Latest / Salish Wolf / #28 Kenneth Cohen on Qigong, the Beauty of the Tao, and Oolong Tea

Transcript

#28 Kenneth Cohen on Qigong, the Beauty of the Tao, and Oolong Tea · Salish Wolf

• 0:00
  We have confused our means of description with that which is
• 0:05
  described. We have mistakenly assumed that
• 0:09
  an idea, a symbol is. The thing is that, which is
• 0:13
  described the same problem occurs.
• 0:15
  When we think about ourselves, people say, I know who I am.
• 0:19
  Well the only I I can know is my concept of myself, who I think I
• 0:25
  am. But what about the one who is
• 0:27
  doing the knowing who is Is that that answer can only be
• 0:32
  expressed in silence? There actually is no answer.
• 0:37
  Welcome to Salish wolf a podcast bringing you inspirational
• 0:41
  stories of extraordinary Endeavors.
• 0:45
  I am your host Todd Howard. Just south of my Vancouver
• 0:49
  Island home as a tiny archipelago on which for nearly
• 0:52
  a decade. Lived a most astonishing animal,
• 0:55
  a lone wolf takea as he would be named survive.
• 1:00
  Live and thrive in an environment where likely no wolf
• 1:03
  had ever set foot in the process.
• 1:05
  He captured the hearts of the community and showed us even the
• 1:09
  most unlikely as possible. His story is not dissimilar to
• 1:14
  those of the individuals interviewed on this podcast.
• 1:17
  At some point, they each had a turn to their inner Lone, Wolf
• 1:21
  from there, they were able to lead.
• 1:23
  And Inspire my intention is to share their Journeys to help you
• 1:27
  discover your own inner greatness and peace.
• 1:33
  This podcast is brought to you by Anchor Point Expeditions,
• 1:37
  where I provide life-changing personal leadership, Retreats
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  for men coaching and other valuable personal growth
• 1:43
  resources. Visit Anchor Point,
• 1:45
  expeditions.com to see where your journey could take.
• 1:49
  You. Kenneth Cohen is a legendary
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  Qigong, Grandmaster Chinese scholar and world-renowned
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  health educator. In this interview, he delivers
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  powerful and insightful and inspirational narrative.
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  That spans cultures and Millennia and regularly reminds
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  listeners of our interconnectivity, not just to
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  each other but to all that is can is the author of The
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  internationally acclaimed book The Way of Qi Gong and has been
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  a discipline practitioner of Tai, Chi Chuan, and she gone for
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  more than 50 years. Since being introduced to the
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  former at a talk given by Alan Watts.
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  We talked at length about Ken's Journey with these spiritual
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  practices and with other Chinese, martial arts and the
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  development of his interest in Chinese language.
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  And philosophy Ken's recall is incredible.
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  And he spontaneously shares with us.
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  In Mandarin passages from the Dao de Jing and Dallas, poetry
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  complete with his thought-provoking translations.
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  Taoism has had a profound impact on Ken's life and we explore
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  many of the philosophies that have been so meaningful to him
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  and continued to be wholly relevant in the modern world, in
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  which we live to conclude. This episode, Ken takes his on a
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  surreal, sensorial Journey to the high mountains of Taiwan via
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  a cup of oolong. NG T, I assure you that if you
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  are a tea drinker, this is one verbal.
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  Excursion you will not want to miss.
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  When I think of Ken many virtues come to mind including wisdom
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  and generosity, I could listen to his wisdom for hours on end.
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  And I am so grateful for the nearly two hours that he
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  generously gave for this interview.
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  My life certainly has been enriched by the experience, and
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  yours is about to be also, please enjoy this episode of
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  Salish wolf with Kenneth Cohen. Ken.
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  Welcome to Salish wolf. Thank you.
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  It's good to be here. It's good to have you here.
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  It's good to meet you. I want to thank Zeb Rosenberg
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  for introducing, the two of us and suggesting this interview.
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  So thank you, Zeb for that. you have been a chi gong Master for
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  half a century or more. It seems like that has become
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  certainly a part of your fabric of life and I'm just curious how
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  that all began for you. Well, you know, as with any
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  story, it will have a different message at a different teaching.
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  Depending upon where you started where you finish it, what
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  characters are left in, which characters are left out.
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  So let me tell you the, the sort of more Obvious answer to the
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  question and that is when I was about 16 years old.
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  I was attending a workshop by Alan Watts.
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  You may know who he is, he wrote most some 30, or more books and
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  was one of the people who helped introduce Buddhism and Asian
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  philosophy to the West. So I was probably the youngest
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  attendee at his seminar at Bucks County seminar house in.
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  Looks County Pennsylvania and during a workshop break,
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  somebody was out on the lawn doing an eerie slow motion
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  exercise. I had no idea what it was, but
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  as soon as I saw it, I felt so relaxed, so wonderful.
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  I was absolutely mesmerised. I went over to him and I said
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  what? Excuse me, you know, when he was
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  finished ass, excuse me. What were you doing?
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  He said, oh, it's taichi. So what does that actually?
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  He probably pronounced it, the correct.
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  Correct way. Today, we have the
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  Americanization tide. She it's pronounced taiji
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  actually taiji trim. So I said, did you make that up?
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  Shows you how little I knew about it?
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  He said, no, it's it's a specific choreography that I
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  learned from my teacher. Well, I knew I had to study, it
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  was sort of equivalent of love at first sight and didn't know
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  what it was. I just knew it made me feel good
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  watching it. And so, I found the Tai Chi
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  teacher not long after that during that same seminar with
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  Alan Watts, he subject of one of his talks was music and
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  meditation. He said that when you listen to
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  a piece of music, you are with an unfolding present, you're
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  always in the now, you don't listen to a piece of music in
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  order to reach any particular point in it.
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  You don't listen to music just to reach the end point.
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  You're with the process. So he recommended that anyone
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  who was interested in these connections between let's say
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  Buddhist Meditation and music read a book called sound and
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  symbol by the German Music Hall. Largest zuckerkandl.
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  It was published by, I think was Princeton University press well,
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  when the workshop was over and I was back home, I went to my
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  favorite bookstore and when I spoke to the owner about what I
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  was looking for, he said, oh that's a very famous but very
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  rare book. Let me get it for you.
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  The got the book and only later did I realize I purchased
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  another book of the same title but by a different author.
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  It wasn't by Zuko Condi, got sound and symbol, but Bernhard
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  cauldron. Carlton was one of the great,
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  Swedish Chinese language experts actually his research is still
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  used today because he was able to reconstruct through a
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  comparison of dialects and speech patterns and known Rhymes
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  and so forth. He was able to reconstruct the
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  pronunciation of ancient Chinese.
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  So you could read a poem written a thousand years ago.
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  And here the phonetics hear the Sound of the words as it sounded
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  then well, call grinning wrote one very rare and spectacular
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  introduction to the Chinese language.
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  There were only I think a thousand copies are so in print
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  at least of that version that I got that addition.
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  And so looking for a book about music by mistake, I purchased a
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  book of the same title about Chinese.
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  So here I was hooked on the Chinese language.
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  I decided to read the book here. I was hooked on the Language and
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  untied you. At the same time, I found a
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  teacher. I saw an advertisement.
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  Actually, when I started Chinese, I saw an ad on a
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  bulletin board of someone who is teaching tai chi in my
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  neighborhood and I Advanced so quickly.
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  That my teacher actually sent me to his teacher Grand Master
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  William CC Chen within a year. And that, by the way, he was,
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  excuse me that by the way, was surprising.
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  Because when I started Tai Chi and Qigong my health, It was not
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  good. I mean I I was I had chronic
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  bronchitis, my father being a pharmacist later a renowned
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  World Health Organization, fellow and public health officer
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  in those days. He was a pharmacist and people
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  mistakenly thought that the best cure for the common cold was an
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  antibiotic and so I was on a this vicious cycle of more
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  antibiotics and more illness, more antibiotics more illness.
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  By the time I was in my teens I had chronic bronchitis And I had
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  insomnia had all sorts of problems.
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  And I remember the look, The sad look on my first teachers face.
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  Not Grand Master Chen, but that very first teacher whose name I
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  saw on the bulletin board and I could see he was thinking this
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  guy's never gonna be able to learn this.
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  I mean, he is so messed up his nervous.
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  System is shot. What I was 15 or 16 years old.
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  Probably looked like, I was 20 years older, Yet, I Advanced so
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  quickly in such an extraordinary way.
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  I have no idea why? I mean I've got some ideas but
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  basically no idea why and within a year he said, you know what,
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  you've got to study with my teacher and so he more or less
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  gave me a smoker letter of reference, a recommendation to
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  train with, with his teacher, which I did.
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  And I graduated from William Chen school with a teaching
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  certificate and 1974. But later I, you know, as with
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  any Field you find other teachers and you continue to
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  learn and continue studying. I became an apprentice to a
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  Taoist happened from Southern China.
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  I was his only Apprentice during his lifetime.
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  I had the great honor of studying with be p-chan.
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  When he first came to the United States, from fujian Province,
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  learn taiji Baca and shinny the three, great, internal martial
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  arts as well as Dallas meditation, Qigong, and then
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  Madame GAO Foo as a beginning in the 80s.
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  She was I guess you could say, my last teacher.
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  And she was one of the most extraordinary Tae Joon and she
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  got teachers I've ever met with who is absolutely meticulous in
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  detail because she really felt it was all a matter of quality
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  not quantity that you could find the deepest mystery and the
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  simplest movement. So, it's been quite, you know,
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  quite a journey. I'm still learning.
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  I'm still training. I'm still practicing.
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  So, that's that's the official beginning.
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  I mean, I had other Beginnings because I had some strange,
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  mystical experiences. As a child that as I realized
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  later really set the set me on the path that led me towards
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  taiji, I should say. Also that, although, part of me
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  thinks, you know, why did, why did I study tide you?
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  And I mean, my parents had no interest in anything Asian and
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  here's my brother, was the attorney for the US Embassy in
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  China for years and years, he also speaks Chinese.
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  We have our own secret language that we speak on the phone will
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  be speaking to each other in Chinese.
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  Have how does this happen? I don't know.
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  I really don't know. And yet I do feel there's this
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  you know for want of a better word sort of karmic Affinity.
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  I guess you'd say Chinese called you enfin.
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  Sort of karmic Affinity with Chinese culture and language.
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  I've got it. My my brother has it.
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  My parents. No, no involvement in China
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  though. I'm grateful.
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  They at least were open and only Dad still alive but they were
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  both open-minded and supportive. So that's kind of my basic
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  story. I do think that one reason I
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  Advanced rather quickly is because I had the virtue of what
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  could be called, intelligent stupidity.
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  That is I was doing Tai Chi and Qigong for the sheer love of it.
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  I wasn't trying to get anywhere. You know, does that mean?
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  I was unintelligent? Maybe I don't know.
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  I mean, I was look, my health was terrible.
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  So you would think I would be motivated to do it because of my
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  poor health, but that's not what motivated me.
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  And when I think about it now after you know, so so many is a
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  practice, it 50. More than 50 years of practice,
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  I realized that if I had tried hard to improve, I would have
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  been reinforcing the poor self-image, the identity that I
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  had at that time in the sense, my not trying to improve and
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  thus not reinforcing the status quo, my being with taiji as
• 13:19
  though, listening to music. Is what allowed the music of
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  taiji and of Qigong to unfold and to have its effect.
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  Only later that I realized. Wow, my health is better, I'm
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  sleeping better. I'm feeling more relaxed, I've
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  got better friends, I feel more confident.
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  My health overall is better and better fact, it's still getting
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  better. Sometimes complain to my wife,
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  aren't I supposed to feel old? I'm 68, 68 years old and I've
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  I'm more energy now than ever. I was just hiking about.
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  It was a six-mile hike. I did yesterday, and I had just
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  talked for three or four hours that morning, bye-bye, Zoom my
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  reflexes seem to be faster than ever.
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  I still do pretty good against a young boxer.
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  You know, I am very interested in still the, the martial arts
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  aspect of taiji and the so-called internal martial arts,
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  so you know, One thing I do want to say to listeners is you
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  really kind of reap the benefits, the deeper benefits of
• 14:27
  Qigong and you could say Qi, Gong and Tai ji because taiji is
• 14:30
  consistent with the principles of Qigong and vice versa.
• 14:34
  You really reap the benefits more as time passes and think of
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  think of, like, use a garden analogy, if you know that your
• 14:43
  garden is going to require, and I'm going to make up a number
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  500, gallons of water, the course of a growing season.
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  And x amount of sunlight. You wouldn't hire a water truck
• 14:55
  to dump that water all at once at the beginning of the growing
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  season and bring in some powerful ultraviolet.
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  Violet lamps to give the full three months dosage in one day,
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  you burn up the plants and ground The Roots.
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  You need to water your energy Garden a little bit every day.
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  That's the practice and then you find that the fruit the Harvest.
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  Appears more and more over time, so that the greatest benefits of
• 15:27
  these Arts really occur with. I think with age mean yes.
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  Yes, it benefits you when you're younger, I mean you can excel in
• 15:33
  sports, you can improve your performance in virtually any
• 15:36
  sport. I had a quarterback from the
• 15:38
  Dallas Cowboys come out to train with me.
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  Well, he did a workshop with me and everybody in the workshop
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  was going. Oh my God.
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  You Suzanne Collins Workshop? I follow boxing and martial
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  arts. I don't really follow.
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  Football. I mean so wonderful Sports.
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  Just not my thing. So I wasn't especially impressed
• 15:55
  that he was there although I knew it was supposed to be
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  something special. I've had so many super athletes
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  come into the classes young people because it can improve
• 16:04
  their game. It can improve speed power
• 16:08
  efficiency coordination makes you less likely to get injured.
• 16:13
  It can keep you in your sport for a longer period of time at a
• 16:17
  very high level. So there are reasons why young
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  and old would practice, but I think looking back at my life, I
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  think I'm getting more benefit from it now than I did in my
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  20s. What an incredible story, thank
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  you for that summary. I'm sure we'll get more deeply
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  into some bits of that. I love how.
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  Even before you knew what taoism was, you were in a way,
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  practicing taoism you weren't seeking.
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  You were being, you were just being with Tai Chi and Qi Gong,
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  you weren't trying to improve or get somewhere with it.
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  And you were also open to all these opportunities that the
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  Universe kept putting in front of you from seeing that person,
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  do taijitu ordering the wrong book.
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  And Will reading it and seeking out teachers.
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  It's what a story. I'm I want to know backing up to
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  when you I think said we're 15 or 16.
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  What was your reason for going to see and hear Alan Watts that
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  point? That's that's thanks to my
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  brother. My wonderful brother.
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  I'm very fortunate, you know, my dad is still healthy, 95 year
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  old now, mentally and physically healthy my mom passed on A
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  number of years ago, my brother's a great guy and we we
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  have some similar interest some different interests but back
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  then he had just read. He's two years.
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  Just a couple years younger than me.
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  He had read a book about the life of the Buddha.
• 17:49
  It was actually, I still remember the name of the book
• 17:51
  was called the Buddha and Life and Legend by Betty Kellen que
• 17:54
  ele. I don't know if I would think,
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  as much of it today, I'm have read it years, but he had just
• 18:01
  read this book and I was a science nerd, but he said to me,
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  10 actually, Kenny my family members, nobody else goes bad,
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  don't call me that, but my family members called the kitty.
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  He said, Kenny this book is great, you've got to read it.
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  About the Buddha about his life. His life story.
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  I said I'm not I'm not interested in that, it's really
• 18:27
  cool. It's really interesting.
• 18:29
  Well okay, I'll read it. I'll see what what I think I
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  read the book and it had the same effect on me that years
• 18:37
  later tied you did. When I first saw taiji me, I was
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  reading a book about about the Buddha about how he was raised
• 18:44
  in the princely palace and realized That there was more to
• 18:49
  life than the riches and luxury, he was surrounded with than
• 18:53
  later. Basically let him on a quest for
• 18:56
  the origins of human suffering and the realization that it's
• 19:03
  preoccupation with oneself with one's own agenda.
• 19:07
  It's the the Hold'em ego that ego and greed, which are the
• 19:14
  essential causes of suffering. It's not really religion in the
• 19:18
  western sense. But here I read this book and
• 19:23
  realize in reading it, that there was also a way to lessen
• 19:26
  suffering. Through self-awareness.
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  Through meditation. That everyone had access to this
• 19:35
  state of peace tranquility self-knowledge, that attracted
• 19:41
  me. Even though I was just a kid for
• 19:43
  some reason that attracted me And so I began reading ver.
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  I thank my brother. I began reading voraciously
• 19:52
  everything I could about Buddhism also.
• 19:54
  But yoga about philosophies of India and I remember at one
• 19:59
  point, I was reading the book, I think was outlines of Mahayana
• 20:03
  Buddhism by the great. Buddhist author, DT Suzuki and
• 20:09
  Alan Watts did the introduction to that book?
• 20:14
  I felt such a connection. Alan, you know, was an
• 20:18
  incredible author and speaker speaking in his beautiful King's
• 20:24
  English. And so I somehow came across an
• 20:29
  advertisement somewhere, I guess in the newspaper, that Alan
• 20:33
  Watts, who I've been reading was giving this seminar on Buddhism
• 20:39
  and meditation. I thought well that's for me,
• 20:42
  I'm going to I'm going to try it.
• 20:43
  I need to teacher and so I went and everything proceeded from
• 20:48
  there and he said that was in Pennsylvania as that he grew up.
• 20:52
  I grew up in New York. Really almost almost at Long
• 20:58
  Island at the far end of of queens.
• 21:02
  And I would commute into Manhattan for my classes with my
• 21:06
  taiji teachers. So I grew up there.
• 21:09
  Pennsylvania was just a short bus ride away.
• 21:14
  And it was, it was a good place for access to different teachers
• 21:18
  and teachings. Of course, New York City.
• 21:20
  Chinatown is famous, and is huge.
• 21:23
  So, there's a lot of Asia, there was a lot of Asian culture,
• 21:26
  even, even at that time and I enrolled at the new school for
• 21:32
  social research for Chinese and did my first four semesters
• 21:36
  there later at Queens College. I had some wonderful mentors in
• 21:41
  both modern and classical. Chinese specializing in taoism,
• 21:46
  in Dallas, Texas. Taoism is the, you could say,
• 21:50
  original spirituality of China Buddhism was an import from
• 21:53
  India and Confucianism deals. A little more with you could
• 21:56
  say, ethics and social relations, social relations,
• 22:01
  with understanding of government.
• 22:03
  But taoism is really the, you know, it's philosophy of Yin and
• 22:07
  Yang and seeking truth and Harmony in nature.
• 22:12
  The Dallas Dallas tradition is at the root of Qi Gong and Tai
• 22:17
  ji so much. So that especially with Qigong
• 22:20
  virtually, all of the literature on Qi Gong is found in the
• 22:24
  Taoist Cannon. The major collection of Taoist
• 22:28
  works. It's about 1200 texts it only
• 22:32
  appears in Chinese medical literature, post communism
• 22:37
  post-1950 before that. If you're looking for a book
• 22:41
  about She gone. Well, first of all, you're not
• 22:42
  even going to find the term. The term Qigong itself was also
• 22:47
  coined and became popular after 1950 previous to that the
• 22:52
  exercises. The meditations were, of course,
• 22:56
  practice for thousands of years, just known by a different title.
• 23:02
  They were called either Dalian Dao.
• 23:04
  Why I N, which means leading and guiding.
• 23:08
  We presume the chi leading and guiding the chigi life force.
• 23:12
  Or it was also commonly known as yunsung.
• 23:16
  Yunsung means nurturing life. You could say that what we are
• 23:21
  now what was rebranded as Qigong to make it more acceptable.
• 23:27
  In modern China was originally called dollar John Young, Shang
• 23:33
  Shu the Taoist Arts of nurturing life which I think is a
• 23:37
  spectacular term. I wish they would bring that
• 23:39
  word back today, yangcheng, or nurturing live tends to include
• 23:43
  more than just Qigong. It's all your different ways of
• 23:46
  Of self-care and including diet, including harmonious
• 23:50
  relationships and so forth. It's all of those.
• 23:52
  What we would today, call epigenetic factors lifestyle
• 23:56
  choices that improve well-being, but it was one of the original
• 24:00
  terms for Qigong. And it's a beautiful term.
• 24:03
  Nurturing life, nurturing yourself.
• 24:07
  I'm trying to do the math here. You said that your brother is a
• 24:10
  couple years younger than you and you said you read the Buddha
• 24:14
  book that he gave you a few years before you I saw Ty G.
• 24:17
  So that makes your brother like 9 or 10.
• 24:19
  When he's reading about Buddha 13 he was about 13, okay?
• 24:24
  15. Yeah, okay.
• 24:27
  And within the year, I was at an Alan Watts Workshop.
• 24:31
  Yeah. About a year later actually.
• 24:33
  And did that Workshop have an impact on you?
• 24:36
  It had a big impact both because of the Transformative Power of
• 24:43
  allons allons Words as well as the synchronicity of seeing
• 24:49
  someone doing taiji out on the lawn during the lunch break.
• 24:52
  So and his recommending a book on music and mean mistakenly
• 24:57
  getting a book on Chinese language.
• 24:59
  So the impact we was huge and remain later in 1973.
• 25:05
  I was one of five scholarship students, accepted by all in
• 25:08
  Watts for intensive. Training with him over that
• 25:12
  summer. So I got to know him,
• 25:14
  personally, I did translations in one of his books, I was
• 25:19
  already speaking and reading Chinese by 1973 ended up being
• 25:24
  the last year of his life. He died in November of 1973.
• 25:28
  So Alan Alan had a big impact and that brings up an
• 25:31
  interesting point about Alan's Alan Watts his way of speaking.
• 25:37
  I found both at that early time and in later years, when I was
• 25:43
  one of those five scholarship students, specifically to study,
• 25:48
  taoism with him, I found that after his talks, I would discuss
• 25:54
  with my classmates. We would hope to discuss the
• 25:58
  content of his dogs and we can never remember anything,
• 26:04
  remember word, and they had the same experience.
• 26:08
  Alan Watts seem to bring seem to use words to bring you to, where
• 26:13
  words cannot go words as the leaping off point for
• 26:18
  experienced his words. I think we're as much design
• 26:23
  maybe not deliberately so, but as much designed, To transform
• 26:27
  consciousness. As to convey information or at
• 26:32
  least that was the effect of his words that if he was speaking
• 26:36
  about the concept of emptiness in taoism or in Buddhism, the
• 26:43
  idea that you can find a state of being, that is free of worry
• 26:47
  and concept. That words words, in fact are
• 26:50
  like a piece of transparent graph paper.
• 26:53
  A latticework that breaks the world up into manageable unit,
• 26:58
  two words. But the world is self is not
• 27:01
  broken up into words. It does mean it's all one,
• 27:05
  doesn't mean it's one homogenized mess, it just means,
• 27:08
  there are no differences. Differences are an illusion
• 27:11
  imposed by the structure of language.
• 27:14
  Well, let's say that was the subject of one of, Alan's talks.
• 27:19
  The net result is not that. You remember those analogies,
• 27:23
  which, by the way, he cleverly adapted from Luke vidkun
• 27:27
  Stein's, the German philosopher in his book be Tractatus
• 27:30
  logico-philosophicus. You wouldn't remember that?
• 27:34
  What you would remember? What you felt was?
• 27:37
  Wow, I'm in an empty State of Mind.
• 27:40
  You couldn't quite remember the words, but the subject of what
• 27:44
  he was discussing you were there with him.
• 27:48
  He was truly what the Yogi's of India called on jnana, yoga, you
• 27:51
  know, there are different paths to the Brockman to the Divine
• 27:55
  and Indian yoga. Some people reach that path
• 27:58
  through their actions through their activities.
• 28:00
  Through being of service through Karma, Yoga, some people reach
• 28:03
  it through, through meditation, through Raja yoga, some people
• 28:07
  reach it through the physical exercises, through asanas,
• 28:10
  through through, half a yoga, some reaching through devotional
• 28:13
  practices through bhakti, but Alan Watts.
• 28:18
  If I put them in the categories, two religions of India, I would
• 28:22
  say you was an homage, a nan, a nan, the Yogi, Yogi of the Mind,
• 28:28
  a yogi of the Intellect who through words transformed your
• 28:34
  consciousness. That's powerful.
• 28:39
  You also said that he taught that differences are imposed by
• 28:44
  the subject of language. Yes.
• 28:47
  Can you elaborate on that? I love that sure.
• 28:50
  So I remember one time going back to Alan Watts, you know
• 28:55
  what we speak about Alan Watts, of course, memories.
• 28:58
  Come back thinking about him. Now, those wonderful experiences
• 29:01
  I had with it and I remember one time he was starting a lecture,
• 29:06
  not a that same seminar I mentioned earlier.
• 29:09
  This is another lecture. Just an evening lecture.
• 29:13
  And he had a bowl of fruit in front of him.
• 29:16
  He picks up an orange from the bowl and he asks the audience,
• 29:22
  what is this? And somebody calls out at first
• 29:26
  we didn't know what what he's asking is.
• 29:27
  I mean, obviously it's an orange.
• 29:28
  So what have you really asking? Again Alan says, what is this?
• 29:34
  So in Cole's out, it's an orange.
• 29:37
  He said, no it's not it's and he throws the orange at the person.
• 29:43
  So we have confused. Our means of description with
• 29:50
  that which is described. We have unfortunately, been so
• 29:56
  entranced by the spoken and especially the written word that
• 30:03
  I believe it is a mistaken, assumption that the categories
• 30:06
  of language exist in nature, the same problem occurs.
• 30:12
  When we think about ourselves, people say, I know who I am.
• 30:18
  Well the only I I can know is my concert of myself, who I think I
• 30:25
  am. But what about the one who is
• 30:27
  doing the knowing? Who is that?
• 30:31
  That that answer can only be expressed in silence.
• 30:36
  There actually is no answer. As the great commentator on the
• 30:40
  upanishads. One of the great scriptures of
• 30:43
  India's as he putted the commentators English Ankara, you
• 30:47
  said just as a sword, cannot cut itself, nor a fire burn itself.
• 30:56
  So the subject cannot be the object of its own knowledge.
• 31:03
  So there again, we have mistakenly assumed that an idea.
• 31:10
  A symbol is. The thing is that which is
• 31:14
  describe whether it's the word, orange, or the word tree, or the
• 31:20
  sense of I, that I know myself. Again, who is the one doing the
• 31:27
  knowing That cannot be answered, can only be answered in silence.
• 31:34
  I just recently had a conversation with Daniel Reed
• 31:37
  who you may know fellow Chinese scholar and Qi Gong expert and
• 31:42
  we were talking about this very thing and how with the Dow, the
• 31:48
  naming results, in a dividing in distinction, and the more we
• 31:54
  named the further we move away from the Dow.
• 31:57
  And as Lonnie Jarrett said in an earlier episode of the doubt
• 32:00
  also says, it's it's a good idea to know when to stop naming.
• 32:04
  That's right, that's right clouds.
• 32:05
  It says the clouds of being the fifth century, BC founder of
• 32:08
  Taoist philosophy says knowing when to stop his wisdom and when
• 32:13
  you mention about not naming, that's actually part of my
• 32:18
  translation of the opening, chapter of the daodejing, the
• 32:23
  daodejing, the classic of the Dow, and its virtue.
• 32:26
  Or you could say Dow and its power because it's virtue almost
• 32:29
  in the Latin sense. We get the word Virtue from the
• 32:32
  same root bi. By our v r.
• 32:35
  As in the word, Bureau means an inherent power.
• 32:38
  So the Dow and it's done the Dow and its virtue of the Dow and
• 32:42
  its power. That classic work, 5th Century
• 32:46
  BC, Starts with a chapter, that chapter one, that actually
• 32:53
  summarizes the wisdom of the entire text.
• 32:58
  And here's the part that's relevant to this discussion of
• 33:03
  words and names substituting for the lived experience.
• 33:10
  I'll give you a spontaneous translation right now.
• 33:15
  It starts. the Dow that can be, of course, you know, this one,
• 33:21
  but the other kind of spoken of is not the Dow The name that can
• 33:25
  be named is not the name, or you could say the name that can be
• 33:29
  named is not the Downs name because the Dow is beyond words.
• 33:33
  Now usually the next line is translated, the nameless is the
• 33:38
  beginning of Heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of all
• 33:42
  things. I believe that translation is a
• 33:45
  mistake because nouns can be verbs in classical Chinese.
• 33:52
  There's, there's nothing in the structure of the Chinese
• 33:55
  character that indicates, whether it's one or the other.
• 33:58
  Parts of speech are completely flexible.
• 34:01
  So, I translated this way, not the nameless, but not naming, is
• 34:07
  the beginning of Heaven and Earth naming is the origin of
• 34:11
  all things. And here I'll comment because
• 34:15
  naming is what creates things. The world does not consist of
• 34:20
  names words, Concepts or things. The experience of life is
• 34:25
  essentially ineffable. Beyond words yet.
• 34:29
  We put it into categories in order to communicate nothing
• 34:33
  wrong with communication. We're communicating.
• 34:35
  Now the only problem is when we confuse our means of
• 34:39
  communication are descriptive medium with the nameless realm.
• 34:45
  That is, in fact described. So that whole chapter, I'll give
• 34:50
  you now my translation, entire chapter.
• 34:52
  Let's let's hear the Cadence of it in Chinese and in, then I'll
• 34:58
  You the translation in English sometimes is pledging here,
• 35:01
  plenty of the words. And by the way, you'll notice,
• 35:03
  when I recite the opening line now could Al Fey Cham, Dao is
• 35:07
  something interesting about that line.
• 35:09
  Listen to it again. You don't have to know, Chinese
• 35:12
  to know that there's something strange about it.
• 35:14
  Dow could doll fade Xiang. Do do you hear anything unusual
• 35:18
  in that line? Yeah, I know I'm thinking I hear
• 35:24
  I hear Dow three times. So the term Dow, I believe it.
• 35:28
  The term. Dow is used more than 70 times
• 35:32
  in the course of that. Ancient texts.
• 35:34
  Each time with a slightly different meaning.
• 35:38
  Hmm. So lousy is expressing through
• 35:41
  style, the content and message of the text wowza is saying that
• 35:49
  life consists of change. And to try to understand the
• 35:53
  world with words, it's like trying to capture flowing water
• 35:59
  in a bucket or the wind in your hands.
• 36:05
  Now, the word, Dow commonly means a path, the path a
• 36:09
  spiritual path, but it also means to speak or a word.
• 36:16
  Curiously. It has the same range of
• 36:19
  connotations as the Greek word logos, right in John. 1 in the
• 36:24
  Bible, it says, and I'll handle emotion.
• 36:26
  Forgive my poor Greek in the beginning was the word, but the
• 36:30
  word also means the way. So when lousy says the doubt
• 36:35
  that can now is not the Eternal Dow, is he saying the word that
• 36:39
  can be spoken is not the Eternal Word?
• 36:42
  The word that been given that can be given away that has a
• 36:44
  pathway is not the real. Is he saying the path that we
• 36:48
  can speak about is not the path? There's so many possible
• 36:52
  permutations So what is louds of doing?
• 36:56
  He's writing a few, a few guys, in a Bach.
• 36:59
  Fugue multiple voices at once. All true, the doll that can be
• 37:05
  spoken of is not. The doubt is only one possible
• 37:08
  translation. I love.
• 37:09
  Alan Watts has brilliant play on words that captures.
• 37:13
  Some of the flexibility of the Chinese, his preferred
• 37:16
  translation of the opening line. The course that can be discourse
• 37:20
  is not the course, fantastic. It w discourse is not the
• 37:26
  course. So here's here's the whole poem.
• 37:28
  The first first chapter of the daodejing If I remember it, now
• 37:35
  could do Fade Cham Dao, Ming coming off a Charming woman.
• 37:41
  Candide, you're sure Yeoman want food, remove guchang, guangxi
• 37:49
  Mia, Xiang, Yu Guan, XI Cheng, Xiao xue Liang.
• 37:53
  Zhou told told true or evening, total wages Shan Shan ji ocean,
• 38:00
  Show me how German I think I was pretty cool.
• 38:02
  Pretty close to having the whole thing.
• 38:03
  Yeah here's his Trust. The Dow that can be spoken of is
• 38:08
  not the Dow. The name that can be named is
• 38:14
  not the Dow's name. Not naming, is the beginning of
• 38:21
  Heaven and Earth. Naming is the mother of all
• 38:26
  things. Therefore, if we Are without
• 38:32
  greed and grasping desire. You can see the Wonders and
• 38:41
  Mysteries. If you have green and grasping
• 38:46
  desire, you're stuck on the surface.
• 38:53
  These two arise together. by these two, by the way means that
• 38:59
  you disable the naming and not naming being in nothing.
• 39:04
  Answer these to arise together. But in issuing, from the mouth
• 39:11
  have different names, we can call them both mystery mystery,
• 39:16
  Beyond mystery, the gateway to all Wonder. so there's if my if
• 39:24
  my memory serves me correctly, there's the opening line of the
• 39:30
  opening poem of the damaging which summarized the whole text
• 39:34
  and and now I'm not trying to say by the way that taoism
• 39:38
  consists only in philosophy I mean, the philosophy.
• 39:43
  Yes, it's important that that philosophy of balance of Harmony
• 39:47
  of his lousy putted CB unbleached silk embrace, the
• 39:51
  uncarved block of wood that is except yourself in your raw.
• 39:55
  Raw wild Primal being. Don't carve yourself up
• 40:00
  according to rules and regulations.
• 40:03
  Yeah. All or his emphasis on just
• 40:06
  harmonizing with the natural world, he says the Dow follows
• 40:10
  the way of nature. Yeah, that that is the basis of
• 40:13
  taoism. But taoism also has a complex
• 40:18
  religion ritual, liturgical side.
• 40:21
  Many scholars would say that it's the ritual and liturgy in
• 40:25
  the use of sacred words. That really defines taoism, not
• 40:28
  the philosophy of laksa. So taoism has evolved to include
• 40:35
  so much. It's got the philosophy, has the
• 40:38
  ritual tradition, it was a major influence and Is a major
• 40:42
  influence on Cuisine. I'm poetry on the art of tea.
• 40:51
  I'm painting calligraphy on Qigong.
• 40:55
  Healing Arts on acupuncture. And taoism has shown its
• 41:01
  influence on just about every major Chinese art.
• 41:06
  Does that mean that these Arts are taoism know they were
• 41:12
  influenced by taoism? Does it mean that Qigong is
• 41:15
  essentially or must be Taoist or that you can't be a Christian
• 41:19
  Qigong practitioner or Jewish or Muslim chi gong practitioner
• 41:23
  practitioner and of course not But the the influence of that
• 41:29
  underlying philosophy is certainly there.
• 41:34
  Thank you for that overview. And I like to ask.
• 41:37
  Yes, who are Dallas Scholars. What does taoism have to offer
• 41:41
  us today at this time and place where we are in the world of
• 41:46
  great Division and strife and and hardship Well, there's so
• 41:52
  much a reminder as with other aspects of Chinese philosophy,
• 41:58
  reminder of the importance of moderation and balance.
• 42:02
  Not going to extremes. It's profound ecological view.
• 42:09
  I believe that is, summarized in still another chapter of the
• 42:14
  daodejing we're allows us, says Grandfather deep people follow
• 42:23
  the Earth. D fought in the earth follows
• 42:29
  heaven heaven in Chinese. Also means spirituality.
• 42:35
  Ten Fado Heaven, follows the Dow.
• 42:40
  Dow Foods Iran. The Dow follows the spontaneous,
• 42:45
  wisdom of nature. So what does this really mean?
• 42:50
  What are these three principles that we read and hear about over
• 42:56
  and over again in Chinese philosophy and arts Heaven,
• 43:01
  Earth and human people follow the earth.
• 43:05
  That is a call to ecological Consciousness and balance.
• 43:12
  We cannot we cannot change what's happening on a mother
• 43:18
  earth. Just to policy changes.
• 43:19
  Yes, policy changes, absolutely important.
• 43:22
  I'm an activist, I vote. I do believe in policy change
• 43:26
  but We're not going to make a lasting change unless we spend
• 43:32
  time in nature because people will only protect what they
• 43:35
  love. They'll protect what they are
• 43:38
  actually connected to someone who's only only an activist from
• 43:44
  the computer or in the marches, they're doing important work.
• 43:47
  But lots of reminds us, it starts with actually connecting
• 43:52
  with the natural world spending time in the wilderness.
• 43:57
  Polishing Our Roots as human beings.
• 44:00
  Our modern civilization is just a little blip.
• 44:03
  You know, started what about 5,000 years ago, that's almost
• 44:06
  nothing agile. Agricultural Revolution.
• 44:10
  Five to ten thousand years ago. Almost nothing wowza is a
• 44:14
  reminder of our Paleolithic wisdom as still in our genes.
• 44:20
  I think it's very true that we're 21st century human beings
• 44:24
  in Paleolithic bodies We still have these sensors available to
• 44:28
  us, so lots of reminds us follow the Earth.
• 44:34
  Develop your spirituality. and, Pay attention to the human self
• 44:43
  care realm as well. Watch your diet.
• 44:48
  Your environment find a healthier environment,
• 44:52
  principles of funk, shui ulsio, influenced by taoism.
• 44:57
  So that kind of holistic view of self-care and of caring for the
• 45:02
  earth. I feel that is so essential for
• 45:06
  our times. Something else I should say
• 45:12
  that. Some people maybe won't agree
• 45:14
  with. Lots of warns us of the danger
• 45:18
  of competition. Of trying to put ourselves
• 45:22
  first. while the says that among his spiritual Treasures is, Not
• 45:31
  daring to be first. Humility is extremely important
• 45:39
  for Harmony and for happiness, but that requires a lot of
• 45:44
  Courage because we are in a society that tells us to get
• 45:47
  ahead to progress to be first to win the race.
• 45:53
  To be better than everyone else. Louds advises.
• 46:01
  The sage does not compete and is dust Beyond Compare.
• 46:06
  The sage does not compete, and is thus Beyond Compare.
• 46:14
  That's not to say, I'm not saying don't do your best.
• 46:17
  Yes, we should put our whole mind body, and spirit into
• 46:20
  whatever, we're doing that unified vision of the human
• 46:24
  being is also part of Dallas. But we're not motivated by
• 46:30
  trying to be better than someone else because we are all only
• 46:36
  just human beings. We're not better or worse than
• 46:41
  each other nor better or worse than any other aspect of nature
• 46:47
  here. I think the vision of logs of
• 46:50
  merges in the sense with that of indigenous people worldwide
• 46:56
  speak about a A realm of being all, belated that the stone and
• 47:02
  the tree and the animal. They're also my relatives.
• 47:07
  We need to remember that when plot or one of the founders of
• 47:10
  Chinese medicine. When he created the five animal
• 47:14
  frolics, the oldest Qigong choreography, that is still
• 47:18
  practiced today. Second century ad. created
• 47:22
  movements based on the crane the bear, the monkey, the deer, and
• 47:26
  the tiger He did not go to the zoo to observe those animals.
• 47:32
  He, you know, this was part of your everyday experience.
• 47:39
  Imagine think of that second century animals are part of your
• 47:43
  reality, your part of that world.
• 47:47
  It's one world, it's not the human world in opposition to
• 47:50
  Nature. It's one world, you're part of
• 47:53
  that. And when you do these exercises,
• 47:57
  when you are moving, the way people move to lived.
• 48:01
  In that Society, 2,000 years ago, you are Awakening the same
• 48:07
  physiological and psychological state that they had when they
• 48:11
  created in practice those exercises.
• 48:14
  So one of the other great things that going back to your original
• 48:18
  question that taoism has to teach us today, is this
• 48:22
  Extraordinarily Rich, healing tradition.
• 48:27
  Not only where you go to a Healer as an acupuncture.
• 48:31
  As, for example, an acupuncturist or herbalist.
• 48:35
  But learning how to better manage our own health and state
• 48:41
  of mind. Through the great tradition of
• 48:45
  yangcheng nurturing life, the five animal frolics being just
• 48:49
  one of thousands of techniques that are still preserved.
• 48:54
  Today. We need that we Western medicine
• 48:58
  book. Uh my dad was a public health
• 49:02
  officer and mentioned earlier World Health Organization,
• 49:06
  fellow And I grew up hearing about the science has a great
• 49:11
  respect for science. Great respect for medicine.
• 49:14
  If I had a man or a bacterial infection I'd want my
• 49:19
  antibiotic. I want to go see the doctor.
• 49:22
  If I was in an accident I want to be taken care of in the
• 49:25
  hospital. There are many conditions for
• 49:28
  which Western medicine is absolutely unsurpassed.
• 49:32
  However Western medicine tends to lack ways or tensile axis,
• 49:39
  efficient ways of educating the patient, how to better take care
• 49:43
  of themselves. I remember my shock and speaking
• 49:46
  to an elderly person with with diabetes who was Consulting with
• 49:51
  me and of course, I was asking about his diet and lifestyle and
• 49:55
  exercise habits. It was type 2 diabetes adult,
• 49:57
  onset, diabetes, And when I asked him about what he eats, he
• 50:03
  said, oh, my doctor told me it doesn't matter what I eat, as
• 50:06
  long as I take my insulin. I can eat anything.
• 50:08
  I like I said, are you serious? That's what your doctor told
• 50:12
  you. He said, yes.
• 50:14
  So once you get a second opinion, you know, I'm not a
• 50:17
  doctor. I can't tell him to to not take
• 50:20
  his doctor's advice, seriously, and I certainly wouldn't tell
• 50:23
  him to stop taking the insulin, but there's so much evidence out
• 50:27
  there, man. Just speaking to you and to our
• 50:28
  audiences. So much evidence that through
• 50:32
  good lifestyle habits, especially diet, and exercise,
• 50:35
  many people can with their doctor's permission, get off of
• 50:38
  the insulin, so Western medicine tends to lack knowledge of
• 50:45
  wellness. It's really sick care and not
• 50:48
  Health Care. You know, when I when I see my
• 50:51
  I've got a great medical doctor, he's a great guy and he's a real
• 50:55
  healer. It's odd that we have to say
• 50:57
  that, you know, doctors should be but Bit of a contradiction
• 51:01
  today isn't so I'll go to him for physical and we always go
• 51:05
  through the same humorous routine.
• 51:07
  He'll be listening to my chest, listening to my heart and then
• 51:09
  listen to my breathing and they'll say, take a deep breath.
• 51:14
  I'll be taking my deep breaths case.
• 51:16
  He'll say take a deep breath. I said, I am.
• 51:19
  You mean you want me to take a shallow breath?
• 51:23
  I think, for a moment and I'll say, oh yeah, you're actually
• 51:26
  right. Well, then I'll move my chest up
• 51:28
  and down as I breathe because they forget.
• 51:31
  That deep breathing means almost no movement of the chest.
• 51:35
  Deep breathing is when your diaphragm drops would push,
• 51:37
  which pushes the belly out. So deep breathing is expanding
• 51:41
  the abdomen Shallow breathing is thoracic respiration breathing
• 51:45
  with the upper chest where less of the oxygen exchange takes
• 51:48
  place. If you breathe chronically with
• 51:50
  your upper chest, your body's going to be oxygen-deprived
• 51:53
  which is special is going to have effects on heart health and
• 51:56
  on brain health. You know, the brain is the most
• 51:59
  oxygen hungry organ in the body to two percent of the body's
• 52:02
  weight the human brain but requiring 20% of the body's
• 52:07
  available oxygen. Wow.
• 52:09
  So we always go through this humorous.
• 52:10
  It with my doctor he says because he knows he'll say.
• 52:13
  Breathes deeply. I'll tell him.
• 52:15
  Do you mean breathes shallowly that?
• 52:17
  He remembers who I am. He says, yeah.
• 52:19
  Breathe shallowly. So that I do.
• 52:20
  What looks like a deep breath. It's doing that dramatic breath.
• 52:24
  But it's actually a shallow breath.
• 52:29
  You mentioned that I think by 1973 you are fluent in Chinese.
• 52:36
  I was I was well on my pathway and I was I had already done a
• 52:41
  number of years in classical Chinese.
• 52:43
  Knees. So I had sufficient knowledge of
• 52:46
  classical Chinese to do some translations and I was already
• 52:52
  starting to read the allowance of the daodejing so forth, but
• 52:55
  fluency is always a matter of degree.
• 52:57
  I'm still absolutely still learning, right.
• 53:00
  You were in 73 though I presume you're about 20 years old.
• 53:04
  Yes, correct. Yeah, how did you pick it up so
• 53:07
  quickly and only a few years? Well, and I'm still learning.
• 53:12
  I don't want to say I'm so So not so great you're being like
• 53:17
  everybody else. I don't have some little flash
• 53:19
  drive that I stick into the back of my head and now suddenly I
• 53:22
  know all the stuff I'm still in the still on The Learning
• 53:24
  Journey. Here's why I think I Advanced my
• 53:30
  teacher, my first teacher, her name was Nancy, Duke, lay to
• 53:36
  Chinese woman at the new school for social research in New York.
• 53:40
  And she was teaching in such a way that English was not used
• 53:45
  from the very first class me once in a while if she
• 53:48
  absolutely had to, she would use English, but almost from day
• 53:53
  one, we were being taught to think in Chinese, you know.
• 53:57
  She point to herself and say war war war or eventually they point
• 54:02
  to other people. So can you point to yourself?
• 54:04
  She'd be implying it through sign language.
• 54:06
  And you go. Whoa!
• 54:08
  Now you're learning best word for I and then She point to
• 54:10
  someone else and say tha tha tha tha you know he or she and and
• 54:16
  she again just threw some brilliant teaching method.
• 54:23
  She got us to start learning speaking basic Chinese at first
• 54:28
  very, very basic but only using this immersion technique and I
• 54:35
  studied with her for two semesters and then another
• 54:38
  teacher for another two semesters.
• 54:41
  Using the same method and then already, I had some good
• 54:46
  foundation because it was changing the way I was thinking.
• 54:50
  And, you know, if, if you don't change that thinking process,
• 54:55
  it's really hard to learn. Another language has its not and
• 54:58
  you have to have mental flexibility.
• 55:01
  It's some people say, oh yeah, Chinese is so different and so
• 55:04
  hard. The other side of it is that if
• 55:07
  you love something, it's not difficult.
• 55:09
  If you don't like it, it's difficult.
• 55:12
  But if you love French or Chinese, or Arabic or whatever
• 55:15
  it is, then it's not difficult and you spend the time you make
• 55:18
  the effort. So yeah, my 73 I was, of course,
• 55:24
  still learning. But I had some Foundation thanks
• 55:28
  to having had Absolutely wonderful teachers and then
• 55:36
  later working after 73, of course, continuing to learn and
• 55:40
  working with some private tutors.
• 55:43
  For, I had a great great teacher, who was a former
• 55:47
  professor of linguistics at Beijing.
• 55:51
  You assure you in Beijing, Academy of Music and just
• 55:57
  exceptional, exceptional teacher with her.
• 55:58
  I wanted to continue Proving my spoken Chinese.
• 56:03
  And then I found another tutor just for Chinese poetry, and for
• 56:07
  Chinese martial arts and Qigong literature which has its own.
• 56:10
  Specialized language in many ways these specialized languages
• 56:18
  within within Chinese such as religious language for Taoism
• 56:22
  and Buddhism or the terms for movement and posture found in
• 56:27
  Qigong, and martial arts, many ways.
• 56:30
  You Almost have to do a sort of postgraduate study to learn that
• 56:34
  because just speaking, modern Chinese doesn't give you access
• 56:39
  to that type of vocabulary. So I know continued continued
• 56:45
  learning and still one of my great great loves within Chinese
• 56:49
  culture, besides Qi, Gong, and Tai ji and taoism is actually
• 56:53
  the Poetry I think it was the Poetry that, that drove me to
• 56:58
  continue training in classical Chinese more than anything else.
• 57:01
  Because that, that's really an expression of full immersion in
• 57:08
  nature. It's as though if you're writing
• 57:10
  about a pine tree, the pine tree is using your eyes to see
• 57:15
  itself. Then using your words to
• 57:19
  describe itself that you are that pine tree.
• 57:23
  If you're talking about the right now, we're beginning of
• 57:26
  March. So it's still still cold season
• 57:30
  for much of the country. And when you're reading that
• 57:35
  home about the winter cold, The poet has captured the cheek, the
• 57:41
  life force, The Full Experience of the winter cold.
• 57:46
  You're living it when you read it it's not just a description.
• 57:50
  It's an expression of nature. You can example.
• 57:54
  Let's see, I hope I don't embarrass myself and it's stuck
• 57:57
  halfway through this poem chin. Fungal Phaedra Wan Jing Renzo
• 58:04
  Mia Cujo saw Ali Wong to dowload juncture.
• 58:09
  It's a short little poem, a thousand mountains not a bird,
• 58:15
  Ten Thousand Trails, not a footprint.
• 58:22
  Alone in a boat and old man and straw raincoat fishing through
• 58:28
  the Cold River snow. Cinnamon is that it has that
• 58:37
  feeling or take. Tell you and me writing in the
• 58:41
  second century. The great poet of.
• 58:47
  Of nature, especially pastoral life.
• 58:53
  His poem is most famous poem, I think is one of the most
• 58:57
  spectacular poems and Chinese literature.
• 59:01
  Many Chinese people have memorized it, they know it by
• 59:03
  heart is the poem that begins. Jen, Jen loot siren, gentler,
• 59:11
  mucho machine. Would engine Hawaii sinuan.
• 59:15
  Deeds of pain side, you'd only see on your agenda and goes on
• 59:19
  and on. Here's the translation that
• 59:22
  Arthur Waley did for taou Yuen, Ming's home, tell Yuan.
• 59:27
  Ming is the name of the poet? I think I can remember his his
• 59:32
  complete translation. Again a poem not of winter but
• 59:36
  of spring that has The Cheat, the energy of spring, you live
• 59:41
  it through the pole, it's more than description that has Chi Yu
• 59:47
  Shi resonance. One of the criteria used to
• 59:50
  judge a great Chinese poem. As Chi, resonance makes you
• 59:53
  resonate with nature. So here's the poem was calling
• 1:00:01
  it from my memory bank. I didn't think we were going to
• 1:00:03
  speak about poetry. I built my Hut in a zone of
• 1:00:10
  human habitation yet. Near me.
• 1:00:13
  There sounds no noise of horse or coach.
• 1:00:18
  Would you know how this is possible?
• 1:00:20
  A heart that is distant creates a Wilderness around it.
• 1:00:27
  I pluck, chrysanthemums under the Eastern hedge then gaze long
• 1:00:31
  at the distance Southern Hills, the Mountain Air is fresh at
• 1:00:36
  dusk of day. The flying birds to buy to
• 1:00:40
  return. In all these things, there lies
• 1:00:44
  a deep meaning, but when I try to express it, the word suddenly
• 1:00:50
  disappear. There's the poem.
• 1:00:54
  Hmm, beautiful. What does that mean to heart?
• 1:00:56
  That is distant creates a Wilderness around them?
• 1:01:00
  It means that when you are Serene, tranquil not attached in
• 1:01:08
  the sense of basing, your identity on external
• 1:01:11
  circumstances, then You have the matter where you are, even if
• 1:01:21
  you're in the city. There's a part of you that you
• 1:01:25
  could say is is in the wilderness that we can create a
• 1:01:31
  situation through our state of mind, and which we are nurtured.
• 1:01:38
  Why the Wilderness by the natural world, no matter where
• 1:01:41
  we are. That's why I tell you I'm going
• 1:01:46
  starts, his poem. I built my Hut amongst people in
• 1:01:50
  the zone of human habitation Built My Hut amongst people in
• 1:01:54
  Newry. There's no sound of horse or
• 1:01:57
  coach. How is this possible?
• 1:02:02
  A heart that is distant. That is not bound to things.
• 1:02:14
  That is inherently free. Is always in nature.
• 1:02:20
  And it is a great deal of Truth to that.
• 1:02:24
  That's a great lesson. Zeb has me reading the poems of
• 1:02:30
  Stonehouse, little Stone House is wonderful.
• 1:02:34
  Very strong influence of Buddhism in the Poetry of stone
• 1:02:37
  asked. Yes, I'm really enjoying that
• 1:02:41
  and reading a few of red Pines translations, including the
• 1:02:44
  daodejing and yeah, it's not Light reading some of it but I'm
• 1:02:48
  enjoying it. He's truly great.
• 1:02:50
  I I had I had the pleasure of being invited by a red pine to
• 1:02:57
  his home and sitting one afternoon with him.
• 1:03:01
  Having Chinese tea ceremony, the Chinese art of tea, serve me
• 1:03:06
  some beautiful tea and a National Leasing style teapot.
• 1:03:12
  And, you know, I had I had the feeling that sitting there with
• 1:03:17
  red pine. I know it's going to sound kind
• 1:03:20
  of crazy but I felt like I was with an old couch old Taoist
• 1:03:24
  Sage that had just stepped through a time machine that
• 1:03:27
  doesn't sound crazy to me, I 500 years ago, you know, here I was.
• 1:03:30
  I mean, we were speaking in English Chinese better than
• 1:03:33
  mine, but we're speaking in English, and I felt like, wow,
• 1:03:39
  this is, this is what the people were like, way back then.
• 1:03:44
  He's so so immersed. In the in a genuine way in the
• 1:03:49
  Poetry, and the spirit of old China.
• 1:03:53
  I just love the guy think he's great.
• 1:03:55
  This is, his writings are fantastic.
• 1:03:57
  They are there. I'd love to meet him someday.
• 1:04:01
  What is your Chinese name? And we spoke about that a little
• 1:04:03
  bit before we started recording. He said there's a bit of a story
• 1:04:06
  there. Well, my Chinese name is GAO
• 1:04:09
  hat. Kyle Han Then name was given to
• 1:04:14
  me by the Taoist. Abbott that I had Apprentice to
• 1:04:22
  And when people first hear it, well, first of all Chinese
• 1:04:26
  people love that because it's a very, it's a good sounding name
• 1:04:30
  and I'll sometimes Joker. People would say, well, it's had
• 1:04:33
  its Gohan as in-hand, godson and got, if you reverse, those two
• 1:04:37
  words that have gone on to make it hand go, it was the name of
• 1:04:41
  one of the great scholarly and just a of the Han Dynasty.
• 1:04:47
  The name was given to me in part because of the phonetics because
• 1:04:50
  my last name is Cohen so Gohan is kind of close phonetically to
• 1:04:57
  Cohen. But what does it mean?
• 1:05:01
  Gummy's tall or high? It could mean high in character.
• 1:05:07
  A noble person, ham means Chinese, the Chinese ethnicity
• 1:05:13
  are called the Hat hand people. So God would mean a Chinese
• 1:05:18
  person of High character but there's some other hidden
• 1:05:21
  meanings. The Han is the name of a river.
• 1:05:28
  The Tian Han the Heavenly Han river is the Milky Way.
• 1:05:33
  So go hon is also the stars in the sky And I remember telling
• 1:05:39
  my teacher, I said, well, I'm sure glad that when you look for
• 1:05:42
  a name, phonetically for me that it was Gahan and not Clen.
• 1:05:46
  Cohan sounds a little more like: but it means detestable or
• 1:05:51
  hateable testable. So he gave you a very Noble
• 1:05:55
  name. Go hon, he gave it to me also to
• 1:05:59
  correct my fate. What do I mean by that?
• 1:06:04
  every year is, Noted by an animal.
• 1:06:10
  Like right now, we're in the year of the ox.
• 1:06:14
  You know people are born in the year of the dragon year, the ox
• 1:06:17
  you're the horse. Jorma snake, you're the monkey,
• 1:06:19
  the dog and so forth. Each of those animals has an
• 1:06:25
  Associated element. So, I believe that Ox try member
• 1:06:34
  right is Earth, but anyway, each animal has an element or another
• 1:06:39
  example would be Dragon. So Dragon, I know is related to
• 1:06:44
  Earth element. China is one of the only
• 1:06:48
  countries in the world that has a two-part calendrical system.
• 1:06:52
  As far as I know, only the Aztec in Mayas of Mexico and Guatemala
• 1:06:56
  Central America only and those two peoples as well as the
• 1:07:00
  Chinese have a two-part calendar.
• 1:07:04
  The Chinese calendar consists of an element and an animal.
• 1:07:09
  So let's say you're born in a water dragon year.
• 1:07:16
  Well, dragon is Earth. And then you look at what is the
• 1:07:22
  relationship between the two elements of your year of birth.
• 1:07:26
  It was as in this hypothetical example water and Earth will
• 1:07:30
  Earth, absorbs water. It's not considered a
• 1:07:32
  harmonious. Relationship means the person's
• 1:07:35
  spirit is going to be bogged down by how they're living in
• 1:07:37
  the world. Or let's say someone's elements
• 1:07:42
  were fire. And Fire and Earth.
• 1:07:46
  Well, that would be a good relationship because fire is
• 1:07:49
  said to create ashes or Earth. That's a harmonious relationship
• 1:07:53
  but if there are elements of their birth year were fire and
• 1:08:00
  an animal that is represented by metal fire, melts metal and you
• 1:08:05
  would need to find something to correct the disharmony in their
• 1:08:11
  fate. In my case.
• 1:08:17
  The elements of my birth year. Required extra water, my water
• 1:08:25
  was being absorbed, so, dr. Wong my teacher.
• 1:08:30
  The Taoist I mentioned gave me a name that had the water element
• 1:08:36
  in it. Nice thing about Chinese
• 1:08:37
  characters is because the pictographic they will often
• 1:08:41
  include within them the word for fire or water or Earth and so
• 1:08:46
  forth or metal. So, he gave me a name with one
• 1:08:50
  of the Character, Haan has water on the left hand side.
• 1:08:56
  And he also gave me some other advice about correcting
• 1:09:01
  imbalances that he sensed based on my year of birth.
• 1:09:05
  So my name gal Han was also given to me therapeutically.
• 1:09:10
  You could say. What do students call me?
• 1:09:15
  Well, you know, obviously, my name is Ken in English, and I'm
• 1:09:18
  fine with them. My friends all call me Ken but
• 1:09:21
  students, you know, because I'm so involved in the entire
• 1:09:26
  context of Qigong and Chinese martial arts.
• 1:09:30
  I try to follow the old protocols and it would be
• 1:09:34
  considered disrespectful for a student to call me Ken.
• 1:09:37
  We my own look. One of my teachers who have
• 1:09:39
  known for over 30 years, even though in a sense were friends,
• 1:09:44
  we get together for meals. I still call her Chulo.
• 1:09:48
  Sure, teacher, true. I would never dare to call her
• 1:09:51
  by her first name. So my students usually call me
• 1:09:56
  GAO. Yao sure.
• 1:09:58
  In English, you would say Professor Cohen in Chinese, you
• 1:10:02
  would say Cohen Professor, you say the last name first?
• 1:10:06
  So my students call me ghoul, which is my last name and Lao
• 1:10:10
  sure. Simply means teacher.
• 1:10:12
  It's a very egalitarian term is no, you know, Master Grandmaster
• 1:10:17
  this or that I love the term bow shirt.
• 1:10:20
  It's the same word you would use for a pottery teacher.
• 1:10:23
  Sure. But dance teacher at IG,
• 1:10:25
  Grandmaster a kindergarten teacher.
• 1:10:29
  A driver's ed teacher. The Old Law.
• 1:10:32
  Sure. So my students call me doll my
• 1:10:35
  last one which is my last name in Chinese Mi sure.
• 1:10:38
  So teacher go. He said the name was given to
• 1:10:42
  you in part to correct. An imbalance is that similar to
• 1:10:49
  the Dow is teaching of to give a thing.
• 1:10:50
  A name is to give it a destiny. Yes.
• 1:10:55
  Yeah, yeah. And and to confusion teaching as
• 1:10:58
  well, but, you know, there's a whole school of Confucianism
• 1:11:00
  called the the true names School.
• 1:11:04
  Jun Ming. The rectification of names is
• 1:11:08
  it's usually it's academic translation that there should be
• 1:11:11
  a correct name for each thing that establishes easier
• 1:11:16
  communication unfortunate, that was also used as a justification
• 1:11:21
  for hierarchy and Confucian dominated.
• 1:11:23
  And Society where Confucius said very famously Jun Jin Chun qiang
• 1:11:29
  Foods up the noble person should act like a noble person.
• 1:11:34
  The servant like a servant. The father, like a Father, the
• 1:11:38
  Son, like a son. But to Confucius his credit, he
• 1:11:45
  did also emphasized. The importance of having clear
• 1:11:50
  communication and the importance of Ethics in, you know,
• 1:11:55
  Confucius is not confused as a lot of good points.
• 1:11:58
  Let me tell you, I used to be more dismissive of Confucius,
• 1:12:01
  but looking back in and now I'm aware of the good and the bad.
• 1:12:04
  He did emphasize the hierarchy that became predominant Imperial
• 1:12:09
  China. He had a terrible attitude
• 1:12:13
  towards women, I think. But he did.
• 1:12:19
  Emphasize principles of kindness.
• 1:12:26
  Of Integrity. When are we do need to address
• 1:12:31
  his anti-feminist stance in my my view I'm not a confusion
• 1:12:35
  expert but that's my sense of him.
• 1:12:39
  And he gave us, another means of looking at leadership of
• 1:12:47
  leading, by example, which was also allowances.
• 1:12:50
  We point the odds of many people and studying political science
• 1:12:54
  and China, actually read the daodejing since he wrote it in
• 1:12:57
  part, as a book of advice, for the emperor, how to rule,
• 1:13:01
  justly, or for anyone in a position of power, how to, how
• 1:13:04
  to rule with Justice. Now is have been, I think the
• 1:13:08
  most noted religion in China, for its fight against social
• 1:13:16
  injustice, be and partly because it's very and encourages a sort
• 1:13:21
  of independent mindedness. There's no, there's no
• 1:13:25
  overreaching Dogma. Each each Temple has its own
• 1:13:29
  practices, some and some variation on the undermine
• 1:13:34
  Taoist philosophy. There's a Is a sort of humorous.
• 1:13:38
  Story used to explain the difference between taoism
• 1:13:43
  Buddhism and Confucianism where a government of there are at
• 1:13:49
  least three people, a Buddhist and Taoist in a confusion, is
• 1:13:51
  sitting on a couch and the government official comes over
• 1:13:55
  to them. Is standing in front of them.
• 1:13:59
  The Confucian begins to stand up the official.
• 1:14:02
  Puts his hand on the confucians shoulder Confucian.
• 1:14:06
  Immediately sits back down because he knows that each
• 1:14:10
  person needs to stay in their place.
• 1:14:13
  That there's there is this kind of rigid hierarchy.
• 1:14:16
  That's the part. I don't like about Confucianism
• 1:14:18
  because again, Confucius said the noblemen should act like a
• 1:14:21
  nobleman. The servant, like a servant.
• 1:14:24
  So, confusion sits back down on the couch.
• 1:14:27
  Now, the Buddhist begins to stand up.
• 1:14:30
  The government official puts his hand on the Buddha's shoulder
• 1:14:33
  and the mood is not only sits down, move sits down and dowse
• 1:14:37
  because Buddhism in China has tended to be.
• 1:14:40
  I'm not kind of a modern socially involved Buddhism but
• 1:14:43
  Buddhism in China, has tended to be a political they believed
• 1:14:47
  that it was best to be sure ton quit the world's dust.
• 1:14:51
  Not be sullied by the by the polluting and Monday influence
• 1:14:56
  of everyday life. It was better to seek
• 1:14:57
  Enlightenment in your Monastery in your Bow in your cave. so,
• 1:15:02
  the Buddhist again, since back down and bows Now's the Dallas
• 1:15:06
  turn. Now starts to rise government,
• 1:15:09
  official puts his hand on the shoulder.
• 1:15:11
  The Dallas throws his arm off grabs.
• 1:15:13
  The other two guys and pulls them up with him.
• 1:15:16
  No wonder the Chinese government has been suspicious of taoism
• 1:15:20
  Dallas, more than the other famous teachings, in China,
• 1:15:24
  confusion Buddhism and taoism more than Confucianism and
• 1:15:28
  Buddhism has tended to kind of go their own way.
• 1:15:33
  And has been a source at times in Chinese history of political
• 1:15:38
  revolution. I think it has tended to be more
• 1:15:41
  socially engaged. They're not waiting for
• 1:15:44
  enlightenment before doing good work in the world.
• 1:15:48
  That's also why you have that, that influence that has spread
• 1:15:54
  out into, so many areas of Chinese life that taoism allows
• 1:15:58
  that balance him says, wisdom, Enlightenment is not just
• 1:16:03
  something to doing for yourself in the cave.
• 1:16:07
  It's expressed through the Arts, it's expressed through poetry,
• 1:16:11
  its expressed through dance is expressed through Sports.
• 1:16:17
  It's much more, this worldly and I'm not saying they don't have
• 1:16:21
  retreats in meditations and long periods of meditation, but those
• 1:16:25
  are Retreats, it's not, it's not necessary to be on a long
• 1:16:33
  Meditation Retreat to achieve Unity with The Dow, the great
• 1:16:37
  goal of taoism and my my view is good, dancer on.
• 1:16:44
  See it how each ER be in a state of harmonious Unity With nature,
• 1:16:53
  that's that's the goal. And nature includes human
• 1:16:58
  beings. So it's not it's not only nature
• 1:17:03
  sort away from civilization but also within the human Realm Yes,
• 1:17:11
  thank you. We drifted a bit away from Tai
• 1:17:16
  Chi and Qi Gong, which is great because I love talking about
• 1:17:19
  taoism, but question, I just marked at my notes a while back
• 1:17:23
  is, can you speak at the difference between Tai Chi and
• 1:17:27
  Qi Gong, sure. So what we're now, calling
• 1:17:32
  Qigong was really part of the Taoist quest for Longevity,
• 1:17:38
  balance and wisdom. It was not a originally, a
• 1:17:44
  targeted therapy for this or that disease, but rather a way
• 1:17:48
  of creating systemic, well-being, long life, spiritual
• 1:17:53
  transformation. It has very ancient history.
• 1:18:00
  The first Illustrated Manual of Qigong dates from about things
• 1:18:06
  around 150 ad. Excuse me. 150 BC.
• 1:18:11
  Well 150, BC. and if we look at the evidence of petroglyphs and
• 1:18:18
  pictographs and China of rock art, And other references in the
• 1:18:25
  literature here and there it is. Clearly thousands of years old,
• 1:18:30
  several thousand years old, Taiji trim.
• 1:18:36
  Didn't begin until the 1600s. It's a relatively recent art and
• 1:18:43
  it was developed as a martial art.
• 1:18:48
  So that the form is a vocabulary of martial arts skills, which
• 1:18:55
  are practiced relatively slowly, in order to perfect your
• 1:18:59
  Technique. Now, when you play music, The
• 1:19:02
  Andante the slow movement, let's save a Piano.
• 1:19:05
  Sonata is in many ways, more difficult than the Allegro than
• 1:19:10
  the quick movement because in the slow movement, you are aware
• 1:19:13
  of and the audience hears, all your mistakes.
• 1:19:16
  Yes, you can gloss over it when your fingers are moving quickly
• 1:19:20
  across the piano keys. So, similarly, in taiji, the
• 1:19:23
  movements are slow enough that you can perfect, your mechanical
• 1:19:27
  skills and develop enough relaxation.
• 1:19:30
  And good alignment that you have tremendous speed and power when
• 1:19:35
  you actually apply it in freestyle combat.
• 1:19:39
  We know the Marshal origins of taiji because the person who
• 1:19:45
  created the first taiji Trend form a general named, the
• 1:19:51
  retired, General named Chen Wang Ting.
• 1:19:54
  He had been studying a military Manual of one of his
• 1:19:58
  predecessors another General. That General wrote a book called
• 1:20:04
  the boxing classic. And of the, I think was
• 1:20:08
  Thirty-One postures. For hand-to-hand combat that are
• 1:20:13
  Illustrated in the boxing classic Illustrated undescribed,
• 1:20:18
  29 of those postures appear almost identically in the very
• 1:20:24
  first taiji form created by chen-wong.
• 1:20:27
  Tang in the 1600s. So we know for a fact that the
• 1:20:32
  postures were based on a book of military strategy where the
• 1:20:37
  author of that work, the boxing classic Believe that in the same
• 1:20:42
  way that you can feign weakness to draw an enemy deeper into
• 1:20:46
  your territory. Where you are waiting for a
• 1:20:50
  planned attack or counter-attack.
• 1:20:54
  So if you yield to incoming Force instead of opposing it
• 1:20:58
  aggressively, you are. Drawing the enemy deeper into
• 1:21:02
  your territory and then you are waiting in Ambush or even
• 1:21:09
  better. You defend and counter attack
• 1:21:13
  moving with the opponent's Force, you're moving out of the
• 1:21:15
  way, but your counter-attacking at the same Act moment which
• 1:21:20
  means what it means. Not only are you in a state of
• 1:21:23
  deep listening where you're totally tuned in to what the
• 1:21:26
  other person is doing. Sometimes even catching their
• 1:21:29
  intent before it manifest in physical movement.
• 1:21:32
  But it also means that you are essentially becoming the taiji
• 1:21:37
  the balance point between polarities the balance point of
• 1:21:41
  Yin and Yang. They're young, they're forward
• 1:21:43
  movement, they're aggressive movement is your yen.
• 1:21:46
  As they're attacking, you're moving out of the way, as they
• 1:21:50
  show a weakness, your counter-attacking at the same
• 1:21:52
  moment. So yin and yang are absolutely
• 1:21:56
  harmonized. This is why, by the way, I am an
• 1:21:59
  agreement with the great Taoist scholar, Christopher shipper who
• 1:22:04
  passed on recently. Where he says in his book, The
• 1:22:09
  Taoist body. That taiji Trenton again was
• 1:22:14
  popularly called Tai Chi is Taoist cosmology manifest
• 1:22:21
  through the body. So you have this curious
• 1:22:26
  combination of a martial art clearly developed as a martial
• 1:22:32
  art that, at the same time, incorporates the principles of
• 1:22:38
  balance of Yin and Yang. Of.
• 1:22:43
  Interior Alchemy. Breathing with the lower abdomen
• 1:22:48
  of all these things that are common to meditative traditions
• 1:22:51
  in China and incorporates all of it, while still remaining at its
• 1:22:55
  core. A martial art today.
• 1:22:58
  Most people are not as interested in the martial art
• 1:23:02
  aspect and that's fine. The beautiful thing about taiji
• 1:23:05
  Trend. This recent art compared to
• 1:23:09
  Qigong, is that you can practice it just for the health benefits.
• 1:23:15
  And if you doing it as a health and spiritual practice, then to
• 1:23:21
  that degree becomes cheetah. So you can see the taiji
• 1:23:24
  actually interfaces with cheetah.
• 1:23:27
  She going for Body Mind, and Spirit tidy, Trenton a martial
• 1:23:34
  art, that may be practiced as an exercise for Body Mind and
• 1:23:37
  Spirit, You mentioned earlier, you can still go toe-to-toe with
• 1:23:42
  some boxers. Do you have boxing training or
• 1:23:45
  did it all come from the Tai Chi Chuan?
• 1:23:47
  The came from taiji trip. I mean, recent just over the
• 1:23:51
  past couple of years, I've done a little bit of boxing training
• 1:23:54
  because I wanted to get more of a sense of the advantages and
• 1:23:58
  disadvantages of Western boxing compared to what I know in
• 1:24:04
  Chinese martial arts. But in the, in the school of
• 1:24:06
  taiji trend where I trained, We at least in that first school,
• 1:24:11
  not not with all my teachers, but in that first school, after
• 1:24:14
  we learned the taiji Tran exercise, then there are two
• 1:24:19
  person practices to develop ability to move in harmony with
• 1:24:23
  another person to understand your body more efficiently.
• 1:24:27
  That's called Push Hands. So, there's two person training
• 1:24:30
  exercises and then we learn basics of punching kicking and
• 1:24:35
  we put our protective gear and boxing Loaves and with our
• 1:24:38
  Jurors supervision coaching and support we Spar.
• 1:24:43
  So I did that for using yours. In fact, I used to look my age,
• 1:24:48
  I used to hitchhike. Yeah, I used to hitchhike all
• 1:24:50
  over the country and I would have my backpack.
• 1:24:54
  Something I always carried in my backpack was two pairs of boxing
• 1:24:58
  gloves. I never knew who I was going to
• 1:25:01
  be, but I mean, some guy, who knows how to take one do or I'm
• 1:25:05
  not saying Tai Chi's the best martial art, it's all a matter
• 1:25:08
  of the Not the art. But let's say I know someone who
• 1:25:11
  knows, you know, Taekwondo or Tiger Cream, martial arts or
• 1:25:14
  whatever it is. If they seem like a good person
• 1:25:18
  and they had control and say, hey you want to play a little
• 1:25:22
  bit I got some boxing gloves at the not used to using boxing
• 1:25:25
  gloves. Okay, I'll fight empty-handed.
• 1:25:27
  If I'm sure of their control, I don't want to get a broken nose
• 1:25:30
  but I've done a lot of sparring with people of lots and lots of
• 1:25:35
  different styles and I love it. You compare it with earlier
• 1:25:40
  earlier, we were talking about Buddhism when you're in a
• 1:25:42
  Buddhist monastery. And you're sitting in zazen,
• 1:25:46
  you're sitting in Zen meditation or whatever type of meditation
• 1:25:51
  and the master is slowly. Walking through the rose and
• 1:25:54
  looking at the at the practitioners or the monks.
• 1:26:00
  It's very hard for them to tell who's really practicing and
• 1:26:05
  who's ready to nod off and is basically already dreaming.
• 1:26:09
  Unless the person is literally tipping over to the side, really
• 1:26:12
  don't know. But in martial arts, if your
• 1:26:16
  mind wanders, boom, you're hitting the face, you're
• 1:26:21
  thinking about the new restaurant.
• 1:26:23
  That's opening up. Oh, it was just, you are forced
• 1:26:27
  to be absolutely. Is it good feedback immediately
• 1:26:33
  you are forced to meditate. The problem is there.
• 1:26:37
  As we know, there are some people who have not dealt with
• 1:26:40
  their own stuff, but they're still living with their own
• 1:26:43
  shadow and acting out on. And please do not study martial
• 1:26:49
  arts with someone who is aggressive not sound like a
• 1:26:51
  contour in the like a contradiction.
• 1:26:54
  It's not if a person is practicing martial arts
• 1:26:58
  correctly, then they have not only Mushu.
• 1:27:00
  Martial arts but they have muda Marshall virtue.
• 1:27:04
  That is absolutely core. Fundamental to the
• 1:27:10
  understanding, not just my understanding, the general
• 1:27:12
  understanding of Chinese martial arts, the martial arts, and
• 1:27:15
  martial virtue must be combined, and then when you practice
• 1:27:21
  martial arts with a teacher, who is kind, who is compassionate,
• 1:27:25
  who's enthusiastic about what they're doing, who's not trying
• 1:27:29
  to express pain, Up aggression, or or tolerating aggression
• 1:27:33
  among the students, you can Spar that being aggressive certainly,
• 1:27:37
  without being mean, if you find a genuine teacher, then martial
• 1:27:42
  arts becomes as much a path of growth wisdom and Enlightenment
• 1:27:47
  as Qigong or as sitting in a Buddhist Monastery or Taoist
• 1:27:52
  monks Terry. I couldn't agree more.
• 1:27:55
  Can you compare katas of karate with tied each one because they
• 1:28:02
  seem very similar. They're similar.
• 1:28:06
  But you know I really dare not comment on Karate since I'm not
• 1:28:10
  a practitioner. When I read Funakoshi you know
• 1:28:13
  the great original author on Karate.
• 1:28:16
  I felt it was similar to reading a book on taiji, his philosophy
• 1:28:19
  of Life, very, very close and I do Don't personally like the
• 1:28:25
  style of movement in karate. Seems a bit too rigid for my my
• 1:28:30
  personal tastes yet at a high level.
• 1:28:34
  Everyone ends up discovering the same thing, they find out what
• 1:28:37
  works and what works requires whole body, involvement and
• 1:28:42
  relaxation and learning how to conserve your resources.
• 1:28:46
  So you don't get tired out then the first minute of a sparring
• 1:28:49
  match That's why I say that even calling something an internal
• 1:28:54
  martial art is really not quite correct.
• 1:28:58
  Because when makes an art internal, is your own level of
• 1:29:01
  advancement, in whatever art you're doing at the beginning
• 1:29:04
  level. When you doing Tai Chi, it could
• 1:29:07
  be very rigid at an advanced level.
• 1:29:10
  When you're doing karate, could look more like taiji one of my
• 1:29:14
  actually more than one. I have several students who are
• 1:29:16
  very highly placed karate competitors, and they move
• 1:29:21
  Absolutely beautifully. I would not I wouldn't say that
• 1:29:26
  they had any disadvantage in there and their way of training
• 1:29:30
  I think one of the greatest hide you fighters of all time who
• 1:29:34
  would never serve me, not identify himself at IG was
• 1:29:37
  Muhammad Ali. I mean talk talk about being
• 1:29:42
  tuned in to another person whole body power.
• 1:29:49
  Absolute Grace. I think Ali and my other
• 1:29:53
  favorite Evander Holyfield, just extraordinary.
• 1:29:57
  There's a beauty therapy to their movements that as much as
• 1:30:01
  externally it looks completely different from taiji.
• 1:30:05
  I think as a martial artist, very similar.
• 1:30:08
  Yeah, and Kerrison life, when you've experienced any sort of
• 1:30:14
  hardships, some bad days, Bad seasons.
• 1:30:18
  How has your knowledge of Chinese philosophy, taoism
• 1:30:25
  martial arts impacted you and helped you get through those
• 1:30:28
  periods. It's made tremendous impact
• 1:30:32
  because one of the gems in Qigong philosophy is that we can
• 1:30:40
  use the physiology to change the psychology. that is, if we are
• 1:30:46
  aware of the physical impacts of emotional distress, And of
• 1:30:53
  trauma. Then we're able to track how
• 1:30:58
  those tensions are expressed in our bodies.
• 1:31:03
  And we have trained through our taiji who are regulatory genes,
• 1:31:06
  you going to practice, we trained, how to release those
• 1:31:08
  tensions. So, it's not that you're going
• 1:31:12
  to be immune from upset and from tragedies, we all face them, but
• 1:31:17
  your physiological reaction And your tendency to lock.
• 1:31:24
  The sorrow to lock the trauma into your body, where it can
• 1:31:31
  remain and re-traumatize, you even long after the emotional
• 1:31:35
  challenge is gone, that's less likely to happen because of Qi
• 1:31:40
  Gong and Tai Chi training. And the wisdom that is inherent
• 1:31:48
  in those Traditions, such as the clouds.
• 1:31:52
  I said earlier, allowances says, The sage does not dare to be
• 1:31:57
  first. Well, humility is a big virtue
• 1:32:05
  and taoism not always followed no is followed by me.
• 1:32:11
  But it is our goal and we need to be vigilant to maintain that
• 1:32:16
  humility. How is humility important in
• 1:32:19
  regards to your question? Means having the humility and
• 1:32:23
  vulnerability to ask for help. I know this is a little beyond
• 1:32:28
  what would be considered classically Taoist but I
• 1:32:34
  remember when I had at one point in my life and I don't know how
• 1:32:38
  I got exposed to it, I had an infection that had migrated from
• 1:32:44
  my heart and to my hips, I was in a lot of pain.
• 1:32:47
  Was near death at one point and even after I got the antibiotic
• 1:32:52
  and it for the healing was over and I was back to relatively
• 1:32:55
  good health, I felt there was still some other thing going on
• 1:32:58
  there. And I went to a very talented
• 1:33:02
  therapist. And we, she did a visualization.
• 1:33:10
  Where I went into my own body and look at the areas that had
• 1:33:14
  been affected and she asked me, what were the emotional
• 1:33:17
  experiences in my childhood or adolescence or any time in my
• 1:33:21
  life? That I might see in those
• 1:33:25
  structures in my body and I started reliving and describing
• 1:33:29
  memories that were caught that were still there almost as
• 1:33:33
  though as though, inscribed on my bones.
• 1:33:38
  And she would say, well what do you see here?
• 1:33:40
  And what is that part of your body telling me?
• 1:33:42
  What does it teach you? It was wonderful.
• 1:33:45
  It was transformative. It helped me more fully release
• 1:33:51
  things from my past, including my own discomfort growing up.
• 1:33:55
  Feeling out of place. Is not only that I was
• 1:33:57
  physically ill but I growing up in Queens.
• 1:34:00
  Yeah, it was a good environment in one sense.
• 1:34:02
  But in another, I felt just I kept being drawn to Nature.
• 1:34:06
  I played hooky a lot. My parents would always find me
• 1:34:09
  somewhere in the woods, or in a park.
• 1:34:12
  I felt I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 1:34:15
  I think I was, right. I think I actually knew that
• 1:34:17
  about me. Back then when I was looking at
• 1:34:20
  but that feeling of being different and out of place, it
• 1:34:25
  created a lot of, a lot of Sorrow because I couldn't relate
• 1:34:28
  social into my classmates. So, I Revisited some of those
• 1:34:34
  old old things know, some 30 years ago, more than 30 years
• 1:34:39
  ago when I had that brief infection.
• 1:34:43
  And it was so good to heal, not only from the physical side of
• 1:34:48
  it. But from the lingering emotional
• 1:34:50
  side. So is that taoism?
• 1:34:52
  Well yes and no I think the part where it it relates to taoism is
• 1:34:59
  a realization that we are not super humans.
• 1:35:04
  That everyone has vulnerabilities that there's yin
• 1:35:07
  and yang that is positive and negative and that we need to
• 1:35:13
  have the humility to be able to learn from every situation,
• 1:35:18
  whether that's easier. Difficult have the humility to
• 1:35:21
  learn from every situation. So that's my you could say it's
• 1:35:24
  my personal tank, it's Ken Collins Dallas.
• 1:35:26
  It's my Taoism. But it was so important for me
• 1:35:30
  because if I had not been willing to have that
• 1:35:33
  vulnerability, I never would have learned.
• 1:35:36
  I never would have completed that chapter closed that chapter
• 1:35:39
  in my life. well said, I like that version.
• 1:35:47
  Thank you. Now, I know we're going on on
• 1:35:49
  time here. I have.
• 1:35:51
  If it's all right, I have a couple more questions but if you
• 1:35:54
  are, if we need to maybe one more, one more question and then
• 1:35:57
  we'll wrap up. Okay, why I asked you to and you
• 1:35:59
  can decide which one to answer, either your favorite forms of
• 1:36:03
  Qi, Gong or your liking of tea. Well, I think we better now.
• 1:36:12
  You got me started. We're going to have to do both.
• 1:36:15
  I thought I might trap you in that.
• 1:36:18
  So let's start with my favorite styles that you do it in a way.
• 1:36:22
  As you learn Qigong. You start to build an internal.
• 1:36:26
  Pharmacopoeia, you've got the skills, the medicines that you
• 1:36:30
  need for whatever is required at that.
• 1:36:32
  Time in your life. Yet it's important to have
• 1:36:35
  certain methods that you do regularly.
• 1:36:38
  Lest we dig 100. Wells and none, deep enough to
• 1:36:41
  strike water. So what are those Wells that tap
• 1:36:45
  into the source for me? The ones that I do all the time
• 1:36:49
  or something called Leitrim why I newer Q UA n.
• 1:36:55
  It is one of the most comprehensive forms of both
• 1:36:58
  healing and martial arts that teaches a series of standing
• 1:37:04
  meditation. Postures!
• 1:37:07
  Of walking and moving exercises. That incorporate just about
• 1:37:11
  every skill, you could find in any martial art, including
• 1:37:14
  taiji. And a complete meditation system
• 1:37:19
  as well as a method of one-on-one Physical Therapy.
• 1:37:23
  It's a again, a truly comprehensive method of, of
• 1:37:27
  Qigong. So that one as well as a method
• 1:37:30
  called, when you ngang primordial Qigong, which I
• 1:37:33
  learned from Madame GAO, because of its Great attention to the
• 1:37:40
  energy body to understanding how energy moves, how it becomes
• 1:37:44
  stagnant, why, and how it creates disease?
• 1:37:49
  It's for the for the mechanical skills.
• 1:37:52
  I would say each rep for those subtle energy flows I would say
• 1:37:56
  when you end or primordial chica are my two favorites and of
• 1:38:00
  course taiji. I do tai chi Trend every day.
• 1:38:04
  I love it. It's a global systemic exercise.
• 1:38:09
  It's not for this organ or that it's for your whole being so
• 1:38:14
  tight and so those would be my three answers to that.
• 1:38:18
  First question. Second question, you want to
• 1:38:20
  know about my relation to T or your passion for T my passion
• 1:38:25
  for tea? Well, let me express it this
• 1:38:28
  way. I have a teacup in my hand.
• 1:38:32
  I know listeners can't see me so I'll help you see me.
• 1:38:36
  I have a teacup and in this teacup there are actual tea
• 1:38:40
  leaves. Where's this tea from its from a
• 1:38:45
  leash on a leash on is a beautiful Mountain National Park
• 1:38:51
  and Scenic area in Taiwan that still has a large indigenous
• 1:38:58
  population. Remember there were original
• 1:39:02
  peoples in Taiwan before the Han Chinese arrived there.
• 1:39:07
  So this is an important area, both for the Chinese, and for
• 1:39:10
  the original inhabitants. It's of Taiwan.
• 1:39:15
  There are is a hiking trail. The top.
• 1:39:17
  I've been, there is a hiking trail where you are walking
• 1:39:22
  among 2,000 year old cypress trees.
• 1:39:26
  Wow, it's unbelievable. In fact, let me tell you this
• 1:39:29
  when I went there last time, You start before or the way I
• 1:39:33
  started before going on, the trail is a Taoist Temple.
• 1:39:38
  Devoted to the god of the Polestar, shouldn't Hinshaw,
• 1:39:42
  indeed, the high Lord of The Mystic Heavens, nor Kevin says
• 1:39:46
  he's called in Chinese. And the spirit of the pole star
• 1:39:50
  is said to be one of The Inspirations behind taiji Trent
• 1:39:54
  to put it very simply pole Stars the unmoving pivot of the
• 1:39:57
  constellations. It teaches us Stillness amidst
• 1:40:00
  movement the from the Viewpoint of the northern hemisphere.
• 1:40:03
  The North Star pole star is the fixed Point around which the
• 1:40:06
  constellations. Turn.
• 1:40:09
  So I went to that Temple or for my incense adult that feeling of
• 1:40:14
  groundedness and piece of Stillness with emotion, then
• 1:40:18
  went on the hike among these two thousand plus year old cypress
• 1:40:23
  trees with the missed the morning fog below us, the
• 1:40:31
  feeling is spectacular. That is also one of the main tea
• 1:40:37
  growing areas. There are numerous tea growing
• 1:40:39
  areas in Taiwan and of course in mainland China.
• 1:40:42
  But Ali Shanti is famous among the rules along.
• 1:40:47
  Just means semi oxidized white tea, green tea won't e, black
• 1:40:52
  tea party. They're all from the same plant,
• 1:40:54
  they're all from Camellia sinensis.
• 1:40:56
  But you know, if you, if you take a, take a nap while you
• 1:40:58
  take a bite out of it, you leave it on a table for 20 minutes.
• 1:41:01
  It starts to turn brown. That's because it's interacting
• 1:41:04
  with oxygen. It's fermenting a little bit its
• 1:41:07
  oxidizing. Well if you control the
• 1:41:10
  oxidation process of a team leave, you get this incredible
• 1:41:15
  range of flavor and Aroma. If you want to just pick the
• 1:41:18
  green leaf, that's going to be and you drive quickly, it's
• 1:41:21
  going to be green tea, but if it becomes semi oxidized that's
• 1:41:27
  won't e and the Oolong, tea will taste different depending upon
• 1:41:32
  where it. Groan the care with which you
• 1:41:35
  pick it. The elevation of the Tea Garden,
• 1:41:40
  whether it's from a tea garden Plantation, or grown, or picked
• 1:41:44
  in the wild because there are wild teacher, he's the age of
• 1:41:48
  the tea. Tree older tree deeper Roots,
• 1:41:51
  more minerals, pulled from the soil, more more dimensionality
• 1:41:56
  to The Taste and aroma. So all those things are going to
• 1:42:01
  affect it as well as the crafting.
• 1:42:04
  Of the leaf, it is a handicraft. A leaf that is rolled or twisted
• 1:42:10
  or fold it in half, will release the flavor and Aroma differently
• 1:42:15
  than just the leaf that is kept in.
• 1:42:17
  Its you could say natural wild state.
• 1:42:21
  That's just, I'm just going to be the barest outline.
• 1:42:24
  So let's go back to this tea. I'm holding my head right now.
• 1:42:28
  I've put a leash on Long T from that that high mountain place
• 1:42:33
  with the cypress trees. I put that in my cup.
• 1:42:35
  This morning. Poured, hot water over the top,
• 1:42:39
  the leaves sink down to the bottom leaving behind their
• 1:42:42
  beautiful color, Aroma, and flavor.
• 1:42:45
  And what is that Aroma and flavor?
• 1:42:51
  I'm taking a sip. Putting myself in the Qigong
• 1:42:55
  State, relaxed. Good posture.
• 1:42:59
  Slow quiet. Breathing.
• 1:43:02
  I'm tracking sensing where does the cheap the energy of the T go
• 1:43:08
  to? This one could be tried again.
• 1:43:19
  This one is going to the region of the chest. and then spreading
• 1:43:25
  Spreading like sunshine sending rays of energy and light
• 1:43:29
  throughout my entire body. and, I seek I can see and sense the
• 1:43:40
  land. Where was grown?
• 1:43:44
  So, this must've been grown in one of the very high, elevation
• 1:43:48
  Tea, Gardens on a leash on. And let me tell you, if you've
• 1:43:51
  never been to Asia, you can go there.
• 1:43:54
  This is the cheapest way to travel there.
• 1:43:57
  The cost of a cup of tea, you get a round trip ticket.
• 1:44:02
  I'm not, it sounds like a joke, it's actually not a joke because
• 1:44:06
  if you sensitize yourself to The Taste and Aroma of a hand and
• 1:44:10
  the chi of a hand-picked t of a great team, It will bring you
• 1:44:16
  their home. If you ever go there,
• 1:44:17
  physically, you're going to say, wow, I knew this place.
• 1:44:20
  I really know that I've been there.
• 1:44:22
  It's true. So going back to Mighty
• 1:44:24
  experience now. Yeah, it's spreading like the
• 1:44:30
  sun spreading those rays of light and energy and I'm going
• 1:44:33
  to get the aroma now. There's definitely young wild
• 1:44:46
  flowers. With a background of a Pine
• 1:44:50
  Forest. So this has to have been, I
• 1:44:55
  would guess early spring tea. The flowers.
• 1:45:04
  I'm smelling. Little bit of Magnolia.
• 1:45:12
  Hint of Wild Rose. Maybe some honeysuckle.
• 1:45:20
  And those pine forests. Maybe the Cypress forests in the
• 1:45:23
  distance. So then, as you drink, the tea,
• 1:45:29
  each successive infusion will bring out other notes.
• 1:45:36
  Other dimensions and basically, to truly appreciate a great
• 1:45:44
  team, you will get very similar benefits as doing Qigong.
• 1:45:51
  And is reading Chinese poetry is kind of Qigong and poetry
• 1:45:53
  combined. So that's that's as much part of
• 1:46:00
  my path and cultivation as anything else we've discussed.
• 1:46:06
  In fact, each morning I'm usually up by five.
• 1:46:09
  I'm sitting outside, is, the sun is rising drinking tea and just
• 1:46:13
  listen to the sounds of nature. And then I do my taiji to some,
• 1:46:17
  my Qigong drink some tea, again, at the end.
• 1:46:21
  And then I'm doing interviews like this one or answering
• 1:46:24
  emails or teaching classes. But Tian, Tai ji, it's it's a
• 1:46:30
  great combination. It will give you a good life.
• 1:46:33
  I am so glad I asked that question.
• 1:46:35
  Thank you for that. I can't believe how much you can
• 1:46:38
  get from a cup of tea. All that information, it's
• 1:46:42
  incredible. And in speaking with Daniel
• 1:46:45
  Reed, he sure has very similar passion, and he calls it t Kong
• 1:46:49
  and Qi Gong. And He does.
• 1:46:51
  He does both Qi Gong and T Kong and he also I love though Long
• 1:46:55
  T, but he's sending me some high mountain Taiwanese oolong tea
• 1:46:58
  and he says, I have to try. So I'm looking forward to that.
• 1:47:02
  I could talk to you for hours, can I can't thank you enough for
• 1:47:06
  this. Can you please let listeners
• 1:47:08
  know where they can find out more about you, your teachings,
• 1:47:12
  maybe your T, whatever. There may be sure thing.
• 1:47:16
  Thank you for the reminder, because my wife sometimes tells
• 1:47:19
  me, I'm My Own Worst business person.
• 1:47:20
  Carrie everybody has everybody else's business cards except my
• 1:47:24
  own in my wallet so you can find me on the web, just go to
• 1:47:31
  Kenneth Cohen.com. I've got several different web
• 1:47:33
  addresses to that's the easiest just use my name.
• 1:47:35
  Ke n. N, ET H, Co H.
• 1:47:39
  E--, n-- Kenneth Cohen.com that will get you to, my website.
• 1:47:43
  I do have a listing of online programs.
• 1:47:47
  I'm teaching regular, Zoom classes offering Zoom lectures
• 1:47:50
  as well. Well, you'll see on that same
• 1:47:53
  site will be a subheading 40 and there's a tea catalog.
• 1:47:57
  Even if you don't want to order teachers, read the descriptions
• 1:48:00
  of get a sense of other, ways of evaluating the qualities of team
• 1:48:04
  and I maintained a Blog and different articles.
• 1:48:07
  If you go to the contact Section section of my website and fill
• 1:48:10
  that out, then you can subscribe.
• 1:48:13
  You'll be subscribe to our free newsletter.
• 1:48:15
  That I send out once a month that has new translations
• 1:48:20
  information. About new research that's being
• 1:48:22
  done, to show the healing benefits of things, like Qi,
• 1:48:24
  Gong and Tai ji updates, on my schedule.
• 1:48:27
  And I'm also on Facebook. If you do a Google search for
• 1:48:30
  Qigong research can Cohen should come up right away.
• 1:48:34
  It's a rather complicated Facebook address.
• 1:48:36
  So I think just do a search and you will find it and I look
• 1:48:40
  forward to seeing some of you may be at a class or lecture
• 1:48:44
  sometime in the future. I would love to do that.
• 1:48:46
  Thank you. Yeah I would be fantastic and
• 1:48:48
  thank you for doing this. I've learned so much.
• 1:48:50
  Much. I've had a smile on my face the
• 1:48:52
  whole time. I'm going to go do some Qigong.
• 1:48:55
  Right. Well, actually, I'll do some tea
• 1:48:56
  going first, and then I'll probably do some Qigong, and I
• 1:48:59
  can't thank you enough for all of your contributions to Chinese
• 1:49:03
  medicine for your translations, your writings on on Qi, Gong,
• 1:49:08
  and just for people in general, what you are offering the, the
• 1:49:13
  way of bringing forth the ancient to help us live in the
• 1:49:17
  modern day. It's incredible.
• 1:49:18
  So, thank you. Thank you blessings to all.
• 1:49:21
  Take care. Thanks for listening to this
• 1:49:28
  episode of Salish wolf, with Kenneth Cohen to learn more
• 1:49:31
  about Ken and his work. Visit Kenneth Cohen.com, that's
• 1:49:35
  ke n n, ET H Co h e n.com, and dive into his books.
• 1:49:41
  And writings you can also purchase on his website from the
• 1:49:44
  curated selection of only the highest quality teas.
• 1:49:47
  Please check out Anchor Point Expeditions.com for information
• 1:49:50
  on my Men's Leadership Retreats and personal development
• 1:49:53
  coaching You stay tuned for the announcement of 2021, Retreats
• 1:49:56
  during which I take man on Purpose.
• 1:49:58
  Driven Adventures along British Columbia's wild Coast.
• 1:50:01
  This show was produced by me. Todd Howard, on Vancouver Island
• 1:50:04
  music was written and performed by Jason cows of the darcys
• 1:50:07
  special thanks to Pacific Rim college for their ongoing
• 1:50:09
  contribution to the show for a hoods on holistic health and
• 1:50:12
  sustainability. Please tune in to my other
• 1:50:14
  podcast, Pacific Rim College radio at Pacific Rim
• 1:50:17
  college.com. If you enjoyed this podcast,
• 1:50:20
  please give it a five star rating on whatever podcast app
• 1:50:23
  you are. Using and share it with your
• 1:50:24
  friends and family. Stay tuned for my upcoming doc
• 1:50:27
  cast to Gaya Chronicles, featuring, The inspirational
• 1:50:29
  story of the lone wolf that mesmerized, the city of Victoria
• 1:50:33
  by taking up residence on a tiny archipelago off.
• 1:50:35
  The city's Coastline there, takea thrived showing us even
• 1:50:39
  the most unlikely as possible. You have been listening to
• 1:50:43
  Sailors, wolf, I am Todd Howard signing off.