COLLECTED ARTICLES OF KRIS DEVA NORTH

Zen as a Philosophical Discipline

Taoist Teaching, Taoist Practice, Taoist Life

Earth Medicine for the 21st Century

Calabash of Light: Hawaiian Huna Healing

The Tao of Tantra

Secrets of a Taoist Master

I have just had my first book published, co-authored with my teacher, the Taoist Master Mantak Chia. The title is ‘A Touch of Sex, or Taoist Foreplay: Shiatsu Secrets for Love.’ Before this I had written a few articles which people said they found interesting so I have gathered some together here. They combine my own interests in Zen, Healing and Tantra. The first four articles are reproduced with kind permission of the magazines that first published them, Qi Magazine and Positive Health, to whom thanks and gratitude for getting me started. The last two, Tao of Tantra and Secrets of a Taoist master, have been published on my website www.healing-tao.co.uk

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Master of the Zen School and Taoist Master Trainer Kris Deva North integrates the principles of ancient Shamanic, Tantric and Taoist traditions with modern Life-training techniques from the Mind Dynamics of the 1970s to state-of-the-art neuro-linguistic programming of the new millenium. His experiences living with Kali-worshippers of Nepal; travelling with a Thai Buddhist monk; satsang with Shiva Saddhus in the Himalaya, Shamans of Africa, North America and Hawaii, and Aboriginal men of high degree in Australia; darshan with the Dalai Lama; witnessing last rites in Varanasi and puja with the Brahmins of Pushkar; practising the teachings of the Taoist Master Mantak Chia; and his own taoist, tantric and shamanic meditations and teachings on death, life and beyond, in jungle, mountains, city, beach and desert. Kris has been involved in healing meditation since 1972 and Taoist practice for over 20 years. In 1993 he founded the London Tao Centre, Chi Nei Tsang Institute and Zen School of Shiatsu and more recently the Zen Shiatsu Society He has appeared on UK national TV in Taoist Tantric practice, in programmes such as Emma Freud’s series on Sex and Religion, Nick Hancock’s Sex and Stopping Carlton TV City Survival Guide, and was consulted for the Sex Inspectors. In 2004 Channel 4 made an observational documentary on his work teaching the Taoist practices to a group of celebrities on a remote island in the Andaman Sea. Kris Deva North and his Taoist Teacher, Master Mantak Chia, co-authored the ground-breaking book ‘A Touch of Sex, or Taoist Foreplay: Shiatsu Secrets for Love.’ Here follows a selection of articles from Kris’ earlier work.

ZEN AS A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCIPLINE

In the library at Dharamsala they were dressed for debate, mallas wrapped around biceps, robes round shoulders, arms free to gesticulate. The words of Shakyamuni Buddha had finally been committed to writing four centuries after being spoken. So many words - fifty years of teachings compressed into eighty volumes of scripture. The patriarchs debated philosophical disciplines and such matters as the relative karmic consequences of killing a real person or of killing an imaginary person. “Enough,” declared the rebel, Bodhidarma “How can we gain merit picking to pieces such unlikely situations?” “Then how are we supposed to understand the scriptures?” said the Rinpoche, the one aware of his previous incarnations. “Dhyan. Meditate. Just do it,” replied Bodhidarma, gathering his robe about him, crossing his legs into lotus and gazing at the foot of the wall. Later he rose and walked through the snowy Himalaya passes into Tibet, to find the ideas of the Buddha enlivened there with demons and deities, dakhinis and bodhisattvas, sustained by hierarchical monasticism, entrenched in illusion, with form, ritual and ceremony. “For illusion to exist it must be observed, therefore the observer exists” he mused, “who must be just as real as the illusion.”

Wandering east along mossy trails, he felt thoughts and words clouding the moment of clarity. “It is only my own experience that is real to me, as is our own to each of us, as was his own to Shakyamuni. He tried to communicate this, but had to use words. Can we do without words, empty the mind of all experience?” “Or let go searching” remarked Lao Tse, asleep by the wayside. Bodhidarma stopped. “How do you know I seek?” “You move, therefore you seek. Whatever it is, is already there. You know it, even if you cannot define or describe it. Do you dance?” “Of course,” replied Bodhidarma, “what spiritual teacher doesn’t?” The Patriarch and the Celestial Master circled in stately rhythm, singing to the rocky hills. Sang Lao Tse: “Being in the ordinary way, strolling through life, supremely at leisure.” Responded Bodhidarma: “Living each day intensely, as if your hair were on fire!” “Tis simple to understand but not to explain,” trilled the Sage. Bodhidarma slowed, a slight frown creasing the fearsome brow. “The idea of seeing your face before you were born is actually quite hard to understand and cannot be explained at all.” “No understanding, no explanation,” sang Lao Tse, “no thought, no talk, just mystic quietism, dancing or working, healing or fighting, loving or losing, singing a song or sewing a seam, coming or going, yet always at home.” “Ah,” Bodhidarma beamed “mystic quietism - sitting in meditation, contemplating koans.” Lao Tse grinned as he hopped around a stone “Just sitting, just living, its all meditation. Beyond definition, beyond description, beyond using words to promote the idea of no-words. Ch’an. Just do it. ” “Long speech” said the Patriarch. “You’re getting the idea,” said the Sage, mounting an ox, “you only need words to heal, to comfort and to teach.” He sat still on its back as the ox plodded away, calling over his shoulder, “let good fortune jump on you.”

Bodhidarma strolled into the rising sun, contemplating the moment of not thinking, of connection with reality. When you start to think, he thought, you’re back in mind and the moment has become of the past. Our lives are spent heading for the future, away from the past, while the present slips by unnoticed. Our lives are spent. We spend our lives. We spend. And yet to stop the mind thinking is like asking the heart to stop beating. Is no-mind a philosophy? Is not-thinking a discipline? There must be more to it than that! He met the Yellow Emperor by way of the Dragon Gate and asked him “Why are we here?” “Are we here? and if we are, why not? Do we need a reason? What reason could there be? To sit in meditation until arms and legs wither? To pray to a god? To renounce society or to live in society? To live right? What is right?” With a mental shrug Bodhidarma gave up, and watched the dawn of subtle clear light and heard at last the silent thunder: “Neither seek the truth nor cherish opinions. Zen. Just get on with it.” First published in and reproduced by kind permission of Qi Magazine

TAOIST TEACHING, TAOIST PRACTICE, TAOIST LIFE

Most people starting out on the Way try to copy someone else, usually their teacher or facilitator. They seek guidance until understanding how to make their own way, and that too much help can weaken them. In the early stages it is kind - and productive - for facilitators to to help students along, with their Frequently Asked Questions representing a quest for reassurance. Many FAQs are to do with daily practice, how much time to spend in meditation and exercise, how to integrate the practices into daily life, especially the sexual practices, and how to introduce these to partners ranging from sceptical to inhibited to plain jealous. How wonderful if we could just say a word or two to help the asker towards realisation, but of course that would not be their realisation but just something we are handing them. Let me share some aspects of my practice with you. If you are an early seeker, you may find bits and pieces that are of use. If a seasoned traveller you may have a little fun at my expense and think how much better your own practice is, or how superior your own teacher. You will learn something, even if only that you have nothing to learn. It doesn’t matter really - we are dancing the same spiral with different steps. Start the day with a Smile. In 1972 - just after leaving the army and before my first meditation weekend - I went on a sales course, where they said the same, these hard-nosed business chaps who taught the mindfulness of skilful manipulation. We were advised to smile at ourselves in the mirror, to set ourselves up for the day. Two decades later the Taoist Master Mantak Chia was telling me to smile at my internal organs, the Inner Smile in the tradition of four millenia. Must be something in it! People who live beyond 100 are generally of a cheery nature, according to Deepak Chopra, who knows these things.

So now, when I wake up, I smile. Nothing formal, not sitting up, let alone in seiza or lotus, just lying in bed watching the light slip by the curtains. An Inner Smile, to myself, my being, my energy field. A smile to my mum, long gone, and my dads - I had two, one who started me off before leaving this world, and his brother who took over for the hard part. A smile for my kids and theirs. My ancestors and descendants, teachers and students. No lists, no enumeration, just a big grin of gratitude to the whole energy field around me. Time past and present condenses into the now, individuals blend in the moment of a heartfelt smile, and I am everyone I have known and all that has happened to me. I thank the universe for the many gifts and blessings - records of my ancestors, knowledge of past lives, totems of insight and grace, leadership and love. Thus the day begins with Gratitude, awesome in its power and effect, and flowing naturally into the sexual practices, the essence of the Tao, honouring the Way which gave me my ancestors and descendants, opening the gateway through pleasure to bliss. If alone I will work with arousal energy, opening the small heavenly cycle and recycling the chi. If with a partner and plenty of time, we might practise dual cultivation, or solo cultivation together. Sexual practice in the morning has a wonderful clarity and spontaneity. Throughout the day opportunities arise for moving and still meditation: Chi Kung - imperceptibly adopting the ready position waiting for a bus or train, Taoist reverse breathing sitting at the computer, “Tai Chi walking” up a flight of steps. A patch of green grass offers a place for Bone Marrow breathing, or the powerful earth-connection of the Tai Chi Chi Kung form, or the “Hands of Light” form of QiGong Colour Healing Therapy. Parks and avenues become arenas for “embracing the tree” and the yin-yang breath exchange. Interacting with people, with other energy-fields, opportunities arise to recycle the emotions of the Five Energy-Phases or Elements, seeking to transform impatience into love, worry into serenity, depression to courage, fear to gentleness, even anger into kindness, thinking of Mantak Chia’s encouragement “every day we get many chances to forgive”. I use the Healing Sounds individually for each occasion as it happens - a discreet hiss can dissipate some minor annoyance, or a loud HHHAAA! dispel impatience....when done with the right intention.

Iron Shirt grounding, rooting and centering taught me how to take a push, physically in the first instance but, as I progressed through my training, extending my ability to take an emotional push or withstand financial pressure. I might practise the postures while waiting to start a teaching-session. One great attraction of making my living from this work is the limitless landscape of practice. It is my job to do what I love. Can’t get better than that! Teaching helps keep me keep up my practice. I realised that my original nature/conditioning (hard to tell the difference when you’ve been doing this stuff for a few years) swung me between activity and inertia. This helps towards harmony. Beyond the physicality of the Iron Shirt pushing-rooting, the psychic self-defence of Fusion of the Five Elements develops a kind of energy-armour. In the higher meditations of Kan & Li, armour becomes redundant as all pressures are allowed to pass through the being without harm, as we develop and transform into the light body. What effect can pressure have when there is nothing to press? No buttons to push! These esoteric practices are available to everyone, and if applied consistently they work well for everyone. But the work must be done by the practitioner: use it or lose it. Travelling around to appointments for teaching or healing, I use the time on bus, tube and train to read, study and research. On these journeys of the earth I take the journeys of heaven, discovering connections between the heritages from the cradle of the earth. The evidence is there if you care to look. Taoists share purification by sweat and worship by smoke with Native Americans; dream-time with Native Australians; animal (symbolic) sacrifice, ecstatic flight and shamanic dissolution with the Siberians; tutelary animals with the South Americans; the protective circle of fire with Wiccans; the tantric circle with Indo-Tibetans. The Tao is my personal journey. I prefer to travel on foot or by public transport, to resist the temptation of a car with its ease and convenience of getting about. Better for me to do things the hard way, to push myself into discomfort, to try to understand myself better. What muscle ever got stronger by ease and comfort? So with my own energy-field. And I am, after all, living the life of my choice - little shocks of discomfort help keep me awake. Ouspensky would understand.

The bath is my think-tank, wallowing in the womb of water, the ocean of creativity, the palace of death and conception, inspiration. Archimedes knew it. Stuck on an article, a business situation, an emotional conflict, I lie in the bath and wait for possibilities. Few choices need to be made, the right way seems to unfold. Its not always what my rational mind would have chosen. Most months I do sweatlodge with a native American teacher who calls in the directions like a Taoist shaman. He tells of a Lakota tribe called the Shamen - the Chinese word is also Shamen. Teaching the Tao gives satisfaction; teaching the practices gives me the opportunity to practice. I offer overviews for those thinking of stepping out on the Way or just checking it out, courses of meditational experiences from basic initiation into small heavenly cycle, Inner Smile, Healing Sounds and Iron Shirt, through the heart-opening practices of Healing Love or Taoist Tantra, the challenging self-healing of Fusion, Tai Chi the Dance of Life, or Advanced Practice Development for graduates of Kan & Li, with shamanic journeying, meditation on death, and ecstatic flight. Group work helps me with the transmission to others. Teaching Shiatsu also gives the chance to incorporate the body of taoist mysticism as a background or even a bedrock. Chi Nei Tsang, the taoist massage that releases the winds of stagnation and helps free the bodymind from emotional trauma, QiGong Healing Therapy, a derivative of pre-taoist shamanic practice calls on the energies of the cosmos, to heal energy-fields. All these use the Healing sounds, to recycle the energies to find harmony within the being. Mealtimes are occasions for practice too, eating what I choose mindfully and letting go the strictures and restrictions of any formal dietary system, following the way as it manifests. If there is a time in the day when I catch myself not practising, I give myself a pat on the back for awareness.

I prefer the time either side of midnight for the more structured sexual meditations with their tremendous sense of universal power as the life-force rises and circulates in the small heavenly cycle. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner, I take time working with the cool unaroused sexual energy, practising sexual breathing, moving into the arousal energy, staying with it, taking it with me through some Iron Shirt practices, some Tai Chi, some still meditations, then on into the orgasmic energy field,bathing in the fountains of Fusion, using pleasure as the gateway to bliss. On into the subtle clear light of Kan& Li, an altered state, with ecstatic flight or astral travel, awareness of the possibility of existence beyond sensory perception, of consciousness of the energy-stream beyond this incarnation. Partnership work is intense, and the greater the intensity of arousal the higher the experience of bliss. I like teaching the basic practices provided partners have initiated the interest and I have explained what is involved. In letting go my own boundaries I learn to honour the boundaries of others, to fulfil my needs by fulfilling theirs, and to learn from my friends and students. And very last thing to end, the Healing Sounds. I have used them throughout the day for harmonising situations or recycling emotions and now, as I lay me down to sleep, the Triple Heater sound sings sweetly in the three burners, a restful completion to a day of walking in the Tao. First published in and reproduced by kind permission of Qi Magazine

EARTH MEDICINE FOR THE 21st CENTURY

When mother first touched child to ‘make it better’ she invented what we in the 21st Century know as Shiatsu.

An Emperor of ancient China created a technique. A psychologist in modern Japan devised a protocol. And the West institutionalised it. Each played out their role in the Interplay of Elements, from the Caring of Earth, to the Organisation of Metal. Huang-Ti (2697-2598 BCE) the Yellow Emperor codified the theory behind the therapy. Treatment, from acupuncture to herbs, he decreed, should vary according to the life-style, environment and geographical location of his subjects. For those dwelling in the mild climate of the central regions who were “able to obtain a varied diet without great exertion” massage was recommended to harmonise the elements of Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood and thus maintain spiritual, energetic and physical health.

Under the Han (208 BCE-220 CE) and successive dynasties religious and magical Taoism emerged, peacefully co-existing with behavourial Confucianism, until the Northern Wei (386-534 CE) saw the rise of Buddhism and persecution of the shamans. Healing had become politicised. Immortality being considered the ultimate manifestation of health, Chinese alchemists had long sought an Elixir to render their Emperors immortal and retain a few drops for themselves but external alchemy lost its appeal when it had despatched a few courtiers and kings as well as a number of alchemists. But the search for eternal health continued. Physicians in the Tang Dynasty (618-906 CE) vivisecting condemned prisoners described flows of energy through certain invisible channels which ceased at the moment of death. If this flow could be sustained… .....1500 years later: In the 1950s so-called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) synthesised local and traditional approaches and purged the spiritual aspects, overlooking the less obvious magical which had been absorbed into orthodoxy as Five Elements. 20th Century standardised TCM was now fit to be practised alongside dialectically materialist and politically correct western medicine, in the hospitals of a new China. In modern times things happen fast: In 1977 the Japanese psychologist Shizuto Masunaga and his student Wataru Ohashi developed a complex set of protocols integrating psychotherapeutic thought, meridian connection and physical pressure. Masunaga described how to induce the phenomenon that occurs between meridian points under pressure, and published it as Zen Shiatsu – how to harmonise Yin and Yang for better health. By making his name and system synonymous with Zen Shiatsu Masunaga reinforced the trend towards standardisation.

But in the post-war restoration of Japan the rival and even more rationalistic Namikoshi system, based on western neurology, became the one officially recognised. Going Down in the West

Shiatsu went West and found a welcome among the eclectic materialists of the New Age. Yin, Yang and Zen, it involved touch, was supported by an suitably complex theory, alleviated symptoms of many chronic conditions resistant to orthodox medicine and could reduce the need for medication. Described as a Japanese form of physiotherapy by Western Schools, the intuitive loving-touch practised by barefoot blind healers wearing red head-bands became the subject of theses and dissertations by earnest people in white. The gap between rational/physical and traditional/spiritual began to close with the publication in 1988 of Hara Diagnosis - Reflections on the Sea. Matsumoto & Birch wrote of the flicker of life, the moving Qi between the kidneys, and explored the connections between Eastern and Western medicine. In 1989 at the Columbia Hotel in London Dr Motoyama and his Qi-machine demonstrated energy flowing through the connective tissues at 1.5 volts – hey, presto! energy is real, meridians exist! But among the dignitaries present, representing interests from scientific to esoteric, there were those who feared an end to their mystique. Shiatsu-related techniques multiplied in the 80’s and 90’s with the development of such as Ohashiatsu – Touch for Love, Shizuko Yamamoto’s Barefoot Shiatsu, Macrobiotic Shiatsu, Mantak Chia’s Chi Nei Tsang: internal organ energy massage, Five-Element Shiatsu, energy-shiatsu – kiatsu, water-shiatsu or watsu, even tantric: tanatsu. Unrecognised here was the one style licensed by the Japanese Ministry of Health.

Potential for harmony between the main approaches, Masunaga-Zen, Five-Elements and TCM was illustrated in 1995 by Carola Beresford Cooke in Shiatsu Theory & Practice. Then, in 1996, the English Zen Shiatsu Master, Simon Fall, inspired a return to the Source with As Snowflakes Fall, Shiatsu as Spiritual Practice. Realisation dawned: its not all just finger-push! Two years after Fall, the American acupuncturist, Lonny Jarrett, wrote Nourishing Destiny, the Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine reviving the spiritual origins excised by Mao’s dialectical materialists. Shiatsu in the West was ready to enter the new millenium. But the shadow of European bureacracy threatened English freedom to practise, since the repeal of the witchcraft legislation in 1947, any complementary therapy without restriction or, indeed, qualification. Political Dissension On the principle that if more than two Englishmen gather they start a club British institutionalism proliferated. Playing politics in the race for orthodoxy and acceptance by the Establishment, Shiatsu organisations vied for authenticity with regulations, examinations, assessments, accreditation, validation and moderation in apparent belief that more rules would attract a greater membership with a louder voice in the meridians of power, not to mention subscription income. Competition intensified. Rumours of poaching rippled through the bazaars. Databases disappeared to resurface under clouds of denial in rival offices. While older organisations stagnated in vested interests, elitism and exclusivity, nouveau upstarts canvassed bewildered students and practitioners with the relentless enthusiasm of a time-share seller. Fragmentation ruled in the world of gentle healing until early in 2001 when Tom Litten, a former trades-union organiser whose love of Shiatsu equalled his passion for politics, called a meeting of the rivals. The General Shiatsu Council was born, to front a unified team in the game of Europe.

Beyond the politics, the 21st Century Shiatsu Practitioner uses the caring touch of love, drawing down Heaven Qi to cleanse and Earth Qi up to heal. Shiatsu returns to Earth, following a proven theory based on the ebb and flow of the force known as Qi, bioelectromagnetic energy or energy-intelligence, throughout the organ-meridian networks. Zen & Healing Tao Shiatsu combines the wisdom of the Tao with the Beginner’s Mind of Zen, trusting in the perfection of now, however it should manifest. Earth Medicine Whilst drawing from the same underlying theory as acupressure and acupuncture Zen & Healing Tao Shiatsu differs in approach, aspects of diagnosis, treatment, recommendations, and the personal self-development of practitioners. The Taoist approach to Shiatsu treatment is holistic, a hands-on therapy: to harmonise the flow of energy throughout the entire being: mind, body and spirit;

to seek the underlying cause of conditions as well as relieving symptoms;

to open the Receiver’s awareness to the environment hosting the condition;

to facilitate the Receiver ‘s participation in their own healing process, while understanding Earth as the true healer, Shiatsu but an intermediary.

Diagnosis Intuition is the primary diagnosis, supported by Looking and Asking to understand how conditions developed, and Sensing and Touching to explore what is manifesting in the moment. Intuitive Diagnosis is awareness of the Earth connection between participants, the Giver of Shiatsu and the Receiver, and allowing all possibilities of understanding and healing, even before they meet. This is attained by the practice of Mu-Shin, or Empty Mind, unclouded by expectation. Sensing is scanning the energy-field to feel the different energy-levels which may manifest as heat or cold, or a strange feeling of magnetic connection, or, just a feeling. Touching Diagnosis is trusting Intuition to take the hands where needed, to harmonise imbalances of: Kyo – the World of Need, emptiness, lack: often the underlying cause, a more Yin state.

Jitsu – more excessive; more obvious, often the symptom, and more Yang.

Diagnosis is treatment, treatment is diagnosis. The practitioner adapts to the Receiver’s response to treatment, combining skill, compassion and intuition in a Taoist paradox of Mu-Shin and mindfulness.

Treatment works on three levels: Physical: shiatsu means finger-push. When the Giver’s hand, finger or thumb makes contact with the skin of the Receiver, even through the light clothing recommended for receiving a treatment, heat is generated, melting the gel around cells in the vicinity. As the gel becomes a solution, suspended toxins are released into the lymphatic system to be eliminated through the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Energetic: the solution better allows conduction of the bioelectromagnetic Qi’s healing message through the connective tissues and organ-meridian networks regulating the body-mind systems. Spiritual: Mu-Shin, Connection with Spirit and mindful Intuition lead to Intention: where the Mind goes, the Qi follows, and where the Qi flows, the blood follows. The Giver’s Intention is to help, to harmonise, and to allow, with love and compassion, without judgement. A Receiver’s symptoms are outward signs of inward dis-harmony. The Giver seeks the deficiency which allowed the condition to enter, take hold, grow and flourish! The treatment would seek to tonify the kyo and where appropriate disperse the jitsu. Always the love and compassion of the Heart Connection infuse the practitioner’s Intention, always mindful of the healing power of Earth, supporting from the centre.

The Practitioner Qi connects mind and body: to help harmonise Qi flow in others, the practitioner looks after the flow in self, with attention to diet, way of living, and meditational exercises such as Qi Gong and Tai Chi. Intuition, Skill and Knowledge are consciously developed, like the training of mind and muscle in conventional education. Vulnerability to energy-depletion, contamination, and karmic debt is countered with self-cultivation and spiritual development. Whether a Receiver suffers from a terminal condition, emotional problem, or simply needs stress relief, the Giver guards against the risk of karmic interference by acknowledging, from a deep well of loving-kindness, that each being is responsible for itself. “Let the right outcome happen”...without attachment to cure, or success. The Zen & Healing Tao Shiatsu practitioner draws on other forms when guided, with Mu-Shin, by Intuition, through Spirit, without limitation or restrictions of dogma. Recommendations Assessing the interplay of elements in the Receiver yields recommendations for self-healing and to prevent recurrence. Chi Self-massage and suggestions about exercise and meditation can help a Receiver transform stress into vitality.

Contra-indications and Controversy Few conditions are absolutely forbidden treatment. Cancer - There are two opposing views on shiatsu treatment for cancer with medical evidence for neither. One is that enhancing energy-flow facilitates the spread of cancerous cells. The other claims by fortifying the immune system shiatsu helps counter the side-effects of conventional medical treatment. In practical terms, when a cancer patient seeks out a shiatsu practitioner they have usually sought elsewhere without satisfaction. It is for the individual practitioner to decide. Children – Shiatsu being “Complementary” and not “Primary” health-care it is both contra-indicated and illegal to treat a sick child instead of referring it to a doctor for medical treatment. A signed disclaimer or authority from the parent does not legalise it! Infectious/contagious diseases – treatment is contra-indicated. Pregnancy – in the first trimester pressure is contra-indicated on certain Tsubos with elimination properties. Inflammation – rotations, stretches and manipulations are contra-indicated. Adapted from and reproduced here by kind permission of Positive Health Magazine

CALABASH OF LIGHT

ALOHA MAHALO HAWAII HUNA HEALING The shamanic tradition of Hawaii is Huna, the practitioners Kahuna, mediators with Spirit. When healing is needed, the body-healer is called to give massage or herbs. If the sickness prevails, the Kahuna finds out from Spirit what healing the soul needs for the body to be whole again. Everything is a gift and a blessing, for everything is Love, and gratitude and thanks must be given even for hurt and pain. Then harmony can be restored between soul and body. The Huna culture began to die when a race came to Hawaii that preached a doctrine of Love but practised the doctrine of material Possession. All Huna practice was banned by Christian missionaries, whose children took over the land for commerce and whose families still own it. In 200 years the native population of the islands sank from 400,000 to 150,000.

They call themselves Children of the Rainbow. Their history, spiritual beliefs, healing tradtions and culture are encoded in chants and dance, the hula, an oral, physical and visual transmission that resonates through vibration in the bones. The New Age is seeing a revival: vibrations resonate in this dimension, now through the medium of the written word through

which we of the West can share their healing and perhaps, give something back by keeping it alive in our culture. And learn the way to heal ourselves, through love. Calabash of Light Each child is born of the Rainbow and there at death returns. We are born perfect and gifted by the gods with a calabash of light to illuminate our way. In our passage through this life we dodge or embrace the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, we give love, joy and kindness. Each sadness, hurt or wound given or received adds a pebble to the calabash, obscuring the light. Each joy removes a pebble, increasing our radiance. When our time comes to step back upon the Rainbow, the more light radiating from our calabash the sooner we can find our way home. “Our thoughts are our reality” the kahuna said, “and we can change both. We embody every thought we have had, every thought another has had about us. We are the good we have done and the bad we have done, the good that has been done us and the bad done to us. The good and the bad of the past have become ourthoughts. The good and bad of the present depend on how we react to events in the present. We can change the karma brought from before by our thoughts, and we can change the effect of what happens now, by our responses. We can take pebbles out, or put more in. We can choose, to live in the light. Or the dark. Most of you” he smiled, “live in twilight, with occasional patches of brilliance or shadow. Each thought is a choice” How many thoughts do we have in a day? About 12,000, according to the TV ad, 90% of them being the same thoughts as yesterday.

Take a Random Thought Have a blank sheet of paper in front of you. Write nothing for the moment but take your mind back to one day last week, to any random hour that you spent doing anything that involved another person or other people. You might have been sitting with a friend (did you listen or talk?), or buying a pair of shoes (or taking them back), or attending a business meeting, a family meal (did anyone argue?) in a restaurant (did you leave a tip?), a date (were you starting, sustaining or ending it). Take just one hour. Draw a big circle on your sheet of paper and, as you gaze into that circle: Reflect on what you did in that hour What you said What was said to you What you heard How were you were affected by what you heard? How were others were affected by what you said? What thoughts arose in that hour? What were their causes and effects? What do you think were the effects of your interaction with another/s Gazing into the circle let your mind dwell upon the images arising from this reflection on that hour. And write down inside this circle your clearest memories of this hour and your thoughts about it.

This is just one hour of your life. Reflect now on: � The thought that came up most strongly or most often in that hour � Thoughts that come up most often or most strongly in your life � What is the best thing that ever happened to you? � What is the best thing you ever did for someone else? � What is the biggest hurt that ever happened to you? � What is the biggest hurt you ever gave someone? � In your day-to-day life, what do you find yourself mostly thinking about? As yet, suspend any self-judgement or conclusions arising from your reflections. Think back again, to the biggest hurt that ever happened to you, whatever it may have been. Were you rejected, abandoned, deceived, betrayed, jilted, bullied, neglected, beaten, ignored, embarrassed, offended, humiliated, harmed physically, emotionally? From that time, choose the worst hour you can remember. Draw another circle on a fresh page. Reflect on that hour, on what was said and done, how you and others were affected, the thoughts that arose, their causes and effects, your interactions with others. Gazing into the circle let your mind dwell upon the images arising from this reflection on that hour. And write down inside this circle your clearest memories of this hour and your thoughts about it. Suspend any self-judgement or conclusions arising from your reflections.

Think back, now, to the biggest hurt you ever gave someone. Choose an hour from that time. Draw a new circle on another blank sheet and as you gaze into the circle reflect on that hour, on what was said and done, the images arising. Write down inside this circle your clearest memories of this hour and your thoughts about it. Suspend any self-judgement or conclusions arising from your reflections. Take a moment now to remember the best thing that ever happened to you. Choose an hour, draw the circle, reflect and write. And then an hour from the best thing you ever did for someone else. The circle is your calabash of light. You can put pebbles in, or take them out. You can do this by your thoughts on the past and your responses in the present. You can also do it by examining your karmic map, the connections of persons and events which have influenced your life, which gave rise to your present thoughts and responses. For example, you may never know what your step-grandmother’s cousin did to her when she was ten years old that influenced the way she later treated the step-father who abused you when you were twelve, but if you did know what happened you might not forgive but you would at least understand that whatever it was…. IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT! And on deeper reflection it might not have been his, entirely, nor his mother’s, even, and who knows what might have caused the cousin to do the wrong in the first instance – except to understand that it was almost certainly not the first instance. You can remove the pebbles from the calabash. You can restore the light, for yourself and for them, all of them, for all time is now and the karmic connections are always.

The Karmic Map As a child you may have heard your parents talking about their grandfathers or grandmothers, who would have been among your eight great-grandparents. You may even have known them yourself. In many families these are the earliest relatives of whom you have conscious knowledge, directly or by hearsay. As above, so below: you may know your own great-grandchildren, or they will hear about you from their parents. Let us say, then, we have seven generations in our karmic consciousness: three generations above, three below, with you, your sisters and brothers in the centre. We have other family connections: parents’ siblings: our uncles and aunts, perhaps step-parents, their siblings, children, and the generations above and below. Your Karmic Map also includes all your heart, soul, mind, body, sexual and love connections, too: spouse/s, lovers, one-night stands, friends, foes, colleagues, business associates, teachers, students, fellow-students, and the person who caught your eye as you passed in the street or the subway. You will become especially aware, as you make your map, of those who have done you wrong and those you have wronged, of those you especially love, and those who love you. Acknowledge, to yourself, your feelings about those you love but who have wronged you, and those you have wronged but who love you. Observe your response as they enter your consciousness. Draw your Karmic Map out on a sheet of paper, writing in the names, where known, of your connections. These are the beings who influence your life and whose lives you influence.

Understanding your Karma You need only be aware of your Karmic Field in this life because now is the manifestation of all lives, past, present and future. Understanding yourself in this dimension will lead you to clarity and freedom in all dimensions. Think of the hours that you thought about before, and all the hours of your life, and the hours of all the connected lives you have mapped, the many millions of hours in all these interconnected lives and the lives that have gone before and be aware of all the thoughts that have directly or indirectly influenced your own present, day-to-day thoughts and responses. Understand the effect of all the hours of other lives affecting each other. Understand the wrongs that were done to those who wronged you, understand that when you wronged another what it was that made you do it. Understand the pebbles in your calabash of light. � Understand that when you were hurt it was not your fault. � Understand that when you gave hurt, it was not your fault. � Understand that it was not the fault of those who hurt you. � Understand that All Time is Now At the head of your Karmic Map, in very big letters, print the words: ITS NOT MY FAULT And now that you understand, you can cleanse your karma and be free of its conditioning in this life and carry that freedom home when its time for you to step on to the Rainbow with your calabash of light.

How to cleanse your Karma In your mind’s eye, visualise a person you love, one who has done good for you, or for whom you have done good. Smile at them and say to them THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU And as you recite these sacred words, you make the mudra: ALOHA MAHALO, MAHALO ALOHA Feel the love between you. Feel the Light around you. Feel the clarity, and the freedom. Make a tick across their name on your map. You have removed a pebble. In your mind’s eye, visualise someone you have hurt or wronged. Visualise them looking at you. See the expression in their eyes. Say to them ‘Its not your fault, its not my fault’ and then repeat the words and mudra THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, THANK YOU again and again until they smile, and you feel the love, and you feel the light, and the clarity, and the freedom. And then, tick their name on your map and remove a pebble from your calabash of light. Bathe in brilliance. In your mind’s eye, visualise someone who has hurt or wronged you. Visualise them looking at you. See the expression in their eyes. Say to them ‘Its not your fault, its not my fault’ and then repeat the words THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, THANK YOU and mudra until they smile, and you feel the love, and you feel the light, and the clarity, and the freedom. Tick their name on your map and remove a pebble from your calabash of light. Bathe in its radiance. It does not matter how long you spend on each person as long as you repeat the words and mudra Thank You, I Love You until they smile and you feel the love, the light, the clarity and the freedom and, only then, tick their name, remove another pebble and live in light. How many people? How many hours? This is a Life Path. When you step upon the Rainbow, your calabash clear of pebbles, you become the Light! ALOHA MAHALO, MAHALO ALOHA, MAHALO ALOHA, ALOHA MAHALO First published in and reproduced by kind permission of Positive Health Magazine

The TAO OF TANTRA

Is it disgusting, boring, worthy and dangerous, or can Tantra offer self-realisation by having a good time? The Tao is the One, the source (1); Tantra is to expand and to liberate (2). Both see the world “not as a vale of tears, of sorrow or of suffering, but of subjective and objective beauty, a world of reality, neither an illusion nor an evil...the path is smooth and straight”. The aim is enlightenment: Union with the Divine (3), the means, sexual ecstasy. The practices are lofty and profound, sacred and profane, barring nothing except harming another.(4) While the Tao is Harmony, Tantra “challenges practitioners immediately to see all things and all experiences as intrinsically pure and innately perfect.... including situations meant to shock, repulse or terrify ... heart and mind will be illuminated”(5). Courting the disapproval of society, Tantra bashes down boundaries, barriers and taboos, prescribing “forbidden acts”(6), opening windows to spiritual independence, creating opportunities for grasping the moment, shoving you along the “short path” to ultimate peace, the indescribable experience of subtle clear light. Flavoured by its roots, Hindu ritual is based on surrender(6), eating forbidden meat and drinking forbidden alcohol. Women practitioners (personifying the goddess Shakti) are seated either Right or Left of their male (Shiva) partners in the tantric circle. In the Right-Hand Ritual members enjoy sex with their own partner, in the Left-Hand Ritual with others, of any or no caste and regardless of sexual appeal. Rituals culminate in orgasm, with Shiva ejaculating in ecstatic surrender to the power of Shakti, the divine. The mechanistic nature of the rituals and unofficial use of drugs help participants overcome apprehension, inhibitions and aversion to such practices as breaking caste taboos, ingrained over lifetimes in the Hindu consciousness. Liberation from conditioning of caste, taboo and convention leads to a freedom from fear possibly comparable with that of a committed Christian or Jew discovering that sin has been abolished.

For many this is enlightenment enough. Others continue to surrender: possessions, dwelling, family, becoming Saddhu, beyond ritual. Beyond the beyond, the Aghora sect live tantra “at the Left Hand of God” (7), frequenting cremation-grounds, eating human flesh and excrement, having sex with the dead, surrendering all attachment to shorten their chosen path by many incarnations. For the male and female Buddhist, with their “inner experience of dissatisfaction with this existence”(8), the focus is bliss rather than sexual ecstasy. The Right-Hand path means practising alone or “Single Cultivation”; Left-Hand or “Dual Cultivation” is with a partner, preferably a member of the same tantric family: teacher, pupil, co-practitioner(5). A man should not surrender semen, in fact if he “spills it, this is considered a great fault .... a very grave mistake”(9). The reward for correct practice is enlightenment in just one lifetime. “Addicted to sin and anger”(3), we in the West yearn for ecstasy yet pollute the practice of pleasure with demons of Shame, Guilt, and Fear of punishment(10). A Western guru diverts such “demons” by encouraging an attitude of Reverence or describing practices as Sacred, but labels as “shame-muscles” parts of the body which might otherwise be described as pleasure-zones. Judaeo-Christian patriarchal conditioning influences western tantra towards the socially approved ideal of the faithful couple. Carefully drawn boundaries and use of psycho-therapy and counselling help groups and individuals meet fears and inhibitions arising from repression or sexual wounding earlier in life. This approach suits seekers who might otherwise not take even a first step on the tantric path. Enlightenment here could mean freedom from sexual trauma. Indian classics advise setting aside twelve years yogic preparation of the physical and energy-body, Taoists (11) recommend Tai Chi and QiGong to open and clear energy channels(3). Western tantrics, wanting immediate enlightenment, now, at the weekend workshop, might find certain practices overload the nervous system, with painful and sometimes dangerous long-term side-effects. Is Tantra something more than disgusting, boring, worthy and dangerous? Stoned and inebriated, fearful of the great fault, the grave mistake, plagued by guru-demons of shame and guilt, we seek the true spirit of tantra, the path of ecstasy. Can we attain self-realisation by having a good time?

“Secret Instructions of the Jade Chamber”(12) is a Taoist text on harmonising male (yang) and female (yin) energies. Sin is not recognised, nor any concept of right and wrong beyond individual conscience. With “...all things and all experiences intrinsically pure and innately perfect...” it is unnecessary to create difficult and painful processes. Pain and difficulties arise only from our responses to experiences. Taoist Tantra is mutual nourishment, yin drawing on yang and yang from yin. Single, Dual and Multiple Cultivation can be practised, for pleasure, health and longevity, healing, self-realisation and, ultimately, experiencing a self beyond the cycle of life and death: Re-Union with the Tao, the universal Source. As above, so below: each of us a microcosm, two heavenly cycles fusing in the moment of sexual climax. Taoist methodology begins with the familiar: the physical and the formulaic. In progressing from novice to adept, the practitioner learns to transcend form and formula. There is no ‘sacred’ focus, all human sex being sacred in the union of Yang, the force of Heaven, with Yin, the power of Earth. Sex is seen as the servant, not the master. Practitioners learn to control and harvest the abundance of reproductive power, otherwise wasted in unmindful intercourse: yang having the power to repopulate a continent in a single ejaculation, yin with eggs to generate hundreds of lives. If the products of our pleasure are not being deployed to start new life, say the Taoists, we can internalise the intense energy, all the hormones and nutrients, to improve our own lives. Repression of the natural urges is considered unhealthy. In the words of Mantak Chia, a modern Taoist Master, “Sex is natural. The human being has a powerful sex drive - and you cannot keep the pingpong balls under water. Sometime, somewhere, they pop back up, maybe as disease, maybe as emotional problems, causing energy blockages, leading to illness. The Tao is the way of recycling, not repression.”

Men and women redirect orgasmic energy through the Microcosmic Orbit (Small Heavenly Cycle), for good health and long life, with the additional benefit for women of controllable and painless menstruation (13). Practitioners enjoy increased vigour, improved stamina and enhanced sensation through “whole-body-orgasm.” Harmonising male and female peaks and valleys of arousal and orgasm without energy-loss enables longer and more pleasurable sexual encounters. Woman loses energy more through menstruation and childbirth than orgasm. For man, it is vital to open the Orbit otherwise non-ejaculatory orgasm can cause aching, congestion, wet dreams or headaches. Retention and recycling is important but Taoists also make recommendations for seminal release related to the age of the practitioner and season e.g. rarely in Winter, a time for conservation, more frequently in Spring - and the springtime of a relationship, with its urgent need for surrender to the goddess. However, Secret Instructions of the Jade Chamber contra-indicates practice when in the grip of emotional extremes and unbridled passion, then adding that because you may become ill from it, you may also be cured by it! Other contra-indications include practising when drunk, too soon after a meal, and when constipated. Mantak Chia speaks of the spiritual power: “You can either pray 100,000 hours, or you can consciously guide the sexual energy in the Microcosmic Orbit” The Tao is the way of harmony, Tantra expands and liberates. Without gender discrimination, rules, hierarchy or clergy, requiring no conversion or belief system, offering guidance rather than dogma, the Tao of Tantra is a short sweet path to spiritual independence, or your own conception of self-realisation or enlightenment. These words of the Dalai Lama capture the essence: “if the meditator applies certain meditative techniques it is possible to create opportunities for grasping the moment and consciously generating the experience of subtle clear light...during the time of death, of deep sleep, and sexual climax.”(9) If His Holiness were a woman, he might have included the moment of childbirth!

REFERENCES 1) Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu tr JC Wu, Shambala 1989 ISBN 0877733880 2) Ecstasy through Tantra, John Mumford, Llewellyn 1988, ISBN 0875424945 3) Principles of Tantra, ed A Avalon. Ganesh & Co (Madras) 1914 4) Cultivating the Energy of Life, Eva Wong, Shambala 1998, ISBN 1570623422 5) Passionate Enlightenment, Miranda Shaw, Princeton 1994 ISBN 069101090 6) TheTantricTradition, Agehananda Bharati, Rider 1965 7) Aghora, Robert Svoboda, Sadhana 1999 ISBN 0965620840 8) The Dalai Lama’s Book of Wisdom, ed M Bunson, Rider 1998 ISBN 0712671196 9) Healing Anger, The Dalai Lama tr GTJinpa, Snow Lion 1997 ISBN 1559390735 10) Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, Bloomsbury 1996, ISBN 0747528306 11) Taoist Secrets of Love, Mantak Chia, Aurora 1984 ISBN 0943358191 12) The Taoist Experience, Livia Kohn, SUNY 1993 ISBN 0791415805 13) Healing Love through the Tao, Mantak & Maneewan Chia, Healing Tao Books 1986 ISBN 0935621059

SECRETS OF A TAOIST MASTER A Taoist Master who was once a Taoist student broke his promise - as any good Taoist would - to keep secret the secret his own Master had told. This opened the door for others in his group to share their secrets. Being Taoists and not into surrender or poverty they had each paid the Master something, money, sex, food, whatever, for their own individual prized secret that was to have made such a difference to their life, the lives of their loved ones and anyone they came into contact with. The secret gave power. But the most important thing about your secret, said He, is to keep your secret secret. Never divulge it to anyone. Because then it won't be a secret. And it will lose its power. And you will lose yours. He said. Of course, and you have probably guessed it by now, they all had been given the same secret. The real secret of power is that by defying the Master's power each student can come into his or her own. Real power cannot be given: it can only be taken. That's the secret! You'll remember this, won't you, next time some one tries to control you with a secret.