Qigong & Daoyin | 1/26/2021 — “Ask Us Anything LIVE”

For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything" we have continuing discussions about meditation and related topics. Denny gives an in-depth presentation on Qi, Qigong, and Daoyin (with presentation slides above) including the following mentions: Information silos; Dr. Jwing-Ming Yang; What is the speed of time?; Tao Te Ching; Newtonian and Einsteinian physics; Buddhist cosmology; Qi resources for study and practice; and Qi blockages?

Transcript

Good afternoon,

Good evening.

Welcome to another episode of AUA,

Ask Us Anything.

Good morning Josh.

Hey Denny,

What's going on?

How's the weather in California here?

It's a gray sky on a winter day,

Typical Missouri winter,

Which they still do.

Today we're supposed to have some kind of,

Okay,

We've got a lot of stuff going on.

So anyway,

Josh,

Why don't you introduce today's topic?

Sure.

It's titled,

Help me out on the exact title.

The one we agreed on is qigong and dao yan,

But if you want to change,

I can change it now.

No,

That's great.

So when Denny and I are coming up with ideas for the show,

This one came up because here in the West,

At least from my experience,

We do get some Eastern teachings and have for a little bit,

But the big,

One of the more popular ones would be yoga,

But even in yoga,

You only get the asana limb,

You know,

More in the mainstream,

The postures,

The stances,

The positions.

And,

You know,

Buddhism has really kind of taken off and flourished somewhat here in a while,

But this thing called qi or qi,

You know,

And qigong.

And there's even a term nigong that I heard about.

And then we'll get into dao yan,

Which is totally new to me whatsoever.

So,

You know,

We might get bits and pieces,

But as far as,

You know,

In-depth teaching on these and their benefits,

I'm really looking forward to this.

So probably get out of the way most of the show and let Denny give a presentation here.

The other thing I wanted to mention here is,

You know,

Denny is a retired professor at a major university,

And,

You know,

I'm a university dropout,

So maybe I still have a little bit of,

I don't know,

Kind of maybe resentment towards organized educational institutions,

But gotten a lot better,

But still like to poke a little bit at the established science.

The thing is,

Though,

Even we need to learn about what's established science right now,

And that's going to be a little bit of the presentation today.

But the thing is,

Even if we don't agree with all of it or whatever,

We still need to have that reference point for what needs to be,

You know,

Maintained,

What needs to be amplified,

And what needs to be maybe letting go of a little bit or opened up to.

So the starting point is to learn about the established science as well,

And so we'll get into some of that,

You know,

While some of my work goes into some of the fringe stuff a little bit.

But,

You know,

Even that we need,

We'll talk about ying and yang,

Right,

Knowing one without the other.

The other thing is,

Though,

What can bring us all together is this part of a suit I plan to read at the end about,

You know,

What is to,

What should we really be interested in?

There was a group of people that were confused about all these teachers coming to their town in the time of the historical Buddha,

And they didn't know who to believe or what they should pay attention to,

What they should study,

And then the Buddha kind of,

He lays it out of how to go about it.

And his thing is really interesting about what to pay attention to,

What to go by,

And this is totally important in today's information age where we can get flooded with information,

And at the same time it's really opened up compared to 20,

30 years ago before the internet.

So,

Yeah.

All right,

Denny,

I'm going to pass it back to you.

Okay,

Okay,

Thank you,

Thank you,

Josh.

Yeah,

So before the show Josh and I talked about sort of the,

One of the deeper purpose of today's talk is to really,

You know,

Really acknowledge the understanding of the time that we're in.

The time that we're in is called the information era,

Meaning that there should not be any resistance anymore to information.

And so this is very different compared to maybe two,

Three thousand years ago.

So the stuff that we're going to be talking about is two,

Three thousand years ago,

And Josh and I are Buddhists,

We study meditation and all that,

And so Buddhism itself is very old.

And the irony is that the people who are now,

The all of us who are now living in the information era,

We still cling to those silos,

But those silos exist because there were no,

There were very high barriers to information.

So if you study with one master,

That's what you study.

If you study with the Tao masters,

You are the Taoist.

If you study with the Buddhist masters,

You are Buddhist.

If you study with yoga,

You are,

You know,

With the yogi,

You are now a yoga student.

But I think that some of the things that you talk about,

Josh,

Were,

You know,

You're,

I believe you have a resentment towards organized anything,

Not just organized religion,

Not just organized education,

But also organized education.

It used to be a really a lot worse or a lot more.

So now,

You know,

I'm open to that and there's no need to play me by.

One thing I want to say though,

Real quick,

Denny,

Is I really don't,

I still don't consider myself technically a Buddhist.

This is just the most comprehensive,

Accurate,

Helpful,

Skillful,

Wise teachings that have been around that I haven't really found.

I found the least amount of dispute or the least amount of holes and issues in this.

So that's why I study it so much and practice it.

So,

Yeah,

Yeah.

So,

So that's right.

That's right.

By the way,

Buddha himself was the first guy that would acknowledge that he was not a Buddhist.

That's right.

You're in good company.

You're in good company.

He never withheld teachings because they weren't Buddhist,

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what I think that way,

So because the question needs to be asked is that,

You know,

What do we know about Taoism?

Why don't we talk about Taoism and Chico and all that?

And so the thing that I want to kind of present to all of us is that,

Hey,

You know,

Those barriers should not exist.

We should study them.

And what you find is that once you study them and digest and incorporate them,

They're really different languages,

But the tongue is the same.

Right.

OK.

So I think we should probably get going now.

What do you think before we lose whatever audience we have?

Indeed.

Jump right in.

OK.

So the presentation is today is called the Qigong.

This is called Qigong.

I'll explain that term in a minute.

Versus Tao Yan.

OK.

And so what I think that I wanted to kind of emphasize is that is because in the process of talking about this,

We should also really reference the Western science.

Because,

You know,

If you want to kind of say Qigong,

Tao Yan,

Buddhism,

Yoga,

All those are kind of Eastern science.

How does that compare to the Western science?

Because one of the things that you're going to find is that the Western scientists,

I mean,

Some of them go out as far as saying that there is no such thing as qi and there is no such thing as meridian and there is no such thing.

You know,

They would say that.

And so rather than getting into an argument,

I would propose something called experiential science.

Science that is based on experience.

Rather than science that is based on experiment.

And so when you think about the Western science,

The modern science,

There are science that are based on experiments.

Whereas the Eastern science,

Science that are what we do is based on experience.

So I hope that helps.

So what is qigong?

What is that?

And so when you mention qigong,

You have to kind of mention yin and yang and tai chi and all that.

And so this symbol,

Everybody is familiar with this symbol for sure.

So what does this symbol mean?

And so typically when we look at this symbol,

We say,

Well,

That's yin and yang.

Although most of us don't know what yin yang means,

But it's A and B.

So we know that.

Actually,

This symbol has the name.

This symbol is tai chi.

And so you say,

Well,

Tai chi,

Isn't that the martial art?

Well,

There's the same name.

It's tai chi.

Now,

The word tai chi is,

This is the Chinese word,

It's tai chi.

Actually,

This is a modern word.

It used to be called tai xin.

And xin means basically perpetual,

Forever,

Something that is permanent.

But more now,

We don't use that anymore.

We use the word tai chi.

And tai means supreme.

Chi means pole or extremity.

So tai,

For example,

When we talk about,

When we describe the sun,

Sun with a tai yang is the supreme brightness.

When we describe our great-grandfather,

We say tai gong.

So it's the grandfather,

But beyond that.

And if I introduce you to my wife,

I will call her tai tai,

Which is the supreme supreme.

So let's just put things in perspective here.

Now,

Chi is interesting.

Chi means pole,

Extreme,

The two extreme.

So this means that the supreme extreme,

The supreme polarization,

The supreme pole.

So the best way to understand this symbol is to understand that it's actually three dimensional.

So it's actually a three dimensional sphere.

It's a three dimensional sphere and just happens to project on the 2D space.

Now,

What does that mean that you have a sphere with the pole like that?

Well,

One way to think about this is to think about the Earth,

That the tai chi actually represents the Earth.

And the Earth has the North Pole and the South Pole,

But these are geometrical poles.

And more permanent to the geometrical pole is what we call the magnetic pole.

And the question is,

Where does the magnetic pole come about?

Why would we have a magnetic pole?

Well,

Because the inside of our planet Earth,

The inside is liquid,

Is lava,

Is molten metal.

And so as the Sun,

As the Earth rotates around the Sun,

It also rotates around its own axis.

And so essentially you have these liquid metals slashing around inside the Earth.

And when you have free electrons,

When you have metal free electrons going,

Then that's current.

And when you have current,

Then current generates magnetism.

And so when we have a straight wire,

For example,

Then the magnetic field is encircled.

But on the other hand,

If the wire is encircled,

Then the magnetic field is straight.

So that's one way to think about it.

So because you have these currents that go around the planet,

Then it generates a magnetic field.

Now today,

The Moon has no magnetic field.

The Moon actually has no magnetic field because the Moon is solid.

There's no liquid inside.

Now,

Obviously the planet Earth is not the only planet that generates magnetic field.

Because we have a much bigger planet called the Sun that generates magnetic field because of all the other activity.

And so the magnetic field on the planet Earth is heavily influenced by the magnetic field on the Sun.

In fact,

The Sun not only emits magnetic field,

It emits particles,

Ions,

Charged particles.

So those charged particles would be very destructive to the living beings on planet.

Now,

Fortunately,

Because of our own magnetic field,

Then it deflects some of those ions,

What's called the solar cloud.

In fact,

Someone argued that if you read the development of the universe,

Once upon a time billions and billions of years ago,

When the universe was being developed,

The Moon used to have a magnetic field.

And it was argued that it was because of that that it was able to protect and deflect much of the bombardment from the Sun.

And that's one of the reasons why all of the planets that we know Earth is the one that has developed life forms.

So interestingly,

The Chinese people,

Thousands and thousands of years ago,

They might not be able to describe it.

They might not be able to perform experiments,

Scientific experiments.

But they have the experience that they can pass on from generation to generation.

And they understood that a lot of our existence on the planet Earth is dependent,

Is heavily influenced by the universe.

And although they couldn't quite describe it as electromagnetic interactions,

They know that there are two things going on.

They know that there is the life form,

The life itself generates electricity.

And then the electricity generates magnetism.

And magnetism is the one that interacts with the universe.

So this is the way the modern science looks at it.

Because the only thing that we're making progress,

We're actually making progress in terms of understanding the electromagnetic radiation,

Electromagnetic wave energy of a human body.

For example,

We are now able to detect the electromagnetic disturbance that come up from a heart.

So as a heart pumps blood,

Blood is conducted because it contains iron.

And as the blood gets in and out of the heart,

It generates a magnetic field and we are now able to detect that magnetic field.

We're not able to detect magnetic field in any other part yet,

But at least on the heart because it's a major part we could.

Now we also understand that,

For example,

One example that people use is like twins.

Somehow they have this telepathic way of communicating out of each other.

And people conjecture that that might be our brain generating electromagnetic and that how couples are identical.

It's kind of ironic,

If you think about it,

It's kind of ironic that the Western science really understood the electromagnetic interaction.

If they didn't understand electromagnetic interactions,

If Maxwell didn't come along and integrate what would be known as electricity and what we've known as magnetism,

We wouldn't know how to generate electricity and we wouldn't know how to have communication.

I mean,

Telegraph was because we understood,

I mean the earliest form of communications was because we are fine on this electromagnetic.

But yet,

Western science doesn't even attempt to understand the electromagnetic interactions in the body.

Whereas the Chinese,

They have done that.

They have done that for thousands of years.

Okay.

And so we actually have come up with this really complicated set of knowledge that has to do with our magnetic presence.

And we call these the meridians because these are actually lines of energy running through a body.

And we call it meridians because it's like the planet where you have the lines that runs up and down and the lines that runs on the side way.

So these lines are very complicated.

They're very,

Very complicated.

So there are 12 what's called a secondary vessel that six of them comes from our fingers and six of them comes from our toe.

There's another eight that are called the supreme vessels and the two that goes from our stomach in the back to the top of the head and then down.

One is called the governing and one is called the conceptual.

And there's four more.

And then those are the meridians.

And then there's hundreds that goes across.

Okay.

So also altogether they're close to 720 per this called the energy points.

So these these set of knowledge were developed by the Chinese generations after generations by really preserving the experience.

So this is a science that is based on experience as opposed to science that are based on what you can see and what you can hear and what you can smell.

Okay.

So the question is that how come the scientists are not able to see that?

I mean,

They try everything they could to really understand the effect.

They know that you can do acupuncture on someone with why do open heart surgery and the guy could be looking at you and then smiling.

Why are you doing an open heart surgery?

That's amazing.

So they accept all that.

They accept the Eastern medicine,

But yet they couldn't find it.

They don't they can't find it.

And one reason that they can't find it is that they're looking at the wrong place.

It's the same as saying that well,

How come after all this investment,

We still couldn't find extra terrestrial because you're looking at the wrong place.

So this this Chi,

This electromagnetic energy in the body should not be considered as part of a body.

So if you try to go to a body to look for this,

This,

This network of Chi,

You're never going to find it because it's not part of a body.

So the only way you can really understand that is that our existence is based on a body which is physical and a Chi which is energetic.

So in other words,

There is a physical body which consists of the flesh and blood and the bones and the tendons,

All the things that you can you can you can do experiment on.

And then there's a separate body.

There's almost like one superpose on another that is totally separate.

They're related,

But they're separate.

That's what we call the Chi body.

So if you want to understand this,

Don't think of this as something that is inside a body,

But think of it as an energy that is closely related to our body,

But it's separate and and you can eventually do experiment on that.

But until then you can experience and the Chinese people have experienced it for a long,

Long time.

So I want to just quickly and because this first of all,

This diagram is for illustration is not very accurate because I don't want to refer that to the practice that we do.

So when I do when we practice on Saturday,

We have the first part that we alternate.

And so every other week we will practice what we call the meridian lines,

Patting the energy points and so forth.

And I always point to the six meridians in the hand and and three of them.

And these meridians points actually associate with your organ.

OK,

So the six,

The three one starts at the thumb.

That's the that's for the for the lung.

The one that starts in the middle finger is for organ that is not recognized in the Western science.

That is what we call the pericardium.

Peri means parameter.

It's it's we all have to change.

People actually consider what's around the heart as a separate organ.

OK,

The network of vessels and muscles outside.

So this is called the pericardium.

And then finally,

The finger,

The last the small fingers is what we call the heart.

Now,

In the Chinese medicine is more than a heart is actually the heart plus there's a there's a whole hormone gland.

We call the themic,

The themic gland that is above our heart.

So when the Chinese people,

When they think about the heart,

They don't think about the thing that is pumping.

They actually associate the heart with your your your your your mental wellness.

And the scientists finally figured out that there is some hormone that is excreted by this gland called the happy hormone.

But the Chinese people knew about that.

So they know about it.

So so these are the that's that's the three that emulates from the extremities back to the organ.

And then there's three that goes from the organ to the hand,

But not necessarily to the tip.

So the small intestines,

The bowel,

The large intestines.

And then there's one more organ that is not recognized by the Western science called the triple warmer.

So basically it's the entire upper torso that is separate into three parts.

What's above the membrane,

What's between the membrane and the belly button and what's below the belly button.

So there's three parts.

So those are those are the six,

The six in the in the hand.

And then there's six more that comes from the toes that has to do with the rest of the organ.

But out of that,

So we so we we there's a bunch of so there's about twelve twelve of these organs,

Twelve of these organs.

Some of them recognized by Western science,

Some of them.

But actually out of that,

Out of that twelve,

The five most important one is the lung,

The heart,

The kidney,

The splint and the liver.

And out of that five,

We call the lung the king of the five.

And so so in the Chinese medicine,

The lung is not something that just breathe.

The lung is actually the source of all positive.

And that's why we we work on this energy point.

And one of the questions that that Josh had asked is that why is this point so important?

This is what we call that.

This one right here is called the it's called the gate to the cloud.

It's actually the last point.

This is this at the center fingers.

The first the thumb is the first point.

It travels through this right here.

This is there's a very important.

That's why when we when we pad,

We pad here and then it travels all the way up to the gate of the cloud.

And the reason it's called the gate of the cloud is that think about how you would nourish the planet Earth.

You have to absorb water.

Water becomes cloud.

And then from the cloud,

It distribute to the river.

So the cloud is very important.

So this is the cloud.

This is the gate,

The cloud for the lung,

For the entire nutrition delivering system,

Which is based on the lung.

The lung is the king.

So then you jump in real quick.

And that's you think about it because we can't you know,

You could live maybe what a week without water or something like that,

Two weeks or maybe a month or so without food.

A couple of months.

But there's only like maybe some people can hold their breath maybe for what?

A minute,

Maybe five,

10 minutes tops.

You have to breathe continuously.

The other thing was the spleen.

Yeah.

Western science.

They they just they they just don't really have any comments much on what the spleen,

The importance of the spleen as well.

And yes,

The pericardium never hear the really about the importance of that.

And then the heart,

You know,

Linked with the mental health.

Yeah.

The way maybe to look at it another or another an additional way is if somebody has a broken heart,

A lot of times they're completely devastated mentally for a while.

Right.

And,

You know,

It's language.

So as well.

And then I guess the gallbladder right meridian runs on the middle finger or the smaller finger as well.

Right.

I'm not the gallbladder runs from the top of one of the toe.

One of the toes.

OK.

So one of the things that we will,

For example,

We the gallbladder is actually very,

Very important from the Chinese standpoint,

Because it's the gallbladder actually the gallbladder and and and the kidney is is a pair.

OK.

Both of which are responsible for the cleansing of the toxins in the body.

So the gallbladder is actually very,

Very important in that sense.

I'm sorry.

I'm the global and the liver.

Sorry.

Sorry.

The global and the liver.

I misspoke that the cleansing is is is the is the it's the is the kidney and the bladder.

I just jumped.

So anyway,

Let me let me go on.

And I just want to mention that in the five breathing exercise,

The five breathing exercise that master teaches,

Which is the part that we alternate.

And so that that's five set exercise has multiple purpose.

First of all,

It's a meditation technique.

OK.

It's based on movement.

Second of all,

Is it actually we practice abdominal breathing.

And I'll come I'll come to that on the next slide.

How important that is.

And finally,

It's it's it delivered oxygen to these five critical organs.

The first set has to do with what's above the membrane.

And so that's the lung and and the heart.

And then when we do the push hand,

When we do the push hand,

Then it's pushing oxygen below the membrane,

Which would which go to the kidney,

The liver and the splint.

And finally,

When we do the very last one up and down is to deliver oxygen to to to the kidney.

So more and more to Josh point is that is that oxygen is really,

Really important because,

You know,

You can't you know,

Oxygen,

You just can't.

So with with if the air quality,

Right,

If you breathe bad quality air like you live in an environment that has a lot of pollution,

That's bad for your mental health.

But also think about all the diseases that we have.

You know,

Why do we have cancer?

Cancer doesn't come from a virus.

It doesn't come from bacteria.

It's it's it's how your body survive because there's a lack of it's on this on the cellular level is because somehow you couldn't do it.

Somehow you couldn't deliver oxygen to yourself.

And then the cell has to has to find a way to survive.

So instead of surviving oxygen,

They survive on something else.

And that's what we call cancer.

And then it like feeds on sugar.

Right.

And it reproduces without any purpose.

Just that's a whole new species that survive on silicon.

It's a distinction that when you say membrane,

You're talking about the diaphragm,

Right?

The diaphragm.

I meant the diaphragm in Chinese.

No,

No,

That's a membrane.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's a membrane.

OK.

So before I leave that slide,

I just want to mention that there's three pressure points,

Three energy points that are critically important.

And the Chinese actually think of that as the sky,

The earth and the man.

Now,

Man is in men and women.

OK,

So you would notice and I emphasize that during our practice that is very important when you stand,

You stand with this pressure points pressing down on the ground.

So this pressure point is,

If I translate it,

It would be called a gushing spring.

It's like the spring gushing,

Like the old faithful coming up from Yellowstone Park.

It's the energy gushing out from the planet Earth.

So when you stand it's very and it's located.

If you if you if you if you put your your your your feet up,

There's the toe and there's a there's a pad.

Right.

There's a there's a and then just right there,

There's a there's a cavity.

And so that's called the I would call I translate that into the gushing spring points.

And so when you stand,

Make sure that you stand properly,

Pressing it down.

Now,

Some people call that the arch of the foot as well.

The arch of the foot.

Thank you.

Now,

The other point is that is that it's right on the top of the head,

But it's not at the top of the head as much as is in the apex.

And the only way that the apex is pointing up is if you lean back and then tuck in your chin.

And now it's on top.

And so when you when you sit in meditation,

You always have to do that.

And then you always have to open up these points to form a triangle.

And then finally,

Right in the middle of your palm.

And it's hard to translate.

It's just literally would be labor was the first work.

And then and then palace.

I don't know why that is.

It's a place where a lot of work are being done.

OK,

So if you want to know that it's a second point of the one that has to do with the peridotium and just lower your middle fingers right there.

Now,

What's interesting about this part is that unlike the other two,

In addition to absorbing energy,

It can actually give up.

And so all the healing and self healing is done with this point.

So when we when we we pad a shoulder,

It's with this.

All right.

Now,

I make a real quick comment about the working thing.

You know,

The humans,

You don't see animals working much.

You don't hear about,

You know,

Demons or angels or other beings working much.

But man,

Because of the well,

We have a opposable thumb.

We can do heart labor.

Right.

Physical labor.

I don't know.

Yeah,

No,

I agree with that.

I think I you know,

We when we if you look at how humans have evolved over the years,

You can go back to what is called the Homo erectus,

Which are the people that actually stand up straight,

You know,

With the back.

But that's not that's not the beginning of evolution.

The beginning evolution is discover this.

Because if you didn't have this,

You couldn't hold a stick and you couldn't hold a stick.

You couldn't protect yourself.

It was the point of walking down the street to treat,

You know,

This is and sometimes when I look at using gene,

There's a lot.

We do a lot with the thumb because it's the first first part of a body,

First part of the evolution.

It's very interesting.

Yes,

It's it's what distinguishes us from other creatures,

Pretty much or one of the things now.

So when we do Qigong,

When people do Qigong,

Forgive me,

I don't do Qigong.

I don't want to want people to think that that I have anything to Qigong.

I'm interested in Qi,

Qigong is something else.

So someone asked me,

I remember last week,

George,

I don't know if you were there.

They asked me a quick question.

So what is the difference between what you do and Qigong?

I said,

Well,

We practice Qi as a journey.

We don't practice Qi as the destination.

We are drive by Qigong guys.

Qi is a vehicle for practice.

I'll come to that in a minute.

All right.

So so if you think about Qi as an energy field and think of the Qi as a separate body,

Qi body.

And if the Qi is fluid and there's no blockage,

It actually influence our body body in a good way.

And so it's not clear which one is the cause and effect.

So if you have if you suffer illness,

Your Qi is going to be very bad.

OK.

But if you work on your Qi so that there's no blockage,

It will affect your body.

So that's why we do that.

And when you when you do that,

Then you have to understand that these 12,

The secondary vessel has to do with the internal organ.

And it also has to do with the extremities,

Fingers and toe.

But it turns out that there's eight more.

There's eight more that are inside a body.

And most people don't talk about four of them because they actually don't have interestingly,

They don't have any energy points associated with them.

And it's only the people who practice Qigong that uses them.

So,

For example,

There's one called the I forgot the name,

But don't worry.

The four are not important for our conversation.

But there are two.

There are two that are extremely important.

So think of these two as like the boulevard,

You know,

Like the in San Francisco.

It would be called the Market Street.

This is a huge boulevard that runs through.

And then you have these triple Aries that connects to the to the main boulevard.

So the 12 are connecting to this main boulevard.

And so can you imagine if you have blockage on the main highway,

Then that's not going to work.

Right.

And so one of the practice we do in addition to working on the triple Aries is that we also work on the main highway.

And so the main highway.

So there's two vessels.

One is called conception vessel,

Which is in the front of the body.

And one is called the governing vessel,

Which is in the back of the body.

So this is called the governing vessel.

It is actually the most important vessel.

OK,

So think of this.

Don't think of this.

Don't think of this as an organ or think of this as a highly conductive conduit for electromagnetic energy.

OK,

It's just happened to coincide with your body.

So it starts at the very bottom,

Essentially the last last part of your spine where we used to have the tail.

You know,

Back in the days when we were still up the tree and we had the tail.

That's where we come from.

And it goes all the way up to the to the to the top of the spine,

Continues up on the neck to the back of the head.

And then it goes to this point that I mentioned,

Which is called the discipline right here is called a thousand meeting.

And you notice that is is is in the back of the head.

So that's why you have to tuck in your chin for it to go.

And then it goes all the way to the forehead,

To the nose,

To the bridge and all the way down.

So this is called the governing vessel.

And then the conceptual vessel kind of coincides,

Starts with the forehead and goes all the way down to something called Dante.

Now,

The word Dante,

I didn't really explain it here.

Tene is a is feel.

Tene is is is we can say that it's a fire.

It came from the days when back in the days before Buddha Dharma came to China,

Before Buddha Dharma really introduced the meditation technique to China,

That the Taoists,

They were actually alchemists.

Okay,

So they were when they call it Dan is actually a pill,

A bowl of fire.

And so they actually swallow this bowl of fire.

And of course,

Once they learn meditation,

Then they still use the word.

So when they say swallow Dan,

They meant the Qi now.

Now,

This is actually a very important diagram,

Because one of the questions that Josh asked me was the word Qi,

Because keep in mind that Chinese language,

You cannot just take one word and interpret because it depends on how you conjugate.

So the word Qi,

For example,

Hong Qi is is air,

You have to conjugate it with the word that means space.

So that's the air.

That's it.

And then and then it just goes on and on like this.

Okay,

So the word Qi could mean breathing,

And it could mean like energy that has to do with the blood,

The blood flows and carries energies.

So which one is which and what's the relationship?

The relationship has to do with the Dan.

Okay,

So the word Dan tian means the Dan means fire and tian means feel.

Now the Chinese people,

They actually believe that what's called the Dan tian is the second brain.

So they actually call this the lower Dan tian,

And they call the brain the upper Dan tian.

Now again,

We talk about energy shield.

So this is a separate body,

A Qi body that happens to coincide with the physical body.

And Western science calls that the gut brain,

The gut brain.

Okay,

Very good.

Very good.

So because but they for different reason,

For different reason,

They think more about the bacteria and that's right.

Yeah,

It's not exactly the same.

Now,

Why is this the why is this the brain or the brain of the I wouldn't I don't want to use brain because brains distract distract us.

So just say why is this the place where you store the energy?

The reason where the Dan tian is important is that what's in the Dan tian?

What is in the lower part of our stomach,

Small intestine and bowel or what you call the small and the large intestine.

So if you were to kind of stretch out that small intestines and the bowel,

It's six times the height of a human being.

So a tall person will have more than a short person will have less but it's always going to be approximately six times the height.

That's a lot of surface area.

That's a lot of surface area.

That's a lot of feces too right now.

Sorry,

It's family friendly here.

So that's a lot of surface area.

And so one of the one of the when people practice Chi,

They might might not understand that but turns out that our body conducts electricity because every bio functions is essentially is to see right blood nerve muscle brainwave everything is the electricity.

But in addition to that our body can also generate electricity because every part of our body is piezoelectric.

So if you were to take a bone and you bent it,

It generates static electricity.

If you take an intestine and pull it,

It generates electricity,

Static electricity.

So the storage of the electricity is not a battery as much as is a capacitor.

Okay,

So we actually generate electricity and we store it.

And so it turns out that the Dantean,

Your lower stomach,

Your abdomen is the place where you store all your Chi or your electromagnetic energy,

All the electrostatic energy.

Okay,

So and what you want to do is you want to supply that to the second Dantean,

To the second brain and it turns out that the spiral core is a good way to do that.

It's very very conductive.

Okay,

But in order to take that electrostatic energy to then propagate it to the brain,

You need to make it into electromagnetic energy and the electromagnetic energy comes from the mind.

Okay,

Comes from the mind.

And so when we do this part,

This is called the microcosmic orbit because the macrocosmic orbit is the universe.

This is how they define it.

The microcosmic orbit is the human being.

Okay,

So you first have to practice your abdominal breathing and imagine the teacher taught that.

He called it intentional breathing.

Breathe in,

Open your stomach,

Lower the diaphragm,

Breathe out,

Raise your diaphragm,

Collapse the stomach.

And as you do that,

You're exercising your intestine.

And so one of the questions that was asked last week was what do you do with constipation?

Well,

It turns out that this is one of the side benefit because you're constantly exercising your small intestines,

Which is really your primary digestive system.

And so your constipation goes away.

Your cholesterol goes away.

Okay.

And so anyway,

Going back to the Dantean,

Going back to the abdominal breathing,

You generate static energy and then you use your mind as you breathe in,

Your mind travels up all the way to the forehead.

And as you breathe out,

You travels all the way through the front of the body.

So these are the two,

This is the governing vessel and then this is the conceptual vessel.

These are the two main vessels that are not associated with,

With,

You know,

The name on these sorry,

Rob,

The really interesting,

The governing vessel and the conceptual vessel.

What's coming to me now,

The governing spine is with the nervous system,

Right?

So our nervous system communicates with all the other systems in our bodies.

I don't,

Yeah,

Tell me,

You know,

You're going to jump in here and help or correct me and help me out in the conceptual,

You know,

This is how we interact with the world,

Right?

Is through the front part of our body.

Yeah.

I,

I,

I,

I,

I,

I,

Unfortunately,

Unfortunately I,

I,

I could go on and explain if I knew what the Chinese word means.

Except that the,

The,

So the Chinese word,

I couldn't explain that even the Chinese one is called,

I don't understand.

So,

So,

Well,

I like that.

But,

But it,

But it is a governing because when we call the governor,

We would say the main,

You know,

So I can understand it.

I can,

It's okay.

Yeah.

So this is,

This is the exercise that we do.

And,

And now,

Now you would say,

Well,

How does that different from the kind of meditations that the Buddhist would do and master actually has to work for this.

This is,

This is the Samadhi for the karma realm,

The realm of just the bodily offense.

Okay.

The desire realm too,

Right?

Yeah.

I'll explain that.

And then the,

The Buddha is actually,

If you do it right,

It's,

It's for,

For,

For,

For the,

So it's a small,

More like stages.

Okay.

More like stages.

All right.

So next one we can,

Is,

It's interesting.

So let's go back to the word Qi.

Let's go back to the word Qi.

Now this is an old word for Qi.

So,

So thousands of years ago,

When the Chinese people talk about Qi,

They use this word.

And so if you break it down,

It's,

It's made up two words.

The one on the top means nothing,

No,

Empty,

Void.

The four dots in the middle means fire.

So in the very beginning,

In the old days,

Qi means no fire.

So actually what they were talking about is really hormonal imbalance.

So they just,

They discovered through experience that a big part of a health depends on the balance of a hormone.

And they identified three of the glands that are associated with the state of health.

And I mentioned earlier that in the Chinese,

When they say heart,

It's both the heart that pumps blood and the gland that sits on top of the heart,

Which is called the thymus gland,

Which excretes what is now called the happy hormone.

Okay.

So they understand that.

They also understand that.

.

.

Oxytocin,

Just so I can jump in there.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's the,

Yeah,

Oxy technical.

Now it turns out that they also believe that our,

Our regenerative organs are very important to achieve.

The testicles that stores the sperms and the ovary that stores the ache.

Okay.

They actually believe they actually have a name for that.

These are the original essence of a body and you better not give it away.

That's why it is so important for the Taoist and the Buddhist to be,

To abstain from sex,

Both,

Both for sex with the partner and sex without a partner,

Because they believe that those are the essence and you better,

You know,

Keep it.

What's even more interesting is that aside from that,

They really understood adrenaline gland and the adrenaline gland is the one that gives out the fire.

And so if you use modern science,

What they were really talking about is the two nerve system and the consequence of these two nerve systems that we call the sympathetic nerve versus the parasympathetic.

The sympathetic nerve is what we call the fight or flight.

So from our evolutions,

Once we discovered the little thing called the thumb,

And we know how to hang,

Hold onto a weapons.

And then we descend from the tree.

We walk among predators.

We developed this,

This nerve system called the fight or flight,

And it starts with the brain.

The brain sees danger.

First thing it does is that it dilates the pupils.

So you want to absorb as much light as possible,

Increase your peripheral vision.

It pumps the heart by going to the adrenaline gland.

So it pumps out cortisone.

So that's,

That's a steroid,

Pumps the heart.

It dilates the,

The,

The lung so you can breathe.

You need oxygen because you're getting ready to either fight or flight.

It actually,

One thing that they don't mention here is that it shuts down the sliver gland because you don't need it anymore.

The slivers are very important to your health,

Right?

Often overlooked by the Western scientists.

Then it,

It,

It,

It starts to activate the liver because you now,

You need glucose.

You need energy.

Okay.

And I talked about the adrenaline gland already.

It gives out all the hormones,

The three kinds of hormones,

The cortisone plus two kinds of adrenaline.

It shuts down the stuff that you don't need.

It shuts down the stomach,

Shuts down the bladder and shuts down your reproductive system.

So that's,

That's,

That puts us in that mode where we are energized.

Unfortunately,

Modern people don't know how to shut it down.

We are,

We are in fight or flight mode 24 seven,

Maybe not so modern,

Maybe back in the days,

The Chinese people understood too.

So think about what happens if you sustain in that mode for any length of time.

First of all,

Your liver releases fatty acid,

Triclosaloids.

So that causes problem with your cholesterol.

You now have high blood pressure,

Right?

Your slivers,

Your stomachs,

You're not digesting.

You can have very bad health.

So all this stuff is really,

Really bad for you.

And so with qigong,

Tai chi,

Meditation,

Yoga,

Dancing,

Whatever they all have,

They all have one thing in common,

Which is to put you back in this rest and digest mode,

Which reverse that chemical process by going into this thing called the parasympathetic nerve.

So it essentially reverses everything.

Okay.

So the Chinese people,

They understood that they understood that before they understand anything else,

Which is that our health depends on a balance of a hormonal system.

And if your hormone is our balance,

Then you have too much fire because you have too much of the steroids,

Too much of adrenaline.

And so the qigong,

The chi in the very beginning is about that.

It's about that.

Now,

Over the thousands of years that the chi or the development of the enhancement of chi,

The qigong,

There are different things.

Okay.

So we're not going to talk about the different kinds of ways that you can enhance chi.

But before we do that,

I want to borrow a diagram from Dr.

Yang.

Dr.

Yang and I have something in common.

He's about 10 years older than me.

We both have a Ph.

D.

In mechanical engineering and we both decided that it's time to pursue something else.

So he pursued qigong.

He actually learned martial arts when he was 15.

And he looked it up.

He's very,

Very good.

And I like this chart because he asked a simple question.

What is qigong?

What is qigong?

First of all,

I'll explain qigong in a minute,

But qigong is actually the practice of chi.

How do you practice chi?

And basically he says,

Well,

What if you just go play a play golf or you just run around the block?

Is that qigong?

He said,

Yes.

It's a matter of whether you use more of your body or you use more of your energy.

And so if you use entirely your body,

You would generate chi,

But that's exercise.

And you use less of your body and you're like you're doing meditation,

Sitting meditation.

Then that's qigong.

But now you use more already.

So I like that because it puts this in perspective.

Now,

The word chi has evolved.

And so we went from the old form,

Which is no fire to this other form,

This other characters,

Which is a combined of air and rice.

So I remember Josh said that one time he heard someone says that the word chi comes from the sound that you make when you cook rice.

I don't have any problem with that discussion.

Oh,

Hang on.

I thought they said like sometimes the pot or the lid would just fly off unexpectedly.

I can't remember.

Sometimes it would do that and sometimes it wouldn't.

And that sound would would approximate chi.

I don't know.

Now,

I think Dr.

Yang has a better,

I like Dr.

Yang's explanation.

He says,

Well,

Chi is energy.

And where do you get the energy?

You get it from air and you get it from carbohydrates.

OK,

So that's that's your existence.

Right now.

Now,

What's interesting is that if you dissect,

If you think about all the ways that people associate themselves with chi,

How do you enhance chi,

How do you develop chi?

Meditation.

Right.

So this is the one where you focus more on an energy and less on your body or you focus more on your body.

So tai chi,

Chi gong,

Yi jing jing or you focus on combination.

OK,

Because you can do walking meditation.

And also when you do tai chi and chi gong,

You're supposed to also be mindful.

So you can't just have one without the other.

OK.

And finally,

We can do physical therapies to enhance your chi.

Acupuncture,

Cupping.

OK,

Cupping is not that well known until a few years ago.

And all of a sudden,

All the athletes now stop the cup.

You know,

They come up with these little thoughts on the body,

You know,

Massage or acupuncture,

Pressure.

These you can use to enhance your chi.

Food,

Very important.

You know,

We have the concept of hot food,

Cold food,

Food that are nutritious,

You know,

Or to go beyond to that in the food that has less pollution.

Air,

Air quality.

You could have herbal supplements too.

You know,

People talk about ginseng as really good for your chi.

Ah,

People talk a lot about the environment and how you want to align with the positive energies.

I mean,

People go to go to go to park and hug trees as part of enhancing the chi.

So the sun,

The moon,

The earth,

That's obvious.

Turns out that Jupiter,

Jupiter is the biggest star in the in the universe,

Has a lot to do with with our.

And then finally,

You know,

You can go extreme and talk about your original accents and how you preserve or regulate your hormone,

Focus on your adrenaline gland or your kidney or preserving,

You know,

Your sperms and your aches by abstaining from sex of.

Denny,

One thing that's really jumping out here is the previous slide was that meditation used chi and energy.

But now to enhance it,

You have meditation.

We have meditation on here.

So how how does that work?

Because enhanced means something different than than using right?

Because,

Yeah,

Maybe we can know.

No,

Actually,

I think it's worth worth worth discussing because because let me go back to this slide.

The question,

I think the deep,

The deep,

Deeper question is that which one is better for you?

Which one does the most efficient jobs in enhancing you?

On the very first time that we live cast on real,

I'm sorry,

On the inside timer,

A question was asked,

What do you do with pain?

And I jumped and I thought that he was talking about,

You know,

Chronic pain.

And I said,

You know,

If you have chronic pain,

Go see the doctor.

But what we do is suffering,

Really suffering is when I thought about it,

If I have a chance,

I will because a lot of times they talk about pain in practice.

What happens when you sit and also in your what do you do with that?

Do you make it go away?

Do you how do you do that?

And so if I might not be again,

You know,

I'm very good in not answering questions.

But if I understand your question correctly,

Is that how is sitting meditation compared to walking meditation for example?

Which one is better in the bunch?

I would answer it this way.

There are four posture,

Sitting,

Standing,

Walking,

Which which is in the line.

And we are the only animal that is capable of.

So why not use off?

We'd only own species that can do so why don't we use all four?

So the Chinese word for the four posture is actually the four supreme posture.

So in other words,

It puts it in a in a on a pedestal.

So so if I were to answer the question again,

I would say just change posture.

If you have pain,

If you sit for a long time,

Just stand up.

And that's the thing,

Right?

There's a few teachers that say movement mask suffering,

Because what's what happens if you're sitting in meditation,

The pain gets so unbearable.

A lot of times the natural tendency without training is just to move because that kind of covers up the actual pain.

Right.

Or you don't notice it is if you would continue to sit still.

Right.

Yeah.

You become numb.

You become numb to the pain.

Well,

That was happening now because master's teaching is that he goes further than that.

He actually associate each posture with an element.

And so sitting is earth standing is is fire lying down as water and and walking is wind.

And so he talks about how the four has to interact and that create that actually enhance the chi.

So so my my my answer,

If I understand your question correctly,

Is that there is no one posture.

But yes,

That is awful.

Very well.

Yeah.

I was just thinking that,

You know,

Sitting meditation,

It seems sometimes like it doesn't really necessarily give me more energy,

But it kind of balances out rough energies a lot of times,

Especially walking.

Walking does it beautifully.

If you have too much energy,

It slows us down or,

You know,

Lowers it a little bit,

Balances it.

But if we have if we don't have enough,

Then walking will help,

You know,

Bring back up the energy levels as well.

So correct.

Correct.

So so it's very important to balance the fall postures,

Very important to utilize the synergy between between the four.

And it's also very important to realize that there's this two cliff.

So we talk about the Tao as a road,

As a path.

And you meditating along this path that you really understand that there's this two cliff and it has to do with the five hindrances.

You know,

One is the sleepiness and the torment.

And then the other one is the highly energized states with anxiety.

And so you could you could fall into this cliff while sitting too long because then you go into one side,

You know,

That would be called the the lazy Zen.

You just,

You know,

Sleeping through your sit.

And then the other one is called the monkey Zen,

You know,

Where you look like you're sitting,

But your mind is someplace else.

So so these two are two of the five hindrances.

And so one of the one of the magical thing about Masters teaching is that it really gives you that balance.

So you have the energy,

The chi to support you so that you don't fall into the sleeping part.

And yet because of the chi,

You can now focus your mind onto this one part and stay away from the thinking.

So instead of using your brain as an analytical tool,

Which is right next to your yourself,

Your seven consciousness,

It takes it away and focus on just being aware of your breath at a time.

OK,

So it's very magical.

Anyway,

This is not going to be done in one hour,

But that's OK unless you have to go.

OK,

So I'm going to talk about chi versus chi gong.

Now,

I'm going to say this by saying that chi gong is actually a very new word.

And I'll explain why that is.

OK,

But for now,

Because it's used so so often now,

Once we say chi gong,

We kind of know what that means,

Because the word chi gong,

The word,

This is chi and this is gong.

This actually made up two words on the left hand side means work on the right hand side means effort.

So chi gong just means the practice of chi.

That's what I mean.

And so if you think about how modern people practice chi,

There is something called the medicine chi,

The medical chi,

Medical chi gong,

The practice of chi for the purpose of medical benefit.

So this would be acupuncture,

Understanding the energy points and the influence of energy points on the health.

Chinese,

Traditional Chinese medicine,

Herbal tea,

You know,

So that would be chi gong,

Which is the practice of chi for the purpose of medicine.

The second one is physical chi.

And so this is this is not unlike yoga.

You know,

Once yoga came to United States,

The yoga that is practiced in the United States is what we call hatha yoga,

Physical,

Very forceful.

It's an exercise.

And so you can actually take chi gong with the practice chi gong and focus it mainly on the physical,

The physical body.

Now,

But not only one will argue that that's the entry in as the person's get more advanced,

He will go back to the mind,

Which is,

You know,

Kind of combination like that graph where you start with the physical,

The body.

And then so Yi Jing Jing is also like that.

And although I'm not going to talk about Yi Jing Jing that much,

There's at least three different variants of each.

Then there's what's called the scholarly chi gong,

The practice of chi,

Purely for knowledge and a piece of mind.

So to be fair,

You know,

We call it mindfulness.

A couple of times ago,

I'm going to call this make chi gong.

Okay.

To be fair.

Okay.

So finally,

There is something called the spiritual chi.

The spiritual chi gong is not that different from Buddhism.

The purpose of Buddhism on the spiritual level is to escape from samsara.

So that you come back in a better,

In a better form.

Now,

Turns out that,

So again,

Now this go back to chi gong.

When did the chi gong came from?

It's very recent.

It's actually very recent.

It's less than,

It's less than 60.

I want to talk a little bit about the modern history of China.

So,

China was invaded by the Japanese.

We actually fought a very long war,

Much longer than the Pacific war.

And so when,

When,

When,

When we dropped the atomic bomb,

That was the end of World War II,

As well as the end of the Sato,

The Chinese Japanese.

So after that,

There was a civil war between the communists and what's called the national.

And that lasted three years.

And so in 1949,

The communists took over China,

Kicked out the national state.

They went to Taiwan.

And so there's two China.

And they basically quote liberate China.

But because they're communist,

Communism come from Germany.

Communism is actually science.

It's a social science.

It's a form of social.

And like all science,

It's,

It's all about our material existence.

It's not about a brain,

A mind.

There's no,

There should not be,

There's no God.

No,

It's not a religion.

Although I would argue that by saying that you don't believe in God,

It's a religion by itself.

Atheism is a religion.

So then they decided that they want to undo all the religious tractors.

They took all the monks and moved them out of the temple,

Destroyed the temple,

Make all the monks go back to the household life,

Force them to eat meat,

Force them to have sexual intercourse.

They do the same thing with the Taoists.

Now I was born in 1956.

So I remember when I was about one and a half years old,

I actually remember,

Most people would say,

You don't remember anything before you were three.

I actually remember a lot before I was three.

So my younger brother was three years younger than me.

And I remember that one visit very well from Macau,

Which is outside of Macau.

And we crossed the border to visit my grandfather.

And I remember my mom was not pregnant because they went to swim in the river.

So I had to be less than two years old.

And I remember,

So two years old means 1958,

And China was very peaceful,

Very nice.

People were helping each other.

Well,

It turns out if you look at the history,

Immediately after that,

They started what they call the great leap forward,

Where they started collective.

And so they put all the means of production together,

Thinking that they're now going to live the socialist life.

Oh,

That was a failure.

And so it started the three-year famine,

Which finishes in 1960.

Nobody know how many people died,

But it had to be in the tens of millions,

Actually,

Died from it.

So in 1962,

They recovered from that.

And then they find that people were very weak because they were malnutrition.

Then they realized that,

Wait,

Wait a minute.

We do away with religion,

But we also do away with some of the technique that allows us to maintain our health,

The medical Qigong,

The physical Qigong,

All that.

So why don't we bring it back?

So they invented this word called Qigong,

Which is a secular way of practicing Qigong,

Without all the religious baggage.

So in the process,

In 1962,

They outlaw any kind of spiritual Qigong and limited only for medical and physical.

So today,

When you think about Qigong,

That's all you have.

It's how to use the body,

Enhance the qi so that you're more healthy,

Or one or the other.

But no one ever talks about the spiritual part.

But if you were to go back to what would be considered the patriot of Taoism,

Lao Zi.

Lao means old,

Zi means a scholar,

Somebody.

And he was born,

Nobody really know.

He was born in the fifth century BC,

Which is interesting,

Around the time when Buddha was alive.

And he wrote a treatise,

And some argue that maybe he didn't write it,

His student composed it,

Doesn't matter.

But it's associated with him,

Called Tao Zi Jing.

And Tao means the way,

Te means virtuous,

Ethical.

Gen means treatise,

So it's the book,

It's a classic on the way to be an ethical person.

And you look at his writing,

Look at his writing.

And now of course everybody trying to interpret those writing.

I'll make the argument that you cannot interpret those writings if you're focusing on only the body.

You have to bring yourself to a different level.

You have to bring yourself to a level where you are a wicked being.

In fact,

I'll make the argument that the message here is no different from the message in the Diamond Sichuan.

Look at the first line,

It says Tao,

I'm not going to say the Chinese,

But it says the Tao that can be told is not the eternal,

Is not the real Tao.

So the minute you break an egg,

It's no longer an egg,

Come on,

Trust me.

The name can be named,

It's not the real name.

People write books on interpreting that,

But you interpret it based on us in the physical existence.

I'll make the argument that forget it,

You're not going to get there.

This is about experience and not about physics.

Deep into the 49th and 45th chapter,

There's another one.

It says in pursuit of knowledge,

Every day progress is made.

So when we study,

We talk about Josh didn't like organized teaching all that much.

But he didn't tell you the other part,

Which is that he studied a lot on his own.

Yes,

And it's more that questioning some of the dogma,

Things that we take for granted is the fact.

And this text is great because you start,

Especially if you're doing a spiritual practice,

You read it once and then you pick it up again maybe a year later and you just get layers upon layers of new ways to see it and understand it in depth and insight.

So it's a good thing to just keep picking up and reading every once in a while because it's so multi-layered,

So deep and profound.

Kind of reminds me of some of the Zen koans too.

You just can't approach it in certain ways that we really want it.

It's all about the experience.

You have to experience it as opposed to try to understand it through your logical.

So what does it say?

It says in pursuit of knowledge,

Every day progress is made.

In the practice,

In the pursuit of qi,

In the practice of Tao,

Every day progress is lost.

Now,

If you study the Diamond Sutra,

The Diamond Sutra has a structure where it says something is something,

Something is not something,

Therefore something is something.

It's kind of weird.

Yes,

No,

Yes.

What they're talking about is that three layers.

And of course Diamond Sutra is the Sutra of the wisdom,

It's the pañña.

And so they actually talk about three layers of pañña.

Pañña that is on the words and the intellectual understanding.

Pañña that is based on the understanding,

Not understanding,

Sorry,

Let me practice.

On the experience,

Direct experience.

And pañña based on emptiness.

So that's why it's ABA,

Yes,

No,

Yes.

In other words,

In the beginning,

When I look at my finger,

It's the finger.

Later on when I experience the finger,

I realize that it's pointing to the moon.

And the moon is what I'm looking at.

Finally,

When I understood emptiness,

The moon and the finger is one of the same.

So this is what Taoism and Buddhism have in common.

And they talk about the physical body.

This is something that the commonness or whoever,

They can't understand it.

The Western scientists can't understand that because they're looking at it in the wrong place.

I'm going to take a break because I want to understand.

I want to talk about Samsara.

I think Samsara has gotten a bad name.

Denny,

We probably need to wrap it up though in the next 15 minutes because I have to be somewhere at two.

I should have reminded you that on Tuesdays I have something to do at two here.

I need some travel time.

Do we want to break this?

Because we're already 15 minutes over usual.

Do we want to break this in the two pieces?

Let me try to do it in 15 minutes.

I don't want to break it up.

So quickly,

Samsara.

What does Samsara mean?

I want to go back to.

.

.

Because I want to talk about science.

I embrace science.

I just understood it to be experimental.

One of the famous scientists is Galileo.

And what did Galileo do?

Galileo was studying the orientation of Jupiter and the moon and the sun and the earth.

And he coordinated that with the rise of the tide.

And he came up with this theory which was against the church teaching that it was the earth that circles around the sun and not the other.

And for that he was put in the house of.

.

.

Another scientist came along,

Isaac Newton.

Famous story about how he sat under the tree and he would fall on his head and he discovered gravity.

Interestingly,

He did that because he was at home.

He was actually sheltered in place because there was this great plaque.

So he discovered gravitation.

And he's basically using.

.

.

He also had to invent calculus.

And so he was describing what Galileo had observed.

And he described the planetary motion and how earth can sustain and orbit by velocity.

And therefore,

Which gives rise to the centric force that which counterbalance the gravitation.

Einstein came along.

He's a troublemaker.

He wasn't even trying to disprove Newton.

That just came free.

And what he was thinking about is that he was looking back at all the work that has been done.

Why do we assume that time is absolute?

Why can't time be relative?

In other words,

Josh is sitting in St.

Louis and I'm sitting in San Francisco.

Why do we assume that one second of his time is one second of mine time?

There's no reason for that.

And so he came up with what's called the relativity,

Where he made the assumption that only the speed of light is constant.

The speed of light in St.

Louis has to be the speed of light in San Francisco.

But other than that,

Nothing is absolute,

Especially time.

And so then he came up with this idea,

This thing called the time dilation,

That different parts of space can have different time.

And he associated time with material.

In other words,

If you didn't have material,

You didn't have this physical presence,

Then you don't have this rising and filling.

There's no reason for time.

And then he basically mapped the universe based on material and time.

And he didn't actually come up with a black hole,

But people later on used this theory to come up with the concept of a black hole.

In other words,

Again,

You look at the universe,

And you kind of think of the universe as time.

There's a part where time is very long and there's a part that's very short.

And so if my time in San Francisco is very short and the time in St.

Louis is very long,

So in other words,

One second of my time is two seconds of his time,

Then Josh would live twice as long.

So there's a tendency for me to run towards St.

Louis,

And that's called gravitational pull.

So in Einstein's world,

Gravitational pull is not a law of physics,

But rather a consequence of the time-space continuum,

In that if you map out the universe in terms of its time,

Then there's a natural pull from the place where time is shorter to the place where time is longer,

Until you reach the very end where time is infinite,

Where there is no time.

That's called the black hole.

Jump in here and say this relativity is still a theory,

Right?

No,

Relativity itself is not a theory.

Unfortunately,

It was not proven when Einstein was alive.

So even though Einstein had a Nobel Prize,

He had a Nobel Prize for something else.

Okay,

So is the theorem a relativity now?

No,

No,

No.

Relativity is proven,

And without using relativity,

None of our satellite would work.

Well,

See,

I'm trying to find out what the speed of time is as well.

Speed of light,

You mean.

Yeah.

But what is not proven?

Speed of time.

What is the speed of time?

But that's one I haven't heard an answer to.

The other thing is,

Even though these started out as mavericks and heretics,

Now they're mostly entrenched in scientific things,

So it's almost heretical now to question what was once heretical,

Which is now totally established.

But we're not going to go into that now,

So,

Right?

Okay,

So I want to continue because I am running out of time.

So I want to talk about this concept of time dilation,

This concept of relative time,

Because there's a very good movie,

And I watch it many,

Many times.

The reason I like it so much is that the person who wrote the script and the person who was responsible for all the technical aspect was Professor Thorne from Caltech.

And I did three years of visiting scientists at Caltech,

And every summer I would see Professor Thorne and Professor Stephen Hawkins have lunch together,

But they're in a different level,

So we would have our own little table for kids,

And they have the big table.

And so Professor Thorne was the one that actually did this movie,

And in there there's a scene where the astronauts landed on this planet called Planet Miller,

Which was very close to the black hole,

So time dilation dictate that they have a different time.

And they were going to be there for just like a few minutes because of this reason they were there for one hour.

And so when they returned back to the space vehicle,

Which was further away from the black hole,

It turns out that one of the colleagues who were the same age as they had become an elderly person because he was there for three hours,

So the person had already aged 21 years.

So this is in the movie,

It's based on relativity,

It's based on time dilation.

Now the Buddhists have similar discussions,

And so we talk about this diva realm,

Which is still in,

I'll talk about that in a minute,

Where this is like,

We talk about man,

Animal,

Hungry host,

I'll come back in a minute,

But there's a part where they can become divas.

So divas would be like the angels,

In Lord of the Rain,

They would be like the people that had long ears that lived a long time.

What is that called with the arrows?

Elves,

Elves.

They would be like the elves,

The angels,

The wizard,

That kind of thing,

They're a little higher.

And so in the Buddhist teaching,

They said,

Well,

At the very entry level,

Which is the realm of the four heavenly kings,

So these are the four that are guarding the temple.

In the Japanese temple,

There's two,

There's O and A.

And so every year would be,

Every day there would be 50 years on Earth,

And so forth and so on.

So if you use that,

Then I'll make the argument that the planet,

The Miller planet would be somewhere between here and here.

So this is 168 years.

So anyway,

Going beyond that,

There's a whole host of teaching about time dilation and time space.

So we actually live in three different realms,

And now I'll explain why I talk about this in a minute.

And the realms are divided into what is called the desire realm,

Or the kama-luka.

So right here is the human being,

Right below is the human being,

And above is the six different divas,

Right,

Where the gods lived.

And then down below,

There's the hell,

There's the animal,

There's the hungry ghost,

And then there's also the azura.

Now,

If you were a Daoist,

Your purpose would be to come back in a form that is better than human.

And better than human means that you will start with the six diva realm inside the kama-luka.

And if you're lucky,

You would reach further into this thing called the rupa-luka,

The form realm,

Where you no longer have the body.

Form is not the body.

Kaya is the body,

Okay?

Form is the energy presence.

So I'll make the argument that this one has the physical existence,

And here is all energy existence.

And here we have the first jhana,

The second,

And the third.

And by the way,

Jhana translates in the Chinese as chana,

Which became chan,

Which became zen.

So when we say zen meditation,

That's our objective,

Is to go outside of the kama realm.

Some people talk about it as subtle energy and subtle matter,

So it's not the gross material matter we're accustomed with.

Yeah,

Actually that was there,

And then I didn't want to put that in because I didn't want to explain it.

And finally,

You have the formless realm.

So this is like,

If you think of this as a soup,

This is like the chicken soup with chunks,

And this is like the broth,

And this is like clean water,

Okay?

Yeah,

All right.

Okay,

Now what's interesting is that this entire thing is called the brahma realm.

So when we do yoga,

In the United States we do the heta yoga.

It's all about the body,

But when you go to India,

It's about one with the brahmanas,

Okay?

Now,

Samsara is when your next life is within these three.

So when you say spiritual daoism,

It's all about these three.

When you talk about spiritual Buddhism,

It's beyond these three.

So the difference between Buddhism and Daoism is that the Daoists believe that there is body,

And then there is chi body.

There is the physical presence,

And then there's the energy.

The Buddhists believe that there is also a third,

Which is the presence of just the information,

Which is actually consistent with the quantum mechanics view of the world,

That in addition to the conservation of energy and the conservation of matter,

There is the conservation of information,

What's called the quantum information.

So we're not going to go through that too much.

All right,

So I hope I explained Daoist practice in terms of people practicing Daoist for medical,

People who practice Daoist for their physical health,

For physical strength.

People practice Daoist for dao or chi strictly as knowledge.

But there is one called the spiritual daoist,

Which is not part of what the commoners prefer.

And so one of the questions you asked many years ago is,

What is the deal with the Falun Gong?

Because they've gone beyond,

They are now approaching their qigong,

But they've gone beyond some of the heather,

Borrowing the word qigong,

And go into spiritual qigong,

And for that they're prosecuted.

All right,

So if qigong was used only in the last 60 years,

What was used before?

And if you notice,

Master never used the word qigong.

He used the word dao yin.

Now,

Interestingly,

We translate into dao as if the same as the Daoism,

But in fact,

It's a different Dao.

Now,

This word is really,

Really amazing.

The part above here is dao,

As in the way.

Let's break down this word.

This part has made up of two parts.

This one is the head.

This one is the vehicle.

So dao as in the path is your head walking along with using the right vehicle.

This one,

Dao yin,

They add something else to it,

Which means inch.

So this is guiding someone along the path,

Inch by inch.

So dao yin means to guide.

But it's not just dao,

It's yin.

Yin means to entice,

Which is a little different from dao.

In fact,

It's the same word that we use for threatening the needle.

So if you want to successfully threaten the needle,

You've got to start with the thread and the needle.

And so dao yin as a way of enhancing and discovering and developing qi requires both guidance and enticement.

In other words,

Your qi is already with you.

You just have to bring it out.

And so very interestingly,

There's a lot of talk about how dao yin is 4,

000,

6,

000,

8,

000 years old.

I'll just go with what is actually provable,

Which is that in 1973,

They actually discovered a set of silk paintings,

Which when they do the carbon dating is 168 BC.

So it's about 2,

200 years.

This is the first record.

They said that there are others,

But this is the most authoritative record.

And people actually can reconstruct that.

And they discovered that there's actually 44 figures in either standing or sitting postures,

Or practicing exercise,

Or for the purpose of maintaining health and preventing disease.

The last slide is what does that have to do with us?

What does that have to do with us?

Us meaning like Buddhist meditators.

And I go back to what I said last time when I said,

I practice,

We practice dao as a journey.

Because what we really want to do is to escape some zara,

Not in this life maybe,

But ultimately.

So that we're no longer chained by our body.

We're now into this pure form.

So that's why I call it emancipation.

You don't liberate us.

You emancipate us.

You just have to stop and chain them.

We just have to stop chaining ourselves to this physical presence.

So this actually came from dao.

So you see,

Dao is very close to Buddhism depending on how you look at it.

So the first one says,

They break down our existence into jing,

Qi,

And sun.

Jing is essence.

This is what I call the original essence.

But for most people,

That's just the body.

So let's not be so restricted and just say our existence is the body,

The physical presence,

The qi,

The energy body,

The qi body.

And then finally the mind.

Remember last time when we talked about the mind,

That in the Buddhist,

The pure mind is all information,

Is all karma versus attachment.

So if I translate this,

It's three steps.

But it's not one,

Two,

Three.

It's actually triad.

So you keep going back in circle.

So you practice mindfulness of the body in order to enhance your qi.

So that's what we do in the first half hour.

Then you keep practicing your qi in order to unleash your mind.

And then finally you reach a point where you emancipate your mind,

You free your mind,

You liberate your mind,

If not to obtain emptiness,

To at least attain equanimity.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right,

Denny,

That was so cool.

Thanks so much.

I learned a lot.

And then I wanted to say,

You know,

Yeah,

To practice this to eventually at least keep a human rebirth,

If not a higher rebirth until,

You know,

Final emancipation,

Nibbana,

Nirvana,

Where it's out of the cycle altogether,

Right?

I think if you go back to the chart that was put together by Dr.

Yang,

You could put a three-dimensional chart so that you have the body,

The qi,

And the mind.

And you can choose.

You can choose to focus more on the body,

More on the qi,

And then with that,

You know,

Eventually walk down the third axis,

Which is the mind.

So keep things in balance,

Right?

Yes.

But the most important thing is back to the first slide that this is all about knowledge.

Yes.

Well,

That is in line with the Buddhist thing,

And that's what I wanted to leave on here.

And I just want to throw out some questions we're not going to have time to answer right now,

But related that we might do in the show notes,

Might not.

How are these energy points in meridians,

You know,

Determined,

You know,

Like something we could probably never answer because like through experience.

It's through experience.

Yes,

Exactly.

Yeah.

So actually,

If you just look at the development of the meridians and the pressure points,

We actually have some of that in the early ons,

And then eventually,

It really came about after Buddhidharma.

Gotcha.

Okay,

Well,

I'm just going to,

We're really out of time here.

I'm just going to throw these out here.

The resources,

We can maybe put some resources for people that are starting to study,

And then if anybody wants to involve themselves in or seek out maybe practitioners for therapy things as well that we talked about earlier.

The blockage,

Blockages and how,

You know,

How cheap blockages could form and how they can be done.

The other thing dynamic I found was really interesting was the,

You know,

How certain things in the body,

If you put certain physical things in the body,

You can affect chi and vice versa,

Right?

The chi can affect the physical body and how there's a separation,

But they're closely interrelated.

Then we talked or you've talked about before the breath in relation to the chi and then let's see the.

Yeah,

Give us some feedback so we know what to do,

You know,

In the next one.

But I think we should probably end,

And so if I may,

I want to end with something that you taught me,

Which is.

Hang on just one second.

The thing I said I wanted to read the Kalamasutra.

So here's just one small,

A few lines here.

He says,

Do not go by reports by legends,

By traditions,

By scripture,

By logical conjecture,

By inference,

By analogies,

By agreement through pondering views,

By probability or by the thought this contemplative is our teacher.

When you know for yourselves that these qualities are skillful,

These qualities are blameless,

These qualities are praised by the wise,

These qualities,

When adopted and carried out,

Lead to the welfare and to the happiness,

Then you should enter and remain in them.

Yes,

Yes.

Again,

To summarize experience.

Exactly.

Experience for yourself.

What is that?

What is that?

I'm trying to look for them.

I'm sure I won't find it.

But what is it called when he makes the hand?

It's called Pasico.

Hey Pasico,

Come and see for yourself.

Come and see for yourself.

That's what we're asking.

Here's some stuff I learned.

Here's some stuff I learned.

Check it out for yourself.

All right,

Jenny.

Thanks so much.

Okay.

Thank you.