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http://www.positivehealth.com/article/interviews/mantak-chia-a-modern-taoist-masterConserving energy by seminal retention is an exclusively male practice. How does a woman obtain the benefits of health and longevity?
Woman does not normally lose energy through orgasm, but through menstruation and childbirth. Taoist practices for women recycle menstrual energy, with the same benefits, of long life, good health and painless menstruation as well. But even for man, seminal retention by itself is not enough; non-ejaculatory orgasm without opening the Microcosmic Orbit leads to blockages in the sexual centre, sometimes with aching, congestion, wet dreams, headaches. Both man and woman must redirect energy through the Microcosmic Orbit, what the classics call the Small Heavenly Cycle. As above, so below – within each one of us is also a small universe, a small cosmos, yin and yang flowing together. In the act of sex, the moment of orgasm, yin and yang unite and the two heavenly cycles become one.
The Microcosmic Orbit, as you first described it many years ago,[4] has since appeared in books by various westerners on love, sex, tantra, sex-magic and shamanism. Some writers acknowledge you as the originator, others try – really quite hard in some cases – to disguise the origin. Have you any message for those who take credit for your work?
(Laughs): I'm glad they like it! If they help people to more fulfilled lives, they are helping me and I am grateful, and happy to help them. But some techniques can be dangerous if not done with care and preparation. For example, I am teaching Taoist Tantra, which has common roots with Hindu and Buddhist kundalini practices.[5] The Taoist way puts safety first, working with the energy-body, making sure channels are open and clear at each stage before going on to the next. We also practise Tai Chi and Iron Shirt Chi Kung to keep grounded. With some Indo/Tibetan (Hindu/Buddhist) systems there can be danger of activating too much energy before clearing channels and without proper grounding. This can overload the nervous system, with many painful side-effects. Tantra is known as the short path to enlightenment, but this short path could actually mean one whole lifetime of preparation and practice. You cannot learn it in a weekend.
True. Indian Tantric classics advise setting aside twelve years to prepare for awakening Kundalini,[6] but by following your Taoist teachings it took me only six. What about magic? Taoist, tantric, shamanic and wicca practices have similarities,[7] such as the protective circle, calling the elements, ecstatic journeying and flight, power animals and so on, but the Taoists don't use drums, rattles, robes or other articles of the craft. Are there common roots?
The Taoist Canon[8] describes how a group of Aryans were shipwrecked on the South China shore thousands of years ago. They did not die, nor have children, and became known as the Shining Ones. They transmitted their secret magical and healing practices to the shamans. When Buddhism came to China, shamans were persecuted, like witches in the west, so they became Taoists, rivals to the Buddhists, and continued their practices in secret, using only internal energy, internal alchemy, without the use of accessories to identify themselves. The saying goes "you cannot tell a sage by his clothes." They were also known as magicians, wizards and sorcerers. Yes, Taoism is magic.
What happened to the Shining Ones?
Who knows? Maybe still around but not in their physical body. They could leave when they want, astral travel, come back when they want.
Are you not afraid that you teach magical practices which could be misused?
Magic is like religion. It can be of great benefit, or cause great harm. In Taoist magic as in the Tao, there is no judgement – we are all responsible for ourselves. As long as you do not harm another being, you are free to do what you want.
Master Chia, you are a Hi-tech Taoist. You use mobile phones, computers, television. How do you protect yourself from "electronic pollution?"
Technology is very good. It releases us from drudgery. With electronics, you can keep yourself safe inside your energy bubble, and create an insulating bubble around the equipment.[9] As you know from our Taoist Healing practices[10] you can seal yourself from the condition of your patients, even serious contagious diseases. One healing practice is to internalise disease, then cleanse, energise and restore healthy energy to patient. Energy is vibration – we get the vibration right, nothing bad gets through. This is psychic self-defence, very important for healers. The more you work with contaminated energy, the more you need the protective practices, from Inner Smile right through to Kan & Li. This gives external protection, internal clarity and helps us live in modern society, and use the technology.
You have a genius for interpreting Chinese classics in a way that westerners can relate to. But your teaching has changed over the years, become less formulaic, more intuitive. The classics haven't changed, though. Are you re-interpreting the ancient secrets?
The old Masters taught one-to-one, reciting secret formulas obscured in codes. Many people could not read or write in those days.
They just practised the formulas, learning by experience and repetition, not asking questions, trusting the Master. That is how I learned from White Cloud, and how I started teaching. Now I've taught in the west for over twenty years, with workshops and group seminars.
Westerners have intellectual appreciation for theory. I have the benefit of feedback from my own direct students and over 700 Healing Tao instructors and their students. So we evolve and adapt. I learn from my students. The material is the same, just the delivery changes. Interpretation also changes, as modern science tells us things about the energy-field that ancient Taoists knew but did not have the vocabulary to explain and anyway wanted to keep secret. Now, for example, Deepak Chopra,[11] investigating ageing, talks about energy-information, energy-intelligence, bio-electromagnetic force. This is a modern scientist giving real sense of the meaning to what he calls prana, and the Taoist classics call 'Qi'.
What about immortality? There are stories of ancient sages who lived for many hundreds of years. Are they true? Is this the goal of the Healing Tao?[12]
If a sage died many hundreds of years old, then he is dead, not immortal! White Cloud told me his teacher was 250 years old. He had to go to his cave and put wax in the teacher's nose and other orifices to keep out insects and dust, and make sure the body was not eaten while his teacher's spirit was away travelling to source. What is immortality? Keeping the same body for ever, or awareness of your spirit in different incarnations? What is important is to be present in this life, learn to transform stress into vitality, develop compassion through love, recycle energy to keep the body healthy and in harmony with mind and spirit, learn to understand true nature as spirit – then you are open to possibilities beyond the cycle of life and death.
Thank you, Master Chia.
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