Special: Qi Gong with Michael Gelb (Three Treasures)

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hi, this is Brian and we have a special episode today. I am here with my dear friend Michael Gehl, who is a friend and mentor and a big supporter and actually an investor in our overall business as well. As we were chatting last week, just having a conversation about a range of things and I asked him to coach me on qigong because I've been looking to develop my practice and I asked if I could record it because I wanted to be able to review it and all that good stuff. Anyway, Michael did this amazing 10 minute overview of something we're going to do today called the Three Treasures Qigong practice. And then I thought at the end, wow, this would be really cool to share with our community. And unfortunately I was the only one on video. So now we should be split screen and we're just going to recapture it. Super simple, basic introduction. Michael, I really appreciate you taking the time. And for those of you who don't know Michael, he wrote how to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, which changed my life when I read it 15 years ago, like absolutely fundamentally changed my life. And then we met maybe, I don't know, five or six or seven years ago and I walked up to him at a conscious capitalism event and said, you changed my life. Thank you. And he said, well, thank you. We became fast friends. Since then he's written Brain Power and Creativity on Demand in addition to other books, all of which we've covered in our notes. And just one of my favorite people lit up the embodiment of chi and creativity from my perspective. So, Michael, love you, appreciate you and excited to share your chi with our community.

My pleasure. Well, just want to share about little thing of background about Qi in case people aren't necessarily familiar with what is chi. I like to think of it as creative universal energy. Creative universal energy which people are familiar with from every tradition. It's prana in yoga, it's ruach in ancient Hebrew tradition. It's the holy spirit in Christianity. It's the force in Star Wars. It's the secret of mojo. It's life energy. And the cool thing is that people have been cultivating this energy for thousands of years in ancient China. It's the secret. It was the secret of healing, acupuncture. All of Chinese medicine is about moving the flow of Qi. Disease is a blockage of the flow of this life force. And martial arts are what makes you really powerful. In martial arts, you're harnessing this chi for martial purposes. So it's the same energy, different intention. That's the energy that heals, and that's the energy that delivers power in combat. But when people weren't busy fighting or healing from their fights, they also expressed it as the secret of creativity. So I've been studying this for decades, but in the last 10 years, zeroing in on what are the practices that allow us to access our creativity in the most profound manner. And one of my very favorites is the one I shared with you last week, and I will share it with you again now, but just to say Creative Universal Energy. So that's. If you look at the abbreviations of that, that's Q, Creative Universal Energy Cue. And Q could be represented with a letter Q. And the cool thing about this energy is it's intelligent. So intelligent. I. QI just happens to be chi. So the thing about QI is, first of all, you're an antenna for it, and so am I, and so is everybody. But the antenna isn't getting the broadcast as clearly as it might. There's a divine broadcast. You're here to receive it, but there's so much static. So this practice, the Three Treasures Standing meditation, which I first learned from my dear friend Robert Peng, is one of the simplest, most elegant ways to get better reception. So reception begins by how we stand. And this is the preparation for all practices. And the preparation is probably more important than the practice.

So.

So if you want to tune the antenna, the first thing is to align around your vertical axis. That's a fancy way to say, stand up straight. It's a funny thing, like whether, if you do martial arts, if you do yoga, if you do Zen meditation, whatever you do, no one from any tradition ever says, begin by slumping or stiffen up and raise your shoulders, right? So one universal. To tune the antenna for whatever your purpose, align around the vertical axis, and you have your feet. Just find a comfortable width of your feet apart from one another such that you feel really well supported and that you can distribute your weight evenly between the two feet. So you're aware of the distance between your feet on the floor and the top of your head. And there's a line right through the top of your head. If we dropped a plumb line, go right out the perineum down into the ground. And you want to be organized around that line. So just become aware of that line. It goes up to heaven, it goes down to earth. You're the bridge between heaven and earth, and you want to be lined up as purely as you can be on that central axis. So Knees are very slightly bent because your knees are never weight bearing joints, they're always weight transference joints. So you want to let the weight and the energy transfer down through your hips, down through your knees, through your feet, and into the ground, just as your head points up to heaven. And it's a wonderful notion to connect not just to the little spot on the ground where you're standing, but recognize that you're standing on the entire earth and allow your energy to probe down into the earth and connect with the core of the earth. It's almost like you're sending echolocator beams down through your feet. There's a point in your feet, it's called the bubbling well point. And it's the place where your energy really connects with the ground. It's right about at the ball of your foot. And if you project down into the earth and look for that sweet spot where you're really supported energetically by, by the earth. And as we do any and all of these practices, we keep a little smile like the Mona Lisa, which immediately tunes up your immune system, enhances your mood. If you happen to have been doing a little frown instead, because you're taking this too seriously, which people do, we want to get it right. So let all that go. Get this little smile going on. And then you say, allow the phrase let go. Just say let go. And you notice that when you say L in let go, your tongue goes to a point just behind your upper teeth that just happens to be the acupuncture point that connects the energy that flows down the front of your body and up the back of your body. So you gently allow your tongue to rest at that point. It doesn't have to be there the whole time, but whenever you remember, you can refresh that connection. And whenever you remember, you refresh the little smile. And whenever you remember, you refresh the sense of connectedness with your sweet spot into the earth and the sense of alignment around your vertical axis. So you notice that already the antenna is just more tuned up and that most people already begin to feel a calming quietness, but also more of an alertness at the same time. You're more tuned in to subtleties. So one of those subtleties is inviting your breath to fill your lower belly and your lower ribs and your lower back on the inhale. So getting the breath down past the chest, all the way into the belly, filling your vital center with the energy of the breath. And then, of course, you allow the breath to release, keeping a little smile. So just aligning around the vertical axis connecting with the earth. Let go. Point. Little smile. Breathing into your lower belly. By itself is life changing practice. If people just did that for a minute. I try to refresh this a minute every hour. I often do more, but it just organizes everything around. Equipoise. Equipoise yields equilibrium. Equilibrium yields equipoise. We're more balanced when we're more balanced. Okay, so that's just the preparation. Now we do the practice. So this posture we're in the preparatory posture. Just call it the basic standing posture. And we're going to extend our fingers out to the side, the arms float up and we create this open circle above the head shoulders, nice and relaxed. And this is as simple as it can be. You're just going to inhale. And as you do, you envision a sphere of Qi at the center of your brain, maybe about the size of a tennis ball. And then as you exhale, you allow that sphere to expand to fill the space described by your arms. So this beautiful beach ball sized sphere of light is the manifestation of the antenna, your natural antenna for the energies of illumination, inspiration and wisdom. So you're just here being receptive to big ideas, to aha, to illuminations, to creativity, to insight. And you can rest in this position for three or four minutes. We'll just do it now for 30 or 40 seconds. Because when people first start to do it, sometimes their shoulders can get a little bit tired. You don't want to distract from the purity of the sense of. You're just invoking the energy of wisdom, being receptive to wisdom and insight. So then the hands gently float down to form an open circle in front of your lower center. And again, this time we're going to inhale and concentrate the Qi at the center of the belly, the very center of gravity of our being. And then as we exhale, we allow that sphere of Qi to expand to fill the space described by our arms. So now there's this big, buoyant, juicy Qi sphere at your generative center. And you're inviting that energy from your echolocated sweet spot in the earth. This is the same energy that grows the trees, the plants, the flowers, all our wonderful crops and food. That energy is streaming up from the earth through your bubbling well point in your feet and filling this sphere, empowering you with vitality, health, wellness, all the energy you need to manifest the great ideas that you're going to get from invoking the wisdom center. And again, tongue on the let go point aligned around the vertical axis, breathing into the Generative center, little smile, being receptive to the energy of health, of vitality, The whole earth supporting you. So then the third posture, your arms float up, form an open circle right in front of your heart center. And we inhale and create that sphere at the center of the heart. Exhale and allow that sphere to expand to fill the space described by our hand. So now there's this big beach ball, beautiful sphere of buoyant, exquisite energy right here at your heart center. And this is antenna, or a magnet, or both, for the energy of love, compassion, kindness, sweetness, goodness. So just being receptive to that loving energy. If there's some individual, past or present, who particularly embodies this quality, you may find it helpful to connect with that person. I connect with the great hugging Saint Amma, or with Christ, or with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, or with other role models of compassion and loving kindness. Or you could just. Some people find it easier to imagine a particular person or just the pure energy of love. So you're just feeling. You're just connecting with that energy of love and compassion. And then we shift to the universal posture. So one hand right along the central axis, the other hand, I want to make sure you can see me. It's down by your lower belly, the palm up. So this is the universal posture. And here. And I love when people are making a point. They say, you know, I was really clear. I was really focused on my vision. This is the gesture people just naturally make. So you're lining up. Yeah, I'm really clear. I'm really aligned with the core purpose of my being. So this posture is invoking that aspect of the antenna's reception. So here, as we inhale, we concentrate the qi in the central meridian, right? The core of our being. And then as we exhale, we allow that central meridian to expand up into heaven and down into earth. So we're really rooted into the earth, connected to heaven. We are the bridge between heaven and earth. Then you create in your power of envisionment, which is unlimited, you create a pyramid of light. You're in the center of this pyramid of light, and within that pyramid of light, the energy of illumination, of wisdom, of insight, the energies of health, vitality, power, the energies of love, compassion, kindness, caring, all merged together, aligned around your highest purpose. So very simply, we're invoking wisdom, being more receptive to creative insight. We are invoking the energy, the health, so that we can persevere and manifest our vision, our insights. And we are invoking loving kindness so that we're reminding ourselves to serve others and to avoid the pitfalls of egotism. And then we're asking that all of that be aligned with in service of our highest purpose. And we're doing this not just with words. Theoretically here, we're doing it energetically. And then we return to the starting posture. Arms just drop down. Got your little smile, got your tongue on the let go point connected to the earth. And then you put your two palms over your lower belly for a moment and breathe again into that lower belly. And just enjoy the feeling of gratitude. Let the Qi. Remember we said the Qi is intelligent, so let it just work on you. You invite it to continue integrating and informing every cell of your being with wisdom, vitality, love, and alignment with our highest purpose. And that is a three treasure standing meditation. And one of the coolest things about it, just one of the reasons I love it and I love to teach it, is and share it. Very happy to share it with as many people as possible. Part of the beauty of it is you can just do the basic preparation we did anytime. Let's say you need a good idea. Do the celestial posture. Let's say you just need more energy. You're flagging. Do the vitality posture. Let's say you're going into a difficult meeting or you have an issue with your partner, one of your kids, your parents or friend. Invoke the energy of loving kindness. Let's say you just want to feel you have 30 seconds free, and you say, why am I here? Go right into universal posture. So it's an energetic vocabulary. You can make different sentences, write different poetry with it, but the ingredients are incredibly simple but stunningly powerful and beautiful. So that's three treasures.

Thank you so much. That was awesome.

My absolute pleasure.