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What Food Is
Good or Bad for Your Qi?
 Few
people would disagree with the importance of diet for health. Western
dietary and nutritional studies abound. Coming from a Qigong
background, I'd like to emphasize properties of food from the perspective
of Qigong and Qi (vital energy), which have largely been neglected in
the West so far. Since I came to America about five years ago, I have
had many chances to observe American diets from friends and even more
from my Qigong students.
Salad is
good
The element
in American diet that I admire the most is salad. Compared with the usual
method of excessive Chinese stir-fry in preparing vegetable, salad provides
a healthier yet still palatable alternative. However, salad is not good
for people with "cold stomach".
Fast food has no aura
But I've
also seen the wide spread of fast food in America. Is fast food necessarily
junk food? Some people argue that refrigeration for a long time still
keeps bacteria in food under control; hence it is a feasible and harmless
way of mass producing food. However, I once had a chance to walk into
the storage of a famous fast food chain store; the meat patties there
had no aura at all, meaning that they contain very little clean vital
energy. Of course, if you only eat these kinds of food once in a while,
it doesn't matter much. But if you often take in these no-aura foods (to
make it even worse, some food has brown or dark aura), toxins will gradually
build up in your body and diseases set in.
Too much chicken signals
Some Americans
eat just too much chicken. Since my third eye is open, sometimes when
I walked in the street and was in a special state, I saw some people with
chicken feathers attached to them. They just carry too much chicken signals.
Scientific studies have shown that when animals are killed before reaching
their due longevity, they will release toxins in their bodies instantaneously
when they are dying. When I was teaching Qigong at Mount Madonna Center
in Watsonville, CA, two students came to me for personal consultation.
I was shocked when they told me they had been following an all-meat Atkin
diet in order to lose weight. They lost 10 pounds or so (meat contains
lots of acid, and acid tends to reduce fat), but I saw many blockages
in their bodies and they did not have much energy. Losing weight in this
manner doesn't entail an improved health.
Iced drink accumulates
damp Qi
A bad
habit is to drink iced tea, iced water, iced coke etc regularly. These
ices tend to exhaust stomach energy, and may cause cold Qi or damp Qi
stuck in the body (a cause of obesity). I have seen many cases of this
problem among my American Qigong students.
Too much cheese and desert make Qi sticky
Another
well-known weakness of American diet is the excessive use of cheese and
dessert, which tend to make the Qi in the body sticky and unclear, and
slow in circulation. By the way, smoking makes one's Qi dirty. Fortunately
smoking is banned in public places in America. As the Taoist classics
Tao Te Ching cautions, "Five colors make
your eyes blind, five sounds make your deaf, five tastes make your tongue
dumb" (here "five" only means
"too many" and hence "imbalanced"). It is healthy
to eat light food instead of heavy and excessively tasty food.
BBQ and toasted food cause
too much fire
Some Americans
like to eat BBQ, toasted and oven-treated food. Unfortunately, these foods
have too much Yang or "fire" (in the sense of Traditional Chinese
Medicine). Most of my American Qigong students have too much fire (hence
Yin-Yang imbalance), and I think their diet is a major cause.
Yin-Yang vs. acid-alkaline
Western
dietitians all know acid and alkaline properties of food, but not many
are aware of the Yin-Yang properties and their importance. Most people
have various degrees of Yin-Yang imbalance, a major cause of many diseases.
For example, some people get hot easily while other people may get cold
easily. And the food they take can either exacerbate this problem or alleviate
it (the idea of food as a healing tool). For example, ginseng is widely
believed as a nutritional supplement in China. But certain types of ginseng
are Yin (depending on where they grow), while
other types of ginseng are Yang. You really need to know your Yin-Yang
situation and choose carefully. A more complicated case is that some people
may have too much Yin and too much Yang at the same time, which is usually
due to blockages that isolate Yin and Yang in the body. In summary, a
good diet has to be designed individually according to his or her Yin
and Yang.
Spiritual practitioners
should eat clean food
The diet
requirements are different for an ordinary person and a spiritual practitioner.
Any spiritual practice, be it Qigong, Taiji, Yoga, etc, connects the practitioner
with some spiritual energy. A common characteristic of all spiritual energies
is that they all prefer clean and vegetarian food. If you practice Qigong
one hour every day, then a meat-rich diet is far from consistent with
your Qigong practice. It will diminish the power of your practice in the
least, and may lead to serious problems. Another case worth mentioning
is onion. For a regular person, onion may be good for its proven effect
of killing germs. But for a Qigong practitioner, onion is too stimulating
for hi or her Qi, and may disturb the harmony and smoothness of the Qi.
Bigu: the Taoist "no
food" wisdom
Traditionally,
after a Qigong practitioner practices for many years and accumulates enough
energy, he or she may achieve the state of being "too Qi-filled to
eat", i.e. Bigu. Literally, "Bigu" means "avoid grains".
Hence it doesn't necessarily mean "no food" (full bigu may mean
using only water, while half bigu usually allows fruits and vegetables).
This is an advanced Taoist Qigong technique for fundamental cleansing.
Based on the precondition of abundant universal energy, Bigu (energized
fasting) is very different from outright "food-forbidden treatment".
Practitioners doing Bigu will not feel hunger or only minimal psychological
hunger. Detoxification effects of Bigu are astounding, and often lead
to rejuvenation. However, to achieve the state of Bigu by yourself
would take many years in traditional Qigong. My personal researches in
Qigong and Bigu in the past two decades have led to the new Qinway Qigong
system that greatly accelerates this process. Now I offer Qigong retreats
regularly in the San Diego area, where all Qigong students, including
those with serious diseases like cancer, can achieve Bigu almost immediately.
Cleansing through Qigong
is a good way to improve taste
Many people
know that certain food is bad for their health, but they just lack the
will power to control their craving. On the other hand, some people pay
excessive attention to what they eat to the point of pathological obsession.
The good news is that after students do Qigong bigu, their bodies become
cleaner and their taste would naturally change as well. Their bodies would
generally prefer clean and vegetarian foods. Hence, cleansing is also
an effective way of acquiring a good taste.
Last updated
08/19/07.
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