A Chat With Lao Tze

I rang Lao Tze this morning to ask his help sorting through the befuddlement I’m suffering at the hands of the media and its endless stream of bad economic news. I told him I was confused about current events, didn’t understand what was happening to the economy, and was half blinded by fur flying and name-calling and finger pointing going on between such players as Pelosi, Bush, Obama, Paulson, Greenspan and others. I said I didn’t understand what they were saying about free-market capitalism, bailouts, rescue plans, socialism, Big Government, Small Government and more.

Lao Tze is probably the greatest of the Chinese sages (he vies for the title with his student, Confucius) and wrote a little book that has been more widely translated, and read by more people, than every piece of printed matter save the Bible. Because of this, or maybe despite it, the old sage is a gravelly sort and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly and in this area and many others I’m a fool so I only call him when I absolutely must.

He started by reminding me that things go in cycles, and that being in the middle of a rise or a fall makes it hard to see up or down or farther along the path. He said there are little cycles and big cycles and that people who learn to see them can predict earthquakes and the sudden appearance of miracles and also make a lot of money in the stock market. He said the best reason to study cycles is to keep from getting too excited when they go up and when they go down. He said keeping a cool head and having perspective is the sign of a superior person and since I called him in a breathless panic I was far from superior.

I admitted this was true.

He went on to say that despite all our dazzling technology we are not nearly so far from our animal nature as we think we are, and that this is a good thing, not a bad thing, for the farther we stray from nature the more trouble we find. He digressed for a moment to remind me to take a walk on the beach and then went back to discussing communism and socialism and capitalism. He said that communism was a utopia. I interrupted to point out that neither the USSR nor Communist China seem to utopian to me. He nearly smacked me.

“Those places weren’t communist,” he said. “They were just countries ruled by bad guys who stuck that word on a banner to make themselves look good and fool people. Real communism is about rights and equality and sharing. Real communism is a vision of a world in which everyone works together and has enough, a world in which nobody goes hungry or freezes to death in the forest. It’s a beautiful idea, and most thinking people embrace it as such, but it’s useless because it’s not human nature to be so kind. Left to their own devices, many people would share and get along but there are always going to be those who come in the night and whack you on the head and steal your stuff or kidnap your children or drag away women.”

It was my turn to interrupt him and point out that Buddha, his competition, seemed a lot more positive about human nature.

“Are you kidding? The guy talked about suffering all the time and spent his whole life teaching people to learn self-control. He wasn’t any more positive than I am about things. He was a realist and so am I and by the way he was way, way too skinny.”

“So what about free-market capitalism?” I asked. “What about letting the markets find their own level, let businesses do what they want unhampered by regulation or government tinkering?”
He sounded like he wanted to come to my house and hit me. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “People get greedy. Look at what’s been going on in your crazy, round-eye country. If government mixes out too much, thieves take over and they bribe government officials and pretty soon the people in power and their friends are getting rich and everyone else is bled dry.”

He must have heard me sniffling at all this because he softened a little bit after that. “Look. Lots of the Chinese kings read my book and I knew they would so I put in some passages to help them. I said governing a country is like frying a small fish. You have to pay attention and keep turning it: gently, so it doesn’t break into pieces, and often, to make sure it doesn’t burn.”
“You’re saying we should be socialist.”

“I’m saying that people have animal nature and need checks and balances. If that were not true you would not need police and you would not need soldiers, because nobody would ever try to break into your house or overrun your country. You need the kind of government that pays attention to what’s going on all the time, not the sort that concentrates on political diatribes, trumpets their own celebrity, spouts religious nonsense, or looks in the mirror too often.”
“How do we get that kind of government?” I broke in.

“Democracy,” he cried, a little bit hoarsely because he is, after all, 2500 years old. “Democracy is great. We never had it in China. Why do you think I spent so much time babysitting kings? But democracy takes a lot of the responsibility off the shoulders of the king and puts it on the people. That means people have to pay attention to whom they elect. It means they have to watch what their leaders are doing and make sure they’re turning the fish often enough.”

“Attention and responsibility,” I repeated.

“The kind of country you have is up to each and every one of you,” he said in that heavy accent of his.

Then, as he always does, he hung up without saying goodbye.

Tai Chi Sex

On November 6th, US News and World Report featured a blog by Deborah Kotz discussing natural ways to boost a woman’s sex drive. http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-women/2008/11/6/5-natural-ways-to-boost-sex-drive.html Kotz cites a study that finds that while 40% of women “have sexual problems” only 12% are concerned about them. She challenges the notion that such women need to be treated with drugs, and suggests a number of ways to enhance the female libido. One of these methods is exercise.

It’s not clear from the article who is suggesting there are problems, and exactly what the problems are, but everyone knows that exercise makes us feel sexier. Slimming down, getting stronger, seeing muscles grow, experiencing the flow of endorphins and having more stamina makes us more interested in lovemaking and makes us more desirable too.

Not all forms of exercise are created equal, though, particularly when it comes to sex. Tai chi’s philosophical and energetic underpinnings have everything to do with the binary universe—the brilliant observation made by Chinese sages thousands of years before the on/off switch created the computer age—that the world is defined by the harmonious interplay of opposing forces. Harmonious? Opposing? That’s right, light and dark, up and down, warm and cold, and of course male and female. Tai chi is a very sensual art in the sense that practicing it heightens our awareness of those very opposites. Every movement in tai chi both features male and female elements, hard and soft dimension, a weighty and a weightless arm or leg. Mastering tai chi requires great sensitivity, and women often attain mastery more easily and more quickly than men do because they are accustomed to using both softness and force to achieve their objective whereas many men rely on force alone.

Tai chi is as much medicine as philosophy though, and the medicine on which it is based studies and employs energy rather than pills. So in addition to heightening sensitivity and creating new awareness of the male and female elements of words, deeds, movements, feelings and forces, the art builds sexual power by enhancing the circulation of qi, life force, to vital areas including the sexual organs. In fact, a core goal of the practice (core is double entendre here because there is no better core-strengthening routine than a rigorous tai chi class) is to increase the sexual essence, or jing. In the best mind/body tradition, this means building reservoirs of power in both genders not only through the movements themselves, but through meditation, dietary changes, and mental training.

Last but not least, tai chi conveys a wealth of knowledge useful in lovemaking and in stimulating performance and desire, including: creative unpredictability, relaxation, rhythms, self-expression, going with the flow, receiving and giving, and more. The practice is a laboratory in which practitioners (known as players) study their own body in depth, learning new dimensions of their physical and mental being. There is nothing sexier than a healthy body and a healthy interest in how that body works. If your sex life is feeling dull or you are feeling stuck and just can’t get rolling, tai chi may be just to awaken your true and powerful sexual nature.

Fiancial Freedom

In the growing economic crisis, invalids whose fixed income has diminished, retirees who have lost their life savings, and the desperately poor may actually see food and shelter and healthcare rise hopelessly out of reach. These people may indeed need charitable/governmental assistance to survive.

The rest of us, however, may be overestimating the extent to which the economy can destroy the pleasure and satisfaction we take in living. Deluged by media images that celebrate lives of excessive consumption—a recent McDonald’s billboard ad promotes a sweet hot drink with the line “Get Rich Quick”—we are prey to the pernicious notion that money is the root of happiness. Day by day we grow more and more worried about recession or depression because we think wealth is the only measure of our worth. Trapped in a gulf between expectation and reality, we’ve lost perspective on the real freedoms that make this country great, and are torturing ourselves in the process.

We may need sound financial advice to weather the storm, but we mustn’t lose sight of the more important work we all need to do inside. Volunteering for the homeless, or doing a web-based exploration of Third World suffering can help us gain perspective about how much we have, and have to be thankful for, even in a down economic cycle. Taking our eyes off the DJIA and putting them to work counting the blessings of health, family, religious and political freedom, and entrepreneurial opportunity is the first step to acquiring both immunity to the vicissitudes of the financial system, and an understanding of our bounty.

The rhythms and cycles of nature are truer, deeper, longer lasting, more all-encompassing, and more powerful than the ones human beings make for themselves. Exploring these cycles through spiritual study, meditation and mind/body practice we can halt our downward emotional spiral and learn to see world market shakeups and shakeouts as normal and expected, albeit superficial features of our world.

Do what you can to financially protect yourself and those you love by adjusting your strategy and planning for the longest possible horizon that fits your circumstances. Once you’ve done that, turn your attention inward to a deeper exploration of your needs. Treat your cravings, fears, impulses and desires with a suspicion born of the fact that most of these are learned. Recognize that you probably already have more than enough to enjoy life. If people around the world who have far, far less than we do can act with courtesy and compassion and find joy in life, we can do the same and more. Go out and spread the word. Help your community. Help the elderly, indigent and infirm. Reassure nervous friends and lift up the worriers around you with words of perspective and encouragement. You’ll feel better for it. In fact, you’ll feel downright, well. . .rich.

Battle-Tested, Ancient and Wise

It could fairly be said, and often has been, that any hobby, sport or passion gives a person a context within which to test him or herself, and to grow. People often speak about the golf course or tennis court as a place where they learn as much about the workings of their own mind—and the workings of an opponent—as they do about the details or mechanics of the game. People with an eye toward pushing back their own boundaries and enhancing the experience of living often gravitate toward individual games and sports in order to explore and better the way they handle stress, competition, frustration and even defeat.

If we assume a certain attitude and perspective about life, pretty much anything we do and anything that happens to us helps us grow. Many religious and spiritual traditions embrace this idea, sometimes expressed as karma, sometimes as service, sometimes as testing, and sometimes simply as “what does not kill us makes us stronger”.
Tai chi practice is a particularly effective system of strengthening not only the muscles of the body, but the muscles of self-cultivation. The term “system” is what counts here, because rather than the myriad other games in which a person can explore weaknesses and strengths, tai chi is literally designed as a laboratory for testing and improving the body/mind. Think of it as a laboratory where the experiments (the questions) are outlined ahead of time and the correct solutions offered. The hard work of inquiry and evaluation must be done, but the results are guaranteed, if not always completely predictable.

Yes, its methods themselves are exceptionally brilliant, battle-tested, ancient and wise, but tai chi’s real uniqueness is the simple fact that its sole purpose is not to make you a better play on court, green or field, but to equip you for the game of life by teaching the true way nature works, the true rules that obtain in life, and the best way to take advantage of this knowledge with the least effort and the most result. Tai chi teachings can and should be applied to any human endeavor.

Tai chi was originally a battlefield martial art, so if your focus is on self-defense you will find much here. If your goal is to be healthy and fit and to forestall the degenerative diseases of aging you will be hard pressed to find more sophisticated body mechanics and such better information about the intricacies and cycles of the human body. Tai chi’s truths are ineluctable. If you seek a deep spiritual system that will pervasively flavor the way you look at people, places, things and events while teaching you to see patterns, links and trends, tai chi is for you, too. Sooner or later the principles will find your weak spots, and the practice will relentlessly reveal, but gently, precisely those areas of your mind, body and life that need work.
Believe it.