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

Early after breakfast, as Helen and I waited for the morning session to begin, I was curious as to what was up on the small hill across from the main hall. We saw some people up there so we climbed to the top, and to my surprise I saw what it was that drew the few people that were there. There was a large circular stone labyrinth. I have walked the labyrinth at the UU Church of Arlington, in Arlington, VA many times. This was a treat. Helen wasn’t certain whether she wanted to walk it, but I decided it was something I could not pass up. Insights can be found from walking a labyrinth. It is a form of walking meditation, one that had been done for centuries, and is being rediscovered. It was a walk on a labyrinth that gave me the insight in the need to study herbal medicine. Though I did not receive any that day, it was a joy just to walk it and to know that it was there. For the next time I would visit Omega, I might just take more time to discover just what insights Omega’s labyrinth holds for me.

(Photo of Labyrinth).

After walking the labyrinth, enough time had passed where we went into the main hall to start the morning session. Arnold started covering the topic on The Spirit continuing from the original conversation from Friday when he introduced the three aspects, the three Dan Tiens, the physical, emotional/mental, and spiritual. Arnold stated, "So we're going to be integrating that, of course, all together, talking later on about how these three aspects are integrated through these practices of Taoism, Buddhism, through the energy into your daily living. So, there's a number of different things we'll be doing today. Since this morning's session, I understand a number of you will be taking off at around noontime. So we're actually going to have a little bit of an extended session towards the end for pictures and talking and so forth. Myself and Heidi will be finishing in this last section and this afternoon, David and Rob will be finishing off for a short section in the afternoon right after lunch. So, that's the format in which we will be working with today. So, we're going to begin off actually with a meditation from Heidi and then I will move on into my section, working with the three dan tiens and a standing meditation. And then we'll have Rob come out and do some more of his Nine Psalms."

At that point, Heidi Singh wished us a good morning. She adjusted her microphone so everyone could hear her better. She began by saying that we were first going to do a still meditation. Then she was going to read from the Eight Verses for Training the Mind (which I happen to have a copy of when I saw the Dalai Lama speak) by a Tibetan Master who lived in the 11th Century. The text that she read from was given to her and her husband in 1972 by his Holiness the Dalai Lama when they met. She stated it was like he really wanted them to pay attention to the text. Over the years, Heidi learned that His Holiness gave a lot of teachings on that particular text and he would mention it a lot in his writings. It's a very important text for him. She wanted us to keep it in mind when we heard the text because it's kind of hard. It's one of those difficult things that you say, "Uhgh, I don't know if I can do that one." Heidi stated that we would talk about the implications of trying to do it after we were finished with the reading. Heidi also indicated that she had copies of all of the texts that she read to us to give everyone before we would break for lunch.

We began by adjusting our posture and ourselves. She recommended that everyone sit up, not necessarily in a lotus position, but so our backs were erect. It was so we could do full abdominal breathing and be in touch with that. Someone asked if they could lay down, and Heidi stated that whatever was conducive to meditation, lying down, sitting meditation, sitting in a chair, whatever worked best we could do. She also wanted us to think about when she read the word Mothers at the end of the meditation, it meant all sentient beings throughout space and time. They are all our mothers in the way the Tibetans think. For those that were sitting in a chair she reminded them not to sit into the back of the chair, but to keep the back erect and to relax the shoulders and relax the neck. She wanted us to feel that we could be completely comfortable, calm, focused, with our head at the top of our spine as though it were an axis holding up the center of our universe. As she instructed us he speech became slower and calmer. As we sat there, she instructed us to inhale deeply and fully, throughout our whole chest area and into the abdomen. She said to feel our abdomen expand as we inhaled and contract as we exhaled. After that silence prevailed for a minute. She then said to be aware of our breath as it entered our nostrils and at the tip of our nose as we exhaled. The silence stretched on for another minute or two. And when she spoke again, it was to read the sutra and the eight verses for training the mind. I have written the Eight Verses here that Heidi Singh read us.

The Eight Verses of Training the Mind

(composed by Kadampa Geshey Lang-ri-thang-pa)

With the termination to accomplish the highest welfare for all sentient beings, who excel even the wish granting Gem (Cintamani), may I at all times hold them dear.

Whenever I associate with someone, may I think myself the lowest among all and hold the other supreme in the depth of my heart.

In all actions, may I search into my mind, and as soon as Klesar disturbances arise, endangering myself and others, may I firmly face and avert it.

When I see beings of wicked nature, pressed by violence sin and affliction, may I hold these rare ones dear as if I have found a precious treasure.

When others - out of envy - treat me badly with abuse, slander and the like, may I suffer the defeat and offer the victory to others.

When the one, whom I have benefited with great hope, hurts me very badly, may I behold him as my supreme Guru.

In short, may I, directly and indirectly, offer benefit and happiness to all my mothers; may I secretly take upon myself the harm and suffering of the mothers*.

May all this remain undefiled by the stains of keeping in view the Eight worldly Principles; may I - by perceiving all Dharmas as illusive - unattached be delivered from the bondage (Samsara).

*I.e., all sentient beings

Silence followed for a minute after the reading.

Heidi Singh went on to explain where the text came from and when it was written. She then stated, "One thing to keep in mind about this text is that this is mental training. That's why, hence, Eight Verses of Training the Mind. Some of my students at UCLA asked me, 'Well what does this mean, you just put yourself out in front of everybody and sort of get trampled on,' and I said, 'No because this is a mental training.' Externally, you do what you have to do. We try to act with compassion, with wisdom, with skillful means. But with our dignity, and our own sovereignty, I'm going to say another word about that in a moment, not harming others, doing good if we can, in Buddhist terms if you cannot do good, at least do no harm. That's one of our major principles. But this mind training is a way of keeping us honest. And helping us cope with the visitudes of life. And it's a very harsh training, I think. When I was first introduced to this, I thought, jeez, you know, this is even more difficult than a lot of things in the Christian tradition about loving your enemies and doing good to those who persecute you. It's similar along these lines. But for some reason, we talked to his Holiness, the Dalai Lama in 1972, as we were departing, his secretary and translator came out and he said, 'His Holiness really wants you to have this text, and I don't know why.' Except that in that meeting, we talked to him, we were very privileged to be able to speak with him for about 45 minutes, and one of the things that I asked him was how do you develop compassion? And his Holiness said, 'Look, you know, every being the same kind of feelings that we have, even though we don't realize it. Even those who are very small beings, like mosquitoes, they are able to feel pain. So when we're bothered, for example by a mosquito, (and I think he aid the mosquitoes are very bad in India) sometimes you just want to, without thinking, you just want to slap them and kill them. We go like this (he gestured with his fingers on the table and rapped very strongly), we kill them or we harm then, we are causing them pain or even death and we don't think about it. That being is suffering. If we can develop that kind of awareness, for the mosquito, we can develop more awareness for all beings and certainly for human beings. We all want the same things. We all have the same suffering, the capacity to suffer and the capacity for joy. So we need to be thinking not so much always about our we're feeling but how the other person is feeling, especially if that person causes us difficulty.'

"This text is a very difficult text and it's taken me . . . I've had this in my possession for 28 years and I've really been working on it a lot, trying to figure it out. And every year I get a little more understanding of what it means. About ten, maybe eight years ago, I asked venerable Kempo Karporempecha, who's actually in New York here, at a Dharma center here. I asked him if I could have a blessing to be able to practice this teaching in my life, and I don't know what possessed me to do that, because when I asked that question through his translator, his translator ask 'Are you sure you want to do this?' I felt a little bit scared, but I said, 'Yes, I do.' And he said, 'Okay,' and he did give me a blessing for this and later on he told me, because I was in a very difficult situation at the time and I said to him, 'You know, sometimes I feel I don't know if I can endure.' And I'm thinking he's going to say, 'Hey, get yourself out of it, now it will be fine.' What he said to me was, 'You know if you can . . .' well what he said was, 'I can't tell you what to do,' and he said, 'If you can endure and put this into practice, your patience and your compassion is going to deepen, and deepen, and deepen. And one day you will be able to help others.' So I thought about that and I thought, well, that's okay. I've been working with this a long time, it's very, very difficult, but I know one thing, that this text that says things like, 'When the one whom I have benefited with great hope hurts me very badly, may I behold him as my supreme guru,' this is absolute fact. Because even the Dalai Lama says, what does he say about Mao Tse-tung, one of his greatest teachers. Because of what the experience of being in exile and all the suffering of his people which he doesn't make light of, but has taught him a lot. Because a person who praises you, you know you love them, you love your family, you love your friends, whatever the people who are close to you, and sometimes as ewe said last night sometimes are very family and friends can become our enemies at times. And, you know that's no big deal. It's like Jesus says, somebody lives you to love them back, hey that's a piece of cake. What's really hard when somebody hurts you, they're teaching you a lot, because in many ways, we learn a lot more from the blame of other people than we do from the praise. And that's not to say we should have a negative view of ourselves. Never, never, never, because in Buddhism you have to have complete self-confidence in yourself and your destiny. Otherwise you can't go forward. But it means that it keeps you centered. It keeps you really centered. And one more thing to keep in mind, this does not mean that you open yourself up for abuse, you know, domestic violence and all that, and you should put yourself in that situation, that's not what this is saying. But this text takes us out of the victim role. If you adopt this principle voluntarily, we are no longer victims. It is very important in Buddhism and it's very important in life. Because in Buddhist practice, as we been saying, and Arnie's been talking about in Taoism and everything else, we have to take responsibility for ourselves. We have to get beyond this place where we're blaming somebody else for our suffering. We have to take responsibility for ourselves in this very moment and for fulfilling our destiny whatever it is. And so this takes us out of the victim role. This gives us power in many ways. This is a very empowering text.

"As I was thinking about this, I was thinking about Victor Francol and his book "Man's Search for Meaning," where he talks about the holocaust, you know. When he's taking about what made the difference for people in the holocaust was attitude, this immense, immense evil, this suffering, and this horrible, horrible thing. But if people had a certain attitude, they overcame in their own mind before dying, they overcame the brutality. As Gandhi said, you know in the movie Gandhi, there's that scene in South Africa where they're being threatened, and he says, 'Okay, what are they going to do to us. They can take our bodies, they can kill us, but they won't have our dignity.' That's something that is always, always there. And one more thing, you know, it doesn't really matter if all the conditions are removed, sometimes we can change things. We need the wisdom to know the difference and the courage to make the change when we can, and sometimes we can't. We're in a situation we cannot change it, because the environmental circumstances are such that we are subject to something that is going on. You know, we have parents who are dying, whatever it is. We can't change that. But we can change ourselves. Just to give you one example, and I'll wrap it up, is that in one of his books, Thich Nhat Hanh (whom I saw and listened to at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax - they have a mindfulness center there - http://www.geocities.com/~uucoff/mpc.htm), the Vietnamese Zen master, tells a story about a friend of his who was put in a Vietnamese, quote-unquote "Vietnamese re-education camp" for many years. You know what that means. And he was kept in solitary confinement and everything. And when he came out and was finally free, Thich Nhat Hanh said to him, 'Wow, you're better now than when you went in. You're calm; you're so different. You're tranquil,' and his friend said to him, 'You know, I had a choice. I was in prison, I was in solitary confinement and I said to myself, you know I have an opportunity to practice meditation.' So he used that prison sentence as a retreat. So, for him, it became an opportunity rather than a curse. It became a blessing. And when he came out of that experience, he was so much better than when he went in. And Thich Nhat Hanh, you know he's very mindful of the fact that we're not victims. We're not victims. And he says when you see on the face of the Buddha, on the Buddha statues there's always that little half-smile, and he says, 'That is being in sovereignty over yourself,' and that's what the Buddha teaches us, being in sovereignty over ourselves, no matter the situation. There was a woman who came to him; she was a Vietnamese woman who had been a boat woman. I think she had been raped by pirates on the sea, and all sorts of things that happened, and Thich Nhat Hanh said to her, 'Sister, why don't you smile?' and she said, 'Veneral, I can't. How can I smile? I've been through so much suffering, I'm in so much pain.' and he said to her, 'Sister, you are more than your suffering.' And after a while, she was able to take some teachings with him and began to smile again. But he said, ‘You are more than your suffering.’ And what he says in terms of this person, for example who went in the relocation camp who came out better, if you want peace, peace is available immediately. What David was saying last night, when he was quoting from that text that he was reading from, where, you know it's all a matter of knowing, that you're where you need to be, it's not something out there. We, especially Americans, we live in the future. We live in the future. We're always thinking, ‘If I can get that job, if I can marry that man, if I can get that house, if I get my Ph.D., it's all going to be great.’ You know it's like, uh, uh, uh, all down the road. It's not there. It's right now. It's right now. If we want peace, peace is available immediately, immediately. It doesn't mean your terrible situation has to be taken away, doesn't mean the person whose driving you nuts is going to take a cruise and never come back, no. That's what we want, oh just go away and leave me alone, no that isn't going to happen. But the thing is, even in this situation, and remember this, because even in the concentration camp, in that re-education camp, whatever they called it, peace is available immediately. So, anyway, that's it. Thank you and we'll go on to the next thing, and at the end, please come and get the papers."

End of Day 3 - Morning Session - Part 1

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2002.
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