On the evening of 27 August, Healing News held its first meditation music event, the ‘Healing Meditation Ritual Concert’, at K-Mirae Clinic, set amid the forests of Gonjiam in Docheok-myeon, Gwangju, Gyeonggi province. The journey began with a health lecture by the clinic’s director, Jo Byeong-sik, and continued with an organic vegetarian dinner, a woodland walk, singing bowls and a storytelling piano concert. It was a day spent learning about health, eating healthy food, walking and filling body and soul with the health of music. It was an emotionally rich day for the clinic’s patients, their families and all those who attended.
A lecture room filled to capacity on living longer and living healthily
The event began with a special lecture by Jo Byeong-sik, director of K-Mirae Clinic. Its theme was ‘Regenerating cells can cure disease’. The lecture room was packed, and for more than an hour almost nobody shifted in their seat. The audience’s intense concentration showed just how hungry people are for accurate information about the body.
Although modern people are living longer, they are spending more time in poor health. The prevalence of chronic diseases in 2012 and 2023 was then set out side by side. Obesity rose from 32.4% to 37.2%, while diabetes increased from 8% to 9.4%. Hypertension showed little change, moving from 22% to 20.0%, but hyperlipidaemia almost doubled, from 11–12% to 20.9%. It was also said that diagnoses of diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia are increasing among younger people in their 20s and 30s, leading more of them to visit K-Mirae Clinic.
As most people who visit K-Mirae Clinic have serious or worse illnesses, hearing that people in their 20s and 30s were also coming to the clinic was particularly shocking.
Cell regeneration can transform the entire body
The lecture focused on cells. Jo explained that the body has a multilayered recovery system involving immunity, inflammation control, regeneration and metabolic regulation. Within that system, he said, cell regeneration acts as a repair engine, replacing damaged cells with new ones and restoring the structure and function of tissue.
From technology-centred to environment-centred: the five pillars of K-regenerative medicine
Jo’s K-regenerative medicine approach was presented in contrast to conventional regenerative medicine. Whereas a technology-centred approach uses stem cells, tissue engineering and biomaterials to supplement and reconstruct cells and tissue from outside the body, K-regenerative medicine takes an environment-centred approach that activates the body’s natural healing system.
Its methods were organised around five pillars. Primo therapy, using sulphur-ion pharmacopuncture and light; K-breathing and cellular nutritional supplements; K-plants and herbal medicine, which use phytochemicals to regulate epigenetic switches; Korean food and K-exercise, combining brown-rice vegetarianism with energy training; and K-meditation and sleep techniques, which normalise the autonomic nervous system and hormones through stillness and deep sleep. As someone creating specialist media focused on meditation, I was pleased to see meditation positioned not as an appendix but as one of the five pillars.
Jo Byeong-sik has practised meditation and Gukseondo for many years and is said to teach meditation directly to his patients.
From field to table: an organic vegetarian dinner and a woodland walk at sunset
After the lecture, attendees moved to a dining room where K-Mirae Clinic had prepared an organic vegetarian buffet using vegetables grown in its own fields. Some might expect vegetarian food to lack flavour, but organically grown vegetables picked straight from the field conveyed a vitality of their own. The generous meal, made up of vegetables prepared in a variety of ways, was full of the vivid flavour of fresh produce, and everyone enjoyed a satisfying and convivial mealtime.
The meal was followed by a walk through the woods. Small groups strolled along the grounds of the clinic, surrounded by a forest covering 25,000 pyeong, taking in the woodland fragrance. Even without calling it walking meditation, it became a time when everyone could experience a deep sense of peace.
A sublime combination of singing-bowl meditation and storytelling piano
After the walk, attendees gathered in the café area. At pianist Shin Eun-kyung’s special request, the programme began with a period of settling the breath through singing-bowl sound healing. As everyone steadied their breathing and listened to the sound of crystal singing bowls, the energy of the audience came together as one.
Shin Eun-kyung’s storytelling piano concert followed. There was a profound difference between simply listening to a performance and listening while in a meditative state. With the audience’s energy already unified through singing-bowl meditation, the pianist’s narration and playing doubled the emotional impact.
A performance about the body, between serenity and intensity
The subject of the story told by pianist Shin Eun-kyung was the body. It traced the journey from the cells formed inside a mother’s body to their gradual growth and emergence into the world, accompanied by a range of piano pieces. The story unfolded, with the music layered over it. At times calm and at others impassioned, the piano melodies followed the texture of the story and flowed naturally through our bodies.
I had not expected the combination of singing-bowl music and classical music to be so moving. As piano melodies flowed through the space created by the crystal bowls’ long vibrations, they seemed to resonate and vibrate more distinctly through our bodies, filling the room. Because the entire audience remained focused and enjoyed the performance to the end, the emotion grew as it passed between stage and auditorium.
Awakening the doctor within
The day followed a sequence of understanding the body, taking things into the body, moving the body and listening through the body. The lecture began with the proposition that the body can heal itself. Everyone has a doctor within, and awakening that doctor was connected to what they ate that day, the distance they walked, the singing-bowl vibrations they felt and the piano melodies they heard.
The Healing Meditation Ritual Music Concert ended with every attendee returning home deeply moved. The organisers promised to continue holding a range of events with K-Mirae Clinic in the future.
The event was hosted by Healing News and sponsored by K-Mirae Clinic.