Aging and Qigong are deeply intertwined in Sahaja Yuantong’s experience and teaching. As a Zhineng Qigong teacher herself, modification of practice becomes essential as many face physical challenges that come with growing older. Sahaja had her share of physical challenges such as sacroiliac joint pain and even breast cancer. With new information, it shaped her understanding of how to adapt Qigong practices to individual needs.

True self and consciousness form the core of Sahaja’s approach to Qigong, emphasizing the importance of connecting with one’s inner essence. The Qi field, she believes, offers a potent space for healing and transformation. Intuition and common sense play crucial roles in navigating the practice, especially when dealing with physical limitations. Adaptation of practice is key to maintaining a consistent Qigong routine despite bodily changes.

Teacher Liu and Teacher Ling have influenced Sahaja’s understanding of Qigong and consciousness. Huaxia Centre, where many teachers trained in their youth, represents an ideal of practice that older practitioners must adapt to their current realities. The three centers merge meditation is one of the practices Sahaja has had to modify due to physical limitations, illustrating the need for flexibility in long-term Qigong practice.

Passion for living has been Sahaja’s driving force, helping her overcome numerous health challenges. Emotional processing is an integral part of her healing approach, acknowledging and working through difficult feelings rather than suppressing them. Mortality is addressed openly in her teaching, viewing it as an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Welcome to the Zhineng Qigong Community Podcast. My name is Torsten Lueddecke, and this is today’s story. With age or through serious disease, there is a change in the body. What do you do when your physical reality conflicts with the teachings of Qigong, of seeing yourself as perfectly healthy? Can both be true, a body that is changing and is no longer young, yet coming from a passion for living

that supports your body in a way to have the best quality of life possible? My guest today, Sahaja Yuantong, explores what this actually means for your Qigong practice. She investigates ways to adapt your training, encourages common sense and trusting your intuition, ultimately preparing for the end of life when the form turns into the formless. Welcome, Sahaja. For those of you watching us on YouTube, you’ll be surprised to

hear that she just turned 70, so she’s obviously dealing with this very, very well. For those of you not watching on YouTube but on the podcast platforms, I can assure you that she’s beautiful, youthful, and got to share her thoughts about qigong and aging now. Welcome to the show, Sahaja. Thank you, Thorsten. So aging has come up for me in the qigong community because primarily my students are

in an age bracket, I would say 55 and up. And although there are some younger, younger people, I find that their boredom level, somehow, it requires some challenge in life often for someone to really make that commitment. This is just what I’ve observed while staying with Zhineng Qigong. Some fear, some fear of the inevitable breakdown of the body. And I have a particular interest in it, not just

because I see the students. Somebody has a rotator cuff injury, somebody has sciatica. There are just so many things that start to show up after a certain age. If people feel that they’re being compared to an ideal, let’s face it, the teachers went to the Huaxia Center when they were in their late teens or 20s, and now they’re around 48 to 52 on average. And I’m just noticing

there’s a gap. There’s a gap for the people who have these genuine challenges. Sometimes, and I’m going to be completely honest, Torsten, you don’t want to hear a teacher just say, “You can think it away, you can believe it away.” Because my experience with my own physical health challenges, which come and go, come and go, come and go, is that there is a change in the body at

a certain point, and I continue to challenge it. I continue to challenge my belief system around, you know, the body and longevity and, you know, what’s possible. And maybe collectively, we will reach a point where we are able to sustain the body in absolute perfect health to 100 years plus. But personally, and for my students, I haven’t found this to be the case so far. So that was,

in a way, what piqued my interest. I think this is a very valid point because a lot of us are going through Zhineng Qigong, and we are always encouraged, you know, to think of ourselves as healthy, as young, as youthful. And while a part of us says, yeah, but it’s not the truth, and there’s something, you know, going on here, which I know, so I think it’s important

that you bring this up. So what is your suggestion there? How can we deal with this? Well, it’s interesting because, you know, I’ve been collaborating and studying and working with Teacher Lou Lou and Ling from Dao Chi World, and it’s been very supportive in the sense that there is always that challenge to look at physical conditions as illusion. I mean, this is Teacher Lou’s word, illusion. And on

one level, on a deeply spiritual level, I know this to be true. However, on a human level, and when something is hurting very badly, if someone says illusion to you, you want to punch them in the nose. Because in that moment, something has to be dealt with. So I suppose for me, about a year and a half ago, I’ll just share what happened. For me, my partner and

I were in northern Western Australia, just climbing in some, I don’t know what you call them, like canyons. And just out of nowhere, I had what felt like the back going out, but it didn’t feel like the back, it felt like the kidneys or the hip. And that began quite a journey of hip pain. And then I came to realize it wasn’t hip pain. It was the sacroiliac

joint pain. And I had had previous challenges. I’ve had a whole story years prior, which we can go into later if people are interested. But this was so physical. You know, this was really dealing with bones and muscles and ligaments. It wasn’t so much like, you know, cancer, cancer cells, emotional trauma, stuff that I could work with. This was like, oh, my goodness, what do you do when

there’s this sort of physical change? And I’ve had, you know, several students come into my mind who reached the age of one’s about to turn 81, is 75, and they’ve had hip replacements. And at some point along the way, they stopped coming to classes, not because they didn’t enjoy. And certainly they enjoy Li and things like the sound healing, the sitting practices. But I could see that this,

they no longer felt at home in a room where even though it’s an older population in my classes, it’s still they’re not people who are all ready to sit down. So, you know, we do everything from Tai Chi balls to level one, level two. So we’ve been doing everything for the last seven years. And then I started to notice people would fall away when they got to that

age where it was either arthritis or knee replacement, hip replacement, things like that. And I really had to look at it. And then when it happened to me, you know, it sort of got better, disappeared, reappeared, got better, disappeared, and this sort of saga of working with it. And what I came to notice is that the bending spine movement, which is so foundational for opening Ren Mai and

Dumai, it’s so foundational. And this was a trigger. This was a trigger for this inflammation that was not stable. The joint was not stable. And I came across a physiotherapist who just mentioned in a podcast similar to this, that sometimes stretching the body out doesn’t help when there’s an instability in a joint. And I thought that really makes sense to me. The stability has to come prior to

the stretching. And this is, you know, again, I’m not speaking from what any Chinese teacher has taught me. I think they would probably all universally disagree with me, to be honest. But my experience showed this to be true, that in my case, I needed to stabilize through, like, developing more core muscle. And this was not directly covered in. In Zhineng Qigong, and nor is there an emphasis on

stretching either. I want to add that point, but I did find that in warmups or in that particular movement, bow body down, it was a trigger. And then what do you do when that happens? What do you do when reality conflicts with what you’ve learned through a course or a teacher or even, you know, a book by Dr. Dr. Pang or Mingtong or Teacher Wei. What do you

do in that situation? So I think for me, it really has been an amazing springboard to connect more deeply with true self, which, in a sense, is what mostly the last four and a half years with Teacher Liu and Ling has been about, this true self or Teacher Wei talking about Mingjue, where I think everyone is starting to realize that the emphasis has to be on consciousness more

than just physical health. So that’s sort of where I got to that. I had to listen more deeply to my inner guidance, which told me what was going to support me, which practice and which wasn’t. And I found everything was like the Dao. Everything is like water and kept changing. So I also, you know, something so strongly I have learned through Zhineng Qigong is not to fix anything,

you know, not to put the box around any diagnosis, not to have a final punctuation mark, to keep all possibilities open. So I always periodically, from time to time, challenge myself, you know, continuously to see if that’s okay. Ah, that’s okay now. Great, let’s develop that. Let’s go back in that direction because it’s been ignored for some time. But one of the other things that was quite… And

maybe some people can relate to this. I decided to do 100. Well, I got to 150 days. I wanted to do like just a 30-minute-a-night. Three centers merge. Standing meditation. Not a long one, but just 30 minutes before I go to sleep. Just wanted to challenge myself and see if I could go for one year and just see what’s possible. Anyway, this was a time when this pain

was getting worse and worse and worse. And I thought, oh, maybe I should be standing for 45 minutes. And you know, sometimes we’re like, we have to learn. We stumble and we fall, and then we learn. And then, somewhere around 145, I think I made it to 150 days, which was not bad. But at that point, the pain was severe. And then, I don’t know, I just realized

this, this has been aggravating me, and I’m not a fan of doctors. I don’t go to a doctor for any diagnosis or scan. I just don’t. I just know it’s going to change. It’s going to change anyway, so why lock it in? And so, I didn’t go to a doctor at any point in this, but I did just read some information, like more alternative information, that with this

sacroiliac joint weakness, standing in one place too long isn’t the best idea. And then I thought, but this is Three Centers Merge. This is not just standing. I’m not standing at a computer. I’m not standing in a job. So again, you know, I play with it. And then I thought, no, this is actually getting worse. And so, coming back to the aging, one thing I think I have

learned is that one of the first things I do is stop movement. If it’s causing more pain, now, I don’t stop it straight away because I know the reality of Qi purification. I know the reality of things growing and changing. So, I really give it a good long time, and if it’s progressively getting worse, then at some point, I go, okay, I need to stop this for now.

So, now my intuition’s finely tuned, you know, and I can tweak as I go, and it may just be a couple of days. I ease off something. You’re bringing a very important point up here. Now remember, you said that most of the masters might disagree. Now, I don’t, I don’t think that is true. I remember we had to ask a master session. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which master

it was with, but something like this came up, and somebody who had, you know, a problem in the hip and so on, said, well, what if I injure myself when I’m doing the Body and Mind method? And the master said, yeah, yeah, really, we have to use common sense. But if you know you have a weakness here or there, now don’t push it, because common sense tells us

that if I know, you know, I have a broken bone here, I’m not going to put weight on it because it’s not going to work out well. So, common sense is always a good thing to mix into the genetics of practice. But I also know that you are, you know, you just mentioned the power of consciousness. So, if you feel like, okay, well, maybe this physical movement now

is not such a good idea, you could still use your consciousness and you can still do the exercise. You can still visualize. And I remember in one of the talks that I saw from you, you mentioned that you had one health challenge where you were basically bound to sitting only, which took a lot of patience for you. But eventually, you trusted the body to do what it needed

to do, even if it needed time to get into the healing. So, you continued with your practice in a different way. You adapted, basically. And I guess that is also the main message that you’re having. Yeah, with age, you can adapt. You don’t have to look at what an 18-year-old is doing there. You can adapt your practice according to how your body evolves. Is that, is that fair

to say? Absolutely. I was going to say, probably the key point I would make about aging and qigong is modification, learning how to modify. Also, you know, whether you’re in a classroom… I think that’s why a lot of people prefer Zoom these days, to be honest. I have students who have really felt more comfortable on Zoom because they don’t look around the room and they don’t compare. So,

I make my classes available on Zoom and in person, so that option is there. But I really try to make that a point, especially with new people, not to compare. I mean, we’re human, and the human mind, these habits don’t break so easily. But it is a good reminder, always, to not compare and to modify. And if you cannot stand, I tell everyone to sit. And if you

cannot sit, you can lie down. And there’s always a way in which there can be a way to do any practice, I feel, you know. 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. Do you want to share your experience when you were not able to stand and do the exercise? So maybe people can learn from that? Yeah, I’m sure a lot of people have had this condition. It’s fairly common, I didn’t know at the time, called plantar fasciitis, where something happens in the bottom of the feet that feels

like you’re walking on glass. And I remember at the Mingtong, Master Mingtong was coming to Perth. We organized two retreats for him, and I was setting up for the venue, and you know, gung ho, doing lots of practice and Lift Qi Up – Pour Qi Down. And because I hadn’t had experience, that’s one thing I notice with conditions as you get older, if you don’t have any previous

experience, you don’t always know. Which is why I suppose a lot of people do favor getting a diagnosis. But I thought, I need to walk more. I’ll just walk more. So I’m walking, walking, I’m doing Lift Qi Up – Pour Qi Down. And then finally I did end up at the foot doctor and discovered this was a fairly common thing, and I didn’t realize how long it would

take to heal. It took a good year. During that time, I did have a trip to the Huaxia (Zhineng Qigong) Center, which was one month long. And there was very little I could do except for put ice on the feet. And it was excruciating. It was very painful. And I just kept teaching, and I just brought a chair, and occasionally one of my younger students, I had her

demonstrate something that I couldn’t do at that time. And, you know, I suppose initially there was self-consciousness, or, you know, I think it’s natural you feel some, I don’t know, I suppose embarrassment or not good enough or shame because, oh my goodness, how can I call myself a teacher, and I can’t even stand up. And then the feedback from the people was relief, total relief because they realized

that, you know, maybe they had a knee that was not good, but they would push it because, you know, what we said before. So it gave people permission. It actually gave people permission. And I think that’s why I still have quite full classes at this time. After Covid, a lot of people sort of disappeared because people feel, I think they feel accepted and permissioned to be as they

are at this point. And I think if I was 10 years younger, 20 years younger, you know, superwoman, it might not be the case. So I don’t feel that anymore. I don’t feel any self-consciousness. I share openly with the students. And if there’s something I can’t do that day, usually my partner’s there and believe it or not, he’s 81, he does 60 wall squats a day. And I

say, well, you come and show them. And you know, it’s like sometimes he can’t do something. But there’s always a way. There’s always a way. And I just see too many people stop going to practice. They say, when I’m better, I’ll come back. Or, you know, oh, I’ve just got a cold, I won’t come to class. But I say, but you can Zoom. Oh no, I’ll wait till

I’m better. And I think that’s, that’s the switch that needs to be made. Like I can show up and just be present for the benefits that the Qi Field offers. That’s just my feeling. And what I try, I try to walk my talk and, and do that. And what is your general idea about aging and how does that connect to Zhineng Qigong? That’s a good, really good question,

Torsten. You know, I’ve had a fascination with death and dying from a very young age. I recently went to, there’s a Buddhist monastery here and I did a three-day meditation with one of the nuns that specializes in this dying, consciously aging. Oh, since 40, 50 years. It’s just been something that I just feel like it’s so important because I feel like every fear, at the bottom line of

every fear, is the fear of death. And I’ve had many opportunities, I really did, to face that in this life because I’ve had some close calls and I sort of came to realize I wasn’t doing anything wrong, that I wasn’t healing. I think I just had a particularly strong Xinxiang Shi Chang. What you want to get. I think I wanted to get free of that fear in this

lifetime. I just, so it’s not something I’ve asked a couple of the teachers that I’ve been closer to, to maybe address this at some point. I said at some point, at some point. But it hasn’t really come up in any Qigong at that stage because there, there does still seem to be the focus on life-enhancing life. But I’m really starting to feel that life and death are not,

there really are two sides of the coin. You know, it’s not like we’re just here to live in longevity. You know, I think we, we also want to be prepared that when we leave our physical self, that we have made such a connection with the Qi Field, that it is a feeling of familiarity, that we’re not so terrified to go into a space that’s formless. Because every time

we organize the Qi Field and we have a deep practice, a deep La Qi, those moments feel very precious to me. At the end, you know, I always say to the class, these are the moments where we’re getting a real glimpse of the pure consciousness field, not the body, not the physical. And I feel like if ever there was great preparation for leaving the body, it is this

practice and this Qi Field that has somehow been made potentially very potent through Dr. Dr. Pang and all the teachers and the medicine-less hospital. So I think there’s a great opportunity to rise in consciousness and not just rise because we have a youthful body that’s getting stronger, because it’s going to change for everyone. You know, this is what I’ve really learned. Eventually, you know, maybe at 103 or

something, but it does change. It’s not, it’s not meant to be our permanent home. I understand, and I think you’ve put this very, very nicely when you make the connection to the Qi Field and to the experience you have at the end of a practice. When you are deeply connected through your consciousness, I think that’s a very great way of looking at things. But I also know that

because of the many challenges you had in your life, health-wise, you have managed many, many times to transform your body from a not-so-good state into a better state. So I think both are true. There is a natural progression towards aging and towards death eventually. But also, along this path, there is no reason why you should resign yourself to the idea that now, okay, this is not good, this

is good, not good. This is everything. This is broken, and so on and so on. So you have—yeah, you can do both at the same time, right? While you’re aging, how did you manage to transform some of the things that took away life quality? Basically, because that is the issue. It’s not just about how long am I going to be on this path, it’s also about quality. Right?

Totally. I totally agree. I’ve been talking about this with some of the students lately who are older than me. And this quality of life, this optimization, is the word, you know, to have a body that supports you for this expansion in consciousness. It’s such a joy. It’s such a joy. And, you know, again, coming back to Hunyuan Ling Tong, Xinxiang Shi Chang, when I first heard that, it

meant a lot to me. What you really want, you get. And, you know, I’ve reflected on that. Like, yes, I can be prepared and open to looking at the issues around death and dying. I can be open to that. But actually, what I really want is to have the full experience of life in a body. I really want that. And I think what your heart wants, what your

true self wants, will always guide the information that influences the Qi, the energy, which will then change the body. And, you know, just for people who don’t know my story, I went to India many years ago. I was very sick with dengue fever, which many people get, and they recover somehow. For me, it was not a recovery, it was like a whole breakdown when I was around 40.

And it took many, many years, a whole decade to sort of resurface, at which point I discovered breast cancer. And it was like, oh my God, you know, I’ve spent 10 years. That’s when I got deeply into using the diet, whole foods as a healing modality. It took 10 years to sort of get to this point of feeling quite good, only to discover that. And it was like,

it was like the shock and the wake-up, like, how? What is this journey about? What is this journey about? Aren’t I ever just going to get to lay back and kick my heels up? And, you know, I hate to say, go unconscious again. It’s kept me on my toes, you know, and it’s like one thing finishes, like you said, and maybe something else shows up. But what I’m

finding is I’m going for broke, you know, I’m just going the whole walkway and I don’t give up. I mean, maybe I’m stubborn and relentless, but I don’t give up the possibility. And I feel pretty good right now. That’s one thing I can say. You know, when I went to China a few months ago to celebrate my 70th, I did notice when we walked up some of those

temples, and there’s like a thousand steps to the top to reach the sky, the clouds, and the heaven. There was a limit because the steps were too much. And the next day, I would really pay for it. And then it was like, oh my gosh, I’m not young anymore. It was such a shock. But it’s like, okay. So we took it easy for a day or two, and

then, boom, we were out there again. And, you know, I had the time of my life, it was the trip of a lifetime, and I’m just about ready to do it again. And it’s just that passion for living, I think, that allows you to continue, because there are days where something shows up and you feel like, here we are again. Or, you know, you get Covid or you

get the flu and you go, oh, my God. It’s like, I don’t remember when I was young, anything coming around like that, you know, like before 40, I don’t remember that. And then I look around and I see it seems to be happening collectively that many people seem to be challenged right now. I’m just noticing there’s a lot of challenges on planet Earth at this time. So there

has to be a love of life, a love of nature, a love of something that feels essential behind the drama of life. Because if you look at what’s happening in the world right now, you could just get very depressed. But if you somehow have touched that thing that has nothing to do with drama or time and space, or the theatrics that are playing out. If you touch that

space, I think you want to be here and you want to live your best life. And that’s, I think, what gives the good information to the body to keep going. And it’s also probably, you know, from the little I know about you, the force behind your commitment to continue with whatever you need to do to give the body a possibility to heal itself. With so many challenges, there

needs to be something stronger than these challenges. And I think you’ve described this very beautifully. Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s true. What is that thing that makes some people keep going, just keep holding that possibility, and other people, especially right now, I see some people sort of imploding and giving up in a way. So I love life. I love that I lost it in a

way. I lost, you know, being quite bed-bound during that phase. Some decision was made, no, I’m not going to feed the information that kept me there or led me there. I’m going to change now. That brings us right back into the core of the idea of Zhineng Qigong, the information we basically feed our body with or the information we put out there. And I remember from the beginning

of the conversation, you said it’s sometimes very hard because you can feel there is something wrong. You know, you have this disease or the sickness or whatever is going on. So how would you support someone to connect with positive information that actually facilitates the healing process and puts you on the path to health and well-being? I love that question because I really feel that you cannot get to

that deeper layer of positivity without fully feeling and experiencing the truth of what’s there in the moment. And this is in between all these careers, I also worked as a practitioner for over 10 years, something called the Journey Work, which took people through emotional layers sometimes. I would really love to introduce this to the Zhineng Qigong community because it was possibly the most profound of all the healing

things on that emotional plane, to feel fully the layer that’s here in this moment. And I think people have gotten a little bit conditioned, maybe probably misunderstanding. I’d say some of the teachers that, to, to like put a band-aid over a wound, it needs the air, it needs the sunshine to heal. And it’s the same with our emotions. If the first layer that’s showing up isn’t the first

thought of how, what if it isn’t? Have you failed? What if it’s really like, oh my God, I’m miserable, I’m, I failed, I’m disappointed, I’m angry. All these things that are natural when you get a diagnosis, it’s so natural. And yes, you can work with the first thought, but if doing the first thought is how long is genuine? Or is it just like, I don’t want to feel

those emotions? So what I would suggest, what I, in answering your question, what I’ve discovered is if there’s a willingness to feel a layer, it doesn’t last very long. And then you can sort of dive into the core of that layer. This is sort of how I work with myself. You actually open your heart and you go to the center of anger. And usually, at the center of

anger, there’s some sort of hurt or fear. It’s never just anger. And then what I found is if I go into the very heart of the fear or the sadness, there’s something else, and there’s something. And it became this experience of like a lotus flower opening. And eventually, you can get to the genuine positivity, to the genuine empty, Kong, kong, dang, dang, you know, space. It actually is

there at the core. So that’s my way that I try and help people, like, not to shy away from feeling it, but sometimes you need support with that, because if you haven’t worked with your emotions and it’s the first time they come up, you know, some people don’t know how to. It’s like you have to learn the witnessing process or the observation process and get some separation from

the feeling. Yes. Now I’m totally with you. And I think this is something that a lot of people haven’t fully understood yet. How can I go into a state of, oh, my, I’ve got, I’m completely healthy when fundamentally I know I’m not? Right. So how do I deal with this conflict within myself? And there’s no point in just pushing it away and saying, okay, let me just pretend,

because pretending doesn’t really work. So I think this is an important aspect of the healing work now. If you’re feeling miserable, then you feel miserable, and then you move from there. You’re not just pushing it away. So thank you very much for bringing that up. And I think, in a way, most of the teachers I’m connected with are pointing to that. But possibly we have a different collective

consciousness in the West. You know, we are in a way more fixated on our, on our self, our individual self, therefore our feelings. Yeah, I’d like to say to everyone, you know, you can just, yeah, the Mingjue, you just transform it into Mingjue love. But in fact, just what you just said and what I said to you, it needs to be acknowledged. It needs to be just, and

then it will sort of dissolve and transform on its own. It is the starting place to the next, to the next. And slowly, for me, it’s, it’s such an inner journey because you learn how to work. You get to know yourself, you get to know your own reference framework, your way of perceiving things, and you, you start to challenge the reality of it. Like, really, you know, really.

Is that true? You know, that thought, they looked at me funny, they don’t like me. All these different emotions, you don’t believe everything in the same way. That’s the gift of Zhineng Qigong. You get a little bit of distance from your story. All right, well, thank you very much, Sahaja. I think we’ve covered this topic very nicely, so thank you very much for contributing here. And we’ve already

spoken that we will have a second session on the whole idea of how food plays an important role next to the Zhineng Qigong work. And this is something for another podcast, so I look very much forward to that. Thank you very much, Sahaja. We’ll chat soon. Great. Thank you. Cheers. Bye. Bye. 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.