Qigong Empowerment: A Guide to Medical, Taoist, Buddhist and Wushu Energy Cultivation

This book is simply amazing. It guides you through practical exercises for cultivation of energy, whether you are interested in healing, martial arts or spiritual development. The book begins with exercises / meditations to help you get into the right state of mind for qigong practice. The initial exercises guide you through working with "six healing sounds" but rather than just focusing upon the sounds for each organ, you are guided through chi kung practices that clear and strengthen particular organ and work with the meridian related to the particular organ. The next section guides you through the practice of microcosmic orbit, and methods for accumulating energy. The next section guides you through Tantric Buddhist Qigong, from breathing, working with a spiritual flame, nine seals, and more. In the next section you learn how to create qi balls, how to absorb the energy from different natural sources, fun things you can do with qi, how to activate it and project it through your body. The following section guides you through different exercises which increase your awareness of energy, developing your ability to sense it and see it, and how to scan a body, as well as how to strengthen your energy field. You are then guided through different exercises related to martial arts applications, such as iron shirt, iron palm, eagle claw and more. The book includes acupuncture charts - illustrations of 14 meridians. Highly recommended!

Quite simply, this book covers more aspects and types of Qigong than any other book available to the english speaking public. I am a practitioner of the huge Universal Tao System and this one of the only books that that is up to par with Sifu Mantak Chia's books. Furthermore, it uncovers very, very secret practices from the Taoist Internal Alchemy, Chinese and Tibetan Tantrism, Shaolin Secret Arts and even Dzogchen(!) many of which have never been publicly published before. Some of these practices are so secret most practitioners have either: never heard of them or had concluded they had been lost. Yet, Sifu Shou-yu Liang and Sifu Wen-ching Wu have found it in their hearts to share these profound practices with the rest of the world. They are both incredible masters in their own right, not to mention winning numerous qigong and martial arts awards under their belt. Their schools are well known and respected worldwide.Really, Qigong Empowerment is set of 5 books. After reading the introduction you will then be able to choose which books you want to read. If you are feeling unhealthy you might go to the Medical Qigong Book; if you practice a style of martial arts you may go to the Martial Qigong Book. All five books are really amazing though.Each practice is outlined in a very logical and practical manner and really pretty easy to understand. There is also a healthy amount of philosophical explanation and theory. So even the teaching method is complete here: they give WHO founded the particular technique and how it was passed down, WHAT it is in clear explanation, WHERE it is from exactly, and HOW it should be done along with safety tips, and to top it off, WHY you would want to practice such a technique with some examples of the benefits.If your new to Qigong start here. It will give you the proper understanding of Qigong far from those videos at whole foods with some guy waving his arms around. This is real Qigong which involves leading the Qi with the Yi (heart/mind intent) It will also give you thorough understanding of each of the most common Qigong schools.If you already experienced in Qigong or any type of Martial Arts -- buy this book right now and prepare yourself to experience some of the most amazing abilities humans are capable of. The title says it all: Qigong Empowerment!

Definitely the best book on QiGong available in English to date. And no doubt better than a lot, if not most, of the QiGong books in Chinese. The "varieties" of QiGong in China number in the THOUSANDS, this book presents some of the best in essence. This 348-page volume is divided into five chapters or "Books". The materials contained in Book 1 (Medical QiGong) are pretty basic, and commonly available, though useful for beginners. The last chapter (Book 5) on WuShu QiGong will be primarily of interest to martial artists and some athletes. The weakness here is that it covers only the "Hard" techniques, but does not include the "Soft" or internal methods like TaiJi and similar QiGongs. Toaist QiGong is covered in Book 2. Being an integral part of Chinese culture from the beginning, Taoism can claim to have the most elaborate and comprehensive QiGong practices. These emcompass the whole spectrum of physical to spiritual development purposes. The disadvantage of Taoist QiGong is that sometimes it can get overly complicated, and burdened by cultural dross. The authors however, have been able to present the information in a reasonably simple and straightforward way, easily comprehensible to those not steeped in ancient Chinese lores. The most unique part is Book 3, which is about Buddhist QiGong, more specifically QiGong as taught in some Tantric Buddhist traditions. Most of the information contained here are not easy to come by, even for students of Tantric Buddhism. This is really a pity as, in my experience, Buddhist QiGong has some of the most powerful and profound techniques. So the author really has done a great service to the general public by sharing such information in a non sectarian way. For some this section alone will justify getting the whole volume. Book 4 teaches the principles and techniques to develop (build), regulate and work with Qi (both within and outside of the individual) for a variety of purposes, especially healing. These really make up the foundation for any advance QiGong cultivation. After you have mastered them, the rest are easy. This section is invaluable to those involved in energetic healing work. ( If you find a QiGong teacher who teaches you these techniques early in your study, you most likely have a good and generous teacher, it may be worth your while to stick around.) The language used throughout the volume is simple and straightforward, the instructions are direct and easy to understand. The numerous photos, charts and illustrations are clear and helpful. Though the volume also contains a fair amount of philosophical and technical details, much of these can be skimmed over without impeding the learning of the QiGong methods, if you are impatient. You can always refer back to them later when necessary. An immensely practical book well worth the price.

Combining a good deal of theory with a tremendous amount of well explained, useful qigong exercises is what makes this book the single most valuable book on qigong available. The authors cover in five separate chapters, the essential theory and practice of five major schools of qigong: Medical, Taoist, Buddhist, Healing, Wu-Shu.The section on Medical qigong covers Qi Permeation technique, various techniques for each of the six organ systems in the body, and the six healing sounds.The section on Taoist Qigong covers three levels of the Taoist system, including the Microcosmic orbit. Everything is presented sequentially to ensure safety. The final steps aren't presented with detailed instructions as they require, according to the authors, supervision.Buddhist Qigong includes Nine Segment breathing, Precious Vessel, Spiritual Flame, Great Perfection, Protective Qigong, and the Nine Esoteric Seals.The section on healing qigong is tremendous. Numerous methods of building, emitting, absorbing qi are given. Also discussed are various abilties related to scanning, auras, and protecting yourself from bad energy.The wu-shu qigong section was somewhat dissapointing. Most of it seemed very external. Still, many exercises are given.The only real downside to the book is that it is sometimes hard to follow based on the layout of chapter and subchapter headings, but a close reading will clarify any problems.Also, I would have liked some information about how to combine the routines into a daily practice.This book is not as detailed on theory as Yang Jwing Mings Root of Chinese Chi-Kung, but contains more actual routines. The two books complement each other well.

This book contains no fluff or hype. This book is very straightforward and has page after page of highly useful information written by two men whom know what they are talking about. I only wish this book had came out when I first started my study of Qigong, I would have saved a lot of wasted time reading bogus books by questionable "masters" This is the only book on Qigong you will ever need.