The Hundred Remedies of the Tao with Greg Ripley

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:34):
And say.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
As the.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Game to say.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whichever the case may be.
For all of you listening out there across the crazy
planet Earth, welcome to a brand new of Vestiges after
Dark and I'm your host. Bishop Brian will come into

(02:11):
your life from the deep woods of western Georgia. On
this May twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. Tonight, we discuss
a brand new topic with a brand new guest, Greg Ripley,
who is a Taoist priest, to discuss Taoism and his

(02:34):
book on the subject of remedy. I guess you could
call it so. It'll be a very interesting conversation tonight,
one that you can engage with in the third hour.
Ask your questions. But first coming up on this first hours,
as always, questions from the ether don't go away. Well,

(03:53):
hello everybody, I hope you are having a wonderful evening here,
Ready to start Vesta disafter Dark with us and engage
this new topic of Taoism. It should be a really
interesting night for you. Jamie Wolf is not with us tonight,
she's on vacation, but we will be going forward as usual.

(04:13):
I have to say, you know, living out here in
the in the deep woods, as I call it, is
challenging on Vestiges night. As you know most of you know,
I'm a foodie. I try to eat as well as
possible every day of the week. I enjoy cuisine. I
like gourmet food, and so most of the time that

(04:37):
means that I end up cooking it because it's either
going to the city, which I don't always have the
patience for not so much. I don't like going to
the city. I don't like driving down there. I prefer
to stay off the Atlanta Interstate as much as possible
because it is really quite a miserable experience. If you've
ever ever been here, then you know what I'm talking about.

(05:00):
I think we've actually our traffic has exceeded Los Angeles,
if you can believe it. And I never thought anything
could be worse than Los Angeles. Well, Atlanta has at
least matched it. And so I don't you know, if
you don'tant good food, you're not going to get it
out in the boondocks of Western Georgia. You're gonna have

(05:21):
to go into the urban areas, and so that's just
not something I'm willing to do. So, you know, I
end up cooking a lot. But when I'm not willing
to cook, and I usually am not when I have
to get ready for this show and prepare myself, and
Tuesday is a office day. It's one of my work days,

(05:42):
so I'm really not in the mood to cook of
you know, extravagant gourmet meal or even a simple one
for that matter. What we tend to do is when
my wife comes. She works in the city, poor thing.
She has to deal with the traffic all the time.
But I think she actually likes, you know, she likes
the commute. Well, maybe likes the the silence of driving

(06:02):
by herself, being away from me. Probably I can imagine
I could be tough to live with, but she she
will sometimes pick up food for us on the way home.
And again, living out here, there's not a whole lot
of takeout that's any good, and so one of the
few things that has been somewhat tolerable is Taco bell.

(06:27):
I always can find room for a taco. I don't
particularly like going to Taco bell. I think there are
better ones out there, but not around here. So sometimes
I'm vestigious night, well recently in recent weeks at least
for this season I used to cook. We just decided

(06:47):
it was just too much. And so now she's been
picking up taco bell. So what she'll do, she'll call
me when she's at a certain point in her commute home,
and I will put the order in on the app,
and then she goes to the uh. She goes to
the to the drive through and picks it up. And
that's not been an issue. It's never been a problem.

(07:10):
But we've been getting some weird experiences in recent times.
And today was just took the cake. So, you know,
we ordered something for her, something for me, something for Levi,
and and you know it's on the app, so it's
not like you can have it get it wrong. But
they didn't hear you or put it in. They heard

(07:30):
you wrong over the speaker or something. It's all you
know already the order's done. She just goes there, gives
my name, she picks it up and goes, well, today
it was missing one person's order, like a lot of things,
about fifteen dollars worth of product was missing.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
And so.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
You know, she knew that I had to get ready
for the show. And so she says, you know what
you you and Levi you eat We all kind of
get similar things. So we had it worked, and she says,
I'm just gonna go back and get it. So while
she's going back, you know, I'm going into the app
to see if I can file a complaint about this.
And so I did, and there was an area and

(08:12):
so again, remember it's about fifteen dollars worth of product.
So I put in that you know, this item was missing,
this item was missing, this sid and I put it
through and you know, the app says it comes back
and says, we're so sorry you had a bad experience.
Here's three dollars off your next order. And that was it.
That was it. So no restitution for the loss, you know,

(08:32):
not that it's a whole lot of money, but still
it's the principle of the thing you paid for something
you didn't get it. You know, you should make good
on that if you're a company, a big company, and
and so you know, I was like, okay, well she's
going back to get it anyway, so you know it
won't be an issue. So she calls the manager while
she's get on her way over there and tells them what,

(08:52):
you know, what's missing, and he's apologetic and everything else. Oh,
I'll take care of it when you get here, you know.
Let you know, just tell tell him that you're you know,
tell them to tell me that you're there, and I'll
come out with your order. So she does that, okay,
she tells them exactly what's missing, tells you know. She
gets there, she says, he comes out with the bag,

(09:13):
profusely apologizes everything else, gives her, gives her the bag
of food, and she comes back home with it. So
she gives it to me to open up while she
goes and puts her stuff away. And I said to her,
I said, this is a joke, right, And she goes, no,
it's not a joke. What is going on? I open

(09:33):
it up. It's two large fries and some kind of
like dough ball with cinnamon sugar on it. I'm not
even sure what they call these things. But that's not
what we ordered. We ordered steak Burrito, Soft Taco Supreme
and Dodo Taco, and then we get two. So she
trusts the manager because he's the one handling the first problem.

(09:57):
And what does he do. He makes an ad aditional
mistake that's even worse, and so she just she says,
I'm not going back for that. So she ate the fry,
She ate the fries and the dough ball sports thing.
I don't know if that's a constitutes a proper meal,
but you know, I can only conclude that this level
of incompetence cannot be dismissed by just people that don't

(10:21):
give a shit or you know, people that are just incompetent.
I really think, and I sincerely believe this. I really
think that that we're starting to see the deficits to
the proliferation of marijuana now that it's socially acceptable, even

(10:45):
in places like Georgia where it's still illegal. I am
convinced that most people have gotten so good at at
operating high that they can fake it enough to look
as though they are not intoxicated, but making all the
mistakes as though they are. I'm convinced of it. I'm

(11:06):
convinced of it. I'll you remember an experience where when
I remember when I lived in Las Vegas twenty more
than twenty years ago, you went to a craps table
and the dealers were sharp as I mean sharp as knives.
You know, they could get that math out, and that's tough.
That's a tough game to deal. Let me tell you,
it's a tough game to deal. There's a lot of
calculations and a lot of people screaming and yelling and everything,

(11:29):
and you got to be fast. Mistakes were never made,
and I always marveled at that. You know, I play
a lot of craps. I played a lot of craps,
particularly back then and ever since in Nevada legalized marijuana.
I can't even tell you the mistakes. One of the
last times I was at a craps table. You know,

(11:54):
I don't know how much you guys know about craps.
When you shoot the point, you know, if you shoot
like you know, let's say five, I think it was.
Then they put a big they put a button that
says on on the number five. And there's dealers on
both sides of the table, and there's those numbers on
both sides of the table. So people at the other end,
and craps tables are pretty large at the other end
can see what that point is. Okay. So our dealer

(12:17):
had the number five. That was the number that I rolled. Okay.
The other the other dealer put eight. Where he got
that number, I don't know, but when I when I
shut when I rolled the the five and got the point,
which you win. When that happens, the people at the

(12:38):
other the other end of the table were complaining, oh
the points eight, No, I rolled a five. You know,
it's like those kinds of mistakes just never happened. And
this is not the only thing. I'm just giving you
one example. Ever since, ever since they legalized marijuana out there,
it has not been the same. It has not been

(13:00):
the same. I see more mistakes, sometimes in your own favor.
In those cases, I just say, you know what, shut
your mouth, don't even report, you know, the hell with it.
They probably cheating you half the time. Anyway, I'm not
gonna be honest about gambling, you know. It's it's if
you're going to be stupid enough, then well then you
pay the price. Right, So yeah, I don't. I don't.
It's not like I don't consider that, Honestly. It's not

(13:22):
like being at the store and somebody you know, runs
you up wrong at the register. That's a different matter.
When it's gambling, you know, too bad. That's how I
look at it. But anyway, I'm not a fan. I'm
not a fan of of this mentality, and and people
like that shouldn't have a job, plain and simple. It's
not rocket science. You're taking an order and you're putting

(13:43):
it together and then you're handing it out. It's not
rocket science. Okay, if I've did my job even even
half as badly as that, I wouldn't have one and
people could get hurt if I did that, so you know,
and and then you then you complain that you don't
get a living wage. Well, do your job right and

(14:05):
then maybe things will change. So yeah, I'm kind of
pussy sorry about that, but I just had to talk
about it because you know, what the hell joining us
from Australia tonight is, Father Chris, how are you doing
out there? Father?

Speaker 5 (14:19):
I'm okay, thanks for that hospital pass. You know, I'm
going to suck all the fun out of the room
and then hand over to crazy.

Speaker 6 (14:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Well, you know, I mean I don't I don't have
Jamie with me tonight to kind of, like, you know,
have a little pre conversations. I had to come up
with something, That's all I got to know.

Speaker 5 (14:42):
I had to say it was. It was one of
the things that I mean, I'm pretty much a libertarian,
so so you know, prohibition laws are notoriously bad. So
I was, you know, the best ambivalent about the idea
of cannabis being illegal or what have you. But that
trips the last trip of IDEs of the USA, not
in Georgia. Georgia was a welcome respite from it, to

(15:05):
be honest, But in California and in Vegas, I couldn't
the stinking smell of that bloody, awful stuff everywhere a beer.
It's just disgusting. And so I actually came back thinking,
oh gosh, you know there is actually a public interest
reason to at least ban it from being used in public. Well,

(15:27):
it is.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
The thing is, you've also got this in Nevada. It
is you're not supposed to walk around the street that
they don't enforce it.

Speaker 5 (15:35):
Well, you can smell the shops from a mile away.
Then the strip's only a mile long. So yeah, it's yeah.
I mean, I think there's a kind of a correlation
of things going on here. I mean, you've got generations
of a very bad education system where they've placed all
sorts of esoteric not in the sense we talk about esoteric,

(15:57):
all sorts of very strange doctrines being taught in the
absence of actual things that you need to know, like
adding up and reading, because that's undo the problem, right
if you can't read, getting order right, And so that's
that's one thing that's happened. Also, the correlation is that

(16:19):
the legislators that would be willing to legalize cannabis are
also part of that system. So I think you've got
we're basically generationally dumber than our ancestors.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
Oh, absolutely, no question about that. I definitely see the
degradation problem, and that is you're right now, You're you're
right on target there. I mean anecdotally, you know, I
can say that cannabis has added to the problem. I
think it's just making a bad problem a lot worse.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
It's not going to make any better.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
Well, because you know alcohol, you can't you can't play
that game. Okay, people are gonna are gonna definitely know
when you've been drinking.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
You can make it. Yeah, you can make it. So
bonning is a bad idea.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
No, I don't believe in banning it, but I definitely
I think that doesn't mean you have to socialize it.
You can make something legal like porn for example. I
mean I don't I mean I don't like it. I
actually hate it. I think it is disastrous to society.
I wouldn't want to criminalize it. However, if you're into porn, yeah,

(17:28):
people are not going to necessarily go out and advertise
that and expect that people are going to be happy.
So most people keep that kind of thing to themselves.
I think marijuana needs to be like that. It's like, okay, fine,
I don't have anything against making keeping it legal or
making it legal. I don't care. It's not part of
my life. I have no interest in it. I will

(17:49):
never partake in it, so it doesn't matter to me.
But you know, I don't need to hear about it,
and don't expect kind words from me if you tell
me about it, because I don't. I I am very
critical of it. I am extremely critical of I'm more
critical of it now than I was even just five
or or even three years ago, just because I'm tired

(18:10):
of seeing its effects. And I have personal reasons for
this that I'm not going to get into because I
don't want to uh to talk about people behind their back.
But there are people that I know, and I have
seen the the deterioration of performance, and I know it's

(18:31):
absolutely the result of of of prolific marijuana use. Uh,
it does do damage. It does, it absolutely does. People
may market it like it's some kind of safe drug
or better than alcohol and all this stuff, and it's like, look,
none of this ship's good for you, right.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
But oh, and there's there's a serious data that is
deliberately ignored about the connection between cannabis use and extreme violence.
So when you're high, you're not you don't get aggressive
like you do on alcohol. Well that might be true
during the experience of getting high, but chronically there's a

(19:12):
deep connection between and I mean extreme violence. I'm not
talking about you know, everyday assault, extreme violence, and cann
of issues. Yeah, and it gets ignored, you know, because
it's inconvenient at the moment to talk about things like that.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
I think it should be medically medically managed, Honestly, I
think it really should stick to the realm of medicine.
I don't think recreation is really where it belongs, you know,
anymore than you know, you should be taking benadryl, you know,
or mixing benadryl with something to kind of get a high,
or sniffing glue. I mean, these are legal products, but

(19:46):
you know, these are not things that we should be
using in any recreational sense. You know, Benadryl. I'll be
honest with you, that stuff makes me mean and nasty
if you if you it really does, so I stay
away from it, I really do. But you know, if
I have to take it, like if I get a
local histamine reaction or something that only Benagil can take

(20:09):
care of. And there are some allergies that only Benagil
seems to work for. Usually it's it's irritation from the
beach or something sea license or something like that where
you get a lot of bites and you know, it
creates a swelling effect that only Benajoel takes care of.
I take it at night. I don't go out, I
stay away from people. I take responsible uh precautions when

(20:33):
I have to take a medication that I know affects
me adversely, and I'm not taking it recreationally. I'm taking
only when needed. That's different, you know, it's it's it's
I have my reservations about it. Is it legal down
in Australia or no?

Speaker 7 (20:47):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (20:48):
And you can it's prescribed so okay medical medical because
it does have some medical uses of course, so yeah,
it can be Obviously you can buy it anyway you like,
of course illegally, yeah, yeah, but it's managed through I
think it's done through vapes as well. I think I

(21:08):
think it's kind of a vape that people are given for,
you know, for various pain control or the.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, I think under the care of a doctor. I
think that's perfectly fun like any other kind of substance
where you know, there needs to be some kind of monitoring.
You know, you talk about symptoms, and there's mindfulness because
you're held accountable, presumably by your doctor. You know, it's
not just being all fun and games. And look, it

(21:34):
can affect people very differently. I've known people that that
can smoke marijuana and it's like nothing, they don't even
it does nothing. And then I've known people that they
lose their minds when they're on it, and they don't
even realize that. The paranoia sets in and they don't
even know how paranoid they're sounding, and you can see
the escalation. They like try to talk to me, and

(21:54):
I'll be like, you know what, go sleep off your
bullshit and then call me in the morning to I tried.

Speaker 5 (22:02):
It as a kid and it had absolutely no effects
on me.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
One of those Yeah, what's the point of this. Then
I had a preest, my mentor the priest that taught
me everything that I know. Honestly, he tried it once.
He was with the kids, and of course he was
you know, this was in the sixties, so it was
a different time, but he, you know, they were they
talked him into it, and he's like, yeah, I guess

(22:27):
he was trying to be relatable. I don't know, and uh.
And he smoked a joint with them, and so I
asked him, I said, so, how was it, and he says,
he says, honestly, he says, I thought it was. It
was much more mild than alcohol. And he said, well,
you're one of those people where it doesn't affect them
very much. But there are people just like alcohol. Same thing.
There's people like me. I can drink copious amounts of

(22:48):
alcohol and you'd never even know it. I remember, I
maintained my you have to get me to almost a
dangerous amount of alcohol to put me to the point
where I start to actually respond in a way that
would be obviously drunk or at least intoxicated on some level.
But there are people that you give them one drink
and they're just flying, and they can get mean. Some

(23:10):
people get mean, some people get really sleepy, some people
get really silly, or some people just get like me,
you know, quiet and contemplative or even maybe more coherent,
you know, I mean honestly, but I mean I think
it's everyone has a different you know, biology, and I
do think these substances affect people differently. So I would
never say, definitely, never criminalize it. I think that's awful.

(23:33):
But at the same time, I think that making it
socially acceptable as a recreational product I think is very proper.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
And that's what But that is one of the effects
of legalizing something, unfortunately, you know, because it makes it
it is a social statement as well. And yeah, yeah,
that's the sort of dilemma because instinctively I don't like
things to be illegal.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
No oh no, no, I'm a libertarian. I think people
should be responsible. Unfortunately, most people are not responsible. That's
where it becomes problematic.

Speaker 5 (24:01):
And see, I get atop like that because it's very
severe consequences.

Speaker 4 (24:06):
Well there you go exactly exactly, you know, and and uh,
you know, I mean I can't even tell you even
in Georgia, father, you'll be at a stoplight with you know,
in the spring or the fall, when it's cool out,
you might have your windows down. I don't do that
too often, but sometimes I'll put windows down and and

(24:27):
and you'll start smelling that skunk and the guy is
smoking a joint next to you or something, and it's
like you're driving a fucking car, you know. I mean
that pisses me off. That pisses me because that you know,
it could be my son driving a car one day
and he gets hit by someone like that, you know
what I mean. It's like, I'm always thinking about think

(24:48):
about the consequences. You're not alone out here, and maybe
nobody wants to be involved in that. So you make
that a you thing, but don't don't bring me into
your insanity.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
Like well, see, that is the difference between a libertarian
and a libertine. Yeah, so a libertarian thinks, yeah, freedom,
but not but not the freedom to harm other people.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (25:14):
You don't harm yourself if you want. Although I'm actually
not like that. I'm a bit more like a Milton
Friedman rather than Iron Rand kind of a person. I
don't think you are free to hurt yourself because you
belong to God, you know. So that's where my conservatism
kicks in.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
But you know it's uh, well yeah, but I mean,
but you agree though, that government really doesn't have the
right to enforce your relationship to God either, so you know,
it's still a personal response.

Speaker 5 (25:41):
I still don't think the government should should make me.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
Be exactly you should be you should be, Jo, Yeah, yes,
exactly joining us from Tennessee is Brandon. How you doing, Brandon?
I'm sure. I'm sure you don't have to worry too
much about one out there, do you?

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (26:03):
Is it bad in Tennessee or not? I don't know.
It's Knoxville probably right, It's not too bad, not too bad.

Speaker 5 (26:11):
I live, but.

Speaker 8 (26:14):
Let's just say I do end up working kind of
around a bunch of people that do that, and it's
it's not for me. I'm more do what you want responsibly,
but ultimately it's not for you.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
No, No, I don't blame it. And it's not like
a nice cigar, you know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (26:40):
The thing is, I can't stay around it for too
long because every time I'm near it, I get a
massive headache, and I rarely get headaches, so I just
avoid it entirely.

Speaker 5 (26:52):
Like U.

Speaker 8 (26:53):
Sometimes we'll have a person smoking right by our prints
and just walking by. It hits me badly. No, yeah,
I want to pick up the person and move them
and say go over there.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
Wow. Yeah, I'm telling you it's it's just keep it
home and do it with the guidance of a doctor.
You know, recreationally. You're not going to get my support
on on that, you know. That's the way I look
at it. I do think, you know, people that are
terminally ill cancered. It might help some people. Maybe, I

(27:27):
don't know. I mean, some people report it helps, but
I'm not a fan. Not a fan. Okay, let's get
to questions from the ether. What do we get for
the first one tonight? All right?

Speaker 8 (27:38):
So the first one my question comes from Matthew chapter
twenty seven, where it talks about Jesus being betrayed and
how they feel of blood got its name. Versus nine
through ten reads that this was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.
But I couldn't find anything in Jeremiah remotely connected to this?
So did Matthew mean Zachariah, as that's what's most commonly

(28:00):
cited for the prophecy of the Messiah being betrayed for
thirty pieces of silver.

Speaker 5 (28:06):
Now this is this is this is a Bible issue.
This is the fact that we generally, especially those using
the King James version, have a Bible based on the
Messeritic text, the Hebrew Bible. Jesus was quoting the set
tu Agent, the what we call the Greek Bible. So
if you look in the set two agent, you'll find
there's a correlation.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
Yeah, the reference that Father Chris, I mean, well, the
the verse goes and this is this is from the
New American where is it here? And for this reason
that field has been called the field of blood to
this day. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the

(28:49):
prophet was fulfilled, and they took the thirty pieces of
silver the price of the one whose price had been
set by the sons of Israel, and they gave them
for the potters feel just as the Lord directed me.
You know it is it is also generally thought that
it was a thematic reference. Oh yes, What Father Chris

(29:10):
is saying is that depending upon the source material it,
it could have an effect as to what the reference
or the actual historical reference was. Too. Clearly, it's referencing
something I don't think it's a scribal error or anything
like that. It can also be explained through oral tradition.

(29:33):
And I think sometimes we forget that the ancient world
depended largely on oral tradition, far more so than they
did on the written word.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
Like we do.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
We are so used to putting things down in print,
you know, legal documents, contracts. If it's not written, it's
not it's not it's not legitimate. Like try to buy
a house on a verbal agreement. That would be a
really bad idea. Things might not go well for you
without having the actual documentation there to prove that these

(30:07):
are the terms, and it's sort of written in stone,
so to speak. In the ancient world, it wasn't like this.
Paper was expensive, and even more expensive than paper was
a scholarship, and scholarship included being able to read and write,
which most people could not. So unless you had a
lot of leisure time, which meant you were rich, you

(30:29):
might not know how to read or write things down.
So oral tradition became even more significantly important. And so
as we break that down to how some of this
got recorded. When they finally decided to say, okay, this
needs to be preserved for posterity, and then beyond that,

(30:52):
you know, the multiple translations that came from different source
materials all the way down to where we're at today.
Little things like this can be a discrepancy that would
need to be explained by biblical scholars. So it doesn't
invalidate the document or the Word of God itself as

(31:16):
in any kind of religious or theological sense. What it
does is it shows that there's a whole lot more
to the history than is generally understood, and so therefore
there were different, you know, different things or different perspectives
that would have been put in and implied to different
verses and their interpretations based upon again as Father Chris's

(31:38):
source material, oral tradition, or even just thematic reference. Thematic
reference was also a thing, you know, we today try
to because we have again this obsession with exact exactness,
that everything has to be precise and accurate to the

(31:59):
furthest degree possible. The ancient world did not think like that.
It was more important to understand the concept than it
was to actually understood all the circumstances that led up
to it. You see this all throughout the Gospels, because
it's very clear when they're writing about the life of Jesus.
They're not recording a chronicle of his of his history.

(32:21):
They're recording a conceptualization of the Messiah as the incarnate God,
and that's the motivation there. They don't care if all
the little nitty gritty details as to who was here
and where was you know, was it the passover at
the Last Supper, was it some other meal? You know,

(32:41):
things like that were not recorded for that type of
historical exactitude. It was more about what kind of thematic
message were you trying to portray, And in the mind
of the ancient of the Asian person, that was the

(33:01):
more authentic telling, not so much that you were recording
history exactly as it had unfolded, but more so that
you got the thematic references correct and that you were
handing that on because that's what they thought was important.
They didn't think the exact details as to what day
Jesus did this at on mattered. What did matter is

(33:25):
what did he do and what did what did it mean?
And what from what he did applies to the people
that will come after him. That's how they looked at it.
So that explained some of these discrepancies like this one.

Speaker 5 (33:45):
Okay, yeah, I mean the Gospel. I mean we think
about the Gospels obviously because our context is Matthew mart
Luke John acts as Loop part two, right, But god
spool is also a genre of literature, just because we
know every single book of that genre, and the genre

(34:08):
was invented by whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark, and
so gospel is its own specific genre. It's not biography,
it's not history, it's not philosophy, it's not poetry. But
it has all of those things included within it. So

(34:31):
that's why it can be difficult. It can be difficult
to sort of discuss these things, certainly with people hostile
to the Church, because well, it's a little bit like
when people who are hostile use Genesis as a kind
of they use they use science to mock the Book

(34:51):
of Genesis as though as though Genesis is the same
genre as a science textbook, their different genre. But the
problem is is that it's at the the idea of
genre and what goes behind that is a subject of
the liberal arts and not of science, and so it's
poorly understood by a lot of people.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
We just like the Nativity stories, I mean, they don't
match up at all and one gospel eliminates it all together,
you know, and then you look at the extra canonical
Nativity stories, they don't match up, you know. So again
the ancients were trying to pass on the thematic reference

(35:33):
they weren't concerned with like this happened on Tuesday, the
twenty fourth of this month at eight o'clock PM or
eight oh three pm. You know, let's make sure it's exactly.
They were not writing a court manuscript. Okay, it wasn't.
It wasn't a transcript of a of a case. It

(35:54):
was a It was a thematic message that was deeply spiritual,
and the only way to truly connect what with it
was to move beyond the material elements. That's sort of
gotten the way, at least as far as they I.

Speaker 5 (36:10):
Think one of the things that actually takes us away
from that understanding. I mean, look, you know, I'm I'm
of the school that says the Gospels come to us, yes,
partly through eventually through writing. But if you think about
the Gospel of John, for example, I'm of the school
that says, no, this has come down to us through
the celebration of the Liturgy of the Mass. Yes that

(36:33):
you know that because you can. You can you can
sort of you can read it when you're looking at
John you can see, you know, these are the apostles
sharing the accounts of Jesus' life in light of what
they know post resurrections. So but one of the things
that causes a problem is that we have a scholarly

(36:54):
approach the scriptures, which is quite correct, by the way,
But we then, because we have that mindset, we assumed
that the writers of those gospels had that same mindset.
And they didn't.

Speaker 4 (37:06):
No, they didn't.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
And so they weren't writing some masterpiece of exegesis, you know,
they were they were writing for I mean, like Bishop
Bryan said, many thought that Christ would return in their
own lifetime. And so when when as time passed and
apostles were dying, they thought, oh, maybe we do need

(37:27):
to have some of this recorded to What they were
concerned with was handing on the message, handing on the Gospel,
the good news of Jesus Christ. That was their primary concern,
not not not writing a sophisticated treatise that would that
would satisfy an exegesis in the twenty first century. I mean,
you know, but but because that's our approach. You know,

(37:50):
that's the mindset we take into it. It's also a
reason why sort of Bible only churches are so restricted
and limited in in how they can comprehend the Gospel.
And while they become superstitious of things, they don't understand
because most of what was handed on was was was
not in the scriptures. It was handed on through traditio,

(38:15):
through the traditions, through the you know, well St. Paul
says it in the scriptures, you know, so I handed
on what I received on the night was betrayed.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
You know.

Speaker 5 (38:25):
So there is a sort of a conception issue that
we tend to think about the scriptures rightly through our
own sort of academic approach over the last certainly last
six hundred years. But that's not how the writers were
thinking about it. And the reason, but the reason we
have confidence in the scriptures, and this is what's so

(38:45):
important from a Catholic Orthodox perspective, is that these are
the scriptures the Church settled on and gave authority to.
And so you have you have the marrying of this
of this traditio, this handing on from generation to generation,
through the through the Apostolic succession, through the bishops with this,
this library of books, which is authorized by the church.

(39:08):
That's why we can have confidence in them.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
Yeah, well said, there you go.

Speaker 8 (39:13):
I do think what is interesting, though, is that we're
able to acknowledge that there are discrepancies, but able to
explain the deeper indications as to why that is, versus
in some other churches, say the ones I grew up in,
where we just flat out deny. No, there's no discrepancy,

(39:34):
there's no contradiction, there's there's nothing you're it's just you're misinterpreting.
So I do appreciate the fact that we can explain, yes,
it is, but here's why.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
I mean, that's just honestly, that's just poor scholarship. It's
it's poor scholarship makes it more believable. Well, yeah, that's true,
but I mean it's it's it really comes down to
just poor scholarship. I mean, the problem is, this is
what happens when you establish a church that is not
built upon good theology, when you don't have good theologians

(40:08):
that can sort through the complexity of this material. It's
kind of like the difference between going to you know,
one of the best surgeons in the country for a
medical problem, and you know, or choosing a witch doctor.
You know, I mean the witch doctor thinks he knows

(40:30):
what he's doing, but does he have the training? Does
he have the education of the skilled surgeon who you
know has proven himself. I would guarantee you he doesn't.
That's what happens, you know. So what this is is
that because religion is not regulated like medicine is, people
can get away with it. And and you know, just

(40:52):
because somebody goes and graduates from a Bible college doesn't
mean that whatever is being taught in that curriculum as
of any intrinsic value theologically. I mean, well, the other thing.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
Is, and we've got all the questions to get to,
but I think this is a good one. The other
thing is that if you take an approach that says
I'm just going to begin for the Bible or going
to begin from the scriptures in every generation, you're wasting
their time. I mean, why you're doing the work that's
been done. But you know, I mean the traditionalist, the Catholic,

(41:28):
the conservative, if you want to say, with a small
sat approach is a humble approach. You say, actually, ironically,
there's a Baptist the elosion. Paul Fiddis think his name is,
who's Harris Manchester College in Oxford, and he's been promoting
to Baptists saying, actually, we should get closer to what
those closest to the source thought about the scriptures, and well,

(41:51):
welcome to the Catholic Church, you know. And so by
the way, he would know, he's far smarter than me,
he would know that. But you know, so, uh, I
think the burden they're they're binding on themselves. And then
the other irony is is that is that really they
do have a traditional approach. It's just that they think

(42:11):
their tradition begins about two hundred years ago, because because
they'll quote they'll quote their favorite you know, Protestant Bible people,
you know, from Luther onwards. And so yeah, it's a
weird kind of approach that they've got a tradition that's
divorced from its source and they bind this burden on

(42:35):
themselves in every generation of having to start from scratch.
And I think that's a really bad idea approach. The
author's approaches to say we start from scratching our own time.
But you know, in terms of our ability to comprehend
what's gone before, but but we receive what's gone before
in humility.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
Yep, Well said, all right, what's our next one?

Speaker 8 (43:00):
So the next one is regarding a picture of what
seems to be Buddha in the lotus position on a cross,
and is just asking a general question about is this
an actual thing, Buddha being on a cross and what
does it mean?

Speaker 4 (43:15):
Yeah, I remember that picture. I don't I can't bring
it up on screen for our audience, but it was
essentially as you described it, and I had not. I mean,
I've seen syncretic pieces of art like this, and there's
definitely a strong Christian influence in Japan. But I think
it was Father Firth, who sometimes watches this show, a
friend of Father Chris, who I was able to identify it,

(43:39):
and he described it as a cross from a peer
from a time in Japan where Christianity was actually illegal,
it had been banned, and so the Christians would put
up these crosses on the wall, but only put the
Buddha visible when people came over, so that they could
never be accused of being Christian, which was again a

(44:02):
crime at this point in Japan.

Speaker 5 (44:04):
A capital crime.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
Yes, it was a capital Yeah, you could be executed presumably,
and so when when they were by themselves, they could
take the entire veil off and it would show the cross.
So it wasn't to indicate that Buddha was you know,
Jesus or something, or or that you know, Buddha was crucified.
It wasn't to depict that. It was basically to put

(44:28):
a symbol up there that was safe and then to
have the real symbol hidden behind it. So it was
kind of like practicing in secret. And I found that interesting.
So when he had put out that description on the network,
I did some research into it to get to learn
more about it. And indeed that was a relatively common

(44:50):
thing at that period of time in Japan. So some
of these artifacts still exist today. But it doesn't have
any any any any kind of esoteric meaning beyond that
it was just basically a safe way of not getting
killed for being a Christians.

Speaker 8 (45:07):
I guess for reference for those watching.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
Oh there you go, okay, good, Yeah, I'll go ahead
and talk again. So the camera shows you.

Speaker 8 (45:16):
So, yeah, this is probably not the best picture of
the best quality, but this is the picture that was
on the Network of a food on the cross.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
Perfect. Yeah, that came out very clear. So, yeah, that's
what that is. And father Firth was absolutely correct.

Speaker 8 (45:35):
And for the third question, we might have time for
this one, Yeah, we do.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
So.

Speaker 8 (45:41):
I had attempted to gain access to investigate the local
movie theater. While I was ultimately turned down, a coworker
and I were talking about it. I had asked her
if she had any ideas on how it was haunted,
and she said, it's probably a mixture of horror movies
that use actual spells on set, and that a theater
is public property, so demons don't need permission to enter.

(46:02):
Does any of those sound remotely plausible?

Speaker 4 (46:06):
Okay, so the first part of the question or the
first part of the answer, I guess where it's because
horror movies use actual spells on set. Yes, that does
indeed happen, although I wouldn't necessarily say it's so much
using actual spells is using the actual elements of various

(46:30):
occult symbology like sigils and things like this. I can
testify to that happening for sure. When I consulted for
the Conjuring Three, one of the actors that I was
working with and we became friendly afterwards, you know, had

(46:50):
a sigil that was sort of with the art department
had painted on to her to make it look like
a tattoo. Obviously it wasn't a permanent one. But she
showed it to me and she was like, is you
know you know what? I hope this isn't going to

(47:11):
be a bad thing. It's like, well, is it real?
She goes, I don't know, I hope not. And I
looked at it, and sure enough, it was indeed an
actual sigil of the demon that was being represented in
the franchise. So that is what movies do, and yes,
that does indeed create paranormal disturbances because the cosmos does

(47:39):
not know the difference between fiction and nonfiction, It doesn't
have a frame of reference for that. In a way,
everything is is is arbitrarily one or the other or both.
What is actual? When you think about it, we don't
really know anything actual. God's actual. But look at how

(48:00):
difficult it is to know God in any tangible sense
because we're so far removed from actuality that we can't
see it. And even when it's right in front of
our face. That's what makes God feel so distant. You
realize it's not that he's far away from us is
that we're far away from him. Well, we keep moving
away by engaging with the fiction of our own lives,
our own identities, everything that we want to believe is

(48:22):
true about the about creation, and completely refusing to see
everything that's actual about creation. So we do this all
the time, and the cosmos responds in kind. So it's
like it can't tell the difference between a you know,
an actor using a sigil for a for a performance
or an actual demonic ritual where somebody's trying to conjure
a demon. It doesn't know the difference. Sorry, father, what

(48:42):
do you have to say to that?

Speaker 5 (48:43):
No, I was just I've said it before on the show.
I was going to develop it a bit more, which is,
you know, after the Fall, God doesn't hide from Adam.
Adam hides from God. Yeah, and you know I was
going to extend that out. So if you think about
people in your life who who resist, I understand why

(49:04):
people find it hard to believe in God. You know,
terrible things happen in your life and all the rest
of it. Although interestingly, people who have who suffer trauma
and terrible sacrifice often and not the people that find
it hard to believe in God. But what the people
I call the worried, Well, they're the ones that sit back,

(49:28):
you know, sipping prosecco, saying, oh, they can't possibly be
a god, you know, blah blah blah. But there is
a sort of.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Just because they should be drinking. That's because they should
be drinking champagne. Let's face it.

Speaker 5 (49:40):
Well, well, yeah, but you have French origins, so you're biased.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
I am very biased, you know.

Speaker 5 (49:51):
But the image of the hound of Heaven is a
real one, right, there's a sense that people who are
in that situation. And I was one, by the way,
so this is I'm having I'm attacking myself, you know.
I was like that when I was until I was
about seventeen when I decided to change my mind Metanoi.
But often it is a sense of if you think

(50:16):
of it as they are adam hiding from God. You know,
they're doing everything they can philosophically, practically to keep escaping
the God they say they can't see or refuse to see.
It's more a case that they refuse to see him.
The hound of Heaven is the image that in fact
God is like a hound chasing after you. Not to

(50:39):
devour you, but to embrace you. And I think you
know when you're engaging with people sharing faith, because we
are called to be evangelists. That's not something priests do.
That's something everybody does who's been baptized. It's literally in
the baptismal liturgy that it's quite a good image to have.

(51:00):
Not that you should be like a hound like hounding them,
but but that that people are in effect until they're
willing to be open to seeing that God has in
fact been around them the whole time and still is
and in fact particularly is through you. Until they're real

(51:21):
you know that that's where you've got to. That's where
that's where you should spend your time, at the level
of enabling somebody to have a mindset shift. And you
do that through through grace. You do that through you know,
nobody wants to lose face or be embarrassed, and so

(51:42):
but that's where the work should be, enabling somebody to
be able to be able to take a mind shift.
And then God does the rest because God's already there,
He's there ahead of you, right and and that's really
what brings people to to a relationship with God is
enabling that mind shift, and so it's a good image.

(52:04):
You know that Adam hides from God. Remember that we do.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
We've been running ever since exactly.

Speaker 5 (52:14):
Know God is real. Yeah, you know we still run
from time society. We need a confessional.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
That's true, that's true. The second part of the question, though,
is inaccurate or the second part of the answer to
that question that demons don't need that demons, well, it's
public that demons don't need permission to enter. Wait, let
me read that again. So are they saying is she

(52:39):
saying is she asking if demons need permission to enter
or don't need permission to enter?

Speaker 8 (52:46):
No, I think it was since it's public property, they
don't need permission.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Okay, all right there, I got you. Okay, So that's
not correct because it's has nothing to do with public
property and demons do not ask permission. Okay. The the
fact is, when we participate in evil, we bring evil

(53:11):
to us. Okay, it's as simple as that. It's not
as though. I mean, I know Scripture has that passage,
you know, the devil's crawling around like a roaring lion,
lion looking for someone to devour. You know, I know
that that's an image. Yeah, Yeah, that is I know
that's an image. Yeah, that that makes it sound as

(53:33):
though there's all these demons out there just looking for
an opportunity. But in reality, that's that's that's a true
and extreme metaphor for the reality of it, which is
that it's the simple occult law of li like attracts like.
The more you engage with the darkness, the more the

(53:54):
darkness becomes you. And that's it's as simple as that. Okay.
So it's a is these haunted locations, if if there
were things that were done in those locations that uh
were in that that involved a lot of dark, malicious energy,

(54:15):
then dark malicious things will spawn from that location. It's
it's just because that's how it works, which is why
you should I mean, I'm a I'm a I'm guilty
of this one. Okay. We we should really be optimists,
even though it sometimes betrays us to be optimists. And
I think that's why a lot of us become pessimists,

(54:35):
particularly as we get older, because we're tired of being
betrayed by our optimism. I get it. I was one
of them, I've been one of them. I still am
one of them, and uh, it's made me a very
pessimistic person. But we really shouldn't be negative, not because
not just because we really don't have any reason to be.
But at the same time, it is it is going

(54:55):
to just fuel the fire of negativity in our lives.
So if you really we want and I'm not arguing
the power of positive thinking, it's not that simple. It's
not just as simple as being like, well, think positively
and then all all of a sudden good things come
to you. It's not quite like that either. But it
is true that like attracts like, and until we can

(55:18):
engage authentically with positivity, then positivity has a hard time
staying attached to us. Likewise, we have an easier time
attaching to negativity, or at least engaging with negativity authentically.
See that's the problem. It's exactly related, ironically to what
Father Chris was saying about Adam running from God. It's easier,

(55:42):
it's always been easier to engage with the negative because
in a fallen and tropic universe, it is programmed now
towards the negative. So the negative feels more real, it's
more authentic, and it's more predictable. So we tend to
we tend to focus on that which and attracts all
this negative energy, which is where Murphy's law comes from.

(56:04):
If something can go wrong, it will, and it usually does.
It's absolute. I mean, this is why there's superstitions all
throughout the world where if you don't talk about bad
things because you'll make them happen. There's a Islamic culture.
You know, a lot of people don't know this, particularly
Arabic Islamic culture. You don't talk about bad things because

(56:27):
there is a strong belief which is probably going back
to pre Islamic times in the Arabian Peninsula. However, it's
still carried on that they believe that if you talk
about something, you'll make it happen. And so if you
talk about negative things, these negative things will happen. So
you never discuss it. You'll talk about like they won't

(56:49):
even talk about cancer. They'll talk about they'll say that
disease that we do not name, kind of like Voldemort
and Harry Potter. They will actually say that disease we
will not name because if you say cancer, you make
it happen. And this is because there is and there
is a metaphysical truth here, and that's really how it happened,

(57:10):
But it's not about demons looking for permission or whether
or not they have it. That's just a bunch of
that's a bunch of nonsense. That's that's somebody that probably
watched one too many episodes of of Supernatural. It does
not work like that. What it works like it's it's
really more along the lines of of you, you attract
what you put out there. So if you're putting a
lot of negative, nasty, angry, uh energy, then don't be

(57:34):
surprised if your life is just full of that coming back,
which just makes you more angry and vicious and nasty
and then just keeps creating a vicious catch twenty two.
This this cycle that never stops. You have to make
a choice. You've got to make a choice to break
that cycle. And that's hard because that's going that's swimming
up current. That's that's that's good, that's that's that's literally

(57:57):
going against the grain of how fallen Universe works because
it's constantly falling, it's constantly breaking down, So it's easier
to go with the flow and to just anticipate and
expect that bad things are going to happen, and then
it doesn't feel so bad when they do, because you
feel like, well, you weren't taken off guard. But in
order to do in order to attract real good things

(58:19):
to your life, you have to be willing to take
a multitude of disappointments to get there before it starts
to actually happen. That's the way creation works. Now, it's
not how God designed it, it's the way we broke it.
But we could go on with that for many, many hours.
It's very interesting stuff. All right, we're at the top

(58:40):
of the hour now, so we're going to take our
first break here, and then when we come back, we're
going to talk about Taoism with a brand new guess.
Gregory Ripley, you don't want to miss this. Don't go away, Dusty,
But everything you say.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
See you.

Speaker 8 (59:04):
Heavy from me.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
The honest story.

Speaker 9 (59:10):
I'm going can go as.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
It's when you tear up my rides. All used to

(59:54):
breathe in Anglish. The longuen, ever, is said for some
memories that too, she so flowing on the long side
and to the tie side off me.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Johnning in the Handless Silence got on bore.

Speaker 6 (01:00:13):
Man to be.

Speaker 8 (01:00:16):
She you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Tave you from me there on the side.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Lenkiv me far and free his side.

Speaker 5 (01:00:48):
M hm.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Oh no, the hell old breathing.

Speaker 9 (01:01:43):
It's all good for my lungs. I'll do this service season.
I hate what Sammer comes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
I fall into a chapter I made about myself for.

Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
And always do the wrong thing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
I want?

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Stable, didn't normal, steady, hob lost the Milligans.

Speaker 6 (01:02:03):
I'm already.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
I'm so sorry to it. I'm not able to slow don't.

Speaker 9 (01:02:09):
I feel unable to soul worthy.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Mother feels heavy.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
I'm lost already and I'm so sorry to it. I'm
not able to slow down now.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
I'm not so sorry, but I'm not snow down now.

Speaker 9 (01:02:33):
I'm so sorry, but I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Not able to slow down now?

Speaker 4 (01:02:38):
How amoy so distructive?

Speaker 9 (01:02:40):
I'll take ahead. I love it, tr r.

Speaker 7 (01:02:43):
Gile circuit, I'm stoke up, bluization of fog into a trap.

Speaker 9 (01:02:50):
I'm by myself.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Oh, and always do the wrong thing.

Speaker 6 (01:02:57):
I want?

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Stable, didn't normal, steady, He don't think and sounds of flee.

Speaker 6 (01:03:02):
I'm so sorry that I'm not a snow.

Speaker 9 (01:03:06):
I feel lonely, but it's so long.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
Warning about the other story.

Speaker 6 (01:03:11):
I'm so sorry, but I'm not shoot the stove.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Talk down me, so.

Speaker 7 (01:03:18):
Me sing things that are I'm drawn understand I'm doing
so bursting.

Speaker 9 (01:03:27):
I care right now. Pstener No, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Not slow down.

Speaker 9 (01:03:42):
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
I'm not sho the snow down now.

Speaker 6 (01:03:52):
Not so sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
I'm not you snow down now. H not away. Do

(01:04:23):
not agree. They not agree.

Speaker 6 (01:04:33):
They're not a freebay.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Do not AGREEA.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Welcome back everyone to the second hour of Vestiges after Dark.
We are now ready to engage with tonight's topic on
Taoism with brand new guests. I think you're going to
really find this a great topic. It really is, and
a much needed one for the world today. I think
it's all about, or at least I should say, much

(01:05:39):
about a balance. Daoism's about balance and maintaining balance. We're
gonna learn all about this tonight don't go away.

Speaker 6 (01:06:11):
Status.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
Our guest tonight on Vestiges after Dark is Greg Ripley, author,
teacher and Taoist priests in the twenty second generation of
the Schwan Jen Longman tradition. Greg's work focuses on helping
people reconnect with the natural rhythms of life through the
ancient wisdom of Taoism. He is the author of the

(01:07:23):
one hundred Remedies of the tao a guide that blends
practical healing, spiritual insight, and timeless philosophy drawn from the
Taoist tradition. With a bachelor's degree in Asian Studies and
a master's in acupuncture, Greg brings together both academic and
experiential understanding of Taois practice. He's also a certified Nature

(01:07:45):
and Force therapy guide, committed to helping others find healing
through reconnection with the natural world. Based in Golden Valley, Minnesota,
Greg continues to write, to teach, and lead others toward harmony, simplicity,
and inner stillness through the Path of the dow. Please
welcome Greg Ripley to the show. How are you doing tonight?

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Greg doing well? Thanks? I'm so hat you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:08:10):
Yeah, so happy to have you with us. And I'm
really looking forward to this because I think we're going
to learn a lot from you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Well, I certainly hope.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
So yeah, yeah, so we you know, let's start off
with with your your journey, you know, your journey to
the to to into Taoism. How did you find yourself
studying this as I guess, both philosophy and religion.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Yeah, gosh, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
I think.

Speaker 7 (01:08:42):
Really kind of started probably in those early college years
when I was you know, I had started college. I
think I went maybe a semester or a year and
then really just kind of had no direction and.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Took some time off and just was hanging out with friends,
you know, just working.

Speaker 7 (01:09:08):
We were doing a lot of backpacking and hiking and
camping and reading a lot of Eastern philosophy of all kinds,
anything and everything pretty much.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
And so it was really a question of.

Speaker 7 (01:09:23):
Yeah, just started kind of reading voraciously, looking for some
direction in life and like, you know, how to make
sense of it all? This crazy journey of life that
we're all.

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
On us is how it begins, isn't it. It's it's
you realize that there's something wrong and we need to
figure out how to how to fix that. But it's
you can't necessarily always put your finger on it. It
sort of guides you in various directions and and and
you've sort of end up where you end up.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Yeah, yeah, and you don't really know.

Speaker 7 (01:09:59):
H You might sometimes you think you know where you're headed,
and life is going to take you some completely different direction,
for better or worse.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Hopefully for better, But sometimes that's right.

Speaker 4 (01:10:13):
Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's true. So I mean Taoism
as a as both religion and philosophy. I'm assuming as
a priest you practice both because I know that there
are people that, just like in Buddhism, I used to
be a Buddhist practitioner before it became a bishop, and I,

(01:10:38):
you know, I can say that there were people I
knew that just practiced the philosophical aspects of it. Some
were into the more religious forms of it, particularly in
Vadriana where you have more ritual and that kind of thing.
But you're kind of i'm assuming, engaging with both. So
what is it about Taoism as a as both a

(01:10:58):
religious way of life life in a philosophical way of
life that you found meaning enough to become a priest?

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:11:06):
I think yeah, you know, I also had some background
with Vadriana as well, and in many ways it's very similar,
or it can be. I kind of think of Taoism
as a whole a little bit like if you looked
at Buddhism as a whole, and you have Fadriana, you

(01:11:28):
have Zen, you have these very different sort of flavors
of Buddhism.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
But there's a there's a core that they all share, right, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:11:36):
And Daoism is an old enough tradition and has had
enough influences and enough intermingling with other traditions and actually.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
A lot with Buddhism that.

Speaker 7 (01:11:48):
There are a lot of different styles of how it
can be practiced or how you can approach it, and
that you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
Know, yes, at its core, you can kind of view
it as a.

Speaker 7 (01:12:01):
You know, on the one hand, some people viewed as
kind of just a mystical tradition that you are sort
of in relationship with this unnameable thing that is the
universe or or behind the universe, within the universe.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
What have you, but or the force and star wars
for example.

Speaker 7 (01:12:23):
Right, I mean that works, you know if you want
to take the scientific route and be like it's all energy,
you know on some level, and it's like, well, okay,
that's that sounds about right, But yeah, it's it's really
can be approached in a lot of different ways. And
of course in the West we've tended to take the

(01:12:44):
approach of there's the Dowda Jing and the Duans and
these ancient philosophical texts, and they're great fun to read
and you can really get all.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Kinds of good things out of them.

Speaker 7 (01:12:58):
Or if you want to approach kind of the like
the more living tradition of what's been going on for
the last two thousand years, it's probably going to tend
to have more religious aspects mixed in with that as well,
and more of a practice aspect of it. You know,
so you're going to have meditations, you may have some

(01:13:19):
ritual as far as some alter work things like that,
like you would have in Vadriana where I mean Vadriana
is interesting because when people know nothing about it, and
Daoism is similar in this way that you see all
these icons and you see all this imagery and all
this stuff, and you're like, oh, this is giant pantheon

(01:13:39):
and all these gods and goddesses and all this stuff
going on, and it's like, on one level that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
On another level, none of that's true.

Speaker 7 (01:13:50):
And these are all just images and sort of vehicles
for approaching this unnameable, unseeable, you know, unheard, unseen, untouchable
doubt that's that's behind everything.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
Or within everything, depending how you want to look at things.

Speaker 6 (01:14:11):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
You know, these kind of.

Speaker 7 (01:14:15):
Archetypal images of different saints, immortals, kind of forces, natural
forces within the universe that we we are more comfortable
approaching if we put a human face on it sometimes, right,
and we can fill a relationship with something that we

(01:14:37):
can relate to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
Easier that way than.

Speaker 7 (01:14:42):
How do you relate to this you know, unknowable, unseeable,
all or whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
I mean, right, Why it's why you know, Christians made
God look like a person. You know, they personified God
to you know that to the point that you know,
people have this idea, idea of this, you know, old
guy with a beard sitting in some throne in the
clouds somewhere. I mean, I know there's Christians that do
maintain that image. And even though you know in the

(01:15:09):
more sophisticated versions of Christianity like Orthodoxy or Catholicism, we
don't hold those those ideas, but they hold true in
art because it is approachable, it's it's it's relatable, and
it helps to focus the mind. And I think you're right.
And the Vazriyana they do this in Buddhism. I even
you know, it's the same thing in Hinduism too. You know,

(01:15:31):
there's there's you have all these gods, right, But it's
not a polytheistic religion. I would argue with anybody that
that's polytheism. Hinduism is truly perhaps the most monotheistic religion
there is, because it is ultimately all manifestations of Brahmin
you know, everything, even us. So I think that you

(01:15:52):
get some of that element in all of the Eastern philosophies,
and Taoism's no exception, since, of course much of this
really became central to India and China anyway, and then
you know, found its way out, but central you know
to of course Asian and specifically. But when we're talking

(01:16:13):
about Chinese philosophy, I mean, I would think that Wism
sort of transcended it now, wouldn't you say, because I wouldn't.
I don't consider the China of today to be a
particularly religious country, so it's kind of found life now
outside of itself.

Speaker 7 (01:16:31):
Would you say, Yeah, there's there's been, you know, a
pretty strong revival since you know, the Cultural Revolution and
those sorts of things, when when religious practices of all
kinds were kind of suppressed, and that was really a
reaction to anything that seemed you know, like competition to

(01:16:53):
the orthodoxy of the state basically, right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
So once I think.

Speaker 7 (01:17:00):
They kind of figured out, hey, we can let people
have this stuff in their lives without feeling like everybody
is a revolutionary and everybody's going to somehow, you know,
try to take over the country or question our authority
or whatever. And occasionally something something kind of bubbles up
and gets a little too big and a little too worrisome,

(01:17:23):
and they kind of give it a little more attention.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
But for the most part, I think they've tended to have.

Speaker 7 (01:17:31):
An easier relationship with those sorts of things. And of
course there were still people alive to keep the traditions
going and kind of revive the traditions and teach the
next generation and so on, and so yeah, things have
tended to kind of blossom.

Speaker 6 (01:17:50):
Again.

Speaker 4 (01:17:51):
That's good. It's good to hear. So it exists. Is
somewhat in secret for a while, but it was maintained.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Well, it wasn't so much in secret. It's just that
a lot of.

Speaker 7 (01:18:01):
People were kind of forced to go back to their
villages and work at the farms and do stuff like that,
as opposed to being allowed to stay in temples and
that kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:18:10):
I see.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Yeah, and that was true for Buddhists as well, and
I'm sure the Catholics and everybody else.

Speaker 4 (01:18:17):
Anybody else, Yeah, anything that could could be seen as
maybe a little too uh free thinking, I guess. And
daois it was perhaps the most I would say one
of the free is thinking philosophies out there, and in
a lot of ways, I think that's what always attracted
me to it, is that it seems to have a
sort of unlimited potential to it, in the sense that

(01:18:38):
it really does help us to achieve a mindfulness of
the middle, like Buddhasts middle way, the balance of the
yen and the young and and and the different systems
that come out of it. I've always been a huge
fan of the aging and and how so much of
that that taois and somewhat confusion and philosophy gets integrated

(01:19:02):
into it. In fact, as a divination tool, I'd say
it's perhaps the most specific of any out there. Definitely
it it definitely needs the least interpretation once you understand
the historical context. Like until you understand the historical context,
it can be a little bit hard to get integrated into.
But I would say it's far less ambiguous than Tarot

(01:19:26):
or runs or any of the other ones that people
are more familiar with. So, and I find that because
what it does is it's it's measuring balance, right, And
so the hexagrams that represent, you know, either extreme fortune
or extreme misfortune are showing where how the dow falls
out of balance and how the practitioner has to bring

(01:19:50):
it back into harmony with itself. So does ritual Do
you find that that ritual helps you to achieve this?
Are you able to achieve this for others? As a priest,
I would assume that people would come to you for help.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
I don't myself do a lot of that type of ritual.

Speaker 7 (01:20:09):
I do have some sort of colleagues, some brothers in
my generation who have focused more on that kind of stuff,
and and and dabble more into some of the stuff
you're more familiar with as far as exorcism and some
of those kinds of aspects of practice. I tend to
focus more on the cultivation side of things, and of

(01:20:32):
course with my writing and stuff, it's it's I'm a
little more focused in that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
Way as far as how about you know, not necessarily
the I.

Speaker 7 (01:20:43):
Don't know what the word for it would be in Daoism,
not the theology of it, but the noology.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Of it or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:20:49):
But they're probably the metaphysics, would you say, the metaphysics
and how that applies to our lives.

Speaker 7 (01:20:56):
Yeah, and and and as well, like the book The
Hundred Remedies of the tao Is is really focused a
lot on kind of ethical practices and and ethical thought
within Daoism, which is something that you know, when we
only focus on the early texts.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
And we just read them as like go with the.

Speaker 7 (01:21:17):
Flow, you know, do whatever you want in life, and
it can kind of become a little too. It becomes
kind of like, you know, a lot of people read
it as permission to just kind of do whatever you
want and and do the whole beat nick thing, and
it's a little like, well, no, there's a little more
to it than that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
You know, there are ethical teachings. Even in the Dowda Jing.

Speaker 7 (01:21:42):
There's there's a thing that people refer to as louds
us three treasures you know, of compassion, frugality, and humility,
and so these are kind of at the core of
the values of of Dallas practice. And then of course
there's developed all kinds of preceptual traditions, all throughout the

(01:22:04):
history of it, all kinds of different movements with different
different rules and ethical guidelines and stuff. And of course,
you know, as Confucianism has touched everything in Chinese society,
there's a lot of intermingling with the other traditions of
Confucianism and Buddhism as well. And in fact, in the

(01:22:27):
you know, fairly early on, I think there was kind
of a syncretist movement as well that kind of said, hey,
here's the kind of commonalities, the core sort of universal
values that are shared by all these traditions, and really
they're aimed at the same thing, and they're sort of

(01:22:47):
just different ways of approaching it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
And so there's a lot of Yeah, there really is
a lot of.

Speaker 7 (01:22:52):
Syncretism within Chinese religion as well, and so a lot
of times the Daoists and the Buddhists, you know, sometimes
they're arguing and other times they're saying, yeah, you just
have a different way of approaching things, but we're really
kind of kind of on the same path here.

Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
Yeah, I mean, there is definitely I think more adaptability
in the East because they're not as legalistic and as
as literalistic. I guess you can say they're they're more
open to understanding religion has a way of life rather
than rules to follow, even though there is ethics as

(01:23:31):
you describe, and it's a big part, particularly of Confucianism too.
I mean, they're both very ethical systems. It's not necessarily
done because you're trying to avoid punishment as much as
it's about doing truly what's best for society, what's best
for yourself, what's even best for aligning in the case

(01:23:52):
of Taoism, to nature and how this helps us to
live a healthier life. Which doesn't surprise me that acupuncture
would also be an interest of yours that you would,
you know, then follow suit, because that would be the
natural leap I would make you know. I'm going to
tell you a story real quick. I'd like your thoughts
on it. When I was in undergrad I think I

(01:24:12):
was letting myself get way too out of balance and
far too stressed out with the work involved and you know,
trying to get a perfect GPA and everything else that
I thought was so important back then, it turns out
and out of it was, but I mean it felt
important at the time. I figured, well, if I'm paying
all this money, I want to get like, I want
to get what I can get out of it and
get all the accolades. So I was very stressed, letting

(01:24:34):
myself get stressed out to the point I was getting
extreme migraine. It's the worst I've ever ever had, and
they put me on all sorts of medications to try
to correct it. It did not help, did not work,
and it was to the point where I was becoming dysfunctional.
I wasn't even able to really attend class sometimes I
was having all sorts of issues. I'd have to go

(01:24:55):
if I went to class, i'd have to wear sunglasses
because the fluorescent lights would trigger it. It's awful. So
somebody recommended that I go to an acupuncturist. And now
I at that time, I was like, yeah, does that
really work? It felt kind of, you know, almost like
a witch doctory to me. And I felt, you know,
this is this is kind of silly. And I said,
I don't even know where to go to. I said, well,

(01:25:15):
there's there's this guy. I'm sure he's long dead now
because he was pretty old back then and this was
a couple of decades ago. He he he was Chinese,
didn't speak a word of English, but understood English perfectly,
just didn't speak it. And he was, you know, trained
in China in the classical way. And so he said,

(01:25:38):
you could go see this guy. So I went and,
like I said, he couldn't speak to me, but he'd
understand everything I said to him. And he had an
aid there to kind of if he needed to say
something to me to be able to convey the message.
And told him what was wrong, and so he said,
he said through his aid, you're going to need six
to eight sessions, and I said, okay. So he you know,

(01:26:01):
I was a little uneasy. I was. I didn't know
he seen these long needles. I didn't know what he
was going to do with him. Turns out it was
actually very relaxing, didn't hurt at all, wasn't intimidating at all.
He had put some ultraviolet light on while he did it.
It was very interesting and he just you know, put
them in and I'd sat there and took him out
and I would go back. I had to go back
at the same time every day, and so I was

(01:26:23):
on day four or five and he asked me how
was I doing. I said, no change, you know, nothing's
at this point I was thinking, this isn't working. So
we got to through day five okay, and he goes,
he says tomorrow, he says, it'll be different, and I
said okay. So I went through day five, went back
the next day for this is day six, and went

(01:26:45):
for the session. Felt no different at the session, nothing else, no,
nothing changed. Went home that night and I kid you not,
what was the worst headache I think I had all
a year and I'm thinking, boy, this is making it worse.
And suddenly I got up. It was about eight or
nine o'clock at night. I got up to get a
glass of water or something, and I felt literally this

(01:27:10):
pop in my head. It was like an explosion in
my head, and I felt all this rushing energy and
it was like it was like coming up through my
spine and out the top of my head. And the
headache went away. And I kid you not, I had
not had another migraine again for over fifteen years after that.

(01:27:33):
And so I went back and I told him. I said,
he says, how are you feeling? I said, well, this
happened last say. He goes, Okay, you're good. You don't
need any more sessions, And he was right. I mean,
I didn't need to go back for acupuncture for fifteen
years later when I started getting stressed out again and
I started developing it, but it was never as bad
and it never came back as bad as that. So
let's talk about acupuncture. What happened there.

Speaker 7 (01:27:57):
Well, I mean you could approach it from I mean
you could almost look at it from. Yeah, sometimes the
medical side of things, the meditative side of things that
can be very similar sometimes are very different.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
The models overlap a lot.

Speaker 7 (01:28:19):
And so I mean that almost seems like you had
some major sort of blockage that was really you know,
and if we look at a tension, you know, in
Western terms, we just look at it as like you
have the stress and muscular tension. You know, your blood
pressure was probably high, and you probably weren't sleeping enough
and all these sorts of things, right, and so you know,

(01:28:43):
you you needed a release and a return of the circulation,
and boy, you got it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
I saw it was. It was the most incredible experience.
I mean, I can't even begin to describe it. It
felt it was scary at first, but in the same sense,
there was such a sense of peace that came with
it that even though it was a little unsettling, like
what just happened, because it didn't just it wasn't just
like a pop like you know, your ears popping when

(01:29:11):
they get when you're on the airplane or something during
a cold It was it was like an explosion in
my head. I mean it was it was earth shattering,
and I mean it was very strange, but it was peaceful,
and I was in some level I knew It's like,
I think this is what he was talking about, and

(01:29:31):
you know, he seemed to think it was so and
it worked. Except fifteen years later I was fine. It's
just when I started getting leting myself get stressed out again,
then they started coming back. But I went for acupuncture
again and it did take care of it. It did.

Speaker 7 (01:29:44):
Yeah, Yeah, it's it's it's an interesting process because I
mean you can just look at it in terms of,
you know, if you want to think about, okay, you're
signaling the nervous system.

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
And trying to return to a.

Speaker 7 (01:30:00):
Sense of balance basically in your body on the one hand,
and then there are other times where something needs to
move a little more forcefully or what have you.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
And it sounds like that was certainly the case with you.

Speaker 7 (01:30:14):
A lot of times with treatments, people will find that
they can just get super relaxed, like during a treatment
to where you know, you start to feel like you're
not even laying on the table anymore, and you're like
not even present, you know, a little almost a little
out of body or something. And those can be really

(01:30:39):
great treatments sometimes too, it's like your body really needed
that deep relaxation and return to a state of rest
where it can really start to recuperate on its own.
And you know, in our modern society and everything is
so rush rush and counts an input to stress that

(01:31:02):
it's i mean, more than anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
That's often what people need is just that deep re laxation.

Speaker 4 (01:31:08):
I mean, that's so so true, you know, because our
lives today are not conducive to living in tune with nature.
In fact, we're moving more towards the technological, the artificial,
you know, to the point that I mean, you know,
kids don't even play outside anymore. So we're very disconnected
from nature and we're very much absorbed by high stress,

(01:31:30):
unhealthy activities. So from a Taoist perspective, what what can
we do to reconnect? Like, what can we do philosophically
within ourselves to sort of change the course of Western
civilization to maybe come back to a more healthy lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
Yeah, it's I mean, it's tricky.

Speaker 7 (01:31:50):
We have to really, I mean, there are things we
can do as a society, you know, we can we
can have urban planning that you know, seeks to interpenetrate
nature with the built man made world and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:05):
You know, have more parks, make sure the.

Speaker 7 (01:32:06):
Distance between parks is smaller, and so that people live
near green space, for example. And you know, they've done
studies that show that just having more street trees, even
in an urban environment can give people a sense of
that natural rhythm and more relaxation, less stress and all
those things.

Speaker 2 (01:32:27):
But often it's up to each of us to do
for ourselves. That we have to really remind ourselves to
get out there.

Speaker 7 (01:32:35):
But yeah, like you say, you know, I think it's
something like the average person spends ninety percent of their
time indoors or something like that, and so we really
have to take the initiative ourselves.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
And even if it's being.

Speaker 7 (01:32:47):
Able to look out the window and see some green space,
I mean, even that makes the difference. But of course,
getting out there yourself into the woods into a nature
area you know, can make a big difference and just
get you back to, yeah, that natural state of you know,
you evolved in relation with everything out there, right, You

(01:33:09):
didn't evolve in a house in the four walls. You know,
in in air conditioning and artificial light and all these things.
And so you know, just immersing yourself in nature and
trying to remember to breathe deeply, fill your feet, connecting
with the earth, you know, fill the air, going into

(01:33:32):
your lungs and coming out, and remembering that you're in
relationship with everything out there, whether it's through your breath,
exchanging you know, gases with the plant life that's around you,
or listening to the birds song and letting it remind
you that you know you are safe and you are home.

(01:33:53):
You know, your home is planet Earth. You know your
home is not your house or your apartment. But out
there in the natural world is where.

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):
You're at home.

Speaker 4 (01:34:05):
You can feel it. I mean, I live I'm very
fortunate enough to live in I'm twenty acres of wooded property,
so I'm somewhat removed from you know, when I'm here,
I'm somewhat removed from the rest of the world and
all I have to do is step outside and I'm
completely surrounded by the natural world, and I do I

(01:34:28):
try to take I try to remind myself, even if
it's just for five minutes, to go out there and
just and just stand in the sun and to just
feel the earth around me, to just reconnect. And I mean,
if you take a blood pressure reading, you know, right
before you do that, and then go outside and do
that for five or ten minutes, then come back and

(01:34:49):
take a reading again, your blood pressure goes right, you
can go high right to normal. It's profound how much
even subconsciously, that can have an impact on our you know,
our well being, our health psychologically, emotional as well as physiologically.
Does your book get into any of that, because, I mean,
your book's about remedies, So I'm curious to see what

(01:35:11):
does the book focus on from a Daoist perspective, and
how does it differ from other Daoist texts that you
have read, well a little bit.

Speaker 7 (01:35:19):
So this book in particular is called the Hundred Remedies
because there was a precepts text called the Hundred Remedies
or the Statutes of the Hundred Remedies, And so it's it's.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
Their precepts, but they're they're framed positively as remedies so
or as medicine, and so it says, you know, to
do such and such is a remedy, and so basically
it's like.

Speaker 7 (01:35:47):
Remedies to situations you find yourself in life or struggles
that everybody is going through. And really it focuses on ethics,
but it's also focused on.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
On our perception and how we view the world, you know,
a lot like.

Speaker 7 (01:36:03):
You guys were talking about earlier in that, you know,
way the way you view the world attracts so much
to you and colors the way you view everything and
the way you interact with everything and what you draw
to yourself and all that, and so these are really

(01:36:24):
focused on that kind of take.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
I have an earlier book that's a much.

Speaker 7 (01:36:29):
More focused on nature connection itself and viewed from a
Taoist lens, but this one is is I do touch
on nature connection and you know, keeping to sort of
natural rhythms in your life and that kind of thing
as well, but it's really framed around these ethical precepts.

Speaker 4 (01:36:50):
Yeah, I mean I can. It's I feel that from
you know, from the day we're born, you know, we
are immediately thrown into in a natural condition, and it
just it's it's it just gets worse from that point forward,
even right down to you know, the obsessive worrying of
clothing all the time, I think really does disconnect us

(01:37:13):
from our environment in an unhealthy way. We've taken it
for granted. It becomes a cultural social thing to the
point that you know, people don't feel even comfortable unless
they have clothes on. But you know, being that detached
from our natural state, I do see as psychologically problematic.

(01:37:34):
We've talked about that on this show before, and some
of the ramifications I think that come with that that
do lead to these well, I would I would say
problematic thought processes that then lead to all the other
problems that we see with anxiety conditions, depression and everything else.

(01:37:56):
It's like, how can you be anything but depressed and
anxious when you living a lifestyle that's completely contract to,
as you said, the way that we evolved. And you know,
I like that scientific approach to what you describe it,
because it's not you're not basing it in just some
kind of like Lucy Goosey philosophical take. It's like you're
grounding it in the actual science behind it. And you know,

(01:38:20):
speaking of science, I'm not entirely you know, convinced that
within the next maybe twenty to fifty years, maybe even
less time, theoretical physics and quantum mechanics might start to
be able to quantify the Tao, you know, at some

(01:38:41):
kind of deeper level. Perhaps that is where the doo
is at the quantum level, do you think.

Speaker 2 (01:38:47):
Yeah, well, it's kind of the traditional model is that.

Speaker 7 (01:38:53):
It's very much like the Big Bay in a way,
that that's how the universe came into being, and that chi,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:39:02):
As energy, everything is basically chi, but it's.

Speaker 7 (01:39:08):
You know, the spectrum of very subtle energy that's so
subtle we can't even measure it on down to matter
as basically just very coarse energy, right, And that's not
so different than kind of the way that physics looks
at things.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
And so.

Speaker 7 (01:39:31):
There's a few different models that people use in Daoism
as far as their approach to what the path is, say,
And on the one hand, you can have a model
of return where.

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
It's kind of like back to the garden kind of.

Speaker 7 (01:39:47):
Thing, like a fallen sort of state, and it's not
so much fallen as more like fallen into delusion, right,
and that just the way we view everything. We misunderstand everything,
and we have all these looted thoughts, and you know,
start to believe every thought that goes through our head,
and all these stories we make up about what's going

(01:40:07):
on in the world around us that really aren't accurate
at all, right, And pretty soon we're just watching a
movie that we're projecting out of our own mind, right
and onto the world around us.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
And that's the way we see everything.

Speaker 7 (01:40:20):
And so on the one hand, you have the model
of kind of trying to get back to that pristine,
original state where we could see everything clearly and where
we were in tune with all the natural rhythms and
like attuned with the dow, we could say.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
And then you have other models where it's very much.

Speaker 7 (01:40:39):
A cultivation model and like inner alchemy type model of
refining the constituents of your life and your mind and
body and everything else and working toward.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
A perfected sort of state.

Speaker 7 (01:40:54):
And I kind of think these are just two sides
of the coin, right that you know, we we kind
of have to do both simultaneously in a sense that
you know, we we kind of look at our own lives,
and we refine our behavior and refine our perception, and

(01:41:14):
kind of life is just about practicing living in a sense, right,
getting better at life, right.

Speaker 4 (01:41:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:41:22):
And then on the other hand, it's also a constant
remembering kind of of of what you intuitively know to
be true or right or natural and all those sorts
of things. And it's kind of like a a Yeen
and Young cycle of back and forth between those two things,
and at some point that back and forth ends up

(01:41:45):
sort of just being the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:41:48):
Well, I mean, it's right down to the mathematics true,
because you know, you have you know, in biology of
bilateral symmetry, you know, the left and right brain for example,
definitely has its yet and young properties. And then you
have you know, in binary code in computers, how ones
and zero's produce you know, virtual realities. You know, it's

(01:42:09):
it's quite astonishing the parallels here. But you know what
I'm really kind of curious about is is at least
from a Again I hesitate to use word theology here,
but what would you say is the ultimate goal? Because
obviously in Christianity, I guess you could say it is

(01:42:33):
union with God. Would be number one, and then with
that has the happy side effect of immortality. You know,
I know, Buddhism, I'm sorry. Taoism sort of has a
similar goal as well, although I guess it identifies it differently,
but it has a very similar goal. So how would
you define that in context of Taoism?

Speaker 7 (01:42:55):
It does, and I think if people have a more
sort of philosophical bent, or a mystical bent, let's say,
then they view it more as just like union with
the Dow, or like realizing your oneness with everything, like
a non dual.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
Kind of perception. And then there are course.

Speaker 7 (01:43:17):
Traditions that frame it in terms much more like a
spiritual immortality, that through realizing your oneness with the dow,
you're not necessarily absorbed into the all or whatever, or
maybe after death you are right because you're no longer
incarnate in this form, So if you're continuing to exist,

(01:43:40):
you're rejoining the whole, is one way of looking at it.
But then there are ideas of having that sort of
goal of a spiritual immortality where you may be able
to stay individual in a sense, or maybe you can

(01:44:02):
realize your unity with the whole but also retain an
aspect of individuality where you can, like within Buddhism, where
you could, like you choose to reincarnate in a certain
way or in a certain time, you know, like the
body side ideal of you know, returning to help others

(01:44:24):
and continue to teach others and continue to you know,
exist in this realm in this way. So it really
I think a lot of it is there's also a
lot of microcosm macrocosm in Taoism to where a lot

(01:44:46):
of times things are viewed, you know, what's going on
within the human body is also viewed as as mirroring
things that are happening on larger scales within the universe,
and that the experience we're having, you know, is this
like is the all us or you know, what is

(01:45:07):
that relationship there? It's it's it's it's kind of a
weird mirroring that's happening on different levels.

Speaker 4 (01:45:14):
I've always wondered about that because it's like, look at
the world right now, right we're in a kind of
a dark time. I think, you know, it hasn't been
really good for quite a while. I wouldn't say COVID
was the actual catalyst for it, but maybe that just
made what was already there, more relevant, more more apparent.

(01:45:35):
But you know, I wonder sometimes, I mean, are we
the ones collectively creating this this this this aura of
negativity that sort of has enveloped almost possessed society, or
is it something cosmically wrong that's affecting us. It almost

(01:45:55):
feels like it could be both.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
Yeah, it's it's a weird it's a weird thing that's happening.

Speaker 7 (01:46:02):
It's you know, talking about how our modern society keeps
driving us more and more you know, separate and isolating
us and all these things.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
We always have this weird paradox going on that on.

Speaker 7 (01:46:18):
The one hand, we have this ability to connect across
the world, across the country like we are now right,
and at the same time, we often find ourselves more
and more isolated throughout our days, you know. And COVID
was really interesting because of all the social distancing and
all the isolation and everything, and that really brought it

(01:46:41):
all to a head, you know, I think, and made
a lot of people realize that, oh, yeah, yes, this
is an extreme version of what's been happening, But it's
what's been happening. It wasn't just COVID, you know, but
COVID kind of brought a spotlight to the way things
had become in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (01:47:03):
And so I think, on the one hand, after that period.

Speaker 7 (01:47:07):
A lot of people were really craving reconnecting with each
other and community and all that kind of stuff. But
at the same time, we still have these structures and
the technologies and the things that are still moving us
in that same direction. So there's a lot of yeah,
a lot of contradictory forces going on right now.

Speaker 2 (01:47:27):
I mean, at the same time, they always have been.

Speaker 7 (01:47:31):
You know, on the one hand, the world's always been
chaotic and crazy, and if you have been living in
a part of the world that's been relatively stable and
happy for a relatively long period of time, you should
just you know, count yourself lucky and you know, feel

(01:47:52):
fortunate about that, because of course there's always been Like.

Speaker 4 (01:47:56):
I tell people, I tell people all the time, it's
look at the world today and think, oh, you know
whatoe is us? Right, it's so bad, you know, But
I mean, honestly, when you look historically, it's we're still
living better than at any point previous. We really are,
you know. Yeah, it's not without its problems, and I
think you know, things like AI for example, are introducing

(01:48:20):
elements to our lifestyle that we've never had to contend with.
I mean, who would have thought, you know, when I
was a kid, you know, in the seventies, Star Wars
had just come out, and remember going to see Star
Wars and seeing these droids like C three PO and
R two, D two and and and thinking, you know this,

(01:48:41):
this was so so outside of the realm of reality
that we could never possibly have robots that could understand
us and we could talk to we could do things
for us and serve us in various ways. And now
we're practically at on the precipice of this. We already
have language models that can seemulate that experience. And then

(01:49:01):
once you put those language models into a robot form
that has five senses, then you do have C three PO,
you really will, And who knows what that's going to
be like. There's already reports of people that are that
are using chat GPT to form intimate relationships with which
is so outrageous. You know, even five years ago, we

(01:49:23):
wouldn't even thought that that kind of thing would ever happen,
And here we are now. I look at it this
way because I get a lot of questions on this
show and even outside the show about AI, But you know,
I think people have a somewhat again pessimistic view of it.
Maybe movies don't help. Terminators certainly didn't help, right, you know,
the matrix didn't help. But at the same time, I mean,

(01:49:45):
does it mean that it has to be a bad thing?
Suppose for a moment, and we're talking a lot about ethics, right,
Let's say now you have these language models that are
being trained on all the knowledge of humanity, going back
to the very beginning. So clearly you know things like
the are going to be in there, and you know
daois philosophy, all these texts and everything else in every

(01:50:06):
other religion too, which even at its core, even religions
that some other religions might not like, everyone's really got
a good philosophy in some form or fashion. Some are
maybe better than others for certain individuals, but overall it's
a message of being better. Right, Every religion is about
trying to be a better person. So think about it
this way. What if you know, after these language models,

(01:50:27):
these ais become sophisticated enough that they can be like
us in all ways except having a soul or whatever
that might mean, and then they studied all this and
can process it at a quantum computer basis. Where some
reports are saying that we might have quantum computing within
the by twenty thirty. I mean, I think next five
years we could have quantum computers. Think of what that

(01:50:47):
will do to AI. It will exponentially increase AI's ability
to become sophisticated. So think about what would happen if
it studies all these texts and it concludes instead of
being like, you know what, we need to wipe out humanity,
how about it if it decides that it needs to
help us become better, that it needs to help us

(01:51:08):
to become more moral and more ethical, and that it
it then becomes the instrument through which we achieve that
that could just as easily happen in the apocalypse. I think,
what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 7 (01:51:22):
Yeah, totally, and I mean it all depends on what
you know, in the same way that our view of
the world depends on the way we view it and
what we're giving our attention to within and without right,
the way we set up these systems and what we

(01:51:44):
put into the systems, very much determines what we're going
to get out of them.

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):
And but yeah, if.

Speaker 7 (01:51:52):
If AI or quantum computers can quantify and process, you know,
all of the religion and ethical teachings of human history,
I think it would take about five minutes for it
to be like, oh, people, you know, need to treat
each other well, view each other as kind of like

(01:52:13):
a human family, especially now you know that the world's
so much more interconnected than it ever has.

Speaker 2 (01:52:18):
Been, and that.

Speaker 7 (01:52:21):
You know, the idea of kind of that we all
do better when we all do better, right, that there
is such a thing as the common good, and there
are people who are working towards the common good, and
there are people who are you know, egocentric and selfish
and and you know, narcissistic and megalomaniacs and all these
things that are that are actively working against that right

(01:52:44):
and trying to sort of there's almost become a nihilism
that's so extreme with a lot of these billionaires and stuff.
That's that's one of the big struggles of our time,
I think, is that there there almost seems to be
this nihilistic streak of like, yeah, we're just you know,

(01:53:07):
we're doomed, we're going to destroy the Earth, so we
have to go to Mars or something and you know,
let it all fall apart. But we'll be safe in
our rockets, you know, somewhere. But I mean we we
can't even stay in orbit for more than about a
year without deteriorating with our current level of technology and
science and everything.

Speaker 4 (01:53:26):
So you need to have artificial gravity, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:53:28):
To do it right.

Speaker 7 (01:53:29):
I don't know how these people think they're going to
go live on Mars anytime soon, you know. Yeah, But
it's like, we have this perfectly good planet here. How
about we work on trying to keep it in good
shape and keep it habitable and healthy as opposed to
like why terra form a whole other planet when we
have a terra right here?

Speaker 4 (01:53:50):
I mean, that seems pretty logical to me, but you know,
it makes me, it makes me think, you know that
when we when we really break down the dynamics of
what or afraid of or even just looking at what
religion was established to do.

Speaker 6 (01:54:06):
It.

Speaker 4 (01:54:07):
All religion, you know, some again focus more on it
than others. Christianity definitely does, but all religion is trying
to find an answer to entropy in the end, like
why do we have entropy, right? Why is you know
you have things that are can be made perfect, but
they don't last. Nothing lasts, it all breaks down. You

(01:54:29):
could look at a you know, you have a brand
new baby, right, you know, your wife just gives birth
and you see this perfect child, and you know one
day they're going to get sick and die or grow
old and die. It's gonna happen. It's inevitable. And so
religion tries to find a solution to this. Well, first

(01:54:51):
it tries to find an answer to it, and then
it tries to find a solution from that answer. So
if you have we're not perfect, right, so we're going
to still make mistakes, where in Christian it will say
we'll still sin. Right. But a computer, quantum computer that
has a body that a technological body that can replace
parts and you know, upgrade parts, and has all of

(01:55:16):
the knowledge of humanity built within it could almost be
artificially perfect in the sense that would it then be
able to actually implement a solution to entropy and want
to help everything that is subject to it to no
longer be subject to it? Could it be the very

(01:55:36):
the very solution to to death and mortality? I mean
I don't know, but it makes one thing because the
one thing that always fascinated me the most about Taoism
is the immortality the immortals right there, you know, the
archetype of this this this this, this ideal that's out
there that's achievable, something to strive for, something that makes
all this effort worth it.

Speaker 7 (01:56:00):
Yeah, I think the well, of course, the mythological and
legendary nature of the immortals is they are truly immortal,
you know, spiritual immortals. And then I think then there's
the more human, mundane level of just looking at it
as longevity and like authenticity and living an authentic human life,

(01:56:27):
you know, and that if you're taking care of yourself,
you're in touch with natural cycles and rhythms and things
that you're going to have that sort of you're going
to live out what the normal human lifespan sort of
should be, right as opposed to you know, some kind

(01:56:48):
of dark ages where you're lucky to make thirty or something.

Speaker 2 (01:56:53):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:56:54):
But yeah, but so, yeah, it is interesting and on
the one hand, it's on the one hand it's very
metaphorical and it's like your longevity is achieved or your
immortality is achieved through realizing that you are one with everything,
and the universe is, as far as we know, going

(01:57:15):
to exist, you know, forever, or at least from our
limited human understanding of what we can understand, it's forever, right,
billions of years or whatever and that.

Speaker 2 (01:57:30):
So that's one way of looking at it. But the
other way of looking at it is that.

Speaker 7 (01:57:38):
Because you are one with everything, everything is also cyclical.
Everything on Earth, in the Solar system, and in the universe.
Everything is orbiting and cycling and moving, constant change, like
we were talking about before, And so becoming one with
that idea is very different than thinking, I, you know me, Greg,

(01:58:03):
I'm going to exist forever and be immortal as Greg right.
But if I am one with everything and always have been,
then I'm immortal in that sense.

Speaker 2 (01:58:15):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:58:17):
But part of life from a dourish perspective, is accepting
that life and death are two sides of a coin. Right,
You can't have one without the other. Right the second
you're born, you know that death is inevitable, right as
the other end of.

Speaker 2 (01:58:34):
That cycle, or at least the visible half. You know,
we might look at it like that, right that if
everything's a cycle, and.

Speaker 7 (01:58:43):
This part of it is visible to us or experienced
by us in this form. There's also perhaps a formless
part of that cycle that we can't interact with or
touch or see.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):
In this state.

Speaker 7 (01:59:01):
But perhaps when we leave this state, we enter a
different sort of existence, a formuless state.

Speaker 4 (01:59:11):
It definitely seems like the goal here is to try
to find a way to paradoxically make peace with the
inevitability of change, but also to maintain some sense of
cohesion through it all. That seems to be what you
know at least most religions when they talk about immortality
or trying to achieve anyway, we're talking with Greg Ripley
about Taoism, and when we come back, we can even

(01:59:33):
take some of your questions if you have them. The
discussion continues.

Speaker 10 (01:59:37):
Don't go away, thass as no personal persons pass past,

(02:00:35):
does not pass.

Speaker 1 (02:00:38):
Passa play people pace pace personal pass pasi plays pass.

Speaker 9 (02:01:52):
Present. Wherever we go well is now.

Speaker 3 (02:02:18):
From the highest mountain to the bottom of the ocean,
songs going in like a river.

Speaker 9 (02:02:28):
With the current day.

Speaker 1 (02:02:32):
We got the day to set us.

Speaker 9 (02:02:35):
Fay sending.

Speaker 5 (02:02:39):
With the.

Speaker 3 (02:02:42):
Start a space, singing.

Speaker 9 (02:03:19):
The back still gutting up there the time we've got
the day.

Speaker 3 (02:03:34):
Just let us free singing Sunday, we got the mon.

Speaker 9 (02:03:42):
Let us sing the stars gutting up there.

Speaker 3 (02:04:26):
That's a.

Speaker 9 (02:04:47):
Welcome sas Bay.

Speaker 3 (02:04:54):
We got.

Speaker 9 (02:04:57):
Thak second.

Speaker 1 (02:05:03):
Sat people do.

Speaker 2 (02:06:25):
Do it.

Speaker 1 (02:06:48):
Is not a non.

Speaker 6 (02:06:55):
Is not.

Speaker 4 (02:07:04):
Welcome back everyone to the third and final hour of
Vestiges after Dark. It's been a fantastic discussion so far
about Taoism with our special brand new guest, Greg Ripley.
This has been a great, great conversation and there's more
to come. If you've got a question that you'd like
to ask, I know that a lot of you are
out there, probably being introduced to Daoism for the first time,

(02:07:26):
so please don't be shy. You can call into the
show at two seven five four four nineteen eighty three.
That's two oh seven five four four nineteen eighty three,
or as most of you tend to prefer, you can
ask your questions in the various chat rooms all across
the internet. Be it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, Instagram, wherever
you happen to be catching this broadcast. We are looking

(02:07:47):
forward to hearing from you. If you've got a question
or comment, or even a story for our guests tonight
or something related to the subject of Taoism. And if
you don't have a question, I'm sure Brandon has a
whole bunch. So we want go without, we won't go without,
all right, mord Come don't go away, Greg. I belong

(02:09:37):
to a branch of Christianity that is known as esoteric Christianity,
which you know isn't terribly different from conventional Christianity outside
of the fact that we're not philosophically and dogmatically bound
to only one rigid thought system. We can incorporate and

(02:09:58):
explore and benefit from multiple perspectives, which is something that
is absolutely essential to my own spirituality, which is why
I think I found myself here because I could never,
after exploring and studying so many ever, just picked just
one one would not be enough. But I will say
that it has given me a unique perspective on things,

(02:10:19):
a bit of a syncretic kind of approach towards things,
and Christianity is actually much more adaptable than I think
many people believe about it. And I teach my students.
I've been teaching a course for eight years now, it's
eight years and still going probably go for another you know,
eighteen years, who knows. But what it's called forbidden truth.

(02:10:41):
And what we talk about is how this how these
ancient systems can be applicable and useful to us today,
and how when you break them down, they all seem
to form what I call the perennial truth that all
of them sort of branched off from and they really

(02:11:02):
do are more similar than they want to believe they are.
But one thing I've noticed about about some esoteric systems
that are not don't belong to any particular religion. They're
just found in all different religions. And part of the
Western and Eastern mystery traditions is this idea that what

(02:11:22):
this immortality is that is talked about in all these
religions is really more about becoming or reuniting, perhaps that
with the essence of what is truest to your nature.
And we could say that in Daoism you have the
you know, the sixty four hexagrams, which of the eging

(02:11:44):
that represent the sixty four primary archetypes, and that in
a way we all are a combination of these things,
albeit in different ratios. And that because these archetypes pre
exist us, they were here long before we existed, and
they'll be here long after those are the immortals. That's

(02:12:04):
what is truly immortality. And if we can return to
through an awareness of this instead of identifying as this, this, this,
this thing that we see as ourselves, but understanding that
we are an emanation or expression of these higher principles,
then in some way we can retain the continuity of

(02:12:25):
consciousness that everybody's really worried about, but at the same
time become part of something that's much larger and much
more important than just little old me. So I sometimes
wonder if what well I mean, actually I don't wonder,
because I think they do. I think Taoism perhaps does
this better, almost to the degree that one could say
it's it's a type of ancient union psychology. And in

(02:12:48):
a sense that I know Carl Jung looked at these
archetypes as aspects of our of our psyche, but he
did understand them to be universal principles that are into
our DNA, that that you know, come through our behavioral
patterns and our thought processes. So is it so far
and so hard to believe that these are the spiritual

(02:13:11):
forces that sort of create us, and that that's what
we return to, and they are truly immortal and you
know we're here, so clearly something exists that is producing
these effects and they're individuated through us, perhaps you know,
in some kind of error of perception, but but you

(02:13:32):
know something at higher principle, something's going on there. And
it seems like Daoism understands that far better than any
other religions.

Speaker 1 (02:13:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:13:42):
I don't know if I would.

Speaker 7 (02:13:46):
It either understands it better, probably wouldn't use those terms,
but I would say it maybe is a in some ways,
it's a much simpler way of looking at things, working
off of yin and yang and further developing those as
they develop up to the sixty four hexagrams, right, because

(02:14:08):
they're just those hexagrams are built of.

Speaker 2 (02:14:10):
Yin and yong, right, Yeah, And so it's like.

Speaker 7 (02:14:16):
Almost like an evolutionary progression or a branching out, you know,
or a fractaling out from those simpler, simpler binary models.

Speaker 6 (02:14:29):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:14:29):
And so when we can look at that complexity of
the world and we can start to.

Speaker 7 (02:14:41):
Dial that complexity in a little bit in a in
a more digestible way, I think by looking at those
patterns and kind of getting in touch with those patterns
that sort of seem to underlie everything, at least, at
the very least as a model of how to understand
this great complexity that we find ourselves in.

Speaker 2 (02:15:02):
Right, And.

Speaker 7 (02:15:05):
Yeah, yeah, I think that that's right. And there's something
to that microcosm macrocosm and that mirroring between what we
view as the outer world and our inner experience to
where you know, on the one hand, we everything we experience,
whether it's something that is conventionally thought of, is outside

(02:15:28):
of us, the way we experience it is inside of
us always, So there is this really interesting dynamic going
on all the time where yes, we are, you know,
three dimensional beings in this world, and there are things
outside of us, but the way we interact with them

(02:15:48):
is always filtered through our internal experience, in our perception,
and there's a really interesting dynamic that's always going on there.

Speaker 4 (02:15:57):
Well, the only things that seem to be true in
any kind of physical sense as far as I'm concerned,
is vibration and geometry, but I'm not sure anything else
really is what it appears to be. I think we
take vibration in geometry and we sort of mold that
into an image that we can work with so that
there's consistency between observers that way, like, you know, you

(02:16:22):
can look at you know this, You can look at
the wall behind me, and I can look at the
wall behind me. You could both agree it's a wall.
So there's a consistency to that observation is that it's agreeable.
It's not a completely relativistic universe where it just produces
whatever you believe is to be true. But at the

(02:16:42):
same time, I think the consistency is in the vibrations
in the geometry, not so much in the perception, which
in that sense, I think we can distort it, which
is what happens when you get into the more ethereal
aspects of this universe, which would be the incorporeal aspects,
you know, and that's where the archetypes will find themselves.
Of what produces a heroic individual versus a sociopath, you know,

(02:17:07):
what produces a youthful person versus an old and wise person.
These are the fundamental properties of human behavior, but it
seems that we emanate from them, and some emanate larger
portions of it, to the point that you can't really

(02:17:28):
tell the difference between the person and the archetype if
you're really looking. You know what I mean, and we
see that more clearly in stories than anywhere else. But
I mean people do it too. I mean, we're a
little more mundane about it, so, you know, we're not
as epic and as interesting as a Harry Potter movie
or you know, Lord of the Rings or something. But

(02:17:49):
the archetypes are the same. It's just they're more dramatic
and they portrayal. Right, you're taking the same geometry, the
same vibration and putting it into something that is under
dannable to us all on a universal level.

Speaker 7 (02:18:03):
Yeah, although sometimes, like you know, sometimes we look at
the real world and realize that, wow, we couldn't write
this if we wanted to. It's too out there, Like
no one would believe this, right, So, but yeah, it
is interesting how some people can just seem to so

(02:18:27):
embody a particular pattern or archetype or a principle or
something and just be so representative of those kind of ideals.

Speaker 2 (02:18:39):
And then I think for most of us, it's always a.

Speaker 7 (02:18:42):
Question of trying to either figure out which of those
we most embody or have the potential to embody, or
how can we balance those within ourselves.

Speaker 4 (02:18:54):
You know, Yeah, and then by balancing them we become
almost uh you know, we create a sense of internal
stability on all levels. And that's what we would I think,
in the colloquial sense called health. You know what I mean.

Speaker 7 (02:19:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's stability and and also at the same time,
a stability that's highly adaptable.

Speaker 2 (02:19:15):
So it's like you're you're flexible and.

Speaker 7 (02:19:18):
Fluid and can adapt to change constantly whatever happens. You know,
you have no problem just adapting to it and dealing
with it and moving on. Versus a very stable, a
very rigid stability right there that is inflexible and circumstances
change and you don't know how to deal with it

(02:19:38):
because you're you've become so inflexible that you just like, no,
I only know.

Speaker 2 (02:19:43):
This, I have everything has to be exactly this way,
and I know how to deal with it, right.

Speaker 4 (02:19:48):
But resistance, resistance, I think.

Speaker 5 (02:19:52):
I always think that a good a good hello, I've
just been I've been listening. But you know, it's a
it's a rare gift for me, the ability to listens,
but I have enjoyed doing so. The by listening, I
mean resisting the urge to think, what do I want

(02:20:12):
to say about this? You know, that's that. That's the
sort of listening I'm talking about. I think that the
best image of stability is not the foundations of a house,
but the anchor of a ship.

Speaker 2 (02:20:27):
You know.

Speaker 5 (02:20:27):
So a ship that's anchored, is is safe because it's anchored,
but that's safety enables it to move with the waves,
you know. So I mean that's my my the image
of faith, you know, of of of the Catholic faith

(02:20:48):
really is that is that because the anchor is so
far down, like you know, we value that that kind
of tradition and history and the the thinking of other
people before us, which which I know Thos two. That's
why you know, we don't need to be so worried

(02:21:09):
about the troubles going on at the surface as opposed
to like I mean, in the first hour Brandon talking
about you know, sort of more Bible churches or because
because a lot of that is all surface, it's really
really prone to any ripples that come in, and therefore

(02:21:30):
you know, brittle, you know, it can't it has to
just deny the existence.

Speaker 7 (02:21:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:21:36):
So I like the image of the anchor, you know,
rather than rather than concrete.

Speaker 2 (02:21:41):
Yeah, I like that as well.

Speaker 7 (02:21:42):
It's it's it's like that idea of being centered, right,
that things can be going on around you, that you know,
you could be in the center of a hurricane, right,
and you have that stillness no matter what.

Speaker 2 (02:21:54):
What's going on around you, right.

Speaker 7 (02:21:57):
And yeah, in Daoism we we seek that stillness within
and of course that's something in Christianity as well.

Speaker 2 (02:22:05):
But yeah, that brittleness, like you were saying that, like.

Speaker 7 (02:22:11):
If people want the Bible to be history and ultimate truth,
and like if they want it to be everything for them,
and they won't pay any attention to the tradition that's
come down along with it and all the different theologians
and all the different traditions, but they're just like, oh no,
this one book has everything in it. And it's like

(02:22:35):
then they very quickly run into all kinds of issues, right,
And if they.

Speaker 2 (02:22:42):
Want it to be no, it's literal and it's literally true.

Speaker 7 (02:22:45):
Well, it's like, well then what about these you know,
things that were written at different times that have different
positions and different backgrounds and different.

Speaker 2 (02:22:54):
Views of things. It's like, how do you make sense
of that if you have that brittle view?

Speaker 5 (02:22:59):
Right, Yeah, it's actually treating it more like a Quran
than a Bible, you know, in the in the concept.

Speaker 4 (02:23:10):
The verbatim, the verbatim, you know, word of God versus
an interpretive text of a faith account.

Speaker 5 (02:23:17):
Well, and also the text of one man's authorship as
opposed to having been having come from multiple generations of
authors across time, which is far more reliable, you know,
as far as I'm concerned philosophically, it just seems to
make more sense that if multiple authors over over millennia

(02:23:41):
have arrived at conclusions that lead towards a view, then
that it's far more likely to be true, you know,
because if if it was true in three thousand BC
and it's true today, it's probably true.

Speaker 2 (02:23:57):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:23:57):
Well, there's a lot of we talk about it the
show all the time, a lot of misconceptions of Christianity,
and you know, Christians themselves hold many of those misconceptions themselves,
so that doesn't help the matter. But Greg, what misconceptions
do you feel might exist about Taoism that you know,
the lay person might take for granted that isn't essentially true.

(02:24:19):
What would you say would be major misconceptions there that
would need clarification.

Speaker 7 (02:24:24):
I think the biggest one that the West has dealt
with and this is one of those things like you
see online all the time in like Taoist groups on
Facebook or something like that. Right, you have these people
who are like, oh, I'm just a philosophical Daoist and
this other stuff is just nonsense or whatever, or it's

(02:24:44):
some kind of degeneration of this original pure thing from
two thousand years ago, right, And I don't know, well,
I think the urge to set up that that conflict
between the philosophical and the religious sides of things is

(02:25:06):
people who have been turned off to religion that they've
grown up with, and so they don't want anything to
do with religion. But then they've found this thing that
speaks to them, and so they don't want to admit
that any part of that could be religious or whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:25:21):
Right, So this is philosophy. This is this pure.

Speaker 7 (02:25:24):
Philosophy thing, and and it's it's it's a it's a
really kind of strange position to have to put yourself in.

Speaker 2 (02:25:34):
But the way I mean, the way I see it,
and within.

Speaker 7 (02:25:37):
Christianity, you know, there's a lot of philosophy within Christianity
and people don't necessarily tend to think of it that way.

Speaker 2 (02:25:44):
But any yeah, well there you got any.

Speaker 7 (02:25:48):
Any religious tradition has all kinds of philosophical thought, religious practices,
religious views, you know, world views that inform the whole
thing in all these aspects, and our ideas of philosophy
and religion are all very modern as far as how

(02:26:09):
we categorize everything.

Speaker 2 (02:26:12):
In the academy, you know, is really what all these
categories are for. Right.

Speaker 7 (02:26:16):
It's like, if you go to school, what subject are
you studying? Are you studying philosophy or are you studying religion?
And how do you approach them well by the traditions
of the philosophical schools or are you looking at the
theologians or are you doing religious studies and following the
traditions of those scholars, Right, And it's like, all those

(02:26:41):
things have their place. But I think when you get
locked into viewing something from only one of those perspectives,
especially as just a regular person, right, You're not one
of these specialists looking at it in this very particular way.
So as a normal person, you want to be informed

(02:27:01):
by all these views, right, all these ways of.

Speaker 2 (02:27:03):
Looking at things and having a more holistic view that way.

Speaker 7 (02:27:08):
But I yeah, I think one of the biggest misconceptions
has been that it's just a philosophy.

Speaker 2 (02:27:16):
And or the whole idea of that. It's just it's
just about yin and yong and going with the flow.

Speaker 7 (02:27:23):
And you can't say anything about the dow because the
first line of the dowa Jing says the doll that
can be spoken is not the eternal doll, so therefore
you can't say anything else about it. And you know,
so people, I'll see these groups where people are asking
like legitimate questions about something because they're seeking to understand,

(02:27:43):
you know, a deeper understanding of things, and there'll be
twenty people who are like the doll that can be
spoken blah blah blah, and it's like, come on, these
people actually want.

Speaker 2 (02:27:54):
To actually want to learn something, Like.

Speaker 7 (02:27:56):
Why not engage with them in a real way instead
of just doing this silly thing.

Speaker 4 (02:28:02):
But it just goes to show your fundamentalism is everywhere.

Speaker 2 (02:28:07):
That's right, that's right. It really is, this weird literalist
approach to Taoism. It's like, why.

Speaker 5 (02:28:14):
I had a question about about I mean, this might
be the wrong question from what I know about Daoism,
which which you could right on the back of a stamp,
by the way. I mean, so I declare my ignorance.
But you know, one of the philosophical principles, for example,
that underpins certainly Catholic theology is natural law. You know,

(02:28:38):
so the idea that there is there are moral ideals,
that there are you know, the res sarch of things
as true. There is such a thing as things that
are right and things that are wrong, that are independent
of Christianity. So you know, the classic Catholic approaches you
study philosophy before you study theology, right because you have to,

(02:28:59):
because that's the order you have to sort of before
you can start to think about God. You have to
think about how do we think? And so how does
one of the criticisms I think of Daoism is that
is that it's you know, it could be described as
as not having a morality or so how would you

(02:29:20):
get You're obviously a Western person, You're from the West,
which is the foundations of which a natural law. I mean,
your constitution in your country is very explicit about that.
That's the origin of your rights. So how does Daoism
from your perspective? You are who you are, where you are,
How does Daoism interact with those moral questions or with

(02:29:42):
the idea of natural law principles.

Speaker 2 (02:29:45):
I think it would have a similar take.

Speaker 7 (02:29:50):
And when it's misunderstood or misrepresented as a sort of
laissez faire, heatedist.

Speaker 2 (02:30:00):
Kind of a thing, right that.

Speaker 7 (02:30:02):
I think that's kind of what the beat Nicks and
hippies did with Zen and Daoism.

Speaker 2 (02:30:07):
Yeah, that's what they wanted. So that's that's what they found, right,
That's what they were looking for. So that's what they found.

Speaker 7 (02:30:14):
But obviously if you think about ancient China and Confucianism
and these sorts of things, you didn't have. I mean,
you had the stuff in ancient Greece, right with the
was the Cynics? Was it the Synics that would just

(02:30:35):
like pee in the street and hang out with dogs
and do all the outrageous stuff on purpose?

Speaker 2 (02:30:39):
Right? The Dallas were really doing that kind of like
in your face, you know stuff.

Speaker 7 (02:30:47):
So I mean, I think that's kind of the stereotype
of people who want to find that within Daoism, right,
and like very much just like I'm going to do
my own thing, leave me alone, you know, everybody do
their own dow kind of thing. And it's like, yes,
there is a truth to that in that we are
all individuals.

Speaker 2 (02:31:07):
And we all have to live online. Yeah, but.

Speaker 7 (02:31:16):
But yeah, I think and even the stereotype of Confucianism
as being this very rigid, sort of legalistic thing, I
think if you if you go back and read the
Analects and a lot of the early Confucian stuff, a
lot of it is is much closer to kind of
Taoist ideas. And I think there was kind of a

(02:31:38):
more legalist wing of confusions that kind of won out right,
and that everything became very authoritarian with those time periods
where you had certain emperors that did book burnings and
all this kind of crazy stuff, right, not you know,
cycles again, we go through cycles, don't we.

Speaker 2 (02:31:57):
But I think so that sort of wing sort of.

Speaker 7 (02:32:02):
One out with these rigid hierarchies and things like this.
So then yes, the Daoists where the alternative to the rigidity,
and they spoke more about flexibility and.

Speaker 2 (02:32:17):
Going with the flow in those sorts of things, but
not in this sort of sixties Haye Ashbury kind of idea, right,
And so I do.

Speaker 7 (02:32:28):
Think they had There are a lot of strains of
early Daoism that kind of harken back to a Golden
Age kind of thing where they look at a simpler,
more natural lifestyle, a more rural lifestyle in tune with
the seasons and that kind of a thing.

Speaker 2 (02:32:46):
And when you look at life that way, it's much more.

Speaker 7 (02:32:52):
It's a little bit more like an indigenous worldview, where
the community.

Speaker 2 (02:33:00):
Kind of determines the.

Speaker 7 (02:33:03):
Morality in a sense of it's kind of a consensus
idea of like you're looking at stability of the community
and stuff right, and everybody getting along and a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:33:14):
Of decision making being made by.

Speaker 7 (02:33:16):
Consensus versus strict hierarchies and top down kind of stuff, right.

Speaker 2 (02:33:21):
And so I think from that sense, there's a lot
of overlap with.

Speaker 7 (02:33:26):
The idea of, you know, humanity's evolutionary advantage being one
of cooperation, right that you know, we're not the biggest,
not the strongest, we're not the fastest, but we're really
good at working together to do things, you know, better
than a lot of other species for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:33:47):
And so.

Speaker 7 (02:33:49):
I think that's where an idea of a natural law
would come in with Taoism, that that people intuitively kind
of know what right and long is, and what love
feels like versus hate and and all these sorts of things.

Speaker 5 (02:34:05):
Right than that, so it would it would be connected
to because I mean the ability humans have, which is
superior to all the animals is intelligence, right, So it's
kind of connected to the ability to discern in a
more complex way be the source of it.

Speaker 2 (02:34:25):
I think so. And it's also.

Speaker 5 (02:34:29):
Because I think that's quite that's that's quite consistent with
certainly with with Christian philosophical approaches, like you know, natural
law is because we have a we have consciousness, right. Well,
even to put that antogenesis or to auto evolution makes
no difference.

Speaker 4 (02:34:48):
Really, even secular humanism, you know does I mean, with
all its problems, it does, though still recognize that there
is some kind of of inherent standard that seems to
be almost built into us. I mean, I mean, unless
you again have extreme dysfunctional problems, you know, most people

(02:35:14):
do recognize that killing another person is a problem. You know,
you don't need law necessarily to prevent that, you don't
need God to prevent that. I mean, a healthy person
should be able to come to that conclusion on their own.
And I would think that Taoism is sort of cultivating

(02:35:35):
perhaps that innate understanding that we should all have. Not
everyone is connected to it, as they should be, but
I think again, the processes involved in balance that Taoism
supports is essentially about finding that.

Speaker 5 (02:35:53):
So could you draw I mean, the sin word I
know is not one that enjoy is. But but you
could you draw again, I'm looking for connection. Could you
draw a connection between he.

Speaker 4 (02:36:08):
Was inauspicious that they like that word? Well, I was
going to.

Speaker 5 (02:36:13):
Say, is there a connection between obscuring the you know,
obscuring the intellectual pursuit of of what is? Could that,
you know, could that be the sort of Taoist equivalent
of sin discription?

Speaker 2 (02:36:29):
Yeah? Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 7 (02:36:30):
And I mean I think as long as the only
time that people really have an issue with talking about
sin and stuff like that is if they they they
have done that thing where they're like, do the convert thing.
We're like, oh no, I don't want anything to do
with that over there, right, this is this different thing, and.

Speaker 2 (02:36:50):
And they can't see the commonalities and stuff.

Speaker 7 (02:36:52):
And just as you know, you have the idea of
separation of sin as being something that separates you from God,
and that kind of an idea, I think we could
easily look at, you know, you could say unskillful acts
or some the right things that separate you from yeah,

(02:37:13):
you're inherent you're innate goodness, right, or or.

Speaker 5 (02:37:19):
Obscure who you.

Speaker 7 (02:37:20):
Are and obscure who you are, Yeah, exactly, exactly all
those kinds of things, and that I think there was
very much an idea in early Daoism and some of
those early philosophical schools. You did have people who were
more in the kind of legalist or Confucian camps who
were like, oh, no, you know, human nature is inherently

(02:37:43):
evil and bad and you got to whip people into
shape kind of ideas, right, And the Daoists were much
more like, no, no, like, you know, people are born
inherently good and we all we all recognize love and
and affection for our families and our loved ones and

(02:38:03):
that kind of innate compassion and stuff like that, right,
and that that's kind of who we truly are, and that, Yeah,
we can forget that, or.

Speaker 2 (02:38:12):
We can go through a lot of things in life
that pull us away from that and you know.

Speaker 7 (02:38:18):
Cause us to contract and get mean and vicious and
you know, forget all those things, but that inherently, deep
down we all recognize that.

Speaker 4 (02:38:29):
We have a question in the chat for you, Greg,
it's from therapy Owl she asked. I'm not sure if
this was covered, and if it was, please ignore me.
But I'm interested in hearing more about alchemy and Taoism
and how it is similar or different from concepts of
European alchemy.

Speaker 7 (02:38:49):
I think there is a lot of similarity. I mean,
the models sometimes use similar language of you know, thinking
of the body as a crucible and you're putting different
ingredients into making a lixir of immortality kind of thing, right,
you have these very similar ideas, and yeah, so I'm

(02:39:15):
always really curious about when or if these different traditions
interacted with each other, you know, probably through India and
through the Middle East and stuff, because often the ideas
and the imagery can be so similar that it's really striking.
But basically in a similar way to I think the

(02:39:39):
way Western alchemy looks at things that.

Speaker 2 (02:39:44):
Basically the constituents.

Speaker 7 (02:39:47):
Of our life, you know, our body and mind, but
also just our life generally. You know, we can transmute
these sinful or impure or deluded aspects of our self
back into a refined, pure, golden or immortal elixir kind

(02:40:14):
of a substance. Right, And so it's that same idea
of return, you know, or a fallen state, or all
of these kinds of different ideas of like there is
an inherent purity or perfection.

Speaker 2 (02:40:34):
That we are born with that we can return to.

Speaker 4 (02:40:39):
It seems to be in my mind, whatever religion is
trying to achieve, and in some form or fashion, we
can call it nirvana, we can call it, you know,
heaven or paradise or whatever words come to mind, perhaps
less important than the fact that ultimately they represent the
same thing. Perhaps they're described and understood different. I mean,

(02:41:00):
I think that's cultural. I think, you know, a culture
has a lot to do with how we define something,
so you know, maybe that takes some of the accuracy
away or diminishes it in some way. I think, honestly,
it's all these things. And you know, I don't personally,
my understanding of God is absolutely no different than the Tao.
I don't. I don't see a difference between the two.

(02:41:22):
And actually, if you really read like advanced theologians like
Thomas Aquinas, I think he'd say, yeah, that's that's what
we've been calling God.

Speaker 2 (02:41:31):
I really do.

Speaker 4 (02:41:32):
I really think he would say that. So it's it's
it's it is striking because that that gets back to
that perennial truth we were talking about, Brendan. I'm sure
you must have some questions here. You've been so quiet
over there. I want to give you a chance. I
do so.

Speaker 8 (02:41:48):
My main question is what texts or teachings during your
twist journey have influenced you the most.

Speaker 7 (02:41:57):
Well, of course, the Doubta Jings. It's kind of the
the launching point for everything, whether it's I mean, even
the guy who coined the term Taoists, you know, like
two thousand years ago, the original name for it was.

Speaker 2 (02:42:18):
So ja.

Speaker 7 (02:42:18):
They used the term jaw, which can refer to like
a family or even the household or something in modern Chinese.
But so two thousand years ago they used.

Speaker 2 (02:42:30):
This term to refer to these different types of.

Speaker 7 (02:42:36):
Schools of thought. Let's say, and so he said that
the dal ja or the Dao dilla Ja. So he
used both of those. And because of course the Dowda
Jing was the main text that a lot of these
different people.

Speaker 2 (02:42:51):
Had in common.

Speaker 7 (02:42:52):
But yeah, the Dowda Jing, I mean, even a lot
of the stuff I read and have studied is was
written much later. But the core principles always go back
and always line up with the data chain and even sometimes,

(02:43:13):
you know, we can look at these different texts and
we can find the differences and see where, Okay, this
text was more influenced by this school that was kind
of leaning this way a little bit more, and this
was kind of this way. But even then, it's really
easy to syncretize all these things and find a worldview

(02:43:36):
that makes sense of all of it and can syncretize it.
And that's what the history of Daoism has done, you know,
through the tradition is they haven't ever tried to pit
these things against each other so much as find a
continuity within them all. And so it's really easy to
read stuff that was written you know, in the modern

(02:44:00):
or two hundred years ago and have it sound like
familiar passages from the Dowdaging, you know. And so yeah,
the dotaging, for sure. The tradition, I'm part of the
Tranjen Longman tradition. The roots of it are about a
thousand years old, and then it was kind of more

(02:44:20):
reformed several hundred years ago, and there is a they
have quite a syncretist element that you know, the early
teachers were like, oh, yeah, you should read the Buddhist
art Sutra and the Diamond Sutra. Those are great, you know,
and you should study Confucius, And there was kind of
an idea of.

Speaker 2 (02:44:42):
Teachings like Confucius were great for.

Speaker 7 (02:44:46):
Studying the human dow, the Tao of humanity and how societies.

Speaker 2 (02:44:54):
Work in human nature and functioning with other people and
that kind of thing.

Speaker 7 (02:44:58):
And then you kind of turned to the born sort
of mystical teachings of Buddhism or Daoism to kind of
turn within more study that connection with the dow or
with the whole beyond just the human realm.

Speaker 2 (02:45:14):
And and so I find a lot of continuity in
all of those and and so.

Speaker 7 (02:45:21):
Yeah, I don't know, I'm always I'm always reading, always
discovering new texts. The Daoist canon is humongous, and so
there's just tons of commentaries and tons of different texts
from different eras.

Speaker 2 (02:45:35):
That are really interesting. And I'll kind of add a
piece to the puzzle.

Speaker 4 (02:45:40):
So you got to dig. These days, it seems like
Barnes and Noble doesn't have as much of a section
on that kind of Eastern philosophy as it used to, Like.

Speaker 2 (02:45:49):
They really don't.

Speaker 4 (02:45:50):
Twenty years ago, twenty five years ago, I was in
heaven I mean, they would have from floor to ceiling
all books just on Daoism, and now you're lucky if
you can find one or two. It's sad.

Speaker 6 (02:46:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:46:01):
Yeah, yeah, there was kind of a the golden age
of Thomas Cleary translations about twenty years ago. Yeah, there's
still you still see lots of different data jings, but
that's that's.

Speaker 2 (02:46:13):
Most of it.

Speaker 4 (02:46:13):
That's usually that's on the bargain bin at Barnes, and
they always come out with a new edition for the
bargain bin a ten bucks you get your dowtaging. Some
of them are really nice.

Speaker 6 (02:46:23):
Though.

Speaker 4 (02:46:23):
If I find what I like, I pick it up,
even though I've got probably ten copies of it in
there somewhere, you know. But it is a beautiful text.
I encourage everybody to read it, and your book too.
I'm I'm assuming it's not available on Amazon and everywhere.

Speaker 2 (02:46:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's everywhere. It's uh, I know,
it's yeah, it's it's at Barnes and and all that.
Uh yeah, so.

Speaker 4 (02:46:50):
Yeah, yeah, I would, you know, I find and I would.
I'll be interested to know. How how do you find?
We kind of touched on a little bit, but I
want to get more detailed, perhaps in the time remaining.
The the the correlation between more dogmatic religion and or

(02:47:18):
organized I guess, let's just say organized or structure religion
versus Daoism, because I mean, even though Daoism has its
own variation of structure, it doesn't have a Vatican, for example,
it doesn't have a or does it. I mean really,
so there is sort of like a leadership. Yeah, so

(02:47:38):
a governing body eventually.

Speaker 2 (02:47:40):
Well, so you've got you've got two issues.

Speaker 7 (02:47:43):
One is that you have a ton of different lineages historically,
some of which are very very very old, some of
which are all kinds of different reform movements or movements
where a teacher started a new lineage, you know, and
they may or may not be kind of part of
an older lineage.

Speaker 2 (02:48:03):
But and then you've got the.

Speaker 7 (02:48:08):
The governmental side of things, and today's version of that
is you know, Bureau of Religious.

Speaker 2 (02:48:14):
Affairs or whatever in China.

Speaker 6 (02:48:16):
And and.

Speaker 2 (02:48:20):
Yeah, well you've and you've always I mean, yeah, it is,
it is, but but you've always had.

Speaker 7 (02:48:26):
That right in different historical periods in China, and you've
had like dynasties that favored Buddhism or dynasties that favorite
Taoism or dynasties that were Confucian or whatnot.

Speaker 2 (02:48:38):
And so you always have had kind.

Speaker 7 (02:48:41):
Of a political side of things and and uh and
a you know, bureaucracy and some top down stuff like that, right,
and then you've had time periods where things were kind
of more.

Speaker 2 (02:48:52):
Open and less regulated and stuff. And so.

Speaker 7 (02:48:58):
As things exist today, they kind of like from the
governmental perspective, there's two main types of Daoism that they
sort of recognize, but they're really umbrella terms. And so
they recognize Twangen as being a more monastic Daoism and
Jungi as being more of the traditions of kind of

(02:49:21):
like householder priests who or you know, village priests who
do rituals and do all kinds of things for people,
but have kind of day jobs and families and that
sort of thing. Right, But within that umbrella of Jungi
is like hundreds of different lineages that have existed and
maybe just in one little area, this lineage of a

(02:49:41):
family that's had the same you know, practices going for
a thousand years or something like that. And so even
though you have these umbrella terms and these sort of
generalized ideas of what the traditions are. It's on the ground,
it's much more complicated and much more fluid. And so

(02:50:03):
you have people within the monastic or considered monastic communities
where they also sometimes are married and have families and.

Speaker 2 (02:50:11):
Things like that.

Speaker 7 (02:50:12):
But it's like if they're living in the monasteries, they
lead a monastic lifestyle, but then they may have had
a family before that, they may have spent some time
in the monasteries, left had a family afterwards, but it's
not like they've stopped being Taoists or stopped being priests
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:50:29):
Right, and so.

Speaker 2 (02:50:31):
It gets it gets complicated. But so there is a structure.

Speaker 7 (02:50:35):
But for most people, whatever your lineage you are a
part of, it is going to be the structure that.

Speaker 4 (02:50:42):
You're gonna that's you. That's the authority that sort of
governs what you do.

Speaker 7 (02:50:46):
Yeah, and so people from different lineages you may or
may not necessarily pay too much attention to them. But
as far as in China proper, there is a hierarchy
of like who controls the different money series and what
you have to follow if and where they'll send you
or not let you go or whatever, and things like that.

Speaker 2 (02:51:10):
But as far as like you know, there isn't.

Speaker 7 (02:51:13):
So much of a Vatican or a pope or something
that's overseeing everybody in the world that's dallist.

Speaker 4 (02:51:18):
Or something not even like a Dalai lama kind of thing.
They don't really have an equivalent to that.

Speaker 7 (02:51:23):
Right, Yeah, other than I mean, you just have some
very respected elders who are like the chairman of the
Dallas Association or or whatnot, right, and those those change
out every few years, and you have like a committee
of of well respected elders who've been around forever and
like everybody is sort of related to them in their

(02:51:46):
lineages and that kind of a thing.

Speaker 4 (02:51:48):
It sounds like it operates somewhat similarly to like Shinto.

Speaker 2 (02:51:53):
Uh maybe I don't think it's well.

Speaker 7 (02:52:00):
Shinto is kind of interesting because it was very probably
disorganized at times as well, and at times it was
like a state cult kind of a thing.

Speaker 2 (02:52:08):
So yeah, so.

Speaker 7 (02:52:11):
It may be similar in that way too. I'm sure
there have been time periods where it's been very Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:52:16):
Structurally, I mean, structurally it seems like similar. I'm not
not philosophic, well, and there's.

Speaker 7 (02:52:22):
Some there's some similarities and overlaps and and there are
some interesting movements in Japan that are very syncretic that
have taken a lot of like Shinto and Daoist and
Buddhist influence and melded it all together. And they have
all these like mountain monks that that run around in
the mountains do interesting things.

Speaker 5 (02:52:39):
So yeah, interesting, Yeah, I had a question around around,
you know, that what's the t loss of of Taoism?
So you know, if if for if a Buddhist's kind
of the nirvana principle, if it's for Christians it's the

(02:53:00):
beatific vision, you know what what what's what's the what
is there a t lost to Doaoism?

Speaker 2 (02:53:07):
Yeah? I think.

Speaker 7 (02:53:09):
Again it's gonna be one of those things where I
think different times and different lineages will kind of sometimes
view things slightly differently, But I think in general there's
somewhat of a consensus that just as Buddhism will talk
about awakening, you know, uh, sometimes they talk about it

(02:53:32):
in terms of nirvana, sometimes they talk about it more
as an awakening, right, and so there are definitely ideas
of awakening in Taoism, and that there is that, you know,
recognizing your inseparability with the tao is kind of like
an enlightenment or an awakening type of of of thing.

(02:53:53):
And so that is a that is a goal you
could say, of practice, just that a realization.

Speaker 4 (02:54:03):
Interesting. Well, We've got just a few minutes left, and
I'd like to give you an opportunity, a great to
kind of share with the audience anyway to reach out
to you, any websites or any other things you'd like
them to know. But before you you share that, I'd
like for you to go out with just telling us
if there's one thing from either your book or your
your you know, Taoism itself that you would like the

(02:54:25):
world to know. What would you say is the most
important thing to take away from today's show?

Speaker 2 (02:54:32):
You know, just take care of each other and yourselves.

Speaker 4 (02:54:37):
Good advice.

Speaker 7 (02:54:38):
Ye, I mean that's the kind of stuff I always
come back to it, and that is again, that's one
of those universal values that we can all relate to.

Speaker 4 (02:54:48):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So what we got? Your link a
link on Amazon to your book in the YouTube chat?
Is there anything else that you'd like to share?

Speaker 2 (02:55:01):
Let's see.

Speaker 7 (02:55:01):
These days, I've been putting some shorter writings up on substack.
I don't it's not a paid subscription or anything. But
people can definitely check some of my writings out there.
I've started to record some of them as podcasts. They're
not really true podcasts like this, not really having discussions yet,
but I've just been making some recordings of some interesting

(02:55:25):
thoughts for people.

Speaker 2 (02:55:27):
But yeah, that's pretty much it. On all my socials,
I try to beat Gregory Ripley and pretty easy to
find out there.

Speaker 4 (02:55:35):
So fantastic. Well, I want to thank you so much.
We'd love to have you back on on a future season,
particularly if you have any new content that you'd like
to share. Brandon will be more happy to schedule you.
And this was a fantastic discussion. I could keep going
all night long with you. Great and the audience loved
it too. I mean, I have to say I always watch,

(02:55:55):
you know, I watched the feed and I watched the engagement,
and you know, certain shows you can tell when there's
a drop off, you know, either people are not as
fascinated in the subjects as as you'd hope today like
a roller coaster, but not tonight. Tonight was you kept

(02:56:17):
the interest of everyone. So people are saying you're fantastic
guests tonight, So we'd love to.

Speaker 6 (02:56:22):
Have you back on it.

Speaker 2 (02:56:24):
Yeah, thanks, thanks so much for having me. It's been great.

Speaker 4 (02:56:26):
Oh it's been It's been again fascinating. I mean, I
really enjoyed it. And I want to thank you father, Chris,
and Brandon for being with us tonight. Again. Jamie was
on vacation. She missed a good one. She would have
liked this, uh the show, but she can always watch
the archive of it. And for all of you out there,
thank you for taking time to spend this Tuesday evening

(02:56:49):
with us to talk about the things that people don't
talk about. Where are you going to go to, you know,
learn something about Taoism? No one talks about that anymore, unfortunately,
but we do, you know. So it's it's a great
place to just, you know, come and unwine for the
night and grab yourself a nice glass of wine and
listen to some interesting conversations. So we're very grateful to
all of you who support the show, either by subscribing,

(02:57:11):
liking it, sharing it, being in our audience, or even
supporting it financially. Thank you so much. Next week is
our season finale, believe it or not, and that's going
to be on I think African proverbs that relate to
the Bible, so that should be another unique one. Brandon,
you find some interesting stuff out there. I really appreciate that.

(02:57:32):
But that's next week, our season finale. We'll have some
summer specials as usual, usually one in July and August,
so we try not to bake the break too long.
But I want to thank again and again everyone for
being here tonight and until next week. I'll see you
out there in ether. God bless everyone.

Speaker 3 (02:59:06):
Stands. Buddhistditionistdisdistision is the negest, the Boston is, The rest
is the best, Busts.

Speaker 6 (02:59:23):
Is the oddest.

Speaker 3 (02:59:24):
Bus is the bests is the best.

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