Q: I like trying different kinds of bodywork. Can you tell me about qigong?

While developing a somatic healing practice, I found meditation and Buddhist teachings gave me incredible support in developing a logical approach to health and healing. The result? Insight Bodywork™, a young branch on the well-established tree of Dharma Medicine.

Shari Sunshine is quick to note she was born to this surname, like her father before her, Dr. Sunshine, a dentist in Denver, Colo. Despite sounding New Age or trendy, her name, as well as her touch therapy — Syntropy Insight Bodywork — is rooted in ancient tradition.

In the small, mountain town of Eldora, Colo., nestled between towering pines and shimmering aspen trees, sits a modest log cabin. Here, Ken “Bear Hawk” Cohen lives and works in unpretentious surroundings that belie the complexities and accomplishments of his life. Cohen is Jewish by birth and Native American by adoption. He is also a world-renowned qigong master and Chinese scholar, inter-faith minister, university professor, Haiku poet, doting father and loving husband.

Ping Lee’s training as an engineer comes in handy when he’s explaining the concept of energy. “Conceptualize the word air,” he says. “The Chinese have a lot of expressions with the word air. It sounds insignificant, so when you say something is air, what type of thing is it? Can you picture a steam locomotive, do you know how powerful that is? When we use the word steam we think of a cloud, but it is only a condensation of air — energy. What I teach in class, when we talk about energy, is seeing the word air as energy. You can feel a person’s presence, that’s energy.

It has long been a tenet of natural health practitioners that good health depends on a correctly functioning digestive system. Research also tells us good digestion has an emotional component and that many disorders of the internal organs are exacerbated by stress.