December 6, 2004

Chakra healing retreat draws more than a hundred

By Jennifer Squires
Ashland Daily Tidings

Twenty-five-years ago, Dr. Ilchi Lee went into a period of deep meditation to search for the meaning of his existence.

Andrew Mariman | Ashland Daily Tidings Stephen Meyer uses a brain innovating system, designed to reduce stress, during Saturday's Chakra festival held at Ashland's Windmill Inn.

When he emerged, the Korean-born educator and philosopher wanted to share his ideas with others. Lee founded the Healing Society, a movement that promotes love for humanity, love for the Earth, and the realization of a true and lasting world peace, and developed the Dahnhak system of holistic fitness for the mind and body.

On Saturday, more than a hundred people learned the healing principles for Chakras that Lee has developed over the past quarter-century. The second-annual Chakra Healing Festival drew participants from all over the Rogue Valley and as far away as Portland and Los Angeles to get in touch with the Chakra energy centers in the body.

"We learn to experience healing energy and share it with our families," said DiAnna Bear of Ashland, who has been practicing Dahnhak since March after 30 years of yoga training. "It's extraordinary. I have a potentially stressful life, so this practice has helped me to simply be calm and present."

The Ashland Dan Center and the Yoga Gallery of Eugene and Medford hosted the event. All three centers teach Brain Respiration Yoga, a modernization of a 5,000-year-old Asian training art that Lee teaches to eliminate stress and improve brain power through stretching, breathing and meditation.

"The highest goal is to enhance the quality of our lives by improving our heath in our bodies, minds and spirits," said Byuck-Woon Sun Sa, a grand master from the Sedona Ilchi Mediation Center in Sedona, Ariz., the home base for Lee's work. "It's possible, from a baby and a child to adults because everyone has these spiritual centers and energies."

According to Lee, the human body has seven chakras, which fall in line along the spinal column from the crown of the head to the perineum. Each chakra correlates to a different anatomical area of the body and has separate characteristics and functions. For example, the sixth chakra is located in the in-dang, near the brain stem. Called Heaven's Place, the sixth chakra is responsible for enlightenment of the soul, intuition and insight, peace of mind and heart.

If the Heaven's Gate chakra is not active and functioning properly, a person may experience lack of concentration, tension, headaches, problems with eyesight, nightmares or overactive cynicism.

"It is not an overstatement to say complete health begins and ends with Chakras," Lee writes in his book "Healing Chakra: Light to Awaken My Soul. "Healing Chakra training is a way to restore balance and harmony to our body's Chakra System. It is also a way to restore the energy balance between humanity and today's world."

Sun Sa, who has studied with Lee for 20 years, taught participants at the festival to become aware and in-tune with their Chakras because the energy centers help to awaken the connection between mind, body and spirit.

"We come to experience the different energy centers in out bodies," Bear said. "I use what I've learned in Dahnhak in my everyday life to be more calm and peaceful and gracious with people."

The Chakra healing works with all three bodies of human life, the physical, spiritual and mental elements.

"Chakra is an energy system through which energy is coming out," Sun Sa said. "Through healing Chakras, we can change our spiritual health, physical health and mental health. The ultimate goal is to enhance the quality of health."

Worldwide, approximately 450 centers promote the ideas and methods of Dahnhak meditation. There are more than 100 Dahnhak centers in the United States that work with these theories, including the Ashland practice and, on Dec. 11, a new Dahnhak center in Medford will open on the corner of Biddle and McAndrews. The Ashland

"The thing that really attracts people is opening the energy centers of the body," said follower David Duarte of Talent, who has been practicing Dahnhak for a year and a half at the recommendation of a doctor. "It gives me more energy, makes me more alert and more alive."

"It's a very easy and simple way where normal people can feel the energy," Sun Sa said.