We’re living in a paradoxical moment. Technology promises to elevate us, yet we’re more disconnected from our bodies than ever.
Master Mingtong Gu, a Qigong master and author of Coming Home to Embodied Awakening, shares a radical insight: our humanity isn’t defined by our thinking. Rather, it’s defined by our capacity to feel, experience, and inhabit our bodies.
In a world hijacked by screens, data, and AI, Master Mingtong reveals why returning to your body is an act of resistance and reclamation. He’s spent decades teaching thousands of people how to recover from “incurable” conditions and discover profound peace by reconnecting with their physical existence.
This conversation challenges everything you think you know about spirituality, health, and what it means to be truly human in the 2020s. If you’ve ever felt lost in your own mind, this episode is for you.
Table of Contents
In this podcast, Master Mingtong Gu and I discuss:
- How he recovered from “incurable” conditions like asthma and sclerosis through Qigong practice and a radical shift in mindset
- That Qigong is the Chinese equivalent of yoga and has been practiced for thousands of years across multiple spiritual traditions
- The three core questions Qigong asks: What is the nature of life? Who am I? What is the nature of my body?
- How energy works as an infinitely present, infinitely connected, and infinitely creative force in your body and the universe
- The critical difference between “I think, therefore I am” and “I feel, therefore I am,” and why this distinction matters now more than ever
- Why we’re experiencing a slow-motion crisis of disconnection from our bodies and what that means for our humanity
- The concept of embodied awakening: integrating mind-body connection as the foundation for true spiritual growth
- How to practice present moment awareness by connecting directly with your body, not just your thoughts
- The Chinese philosophical perspective on the inseparable nature of form and formlessness, physical and spiritual
- A guided meditation practice that initiates you into reconnecting with your body as a living temple
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Transcript
Ari: Master Mingtong, such a pleasure to have you.
Master Mingtong Gu: Oh, my pleasure. I’m so happy to be here with you, with all the listeners, audience. Yes.
Ari: To get us started, I would love to talk about a few, let’s say, first principles of this subject, rather than just jumping straight into the benefits of Qigong and the mechanisms and that sort of thing, and maybe trying to blend the Eastern and Western scientific perspectives and see if we can make sense of things. I want to, first of all, talk to you about your personal story, how you became Master Mingtong Gu, and how you got into Qigong. Then from there, I want to talk a bit about Qigong and Daoism as a whole, and the historical aspect of where they came from.
Master Mingtong: Absolutely.
Master Mingtong Gu’s Qigong Origin Story
Ari: First, tell me about you. What is your story of how you came to be a master in Qigong?
Master Mingtong: Total surprise. [laughs] Total surprise of life, right? Right now, we’re open to more surprises in life. Honestly, I never heard of Qigong when I grew up in China. I came to US in my early 20s. Before that, never heard of Qigong. Then I discovered Qigong in Columbus, Ohio, when I was in graduate school, full-study Fine Arts. Obviously, it was a total surprise. I see a Western woman, a white woman, teaching Tai Chi and Qigong, and I never heard of Qigong before. I was curious, of course, curious, right? What’s happening here? Obviously, we were good friends. I took a workshop with her to experience what it is. Then she gave me a book to read, more book to read, then realizing, oh my God.
This is very profound, has such a long history. I didn’t know at the time. Later, I discover Qigong has more than 500 years of history, can go back to Yellow Emperor time, even further, pre-historical, and how these different traditions connected. We’re going to discuss this later. For me, it’s like I was seeking something at the time, and I wasn’t sure what I was seeking.
I can say at the time, I felt unhappy, just unhappy in general in life. I have all the reasons unhappy, the growing up being a harsh, challenging childhood, adopted many times in childhood, living with a full family. I came back to my birth family and had a sickness from childhood. I don’t know what’s the reason. Also, growing up with poverty and instability. I have all the reasons to be unhappy at the time. [laughs] I was seeking for happiness at the time, trying many different ways, trying to be successful academically. I was quite successful in relationship, different place of living, and so on, but still feel unsettled. Unhappy.
That was my first experience of practicing Qigong. Feel sense of a subtleness, a feeling, I’m okay. I’m okay. Constantly looking for the next thing. Next quick fix, next shortcut, next happiness, whatever. A sense like, oh, I’m okay. It really is a feeling. It’s not rational. Then, obviously, my culture growing up and gave me more reason beyond just rational reason, spiritual reason to discover what is this. That became very disciplined shortly. I started to practice on my own, 30 minutes a day, then eventually one hour a day. Even more some days, then I went back to China to study more.
It was shocking to go to the Medicine Qigong Hospital. Even I read about it in a book. It’s unbelievable when I read on the book because I grew up in China, never heard Qigong, never heard Medicine Qigong Hospital. Then it’s like, how could it be that possible? Eventually, I went there and experienced it. Just being there, my whole body feels very different. Just a sense of, how would I put it, a familiarity beyond just culture, beyond just common relationship. Of course, we were welcomed and so on, but this feeling is like often we’re looking for something, looking for connection. Maybe we don’t know what it is. We don’t know how that feels like.
That moment when I step into the Medicine Qigong Hospital, my whole being is just relaxed and just feel the connection, feel a sense of coming home. That is the feeling I’m sharing with everybody right now. Through my teaching, through my workshop, but also through the Chi Center. People come here. Often, people couldn’t identify why. They just feel like home, feel settled, not just welcomed. Feels familiar. I can relax here. I can connect here. That’s the feeling. Only way I can describe when I visited Medicine Qigong Hospital. Again, I became very dedicated. Obviously, took a retreat. The first one was two weeks long. The second one was one month long. The third one was three months long.
Then transitioning to the whole two years training. That was so intense. It’s almost like a combination of a school and a monastery, basically. It’s not like typical school. It’s not typical monastery either. It’s more like a combination of these two, like living in this bubble and receiving all the teaching and doing all the practice and experiencing, discovering. Eventually, I was able to recover from these incurable conditions, so-called incurable condition, asthma and sclerosis, and low back issues. Later, I discover the words incurable literally means whoever give you a diagnosis they’re saying to you, I cannot help you to recover. That’s what that means.
When we are diagnosed as incurable, especially from the medical system, we take it as a death sentence. We’re thinking that’s the only choice. Means from a medical point of view, from the drug or other conventional treatment, they cannot help you to recover. That’s what that means. Of course, I didn’t know that. I have to work really hard, practicing hard. One thing we did is really essential. Not only practicing diligently, connecting with energy, connecting with your own body, but just really making that choice of detaching from your diagnosis, detaching from your story about how bad the problem is, whatever life problem, even in general. Detaching from that. Obviously, ultimately, to forget that.
That is different from bypassing. It’s like you can focus on the new experience, focus on the truth inside of your body, beyond the diagnosis, beyond the story. It’s really about discovering the truth, beyond what we think, beyond what we know. Obviously, I was following around doing my practice. I didn’t realize, in a sense, what I was doing. Reflecting back, then realizing this critical moment, yes, shift happening in my mindset, in my cosmology, in my perception of life, in my purpose of not just life, but also doing the practice really affected me deeply.
With that said, basically, I finished the master training program and then came back to teaching year 2001. full-time without knowing, because there’s no such job as Qigong master, [laughs] so I have to invent everything myself. Luckily, I’m able to thrive and feeding my family, creating organizations, and now I’m initiating this new movement called Coming Home to Embodied Awakening.
What Is Qigong? Qigong, Tai Chi & Ancient Chinese Wisdom
Ari: Beautiful. I want to now go into the origins of Qigong more broadly, and also the connection with Daoism. I would love for you to build this out from scratch, talking to the listener who knows nothing about what Qigong is, who knows nothing about what Daoism is. Tell us about some of the core philosophy and maybe some of the differences in Daoist philosophy and maybe religions like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, those ways of seeing the world and seeing nature versus the Daoist perspective on nature, and then connect that into the origins of Qigong.
Master Mingtong: That’s a big question.
Ari: I know. You have 30 seconds.
Master Mingtong: Right, 30 seconds. [laughter] Okay. Whatever familiarity people may have about Qigong and about Tai Chi, these two closely related, but Tai Chi actually is one form of Qigong, basically. Beyond the different name, one way of thinking about it is Qigong is like a Chinese version of yoga. It comes from China, as yoga comes from India. Qigong is as ancient as yoga. As ancient. You can do back to 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 years ago. That ancientness, ancient road to it. Obviously, come from China has own culture orientation. Chinese culture is one of the culture has almost uninterrupted continuity over many, many thousand years. Maybe influenced by the West to a certain degree, but not much. One of the major influences come from India; Buddhism came from India, but integrate into the culture, become like Chinese thing. It’s Chinese Buddhism. It’s quite different from original Buddhism. Mahayana tradition, Zen, so on. What are we familiar with? If you’re familiar with Chinese culture in general, you’re familiar with Tai Chi. You’re familiar with TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, maybe familiar with martial art, maybe familiar with some aspect of Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism. These are like seven main traditions in China. They’re interconnected, interrelated. Qigong, the word Qigong is relatively new. The teaching, the practice coming down from the ancient time is very old. The teaching itself, whether sometimes people perceive it as philosophy, perceive as cosmology, perceive as way of life, then different system perceive them differently. Like Confucius perceiving as a way of life and relationship, so on. The Daoist perceiving as understanding the Dao, experiencing the Dao. Buddhist is more about nature of mind, nature of suffering, and to really addressing the deep cause of suffering so we can liberate ourselves.
These are slightly different highlights. Then martial art focuses on the power, whether it’s fighting or defending. Then traditional Chinese medicine, adapting these principles for medicine point of view. Five elements, acupuncture points, meridian channels, herbs, and different modalities. Based on energetic understanding of life, energetic understanding of the body, energetic understanding of medicine, herb, or energy, even much more invisible. These are all related. Then the practice itself. On one hand, I’m trying to say all these different traditions, adapting the philosophy or cosmology in different way.
Then practice of Qigong in different tradition is also different. It’s more like underground. It’s not well-known, actually. Not like yoga. Continual practice in the mainstream, I don’t know for how long, probably long time in India. Related speaking in China, Qigong practice is not available for mainstream unless you are in one of these traditions. If in a Daoist monastery, in a Buddhist monastery, or in study with a martial artist, or in the school of traditional Chinese medicine, which does not really always include Qigong either. The phenomenon of Qigong to mainstream just happened about early ’80s, later ’70s. My teacher is one of the pioneer and started to teach to the mainstream.
Ari: What’s your teacher’s name?
Grandmaster Pang Ming & the Medicine-Less Qigong Hospital
Master Mingtong: Grandmaster Pang Ming. As a profession, he’s a physician in Western medicine, actually. It’s really fascinating story. When he was treating people as a physician, and realizing the limitation of our past medicine. He started incorporating traditional medicine, but then realizing still limited. He started using Qigong approach and getting better result. All the time, he’s prescribing less medication. Then the government started being– What’s the word?
Ari: Suspicious?
Master Mingtong: Yes, suspicious of him. Actually put him in jail under inspection. Couldn’t find him anything wrongdoing because he’s trying to help people. Eventually, he realizing he has to establishing his own center. In early 1980, he established the medicine-less Qigong Hospital in China. In the beginning, 50 people showed up, then 500 people, eventually 5,000 people at a time when I was there. His program is rigorous. It’s not one week. It’s a whole month long. The people come, most people have severe illness, life deaths, or incurable condition.
Because he’s a physician, he’s a scientist, he wants to know how this works scientifically. He wants to measure the result. He ended up doing these statistics for many years for people to do a conventional test according to the Western medicine stand, what the condition is according to the test. Then, after one month, do another test. Then compare the result. If you see measurable change, then it’s effective. In many cases, total recovery. With 200 different kind of illness, you can see 95% effectiveness. That is unthinkable from conventional medical point of view.
That’s what he did. Then, in the medicine-less Qigong Hospital, in the first generation, it’s more like people are sick and relatively older. Then they’re kids in the middle age. They may have a health issue, but not severe, but experiencing life stress and a problem in life in general. These young generation start to practice. Then next generation start practice. The kids start being involved. That’s what I experienced over the time in the medicine-less Qigong Hospital. When I start to teach here, I’ve been continuously teaching a lot of [unintelligible 00:19:43]. Nowadays, of course, the online program make it possible, become really accessible.
Go back to your question. For me, the main question in Qigong, we ask three questions. They’re all related. The biggest question, maybe using different words, but what is the nature of life? Daoist asking certain way, Buddhist asking another way, Confucius asking this way, the medicine asking certain way, but the deeper cosmology question. The second question, in order to understand what is the nature of life, you have to understand, who am I? In order to understand who am I, you need to understand what is this body. We’re asking the question, what is the mind? That is asking, traditionally, so many traditions.
In Qigong, beyond asking what is the nature of the mind, but asking what is the nature of the body. The process is simple. It’s like you’re continuously exploring these questions. It’s not like trying to find the right answer. That’s intellectual. Slow is like a framework or cosmology or perception.
What Is Qi? Understanding Energy in Qigong
Everything is made of energy. When people ask me, what is Chi, asking back, what is not Chi? You don’t need to import Chi from China. It’s everywhere. Your body is made of energy, and life is made of energy. The visible, physical is made of energy, but also the invisible, non-physical is made of energy.
When you open into that framework, to that perception, then you start experiencing. The teaching, the practice, the meditation, discover what is energy, what energy feels like. What is the nature of energy? Simply put, we use the framework. Energy is infinitely present. The second is energy is infinitely connecting. It’s like when we’re perceiving ourselves, this moment, just as physical, then we feel the separation. When we open into the energy perception, my body is connecting with energy around this physical body, which is inseparable from my physical body. This energy is extending out to my room, to the planet Earth, that merge into the ocean of energy in the universe.
That is beyond conceptual because you can feel it through the practice. That’s the second. The third is when the mind is working with life, whatever way it’s working based on story, concept, the label of good and bad, right or wrong, should or shouldn’t. When you’re working with energy, you’re realizing, oh, energy is neutral. Energy is power. Energy is life-giving. Energy is creative. Energy wants to move. It’s like one simple methodology we work with. I’m speaking about this system now. Not about, in general, other Qigong system or other philosophical methodology orientation, which can be slightly different from each other.
How Qigong Works With Energy & the Body
In this system, we use, as a shared cosmology, energy is infinitely present, infinitely connected, infinitely creative. Then, how to work with energy is you’re accessing the energy in your body and accessing the energy of the Earth, accessing the energy of the universe, honoring what is physical, visible, but also go beyond what is non-physical, invisible, so to speak. When you’re working with energy, you have two experiences. One is uncomfortable. Another is comfortable. In a comfortable category, you have a complex, different feeling, different experience, but in the comfortable one, you have different label, happiness, love, bliss, whatever.
Instead of using these labels, we’re perceiving only two energy patterns when it is contracted. Another is opening, flowing. When the energy is contracted in your body, in your heart, everywhere, in your system, in your whole being, it could be associated with your mind. Whatever is happening in your energy system, if the energy is contracted, then all the function, doesn’t mean your physical health, emotional well-being, mental capacity, spiritual connection, all compromised, limited. Often we feel stuck, that feeling of stuck. When the same energy, awakening, opening, moving again, then all the function, they turn into more optimal potential, so to speak. That is the methodology.
Based on that methodology, then everything we do is fulfill two things, basically. One is aware of your body, aware of your energy, aware of where you’re feeling the contraction. If you’re not aware of it, then you cannot make the difference. That is one of the most powerful problems we’re experiencing, because of disconnection of the mind-body. When the mind-body is disconnected, if we’re only in the head, only engaged with the mental dimension of life, then we’re not aware what’s happening in the body, so you cannot really change anything.
Be aware of your body is the number one practice. Connecting, again and again, not just occasionally. You’re basically developing this muscle, like a new capacity. Oh, I can feel my body. I can experience my body. I can connect with my body anytime you choose to. That’s because you take a mental vacation. You take a vacation from your mental world. Most of us, we’re lost in the mental world, in this vicious loop, cannot get out of it. [laughs] If you can get out of that loop, you enjoy more freedom, enjoy more life. That’s the number one training.
Then number two is you do these movements, you do these some healing practice, you do these meditation, and connecting with energy. Oh, okay, here’s contracted, here’s limited, here’s disconnected. Then allow this practice naturally to connect deeper, naturally softening, naturally opening, naturally feel the flow again. Feel the flow again. That is the whole process.
Ari: You’ve explained that this is a very ancient practice going back many thousands of years. Humanity, human society, and the way we live, what’s going on in our minds, in our bodies, in our environment, in the interaction between us and our environment, all of these things have changed dramatically in the last several thousand years, and particularly in the last century, and even more so in the last few decades. Things are changing very, very rapidly in all of those different dimensions. I want to ask you: what is the relevance?
How would you explain the relevance of this ancient practice that goes back thousands of years, that was designed for a totally different kind of society, Chinese society, thousands of years ago, which looks radically different than the 2020s for the modern American? With screens, and social media, and phones, and internet, and AI, and all this kind of stuff. How does this ancient practice, how is it relevant to the modern human? Is it more relevant? Is it less relevant? How does it interface with these changes that are going on in the world?
Why Ancient Qigong Matters in the Modern Digital World
Master Mingtong: Beautiful question. One of the biggest change is happening, continue happening, is life become more complex. If you look at the ancient time, life much simple. Most people are just basically survival, and you’re taking care of the survival, and then relational. First and most important is survival need, secondary relational need. Then to deal with sickness, life and death in general, that’s ongoing basis. Now it’s the complexity of life become more complex.
Another big change might be necessary from living a life to think of life now. It’s like in old days, people just take care of life, survival, live a life. Now it’s like we’re not truly living life anymore. Maybe in basic level, we still have to take care of whatever life, survival, but it’s more in thinking. Everybody is in thinking. Concept, story, knowledge, data processing, functioning, performing, surpassing, competing, all that is so intense. It’s like from survival to functional, then to perform right now. Everything speed up, accelerated.
Another change is from more physically oriented life to much more mentally oriented now. Life’s so mental. Even, I think it’s before [unintelligible 00:31:27], but in the Western world, starting with [unintelligible 00:31:30], the famous saying, I think, therefore I am. [laughs] Now suddenly, like, okay, only I’m thinking. If I stop thinking, I do not exist anymore. It’s like everything is all about thinking. Whole education, whole job place, whole performance, whole leadership, everything is all about thinking. Mindsets, thinking. It’s like, do we have space to feel? Do we have space to live a life? Not much anymore.
The Buddha, that’s my interpretation. The ancient time, in this context, that’s my interpretation. Buddha’s insight is, I am aware; therefore I am. That’s different than, I think, therefore I am. Very different level of engagement experience of life. What I’m trying to share, something is different. I feel, therefore I am. One way I can, when you ask me the relevance of what are we experiencing right now, only way I can put it is like this. The change from living life more physically to living life mentally. Now we’re in this mental world. Most of the time, 90%, if not 99% of the time, we’re just living in the mental world. Even when we’re touching something physical, we’re not aware we’re touching even.
This body is almost like a robotic machine happened to be there. We just focus on thinking. What is happening is we’re not only living in the mental world, more and more disconnected from the physical world. I call this as the real world. The real world, we’re much more disconnected from any other generations. Not to mention compared with ancient time. Also now, as you mentioned, the technology, the mental world now is hijacked by the technology world, by the screen, by the digital world, by the AI, by a simulated world.
So much data, so much knowledge, so much information. We’re mistaking them as the real world. We’re entangled in that, lost in that. What I’m saying is, it’s not just going to happen in the next generation to our kids, but it’s happening now. We’re going to lose our connection with our own body. We’re going to lose our bodily nature of existence of human. That means it’s distinguished of true humanity. One question, one insight I’m realizing, my difference between me as a human being from AI, it’s not so much a mental difference anymore. [laughs] I’m still human, different from the AI because I have this human body.
AI vs Human Experience: What Makes Us Human?
Ari: What happens when they create robots and the AI is embodied?
Master Mingtong: Robot body cannot feel, cannot truly experience life. One question, ask the AI, that’s another paradox. We’re living in such a paradoxical world right now. Ask AI. Here’s a story. I was sitting in the hot tub and experiencing the beauty in the water, and then see the stars. I was asking AI, okay, here’s what I’m seeing, here’s what I’m feeling, here’s what I’m experiencing. Write poetry for me, write a poem for me. The poem came out, I was like, oh my God, just totally blew my mind. It’s like the best poem you can even ever have from any culture.
I was so shocked, so delighted, but then suddenly a question came to me. I said, can you feel, experience what I’m experiencing now? The AI said, no. I can use the information you give to me from your experience to simulate something else as a poem that moment. I was so happy, so delighted. He’s like, oh my God, [laughs] yay, I’m still human. I got to experience the hot tub. I got to see the Milky Way. No matter how the words sounds beautiful more than I can write myself. I got to see it, touch it, feel it, and experience it. Then, at that moment, I’m realizing the greater appreciation of me being human, but also greater appreciation of life in a deeper way, not based on perfection anymore.
The imperfectiveness of being human is determining the meaning of being human. It’s not the ideal utopia, construction, or the life should be. What heaven looked like after death, I’m not interested anymore, suddenly. That was a big shift for me. That happened about two years ago. I’m not sure if I answered your question. That’s the relevance. It’s like I’m feeling we’re facing the crisis more than any other time. This crisis, if we’re not careful about it, basically, we are killing ourselves, slow killing, slow suicidal by our own choice, without knowing. It’s not like the machine killing us. It’s not like some enemy killing us. We’re killing ourselves. By giving our connection away. That’s the scary part. That is critical. The good news is I’m speaking about connection of our own mind, own body. It’s not about someone else. That means we can choose every single human being. It’s our own choice. We can connect our mind with our own body. We can return home to this living temple. I can do that. Maybe I have to learn this process as I learn. The choice is mine. The process is mine. That means I do not depend on anyone else. Does not depend on anything else. Does not depend on solving all the problem of other crisis. Political crisis, economical crisis, social crisis, relationship crisis, whatever. That moment, I can come in, do this work. That is the good news. I feel that is the most empowering good news I can share.
What Is Embodied Awakening?
Ari: The name of your new book is Coming Home to Embodied Awakening. What does that mean? How does it tie into everything that you just described about modern humans, modern human society, modern human life, what does embodied awakening mean?
Master Mingtong: Yes, beautiful. All these words are actually important. First of all, I want to say, on one hand, this is something so simple. On the other hand, it’s something so difficult to explain. Especially if we approach mentally, then we trivialize it or conceptualize it or even overlook it. I want to say that first. I will illustrate three things in a different way as I have shared so far. One is coming home. That means instead of lost outside of us, homeless outside of our body, and lost externally, whatever circumstance might be, lost in the mental world, now we’re lost in the digital world. We’re facing this choice. It’s a choice. Do you want to come back to your true connection with your own body?
Coming home to your own body, that’s the number one. It’s not right, wrong, good, or bad. It’s we’re facing that choice now, knowing the implication of not doing that. Then we’re facing the choice. When we choose to come back home to this body, then the deeper embodied awakening starts to happen. That first is coming home. Secondly, embodied awakening. On one hand, people are talking about awakening, consciousness, and speaking of consciousness as if like walking ghost, as if exists by itself, nothing to do with the body. There’s so much bypass in the spiritual world, not mentioned in the mental world. We’re approaching it just mentally. Even a lot of interpretation of Buddha’s teaching is so mental. A lot of tradition still involved with physical practice, energetic practice, including Buddhism, such as tantra, Tibetan Buddhism, so on. In the contemporary world, because the tendency, we’re so much focused on mental to begin with, then we’re interpreting the ancient tradition from the mental level, approaching it from the mental level.
The experiential part, the physical embodiment part, becomes less, less, less present. That’s what I’m seeing, part of the choose. We’re facing the choice. How we can awakening ourselves without bypassing the real life here, the embodied experience, the embodied presence? Then opposite, people do somatic work. They focus on, oh, this body just exercising the body, continuously improving the body as a tool, basically. That’s how we’re approaching somatic practice, sports, whatever, exercises, whatever physical performance. As if nothing to do with the mind, nothing to do with the soul, nothing to do with anything.
My sharing is the invitation, not just do the physical exercise, not just to do the mental exercises, realizing the deeper awakening is the connection of mind-body. From this connection of mind-body to connection of the mind-body to deeper interaction of mind-body to eventually deeper union of mind-body, the union of mind-body. That is different from, I’m doing this to improving the body. I’m doing this to improve my mind. That’s most of other modalities focus on. Here I’m saying when the mind-body connected deeply, then all function naturally improve, including your health, including your mental capacity. More importantly, the deepest bonus beyond the bonus is your fulfillment as human being.
You’re realizing your full potential as human being. Come back to the tradition. In the Chinese tradition, we have the saying, human realizing who we are as a union of heaven and earth. People approaching this as a metaphysical language, oh, heaven is up there, the earth is beneath me. Oh, okay. If I’m connecting both, then I’m realizing humanness. That’s great. That’s wonderful. The deeper interpretation is the heaven, the earth is inside of you already. It’s your job to experience the union. I call this as pre-arranged marriage. [laughs]
Whether you like it or not, your mind and the body is pre-arranged marriage already before you came here. Now it’s the job how to make this marriage to work, to live this marriage, so to speak. That is very different approach, different perception of what is this body.
Qigong Benefits: Health, Resilience, Joy & Connection
Ari: You’ve alluded to this a number of times thus far in the conversations. I want to ask you very directly, how do you conceptualize the benefits of practicing Qigong? There are different ways of conceptualizing this. I’ve explored Qigong and Daoism for many, many years on and off since my early 20s. I’ve recently delved back into Daoism in the last year or so. We can conceptualize this in different ways. Depending on the teacher that you are learning from, they might conceptualize it differently. They might talk more about the health benefits, the medical benefits of Qigong, which you’ve spoken about a bit.
They might conceptualize more from the spiritual, the cosmological level of union in heaven and earth. Maybe from the perspective of even awakening energy channels in the body, in the pursuit of higher consciousness, in the pursuit of enlightenment, and things like that. How do you conceptualize the core benefits of Qigong practice?
Master Mingtong: I think that’s the beauty, also the uniqueness of Qigong. Highlighting all these three levels of benefit. One is health benefit. You don’t have to be sick. You don’t have to be old. When you do Qigong, you focus on enhancing your energy, enhancing your energy baseline, energy flow, energy experience of life. Improving the quality right away. Also, you’re increasing your confidence of taking care of yourself.
This energy system, able to become more resilient, more adaptable to life circumstance, especially now, we so need it. Pandemic challenged our whole energy system, not just immune system. When we do Qigong, you’re internally upgrading yourself. Also, when you do Qigong, you’re realizing physical health, emotional health, mental health is inseparable. They all underline that it’s all spiritual, all spiritual.
Whether you are doing Qigong for preventive purpose or healing, recovering from all illness purpose, doesn’t matter which one. It’s really about continuously improving your health. In my case, yes, I enjoy the health benefit. Of course, we don’t know the value of health until we lose it, right? [laughs] Then we’re freaking out. When we lose health, and thinking that’s the number one priority. Then you do everything, just focus on health, health, health, as if nothing else is important.
But it’s all related. It’s all related. That’s often happened to my students, in the beginning, you may focus on health, which is important, is incentive. You do more commitment, more discipline, more practice. While you’re doing it, you don’t want to approach just for health reason. Think of health as a byproduct of this practice. That’s how I approach it. It’s an important byproduct.
The second one is really basically life quality, improving life quality. But more than common understanding of life quality, it’s more the capacity. Upgrading your own human capacity, the main capacity. One is resilience. Secondly is the capacity for love. The third is the capacity for joy. Enjoy life. The next is the capacity, being creative, being open. That’s something I highlight all the time.
It’s experiential. It’s not like, oh, you should do this. Then you have this outcome. No. When you go through this process, you’re naturally experiencing this outcome. Then the last one, the third level, is also starting with the beginning. It’s not like, oh, you have to be perfectly healthy, then experiencing the spiritual benefit. To see the spiritual benefit in health, in life quality, deeply is in connection. Because the foundation of the cosmology, the practice is about connection.
When we focus on connection, connecting your body with your body energetically, connecting with Mother Earth energetically, connecting with heaven energetically, connecting with life around you energetically, connecting with the relationship energetically, you’re naturally discovering the spiritual connection, spiritual awareness, spiritual essence of who we are. The enlightenment is not like, oh, I’m here to be enlightened. It’s like naturally you’re moving towards more enlightened way of living.
What Is Enlightenment? Finding Peace in the Body
Ari: What is enlightenment? What is an enlightened way of living based on your understanding?
[pause 00:53:10]
Master Mingtong: Simple. One way I can express that is peace. When we truly feel peace, experience peace with life. Instead of fighting it, resisting it, wishing it otherwise. Now that’s easy to say, difficult to do, yes.
Ari: [chuckles] Yes. I’d say that’s maybe the understatement of the century.
Master Mingtong: Right. It become doable when you’re making peace with yourself. That’s the only way you can make peace with life. Until you make peace with yourself, you cannot make peace with anything else. In order to make peace with yourself, you have to make peace with your body. Until you truly experience peace with your own body, your own existence, you cannot truly make peace with yourself. With history, what’s happening now, what could happen next, or what is your meaning of life. These all become just intellectual game. That’s one way I can say, yes. It’s possible.
That’s one of the profound implications of coming home to your own body. When you truly do that, you just naturally feel peace. The more you do it, the more sustainable it becomes. You become more compassionate towards others, towards life. More loving, kind, but also more resilient. Actually discovering the deeper meaning of life by living a life. That’s these different forms.
I’m taking slightly different approach here than traditional Buddhists or even traditional Taoists. It’s this idea of traditional enlightenment. It’s more like you do everything right way here, then you don’t have to come back to life anymore. [laughs] It’s like an unquestioned assumption. It’s like life is too much suffering. If I do everything right in this life, then I don’t have to come back again. I feel different about that now.
Ari: How do you feel?
Master Mingtong: I feel if I’m fully living in this life, then it doesn’t matter what’s next. I’m more than happy to come back. The idea of not coming back here is not attractive for me anymore. That’s what I’m trying to say.
Present-Moment Awareness & Embodied Mindfulness
Ari: With that in mind, I think that’s an interesting segue. It’s very much related to something else I wanted to ask you, which is in many of the Eastern spiritual traditions, we have this emphasis on the idea of presence, to the present moment, to be here and now. This has been written about many people over a long period of time and has origins in the yogic traditions and the Buddhist traditions and the Taoist traditions. How does that idea of present moment awareness fit into the work you do, or how does that concept integrate it into your practice and philosophy?
Master Mingtong: Beautiful. That’s so important. It’s really the essence of the spiritual teaching, spiritual practice. If you boil it down to it, it’s really about that. The issue is our interpretation is so different. My interpretation is simple here. When you are fully present with your own body, you’re naturally fully present with life here, this moment. Until you’re fully present with your body, you’re still mentally somewhere in what I’ve constructed, a virtual world, basically. You cannot really say present.
Ari: That’s an interesting distinction because I feel like in many of the people who are teaching this and many of the people who are reading about it or listening to people talk about this idea of present moment awareness, modern humans, because we are, as you said, so locked into the mental domain, I feel like we interpret this as another mental concept.
Master Mingtong: That’s right. Like something other than right here, right now.
Ari: In the body as a physical being in a physical world.
Master Mingtong: Mindfulness practice is so beautiful, so beneficial. Often, it’s referring to, yes, it’s important to be mindful of your thoughts, mindful of your emotion, but mindful of your body is almost like a small portion of mindfulness practice. Also, more focus on the mindfulness of what’s happening in your life, what’s happening in the environment, using the circumstance as a reference so that indirectly, you can be more aware of your own bodily existence. Which is good, but still indirect.
You’re looking at the mirror and look at, see the mirror, than to try to find yourself, so to speak. In this case, you just go straight to your body. When I close my eye, just go straight into my body, all the sensation, all the feeling, and stay there as long as you can. Eventually, you can have that direct experience when I’m talking to you, when I’m watching a movie, when I’m even doing the digital project with the screen, when I’m teaching, when I’m walking. It’s like, if I can fully connect with my body, of course, to a certain degree, it’s like, yes, that is basically embodied awakening, fully present.
It’s embodied living. It’s not just mental living, not just a fragmentation of living. It’s not just wishful thinking living. I’m highlighting the importance of 3D here. Often, people are talking about consciousness, spirituality; they go to 5D, 7D. I’m trying to bring people here to the 3D world right here.
Ari: People are very quick to want to transcend the physical plane, as if the physical plane is inherently less spiritual than the mental, the non-physical realm.
Master Mingtong: It’s like total bypass, total escapism. It’s the same issue. Nowadays, why we have all so much addiction, so much mental health issue, because we don’t want to go into the body to feel the discomfort, feel the pain, feel the limitation of this life. We don’t want to deal with that. We don’t want to experience that. Then the mental is busy to go out seeking for destruction, then eventually become addiction.
Ari: There’s another layer that’s interesting. I’m curious what the Chinese perspective on this is because when it comes to the body, I think in the Western traditions, and especially religious traditions, there is also this negative association with the body as being associated with sin, with carnal pleasure. In some of the religious traditions, we have this energy towards the body as being inherently less spiritual or even a source of the anti-spiritual, of sin, of the opposite of the enlightened way of being.
You have the traditions of celibacy and things like that with people who are specifically, essentially taking a vow away from these carnal pleasures of the body to become more spiritual. I’m curious, what is the Chinese perspective? Maybe that’s too broad of a question. What is the Daoist, the Qigong perspective on that, given your emphasis on the importance of the physical body?
Master Mingtong: First of all, when I say physical, it’s in a different context of more than just conventionally perceiving the body as physical body. I just want to say that first. It’s not like often we can think of physical, then we’re perceiving everything mechanical. The physical world is functioning mechanically. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s realizing the physical world is much more than what we think. The physical world is carrying everything else. It’s the physical manifestation of everything else we want, we engage, we want to understand, we want to perceive. That’s what I’m trying to say here.
By leaving the physical world, trying to get something other than who we are already, it’s a mistake. That’s the mistake we’re making without realizing it. I want to just really clarify that. It’s very difficult to communicate because these words carry all these connotation assumption already. Not to mention everybody have different interpretation of it, but we have to use words.
Going back to your original question, I’m generalizing a little bit. I feel the Chinese tradition in term of spirituality, in general speaking, is more practical than a lot of other tradition. Another way to put it is emphasizing both the practical side and the spiritual side, less separate than any other tradition. I would say most of the tradition, particularly religion, for sure.
I think it’s due very much in the Taoist, also Buddhist tradition. The ultimate teaching, one way of expressing it is the inseparable nature of form and formless. Inseparable nature of absolute and relative. This idea of yin-yang as paradox. That is so ingrained in the Chinese culture. The yin-yang is not about when it’s more than others or better than others. It’s the opposite. It’s not only complement to each other, but coexisting with each other. One can I exist without another? The very existence of the opposite make life possible.
That is the philosophical orientation in the Chinese culture. I think it’s very rare in other cultures. Occasionally people realize that, but it’s not a common perception of life. It’s also in Chinese, there’s a lot of ambiguity. The language carry ambiguity. The Chinese poetry carries all the ambiguity. In the Western culture, I’m just using English as the example, it’s so linear, so black and white, but has its strength, its clarity. There’s no ambiguity. Then it’s losing its non-linear, creative ambiguity, the experiential interpretation of it. That’s a slightly different flavor of the two cultures.
The Long-Term Benefits of Qigong Practice
Ari: Master Mingtong, in working with the thousands of people that you’ve worked with, what do you notice, or what do people report back to you as the biggest benefits they are seeing in their lives as a result of doing wisdom healing Qigong?
Master Mingtong: Yes, if they’re possessed. If they’re possessed long enough with me, actually, they’re going to experience in the beginning, very quickly experiencing that. For sustainable benefit, I want to really differentiate two kind of benefit. One is short-term benefit and a sustainable benefit. The short-term benefit, no matter what you do, it’s easy to accomplish. Short-term change, short-term benefit, short-term enlightenment, short-term joy. You just wave your hand, you feel good. That’s short-term.
For long-term, it’s a different story. It’s change your own energy pattern, energy baseline. For most important long-term benefit, in my communities, all these three level I share. If you want me to choose one, number one is more energy, more joy. More energy and more joy. It’s very practical, but also experiential and spiritual.
What Does ‘Energy’ Really Mean in Qigong?
Ari: We’re using this word energy. This is an interesting word because it means so many different things in so many different contexts. We can have energy in terms of mitochondrial energy output, cellular energy. We can have energy in terms of physics, the way somebody who’s a physicist would talk about energy. We can talk about potential energy, kinetic energy, and these kinds of things. We can talk about energy balance, calories in, calories out, how much energy the body’s burning, consuming. We can talk about energy in a more spiritual level or on a more Qigong level.
You’ve talked about energy a lot here and talking about energy is everywhere. We’re using the same word to describe so many things. I’m curious what you mean by the word energy and how you see that interfacing with what you were just referring to, which is sort of like physical energy, vitality. What is the link between Qi and energy and physical energy in terms of human physiology?
Master Mingtong: Ultimately, when I speak of energy, I’m inviting everybody to open to the existence beyond what we think, beyond what we know, beyond what we can measure, beyond what we assume, that is the deepest invitation. In the deepest spiritual dimension, energy is beyond definition, beyond measurement, beyond our limited perception. On the other hand, we only experience as much as the way we perceive.
Acknowledging that, what I’m speaking about is these two levels of existence, simultaneously true. One is the absolute reality, which is beyond our limited perception, any definition, any concept. Then the relative dimension we’re all experiencing is based on what we call relative energy. That depends on our relative perception. All perception is relative, basically, no matter what is your background, what is your experience, what is your belief, what is your education, what is your intellectual capacity, whatever it might be. It’s all just relative.
By honoring all these relative experiences, but at the same time opening to the greater experience, beyond our own personal relative experience of energy, then we can progress. That means, ultimately, the spiritual journey for me means continuing expanding our perception of life.
Ari: Beautiful.
Master Mingtong: Continue expanding. It’s not; that’s the truth, that’s the absolute truth. I’m speaking of the truth, basically pointing out that both existing, the absolute and the relative, the limiting and the infinite. That’s the truth beyond what we think, oh, should it be infinite, should it be limited? These are relative truths. Beyond that, it’s much greater depth to it. The invitation is recognizing whatever truth you’re experiencing in your life, especially in your body, then open to discover what is a deeper truth.
The practice, the process is basically two-folded. One is continuously discovering what is possible beyond what we know. On the other hand, it’s letting go of what we think is true. Our attachment to that truth is mine. That’s the only truth. That doesn’t mean you should not engage that. If you’re looking at certain things scientifically, the certain reference point can be beneficial. If you’re looking at it from, let’s say, a physical point of view, chemical point of view, biological point of view, they all have certain benefit, insight come out of that. That’s still relative truth.
The Most Important Daily Practice: Return to Your Body
Ari: Master Mingtong, my last question to you is, in this world that we’re moving into, this increasingly fast-paced, fragmented, digital world, AI world, screen world that we’re all moving into, and uncertain world, so much uncertainty, for example, AI threatening so many of our jobs, just as one example of this, what do you perceive as being the most important thing that people should be practicing on a daily basis?
Master Mingtong: Return to your own body. Coming home to your own body. Embracing your true humanity as who you are. The final meditation I want to share may take two more minutes. We extended the time already, so let’s-
Ari: Thank you for doing that, by the way.
Master Mingtong: Let’s do this. Together, invite everybody to join me together. Placing hands on top of your chest, close your eye, and make sure you’re safe, you’re not driving. Otherwise, you can keep your eyes open. Simply feel your own body with this gentle intention of connecting with your own body without overthinking. Speaking of these words, feel the truth of these words. The first truth, without this body, I do not exist as a human being.
Together. Without this body, I do not exist as a human being. Without this body, I do not exist as a human being. Feeling the truth, feeling the presence of your own body, the presence of your own self, your own existence, undeniable presence beyond any concept, any story, any analysis. The second truth, without this body, I cannot experience life as a human being.
Together. Without this body, I cannot experience life as a human being. Without this body, I cannot experience life as a human being. Feel the truth. Embracing all human experience made possible through this body. Your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own relationship, your own experience, all become possible because of your own body. Feel the truth. The third truth, without this body, my soul cannot evolve in this lifetime.
Together. Without this body, my soul cannot evolve in this lifetime. Without this body, my soul cannot evolve in this lifetime. Feel the truth. Feel the inseparable nature of your body and soul beyond any story, any concept. Feel the presence of yourself, presence of your body, wholeness of yourself, wholeness of your body. Acknowledging the energy, the invisible energy, the known, the unknown, encompassing both physical, non-physical, encompassing the visible, invisible, encompassing the known, the unknown, of yourself and the life.
Acknowledging the energy, presence of your body, naturally connecting with the energy, presence of the earth. Inseparable. Acknowledging the energy, presence of your body, naturally connecting with the energy, presence of the infinite above us. Inseparable. Acknowledging feel the energetic connection with the life in front of you, visible, invisible. With the life behind you, visible, invisible. The life on the left side of you, right side of you, and all around you.
Acknowledging both the limitation as well infinite connection, both known, unknown. Feeling the wholeness inside of your body, slowly opening your hand and gently moving your body, softly, intimately. Feeling the vibration inside of you. Both the silence and the sound inside of you. Feel a deeper sense of aliveness, connectiveness, even inner peace. Whenever you’re ready, you can gently, softly open your eyes.
Ari: Beautiful practice. Thank you for that.
Master Mingtong: I’m so happy to get to share with you and with all the listeners. I call this initiation practice.
Ari: Beautiful.
Master Mingtong: Initiating ourselves to this living temple we call as a body, but we don’t know much about it. [laughs] That’s the invitation of the ending of the session.
Coming Home to Embodied Awakening: The Book
Ari: Master Mingtong, you have a new book that just came out recently, Coming Home to Embodied Awakening. Please let people know what that book is all about and where they can get it.
Master Mingtong: The book share a little bit more of my own personal journey, personal story, as well as the practice of coming home to embodied awakening, speak about Qigong, other people’s experience. Most importantly, I feel this is a map to guiding us coming home back to ourselves, to this body. That’s the map. If you get the book, I’d like to encourage you to read chapter 7. Make sure. Life is always busy. Not necessarily able to read books from beginning to the end. You may, but just make sure to read chapter 7.
Exploring the sixth level of relationship with our own body. How that affecting our health, affecting life, affecting our journey of being here. That is one of the chapters. You can find all the information on my website, mingtonggu.com. With two G in the middle, Mingtong with G, then Gu, g.com. You can find the book there, as well as other program, both online training, as well free resources, as well intense retreat, instant affair, as well as online. I would love to support you, inspire you in any way I can.
Ari: Beautiful. Master Mingtong, thank you so much for coming on my podcast. It was an absolute joy to connect with you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Master Mingtong: Such a pleasure. I enjoy every moment of it.
Ari: Me too.
Master Mingtong: So happy we’re able to dive so deep. Thank you so much for your work, for your dedication, for your presence. Thank you.
Ari: Thank you.
Links
Ready to go deeper? Grab Master Mingtong Gu’s bestselling book Coming Home to Embodied Awakening at www.mingtonggu.com/book, and receive free bonus teaching videos with your order.
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