Recently, Tod got stuck riding the bus to work, prompting a discussion on social status and how it relates to the Tao. Later, we get into a conversation on the Taoist principal of Yin and Yang. This week’s Tao Te Ching reading is from chapter 8.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00] [Music]

[00:30] Tod Perry: 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 it’s mainly here because he owns a few microphones. Now let’s learn: What’s This Tao All About? The other day, my boss at work, we have a very kind of small parking lot and he hit my car. I have like a Nissan Versa, I don’t know, it’s not. My car goes unnoticed in this world. You don’t look at it and go, alright, that’s terrible. How does he get to work every day? I had to go wild that guy spent $100,000 in the car. It moves through life unnoticed, my Nissan Versa. But it got hit so I had to keep it in the shop for like five days. So I live in Long Beach for the people listening, I live in Long Beach and my work is in Marina del Rey, which takes me about an hour and 10 minutes to get to work every day, which is very frustrating. So I had no car and I said, do you know what, my boss, he writes my paycheck, I’m not going to hit him up for getting me a rental or whatever. I’ll just take public transportation, which in LA, we don’t have the best public transportation system. So I would have my wife dropped me off at the Blue Line train, then I’d take it to the Green Line, and then I would take the bus to the office. So this would take an hour and 40 minutes every morning for me to get to work. So I get into work and I’ll talk to how’d you get into work today, you know, have your car. And I said, oh, you know, I took two trains and a bus and it’s like the looks you get in West Los Angeles saying, oh, I took the bus because it’s almost like a status thing where if you write the bus, And it’s like low class or you know, kind of thing and I thought I like not to brag but I like the fact I developed in myself and I think through the Tao reading about the Tao about how water, I think we’re gonna get to that chapter later in the book about how water resides in the lowest of places. And that water nourishes everything and that water is kind of without status and it asks for nothing from anything. And I thought that from the I’m trying to remove any sense of status from myself that I could again get to work where other people might have had a block and thinking, oh, that’s, you know, only poor people ride the bus in LA or whatever. And, uh, that to me, it gave me freedom and not having to abide by a status. And, like, I was like, I would love to as a human being exist as a statusless being that I could walk into a room and, uh, you know, if I was the richest man in the world no one would know, or if I was dirt poor no one would know. And it may try to not communicate my status to others and just kind of be myself. And but we, there’s so much pressure I feel on people to have that nice car or to have that, you know, not a functional car necessarily. And it’s almost like I look at it and I see the guy with the nice car and go, wow, that’s just just way too much effort to be trying to impress your status upon me. But I think that the Tao and understanding of that helps remove people from that kind of cycle

[04:07] Dr. Carl Totton: in a healthy way. You know, I think something that we were kind of speaking about earlier reminds me of that too. I already told you that often children and people, you know, so-called people who live a very simple life seem to be very content. Yeah, very happy with their existence. You know, the everyday they’re living pretty much to the full fullness. And yet they have by our standards wrote into a little, yeah, maybe nothing, you know, they don’t have a car, they don’t have a, you know, 60 inch TV. I’m sure they don’t have a computer. Yeah. But yet they’re content. Believe me, in my journeys and some of the things I’ve done, I’ve met people who are worth many, many, many millions of dollars. Yeah. I’ve met people who. Their films have so over a billion dollars worth of. theater tickets. Yeah. I’ve been some people that I’ve met and even taught and interacted with in one level or another. Having more and more and more does not lead to content. Yeah. Being contented in life. Yeah. It just means we have more stuff. They’ve been responsible for. That’s how it’s a game. What’s the saying, the movie Fight Club, what you own owns you? I was just as happy as I am now having a mortgage. Right, right. That’s why I said that the Taoist knows when they have enough. Enough is gonna vary from one person to the next, but I think a lot of our notions about what we should, quote, should, have, come from the media and it comes from media-fueled expectations about what the good life is. You know, and so if you’re watching TV and you’re watching, you know, the housewives of Orange County or the Housewives of New York or New Jersey or whatever it is, you’re going, oh, or the Keeping Up with the Kardashians or something. Oh, this is what happiness is, right? Yeah. Yeah, so I have a life like that. Yeah. You really think those people are really happy? No, that’s it. There’s really. And we play that. The media is kind of selling the lifestyle because people want to, you know, fantasize about that. But the same time the people are screaming at it, so the whole thing.

[07:03] Tod Perry: I don’t know if my wife watches like the real housewives and that’s, I say honey, you just watch people in expensive shoes scream at each other for a half hour. She’s like, oh, I love it. I don’t. I watch trashy TV all the time myself, but like that brand of it, I can’t. I’m like, this just annoying.

[07:22] Dr. Carl Totton: But, and so I think our expectations, again, it goes back to who are you? Who are you really? And what do you really need in order to feel that your life? Would you count your money? Would you go buy another car? What would you do? I guarantee you not one person will spend their last hours doing anything that has to do with acquiring more. Not one. Not one. Most people will want to be with the people who they love and care for the most. Some people will want to sit and meditate or pray to be in touch with their God or however they see what gives them spiritual comfort. And so if these are the things that really matter, shouldn’t we maybe create space for these things? Right, yeah.

[08:46] Tod Perry: in our lives, maybe? Yes. And that’s been so much time kind of like a rat in a cage just running around faster,

[08:53] Dr. Carl Totton: faster, kind of spinning our wheels. And I think that this notion of water in the Tao, like you said, everything’s on level. In fact, the low level tends to settle to we are what, 70, 75% water. I think our brains are more like 85% water. And so we need to learn, I think, how to allow this notion of how water adapts to any environment that it’s in. It naturally folds itself around in anything, any container that it’s in. Any obstacle, it just naturally goes around it over it under it. Yet we tend to try to fight for things. We tend to get some things in the way we want to just break it. We’re constantly striving for more and more. And yet when we get it, we’re still not happy. So we think that since I got this and I wasn’t happy, I must need more. We don’t get it. We don’t get it. Even though life is teaching us every second, that’s That’s not the way. It’s not the answer. And yet we don’t listen to our own experience. The Tao is, again, it’s just nagging little voice over your shoulder going, listen to yourself. You know, should you believe your own lying eyes? I was thinking the other day. There’s always all this talk about, you know, why in America we have so much kind of violence. Like if you go to Canada, you go there and your chances of being shot by somebody in Canada is, you know, on a 1-100 of.

[11:40] Tod Perry: You don’t have to say it, and it leads to a violent culture. I think you’re right. I think it’s part of it. I think it’s a multi-faceted complex issue. Yes violence in America. Violence in the world. Violence in humanity’s nature in fact. It’s the same violence as we could spend, I’m sure 100 shows talking about violence. Yeah, so just that. Yeah, yeah. I’ve got a lot to Part of it is that for sure. And in alignment with that is the fact that our society, Western society, especially in America, the disparity between the haves and the have-nots is increasing. It’s huge now. It used to be less. And a lot of these other countries that you mentioned, it’s much less. And in fact, there have been studies that show that the wider the disparity between the top and the bottom

[12:40] Dr. Carl Totton: The bigger that gets in any society, the more social dysfunctions you have. Violence, prisons, drugs, teenage pregnancy, high school dropouts. I mean you just list almost any kind of societal ill and the more there’s this disparity, meaning that there’s less harmony in a society. Because some people are having it all. And a very comfortable life and other people having to struggle and struggle and work harder and harder for less and less. This creates tensions and tensions result in something. Something has to happen. Something’s got to give. Something’s gonna blow up. And too often yang things are literally blowing up. And bodies are dropping and blood is being spilled. And so I think that remember the Taoist knows when they have enough.

[13:40] Tod Perry: And let me ask you something. Have you ever just given something to someone not with expecting nothing in return, maybe a child, maybe a homeless person, maybe someone sick or handicapped, ya know, just people who have less than you and you helped them out. I’m sure you have and what do that feel like? Oh, it feels wonderful. I almost don’t want it to feel good in a weird way because I feel like that then it becomes a selfish act. If I do something for somebody and then I feel good about it, I almost feel like if I do it it should be completely selfless and I should almost not like doing it because then it’s not a selfish act.

[14:18] Dr. Carl Totton: No, it’s okay. It’s okay because I’m just a guilty human being. Maybe so. No, I think the idea of giving without expecting anything in return is important. But the fact that you get just joy out of other people’s enjoyment and happiness, that to me is just being a good human being. Right. Okay. That’s okay. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy for others. And remember, I told you one of my Taoist teachers, that’s what he said. He said that by being curious, we want to know what other things, the other people are like. And when we find out, we can relate to them with empathy and compassion. And it cultivates it because your curiosity for your fellow man cultivates your empathy. Yes. And then once you know them, understand them and understand that really they’re very much just like we are. Right. They have the same blood. They have the same desires and thoughts and feelings and emotions. They’re much more like us then different. Then we can relate to them compassionately with empathy, whereas the more different we see people as the more violence there is in society. And if people are, if we really see them as being nothing like us at all, then we demonize them and we tend to want to kill them. Right, yeah, look around. Very easy, yeah. Very easy to kill something that you see as being not like you. Yes, definitely. Look around the world. Right,

[15:48] Tod Perry: What’s this Tao about is recorded at the Taoist Institute in North Hollywood, California. Check out the Taoist Institute.com. See there’s schedule of classes including Taoist meditation, kung fu and qigong. So do we have a really big topic here on the show I want to get to? That’s the Taoist concept of yin and yang. And again we could probably do 400 shows on yin and yang, correct? But this is a huge concept in the Tao. Now to back it up a little bit is the Tao, the first place where the concept of yin and yang stems from or was it in other Chinese thought?

[16:54] Dr. Carl Totton: There actually was an earlier school, literally called the yin and yang school in China, from which Tao borrowed. So some of these notions were floating around in various places and then they were consolidated within Taoism. And some later it became consolidated in the 5th century common era in China, Zen Buddhism, which is kind of a marriage of some traditional Buddhist notions with Taoist notions in China. And so ideas borrow from each other. And since we’re talking about universal laws, that should be seen as natural. That it would occur. Yeah, it just allowed to, you know, made up this stuff and say, oh that sounds good. And Taoism has always been seen as a philosophy and then later a spiritual religious system, which is in touch with nature. Taoists look at nature as we have said before and notice that the sun rises and then the sun falls. We have a daytime, we have a nighttime. We get up in the morning, wake up, we’re energized, we do things, but then we have to go back to see how we can get into the sun. Sleep, doing nothing, letting go, not doing, allows you to therefore be able to create the energy to do. And so these states are complementary. They aren’t really the opposite of each other. Now, language, right, wrong, good, bad, yes, no. Are language forces us often into these dichotomous states, which are not really true. That’s not true. We think they’re true, but and that’s therein lies the problem. The problem is between our years. We’re thinking. Because we’re thinking in very limited linguistic structure that forces us to choose between this and that. It’s almost the things we used to define the 10,000 things are incorrect. It imprisons us very often. It’s almost like if you could go back and recreate language. In the English language, rather language, maybe Chinese gets closer to these concepts than English possibilities. Because it’s using pictograms, right? Using images. Whereas we’re actually trying to use words that stand for other things. Words that mean something, Heels. You know, the father of General Semantics, Krasibsky wrote an amazing book called Science and Sanity in 1930s. Brilliant book, one of the best books I think of as really as being kind of the Western Tao Te Ching. Okay. Okay. Science and Sanity. Where he’s saying this very same thing about the limitations of language and how language forces us to separate yin and yang into these dichotomous categories that are actually not true And so coming from a Taoist perspective where we’re trying to harmonize yin and yang, I think requires us to pause, not do, wait, and at the same time to take in the entirety of things on levels that transcend and go beyond words and language. Language is, I mean, it’s our medium of communication, we, most of us, we don’t know telepathy, right? And can’t just communicate non-verbally, but yet, think about some of the more profound moments that you’ve had with people that you really love, perhaps your wife. I bet you don’t have to say a word very often, they have the most profound experience with her. If you have a decent relationship and I hope you do, I know that has to be true. Yes, yes. Look at each other’s eyes and smile and you said things that can’t be said. The subtlety and the inflection of how she says my name can mean a thousand, there’s Todd, and there’s Todd, and there’s a billion different ways to communicate so much. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that this notion of yin and yang, it gives us the freedom to be open to that level of experience. And also, I think equally as important, is that things happen in their own way and in their own time and for a reason that we don’t always see at the very beginning. And often we will label something as, oh, this is unpleasant, this is negative, this is bad. When actually that is just part of a cycle of something that is in the process of becoming, and in order for us to appreciate this, whatever it is, and its totality, we had to have this initial period of discomfort. for yeah unpleasantness Something that we might label as not good or even bad. When actually in the long run, it’s actually which is part of the natural unfolding of things as they are. And a lot depends on how you look at things too. Two different people, much less a million different people. We’ll look at the exact same thing and come to completely different conclusions about it. You know the old saying one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

[23:19] Tod Perry: And what’s good and nurturing for you might be very toxic and out of balance for somebody else. It’s like you’re talking about vitality and health. We’re off mic, we were discussing and the personal humors in one’s body, react to things, fortunately or unfortunately, health should be taken on a personal basis. I was thinking, what are the individual characteristics of yin and yang?

[23:49] Dr. Carl Totton: Yeah, some of the notions associated with yin are receiving passive, again, being receptive, being the night, being cool, more towards the feminine, if you will, the gentle, the being open to things. Yang, more the active, More of the dominant, more of the projected, more of the warmer, hotter, again more activity, the masculine way of approaching things, if you will. And much of the Tao is about, yin and yang, of course it’s about seeing these things as not as opposites of each other. For example, could you really just have men without having a woman? No. Without having some notion of heat in there somewhere? No. Does a day make any sense without a night, some kind of co-create each other. And in Chinese medicine that’s very much so. They actually will tell you that if you study Chinese medicine, then these things intermingle and co-create each other. And if you take one to the extreme, for example, if you get too hot, you get feverish. What happens to you after a while? You’re completely collapsed. You go right to the other side. You become total yin. You can’t even get out of bed. You need fluids. And then the other hand, if you don’t eat and you just have nothing but a weakness and you just become so destitute in terms of nutrition and water and everything else that you just start to kind of wither away, you’ll get a horrible fever, your whole body So So it’s a natural law of nature and we violate natural laws of nature to our peril.

[26:37] Tod Perry: It’s interesting that man is from nature, right? So man is natural or whatever, but can act outside of nature, right? Very much so. You know, like my dog is always doing something, you know, it’s weird that man’s inner nature can violate the basic rules of nature. Figure we just all work together, right?

[27:02] Dr. Carl Totton: And I think that’s what Lao Tzu was really getting at because he came up in a time where the Chinese were having so-called warring states, there was disharmony, war, violence, everywhere. And he’s going, you know, you guys are blowing it here. Look at this. This is the way farmers should relate to their fields. This is the way emperors should relate to their constituency, you know, by not doing, by not imposing, by being almost invisible. In fact, that was the best leader, was the one who was the most invisible, but yet everything got taken care of, right?

[27:41] Tod Perry: Right, yeah, yeah. You know, there was nothing to fight against.

[27:45] Dr. Carl Totton: And when you’re not in the fight against, then you can just meet your needs. Right. Right. And so yin and yang, I think is a it’s a way for us to kind of check in with ourselves every day and say, where is the balance and harmony in my life? Am I overdoing something, am I leaving something important out? Am I missing something? And if I’m putting in X amount of energy over here, in order to

[29:15] Dr. Carl Totton: You have one side and the other. There’s no wholeness there. And when there’s no wholeness there’s no harmony. There’s by definition there’s disharmony. And when you have disharmony you have problems. You have problems. You have to have your problem. You have to have your problem. You have to have your problem. You have problems. You

[29:45] Tod Perry: The Supreme Good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It flows to low places loathed by all men. Therefore, it is like the Tao. Live in accordance with the nature of things, and dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep to the hearts. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. Stand by your word, govern with equity, be timely in choosing the right moment, one who lives in accordance with nature, does not go against the way of things. He moves in harmony with the present moment, always knowing the And the truth of just what to do. The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the 10,000 things and does not strive. It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao. Very humble. And dwelling be close to the land. In meditation go deep in the heart. In dealing with others be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In ruling, be just. And business be competent. In action, watch the timing. No fight, no blame. Wow. So the highest good is like water. So is that that’s. There’s an element of that I was talking about status earlier. And it’s almost like, you know, put on some robes and walk the earth, right?

[32:09] Dr. Carl Totton: But everything has to also seek its own nature and everything on this we’re a water planet, right? Yeah. We’re water planet. But as that chapter states, the water doesn’t blame, it doesn’t judge. It gives everything exactly what it needs. The acorn needs a certain amount in type of water. The. The huge oak tree needed something else. The birds and the bees and the cats and the dogs, they needed that water as well. Yeah. Right. So everything sort. Everything kind of. Went to this well. This. Common Source and Drink, it’s full and received exactly what it needed. But yet every single thing became its own unique self. Right, yeah. But yet it came from the same source. But yet everything became completely different and unique and creative. Isn’t that interesting? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn’t that fascinating. The Tao is like that. We should be like that. If we were like water, we would be more like that. And so this is a I think it’s a reminder because we are water and we have to drink water, you can get by without food and you can buy a lot of things but you cannot live without water. You cannot. You will wither up and dry up and die soon if you don’t have water. And if you don’t have what? What comes out of this interaction? Air, right? Air, oxygen, right? Even quicker you’ll die.

[34:26] Dr. Carl Totton: What is yin and what is yang? Well, sun is definitely yang because it’s hot, right? Right. And it’s penetrating. Yeah. And it’s the heat. And water, since it’s in its natural state, it’s cool, right? It’s soft, it’s nurturing, it’s buoyant and enveloping, right? It’s very yin. Okay. It’s like the mother. It’s the mother. And the sun Voila, we have life, we have life, we have life. And we need, and that energy of this yang energy and this yin energy through that dynamic balance relationship, all things can move to their fullest nature. Everything can become what they are. And that is the ultimate way of the Tao, everything becomes what it is. And the action of the Tao is to return.

[35:53] Tod Perry: We have to be in harmony. I think we need to dwell on the land. Now, in modern society, what does that mean?

[36:04] Dr. Carl Totton: I tell all my students and all my clients that they have to be in harmony. I tell them to be in harmony. I tell them They need to do this. They need to take time out and return to the land. Because they’re literally are things, energies that you cannot get any other way. You know, Chinese, the Taoist and Chinese medicine, they spend a lot of time talking about chi, about energy. And there is an energy that comes out of the earth and being close to the earth, literally having your feet on the earth that you really can’t get any other way. And if you don’t get that, then our body has to do what? It has to make up for it somehow, often by leaching something from someplace else, if not really supposed to. And so in dwelling, be close to the land, follow nature. I think it’s another way of saying being in harmony with nature, Taoism being a nature philosophical system. And and Lao Tzu and the yin-yang school before him, all the ancient Taoists looked at water, looked at wind looked at the sun. And he said that the birds looked at the seasons of life, right? Spring, summer, winter. They saw these natural patterns coming out of the earth, out of the land. And they felt that if we could live in harmony with that, then we would also reach our fullest inner nature as well. Right. Right. And you’d have less conflict. Yeah. And look at most of the conflicts around the world. Doesn’t have something to do with people wanting to That’s what’s happening. You’re right. We’re depleting the purity of the land, the water, the air, the ozone.

[38:20] Tod Perry: When you move out of harmony with nature, you lead towards your own destruction. Ultimately, it’s stupid because you’re killing yourself. But we’re doing a lot of people don’t realize that. I know. I know. So it boggles my mind that we don’t realize that, yeah, you made another billion dollars, but you just took 100 years off of our life span. Right. Yeah. the Earth’s life. So at the end of the day, what’s it worth? What’s it worth? What was your extra billion dollars worth? Nothing. I think that’s a good place to wrap up today.

[39:01] Dr. Carl Totton: The Tao is about life and death, life and death. And by living in harmony with nature, we can live a full life and have a death that comes when it was supposed to come, and not because we lived out of harmony with nature and violated the law, the natural law, and wound up killing ourselves. Much less our planet.

[39:28] Tod Perry: Yeah. Well, thank you. Dr. Carl Totton. Thank you, thank you. And we’ll see you guys on show four. All right. To learn more about the show, check us out online at whatsthistao.com. Follow Tod Perry on Twitter at @TodAPerry. Now, don’t follow leaders and watch your parking meters. Wow. Really? Bye.