Meditation practitioner and university lecturer, Mariana de la Vega, was always in search of answers about human existence. Taoist principles, ancient texts and passages were among the materials she studied. Buddhist influences such as “The Heart Sutra” was another passage she studied but was never truly satisfied with the answers she found. She could not experience what these books about consciousness taught, until she was introduced to the Zhineng Qigong practice.

Emotional healing is a central theme to Mariana’s “Consciousness Lab”, a group of like-minded individuals who discuss these insights among each other. The mind tends to separate or compartmentalize thoughts and emotions, which was evident in the books she studied. When the mind-body separation occurs, it can result in suffering. In Qigong, it’s “Shen” that moves “Qi”. To perceive your thoughts without reaction is to bring Qi back to yourself, back to the present moment and allow for unity or “oneness” to ensue.

Zhineng Qigong practitioners, instructors and followers will gain invaluable information on deepening their practice and understanding of foundational consciousness concepts. Learn how emotional balance through Qigong can transform your life and explore the benefits of Zhineng Qigong for holistic wellness.

Tune in for this insightful episode!

If you are like me, you might have read the most inspiring books. But after a while, you realize it is hard to live by the newly found insights. This is why Mariana de la Vega founded the Consciousness Lab, a group of like-minded people that discuss these insights with each other. Not surprising, one of the first topics they explored was oneness. Because no matter how much we might agree

on the idea of oneness, the mind still tends to separate things into categories. And this fragmentation is the cause of a lot of suffering. Can consciousness overcome this separation? My name is Torsten Lueddecke, and this is the Wisdom Qigong podcast. Hi everybody. It’s great to be here, and the Students Hub is also very close to my heart. I’ve used a lot of resources and learned a lot with

the Ask a Master sessions and, well, over the years as a Qigong instructor and even before that as a meditation practitioner, I’ve read a lot of books about, you know, these sacred ancient texts that talk about what human beings really are. And I really liked all those kinds of books, but then it was hard to live by them and sometimes really understand, like the Heart Sutra or the

Tao Te Ching, etc. So after my Qigong practice, I discovered that you can experience what those texts say through the practice and bring that to your daily life, actually. So we developed, I developed this workshop, this kind of book club where we meet and read some passages of these books and then bring them to our Qigong practice and to everyday questions like, you know, personal relationships or even

the relationship with your body. And the most important thing we’ve discovered with this exercise is that all these books talk about one truth. And that simple truth is that the mind tends to separate things. That’s what the mind does; it separates things into categories, into concepts. Those concepts are not really what it is, what we call reality. Reality is just one thing. And once you start to experience

how your mind tends to fragment everything and that fragmentation, that separation, that, you know, cutting into pieces, you start experiencing what Buddhism would call suffering. Because then you feel you have to protect yourself, you have to defend yourself, you have to strive to be something that you’re not. When you really feel the oneness, like the entirety of everything and how everything is not only connected, but it’s the

same thing. It’s everything. It’s made of the same thing, which is, we would say Qi, but Qi as an information level. And then you feel relaxed because everything is developing by itself. Now, I’m glad you bring this up as the first thing that you’ve obviously discussed in your Consciousness Lab or your book club, as you may call it. Because the idea of oneness is something all of us

have read about. And most people would just nod their heads and say, “Yeah, oneness, there’s oneness.” But the point is, to most of us, it doesn’t mean anything in everyday life. We don’t go about our lives as if there is oneness. We still go about our lives as if there is separation. So I suppose that discussing this and going deeper with your friends in the club actually makes

a big difference. Because it is only by constantly diving deep into this idea of oneness that you actually start to incorporate it into who you are. Right? Yeah, exactly. And the way we found most helpful is to just identify what your mind is doing when it is conceptualizing, fragmenting, just realizing that. Just be conscious, be aware of what the mind is doing. Because if you try to, you

know, think about oneness all the time, “This is oneness. This is oneness.” It’s just another thought. And actually, that’s what the mind does. It’s thinking over time. But there’s an awareness of those thoughts, and that’s the experience of awareness. That’s the experience of oneness. Once you realize that thoughts and feelings, sensations, and perceptions—even during practice, when you’re practicing, pulling, pushing, etc. And all these thoughts, all these feelings

come about, and you just notice, you just notice what’s happening before your awareness. And then you realize that those thoughts are only in your mind, that things are not separated. Things come and go, thoughts come and go. And that’s just like a dance of the universe. Everything is coming and going. And the experience in the practice, in the methods, that’s like a big step. And then it’s easily

transferred to everyday life because you’re washing the dishes, you’re talking to someone, thoughts keep coming and going, and you’re just that space of awareness that observes, notices all these things. And as Teacher Pang says, then you start shifting your attention during the practice. It’s like, first you focus on the movements of the practice, and then you focus on Qi and the sensation of Qi and the feeling of

Qi. And then you start focusing on Shen. And you know, what is noticing Qi? What is noticing the sensations? You might have to explain the word Shen to our audience because it’s not as well known as, you know, the other words you’ve used. Okay, so the whole entirety theory, the entirety theory in which Zhineng Qigong is based, is that everything in the universe is made up of just

one thing. And this one thing is Qi, which is roughly translated to energy. But energy at the information level, like the thing that exists before everything else. And this Qi can be manifested in material things or in electrical energy, etc., etc. It can be manifested or expressed in many ways and also in human beings. Human beings have a physical expression of Qi, an energy expression of Qi, and

an information expression of Qi. And what notices and what moves this energy in human beings is the conscious mind, which we could call Shen. Shen, at the end of the day, is like the force or the energy of the most pure part of our minds, which is also in theory, it’s called Yi Yuan Ti, which is a very complicated concept or word. Teacher Shen always emphasizes that you

cannot explain Yi Yuan Ti, you just have to experience it. But Shen would be like when you’re very attentive but with no judgment. It’s just the movement of your attention, with no intention, with no judgment. So you just, it’s like your presence. So if you think of your right hand, for example, that’s a thought; that’s another part of your mind. When you just think of a hand, it’s

a concept, and it brings about an image and maybe some experience of the hand. But if you bring your presence, your whole mind, your whole presence to the hand, to the right hand, that would be Shen. My name is Leila Cupido, and I’m the project manager of the Students Hub. Our team is constantly adding events, teachers, videos, and other resources to take your practice to the next level,

improving the quality of your life and the life of the people around you. We do this work for you, so please use it. Now, would you say that there is my Shen and your Shen, or is that just one Shen that is, you know, perceiving all of that? Yeah, well, that’s a good question. I mean, in this world in which we see everything separated because we’re not trained,

and the mind has been learning a lot of reference frameworks, which distorts this experience of separation, because a baby has no separation in its mind, in her mind. But when you start practicing and you start experiencing and you start learning these things, yeah, you feel like it’s your Shen, it’s your attention. And the first step when you start practicing and learning Zhineng Qigong is that you have to

bring your attention into the body, into yourself. That’s the first step. And I think it’s a big, big step because then your attention is not focusing on, you know, so many things. It starts focusing on one thing. But when you practice a little bit more, then you realize this characteristic. We can call it, like the essence of you. It’s the same essence in everybody else. And that’s another

step, because we tend to see people. We tend to see each person as an individual with individual characteristics. But those characteristics are just like their reference frameworks. But in essence, they’re moving their attention as everybody else is doing. They’re just moving and noticing those thoughts and acting upon those thoughts. And everybody has different thoughts, or some different thoughts, because we have different reference frameworks and belief systems that

we’re acquiring throughout our lives. But the movement of the mind is the same in everybody. So, you start noticing less and less differences between people and between things also. And then you start realizing this thing is moving along the universe. It’s right. Like underlying everything. Right. It reminds me a little bit, you know, if you think of colors. For example, now the color red is the color red.

There’s no such thing as my color red. And if my red is gone, there is no red. It’s just red, is there? Or intelligence. Yeah. You can argue that there’s no such thing as my intelligence or your intelligence. I know we call it that way, but really there’s just intelligence out there. And, you know, we are applying this concept of intelligence. But this, it’s just one thing. It’s

just intelligence, right? And I like the example of colors because it’s so obvious. You know, if I have, if this painting here behind me, there are some red dots in it. If that, you know, becomes a victim of a fire, it doesn’t mean red is gone. No, red is still there, right? Not this individual point on the beautiful painting, but red still exists. And it always did exist

before that painting. So, for me, things like this, like Shen, that’s how I see it at least. So that’s how I’m trying to understand these things. It’s not really my Shen or your Shen. It is Shen, and I’m kind of tapping into it or being it, when the consciousness allows me to connect with it. So, yeah, I’m stumbling a little bit because words are so difficult, because words

are part of the world of concepts rather than the world of reality. But I hope, you know, that kind of makes sense to you, what I’m saying here. Yeah, totally. And, you know, the color red is the same. It’s just the color red, right? But what we tend to believe is that our experience of red makes us who we are. And it’s not my experience of red because

red is the same for everybody. But I tend to believe that my experience of red is the only experience of red there is, and that everybody is experiencing red the same way. But actually, all my beliefs, my, you know, all the things I’ve learned through the conceptualizing mind, tend to make me experience red in a certain way. And when I say red and you say red, we think

we’re experiencing it the same way because we’re not aware that we’re experiencing it through our fragmented mind. Right. But once you realize there’s only red, and red is not good, red is not bad, red is not correct or incorrect. That’s just how my mind tries to judge everything. Red is just red. The world is just the world, and the universe is. And it’s just what is. Right, and

that’s what the practice gives you. And it has been a wonderful experience to, as a group, realize what we are really practicing when we’re practicing Qigong, because so many people find Qigong when they’re having a health issue, a health crisis, and they think Zhineng Qigong is just for, you know, physical well-being. And we’re doing so much more when we’re practicing. And it’s interesting because before we started the

recording, we spoke about how you are actually a lecturer at a university and you are giving courses there together with Master Chen and a third person. I don’t know who the third person is, but this is part of your course there, isn’t it? Yeah, this is part of our course. And it can be difficult for many Zhineng Qigong practitioners, because they focus on healing only, to get this

message across. I can imagine that getting some unsuspecting people into your course, who’ve never heard of Zhineng Qigong, and then trying to help them grasp that concept must be quite a challenge, right? Yeah, it is a challenge. But, you know, surprisingly, sometimes it’s more difficult to get people to experience these things when they’ve been practicing Zhineng Qigong for a long time, thinking about Zhineng Qigong as just one

thing. And these people, we have about 25 students, and some of them are Chinese practitioners. For a long time, they’ve been to China, they’ve been with a lot of instructors, and some of them are quite new to all these things. And we even have a couple of students who didn’t know what they were enrolling into. So they’re bringing surprising, you know, finding it really interesting. And sometimes it’s

easier to explain it from scratch, from the very start. They don’t have a concept of Zhineng Qigong, and it’s easier sometimes. But, well, we are very fortunate to have Teacher Shen living in Mexico now for some time, and he’s organizing these kinds of classes. And the psychology department at this university was really interested when we arranged for him to have a masterclass. So, one of the psychology professors

is involved. She’s involved in the class, so she will be explaining many things about how the mind works and emotions, especially because the whole class is focused on emotions and how Zhineng Qigong and the inner perceptions work. Bringing your Shen to notice emotions is a very deep and profound healing because you’re doing both. You’re doing two things. First of all, you’re noticing what’s happening in your body, so

you’re bringing your mind back, and in that way, you’re bringing Qi back to your body. And that’s the first part. You’re also healing emotions because you’re letting them be, and you’re realizing that most emotions are just Qi moving in your body. When you let them be and notice them with your Shen, the Shen has a very fine, very subtle Qi that just penetrates the emotions, which have rougher

kinds of Qi. They feel heavy in the body. So, you just go through the emotions, and they disperse, they heal. The second part is that you start noticing, well, if I can notice, if I can perceive or sense the emotion, what is perceiving the emotion? This question is one of the most important questions in many spiritual and consciousness traditions: Who is experiencing or what is experiencing? And once

you realize, okay, I can experience, I can sense, I can perceive, I can observe emotions. I can sense and perceive the story behind the emotion, like the trauma story. And what is sensing, what is perceiving? Suddenly, the attention shifts to that thing. We’re just going to say “thing,” but this thing that is sensing and perceiving, which is consciousness. Then, the attention and the Qi nurture that consciousness. So,

yeah, it’s being. We just started, and we’re in our fourth class this week, and already the… The group is experiencing some truths, you know, when you have these little insights, these little enlightenment moments where you think, “Aha, that’s it.” And yeah, it’s been really interesting. Now, perception, for me, is one of the incredible benefits of perception: as long as I focus on perceiving, I switch off my thoughts

because I’m not there interpreting or analyzing, I’m just perceiving. And the thoughts are, you know, I know we put a lot of value on our thoughts. We think it’s so important, and of course, that’s what I’m thinking. But we, I think, have a huge ego about how important our thoughts are. But really, all the thoughts are is just a reproduction of what we’ve learned in the past. Otherwise,

we wouldn’t have these thoughts. Thoughts are not very creative; thoughts are just, you know, my old patterns, my old thinking over and over again. That’s why I tend to have the same thoughts all the time. And they’re very different from your thoughts because you’ve got a different history. But all we are doing is repeating our history here. But when we focus on perception, something new can open up.

And if we don’t allow our thoughts to interfere, then, you know, I hope our listeners are familiar with the concept of Hunyuan Qi. Then we can tap into the Hunyuan Qi and basically connect with all the wisdom that is there. And suddenly we, we. There’s insights that weren’t there before. If we just kept it chattering because our thoughts are always so busy. I think that’s one of the

big benefits if you just allow, you know, yourself to perceive. Does that make sense in what you are teaching? Does it? Or is it something different that I’m saying here? No, no, no, it totally makes sense. That’s exactly what we’re doing. Because first of all, when you perceive, when you sense, when you just notice, that brings you to the present moment, to the experience. And from that point,

from there, from that space of just noticing, suddenly the story that’s going on in your mind, all these past experiences which are just projecting into the future, begin to shift. And you’re projecting, “Will this repeat? I’m afraid this will repeat in the future.” Or, “I just want to have more of these pleasurable experiences in the future. What should I do?” All those stories stop for a moment, and

you realize that’s not reality. So perceiving, as you say, is a big, big step in consciousness practice. Because that’s what brings you to what you really are and to the creative part of consciousness and the mind. Creative in the sense of connecting in harmony with what is already there, with perfection. I remember an interview with a Chinese Qigong master, and he said that’s what “Haola” means. Haola means

maybe my mind is not perceiving what the universe is; it’s just harmony, it’s just perfection. Haola is when I realize my mind is not there, but perfection is underlying everything that exists, and Haola also means, “I’m going to get there.” I’m going to get to that part of my mind that is always connected with perfection, with harmony. Everything is already there. So, yeah, that’s what we’re doing with

our classes. Great work, great work, Mariana. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re really excited. I can imagine. I wanted to add a thought because earlier you spoke about how, when you perceive, when you allow your feelings to just be and you perceive them, how they kind of dissolve, right? Is that something you said? Yeah, they lose their intensity. They’re not as overwhelming anymore. They come and go because you’re

simply perceiving them. I’ve found that this is also true for nearly everything in your life. Often, when we think we have a problem or that something isn’t going well, the mind immediately kicks in. We start thinking about it and trying to find solutions, etc. While if we just stay with whatever is, stay with it, be aware, and perceive what’s going on without the goal of solving it, without

a direction, without an intention—just be there, observe it. It tends to basically, you know, disappear, like a fog disappears when the sun comes out. I think that’s a beauty because I think that’s an analogy to life’s problems compared to what you just described. When it comes to feelings, I mean, a lot of us have heard that if you’re allowed to live your feelings and express them, they will

disappear. A lot of people are familiar with this concept, but I think it’s true for many other areas of our lives as well. I think this is something people will also experience if they stay in that state of perceiving and observing. Yeah. And I think, you know, the eight phrases of when you organize the Qi Field take you to that state if you really go into the wisdom

of the information in those phrases. I think the phrase that mostly describes this state of only perceiving and letting things just go by is when you say respectful on the outside and serene or quiet on the inside because you just respect everything. You respect your feelings, you respect your thoughts, you respect your sensations. Even if it’s pain, you just respect that. But the mind, the heart remains serene.

And that’s one of the insights we had in the Consciousness Lab when we read the Taoist texts. Serenity is one of the key concepts in Taoism, which is, you know, the part of you, the essence of you, is untouchable. I mean, it is always quiet, always calm, always at peace. You don’t have to go out to find peace. You don’t have to search to get to the state

of peace, because that’s what you are. That’s serenity. When you respect everything, everything is going on by itself, it’s happening by itself. And then you realize you’re just observing, noticing, perceiving from that state of serenity, which is what you are. You don’t have to go looking for it. You don’t have to strive to be anything, and, you know, practice a lot of the methods. I mean, in the

sense of I’m going to be there. What Qigong practice gives you is a clear mind to realize what you already are. I think that’s a beautiful way to put it, because that is who we are. It’s only that we have put so much clutter on top of it that we kind of forgot. And, I don’t know, it was one of the podcasts I just recorded the other day.

Somebody said, “Zhineng Qigong is not about what you learn, it’s about what you unlearn.” I think it was John. I’m not sure. I’m not going to say who it was, because I forgot. So, whoever deserves the credit, it goes to that beautiful teacher. But it’s about the unlearning. So, when you unlearn all these things, then you come back to, you know, who you are, which is the serenity

that you describe here. Yeah, when I… one of my favorite parts of being a Qigong instructor is introducing new people to this practice. And actually, this weekend, I’m teaching a level one class. That’s one of my favorite parts. And I always define Zhineng Qigong as the science of relaxation. But we tend to think about relaxation as, you know, getting to a good environment that really relaxes you—like going

to nature, or going to a spa, taking a massage, or having dinner with your friends and just relaxing, watching a movie and relaxing. Like if relaxation depended on the environment and external things. And then you start learning that relaxation is a state of mind, and that once the mind brings the attention into the body, the body responds with relaxation, and the body relaxes. You just have to pay

attention to the inside of your head, and you feel your head relaxing. And then you start realizing that what you have to relax are the thoughts about the world. You don’t. You’re not going to change your thoughts, like with, you know, just doing things quickly. You’re not going to change your thoughts. You’re just going to put your thoughts in the place where they belong, which is things that

appear in the space of awareness. And then you start relaxing and giving the thoughts not that much importance. As you said, we tend to live by our thoughts, believing that our thoughts are the most important thing And you just have to think right. No, you cannot think right because your thoughts are just the story of your life repeating itself. You cannot change your story. You cannot change what

happened, but you can change the way you look at the thoughts and the story. So that’s why I find it helpful to explain Zhineng Qigong as the science of relaxation. Because you’re relaxing your existence, you’re relaxing what you think you are and just letting it go. I think I’m learning a lot today here from you. It’s very, very interesting. Just the way you described the thoughts as the

story of your life. Because so many of us focus on, you know, you need to think positive, you need to think differently, et cetera, et cetera. And we know how tough that is because basically it means disciplining yourself all day long, trying to think the right things, right while you’re saying—and I’m putting some words into your mouth now It’s a bit like, but don’t take your thoughts so

seriously. You know, they’re just the story of your life repeating itself. If you know that, you can look at them lovingly and say, “I know you. I know you because I know my life. I know what I’m thinking.” But it’s not that important. And then they kind of become less loud, less noisy, and they’re just somewhere, just like everything else is just somewhere. And you can focus on

this, on the essence of who you really are, and that is obviously relaxation. The only thing that I’m not so happy with is if you call it the science of relaxation because it implies there’s a technique. I need to learn something, while it might actually be the other way around, there’s nothing to learn. I don’t need a technique. I don’t need, “First do this, then do that,” just

as you explained. So I’m not so happy with that word, but I’ll leave it there because it makes total sense to you, and I’m sure a lot of people can relate to it. You also need to find things that, in particular, when we have new people joining our courses, give them something they can relate to. So they say, “Oh, yeah, that sounds great. That’s something I want. Let

me learn more about it.” Right? Yeah, because at first, I like this Buddhist saying that Buddhist practice, or Buddhism in general, is just like the, you know, the vehicle through which you cross a river. But once you get to the other side, you have to get rid of your canoe or the vehicle that took you there. So when I say the science of relaxation, I mean it has

some rules, it has some laws, because it… It works that way. It’s describing the way it works, the way it is. But once you understand it, once you experience it, you have to let it go. You have to stop thinking about practicing and just be the practice. You’re not practicing for 30, 40 minutes, you’re being the practice. So sometimes, when we learn Zhineng Qigong, we focus on organizing

our Qi field and creating a Qi field with an intention. And it’s sometimes hard to explain to students, to practitioners that that intention, it’s going to be in the Qi field, not only the 30 minutes that you practice, it’s going to be in your Qi field the whole day. You have to be that intention. But sometimes the intention is confused with a wish. I wish I was healthy.

I wish. And when you wish, it feels like it’s in the distance, it feels like unattainable. Sometimes when you really understand, you have to leave your intention and be your intention while you’re practicing, while you’re eating, while you’re working, talking, walking, whatever. That really changes the Qigong practice, because that’s what methods are giving you the clarity to be what you intended when you organized the Qi field. The

intention is what gives you direction throughout the day and beyond. So it gives you direction. While, if you’re talking about wishes, it’s more like, “I wish something would happen to me,” right? While here, it’s a direction, and that’s where you align your actions and your ways of being. And this is why the intention manifests. So you continue with this intention throughout your day, and end the week, and

all of your life, possibly. Yeah, I don’t want to let you go. Mariana, before, I had asked you a question that was on my mind right from the beginning. Like, is this consciousness lab a fixed group of people that come together, or is it open so that people can come and go, and people can join? How do you do that? And don’t feel bad if it’s a closed

group, because you guys know each other for such a long time. But just, people will probably want to know how this works. Well, we meet twice a month for two hours. We started in November, and it obviously has taken its own course. So we’ve been discussing different books, different passages, different things, practicing. We start off by commenting and reflecting on the passages of the text we just read,

and then we practice, and then we do some practice. We meditate or we practice Three Centers Merge with the intention of what we just read. But obviously, some of the texts have brought us to other texts. And so it’s not a closed group. What people, what some people are doing, they’re just, you know, joining, and if they have any questions, we also have these open sessions where people

can ask questions about what has been going on in the lab, and they can, you know, get the recordings of previous sessions so they can catch up. But it’s been developing quite beautifully. So I’m thinking about opening a new group, starting from just the beginning once again, maybe this September. But people can join at any time. The passages or the books or the texts we’re reading, some of

them we discuss in just one session, and some of them we discuss in five sessions. So it’s really organic. It’s really, you know, moving on by itself, just as the group decides. And the courses you are giving, I mean, your English is so incredible, nobody will believe that your mother tongue is actually Spanish. But are the courses like, if you say, “Make Level One, the Lift Qi Up”,

et cetera, in Spanish or in English? The courses that you give so far are in Spanish. I’ve been trying to, I’ve also been focusing on the methods for the spine and the nervous system, and we have a Parkinson’s recovery group. Recently, one man from the US joined. So, yeah, I mean, this is also one thing I’ve been trying to get to English-speaking practitioners, but I haven’t had the

time to, you know, focus on that. Right, focus on that. But yeah, mostly in Spanish. But I’d be happy to have English speakers join any of the classes and have a special, you know, consciousness lab in English. That would be beautiful. I remember when we first met, you were working on your website. Is it actually online? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Perfect. It is. So that’s what we’re

going to do. We’re going to put your website in the show notes, and then people can explore and see what you’re doing and get to know you a little better. And then they obviously can get in touch if they feel like they would like to work with you. All right? Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Wonderful, Mariana. It was great to talk to you, in particular, because, you

know, as you’ve done translation work with me, I had no idea that you go so deep with all your practice and how deep you go into studying all these theories and these ideas. So I’m sure there is room for another conversation soon, and I would look very much forward to that. I would love to. Thank you so much, and I really appreciate your work. You’re doing so much

for Zhineng Qigong practice all over the world. Thank you so much. Nice to see you. We trust you enjoyed this conversation, and we invite you to subscribe to our podcast so we can stay in touch and notify you of future episodes. We will end today’s episode with the Eight Verses Meditation performed by Zhineng Qigong teacher Katrien Hendrickx. Enjoy! To get your free eBook on the Eight Verses Meditation,

please check the show notes below.