Ilchi Lee Blog Online

Ilchi Lee says, ironically the student who put so much weight on the outcome of the test has done little to help himself succeed. A mild stress response may have helped him perform better, but in this case it is too extreme, and he is caught in a state of imbalance.

Stress in and of itself is not bad. The brain stem wants to create balance between the sympathetic nervous system, which produces the stress response, and the parasympathetic nervous system, which is in charge of the rest-and-digest response. When our bodies are kept in a constant state of imbalance, disease is the likely result.

The part we have control over is the prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of the brain. To put it simply, people today think too much. The thinking brain is constantly sending messages that keep our bodies in a state of alarm, and they never have ample time to recover. The trick is to quiet the thinking mind and gain control over the content it produces so that the brain stem has a chance to coordinate the equilibrium that it exists to create.

Ilchi Lee created BEST program, the Brain Education System Training and Brain Wave Vibration Training, both of which you can practice with Dahn Yoga members at a local studio.

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I am very impressed by Ilchi Lee’s statement on changing habits.

He answered the question “How can I overcome my lifelong habit of putting up a wall that prevents people from getting to know me?” in Ask Ilchi Lee section at www.ilchi.com. He recommended to begin by watching the habit carefully. Notice what sorts of events and circumstances seem to make you want to pull away from people. Lee also suggested the person who asked the question make a deliberate choice to keep as engaged as possible with others.

I think this question and advice are really related with my habit too. I really should check myself, and see how I behave when I have that kind of occasion to meet and talk with other people. I will make a conscious decision to release any negative emotions I feel as I try to open up to others.

Ilchi Lee gave a friendly warning to Dahn Hak students; the big test will come when someone hurts you again. This is inevitable because it is part of life. When you experience this, you may once again feel the urge to protect yourself and build the wall once again.

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The basic bodily functions that maintain life all consist of complete cycles of Hak Dahn. Simply put, a never-ending cycle of energy and material makes our lives possible.

Sir Lee writes that breath has it own rhythm. Breathing in itself, is a perfect self-balancing mechanism of life, becoming faster or slower depending on conditions. It goes out just as it came in. You cannot maintain life if you foolishly try to prevent your breath from leaving, or stop air from coming in to begin with. Breathing is a fair and exact transaction. Life consists of a series of balanced and precise cycles. Peace is like the orderly and harmonious rhythm of life. Peace is the healthy functioning of the rhythms and cycles of life.

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In Dahn Yoga Peace is not an abstract concept. Peace is the nature of our very lives. The most basic function of our lives, the breath, is peace incarnate. What would happen if you stopped breathing for even one minute? Would you level peaceful? How would you feel if you were able to breathe in but could not breathe out? What would happen it you could cat as much as you wanted to eat, but could not excrete, or drink as much as you wanted to drink but you could not urinate? If you have ever suffered from severe constipation, you know how uncomfortable you would be. This is why I say peace is like breathing. Peace is a natural and uninterrupted rhythm of life.

The breathing cycle illustrates the balance and rhythm of life. Oxygen enters the body and our lungs expel carbon dioxide by breathing. Without circulation of breath, we cannot maintain life.

Yoga principals by Ilchi Lee

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Articles about Dahn Hak by Doctor Lee

Lack of peace has remained an albatross around our collective necks. Peace remains a distant goal that we are forever bound to pursue yet not attain. We are subject to the whims of powerful and cynical leaders who use our universal longing for personal gain. Peace has become something unapproachable and abstract, moving farther from our grasp.

What we now need is not an intellectual understanding of peace. What we really need now is for all of us to become more peaceful, to ourselves become expression of peace. This can only happen when we undergo a fundamental and profound experience of peace. Until you personally experience the infinite depth of peace within yourself.

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A complete guide about Dahn Yoga

It would be nice if we could simply eliminate stress in our lives with a pill, but that is not the case. Neither is it likely that you will reach a point where you have fixed all of your problems and have no challenging situations to face. Ilchi Lee says, You may say that people or events in your life are stressful, but really stress is something you generate yourself within your own mind. Controlling the effects of stress will require understanding yourself better, not changing your outside environment.

Consider, for example, two young men taking a graduate school entrance exam. Imagine they are talking the same exam and that both are equally prepared, but one person arrives at the classroom with sweaty palms and a racing heartbeat, while the other remains perfectly calm and relaxed. What really makes the difference here?

The distinction lies, Ilchi Lee adds, in the story that each of the students is telling himself. One student may be saying to himself, “I will just do my best. Everything will be fine.” Meanwhile the other is saying, “I am terrible at standardized tests, and my whole future depends on this one test.”

In both cases, the story is the creation of the prefrontal cortex, Ilchi Lee says, the part of the brain that analyzes and judges our environment. In the case of the stressed-out student, he is sending out a message that says, “Emergency! Sound the alarms!” The hypothalamus, sitting like a guard on top of the brain stem, hears the message and then relays it through hormonal and bioelectrical signals to the rest of the body. The sympathetic nervous system, also known as the fight-or-flight response, is activated — digestion is slowed, heartbeat is increased, and circulation is compromised, including in the brain.

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Ilchi Lee brief articles about Hak Dahn

There have been many upon many academic studies done on peace already, with very little result in the actual production of peace. Peace is ultimately a human issue. If you do not understand the reality of who you are as a human being, you will be chasing false shadows of peace for the rest of your life. Before our social and political systems can change, humans must change. Not one or two people, but enough people to create a culturally significant and lasting impact on the course of universal human experience in the future. This is the goal of the Healing Society movement. I am working to make spiritual enlightenment common sense. This will lead to peace. Peace is a matter of application, rather than theory. It is a mistake to think we are contributing to peace on Earth just because we think, speak, or give lectures about peace. We cannot actualize peace with words and thoughts alone.

Peaceology, a new philosophy and application lor peace, must become the new spring from which our collective human soul draws the water of spiritual life. Peaceology must become the standard bearer of a new definition of health. Peaceology must become the rallying cry for a new generation ol social and cultural activists. Peaceology is a system centered not on one specific nation, religion, or cultural tradition… but on the Earth herself. Peaceology is not for experts, but for everyone who wants a peaceful world for humanity. Peaceology does not contain difficult concepts or theories. Peaceology simply offers common sense ideas and actions for those of us who would prefer to live in a world of peace… an earth centered peace to restore health and beauty to humanity and the earth.

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Unless our head aches or our memory fails, most of us do not concern ourselves with our brains. We often think that the brain lies outside of the realm of our influence. Although we know intellectually that the brain gives us the ability to enjoy our five senses, we forget about the brain itself because we are unable to directly experience it. We do not really think of our brain as a part of our body. Moreover, we are often taught that the brain’s intellectual capacity is genetically pre-programmed, negating any notion that we might develop and transform our own brain.

Ilchi Lee founder of Dahn Yoga says through his new book that our brain cells begin to age and die at birth. Because brain cells are not regenerated, their total number begins to decrease as soon as we are born. However, assuming you live for .1 hundred years, the total percentage of brain cell loss will be only about four percent. This means that decrease in brain function in the elderly cannot be satisfactorily explained by loss of brain cells. In actuality, the key factor in quality of brain function is the network of neural connections inside the brain. Although we are born with a predetermined number of brain cells, we are able to consciously create and alter neural connections.

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Sir Lee tips on health and Yoga

Our current approaches to health care have done much to extend our life span, but our health span may not be so impressive. American men, for example, can expect to experience some kind of debilitating illness by the time they reach age sixty-seven, and women can expect to experience the same by age seventy-one (World Health Organization). Thus, you can expect to spend most of the last decade of your life in ill health.

Ilchi Lee says, he firmly believes that this is not the way it should be. A friend of Ilchi Lee’s, named Kwan-sik Min, is a good example of how I think we should live. Mr. Min, who served as a minister of education in Korea before his retirement, was the picture of good health to the day of his death at age eighty-nine.

In spite of his advanced years, Min never gave up his active lifestyle, sustaining a full schedule of speaking engagements and leisurely sports activities. One key habit, I think, was that he walked regularly, and always with a spring in his step. His gait and demeanor were so youthful that he soon garnered the nickname Forever-Young Brother. On the day he died, he played a game of tennis in the morning, had a full lunch, laid down for a nap, and then gently passed away in his sleep.

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Informative articles by Lee Ilchi

Now we will introduce you to the acupuncture points that are most important in Brain Respiration training in Dahn Yoga. It will be helpful for you to become familiar with these points.

Baek-hwe: Located on the crown of your head. It is at the inter­section of an imaginary line that connects the ears and a line that connects spine and nose. Baek-Hwe literally means, “Intersecting point of one hundred meridians.” This is the point where cosmic energy flows in.

Jun-jung: Located about four to five centimeters in front of the Baek-Hwe. This is also a point where energy flows in. Baek-Hwe is sometimes called “Great Heaven’s Gate” while Jun lung is named “Small Heaven’s Gate.”

In-dang: Frequently called “the third eye” in the West, this point is located between your eyebrows. When this acupuncture point is activated, one might exhibit extra sensory perceptual powers.

Mi-gan: Located at the top of your nose, in the center of the val­ley of the blade of the nose.

In-joong: Located in the center of the valley between your nose and lips.

Tae-yang: Your temples.

Ah-rnun: Located between the first and second vertebrae. This is the place where the neck and head meet. It is said that a blockage at this point will lead to language disabilities. Ok-chim: Locate the slightly protruding point in the back of your head. Ok-chim consists of two separate points that are locat­ed one inch to either side of that protrusion.

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