Episode 142: Unlock Your Inner Jedi: The Transformative Power of Qigong
WITH ROBERT PENG
What if you were able to activate your Life Force in such a way that you could unlock the power of love, power, healing and wisdom?! Well you can. We’re talking to renown Qigong Master and Healer Robert Peng – who embodies the power of this ancient healing tradition and has been teaching and sharing it with the world for decades.
Qigong is magic! And Robert's story is nothing short of remarkable. Picture this: it’s 1972 in an industrial city in China, and a frail boy with a heart condition secretly befriends an elderly hotel boiler room attendant. What he didn’t realize then was that he had just met his destiny. That attendant turned out to be a legendary Qigong Master who would transform Robert’s life forever.
Think of Robert as a real-life Jedi using the profound dimensions of the Life Force, or Qi integrated with Western sensibilities. He has gone on to teach hundreds of thousands of people and changed lives forever.
So, what is Qigong and how can you use it? You’re going to want to know because it can help you find your True Self, improve your relationships and infuse every part of your life with vitality and love.
Dive into this miraculous, spiritual adventure.
MORE FROM ROBERT PENG
Visit robertpeng.com to find out more about Robert’s latest offerings.
Take a look at his book The Master Key
Visit seekingcentercommunity.com for more with Robyn + Karen and many of the guides on Seeking Center: The Podcast. You'll get access to live weekly sessions, intuitive guidance, daily inspiration, and a space to share your journey with like-minded people who just get it.
TRANSCRIPT
Robyn: What if you were able to activate your life force in such a way that you could unlock the power of love, power, healing, and wisdom? You can. We're talking to renowned Qigong master and healer, Robert Peng, who embodies the power of this ancient healing tradition and has been teaching and sharing it with the world for decades.
Qigong is magic and Robert's story is nothing short of remarkable. Picture this, it's 1972 in an industrial city in China, and a frail boy with a heart condition secretly befriends an elderly hotel boiler room attendant. What he didn't realize then, was that he had just met his destiny.
That attendant turned out to be a legendary Qigong master who would transform Robert's life forever. Think of Robert as a real life Jedi, using the profound dimensions of the life force, or Chi, integrated with western sensibilities. He has gone on to teach hundreds of thousands of people and change lives.
So what is Qigong and how can you use it? You're going to want to know because it can help you find your true self, improve your relationships and infuse every part of your life with vitality and love. Let's dive into this miraculous spiritual adventure. Hi, Robert.
Karen: Hi, Robert.
Robert: Hi, Karen. Happy to see you here.
Karen: Same. Wow. And that story that Robyn told at the beginning, your story, it feels like it should be a movie. Looking back, I'm sure that how it feels to you and where you've come from, but can we just start at the very beginning? Cause we have been excited about this conversation for a long time.
So many of our friends and listeners have asked us to do this episode on Qigong. So can you talk about what it is and how it came to you and how it has transformed your life?
Robert: Qigong are two words. Qi is we have thousands of books, even written, explain what Qi is. And to make it simple, it's essential energy. And it's the energy that make things as it's supposed to be. The most essential part of the energy that made who we are. And nowadays we're talking about quantum physics.
That's exciting. Cause it's getting very close to explain what, some say qi is material, but we find that when we are in deep meditation, the qi is very powerful. So it's both spiritual and material. So when you say about material, it's some essential matter.
That matter flows into our body, flows into this universe, and some matter you cannot see, some you can see, now we know, we have sub matters, we have quantum matters, and we have the matter we can see, yin and yang, to embrace together with is. So the vital energy, the most essential part of the energy that makes us look at me.
Look at you. Look at everybody. We're all made the same of molecules or atoms, but why everybody is different?
We say Qi is different. In Chinese we have a word to say Qi Zhi, the quality of Qi is different. Even twins, they have difference. Maybe you cannot recognize through their experience.
Underneath, of course, there's huge difference between even the twins identical you can see no difference, but they have huge difference. That's the quality of chi. Is different so when we talk about human beings, it's the chi that flow inside the body because chi in the broad sense is everything, right?
Everything is made of the energy. Of course, when we say qigong, we're talking about energy flow inside. Every organ has qi, every cell has qi. So when we practice, we cultivate energy between organs and make them harmonize. And also every organ, they hold different emotions. So when we want to work with emotions, you need to actually harmonize the energy of the organs.
So we have a lot of exercise to cultivate this kind of energy. We call it chi. Actually in ancient times different cultures, they have different understanding of chi. India, yoga, they call it prana. Prana is chi. Reiki, spiritual Qi. In Egypt they call it or Qi, K I.
So I think in ancient times, cause the external science and technologies are now so developed. So where they are more aware of cultivating internally, then really have beautiful insight about energy flow. One understanding about Chinese acupuncture meridian — all this chart, all this flows between organs to the fingertips, organs to the toes, are some meditators, or we say qigong masters.
They, in the deep meditation, they put down the energy flow. Nowadays, they do some meditation experiment and find it is flowing that way. So there's the energy, there's the qi. Gong means practice. When I say gong fu, maybe you don't know too much, but if I say gong fu, oh everybody knows.
Actually gong means gong fu. Or Kungfu. Nowadays, if we say Kungfu, we know it's from Bruce Lee, from Jackie Chan, Jet Lee. All this they are famous for Kungfu. Kungfu actually originally, it doesn't mean much. It means some dedicated time. Or exclusive time that you are dedicated. Say, you can say, it takes me two hours of Kung Fu to write this poem. It took me 20 years of Kung Fu to make this big project. So Kung Fu — dedication, focus, practice, on and off. Of course, martial art is a lot of Kung Fu.
Robyn: I didn't know that. That's really interesting.
Robert: So that's kung fu. That's what kung fu means. We're still using this way. We're still using Kung Fu as a — some time, we can say, Oh, Robyn, haven't seen you for a long time. Do you have some Kung Fu that we can have a cup of tea, meaning to have a different way of using that terminology.
Karen: You think of Kung Fu as a practice, right?
Robert: It’s like a simple practice. It is practice, not just time. Have you heard about Kung Fu tea? Kung Fu tea, it's not that you're doing Kung Fu, then drinking tea. Kung Fu tea in Chinese way is normally tea cups are huge, but the Kung Fu tea cups are tiny, like a little shot.
So they have a little pot, they put water and put tea, then you sip it. And normally if you say, shall I have Kung Fu tea, meaning you can spend quite a good time, a long time, slow, meditative, not for thirst, but for experience of the aroma of this beautiful subtleties of the tea.
That's the way we call the Kung Fu tea, meaning you spend quite a good downtime enjoying your tea with little shots. And my wife and I, we always, we do this a lot. Almost every day. Sometimes it can be two or three hours. It's just like chatting and drinking, making the tea, drinking, stop then. And shot. Maybe 20, 30 minutes. But still, for tea, 30 minutes is a long tea. Kung Fu tea. So practice, gong means practice, meaning dedicated practice. So put it together, qigong means the energy practice of energy cultivation.
Karen: Gotcha. Just in the, in what you've shared with us, though, it reminds me how much these Chinese practices are so much about being present and really tuning into not only the body, but also the energy that is flowing through it. And so all of these things that we're going to be talking about is very much about learning how to understand how our body and our energy all work together and how we can utilize these practices to remind ourselves to be more present. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I love you broadening our horizons even past the Qigong here.
Robert: Thank you. So that's Qigong. For me, myself, my story is long ago now. Now I'm, this year I was, I'm 60. So it's 50 years ago.
Karen: I'm sorry for people who can see you, but if you can't see Robert there, there's no way you look 60.
Robyn: I agree. You are really living and embodying all of this. You can tell because you look so young and we know age is just a number. But really unbelievable.
Karen: There is truly an energy that comes from you.
Robert: Thank you. That's one of the most charming things about practicing Qigong. They say, what is the benefits or transformative experience if you practice a long time with Qigong? And there are tons of stories. People practice Qigong, they get healed from chronic disease. Some people, they are depressed, they find meaning of life.
One of my patients had chronic fatigue syndrome for years, and they practiced Qigong just for a few months, they feel totally recovered. Bottom line is that it keeps us young, but young is not just appearance, it's from inside out.
Because when you can refresh your internal organs' Qi, meanwhile you refresh your cells and tissues' Qi.
Our experience, our muscles, are composed of all these tissues and cells. So when they are refreshed, meaning they're kept young, of course you look young. But it's not only that, but internally you are always opening the eyes and be amazed with energy. With the life force, when I wake up, I don't hurry to get up.
One thing I do as a routine — I begin to bring my awareness to different parts of my organs. Not randomly, in a sequence. Starting from lung. We say sequence. Lung, large intestine, stomach, and spleen, then heart, then small intestine. Why in this course, and end with liver?
Because according to the bioclock, our body has some peak time associated with some organs. Like three o'clock, the peak time, the energy flows the most is the lung. So three to five — lung. The large intestine is five to seven. They say our energy channel is like a circle. We say blood and qi are like a little car going around. Three o'clock they go fill the gas station, 24 hours. Every two hours we focus on one. So in the morning I want to wake them up. I do it within 20, 30 seconds. Or if I have more time, I do with the meditation. Breathing the energy to the head. Because top head. Then I send to, say for example, lung — I send energy of lung to connect with the index finger and bring it up. Large intestine. Then stomach all the way to the feet to the toes. This keeps them refreshed. Why do things get old? Why do things get dirty? You don't wash them. You wash them to keep them clean. But if you want to keep it young, you wash with the mind. So that's the beautiful thing. I feel so blessed that I had the chance that I could meet my master. Because in ancient times, this kind of practice are quite esoteric. When the emperor, when the royal family knows the value, they want to keep it exclusive.
My family doesn't practice. That's why I said I was so fortunate that I could meet my master, not because of the lineage from my family or heritage from my family. It's because of cultural revolution. In China, cultural revolution, we call it the 10 years disaster. From 1966 to 1976, 10 years of cultural revolution.
Religious were banned, a lot of traditional buildings, temples are just destroyed. My master, he was a monk. He grew up as an orphan, so his family is in the monastery. So when the Cultural Revolution started, the villagers, the mountaineers took over the monastery, and all the monks were just driven away.
Some monks, they have family, they have relatives, they go there, return to be laymen. My master has no family. So he wandered, then you find a home in my hometown, which is this iron steel plant. Maybe it's hard for you to imagine — the whole factory will have 20,000 workers. Together with the family, together with children and all the administrators, there were a hundred thousand people. We call it the town of factory. Of course, they are like very sophisticated. We have two high schools and one university. We have six primary schools. And countless kindergartens. They all belong to this factory. We call it Shantung Iron and Steel Plant, 1957. At that time, China and Soviet Union were very good friends. They built up this factory. So we settled there. So this is a big campus and he was working there as a boiler room attendant. Boiler room attendant is a very low paid job. Temporary job. But of course he made it home. He made his home even in the boiler room. I got sick. Then I have to leave school, bored at home by myself. And I went there. I went to that boiler room, actually for the purpose of watching the fire. Little boy likes to watch fire, because the furnace is huge.
Karen: That is so interesting. That was the beacon that drew you in. I'm sure it was the energy, not just from the heat and the fire, but I'm sure it was his own energy that was drawing you.
Robert: We knew him a little bit before but nobody knew he's a senior monk, a legendary healer and top martial artist. Nobody knew that. The only thing we knew — from my parents they say, well, Mr. Tan is very nice.
So you just feel he's a nice person. So I went there. Very intimidated as a little boy, watching the fire. Then he saw me, he said, Oh, you want to watch the fire?
He asked, what happened to you? Why did you leave school? Blah, blah, blah. I got sick. I cannot go to school. He paused for several minutes. I felt it was a long time. And he looked at me. Actually, he was doing the gazing power. It's very advanced healing. He's just using his gazing power, sending a layer of energy.
Karen: And in doing that, do you think that he could see your illness in you?
Robert: I think so. He's good at finding the root, how your problem is happening. And then we chatted and he said you can come here again anytime. So I came again and again. And then one day from nowhere he said, do you want to practice? We say wushu, means martial art in Mandarin. Kung fu. Do you like martial art? Of course. I can teach you. Oh, no, you can't teach me — because he looks so ordinary. As you can imagine, if he's walking with another two men on the street, the robber may take him as the first one to attack, which would be very wrong, I think.
Karen: What was the first thing he taught you?
Robert: Horse stance. This is —
Karen: Horse stance. Oh, like you're riding a horse.
Robert: Low position. Focus on lower dantian. 20 minutes. The first time was 20 minutes. It's after two minutes, I began to shake, sweat. And so every day before I started practice — that's the practice we go.
Karen: And what was the reason you think now looking back, why did he teach you that? Or was it just using your mind and your body, like making the mind body connection?
Robert: This horse stance is what we call training your heart to make you and vitality strong. We have different energy centers. Upper dantian — they collect energy of wisdom. So when the energy is strong and healthy here, you are guided. You make good decisions. You don't know why. It's just like good ideas. Good decisions. Clairvoyance.
Middle Dantian holds the energy of loving qi. So if you're loving — this is like the heart. This whole area, the extension of the arms. When you meet an old friend, you hug them, right? That is the extension to show your loving qi.
Upper Dantian is different. Upper Dantian — the extension of all the ears, the faces. We have third eyes, we call third eyes. In my understanding, we should call it First Eye, right? Because when we're born, that's the first to start. Then extensions, all this collect information and go into the center like a super powerful computer process. Then they give you an amazing way of making decisions. See things more clearly. And in a wise way. So we call it — what is the center of wisdom, center of loving. And then lower dantian below the navel that connects with the vitality qi. So when the qi is strong, you feel vital. You're like a juicy fruit. You just want to move. You want to be active. You are charismatic. You have good health. So the purpose he trained me this first one was because I was in poor health. So after several weeks. At first it's challenging. So I was intimidated — is he really a big master, or is he just a bully?
So he sees that. Then he thought he may need to do something to show me. So one day, I went there. He said, go and get the axe. Big axe. He just — chop on there. He wanted you —
Robyn: To hit him with the axe?
Robert: Yes, I hit it. I was very hesitant. Boom. Harder, more and more harder. Just try as hard as you can. Of course, I tried a few times, didn't hurt him. I just swing it. Bang. Nothing happens. His white mark disappeared.
Robyn: What?
Robert: Not only that. Afterwards, he put on his clothes and said, look at the trees. The third tree outside. It's still dripping from a fresh cut. This is a bit mysterious. One of the spiritual kinds of practice, which is Xiao Banyin — you can move things. So at the moment I was choking him, he's moving the wood, moving the tree in front of me. I was chopping the wood he said — of his chest.
Robyn: Wow. My mouth is — for those that are listening, my mouth is like to the floor.
Karen: A mind blowing experience. But he got your attention very quickly to show you a practice that was very advanced, but to get you on board with him. So you really knew he was a master.
Robert: Wow. My God, that's amazing. So I was more diligent. Then one day I was doing horse stance, expecting it to be hard. Then I was in a trance. Then I forgot the time. I forgot how difficult it is. It's like you're in a dream. Then I came back. Hours.
Robyn: Four hours?
Robert: Four hours. He was very pleased. He said that means the lower dantian qi are anchored. That was the time I think I was healed already. You know, when you have pain you remember it all the time. When it disappears you forgot you ever had it.
Robyn: That's right.
Robert: It's a disaster for China, but for me — without that time he won't have had to leave the monastery. Then we would have had no way to meet each other. So I always feel it's the destiny that brought him —
Robyn: Brought you together.
Robert: Brought us together. And really a big blessing where I cannot imagine, without meeting him, what my life would be.
Karen: How long did you study with him?
Robert: For nearly 10 years. Then he got a telegram saying you have to come back, we have to rebuild the monastery.
I said, what are we going to do? He said you come to visit me. I began to visit him in my winter and summer vacations. So it was then, in the monastery, he began to put me on water fast for a hundred days.
Robyn: Talk about that?
Robert: I drink just water. So water fast means you just drink water — it's not exactly like that. The first 20 days I have a little jujube — that is Chinese dates — three dates a day. So it's like little ones. Then, just water. Then about 20 days before I finish, you begin to bring some juice, then some little soup, something a little more solid, but most just water. The purpose is for purification of the chi. As soon as we're born, we're pure. Then we begin to be — either physically or materially or mentally — we begin to be so called polluted. The little boy or girls, when they are three, five years old, actually their third eyes are wide open.
They may say, oh, Papa, I see grandma talking to me yesterday. Okay, don't lie — they're dead already, blah, blah, blah, right? Then with this chronic, constant suppression, then that function stops. So it's just one example where so many potential energies, pure, but because of the social life and social rules, all get polluted.
Karen: What came to you from that experience? Did it transform you in some way? I know you said it was for purification, but what did it do personally for you?
Robert: He guided me through different practices, meditations, chantings. When he left, he put the incense on the rice bowl, and in another hour it would be pitch dark.
And it is a few lives' experience, I have to say. Because it's like — for these hundred days, I experienced so many experiences that I cannot accomplish with one life in the real life. We all experience mentally — sadness, worry, anger, loneliness, all this. I have all of them, 100 percent or 500,000 times more intense than you have in the real life.
Physically, you feel painful, you feel itchiness, cold. Actually, the hardest one is the itchiness, because it feels like a million mosquitoes are biting you.
Karen: You're feeling just the intensity of everything — your feelings, your emotions, your body. You're just so much more aware of it because you're in the darkness.
Robert: And it's also a way of transforming it into a peacefulness. But you have to go through this hell.
Robyn: The entire time you're practicing all that you've learned in order to go through all of it and come to that place of peacefulness.
Robert: Yes. I surrender. Even if I'm dying, I go through it. So we surrender. After that difficult time, then you don't know why. It's all of a sudden — it's like you go, all this dark cloud, all of a sudden this beautiful sky. I feel so peaceful. And slowly you return back to your awareness in this life again.
Robyn: Wow.
Karen: Is there a significance to a hundred days?
Robert: It's a hundred days. It's not that exact a hundred days. It's like a length of time. In Chinese we say by a hundred days, it's not a hundred days exactly. It is meaning you need some kung fu time. Very dedicated.
Robyn: It was like the death of who you were into who you have become. And that surrender —
Robert: It's a surrender that reveals your true self. All suppressed by your ego, by your fear, by your joy. Sometimes even joy can suppress your true self from being revealed. So the true self is revealed. A lot of potential energies revealed. And different people, they have different specialties. Some are very good at clairvoyance, they do the medium reading. Some are good at healing. Some are good at healing with only one specific disease, blood pressure. So all this goes to a different personality. So after I finished 100 days, I already begin to feel so energetic. I was not eating too much — just water. I don't feel weak at all. When I returned to the normal life, I don't look like bony, skinny. Lose a bit of weight, but not like you're not eating.
Because I have body breathing and there's a lot of nutrients in the air. All this purifies your energy, then makes your true energies, your always potential power, revealed. Then by zapping — because when I put my hands on some people, especially some energy points, it feels like electricity. I think my master realized this because I had this before I met him. It's like a gift.
I was the last student of him. He said you need to go to the university. I can major in English. In 1982, I passed the entrance exam, then I went to a university to major in English, American literature, English literature. And afterwards, my dean said, do you want to stay in the university and teaching?
Robyn: We're so led. Look at how you were led to all of these different abilities, right? All on purpose. Where you are.
What ended up getting you to America?
Robert: At 28, I began to teach. In my spare time, teach my college students. They love Qigong. So I put a poster and some students they practice, then the campus began to feel it's too small to hold this. I have another partner — we feel we need to have a bigger environment. So I quit the job in the university. Then we went to another island called Hainan Island. So we went to that island and I began to teach Qigong, doing treatments. We have a VIP clinic. Because there's an institute called CHERD — China Hainan Institute of Reform and Development — it's like a think tank for the central government. They host seminars, symposiums, inviting professors from Harvard, inviting officials. I meet a lot of high profile people as my patients. One of them is Bob Hawke. He passed away a few years ago. Bob Hawke is the Prime Minister of Australia. And he's very open. He's a very charming man.
After the treatment, he goes, wow, that's amazing. And can you help my daughter? I said, what happened to your daughter? Fatigue syndrome. That's in 1994. He flew his daughter to China and then we did a treatment. I taught her different exercises. She was totally recovered.
Karen: When you meet with someone like that, how do you work with them? Do you have a technique, like a routine that you actually walk through with that person? And is it a combination of energetic frequency that you can feel where their illness may be — for people who are trying to understand how it can actually help someone — and then the exercises that they can actually learn and use themselves.
Robert: The treatment is of course I have some certain routine. Normally we chat a little bit and then we put them on the massage table. I begin to work on them. As soon as I begin to work, I put myself in the flow of intuitions to guide me — where I should focus, on what meridians, what organs, what is the cause that makes her sick. They can all be different. I just follow my intuition, my hands lead. The one thing they're surprised — especially with pain. Because they say, my God, I didn't tell you that I have pain here. So she just goes there.
Karen: You can sense it — your body is just immediately drawn to those areas.
Robert: We don't diagnose. Because one thing very important is that I need to build a connection of the chi between me and the patients. That's what I teach. I have a 14 day intensive workshop to train the healer. One thing very important is that you build up a platform that can have communications with the chi of your clients or patients. The communication of the chi. So when it's communicated, then it's so easy to flow and the patient feels — it's like a resourceful vacation. After one session it's — my God, it feels like two weeks of vacation. In some way. But on the other hand, it's not that I do the treatment and I heal her. It's her own healing power awakened. That's why I always need my patients to practice Qigong, because my work is just initiative. They keep practicing to make it sustainable, to make it transformed in the end.
Karen: How do you tell them to do that? How do they practice?
Robert: I do workshops. I have Omega Institute, Kripalu. We do weekend workshops. Like in my book. Actually the book is the essence of the practice. So that's the essence of aligning three dantians — energy, wisdom, love, vitality — aligned with central meridian, which is the energy of harmony, because if they're not aligned, it's like you have three big bosses fighting all the time. Nowadays, especially, some people they feel terrible, but if they have the test, everything's okay. It's because the harmonization is not there. So my book, The Master Key, is to develop all three Dantians, but also central meridian, which can make the three working as one team.
So I do this workshop. Five days in Omega. I have 17 weeks of online courses that slowly develop. It's not simple, just like 10 minutes to teach them. It's progressive to make you awaken your awareness of the wisdom chi, your loving chi, vitality chi, how to use hologram palm empowerment to make them empowerment. We use the lotus meditation to bring you oceans of loving qi, feeling blessed by your own loving qi. And all this practice is to make us in a stable way — to become truly yourself, of being happy about yourself. Happy about energy internally. Because we cannot control outside. Actually, the way to control outside is that you keep yourself centered, then you exude really beautiful chi. This beautiful chi can change. You don't have to really force to change — your being, your existence there are giving the changing, transformative to the world already. So that's why we want to bring it internally. From inside out. You exude chi. People cannot change you.
Robyn: What everyone needs to know is your book, The Master Key — you outline and you actually illustrate how to do. And now, of course, you do have all of these available as courses that are online and people can also go to Omega and take these workshops with you. And even if they did that you'd still want to have this book because it's a guidebook into everything that we're talking about today — in terms of what is qigong and then how do you incorporate and practice on a daily basis.
And a question that we have — is there an exercise that you can share with us while we're talking right now to show people the actual qi that they have within them in a more tangible way?
Robert: I have a practice in my book — changing the finger length. Cause it's not a qigong practice, but it's a fun game to witness your own energies connecting. We say with mental force. We don't want to try this —
Karen: Yes. Okay.
Robert: First, take your hands. Then look at the wrist on your hands. Both wrists. The lines. You can match them. So you see this finger — same length. If not, you can adjust it. The purpose is to get the reference line anyway. So they are the same lengths now. At least from this reference here. Okay. Put down one of your hands and keep the other hand fingers straight. But relaxed. Not too stiff, not too floppy, just straight and relaxed. Don't do anything, just thinking. Thinking — this hand, fingers are growing longer. Getting longer, grow longer. Try to feel the feelings between the joints of your fingers. Keep growing. Longer, shooting out into the ceiling, shooting out into the sky, growing long, long, longer. Longer. Long. Long. Longer. Good. All right. Now take out the hands. Again. Now you can open the eyes. Match them again.
Robyn: I mean. Yours really grew. Mine grew. Look at that. That is crazy.
And you can feel it — you can actually feel it.
Robert: Yes, I really feel it. So what happens? When you're thinking — because that's the interesting thing — we didn't shake our hands or pull our fingers. In other words, we didn't put any external force on our fingers. What we did was just thinking. We think, then there's some change. Now we know the mind force is really working on us. There's another way why we should cultivate feelings from inside. You know the same thing happens to us. Some people feel this like disaster. Some people feel peaceful. It's not something outside. So when talking about immune system, right? That's easy to understand for everybody. If your immune system is strong, even the environment is a bit polluted, you won't get sick. So if we use this example to make it deeper — if you yourself have a beautiful mind, then you find everybody is a God or goddess. Truly. Because in Buddhism, they have a beautiful saying — what is the projection of your mind. So if you have a dirty mind, everything is dirty. If a beautiful mind, it may suffer a little bit, but in the end, it will exhaust beautiful chi, benefit for yourself, benefit for your ego, for your communities.
There are different layers of Buddhist eyes, so when your eye level is high, then you achieve more internally and externally too.
You witness as well. What happens? It's the Qi, through our mind, begins to work. Then, of course, all Qigong practice is very sophisticated practice to make this kind of work really cultivating our true self energy.
Robyn: It enables us to, as you said, heal ourselves. And the more that we can do that and bring that energy into the world, then we are part of healing the world, right? If we can heal ourselves using what feels like magic — but we're magic.
Robert: What is magic? It's something you don't think you can do that you can do. But actually you can. We have all this potential power and ability.
Robyn: And you saw that even as that child, taking an ax to your master and not hurting him and then seeing that it was actually — you were actually hitting.
Karen: We don't realize how powerful we are. I feel like what I love about your book so much — because first I got it, I looked at it and I was looking through these photos of you and you can see how this Qi light can be directed and channeled in so many different ways. With your teacher that was one way, but then obviously through being able to heal ourselves and feel better.
Just having this — Robyn and I were calling this your Jedi handbook. It feels like that.
Robyn: For everybody listening or watching, it just feels like a Jedi. I want — I think everybody should have it. I really do.
Robert: To continue your story, how I made it to America is that, because of this connection with Bob Hawke, I was invited to go to Australia. So I was in Australia for seven years. Teaching Qigong. Then I have a patient from America. She had ovarian cancer.
Karen: She had ovarian cancer?
Robert: Ovarian cancer. She had operations. She had chemotherapy. Then she herself is very spiritual. She said, do you want to come to New York? So I made the trip. Long story short, it's really the center of the universe. I was very attracted to New York.
Then a few years later, I settled in New York, and I began to see patients, I did the teaching, I attended the National Qigong Association, they invited me to do the keynote speaking, and Omega, then made home here. We did.
Robyn: And, as you said, you could never have imagined, as that little boy, ending up in America, having taught hundreds and thousands of people now and loving it so much. I think that's the other part. First of all, your energy in itself, but that you are so fulfilled, you are so at peace, and that you'd want to do this in every lifetime. That is such a testament in itself.
Robert: I agree. It's just so beautiful. I'm so happy that I have the chance to share it.
Karen: Robert, would you say Qigong — is it hard to learn? Do your students feel like it's challenging at first to learn and then the more they experience, the easier it gets? I'm looking at your book right now and there's so much here. There are so many different practices that I just wonder — do people feel overwhelmed initially with all of the opportunity there is with these tools, or do you feel like it's just a natural progression as they —
Robert: It's opposite, it's just so easy to access.
Versus yoga — there's a saying, you want to practice yoga, you have to be yogi first. This posture is so challenging. Qigong, of course, there are different layers. Some are very difficult. But to start the practice — in my book, even when I train the healers — some people before they enroll, they say, Oh, I've never done Qigong before. I am ill. Can I do it? By all means, you can all start right away. And to practice Qigong you don't need a yoga mat. You can do it any place. There's no requirement physically. You just need your time, need your awareness. And when you're more advanced, you don't even need to just be sitting there doing meditation. You can do meditation even walking. We call Qigong, another nickname is moving meditation. So all moving — even the shaking — they're meaningful, they're energy. It's a formless, beautiful practice combined with some form. We have some hardcore — you have to follow very strongly so that you don't do it wrong. And also there's some up to your personality where you develop your style.
Qigong meditation makes it beautiful. So we bring awareness — just simple shaking. Sometimes I shake for half an hour, two hours. Leading to different organs, different parts, even nose, my ears — dropping to the ears like a cartoon movie. It's already so rich and intuitive.
So it's very easy to start to access. And then it depends on different directions. Someone wants to go harder. So I train you, then you take a big marble, smash on your head. You're smiling, right? We call it iron shirt. Bulletproof. Others is more healing. Others is more peaceful. So they are all different diversities, but all started with the awareness of chi, with the breathing, with a certain posture, and the awareness of your own chi. When those three things are combined together, you're doing qigong. Then the simple movement is way more healing than going to the gym.
Robyn: I think you're pointing out to people though, that — because I don't think, especially in America, we are taught to be aware of each of our organs, or that we can actually, simply by shaking, that is movement. And that is just as important as, you're talking about, going to the gym for however long and doing certain movements. Like moving the different parts of your body that don't get moved a lot is moving the energy. And that the power within us is so strong. And so if you can channel it in this way for healing and for good, then you can truly transform your life and your health.
Robert: That's true.
Karen: So much here and just opening our eyes to the possibilities that we don't even know of — being able to heal ourselves and be in charge of our own energy.
Robert: The healing from within. All things coming from inside. Of course it's the way of how we deal with this external world versus internal world. But the internal world is rich and cultivated. No matter how rich you are — I have a lot of rich clients — they're not happy. Then they say, what happened? It's you don't have a good heart energy. When heart energy is good, of course we always want to make a better material life, but this limit — we don't need that much. Then you are satisfied internally. Sometimes just a few breathings you feel ecstasy. You don't need a Mercedes Benz to satisfy. Just for a few seconds, give me some ecstasy breathing. You got it. Handy, right? Follow with you. And free.
Robyn: I think we all need to hear that now more than ever. The more people can go inside and find that peace and that healing, as you said, the external won't impact them as much on a daily basis as I think a lot of people right now are feeling. I'm so glad that we're having this conversation, that we are learning more about Qigong. There's so much to learn. And as you said, it is easy. We don't have to look at it as something that's hard. It's something that we can start right away.
Robert: Truly.
Robyn: Thank you so much, Robert.
Robert: Thank you. Thank you.
Robyn: We're so grateful. And so for anybody that wants to find out more about Robert's books and his latest offerings, go to robertpeng.com. That's R-O-B-E-R-T-P-E-N-G dot com. And we'll have that in our show notes as well. Thank you so much, Robert.
Robert: Thank you, Robyn. Thank you, Karen.
