.It is all a matter of knowing how to use yishi. And that ispracticing qigong. What else do you think qigong practiceis all about? Isn’t practicing qigong about using our yishito change our health? The key to Zhineng Qigong is theuse of yishi, it isn’t about the Form. And it is so simple:Zhineng Qigong connects with normal everyday lifeexperiences of normal people to explain higher levels ofwisdom. This is also to say that there is no fundamentaldifference between qigong and ordinary life activities.To practice qigong is to make use of these ordinary liferules/principles. That is the first aspect - the effect ofyishi on life activities. The second aspect is yishi’seffect on objective matter.6061 62Chapter TwoThe second aspect of yishi - theeffect of yishi on objective matter

Yishi can influence the intensity of effect objectivematter has on the bodySome modern psychiatrists would say that what we havejust discussed is mere psychological effect and notqigong. Yes, they are right! The yishi in qigong that weare discussing, as a matter of fact includes psychologicaleffects in psychology but it is not limited to that. If weequate the two, then we erase the most fundamentalcharacteristics of qigong study. This is because inpsychology, psychological effects can only effectpersonal bodily changes and cannot have any effect onobjective matters. However yishi in qigong includes both.One’s state of mind create differences in responsesSo there are two aspects to discuss. The first is thatyishi can influence the intensity of effect objective63matter has on the body. Due to the limitations oflanguage, this cannot be grasped immediately. By theexercise of yishi, the reaction of the body to anexternal objective stimulus can change; the degree ofintensity of that reaction can be changed by yishi.There are two aspects to do this. One is the person’sdegree of reaction; the other is the degree of intensityof their objective reaction. These two effects can bothbe changed. I can give some examples for you to slowlyunderstand this.In our daily life, we are affected by all kinds of stimulusfrom external objects. The intensity of the objects isconstant but due to the mental effect, differences inthe state of mind create differences in reactions tothem. For example, in daily life when cooking and cuttingvegetables, we accidentally slice off some flesh fromthe finger. The knife cutting off the flesh is anobjective effect. No one can change this objective fact.But how the person feels the intensity of pain can varyaccording to their state of mind.When you cut yourself, your attention was on cooking,your attention was dispersed. Was it painful? Yes, butnot too bad. It is very unlikely that you fainted because64of the pain. More likely you simply applied somemedication, bandaged up and continued cooking.Let’s do a demonstration. Any female student, come upand we shall take a knife and cut off a small piece offlesh, let’s try it out. Cut it like this, just a small piece.Now the pain would be unbearable!Now let’s think about it. When cooking, cutting offaccidentally was not painful but now to cut off

deliberately would be unbearable? Because we would befrightened and imagine it to be painful even before theknife touched the skin. There will be many people, youblind-fold them and you use a blunt object on them andthey will react with pain just from a slight touch.Because of intense attention and fear, they amplify thestimulus and feel great pain.So this is mental effects changing the intensity of theobjective stimulus. With fear, pain becomes even moreintense. On the other hand, if you concentrate attentionand resist it, it can be painless instead.An example is the story of the Three Warring States.Guan Yu was injured by a poisoned arrow and being ahero he didn’t want to receive any anaesthetic from HuaTuo who was treating him. He said, “Go ahead and65operate on me” and he continued to play chess with afriend throughout the operation without even flinchingone bit. Of course we do not encourage this, what’swrong with a little anaesthetic? But the qigongexplanation is that he was able to shut out the pain byusing yishi.So this tells us that by the concentration of attentionwe can lessen the objective effect on us; we can make itpainless. Now you may say, “ Pang Laoshi is still talkingabout internal psychological effects, not objectiveeffects.” I say, “You are right, but it is a mutual two-wayeffect.” Can we have a more convincing example?Yishi can select and chooseAnother example - In your daily life you couldexperience such a thing. You are with a group of friends,chit chatting, having a good time and then you noticeanother group over there also talking among themselvesand glancing your way repeatedly, pointing around. Youare convinced they must be talking about you, so youwant to know what they are saying. But you can’t justwalk over there. So your attention focuses on what theyare saying. Slowly you actually begin to be able to hearwhat they are saying from afar and unable to hear what66your own group of friends are saying, even though theyare close by. This is called focusing yishi.Yishi can select and choose. If yishi chooses to focus onsomething in the distance and your attention is there, itcan augment the objective information over there, andyour reaction becomes more sensitive to it and becomesconnected with it. So the mutual effect on the bodychanges. On the other hand, if you do not take notice of

that person, your yishi is not on them and not connectedto them, then the mutual effect will be weakened.Students should give serious thought to this issue. Ifyou think through this matter, this is - especially forZhineng Qigong - a major key that unlocks secrets, themost important fundamental secrets.The qifieldThe practice of Zhineng Qigong emphasises the effectof Information; emphasises building a healing qifield;emphasises teachers’ involvement in training students;emphasises the qifield of the entire Zhineng Qigongcommunity.67Does the qifield exist? It exists. If your attention is noton it and you are not connected to it, then it has noeffect on you. If you are connected to it, then it willhave effects on you.For example, right now as I am giving you this lecture Iam sending information, ‘fa qi’ – sending you qi, building ahealing qifield for you. Some students don’t accept thatthis is building a healing qifield. Their attention is not onit. Their thoughts are always, “Why doesn’t Pang Laoshiquickly send some qi to me?”, waiting for Pang Laoshi toformally announce and make some action of ‘fa qi’. Onlythen will their attention be focused. Otherwise theykeep thinking, “All this talking, why doesn’t he ‘fa qi’ tous, that would be better.” Actually I have been sendingqi to you, ‘fa qi’ all the while, but since you are notconnected by your thoughts the qi cannot connect withyou.Another kind of student says: Pang Laoshi sending qi thisway for everyone all at once is not for me. My sickness isspecial; only when you send qi to me personally, only thenwill it count, otherwise it does not work. So they areunable to receive my qi. Then they say they don’t believebecause it did not have any effect on them. “How canyou make me believe if it did not have any effect on mein the first place?”68Actually, the key to whether or not there will be aneffect on you lies in your own yishi, in whether or notyou are willing to receive qi. There is so much qi herethat you refused to receive, and so you can’t receive itand it has no effect on you.Do you think that being a human is so simple? One haslots to learn. For example, saying the phrase “I am well”in order to begin to recover. Whether you can recoverfrom your sickness or advance in your practice is

completely dependent on the condition of your yishi. Weare saying here that yishi can change the mutual effectsof matter and body.Xin bu zai yan - the mind (xin) is not hereIn order for students to understand further, let me giveyou an even more obvious example. Many of you readnovels and when one is very exciting, your attentioncaptivated, you are completely immersed in it. At thismoment, if some one were to come up to you and callyour name. “Lao Zhang, Lao Zhang”, even if they calledyou several times, you wouldn’t be able to hear them.69Why can’t you hear them? It is because your attention isfully on the novel and you aren’t paying any attention toyour surroundings. Once you don’t notice yoursurroundings, you became unable to differentiate themand so cannot receive their information. Your friendcould be calling your name repeatedly, “Lao Zhang, LaoZhang” but you wouldn’t hear the stimulus. Such a loudsound, such a significant objective fact, yet you are notable receive it.All the more so with ‘fa qi’. If you are not payingattention and not taking the initiative to connect with it,how can it affect you? So if you can really understandthis wisdom, that it is all about using yishi, all of us herehave this ability. In your daily life, you have been usingthis capability. The only difference is that you have notused it actively/positively (ji ji).On the contrary, you have used yishi in apassive/negative way (xiao ji) and so it takes effect inthat direction. Ancient wise men have talked very clearlyon this subject. Confucius said, “Hear but not hear, seebut not see, eat but not taste, ‘xin bu zai yan’ - the mind(xin) is not here.” So we now say ‘xin bu zai yan’; ‘xin buzai yan’, what is ‘xin bu zai yan’? It means your mind, yourattention, is not at the place. If your attention is not70there, even if there are many things happening, you willnot be able to feel/sense them.An example - there is a sound, you hear it, but if yourattention is not there you are unable to differentiate/process the information. So this is ‘ting er bu wen’: yourmind is not connected to your ears, you are doingsomething else. ‘shi er bu jian’: your eyes are wide open,there is something very big right in front of you yet youdon’t see it, it doesn’t connect with your eyes. So you areeating but you don’t know what the taste is, you don’tnotice. The tongue does not connect with the food’s

taste; this is called ‘xin bu zai yan’.So many people know this saying, but what it means isthat yishi can change the effects of material/ objectivestimuli on the human body.And that also is using yishi, a broad usage of yishi.So if students give this matter due thought andconsideration, those with sickness will rapidly recover.Those who are not sick will advance in their ‘gong’ /qigong abilities very quickly. In this way you change theeffects.71‘Xin ze ling’: it works when you believeWe say in qigong ‘xiang xin’: ‘believe’ and ‘xin ze ling’: itworks when you believe. Why? Because only when youbelieve in it will you then concentrate your efforts toact and so be able to receive more effectively. When webuild a healing qifield, it is immediately connected withyou and takes effect. Yishi itself has effects. So inZhineng Qigong we say ‘xin ze ling’ – it works when youbelieve. You may say it is simply superstition; we don’tcare about that. We in Zhineng Qigong say ‘xin ze ling’ -it works when you believe.Of course we do not say ‘bu xin bu ling’: it doesn’t workwhen you don’t believe. We can elaborate on this inanother lecture, but there were many who did notbelieve when they first came; then when we removedtumours through the effects of building a healingqifield, they believed. The powerful qifield broughtabout these effects. Of course, for those who believethe effects will be even better, bigger and more.So give this a lot of thought, think about it repeatedly.Once you have thought through this principle, that initself is ADVANCED QIGONG. You should not, and Iemphasise this, you should not think that practicingqigong is just about practicing (the Form/ Methods). In72your daily life, your every action, every word andmovement can be for practicing qigong and advancing ingongfu.So that is the first aspect. The second aspect we wouldlike to talk about is yishi changing the conditions ofobjective matter.Yishi can change the state of objective matterYishi can change the state of objective matter. What wehave discussed before, that yishi can change the effectsof external objective stimuli on the body, some of youmay still use the perspective of psychology to explainthis.

In order to enable students to thoroughly understandyishi’s effects on objective matter, we shall go onfurther to talk about yishi’s ability to change the stateof objective matter.Paranormal abilitiesWe shall use the most obvious example. In the past itwas hard to explain. Now it is easier, as in recent years73the study of people with paranormal abilities hasreached great heights. Research has been conductedthroughout the country. There are many people withrecognised paranormal abilities around, hundreds ofthem. Not just tens of them, but nationwide there arehundreds of them who are able to do experimentsrequiring paranormal abilities, maybe even thousands.These people with paranormal abilities can use theirthoughts to move objects around or even make themdisappear. We have seen most of the videos of ZhangBao Sheng along with Wang Jian, now Vice-ChairmanWang. Before 1984, they did many experimentstogether. On one occasion, Wang Jian held a steel ball inhis hand and asked Zhang Bao Sheng if he could makethe ball disappear. He promised that once convinced hewould publicise Zhang Bao Sheng’s abilities. He thenplaced his closed hand on the sofa and Zhang Bao Shengcame and placed his hand on Wang Jian’s, made a gestureand said “It’s gone”. Indeed it was gone, so Wang Jianstarted looking around - it was on video - but couldn’tfind it. After a while Wang Jian’s security guard came inand said, “Your steel ball appeared in my pocket”. Thesecurity guard was not even in the room. This was usingyishi to effect change in an external object,transporting an object from one location to another.74Present at the experiment was another person from theResearch Department. He was not convinced. He saidthat was mere magic tricks and not acceptable. To proveit properly the specimen object must be unique. So hesigned his name a piece of paper and pasted it on theball. He said, “If you can do it again with the piece ofpaper intact then it is irrefutable.” He said, “You couldhave collaborated with the guard and placed the ball inhis pocket beforehand, and by magic tricks made theoriginal disappear and then claim it appeared in theguard’s pocket. That’s magic tricks! In magic tricksthere are always two specimens that are exactly thesame. The trick was to make one disappear and the otherappear from elsewhere. But in a proper experiment, the

specimen must be unique like this: it has a hole here andthis one doesn’t have, so they are not exactly the same.And so we can authenticate the real one.”While this was being said, Zhang Bao Sheng played atrick on the man. He suddenly said, “Look, your watch isgone! It is in the thermos flask.” and the man looked andindeed the watch was not on his wrist anymore. The manquickly opened the flask and poured out the hot waterand found his watch cooking inside! Of course the watchwas unique! This is yishi effecting changes on objects.75ExperimentsThere were other experiments. Cutting a cake usingyishi; it was cut into two. Cutting electrical wires; with awave of the hand, the wire broke into two. In ouruniversity course there were two students, they tooktwo steel needles and they stared at them and theybroke into two. Then they put the two broken piecestogether and stared. They reconnected them leaving notrace of the break. Isn’t this yishi effecting changes onobjects?Some say, “They are different, they have paranormalcapabilities, but can we do the same? Can we have anyeffect?” The difference is only in the degree of power.“Do we all have the same ability?” Yes. Only that someare weaker compared with others. “But why can’t I doit?” You have not experimented before. Try it out andyou will know.In 1978, the xx Department in the USA published apaper of an experiment that was jointly conducted withour xx Department. They have done many experiments; Ishall only introduce two to you. The first was theelectrical thermometer. They used the power of thoughtto make the temperature rise. The experiment wasconducted with 7,000 people. After collecting the data,76the temperature indeed had risen. But it was very slight,only a few thousandths of a degree centigrade. It wastoo small to be seen by the naked eye but could bemeasured by instruments. Even though small, it didchange; it proved thoughts could change the state ofobjective matter.The second experiment was using an electrical device toplace two mirrors at a fixed distance apart. Again usingthe power of thought, the experiment was conductedwith 7,000 different people to reduce the distance bythought. Again, on collecting the data the distance hadreduced by a few ten thousandths of a centimetre. Also

very small, but this also proved that change did occur,proving that yishi can change the state of objectivematter.A few years ago in Shi Jia Zhuang we also did anexperiment. We had the teachers using ‘fa qi’ to makethe temperature rise. Where is Bao Ming? – he isn’there. Some of them raised the temperature by two tothree plus degrees and some by over one degree. So thetemperature was raised. This points to the fact that theyishi that we talk about in qigong studies is not merelylimited to the thought activities that are discussed inpsychology.77The psychological effect acknowledged by psychologyonly affects personal life activities of the body and isnot able to effect changes to external objective matter.But the yishi that we speak of in qigong circles is notlimited to changing personal life activities of the body; italso effects changes to the state of external objectivematter.So that was the second aspect, yishi changing thecondition of objective matter.Students should reflect on this further. Once you get tothe bottom of this, you have learnt a lesson on usingyishi and it is an ADVANCED LEVEL of using yishi: to beable to make use of this innate capability of yishi. Thegoal of our practicing qigong is to strengthen thesecapabilities, strengthen, and strengthen. What is qigong?Strengthening the innate capabilities of a personthrough the practice of a specific system of training.Once strengthened, the capabilities will revealthemselves and one becomes recognised as having gongfuand capabilities.Look inside yourself78Actually it isn’t about practicing. Practicing can onlychange the quantity a little bit. We all have theseabilities. You should not look down on yourself. In fact itis my opinion that some of you have capabilities thatsurpass mine. It is as if you have gold tucked inside yourbody and yet go out begging with a begging bowl. Oh Iam poor and hungry, give me some food to eat. Notknowing you have treasures in you.That is to say, the capabilities are already in you. Youneed only to use a certain method, concentrate yourmind, and actively use them; that is all! And that isalready advanced gongfu. You don’t have to go searchingoutward for any qigong masters. It suffices to look to

your self. Just look to yourself when faced with anyproblems. You want to rid yourself of your sickness or toadvance in gongfu; look inside yourself. Inside you areinfinite treasures, just use them. You only need to minethem. You thought they need to come from outside; no,they can’t come in. The real effect must come from youyourself. Nobody can do that for you from outside.It must expand from the inside. Like the sprouting of aseed, it must come from itself. You can squeeze fromthe outside but that will not help. Anyone who can thinkthis way, their gongfu will grow immediately just likethat. It’s very rapid: what I say you understand79immediately, you grasp it upon practicing and couldconduct healing immediately with instant results. It is sosimple. In the past nobody dared to say this becausethen qigong masters would be out of business. So qigongmasters are the same as us, with one nose and two eyes,nothing special. Who would then be willing to become themaster’s apprentice; following him around? So once thecat is out of the bag, it becomes valueless. Nobody willbe willing to follow the teacher for years.But many students don’t believe it. The truth is oftennot accepted but falsehood is accepted. “How can thisbe? Every one of us could do it? Every one of us withsuch high abilities?” People don’t believe in themselves.So if you talk about God, then they will believe. Aboutdemons, they believe. And if you say it’s all you, theydon’t believe. “How could I?” Looking down on oneself.So by not believing in yourself, you also don’t believe inothers. Even the teacher’s lecture is not believable. Ireceived information recently of a student of theprevious two batches. After completing the course hereturned to his home town and started believing inGod/Buddha. He has strayed from the path. In factwhat is true or false Buddhist teachings is hard to say.But I quote Buddha’s saying, “fo wai wu xin, xin wai wufo”. (‘fo’, sounding like four, is a word for Buddha, but80not Buddha the person, more a description of a state ofbeing.) “There is no xin outside of Buddha and no Buddhaoutside of xin” What is xin? Xin is nothing but yishi.Those who have a real understanding of Buddha’steachings do not believe in Gautama Siddhartha Buddhathe person. To quote another Buddhist saying: “The ‘ta’(pavilion) is xin: the belief is in xin”. Actually manyBuddhist teachings are about qigong theories, but theydidn’t understand. After practicing qigong, when

capabilities appeared, they created a set of Buddhistexplanations. The capabilities that surfaced, many are aresult of qigong practice. But as to the explanations,from our qigong perspective, we do not agree with theBuddhists.However there are many similarities as far as practicingis concerned. My purpose in mentioning this here is toforewarn you not go back to blind belief. We are alreadyon the path of qigong science; to turn around andbacktrack would be counter-productive.81 82Chapter ThreeThe third aspect of yishi:yishi’s influence on illness.That was the second effect of yishi. Now to the thirdeffect of yishi.The first was yishi’s effect on the life activities of thebody, including changing strength levels and changingobjective effects on the body. The second was yishichanging the mutual effects between objective matterand the body. The third is yishi’s influence on illness.Actually the third aspect of yishi’s influence on illnesscould be discussed under the first aspect of yishi’seffect on the life activities of the body.Because this is a short-term course mainly for patients,we have to pick this topic out for special discussion, inorder to further strengthen and reinforce knowledge ofyishi’s effect on sickness in the body. Moreover many83patients are interested to know, so we have to speakabout this.Yishi affects illness 1So what effect does yishi have on illness? Some of youmay think, “An illness is an illness, what does it have todo with yishi? I do not have any illness; through thinkingabout it, illness will appear? I am ill, and throughthinking that I am well, illness will go away? I have aminor illness and if I think that it is serious, it willbecome serious? I have serious sickness, I think that itis minor and it will become minor?” Let me tell you, thetruth is exactly this.You don’t have any illnesses, but by thinking that youhave, you really develop them. Originally there was noillness, but through the effects of the mind, you canbecome ill. A minor illness, through the effects of themind, could become a serious illness. Someone originallynot ill at all or very slightly ill could, through the effectsof the mind, end up dying.

Don’t think that sickness is simply sickness. It is not assimple as that. It is because we are used to the doctors’views that an illness is simply an illness. That this is a84stomach ulcer and this is a stone in the gallbladder. Theyall say so.The effect of yishi that I am talking about, not all ofyou have heard it before. You feel that it is new. Is itreally new? In order for you to understand, I need togive you practical examples. Many of us overlook themany lessons that we can learn from normal everydaylife happenings. The study of qigong involves payingattention to these things. There is a saying; payingattention to little things accumulates knowledge. Eachlittle thing, by paying attention and noticing it, each onebuilds knowledge. Do you think that high-level knowledgeonly falls from the sky? No, all knowledge come fromeveryday life activities.An example of a minor illness becoming seriousFirst of all let me tell you an example of a minor illnessbecoming a serious illness, then another in the reverse, aserious illness becoming minor.A few years back I went to the ConstructionDepartment to treat an old civil servant working there.After treatment, I told him about the effects of mindand the old man agreed with me totally. He said, “I have85personally experienced such a situation. In my unit therewas a man who had stomach trouble for more than twoyears; this was in 1984. The year before he had gone tothe hospital to have an x-ray done and was waiting forthe report. When the x-rays were done his familymember asked the doctor (radiologist) what was theoutcome. The doctor did not notice that the patient wassitting just outside the door waiting and could hearevery word very clearly. The doctor said, ‘The patient isfinished, he has stomach cancer. Even surgery is notpossible, it’s late stage, a maximum of three months tolive.’”So the patient was handed the x-ray films withinstructions to see the doctor. The doctor examined thefilm and then said, “Okay, no problem. You have astomach ailment, let me prescribe some medication foryou. Eat whatever you like. Do what you like, go andenjoy yourself. Okay, that’s all, you can go now.”On hearing that the patient lost his temper. He bangedon the table and said, “What kind of a doctor are you?You are humouring me. I heard the other doctor say that

I had cancer and was going to die, and here you say I amfine and are letting me go with some simpleprescriptions!” So the doctor also lost his cool. In thepast, in our days, if we behaved like him we would have86been booked and penalised. The doctors these daysbehave very differently. They could be even moreaggressive than the patient. “Oh, so you already know it.So you also know that this is cancer. Let me show you.See this portion here has deteriorated, its late stage,you can’t have surgery. The other doctor said threemonths; he is being nice to you, I say you don’t even havethree months.”So the doctor decided that he would prescribe morepainkillers and injections as the illness worsened andwarned the patient not to have more than one injection aday.The patient did not know what to do and asked abouthospitalisation and chemotherapy. The doctor said it wasuseless to be hospitalised because no surgery could bedone and chemotherapy would only kill him faster. Sothe same advice: “Go home and eat as you like, do as youlike, value each day that you get to be alive, be happy.”The doctor was a little over the top, saying it so bluntly.“The patient was not especially ill when he went to thehospital but after the visit he became really sick. Hevomited everything that he ate. The pain was so severethan even two injections a day did not work. He wasgroaning in pain. In less than twenty days his body87weight plummeted drastically, his face became skeletal.So he went back to the doctor and the doctor said thatthese were normal symptoms of his illness, late stagecancer, death imminent, nothing could be done.He was causing such a racket at home that his familydecided if he was to die, let him die in hospital, andthrough special connections got him into the cancerhospital. The doctor at the cancer hospital took a closerlook at the x-ray and said that it did not look like cancerto him. He suggested having a scope done (introducing acamera into the stomach to see directly). The patientprotested and said he was going to die, why make himsuffer further with more tests? “If you refuse, then itis impossible for us to find out. We don’t feel that thex-ray film showed you have cancer.” The patient said,“What do you mean it’s not cancer; I am about to die andyou say it is not cancer?”The doctor said, “Please don’t shout at me; look at this

part that is swollen and assumed to be cancer – here! Itis very bright. Normally cancer cells are not so bright,the surface is full of craters and undulated; it does notlook like cancer. And this lower part too is relativelybright; our experience tells us it doesn’t look like cancer.What it is we don’t know. Very likely a stomach ulcer butwe don’t really know until we can take a look with a scope88down your throat directly into your stomach. One lookand we will know.” So the patient finally agreed. Itturned out not to be cancer. It was a stone in thestomach and an ulcer. They happened to have occurredtogether. It is rare to have a stone in the stomach. Wehear of stones in the gallbladder and kidneys but not inthe stomach.It so happened the formation of these two looked likecancer from the x-ray, so the original diagnosis waswrong. When a tissue sample was taken it showed that itwas not cancer, but that an area was beginning todeteriorate towards cancer, although not considered acancer yet. There was no need for surgery.The patient said, “If that’s the case, then I am goinghome”. So in less than three months he was back tonormal and had gained his weight back.So how do you explain his prior groaning in pain, theinjections, being unable to eat? Was it real pain orphoney pain? Real sickness or phoney? If it was notsickness, is it possible a grown man would be groaning inpain, unable to eat, losing weight to become a skeleton?If it was a sickness, what kind of sickness? His sicknesswas a stone in the stomach coupled with an ulcer. But it89shouldn’t have produced such symptoms. It could bepainful, but not so serious and not with vomiting nor sucha drastic drop in body weight.Where did the pain and vomiting come from? From thesentence: “You are about to die, three months is toomuch, I give you one or two months”. That sentencecaused him to vomit upon reaching home. So this is acase of mental effects changing a minor illness into aserious illness, and then mental effects leading fromserious illness to a recovery to normal health again.It is cancer or not?I shall tell you about another case that I encountered in1974-75. We had an old comrade at our unit who was anice man. He went for an x-ray of the lung and it showeda shadow. The cause could have been some kind ofinfection so he was given antibiotics for over forty days,

but these did not have any effect on the shadow. So thedoctors considered the possibility of it being cancerous.Diagnosis is not easy at this stage.So the patient came to me to treat him. This I did. Iexamined his pulse using traditional Chinese medicinesand prescribed some herbal medicines for him. He took90the medications for just over a month and went foranother x-ray. It showed the shadow had shrunksignificantly, by half, but it was still there. If it was aninfection, after two months of treatment, it should havebeen gone.So it was necessary to check if indeed it was cancerous,and at that time our unit was just next to the cancerhospital so he went there for a checkup. He went in themorning and returned late afternoon. When he returned,right at the door, he cried out, “Oh Doctor Pang, pleasesave me, I am going to die soon.” I said, “Whathappened? Why have you become like this, you weren’tthis way when you left?” He said, “Oh I have lung cancer,I am going to die.” He didn’t even have the energy tospeak properly.I asked him when had he got lung cancer? He said, “Thismorning, the cancer hospital diagnosed me with lungcancer.” I said, “You had the lung cancer much earlier. Itwas lung cancer two and a half months ago.” “That bigpatch on the x-ray - that was cancer.” “Really? I had ittwo and half months ago?” “Didn’t you take medicationand injections and that was not working, but after I gaveyou Chinese prescriptions for over a month, it becomesmaller? You said you are dying; if you are, then youwould have died a long time ago. No you are recovering.”91He said, “Is that so?” I said, “Yes, just compare the twox-rays: the first was so big, now it is so small; you aremuch better now. Why are you crying and groaningaway?” At this point it was more effective to be firmand show him the facts. So I said, “There is no problem.”So he continued with another month or so of Chinesemedication and then went for another x-ray. The shadowwas gone.He then went to the cancer hospital for a furthercheckup and now they said it was not cancer. When hereturned he was so happy, waving his hands aroundsaying, “It was not cancer, it was not cancer!” I said, “Itwas cancer.” He said, “The doctor said it wasn’t.” Iasked why he said it was not? He said that the doctorsaid if it were cancer, then he couldn’t have recovered.

If he recovered then it would not have been cancer. Thedoctor even asked him, “Where did you get yourtreatment?” and he said at his unit’s medicaldepartment’s own doctor.The doctor insisted that it was not cancer. “If it was, itcan’t be treated. It definitely was not cancer. It musthave been an infection. You have been taking the bitterChinese medication for nothing. It will go away evenwithout the medication. In two or three months’ time92you will recover completely, there’s no need formedication.” So the patient said he was not taking anymore medication. I said to him, “It was cancer.” Heturned around and accused me of cursing him; why was Icursing him? So that was that, he refused medication.A month plus passed and he went for another checkup.Once again he came back crying. “It was cancer, mycancer has resurfaced.” So in a few weeks withoutmedication, a big patch of cancer had grown. I said, “Itold you it was cancer but you disbelieved.” He said,“What should I do now? The hospital said it was notpossible to have surgery and suggested chemotherapy.”I said, “That would kill you sooner. Let’s take Chinesemedication.”So he took over two months of medication and went fora checkup again, and again returned saying “It was notcancer, I have taken medication for nothing.” He said“This time they have consulted their supervising doctor.The previous doctors were inexperienced; now thesupervising doctor says it was definitely not cancerbecause if it were, recovery was not possible.” Thepatient said, “I have suffered so much taking the bittermedicines. I had to force myself to drink them; now I amdetermined not to take any more medication, no matterwhat you say.”93I said that I couldn’t agree to that. So I went to hisfamily but the family could not force him if he didn’twant to cooperate, insisting it was not cancer. In theend, he died. He went back to his hometown in Sanxi andwithin three months fell sick again. I heard he was toldthat eating crow could cure cancer and he ate two,vomited blood and died.So this demonstrates mental influences. When he heardthat it was not cancer, he was full of energy, jumpingaround, and refused medication before the cancer wascompletely eradicated, and so he died.So, these two cases of patients with sicknesses from

minor to serious back to minor, back and forth. Isn’t thisthe effect of yishi? Of course there is the effect oftreatment in the cancer story.The seriousness of the sickness seems like an objectiveissue and yet the mental effect plays such an importantrole. The idea that cancer is incurable, death isimminent, is this actually right? We have many examplesof surviving cancer patients.Western medical workers actually scare people to death.Once you have a serious illness, they say it can’t be94treated, can’t be treated, they scare the patients todeath. Many people have been scared to death bydoctors. It is not a capital offence to scare someone todeath.Maybe in saying this, some of my Western MedicalDoctor colleagues will be unhappy. I was a graduate ofWestern medicine too. But it is the truth, even if theyare unhappy to hear it.Yishi can create illness 2I will go further in what I say. Even if you are well,without any sickness, mental effects can create illness.Through the effect of one’s mental activities, sicknesscan be created.“I don’t believe it; I am so full of life and jumping about;you could cause me to fall sick?” The truth is exactlythat!Many of us become angry when we get into a quarrel.Isn’t being angry a mental effect? Because of the anger,you come home unable to eat or sleep, you feel a lump inyour chest and your head feels bloated and dizzy. Isthat sickness? Can’t eat or sleep and pain in the chest,95isn’t that sickness? Dizzy in the head and increasedblood pressure, isn’t that sickness?Where did the sickness come from? Isn’t it from yourbeing angry, a mental effect? Some say being angrydoesn’t count because there was a cause; a mentaleffect causing a sickness must be something that didnot have a cause in the first place.Free MSGSo let me tell you a story of my friend. His surname wasZhou and he graduated in 1953.After graduation he was assigned to a factorymanufacturing monosodium glutamate (MSG). They wouldtaste the MSG for quality at the Quality ControlDepartment, but he was not from that Department. Inthe fifties it was thought that MSG was good and so my

friend would go to the Quality Control Department andtaste the MSG for fun. His colleagues noticed that hewas often there, taking advantage of free MSG anddisrupting their work. So they decided to play a trick onhim.96They set up a prank. In the afternoon, there he wasagain. He pinched a handful and placed it in his mouth.His colleagues rushed up to him and said, “That was notMSG but caustic alkaline powder.” It is commonknowledge among chemistry students that causticalkaline burns the body. So he quickly drank a lot ofwater in order to dilute the effect. “What causticalkaline? Why didn’t I feel the burning effect?”, downinganother two cups of water as he spoke. Just then thebell rang to end work.He lived at the Xiji gate at the northwest corner ofBeijing. The factory was located at the southeast cornerof Beijing, so it was about twenty miles away. So he rodehis bicycle home. Half way he felt pain in his gullet andhe thought the worst. He managed to ride home.When he reached home his wife saw him. He was a youngman in his twenties. She knew that something was amiss.She worked as a nurse in Beijing University Hospital inthe Emergency Department. She saw her husband, hisface turned yellowish orange, in pain; one look and sheknew it was an emergency. As medical workers, throughexperience we can tell an emergency case when we seeone. So she asked him what had happened and he toldher. She immediately took him to Beijing UniversityHospital.97On arrival they went straight to x-ray without goingthrough the doctor, because they knew that it wasurgent to rush to be in time. No time to waste, becauseif it burns through the stomach wall and there is acid inthe stomach, it will cause serious damage. It’s a lifethreateningsituation. So the x-ray showed that it hadnot burned through the stomach wall. They then went tothe doctor and told him about his condition and he wastreated with injections etc. He stayed at the emergencyroom for observation for three and a half hours; his painreceded slowly. They decided that it was all right forhim to go home and he went.The next day he was still feeling a little pain and went tohand in his medical certificate. His supervisor said thatthe supervisor from the Quality Control Department waslooking for him and so after handling over the MC he

went over. The supervisor asked him what madness hewas up to. “You must be mad!” “Why do you say that?”“If you are not mad, what did you go to hospital for?” “Iate caustic alkaline.” “ Who ate caustic alkaline?” “ Me.”“ You are crazy! It was not caustic alkaline, it was MSG.You have been coming and eating our MSG, we were justplaying a trick on you.”98It was not caustic alkaline at all. It had been MSG allalong. He hadn’t specialised in chemistry, he was fromengineering, but he was educated and knew a little bit.Caustic alkaline powder actually does not look like MSGat all, but he was so worried at the time that he didn’tnotice. So he thought it really was caustic alkalinepowder. Because of that his mind was disorientated andin consequence he felt pain in the stomach, because heknew that caustic alkaline has a very powerful burningeffect on the body. He knew of this fact and so hereacted with unbearable pain. If he’d had no knowledgeof the burning effect, then it wouldn’t have had anyeffect, would not have been so painful. If it were anuneducated old lady, she wouldn’t give the causticalkaline any thought. On the other hand Zhou knew ofthe burning effect and so was imagining it to behappening, and so the effect took place.The effect of yishi is this powerful!Yishi can choose death or lifeNot only this, the effects of yishi can cause death. Withno initial illness, the result can be death, death causedentirely by the power of yishi.99A few such examples were included in our (medical)course.In the past, experiments were conducted on death-rowprisoners. A prisoner was blindfolded with his arms outstretchedand a hole was made in the vein so that bloodwould flow out rapidly into a basin below. So the firstprisoner was set up first and the second (deliberately)walked past the first to an adjoining cubicle, with thesame done to him. So we can imagine, with blood flowingout at this rate, the prisoners died in no time.So after a while the first prisoner fell down; they didnot revive him and he died, and then the second also felland died. These two prisoners, the first died because ofloss of blood. The second died of fright. The secondprisoner, after they made the hole in the vein to drawblood, they had running water adjusted to the same rateas the first prisoner’s blood flow into the basin to

simulate the effect. But he also died. This was a mentaleffect.Another example occurred in 1986. A Beijing newspaperprinted a news report from a British newspaper.There was a road sweeper who worked under a hightensionwire. Every day he worried about being100electrocuted by a falling cable. One day, while he wasbelow sweeping the floor, a neutral cable fell on him andhe died instantly. When they opened up his body, it wasexactly as if he had been electrocuted. His liver hadburst. He was so anxious it had caused his internal organto burst.The third example is that given by an Americanpsychologist who wrote a book. In that book he wrote ofan incident. A few youngsters played a prank on theirfriend. They tied his arms and legs together andblindfolded him, then carried him to the railway track.After a while the train came. The person who was tiedup could not move. He struggled but could not move.After the train had passed his friends came along foundhim dead. The psychologist said that in the final analysis,when a person reaches an extreme state of despair, hecan choose to die. The mind can choose to die. The mindcan cause one to die.You know that in everyday village life we find thisoccurring. An old lady about to die, but the son is notback yet. “Your son is on the road, he is on his way, waitfor him.” She could wait for one day, two days, and uponseeing him, breathe her last and die. She might havegone through many times of near-death struggles, buther will to see her son or relatives for the last time101could allow her to live many more days, then once shesaw the person, die right away.When you have an extreme desire to live on, even if youare on your deathbed, life can be extended. Whenfeeling extreme despair, a normal person can die. So thisis yishi affecting illness.So you may say that’s bad news. All of us have yishi. Youcan become sick even if initially you were not ill. A minorillness can become major due to yishi; serious illness canbecome death. You could even die although originally youwere not ill. How is it possible to escape the effects ofyishi? That’s bad news.On the other hand, now that we have understood thisprinciple, could we turn it to our advantage? Using ourknowledge of the power of yishi, can we not actively use

it, use it in a positive manner. Take for example a tumourin the body. If you know how to use yishi to make itshrink and disappear, it will.You say, “Has this happened already?” I say yes. I shallgive you an example. This time I shall not talk aboutqigong; you might not believe in qigong, I shall talk aboutscience with you.102103 104Chapter FourHow to use yishiUsing yishi positivelyI shall tell you about a case that was documented andpublished by Russia in the 1950s, and that happened in ahospital in Moscow. The patient, who was a SecondWorld War veteran, had a tumour in his brain. Thepatient was normally very healthy, only feeling a slightpain in his head occasionally and his will power was alsovery strong. When they opened him up they found that itwas cancer, which had spread and couldn’t be operatedon. So they just took out the centre portion - thesurrounding portions they could not do anything about -and closed him up. This means they didn’t complete thesurgery.At that time Russia was implementing a patientprotection policy. For their protection, seriously illpatients were not told of their condition in order not toadd to their stress. So they showed him a specimen105tumour that was taken from another patient and toldhim the operation was a complete success, that all thecancer had been removed from his brain: “See,everything has been taken out, full recovery isexpected.”But the doctor told him that even if he didn’t want tostay in hospital, he couldn’t go back to work. Because ifhe was not careful he might cause bleeding in the brainand that would be fatal; that he had to rest and take iteasy for at least six months. The doctor was thinkinginside that he would only live for another three months.Better to let him enjoy himself for the rest of the timehe had left. So, “Get a lot of rest, enjoy yourself for atleast six months, you are not allowed to go back towork.”So the patient thought it would be nice to go for aholiday and applied for leave from his unit. His unit knewof his situation and agreed to let him have a paid holidaytogether with a companion. He went on holiday for one

and a half years. After that, he thought it was time hewent back to work and so went to the hospital for acheckup. At the hospital they took out his records; hisname, age and other information tallied, but wasn’t hesupposed to be dead a long time ago?106So he recovered from his illness after a little over ayear. How is this possible? Isn’t it the effect of yishi?This was an official published medical document of thefifties.Let me give you another example, for some may say thecase from Russia may not be reliable. Let’s take a casefrom our own country, China itself. 1984, a casepublished by Tienjin Authorities, of a female patient;breast cancer. Late stage, surgery is ruled out, about todie. This lady was very strong willed. “I don’t believethat I am about to die.” So she went to the factory andrequested early retirement, requesting the factory payher a retirement pension. “I will go and enjoy myself.”The unit she belonged to was also very supportive. Sothey agreed and gave her even more, knowing that shewas going to die soon; they included her maintenanceallowance too. She got about RMB3,000-4,000. In 1981,that was a lot of money.So she went to Huangshan; she liked painting Chinesepaintings. After something more than a year, before shecould spend (‘hua’) all her money, she painted (‘hua’) awayher cancer. She fully recovered.Let’s think about it. How she had recovered?107Firstly, she didn’t believe that she would die of herillness. Her attitude was that while others believecancer will cause death, I don’t. In her mind there wasno message that cancer could kill her. Secondly, she wasin the mountains painting, not very different frompracticing qigong. She was actively and diligentlypracticing. She threw the thought of death completelyout of her. In her mind the sickness did not existanymore. She just enjoyed herself whole-heartedlygoing from place to place painting and so totally ‘let goof’ her sickness.This is the effect of Yishi on sicknesses. If you useYishi this way even cancer can be overcome. From theexperience of these past years, cancer patients whohave recovered through the practice of qigong, theirattitudes from the core of their being have been so. “Itis nothing, it does not matter, no problem.” In this waytheir problem was fixed.

Change your thinkingSome of you may say, “Pang Laoshi, you have been talkingabout yishi for half a day and yet have not talked abouthow to use yishi. You’ve just told stories and had a casualtalk with us.”108You would be wrong if you think this. To practice qigongand use yishi we must first turn around the position ofthe mind. If the mind’s position is not changed, wecannot use yishi.For qigong treatment to be effective, the key lies withyour own use of yishi.For example, you have cancer and your mindset is that itwill kill you and that you are totally dependent upontreatments be it Western medication or qigongtreatment. That would be a mistake. For qigongtreatment to be effective, the key lies with your ownuse of yishi.When you use yishi, what kind of thought foundation areyou using with it. What kind of foundation are youemploying to nurture the mental activities? If you usethe old way of thinking - I’ve got cancer, there’s no wayto recover; if I can recover, it can’t be cancer - usingthis kind of mindset, will yishi work for you? When yourmindset is that once I have developed cancer, I’ll die forsure, that’s using yishi too: you have unconsciouslyworsened your sickness. When I have explained thisprinciple to you and you can use yishi, accept it andchange your thinking - cancer won’t kill me; my serious109illness is no problem; however serious my illness is, it canbe turned around; chronic rheumatism, deformity, canreturn to a healthy state; I lose control over half of mybody due to a stroke, I can recover - with this concept,you are also unconsciously using yishi. It is taking effect.How else do you think yishi should be used? Yishioperates subconsciously, nurturing your life activities. Ifyou are unwilling to change your position, how will you useyishi? You think that it is a question of methods.Methods must be directed from a correct way ofthinking in order to be effective. Without a correct wayof thinking to lead you, the method will become harmful.Yi shou – focusing on a location in the bodyFor example, in qigong practice there is a good methodcalled yi shou – focusing the mind constantly at alocation in the body. Yi shou dantian: Yi shou the placewhere sickness is located. If you employ the rightthinking to direct your attention - for example, you have

liver cancer, your attention is on the liver for it torecover - that’s good, but if your thinking is always ‘oh,my liver is sick, what should I do, my liver is sick, whatshould I do?’ that is bad. Your mind and attention is onthe liver and your thoughts and attitude are those of110negativity, failure, hopelessness and despair. That willresult in bad effects. If you focus your attention on theliver with the attitude of ‘sickness will recover, cancerdisintegrate and disappear’, that is good.Focusing attention on the liver is the method, but theoutcome is completely dependent on the foundation ofyour thinking. Some people became sick after practicingqigong. Why? With training, their power of thought isgreater and their qi is strong. And because of thenegativity of their thinking, things develop in thatdirection. So when you use yishi, you must have a correctfoundation in thinking and understanding in order tocomplement your use of yishi. How to mobilise qi and howto use qi, directing it to what kind of effect; all thesehave to be built upon a correct foundation of thought.The active use of yishiOnce having understood the effects of yishi on thebody, on objective matter and on illness, once you havethought through and understood; you have already begunusing yishi. Those who are cultivating gong are alreadydoing so. This is a basic principle. If everyone were ableto think for themself, I could stop here. There would beno need for me to elaborate further. I have revealed to111you all of the secrets and mysteries, the most valuablethings, the best essence here. You have been toldeverything about yishi at this point, the mostfundamental. You already know the nature of yishi, youneed only to begin to use it and let it produce results.To meet students’ needs, I shall continue to speak moreabout yishi, but in comparison this is not the essence.Some may say that what’s coming – how to use yishi - isgood stuff. That’s wrong – the good stuff is right infront. Though the following sections are good too, theircomparative importance is not as great. Without thefoundation of the earlier part of the lecture, whatfollows would not work well.So the following is about how to use yishi. We have beentalking about the effects of yishi as a major topicearlier. Now we talk about how to use yishi.In Zhineng Qigong, regardless of what you do, no matterwhat your goal is, you must actively use yishi. You must

take the initiative and actively use yishi. That specificstatement sums it all up.Serious illness and the use of yishi112So let us discuss about how a patient can use yishi.Eighty per cent of students in this class are patients.Patients have to be further classified into those who areseriously sick and those who have a minor illness. So,seriously sick patients are those whom Western Doctorssay they are helpless to treat, such as cancer, late stateliver sclerosis, water accumulation in the liver, heartdeterioration, paralysis and other serious illnesses;those who can’t be treated by any other means and arewaiting to die. Of these some have a longer time to live,some less. Cancer patients will have a shorter time,others longer. Waiting to die, these are seriously sickpatients.For these patients, what to do? How to use yishi? Youare now at the edge of death. On this side is life and onthis side is death. What do you do? Move towards life!Think of life and move towards life. In your thoughts,don’t think of death but think of life.Don’t think, ‘What will happen if I die?’ Don’t think ofthat. If you think of dying you are pushing toward thisside - death. You must think, ‘I must live, I must live, Imust live.’ Only think this way.’ I will definitely live, I willdefinitely recover.’ That’s the basic essence of it.113Next, how to get better. Firstly, conserve energy anddon’t waste energy. Don’t bother about anything anddon’t be bothered by anything! Save energy. You have solittle life energy left and are at the edge of death. Wetalk of the dying ashes coming alive again. You arerunning out of fuel in the stove. At this point, if you blowwind into the fire to make it bigger, aren’t you burningmore fuel and the fire will just die out. What to do? Youcover up the embers with twigs, protecting and feedingthem so they will have a chance to slowly feed and grow.So, conserve your life energy, keep it in, grow it, grow itand regain life. Let every cell become alive. Don’t botherabout anything else. This way you live.What should you do? Only three things: eat, sleep andpractice qigong. Hungry – eat; sleepy – sleep; neitherhungry nor sleepy – practice qigong.Whoever can do that, I guarantee life. In qigong we havea saying about doing this: ‘xin si shen huo’ - the mind isdead but the spirit is alive.‘Xin si shen huo’ - the mind is ‘dead’ but the spirit is alive

114‘Xin si shen huo’ - the mind is ‘dead’ but the spirit isalive. Your mind is ‘dead’. Nothing concerns you anymore.You lack interest in everything. Your son comes along andsays he has friends visiting, you say “I don’t care. Treatme as if I am already dead.” “Mum my friends are here.”“Don’t care!” “Mum I am taking out the rubbish.” “ Don’tcare!” “ Mum, what are we eating tonight?” “Don’t care!”“Time to eat!” “Go right ahead and eat!” After you arefinished. “Don’t care!” Grand children, naughty, run pastsomething and break it. “Don’t care!” Whoever can dothis; all your energy and attention are turned and keptinward. You live anew through practicing, through eating,through sleeping. You sleep back to life again. Practice,eating and sleeping is life and everything else is death.Nothing else matters, concern yourself with nothingelse; anyone who can do that is guaranteed to recover.Cancer, about to die: if you do not wish to die, do this;do nothing but practice qigong. Give no heed to pain orsuffering: don’t care! Think about it! You are not evenbothered about dying, why bother with pain? Justpractice like this. One hundred out of one hundred willrecover. One thousand out of one thousand will recover.The problem is that not all the hundred will think thisway. They will think, ‘What will happen if I die?’ So youare at the edge of death, so you are pushing towards115death. ‘What will happen if I die? Who will take care ofmy husband? Who will take care of my son; he hasn’tmarried yet and my daughter doesn’t even have a steadyboy friend. What will happen if I die? What will happenif I die?’ You are pushing over to the side of death.So if the black microphone represents death and thesilver life, you push and push towards death. So how canyou not die? Inevitably you will die.Qigong is ‘yu si wang po’ – either the net breaks or thefish diesWhen you choose qigong it is like ‘yu si wang po’ – eitherthe net breaks or the fish dies. Some may say, “Whydon’t you speak words that are easier on the ear?” Forseriously ill patients, you have to unlock this mentalblock. I give you a blow to see if you will wake up. Onceyou awaken, that’s good.There was a patient in Dongbei who said, “Why was PangLaoshi so inhumane, saying bluntly that death isimminent?” I said, “I am not saying that you will surelydie, only under certain circumstances, a particularmindset. Take cancer for example: who can heal you? If

there were a way, then many of our leaders who have116died of cancer would have lived. Their resources weremuch more than yours. All the leaders with such medicalresources at their disposal couldn’t live, and you expectto live? How could you live? What kind of resources doyou have? If you follow the recommendation of thesefour words, ‘xin si shen huo’, then you will become specialand so illness will treat you specially. If you are notspecial, then you will fall in line with the average and willproceed in that direction. They die and you will do thesame.So I am straight and upfront with you. When you chooseqigong it is like ‘yu si wang po’ – either the net breaks orthe fish dies.So the fish is already caught in the net. The only wayout is to break open the net and swim out, and that islife. If you stay behind then there is only death. That isa last-ditch struggle of ‘yu si wang po’; either the netbreaks or the fish dies.Rather die fighting! In your effort you might well breakthrough. And if you do, you have the freedom of theentire ocean. If you are not willing, saying “I feelespecially uncomfortable today, I shall practicetomorrow”, tomorrow will be even more uncomfortable,117then the next day, and it will continue like this and youwait and wait until you die. It will be too late then.In qigong we are able to feel and see forward to what iscoming. If you see that is not where you want to go, thenchange direction. You can’t be undecided and hesitate totake action. That will lead to death. You have to moveback into life from the brink of death. Eat, practice andsleep nothing else. When you wake up, Peng Qi Guan Ding(Lift Qi). When you are tired, then without moving yourhands think gui dantian – qi gathering in dantian. San XinBing (Three Centres Merge): gui dantian – qi gathering indantian. When feeling well start doing Xing Shen Zhuang(Body Mind Form) and fill up the day in this way. Youcan’t die of tiredness practicing qigong.Even if you die out of tiredness practicing qigong, it isworth it, better than waiting to die. Let’s fight it out,with life at stake. Training hard, pain and aches all overthe body, that is even better, it makes you forget aboutyour sickness.If there is anyone who can completely forget about hisillness, with only the one directed purpose of practicing,a hundred will recover out of one hundred who are ill.

Unfortunately not even ten out of one hundred do it.They keep thinking, ‘What will happen when I die?’ Keep118thinking of dying - no way you can live! That’s yishi:thinking of death will push you towards death.So that’s for seriously ill patients. You must ‘xin si shenhuo’ - totally shut out everything else but practicingqigong.Lesser illnessesSo what about those who have minor illnesses? You can’tsay, I am dying and I don’t care about anything else. Youare like this mug here, far away from death. Don’t pushtowards death. Don’t worsen your illness. In your mindyou must have the concept of ‘I am not sick.’Do whatever you need to do. Do more things for others.After learning qigong, have more thought for your familyand friends around you. Totally forget about your ownillness. In this way your own illness will recover. Somemay disagree; ‘Why are those who are seriously illadvised to disregard everything else, be so selfish, whilethose who are not seriously ill are advised to concernthemselves with others?’Have you thought through it clearly? As a seriously illperson, only when you are totally shut off from119everything are you actually doing a service to society andcaring for others. Your body is so weak and you aredying, and yet you want to offer your opinions; do youthink they will be good opinions? What you will offer isjust useless and unhealthy suggestions. That won’t do.You are so seriously ill; everyone around wants you torecover. Everyone would rather you not be involved, andin so acting you are doing what is best. Once you haveregained your energy and have recovered from yoursickness that would fulfil the wishes of those around youeven more. So by fulfilling others’ wishes, you areshowing concern and fulfilling the needs that they have.On the other hand, if you have a minor illness and keepsaying “I am dying, it is better that I die”, those who dothat - let me tell you, especially those who are going intonursing careers - those patients won’t die. Patients whoare seriously ill won’t think that way. They will be afraidto say the word death. “Please don’t say that, it’s notauspicious.” Those who yell and say, “Let me die, I amdying, it’s better for me to die, you will be happy then,let me die quickly.” those won’t die; they don’t have anyserious problems. There are patients like that. It isbecause they want attention from their family members.

And it is a mental problem that keeps the illness in place.So patients should use yishi in these ways.120The patient’s familyWhat about the patient’s family?You should have the attitude of “It’s okay, you willrecover soon, recover soon”. Don’t say, “Oh you are goingto die soon; doctor please help him, he is dying, whatshould we do, please help him”. With this kind of yishi,the patient will oblige: you have been wanting him to die,how can he not die? Why can’t you help him by giving himgood Information: “You are okay, nothing wrong withyou”.Doesn't everyone do this? No! Some family memberswant special treatment from the doctor, so they saytheir sickness is special and they want the doctor to givethem special attention. And it will be as they think; theirsickness will be special. Let me give you some examples.Last year, in Qing Huang University where we have abranch, there was a lecturer at the university who had aserious brain haemorrhage and was sent to a first classhospital. His pupils had dilated, there were no vital signsand he was in a deep coma. The family was told thatdeath was imminent. The family members thought that121since this was the case they should try qigong, so theyasked our teachers to treat him. So a few teacherscame to visit me before going to the hospital, which wasnear where I lived. They asked me what to do. I said, “Ifigure that the patient has a chance of surviving, go andtreat him and let’s see what happens.” So they went andsent qi to him. Originally the doctors estimated that hewouldn’t live more than a day. After three days of qitreatment, his condition improved and blood pressurereturned, going from a serious to a light coma.It so happened that I was at Qing Huang University togive a lecture. A family member saw me and came toplead with me to go and see the patient. I said, “Haven’tthe teachers gone to treat him?” He said, “They werenot good enough, you should go”. I said, “Don’t be soanxious, your being anxious is harmful to the patient”.He said, “don’t worry, the patient can’t hear us, he istens of miles away”. I said, “It is not a matter ofdistance”. I said, “Don’t be so anxious, it makes nodifference whether it is the teachers or me treating thepatient; in fact it’s better being the teachers”. He said,“You are the teacher, they are your students; theirabilities can’t be higher than yours”. I said, “Don’t be

anxious, it’s not good for the patient”. I said, “I am notgoing, I don’t treat patients personally, the teachers dothat.” After a long time he finally calmed down. But then122later he came with the leader of his unit and started allover again. I said, “Don’t be anxious, it’s not good for thepatient”. It took me a long time to persuade them.In the evening, while at the dinner table, he came again,this time with the Secretary and supervisors. They allcame and started to plead with me again. I said, “Nowthis is bad; it’s all over! You have attacked me from allangles. I am now helpless. The patient is finished; hecan’t be saved anymore. Earlier on, I was able to containyour Information so that it didn’t reach the patient.Now I’ve been caught unprepared while having dinner.There is a qifield surrounding me and you have sent yourbad Information through my qifield to the patient. Ihave a qifield surrounding me. If you come to me withpositive Information – “Oh, the patient has recovered”,then that helps the patient. But you came saying, “Thepatient is not okay, he can’t make it”. Well, thatInformation has gone over. I said, “That’s it. Everythingis lost”.They said, “He’s tens of miles away”. I said, “Even if itwere tens of thousands of miles, it wouldn’t make anydifference. If you phone now, the patient has alreadygone into a deep coma; there is no way to save him”. Isaid, “The patient definitely won’t survive, there’s no wayout of this”. They didn’t quite believe me; they thought I123was lying because I didn’t want to go. The next eveningwhen the teachers went to see the patient again theyfound him in a deep coma which had started at about6:00 pm the evening before, just when I was havingdinner and they came to plead with me.This shows how powerful the effects of the yishi offamily members can be.You may ask why the effects are not as powerful atnormal times. There is qifield surrounding me, and if youcome to me in such a state of mind, that is your badfortune. Both good and bad Information will go topeople. So I always say, “If you want to come to me, youshould come with a positive attitude; if you come with anegative attitude, you are looking for trouble, you willnot be able to recover from your illness”.A positive attitudeLet me give you another example. Last year we did aclass in Fuyang, and I was having a hand-shaking (healing)

event. I was shaking hands with a little child and I askedthe child, “How old are you?” He looked at me and wasabout to answer me. His mother said, “He is deaf anddumb”. So the child didn’t speak but raised his hand to124show five, five years old. I knew he was deaf and dumb;I was getting him to talk; he heard me and was about toanswer when his mother broke in and said he is dumb anddeaf, and so he was.My original intention in asking him his age was for him tospeak. He heard me and was about to speak up, but themother says dumb and deaf. He would have spoken if notfor the mother’s intervention. I said, “I have warned younot to speak before we shake hands and yet you spoke”.The mother then pleaded, “Please help us”. I said, “Ican’t do anything now. I have sent my qi to him and youadded the Information of dumb and deaf. My qi was verystrong and your Information tagged onto mine into him.Now I am helpless”. I said, “Even three years oftreatment couldn’t neutralise that. It is not easy tobreak my Information”.There was another boy; I said, “Raise your arm”. Thefather was about to say something; I was so worried, Igave him a push and he tumbled over. The boy slowlyraised his arm and got it up. He was born like that, buthe tried raising it slowly and he succeeded. If anythinghad been said, that he couldn’t raise his arm, then hewouldn’t have been able to. The effect of yishi is aspowerful as that.125That is why I always say, “If you have any illnesses, don’tcome to me.” If you come and say to me, “My sickness isspecial, please treat me”, well your sickness has becomespecial. There is a qifield surrounding me. Unlike others,I don’t close up my qifield. So if you come and say, “Myson’s illness is special, please treat him”, it becomesimpossible. You have sent your Information along withmy qi into your child, that the sickness is special, and nomatter how I use my qi to correct that, it won’t succeed.He is not dying, stop talking about dyingThe effect of yishi of family members is very powerful.We had a patient by the name of Sun Li Long. A livercancer patient who started practicing qigong in 1987, herecovered and returned to his work. However theyrefused to reimburse his expenses, so he lost his temperand this provoked his illness; this was also a qi reaction.He vomited blood and passed out blood, then went into acoma. They sent him to hospital. There was no blood

pressure and they diagnosed him with late stage livercancer again. He had recovered earlier, but with his boutof anger the sickness returned.The hospital informed his Unit that he was dying andthat they were making the necessary preparations. But126his wife said, “It’s alright, he is okay”. His wife hadactually gone through four classes with him, from Beijingto Beixi, Chanqun to Haerbing, she attended four classeswith him. The husband and wife practiced together, soshe understood the principles. “We are alright, we arealright. You don’t have to do anything, just give him someblood and drips and we shall be fine. It is a qi reactionfrom qigong practice. He is not dying. Stop talking aboutdying here. There is nothing wrong.”The doctors couldn’t handle this uneducated ignoranthousewife. There was no blood pressure and no bodilyresponses at all and yet she insisted nothing was wrong!So they relented and said they would continue to givehim blood and drips and she said that was all that wasneeded. “We know how to fa qi, so we will treat him withfa qi”. The doctors thought that she must be going mad.So she did fa qi for three days and his blood pressurereturned and he regained consciousness. However he hadhydroperitoneum and his abdomen was bloated. Thedoctors wanted to work on him, saying that he was dying,but again his wife stood her ground. “Don’t go mentioningabout dying here. He is not dying. It’s alright, just a qireaction.” The doctors just couldn’t do anything abouther. Don’t bother about us. Just let him have somemedicines that are generally health-enhancing”. “What127kind?” “Ginseng and deer horn.” So the Chinesephysician kindly wrote a prescription that included someherbs with antiseptic effects. “We shall do fa qi, Laoshiis helping us, and we have the qifield.” And so afterthree months he recovered. Tests showed him withoutany sickness, no cancer and the liver well.So family members’ influence is very important. At themost crucial moment, if they think of death, that deathis imminent, the patient has no choice but to comply. Sobe especially aware of this problem. All family memberswish for their family member to recover. But if you say“What will we do if you die?”, the patient will die. If youare always thinking that he will die, he will.Parental awarenessSo as parents we must also be aware of this for children.Some parents, when their child falls sick, over-react and

say, “Oh this is bad, he could develop a high fever, whatshould I do?” You are actually sending Information tothe child to have a high fever. “Oh don’t have any fever,don’t have fever, don’t have a fit, don’t have a fit”, butthinking, “He is going to have a fit, quickly go and get aninjection”: so it will happen; you have sent a lot ofnegative Information to your child.128What should you do? You must send good Information allthe time. As Zhineng Qigong practitioners, we alwaysthink good things.So that was how to use yishi for family and friends ofthe patient.‘ji ji zhu dong’ , actively taking the initiativeNext, how to use yishi in practicing qigong.Zhineng Qigong also emphasises taking the initiative toactively use yishi. Zhineng Qigong does not emphasise ‘rujing’, going into a state of emptiness. Some say, “That iswhat I want. I’m not able to go into a state of emptinessand am afraid to do so; Zhineng Qigong suits me.”So Zhineng Qigong emphasises taking the initiative toactively use yishi. This is termed ‘ji ji zhu dong’ , activelytaking the initiative. If you want to grow in gongfu, thenthink of that as you practice. In Peng Qi Guan Ding Fawe push and pull qi. When we push, we think of pushingall the way to the horizon, and as we pull we pull all thisqi back into the body. All around, all the qi is gatheredinto the body. It comes into the body in great quantities129through this. When you move qi, such as building theqifield, think of moving the qi of the entire cosmos, itturning with you. Use yishi this way. This is called ‘takingthe initiative to use yishi.’ Anyone who can use yishi thisway will rapidly grow in gongfu.In Zhineng Qigong this is the only technique, there is noother. It’s very simple: yishi is attached to the qi goingin and out; you can feel it. It is so simple, just an openand a close. Open and close covers everything. There’snothing else; Zhineng Qigong is so simple. If it is madetoo complicated, with many techniques, it will not beeasily grasped. So it is quite basic. Those who believeand practice often with yishi; from the horizon allaround, bring all the qi into the body for yourself. Whenbuilding the qifield, do the same and think in that way.That’s all. All of you will be filled to capacity with qi.When you fa qi for healing, just do that and use yishi togather qi into the patient’s body, and that’s it. Thepatient can recover immediately.

Always be open to receive qiI see that you students don’t know how to use yourinitiative. I sent you qi when I did that but you didn’treceive it. I am sending qi to you but you didn’t receive130it. Not many received my qi just now. If you had when Idid that, right away your qi would have filled you tocapacity and you would have grown in gongfu. Right awayany problem you had would be resolved.If you are only prepared to receive qi when I say I amsending it, the effect will be much reduced. If you haveto think about it before doing anything, that’s not whatwe call ‘actively taking the initiative’ to receive qi. Theeffect will still be there, but much reduced, if you do itonly after I have told you to. But if you act on your owninitiative then it will be very different.This is called ‘ji ji zhu dong’, using yishi. You don’t haveto come up to me to ask for qi. You can go ahead andgrab some! There is plenty of qi here in the practice hall.How can you heal yourself? Grab a handful of qi and sendit wherever you need it! That is taking the initiative touse yishi, what else. That’s all it is! Doing that will beeffective. Am I sure it’s so simple? Try it out and see!“But it is not logical …” Forget about being logical! Aslong as it works! Many things are not logical but as longas you attain your goals, that’s all you need. So it reallyis that simple, taking the initiative to use yishi.131In the past no one was willing to state this so clearly.There will no longer be any mysteries; this is the realityof how it is. Then again, there will be some who believeand some who do not. “Just by doing that?” For thosewho believe, a grab and send action will be effective. Butthe doubter will ask, “What have you grabbed, I can’tsee it; there is nothing!” They need to see something tograb, say a towel, would the towel go into the body? Thetowel is not qi. So it is really that simple, ZhinengQigong, taking the initiative to use yishi.In its simplicity lies the fundamental essence; theknowledge is there in the simplicity. When it is madecomplicated, then the strength of thought in the brainwill be dispersed. It works best when the thought andeffect happen instantaneously.Long-distance healingWe could do an experiment. Right now we could do one.You can think of a family member at home who is sick,who is not present, or even someone who is also presenthere. Say they have a tumour; you could think that the

tumour has disappeared. Through the strength of theqifield, the tumour can disappear. This will be effectiveeven if the person is ten or two hundred miles away. We132have done this experiment each time we hold a course.You just think of the patient; they do not have to knowabout it. Someone may have pain in their leg and can’teven move it. You think for the leg to be well, not painfulany more, back to normal; think that way and it willbecome normal. We have a qifield here, and adding youryishi to it, the Information is sent to the patient andproduces the effect.Why doesn’t this happen normally? You don’t practiceand you don’t have the qifield’s help. Here we have theqifield, plus now that you know how to use yishi, you knowhow to manipulate qi and so produce an effect.I remember a case in Tangshan; no, in Qing Huang Dao. Itold them to think about a family member at home whileI did fa qi. This student’s wife had a growth in her noseand it hindered her breathing. He only came to tell meafter two days; he said, “I didn’t go home yesterday, butwent back today. My wife can now breathe properly.During our experiment, I thought of her and I used myfinger to poke at the blockage to clear it, to make theflesh disappear, and when I returned home, my wife toldme that she was able to breathe easily and the flesh wasgone.”133That action, thinking in that way, is called ‘taking theinitiative to actively use yishi.’ Do this with healing aswell as in your practice.You say, “Is there anything else to Zhineng Qigong? Justthis little bit of knowledge?” If you master this you willfind uses without end for it. You can change anything!“Come on, there should be more.” Well, like a meal, themain course is what I have spoken about first.Everything else is like an entree, dessert or soup, butthese are useful to know too.Stray ThoughtsOne issue is, what to do when during training we havestray thoughts. Whilst doing Peng Qi Guan Ding, pushand pull, “Oh it’s raining, my son didn’t take an umbrellato school today.” You have stray thoughts, what shouldyou do?Just concentrate your attention on doing themovements, and thus the problem is solved. Why worryabout stray thoughts? Once you realise you are havingstray thoughts, just double your concentration; you

134could even say to yourself: push and pull, push and pull.The stray thought will go.No need to ask what to do with stray thoughts, no needto concern yourself with them. There is an ancientsaying: ‘stray thoughts are sickness, concentration ismedicine’. Just drop the stray thoughts, concentrate onyour movements, and it is back to practicing qigong andthe problem is solved, it’s that simple. Stray thoughtsare not so formidable: just concentrate your attention,do the movements and take the initiative to actively useyishi, that’s all.Another issue: I was doing quite well initially and couldconcentrate, but after three months of practice straythoughts seem to be increasing and are harder toovercome. What’s the explanation?Some people can’t concentrate. When doing San Xin BingZhanzhuang, the Three Centres Merge Standing Form,they practice in a frustrated mood, their eyebrowsfrown and they are unable to keep going. Let me tell youthat practicing qigong is a process of many progressions.It is not a progression along a straight line. As youprogress, impurities will surface. At a deeper level, therelatively smaller impurities of before become bigger,and so you have to rid yourself of them to progress. It135may seem that you are regressing but actually you areprogressing. Don’t feel frustrated.Some are frustrated by what they are experiencing.Aware that so many stray thoughts are appearing anddisturbing their training, they think, “I can’t continue”.But isn’t that also a stray thought? That is not athought about training. On the other hand, if you acceptthat you are progressing in your practice and settle yourheart and mind to train, that’s better. With a correctattitude towards stray thoughts they will go away muchsooner.This is the attitude Zhineng Qigong has regarding straythoughts. You ignore them and you clear them step-bystep.It is like a wave and not a straight progression.Once you are faced with a challenge, you should have anendurance match with yourself, hold your position for atleast half an hour. Once you are able to outlast straythoughts, they will go away. So if you can’t calm downduring practice, persevere. That should solve yourproblem.136137 138

Chapter FiveIllusionsSo in Zhineng Qigong there are no other secrets forusing yishi. It is so simple: concentrate your attention,perform the movements and take the initiative toactively use yishi, that’s all. But there is a point thatneeds to be said here.With Zhineng Qigong, our gongfu grows rapidly. Sothrough our practice, paranormal abilities developquickly too. But before that, there will be qigongpractice reactions. What kind of reactions? Some willhave illusions; there may appear hills, rivers, ponds, seas,stars, flowers, grass, trees, humans, demons, gods,temples, spirits etc.Zhineng Qigong takes a scientific attitude toward theseproblems. None of these images are real. Even theBuddhists and Taoists both do not treat them as real.The Buddhists’ explanation about illusion is that themind is not completely still and so has reactions to139external influences. The mind (xin) is not settled and socreates these illusions. The Taoists attribute them toexcessive qi in the organs of the body creating areaction that affects the mind. Taoists focus ondeveloping a ‘pill’ (dan) and believe excessive qi causesthis illusion. They do not consider it something real.Quoting a Buddhist saying: “That which is perceived bythe five senses (ultimately) is unreal; only that which iswithout form and colour is real (from an esotericperspective).”So whatever you see that appears during training isunreal. When there is peace and quiet during training,that’s reality. So students have to take extra note ofthis matter. I am going to give you an example.The Fox SpiritThis occurred in 1964. A friend of mine, with the familyname Zhou, had a father-in-law who had a problem withhis eyes. After practicing the Standing Form his eyesrecovered.For more than a week, every night at midnight the oldman would start to talk to himself. Looking at the door140he would say, “Who is that? You are the fox spirit. Whatdo you want from me? You want my pill. Do I have one?Even if I had, I wouldn’t give it to you. No I am notgiving it to you.” While saying this he waved his handsabout in a struggle. Every night he said this at midnight.My friend and his entire family were frightened by all

this and asked me to go and take a look and see what wasgoing on with his father-in-law. In 1964 I had started tohave some abilities, not much but some, so I went tohave a look. So I asked the old man, “What’s happeningto you?” Nobody in the family dared ask him. All thisabout fox spirits! They were all afraid. Mind you, the oldman was a Professor. He wasn’t a simple commoner. Hewas a Professor at the Beijing Medical (College).So I asked him. He said that whenever he practicedstrong qi appeared and then a voice spoke to him. So Iasked the rest of the family if they heard this too. Theysaid no. He said the voice called his name, Lao Jing - hissurname was Jing . “Lao Jing, Lao Jing.” So he answered,“Who is that?” “And what was the answer?” “Fox.” Iasked if he saw it. “No, just the voice, no form.” So hethen said he asked, “What do you want from me?” Foxsaid, “Your elixir pills.” He said, “I have only beenpracticing for just over half a year, do I have pills?”“Yes you have. You have three, one on top, one in the141middle and the last at the bottom.” “I said, ‘I am notgiving you them.’ Fox said, ‘Then I will take them byforce’, so I struggled with him. At that point itdisappears.”“So when does it come?” “At midnight. But yesterday itcame at 7:00 p.m.” I said, “it is not 7:00 p.m. yet; startto practice now. When will he come?” “I will know whenhis qi appears, I will feel it.” So I said, “Let me knowthen”. So he started the Standing Form and after abouttwenty minutes I saw him move a little, I asked him if itwas about to come, and he nodded his head. I used mymiddle fingers to point into the middle of his chest andsaid it wouldn’t be able to come tonight. So he stood foranother half an hour, then he said, “Yes, it is not comingany more”, so I said, “Well, finish your practice”.I said to him, “You are a psychology Professor; what iswrong with you? He said, “What’s wrong with me?” Isaid, “What fox spirit nonsense!” “But I heard itclearly.” I said, “It is all the effect of your yishi”.“What do you mean?” I said, “After practicing qigong,your ability has strengthened. When you have a faintthought in your sub conscious mind, the signals could beamplified and could become a sound.” I said, “Have youheard anything about a fox spirit stealing pills recently?”He said, “About three months ago at the training place142we did discuss something about fox spirits stealing pills.”I said, “That’s it! You have that thought in your mind and

when you practice you mobilise your ‘zhen qi’ – inborn qi.The mind is now very sensitive and there is a thoughtabout stealing pills, and so ….”Before I could finish he understood right away. He said,“I am a psychologist; how could I have forgotten aboutthese yishi activities?” And so he let go of it right awayand was well again.It can be easy to convince some people just by explainingthe facts. For some who are not educated, if you can’tget through to them with explanations and persuasion, itcan be a difficult task. If they refuse to listen and hangon to what they believe, that the voice they hear is real,then there is a problem. “The voice is so clear to me. Youcan’t hear it but I can.” - taking the unreal for real, itbecomes hopeless.Monkey GodAnother example occurred in 1985, twenty one yearslater. While I was teaching, an old man with gongfurequested to see me. So I agreed and asked him how Icould help. He said he had a stomach full of ‘Xi You Ji’,143relating to the classic Chinese story of the Monkey Godon a journey to the West to fetch Buddhist scriptures.I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “The Monkey Godis now speaking. He says ‘He (Pang Laoshi) knows, heknows, you can talk to him’. Tang Sheng, Sun Wu Kong,Zhu Ba Jie, Sha Sheng; they are all inside me.” I asked,“What about the white horse?” He said, “It never spoke.They are fetching the scriptures.” I said, “This is notreal.” He said, “No, I have consulted others, they say thespirits of the four of them have gone into my body.” Isaid, “No such thing.” He said, “Now Zhu Ba Jie is saying‘Don’t listen to him, don’t listen to him! Just talk to himabout qigong. He knows nothing about this matter, don’tlisten to him on this!’”I said, “What nonsense about spirits going into the body.Xi You Ji is indeed a book for practicing gong but it isnot as you interpret it. “You are at the stage of zhen jiahou wang, similar to the stage of zhen wang xiang gong.In your practice you should go through different stagesfrom the one to the other, but something has gonewrong for you somewhere in the process.Zhu Ba Jie said, “He doesn’t know; don’t talk to himabout this. Don’t listen to him.” “So what do you think itis?” “The spirits have entered me to help me practice.”144“Then why did you come to me?” “I have some illness.” -he had some problem with his stomach.

I said, “Okay, let me take a step back and say I acceptyour theory about the spirits of people who have diedcoming to live in you. So this theory says the person oncelived and after their death they have come into yourbody. But Sun Wu Kong, Zhu Ba Jie and Sha Sheng werefictional characters, only Tang Sheng was real, a monk inthe Tang Dynasty, by the name of Tang Xuan Zhuang,son of Chen Kuang Gui. Such a person did exist, but SunWu Kong, Zhu Ba Jie and Sha Sheng were fictionalcharacters made up by storytellers. There never weresuch living people. So if they never were alive, how couldthey have died and how could their spirits entersomeone else’s body?”He said, “Didn’t Sun Wu Kong then became so and so, andthe others also?” I said, “These were stories made up bystorytellers.” So Zhu Ba Jie in his stomach said “Let’signore him.” He was not very educated and believed thestories of Xi You Ji and that spirits go into bodies. So Icouldn’t get through to him with the truth.Two years later he came back again. I asked him abouthis spirits in the stomach. He said, “They are about toget to the scriptures, they have all grown in gongfu.” So145I asked, “Why are you here?” “I’m here to seektreatment.” “ Why? Haven’t they advanced in theirabilities, can’t they help you?” I said, “Your prostategland has swollen; why don’t you ask them to help?” Hesaid, “How did you know about my prostate glandproblem?” “It is there, I can see it so clearly, how wouldI not know? Does Sun Wu Kong know?” “He knows but hecan’t heal it.” “Why don’t you ask him to use his staff topoke at it so it will be well again?” “He said to come toyou for help”. “But you don’t believe in me. You said Idon’t know, so why come to me?” I said, “If you give upXi You Ji I will treat you and you will recover there andthen, but if you don’t I will not treat you.” But heinsisted and so he left.So if one is not educated and can’t understand, then it isdifficult. Even though clearly this is not real, he doesnot accept that, so it is impossible. So I hope thatZhineng Qigong students will be forewarned and will nottreat these phenomena as real. The thoughts in yourmind are like an illusion and are not real.But why do they keep talking to you? Well if you heedthem and respond, you add energy to them. If you ignorethem, they will slowly disappear. If Zhu Ba Jie speaks toyou, just ignore it and it won’t last more than a fewmonths. If you have a conversation that goes like this:

146“Zhu Ba Jie, I have a pain.” “Where?” “In my back, whatshould I do?” “Just hit it a few times.” - the more youdo that, the more the voice establishes itself as real. Soyou have made a wrong turn in your training. At thisstage of your training you must be alert and be in a stateof not being affected by illusive visions. ‘Kill demons andwell as gods whenever you see them’ and all will be fine.No matter what it is, just ignore it and the problem issolved.So that is about illusions. They are comparatively easy torectify. They can be explained away. But the nextexample is harder to deal with.The stage of opening to paranormal abilitiesYou are at the stage of opening to paranormal abilities.Someone comes and he has heart problem. You knowabout it. Or you are able to know in advance that afriend is coming, and he turns up. You hadn’t hadexperiences of this kind before, so the mind can createan illusion. I won’t explain the details here, but a voicemay seem to appear and say, “Someone –say Zhang San -is here, go and take a look.” Actually it is yourparanormal ability detecting this information, while the147voice of another entity saying ‘he is coming so go andlook’ is an illusion.If you are not alerted to this and you follow the voiceand discover that indeed Zhang San is coming, you couldthink that a particular god has entered your body. Itmay develop into you asking the god, “Who will cometoday?” and getting the answer, “Wang Wu will be hereat 8:00 a.m.” And Wang Wu comes at 8:00 a.m. Thatfurther reinforces the belief that God has come toinform you.Actually this is your own ability to tell the future. It isyour own ability. The voice of another speaking is anillusion. This is zhen wang xiang gong. This mutualstruggle between reality and illusion is very hard to dealwith. Many who reach this stage turn to believing inBuddha, gods and spirits. It is actually their own ability,but they see it as another separate entity and they askthat entity for information.Because of this many people become stuck at this leveland cannot move on to higher levels. It is like akaleidoscope that children play with: many differentcolours of glass fragments inside show all kinds ofbeautiful patterns, and children can be mesmerized byit. But adults will not be mesmerised by it in this way

because we have seen it before, we have experienced148the illusions and know that they come from the pieces ofglass. Children who are ignorant see the different kindsof complicated patterns and colour changes and believethat they are so beautiful and are real. So also with ourpractice, when we encounter zhen wang xian gong, it isthe same. If we tell the person that it is an illusion, theperson will not accept. This is akin to the child holding onto the kaleidoscope. After they have passed that stage,then on hindsight they will understand. But while theyare at that stage they will not believe.Some may even argue back. “Don’t believe what PangLaoshi says. How do you know there isn’t anything? Haveyou experienced it yourself? How do you know? You can’tsay that everything is zhen wang xiang gong.”“Sometimes it is an animal spirit. Sometimes it is aliensfrom space. Sometimes it is God and spirits. How do youknow there isn’t anything?”Different kinds of illusionWe in Chinese folklore believe in Hu, Huang, Bai, Liu andHui. Hu for the fox, Huang for the weasel, Bai for thehedgehog, Liu is the snake and Hui is the rodent.149So there is this Chinese belief in different demons andspirits that haunts people, whereas these are not foundin Western cultures. In the West there is only the devil,none of the others we have in Chinese folklore. Why doall these animal spirits only come to China to hauntpeople, and do not do so in the West? Are those thathaunt only found in China? The Westerners also haveanimals like the snake, the fox and the weasel. Whydon’t they have animal spirits haunting them?So in the West people believe in God in heaven and thedevil in hell. In comparison, we Chinese believe in so manykinds of gods and spirits. There are spirits in snakes,tigers, and mountains, even spirits in doors. So there arespirits of every kind of animal. And every kind of spiritcan haunt a person.Why is this? Because they live alongside people and arevery common … and they often startle someone, givingthe person a fright, so a mental impulse is registered inthe mind. When this impulse is associated with a weasel,every time there is a concern, it is linked to theInformation of the weasel. And then it is thought to bethe weasel creating the anxiety or unease. Once you fallsick and you consult someone, they are able to see theweasel Information and conclude that you are haunted

150by the weasel-spirit. But actually it was a combination ofyour discomfort and your agitation.Beliefs or convictions developed in this way. Youencounter a snake and you want to hit it but you feelfrightened. In fact this fear is a symptom of sickness.So this sickness Information is combined with theInformation of the snake. When you feel unwell, andsomeone who is able to see the snake Information in youtells you that you have been haunted by the snake-spirit.Have you heard of someone haunted by a Panda spirit?Most have never seen a Panda in person, have only seenpictures and they look cute. There is no Information offear associated with the Panda. Only those animals thatare encountered, and where past associations of frightor unhealthy Information have been registered in themind, have been blamed for having spirits that hauntpeople.So I hope that you will treat this topic conscientiously.Go past ‘zhen wang xiang gong’You should use yishi to break all these superstitionsassociated with qigong. You are able to diagnose151illnesses, you are able to foretell future events, you canmanipulate objects at a distance, you can see things at adistance; all these are your own abilities, they are realabilities not from somewhere else.To be stuck at this level is akin to the story of ‘Xi YouJi’ back at the place where the Monkey God was beforesetting off with the rest to fetch the scriptures. Youwould be much the same as ordinary people except forbeing able to foretell future events and diagnoseillnesses and thus branded as a hero by ordinary people.You couldn’t go further.But if you are able to surmount the illusion and acceptthat it is your own ability and continue to train in thatdirection, only then can you progress upwards step bystep. So the level below zhen wang xiang gong isconsidered to be low-level achievement.I shall give you two examples. Those who have gonebeyond this I shall not mention here.A couple unable to advanceThere were several at Shi Jia Zhuang who went throughthis stage. Two years ago there was a husband and wife152couple. Originally their educational level was not high,but then they became able to speak and sing poetically.They spoke poetically in sentences of four words or five

words. Whatever they said was like poetry. It waspretty impressive. If they started with a four-wordsentence, they could continue the conversation with fourword sentences all the way. The same with five-wordsentences, all the way the same. With only a littleeducation, how could they have done that?I was conducting the class and they were below andafterwards they came up and said to me that during theclass they had been deliberately sending opposing qi tome. I said I was not aware of it. I had conducted thefinger lengthening experiment. I was sending qi to havethe fingers grow longer, so they said they were sendingqi to oppose mine, to have the fingers not grow longer,sending opposing qi. I said I was not aware of that. Theydidn’t believe, they thought I should know.I said, “You have helped me.” They said, “We haven’t.” -they had intended to oppose me. I said, “I don’t thinkthat way. It does not matter what you think. I rotatethe qi and your qi coming straight to me will be pulledinto my rotation, adding strength to it.” “Oh, I havehelped you in the rotation?” I said, “Yes. Originally theeffect was not great, but with your help it became much153stronger. I push from this way and you come straight atme, your qi is caught and added into my rotation. Youhave helped me, I must thank you.”Many people try to sabotage us when we build theqifield, but we don’t receive it as sabotage; rather, weadd the power to our cause and it becomes part of our qirotation, rotating together. So in Zhineng Qigong we donot have the thought that they are opposing us butinstead thank them openly for their help regardless ofwhether their intention was to help or not. If you seethem opposing you and you oppose them in return, thenthat would be bad, you cancel each other out and theresult will not be good. However, if you receive their qiinto your rotation it will no longer be opposing you buthelping you instead, so it is appropriate for you to thankthem.So I asked them, “What work do they do?” They didn’tdare answer qigong but said they also deal with healing. Iasked them who their teacher was. They said theirteacher was at the bottom of the third pillar of theCang Jiang bridge. When they said that I understood, soI said, “Is your teacher a dragon, a snake or a crab?”They said, “We haven’t seen so far.” He said the teachercame to them whenever they started training, to teachthem. “How long has that been?” They said almost ten

154years. I said, “This is an illusion, it is ‘zhen wang xianggong’. The ability is yours. Don’t bother with that,practice on your own”, but they didn’t believe me.So last year he got a message from his ‘teacher’ sayingthat I was in trouble with my practice, that I was inBeijing practicing and would not receive anyone else. “Goand help him. Bring him some herbal eggs for him to eatdaily; that will help him get past his hurdle.” So hetravelled from Anhui to Beijing with the eggs. He talkedwith the chief of the Beijing training post and told himabout the eggs, and so the chief understood. The chieftold him that I was not in Beijing, but he insisted that Iwas in Beijing because his ‘teacher’ said so. Actually Iwas in Wuhan conducting a class. This shows that ‘zhenwang xiang gong’ is unreliable. If the ‘teacher’ were sopowerful, he should have known that I was nearer his‘residence’.So this tells you that you have to go past ‘zhen wangxiang gong’; otherwise, if there is a qi field thatinterferes with you, your power will be lost. If you meetpeople who are slightly above you, they can neutraliseyou easily. Achievement at the ‘zhen wang xiang gong’level is actually very small and can be wiped out easily.155I hope that you achieve a proper understandingregarding this hurdle of ‘zhen wang xiang gong’ so thatyou can overcome it and able to progress even furtherwith your practice.So here I shall end the lecture on using yishi. Thank you.156Notes157DESTINY QIGONGOur Publishing Mission:To make available publications that encourage the innerjourney to discover the mystery of life, coming to aplace of peace and joy of being that expresses what wetruly are.DESTINY QIGONG10 Dover Rise, #14-04,Heritage ViewSingapore 138680www.QigongHealingTreatment.comEmail: sml_lau@yahoo.comDistributors:Chi Neng Institute Europewww.chineng.eu

Email: info@chineng.euChi Neng Institute The Netherlandswww.chineng.nlEmail: info@chineng.nlChi Neng Institute Swedenwww.chineng.se158Email: info@chineng.seChi Neng Institute Belgiumwww.chineng.beEmail: info@chineng.beChi Neng Institute Great Britainwww.chineng.co.ukEmail: info@chineng.co.ukChi Neng Institute Germanywww.chineng.deEmail: info@chineng.deChi Neng Institute Norwaywww.chineng.noEmail: info@chineng.noChi Healing Center (USA)www.chicenter.comEmail: admin@chicenter.comZhineng Qigong Trust (New Zealand)www.qigongtrust.org.nzEmail: patricia@qigongtrust.org.nzHungaryEmail: totisz@mail.euroexpert.hu159I found "Using Yishi" to be awesome! I've been fortunate to trainwith a number of great Qigong people and found the approach towriting to be very refreshing. As a matter of fact, I could not put itdown after getting started.The direct, easy to read manner in which it was written, is to beapplauded. The focus on empowering the practitioner, trainingsimplicity and the demystification of a topic (that often getsovercomplicated) makes this work a true classic.- William Rowe, M.Ed, USA, QigongGuide.comIn front of you is a magnificent presentation by Samuel Lau of alecture given by Dr. Pang, originator of Zhineng Qigong. It isliterally magnificent because by truly absorbing the content of thislecture, you will be able to magnify - to enlarge - your results inZhineng Qigong. And this will be regardless of your current level, itwill be so for beginners and more advanced practitioners alike.Study this book over and over again and ponder it in your daily life,it will transform your ability in Zhineng Qigong to the extent thatyou make it part of your being. With this book Samuel Lau has giventhe non-Chinese part of the community of Zhineng Qigong access to

a profound essential of Zhineng Qigong. This is a magnificent gift tous all.- Donatus Roobeek, ZQ teacher, United KingdomI am very grateful to Samuel Lau for making the original lecturesgiven by Pang Laoshi finally available to the West. Pang Laoshi givesus a straightforward approach with many real life examples andhumour. He makes us aware of the great importance of conscioususe of the mind. Through watching the DVD and reading the bookover and over again I hope you will be inspired to walk the path ofself-knowledge. By doing so you will develop your potential and enjoylife to it’s fullest.- Patricia van Walstijn, Director, Chi Neng Institute Europe160To me the reading was a deepening experience…- Emilie Koolen, ZQ teacher, HollandFirstly I would like to express my deepest respect and gratitude toPang Laoshi for sharing his wisdom, insight, skill and deepunderstanding and for giving us Zhineng Qigong. To me one of thehighest goals in life is to really knowing the true self, being true tothe self and discovering the "Buddha nature" inside. I believe thatZhineng Qigong provides the keys with which we can unlock thedoors to our inner realm. We have so much to be unleashed and somuch unused potential waiting to be tapped. Furthermore I am verygrateful to Samuel Lau for making Pang Laoshi's work available tothe western world. This is very important and crucial. The timingcould not be better. Using Yishi is such an important part of deeppractice and without it I feel we are missing the point and notgetting the results which we could achieve. I hope this work willtouch and inspire many practitioners so that they will be able totransform themselves and their lives and blossom to full potential,so we can ultimately change the world into a better place.- Annelot Lensing, ZQ teacher, HollandIt was a strange feeling to read this book. It was like Dr. Pang Mingtalking especially to me, so I should fight down my problems.Reading it I felt like I was there in the famous Zhineng QigongCentre listening to the lecture…Translating and editing Pang Laoshi’slectures is a great contribution to international esoteric literature.We in the West can get from Eastern wisdom only what is publishedin English…Samuel Lau’s English translation and editing of UsingYishi is a present for me, and will be a present for Hungarianreaders, too.- Andras Totisz,Qigong Teacher and Author, Hungary161