Omega II: Visiting with the Sages
Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 4

by Alisa Joaquin

After Heidi Singh spoke, there was a question and answer period. One person questioned, "How do you know it's your time to go? You know you speak of longevity. You speak of healing ailments. From your philosophy, is there a predetermined point when it's time for you to go?"

Heidi asked, "From Buddhism? Because I would like to hear the Taoist perspective, too. There's two thoughts on that. One is you may not always know and the other is when it actually happens, maybe you will know; that this is it and you have to let go. Kind of like you have to get there first. It's like well what happens after you make the transition. You kind of have to experience it. It could be either one. You might not know, or hopefully, you will know. If you're preparing, I think that's the reason why in Buddhism, we do have this emphasis on thinking about death, it's not like, 'Oh wow we're going to die,' but it frees you. Once you face the fear of death, it's like that no longer carries such weight. Once you've gone to that place, Zen, the great fear, then you're free to live in the moment. From moment to moment. Every moment becomes a universe. In a way it doesn't really matter. Of course we want longevity, in a way that's not important. What's important is are we living in this moment. That entire aliveness that we have. Because if we do that, then each moment, each hour, each day we're alive is so precious and we can let go. But I would like to here the Taoist perspective, too."

Arnold then said, "It's interesting because, there's some people sometimes although this is not true, but some people sometimes view Taoism as being more for the living and Buddhism more for the transition, the emphasis towards death. But in reality, of course, life and death are all part of our existence. It's something regardless whatever tradition or path you choose, these are different things that everybody is going to experience and unfold accordingly. In the Taoist tradition, what happens is you become more aware through your energetic cultivation practices, the cycles of the energy inside you; your emotional, mental, spiritual cycles. You become more keenly in tuned with how to manage that as we were talking about it last night. Some people refine themselves to the level in which they are able to actually tune in and see the health of their organs. And of course at the same time connect with the degeneration. A lot of times you hear about Taoist immortality. And when I first heard that I said, 'You know are these people saying they practice these exercises and they live forever?' You know it's a little bit hard to swallow, but what I realized after seeing a few people who were Taoist Masters and they talked about 'oh this person's an immortal, he died doing such and such.' I think to myself, 'Oh, okay well this must be a different few they're talking about.' What they're speaking about here really is reaching a level or state of being where you transcend your physical body. And what that means is that you reach that transcendent integration of the different dantiens I was talking about last night to the point where you no longer really need the physical body any more. In other words, it's not necessarily this great awareness that happens after death, but actually something you want to achieve before the physical body gives out. And that's the whole purpose of using these difference exercises and herbs, accupuncture, and so forth.

"So, the way the ancient Taoists viewed this whole thing of death was it's a natural transition, just like seasons change into each other. Some people can key into the I Ching and one particular Master, if you ever heard of Sun style Tai Chi. (A few people raised their hands.) Master Sun actually was very very well schooled with Tai Chi, Ba Gua, and Ching Yi martial arts but at the same time he was very very spiritually evolved. In fact, many times when people wanted to challenge him, rather than fighting with them, what he would do was that he would say, okay let's do a show of strength or a skill. So one case there several Japanese martial artists that were wanting to challenge him, so of course rather than fighting, he said, 'Let's do this. I'll lay down on the floor and all six of you hold me down. If you can hold me down, I'll say that you are the winner, but if not, then I win.' Of course what happens is that they weren't able to do this. What he did with that actually, the reason why is because, if people would used their skills rather than harm each other or kill each other, they can grow from the experience. With Master Sun, he became very keenly aware of energy in life and in that process, that's what gave him a better insight of applying his martial arts technique. So much to the point where he was able to at his death, know exactly the time of his passing. The account of the way it went was he was in his meditation state and he told everyone, he had a party, and he told everyone that he was going to pass. He sat in his cross-legged posture and as he sat there, he would check in and see what time it was and he knew right up to the very minute to ask the person what time was it and they would say such and such a time and he'd say okay, well here I go. This is it, goodbye everybody. And then he said, 'Don't touch my body for nine minutes. Then after that, you can do whatever you want with it.' So this whole idea of transitioning with awareness is really the difference.

"Sometimes some of the Taoist Masters actually would allow, for instance, they would age. Part of this philosophy of the Tao is to accept. Accept change, accept transformation just like you would accept the seasons. It's a natural transition. But what they would do is when they would recognize their physical body beginning to falter, they would of course, maintain that connection and awareness and they would not necessarily speed up the process, but what they would do is let themselves go and move on. Traditionally, there were again five elements. And different Masters, after they had been able to achieve themselves would allow certain things to happen to them. One of them, of course I said was water, so drowning. So maybe a scenario would happen where they would drown. It would be funny because maybe they were a great swimmer than all of a sudden they would drown. That's the water. And then the other one, wood, that's actually when there's an aggressive energy coming at you. The scene that actually flies by in my mine is the scene in Star Wars. The old Master, Obi Won Kanobi, and there's this scene where they're fighting. He's fighting Darth Vader and all of a sudden he just backs away and then he just withdraws his sword and he kind of turns to the side and he looks at Luke Skywalker and he has that little smile on his face. And Darth Vader of course kills him. He (Darth) doesn't seem to kill him, but he kills him and he (Kanobi) just let's him. Another technique some of these Taoist Masters would use to exit the world, then of course fire. Being burned up in a fire was another way in which they would allow themselves to be vanquished. Then another one interesting enough, metal or air, they say that some of these ancient Toaists would be able to dissolve or float up towards the heavens; to actually become part of the air. Their energy became so light, They would become very transluscent. And of course I haven't witnessed any of this stuff. There's a lot of talk about that in the old literature. Another one, Earth element would actually deal with the ground actually opening up and swallowing the person up; like maybe they would die in an earthquake or something like that; being covered up. So these were like the five traditional ways or five elemental ways in which people would go through this transformation. Really the purpose of it was not to make a big deal of them passing on. Rather than have all the rockets shooting off, they would find a simple way in which to pass on. So the whole idea of death is just another new beginning and transformation. Master Ni once said that somebody asked 'Well aren't there all these preparation, processes that you need to do? Some of these traditions have all these elaborate ceremonial processes they go through for dying.' And Master Ni smiled and he said, 'well, it's like this. In our tradition, the time that you spend with yourself now is important time. Your cultivation that you do on your day to day basis is your best preparation for where your energy is going to evolve to in the next realm. Besides, when it's time for death, you're going to die. You don't have to figure out anything, it's just going to happen to you. You don't have to practice to die. It will happen all by itself.'

There was a big chuckle in the room when Arnold finished with that story and someone from the group said, " From what I understand, meditation is the practice of learning to die while living. And then if you do your practice, you reap the bonus of meditation and having done the practice you get a three day notice before you die."

Arnold laughed over that then stated, "I like that three day notice thing. Are there grace periods, too?"

The woman went on to say that you do the practice and you get the three days to get your affairs in order, advise people. She stated that advising people is one of the things that need to be done that we don't always get done..

Arnold went on to ask people on whether they remembered the movie with Michael Keaton, "My life." A few people raised their hands and he begins to explain what the movie is about and the main premise being that Michael Keaton his cancer. He then got into the fact that there are several emotional aspects relative to cancer that are suppressed. What happens is that they (the emotions) start to fester inside you and sometimes they will manifest inside you as a tumor. He then stated, "Wasn't it Woody Allen who said, 'I don't express my emotions, I just grow a tumor?'" Arnold goes on to say that within the movie Keaton goes to see this Chinese doctor and the doctor says to him that his pain is very old and very deep. Arnold then stated that he (Keaton) gets to a point that it's not so much to cure him per say, but it's to heal him. He explained the difference by referring to his teacher and what he said. Arnold's teacher stated, "When you work on people, somebody comes in and you have a condition. Sometimes they're healed and then through that process, they might be cured. But sometimes they're just healed." And Anrnold stated, "Which means that they come to a certain point of, I guess you can say acceptance, or centeredness in being able to take in and accept what's happening to them. And in that process, there is a release or a coming to terms with the energy at hand."

Arnold then went on to say one of his favorite scenes in the movie is when Keaton and his wife are talking after they had been to the Chinese doctor the first time and Keaton states, "You know what the trouble with Chinese doctors are? You go in, your healed, then half and hour later, you're not healed any more."

End of Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 4

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2001.
This personal account cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict permission from the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.

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