Although Dahn Hak starts out as a physical exercise, its true purpose lies in helping the individual recover his physical health and ethical foundation on his way to becoming a “spiritual” person who is nonetheless successful in the everyday world. At the same time, Dahn Hak aims at the spiritual enlightenment not only of the individual and group enlightenment are different sides of the same coin. They cannot be separated.
In fifteen years, this Dahn Hak exercise has grown to include more than one million members in over three hundred centers in South Korea alone, and close to one hundred thousand members in over fifty centers in the United States, including a meditation retreat center in Sedona, Arizona, and a holistic health club in Closter, New Jersey. It has become a huge success, way beyond my initial dreams, because Dahn Hak gained a reputation for helping people to recover their health and balance in a simple, easy, and effective way. It has become an exercise trend, the choice among holistic exercises, for its eye-opening effectiveness in helping people recover their lost physical and energy balance. Then it is the individual’s choice to explore further into their spirituality. It is a private choice that each one of us has to make. Nothing can be forced. And it is my sincere hope that Dahn Hak can help lead people on their path to spiritual health when they do make the choice, not as an alternative to their respective faith traditions, but as a mean to help them become better Christians, Buddhists, or Muslims.
I have also fine-tuned Dahn Hak to develop a technique called “Brain Respiration,” through which you can literally use your brainpower to awaken your dormant spirituality. Brain Respiration strips away the mysticism from enlightenment and makes it an everyday reality for all. Brain Respiration lays the physiological foundation to this phenomenon called “enlightenment.”
That is what I ultimately want, for people to recover their hidden spirituality, and I want to make it as easy as possible for them. For that is my life’s goal, to help people recover their inherent right to enlightenment. For that is what this world needs, a collective Enlightenment Revolution to sweep across the face of this Earth, allowing humanity to go beyond its current problem into a higher spiritual plane.
For that I write this book.
Ilchi Lee
Sedona, Arizona
January 2000
[...] Breath is life. When the cycle of inhaling and exhaling ends, life ends. A new life first begins with breath. [...]