Show 10 – The Three Treasures and Chapter 17

After a brief hiatus, Dr. Carl Totton discusses his time at the Taoist Gathering in Oakland, California. Then Dr. Totton and Tod discuss the Three Treasures and Chapter 17 of the Tao Te Ching.

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Episode Transcript

[Tod Perry]

You’re listening to What’s This Tao All About? A lighthearted look at Taoism featuring Dr. Carl Totton and Tod Perry. Carl is the founder of the Taoist Institute in North Hollywood, California.

Tod Perry knows a little about Taoism, and is mainly here because he owns a few microphones. Now, let’s learn. What’s this Tao all about?

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to What’s This Tao All About? My name is Tod Perry, and with me is Dr. Carl Totton. Hello.

C. Joe, great teacher here over at the Taoist Institute in North Hollywood. And let’s see here.

I just had an odd thought on the way up here. And many people, when they hear this show, I guess it’s kind of what we call, quote, unquote, evergreen content. And somebody will be probably downloading this five years after we recorded it.

But as of right now, as of today, we’re in November. We’re kind of approaching the holiday season. And I had a strange thought.

I thought, you know, lots of American holidays are built around some sort of religious tradition or, you know. I was thinking, is there any such thing as like a Taoist holiday? Like, do you have like uncarved block day?

Or like, you know what I’m saying? Is there, I guess, you know, is there like a holiday in China? I guess the Tao doesn’t really lend itself to holidays because it’s kind of, I guess, against almost that sort of thing.

[Carl Totton]

Well, I mean, there’s Taoism and then there’s Chinese folk practice, folk religious practice and holidays. You know, I mean, there are people in China and in other places that celebrate, for example, Buddha’s birthday or Lao Tzu’s birthday. And a lot of the ceremonies, and of course Chinese New Year, which is based on the lunar calendar.

[Tod Perry]

Right.

[Carl Totton]

And so the date actually floats, you know, between around the end of January and the beginning of March. And so it changes every year. And sometimes, you know, people have various types, like for Chinese New Year, you know, Chinese people like to get everything done before the New Year.

Cleaning and paying off all your debts. In other words, so you enter the New Year with a clean, with an uncarved block, right? Right.

Clean slate. Clean slate. Yes.

I’m back at zero. Back at zero. Yeah.

And also around the seasonal solstices, they frequently will have some type of practice to welcome in the energies of the spring or the summer or the fall. And a big one, of course, is the winter solstice, because that’s the end of a period and you’re letting go so that you can create space for what’s going to be arising in the new year.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, nice, nice. So the other day you were up in Oakland, California, about six, seven hours north of here, at a Taoist gathering. Now I’ve never heard of any of this kind of thing going on.

So what goes down at a Taoist gathering?

[Carl Totton]

Well, lots of things. This actually was the 12th one, the 12th year. Nice.

And the person who puts this together, Dr. Alex Feng, he’s a doctor of Chinese traditional medicine. He’s also a Taoist priest. Oh.

Learned from his father, who was a famous in China, a Taoist scholar and physician and priest. And he’s a martial artist. He teaches Tai Chi and Judo.

Oh. In fact, just last week, he was in India. Oh, wow.

Not doing all the spiritual things, but going to the Judo associations in India and teaching and doing seminars on Judo. And so that was kind of interesting. But he’s also a Tai Chi master and a good friend of mine.

So every year, he has this gathering where Taoists around the country or even around the world sometimes can come together. And there’s always a theme. This year’s theme was connecting with nature and using an ancient Taoist practice called Daoyin, one of the oldest forms of Qigong.

[Tod Perry]

OK.

[Carl Totton]

You know, Chinese yogic and meditative practices.

[Tod Perry]

Yeah, we’re going to get into that soon, right?

[Carl Totton]

Yeah. And I guess several years ago, there was an excavation in a cave in China called the Mao Wang Gui Dig. And inside were several interesting things, including the oldest version of the Tao Te Ching ever.

[Tod Perry]

How old was it?

[Carl Totton]

Over 2,000 years old.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, wow.

[Carl Totton]

And also, there were these series of, well, I guess originally maybe it was like a long scroll or something, but it was all kind of messed up because it was 2,000 years old. And when they unfolded it, of course, it tended to crack, but they restored it. And I actually have next door a chart that’s taken from that.

And what it has are figures doing these Qigong, these yogic type of maneuvers, meditative maneuvers. And like I said, it’s over 2,000 years old, and it’s the oldest depiction that we have of Qigong also. So that was a major archaeological discovery several years ago in China.

And so people, scholars and practitioners get together. There are keynote speeches. A few years ago, in fact, I was the keynote speaker.

The theme was being and becoming that year. And so I spoke to that. People teach workshops on different forms of Qigong, different ways of understanding things like the Tao Te Ching.

Are you in like a field or a park? Well, for many years, it was actually held at, I think it’s called the Merritt College in Oakland. And then the last couple of years, it’s actually been at Dr. Feng’s school. He has a school and a Taoist temple in Oakland, and that’s where it was held.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, I got to check that out.

[Carl Totton]

In fact, it’s called the Taoist Center of Oakland.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, I got to check that out next time. I like to go up there for the Raider game from time to time. So this would be a good round experience.

Yeah. You’re getting in touch with the Tao and then going into the black hole and enjoying myself. It’s all about living a dynamic existence.

That’s right. You know, on some level. And you brought back a couple of things.

I saw that you brought back, it looks like some kind of stone Confucius carving.

[Carl Totton]

Yes. Dr. Feng’s sister is an importer, and she brings the most lovely artifacts from China and around the world. And so there are several things in my temple here that are over the years I purchased from her.

There’s a wood carving of Lao Tzu over here sitting on a block of wood. There’s another one back here, a carving of Bohidharma. The Chinese call him Damo or Buddhi Damo, the founder of Chan or Zen Buddhism.

She has really nice things that are perfect for a Taoist temple.

[Tod Perry]

Yes. Now, how many people show up to the gathering of the Taoists? Because I don’t run into that many Taoists.

And when I’m doing this show, it always sounds kind of very foreign and odd to people. And I try to make it not sound foreign or odd, but still come. Last night I’m in a poker tournament in Orange County.

I’m like, oh, yeah, I can’t be out too late because I’ve got to be up early tomorrow to go to record my podcast on Taoism. And they’re like, is that some form of cooking? So about how many people show up at a gathering of Taoists?

[Carl Totton]

Usually there’s somewhere between 100 and 200 people. Oh, cool. Yeah, again, from around the country and sometimes around the world.

And again, we just get together and kind of hang out. And there’s a program. There’s scheduled activities.

This year, in fact, since part of the theme was interacting with nature, we actually went out one morning to the botanical gardens in Berkeley. Oh, OK. Fantastic.

And we were looking at all the Chinese. There’s a whole section filled with Chinese medicinal herbs. And an acupuncturist, an herbalist, led us around and showed us all the different natural things that grow in nature that you can use for healing.

And that was really nice, particularly on a beautiful day in Berkeley under the sun and the clouds. It was marvelous.

[Tod Perry]

There’s something about the air in the bay. I don’t know what it is, but it is.

[Carl Totton]

Negative ions, I think, from the ocean. It’s very fresh. Really nice.

[Tod Perry]

Yeah. When I take a deep breath up there, I feel it goes deeper into my lungs than here. Yes.

There’s this crap in it. I don’t know what it is. Yeah.

[Carl Totton]

Air without particles and smog is always nice.

[Tod Perry]

Yes. Yes. So moving on, a while back, I’ve always been curious about this.

What are the Three Treasures in Taoism?

When I was attending a Taoist temple in El Monte, they had a ceremony for some of the Taoists, the members of the temple, that had moved on in their understanding or cultivation of the Tao. And with the Tao master that ran the place, he bestowed upon them the three treasures, or revealed the three treasures. It was kind of a ceremonial thing.

And I would say, what’s the deal with the three treasures? It almost felt kind of like, when you’re ready for it, we’ll get into it kind of thing. But I believe it’s a big part of Taoism on some level, and I figured you’d be a good person to explain this.

[Carl Totton]

Well, I mean, all of us, remember, we’re all part of the field. We’re all part of the Tao. And so everything that is within the Tao, we all are participating in, including the three treasures.

However, not everybody has cultivated their awareness and understanding of the three treasures, certainly not to the extent that other people have done so.

[Tod Perry]

Right.

[Carl Totton]

And so the three treasures, traditionally in Taoism, are known as jing, qi, and xin. Jing being primordial essence, pre-birth essence. It’s kind of like your genetic inheritance from your parents, your DNA, your RNA.

And this energy is said to be stored and reside in the kidneys in human beings. And then that interacts with your energy, your qi, which is stored in the dantians, the fields of elixir in your body. And the one that the practitioners really relate to probably the most is the so-called lower dantian.

It’s a theoretic space between about two inches below your navel and in front of your spine.

[Tod Perry]

Yes, certain meditations ask you to focus on that.

[Carl Totton]

Yes, all yogic breathing tends to focus on that area where they tell you to breathe deep. I often tell my students, imagine that you have a balloon in your lower abdomen that expands as you inhale and deflates as you exhale. See, because then you’ll be in the right area.

Rather than breathing high and shallow off the tops of your lungs where you don’t get full oxygenation, if you breathe deep like this by distending your diaphragm, you not only get a deeper, fuller inhalation, it settles your mind down deeper in your core of your body and takes you out of your head. Right. Which, of course, is a big problem for many people.

[Tod Perry]

Out of your head and into your mind, right?

[Carl Totton]

Out of your head and into your soul, hopefully. So that’s the second one, that center in the so-called lower dantian, this point below the navel inside the body where the energy is stored and therefore can be gathered and strengthened. And then the third one, the shin, means spirit in Chinese.

And in Chinese medicine, the spirit is actually stored where? In the heart. In the heart chakra, the heart dantian, which is very interesting because we now know that the energy, the magnetic and other electrical energy in the heart is actually more powerful than that in the brain.

And so many spiritual traditions, I’m sure you know and have heard, actually are trying to open the heart and be centered in the heart, which is a place of non-duality, a place of unity consciousness. And it’s interesting that for thousands of years, the Chinese have said that the spirit is actually stored in the heart. Very interesting.

And so these three treasures, when you link the essence, kind of your pre-birth energy with your qi, kind of your post-birth energy that comes from air and food and water and cultivation and practice, and then that combines with this energy in your heart, this place of non-duality and of ultimate potential, when all of that is linked in kind of an alchemic formula, that is one of the Taoist prescriptions towards enlightenment and immortality.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, so when you get all these things kind of lined up, is it kind of understanding and trying to balance out the three or find that personal inside of you balance of all those things? I guess with my feeble Western mind, I try to constantly balance kind of heart and mind about lots of things. As we were talking before we started recently, I made like a career change, and I was trying to use some of the – you were explaining to me on a show about when you’re making – ah, I got it.

It was part of a discussion on the day and the Tao in action. And in order to kind of – you have the Tao. It is manifested into reality through the day and through your actions through the day.

And you were saying that a big part of this kind of manifestation is when you kind of put all of your heart energy and focus on that, and that brings things kind of to life. And I was doing that, and within that I became wildly successful, more so than I thought in making this career transition. Excellent.

So hopefully these things that we discuss here are things people can actually practice.

[Carl Totton]

Yes. And then kind of one of the final steps is that once this jing and this qi and this shin and the heart are all aligned, and there are specific yogic or qigong practices for each one of these, by the way. Oh, okay.

Then, you know when you’re born, when your cells first – your parents did their thing and they kind of co-joined their energy, and then there’s a little nine-month process where we develop. But the very first thing that develops when the cells begin to connect and divide, the very first thing that develops actually is the heart. At the beginning, we’re all hard, literally.

And then the first thing that grows out of that is this tissue that becomes the tongue.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, really?

[Carl Totton]

So it goes straight – And that’s why in all Chinese traditions, when you’re meditating, what do they tell you to do? They tell you to take your tongue and curl it up to the roof of your mouth. Oh, really?

And so this thing that grew out of your heart, now it’s pointing at the roof of your mouth, straight to the center of your brain where the pineal gland is, right? The so-called third eye. And so by connecting the energy within the body from the heart into the brain, that is how spiritual consciousness actually is enlivened and awakened.

And you always hear, we want to do what? Wake up. Wake up.

Well, this is the Taoist prescription for waking up, for becoming an enlightened being.

[Tod Perry]

It’s finding these three treasures, getting this alchemy. It’s kind of like you have the three treasures. And to use a weird music metaphor, it’s kind of like you have John Lennon and you have Paul McCartney and you have Ringo Starr.

Now, by themselves, all talented people. But when you put the four of them in a room, it multiplies to eight, right? It becomes this whole other wonderful, beautiful noise that can happen.

[Carl Totton]

And let’s not forget George Harrison. Yes, of course.

[Tod Perry]

I was listening to him on the way.

[Carl Totton]

Yeah, I was listening to him also. While my guitar gently weeps.

[Tod Perry]

There’s a great version of Prince playing that song. He plays the guitar on it beautifully. So we’re talking about the alchemy of the three treasures.

And so in kind of enhancing one’s own, these three things, so basically there is separate kind of Qigong prescription. We’re getting into Qigong in another show. It’s weird, all these different things, they kind of interrelate.

Yes, they do. But it’s like almost we have to have a full understanding of each one or else it’s just all bizarre. So these different Qigong techniques can enhance these three things, which I guess would be, I don’t know, alchemically create something greater.

[Carl Totton]

And it’s all about connection. Connection, interconnection, interconnection. Because when we are connected, what happens?

What happens with a connected human being as opposed to a fragmented, disconnected human being?

[Tod Perry]

Much more productive.

[Carl Totton]

Yes, you have access to the totality of who you are.

[Tod Perry]

Yes.

[Carl Totton]

And the disease is fragmentation and kind of problematic dissociation. And the cure is always unification. That leads towards healing.

Remember, in Chinese medicine, what causes illness and dis-ease is stagnation, fragmentation, and disconnection. And imbalance. Imbalance, that creates an imbalance.

And when you’re imbalanced, things don’t work very well. And eventually you’re going to need some type of treatment or practices to return to balance. And a lot of this is unavoidable.

What human being can avoid getting sick sometimes, getting dysfunctional sometimes? None of us has spared that. And that’s okay if, and only if, you have some practices to restore your balance.

Then you’re fine. Then you’re fine. Then you can deal with the vicissitudes of life, the rising and falling, which there’s no way to escape.

It’s part of the Tao, just like seasons of the year. But you can restore balance because you know how. And that is the purpose of going to a teacher or a practitioner or a healer or a doctor of these methods, is to teach you how to help yourself.

Because they’ve been there. They’ve been there.

[Tod Perry]

Now, skipping back a little bit, you said something, and I know that I’m going to listen back to the show, and I’m going to be like, Why didn’t I ask him about that? So I was the pineal gland. Pineal, pineal, pineal.

Pineal gland. Now, I’ve noticed in meditation, which I’ve kept up doing just almost every day. Very good.

Unless I get rushed out of the house, but I don’t get rushed out of the house anymore. I work from home, so I have no excuse. But I want to.

It’s not a chore. It’s, oh, I can’t wait. I can’t wait.

So I’ve noticed that there’s a feeling in my mind, almost there’s a release of chemical or there’s something when it’s going well. Is that the pineal gland?

[Carl Totton]

Yes. It’s releasing endorphins. And also the alpha waves, which are associated with relaxation and ecstasy and fun and happiness, those are released.

All sorts of good neurochemicals are released in your brain that lead you towards a state of feeling, a state of well-being, a feeling of ultimately bliss. Calm. Calm.

Calmness. A calm, blissful feeling. Yes.

And that’s why people do it. People ask, what’s the payoff of all of this? Well, how about being in great health and feeling happy and blissful in your life?

[Tod Perry]

Right.

[Carl Totton]

Is that something you might want to maybe kind of look for?

[Tod Perry]

And the thing I love always, what you said before is, or I was reading somewhere and it was about the thing with Taoism and the Tao Te Ching. The whole point is not trying to get converts or trying to get this or wield some kind of social power. It’s try this because it works.

[Carl Totton]

Right. And the thing is you have to prove it for yourself.

[Tod Perry]

Yeah.

[Carl Totton]

We don’t believe in belief. Yeah. We believe in experiences.

Then you don’t have to believe because now you know.

[Tod Perry]

Right.

[Carl Totton]

Now you know.

[Tod Perry]

But belief is for things that haven’t quite panned out yet.

[Carl Totton]

Right. Right. And since you haven’t experienced it, well, oh, well, I believe.

Someday. Someday, maybe. But everything that you get as a practitioner of the Tao, you earn.

You earn. It’s like putting money, and remember, you used to be able to put money in the bank. You’d earn dividends.

Not so much now. Interest. Yeah.

I remember. In fact, I just participated in a book, and my chapter in the book, I actually called it Your Inner Bank of Health. Yeah.

Because every day you do these practices and you get dividends. You get immediate benefits.

[Tod Perry]

Right.

[Carl Totton]

And the longer you do it, the more benefits you get. Right. And so it’s something that people want to do.

They make it part of their routine because it’s something that makes them feel good. And it allows them, because they’re better balanced and there’s less divisions within their psyche and in their soul and in their body, it allows them to access more of the totality of who they are as a human being. And their potential.

And then, yes, exactly. And when you have access to the totality of who you are, guess what? Your life becomes so much richer and so much more creative.

Things don’t bother you as much.

[Tod Perry]

No.

[Carl Totton]

So you feel better all the time. And you become an exemplar. You become a role model for others.

[Tod Perry]

Yeah.

[Carl Totton]

So you don’t have to convert people. Just being in your presence, they feel different. And then after a while, they might say, wow, I notice you’re always kind of chipper and happy and seem really relaxed.

How do you do that?

[Tod Perry]

Yeah.

[Carl Totton]

And then you can say, well, I’ve been trying these things.

[Tod Perry]

It doesn’t come from nowhere. Or maybe it does come from nowhere.

[Carl Totton]

Out of the void. Yes. Out of no thing comes the all.

[Tod Perry]

Be like, yes, it does. Actually, it comes specifically from nowhere. And I’m trying to get to it.

What is Chapter 17 in the Tao Te Ching about?

So let’s finish up today with a verse, Chapter 17, which knowing that we were going to discuss this, normally I have notes and stuff. But after reading this one, I was like, I’ll let Carl take it from here.

[Carl Totton]

This is kind of a mysterious chapter, actually. It says, So the very highest is barely known to man.

[Tod Perry]

Is that some kind of metaphor for enlightenment? Or is it some kind of thing where extremes, because we’re always trying to stay away from extremes, maybe it’s one end of a spectrum versus the other?

[Carl Totton]

I think the average person is so bogged down by everyday life, they rarely do what, of course, we’re suggesting that they do, which, of course, is to create space to experience what might be alluded to as these higher states of being. But these higher, so-called higher states of being, come from doing what? Paying attention to daily life, to breath, to how you live, how you move, how you breathe, how you think, how you relax, how you exist.

You know, very basic things, which then…

[Tod Perry]

Yield, they bring you to the…

[Carl Totton]

Yes, they yield these treasures, right? These gifts, you know, they pay a dividend. And so these so-called high, the very highest, which is barely known by men, but exists, comes from these other things that, like Lao Tzu says, then comes that which they know and love, then that which is feared, then that which is despised.

So think about getting what you want, you know, that which you might love. And think about, on the way to thinking about getting what you want or what you might love, how fearful you probably are that you won’t get it, or if you do get it, that you might lose it. And how often our actions are guided by what we don’t want to lose, right?

And we’re comparing ourselves with other people. Oh, they’ve got this, I only have that. And there’s so much disparity in society these days, probably has always been, but it’s particularly acute right now.

And so much is fear-based, you know. They have this, and I don’t have that, and I’m afraid that someone’s going to take what I have. And so we become very, very, what, possessive and envious and jealous.

[Tod Perry]

And the Tao, much of what the Tao is about is about letting go.

[Carl Totton]

Letting go. Because then this thing about what is despised, and what do people despise typically? They despise what they don’t understand, and they despise what they feel is the unknown and what is different from them.

[Tod Perry]

And what threatens their way or their way of being.

[Carl Totton]

What threatens their reality, they despise. But yet, truth is, we’re all in this together. Everybody’s experiencing the very same thing.

And so this person over here is despising something about you, that of course they also have. We’re over here despising something about them, which of course we also have. And it becomes absurd, ultimately.

It becomes absurd. And so the Taoists have always recognized this absurdity in life.

[Tod Perry]

Hence the humor.

[Carl Totton]

And hence the humor, that’s why I laugh so much. And because this need to try to prove, it’s the ego. Trying to prove that we’re correct, often by proving that other people are incorrect.

And then striving to get things. And then when we strive and strive and strive, something that we’ve elevated to, oh, if I get this, this much money, or this particular position, I’ll be perfect. And then when you actually get it, how do you typically feel?

[Tod Perry]

Disappointed.

[Carl Totton]

Dissatisfied. Essentially it rots in your hand.

[Tod Perry]

Right, yeah. It’s like that cornstarch. For little kids, you put cornstarch and water in.

And if you hit it real hard, it fights back at you. But you put your hand in softly. But then you put it in your hand, and it all just drips away.

Nothing attaches.

[Carl Totton]

And so Lao Tzu says, when actions are performed without unnecessary speech, without all this striving, then people, of course, will take credit. They’ll say, hey, we did it. We did it.

Where the sage, avoiding all of that from the very beginning, just is satisfied with where they are, with what they have. And remember, a Taoist always knows when they have enough.

[Tod Perry]

Yes. Yeah. And so that’s the acceptance understanding of this kind of coming to one’s full potential in this kind of normal everyday around us.

Fine-tuning our human instrument kind of brings us to that level that we’re not kind of bogged down by all this hate and fear.

[Carl Totton]

And not getting trapped by our own expectations or others’ expectations.

[Tod Perry]

Even if you sometimes exceed expectations, the expectation is not met. Because you have this idea in your head of how things are going to be, and it’s never, ever, ever how you want it. Sometimes it’s better.

Sometimes it’s worse. But it’s never how you imagined it. So that’s what’s wonderful about life in a fun way.

But I think I can hear our outro music playing. So Dr. Carl Totton, C. Joe, thanks for speaking with me today.

We’re going to be back on the next show talking a little bit about immortality.

[Carl Totton]

May the Tao be with you. Yes.