todperry – Page 11 – What's This Tao All About?

Our show opens with Tod reporting back after five weeks of practicing meditation. Is he doing it right? Would he know if he was? Later, Dr. Carl discusses how the teachings of the Tao can help right a world that’s gone out of balance.

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Episode Transcript

[00:30] 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? Welcome back to What’s This Tao All About? My name is Tod Perry and with me is Sijo, the wonderful Dr. Carl Totton. Hello everybody and we are here in the Taoist Institute in North Hollywood, California. And before we get into today’s show, we’re going to discuss my burgeoning practice of meditation. We’re going to talk a little more about yin and yang and then we’re going to get to chapter 13 of the Tao Te Ching us a favor by rating the show on iTunes. So you can just pop on there, leave a review that does wonders for us in terms of being ranked with the other shows. So if you dig the show, we don’t ask for anything from the audience but you know, give us a 5 star review and write something you dig about the show or even a criticism. That’s totally fine. Also, if you listen to the show and you’re on Twitter, you All About What’s This Tao? You can follow me, Todd, at @TodAPerry, Tod with one D. Also, if you got a knife on, you got any kind of a smartphone, which I’m sure you do. You can hear us on the Stitcher app. You download the Stitcher app for free and you can stream us anywhere, anytime, as long as you have some kind of internet connection. So it’s a great way just to hey, whenever you want to get your Tao on or your stressed out work, something’s happening.

How do you meditate?

[02:30] Tod Perry: Just want to hear the show, just to relax, throw us on right there. So Sijo. Since we did the show, I think it was show 4 was on meditation. I’ve been practicing meditation every morning and now, but basically here’s how I do it. Now you tell me, I figured it’s kind of an undertaking to get to the point to where I’m waking up and I’m doing 20 solid minutes of meditation. Having that. Focus, having that. I believe as you’re telling me you have to develop the kind of streams in your mind or that focus or almost build up that muscle. Yes. So I started setting my, I started at 5 minutes and I would set my iPhone down and I would put 5 minutes on timer and go to a quiet room and sit and pay attention to my breathing. And it’s so funny because as you know, now I’ve been doing it, I don’t for a month, five weeks. Excellent. I’ve gotten up to seven minutes now. Then I do in the morning about 7.30 and I’ve noticed the grooves in the mind. I’m getting better and better at kind of when I pay attention to my breathing and then when the nagging thoughts come in, what am I doing later in the day, what’s that noise, you know, what’s happening? I’m getting good at kind of almost like the I’m not always great and the bad thing is, once I start kinda really, it’s a weird thing to be seeing they’re doing nothing of being like, I’m on a roll. But I think, I think maybe when he’s start meditating you get that idea, like if someone explained that to me before I meditated I wouldn’t get it, but I’d be at a point where I would get the, almost this really good buzzing feeling in my body

[04:30] Tod Perry: Good, I go, oh this is great and then I lose it because I go, I gotta tell somebody about this. Oh no, it’s really working or I get excited to try to force it. And almost in doing it right, I would almost like lose my mental balance or you know. It’s what we call thinking too much. Yes, I would not think myself in thinking too much. You know, you ever gone surfing? No, I love to but You know how after a while you don’t have to do anything but you’re in the groove and you’re just going along, you’ve seen surfers. Oh yeah. And when they’re really in the pocket as they say, they can just go for on and on and on and on. They’re not doing anything but they’re getting everything. Oh yeah definitely. Yeah. And they don’t have to try anymore. Yeah. But before they get to that point, you The wind, the surf, everything is just perfect, you’re in the flow. Right. And it’s in that flow, of course, is where we want to get the flow. You want to kind of disappear in that flow. But I guess in the beginning you’re kind of like, you’re watching a baby deer walk, right? And they get up and their legs are right and they’re struggling and it’s just a whole effort. And I think I’m

[06:00] Dr. Carl Totton: And get to that point more often where everything is shut off and you kind of almost disappear. There’s been a couple moments where I’ve been meditating and I felt like I’ve disappeared. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that amazing feeling? It was almost like time skipped. Go thought, yes, ha ha. Well the same thing happens in meditation and by the way I can give you a little, a fun little tool please. You know when you start to notice that oh I’m thinking about dinner or work or whatever. See that as something that you can do something by putting it in a bubble. See that thought that idea and put it in a bubble and just watch it in your mind float right up to the surface and then It’s a bubble do and it guts to the surface of water.

[07:30] Tod Perry: That’s when you disappear and at that moment that’s probably when meditation truly begins. I feel like it’s something like that and maybe it took a month of this five weeks before kind of touching on that. Maybe it’s gonna take another six months or something before I just really get into it. But besides the really transcendent part which I can see is there and I’m just kinda working towards it. There is a feeling I get now every day of being calmer, of almost having greater control over my… I’ve worked my mind like a muscle almost in a certain way that I now have much more control over my reactions. Maybe things that would have angered me or ways that maybe someone said something me and I would bite back or I feel like I have a latency and extra step there. You’re not as driven by the reactive mind. You have space. Freedom. Freedom over my own mind.

[09:00] Dr. Carl Totton: But over your own mind, your own body, your own emotional reactions. Because if we are so attached to our thoughts, to our physical body, to our emotional reactions, we’re essentially a slave. Where is your freedom? Where is your control in that? You don’t have any. Something else, even though it’s part of you, but it’s a part of you, that you really can’t control. And we can be slaves to lots of things. External Internal things. Remember, life is an inside job. So we’ve got to go inside and learn how to modulate these responses. And it takes time, it takes practice. And this is just the beginning because meditation is should not be something that we have to. Okay, I’m going to sit down and for seven minutes, ten minutes, I’m going to meditate. We have to start there. But ultimately, life is a meditation, all of life. And

[10:00] Tod Perry: Reactive body that those reactive emotions governing and driving is minute by minute 24-7. Tishner of this. I met like seven minutes, right? What would you think would be the, it may be try to get to 20 minutes every morning? Or I mean, I don’t want to sit and be ripping off hour-long meditation sessions every morning. But, you know, is it, you know, like 20 minutes a way to, I know the TM people say 20 or I don’t know. At what point does it become obsessive or excessive

[11:00] Dr. Carl Totton: And have not necessarily derived from that with the expected. And I think it’s because they were trying too hard. They were being so slavy, so determined to do it right. They lost the essence of it. And the essence of it is to be fully present in the present moment where you’re not driven by your thoughts, by your physical body and by your emotions. That takes you 20 minutes. Whatever it takes is okay. And it’s not circumscribed by, okay, between this time and that time, I’m going to be in this state. You might say I’m going to practice at this, it’s like you’re lifting weights. I’m going to exercise, I’m going to lift my weights for the next 10 or 20 minutes. But you may notice that all day long, because you’re going to be in this state We’ve been lifting that weight. Now that your muscles are better developed, it’s happening all the time. That’s what we want. We have these little bursts of periods where we’re practicing we’re training. But it’s training for something. And the something is your entire life. That’s what really matters. His your entire existence. It’s funny. I’ll sit there in a golden room in the morning.

[12:30] Tod Perry: It’s a calm room with nice windows in the house so the sun comes in and the whole bit. And I’ll sit down and I’ll start meditating. And then the moment you start getting into it, you’re paying attention to your breathing, your eyes are closed. Then in a weird way the outside world gets louder. Right now I can hear the bus going all the way down the street. Now I can hear my dog scratching in the far reaches of the room

[13:00] Dr. Carl Totton: You know, you have figure and ground, right? You know, what’s in the foreground and then what’s in the background? You know, what’s figure and what’s background. And as you become more kind of in this space of freedom where you’re not to attach to what’s happening in your own immediate perceptions, then what’s in the background may suddenly reappear, even louder. And so now, it’s almost like yin and yin, Yang, yin. We have to learn how to take what’s in the entire picture and then transcend it by including it as well. And so every time, for example, every time you hear a noise, you just say to yourself, oh, that as I’m hearing that noise, I feel my breath going even deeper and I’m becoming even more relaxed. Now, as you utilize whatever What’s the ground look like? What would my house look like? It would be just this little dot down there. Oh isn’t that beautiful. And then you kind of go off on a meditation on that. So you want to use everything that happens as part of your practice. So there’s no separation between you and what you’re doing and what’s occurring. It’s all one. And my whole point is concentrating and removing the thoughts. So in one hand, I’m trying to put these thoughts into bubbles and take them away. And then is it just as valuable if I chase some thoughts down the rabbit hole? Or you can put the helicopter in the bubble too. That’s what I would have. And remember, it’s yin and yang. It’s what’s going on inside and what’s occurring outside. At the same time. Right.

[15:00] Dr. Carl Totton: of that creates a wholeness. And so meditation is not escaping away into some place only. It’s embracing the entire world but being more fully present and open and balanced as you do so. People who try, who have tried for many years to just get to this place where, oh I’m blissed out and nothing will bother me. It doesn’t work. Work. We’re as taking what’s naturally occurring in you and the environment and just being with it but getting to the point where you aren’t so reactive anymore. That’s the work. That’s the work. Alright. Alright. Yeah. It’s not escaping. We’re going to escape to. There’s no place to go. We’re here. Be here now. It’s kind of like friends or whatever. It’ll be like, you know what?

[16:00] Tod Perry: I’ve been doing this meditation, it’s like you almost have to approach it like, it’s almost a weird thing, people are almost put off by it. That’s freaky, that’s I don’t know what that is. That sounds tedious, that sounds difficult. It’s like, I’ve been doing this thing. It’s great, I just do it for this amount of time of day. It’s just simple and it’s very life changing and it’s

[16:30] Dr. Carl Totton: They look at me skeptically, like what’s tedious and difficult is not going with the flow and not changing and being emotionally and physically and psychically re-re-stuck in reactive your entire life. Now that’s tedious. Exactly. So ya that’s kind of funny. It’s like, ya know, because I think there’s some people in the embrace spirituality and stuff like that.

[17:00] Tod Perry: They do it in a way where it’s almost becomes part of their image. Yes. You know what I’m saying? And I think there’s a lot of people that do a very bad service to switch people practice Eastern stuff. Cause I’ll sometimes people go, oh I’m into this Eastern thing man, I’m so cool and blah. And they walk around all day, they’re using special terminology and they’re wearing certain things and it

[17:30] Dr. Carl Totton: And I think it’s nothing special. But yet it’s the most special thing there is at the same time. Yes. And it’s invisible. But yet it’s palpable. You can feel it. You know when you’re in the flow. You know when you’re not attached to your thoughts and your emotions and your body. You know it because you feel so enlivened and so enriched. And so… In fact, remember what Lao Tzu said in the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching, the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. There are little yin no words for this state of being. We can allude to it, but we can’t, we should not confuse our words with it. That’s all yin the experience. That’s how it’s tough to know if you’re doing it right. You don’t even say like You know what you’re expecting, you know what you’re getting. This is not it. Doing it correctly. It’s true. It’s bearing fruit. And that’s the way to tell how anything is really working in your life. Is it bearing fruit? Are you getting what you need from it? Are you being enriched? Are you becoming more alive and more grounded, more stable, more able to just be here now. Fully present in the moment. If that’s happening, you’re doing great.

[19:30] Tod Perry: I’m wearing one, sees the manifestation. Right, and having a desire of a certain outcome or whatever. I’m missing it in a certain way. Right? But being desireless, then… Oh, you just told me. I said, how do I know if I know what I’m getting at it? I just told you two minutes ago. I feel this and I feel this and I feel this and I go… I don’t know if I can get it Even though the evidence is obviously there. Or if I’m not paying attention, I might just figure out that I’ve got it, yin and yang. See, Joe. So you wanted to talk a little bit about on this show before we get to the Tao Te Ching, a little more on yin and yang. We left some material on the table last time. I think it’s such a huge concept. Yes, all of Taoism, much

What does Taoism say about balance and yin and yang?

[20:30] Dr. Carl Totton: Seps of yin and yang and we could spend several years I’m sure as people have spent many centuries discussing yin and yang and have not exhausted the subject and we shall not today. Yes. However, as we all know that lately, you know, looking around the country and looking around the world, we see icy, you see, we all see evidence of things way out of balance. There’s so much war and decadence and injustice. And violence and people flipping out and freaking out and doing just bizarre crazy outrageous things. We’re all that coming from and we’re the balance in all of that. Obviously we’re far from being balanced on many, many levels.

[21:30] Tod Perry: There’s a certain part of the human, which is how we evolved and there’s parts of us that are still a bit violent, savage. There’s parts of that that are kind of a natural part of humanity. Would you say that lots of the places there’s war and random mass killings throughout the country? Is that part of our normal nature?

[22:00] Dr. Carl Totton: Nature, are we maybe just in balance expressing this or are we out? There are psychological and emotional, social, communication, relational, things that happen from relationships, things that happen in our lineage and our family, in our family of origin. All of these influences can help condition who we are. And then all of that takes place in the context of the society that we’re in. And the sub societies that we’re in. And here in the United States, with people from all over the world, was all sorts of practices and traditions and attitudes then philosophies, we are really in a hodgepodge of many many different things. And a lot of these things don’t necessarily mesh together very well. Or we as individuals or as groups or collectives don’t necessarily assimilate and balance that very well. And the lack of that is what leads to the violence and the lack of that. And the fact that I think that we’re so busy just surviving a A lot of the times that we aren’t doing what you were talking about earlier, taking time to just sit back and be present with yourself to really get kind of a handle on what were my thoughts going right now? What am I emotionally attached to right now? What are all these feelings that I’m experiencing? What are they driving me to do?

[24:00] Dr. Carl Totton: Balance, mentally healthy, individual, when you get off-kilter a little bit, your natural tendency is not to go out and put an knife in someone or pick up a gun and go into a school and start shooting people. No, but there are other people not quite as balanced as you see that they don’t have a filter between their raw primitive thought. And they’re behavior. And so they just act this stuff out. And so if there’s a concept of sin, which of course is, I think in every spiritual religious path, sin is harming others. It’s really being not kind and not nurturing in your personal and social and behavioral interactions with others. But being violent and crude in those relations. So if there’s a sin of commission, which obviously look around there are, I think that if we’re going to talk about this from the perspective of yin and yang, there are also sins of omission. There are things that we are not fully activating, expressing, putting into practice, that then in the vacuum allow all of these other things, this acting out to take place. And I think that that’s another place where meditation is so valuable because that’s when we discover our inner resources, parts of ourselves that have slipped under the radar because we’ve been so busy doing and thinking we missed all of this really rich portions of ourself where at the deepest level we understand the thing of the most important thing to understand which is that there’s no separation.

[26:00] Dr. Carl Totton: That ultimately we’re all in this together, we’re all in the same universe, we’re all in the same solar system, we’re all in on the same planet earth, breathing the same air, experiencing the same thoughts, emotions, feelings. And yet we’ve created artificially so many things that divide us, along ethnic, racial, political, economic lines. And so there’s always another. As the other and don’t see our common humanity, then it becomes very very easy to begin to act out violently. I don’t need to want to degrade something that we see a separate from ourselves. And that to me is socially and economically and politically are major problem. This division into and demonizing of the other. When actually, we’re so much more alike. Different. Yes. Definitely. We really are. Yeah, definitely. At a deep, at every level, physiologically, you know, we all have the same type of brain waves, you know, our minds and bodies and emotional processing apparatus all works pretty much the same. But it’s what we’re doing with that, that separates and challenges us. And so I think that if we’re going to try to help society change direction, we need to have some practices, You shouldn’t be talking about things like what’s this Tao All About? To give us some tools, some resources to move forward. Because I think that right now we’re stuck. And many, many levels were stagnant. And in Chinese medicine, stagnation leads to disease, ill health. And I think that the world right now is kind of stagnant and stuck in a health position. Because we have not learned how to transcend

[28:00] Dr. Carl Totton: And see the big picture. You know, in history, the most exciting times when we had what? Arena Sons. Where everybody seemed to be thinking at a higher level and then you see literature evolve. Art, music, science. Everything kind of rises to a really high level because people are not just squabbling among themselves. And instead, there’s something, there’s a greater good, a higher goal. And I think that this greater good and this higher goal is what we’re just desperately missing right now. And each of us I think these to really search our souls and say, again, why are we here? What were we going? And if the answers to that are not to our liking, then I think it’s incumbent upon us to really dig deep and find the answers. I’m not saying that I know all the answers that anyone has all the answers. But collectively, if we realize our common humanity and really begin to express what’s known as unity consciousness and that links all of us, then I think it’s much much easier to find this higher good that really permeates human striving for the last several thousand years. Because right now we’re dipping. We’ve dipped. We’re devolving to some extent and it’s costing us dearly. Remember, unity and love is the heart of all true spiritual paths. And anything that deviates from that, to me, is not a true spiritual path. It’s something that someone has just kind of created in their brain to try to justify and excuse some kind of

[30:00] Tod Perry: There’s the old saying God hates the same people we do. There’s a lot of people that happen to be bigoted or prejudiced and they use their religion to justify that kind of behavior. Two people could be of the same kind of religious mind. There are many, I’d say people who are Christian and some of them are like, God takes care of those who take care of themselves. Screw them. Those people. And then there’s some people that go, oh, I’m Christian, I’m gonna be loving and given. That’s all I can do is give. You know what I’m saying? There’s, you know what I’m saying? There’s, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s an idea of, of Christ is a warrior and I’m gonna run out there with my submachine gun. And there’s other people that see it

[31:00] Dr. Carl Totton: Desire is projecting religion onto that. Instead of following maybe the truth of it. Yeah. Unity consciousness as embodied and emboldened with love is the true path in all authentic spiritual traditions. And if we de-beate from that, we’ll be de-beated. Right. We’ve de-beated. And there’s a lot of de-beans in this world. Yes. There are plenty. And so I think the purpose of these podcasts is to remind ourselves and to remind our listeners that, you know, we each of us at some level, we already know, we know, but we have to find what we know. Because it’s easy to miss. You know, because we’re too busy. We’re so busy doing and acting and thinking. And the media, of course, is notorious for conditioning us to believe that, oh, I need to get this And I need to have that. And so we’re either being kind of motivated to buy something or we’re being distracted from really greater teachings and knowing that we really could be doing. As I often tell people, why are you here? Is it just to make money and pay your bills? Is that why you’re here? I think not. It’s funny, I work in advertising during my normal life. And it’s so funny because the thing

[32:30] Tod Perry: You read a lot of books on manipulation and trying to get people to buy something, get people to get turned on to a product, all these things. I almost call it the dark arts. Because it’s not, you know, the manipulation techniques and stuff that people use through advertising. And I’m coming to the point where I’m not necessarily proud of knowing these things.

[32:56] Dr. Carl Totton: Yeah. And one of the things that I would hope that many of our listeners would be able to achieve is that ability to discern, to be able to see what’s being done to you. Because if you can see, you know, the man behind the curtain, so to speak. There is a man behind the curtain. And that the emperor really does not have any clothes on. Then it’s much more difficult for you to be manipulated that way. And to have your essentially have your mind, your will, control it by the way.

[33:30] Tod Perry: external forces that only really care about getting your money. And the Tao, your vote. And I think the Tao calls people, I think, sorry, I’m adjusting my thing. I think the Tao calls people to find this inert power. Yes. And tries to point them to this inert power, which I think the stronger you become, the more resistant you are to forces out there that are trying to You can distinguish the wheat from the chaff of life. There’s the chaff, but there’s also, once you understand and strengthen that, then you can fully embrace the good, appreciate it more and accentuate it in your own life. It’s not just avoiding the bad, it’s amplifying the good. Absolutely.

[34:30] Dr. Carl Totton: It’s hearing that inner voice that each of us has. Again, who are you really? And what are you going to do with this knowing, this getting in touch with who you are? Where are you going to take that? What are you going to ultimately create? Each human being has within them the capability to be one with the Tao, part of the creative process. And to the extent, remember I talked about we need a new renaissance, Well, if everybody was into finding their own creative essence and expressing that, voila, it would be here. It would be here. It would just manifest, boom. But if you’re being manipulated, dominated, controlled, soad products, if that’s what your existence is about, there’s no room, there’s no space for any creativity there. There’s no place for you to be fully present here in the moment. You’re too busy being distracted.

[35:30] Tod Perry: It’s being seduced to either spend your money or vote for someone. Who’s then gonna take your money and spend it? So, you know, the Tao calls somebody to be that rebel in a way. And not necessarily a rebel that’s here to up-turns, it’s a certain possibly maybe up-turn society, but one that’s there to see it for what it is and to have that clarity through building that inner strength and ability to see I’m gonna say here we are getting a little late in this show because we’ve hit on some wonderful things to get to today’s chapter of the Tao Te Ching. So what we can do is, next show we can do a double feature. We can do two chapters, one show, next week, in Q the Music, on What’s This Tao All About? Thank you for speaking with me today, Sijo. And thank you.

[36:30] [Music]

Author: todperry (Page 11 of 12)

Dr. Carl Totton’s New Book – Out Now!

We’re Taking a Break for the Holidays!

Show 12 – Chapter 81 and Qigong

Show 11 – Immortality and Star Wars

Show 10 – The Three Treasures and Chapter 17

We’ll Be Back Monday, November 16!

Show 9 – The Uncarved Block and Chapter 57

Episode 8 – Chapters 13 and 33

Episode 7 – A World out of Balance

Episode Transcript

How do you meditate?

What does Taoism say about balance and yin and yang?

Episode 6 — God?

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