The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight (8 page)

He disappeared into the kitchen, and returned with a platter of vegetables, accompanied by a sauce of some kind. He ushered
both Yin and me over to a table and served the vegetables in three small bowls. It soon became clear that the food was all
part of the information Hanh was imparting.

As we ate, he continued. “Maintaining higher energy within oneself is impossible if one consumes dead matter as food.”

I looked away, turning off. If this was going to be a lecture on diet, I would just as soon skip it.

My attitude seemed to infuriate Hanh.

“Are you crazy?” he almost shouted. “Your very survival may depend on this information and you won’t put yourself out a little
bit to learn this. What do you think? That you can live any way you want and still do important things?”

He became quiet and glanced sideways at me. I realized that the anger was genuine but was also part of his act. I got the
impression that he was giving information to me on more than one level. As I looked back at him, I couldn’t help smiling.
Hanh was eminently likable.

He patted my shoulder and smiled back at me.

“Most people,” he continued, “are full of energy and enthusiasm in their youth, but then during middle age they lapse into
a slow, downhill slide that they pretend not to notice. After all, their friends are slowing down and their kids are active,
so they spend more and more time sitting around and eating the foods that taste good.

“Before long, they begin to have nagging complaints and chronic problems such as digestive difficulties or skin irritations
that they write off as just age, and then one day they get a serious illness that won’t go away. Usually they go to a doctor
who does not stress prevention and they begin to take drugs, and sometimes the problem is helped and sometimes it isn’t. And
then, as the years fly by, they get some disease that progressively gets worse, and they realize they are dying. Their only
solace is that they think what is happening occurs to everyone—that it is inevitable.

“The terrible thing is that this collapse of energy happens to some extent even to people who otherwise intend to be spiritual.”
He leaned over toward me and feigned looking around the room to see if someone was listening. “This includes some of our most
respected lamas.”

I wanted to laugh but I dared not.

“If we seek higher energy and at the same time consume foods that rob us of this energy,” Hanh continued, “we get nowhere.
We must assess all the energies we routinely allow into our own energy fields, especially foods, and avoid all but the best
if our fields are to stay strong.”

He leaned closer to me again. “This is very difficult for most people because we are all addicted to the foods we currently
eat, and most are horribly poisonous.”

I looked away.

“I know there is much conflicting information out there about food,” he went on. “But the truth is out there too. Each of
us must do the research, make ourselves see the larger picture. We are spiritual beings who come into this world to raise
our energy. Yet much of what we find here is designed purely for sensual pleasure and distraction, and much of it saps our
energy and pulls us toward physical disintegration. If we really believe we are energetic beings, we must follow a narrow
path through these temptations.

“If you look all the way back at evolution, you see that from the beginning we had to experiment with food purely by trial
and error, just to figure out which foods were good for us and which would kill us. Eat this plant, survive; eat that one
over there, die. At this point in history we’ve figured out what kills us, but we’re only now realizing which foods add to
our ultimate longevity and keep our energy high, and which ones ultimately wear us down.”

He paused for a moment as if determining whether I was understanding.

“In Shambhala they see this larger picture,” he continued. “They know who we are as human beings. We look like we are material
stuff, flesh and blood, but we are atoms! Pure energy! Your science has proved this fact. When we look deeper into atoms,
we first see particles, and then, at deeper levels, the particles themselves disappear into patterns of pure energy, vibrating
at a certain level. And if we look at the way we eat from this perspective, we see that what we put in our bodies as food
affects our vibrational state. Certain foods increase our energy and vibration and others diminish it. The truth is as simple
as that.

“All disease is the result of a drop in vibrational energy, and when our energy drops to a certain point, there are natural
forces in the world that are designed to disincorporate our bodies.”

He looked at me as though he had said something very profound.

“Do you mean physically disincorporate?” I asked.

“Yes. Look again at the larger picture. When anything dies—a dog hit by a car, or a person after a long illness—the cells
of the body immediately lose their vibration and become very acid in chemistry. That acid state is the signal to the microbes
of the world, the viruses, bacteria, and fungi, that it is time to decompose this dead tissue. This is their job in the physical
universe. To return a body back to the earth.

“I said earlier,” he went on, “that when our bodies drop in energy because of the kinds of foods we are eating, it makes us
susceptible to disease. Here’s how that works. When we eat foods, they are metabolized and leave a waste or ash in our bodies.
This ash is either acidic in nature or alkaline, depending on the food. If it is alkaline, then it can be quickly extracted
from our bodies with little energy. However, if these waste products are acid, they are very hard for the blood and lymph
system to eliminate and they are stored in our organs and tissues as solids—low vibrational crystalline forms that create
blocks or disruptions in the vibratory levels of our cells. The more such acid by-products are stored, the more generally
acid these tissues become, and guess what?”

He looked at me dramatically again. “A microbe of one type or another appears and senses all this acid and says, ‘Oh, this
body is ready to be decomposed.’

“Do you get that? When any organism dies, its body quickly changes to a highly acid environment and is consumed by microbes
very quickly. If we begin to resemble this very acid, or death state, then we begin to come under attack from microbes. All
human diseases are the result of such an attack.”

What Hanh was saying made perfect sense. A long time ago, I had run across some information about body pH on the Internet.
Moreover, I seemed to know it intuitively.

“You’re telling me that what we eat directly sets us up for disease?” I asked.

“Yes, the wrong foods can lower our vibrational level to the point that the forces of nature begin to return our bodies to
the earth.”

“What about diseases that aren’t caused by microbes?”

“All disease comes about through microbial action. Your own research in the West is showing that. Various microbes have been
found to be associated with the arterial lesions of heart disease, as well as the production of tumors in cancer. But remember,
the microbes are just doing what they do. Diets that create the acidic environment are the true cause.”

He paused and then said, “Grasp this fully. We humans are either in an alkaline, high energy state or we are in an acid state,
which signals the microbes living within us, or that come by, that we are ready to decompose. Disease is literally a rotting
of some part of our bodies because the microbes around us have been given the signal that we are already dead.”

He looked at me mischievously again.

“Sorry to be so blunt,” he said. “But we don’t have much time. The food we eat determines almost entirely which of these two
conditions we are in. Generally, foods that leave acid wastes in our body are heavy, overcooked, overprocessed, and sweet,
such as meats, flours, pastries, alcohol, coffee, and the sweeter fruits. Alkaline foods are greener, fresher, and more alive,
such as fresh vegetables and their juices, leafy greens, sprouts, and fruits like avocado, tomato, grapefruit, and lemons.
It could not be more simple. We are spiritual beings in an energetic, spiritual world. Those of you in the West might have
grown up thinking that cooked meat and processed foods are good for us. But we know now that they create an environment of
slow disincorporation that takes its toll on us over time.

“All the debilitating illnesses that plague mankind—arteriosclerosis, stroke, arthritis, AIDS, and especially cancers—exist
because we pollute our bodies, which signals the microbes inside that we are ready to break down, deenergize, die. We always
wondered why some people exposed to the same microbes don’t get a particular disease. The difference is the inner-body environment.
The good news is that even if we have too much acidity in our bodies and begin to decompose, the situation can be reversed
if we improve our nutrition and move to an alkaline, higher energy state.”

He was now waving both arms, his eyes wide, still twinkling.

“We are living in the dark ages when it comes to the principles of a vibrant, high-energy body. Human beings are supposed
to live more than a hundred and fifty years. But we eat in a way that immediately begins to destroy us. Everywhere, we see
people who are disincorporating before our eyes. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

He paused and took a breath. “It’s not that way in Shambhala.”

After another moment Hanh began to walk around, looking me over one more time.

“So, there you have it,” he concluded. “The legends say that humans will first learn the true nature of foods and what kinds
to consume. Then, the legends say, we can fully open up to the inner sources of energy that increase our vibration even more.”

He slid his chair back from the table and looked at me. “You are handling the altitude very well here in Tibet, but I would
like for you to rest.”

“That would be nice,” I said. “I’m bushed.”

“Yes,” Yin agreed, “we have had a long day.”

“Make sure you expect a dream,” Hanh added, leading me toward a bedroom.

“Expect a dream?”

Hanh turned. “Yes, you are more powerful than you think.”

I laughed.

I
woke up suddenly and looked out the window. The sun was well up in the sky. No dream. I put on my shoes and walked into the
other room.

Hanh and Yin were sitting at the table, talking.

“How did you sleep?” Hanh asked.

“Okay,” I said, slumping down in one of the chairs. “But I can’t remember dreaming.”

“That’s because you don’t have enough energy,” he said, half-distracted. He was staring intensely at my body again. I realized
he was focused on the way I was sitting.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“Is this the way you wake up in the morning?” Hanh inquired.

I stood up. “What’s wrong?”

“After sleep, one must wake up one’s body and begin to accept the energy before one does anything else.” He was standing with
his legs far apart and his hands on his hips. As I watched, he slid his feet together and lifted his arms. His body rose up
in one motion until he was standing on his tiptoes with his palms pressed together directly over his head.

I blinked. There was something unusual about the way his body moved, and I couldn’t focus on it exactly. He seemed to float
upward rather than use his muscles. When I could focus again, he was beaming a broad smile. Just as quickly, his body moved
from there into a graceful walk toward me. I blinked again.

“Most people wake up slowly,” Hanh said, “and slouch around and get themselves going with a cup of coffee or tea. They go
to a job in which they continue to slouch around or use just one particular set of muscles. Patterns set in, and as I said,
blocks develop in the way energy flows through our bodies.

“You must make sure your body is open everywhere in order to receive all the energy that is available. You do this by moving
every muscle, every morning, from your center.” He pointed to a place just below his navel. “If you concentrate on moving
from this area, then your muscles will be free to operate at their highest level of coordination. It is the central principle
of all the martial arts and dance disciplines. You can even invent your own movements.”

With this comment, he launched into a multitude of movements I had never seen before. It appeared to be something like the
shifts of weight and the twirling that one sees in tai chi. He was definitely performing an expansion of these classical movements.

“Your body,” he added, “will know how to move in order to help loosen your individual blocks.”

He stood on one leg and leaned over and swung his arm as if he were pitching a softball underhanded, only his hand almost
touched the floor as he made the movement. Then he spun around in place on the opposite leg. I never saw his weight shift,
and again he seemed to be floating.

I shook my head and tried to focus, but he had stopped in place, as if a photographer had frozen his movements in a snapshot,
which appeared impossible. Just as suddenly he was walking toward me again.

“How do you do this?” I asked.

He said, “I began slowly and remembered the basic principle. If you move from your center and expect the energy to flow into
you, you will move in a lighter and lighter manner. Of course, to perfect this you must be able to open up to all the divine
energy that is available within.”

He stopped and looked at me. “How well do you remember your mystical opening?”

I thought again about Peru and my experience on the mountaintop.

“Fairly well, I think.”

“This is good,” he said. “Let’s go outside.”

Yin smiled as he got up, and we followed Hanh out into a small garden and up some steps into an area of sparse brown grass
and large, jagged boulders. The rocks had attractive streaks of reds and browns running through them. For ten minutes Hanh
led me through some of the movements I had seen earlier, then offered me a place to sit down on the ground, taking a seat
to my right. Yin sat down behind us. The morning sun bathed the mountains in the distance in a warm yellow light. I was struck
by their beauty.