Tami Simon: You’re listening to “Insights at the Edge.” Today, I speak with Maoshing Ni, known as Dr. Mao, a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Dr. Mao has lectured internationally, appeared on television, and been featured in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and is currently featured as an expert on Yahoo! Health, where he writes a blog about longevity. With Sounds True, Dr. Mao has released the audio program, Meditations to Live to Be 100: The Secrets of Long Life from a Master of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and has a forthcoming release through Sounds True, which is called Chi Meditations: Guided Visualizations for Self-Healing.
In this episode of “Insights at the Edge,” Dr. Mao and I spoke about the mind as an ally in the healing process, what he’s learned from his study of centenarians, the correlation between caloric intake and longevity, and how certain exercises can help us bring the mind and the body into harmony. Dr. Mao also shares a simple awareness meditation. Here’s my conversation with the very talented and articulate Dr. Mao.
Dr. Mao, you’re a 38th-generation doctor of Chinese medicine, and an heir to a wisdom tradition that has been passed down through 74 generations! I’m curious what it was like to be born into such a family, and didn’t you experience a lot of pressure? I mean, people talk about the pressure to be a doctor. This seems off the chart, potentially!
Dr. Maoshing Ni: Well, it would sound like a lot of pressure, and I appreciate what you’re saying. But you know, I think that growing up, especially in a culture where you just accept it-I was born and raised in Asia-you don’t struggle, you don’t fight it, you accept what you’re told, so [that’s how it was for] all of the trainings and all of the things that I went through.
For me, actually, there’s more to it than that, because the genesis of my interest in this whole tradition was something very personal to me. You see, I’m the second born. I’m not the first born in my family, and so my brother, my older brother, actually got the pressure. I was off the hook! For me, I had suffered a devastating fall. When I was six years old, I fell from the rooftop of our three-story house. I nearly died from that experience, and I spent about a month in a coma.
When I came to, I couldn’t move my arms and legs, and so I had to rehabilitate myself back-of course guided by my father, who was a master physician, my loving mom, and everybody around me just rallying around me for my health and restoration. Which I did; I fully regained my health and strength. As a result of that, at a very early age, as a teenager, I vowed that I would take this knowledge and spread it as far and wide as possible, so that more people could benefit from what I obtained from this tradition.
TS: Mm-hmm. And if you had to summarize, just in terms of the highest points, the most important highlights, what you gained from your family tradition, what would that be? The family tradition of Chinese doctors?
MN: I think it can be summed up with this: Shortly before my father retired, we had a conversation, and I asked him, “Now that you’re retiring and I’m taking over in this practice, I would just like to get from you the 60 years of practice and your wisdom in all of that.”
And he told me something that at the time I didn’t really quite understand, but after 25 years of practicing medicine, and working with probably now over 30,000 patients over that time, I realize it’s true every single day. This is what he said to me: “There are no incurable diseases. There are only incurable people.”
I’ll repeat that again: “There are no incurable diseases. There are only incurable people.”
At the time when I heard it, I thought, “What does that mean? There are plenty of incurable diseases!” at least as far as I understood them. But then over the last 25 years, I’ve encountered extraordinary patients who have taught me immensely about the truth of this saying, in that each person is fully capable of healing, and healing from the most devastating diseases. I’ve had patients who have had melanoma, and who have experienced spontaneous remission. Very deadly cancers, for example-they completely vanished from their body! It defies the medical science that we know of today, but yet if we go back for thousands of years, we realize and notice that there have been many incidences in recorded history where people have healed themselves of all kinds of conditions-and not just physical conditions, but also emotional pains.
In other words, we are endowed with an incredible ability and potential to do great things, including healing. The process is to learn how to activate your own self-healing mechanism. We do this through meditation practices, chi gong practices, we do this through eating a certain way, and we do this through herbs and other natural ways to support the body’s ability to do what it’s supposed to do, which is to heal and to thrive.
TS: How would you describe someone who might be in that category of an incurable person? What qualities are characteristics? When you meet a patient, do you think, “Huh. This is going to be a tough person to work with successfully”?
MN: Well, unfortunately you see this more often than you would like to see it: People who are very stubbornly clinging to a belief system, and that everything outside of that belief system simply doesn’t exist, and it’s not true. When you hold on to a limited concept, which the mind often has that tendency to do, then you get boxed in. And so what we see is that patients don’t benefit fully from being more open-minded and exploring and being proactive, taking steps to do something for themselves.
The limitation of our conventional healing model is that, unless a therapy is proven in a double-blind study, then it has no validity and it doesn’t work and it’s flatly denied. In the case of healing, we know that there are so many other ways to get the body to do the healing job, and so when people come in with that kind of mind-set of disbelief, and are not open to the possibility of healing in ways other than what they know, then they are truly limiting their potential to heal. That’s unfortunate, because so many more people can be helped.
TS: Mm-hmm. Now I know, in your approach, that you work with the mind as an ally in the healing process. I’m curious if you can say more about that.
MN: Well, yes. In Chinese medicine, the mind and body are considered as one. It’s not separate, so when we talk about a physical organ name like “liver,” we’re really speaking about everything that the liver does on a physiological level-filtration of toxins, purifying the blood, manufacturing all the compounds, and so forth. We also are talking about the emotional tendency, the spirit of the liver-the spirit of the liver is the soul, and the soul has a particular attribute that manifests in the personality and the way that one’s mind works. And also it’s the emotion that’s associated with the liver, which is anger, it’s feeling stuck and frustrated, and depression.
Again, when we talk about the liver-organ system, we’re talking about all of the mind, the body, and the spirit as one, and so the treatment will also reflect that. The treatment is a multi-pronged approach. We are attempting to affect the well-being on all levels of the being.
TS: OK, now I got a little confused as you were talking about the liver. I was with you with its physiological function, and even understanding how an emotional process, meaning an emotional blockage, could reflect itself in that organ, but when you started talking about how the soul could be connected to the liver, that was where I wasn’t following you.
MN: Good question! I’m glad you picked that one out. Well, see, in Chinese medicine, we have this understanding that each organ is in possession of, or houses, a particular spirit. That spirit is an attribute, a spiritual, mental attribute of the person. I’ll explain this more in a second, after I go through this process of naming the correspondences. In the case of the liver, it’s the soul. In the case of the heart, it’s the spirit. For the lungs, we call it po, which is this animal spirit, this animal force within you. When we talk about the kidneys, we attribute the will, the willpower. Then finally to the spleen, stomach, pancreas, this digestive-organ system, we attribute the ability to intellectually process.
So as you then hear about these areas, you start to discover, “Oh, what are we talking about? We’re talking about an aspect of one’s mind, an aspect of one’s personality.” You know, when you refer to someone who has a weak will, an inability to follow through with anything, we then think about, “Oh! The kidney system is imbalanced!” And we treat that kidney system in order to bring about and restore this balance in this body.
So the soul and the spirit: the soul is housed in the liver; the spirit is housed in the heart. What is the difference between the two? Well, the spirit in the heart is the conscious spirit, whereas the soul in the liver is the unconscious. How does the unconscious reveal itself to us? Well, dreams are a time in which the unconscious speaks. This is when we wake up and we have a remembrance of the dream, then we can understand and interpret the message of the soul.
Again, looking at this framework of attributing a particular attribute of the consciousness to each organ system, and then also the emotional tendencies for each, as well as recognizing their physiological significance, we are looking at a person in their totality, and not just a piece of the person. Sometimes we get lost when we look at the current, conventional medical model, which is so disease focused that we forget that we’re working with a person.
TS: Now these correspondences with the organs, this is truly fascinating to me. I think the question I have is: How do you know that this is true, that the kidneys are associated with the will, and so on?
MN: Right. This is a very good question. How do you know that this is true? The fact that it’s survived 5,000 years doesn’t necessarily make it true, although Chinese medicine is a very empirical medical system. What that means is that much of it is through observation and experience, and therefore it has been validated over many years and many people.
For example, I refer to the kidney and the will, right? How do you know that? Well, when someone suffers from a kidney illness, for example, one of the things we’ll notice is that they tend to be very timid and fearful. That’s the emotion that’s associated with the kidney. We also will find, literally, their willpower, their determination, weakened substantially. These are observable in each patient as they suffer from imbalance of each organ system that we actually notice.
But we’re also not literally just treating the kidneys when we’re talking about the will, right? We’re talking about: How do we affect the various aspects of the consciousness of the person through methodologies such as acupuncture, herbal therapy, nutrition? How do we affect-through chi gong, meditation practices, this chi meditation, this is what we’re talking about here-how do we affect these different aspects?
Well, we must have, first and foremost, a framework to understand how the interactions between the organ systems work in the body. This framework provides an operations manual, if you will, that allows us to use the various technologies and techniques to affect these deeper aspects of consciousness that, at this moment in time, conventional medicine uses psychotropic drugs to try to affect-from a physiological level, from the neurochemical level-in an attempt to affect the consciousness. But so far, that model itself is not very satisfactory.
We also, then, come from a psychological model, of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and various frameworks and tools, working with the psyche, working with the conscious and unconscious mind. But then that is at the neglect of the physical body, of the physiology of the body.
So thus far, what we find is that Chinese medicine is really well suited to treat patients on all of these levels of mind, body, and spirit, because again, our framework allows us to take into consideration all three spheres of one’s being.
TS: Mm-hmm. Now I know, as part of your research into anti-aging, and the program that you created with Sounds True, Meditations to Live to Be 100, that you’ve actually spent time interviewing people who are centenarians, people who are 100-plus years old. I’m curious what you’ve discovered, from those interviews, about what creates long life.
MN: Well, Tami, that’s so fascinating! You know, I spent over 20 years following centenarians around, I’ve interviewed over 100 centenarians, and typically, I would go and spend about three to five days with them, watching what they eat, observing their lifestyle, talking with their family, talking with them, talking with their neighbors, to try to gather an understanding of what is it, or what is the series of things, that contributes to them living such long and vital lives. I mean, I have interviewed folks that are 102, 105, 107, and the oldest one was 112, that are mobile. They are healthy! They walk an hour and a half a day! They still tend to their own lifestyle; they are not living in convalescent homes. They are living either with family or they prefer to live by themselves. In other words, they are independent.
You know, there have been so many things that I discovered and noted down in both my book Secrets of Longevity: Hundreds of Ways to Live to Be 100-which, by the way, I have a follow-up workbook to, called Secrets of Longevity: Dr. Mao’s 8-Week Program: Simple Steps That Add Years to Your Life, and of course for Sounds True I recorded the Meditations to Live to Be 100.
But you know, I would say the one thing that impressed me the most about these folks is that they are so easy to forgive and they are so easy to forget. That had a huge impact on me, because as I sat and listened to them, every one of them had experienced tragedy, had experienced hardship, had experienced loss of family members, loved ones, and they themselves had suffered immensely, whether it’s illness or personal tragedies, and so forth. So all of that [had happened], and yet they appear to be lighthearted. They talk about it, and they laugh about it. They let it go, and it’s just this unique ability to not hold on, to not hang on, to not allow the events of the past to weigh them down.
I think that was probably the single most important attribute that I took away from each and every one of them, besides the fact that they were all very active physically, they ate really good diets, and they generally under-ate, as opposed to overeating. This is a huge lesson for our culture and our country: people eat way too much.
TS: Hmm. Now we’ll get back to that in a moment, but interestingly, when I thought of what you might say about these people who have lived to be 100, I imagined it had something to do with diet or exercise, not that it would be this ability to forgive and forget. I’m curious how you think that contributes to good health. What’s the connection there?
MN: Well, you had asked earlier: How does the mind impact one’s health? Maybe I didn’t flesh out my answer here as much as I should have. In this case, obviously, the mind plays a huge role. Centenarians, by having a unique ability to not be stressed by past events, and the ability to let go and forgive and move on and be happy and be cheerful and live in the present moment, it has a huge physiological impact on their health. If you will, stress increases risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer, weakens the immune system, creates all kinds of inflammation in the body.
And so if you’re able to cope with your stress effectively in your life, and you’re able to have a perspective on life that is all-embracing and accepting, then it’s very hard to get you worked up. Being in that state of joyfulness also gives rise to good health, because joy-the body responds! The cells respond to the signals from the mind.
If the mind is negative, there is such a thing as personality Type C. We hear all the time about Type A, which is the hard-charging perfectionist, really fly-off-the-handle-type people who just want things done yesterday. They’re very impatient, and of course they are the type that we talk about that are at high risk for heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.
But what about Type C? Type C happens to be very vulnerable to cancer. These are people who are negative all the time. They always see the glass half empty, as opposed to half full. They’re pessimistic, they feel like they are hopeless, and they feel helpless. They’re anxious all the time, and they cannot get themselves out of this mode. That’s a highly destructive mode, because then you’re just programming your cells to behave exactly as such. The power of the mind is really key. That’s why the mind has to be performing in perfect harmony with the body. When that happens, then we have unity and we have health, and we have long life.
TS: Now this is very interesting, the idea of the mind and the body in perfect harmony. Would you say that the chi gong exercises and meditations that you teach, that that’s one of their goals, that harmony?
MN: Oh, no question! No question about it! These are ancient practices that have been around for thousands of years, and they have been time-tested, acknowledged to bring about that unity of the mind and the body, and to promote that harmony, so that you can self-regulate.
You know, what is chi gong? What is chi meditation? Chi meditation is an attempt to self-regulate and to self-heal, to bring about the highest, the most optimum level of balance and performance for your entire being.
TS: Now I know you refer to chi meditations as “acupuncture without needles,” and I’m wondering if you can explain that. How can a meditation be like acupuncture without needles?
MN: Well, in order to understand that, we have to first examine how acupuncture works. Acupuncture is a healing modality within Chinese medicine that (nowadays) utilizes very fine, disposable needles, and by placing the needles in strategic points in the body, you are activating healing energy and removing blockages, therefore restoring health and wellness.
On a physiological level, when the investigators go about studying how acupuncture works, they have discovered that each of these points will stimulate a certain function of the brain or certain location of the brain. Take the example of a study that was done by stimulating a point near the foot. That was traditionally used for the eyes, for vision, for eye problems. They kept a continuous functional MRI scan on the brain, and during the stimulation of that point, they saw the eye area of the brain light up. So we know that acupuncture has an incredible physiological basis as well.
In this case, when we practice chi meditations, we can use our mind to tap into that same potential and technology of healing that acupuncture does, because when we are meditating, we are visualizing certain points in our body, we’re activating and moving chi, energy, vital force into different areas of our organ system and so forth, which complete the objective of the healing process.
TS: I’m wondering, Dr. Mao, as a gift to our listeners, if you could give us a taste, just a short example of what a meditation might be that we could do to harmonize our mind and body. Particularly, you know, people may be listening to this while they’re driving or on their way to work, so they’re in a stressful situation in their life, or relatively stressful. What’s something that could be done on the spot in a relatively short period of time to bring the mind and body into harmony?
MN: Very good! I’d be pleased to do that!
Well, first, if you’re driving, I don’t suggest doing any of the chi meditations while you’re operating machinery. Ideally speaking, you want to pull over so that you can stop engaging for a moment. That is the key right here: to stop, for a moment, what it is that you are doing that’s stressing you out. Even just take one minute, two minutes, five minutes-if you have it, that’s great! Just a brief moment to stop and still yourself and breathe.
Focus on breathing. Focus on the inhalation, and as the air comes into your lungs, filling up every air sac in your lungs, and into the abdomen, expanding the abdomen. As you exhale, feel how you are emptying out the cavities and allowing this carbon dioxide, this waste product to be expelled from your body. Just focus on this healing breath that’s coming in and out, in and out, for a moment.
OK, then, after you do that, you can then, very simply-again, this is one simple practice that you can do. In fact, this practice is in the upcoming Chi Meditations CD that Sounds True is producing. It’s an awareness exercise, awareness meditation, so that after you become aware of your breath, you go to your head. Then, as you breathe, you become aware of your scalp, you become aware of the tension you’re holding in between your brows, you become aware of your jaw and how tense that is. And so you want to let go and allow each of these areas to just restore the optimum, healthy, normal expressions. That is the relaxed state.
When you finish that, you move on to your arms, and then you can move on to your chest, your abdomen, and then your back-upper, middle, and lower back-and then you can move down to your thighs, your knees, your legs. At each place, just become aware of the tension that you’re holding, and then letting go. This doesn’t have to be a drawn-out process. It can be a two-minute just checking in where you are.
Very immediately, just from doing this, you will find that you have interrupted this stressful response, and that you now should feel more relaxed, more calm, and more clear. Because when you’re not calm, when you’re distressed, your mind is muddled and you’ve got too many things going on, so you can’t see clearly what the next step should be. If you have clarity and calmness, then you very quickly identify what is the right thing to do next, and that thing which you are about to do will have repercussions, a chain reaction, if you will, for the rest of your day or the rest of the project.
TS: Mm-hm. Wonderful. Now, it’s interesting that what you talked about, what you learned from centenarians, it had to do with this ability to let go, and here we are, we’re doing a practice that involves releasing and letting go. It does seem-and I’m curious what you have to say about this-that in order for us to let go, we have to be able to do so physiologically. We can’t just say to ourselves, “OK, I’m just going to forget all of these terrible things that have happened, and take on a positive attitude about life.” That might not be enough, just at the surface level, and so we have to really learn to work with our body and have it let go of what it might be holding. What do you think about that?
MN: Oh, that’s essential for it to be effective. That’s why the breath is key. The breath unites the mind and the body, because the breath is a physiological process which you can control, although it’s an automatic response. You don’t have to think about it to breathe, but you can also control it. This breath affects every process in our body, this respiration, this breath of life, if you will. We stop breathing for a few minutes, and that’s it: life as we know it would end. And therefore this breath is so critical, and therefore using the technique of breathing is key to bridging the mind and the body.
Then there are other techniques you can use. For example, sometimes just holding an acupressure point, or tapping at a point, can activate the function of that point. You can do that as well. There are simple movement postures you can hold or get into. Or if you’re trying to relax a certain area, you can actually do these responses where, as you inhale, you tighten the muscle in that area, and as you exhale, you actively relax.
Again, the mind and body have to function as one. This unity is very important. By engaging in this integration, you’re going to be able to heal and achieve what my father says: “There is no such thing as an incurable disease. There are only incurable people.”
TS: Now, you mentioned the value of under-eating versus overeating. I want to get back to that, as somebody who loves food and has a tendency to overeat. How can you help those of us who have that glutton streak? How do we learn to under-eat?
MN: Well, first of all, understanding why you should under-eat is important, and understanding the rationale behind it. Calorie restriction is probably the only proven technique for extending life span. This has been repeated over and over in all kinds of experiments in animal models. The reason is simple: Every time you eat, yes, you are deriving nutrients, but you are also increasing the amount of toxins and waste products your body is producing, and therefore the free radicals. The free radicals go around and damage the body, and cause inflammation and premature aging. If you eat less, you have less to process, and therefore less waste and toxins to deal with. That’s number one.
Number two: It takes a tremendous amount of energy to digest and break down food. Again, you’re allowing your body to spend less energy on digestion, and therefore more energy for other processes.
Three: When you under-eat, you are training the body to be much more efficient and effective. The body has to actually work more effectively, because what’s the difference between someone who eats, let’s say, 1,500 calories a day versus someone who eats 5,000 calories a day? Well, the amount of calories is substantially different. The 5,000-calorie body essentially has everything it needs and more. It doesn’t have to work at all, so the body becomes lazy, the functions become lazy, and then the body simply stores up all these extra calories as fat. But the under-eating body has to work a little bit more diligently to make sure that 1,500 calories are going to be sufficient for the day’s expenditure. So in a way, you are causing a very beneficial training, you’re exerting a beneficial training on your body to work better, more effectively, and also giving it less toxins to deal with.
So there are many good reasons why you should under-eat. In fact, the benefits of under-eating are immediate. If you under-eat, your mind is more clear, you have more energy, you wake up the next day feeling better instead of feeling groggy. Right? Because your body hasn’t been spending all night trying to digest and process. And you feel lighter! There’s a lightness of being that comes.
This is why in ancient traditions, so many spiritual traditions have promoted fasting. When you fast, your body is forced to go into that state where it has to become very efficient, because there are fewer resources to deal with. This trains the body to actually work better and healthier and stronger.
TS: Well, I have to say your logic is inspiring me, and very convincing, very compelling.
MN: And by the way, Tami, I don’t advocate that you don’t eat. You can still enjoy all of the things that you eat. All you have to do is just take 20 percent of the food off your plate and eat it later. Just put it aside.
When I go out to a restaurant with my wife, we usually split an entree. If she doesn’t want to split with me, I’ll order my entree, and I’ll ask for a box. The box comes with my food, and then I take a portion, usually about half of what’s on my plate-because restaurants are obscene! They serve way too much food! Then I put this portion in the box, and I stick it in the plastic bag and I put a dead knot on it. [Laughs] After I finish and polish off the plate, even if I’m still a little bit hungry-which oftentimes is more of a mental hunger than anything else-I’m a little too embarrassed to rip that bag open, because it’s tied with that knot!
TS: OK! It’s the tight-knot technique!
MN: So what I’m advocating is that sometimes you may not have the strong willpower. Well, just make it harder for you to get into it. Don’t have it in the house. If there’s something you shouldn’t be eating, don’t buy it. Don’t put it in the house. And occasionally, if you go out to a restaurant, enjoy it, but in small quantities. If you do this, and you customarily under-eat, you will feel better. It’s immediate. You will feel it!
TS: Now, one of the other concerns that people have as they age, of course, is memory loss and not having their minds operate as sharply as they wish. I’m curious what you think about that, and what your recommendations are for people to keep their memories particularly sharp as they age.
MN: Yes, and that is something that a lot of people experience as they get older. One of the main reasons is because circulation is diminished to the brain. As the wear and tear on your body occurs over time, plaque will of course build up if you don’t watch what you eat and don’t exercise and so forth. So plaque builds up, and that means the pipe going into your brain, which is supplying you with fresh nutrients and oxygen and all of that, becomes diminished, gets smaller, so there’s less blood, less nutrients, less oxygen. Of course you’re going to be more befuddled and maybe not recall as easily.
And so the most important thing [to do to keep your mind sharp] is to increase circulation. To increase circulation, the easiest thing to do is to exercise! There’s plenty of research that will demonstrate the benefits of exercise in delaying the onset of senility and dementia.
There are many other things one can do, and since I practice Chinese medicine and I use all the tools that are available to me, such as acupuncture, which stimulates brain function. Herbal therapy using things that people can get in the health food store, like gingko, goji berries, and hawthorne and other types of herbs, can really be helpful as well. And then doing chi meditation, because what are you doing when you’re doing chi meditation? You’re activating your brain function, you’re increasing blood flow into the brain, and you are integrating the mind and the body. Once again, these are the kinds of practices that have been shown to promote longevity, vitality, youthfulness, and certainly brain power.
And finally, one of the things that I find helpful and I counsel my patients to do is this: If you are well organized around you, meaning in your house and your office and so forth, then most likely you will be well organized in your mind, and there won’t be so much clutter in your head space, and you’ll remember better. This is an actual simple thing! If you just clean your environment, organize everything, and get rid of all of the clutter, you will find something magical happens! It will not only help you remember, it will save precious memory space for you to fill with more important and pleasurable memories.
TS: OK, Dr. Mao! Just a couple more questions here. I’m impressed by all of these tips that you’re giving about how I can live to a wonderful old age. I’m curious if any of the things that you know are good for you are actually really hard for you to do, if you haven’t found a way to do them, whether it’s the amount of exercise or how you keep your desk. Are there any of these things that you’ve actually found, “Well, that’s where my discipline breaks down! I just can’t do it”?
MN: OK, well, you’re getting personal here!
TS: I am!
MN: [Laughs] Well, that’s always the hallmark of a good interviewer, I have to say, when you get personal here.
I do [have things where my discipline breaks down]. In fact, I’m the first to admit that I’m not perfect. I am a work in progress and I am a student of life, so I keep working on my discipline. One of the things that I wish I could do-and some of this is just, I think, due to workload here-is that I would love to have more time to devote to all of my many meditation practices that I have learned. For example, at this moment in time, I devote about an hour and a half every single day to the things that I do and I love to do the most, which would be T’ai chi, chi mediations, and a little bit of walking. But my goal is at least three hours, double that, if not more. I’d love to just take a day out every week and do nothing but just do my practices and walk in nature and do a little fasting, and just really living in harmony within myself and with the universe.
But I have three kids, and I have a full-time practice, and I travel and lecture all over the country and the world, and so you know, an hour and a half is pushing it. I’m happy, I think, with that hour and a half, but I wish I could get more. I’m working on that.
TS: Fair enough! Thank you so much for answering honestly! And then just my final question, which is: Here we are, we’re talking about living beyond 100, a long life. And I know that, at least according to legend, the Taoist sages were always interested in long life, promoting long life. What do you think is the value of living a long time?
MN: Well, first and foremost, you have to understand this fact: Your body wants to live to be 100. In other words, you might not have a choice! Your body is made, according to science, to have the potential of living to 120, if not 140. We’re starting to discover this potential. And so a lot of people are going to be around for a long time.
Here’s your choice: Do you want to spend the last 30 years of your life span crippled, disabled, sick all the time, not having energy, or having half of your brain not functioning? Again, it’s a clear choice! The benefit of living a long time is that you also have time to do all of the things that you want to do, and to actualize your full potential.
We are born with a unique gift. What is that gift? That gift is who you are, and you must, through your lifetime, actualize your full potential, and therefore live your destiny.
And then, once you have fulfilled your life’s purpose, then you’ll want to think about what kind of legacy you are leaving behind. The Taoists talk about immortality a lot. What is immortality? The spirit lives on beyond the physical body. The physical body will disintegrate when you turn 120, 140, maybe at that point, but what happens to the spirit? It is believed that that spirit will continue to live on, but I think “What do you leave behind?” is truly the way we can grasp what immortality is, according to our current ability.
Immortality is your legacy: What do you leave behind? The world should be a better place because you have lived, and that is being of service to the world and to humanity. It takes time to work on your legacy, to build your legacy, to fulfill your purpose and your destiny. This is the reason why, for me personally, I want to live for as long as I can.
TS: Wonderful! Thank you so much, Dr. Mao, for being with us and for sharing with us so much of your generosity and your gifts. Thank you.
MN: It’s my pleasure, Tami.
TS: We’ve been talking with Maoshing Ni, known as Dr. Mao. He’s the author of the book Secrets of Longevity: Hundreds of Ways to Live to Be 100, and has created an audio learning program with Sounds True, Meditations to Live to Be 100,along with a forthcoming release on Chi Mediations. Dr. Mao, a wonderful, 38th-generation doctor of Chinese medicine.
SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey.
