by Alisa Joaquin
A personal account of the Tai Chi, Qi Gung, & Taoist Meditation Workshop held at the Omega Institute with David Carradine from October 6-8, 2000
"So when we do this meditation evening, we'll try to go there. You know, the beauty of this is even if you don't like the meditation, and even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and even if you have trouble wishing well your enemies, it doesn't matter. Because the intention to do that in itself bring about tremendous results. And believe me, this practice really does work, because even if you don't in your lifetime work out all these relationship, it gets worked out, somewhere. And it evokes real change within ourselves. That's the main point. Sometimes we can't heal all our relationships, but we can heal ourselves. So please, sit back, relax in a kind of meditation posture, whatever's comfortable for you, but remember, try to be comfortable because it is a meditation, but it's also something that we're visualizing.
(Note: part of Heidi's talk was cut off when they switched the tape so at this point, I will go right into the meditation.)
May I be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to me.
May no difficulties come to me.
May no problems come to me.
May I have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May my teachers be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to them.
May no difficulties come to them.
May no problems come to them.
May they have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May my parents be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to them.
May no difficulties come to them.
May no problems come to them.
May they have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May my family be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to them.
May no difficulties come to them.
May no problems come to them.
May they have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May my friends be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to them.
May no difficulties come to them.
May no problems come to them.
May they have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May all indifferent persons be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to them.
May no difficulties come to them.
May no problems come to them.
May they have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May my enemies be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to them.
May no difficulties come to them.
May no problems come to them.
May they have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May all sentient beings be well and happy, peaceful, and prosperous.
May no harm come to them.
May no difficulties come to them.
May no problems come to them.
May they have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
Whatever living beings there are timid, fearful, strong, confident, long, great or average, short small or large, living near or living far, seen or unseen, born or coming to birth, may all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be free from fear. May all beings be free from grief. May all beings be well and happy. May we all be well and happy. May I be well and happy. May all beings be free from all bondage and obtain liberation.
(During the second half of this meditation, Heidi Singh chanted this part in the Poli language. There was a long period of silence afterward followed by a question and answer period. Arnold Tayam took over this part of the session.)
The first question that was asked was in regards to the making of the healing sounds. He asked Arnold Tayam why he used the word past as opposed to releasing emotions in the present.
Arnold replied, "I usually talk about the past because usually we have a lot of these different layers of negative energy that have piled themselves upon each other. That's the reason why, and a lot of times what happens when we experience anger, for example, anything that comes up is anger actually, and connects back. It piles up on each other. What happens is, if you go back to the original trauma and release that, then you start to break that whole pattern. And that's the reason why."
I could not hear the next person's question, but it was in regards to the Tao.
Arnold replied with, "I would say from the Taoist perspective, my practice what I know is, I've never really practiced or studied very much along the lines of Buddhism. But the idea with Taoism is the integration of the body, mind, emotion, and spirit connecting the macrocosm and the microcosm. So this transcendent integration of nature living a simple, balanced, virtuous life, according to your harmonization with nature is actually a key. So simplicity, balance, and virtue are I would say some of the major focal points of the practice of Tao. There are many paths, but many times people think about Taoists, traditions or practices, it's usually just keeping your body healthy. As I noticed earlier, when we talked about the physical body, it's merely a vehicle for this transcendence to take place. And the physical body houses our emotional, mental, and spiritual capacities. And it's kind of, sort of looped all the way together with this concept or development of cultivation of chi. Like growing a garden or a tree growing. And how that exudes out in daily living, which we will be talking about more tomorrow. So, I guess in a nutshell, that's really what the Taoists path as far as the way I have assimilated."
Then David added his own thoughts, "It gets really deep in, that's where this book comes in (holding up "All Else is Bondage") which is pure Taoists, that mind and body and physic, doesn't even exist. I mean the whole universe is kind of imaginary. I read this book (referring here to "The Tao of Physics"). What it talks about is the fact that the Tao, and Taoist thought and quantum mechanics are exactly the same thing. Just they're expressed differently. Quantum Mechanics, being a kind of physics, which reads like gobble-de-gook. It was intended to make Einstein's theories apply to the real world. Experimentally it works. And it actually does work. And then among all of these Quantum Mechanics, scientists, I guess you would call them, they had these different theories about what it means. Some people say it's just a metaphor and they talk about the fact that there is a deeper reality, a deep reality. And the other ones that say there isn't any deep reality. There's just this surface. In other words, it's superficial, what the universe looks like superficially is all there is. There's no deeper reality underneath it. And I think that, that's the one that that all of us really determine not to believe, that there's no more than what we see. The thing that I love about Taoist thought is that, is that thing, there must be more than this."
(I have to interrupt here and add that David sounds very much like a Unitarian. To know what Unitarians believe in, go to: http://www.uua.org/main.html to learn more.)
End of Day 2 - Evening 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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