phenomeNEWS: It would be interesting for our readers to understand the kind of situation you came from, growing up in the Cultural Revolution in China. Could you tells us about it?

CHUNYI LIN: Yes. When the Cultural Revolution started in the town where I lived, I was the age of eight. I went through a lot of difficulties. My family suffered a lot. There were angry mobs and there was a gun to my head to threaten to kill me, because my parents did good things for the town, for the people. People like them, during the Cultural Revolution were in jail. Dad was in great, great trouble. So my family, many times, was in danger. Finally, things got better after 10 years.

I was very glad that I got a chance to experience that period of time in China so that I grew up to be who I am, so that I really, really understand from my heart how powerful, how important love is. All these difficulties and hard times taught me very well. Only love, forgiveness and kindness can help people to heal physically, spiritually and mentally. That’s what I experienced.

That’s beautiful! How did you get out of that situation in China?

After the Cultural Revolution I was very, very depressed though I didn’t show it in public. I didn’t trust anyone anymore and the whole world was upside down. I hated everything and everybody, including my family. After my graduation from a college… I practiced meditation. Meditation helped me to calm my feelings and give me some peace for periods of time in my every day life and quiet and calm. But in the bottom of my heart I was an angry person and very upset with things. Nothing could satisfy me. In my mind I saw that every minute there would be another worry.

I was on a division basketball team in college, so I had a lot of injuries to my knee. Later on I had another injury, so the cartilage in my knees was badly damaged. It developed into very severe arthritis. Doctors said surgery could help me but I didn’t want to do that. I tried everything and nobody could help me. Then, finally, I went to a workshop, a Qigong workshop, seven and a half hours sitting, listening to that little Qigong master talking on a stage. There were thousands of people and 80 percent of the pain went away and the cartilage all grew back after two-months practice. Then the pain completely went away and the flexibility of my joints and my back, everything came back. That really got me into Qigong practice. Then the greatest bonus of Qigong was my depression went away. In a meditation, I talked to those people, by following the masters and I forgave all those people who hurt me in the past in my life and my family. Once I said that, the energy just was like a volcano in my heart. It burst out and was vibrating through all my body. I loved people and I loved everything around me. That healing power, no words can reveal. And since then, I paid more attention to my Qigong practice. I followed my Qigong masters all over the country in China.. Later on I found out that Qigong is very, very simple and very, very powerful. That’s why after 20 years of study, practice and research, eventually I found out, everybody was born a healer.

You were born a healer. I was born a healer. This healer could not only help yourself to heal spiritually, physically, it could also help others to heal spiritually, physically, mentally at the same time.

How far back does Qigong go?

Qigong is a very ancient study in China. It goes back at least 5,000 years and some date it back as far as 7,000 years.

Qi means energy. Gong means the work of energy. That means you wake up through exercise, your mind and body wake up through energy from within to help you to balance all the energy around you and bring you joy, happiness and health. That’s the concept of Qigong.

Are you still in touch with the Qigong master who gave the workshop that helped you heal?

Yes. There were about 15,000 people sitting on the ground in a soccer field listening to him. He was a very fascinating guy. His workshop, seven and a half hours, was non-stop. No bathroom time. He was very strict. So we were all sitting there, listening to him. The experience was so phenomenal. I could feel the vibration of the energy all over my body. His energy helped me to wake the energy from within in mine, then that energy flew to every part of my body and got the damaged tissue fixed. I was a very powerful experience.

You can actually feel the energy moving through?

Yes. Oh, yes. It’s like a current, like the breeze. That feeling is just so wonderful.

So Qigong is the movement of energy through the body to bring it back into balance?

Qi, this Chinese word, means energy. That’s what it means in Western culture. Energy cannot be created. It cannot be destroyed. But energy can be transformed.

Everything in the entire universe is energy. Everything you can see around you: light, water, a tumor, a stone, headaches, depression, everything is different forms of energy. So all this energy can be transformed because every cell, everything in the entire universe, every day, every minute, is in the process of transforming. Whether it is transformed for better or for worse, we don’t know. But we can control it through Qigong practice.

Through Qigong practice we control the flow, we conduct the flow of energy in the direction where we want to transform for better. Many Qigong forms are very complicated and time consuming, but through many years of practice, I found out that everybody does Qigong without noticing it. So that’s how and why I developed Spring Forest Qigong. I simplified it. I want people to spend less time and benefit more. And I want people to feel and realize right away that everybody was born a healer. The power of the healing, the source of healing power, let me put it this way, is from love, forgiveness and kindness. Once you know you have the love in your heart you just need to bring it out, transform that love energy into healing energy and pass the energy to help others or to help yourself to heal. The bigger love you have, the bigger energy you’re going to have and the more you practice, the more you’re going to help yourself and help others.

When you were a little boy, you couldn’t have done that because you had depression, sadness and anger, right?

Yes. And I didn’t know too much about Qigong, especially the power of the healing. Not many people could tell me about that until I was sick and my wife was sick and we went to different practitioners of healing. We went to Qigong and we got great, great help and that really got my attention. Then I paid more attention to this area, following so many different masters around the country and doing the practice. Finally I found out this was so simple and so powerful.

I have taught thousands of students in this country. For instance, a lady who was sick 15 years ago when I was over here on an exchange program. This lady came to my first Qigong class. She came in with an oxygen tank. She had been diagnosed by the Mayo Clinic with a rare lung disease. The clinic wanted to do a lung transplant but she didn’t want to do that. She had been, for six and a half years, on oxygen for 24 hours a day, with a lot of lung scar tissue. She practiced the exercises for about four weeks. She didn’t need the oxygen except when she was getting exercise, cleaning the house. In the eighth week, she completely got rid of the oxygen. She went back to the Mayo Clinic and had everything checked out. All the lung scar tissue disappeared. Now she has been oxygen-free for 15 years and she has been babysitting her triplet grandkids. You know how much energy she needs.

Is Qigong similar to Tai Chi?

No. The philosophies, in many ways, are the same but Tai Chi brings the mind and the body together. Qigong brings the mind, the body and the heart together. Tai Chi focuses on the balancing of the physical body and Tai Chi is more like a martial art with a lot of movement. Qigong has only a few movements. Very, very simple movements. You don’t need to take many, many hours or years to learn. It’s only a few simple movements. For instance, you hold your hands with your palms facing each other. When you inhale, you open your hands to both sides; when you exhale, you close your hands, just moving some energy. You can help yourself to open up some energy channels. It goes very deep, to your heart, your body and your mind. You can do it anyplace. You don’t need a space like Tai Chi needs to practice. You can do it sitting down, laying down, standing. Taking a walk with the dog, you can do Qigong, too. You cannot do Tai Chi when you are walking your dog!

That’s true. In your book you mention the energy meridians in the body. Acupuncturists we know use those. Does this have anything to do with the chakras?

Yes. Qigong works with all these modalities and healing techniques. There are so many energy systems inside the body. There are also many systems like the elimination and digestive systems. Qigong works with all these systems and helps the systems to gain balance. That’s the power of Qigong. Some people call Qigong needle-less acupuncture.

At a certain level, it is true, because we work with the meridians, but also Qigong takes the energy – the intelligence some people call it – Qi goes directly to the area where the body has a problem without following the meridians. It can do that, too, because you’re not only involving the meridians, you’re involving the mind and you use your mind to work on the body. That is very powerful.

Qigong has four elements. The first one is the advantage of breathing. The second one is the movement of the hands and the body. Number three, the mind, visualization and the power of the mind. Number four is the sound, the vibration of song, music. All these four elements work together to help to open up the channels, open up the energy blockages, so the body can be healed. When you do Qigong, you don’t need to be very experienced in order to do something for yourself. Like acupuncture, you have to go to acupuncture school for many years and you have to be certified before you can become an acupuncturist. But in Qigong, no, you do it anyplace. No right, no wrong. Only good, better and best. It’s an exercise putting your mind, body and heart together. You feel the flow of the Qi. You bring your love out from your heart, from within yourself, to face others.

It sounds almost too simple.

Some people say it’s too simple to be true. And I would say, take it up and try it. See what you’re going to say.

Is it possible to use this to heal others if they’re across the country?

Yes. That’s why I developed the self-learning package. Lots of people have already learned the techniques of healing themselves and others. They get great benefit. In the middle of the night, the kid’s got a headache or an ear infection, they can use the technique. Very simple. By following the guidance in the book and sending the energy to the area where they have the pain and removing the pain from the body. I can show you the best simple technique. Do you want to do that?

Sure!

OK. What you need to do is bring the ring finger and the little finger together. Have the tips of these two fingers touch the first part of the thumb. Then the middle finger and the index finger, put together, pointing forward. That’s the posture I called Sword Fingers. You use that posture to send out energy, through your visualization from your heart, to the area where your friend has pain or a tumor or whatever. You’re visualizing the energy shooting out from the Sword Fingers into the area and you’re going to do that by moving your hand in any direction you want for less than one minute. And then you open your hand or hands, visualizing your hand as an energy hand, going into that particular part of the body, taking hold of the energy blockage, aches and pains, stone, tumor, whatever and pull it out as smoke and then throw it away. And then repeat. Keep moving the blockage out in that way and at the same time saying, “The pain is gone” or “the tumor is gone” or “the stone is gone,” or “the depression is gone. You are completely healed.” Just send that message while you’re working on this person. You can work on yourself, too. Move your hand in that way for between 10 and 30 minutes. By the end, you’ll give energy through your palm to the area where you removed the energy blockage, nine times. Then you’ll talk to your friend, “Hey, take deep breaths. Feel good now?” That’s it.

That’s it?

It’s just that simple.

It is simple. Is it permanent?

Some people might need more sessions. It depends on how much confidence and how much focus you have, also it depends on how serious the energy blockage is. Just for general aches and pains, that only takes a couple sessions. That is it. For those people who’ve got the bigger blockages, for instance, migraine headaches, that might take a few more sessions. In my experience, working with migraine headaches, generally speaking, 70 to 80 percent of people, if they have a history of migraine headaches for 5 years to 10 years, it takes about five times.

That’s interesting.

Yes. Usually the pain goes away for good.

And it doesn’t take that long to do this process.

No. You can learn this technique in a minute. Then you have fun with it. Like I said, you bring your love out, transform it into healing energy and help conduct the flow of energy in that person’s body, to transform their energy. That’s it.

So the source of all the pain or illness in our bodies is due to energy blockages?

Exactly! You’ve got it. The concept of healing is that everything is energy. When the energy flows, everything lives in harmony with everything else. No pain and a person is happy, healthy, joyful. When energy blockages develop, it’s like there’s a blockage in the middle of the river. Upstream in the river, there’s too much water and downstream there’s too little. Then the sides have problems. In order to solve that problem completely, what do you do? You don’t take the water away, but instead you remove the dam, you remove the blockage so that everything goes back to normal. The same thing happens in the body, too. If there’s a blockage in C7, for instance, in the neck, that blockage can cause migraine headaches, heart problems, diabetes, lots of other things. So if you remove the blockage from C7, then the channel’s open and all the symptoms disappear.

Believe it, it works. Don’t believe it, it still works.

That’s what’s beautiful about it.

In my classes, I teach all kind of people. Some people may be skeptical about it. For instance, we talked about the movement of the body. The way you move your hand will conduct the flow of energy in your body. In the body we have 12 major energy channels called meridians. Six are arranged in the hands and six are arranged in the feet. If you have a nose bleed from the left nostril, you put up your right hand and stretch the fingers open. Within a couple minutes, the bleeding stops. If blood comes from the other side, put up the opposite hand above your head and the same thing happens. If it comes from both sides, you put both hands up. Once you put up the hands, you create a pressure in the head where you have the six meridians and this pushes the energy back to its original channels. Once the energy is back in the original channels, the body heals. So if you believe it, it works. If you don’t believe it, it still works.

Great!

You have 12 meridians and the universe is fair to everybody. It doesn’t say because you are Chinese you get 13 meridians but if you’re American you don’t get that many. Everybody has the same number of meridians.

And the technique is in the book, Born a Healer?

Exactly.

Where can they get this book?

They can visit my website, www.bornahealer.com.

Does this technique work on pets, too?

Yes. You can use it to work on your dog or cat. A lot of people have been doing that.

Can the pets be running around or do you have to have them with you?

It doesn’t matter.

They probably calm down when they feel the energy.

They can feel our energy even better. They’re very sensitive.

How is your technique, the Spring Forest Qigong, different from what we might see in other places?

The Qigong I developed is simple and very easy to learn. It goes deeper to help people clear blockages inside the body and also, we teach people how to heal others. We tell people, everybody was born a healer. Other Qigong techniques just tell people how to do the exercises, not teaching people how to heal others. We teach people how to use simple techniques to bring love energy out and help others, how to conduct a transformation of the energy for better.

Sounds like a very beautiful form of healing and you’ve inspired us! Thank you.

My mission is a healer in every family and a world without pain.

That’s beautiful! If you had a last word of wisdom for our readers, what would that be?

I would tell people, you are born a healer. Have fun with it. [