Show 11 – Immortality and Star Wars

The show opens with some musings about the similarities between The Force in Star Wars and the Tao. Later, Dr. Carl Totton disucusses his journey to become a Taoist priest. The show ends with a talk about the concept of immortality in Taoism and a discussion on Chapter 16.

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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 the great Dr. Carl Totton. Sijo as we call him on this show.

Are There Similarities Between The Force in ‘Star Wars’ and the Tao?

Hello. And right now for those of you listening as these shows come out versus those of you who are in the future or tapping into what we’re doing. In December there’s a new Star Wars movie coming out.

The Force Awakens. So the force is awakening and I couldn’t help but note. I don’t know whether it’s intent.

I’m assuming it’s intentional on some level that there is a lot of when they talk about the force in Star Wars. A lot of it sounds a lot like the Tao. And there are a lot of kind of like Taoist concepts when Yoda trains Luke.

And, you know, and just the way the Jedi speak with each other and their practices. And the force, you know, the force flows through everything much like the Tao. And it’s about how the Jedi’s kind of tap into the force that gives them their power.

So it’s very, very similar to the Tao. So I was just screwing around on the Internet and I found that some guy had written the Tao of Star Wars. And so there’s this little segment here I want to go over.

And through effortless action or Wu Wei as we call it, you can feel the Tao. You cannot harmonize with the Tao if you don’t feel or are not aware of its presence. Throughout the Star Wars series, those strong in the force are constantly talking about feeling the force.

In Star Wars when Luke is learning how to use a lightsaber against the remote, Obi-Wan counsels him. Remember, a Jedi can feel the force flowing through him. You mean it controls your actions?

Partially, but it also obeys your commands. And then there’s another scene where in The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda admonishes Luke to feel the force during his training on Dagobah. Saying a Jedi’s strength flows from the force.

In one scene he tells Luke to focus and to feel the force. Feel it. And then Luke becomes kind of distracted by R2’s beeping and then he loses his balance.

And Yoda, concentrate! So Yoda’s forcing him to kind of feel and tap into this energy field. And it’s very, very similar to the Tao.

I can imagine in martial arts on some level, right? Because I know very little, but I took karate in college for about a couple months. But that was about it.

So I’d imagine that when you’re practicing judo, that you’re kind of wanting to get on some spot of effortless action, right? Where it’s no longer about thinking at all. It’s about tapping in and being in the zone, right?

And then just having that energy and being on that level.

[Carl Totton]

Going with the flow.

[Tod Perry]

So in a certain way, Yoda is kind of harshly… It’s a weird thing to admonish somebody to go with the flow, right? To really start whipping them like a horse and saying, just go with the flow.

But really, that’s kind of the discipline, I guess, required in Star Wars to do this. But it’s a similar thing, I feel.

[Carl Totton]

Yeah, and obviously George Lucas did his homework. When he put that original series together, films together. And he studied what happened in martial arts.

What happens in a lot of this Taoist and Zen literature. The teacher-student relationship. And all these things about becoming a warrior, Jedi Knight.

Who’s skillful and wise and compassionate at the same time. And has all these great skills. Which come not only from practice, but from letting go.

And allowing things to happen. And like you were saying, it can be led too. There’s a saying in Chinese.

The Yi leads the Qi. And Yi means the mind intent. The will, if you will.

And then that taps into it and collects with your energy. And then the body follows. And so the mind is sent out there.

And we actually have a practice in Tai Chi and Kung Fu that I teach. Where you actually envision yourself performing perfectly. So that’s the mind intent.

You want to see yourself at your best. And then you see threads of energy from this mental picture. Attached to your body.

And then it pulls the physical action out of your body. So now you have the mind, the Qi, the energy and the body all linked together.

[Tod Perry]

In some kind of alignment.

[Carl Totton]

They’re all in alignment. Which of course leads to alchemy. Which leads to manifestation.

And a more powerful… Very powerful at that point.

[Tod Perry]

And also there’s a scene where you were just saying you said let go. And that’s exactly in here. At the end of Episode 4, Luke is getting ready to blow up the Death Star.

And then he turns off his targeted computer. Because Obi-Wan says to him, use the force. Feel it.

Let go. And then he let goes. What are you doing?

You’re getting rid of all this technology that you know. He’s like, no. I’m just going to be in the zone here.

I’m going to nail this shot. So I thought it was kind of cool. Whenever I see this stuff.

Even in the…

Was Bruce Lee a Taoist?

[Carl Totton]

One of Bruce Lee’s films, he’s saying to his disciple, don’t think. Feel.

[Tod Perry]

Bruce Lee was a Taoist. They had a list of prominent Taoists on Wikipedia.

[Carl Totton]

Bruce Lee was on it. Yeah, well, he certainly studied philosophy in college. And he used a lot of, I think, just basic truth and truisms from Taoism as part of his practice.

Oh, nice. He talked about water a lot and emptying your cup. Things that are used in Zen, for example.

Yeah, Bruce actually was born in San Francisco and then was raised in Hong Kong. And then when he moved back to the States, he lived briefly in San Francisco. And then actually started his teaching career in Seattle.

And then he had a school. So he had three schools, ultimately. He had one in Seattle.

He had one in Oakland. And then one in Los Angeles, Chinatown. Ah, nice.

[Tod Perry]

So moving on here, we’re going to talk also on the show a little bit about becoming a Taoist priest. And a little bit about immortality. So we’ve got some good stuff here.

And then if we have time, because immortality, that’s a good one. That’s a darn good topic, Carl. And so then if we have time, we’re going to get on to Chapter 16 of the Tao Te Ching, which I think rolls nicely into the concept of immortality.

How Do You Become a Taoist Priest?

The question was, so how does one officially, because you are a Taoist priest, is there a formal, because I always feel that the Tao, an understanding of the Tao, flies in the face of formality, right? It’s usually kind of rebelling against formal types of things. So how does one, is there a formality involved in becoming a Taoist priest?

[Carl Totton]

Well, there is, and of course there isn’t. The answer you get to every question I ask.

[Tod Perry]

But of course.

[Carl Totton]

So, I mean, traditionally, you know, you had temples in China where people would go and live. And while they’re in the temple, they’re being trained to become a Taoist adept or a Taoist priest. You know, there’s a process of learning what one had to learn in order to receive ordination as a priest.

So you kind of get your official papers, you know. And so, like one of my teachers, you know, in China, he spent 13 years growing up in a Taoist temple. And in the temple, he learned various practices that would help him later, when he came here and had a life of service.

You know, so he would learn physical practices. You know, things like the martial arts, Kung Fu, to strengthen the body and mind. He would learn meditation.

He would learn Qi Gong, obviously. He would learn about the classics from Chinese literature. Things like the Tao Te Ching and the Yi Ching and on and on and on.

He would learn about ritual and ceremony, how to do weddings, how to do funerals. You know, things that any parish priest, you know, would know how to do. He’d learn about cosmology, about the universe.

How to align with the forces of nature in the universe. How to do blessings, ritual blessings and cleansings and healings. They learned a lot about Chinese herbs and how to use herbs for healing various conditions.

And even how to do things like exorcisms. You know, to rid people of, you know, unwanted states of being that they had become connected with somehow. And so, yes, there was a kind of a formal training program.

And to this day, you know, there’s that White Cloud Temple in Beijing. You know, they have priests there and there’s a priest training program. And so, you know, in various places in China and certainly in Hong Kong and Taiwan, you know, there are places where one can go study these things.

Here in the United States, of course, it’s much, much more rare. At the Dallas Sanctuary where I began studying in 1969, 1970, the founder of it, a man named Dr. Kai Aokdee. Very interesting gentleman, pretty well known.

He was an actor. Remember the original Hawaii Five-O? He was Wofat, you know, the infamous red Chinese agent who was the best villain on that entire show.

[Tod Perry]

I do remember the name. I used to watch that when I was a kid many years ago.

[Carl Totton]

Oh, yeah. He was great. So he was an actor.

He was a Taoist scholar. He wrote a well-known text on Taoism called The Eleventh Wing, in fact. He was an actor.

He was a psychologist. He was a hypnotherapist.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, wow.

[Carl Totton]

A very interesting person.

[Tod Perry]

I feel like you’re very similar to him.

[Carl Totton]

I’ve kind of followed in his footsteps to some extent.

[Tod Perry]

Credentialed in a very sense.

[Carl Totton]

He was one of my role models for sure. A very interesting and unique, dynamic human being. And so he had a training program to teach people about these aspects of the Tao.

And then my teacher from China was teaching, you know, the Qigong and the meditation and the martial arts and about Chinese medicine. And so we had those practices with the philosophical and spiritual practices. And so a lot of us received training back in the 70s in all of these traditions.

And then when we kind of started our own school and program, I opened up in 1980. So I started there in 1970. And then I became kind of the director in 1980.

And then in 1981, I opened up right here. We’ve been here since 1981, the same location. And then 1983, we actually put together our own kind of priest training ordination program.

And on and off over the years, you know, we’ve both here and our affiliate in San Diego, the Taoist Sanctuary of San Diego. We’ve had programs where we’ve trained people to assume some of these roles and functions. And then some of the other people who were trained might say at the level of being an abbot.

There’s a so-called, we have something called the Academy of Abbots. You know, those who went to the highest level and also kind of opened their own schools. Some of them are up in the Bay Area and up in the Washington, state of Washington.

One’s in Florida. One’s down in, I think, New Orleans. So there’s kind of a group of us, you know, who teach and train others to move along this path.

And so it’s kind of like an informal network, at least within our organization, to provide some structure and support for persons wanting to know more about these ancient traditions. Nice.

[Tod Perry]

OK.

[Carl Totton]

Awesome.

[Tod Perry]

That was a perfect response. Here’s a question. What is a Taoist funeral like?

[Carl Totton]

Most Taoist ceremonies have something to do with the five elements. Earth, wood, fire, water, metal. Somehow these elements, they’re woven into the weddings.

They’re woven into the funerals because, you know, you might say that these elements symbolically represent Earth and us as citizens on this Earth. And in Chinese medicines, each of these elements support and turn into the other. There’s a creative cycle and there’s also a destructive cycle, like for water can put out a fire, for example.

But yet water can nurture the Earth and make things grow.

[Tod Perry]

They’re in harmony, but they’re competing with each other.

[Carl Totton]

They both create and uncreate each other. And so a funeral, you know, I do things that I’m sure many priests or ministers would do. You know, I interview the family.

I get the story of the deceased and their relationship, you know, so that I can weave into my narrative, if you will. I tell people stories and, you know, and how this person was significant in their life. But I also weave in the ancient Taoist elements of the five elements and how this helps a person move through their life journey.

And now that their journey is at a completion on this level, we need to, you know, let them go here so their spirit can move on to wherever it’s going next. And so it’s a way of getting people to recognize that life and death, you know, my teacher said life and death exist in the same breath, at the beginning and the end of the breath. And so this is a natural cycle.

And so that’s what a Taoist funeral is like. It’s getting people to realize that death is part of life and that the end of the journey, a new one perhaps begins. One that we don’t necessarily participate in, but the deceased will.

And we’re all going to get there. We’re all going to get there.

[Tod Perry]

Now, what was I going to say? It’s funny, you were talking about the five elements and that cued in a heavy moment in my life. I was in India on the River Ganges, which my wife begged me not to bathe in, but I did.

You can’t go all the way to the River Ganges and just look at it. That’s right. It’s like the most polluted river on the world.

[Carl Totton]

I’m jumping in.

[Tod Perry]

For those that are unfamiliar, the River Ganges is the holiest river in India, and people bathe in it to kind of cleanse themselves. And it’s also a place where people go to die. And so they have kind of – there’s this one area where they – it’s kind of a hill, and you walk up the hill, and there’s all these little kind of rooms around it, on what would be, I guess, the second or third story.

And people who are dying go there. They stay in the rooms, and then their bodies are cleansed, and they’re put on these funeral pyres, and then they are burned to be with the five elements – the ether, the water of the river below, the wood they’re being burned on, all these different elements. And they said that right here at the Ganges was where it all kind of comes together.

And so it was the perfect place where no matter if the person was rich, poor, they all wound up right there. And so we walked up there, and I didn’t think we realized how close we were going to get to the business end of this. And we walked right up, and it was from me to you.

We were sitting about five feet from each other. There were bodies just on fire. And the ashes coming into your face.

And you could smell – there was a smell there. And it was in a weird way. It was like being in almost a human junkyard in a way.

But it was so final, and it was the darkest and also almost the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen simultaneously of being around dead bodies. And there were guys up there, their whole lives, their whole jobs were performing this function. They asked for a very large tip.

Everything in India runs on the tip system over there. And so, yeah, it was real heavy. I’m just standing there with my wife like, wow, this is – it felt almost like a scene in Schindler’s List or something where you’re seeing all these almost atrocities, but this was just a beautiful thing that they were doing with their dead.

And that was probably one of the most powerful moments. I don’t think I’ll ever see anything as powerful and final and so embracing of death. So we’re standing there.

We’re looking out all over the river Ganges and seeing just the river flow by, and you see this person going up in flames, and there’s the ashes on you, and there’s the Indian man explaining the ceremony. And my wife and I and some friends are kind of shell-shocked. So then finally we walk down the hill and just kind of take a breath and go, wow, that was – we wanted to see something in India.

And we saw it. You saw it. We saw it.

You saw it. And so once we’re walking down the hill, and my wife’s kind of like taking a breath like, oh, my Lord. And we had this moment, and once we kind of had this calm and this release, the pitter-patter of feet coming around the corner came, and there was another dead body they brought right by us, and it was like, oh, you know.

So then I went back to my room, and I read and had a mango and vodka to relax myself, but it was so heavy, and I saw the idea of these five elements there, and it was beautiful.

[Carl Totton]

You know, Daoist funerals tend to be a bit more sedate than that. I remember once I was visiting San Francisco, and I was visiting one of the really nice Daoist temples there, the Ching Chung Daoism Association, and all the temples in San Francisco, Chinese in Chinatown, Buddhist or Daoist, they’re all in second or third or fourth-story buildings, and if you don’t know that they’re there, you have a difficult time even finding them. But this one, I knew exactly where it was, and you have to go up an elevator a few floors, and you come outside, and you go inside, and then there’s this gorgeous Daoist temple in there.

And so one year, as I went into the elevator, I got in the elevator with this young woman who was actually crying, and I asked her, well, what’s wrong? And it turns out her father had died, and she was going upstairs to the Daoist temple where they were going to have the ceremony, his funeral. And he was in an urn, you know, he had been cremated, and so we were all invited, you know, the three or four of us to join, because they knew me, and they knew that I had a Daoist center here, and they asked me to participate in the ceremony.

Oh, nice. For the funeral for this young Chinese woman’s father. And it was very nice, and so we kind of walked around, and we did some chanting, and we burned incense, and we consecrated his spirit to the Dao, and, you know, helped her let go, and at the end, you know, she was smiling, and she felt that it really helped her.

Oh, wonderful. And so it’s more, you know, funerals are both for the living and the dead, right? You know, the living have to be helped to go on, and the deceased, we help their spirit move to whatever is next, and the great adventure of life.

[Tod Perry]

Yeah, move on to the next chapter. What’s This Dao All About is recorded at the Daoist Institute in North Hollywood, California. Check out the DaoistInstitute.com.

See their schedule of classes, including Daoist meditation, Kung Fu, and Qigong. That’s DaoistInstitute.com. So let’s talk a little bit about a concept in Daoism that I don’t think…

Let’s see. Oh, we got plenty of time. We have plenty of time.

What’s the connection between Taoism and Immortality?

A concept that I don’t think we’ve really addressed, and I think it’s a very important part of it, that there is an element in Daoism which is almost a quest for immortality. And longevity is very important in Daoism. So, please, speak on it.

[Carl Totton]

There’s the setup. Speak on the most powerful, spiritually elevated topic there is in life. Go for it.

Comment on that. Your thoughts. And, of course, there are many thoughts.

Let me just read a couple of things from the Dao Te Ching. As a matter of fact, at the end of chapter 16, which we’ll talk a bit more about in a little bit, it says this. Being divine, you will be one with the Dao.

Being at one with the Dao is eternal. And though the body dies, the Dao will never pass away. And at the end of chapter 33, to die but not to perish, sometimes translated as to not be forgotten, is to be eternally present.

So, some people who are followers of the more philosophical tradition, the more scholarly tradition, if you will, of Daoism, feel that Daoism doesn’t really have a concept of immortality and that the death and the eternal aspect of that that the Dao Te Ching speaks of is more being remembered. And if you’re remembered, that’s a form of immortality. And so some scholars or philosophical Daoists approach it that way.

However, Daoist adepts, those who have been trained in what we’ve been talking about in some of these shows in terms of the alchemy, you know, the three treasures, taking the essence of a person and combining that with their energy and then combining that with their spirit, what that’s doing is cultivating a sense of abundant good health so that longevity is definitely, as you mentioned a little earlier, is definitely a goal. I think of many Daoist practitioners and many of them, kind of like in some of the stories in the Bible where you have people living to be hundreds of years old.

[Tod Perry]

Methuselah.

[Carl Totton]

Methuselah and all that crowd. A lot of the ancient Daoists were said to live a very, very long time as well. You know, again, several hundred years by doing these practices and by living sometimes kind of an ascetic type of life.

They’re up in the mountains and they’re celibate and they’re vegetarian and they’re meditating for hours and hours a day. The Daoist immortals are said to exist on what? Dew and air.

That’s awesome. But the way they got there was through training in this alchemic form of internal yoga that involves somewhat complex breathing practices and doing various postures and movements, linking the mind, the body, the breath with the spirit. And that cultivates these higher states of awareness that lead towards enlightenment and also towards longevity.

And then the perfect Daoist death, let me describe it for you, the real Daoist immortals.

[Tod Perry]

Is it like Obi-Wan Kenobi where you just disappear?

[Carl Totton]

Yes, that’s exactly what they do. They actually will tell you when they’re going to, quote, die.

[Tod Perry]

Wow.

[Carl Totton]

Having left their bodies and traveled to the astral planes, of course, thousands of times probably, they tell you, they’ll say, OK, on this date it will be time for me to move on to where I’m going next. And so when the date comes, they sit down, they say their goodbyes, and they sit in their lotus position and they close their eyes and they leave. Wow.

Now, is that dying? Well, the body has been left behind, but where did the spirit go? It ascended.

So this is the process of ascension. And so I think that schools of Daoist practice that are beyond just the scholarly and philosophical embrace this way of training to have abundant good health while you’re here and to see through these practices. You’ll read the ancient texts.

They talked about the cultivation of the immortal fetus. The immortal fetus. So that inside this aging body, there’s this young energetic body being created.

[Tod Perry]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I was reading about that the other day and it was almost a meditation technique where the people were, through meditation, creating this internal fetus. I was like, that’s some way out.

That’s not Daoist 101 anymore.

[Carl Totton]

That’s 300-level Daoist class. Now we’re in the university.

[Tod Perry]

So it was like they meditate and visualize and create through their meditation this internal fetus that then overtakes the body.

[Carl Totton]

Yes. Right. Yes.

Its energy overtakes the body until it becomes one with the body. Then when the person is ready to separate yin and yang, then they leave the body behind, like I described what some of the Daoist adepts do, and the spirit ascends and moves on to the higher realms of existence. Of course, even through quantum mechanics and physics, there’s talk about alternate universes and parallel universes and different dimensions of being and awareness and consciousness.

I think it’s a nice parallel to how this metaphor of creating this immortal fetus, which many, of course, would say it’s not a metaphor, that this energetic being is actually being created within. When we become one with that and it lives, because its energy, of course, is so much lighter than the dense, heavy body, it comes right out of the crown chakra at the top of the skull and just moves up the ladder.

[Tod Perry]

It’s almost like 2001, A Space Odyssey. You had this moment where, spoiler alert, at the end of the film, you have this star child, and it’s almost like this immortal fetus.

[Carl Totton]

It’s the immortal fetus for all of humanity moving into the next realm of existence and awakening and enlightenment, a renaissance, which I think we desperately need, by the way, right now in this planet Earth.

[Tod Perry]

It’s a little late in coming. Come on, renaissance. It’s funny.

It’s that weird thing where when I first time saw that film…

[Carl Totton]

My all-time favorite film, by the way.

[Tod Perry]

In my top five. Some days I’ll say it’s my favorite film, some days it’s like top five, but yeah, I agree. The first time I saw it, I saw the ending and I didn’t intellectually understand it, but somewhere inside my being, it was some weird…

What were these things? Archetypes. It was like this archetype, this fresh thing that was in me that it hit.

It struck a chord that was kind of beyond understanding or words, or it was like, oh, whoa, that’s it, right? It was really heavy, and it’s almost like you can’t really explain it when the star child comes. The movie hits on just these big landmark moments where humans kind of transform light years away and have this human renaissance and the last stage of that, and it’s like real heavy.

My wife doesn’t like the movie. I say, what are you not liking? This is the greatest…

I don’t get it. Oh, well. So the big deal, the big takeaway, I almost feel like the immortality is kind of a true north of the Taoist practice.

You know what I mean? Not necessarily something you’re going to attain, but a light at the end of the tunnel, or this is the direction things should be going.

[Carl Totton]

Yeah, well, speaking of direction, you took the thought right out of my brain. What is the action of the Tao? Returning.

Returning. Reverting to what? To where we came.

Where do we come from? The void. Right.

And so ashes to ashes, dust to dust, right? Yeah. Same idea, right?

We return to the source, and since we came from that and we return to that, then what? Then what?

[Tod Perry]

Maybe returning it? Returning.

[Carl Totton]

And so because everything comes out of this primordial source. It’s the source of all things. It’s the source of the Tao.

It is the Tao itself, as a matter of fact, which contains everything, including everything that has been and everything which, at this level, is now immaterial. But when something is immaterial, what is it? It’s potential.

It’s energetic. It’s… It’s the quark that appears out of nowhere and disappears.

Yes, it’s this quantum stuff. And so that cycle, and even here, if a tree dies or something and it falls into the ground and then it becomes mulch and out of that grows something brand new, right? It becomes…

[Tod Perry]

It becomes very fertile.

[Carl Totton]

It becomes food, yeah. It becomes the source of fertility for new life. And so this coming and going, this embodying and disembodying, that process has been going on for billions and billions of years.

And we ourselves are the product of what? A billion stars and suns that have exploded and out of their explosion coalesced Earth and us. And so what’s death?

What is it? It’s the most mysterious thing and yet the most natural thing because things come and they go but then they come again. Then they come again.

And how in touch with that process are we in terms of both the becoming, the being and becoming aspect and the letting go that then allows for something new to come into existence. And it’s also, I think, it’s a metaphor for daily life too. The more we cling to who we are or what we think we are or what we think we have, if you cling too much to it then you’re trying to hold on to what may have already outlived its usefulness because all of life is change, constant change, continual change.

The Taoists have always said that the only constant in life is in fact change. So yes.

What is Chapter 16 of the Tao Te Ching About?

[Tod Perry]

Very nice. So let’s finish her up here with a discussion on chapter 16 which I believe leads nicely.

[Carl Totton]

I read you the end of it a little while ago. Let’s go to the beginning of chapter 16 which reads as follows. Empty yourself of everything.

Let the mind rest at peace. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the self watches their return. They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness which is the way of nature. The way of nature is unchanging. Knowing constancy is insight.

Not knowing constancy leads to disaster. Knowing constancy the mind is open. With an open mind you will be open-hearted Being open-hearted you will act royally.

Being royal you will attain the divine. Being divine you will be at one with the Tao. Being at one with the Tao is eternal.

And though the body dies the Tao will never pass away. Nice. Isn’t that beautiful?

[Tod Perry]

It is beautiful. It is beautiful because it’s a slow rising progression and returning.

[Carl Totton]

Yes.

[Tod Perry]

Right, we go up all the way up the ladder.

[Carl Totton]

Returning to the source is stillness which is the way of nature.

[Tod Perry]

So how does one, to get practical here, how does one practice stillness?

[Carl Totton]

Well, there’s two, at least, two ways of attaining stillness. One is stillness through stillness and the other is stillness through motion or action. And this mutual containment of both action and stillness, of both motion and its absence is really what a lot of Taoism is really all about.

So, probably the traditional way of attaining stillness, of course, is meditation. And in meditation you literally sit down, you sit still, and you just, without an agenda, you just observe. You observe your mind, which, of course, is the monkey mind.

It’s chattering and running a million miles an hour, perhaps. But if you observe your mind, you’re not in your mind. And if you observe your emotions, you’re less in your emotions.

If you observe your body, you’re not so much in your body. Now you’re in this observer position. And the observer is much more still than the mind and the body and the emotions, which, of course, can be complete chaos in many people very often.

And so the practice of meditation is learning how to sit with that and just observe, just observe that.

[Tod Perry]

And strengthen the part of you that is just observing the mind.

[Carl Totton]

Strengthen the observer, which many, many people, I think the average person, is completely unaware of the existence of the observer. And the observer is, I think, more closely connected with the source of all. In other words, it’s in alignment with the Tao, rather than the 10,000 things, which are part of the Tao, but they are manifestations of the Tao.

And we’re trying to get back, of course, to the original source. How do they say here? The 10,000 things rise and fall while the self watches their return.

There it is. Lao Tzu telling us exactly how to do it. Right here in the Tao Te Ching are his instructions on how to do this.

[Tod Perry]

Okay, so let’s roll through this one again, by the way. Let’s start back up at the top. And there’s one more comment I have on that.

[Carl Totton]

Empty yourself of everything?

[Tod Perry]

Yeah, let’s just start back up at the top here.

[Carl Totton]

That is to empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace. Again, these are meditation instructions.

Now, I mentioned there’s two ways really to approach this. One is through quiet, seated meditation. Absolutely essential.

We pretty much have to do that if we’re going to really make a lot of progress. However, much of your day, you’re not just sitting and watching your thoughts and watching these things. You’re doing things.

You’re doing the 10,000 things, right? Tending to the 2,000.

[Tod Perry]

Performing maintenance on the 10,000.

[Carl Totton]

But in what state of being and mind are you doing the 10,000 things? Are you frantic? Are you distracted?

Are you annoyed, upset, driving, cursing at the people who are cutting you off? Or are you watching also? The skills that you have developed through quiet sitting, now can you apply this to daily life?

So that when you’re doing your work, when you’re driving, when you’re cooking, when you’re cleaning, when you’re talking, when you’re interacting, when you’re planning, when you’re doing the 10,000 things that you must do every single day, are you doing it with a new spirit? With a spirit that doesn’t have you so trapped in what you’re doing that you can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. You aligned yourself with the field and now, just like you were noticing your thoughts and noticing your breath and noticing your emotions, now, as you are doing and engaged in all these activities, another part of you is noticing that that is what you’re doing and because you’re noticing it, you’re not as caught up and trapped in often the pettiness of a lot of the things that we have to do every day because a lot of the things that you see people get upset about are really petty and yet they elevate this to great importance.

Oh, a car pulled in front of me and they’re blowing their horn and they’re yelling and screaming out the window and they’re throwing things at them. You know, I mean, give me a break.

[Tod Perry]

Yeah.

[Carl Totton]

Give me a break. You know, how much is this going to slow you down from reaching your destination? Ten seconds?

[Tod Perry]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carl Totton]

Maybe?

[Tod Perry]

Well, it’s because the person is taking it personal, everything that’s going on.

[Carl Totton]

Yeah, because now everything’s become tied in with their ego and the ego is that part of the self that wants to be right. Right. Often at the expense of other people being wrong.

And the ego is so damn petty. It’s petty, it’s fragile, and it’s an illusion. It’s illusionary.

Because ultimately, we’re all in this together. You know, again, the greatest illusion is this illusion of separation. Because if we really could see things as they are, we would see everything that our eyes gaze upon as being what they are, which is pure energy.

And we’re all in this interconnected field, the Tao, of pure energy. And we are pure energy. And so is the next person.

Just like the tree and the wall and the floor and the ceiling and everything else. And so if we’re all just kind of separate manifestations, at least in appearance, of really the same energetic field, what are we getting upset about?

[Tod Perry]

Right.

[Carl Totton]

What are we getting upset about?

[Tod Perry]

We’re all animated by the same thing.

[Carl Totton]

And we have these imaginary lines, boundaries, right? Borders. Oh, my country, right or wrong?

I’m on this side of the border and you’re on that side of the border. And if you cross this border, I want to kill you.

[Tod Perry]

It’s all very arbitrary.

[Carl Totton]

And these lines change, of course, throughout history, right? To the victor go the spoils, right? And it’s very arbitrary.

And it’s led to the current state of the world where you have all these groups having all this animosity towards each other. And what if you sat and asked the father and mother on this side of the line and the father and mother on that side of the line, what is important to them, for them and their family, their children? They would all tell you the exact same thing.

[Tod Perry]

Right.

[Carl Totton]

So what’s the difference?

[Tod Perry]

It’s all the ego and the arbitrariness.

[Carl Totton]

What’s the difference?

[Tod Perry]

The pettiness.

[Carl Totton]

There is no difference. And yet we have all these manufactured, made up, created the 10,000 differences that don’t amount to a hill of beans. They don’t amount to anything.

And so ultimately I think the Taoist prescription is one for universal peace and love because I mentioned, I think, in one of the earlier shows that a Taoist is any conscious being, a truly conscious being becomes conscious first of themselves. But then as you look around, you see all these other things, other people, other objects. And so as a curious being, you want to know, oh, what’s this about?

What are you about? Who are you? And then once I get to know you and understand you, I can relate to you with compassion.

And so out of curiosity comes understanding, which leads to compassion. And that is the way of the Tao. That’s Taoist politics, if you will.

[Tod Perry]

All right, well, we’re going to end on that right there. Thank you, C. Joe.

You’re very welcome. We’ll be back on our next show. What is it, show 12?

And we’re going to talk about some other texts besides the Tao Te Ching. We’re going to get into some practical stuff here, some Qigong, and of course, another chapter. Thank you.

Thank you. The End