Chins vs Beards (2)

Yesterday Rudy Rauben and I discussed much of his past history and artwork, and touched on some of the systems of thought that have influenced that work. Today we finished by exploring these systems more in depth.

RR: Speaking of us “barking up the same tree,” as well as alluding to my own cosmology: while attempting to familiarize myself with Mythos Media & co. (and have some background entertainment for all the solitary hours I spend in the studio) I encountered an interview with you on Greylodge, and was, once again, intrigued by the uncanny parallels with my own experience and artistic intentions.

I was pleased to hear you advocating interacting “laterally” rather than hierarchically. Some folks suggest that the classical Taoists like Chuang Tzu were anarchists, but I think this notion of lateral cooperation is the more graceful way of framing those ethics (given how much baggage now comes with the word ”anarchy”). It certainly is a central message in the I Ching, once you strip out the feudal and patriarchal overlays that were interjected over the centuries of Chinese history to maintain hierarchy by twisting or obscuring the egalitarian message.

I work almost exclusively with 

Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog‘s version of the I Ching these days, and it really emphasizes that dichotomy there; which made the whole function of the I Ching far more clear to me.

JC: I would be very interested in seeing this work translated into a language that would be more accessible (and potentially useful) to people living in todays world, rather than the world of China quite some time ago. Some things about our lives, and many things about the world haven’t changed, but many have- especially the language and mental maps we use to describe it.

It is a great psychonautical tool once all that clutter is cleared away, or at least pointed out. These ladies really did something beautiful here. Please understand, this isn’t your average fortune-telling version of the I Ching. If that’s what your looking for you’ll likely find it disappointing or even heretical. This one is an incisive tool of psychological yoga and self-reflection. It’ll burn your ego if you give it half a chance! Very liberating.

About anarchy… The Chuang Tzu was somewhat anarchistic, at least it seemed like that kind of an ideological, political motion when compared with Confucianism. There’s always that pendulum swing between chaos and order, you see it in the history of any culture, anywhere on the globe, throughout time. The Chuang Tzu (Ed: Or Zhaungzi) was also more political than the Tao Teh Ching. On the other hand, I’m the asshole who told his Taoism professor in college, when she asked on a written test

“What is the Tao?”, “Whatever isn’t asking this question.”

(She gave me an F. I guess she was looking for it in a historical context.)

I’d say you were right on! I give you an “A” (for anarchy, in the finest sense of that word). The classical Taoists were oh so wary of indoctrination and misguided pedagogy.

Makes me think of something from years ago… I was watching as this Kung fu teacher spent a great deal of time lecturing his would be followers on what he framed as traditional “martial code of conduct”: social duties and obligations to your “superiors”, how to kowtow to “superiors” properly – even in public, outside his classroom – why you should never challenge the price your “master” sets his fees at, just this endless array of Confucian-inspired BS. Finally he aroused the trickster in me and I had to pass him this quote from Chung Tzu:

Confucius visited Lao-Tzu and lectured him regarding the virtues of charity and duty to one’s neighbors. Lao-Tzu listened patiently, but then had this to say: ”The chaff kicked up from winnowing grain will blind a person’s eyes so that he cannot see whether he is coming or going, much less the points of the compass. Mosquitoes will keep a person awake all night long with their incessant biting. And just in the same way all this talk of charity and duty to one’s neighbors drives me insane! Please sir! Let’s try to keep the world’s affairs in their original state of simplicity. Let us try to maintain our natural modesty. Just like the wind blowing where it will, let virtue establish itself. Why do you feel the need to force these issues so? It’s like you’re trying to hunt down an escaped convict while all the while beating a loud drum.

“The snow-goose is white without having to bleach itself. The raven is black without having to apply any dye. The original simplicity of black and white are not something you can argue about. The fabricated worlds of fame and reputation are not worthy of expansion. When the pool in your courtyard dries up, and the fishes you have supposedly cared for so lovingly are left on dry ground, moistening them with your spitty kisses will provide pitifully little consolation to them. Better that you had left them in their native waters in the first place.”

When Confucius left Lao-Tzu that day he would not speak for another three. He returned to his disciples and they grew concerned: “Master, so how did it go? Did you set that old codger Lao-Tzu straight?”

“I saw a rainbow-colored creature,” replied Confucius, “soaring amid the clouds as naturally as he lingered upon the meadows and threaded through the trees.

Wavering hues danced upon his hide as he lead us to a sparkling stream, both lit by the same dance of sunlight. He fed on earth and sky, the formed, and the unformed, the visible, and the invisible. How could my mouth not fall agape? I struggled to close it. How then would you suggest that I should set Lao-Tzu straight?”

He tried to not reveal his agitation, but then he launched into a lengthy refutation of Chung Tzu’s message, suggesting how society was falling into dangerous chaos because of such ideas. As an example of this he offered this seemingly exaggerated story of a “hippy” student who would not wear his uniform and supposedly belched and farted at formal meals with his “masters”. It was both sad and hilarious, how his ego was struggling to maintain his privileged status in the face of this classic egalitarian message that basically says “be yourself and stop trying to lord over other people, you’re making matters worse, not better.”

It brought to mind the image of that wandering Taoist who, on a cold night, happily warmed his bare ass by wagging it in front of a camp fire stoked by a large wood carving of a Buddha. You know, fuck the idols, fuck worship, get to the practical essence of the teaching: Liberate your own true self and thereby liberate others! That is the most respectful, loving and dynamic thing a person can do. Society won’t crumble if you do, quite the contrary. Contrary to the common propaganda this is not a recipe for unbridled licentiousness or mental disease.

It would seem to me that both extremes wouldn’t really be ideal from the perspective of Taoist alchemy. Or any sane perspective, for that matter.

It is foolhardy for beginners to focus on that before they have the insight to see how ego, cause and effect interact, thereby naturally having good reason to moderate their behavior without any need to rely on external controllers; yet somehow the value of autonomy, adaptability and transformation can hardly be emphasized enough, in their proper context, with an eye out for the underlying principles and ethics that are not just there arbitrarily…

You’d think any would-be sefu should realize that the whole point of the training is that an untrained, undisciplined individual, when told to “do as they will” would be an unruly barbarian.

The training itself, if it holds any value whatsoever, results in someone who can “do as they will” and accomplish goals, make sensible decisions, and yet take things as they are and live life from the perspective that it is transient and can’t be possessed. If the training can’t do that, why bother with it?

To make money, flatter one’s ego, collect followers? Join their cult?

Even punk rock kids these days don’t seem to get that anti-authoritarianism requires discipline, of a sort, discrimination, and responsibility. Not very punk rock sounding, those words… But it’s the truth. Authorities make it so we don’t have to really venture into the wilds, and accept that there are no static answers, no promises.

In that interview on Greylodge you made a brief mention of using Baguazhang in a manner I haven’t heard many people openly discuss. Being steeped in the I Ching – and Joe Campbell for that matter – for quite a few years before ever coming to Bagua, I recognized certain shamanistic elements in it and began employing them before I ever realized that was not exactly considered kosher (or even possible) by the broader internal Kung fu community, at least not among the folk I’ve encountered. Between that, and the hierarchical brinkmanship so often involved, I generally hesitate to discuss such issues with anyone who hasn’t personally expressed interest in those more psychical aspects.

That might be because I was initially taught Bagua by an individual with a background in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, BOTA, and method acting. Initially the training was purely internal, some physical externalization but it was much more of a creative than martial exercise. A lot of visualization, trance induction, breathing and partner sensitivity exercises… He was a really sweet and incredibly knowledgeable man, but also at times paranoid, even crazy. So it goes sometimes when you try to work within so many models all the time, I guess.

“Empty Cup”, my first internal Kung fu instructor, was a rather ancient Benedictine priest who had been involved with martial arts for a long, long time. He claimed to know like 7 different versions of Taiji, then Bagua, Xing Yi, Escrima and Kenpo too. He tended to be very rather pretentious and tight-lipped about everything. He had been advertising as a Chi Kung teacher and I was looking to deepen my understanding of that– looking for someone who had more practical experience with it than I had. Turned out that his sense of Chi Kung was little better than my own, but I he did introduce me to Baguazhang and I took an immediate shine to it. I’m still totally in love with it.

Empty Cup’s second was this easy-going, old Harley biker musician guy we’ll just call “Neil Pert”, and it was he who was assigned to mentor me. Empty Cup was the boss, but Neil was a far better teacher— friendly, unpretentious. He instinctively appreciated the value of playing around, not being so dour, mechanistic or hierarchical about it all. Eventually I discovered that Empty Cup was very often just parroting Erle Montaigue‘s training tapes, so I invested in that same resource myself so as to be able to digest the lessons more fully, more directly. Meanwhile, I also researched for and then practiced whatever credible training insights I could find from other sources as well; weeding through them one by one, checking for actual efficacy, looking to triangulate in on those much vaunted but often poorly defined “core principles”.

When my Bagua suddenly began to excel beyond that of other students in the class who had been with Empty Cup longer, and my explanation involved recommendations of Park Bok Nom‘s training approach, it was suddenly revealed that I had apparently violated some unspoken code of conduct and I was asked to leave. You see, Empty Cup liked to use that ol’ “empty your cup” routine. He used it on me. You ever hear that one?

Don’t think so, no.

There’s this classic story about a Zen master who received a curious professor. The Zen master served the professor tea. He began pouring the professor’s cup, but then wouldn’t stop as the tea reached the cup’s brim. The tea flowed over the top, still the Zen master kept pouring and pouring. The professor watched this perplexed, but finally thought he had better intervene—perhaps the Zen master was a little daft or something, “it’s full already, why do you keep pouring when it is full?!” The Zen master replied, “like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How am I supposed to show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

In one sense, this is meant to suggest that a student must be open-minded, prepared to leave his assumptions, expectations and erroneous ideas behind. And that is crucial, it’s true. But there is a flip side to that as well. There is also a danger in this when the teacher fails to be conscientious enough in terms of his own ego’s mischievous influence: when the “empty cup” mantra becomes an underhanded way of basically saying “just do as I tell you to do and don’t question it.” This is dangerous. For the teacher it can become an unfortunate way of insulating themselves from having to empty their own cups—remain open to new ideas, questions or insights that may challenge their own assumptions, expectations, erroneous ideas or status as an authority figure.

In the original story you see where the guy who needs to empty his cup is a professor, he’s not portrayed as a student without reason. The Zen master can be seen as another authority figure too, but traditionally that image is meant to suggest a sage or wise insight advocating a more instinctive and personally empowering awareness.

…I tend to be willing to pull back the Great Oz’s curtain, to advocate “lateral” cooperation, if or when others will not.

There seem to be a lot of those “wizard” flunkies out there… I find this whole business of 

knocking people around with chi at a distance fascinating. When the person getting knocked around is a student of the supposed “chi master” it all seems perfectly viable: the master projects his chi and the student is thrown back accordingly. But bring in someone who hasn’t worked with that master and nothing happens. The excuses these “chi masters” offer for this lack of effect are pathetic. It suggests how much voodoo can be involved in these esoteric arts. The more nebulous the practices are the harder it is to substantiate what is being accomplished, the easier it is to delude oneself and dupe others. The power of suggestion and a person’s suggestibility need some very careful examination.

Yeah, though we talked about martial application, it was essentially the polar opposite of most Internal Kung Fu classes. Most of them, the sefu (master) seems to talk primarily about kinesthetics, leverage and breath, and you spend most of your time practicing physical application. Maybe in passing the teacher will mention Chi or you’ll close with a quick meditation. We would literally spend an hour just going through the very simple five element motions (or seasons), and while we would do it he’d constantly give visualization suggestions…

For lack of a Bagua teacher I settled in with a Xing Yi teacher, Chinese-American who had studied in Taiwan in Hung Yixiang‘s famous (or infamous, depending who you talk to) fighting school there for several years. This is the same school that Luo De Xia hails from.

Basically, what you’re describing; lots of lengthy, repetitive drills, hard sparring, but way too many forms (in my opinion). Before we ever explored any one form’s depth of application we’d be on to the next one. Meanwhile, I continued to work on the same Bagua circular form (basically Jiang Rong Qiao’s) I had been doing for the last 4 years, having yet to fully explore all its subtleties; so I knew teaching too may forms at once tended to be superficial and counter-productive. Of course, some folks are impressed by how many forms a person can seemingly do, even when they don’t know the applications. The more seasoned Kung fu yogis warn against this.

Of course, the downside of the more flow-based, intuitive kind of teaching is that though it was really incredible in terms of giving me creative tools to work with in my own work (music, writing, etc), it wasn’t actually teaching me incredibly valuable martial tools. I didn’t realize this until I later went to a school out in California and my sefu there was like, “you really haven’t learned anything.” I was of course pretty skeptical of that, but within a matter of minutes he proved himself right. It’s pretty embarrassing not being able to push back a middle aged man with a cane, when he can knock you over with his fingertips.

The last few years I’ve found Wang Xiang Zhai’s (founder of Yi Quan/Dachengquan) insights very key in all this. He basically, confirmed the suspicions I had about Xing Yi, among other things. I actually just recently discovered a Chinese-speaking Finnish martial artist who has produced a very, very good English translation of Wang’s treatise and interviews.

I’m finding it all incredibly helpful: cutting out even more of the extraneous mumbo-jumbo, getting at the truly functional training methods and the genuine meanings behind so many of the metaphors that have so routinely been misconstrued. Amazingly clear take on internal Kung fu with minimal BS.

But this is not to underrate that more instinctive or aesthetic approach to Kung fu that you speak of. You certainly don’t want to lose sight of the applications that show the way to the core principles, but neither do you want to lose sight of the personally adaptive, intuitive evolutions on the theme.

In the Taoist approach at least, dogma is anathema. It’s not like most of us modern westerners are in imminent physical danger from bandits; that is not our reality. But the threats to our health and psychological well-being are very much part of our reality. So, the health and psychological functions are actually more prescient now. We need to learn how fear and insecurity can be placed in a healthier context, but physical competition proves very little in the bigger scheme of things, and can actually become a very problematic character defect. Does might make right?

Another model some people kick around a lot, when bringing this into a more western framework, is Leary’s 8 circuit model, however it has always struck me as unnecessarily hierarchical. That just doesn’t jive with the Trigram’s 8 transformative functions (“energies” or aspects of consciousness) as I have found them to apply: which is more laterally (cooperatively or holistically).

I completely agree. At the very least, it’s linear, if not hierarchical. The tree of life (Qabbalah) is that way to a point as well, the whole “Malkuth is in Keter / Keter is in Malkuth” thing aside. When you try to take this stuff into practice… shamanism, reality hacking, chaos magick, whatever paradigm you want to work in… you have the same situation where it can take you a long way, but you can just as easily think you’re lifting mountains with your mind when in reality you’re sitting in a corner masturbating.

I laugh, but it is sad to see people’s very genuine longing for a deeper experience of Life diverted into such nonsense. Tantric and sexual yoga, for instance, has been so used and abused– diverted into this egoistic demonstration of male prowess, masquerading as something healthy and empowering. People… please… the finest thing you can do with sex, the most arcane and healthy simultaneously, is make it a genuine expression of love as sincere heartfelt affection. You don’t need to collect energy or suck it from other people with your penis. You don’t need to go for hours and hours (tends to be rough on vaginas).

Come on now. You can’t meaningfully direct Kundalini or chi without first removing the ego-driven conceits that obstructed its flow in the first place. There is no end run or short cut around how we’ve been erroneously programmed since we were small children about sex and our animal natures.

I’ve been saying the same thing for quite some time. Also interesting to compare the Taoist sexual practices, which are strangely male-oriented, with some of the older Hindu Tantric practices, which place more of an emphasis on the female… That aside, without a connection it’s just masturbation, and without some amount of humbleness and adoration it’s just sport.

There is a lot of denigration and repression we have to shake off here. Ego demeans genuine love, and genuine love dispels ego. I mean, I’ve been there, I’ve naively played with these techniques, I’ve come out the other side of that dark forest. Men, listen to what intelligent, truly liberated women have to say about it. There’s a great deal of patriarchal conceit operative in these practices. The absence of equally strong feminine voices in these techniques’ traditions makes me very wary of them these days.

My own personal take on Yoga in general (with the capitol Y, as sublime “union”) has come to be that to the degree a person internally dispenses with ego and faulty conditioning (programming) they reconnect mind with body, restore instincts and awareness, clarify perception and thereby eventually find reality is exactly what it needs to be, and that there is really no need to try and tamper with its external aspects. Avoid too much forcing, instead entrain finesse.

There are no magic bullets. Fix yourself before you presume to fix the world. That’s where you can exercise the most significant affect.

Yeah. I feel like it’s far too easy to lead yourself astray talking about it too much… having led myself far astray with it in the past. I kind of branded myself initially in the ‘occult world,’ publishing through New Falcon, but by the time the Generation Hex anthology came out I was getting pretty wary of talking too much about the occult…

I myself found it tended to give it practitioner’s more opportunity to obsess over externals, and by way of those externals, ignore the internal issues that could ground them and provide some stability and clarity. So, hence you do tend to get people coming unhinged or enmeshed in ego-generated fantasies.

I segued into the Taoist and Zen approaches purposely to avoid falling prey to that myself. I mean, I did catch myself falling into that at times. Zen and classical Philosophical Taoism both offer methods s that can safeguard against that (but even those are not entirely immune). Maybe there are others as well, but those are the ones I’ve had the most resonance with.

It’s funny because I think it’s a really valuable tool, but if you take it as your primary means of interpreting reality it becomes primarily a means of driving yourself perfectly insane. Some of us need a little of that, to break us out of whatever we might be sleepwalking in, but if anything my natural disposition is to walk in the ‘ether’ and have no fucking clue what’s going on around me physically.

I certainly did. 

Robert Anton Wilson kicked my ass forward early on. That was crucial then and there.

Working so much on the computer doesn’t help. So my Occult need is to probably spend more time stretching or cooking food or lying in the sun, not “travelling the aethyrs.” That’s totally just me though.

Part of all of our evolutions I suppose. Eventually one is embarrassed by how the talking has exceeded the doing. Personally, my chagrin was enormous, but it propelled me forward, made me “transform.” It’s never-ending.

Maybe it could be framed in terms of healthy maturation, phasing out of adolescence, but not loosing creative vigor in the process. Simple things become more precious, the big dramatic stimuli can often start to seem overly crude or distracting. You learn you can make just as much progress, if not more, without having to press forward so zealously. You can abandon the training wheels.

I’m not so occultly- fond of tall pine groves, full moons on September nights, comical dogs and buccatini myself.

So, turning back to your artistic work, where can people check out more of it online?

Wokendreams.

You can also check out the first fourteen pages of the Medicine Show here.

James, it’s been a genuine pleasure. Let’s do it again soon. Keep that mojo rising!