Mindfully Meeting the Tao | Part 1
To Chi or Not to Chi
May the Force be with you.
-Mantak Chia
“What am I doing here?” It was a fair question to ask myself, almost every day last week. The Force that Chia was referring to (seriously albeit humorously) is the Chi, which Taoists believe is the energy created at the birth of the universe that powers and connects all matter and life. Yorie and I were at a beginner’s retreat at Tao Garden in northern Thailand, which was supposed to teach us the basics of generating and harnessing Chi to improve our health and energy levels.
And I was having my doubts.
As a reason-oriented skeptic, I’ve been able to dive fully into mindfulness because of three key factors: the eminent logic of the Buddhist (and Western) psychology it’s based on, my own powerful felt experiences from meditation, and the increasing amount of objective research backing up mindfulness and compassion practices.
The Chi-based Healing Tao methods developed over the last 5000 years and popularized in the West by Mantak Chia don’t quite fit that bill. He likes to connect his ideas with science but makes some claims that I find highly questionable, insisting for example that Polaris has a special pull on the Earth and humans. Astrology plays a central role in his philosophy and practices, which is attractive to many but to me is a red flag.
The meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein likes to use constellations as an analogy for the Buddhist concept of no-self/interbeing. Constellations appear to us as clear groupings but in reality are comprised of stars far more distant from each other than each one’s true neighbors; they’re an optical illusion created by our particular points of view from Earth. So too we selectively single out certain of our memories and feelings to create a sense of a static self that is far from the whole truth of our being. Albert Einstein called this way that we experience ourselves as separate from the wider whole an “optical delusion of the consciousness.”
On the other hand, the emphasis on non-doing I’ve seen in other Taoist works resonates well with mindfulness. People all over the world have found healing and vitality through Chi work like Tai Chi, acupuncture, and reflexology. Chia said that Chinese researchers have proven enough value in those practices that the stridently atheist Chinese government includes them in their national healthcare. Chi energy meridian maps in the body bear an uncanny resemblance to the Chakras of Indian energy practices. And I’ve had some intriguing experiences of my own.
On my first meditation retreat, I discovered a particular way of focusing that after several hours burst open a dam in my skull, releasing waves of energy through my body that completely refreshed and energized me. I managed to repeat the experience dozens of times in the following month, but haven’t been able to generate the full power since.
More recently, many of the places of contraction that I’ve been opening up through meditation lie at the energy centers Taoists been talking about for millennia, and the heat that often comes from the release is certainly a form of energy.
And when Yorie had our first training sessions with a Taoist/ninja teacher in Tokyo, Higashide Toru, he showed us how something as simple as connecting the tongue to the roof of the mouth dramatically increases strength in the arms, and how purely physiological and logically effective some of his practices were. Higashide also spoke of harnessing sexual energy, and has a newborn baby despite his and his wife’s advanced ages as living proof of that power. He recommended some books on the topic — all by Mantak Chia.
When we checked if Chia was still alive, we discovered that he had established a Universal Tao center in Thailand and was holding his annual winter retreat during our visit. I hesitated, but the first few chapters of one of his books convinced me to change our itinerary to see what he had to offer.
So is his Healing Tao practice just an optical illusion or a practice of true substance? Does it add something meaningful missing from my mindfulness practice or is it another distraction from looking more deeply into the realities of suffering, impermanence, and interbeing, an investigation that I deeply trust leads to freedom. And is there more possibility and power in making love than most of us experience?
Find out next week in Part 2: Let it Flow
So happy to see this community growing a little bigger each week, thank you all for your attention and trust that my thoughts are worth reading. If there’s any topic you’d like to read more about or questions/comments that come to your mind, I’d love to hear them. As always, you are welcome to share this blog, Komorebi’s page, and our events in Ise/online and Tokyo with anybody you feel called to.
So much of last week’s Tao practice focused on stretching to relax the body, so in that spirit feel free to listen and move along with a gentle set of Standing Mindful Movement I recorded in Tokyo; I always feel lighter and more at ease after the sequence.
Warmly,
Nico
