For Your Eyes Only

Ditch the glasses with Sight Improving Qigong

Imagine you go to the optometrist and he/she prescribes Qigong instead of glasses.  They say: Do it a couple of times a day for several months to get your eyes fixed, so you can have 20/20 vision.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?!  Well it would.  Or, should we say it is, because it is possible and has been done for centuries in China (the treatment that is, optometrists came much later).  The beauty of wholistic medicine is that it treats the whole person, in other words every part of you, which of course includes the eyes.  Since Chinese medicine (and Qigong being part of it) is wholistic, it discovered the connections between the eyes and inner organs and by rebalancing its blockages was able to treat sight problems.

There are many styles of Qigong that can improve or treat sight problems but Sight Improving Qigong is one of the best.  This style combines internal Qigong (Chinese terms nei gong) to treat the internal energy blockages and external Qigong (Chinese term wai gong) to treat local problems by transmitting energy from your palms to your eyes.  The Chinese claim that Sight Improving Qigong can treat all kinds of sight problems and eye diseases.  Such as short-sightedness, long-sightedness, cataract, glaucoma, detached retina, internal bleeding of the eye and many others, among them even including some blindness.  Of course it cannot treat irreversible damage to the eyes, such as late stage of cataract when the cataract is completely solid, bad mechanical injuries to the eyeball due to say, puncture, burns and similar or if the eyeball is missing altogether.  However it does not necessarily exclude eye conditions classified as "irreversible" by western medicine (such as atrophy of the optic nerve, cataract and certain types of blindness).

The founder of Taiji Bagua Qigong, as it is known in China, is a female Qigong master from Shanghai who was a high school teacher by the name of Zhang Qiong Fang.  In her early years, Zhang was practicing Qigong with a Buddhist monk, who later became an important figure in Chinese Buddhist hierarchy, but she stopped her Qigong during World War 2.  After the war, Zhang developed many chronic illnesses, including heart disease, high blood pressure, duodenal ulcer, hyperactive thyroid, severe short sightedness and had 3 surgical operations (breast amputation due to cancer, thyroidectomy and removal of a tumor of the abdomen).  She went looking for the best specialists but to no avail.  In the end, she was so incapacitated that she had to quit her job.

She was suffering badly, but never gave up hope.  In 1957, she started learning Tai Chi Chuan from Zou Shu Xian, a famous Tai Chi master and in about 3 months, she got rid of almost all of her health problems.  A good teacher, great commitment and an excellent Qigong foundation that she built up years prior (that obviously was not lost) did a great job.  This inspired her so much that she went back into her old Buddhist practices whilst continuing Taoist practices such as Tai Chi Chuan and Ba Gua Zhang.  One day, after a regular practice, she projected her energy (chi) from her palms towards a little lump that she had for years underneath her eyelid.  Not only did it completely disappear within days, but her short sightedness and astigmatism that followed her for decades were cured as well.  She was so excited that she told everyone she met about it and she started teaching all those interested.

She was able to work again and she kept practicing until she came up with a completely new style of Qigong specifically designed for sight problems and eye diseases - safe, powerful and easy to practice.  She called it Tai Chi Ba Gua Qigong (Tai Chi and Ba Gua being terms from Chinese philosophy signifying duality that creates this world and the universe).  We call it Sight Improving for simplicity's sake.  One of her greatest goals, ever since she overcame her own sight problems, was to help many Chinese students with theirs.  Being a teacher, she noticed that in some classes, more than half of the students wore glasses and she felt sorry for them.  Now, she could do something about it.  She started teaching students at her school and the results were extraordinary, effectiveness reaching over 95% in some classes.  It did not go unnoticed.  Before long, she was in Shanghai's many papers and on TV and her style spread very quickly all over Shanghai and other cities of China.  Today, it is a very well-established style of Qigong.

There have been many studies showing its benefits, here is a brief overview of how it compares to Western medical treatments.

Western Medicine

Sight Improving Qigong

My experience with Sight Improving Qigong

By John Dolic

I once used to wear glasses.  It's ironic - I started wearing them in China and got rid of them using Chinese methods.  In my first year of Chinese medicine, in a class of 120 students, I was the only non-Chinese.  In order to catch up, because I had arrived one month late (I needed to keep up with the lectures and notes being written on the board in Chinese), I overused my eyes.  I started noticing my sight was getting worse, but I resisted wearing glasses.  I tried squinting, rubbing my eyes, looking through a fine toothed comb and similar silly methods to see better, which worked temporarily, but in the long run it made things worse.  In the end I had strained my eyes so much that I had to go and get prescription glasses. 

Once I started wearing them, I became very dependent on them.  Such as for following lectures, reading the blackboard, watching TV, watching movies, driving and so on.  I found having glasses was great as a seeing aid, but it didn't really treat my problem.  On the contrary, over time, my sight would deteriorate.  Plus there were many annoying factors associated with wearing them.  They would often get dirty, I would have to clean them regularly around the rims, they'd get foggy in the winter, they'd easily break (get sat on or dropped) which would then mean visiting the optometrist again for another check up, having the iris dilated with eye drops for the eye examination, choosing the right frames, paying heavily for them and so on. 

I would also find it restricting for some activities, such as sports and using a microscope.  Contact lenses could help in some ways, but in those days they were too expensive and disposables were not around yet, plus I never liked the idea of putting them directly on the eye balls and fiddling with them every morning or evening, plus trying to find them half blind if they dropped. 

And so, for 7 years, I put up with the above thinking there is nothing better out there.  The very last time I went to get a new pair of glasses, I made a wise decision.  I ordered two pairs of glasses instead of one, thinking the next time I break a pair, I will simply pull out the other one and save myself the hassle of rushing around.  Very proudly, I chose myself two pairs of cool glasses, one with gold frames and the other one dark.  I also bought two nice cases with little wipe cloths.  What a joy!  Little did I know that I would stop wearing glasses altogether and that I would never get the chance to wear the brand new dark frames.

"Wow!!  That's incredible!" you say.  "This Sight Improving Qigong is amazing!"  Well it's true, but as a matter of fact, I stopped wearing glasses due to practicing another Qigong style called the Five Animals Play Qigong.  The reason I'm writing about my previous sight problems, is because I can relate to all those who wear glasses and to point out that all Qigong styles rebalance life energy and can treat many conditions.  Still, the fact is that Sight Improving Qigong is one of the best styles of Qigong for sight problems, same as Weight Loss Qigong being the best for weight loss and Walking Qigong for cancer.  But it's not rare to see that someone improved their sight by doing Walking Qigong, or to lose weight by doing Sight Improving Qigong. It just takes much longer and may not be as effective.

In my case, when I was treating my eyes, I had not heard of Sight Improving Qigong yet.  Years later, when I came across it and heard about its amazing healing results, I just couldn't resist learning it.  Just in case my sight started playing up and, of course, to teach others.   I was especially excited when I heard about some cases that regained their sight after being completely blind, including (though rare) those born that way (please refer to the relevant case histories in Qigong Chinese Health issue 5 on page 14 or click here).

After learning many other styles of Qigong in China, I found this one very easy.  I was quite relaxed and picked it up very quickly.  What amazed me about this Qigong, is that it combines both internal and external Qigong to treat disease.  In other words, by practicing it (especially at the initial stage), you rebalance chi energy and get rid of most energy blockages in the body.  At the same time, it strengthens and accumulates your chi energy, so that after some time (sometimes in as short period of time as within a week or two) it enables you to use your palms to project chi energy into your own eyes (or any other part of your or other peoples' bodies) to get rid of any traces of energy blockages in those areas.

Before we did the "eye treating" exercise (the main part of this Qigong, i.e. projecting chi energy into the eyes), we first had to place our palms in front of our abdomen, then "pull" and "squeeze" chi energy in order to strengthen it.  You normally wait for a while until you feel the energy "gets drawn" (ie connects) and then open and close your palms 36 times.  I swear, I felt it so strong that I had to use force to both open (pull) and close (squeeze) my palms.  We proceeded with "treating the eyes" where we placed our palms in front of our eyes and wait until the energy "catches" our eyes (from about 50cm away) then slowly bring our palms close to our eyes and then away from our eyes 36 times.

Not only did I feel tension and pain, as though I was pushing or pulling something from my eyes, but I could also see all sorts of wonderful colours with my eyes closed.  First they were bright (yellow, red, pink and orange) mixed with crystal-like formations, then gradually they became darker (blue, brown) only to finish with bright yellow dots (star like) on a black background.  In the end, all the "stars" came together to form a strong but pleasant yellow light, right in the middle.

Every time I practiced, I experienced the colour phase, and on 2 occasions I clearly saw the yin yang sign straight after this colour phase (for about 5 seconds) only it was dynamic as if there were 2 whirlpools - one coming towards me and one moving away from me.  I was astounded.  Years later I read in some Qigong books that it is a common occurrence to see yin yang when you reach certain levels.

After I came back from China I was so enthusiastic.  I wanted to go out and treat the world.  But I was soon to realise that the world did not share my enthusiasm.  No doctors, or optometrists, showed any interest and even the patients I approached didn't believe it could do much for their ill sight.  Some of them even asked their eye specialists for their opinion, which made me laugh (as if they would know).  Anyway, at long last, I got some people to practice it, and just when I thought "Yes! This is it! Let the world witness the power of this amazing technique", they quit.  One quit after only a couple of weeks and the other after a month.  Not that they felt nothing, but their sight did not improve, so they simply dropped out.  One after another.

I started to question it myself.  Maybe it doesn't really work.  Maybe it was all just a big show.  But then again, how do you explain millions of practitioners in China with their extraordinary results including the ones I witnessed for myself.  Plus the energy I felt when I practiced it myself, there is no way it couldn't help.  They just didn't practice it enough.  I did not lose faith.  Sooner or later the right person will come along, I thought.  And it proved to be true.

The person I was hoping for, found me, got very interested in Chinese medicine and Qigong and in the end started working with me on a project - a book about Chinese medicine.  A lady in her 60's, who became one of my most committed Qigong students and brought me more patients than all the advertising I placed in my first year of operating business in Sydney.  But it wasn't that easy either.  For a couple of months her vision (which was pretty bad I must say) did not improve a bit, and she was panicking.  I kept encouraging her and asking her to persevere, which she did. 

On top of that, her optometrist was alarmed because her condition required urgent attention by a specialist, but she refused (reason: past disappointing experience with doctors and hospitals).  When asked what she was going to do about it, she said she would do Qigong with me.  In the end, her optometrist wrote me a letter, warning me about the severity of her condition along with a photo of how the bottom of her eyes looked behind a microscope (among other things a haemorrhage in one of her eyes).  He urged me to speak to her about how much she needed to visit the eye specialist, since she had put so much faith and trust in me.

So I did speak to her.  I did not want to take on so much responsibility, therefore I told her she could still practice this style of Qigong among having all of these other tests done with an eye specialist, but she refused.  "What a nut!" I thought to myself, "She's almost as bad as me."  And so the saga continued, but it was only after another couple of months that her sight started improving.  The optometrist noticed it, but wasn't convinced the improvement was due to "some" Qigong.   Yet to his surprise, the improvement that followed in the coming months, went beyond his most optimistic expectations.  Her sight improved by 80% and reached the level of sight she used to possess 10 years prior (according to his files).  He had to admit that this was unprecedented in his practice, spanning several decades.  He was so amazed to find that after all this Qigong practice, she only needed a very minor strength lenses that he gave her new spectacles for free.  But he also added, "A few more patients like this and I'm out of business".

All this happened within 6 months time and this lady never even finished the whole course of Sight Improving Qigong.  Out of three levels, she only finished the first two (the so called "foundation level" and the "assisting exercises") never even tried the main exercise (the "healing technique"). She was so happy with the results she had received thus far that she never needed to. This was twenty five years ago and her sight is still very good.

Since then, I taught a few more people and they got excellent results too, but I stopped being overly enthusiastic about changing the world and proving to myself or anyone else that this is a great style.  There is plenty of evidence of its effectiveness and those who are interested to find it will.  I myself practiced it for a while as well, when I was using external Qigong to treat my daughter who suffers from Cerebral Palsy and to treat some other patients who were unable to practice Qigong by themselves.  I definitely felt how strong my energy became when practicing this wonderful style.

If you would like to be taught "Sight Improving Qigong" online, please click here.

Further Reading