Water Up Fire Down: An Energy Principle for Creating Calmness, Clarity, and a Lifetime of Health

INTRODUCTION

Own Your Health for Everyone’s Sake

Iwrote this book in the middle of and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation has caused great upheaval, pain, and suffering, but we are all in the process of learning an important lesson: we must defend and protect our health—not only for ourselves, but also for our families and our communities.

It was shocking to see the pandemic bring all of humanity to a standstill in a matter of months, even affecting inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest—one of the earth’s most remote regions—as well as those living in cities. I felt a need to offer something to the world, something to bring health and healing to people. I wrote this book out of a desire to help people understand ways to protect their health and the health of the planet and to apply in their lives the fundamental principles of energy.

We’ve seen so many dedicated health care providers who have risked their lives during this pandemic. They are the heroes of our times, courageous people who have shown us the greatness and beauty of the human spirit. Yet, the medical and public health systems could only go so far in protecting us from the virus. Experts could only issue warnings and suggest behaviors, like wearing masks and social distancing, to help flatten the curve. At the time I am writing this book, medical researchers are racing to find a vaccine and a truly effective treatment. For the most part, we have all been left on our own to take care of ourselves—and each other. The coronavirus woke us up, making us realize that the social systems we’ve been relying on, medical and political, are more vulnerable than we thought.

It is crucial that we build a medical system that is better able to cope with these situations. However, we can’t depend only on health care providers and politicians to prevent disease, allowing us to escape from anxiety to find peace of mind. Each one of us must own our health.

The World Health Organization lists more than 40 types of infectious diseases. The speed at which new contagious diseases arise is gradually increasing, so it’s highly likely that we’ll face even greater risk in the future. What’s more, many scientists are concerned that contagious diseases will spread more as a result of climate change and damage to the natural environment.

Taking care of our own health in our daily lives is the most powerful tool for protecting us from pandemics. People with robust immune systems who caught the coronavirus were able to beat it, while people with underlying disease or weaker immunity were more likely to succumb to the virus.

You probably took your vitamins more diligently than usual during the pandemic and looked for foods said to be good for boosting immunity. But there are no foods or drugs that boost immunity in one shot. The key to good health is maintaining harmony and balance, and that is true for immunity, too. Our immunity is determined by how we manage our bodies and minds on a day-to-day basis, not by expensive new drugs or special foods.

We have within us a wonderful inner physician working to keep us healthy: the immunity and natural healing power built into our bodies and brains. Yet even if our bodies have powerful immune systems, they will naturally weaken if we live in ways that inhibit rather than assist the work they do. Eating and sleeping well and having peace of mind are essentials for good health, as we all know. The principles for enhancing immunity are not much different than the general principles for good health: If you ignore these basics and overwork your body and mind, breaking life’s balance and rhythm, your immune system will weaken. Immunology experts unanimously agree that this is true.

The Basis of True Wellness

The World Health Organization designated COVID-19 as a pandemic because of its surprising speed of transmission and high mortality rate. When we look into our daily lives, though, we find many factors that may threaten our health as much as or even more seriously than the coronavirus.

What do the experts consider major factors weakening immunity? They include lack of sleep, lack of exercise, unbalanced eating habits, overwork, stress, alcohol consumption, and smoking. As the world has adopted an industrialized lifestyle and culture, these harmful habits have become a part of many people’s lives in most countries. Although such habits severely eat away at our health and immunity, they get less attention than a pandemic because their impact manifests slowly and is not immediately apparent. Diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and heart disease are typical lifestyle diseases. Many of those who have lost their lives from the coronavirus, unfortunately, had such underlying disorders.

Medicine has developed greatly, yet the number of people suffering from such lifestyle diseases is increasing, which confronts us with these questions: Why is it so hard for us to change lifestyle habits that ruin our health, even though we want to be healthy? Why are we negligent about taking care of our bodies in our daily lives when we’re well aware of the importance of prevention?

One of the most significant reasons for this, in my opinion, is that we’ve lost our sense for connecting and communicating with our bodies. We’re investing more time and money in our bodies than at any other time in history. Paradoxically, however, we’re growing more distant from them. Many people craft their ideal bodies, but they don’t actually have a good feel for the state of their health. They aren’t paying attention to the signals from their bodies that tell them that their balance is broken. Many even hate their own bodies when they fail to meet the beauty standards set by society.

I believe we should all love and cherish our bodies, regardless of their appearance. They are miraculous, and they deserve our respect. Rather than looking in the mirror to examine them for imperfections, we should learn to feel them, listening for the messages they are giving us. We need to acknowledge the connection between our bodies and minds, and we learn to understand ourselves in the process. This is the basis of true wellness, and it is my reason for writing this book. Our society needs people with healthy minds and bodies, but too often the opposite is true.

What You Can Expect from This Book

I’ve traveled the world for more than 40 years teaching people how they can create healthy, happy lives and find peace of mind. The people I’ve met have been diverse in country of origin, age, gender, and social and cultural background, but they’ve confirmed for me that the secret to maintaining a healthy life doesn’t differ much from person to person.

The following three elements reflect universal wisdom for good health, as I think of it.

1. Recognize that you are responsible for your own health.

2. Recover your sense for communicating with your body.

3. Develop and consistently practice life habits for maintaining the harmony and balance of your body and mind.

The purpose of this book is to present you with an energy principle for combining these three elements and to provide you with practical tools and tips that will enable you to practice the principle in your daily life. I want to guide you so the principles of energy do not remain at the level of mere knowledge or information and to enable you to develop routines in your daily life—habits of regularly checking the condition of your body and energy and adjusting their balance immediately. You’re unlikely to live your whole life without ever being sick, but I wanted to put into this book the most basic of the basics for preventing serious disease and living with good health and vitality.

The energy principle and methods presented in this book are not complicated or difficult to understand. They are simple and easy enough to be understood and used by anyone. It is not my intention, however, to present a Band-Aid prescription that temporarily eliminates symptoms without looking into the roots of the problem. In the end, your health is determined by whether or not you apply even the simple things I’ve suggested and how steadily you make them a part of your life.

The contents of this book are based on traditional Asian medicine, which views humanity and nature as one and applies the principles of nature to the human body. The book is also based on Sundo, the Korean mind-body training tradition in which my teachings are rooted, and on Brain Education, a system of personal development I’ve established. In addition, it is suffused with the 40-year experience of millions of people practicing Body & Brain Yoga, which I created to apply energy principles to everyday life.

If you’re trying to recover the good health you’ve lost, this book offers new perspectives on health and will provide you with health-sustaining routines that will stay with you for the rest of your life. If you’re healthy and already have a solid regimen for taking care of your body and mind, the energy principle in this book will make your health routines richer and more complete.

Nature Lets Us Adapt and Grow

Nature has the power to bestow sustainability and stability on all things, enabling the whole to maintain harmony and balance. Cosmic order and balance are maintained even amid dynamic change because this power exists. When balance is broken in our bodies, this is manifested as immunity and natural healing power as nature seeks to recover its original equilibrium. This power will keep us from collapsing even amid countless challenges and trials, ultimately enabling us to adapt and show resilience.

This force is greater than our immune systems. Penetrating and connecting all things in existence, this power is what I’ll simply call the great life force of nature. Our immunity improves, of course, and we can live healthy lives overflowing with vitality when the great life force of nature flows unimpeded in our bodies. As you read this book, I hope you will feel nature’s life force moving through your body and that you will continue to cultivate the life you truly want by applying the principles in these pages across the whole of your existence.

Life is a series of challenges and changes. A person with a secure center can accept transitions, learning and growing through them, unafraid. But when we have no center, we collapse, shaken by even small shifts. A solid center in life starts with your health, which you develop yourself. Once you master your body, you can master your mind and own your life.

Ilchi Lee

From Earth Village in New Zealand

Fall 2020

CHAPTER 1

Discover the Golden Principle of Health

Iwould be foolish to ask, Do you want to be healthy? After all, health is the most basic standard for determining your quality of life, and maintaining your health is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Your health is a great blessing for your loved ones and your community, too, since it is the foundation of all the good and beautiful things you do.

You can borrow money and knowledge from others, if necessary, but you can’t borrow health. And you can’t share your own health with others, no matter how much you love them. Whatever you’re seeking to achieve in life right now, you need to base your efforts on your health, not anyone else’s.

Are you striving for better health? You may be trying different things, such as eating better or exercising more regularly, or maybe you’re trying to fix bad habits like smoking or excessive drinking. How’s that working for you? Are those efforts bringing you satisfactory results? Do you feel healthy? Or is the gradually deteriorating state of your body causing you to struggle?

Cool Head and Warm Belly

I’d like to introduce a principle that can serve as the cornerstone of your efforts to attain better health, whatever your state of health right now. I call it the Golden Principle of Health.

First, you must understand that certain principles, or causes, lie behind all natural phenomena. You might also call these principles natural laws since they are intrinsic to the way the world works. The reason the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, for example, is that the earth rotates. And the natural law of gravity makes apples fall from their trees. We did not artificially create