S14 E10: The One About The Tao

I've had this episode ready to release for a while and I have been so looking forward to it.  I knew so little about the Tao until this chat but was entirely curious about it. So I invited Bob Martin to awaken me, all the way from South America!

We discuss the best terminology and spelling, what exactly The Tao is and how it differs from other eastern philosophies like Buddhism or Confucianism, as well how it is similar to Christianity.
We explore the major authors and principle texts. Then we discuss TaiChi, I Ching (pronounced ee-jing), Ying Yang. 

Finally we look at misconceptions and how we can use The Tao in the classroom and possibly in our lives.

Bob very generously signposted us to lots of places - all links below;

Links
https://longevity-center.com/grandmaster-hua-ching-ni-omni/

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/mitchell.html

https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/gospel-according-to-jesus-book-stephen-a-mitchell-9780060923211?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA-Oi7BhA1EiwA2rIu2wi7rStMYLaF0g4cDcQDgKkJd1soYpHKoDLzlfv9cZFCAR_ydq-ktxoCbs0QAvD_BwE&sku=GOR003016506

https://www.sapere.org.uk/

https://sites.google.com/view/the-philosophy-garden/home

https://iamthewaybook.com/the-author

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-079YIasck

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Welcome to the RE Podcast, the first dedicated R.E. podcast for students and teachers.

SPEAKER_02: 0:12

My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this is the R.E. Podcast, the podcast for those of you who think RE is boring, which it is, and I'll prove it to you. My guest today is Bob Martin, author of I Am the Way, an exploration on the intersection between Tao philosophy and Jesus. This episode will explore the idea along with a deep look at what the Tao is and how we can explore this in the classroom. So welcome to the podcast, Bob.

SPEAKER_03: 0:38

Ah, so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to talk about the things I love talking about.

SPEAKER_02: 0:44

Yes. And I will just say though, to our listeners, you're in the most kind of impressive location of anyone I've ever interviewed, because you're actually live in Costa Rica.

SPEAKER_04: 0:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 0:54

Yeah, we're down we're here in very grey, drizzly, cold England. But lovely to have you with us. Do you want to just tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_03: 1:02

Well, I'm a 75-year-old man, and I I guess the most important thing is that I'm surrounded by people that I love and who love me, and I'm happy and I have few regrets. I guess that would be the most important part of it all, but career-wise, I'm retired from 40 years as a criminal trial lawyer. That was in 2015 that I retired. Then I started teaching, and now I am a professor of wellness at Elon University in North Carolina, and I have a private practice of teaching meditation. And I am I guess you would call me, although I it sounds a little egotistical, but a community leader, I'm involved in a lot of community events and I guess the other important thing that I find passionate about is that I get to see minds open through meditation and Taoist practices, and that really gives me a life I love.

SPEAKER_02: 2:03

I love that. And I have to ask, you know, to say that you are content and you have no regrets, what's kind of the answer to that? How can you get to a point where you have no regrets? Is it about feeling at peace with the decisions that you've made even if they haven't gone particularly well?

SPEAKER_03: 2:21

Yeah, it's about putting things in perspective and also focusing a little bit more on uh the ever-changing nature of the world and how things get better and get worse and they shift and focusing more on the present moment. One of the things my teacher, Master Watching Knee, taught me was that if we just pay attention to taking care of the next thing that's on our plate, and we do it as best we can, then there's very little else that we have to worry about because the past is gone and the future will take care of itself if you take care of the present.

SPEAKER_02: 3:03

You know, it's so interesting because I think we often look back, we look forward, and then we forget to look in the present and kind of be mindful in that moment that you're in. And therefore what it means is that each moment when it becomes the past, we then potentially have regrets about because we weren't present in that moment. So they're very wise words.

SPEAKER_03: 3:22

Now one of my other teachers phrased it beautifully, and I loved this phrase. He says, often we are lost in a fog of rumination and projection.

SPEAKER_02: 3:33

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And it's a very Western way of and sort of capitalist way of looking at things, I think, sometimes. So I'm looking forward to kind of delving into some kind of Eastern philosophy. Before we do that though, I just want to be clear about our pronunciations and terminology. Sure. So because we're talking about the Tao, it is spelt with a T, but it's pronounced with the D sound.

SPEAKER_03: 4:02

Yeah, traditionally it's written with a T. But more recently you'll see it spelled with a D, which is a nod to the proper pronunciation. So we talk about Taoism, even though it is with a T, and so recently most people are writing it with a D.

SPEAKER_02: 4:23

Hmm. Okay, because that's the phonetic.

SPEAKER_03: 4:25

Either way is appropriate.

SPEAKER_02: 4:27

Yes. But actually, is it better not to call it Taoism? Because actually, an ism is kind of quite a Western way of describing a sort of Eastern philosophy.

SPEAKER_03: 4:38

It is probably not appropriate based on what it is, but it's hard to discuss it without using that terminology.

SPEAKER_05: 4:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 4:53

To say I'm a Taoist, if you mean it to mean I am a studier of the Tao, yeah. If that's your definition of Taoist, then that's fine.

SPEAKER_05: 5:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 5:03

Taoism, for all practical purposes, we can't get away from using that word. And so it's not offensive in any way and it's not inaccurate. But for people that follow the Tao, they would kind of maybe shrug a little bit.

SPEAKER_02: 5:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 5:20

But I can't see a way to get away from it in language.

SPEAKER_02: 5:24

Yes. And also part of language is about being able to communicate meaning. And if people are familiar with Taoism, then actually that helps that conversation. What I will try and do, because I think I I like to try and be as authentic as possible, is I if I refer to it as the Tao in this episode as much as I remember to, and then hopefully people become sort of comfortable and familiar with that. But it's really important to know that actually it's not the most important thing to remember.

SPEAKER_03: 5:49

You know, the the way that you might think about it is think of it in terms of its translation. The Tao means the way.

SPEAKER_05: 5:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 5:57

So if you use the translation and you say the way ism, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So that's why it's difficult because that's what it means, the way.

SPEAKER_02: 6:14

Yeah. And actually that's a theme that we're going to come back and explore because that's quite significant. And just to say that the writings that belong to the Tao are called Tao Di Jing. But obviously it's spelt Tao Te Ching. But when you see those as the language, the actual pronunciation is Tao Di Jing. So how did you come to explore the Tao?

SPEAKER_03: 6:35

Hmm. I guess that story is common to many folks, although the particular facts may be unusual. You know, I was um in Miami. My career was as a lawyer, and then I started getting connected with uh cartels and the mob in Miami representing folks there, and my personal life was kind of hitting bottom, and I was seeing a therapist, and I came to a very important crossroads in my life, and I asked my therapist, George, he said, George, what should I do? Which way should I go? Should I go right or should I go left? And rather than give me some therapeutic answer, he picked up some coins and started throwing them on the table and counting them up and making lines on a piece of paper, and I was getting more and more angry because I expected uh a therapist, not a soothsayer. And uh finally he figured out his computation and he wrote down the number, and I don't remember it was, but it was let's say it was 32. Then he opened a book to chapter 32, and he showed me the book, and the name of the title was Retreat. And so I I became a little obscene with him. Not, I mean, I started cursing a little bit and stomped out, but I found that that was what I needed to hear at that moment, and I started pulling back from some of my excessive behaviors. And eventually, when things started to settle down in my life, I had the gumption to go back and ask him what that was, and he said that was the yiing. You know, as far as pronunciation goes, the ch of qing is pronounced as a j and the i is pronounced y. So it's the yi Jing, which it looks like I ching, which is the classical book of changes, and it is a you know very important volume in Taoist thinking. So that's what he said. It's the Yijing. So I said, What's that? And he said, Well, it's a Taoist practice, and I go, What's Taoism? And so it turns out, long story short, that my therapist was the English language editor for Master Wat Jing Ni, who at the time, funny just as we're talking about authenticity, at the time was always known as Ni Kama Wat Jing, because in Chinese the family name is always used first.

SPEAKER_05: 9:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 9:10

So he was Ni Wat Jing, but now in modern times in his Western books are now printing his name as Waching Ni. So he was very prolific writer and a Taoist master, actually 72nd generation. Gosh. So I've kind of calculated that out, and that means that for 1400 years the wisdom of his family was passed down.

SPEAKER_04: 9:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 9:38

For 1400 years, from master to master to master. And he was very prolific and um wrote, and his books were translated into English, and my therapist was his editor and his disciple. So I didn't grow up with much of a spiritual background. My folks had all of their ancestors had been wiped out by either the Bolsheviks or the Nazis, and they came to the conclusion there really couldn't be a merciful God. So I didn't grow up with any kind of religious education, which also meant that I didn't grow up with any philosophy that pointed me towards a North Star. And when I started hearing about the teachings of the way, of the Tao, they all made such sense to me. It was also practical. It didn't ask me to believe in any kind of spiritual being of cherubs and angels or devils or demons, and it just said here's a good, effective, efficient way to live where you can use your energy more efficiently. And I liked that, and I took to it like a fish to water. And I studied under Master Ni and George. Master Ni came to Miami maybe monthly, but we had an ongoing Taoist group, and so I studied with them for eight years and practiced the Taoist practices, Tai Chi, Kung Fu, uh, along with the Yijing and several other practices and reading the Tao De Jing and the like, and it was transformative.

SPEAKER_02: 11:17

So fascinating. So George is your therapist. Is that the name of your therapist? It feels, I mean, I don't know what the correct word is, serendipitous, lucky, fortunate. You know, it was happenstance.

SPEAKER_04: 11:28

Seremptitious.

SPEAKER_02: 11:29

Yeah, absolutely. Now you've kind of given us a hint about what the Tao is, but let's just move on to that. So just if you had to kind of describe its core beliefs, its core philosophy, its core practices.

SPEAKER_03: 11:42

The Tao is symbolized often by the Tai Chi symbol, which is that round circle with a black side and a white side, and the black side has a white dot in it, and the white size has a dark dot in it. So that is actually the symbol because it has a meaning, and the meaning of it is that everything cycles. The natural order of things is to cycle. Day turns tonight and night turns today. And the reason the Tai Chi has that symbol is that yin, which is dark, has the white seed of yang in it. And so the seed will blossom and grow, and eventually the yang will take over the yin. And the yin will take over the yang. And that means that day turns to night, night turns to day, and the like, and that these forces, the yin and the yang forces, which sometimes are described as the masculine and feminine force, or the dark and the light force, or the day and the night force, or the warm and the cool force, they're both opposite and complementary. They are opposite and that the extremes are harmful, but in balance, provide balance. And so that is the symbol of Taoism, and it's also the I guess primary message that since everything is in a cycle, what human beings don't realize and they're not conscious of, and I guess the uh primary teaching is not only does day turn to night and winter turn to summer, but our good times turn to bad times, and our bad times turn to good times, and the proof of it is that if you look back on your life, good times have never lasted continuously, bad times have never lasted continuously, and things get better and they get worse, they get more comfortable and less comfortable. It's just how life cycles. And if you can be aware of where you are on that cycle, and you can align yourself with the appropriate behavior for that cycle, that point on the cycle, then you're acting very efficiently because you're using the energy of the universe around you to support your goal. So the best metaphor that I can offer for that would be if you are out kind of far away from shore in the ocean and you want to swim into shore. Well, there's a couple of different ways that you can do that. One is you can panic and drown. Okay. But probably not the most appropriate way. You can just decide that you're gonna swim in and you'll arrive, but you're going to be exhausted when you get there. Or you can look at the changing nature of the tide, and when it's going in the direction that you want to go in, you swim like heck, and you use your energy, you know, voraciously. Yet when it turns around and the energy is going against you, you only put out enough energy to hold your position. You save your energy, you wait against it because the times are not propitious, they are not favorable. So here you hold your position and wait with patience, you know, regaining your energy, taking your rest, and then when it turns around and goes towards the shore again, swim like heck, and then wait and swim like heck and then wait. And when you get to shore, you'll find that you have used the least amount of energy and created the most amount of product. And so Taoism is about learning how to align yourself with the energy that's around you so that you are using less energy, you are more effortless, yet more effective and more efficient. And in business, this is good, in life, this is good. I just had a conversation with my wife, and I'll share that my wife is what we call type A. I mean, she is my balance because you know she has a list of tasks, and all she wants to do in life is get the task off her desk.

SPEAKER_02: 16:22

Yeah, I know the type, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 16:24

And sometimes, you know, she'll ask me, Well, let's do this now. And I go, no, no, let's not. Because my training is to interfere as little as possible, but interfere at the right time with the right amount of energy. And a lot of times, a task that she wants to do, which would be a lot of effort, if you just wait a little while, it turns out that the task doesn't need to be done at all. Or you can do it with just a simple little flick. And when that happens, and my sense of timing works like that, you know, she'll say, Hmm, I hate you.

SPEAKER_02: 17:09

Yes. Yeah. So she gets her energy from ticking things off lists. Yes, yes, yes. Whereas you'll be just as productive, but you won't be motivated by just ticking things off a list. You'll choose the right time.

SPEAKER_03: 17:22

Yeah, just you wait. Another example of that is um back when I was lawyering in Miami, one of my great mentors was Judge Jerome Cogan. And um he was the administrative judge. There were 14 felony courtrooms in the justice building there. And on a Monday morning, the calendars of the week were called in all of the courtrooms, and it was a war scene. I mean, it was just people were crowded, except in his courtroom. His courtroom was like a little oasis. And one day I went and I talked to Judge Cogan and I said to him, How is it? Do you have less cases? He goes, No. And then he explained to me that he said, you just have to have a sense of when things need to be done. That if you pick an apple before it's ripe, you'll struggle and pull and twist and it's sour. If you wait too long, it drops and rots. But if you pick it just right, it comes off easy and it's sweet. He says, I think I just have a sense of when to continue a case and when to make sure it gets tried. And he says, I think a lot of the other judges let their egos get in the way.

SPEAKER_05: 18:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 18:39

So he was naturally, you know, a follower of the way. Yeah. I mean, it just came to him naturally.

SPEAKER_02: 18:46

Yeah. And it's important to clarify that this sort of energy that you're working in harmony with is not some kind of cosmic supernatural force. It's just looking almost like the natural wax and wane of nature. You know, that there are seasons and it's cyclical and there is a right time to do everything. And a tree would not drop its leaves in summer. It does that in the winter. And that does not mean it's failed because it's dropped its leaves. It's still as strong as it was. But you know, there's a right time to do everything. And I think maybe in the Western world, because we kind of have a much more linear understanding of time and that you have to keep making progress, we're not working with that intuition of what the natural order of things are in the universe. And actually, I think sometimes as human beings, we lose our intuition about what we should be doing at any given moment. And we work against kind of what is the natural thing to do. So we've just had like a big winter, and actually, it's natural to eat a little bit more, to be a little bit more sedentary, to kind of hibernate a little bit. And we kind of judge ourselves for not being super active in eating salads, you know, because we're working against nature and therefore there's this tension. So, you know, I've always been really attracted to that cyclical way of understanding that there are seasons and there is a time for everything and that nothing lasts forever.

SPEAKER_03: 20:08

Well, Ecclesiastes talks about a time to reap and a time to sow. And I mean Ecclesiastes wraps up Taoism in in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_04: 20:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 20:22

So it's not that the teaching isn't there, it's just that we have this kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know, individualism, culture.

SPEAKER_02: 20:34

Do you know it's interesting? I had those exact words in my head as you were talking. It was one of the other sort of lines of thought that my brain went to. You're absolutely right. And that I don't think is a particularly significant teaching within Judaic and Christian theology, whereas actually it's brilliant. You know, it's absolutely brilliant, and it's a lot of wisdom.

SPEAKER_03: 20:55

I mean, it's in the book of wisdom, so it's you know, Eastern thinking is kind of counterintuitive.

SPEAKER_04: 21:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 21:03

Kind of, you know, the idea of the Japanese koens, the idea of, you know, the questions like, what is the sound of one hand clapping? Enigmatic. We don't get them right away, but when we get them, it's like there's an aha moment. It changes the way we think and the like. And we have to think on it and think on it. And so if you look at the parables that Jesus told, you know, they're kind of like that. You don't get them if you look at them linearly, but you get them if you get them. You just gotta get 'em. You just gotta get it, you know. And when you get it, you get it. And so, you know, when you talk about things like the meat shall inherit the earth, well, from our cultural perspective, you know, we think, you know, how does that happen? Because we our experience is that you have to be aggressive and you have to, you know, go out and get what you want. But when you look at Eastern thinking, they talk about rigid and flexible.

SPEAKER_04: 22:05

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 22:06

And that the flexible palm tree will withstand a hurricane, but the rigid oak tree will not. And so it's a different way of looking at things.

SPEAKER_02: 22:17

Maybe as RE teachers, I think, sometimes we separate Eastern and Western when actually there is a lot of links between the Tao and Christianity. You know, and I'm thinking as you're talking, there's a teaching that Jesus was saying about not worrying. And it's like, you know, the birds don't worry. You know, God provides everything that they need, and yet we keep striving to kind of make things happen. But actually we've just kind of got to let nature it's going to be okay. We don't need to keep striving to make things okay. So I wonder whether we just explore that sort of avenue now, that sort of similarities and differences between Christianity and the Tao.

SPEAKER_03: 22:52

So you take that and then you compare that to Lao Tzu's comment that those that stand on tiptoe cannot stand their wall, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 23:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 23:06

So by trying to be as high as we can, we're using a lot of energy, but that means that we'll be able to use it for a much shorter period of time. Because that's the nature of energy. You can use a lot of it quickly, or you can use a little bit of it over a long period of time. But it is a fungible, usable thing. So, you know, one of the other things about Taoism that's important to realize in terms of the approach that yin and yang are often called the positive and negative energies. Yin being the negative and yang being the positive. But the moment we say those words, we are automatically thinking good and bad. But we're actually what we're talking about is like the poles of a battery. There's a positive pole of a battery and a negative pole of a battery, and we need these two poles so that the energy can flow. Without one of the poles, you stagnate. There's no flow of energy. And so one of the ideas is that we move away from the typical judgments that we have of good and bad, and we move into, you know, is this more helpful, is this more aligned or less aligned? Is this more in keeping with this flow or that flow rather than is this good or bad? The person who follows the way generally would use the words helpful and not helpful. That's helpful. That's a helpful behavior.

SPEAKER_02: 24:40

Yeah. And so actually, is that maybe the distinction, that's the difference between Christianity and the Tao? In that Christianity seems to be a little bit more opposites, polarization, separation, that there is God who is pure good and Satan who is pure evil, and one has to defeat the other, and they're in conflict.

SPEAKER_03: 24:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 24:57

Whereas actually the Tao sort of says actually they're both important forces to help things to flow.

SPEAKER_03: 25:02

Sure. Jesus didn't teach good and bad. What he said was the rain falls on the saint and the sinner.

SPEAKER_05: 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 25:09

He said, you know, my father's, you know, love is equal. I think in Christianity, you know, because of the way it developed out of the Roman Empire in Constantine and the like, it became much more of a function of state control.

SPEAKER_02: 25:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 25:28

And I don't know that Christianity after Constantine was really what reflected Jesus' teachings the most.

SPEAKER_02: 25:36

Yeah. And actually, this is something we've discussed before, and particularly linking it back to your book, there is that link between Jesus saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and this kind of idea of the Tao meaning the way. Just talk us through that.

SPEAKER_03: 25:54

So I think again, you know, looking at the kind of lineal way that, you know, Western thinking is, when Jesus said, I am the way, and in John 3.16, nobody gets to heaven except through me, has always been used as a way of, you know, my way or the highway, and you've got to do it according to our religion.

SPEAKER_05: 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:20

But if he said I am the way, and we're talking about it in terms of the way like I am the Tao, then what he's saying is that I am aligned with the natural forces of the universe, and you really, in order to experience true happiness and true sense of balance, this is the way. The way that I teach is the way to arrive there. So, you know, and if he's talking literally, then you have, if you don't believe in Jesus, you're gonna burn in hell eternally. If he was talking metaphorically, all he was saying is maybe you need to take a look at your perspective on things and align yourself more with the natural order, and then your life will be happier. One of the things about Eastern thinking is that it does not teach you to cultivate loving kindness and compassion, empathy, sympathetic joy, these immeasurables because it's gonna make you a better person, although it will, or because it's going to make for a better world, although it will. It is taught because this is the way to your personal happiness. And the side effects are that you become more concerned about easing the suffering of others, and you become more concerned about being a good caretaker of the world. Having been given dominion over the world, we also have been given the responsibility of caring for it. And so, with dominion, there is the power of control, and there's also the responsibility of care. We tend to forget about the put it, the responsibility of care is a secondary, but it's co-equal. And there you have yin and yang. You have the yang of that we have control and power over it, and you have the yin of caring for it. They need to be in balance.

SPEAKER_02: 28:27

Yeah. And actually it's interesting because I think that sometimes people think there is a conflict between seeking your own happiness and that actually that's somehow a selfish thing to do. Whereas actually in seeking your own happiness, it it actually is a positive thing because actually then collective happiness is greater.

SPEAKER_04: 28:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 28:45

And you're more able to be a good person, although that's not the end goal, and you're more able to care for the world. You know, it's interesting. I'm thinking, you know, Jesus, is it John 10, 10? I have come that you might have life, life, and all its fullness. And I think that the sort of maybe Western Christianized interpretation of that is that it's because Jesus died for our sin and sin is bad, and if we do this, then we can have eternal life in heaven. And that's the kind of narrative of Christianity, but it's not necessarily that if you see it through this idea of the Tao, that that we can get the most out of life if we are working in harmony with the kind of forces around us.

SPEAKER_03: 29:26

So being a meditation teacher, I look at the two great commandments with a different slightly different perspective. The first great commandment, you know, love you God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. Well, if your mind is, as we mentioned, if your mind is lost in a fog of rumination and projection and you're thinking and regretting the past and concerned and catastrophizing the future, what in your mind is left? What space is left to love God? Because Jesus said, love God with all of your mind. Which means I think that the commandment was we have to take care to curate the inner world as well. You know, just like you want to put up pretty pictures around your workspace because you know, you're curating your environment. We have to curate our internal environment. And that was that command. But the other one is closer to what you were just speaking about in terms of the Western idea of not having self-love. He said, love your neighbor as yourself. My question is always, what if you don't love yourself? What if your internal self is full of criticism and judgment? Then are you going to love your neighbor with criticism and judgment because you're loving them as yourself? So the commandment is really about learning to love yourself as God loves you, so that you can then authentically project that love out onto your neighbor. So the first step is taking care of your internal self.

SPEAKER_05: 31:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 31:09

Yeah. And it's interesting because I think it's the part of the verse that's often left out because it's not. I think people are uncomfortable with that concept of loving themselves. And so they try to love others, and actually what we end up is is kind of a lot of unhealthy relationships. You know, and I think that's very wise. Is there any sort of other teachings of Jesus that we can, and I don't want to say that we look at through the lens of the Tao, but that are sort of linked to some of the philosophies of the Tao.

SPEAKER_03: 31:36

Well, all of them.

unknown: 31:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 31:41

You know, I mean, if you talk about, you know, the person who puts seeds and some fall on the ground and some fall in fertile ground and the like, you know, I mean, that uh Lao Tzu talks about, one of his chapters talks about when, you know, an arrogant person uh hears about the Tao, they laugh at it. When this kind of person hears about the Tao, it hits them as neutral. And but when the person that's ready to hear about the Tao hears about the Tao, it's transformational. Is that any different from that parable? One of the things that we seek to cultivate in Taoism and Buddhism is sympathetic joy, the ability to truly and authentically take happiness from somebody else's good fortune. So, you know, you think of the other fella got the promotion at work. You're thinking, all right, Grumble Mumble, why did he get that promotion? And da-da-da-da-da. Well, if you think about the parable of the prodigal son, you know, the brother's upstairs, you know, listen to the party going on downstairs, and he's sitting there. And I would just love, as a Taoist, I would love to go and sit down next to him and look over and say, Well, bro, you know, how's this working out for you? So, yeah, it's so much of it. You know, there is there is a theory, and I personally think it's supported by good evidence that Jesus actually traveled in India, got to Calcutta, and according to some writings, the Brahmins were very upset with him because he was talking about equality and in the caste system, and they were not happy with that. So they chased him out of Calcutta and he wound up in Tibet and studied there for some time. And when he came back, what he taught was in essence, you know, a westernized version of those Eastern principles put into the language, which is something like what I you know tried to do in my book, putting the Dao de Jing into Christian terminology.

SPEAKER_02: 33:54

So, and that's really interesting. I think it's possible that so Jesus had some kind of influence from sort of Eastern philosophy, whether, you know, I mean he was living in a very multicultural place where people were traveling, so whether he went there or someone came here, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_03: 34:10

Well, we still don't know where he was between 13 and 32.

SPEAKER_02: 34:13

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:15

And when you think about it, he was already being recognized as a sage when he was twelve.

SPEAKER_05: 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:22

Because he was teaching in the synagogue.

SPEAKER_05: 34:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:25

And his early behaviors were recorded.

SPEAKER_05: 34:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:29

So we already know that he was a person of great interest.

SPEAKER_05: 34:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:35

And yet nothing is written about him for those years. I mean, the only reasonable explanation is that he wasn't in the area.

SPEAKER_02: 34:43

Yeah, that's interesting. And I think sometimes what we forget is that Christianity, well, Jesus was not a Western man. And so therefore, his teachings were not inspired by Western culture, that he was an Eastern man that lived in the Middle East. And I think sometimes we interpret his teachings in a very Western way without really looking at him as a person in a context, in a culture where he would have had influences from many, many cultures, you know. So it's really helpful, I think, for us as RV teachers to sometimes be reminded to step outside of that Christian Western lens that we often read the Bible and see it as, you know, a book of Eastern philosophy, essentially, because that's where Jesus started. You've mentioned two things. One is Lao Tzu, who I want to talk about in a second, and you did mention Buddhism there, and it is a question I want to sort of talk about in terms of, you know, there's so many crossovers with what I understand about Buddhism. I don't know much about Confucianism, but can we just sort of separate those sort of philosophies out a little bit?

SPEAKER_03: 35:52

The best example of the differences is in a uh a wood etching called the vinegar tasters.

SPEAKER_05: 36:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 36:02

And there are three men who represent Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, and they each have their fingers in their mouths, having put their fingers into a vinegar vat, and now are tasting the vinegar. And the Confucianist has his opinion about the taste, and the Buddhist and the Taoist, and the Confucianist is this is a sour and it needs to be improved.

SPEAKER_05: 36:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 36:30

The Buddhist is saying, well, you know, it's not that this is sour that is troublesome, it's that I don't like sour. And the Taoist is going, Wow, man, if you want to know sour, this is really sour.

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 36:48

Yes. So the Taoist is kind of the hippy-dippy version of Buddhism. It's like, you know, hey man, like go with the flow, you know. Like this, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 36:58

This is sour, it's just sour. We don't have to interpret that in any other way. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03: 37:03

Well, they're all dealing with the fact that we have urges and desires. They're all dealing with that. It's just the way that they deal with them. The Confucianist says these desires can get us into a lot of trouble, and in order to contain them, we have to have a set of rules and etiquettes. So it's very rule and etiquette oriented, what's right and what's wrong. Buddhism said, yes, it is the desires, and the desires cause us to attach to things, and it is those desires that cause our suffering. There is going to be pain in life. That's unavoidable. What we do and how we respond to that pain is what causes our suffering.

SPEAKER_04: 37:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 37:48

And so we have to take the poisonous roots of wanting, hating, and ignorance, and we have to cultivate the antidotes, which is generosity, loving kindness, compassion, and wisdom, which is very interesting because that concept of having uncomfortable, negative, pessimistic thinking, brain science has shown us now that trying to reduce that or not have it is nearly impossible. But the way out of that thinking is to cultivate the opposites. The left prefrontal cortex builds up the electrical energy on that side of the brain, and it balances it out and it acts as a governor over the negative thinking. So Buddhism was spot on when it comes to neuropsychology. I mean, they were spot on. But in Taoism, you know, it's more of I don't know about all that stuff, but I know this that there is a certain flow of energy in the universe, and things work better when you can align with it.

SPEAKER_05: 39:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 39:01

You know, in terms of our suffering is caused by resisting the natural flow and interfering with the natural flow. In other words, pain, you know, is part of the natural flow and working against it, that there are more effective and efficient ways of dealing with the discomfort, yeah, which are normally intuitively act on. So those are the kind of distinctions between those three.

SPEAKER_02: 39:29

Yeah. It's such a helpful analogy that almost they notice the same thing, but they come to different conclusions about it. I think that's really helpful.

SPEAKER_03: 39:37

And I'll tell you, as a trial lawyer, you get a jury of 12 people, and they sit there in the same courtroom and they hear the same evidence and they see the same rulings, they get everything the same, and yet they go back in the jury room and they can debate for hours about what happened.

SPEAKER_02: 39:55

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually the reality is that a collection of all of those experiences are probably true.

SPEAKER_03: 40:03

That's the theory. Rather than one or the other.

SPEAKER_02: 40:10

And I'm always struck when I discover something about a philosophy or a worldview or a religion, whereby science, neuroscience, psychology sometimes catches up with ancient ways of thinking. The ancient ways of thinking had these kind of concepts, ideas, understandings. Science feels like it needs to replace religion and superstition, but it actually comes to the same conclusion, you know, whether that's about diet or psychology or, you know, self-improvement, mindfulness, wellness, all of those things. I find that really interesting. Let's talk about Lao Tzu. Now, what we've got to be very careful is not to talk about founders if we're talking about the Tao, that that's not the right terminology, that we tend to call them authors. And Lao Tzu is probably the most well-known, famous author in relation to the Tao. So just talk to us about him and his writings.

SPEAKER_03: 41:03

Well, all we know is the legend. And the legend is that he was the a librarian for an ancient Chinese emperor, an advisor, as librarians often were, uh, because he was the keeper of the knowledge. And so he acted also as an advisor, and there came a time when nobody was listening to him. And in the Yijing, we would call this a time of opposition. Nobody was listening. And so, being a good follower of the way, when nobody's listening to you, you stop talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you know, why waste the energy? So he decided that he would go and visit his friend over in Tibet, the Dalai Lama. And he got on his water buffalo and he trekked over, and before he went through the passage, a guard identified him and said, I know who you are, you're loud too. You're that wise guy. I don't mean wise guy.

SPEAKER_02: 42:04

Yeah, yeah. We're not in a derogatory way.

SPEAKER_03: 42:07

So I'm not gonna let you leave without all that wisdom. No, no, we gotta leave it here. So, according to legend, he went over and sat by a rock and he wrote the Tao de Ching, which is eighty-one short, you know, you might call them chapters, might call them meditations, you might call them poems. But he wrote eighty-one of them, and he gave it to the guard and passed over, never to be heard from again. So that's all we know about him, that's the legend. But that writing, the Tao Ta Qing, or the Tao Ta Jing, which translates Jing means the classical book, and Tao means the way, and Te means virtue. So the Tao de Jing is the classical book of the way of virtue. And he wrote that down and it became, you know, the classic that it is. So then he was followed later by Tuangsu, who elucidated on many of Lao Tzu's writings, went into more depth and a lot more stories that helped uh people to assimilate it. And then there was Sun Tzu, who wrote the Tao of Power, and that was a great business classic, you know, it's uh how to fight a war effectively and efficiently. So those are I think the three most known authors.

SPEAKER_02: 43:25

And if we're looking at Tao Djang, is it accessible for people to read?

SPEAKER_03: 43:29

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 43:30

I mean it it seems quite short, which is also helpful, but it's dense. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 43:36

You know, you don't read it from cover to cover.

SPEAKER_05: 43:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:40

My you read one, it takes you thirty seconds, you read one and you sit and you think on it, and you go about your life keeping it in the back of your mind and see how it shows up.

SPEAKER_04: 43:53

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 43:53

And you don't have to read them in order. They're not in any particular order.

SPEAKER_04: 43:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:58

Although there are One's about personal happiness and stability. There's a few that are kind of grouped together that are about leadership, but it's very loose the groupings. They're they're random.

SPEAKER_05: 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:12

And they're repetitive also. You know, you'll find the same thought come up several times. I think Lao Tzu felt this is the kind of thing that you have to visit more than once before you get it.

SPEAKER_02: 44:24

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And is there a good English translation of it?

SPEAKER_03: 44:30

Well, of course, my favorite is Master Needs translation.

SPEAKER_05: 44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:35

Who was my teacher, so that's my favorite. But the other one that I think is exceptionally good for the Western mind is Stephen Mitchell. His translation, not only of that, he's also translated the Bhagavad Gita. And he also wrote a fascinating book called The Gospel According to Jesus.

SPEAKER_02: 44:56

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 44:57

Interesting. Because what he said in that book was, he said, in the Bible, we see two versions of Jesus. We see, you know, the one who tips over the table in the synagogue and kind of a vengeful Jesus and God, and then we see this loving Jesus and God. And so if you say, well, unlikely these two characteristics would coexist in the same spiritual being, what if we kind of went through the Gospels and we pulled out those things that were consistent with a loving personality?

SPEAKER_05: 45:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:37

And then we just simply put all that together as a cohesive gospel according to Jesus. And I wrote it, and it's not very long, but it's very, very inspiring.

SPEAKER_02: 45:49

Yeah. I'm going to put a link to his books because he's got quite a plethora of different books that look very, very interesting. That's really, really helpful. You mentioned Yijing earlier, and I just want to make sure we know exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_03: 46:04

Okay. So the Yijing is the uh Taoist practice that Master Ni taught and emphasized, and that I practiced daily for all those years. I still use it not as frequently, uh, only when called upon. So the Yijing, some people think of it as an oracle. Some people think that it will tell you the right person to marry and when to get married, and it'll tell you what kind of business to invest in and all this other stuff. That may not be as helpful as the therapeutic use of the Yijing. So, as we've talked about, Taoism has to do with understanding the flow of energy, the cycling of energy, where you are on that cycle, and how to align yourself effectively and efficiently with the energy that's around you. Again, if it's a time where nobody seems to want to listen to you, you don't force yourself on them. But the Yi Jing would say in that particular time under those particular energy conditions, you should not just sit and wait mindlessly. You should continue to cultivate your message and make it more effective and think it through more so that when people turn to you and say, Now what was it that you wanted to tell me? That you are ready, that the most effective and efficient way to describe what it is that you wanted to say. Because often we have an idea and we start blurting it out, and you know it's not clear and it's not refined. So if people aren't listening, use the time to refine it so that when they are listening, you can effective, efficient, effortless.

SPEAKER_05: 48:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 48:00

So what the I Ching does is it breaks up this pie of a cycle into 64 different times. So there's a time of opposition, there's a time that is propitious, there's a time of advancing, there's a time of retreating, there's a time of becoming soft, there's a time of darkening the light, there's a time of punching through. So these are all different chapters which they describe this energy, you know, like the time of punching through would be that time when you have been working towards a particular goal, and you know, you're feeling like there's just something else that's preventing you. You know, the unhelpful way of behaving under those circumstances might be, you know, to give up and pull back. But this might be the time when you need to punch through and use that like extra little burst of energy. At this point, that's going to be the most effective thing to do. So, what the I Ching describes is these different, you know, states of energy, behavioral energy, and it also describes many of the options that you have in terms of how to respond to it and which ones would probably be the most effective and efficient. And the way that it's practiced is, as I mentioned before, my therapist picked up the coins and threw them on the table. Well, that's how it's practiced. What you do is you ask your mind a question. What do I need to know about my job interview later today? You cannot ask it, will I get the job? Will my interviewer be male? You can't ask questions like that. You can only ask what do I need to know about the job interview later today. Then, according to Carl Jung, who wrote long treatises on the I Ching, which is very interesting, he says that you ask the question and you have your verbal intelligence and you have your intuitive intelligence. Now, probably when you ask the question intuitively, you already knew the answer.

SPEAKER_05: 50:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 50:20

Your internal wisdom, your sense, your intuitive wisdom probably already knew the answer, but the problem is that you hadn't verbalized it, so you can't really make intellectual use of it. So what you do then is you tie up the rational mind with math, which is typically rational. So you throw the coins, and the heads have a two and tails have a three, and you add them up, and they have a certain significance, and you build these six lines which create a hexagram. Then you go to the chart and you look up the hexagram and it gives you a number, and then there are other reasons why you'll look at the subtext of the chapter, which says, here are certain things that you might do and what their results will be, and that will lead to a different situation, a second hexagram. So you have the first hexagram, you have changing lines, and you have a second hexagram. Now, whether the first chapter is meaning the present time and the second chapter means what it will evolve in, or whether this means the general description, and here's a more specific description, that's all up for you to decide, for your interpretation. But what Jung says is that while you are doing the math, your intuitive mind is refining the answer, and then when you go to the readings, your eyes are picking out the words that your intuitive mind needs to communicate it to your rational mind. So, really, what it is, it's a bridge between your intuitive intelligence and your verbal intelligence. It acts as a bridge. You already knew the answer.

SPEAKER_05: 52:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 52:08

You just had to put it into a usable form.

SPEAKER_05: 52:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 52:12

And so the practice of the Yijing helps you become more in touch with your intuitive mind, your hunches and your senses, and how to identify them better. But it also teaches you over time, each time you read a chapter, you're reading about a different time. And so now I read about punching through this particular reading. So now I'm aware of the fact that there are times when you need to punch through. And then tomorrow I might learn about calculated waiting, and tomorrow the next day I might learn about retreat. Somebody once asked me, for example, well, it says retreat, you know. I mean, uh, does that mean giving up? I said, not necessarily. The trick in Taoism is to understand that if you're retreating and fleeing, you missed the time of retreat. You missed it. There was a time when you could have retreated and regrouped, but you missed it, and now you are retreating by fleeing. So over time, you know, practicing this daily, you become familiar with all the different times, and then it starts to become part of your intuitive intelligence, and you start to use it as muscle memory. So, you know, you're in a crowd of folks, and you feel that I need to darken my light right now. I need to shh not be so excited. I need to be more excited, but you start to feel that, and that is what ultimately mastery in life and going with the flow is about. It's going with the flow with the wisdom and intuitive understanding of the flow and how to align with it.

SPEAKER_02: 53:54

Yeah. I mean, this is a phrase I wanted to pick up on this sort of go with the flow, and to say that that's not a passive thing. You're not just going to let whatever happens happens.

SPEAKER_04: 54:03

That's the trap.

SPEAKER_02: 54:04

Eaging is about connecting to your intuition. You already know it, but I think our intuition gets oppressed by culture, by outside influences, by voices, by messages, by narratives that are outside of us. And sometimes we intuitively know something, but we're not consciously aware of that. And when we look back on a situation, we think I had a sense of something, but I didn't recognise what it was. And actually, if I had, I probably would have made a different decision. And I think we second guess at all our decisions because we're not sure, because we're not really listening to our intuition. And I think this is something that probably most humans will be familiar with of not listening to your gut, not listening to that intuition and it being drowned out because it's quite a quiet voice, it being drowned out by other messages. And so let's just focus on this idea of you know going with the flow, not being passive, but it's a sort of active wisdom.

SPEAKER_03: 54:56

And you know, there's even a time of learning. And so when you become familiar with that time, when you are going through that thought process, is oh, I must have missed it. We could sink into self-recrimination. And as you asked me, like, you know, why do I have no regrets? Because the Yijing taught me that those are times of learning. And they taught me in detail what that looks like, feels like, and how to respond to it.

SPEAKER_05: 55:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 55:24

And so that's just my habit now is that when I make a mistake or I do something that wasn't helpful, it just becomes a time of learning.

SPEAKER_05: 55:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 55:33

That's just normal for me.

SPEAKER_05: 55:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 55:35

Because I put, you know, the thought into it, and people will always say this, you know, oh, this is a learning moment.

SPEAKER_05: 55:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 55:43

This is a teaching moment.

SPEAKER_05: 55:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 55:46

But we need to take that emotionally and accept it completely in order to really be moved by it.

SPEAKER_02: 55:53

Yeah. One of the podcasts I listen to is called How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, who's a British author and journalist. And that is all about the importance of failing and reframing failure as something that is necessary for life, not as something that's bad. And she was talking about say dating as data gathering. That's all it is, is you're learning what you like and what you don't like and what you need in a relationship and things like that. And I think reframing things that don't work out as learning moments, I think, is a really healthy or helpful, to use your terminology, is a really helpful thing to do.

SPEAKER_03: 56:28

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02: 56:29

Yeah. One thing I just also want to talk about is something you mentioned earlier about Tai Chi, which is related to the Tao. Just talk us through how that is, because that's obviously a practice, and obviously, like if you've got an image of it in your head, you can kind of see that it's all about cyclical and moving energy and things like that. But just talk us through what Tai Chi is.

SPEAKER_03: 56:50

Well, Tai Chi is moving forward and moving backwards. I mean, if you think of the motions, you know, there's a time to move forward and there's a time to move backward. And when this force is presented to you, there is an appropriate way of responding to it. And then once you have the basic movements down, even if you just think of the foot movements, you put one foot forward and you bring your weight to that foot, and then you shift your weight back to the back foot. You turn the front foot to a different angle and you move your body, and then you approach life from that angle and you come back, and then you lift a foot up and you feel balance and you slowly put it forward and move to that. So we're always moving back and forward and back and forward, and that's again the cycling. And then, you know, in the second stage of Tai Chi, there's something called push hands. So in push hands, you know, you're becoming more accomplished at responding to the energy that's presented because you and your partner actually are holding hands, and each of you is putting forward energy and pulling back on energy, but you're also responding to the other's energy. And as Master Ni once said, we said, Well, what do you need to do to gain mastery in life? And he goes, Oh, it's easy, it's simple, no problem. All you need to do is be completely aware of all of the forces that are working internally, and then be completely aware of all of the forces that are working within the other, and then be completely aware of all of the forces that are working in the environment around you, and then simply remove the differences, the barriers between them and make it all one.

SPEAKER_02: 58:31

So just like that then. Just easy, just like that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 58:34

Just like that. Just like that.

SPEAKER_02: 58:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 58:36

And then of course he chuckled and walked off.

SPEAKER_02: 58:39

But actually, I'm also thinking that partnering was almost yin-yang, isn't there? That actually that there are forces that are opposite that need to be in balance. And there's no uh there's no judgment on who's back and who's forward. It's just opposite reactions. And so actually, Tai Chi then is almost like physical movements to represent the philosophy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03: 59:00

So the whole purpose, the whole thing of the practice, you know, it's like Bruce Lee once said, I am not afraid of the man who has practiced a thousand kicks. I am afraid of the man who has practiced one kick a thousand times. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 59:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 59:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what we don't realize is that the energy that we're talking about and the energy in the relationship is actually palpable. You know, this is a little bit woo-ey and a little bit christly and tinkly for most folks, but my experience with Master Ni with the Qi, you know, so Tai Chi, Qi Gung, this life force. I mean, there are things that he demonstrated and showed us which we went through some exercises and actually created, and he said, now can you feel the ball of energy between you? And there was actually, we could actually feel something palpable that we could press in against and press back against us that we had created by doing certain exercises. So for me, you know, the idea of qi, you know, that there is a life force and a life energy is certainly palpable. And by practicing Tai Chi, we get back in touch with the physical sensations of the energies that we're talking about. And so that not only do you start to intuitively sense them, but you also start to physically feel them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:35

And that's not so weird because I think all of us had the experience, you know, you know, I you go into a room and you feel like you're accepted, or you feel like you know the energy is good, or it's welcoming. You know, how many times have you met somebody and in just two seconds you say, ah, I feel so welcome here.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:56

I often think that con men who do scams have an ability to create static in our personal energy field so that they can get us to do things and accept things which once they leave and they're out of our present, they go, How did I do that? Why did I do that? How did that happen? I can't believe I believed him.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:20

You know, so there's plenty of examples.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:22

And I think there's so many humans that have a similar experience of sensing something, being aware of something that is greater than themselves. And it's the story that we create around that. So whether that is, you know, I was praying and I felt the presence of God, or I walked into a room and I just sensed a bit of unease, or I met somebody and there was an immediate connection. That most human beings have had that experience. And so therefore, all we do is then name it or categorize it. You know, I think it would be very difficult to say that those things are unfounded, that there isn't something that we're all connecting to, whatever it might be. We just create different names for it and different narratives around it. And you you mentioned Bruce Lee, and you've mentioned Kung Fu. This is a surprise to me. I didn't really know that Kung Fu was connected to the Tao. Okay, it seems that seems counterintuitive. How is that so?

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:17

Well, you know, Kung Fu is just another moving meditation. But the at the Shaolin Temple, you know, that's where Kung Fu originated, but it's not intended to be, you know, a destructive force, but it is intended to be able to provide you with the tools necessary when the time calls for it. And so, you know, it just is another way of being able to effectively and efficiently respond to the energy that's presented to you. If something is attacking your person, you know, I mean, going with the flow doesn't mean that if somebody stabs you in the back, you have to turn around and kiss them.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:00

So the more tools that you have to be able to respond effectively to whatever's presented to you in life, you know, gives you more of a sense of self-efficacy and confidence and the ability to move through life, you know, sure-footedly. There's um a wonderful uh fellow who does TED Talks Master Yi, YI. His TED Talks are just wonderful. And he's from the Shaolin Temple, and he in one of his TED Talks he talks about what the training is like. It's pretty intense.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:35

So that's how I understand Kung Fu, that it's actually it's all about the training, it's not about the end point anyway. It's all about the discipline and the mastery and the patience of learning it rather than using it to attack people. You've mentioned Yin Yang, and I think that it's a symbol that we're familiar with, it's a concept we're familiar with, but I'm assuming that it is sometimes misappropriated. Oh, yeah. And I think probably there's other things in the Tao which are misunderstood, misappropriated, and it would be really helpful for us as educators to kind of understand maybe one or two of those so that we don't fall into that trap of misrepresenting the Tao.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:15

Yeah, so you know, because male and female are represented by the Yijing, and because the female is the dark and the female is the negative, so yin represents female, negative, dark, night, winter, all these things which you know we start to put judgments on, uh as opposed to the yang, which is the strong side, light, positive, and so it's easy, you know, in our misogynistic culture, paternalistic culture that we have to say, oh this is a vindication, you know, the fact that men are are superior and the like. And that's sad. That's just sad. Because if the yang energy was all that was the good, then we wouldn't want to have any yin energy as a man. We wouldn't want to have any. But Taoist teachings say that how will you relate to a woman if you don't have any of that energy within you? Matter of fact, the Taoist version of gay is energetic. And basically, a gay man is considered a man who has an abundance of yang energy, but very little yin energy, and therefore is not able to really relate to women. And when they try to become feminine, it seems so artificial because they have no yin energy to be able to rely on intuitively. You know, if you have excessive yang, then you know, you have fangs, you eat red meat, and you want to go to war. On the other hand, if you have excessive yin, then you're going to be scattered and and not very productive. You know, just kind of like always extremely codependent, feeling like you have to fix everything, scattered, not focused, and the like. But then, you know, as you come towards the middle into balance, you have necessity to take charge, but also the necessity to comfort and to heal. And you balance those things out, your life is workable at either end. It's just not workable.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:37

And so it's interesting, because you mentioned Carl Jung earlier. And so I'm thinking about his kind of archetypes in terms of the anima and the animus. And that actually to create a healthy psychology, a healthy mind, you've got to connect those two. You've got to have a balance of those two.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:51

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:52

It's a Western idea to say that dark, night, black is bad. And actually, if you try to put those judgments on those ideas, you create sexism and racism and homophobia and things like that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:06

And we go back to the idea of these negative and positive are the poles of a battery.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:13

Not a judgment of evil and saintlyhood.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:16

Yeah. It's really fascinating. And I can see how people misunderstand it, but it's so important that you understand and don't put those judgments that one is not better than another or higher than another. And actually, if we had a society that took on board the true meaning of yin and yang, then actually society would be much healthier. And if you try to elevate one over the other, society becomes unbalanced and unjust, which is, I think, what we're probably seeing in Western society at the moment. If we were to try and introduce the Tao into our classrooms, have you got any sort of advice about how we could do that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:50

Well, I think that the Tao is particularly susceptible to an educational approach. It's founded on natural principles and things which we intuitively understand. And learning the different times is certainly subject to education in the same way that I think philosophy or you know the study of any system of thinking, you know, can be taught. I think that it's very amenable to that. Every year we have a uh interfaith convention at Elon University. It's called the Ripple Convention, and it's a week-long interfaith multi-university uh meeting. Students from all over North Carolina come and share and the like. So I usually will teach a couple of breakout sessions there. And you know what I find is that it's easy to teach, it's easy for people to accept because it's just consistent with our knowledge, our sense of how things work. We know that day turns tonight, night turns today. I mean, there's no questioning about that. And people absolutely love it because they just sense that there's something that's true and authentic in this. We all intuitively feel we want to have balance in our lives. That we all have had the experience of people that are overly aggressive or people that are too scattered and undefined. We've all had these experiences, and to be able to put it into a contextual system of learning, it just fits. Yeah, it's easy. You know, and I think you start with you know the basic concepts of the yin and yang, and then you move on to the dao jing, and then move on to the yiing. All of those things.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:46

I know that you've got some PowerPoints that you use that you're happy to share with us, which is wonderful.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:51

Sure, of course.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:52

And is there anywhere else people could go that's kind of a really reliable source of information?

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:58

Well, without sounding too self-promoting, I did write a book.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:04

So if I can tell you quickly the story of that book. Sure.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:07

So through all of my experience being a non-theist and then moving to Taoism and then in North Carolina, there aren't many Taoists, and so I went to Buddhist samples and started doing meditation. With all of that, I eventually wound up marrying my current wife, who is a Southern Baptist, or had been a Southern Baptist, and is a Bible literalist. And in Buddhism, there's a term bodhisattva.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:36

A bodhisattva is a what we would probably translate it as saint. But the definition of a bodhisattva is somebody that has not entered nirvana because it is their intention to stay in the chaos of the world for the simple purpose of helping other people arrive there. When you think about what a generous act that would be, that's who my wife is. But of course, her thinking, her philosophy, her belief system and mine were wildly apart.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:11

She thought my stuff was just weird, and I couldn't accept the science, you know, behind her stuff. But as we, you know, spoke more and I got a little bit more familiar, I started realizing that Jesus' teachings and Lao Tzu's teachings, there wasn't a hair's breadth between them. So I took on the challenge. Is there a way to take these 81 chapters of the Dao Qing and move them over into a Christian paradigm with Christian terminology? So it's a challenge to go from a non-deistic or non-God-oriented philosophy to a God-oriented philosophy. But if you stick to the teachings, if you stick to the life lessons, it's not hard at all. And so I started rewriting the Tao de Jing as a Christian devotional. And so the book was picked up and published by, you know, a national publisher. And what I think is the value of the book is that the original translation of the Tao de Jing is in the appendix of the book. So you can go to chapter 21 and read my Christian reimagination of that. And then I have all kinds of biblical citations and a couple of like tips to bring it into your life. But if you want to know where it came from, you can go to the back of the book and look up chapter 21 and the Dao Dejing, and then you can compare them and you can begin to see that, you know, this is the same stuff. So when my wife read all of this, you know, she turned to me and she said, You know, Bob, a lot of preachers have taught me about what's good and bad, and they taught me about heaven and hell, but nobody ever taught me about Jesus like this book does. And I am getting letters from people all over the country now thanking me for allowing them to reignite their relationship with the divine without having the burden of the corruption of organized religion on top of it. So I think that it would be helpful to begin to bridge the gap, to be able to compare these two writings at the same time and say, oh, because you know, the Dao de Jing, like I say, is very dense and very deeply packed. So what I tried to do is unpack that. So my chapters are a little longer than the Dao de Jing's chapters, because they need to be unpacked a little bit so the Western mind can grasp a whole of it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:51

I'll put a link to that book in the show notes so people can easily find it. It's a great website that celebrates the book, so that I think would be helpful. It feels as though the Tao could be quite helpful. I mean, it's sort of a theme that's come up throughout the conversation we've had, that it seems to be sort of a bit of an antidote to the way that society seems to be going in the 21st century. What elements of the Tao do you think might be useful for people in the 21st century?

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:21

I suppose that the most effective solution to excess is not to try to reduce the excess, but to try to cultivate the antidote. Brain science supports that, the teachings support that. And if you look at the Beatitudes, you know, a lot of people think of the Beatitudes as a sermon. I think of it more of a business plan.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:58

If you want to be like the old song, if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, this is what you need to do. This is how you need to live your life. We need to do away with a lot of the stereotypes and archetypes that we have and realize that there's no judgmental difference between these two opposing and complementary forces, and that they're both vitally necessary to live a balanced life. And if we find ourselves not getting along well, we might ask that question, you know, am I being excessively yang or excessively yin here? Do I need a little yin and do I need a little yang to balance me out? Think of somebody that is codependent, you know, with excessive yin, a people pleaser. So then that would be an excessive yin. And so that they find themselves constantly being taken advantage of and being stressed out by being overwhelmed by all the obligations that they've created for themselves, this is not helpful. This is not good. This is not, you know, the way to a happy life. So you need a little yang. What's yang? Yang is saying no.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm knowing when to say no. That you don't want to say no all the time, you don't want to say yes all the time. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:17

You know, if I'm over here on the continuum, maybe I need to move a little bit more the other way.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:24

Yeah, as a people pleaser, I totally relate to that. I'm a yes person and it's not always healthy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:31

And that it's okay to experiment. Thomas Edison said, I never failed. I simply discovered 987 ways not to make a light bulb.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:42

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. It's the same with computers and you know, all sorts of things. And just any final thoughts you want to leave the listeners with.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:50

Yeah, um, you're not your thoughts. I take that from my meditation teaching. You're not your thoughts. We are tied up in our thoughts and we think we are our thoughts, but we are actually the creator of our thoughts. Yeah. And there's something very empowering in understanding that we have a say in the matter of our thinking. And so it's helpful to not take ourselves so seriously.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:16

Yeah. And actually, that's a very loud tzu thing, isn't it? That your thoughts become your destiny. Actually, you have to watch your thoughts because they then affect everything else. Right. But you have control, you have mastery over your thoughts.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:29

Yeah. Most of our thoughts are the product of, you know, the conditioning that the world imposed on our thinking. And really, we want to get connected to the freedom that there is in creating our own set of thoughts.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:46

Amazing. Bob Martin, if you could wake up tomorrow and one thing was different about the world, what would you want it to be?

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:54

That um one thing. Um generosity, gratitude, and compassion became prioritized living goals.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:10

Yeah, that would be wonderful. That would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Bob. This has just been amazing, and you've been so generous with your time. And I think I think this has been such an insightful and helpful chat. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:24

Thank you. Thank you for letting me do what I love to do.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:27

I think we're both doing what we love doing here. This is great. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this has been the RE podcast. The podcast for those of you who think RE is boring, but it's not. It creates a space where we can find thoughts and beliefs and values and philosophies that could make the world a better place. But thank you so much for letting us all the life out of you.