ChiLel - World's Largest

Medicineless Hospital
Huaxia
Zhineng
Qigong Clinic
& Training
Center*,
simply known
as the Center, normally has more than
four thousand people living there,
including doctors, patients, ChiLel
teachers, trainees, and supporting
personnel. The Center was established in
1988 in the city of Zigachong and later, in
1992, relocated to the city of
Qinhuangdao. In 1995, it again expanded
to its present address, an old army
hospital in the city of Fengrun, two hours
by train from Beijing. It is directed by its
founder, Dr. Pang Ming, a Qigong
grandmaster and physician trained in
both Western and Chinese traditional
medicine. This hospital is the largest of its
kind in China and probably in the world.
The Center avoids medicines and special
diets in favor of exercise, love, and life
energy. It is a non-profit organization and
is recognized by the Chinese government
as a legitimate clinic. Over the years, the
Center has treated more than one
hundred and eighty diseases, the overall
success rate being more than 95%.

I spent the entire month of May living in

the Center, observing first hand how the
hospital operates and interviewing more
than one hundred people who have
miraculously recovered from incurable
diseases such as cancer, diabetes,
arthritis, heart disease, severe depression,
paralysis, and systemic lupus. Many times
I was moved to tears while listening to
these accounts of heroic struggle against
disease. One mother told me that she was
so weak that she couldn't even pick up a
kitchen knife to kill herself and so
attempted to end her life by not eating.
But when her six-year-old son tried to
spoon feed her a bowl of milk while her
eleven-year-old held a towel to wipe any
spills, she decided to live at any cost.
Since doctors couldn't help her, she
turned to ChiLel and, against all odds,
recovered. She is now a teacher at the
Center.

The Power of ChiLel

ChiLel, the method employed in the
Center, was developed by Dr. Pang. The
method is based on the 5,000-year-old
concept of qigong (chigong, chi kung) as
well as modern medical knowledge. Dr.
Pang, reverently known as Lao-shi, the
Teacher, has written more than nine
books on ChiLel.

ChiLel consists of four parts...

1. Str

ong belief (Shan Shin): a belief that

chi or life energy, can heal all
ailments, including one's own.
Students build belief by listening to
testimonials of recovered patients
and learning about chi and its healing
effects.
2. Group Healing (Chu Chong): before a
group of students begins ChiLel, the
teacher verbally synchronizes the
thinking of the group to obtain chi
from the universe and bring it down
into a healing energy field, shrouding
everyone including the teacher
himself or herself. The healing effect
is enhanced because the group is
acting as one.
3. Chi Healing (Fa Chi): Facilitating chi
healing by teachers teachers bring
healing energy from the universe to
each individual to facilitate healing.
4. Practice (Lan Gong): Students learn
easy-to-follow ChiLel movements and
practice them over and over again.
The methods, parts of Zhineng
qigong, are called:

Lift Chi Up and Pour Chi Down

Method.
Three Centers Merge Standing
Method.

Patient Treatment
When a patient enters the hospital, he is
diagnosed by a doctor, and then assigned
to a class of fifty or so people for a 24-day
treatment period. He spends most of his
time practicing ChiLel, eight hours a day
without television, newspapers or
telephone. Those who can stand up
practice standing; those who can sit
practice in their chairs; and those who
can't move practice in their beds. I was
moved by the dedication of these
students.

Despite its amazing success at healing,

the Center is little known even in China
because of its policy of not advertising in
newspapers or magazines. However, the
Center is well known among its estimated
eight million ChiLel practitioners.
Through word of mouth, thousands of
people from all over China are coming to
the Center every month. Indeed, ChiLel
has a great number of followers and the
Center is the brain of this vast
organization. New techniques for treating
diseases are developed daily.

For example, a new way of demonstrating

the effectiveness of chi for treating cancer
has been developed. I witnessed a cancer
patient being treated by four ChiLel
teachers while the patient's bladder
cancer was viewed on a screen via an
ultra-sound machine, and monitored by
two doctors. The cancer literally
disappeared in front of my eyes in less
than a minute as the teachers emitted chi
into the patient, dissolving the cancer! In
fact, I videotaped this incredible act. Ten
days later, I requested the doctors to
double check if the patient's tumor was
gone. Kindly enough the doctors put the
same patient's bladder again on screen
and we saw no trace of cancer. Later I was
told that a major German TV station crew,
visiting the Center a week before, had
successfully videotaped the same process
with other cancer patients.

The Center has

over six
hundred staff
members,
including
twenty-six
Western-
trained
doctors. Since no medicine is prescribed,
there aren't any pharmacists. Doctors,
who prefer to be called teachers, play only
a minor role in this special hospital.
Occasionally, they are called upon to
attend emergency cases. Their main
function is to diagnose patients when they
come in to register and again after each
24-day training period.

Their diagnoses are classified into four

categories for statistical purposes.

1. Cured: Symptoms disappear and

appropriate instruments ( e.g. EKG,
ultra-sound, X-ray, CT and so on)
register normal.
2. Very Effective: Symptoms almost
disappear and instruments show
great improvement.
3. Effective: Noticeable improvements,
and student can eat, sleep, and feel
good.
4. Non-effective: No change or even
worse.

According to "Summary of Zhineng Qigong's

Healing Effects on Chronic Diseases",
published by the Center in 1991, data of
7,936 patients showed an overall effective
healing rate of 94.96%. (15.20% cured;
37.68% very effective; 42.09% effective.)

In the Center, no matter how sick a

person is, he is still addressed as a
"student" never "patient". Why? Because
he is learning an art the goal of which is to
heal oneself, not to rely on doctors.
Therefore no doctor-patient relationships
exist.

Students are enrolled in a 24-days

treatment program. The tuition fee is only
one hundred yuan (about twelve dollars).
Students can spend as little as six
hundred yuan (about seventy dollars) per
month! The Center is probably the most
inexpensive hospital in the world and is
truly a non-profit organization. Yet the
Center is an independent, self-sufficient
organization, without any help from
government or private foundations.

How do they operate so efficiently?

Because many of the doctors, ChiLel
teachers, and supporting personnel are
former students who have recovered from
serious illnesses themselves and have
now returned voluntarily to "serve the
sick", with very little pay. Teachers play
the roles of doctor, nurse, social worker,
cheerleader, parent, friend, brother, and
sister. Their effectiveness is measured by
the healing rate of their students.

Another reason for the Center's effective

but low-budget operation is that it uses
group therapy. Students live in groups of
four, eight or sixteen persons per room.
By living in groups, students develop in a
cooperative spirit of caring and love
toward each other. Many of those I
interviewed had been rejected by their
former hospitals as "incurable," and,
therefore, had regarded the Center as
their last hope. As though sailing on the
same boat in the ocean, students bond
together against their common enemy's
disease.

Trained to Heal
Just as hospitals associate with medical
schools to train young people to enter
into the medical profession, the Center
also has ChiLel schools to train ChiLel
professionals. There is a Zhineng Qigong
Academy and one-month and three-
month instructor training schools. The
Academy, established in 1992, has a two-
year training program for young men and
women under the age of thirty who have
the minimum of a high-school education.
The one-month and three-months
instructor-training programs are for
anyone interested in ChiLel. I was told
that there are typically more than a
thousand students in both programs in
school.

In addition, just as prestigious hospitals

have research programs, the Center has
many on-going research projects both on
site and at different university campuses
around the country. When I requested the
person in charge, a retired college
professor, to show me some published
papers, he gave me two volumes of
experiment data, as thick as a telephone
book!

Besides doctors, teachers, and students,

there are hundreds of supporting
personnel, working in the office, cafeteria,
bookstore, and so on. All of them are
ChiLel practitioners and they practice
ChiLel together in the morning and in the
evening, about three hours a day. As they
say, it is not just a job, it is a ChiLel job.

The Center is open

only ten months a
year because of lack
of heating in the
rooms during winter.
The Center is
currently building a
home for itself, a "ChiLel City" in a place
near Beijing, with better facilities to
accommodate the ever-increasing number
of students, including Americans and
others coming from abroad.

I asked the founder, Lao-shi, why didn't he

promote ChiLel to the world sooner. He
replied that many people need proof
whether chi works or not. So instead of
arguing with others, he preferred to work
solidly by treating patients and collecting
valuable data. As a result, tens of
thousands of documented cases over a
period of eight years have been collected
and, "Now we are ready. Please tell the
world that we exist and ChiLel can benefit
mankind."

* Due to political reasons, the Center was

closed in 2001.