Book excerpt: In our busy lives we are bombarded by energy that taxes us and depletes our chi. This book of simple movements and meditations drawn from the Chinese arts of t'ai chi and chi gung will help restore your life energy, known as chi. Chi, according to traditional Chinese medicine, is the fuel and essence that connects body, mind, and spirit, and without it we fall apart physically, mentally, and spiritually. In Restoring Your Life Energy, well-known and respected t'ai chi master Waysun Liao explains why protecting our chi is so important, how chi gets taxed and damaged in our lives, and how to restore it. He explains: • The three levels of healing—physical, mental, and energetic/spiritual: what they are, why it is important to understand them, and how to target our practice to address each level; • Moving meditation, a powerful way of restoring chi (once we learn to sense the flow of chi, we can actually direct healing chi energy to areas in our body that need attention); • And how to integrate our knowledge of chi with conventional advice regarding diet, exercise, and medication. The book includes numerous exercises including "exercises for daily life," simple breathing and sensory meditations that can be done throughout the day; more advanced breathing and sensory meditations; standing exercises to move internal energy; "cleansing forms" to do during times of stress; and deeply cleansing and restorative "Tao gong" exercises.