Let’s continue our discussion of experience along the path. This is the fourth video on the subject.
The NeiJing Tu Book
Somewhere along this timeline, I was asked by the publisher Singing Dragon to write a book on the NeiJing Tu - the Diagram of the Inner Realm - and Daoist Inner Alchemy.
A couple of interesting experiences fit into this discussion. When I was first asked, I had a good window of time to dedicate to the task and made good progress. I was coming up on finishing it, working away, sitting on the floor with a stack of books four feet high. This entire stack fell on my computer and knocked out the hard drive. I was unable to retrieve the data.
A year or so later, after essentially writing it again and improving and deepening my understanding, I came to see it as an intervention.
The Appendicitis Experience
The book journey was not yet complete. Later, I was on retreat for a couple weeks trying to finish the book (and also study with one of my teachers). I was staying in a cabin in the woods in Virginia by myself.
I started to feel uncomfortable in my body. I thought, “Pain is simply another sensation. I’ll forge ahead and accomplish this task.” But then I started to be unable to eat and keep it down, and finally, days later, unable to drink and keep it down. My discomfort was increasing, so it started to seem serious.
On maybe the fifth day of feeling uncomfortable, I realized I had crossed a threshold that was unwise to cross. Following my wife’s sage advice, I tried to get myself to a clinic, to a hospital. It was very remote and rural - the phone didn’t really work. I was in a lot of pain and didn’t have much energy.
You can see already the context of yet again the finishing of my book being interrupted through an apparent intervention - or perhaps coincidence. But what is coincidence?
I drove myself to this clinic that was maybe 30 miles away. It took all of the resources I had developed in my years of living to stay on the road. I went probably half the speed limit, just trying to keep going. I made it, and then I managed to make it to the window. Through a confusingly casual conversation with the clerk, she came to see the extremity of my situation. They got me into an ambulance - they couldn’t handle the severity at that clinic. They rushed me to a University of Virginia-associated hospital.
It turned out that my appendix had burst and I was going into sepsis. All of my organs were filling with fluid and getting hard, and I couldn’t breathe without pain. It was all very serious.
The Near-Death Experience
It sounds extreme in the context of appendicitis, but at some point in the hospital, I think I started to depart, to cross over, to let go into another realm.
The story is of contextual interest because of this intervention aspect, and then this near-death experience. In a very dream-like, otherworldly, other-realm experience, I was floating up toward light and beyond in a cloud-like, mist-like realm, and three angels appeared at my side and held my hands.
I don’t remember now if there was explicit communication, but it was very clearly nurturing, caring support. At that moment, there was a question of “what next, what now?” As I surveyed my inner landscape, I felt very clear that I needed to be there for my son. My daughter was not yet born.
So I came back. The angels brought me back and then were tangibly - I could feel them holding my hands - with me in the hospital room. I made it through. They didn’t even take out the appendix. They said it was necessary, but according to my research, it was not. With a nutritional IV and antibiotics, and I made it to the far side.
The near-death experience, and the experience with the angels, I think is relevant and interesting in this mystical experience context.
Spirit Interventions and Karmic Patterns
There’s also this interaction of, as I perceive it... I had a shaman friend once confirm to me that two different shamans at different times suggested or confirmed that these interruptions in the book writing were spirit interventions - perhaps the reiteration of a karmic pattern from the past in which another iteration of this coherence of being was somehow persecuted, if I remember correctly, for expressing themselves, for expressing myself.
It’s an interesting way to think about it, and a way that one might think about these apparently outlier but apparently meaningful moments in life that lead you in one direction or another, where there seems to be a turn, a pivot, a change.
Seeking a More Devotional Path
When we left off in the last video, I was talking about how an awakening experience led to the desire for a more devotional relationship to practice, and at the same time, a desire for more explicit relationship with a teacher or a tradition, explicit dialogue about awakening itself.
In Daoism and in my teacher’s way - Master Wu’s way - this discussion is not necessarily approached head-on. Though I talked about what I was experiencing and was met with quiet acknowledgment and respect, it wasn’t filling out that conversation in the way that I felt I needed. I don’t think it’s necessary - this is just what was shaping my choices.
Studying Bön Buddhism
I came upon Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a Bön Buddhist teacher, and the timing of the initial retreat and the Dzogchen cycle was fitting for me. Everything came together and I began studying in the Buddhist tradition. It’s a really beautiful tradition that I came to care for, respect, and become devoted to very easily, naturally, and quickly.
It also turned out to be a way into devotional practice in general. The structure of the practice includes prayers, meditation, physical practices, and energetic practices - lots of things I was familiar with, but with this additional layer of prayer.
Ngöndro Practice
In these traditions, when you begin - or sometimes you may repeat later - there’s a series of practices called ngöndro , which are foundational practices to prepare you and ripen your mind and energetic system for both awakening and the development of that awakening.
In these traditions, the introduction to the natural state, the awakening to things as they are, is at the beginning. It may or may not become apparent at that time, but that is when one receives it from the teacher.
The ngöndro comes in different forms in different lineages with different teachers. This one was a nine-part ngöndro with a prescription of 100,000 repetitions of each of these parts. So it might include, for example, an eight-syllable mantra repeated 100,000 times, counting with mala beads as you go. Or, it might be a physical practice like a series of mudra, or prostrations.
I didn’t complete it. I got about 650,000 repetitions into it. What I remember that was left to do were some prostrations and the 100-syllable mantra, which was quite long compared to the others, and one other.
Somewhere in here my daughter was born and my time availability changed, and life went in other directions.
Mystical Experiences During Ngöndro
But I’m sharing all this because I got far enough along in this recitation and deep immersion - essentially around-the-clock practice (I wouldn’t make great claims about my sleep practice, but it’s okay sometimes) - that it led to another round of mystical experience that was interesting and significant.
The most pervasive was a re-entry into the sparkling world, the radiant world, where all the granular parts of Being were luminous and vibrating all the time. I think that is one of the great benefits of this immersive retreat-style practice.
There was a time during this period in which I was seeing very detailed, fabulous mandala, gold and radiant, in sacred spaces or in nature.
These are interesting experiences that give a practitioner insight perhaps into the source of more manifest versions of these things, like in sacred paintings. These patterns are naturally emergent along the path.
This pattern of practice included prayers to begin, and then either non-meditation meditation (seated), or energetic practices, and then would resolve in prayer as well. It gave me access to, or a place for, my devotional instinct or drive to go. It held that devotion very naturally.
Returning to Daoism
In the end, I found that Daoism was still my home. If you think in terms of past lives, I think there’s probably overlap with both paths, but the weight of the Daoist path in me felt stronger. I was open to any possibility at the time, but that was where I arrived - back home in Daoism.
Ordination at Parting Clouds Temple
Then this opportunity to connect to temple-based lineages arose. First, the Parting Clouds Temple, QingYun Guan. I went there with a couple of Daoist brothers in 2018 or 2019, and we were all ordained for the first time.
Master Huang was an interesting teacher and had a lot to give. We didn’t get specific scriptural training. There was a talismanic healing tradition that he was passing on, and it included recitation of incantations especially, to activate and set the ground for the practice of drawing and giving talismans for healing.
Healing Experience with Talisman
I had an interesting experience. I’m going to let this video run on a little bit because I expect it to be the last for a while in this category.
When we went to the Parting Clouds Temple, I was mysteriously weak. I had a cloud of Lyme-like symptoms. Generally it was a fatigue and weakness that I hadn’t been able to resolve through my own practice. So while we were there, I asked for help from Master Huang and he agreed.
The dormitories at the temple were in disrepair, so we stayed at a hotel down in the nearest town. Master Huang came over one night. His method of diagnosis was to turn the lights off, perceive your qi body - it takes 10 seconds or so - turn them back on, and he’s got an idea of what to do.
He said, “I have two talismans I want to give you. Come tomorrow before we study. I’ll show you these talismans. I’ll make them and you can consume them.”
Consuming them in this case: they’re written in cinnabar on yellow rice paper. You then burn the talisman, letting the ash fall into a bowl of water that is then energized with that universal pattern. Then you consume the ashes and the water in three sips.
So I did this. The diagnosis was that a yin entity was clinging on. I took these talismans, we went about our day of study, and came back to the hotel.
Before, the fatigue was extreme - I couldn’t mow the lawn at home, there was too much effort. Walking through the airports to get to China, I’d get out of breath just walking on flat ground.
I got back at the end of that day. Our rooms were on the fifth floor. I was feeling good and I wanted to test the feeling. So I sprinted up five flights of stairs. Everything seemed perfectly resolved.
It was an interesting experience of this particular form of energetic healing.
The Complete Reality XuanWu Lineage
We were ordained there in the Complete Reality Quanzhen XuanWu lineage. XuanWu is the Dark Warrior, also known as ZhenWu. He was the 36th incarnation of LaoZi. 36 is complete yin - six times six. Six is a yin number, nine is a yang number.
This lineage is focused on talisman healing and cultivation.
Returning to Dragon Gate Caves
During that trip, the translator connected us to Master Huang. He was flipping through some pictures from when he had been at a Daoist conference recently - a national gathering in China. There was a picture of Master Zhu, my abbot friend from 2008.
I had a startled, strong reaction. “I know him! Can you take me to see him?” My spoken Chinese is not sufficient to travel on my own or to connect andreceive teachings.
That’s how it all came together that I was able to return to the Dragon Gate Caves and be ordained there. While the Parting Clouds ordination was special to me, the Dragon Gate connection was like coming home.
I think I described those experiences, the temple experiences, in another video already. When I first went, the experiences in the cave... the first thunderstorm of spring happened on the day I was ordained, including leaving some snow on the mountain. There were lots of beautiful synchronicities.
I don’t think there are more stories in this context to share from that journey.
The Arc of Experience
So why don’t we leave it there? It’s a lot to think upon. As we think about an arc of experience over the course of practice, at the beginning there are these sudden changes, maybe dramatic experiences - whether it’s saliva that tastes like honey, or that sudden awakening-style experience, the pulsing of the chakras. These are markers along the way.
Then I found, while there are moments of mystical experience that stand out from the others, the main thing happening is this persistence of a layer of clarity. I think this is the mirror experience that is with me all the time and has the opportunity to gradually massage out my misunderstandings, my perceptual misunderstandings of duality.
My access and direct understanding has improved over time. As much as I think I understand the feeling and state of things-as-they-are, the conceptual relationship to that does seem to develop and deepen over time.
I hope that mapping of experience is interesting and useful. Take care. See you soon.