Our Paths in the Valley

Water and Fire Inner Alchemy

Opening Hands, Closing Hands
By Michael P. Garofalo

"Standing at the Mysterious Pass
Centered in the Eternal Now,
Balanced in Body and Open in Mind,
Rooted into the Sacred Space,
Motionless as the Golden Mountain,
Fingers around the Primeval Sphere.

Dragons and Tigers are still dreaming -
Ready for Rebirth. 

I breathe in, the World Breathes Out.
The Gate of Space opens;
Heaven moves and Yang is born.
The hands move out, embracing the One.
The mind settles and is clear.
The Dragon Howls,
Ravens fill the Vast Cauldron,
Mind forms melt like mercury,
Spirit rises in the Clouds of Eternity.
Yin appears like the moon at dusk.

I breathe out, the World Breathes In.
The Doors of Emptiness close;
Earth quiets and Yin is born.
The hands move in, entering the One.
The body settles and becomes whole.
The Tiger Roars,
The Great Ox is nourished by the Valley Spirit, 
Substances spark from flaming furnaces,
Essence roots in the Watery Flesh.
Yang appears like the sun at dawn.

Dragons and Tigers
Transformed within the Mysterious Pass -
Chanting and Purring.
Awakened,
Peaceful,
Free."

-   Michael P. Garofalo, Opening at the Mysterious Pass, 2003
    Opening Hands and Closing Hands in Sun Taijiquan

Realms of the Dragons

Daoist Retreat of the American Dragon Gate Taoist Lineage

This past weekend I attended a Taoist Retreat led by Shifu Michael Rinaldini, Taoist priest and qigong teacher.  Mr. Rinaldini is the founder and leader of the American Dragon Gate Taoist Lineage (ADGL). 

This retreat was held at the Catholic Youth Organization Camp in Occidental, west of Santa Rosa, California.  The CYO facility was in excellent condition and clean, and located in a lovely hilly woodland area.  The chefs provided us with very good food.  I really liked the outdoor areas for training in taijiquan, qigong, and for long walks on gravel roads in the woods. One large outdoor chapel in the woods reminded me of a Druid Nemeton, and I enjoyed sitting there for hours. This is an excellent facility for a retreat.

It took me five hours to drive from my home in Red Bluff to Occidental, through mostly rural areas.  Springtime is quite beautiful in northern California, but such a long drive does discourage me from attending again.  

The cost of the retreat was surprisingly inexpensive.  

A group of 9 men and women attended this retreat, a few for all of the three days (Friday to Sunday); but the majority for much shorter periods of time. Shifu Rinaldini led us in seated meditation (Zuowang), reading Taoist scriptures, qigong, sipping tea, taiji ruler, and walking practices. Some chose to ask to speak privately with Shifu Rinaldini for guidance in meditation or qigong; but, he did not initiate private conversations with participants.  The retreat was held mostly in silence.

The spiritual theme of this retreat was "Not Two." The philosophical underpinnings of this topic are directly from the Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhist tradition.  The anti-rational Chan koan method of "Not Two" places emphasis upon serious experiential non-intellectual striving, a non-judgmental awareness, having an experience beyond words, not thinking, a non-dualistic consciousness, letting go of preferences, working hard to open and reveal the "Original Mind," and fully realizing fundamental emptiness while sitting and forgetting (Zuowang) or while quietly walking.

Shifu Rinaldini has specific demands of participants in terms of attendance, practice, attitude, and having a zeal for silent sitting.  You need to be clear ahead of time about his expectations.  

The qigong practices were satisfactory and non-vigorous, and persons with little experience with qigong could easily participate in the exercises.  Beginners and intermediate students could learn something about qigong from Shifu Rinaldini. 

The attendees seemed sincere and dedicated, and quite friendly when we were allowed the opportunity to chat only during meals. 

The next Taoist Retreat of the American Dragon Gate Taoist Lineage led by Mr. Rinaldini will be held at the same location on September 24, 25, and 26, 2010.

Personally, I have no need to repeat the experience of attending this Taoist Retreat for a variety of good reasons.  Rather than speak of them publicly, I will take counsel from Master Chuang: "Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious."  

Leaping Into the Dragon

I have been researching the symbolism and lore of the Chinese Dragon in Daoism and Qigong.   My notes are gathered on my webpage:  Dragon Qigong. 

Daoist Precepts

The Song of Ch'an Tao Chia
The Twenty Seven Precepts of Taoism
Stan Rosenthal (Shi-tien Roshi) of the British School of Zen Taoism

"Have compassion for all sentient beings causing them no unnecessary hurt nor needless harm.
Refrain from needless competitiveness, from contriving for self-advantage and from subjugating others.
When accepting authority over others know also that you accept responsibility for their wellbeing.
Value true friendship and fulfill your obligations rather than striving with egotistical motive.
Seek liberation from the negative passions of hatred, envy, greed and rage, and especially from delusion, deceit and sensory desire.
Learn to let go of that which cannot be owned or which is destroyed by grasping.
Seek the courage to be; defend yourself and your convictions.
Accept transience, the inevitable and the irrevocable.
Know that change exists in everything.
Negate the barriers to your awakening. Discover the positive in the negative and seek a meaningful purpose in what you do.
Be just and honorable. Take pride in what you do rather than being proud of what you have accomplished.
Having humility and respect, give thanks to those from whom you learn or who have otherwise helped you.
Act in harmony with your fellow beings, with nature and with inanimate objects. 
Know that a thing or an action which may seem of little value to oneself may be a priceless treasure to another. 
Help those who are suffering or disadvantaged and as you yourself become awakened help those who seek to make real their own potential.
Know that there is no shame in questioning.
Be diligent in your practice and on hearing the music of the absolute do not be so foolish as to try to sing its song.
Remember to renew the source in order to retain good health.
Seek neither brilliance nor the void; just think deeply and work hard.
When still, be as the mountain. When in movement be as the dragon riding the wind. Be aware at all times like the tiger, which only seems to sleep and at all times let the mind be like running water.
When you are required to act remember that right motive is essential to right action, just as right thought is essential to right words.
Beware of creating burdens for yourself or others to carry.
Act with necessary distinction being both creative and receptive and transcending subject/object dichotomy.
Know that you are not the center of the universe but learn to put the universe at your center by accepting the instant of your being.
Seek security within yourself rather than in others.
Know that even great worldly wealth and the accumulation of material things are of little worth compared with the priceless treasures: love, peace and the freedom to grow.

Allow yourself to be so that your life may become a time of blossoming."

Taoist Reflections

Chinese New Year

The upcoming Chinese New Year falls on February 14, 2010, and we will be ringing in the Year of the Tiger.  Now is the time, before February 14, to start cleaning up your home, working indoors on small home improvements, ordering seeds, taking cuttings of dormant plants (e.g., figs, roses), paying debts, resolving problems, and letting go of aspects of the past that burden our minds or diminish our energies. 

Our friend, the Groundhog Punxutawney Phil, appeared today and saw his shadow, therefore we should expect six more weeks of winter in 2010.  Phil lives underground in Punxatawney, Pennsylvania.  

"The whole cosmic body turns and changes, conforming to the process of the Tao.  The third law of Chinese physics (which one could also call the first law of its metaphysics) states that every body that goes through a prolonged and repeated cyclical action is transmuted and purified.  This is true even of the most humble and inert organisms and objects; trees, stones, and long-lived animals like the tortoise or the stork can become spontaneously spiritual by the simple action of the cycle of the seasons and the years.  All creatures of exceptionally advanced age can manifest their power and thus influence their environment.  ...  For the human being, a normal, peaceful, regulated life is a major factor in his accumulation of spiritual power.  Living according to the calendrical cycles, the ever-renewed passing of the seasons, and participating in these through everyday religion, leads one naturally to that marvelous old age which is the greatest happiness on earth before one joins the ranks of the ancestors.  ...  The virtue which confers divine power is obtained by cultivating oneself through hsiu-yang, a practice which enables us to acquire, on the basis of our natural dispositions, exceptional qualities.  Hsiu-yang means to arrange, to smooth down any roughness or irregularities by repeating an action many times in harmony with the cosmic order, until perfection is achieved.  The perfect and complete body is thereby nurtured, its energies strengthened; it thus becomes totally integrated into the natural and cosmic environment.  From there, the way is led, by repeated, cyclical movements, to spontaneity, which is the essence of the Tao.  ...   It takes daily practice and endless repetition of the same gesture, the same discipline and ritual procedure, to achieve the mastery that finally allows one to create perfect forms without any apparent effort.  It is nature retrieved, spontaneous creation, the secret stolen from the Tao."

-   The Taoist Body.  By Kristofer Schipper.  Translated by Karen C. Duval.  Foreword by Norman Girardot.  Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1993, p. 41. 

February: Quotes, Poems, Sayings

  

Eight Trigrams and the Southern Hemisphere

"Mike, reading your clear explanation and diagrams in relation to the 8 Trigrams, I am interested in your thinking on the compass points associations in the Southern Hemisphere, if you have time to share on this point. I write from Melbourne, Australia ,and am a long time chun tzu of the Book of Change. As you are aware, Summer for us is with the sun rising and setting further to the South in Summer and in Winter vice versa, with associated longer sunny days and shorter winter days at opposite times It appears to me to maintain the agricultural and other connections of the associated trigrams, the compass directions may be regarded suitable altered, with of course East and West remaining the same. The same issue arises in Feng Shui, where I have read at least one author regarding a change of the compass points for the Southern Hemisphere as acceptable. It is the meanings anyway of the directions etc that is principal, but actually delineating a different layout for the Southern hemisphere as far as the associated points alone appears acceptable. Do you think so?"  - Don L.

Don,

My own interpretation of the Eight Trigrams is based upon an integration of concepts from Western Magick, Neo-Paganism, and Chinese Taoist thinking.  They also include my experiences with the flow of the seasons from my walking and gardening in the Northern Hemisphere.  Where I live in Red Bluff, Northern California, the weather is wet and cool from November to April, and hot and dry from May to October.  I have also only used the Before Heaven version of the Bagua.  Therefore, my tables of correspondences represent my own ritualistic Sacred Circle practices and spiritual viewpoints. 

I would recommend making adjustments to your Eight Trigrams correspondences based on the fact that you are living in the Southern Hemisphere. 

I am sure, for example, in Melbourne, at Christmas time, the imagery used is not Frosty the Snowman, sleigh bells ringing, and winter wonderland.  You guys probably go swimming at the beach, and Santa gets a suntan.  Changing places is one way of Changing Mind. 

The I Ching is a far more complex symbolic system with Buddhist, Taoist, and local divination aspects.  I follow standard sources for the I Ching, and don't know of hemispheric variations.  

Best wishes,

Mike

   

Keeping Your Mind on the Way

Taoist Master Danyang once said,

"Students of the Way should have their minds on the Way at all times, no matter what they are doing.
When they walk, they set foot on the path of evenness.
When they stand still, they freeze their feelings in cosmic space. 
When they sit, they tune the breathing in the nose. 
When they recline, they embrace the jewel below the navel. 
Eventually the tune of the breathing is unbroken, and you are like a quiet fool all day long.
This is the correct practice - it has nothing to do with contrived observances."

Found in "Taoist Meditation," translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambhala, 2002, p. 110. 

   

Taoism: Bibliography, Links, Resources 

    

Sitting and Forgetting, Zuowang Daoist Meditation 

  

Peaches of Immortality

"In China, the peach was said to be consumed by the immortals due to its mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who ate them. The divinity Yu Huang, also called the Jade Emperor, and his mother called Xi Wangmu also known as Queen Mother of the West, ensured the gods' everlasting existence by feeding them the peaches of immortality. The immortals residing in the palace of Xi Wangmu were said to celebrate an extravagant banquet called the Pantao Hui or "The Feast of Peaches". The immortals waited six thousand years before gathering for this magnificent feast; the peach tree put forth leaves once every thousand years and it required another three thousand years for the fruit to ripen. Ivory statues depicting Xi Wangmu's attendants often held three peaches. The peach often plays an important part in Chinese tradition and is symbolic of long life. One example is in the peach-gathering story of Zhang Daoling, who many say is the true founder of Taoism. Elder Zhang Guo, one of the Chinese Eight Immortals, is often depicted carrying a Peach of Immortality."  -  Wikipedia

Ripening Peaches:  Taoist Studies and Practices

    

Taoist Program

Fifteen Articles of Taoist Master Wang Chongwang (1160 CE):

1. Cloistered residence
2. Wandering like clouds
3. Study of texts
4. Preparation of medicines
5. Building a home
6. Companions in the Tao
7. Sitting straight
8. Controlling the mind
9. Refining original inner nature
10. Pairing the Five Energies
11. Merging inner nature and destiny
12. Tao of the Sage
13. Going beyond the Three Worlds
14. Nourishing the Eternal Body
15. Leaving the world

Wang Chongyang (1113-1170) Founder of the School of Complete Perfection (Quanzhen)
He wrote "Chongyang's Fifteen Articles of Establishing the Teaching (Congyang Lijiao Shiwu Lun)" Translated by Livia Kohn, "The Taoist Experience," 1993, pp.86-92.

Touching the Root of Heaven

Breathing Out -
Touching the Root of Heaven,
One's heart opens;
The Dragon slips into the water..
Breathing In -
Standing on the Root of Earth,
One's heart is still and deep;
The Tiger's claw cannot be moved.

"As you go on breathing in this frame of mind, with these associations, alternating between movement and stillness, it is important that the focus of your mind does not shift. Let the true breath come and go, a subtle continuum on the brink of existence. Tune the breathing until you get breath without breathing; become one with it, and then the spirit can be solidified and the elixir can be made."
- Chang San-Feng

Commentary on Ancestor Lu's Hundred-Character Tablet
Translated by Thomas Cleary
Vitality, Energy, Spirit: A Taoist Sourcebook, 1991, p. 187.

Poetic interpretation by Mike Garofalo of expository text of Grandmaster Taoist Chang San-Feng.