cancer_retreat

Qigong Health Retreat for

Cancer Patients

The world should be a beautiful place to live and life should be wonderful, but in reality we often suffer pain, illnesses including cancer – and other problems which prevent us from enjoying full health and happiness.

As in many other countries, cancer has become a major concern in New Zealand. Registered cases increased 41% between 1990 and 1999, and this upward trend is expected to continue. For more than half a century, the medical and pharmaceutical professions have worked to find better ways to treat illnesses such as cancer. Even with today’s advanced technologies, new diagnoses and enhanced medicines, cancer still poses a major challenge and advances in treatment has been slow in coming.

Is your life affected by cancer?

How should we deal with the threat of cancer?

If family members have suffered from cancer, and your health is not as it should be, what can you do?

If your doctor tells you that you may have cancer, what can you do?

If your doctor confirms that you have cancer that is still at an early stage and advises you to undertake one or a combination of treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or medication, what should you do?

If your doctor tells you that your cancer has spread and is not treatable, what should you do?

If you or your family members or friends are in any of the above situations, you could easily experience a mixture of conflict, pain, and even hopelessness. The conflict mainly stems from the way we see ourselves, our lives, and our health. We cannot make decisions for you and we cannot interfere with your decision-making process. Thus we will support your decisions and choices and help you develop a holistic approach to recovery to complement your medical treatment.

Is there a better way to deal with cancer?

Over the last 20 years, Yuan Tze has used qigong therapy to help thousands of patients with all sorts of serious diseases, including cancer. His experience has led him to believe that: “Nothing in the universe is fixed and permanent. Everything can be changed including illness and our destiny.”

Developed over thousand of years and recently refined, Qigong has achieved remarkable results. During the last 25 years people in China and many parts of the Western world have experienced improved quality of life, strength, vigour and wellness even when they were initially seriously ill or considered incurable. This gem of Chinese holistic health care combines stress reduction, relaxation, positive thinking with movements and exercises designed to improve the flow of Qi (life force) and blood through the meridians and channels of the human body. Thousands of scientific studies in China and the West have confirmed that Qigong improves immunity, blood circulation, lymphatic drainage, digestion, assimilation, elimination and mental/emotional well-being. Qigong is rapidly becoming known as the cutting edge of Body-Mind health care, giving hope and inspiration to people interested in self healing.

During the time he worked in the largest Qigong Therapy Institute in China, Yuan Tze was in charge of the Cancer and Serious Illnesses Unit. Cancer patients came for 24-day live-in programmes of Qigong therapy and practice. At any time, he had around 400 patients under his care. Results were impressive with 44% of patients in the unit CHECK BEFORE.

Why do we get cancer?

Through Yuan Tze Ren Xue and Qigong, Yuan Tze takes a holistic view of life and seeks truth at the most fundamental level. Work to bring about change must also occur on this level. Becoming sick, for example, is not simply an isolated or chance event but is the manifestation or reflection of the larger whole and has connection and interaction with that whole.

Everything has its fundamental law and its way of development according to that law. In today’s society, there is a widespread lack of understanding of life and especially of the fundamental aspects of health, which means people do not have the ability to master their lives and health. The causes of cancer, for example, are very complicated and not well understood but can be described as follows:

Prenatal factors:

In the eternal journey of life, there are many causes and effects created. Some of these become information in your life and can have a certain guiding effect on the course of your life. Combined with other factors, this can become a genetic family trait. Medical studies have found evidence of strong family links in the occurrence of cancer.

Post-natal factors:

The main cause of most diseases, however, is the loss of order and harmony in life after our birth.

An important element of a holistic view of life is that human life and the universe (heaven and earth) are one, and that human life is an integrated whole consisting of Jing (the physical body), Qi, and Shen (consciousness). The three elements are inseparable and work together as one to nourish and transform each other. The most important relationship we need to understand here is that Shen (the consciousness) is the master of Qi, and Qi determines the condition of the physical body. In other words, Qi is the medium between the consciousness and the physical body.

Because we are unable to keep our lives in control with orderly functioning of Jing-Qi-Shen, we constantly bring our consciousness into disharmony and our behaviour into disorder. The consequences are continuous depletion of Qi and disturbance of Shen, with Jing, Qi and Shen locked into a vicious cycle continually weakening one another. Eventually both Shen and Qi become depleted, causing Qi and blood to be blocked and yin-yang to be unbalanced. It is in this state, particularly when it is combined with negative prenatal or external influences, that disease can develop.

Cancer and Qi:

How Qigong can help seriously ill people?

Although they manifest in different ways, from a very simple Qigong viewpoint all disorders can be attributed to Qi deficiency, Qi blockage and poor quality of Qi. If there is a way to replenish and smooth Qi flow so that the functions of the body can be restored, while at the same time clearing unhealthy Qi and transforming it into healthy Qi, disorders may be improved too. In this respect cancer is not hugely different other diseases.

There are many pathological factors that may lead to disease. However, if we adopt a holistic approach, we can see that when things are not going right in life as a whole, illness will be the result. The approach Yuan Tze takes to any illnesses, including cancer, is to help patients have better understanding of fundamental issues such as illness, health, and the role of consciousness in life. With better understanding, changes can be made to clear unhealthy habits and patterns, eventually bringing complete transformation in the patterns of consciousness, way of living and whole life. This change of life and destiny at the fundamental level brings real change to disease states.

The importance of a holistic way of dealing with illness People often ask Yuan Tze why they should bother working on the whole of life, when he could just use Qi therapy to improve their conditions. To answer this in a simple way, Yuan Tze asks the following questions and hopes people will give them serious thought:

Most people have better health in their early years. Why do we get health problems as we grow older?

We have developed numerous treatment techniques and made significance progress in treating certain diseases. Among all the treatment methods available, however, is there anything which can provide a fundamental solution to our health problems?

Why do tumours often recur even after surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy have initially cleared them?

Where does sickness really come from? If we do not understand the roots of it, then any effort put into dealing with illness can only effect change on the symptomatic level.

Even if we do not have serious health problems, are we really free from suffering? Often suffering is caused by personal conflict and a lack of clarity in our lives.

Testimonial

“A number of years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. After it metastisised to my pelvic lymph nodes, I underwent radiation therapy and hormonal therapy. Both of these conventional therapies left me in a very depleted state. At the time I began qigong, about a year and a half ago, my wife was concerned that I might not live out the year.

“In the last year and a half with Master Bin Liu [Yuan Tze], I have experienced a dramatic turn-around in my health, despite stopping the hormonal therapy because it was failing. My test levels are now all within normal range. I have been having hands-on qigong therapy once a week, and am doing the exercises every day. Qigong has made a dramatic difference in my health and has given me a new lease on life. And the results I have achieved are baffling my oncologist!”

Wellington

Value of Qigong Health Retreat for Cancer Patients

In China Yuan Tze has successfully conducted retreats specifically designed to create a supportive environment for cancer patients to work on their problems in a comprehensive, holistic and effective way. In New Zealand, the use of Qigong therapy and practice to assist cancer patients is still in its infancy. So to date, it has not been possible to conduct a retreat specifically for this purpose. However, it is hoped that a retreat for cancer patients and care-givers may be held in the future. In the mean time, multipurpose retreats are being held and can be of immense value to cancer patients as well as all other participants. Retreats are held over a 10 to 14 day period. This is not a long time but everyone experiences change and this could be your first step towards success. If you persevere and continue what you learn during the retreat and keep up your effort, you will maintain or enhance what you have achieved on the retreat.

Retreat programmes cover a wide range and variety of topics:

• Learning and Practising of Qigong Methods.
• Learning Qigong methods.
• Learning how to use appropriate Qigong methods to improve overall health and transform and clear unhealthy Qi.
• Daily Qigong practice to gradually bring your own practice to a good level in order to strengthen and transform your personal qifield and the group qifield.
• Qi Therapy.

Being in Yuan Tze’s qifield has excellent therapeutic effects during teaching and practice.

Qi therapy will be done by building the group Qifield. (At a retreat specificially for cancer patients, some individual therapy will also be given.) The purpose of Qi therapy is to increase qi levels, to improve qi and blood flow and, especially, to transform and clear unhealthy qi to strengthen bodily functions.

Theory of Qigong and Ren Xue

Discussion of the theory of Qigong and Ren Xue will cover a wide range of topics, including:

• Holistic views of life
• The causes of illnesses
• The law of health
• The prevention of illness and mobilising the body-minds healing responses
• Basic theories of Qigong
• How to use Qigong and the Human Life Science to help yourself to:
– Relieve pain and prolong life
– Eliminate illnesses from life
– Improve quality of life
– Help others
• Important aspects of Qi therapy, such as Qi reactions
• How emotions affect our health and condition
• How to look after cancer patients (for family members and caregivers)
• Diet

Advice for participants

Owing to the limitations of facilities and personnel at the retreat centre, we are not able to provide any conventional medical services. Sometimes Qigong practice and therapy may cause Qi reactions and a patient may need medical care, so if your condition is so severe that you are not able to care for yourself, we advise you to try home-based qigong therapy and practice first.

If you think you are able to participate in the activities and yet your condition can be unstable, we advise you to bring someone (a healthy family member or caregiver) with you. Your care-giver will also benefit.

You may like to have a medical examination before coming to the retreat and another one afterwards to see the results of your ‘hard work’. You may be able to see this from how you feel physically, the change in your energy level and how you feel mentally, as well as the change shown in examinations.