 People have always been obsessed with the secrets of people who've lived past 100 and even in the Far East you've seen these traditional legends about sages and gurus and Taoist mystics and the longevity practices that they did to attain a long life. I mean Taoism has been obsessed with these practices right the ancient alchemist physicians. Now in this video I want to share the four longevity practices of this historical famous Taoist sage who actually met a well-known general in Taiwan that brought him over to interview him about his secrets to a long life. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hain, Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, author of the health book Master of the Day. Now before we jump into this video, two very important links right below it. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine you can reach my private practice right below this video. The second link is for a free download which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you at the years to your life with Chinese medicine. So those are right below this video here. So there is this general named Yang Sen and he was well known enough that he has a Wikipedia page but he lived in the late 1800s in Taiwan and I guess he was known as a warlord so I don't know how good of a guy he was but secondarily he had an interest in longevity, Taoism, mysticism and this idea of immortality to some degree. Now why he's interesting is because Yang Sen interviewed this famous man named Li Qingyun right that's an actual picture of him the guy that supposedly lived to be 250 plus years old. Either way this guy was a real historical figure we know at least parts of the story because Yang Sen met him and a lot of this book is filled with the interview Yang Sen had about him and on top of that the New York Times wrote about him like the New York Times in America wrote about this same man Li Qingyun and about his history and his story from these interviews with Yang Sen. So we know at some point this was a real human being and you can see him here you see how old he looks supposedly he was unnaturally tall for a Chinese man from that area and you can see these nails that he had that were really really long that he has curled up here in the seat. Yang Sen brought Li Qingyun over because he wanted to interview him about his longevity secrets and he gave these four pieces of advice to Yang Sen. Now Yang Sen had been involved in all kinds of Taoist alchemical practices for example he had multiple wives multiple concubines multiple even young girls that were his consorts because there is a whole sect of Taoist practices that revolve around spiritual sexual practices. Now Yang Sen lived relatively old he was in his early or mid 90s when he died I think in 93 94 around there and he actually wrote about these four practices that Li Qingyun talked about so I thought I would share these here today. So one of the first practices Li Qingyun talked about is keep a quiet heart. I have not been able to access the original Chinese so this is coming through the translation. Keep a quiet heart this idea of being unfettered by life or unaffected by life or this idea of you may experience stress or trauma the ups the downs but not being affected by them deeply. Staying calm maintaining your state. It's like that famous old Taoist or Buddhist story about what is it ma's horse right I don't know was this good fortune was a bad fortune where you know they the army comes to take the son but because the son had been on the horse he just had broken his leg formally the dad was like oh it's such bad fortune that he broke his leg but the army came the next day because he had broken his leg he didn't go off to war and die. This is famous Chinese parable. This same concept of equanimity or tranquility or not being affected by the good and bad things in life. These days there are books on this topic maybe like the surrender experiment right Michael Singer talks about surrender is being happy and content whether things are going your way or they aren't going your way. Whether your business is failing or your business is doing amazing. Whether your marriage is in a hard spot or it's in a great spot. Whether financially you're okay financially you're stressed. Keeping a quiet heart one interpretation is just really being at peace with the way things are and not how you want them to be. It's always easier said than done. The second thing he said was sit like a tortoise. Now ultimately we don't really know what that means besides the fact that if you've ever seen a tortoise or even a turtle sit on a rock and sunbathe they sit still for very long periods of time. Now maybe this is a reference to calmness to simplicity to stillness physical stillness internal stillness we don't know. I'm struck by this analogy of turtle sunbathing if you've ever seen them. I went to if you're familiar with Yogananda right the self-realization fellowship has a center out here in Los Angeles. At the center there's this beautiful central park with a big little artificial pond artificial lake they've made and it's filled with turtles and swans. Now the turtles are always over there on these little logs or on the side of the banks and they'll just sit there looking for 30 minutes an hour two hours sort of undisturbed and really looking very calm and very peaceful. So when I think sit like a tortoise that's what I think of these turtles that sit still for a prolonged periods of time they seem unaffected they seem calm and they seem still. Now that's obviously very juxtaposed to the crazy chaotic daily life that most of us have where most people can't even sit still and not even have their phone for an hour. This is obviously not aligned with stillness and calm and being peaceful. The third piece of advice was walk sprightly like a pigeon. So if you've ever seen a pigeon walk they have this kind of spunky very energized walk it's not like a stroll it's very spunky and it's energetic. So walk sprightly like a pigeon you know Li Qingyun was said to have walked very quickly literally his actual gate was said to be brisk so rather than these leisurely strolls maybe he thought it was a health practice to walk quickly get your heart rate elevated and actually get circulation going. So walking sprightly like a pigeon for so many of us the two main things that kill us are inactivity so we are literally stagnant and weak and not only are we physically weak even our diet leads to inactivity right cardiovascular disease with plaque in our arteries. So much about our daily life is diseases due to stagnation. So when we talk about walk sprightly like a pigeon I think Li Qingyun meant basically activity right increasing cardiovascular output getting movement going Qi Gong has always been essential in Chinese medicine not only for the patient but for the physician to maintain their good health seeing all those patients. And the final piece of advice he said was sleep like a dog. Now again these are all kind of very cryptic comments that we don't fully know what they mean but if you've ever seen a dog sleep they have a very specific kind of sleep where number one they can sleep very very deeply but are also very alert simultaneously. People have guard dogs as pets now obviously a burglar that may be coming in the middle of the night will get in if the dog doesn't hear anything and so dogs tend to have a much more acute sense of hearing as well as smelling but if you've ever seen a dog sleep going back to Li Qingyun's comment they have this ability to both fall asleep easily and wake up easily to go from deep sleep to alert very quickly and I had a discussion once with a friend and he was saying you know I think what Li Qingyun is saying the ability for the nervous system and the person's state to be calm enough rested enough that you could either fall asleep easily you're not so energized or so running on adrenaline or so stressed that you can't sleep but you're also able to wake up when you need to wake up and it's not such this elaborate chore. So maybe sleeping like a dog is the ability to be both calm enough that you're able to fall asleep but also rested enough that you're able to be alert when you need to be alert but either way these are apparently the four practices of the quote-unquote immortal Li Qingyun and based on his interview with General Yang Sen somewhere between the late 1800s and the mid 1900s that produced this advice that supposedly was the secret to him living this long life. So chew on that today guys you can reflect for yourself what you think those practices mean but besides that check out the links below this video and I have two other related videos for you right there