Podcasts about daoist

Send a MessageWhat is magic?Before spells, charms, talismans, and grimoires, there was a more fundamental question: what is the power that makes magic possible?In this episode of The Hidden Passage, we explore magical power as it appears across cultures, religions, folklore traditions, and esoteric systems throughout history. From the mana of Melanesia, to the orenda of the Huron, the heka of ancient Egypt, the dori of Amazonian shamans, and the qi of Daoist philosophy, we uncover a recurring vision of reality—one in which the world is alive, participatory, and permeated by hidden forces.Drawing on mythology, anthropology, religious studies, folklore, and historical accounts of magical practice, we examine:• The sacred origins of magical power• Mana, orenda, heka, qi, and other concepts of spiritual force• Sacred sites, magical objects, and the principle of contagion• Shamanic initiation and spirit-bestowed power• The evil eye and innate human potency• Asceticism, yoga, and the cultivation of mystical abilities• Magical causality and participation in the cosmos• The relationship between magicians, spirits, and the divine• Why magical traditions emerge across cultures worldwideFar from being irrational superstition, magical worldviews propose a radically different understanding of reality—one in which human beings participate directly in the deeper forces that shape existence.This episode serves as the foundation for a new series exploring the history, philosophy, and practice of magic.

Can transcendence still make philosophical sense after modernity? John Vervaeke speaks with philosopher William Desmond about Platonism as a living tradition, the meaning of strong transcendence, and Desmond's philosophy of the metaxu: the between. The conversation builds from John's proposal that relevance realization and transjectivity are philosophically grounded in Desmond's ontological account of the between. John begins by distinguishing modern psychological accounts of transcendence from the ancient and Platonic sense of strong transcendence. In this stronger sense, transcendence is not merely a better state of mind. It discloses truths that are otherwise unavailable and changes the knower's relation to reality. That claim challenges modern assumptions about flat ontology, the buffered self, representational cognition, and the fact-value split. Desmond responds through Plato. He presents Plato not as a dry theorist of two worlds, but as a philosophical artist of the between: a thinker of mimesis, eros, mania, dialogue, singularity, and participatory transformation. Plato's dialogues are not ornamental containers for arguments; their drama, characters, and dialogical movement are part of the philosophy itself. The later conversation opens into deep memory, imagination, eternity, possibility, God, Daoism, intercultural philosophy, pilgrimage, and the life-world. Desmond and Vervaeke converge on the need to move beyond the view from nowhere and return philosophy to transformative practice, embodied dwelling, and a richer contact with the sources of intelligibility. Key Insights Strong transcendence has epistemological and ontological significance, not only psychological benefit. The metaxu, or between, names a porous relation before, beneath, between, and beyond modern dichotomies. Modernity's fact-value split risks producing default atheism or default nihilism. Participatory knowing offers an alternative to treating cognition as internal representation of an external world. Plato's dialogical form is integral to his philosophy; the drama cannot simply be stripped away to extract arguments. Mimesis involves relation between image and original without collapsing their difference. Eros and mania point to two directions of transcendence: from below upward and from above downward. Deep memory is a source of imagination and ontological depth, not merely storage of past facts. Possibility should not be reduced to logical possibility; living possibility points toward enabling power. Pilgrimage and theoria are linked: philosophical transformation requires being on the way, not merely observing from nowhere. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and setup 01:00 Relevance realization and the philosophy of the between 02:00 Platonism as living tradition 02:40 The need for strong transcendence 03:50 Transcendence after modernity 04:40 William Desmond introduces his work 05:00 Between system and poetics 06:00 The Western tradition as conversation partner 08:00 John's paper on strong transcendence 09:20 Psychological transcendence in modern thought 10:00 Truths disclosed through transcendence 11:00 Flat ontology and layered reality 12:30 The buffered self 14:00 Fact-value dichotomy and default atheism 15:10 Contact epistemology and participatory relation 17:20 Being realized as you realize 18:20 Anagoge and the cave 18:40 Interior, exterior, and superior transcendence 20:10 Autonomy, heteronomy, theonomy, and theosis 21:30 Desmond responds 22:00 Plato's philosophical art and the Sophist 22:30 Art, origins, and otherness 23:40 Originality, creativity, and modern art 25:20 Mimesis and the difference between image and original 28:20 Plato as thinker of the metaxu 29:00 Eros and self-transcendence 30:00 Mania and divine inspiration 31:30 Inspiration as transmission 33:20 Metaxology and Hegel 34:40 The Sophist and participatory knowing 36:40 The who of the sophist 38:10 Periagoge and the turning of the soul 39:40 Philosophy as a way of life 40:30 Exiting modernity's frame 43:20 The dialogue form is not ornamental 45:30 Socrates as an image of courage 46:20 Dialogos and method 48:00 Diaphanous logos 49:00 Singular incarnation and witness 51:10 Theoria as contemplation and pilgrimage 52:00 John's dialectic-in-dialogos practice 53:20 Anamnesis in practice 54:20 The logos beyond the participants 55:20 Deep memory and imagination 57:00 Muses, memory, and hidden springs 58:20 AI and outsourced memory 59:00 Memory as ontological depth 01:00:30 Eternity and the other to time 01:02:40 Inward otherness and ultimate otherness 01:04:50 Plato's sun and enabling light 01:06:20 Porosity and the buffered self 01:07:00 Living possibility 01:09:00 Possibility, transcendence, and God 01:10:40 What makes intelligibility intelligible? 01:11:40 Eastern and Western approaches to possibility 01:13:30 Coming to be and becoming 01:15:40 Nicholas of Cusa 01:17:00 Wu wei and giving way 01:18:20 Daoist practice and Socratic midwifery 01:20:20 Philosophical Silk Road 01:22:10 The intimate universal 01:23:20 Against philosophical tourism 01:25:30 Elemental porosity 01:26:00 Pilgrimage and practice 01:27:40 Being underway 01:29:30 Theoria as metanoetic passage 01:30:10 Symphonic language 01:34:00 The life-world 01:35:40 Rejecting the view from nowhere 01:36:20 Closing Resources William Desmond, Being and the Between William Desmond, Ethics and the Between William Desmond, God and the Between William Desmond, Art, Origins, Otherness: Between Philosophy and Art Plato, Symposium, Ion, Sophist, Republic, and Laches Plotinus and Proclus Hegel Charles Taylor Catherine Pickstock, Aspects of Truth Paul Tillich Thomas Aquinas Nicholas of Cusa Pierre Hadot Henry Corbin Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson, The Blind Spot Follow John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke/videos X: https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke

I'm Bryan Kam. I endeavour daily to make philosophy accessible and relevant. To that end I write this newsletter and host a podcast called Clerestory. I'm also writing a book called Neither/Nor and I'm a founding member of Liminal Learning. In London, I host a book club, a writing group, and other events. My work looks at how conceptual abstraction relates to embodied life, and how to use this understanding to transform experience.I was thrilled recently to speak with a hero of mine, Brook Ziporyn, who is Mircea Eliade Professor of Chinese Religion, Philosophy, and Comparative Thought at the University of Chicago.In this podcast we cover Ziporyn's intellectual history, from his grandfather's Spinozism to the ontological ambiguities of Tiantai Buddhism. We spoke about how values undermine themselves when made explicit, how grammar shapes metaphysics, and what happens when one follows anti-realism all the way through to its surprisingly positive consequences.Professor Ziporyn traced a philosophical thread that runs from the Daodejing's second chapter—”when all in the world recognizes the good as good, there is the bad”—through Buddhist emptiness to Spinoza's critique of teleology. This “value paradox” suggests that explicit embrace of values contains an immanent reversal, a self-undermining which challenges the Western philosophical tradition's foundation in purpose, natural kinds, and the Good.We look at related insights across traditions, for example:Chinese Buddhism's claim that samsara is nirvana,in Schopenhauer's blind will that has no internal divisions nor any ultimate goal,in Nietzsche's affirmation of life including its suffering,and in the Daoist sage who acts through wu-wei (spontaneous action or non-action) rather than purposeful striving.A central exploration concerns how language inclines thought, though it doesn't limit it. Classical Chinese lacks tense, gender, singular/plural distinctions, definite articles, and even clear differentiation between parts of speech—the same word can be beauty, beautiful, or to beautify depending on context. This grammatical openness means that certain metaphysical questions of “Being” simply do not naturally arise. Other philosophical questions, whose appeal is difficult to render into English, do, of course, arise in Chinese — like the paradox “a white horse is not a horse”.By contrast, Indo-European languages with their subject-predicate structure seem to demand an agent behind every action (Nietzsche's example: “it rains”—what is the “it” that does the raining?). The law of excluded middle, natural kinds, and teleological thinking may be, as Ziporyn puts it, “downhill” moves in Western languages—statistically more likely to develop because they're grammatically easier to express. But they are “uphill” for Chinese, meaning that they can be expressed with difficulty. Likewise, Chinese insights into “non-purposive action” can be expressed easily in Classical Chinese, but only with difficulty in Western languages, like Spinoza's Latin or Schopenhauer's German.Ziporyn has written on “ontological ambiguity” in Tiantai Buddhism. Rather than ambiguity being merely epistemological (we don't know what something is), Tiantai suggests ambiguity is inherent to existence and distinctions. To be determinate requires relations to what something is not—and those relations make any finite thing necessarily ambiguous, appearing differently in different contexts without changing.This leads to the Buddhist notion of the “emptiness of emptiness.” Rather than a straight line to pure experience beyond concepts, Chinese Buddhist readings suggest the negation of negation brings us back to provisional reality—but transformed. As Ziporyn notes, once you say everything including nirvana is an illusion, the contrast between illusion and reality disappears. “Illusion” no longer functions as a put-down but [...]Read more at https://www.bryankam.com/p/samsara-is-nirvana-with-brook-ziporyn

In this episode, I'm joined by Tanya St-Lawson, a martial artist whose journey spans continents, cultures, and decades of deep personal cultivation. Born in the former Czechoslovakia, Tanya first began training in the martial arts as a teenager after moving to Prague, where she was introduced to Shaolin-style kung fu. What started as an interest in martial arts quickly evolved into a lifelong pursuit of discipline, self-discovery, and embodied practice. Her path has taken her across Europe and into China, studying a wide range of systems and disciplines including Eagle Claw Kung Fu, English Martial Arts, Shaolin Temple arts, stage and screen combat, and bodywork modalities in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Alongside her martial training, Tanya also served in the British Police from 2006 to 2011 within a Public Protection Unit, working in critical and serious incidents. That experience gave her a unique perspective on conflict, stress, and the role martial arts can play as both a stabilizing force and a practical framework for daily life. In 2009, her martial path took a profound turn when she traveled to the Wudang Mountains of China, where she began transitioning from primarily external systems into the world of internal martial arts and Daoist cultivation. Over multiple extended stays, including six months living and training at the Five Immortals Temple, she immersed herself in the traditions of the Dragon Gate, Chun Yang lineage under Abbot Xing De. Today, Tanya lives in the south of England, where she continues her training while teaching movement, embodiment, internal martial arts, and practical strategies for personal evolution and everyday living. Please enjoy my interview with Tanya St-Lawson! (1) Instagram (1) Tanya St-Lawson – Personal Evolution Unlimited – YouTube

Is there really a “Daoist diet”? In this episode of Living the Tao Shorts (2-22), Taoist Master Mikel Steenrod explores one of the most misunderstood subjects in Taoist practice: food restrictions, dietary cultivation, and the purpose behind them. Rather than rigid rules or moral prohibitions, traditional Daoist approaches to diet were often based on observation, experimentation, longevity, and energetic outcome. The discussion explores: The real meaning of the ancient Bigu diet Why some Daoist traditions reduced grain consumption The relationship between food, herbs, and Qi How Daoism historically approached experimentation and fringe practices The influence of Buddhism on later dietary restrictions Why Daoism tends to reject ideology in favor of direct results This is a practical and historically grounded conversation about food, health, and cultivation within the broader Daoist tradition.   To explore Bigu more deeply, try this article here: https://www.watermountainvirtual.com/what-is-bigu/ To view the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/gRMV36dDoug 

If you enjoy this episode, we're sure you will enjoy more content like this on The Occult Rejects.  In fact, we have curated playlists on occult topics like grimoires, esoteric concepts and phenomena, occult history, analyzing true crime and cults with an occult lens, Para politics, and occultism in music. Whether you enjoy consuming your content visually or via audio, we've got you covered - and it will always be provided free of charge.  So, if you enjoy what we do and want to support our work of providing accessible, free content on various platforms, please consider making a donation to the links provided below.  Thank you and enjoy the episode!Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Cash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsPrimary / traditional texts and core religious sourcesĀnāpānasati Sutta (MN 118), translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Access to Insight. Best primary source for Buddhist mindfulness of breathing.“Ḏekr / Dhikr,” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Strong source for Sufi remembrance, rhythmic repetition, posture, and breathing-linked practice.“Hesychasm,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Good general source for the Christian contemplative tradition of stillness, uninterrupted prayer, and the Jesus Prayer.“Saint Gregory Palamas,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Useful for the role of bodily posture and controlled breathing in Hesychast prayer.Crowley, Aleister. Liber E vel Exercitiorum. Primary text for Crowley's explicit inclusion of “Pranayama – Regularisation of the Breathing” in occult training.Crowley, Aleister. Book Four, Part 1. Useful for Crowley's statement that pranayama is useful in “quieting the emotions and appetites.”Historical / religious context“Prana,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Best short source for the deep Indian background: prāṇa, the five prāṇas, and breath as vital force.“Pranayama,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Best short source for classical Yoga: pranayama as the fourth limb aimed toward samādhi.“Hatha Yoga,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Useful for the force-oriented turn: bodily mastery, purification, and regulation of breathing.“Qi,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Good for Daoist and Chinese background: qi as psychophysical energy and breath-linked vital force.“Qigong,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Useful for qigong as a discipline combining movement, breathing, and mental concentration.“Are Kabbalistic Meditations all about Ecstasy?” in Hermes Explains (Cambridge). Strong academic source for Abraham Abulafia and ecstatic Kabbalah.“Classical Kabbalah, Its History and Symbolic Universe.” Useful academic source noting ecstatic Kabbalah's breathing exercises, postures, and developed techniques.Neuroscience / physiology / altered statesAshhad, Kam, Del Negro, and Feldman. “Breathing Rhythm and Pattern and Their Influence on Emotion.” Annual Review of Neuroscience (2022). One of the best overview papers for the whole episode.Yackle et al. “Breathing control center neurons that promote arousal in mice.” Science (2017). Key source for the preBötzinger complex / calm-vs-arousal section.Schottelkotte and Dutschmann. “Forebrain control of breathing: Anatomy and potential functions.” Frontiers in Neurology (2022). Best source for cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus in breathing control.Krohn et al. “The integrated brain network that controls respiration.” eLife (2023). Strong review for respiration as part of a larger integrated brain network.Heck et al. “Breathing as a fundamental rhythm of brain function.” Human MEG work on respiration-modulated brain oscillations across frequency bands and brain regions.(Note: the specific MEG paper surfaced in earlier research as the respiration-modulated oscillations study; the review sources above are the strongest anchors for that section.)Zelano et al. “Nasal Respiration Entrains Human Limbic Oscillations and Modulates Cognitive Function.” Journal of Neuroscience (2016). One of the most important human papers in the whole script.Schreiner et al. “Respiration modulates sleep oscillations and memory reactivation in humans.” Nature Communications (2023). Best source for the sleep-spindle / memory-reactivation section.Zaccaro et al. “How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psychophysiological Correlates of Slow Breathing.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience / PMC version (2018). Best broad source for slow breathing under 10 breaths per minute.Shao, Man, and Lee. “The Effect of Slow-Paced Breathing on Cardiovascular and Emotion Functions: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review.” Mindfulness (2024). Useful for the stabilizing-road section.Kozhevnikov et al. “Neurocognitive and Somatic Components of Temperature Increases during g-Tummo Meditation.” PLoS ONE (2013). Best source for vase breathing and inner-heat claims.Zhang et al. “Hyperventilation in neurological patients: from physiology to outcome evidence.” Useful source for hypocapnia, cerebral vasoconstriction, and reduced cerebral blood flow.Havenith et al. “Decreased CO2 saturation during circular breathwork supports emergence of altered states of consciousness.” Communications Psychology (2025). The key modern paper for circular breathwork and altered-state onset. Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. Now let me introduce the rest of the panel and guests.

Thank you for joining us for this Silk Road Seminar from The Lectern. John Vervaeke is joined by Edward Slingerland for a live, unscripted dialogue exploring wisdom, cognition, spontaneity, ritual, and the relationship between ancient traditions and modern scientific understanding. Edward Slingerland is a professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia and a leading scholar of early Chinese thought, cognitive science, and embodied wisdom traditions. He is the author of Trying Not to Try, which explores the paradox of spontaneity and the Daoist concept of wu-wei through both classical philosophy and contemporary psychology. Silk Road Seminars are live, exploratory dialogues where John engages leading thinkers across philosophy, theology, cognitive science, and contemplative traditions. These conversations unfold in real time through dia-logos, inviting participants into deeper reflection on meaning, wisdom, transformation, and the cultivation of an ecology of practices. To join future live sessions and gain access to exclusive Q&As, sign up at the Gamma Tier or above on The Lectern: https://lectern.teachable.com/p/lectern-lounge University students, including doctoral students, receive free access. Email proof of student identity to: ethan@vervaekefoundation.org Support John's work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Follow John Vervaeke: http://johnvervaeke.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke http://x.com/drjohnvervaeke

The Legalists and Confucians still run the show in today's China, argues a scholar of classical Chinese thought — but the Mohists and Daoists still have a voice in the debate.The China Books Podcast is a companion of China Books Review, a project of Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations and The Wire China. For any queries or comments, please write to info@chinabooksreview.com.

Send us Fan MailIn this returning visit to the Spiritually Inspired Show, poet, artist, and holistic community builder Flowing River shares how three years of dedicated mantra meditation under a single spiritual teacher — Bahador Sangjee — fundamentally transformed his understanding of the spiritual path. Drawing on metaphors of mountain trails, digging one hole, and the wisdom of enlightened sages from Buddha to Guru Nanak to Lao Tzu, he makes the case that simplicity, devotion, and depth are far more powerful than the "rainbow path" of collecting spiritual experiences across many traditions. He weaves together his 19-year digital marketing background, his disillusionment with the ego-driven business world, the dangers of AI dependence, the science of tea and its L-theanine chemistry, and the philosophy behind Drishti House — his Daoist tea ceremony space in Santa Barbara — into a single, unified vision: that true creativity, true healing, and true leadership all flow from the same source — the willingness to go inward, stay still, and surrender to what is already within you. Contact Flowing River.Support the show

Last episode we briefly talked about what happened when Ōama passed away, including the apparent conspiracy around the Royal Prince Ōtsu, and then the question as to why his son, Crown Prince Kusakabe, didn't then succeed him to the throne. This episode we are taking a look at that period, but more focused on the rituals and what went into a royal funeral, and then take a look all the way to the eventual ascension to the throne of not Crown Prince Kusakabe, but instead his mother, Ōama's queen, Uno no Sarara. She would eventually be known as Jitō Tennō. For photos and links to other episodes, check out our blog post: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-148   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 148: A Nation Mourns Crown Prince Kusakabe approached the temporary palace structure that had been hastily assembled in the courtyard in front of the Kiyomihara Palace.   Solemnly arrayed around him, dressed in their court garments, were the ministers and government officials.  Together, they approached the palace building, where the Crown Prince's father, Ohoama, also known as Ame no Nunahara oki no Mabito, lay in state.  He had passed away, and according to the imported Confucian values of filial piety, Kusakabe was now expected to mourn in ritual fashion. The court ritualists had seen to every detail of what should be done and even said, to the extent that the crown prince's actions almost felt like a performance of grief, rather than a heartfelt tribute.  And yet, Kusakabe could not help but feel some emotion at the sight of his father, once the most powerful man under heaven, now laid out in this place of temporary interment.  There would be many more ceremonies and rituals before the final mausoleum would be built and the former sovereign's body finally laid to rest.  Until then, even though Ohoama's spirit had left, his body would remain as a symbol to the people, and as the centerpiece of an elaborate ritual, designed, in part, to continue to bolster the state he had helped to create.   Last episode we went into some of the shenanigans around the death of Ohoama and the succession to the throne.  As we saw, not everyone was apparently on board with the idea that Crown Prince Kusakabe would take the throne, leading to the arrest and execution of Prince Ohotsu.  However, we noted that Crown Prince Kusakabe didn't end up on the throne after all: for whatever reason, he never ascended to the honor, and died in 689 – not even three years after the death of his father.  And so we saw Uno no Sarara, Ohoama's wife and queen and mother of Crown Prince Kusakabe, formally take the reins of state and go on to reign as the sovereign, the Sumera Mikoto, or Tennou, until 697.  From there she would become the first ever Retired Sovereign, keeping her hand in government until her death in 703. This episode we are going to look a little more in depth regarding everything that went on around Ohoama's death and the various rites accompanying his passing. Ohoama's was obviously not the first royal death that we have seen in the Chronicles.  It is perhaps, however, one of the best documented in terms of the funerary arrangements and the various rituals that accompanied his passing.  Some of those arrangements are mentioned previously in the Chronicles, but not to the same extent as we see for Ohoama.  This leaves me wondering: are we seeing something novel—new rites for a new type of sovereign, perhaps?  Or was this just the first time the ritual had been documented to this level of detail?. Before jumping into what we see this time around, we should probably look back at what we have seen around the death of previous sovereigns, and which are still going on here.  First and foremost is the creation—or at least the designation—of a "Palace of Temporary Interment".    This is the Mogari no Miya, with "mogari" being the term for the period between an individual's death and their eventual burial.  In the Nihon Shoki we see this practice go back to the earliest times.  After all, most deaths do not occur on a set schedule, and once someone has passed away, funerary arrangements would need to be made.  Now, if all you are doing is putting a body into a box and lowering it into the ground, you can probably bring it all together rather quickly. However, for centuries the burial practices on the archipelago had been significantly more elaborate.  Even those without royal blood might be afforded a special mound, or kofun.  There would be giant stones selected to create the chamber, and then tons of earth and pebbles placed on top.  There might also be haniwa—clay cylinders—which then might even be topped with special figures.  All of this had to be planned out and taken care of, and in some cases, such as the creation of haniwa, it appears as there was a major industry involved in funerary preparations. In the case of royal family members things got even more elaborate, and based on the size of many of the kofun that we see one can assume that their construction took time.  In fact, I would not be surprised if the construction of a new tomb mound might not have kicked off on or near the ascension of the sovereign just to make sure it would be ready, but even still it would take time for all of the rites associated with a royal burial to be ready to go. And so it was common practice that one would have to wait before a burial could actually take place.  Since you couldn't just leave a body out in the open in the community, the corpse would be deposited, instead, in a temporary building.  These are sometimes referred to as mogari huts,  which would likely be placed well away from others.  Here we should also take into account the general pollution associated with death in its various forms.  So you would want to have the body kept out of sight and away from people as best you could while you prepared for the actual burial at some later date.  For sovereigns, this mogari hut, or hut of temporary interment, was eventually referred to as a "miya", or "palace".  In some cases it seems as if one of the buildings of the sovereign's old palace was used for this purpose, while a new palace was then also built for the new reign. In addition to the place of temporary interment, one of the common traditions we see in funerals in the Chronicles is the role of the eulogy.  While a person lay in state during their temporary interment, we are told that people could come to eulogize and lament.  In the case of a sovereign, the high ministers and politically connected would come together and deliver speeches.  This served multiple purposes.  On the one hand, these rituals reinforced concepts of the State and the central authority in the body of the sovereign.  On the other hand, they also served as markers of status for those delivering the speeches, and provided opportunities to be seen and heard, signaling their support of the system that provided them their own power and authority. So all of this  process and ritual that we see for Ohoama is familiar, from previous royal deaths.  However, it's interesting to note that in the most recent years before Ohoama's funeral, a lot of these traditions seem to have been scaled back.  For one thing, there was the decline of large, keyhole shaped kofun, ever since the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century and the move to memorial temples over large tombs. Furthermore, as part of the Taika era reforms we see regulations on how long temporary interment may last for those of princely rank and below—though nothing is clearly stated for the sovereign themselves.    Let's look at the most recent royal death's before Ohoama's, but since the beginning of the Taika era.  There are at least three we've talked about.  First off is the death of Karu, aka Koutoku Tennou.  Karu's death is barely remarked upon—he was buried about two months after he passed away, and very little fanfare is given.  One can't help but wonder if this was, in part at least, due to the fact that Naka no Oe was actually in charge and running things at the Crown Prince. Takara hime, aka Saimei Tennou, would pass away in the middle of the Baekje war against the Silla-Tang alliance.  Her body was sent back to Yamato, but the Crown Prince and many of the elites established themselves in Tsukushi—modern Kyushu—to better conduct the war on the peninsula.  Not only was her interment thus delayed, but Naka no Oe's own ascension wouldn't take place for several more years, possibly because of the new capital he was building in Ohotsu.  Naka no Oe's own funerary arrangements were interrupted by the events of the Jinshin no Ran.  In fact, the building of his tumulus was used by the government as a cover to bring in soldiers to prepare for the conflict.  There may have been various funerary rituals planned or even carried out by the Afumi court, but if so they were overshadowed by the civil war that broke out between the two claimants to the throne. As such, Ohoama's appears to be the first royal funeral of this magnitude in a while, and in this case they really pulled out all the stops.  There were various activities and rituals associated with Ohoama's passing up through the 11th month of 688, over two years later, when he was finally buried.  So let's go over what happened and maybe what dragged it out so much longer. First off were the immediate lamentations and eulogies.  Ohoama passed away on the 9th day of the 9th month, according to the Nihon Shoki.  It was the year 686 according to the western calendar.  Two months later the erection of the temporary palace of interment began in the southern courtyard—presumably the area south of the Asuka Kiyomihara palace, where they had previously held the various archery competitions. This took a couple of weeks, and Ohoama's body was finally placed in the temporary palace as of the 24th of that month. While ritual lamentations were raised at the start of the building of the mogari palace and when the sovereign's body was interred, the major rites appear to have started three days after he was laid to rest, on the 27th day,  proceeding for the next three days, from the 27th until the 30th. The rites started with Buddhist monks and nuns who arrived before sunrise and began to perform lamentations in the courtyard of the mogari.  Later that day, we see food offerings, apparently for the first time in the Chronicles. Offering food to the dead is not unique to Japan.  Some in Japan will offer food to their ancestors, especially during the Obon festival.  People will also offer food to kami.  In the case of Obon, a bowl of rice is often served with two chopsticks sticking straight out of it.  This has actually led to a social taboo on leaving your chopsticks "stuck" in food, as it looks as though you are offering the food up to the dead.  Instead, chopsticks will be placed on a chopstick rest, on the table, or even across the top of a dish, just not sticking up out of the food, especially the rice. In this case it isn't clear exactly how the food offering was done, nor what happened to the food afterwards.  In the case of food offered to the kami, it is often the case that once the kami have had enough time to partake of the aura of the food—its spiritual essence—the food will then be removed and often consumed by people.  So for Ohoama's funerary offerings, something similar may have happened—possibly with a feast of some kind to which the various nobles were also invited. Along with the offering of food, we are told of a whole list of individuals who gave eulogies—though we aren't told what the content was.  It is likely that these eulogies were largely ritual utterances—stock phrasing by the participant to demonstrate their active performance of the rituals, rather than a deeply thought sermon about the sovereign.  After all, this seems to have gone on at a rather constant pace for the next several days.  The ritual order seems to have stayed the same, with priests and nuns kicking things off with lamentations in the courtyard, and various nobles presenting their eulogy.  The third day, the 29th, was the same. On the fourth day, the 30th, the last day of the month, the priests and nuns raised lament, and the eulogies were given by a Baekje prince in exile, on behalf of his father, as well as the various Miyatsuko of the various provinces.  In addition there were all performances of all manner of singing and dancing—which makes it sound more like a wake than anything else. With the close of the 9th month, we have a break in the tale of Ohoama's funeral, as the narrative switches over to the next part of the Chronicles covering the reign of Uno no Sarara, aka Jitou Tennou.  The first order of business—other than telling us who Uno no Sarara was and covering some of her history—was to deal with the Prince Ohotsu conspiracy.  So we see Prince Ohotsu arrested, along with 30 conspirators.  Prince Ohotsu was killed at his residence, where his wife and consort ran to him and took her own life as well.  That all happened the 2nd and 3rd days of the 10th month.  The 30 co-conspirators were apparently held for about twenty-seven days while the court debated what to do with them.  Finally, the decree was made to pardon all except Toki no MIchidzukuri, who was only banished instead of executed, and the monk Heng-sin, who was exiled to a temple in Hida, over on Kyushu.  The month after that, Ohotsu's sister, Royal Princess Ohoku, returned to the capital from Ise Shrine where she had been serving as the Shrine Princess—though we aren't told who replaced her. And so it isn't until the twelfth month that we see what appears to be the rites for Ohoama's passing seem to resume.  This takes the form of a universal great assembly held in Ohoama's name at the Five temples, listed as Daikandaiji, Asukadera, Kawaradera, Toyoradera in Woharida, and Sakadadera.  This is an interesting list, as one would have expected that the rites would have occurred at the National Temples established previously—for more on the National temples, we talked about that back in Episode 142.. Daikandaiji, Asukadera, and Kawaradera were, of course, national temples.  Yakushiji is not mentioned, probably because it was still under construction.  At this date it's only been dedicated, and we won't see it show up in the Chronicles until 688—a year and change from the current gathering.  Toyoradera was the nunnery of Toyoura temple, and Sakada temple appears to be another nunnery, formerly known as Kongoji.  It is said to have been in MInabuchi, and ruins of a temple are found in the southeast of Asuka, in an area known today as, funnily enough, Sakada.  There is also a modern temple known as Kongoji nearby, though I can't tell if there is any connection between the two other than the name— whether its a true successor temple or just given that name because of the proximity of the ruins. Either way, in this phase of the funerary rites, we have a combination of temples and nunneries involved.  I wonder if that was so that men and women could gather in spaces for them.  Either way, it is clear that these rites  were held specifically to build merit for Ohoama.  This was probably also the intent behind the actions of the court a week later, when presents of cloth and silk were made to orphans, as well as childless, widowed, and elderly men and women of the capital—those who didn't have someone else to look after them or who were assumed to not have a stable income. Come the first day of the new year of 687, we see a return to the palace of temporary interment, and this time it is in a new and different fashion.  We are told that the Crown Prince, accompanied by ministers and public functionaries, proceeded to the Palace of Temporary Interments and made lament.  We are told that it was the Nagon, Fuwe no Ason no Miaruji, who performed the eulogy, after which everyone once again raised a lament.  Then the common people raised a lament.  Then Ki no Ason and others of the High Stewards of the Palace made food offerings.  After this, the Uneme of the Steward's department raised a lament and then music was performed by the officials of the Department of Music. This clearly indicates an involved ceremony, with set roles and functions.  It is being headed by Ohoama's son, Crown Prince Kusakabe, and attended by all the high ministers, and it is being held on the first of the year in place of other festivities for that day.  Other than the timing, the basic pattern of events is similar to the other rituals of lamentation.  .  The contents of the ceremony might be different, and it was always someone new who was chosen to give the formal eulogy, but there does seem to be some ritual and pattern to the rites performed.  For major ceremonies, we are told of the Crown Prince, the ministers, and the various public functionaries who are there, in attendance, but in other instances we are just told of who is providing the lamentations or the eulogy.  For example, on the 5th day of the first month—four months after the big ceremony, we are told that everyone—Crown Prince down to the common people—proceeded to the Palace of temporary interment and made lamentations. Either way, the period for the next year and change is filled with various ceremonies either at the palace of temporary interment, where Ohoama's body lay in state, or elsewhere in the capital, such as at various temples.  There were also various gifts from the court.  All of this was as much political spectacle as it was grieving.  There are some suggestions that, according to Confucian tradition, a son was expected to mourn the loss of his father for up to three years.  So perhaps that is part of what was happening—the royal family was participating in some costly signaling to both raise Ohoama—and thus, themselves—up on a pedestal and to try to demonstrate the virtue of Crown Prince Kusakabe.  After all, the Queen and her son had been effectively running the government before Ohoama had passed, so it wasn't like there was any actual change and only minor risk.  The timeframe also allowed the court time to send messengers out to inform the far reaches of the archipelago of Ohoama's passing and give them time to come and do homage.  They even sent messengers to Silla, no doubt to both let them know about what had happened and possibly to solicit a condolence embassy.  All of that would also play into the pageantry and mythmaking of the moment, further strengthening the position of the Yamato court, which was, of course, under the control of Uno no Sarara and her son. And so we see numerous, and quite public, displays.  Besides the lamentations and the eulogies, we see repeated gifts to the underprivileged, like giving gifts of coarse and floss silk to those residents of the Capital who were at least 80 years old, as well as to invalids with little hope as well as to the poor people who had no other means to support themselves.  All of it being done in Ohoama's name, even though the reputation no doubt was actually accruing to his son and widow. In the third month we see a special mention: an ornamental chaplet of flowers, known as a mikage, was offered at the Palace of Temporary Interment.  Today, flowers are often found in abundance at Japanese funerals.  Certain flowers may be "gifted" to the deceased as a last gift from mourners, and large, elaborate flower constructions are often used to decorate the funeral parlor where the corpse is laid out.  Groups and individuals may pay exorbitant sums to place flowers with a name card indicating who donated it, and some flowers may be for the grieving family to take home.  There are meanings behind the type of flowers, and often white flowers are preferred, as white is often seen as the color of death.  Some of this appears to be influenced by the West, but flowers have long been symbols and used in various ceremonies and rites.  It is possible that some of this was influenced by Buddhist and Tang court rituals.  Or maybe they just wanted something that was sweet smelling to help cover up the inevitable odor that no doubt resulted from leaving a body out for about six months at that point. Whatever the purpose, we aren't given too many details on just what this floral display was.  Aston calls the "mikage" a "chaplet" and Bentley simply describes it as decorative flowers placed at the mogari palace—the palace of temporary interment.  Once the flowers were placed, then Taji no Mabito no Maro performed the ceremony of the eulogy. Next, in the 5th month, we see the Crown Prince and various government officials once again involved.  This time they were accompanied by the chiefs of the Hayato and the Ata of Ohosumi, accompanied by their people, advancing and providing a eulogy.  The Hayato and the Ata were both indigenous groups of people from southern Kyushu, who were considered to be outside of the Yamato polity, with distinct cultural differences.  It is unclear if they were ethnically Wa people.  Evidence from that area suggests that the people there, whatever their ethnicity, had adopted many of the Yayoi and Kofun cultural life-ways.  This was not without some differences, such as distinct burial practices, such as underground burial chambers.  Hayato were also known in Yamato for their shields, which are often depicted as long, thin pentagonal shapes with red, white, and black figural paintings. The propaganda-slash-merit making continued over the next few months.  In the 6th month we see an amnesty, where criminals were pardoned, and in the 7th month the court unilaterally cancelled out any interest on debts contracted in the year 685 or earlier.  In cases where the debtors already owed service to their creditors, for some reason, they made it so that the creditors could not demand that they provide additional service.  People still had to pay back the balance, but they didn't have to pay back anything extra. The next ceremony at the palace of temporary interment wasn't for about three months later, in the 8th month of 687.  We are told that offerings of food were made, and that only awokimono—green things—were offered.  Bentley translates this passage to say that it was the feast of first fruits, the Niinamesai, and they do use the character for "namé", but not the full name.  As for "Awokimono" – Aston translates this as plain, boiled rice, and says it is meant that it was without meat of any kind.  Indeed, the characters appear to be for blue or green cooked rice.  There is another reading for "Awokimono" as "Hijikioono", and Aston suggests that there may have been some hijiki, or seaweed, involved.  Regardless this appears to have been specifically a funerary tradition. A day after the food was offered—and we aren't told who did that—the elderly people of the capital, both men and women—some possibly with new duds thanks to the silk they had received earlier—came and made lamentation west of the bridge.  I suspect that this means they didn't enter the actual courtyard where the palace of temporary interment was set up, but simply gathered on the west side of the Asuka River, which flowed past the west side of the courtyard.  Later that month, we see another Buddhist ceremony.  Fujiwara no Ason no Ohoshima and Kibumi no Muraji no Ohotomo invited 300 Buddhist dignitaries, known as Ryuuzou and Daitoku, to Asukadera.  There they gave each one of them the present of a kesa—a Buddhist sash worn as part of their vestments.   Kesa were typically stitched together from cloth donated by Buddhist laypersons, and we are told that these kesa were made from the garments of the late sovereign.  The language of the decree itself was apparently so painful—Aston translates it as pathetic—that it couldn't be fully set forth.  That sounds to me like someone forgot to write it down. Eleven days after the assembly at Asukadera, a national Buddhist feast was sponsored at all of the Temples in the capital.  The day after that, a feast was sponsored at the mogari palace. Later that same month, Silla ambassadors arrived at the archipelago.  The Dazai, the viceroy of Tsukushi, met with them and informed them of what had happened.  It is likely that they had left before any word had reached the peninsula, so this was the first they heard of it.  Nonetheless, they all put on mourning clothes, turned to face the East, and bowed three times and raised lamentations.  This was all being done in Kyushu, but nonetheless it was clearly important to the people who were recording these interactions. A similar note in the record appears on the 23rd day of the first month of the following year, where we are told that Ohoama's death was announced to the Silla ambassador, Gim Sangnim, and his colleagues.  They, in turn, made their lament three times.  It is possible that these are records of the same event, and I even wonder if one was recorded on the date they arrived and the other was recorded on the date that they were formally told what was happening.  Either that, or the events of the 9th month of 687 were an informal notice, so that they could get ready, after which they traveled the three months and change to Asuka, where they then were given the formal notification. Moving on to finish out the year 687: on the 22nd day of the 10th month, the Crown Prince and government officials, along with all of the governors and Kuni no MIyatsuko—and not forgetting the common people—all began work on the sovereign's tomb.  This is one of the few tombs that we have some confidence in, though it isn't a keyhole shaped kofun like many others from previous eras.  Today it looks mostly like a round hill, but originally it seems to have been an eight-sided tomb with five distinct levels.  Eight sides suggests a Buddhist influence, as eight is an auspicious number, such as in the 8-fold path.  I can't help but wonder if the five levels were connected to concepts of five in Confucian and Daoist teachings.  For instance, there was the idea of five Confucian virtues as well as the Wuxing, or Gogyou, where we have five specific elements.  Given the importance and influence of continental thinking at the time, neither one would surprise me. The tomb would take almost a year to complete, which almost doesn't seem like enough time given everything that they did.  It is possible that they had already prepped much of what they needed and that the 10th month of 687 was simply the date they broke ground, but either way it was an impressive feat. Meanwhile, as the construction was ongoing, the public displays of mourning continued.  Once again, new year's day celebrations of 688 were postponed in favor of public mourning, with the Crown Prince and all of the ministers making their lamentations on the first day of the year, followed by a company of priests the following day. On the 8th day of the first month of the year we are told that there was a public great congregation of priests held at Yakushiji.  This is the first official event held at Yakushiji, and so presumably the temple was now finished—or at least finished enough.  Since Ohoama isn't mentioned, it is certainly possible that this wasn't directly connected to the ceremonies around the official mourning of Ohoama.  On the other hand, Yakushiji was commissioned by Ohoama for the health of his wife, Uno no Sarara, so I have a hard time thinking that there weren't any connections at all. In the second month of 688, we get a decree that has a few different interpretations.  The decree states that, "in the future, on all days of national mourning, it is absolutely necessary that abstinence be practiced."  Bentley translates this to mean that there would be a feast on the day of national mourning every year after.  The key contention appears to be whether or not the day of mourning was a monthly or annual thing.  The court appears to have been creating a national holiday around the memory of Ohoama, and it may have chosen the second month for that day of mourning and remembrance.  Alternatively, this was for a day of mourning each month of the current year.  The wording is vague.  It is like the question of whether or not "Bi-weekly" means twice a week or once every two weeks, and I don't know that there is any consensus.  Still, it is interesting that they created their own holiday to remember Ohoama, and as far as I can tell this is the first such example of a holiday being used to remember a person in this way. Once again on the 22nd day of the third month, flowers were again presented at the palace of temporary interment.  This was only two days different from when the mikage had been set up in the previous year, so it would seem that the timing was significant—possibly because it was spring and the flowers were blooming.  Fujiwara no Ason no Ohoshima, the same individual who had helped gather the various priests together at Asukadera to hand out kesa made of the sovereign's own garments, presented the eulogy. The ceremonies are then put on hold for a bit.  There is an account from the 11th day of the 6th month where prisoners guilty of capital crimes would have their punishment mitigated one degree while those in prison for lighter offenses would be pardoned altogether.  In addition, only half of the commuted taxes were to be levied.  This might have been more merit-working for Ohoama or it may have been because the nation itself was undergoing a drought and they were seeking the Buddha's favor to bring the rains. Once again in the 8th month we see offerings of food are made, and a lament raised inside the palace of temporary interment.  This time the eulogy was performed by Ohotomo no Sukune no Yasumaro.  The day after that, Prince Ise was given commands regarding how the upcoming funeral was to be handled, which was to happen three months later. The 11th month kicked off with the Crown prince and the ministers once more going to the palace of temporary interment, this time on the 4th day of the month.  They had with them guests from the "frontier lands" as Aston notes—Bentley says foreign countries.  Offerings of food were made, and the Tatefushi dance was performed.  This was a dance with shields and swords, according to later records.  It seems that the dancers also wore armor, or something to approximate armor.  All of the ministers then advanced, each in turn, and pronounced a eulogy, with each recounting the services that their ancestors had rendered to the throne. The following day, there was further ceremony as over 190 Emishi brought tribute in on their backs, and pronounced a eulogy for the departed sovereign. Six days later, on the 11th day of the 11th month, Fuse no Ason no Miaruji and Ohotomo no Sukune no Mimiyuki both pronounced eulogies, and then Tahema no Mabito no Chitoko recited, as a eulogy, the succession to the throne of the royal ancestors.  And when that was finished, Ohoama's body was finally placed in the Ohouchi tomb and the tomb was sealed. And with that, the sovereign was put to rest, after over two years of mourning and ceremony, specifically designed to put on display the court's apparent grief.  Whether they were actually grieved or not, the importance was the performance of grief through the rituals set forth by the state.  Individuals and groups demonstrated their loyalty through their participation.  Noble families used the platform to recount their service and thus demonstrate their own history and pedigree and thus why they were deserving of their status in the court. Furthermore, during all this ceremony around the funerary arrangements, to try to  also have an ascension ceremony for the new sovereign was probably a little too much to try and push through.  It would have also meant that they would been holding a ceremony that should be joyful and august under the pall of the mourning period.  For the Crown Prince to don the robes of office while his father's body lay in the courtyard was probably, as they say, a bad look.  And, as I mentioned earlier, it wasn't like it was making any real, practical difference.  The ship of state was hardly rudderless, with Kusakabe and his mother both guiding it through the various ceremonies. Sure enough, in the following year, 689, the new year ceremonies were no longer about mourning and lamentation.  The queen gave an audience to all the lands in the Front Hall, and the following day the Ministry of Education presented 80 wooden staves, presumably for an old form of the Setsubun festival.  Today, Setsubun, the day before Spring, is celebrated with soybeans, which are tossed at characters in oni masks, and then inside the house.  The cries ring out "Oni ga soto" – "Demons Out" and then again, "Fuku ga uchi" – "Good luck inside!"  Thus evil spirits are kept at bay and good fortune is welcomed into the home.  In the older version of a similar ritual, it seems that wooden staves were used to symbolically drive the demons out, rather than just a handful of auspicious beans. The first month of year 689 continued to look a lot like previous years, prior to Ohoama's death.  There was a banquet given to the Ministers, and gifts of clothing were handed out to them.  And then, halfway through the month, the various officials brought presents of firewood to the palace.  And then a meal was given to the various public functionaries. A few days after that, Queen Uno left to visit the Yoshino palace for a few days, returning two days later. There is something that is not mentioned in all of this that I suspect was happening.  First of all, they had no doubt torn down the palace of Temporary Interment, and they were likely preparing for Crown Prince Kusakabe's ascension.  There are some that suspect Prince Kusakabe was waiting until three years had passed before taking the throne, mimicking a tradition sometimes observed on the continent, but nothing is explicitly said. Instead, we see that on the 24th day of the 3rd month there was another amnesty across the realm,  and we are explicitly told that crimes that hadn't been pardoned in ordinary amnesties were also excepted in this amnesty.  Amnesties typically seem to be part of merit-making to either prevent disaster or to celebrate something auspicious.  Was this clearing the way for the ascension ceremony to take place?  Or had something befallen the royal family? We aren't given many details, but on the 13th day of the 4th month, we are simply told that Crown Prince Kusakabe died.  We aren't told that he had previously been ill, or that anything in particular had happened.  It is just a simple line in the text.  And yet, this must have had tremendously serious consequences.  I think we can fairly safely assume that he was prepared to ascend the throne—unless he was thinking of pulling something like Naka no Oe and running things from behind the scenes.  However, there is plenty of evidence that Uno no Sarara was more likely to be the one to step back and be the power in the shadow.  She had operated from that position before. Whatever the plan was, clearly that plan was no more.  Crown Prince Kusakabe was dead, and his only heir was still a young child.  He also had no brothers to take the throne.  The Chronicles don't mention it, but this must have been a moment of incredible weakness for the court and the Queen.  History as we know it could have turned out very differently from this point. Also, sidebar—Prince Kusakabe's death is recorded on the 13th day of the 4th month.  While 13 would not necessarily be an inauspicious day until the Western superstition was introduced in recent times, the number 4 has long been associated with death because the pronunciation, "Shi" is the same as—or at least very similar to—the pronunciation of the character for death.  This is also the case in Chinese, and so the number four is often avoided and seen as unlucky.  Sometimes hotels will skip both the 4th and 13th floors in Asia to avoid any inauspicious vibes.  In Japanese, the numbers 4—"Shi" and seven—"Shichi"—will often be pronounced with their kun'yomi readings, so "yon" and "nana" respectively.  So I just find it rather an unfortunate coincidence that Crown Prince Kusakabe died on the 13th day of the 4th month.  Yikes. Anyway, if there was any wavering or grief by Uno no Sarara, it isn't mentioned in the Chronicles.  They continue to march on.  Later that same month, Prince Kasuga passed away.  Prince Kasuga was a non-royal prince, and the death of Prince Kasuga and the Crown Prince were met with an equal lack of fanfare or explanation.  Compare to the death of Prince Ohotsu, who was given an entire eulogy about how he was really well liked. Instead, the Chronicle simply moves on.  The rest of the year passes by as though nothing had happened.  The government continued with Uno no Sarara at its head.  In the first day of the first month of the following year, Uno no Sarara formally ascended to the royal dignity in a ceremony where Mononobe no Maro set up the shields, Nakatomi no Ohoshima recited a prayer for the blessings of Heaven, and Imbe no Shikofuchi delivered the divine seal, sword, and mirror to her majesty.  At that point all of the ministers and government officials made their obeisance in turn, clapping their hands as  they did so. One has to wonder if this ceremony wasn't a little bittersweet, given everything that had happened. A few things about the ceremony to note.  First are the three families mentioned:  Despite the fact that the Mononobe house had been defeated by the Soga centuries back, here they stand in their traditional role as soldiers, raising up the shield.  Then we see Nakatomi no Ohoshima—earlier mentioned as Fujiwara no Ohoshima—as the director of the Ministry of Kami matters, handling the ceremony.  And then there is the Imbe, in some ways the rival to the Nakatomi and their descendants, the Fujiwara, who is handling the regalia. Also of note is that the three regalia here are not the jewel, sword, and mirror, but the seal, sword, and mirror.  We mentioned this many episodes back when we had seen these same three used for the ascension ceremony, and noted then that a royal seal appears to be used, rather than mention of a jewel.  The character used, on the continent, referred to the imperial seal of the dynasty, which itself would have been carved into jade, or a jewel.  And in Japan the character is also said to refer to the "Yasakani-magatama", the sacred jewel.  So was it the jewel, and they just called it the seal?  Or is that a later attribution to try and maintain the concept that the three regalia remained the same?  I couldn't honestly say, but either way we see the concept of these three regalia as central to the ceremony. And with that, Uno no Sarara, known to us as Jitou Tennou, ascended the throne.  She would continue the process of making updates to the court and to the laws and regulations.  She would also see the creation of the Fujiwara palace and accompanying city—designed as the first permanent capital city in all of Japan.  She would also take a hard line with Silla and make her mark on the world stage, as well.  But we'll talk about that in future episodes. And so, until next time, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express, Host Miko Lee focuses on Asian American Men, Bruce Lee and the mano-sphere. She chats with renowned author and thinker Jeff Chang about his new book: Bruce Lee & the making of Asian America, Water Mirror Echo. Then she talks with Rachel Koelzer the Communications Director for Nakasec about their new study of Asian American men and the manosphere. How are images of Asian American male identify being shaped and formed in our current society and what does Bruce Lee have to do with this? Listen in. More in tonight's show Jeff Chang's book: Water, Mirror, Echo Nakasec ReportAsian American Men and Mano-sphere CAAMFest 2026, running May 7-10, 2026, San Francisco's AMC Kabuki Theatre Show Transcripts [00:00:00] Opening: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:40] Miko Lee: Welcome to Apex Express. I'm your host, Mika Lee, and tonight we are focusing on Asian American men, Bruce Lee and the Manosphere. I chat with renowned author and thinker Jeff Chang about his new book, Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America Water Mirror Echo. Then I speak with Rachel Koelzer, the communications director for NAKASEC, about their new study of Asian American men and the Manosphere. So how are images of Asian American male identity being shaped and formed in our current society, and what does Bruce Lee have to do with all this? First, listen to my conversation with author Jeff Chang. Welcome Jeff Chang to Apex Express.    [00:01:24] Jeff Chang: Ah, it's so great to be here. Miko. So happy.    [00:01:27] Miko Lee: I'm so happy to talk with you about your latest book. You're such a prolific writer, and here you have written a big Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America Water Mirror Echo. Such a mighty title. I wanna start first just a question that I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   [00:01:49] Jeff Chang: Oh my gosh. What a great question to start with. You know, my family, my communities, they all kind of blend together, the blood family, the kin family, and the chosen family, for me. I guess I'm always [laughs], I'm first born Chinese Kanaka, you know, I'm always aware that I am, representing, I guess, So I, you know, I carry that family with me wherever I go.   [00:02:16] Miko Lee: I, I think I know what that means. But for our audience that might not know what a firstborn Chinese kanaka means, can you break that down a little bit? What does that mean to you when you say that?    [00:02:25] Jeff Chang: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just the, i, it it's just a thing of, you know, you're gonna go out and represent the family and, you're thrust into Taking on responsibilities and stuff for your folks, your siblings, your, younger cousins, those kinds of things. I was always very aware of that within the family. My dad's from a really big family, had six siblings and, my mom's from a large extended, family. so that's, That's such a fantastic question Miko. Bruce was the second child, which, you know, birth order and all that kind of stuff. It also squares, I think with, a Chinese family. He felt like he was always in the shadow of his older brother.   [00:03:10] Miko Lee: Okay. Hold on. Let's get to Bruce in a second. I wanna finish with you as an author, creator person.    [00:03:16] Jeff Chang: Okay.    [00:03:16] Miko Lee: Wait, so you are the number one son.    [00:03:18] Jeff Chang: I'm the number one son. Yeah.    [00:03:19] Miko Lee: Ooh, okay. I get it. Yeah. And then what is the legacy that you carry with you?    [00:03:24] Jeff Chang: The legacy. I just have to represent, in a point, a kind of a way, in a proper kind of a way. You know, the family , and those kinds of things. I was also very rebellious. I came back after my freshman year as the Berkeley Radical. My Uncle Fungi was like, oh, here comes the Berkeley radical. Okay. Then of course, you gotta sit down and drink beer and tell 'em , all the stories and that kind of thing. So, you know, just being able to, carry on, a legacy of being upright and being, just, right. And sort of being appropriate in all that you do. just aware of that. Grew up aware of that. Yeah.    [00:04:02] Miko Lee: And then what was your first memory of Bruce Lee?   [00:04:06] Jeff Chang: Ah, I don't have a first memory. He was just part of the ether, you know what I mean? He was part of the   [00:04:10] Miko Lee: Ah, yeah.   [00:04:11] Jeff Chang: Yeah. He was part of the air. I think I came of age, after the generation, like my older cousins who were able to see Bruce in the theaters. We came up the next generation, we saw Bruce on tv. Return of the Dragon would come on and everybody would stop everything and just watch that. During the commercial breaks we're jumping around and kicking each other and stuff like that. I mean that, that kind of thing, right?    [00:04:34] Miko Lee: Yeah, totally. When I was growing up, people would always ask me if I was related to Bruce Lee, because Lee, because that was like, right, yeah, Lee. Yeah. Yeah. There's not a billion Lees' in the world.    [00:04:44] Jeff Chang: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.    [00:04:45] Miko Lee: Yeah. So I get it and I try to explain to my daughters, and our kids are around the same age, the cultural phenomenon that he was, and it's hard to explain it to this generation because there wasn't really other Asian American representation than Bruce Lee when we were growing up.   [00:05:03] Jeff Chang: Yeah. Yeah. And now they have Alysa Liu, you know, they have eileen Gu, they have all of these different folks. So if you don't like Alysa, you could like Eileen. Or if you don't like, if you like Eileen, you don't have to like Alysa. Right. Or you can like 'em both. They have choices.   [00:05:14] Miko Lee: You could like Chloe.    [00:05:16] Jeff Chang: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They like Chloe, right? There's choices. Yeah. Like Chloe's on the Olympic stand with two other Asians. It's just wild. It's a beautiful thing. and it's not like the kind of reality that we grew up in. It's true.    [00:05:29] Miko Lee: Yeah. So what made you decide to write this book? you've written many books about pop culture and around theory and around Americana, and what made you decide to write a book about Bruce Lee?    [00:05:41] Jeff Chang: So the book came to me actually, it was an Asian American editor back during a time, not so long ago, but a while ago, when there weren't a lot of Asian American editors in the business. And he came to me and that was amazing in and of itself. And he said basically, Hey man, you did this book on hip hop. This is back in, the latter part of the two thousands. I wanna imagine I haven't gone back and looked at the date. 'cause it, it actually hurts me to think about it. But he saw you did this book like. Do you think you could do a book on Bruce Lee? And I was like, yeah, I could do that. I was hyped to do that. Please. Because Yeah. 'cause Bruce was our hero. Yeah. Just like we were talking about. The most famous Asian American who's ever lived. It took me a long time to get going and I gotta admit I lost the plot at some point. I just was like, what am I doing? There were books that came out, about Bruce in the interim. there was one other biography that had come out, in the late 2010s,    [00:06:37] Miko Lee: and I think I told you about one of the books. I think it's that book that I read written by a white guy and I wrote about it in good reads because I read a lot and that's how I keep track of the books I read. I don't think about anybody else reading those reviews that I write? It's like writing in a journal or something. Now I use story graph ‘ it's amazing. Not commercial, but at the time I used Goodreads and the author wrote back to me, I think I told you this story.    [00:07:04] Jeff Chang: Yeah, yeah. Tell me. Tell, so what did you write and what did the author write back to you?   [00:07:08] Miko Lee: I wrote that I thought that this author did not understand what an icon Bruce was to the Asian American community, and it was written in a way that didn't, grasp the whole complexity of what he meant to us. He wrote this really, mean note back to me about how he had Shannon, Bruce's daughter's support and he was the one that could tell the story. And I thought, whoa, I was just shocked. That was the first time. Since then, I've had many different authors write back to me, but that was like the first one and wrote back in a mean way. So anyways.    [00:07:39] Jeff Chang: Was it public or this was a private, A private email back to you.    [00:07:43] Miko Lee: I think it's public. I don't know. Have to go look. I was shook at the time. Like what?    [00:07:49] Jeff Chang: Wow. Okay.    [00:07:50] Miko Lee: Anyway, so when I heard you were writing a book, I said, okay, finally, finally. Yay.    [00:07:55] Jeff Chang: Hmm. Yeah. You know, and I'll be honest, I, I had this sort of crisis of confidence. I was sort of like, you know, this is, okay, we'll put it out there. 'cause you already went there. It's Matthew Polly's book, Bruce Lee Life. I read it, he had done amazing research. He had spoken to a lot of people. I thought I was supposed to do this kind of a book. Now there's a particular kind of genre, that folks who are maybe in the industry recognize and, it's called I'm putting scare quotes around this, like the definitive biography,    [00:08:27] Miko Lee: right.    [00:08:28] Jeff Chang: In this particular case, the definitive biography, because he's a movie star s. Sort of coincides or converges with this other genre, which is the celebrity biography. I'm putting scare quotes around that too. So, the mission of a celebrity biographer is really to tell a story of, this celebrity. Is not as cool as you think they are. Like, their crap stinks. They cheated on their spouses. They like didn't file their taxes, they kicked their dog, they said mean things to different people. That's a celebrity biography. It's basically to tarnish the star. and if not, then it's sort of a hagiography, which is sort of a whole other kind of thing. And we don't wanna do that as writers. We wanna approach the truth. But there's sort of a certain kind of thing that comes into play, with Bruce. There's a sort of genre of the take down of Bruce where it's usually men that are writing this, and the men are usually like, well, Bruce was my hero when I was a kid, but now I've gotta take him down. You know what I mean? It's, and so you see it over and over again and, you know, there's a sort of a weird thing going on, especially I think with, white males who have loved Bruce Lee in the past feeling like they need to take him down.So let's say    [00:09:50] Miko Lee: Quinton Tarantino.    [00:09:52] Jeff Chang: Okay, you said it. I didn't, but I was gonna say like Albert Goldman, who was a journalist who famously wrote a take down of Elvis Presley.    [00:10:00] Miko Lee: Right.   [00:10:01] Jeff Chang: and did one of Bruce that was unbelievably racist. Now, I'm not saying that Matthew was trying to do this at all. I think that his scholarship and his work was really, really good. But I, I felt crowded out a little bit. You know, I felt like, gosh, I don't know what there is to say? I was very aware that there were a lot of books that had been written about Bruce and that I was writing into or out of, or in opposition to a tradition.   [00:10:30] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:10:31] Jeff Chang: These are the Bruce. Lee Stories. and so at that particular point, in the late 2000 tens, I just said, what am I gonna do? And Lourdes, my partner, walked me up to the park and just tore into me like, what, you're gonna give up now? You can't give up now. You gotta do this, you have to. Who else is gonna do this? And I'm just feeling all that, Chinese Kanaka, firstborn, guilt, responsibility. she's about the only person that I can take a tongue lashing like that from. We walk back the mile to the house and my head was between my legs and I was like, all right, I'll do it. I'll do it. But I didn't know what I was gonna do to be completely real. I didn't know what I was gonna do. So the other thing that was kind of happening at this particular point was I was noticing, and you and I both have, children who are now adults, but at that time they were younger. They were like coming into their own, they're in their teens and that kind of thing, and that particular generation was coming up in some ways. Like we talked about, like they had all of these folks that they could look to.    [00:11:34] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:11:34] Jeff Chang: Right. you know, our kids have opportunities in media that we never had.   [00:11:39] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:11:39] Jeff Chang: We've had to break through in a lot of ways. And there was also, in a weird way, this sort of entropy around this notion of Asian America. Like young people who call themselves Asian American would also sit around and be like, what even is an Asian American? How do I relate to these other types of folks who are also classed as Asian Americans, or who describe themselves as Asian Americans as well. Like politically, culturally, the kind of food we eat, the way we dress, who we hang out with. Like all of the diversity that we've celebrated for so many years felt like entropy, I think, to them like this is, there's no center to this anymore. Then the pandemic happened and the violence, Was one way of saying this is it's the ice cube moment. This is what they think of you. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and I think that was what galvanized, especially a lot of young people to find a new sense of purpose, a new sense of activism, a new sense of, how to be in the world And    [00:12:43] Miko Lee: for maybe some young folks who had never felt that they had experienced direct racism before, to suddenly see it really blatant in the community.    [00:12:52] Jeff Chang: Right. And, it was personal. It touched all of us. I know everyone has stories about how we were treated during the pandemic, and especially the women and especially, the queer folks. In a lot of ways it was paradigm shifting and it was paradigm shifting for me too, you know, so I'm writing about this guy who considers himself a martial artist.    [00:13:13] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:13:14] Jeff Chang: And he's teaching people about self-defense.    [00:13:18] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:13:19] Jeff Chang: And in his career being accused of fomenting violence, like a lot of. Folks in hip hop have been over the years.    [00:13:27] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:13:28] Jeff Chang: I'm suddenly like looking at this in a completely different light. What does it mean to think about self-defense and violence and training to be a warrior, right? I have a lot of folks who are in the military. My mom worked for the police department, like what does that mean? For somebody like me who's, essentially anti militarist, who has critiques of the police, as we all should. who's a deep supporter of Black Lives Matter, like how do we think about what it means to, to be a warrior, and also to understand like the dignity, right in wanting to be a protector.    [00:14:04] Miko Lee: Right.    [00:14:05] Jeff Chang: Right. And to, uplift what that means, but to kind of think about all of these existential questions and then at the same time to see Bruce popping back up on our walls and murals and popping up on our feeds as a symbol, right. Of pride. Especially during this particular period, near us in the bay, like in San Francisco, Chinatown or Oakland Chinatown, young people bringing back the image of Bruce as a symbol of pride and also this sort of cry for like, can you see us? This sort of underlying desire to find solidarity. All of this mixed up with this like identity crisis that is now taking a different type of turn. So it was a lot to think about and suddenly I was just like, oh, oh, oh, wait a minute. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to write about. So the book became, about Bruce, but also about Bruce as an Asian American and about him kind of traveling parallel to the rise of the Asian American movement.    [00:15:04] Miko Lee: Yeah, I think it's so powerful that way, that it does tell this whole Asian American history for folks that might not know from, the very beginning of our, coming from the exclusion act to I hotel, to Vincent Chin and not just like politically, but then also cinematically because he crossed over so many barriers for us. So we're also getting Asian American cinema history with Anna May Wong and Sessue Hayakawa, and even the Hong Kong industry. So I love how you combined all these different elements. It's such a wonderful way to look at that. And I'm wondering what made you decide to organize the book into these three categories of water, mirror, echo.   [00:15:44] Jeff Chang: The line came first, Bruce's famous. Epigraph is, be water my friend, and, me being the nerd that I am, I wanted to trace the origins of that and found it pretty quickly, in a sort of, Daoist type of text. called the leads and the full, Section that, had influenced Bruce so much was moving be like water, still be like a mirror, respond like an echo. This is a line that actually resonates through Zen Buddhism as well. It was one of those things where when I first read it in Bruce's Dao Jeet Kun Do, I fell outta my chair. It was amazing. It blew me away. We'd all heard “be water.” We'd heard athletes say it. we'd heard, business leaders, say, we saw the activists in Hong Kong, using it, in the streets. and. Yet to see all of this together was even deeper. That was a window into wow. We think of Bruce as the great popularizer of martial arts. Bruce, he's not recognized as the great popularizer of Asian philosophy, in a lot of ways. It happened during this particular period during the sixties where, views of Asians and Asian Americans were beginning to shift dramatically, opening up in a lot of ways. So we had this phrase, my editor, Akia Clark, and I. She was like, all right, “how are you gonna organize this Jeff?” I was like, I don't know, help me. And she's like, all right, there's a water, there's a mirror, there's an echo here. And it actually tracks to his life and the arc of his story and I was like, “oh, wow. Yeah.” So I can't take any credit. I have to give it to my editor, who is,    [00:17:24] Miko Lee: that's a good editor.    [00:17:25] Jeff Chang: Amazing. Yo, she was amazing. Rekia was like, I signed you because, I grew up and the only Asian I knew was Bruce Lee. She grew up in largely black communities. She was like, I need to know more. , I really want to hear your take on this. And, and So it was a, an incredible collaboration in that way because it was the type of here's where we meet. She was literally giving me free reign to be able to tell me a story. Tell me why we're meeting here. Right. Why were we meeting through Bruce? That ended up giving me so much confidence and focus after I'd had, all of these years of being in the woods and, uh, what am I gonna do? And then, Lourdes is trying to shake me up That's kind of how it,    [00:18:09] Miko Lee: it took that time, that time to simmer, and your creative juices to be able to come up with this.    [00:18:15] Jeff Chang: Yeah. Yeah. It didn't feel. Like it at the time, but looking back now, I'm not the fastest, ho nu in the water.    [00:18:22] Miko Lee: Because you talked a little bit about confidence and how much Bruce shared about, Asian philosophy, which I think is really true. I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about his sense of confidence, both in himself, and then a sense of destiny, like the mark that he was gonna leave on the planet.    [00:18:38] Jeff Chang: It's very interesting to me because I think that this has been kind of, a part of the Bruce Lee legend. It was like he was born for a purpose. I was going through his papers and talking to, his, surviving family members and friends, like it was all improv.    [00:18:55] Miko Lee: Really him saying all those things was improv. What was all improv?    [00:18:59] Jeff Chang: Yeah. I think part of it, I think, well, maybe it wasn't an all improv, certainly he was driven.   [00:19:04] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:19:04] Jeff Chang: He was incredibly ambitious and he was incredibly driven and he knew where he wanted to go. Absolutely 2000%, I think he entered this journey, like all of us in our journeys, you know, like we're maybe packed for the journey, but we might find along the way that we don't have what we need. I was attuned to the points where that narrative would break down. To all of the vulnerabilities that he was feeling in different moments. and especially because I got to talk to folks, who knew him, who maybe hadn't necessarily been interviewed in like, the years. His very close Asian American friends, the folks who knew him, off the martial arts training floor. the folks who thought he was weird and kind of corny, folks at UW. All of these folks knew him at the University of Washington. And the, the common thing was, this guy's goofy. He's just had a one track mind. Like, he just wants to like show us like. Like Gung fu things all the time. Like who does that?    [00:20:08] Miko Lee: Like Bruce stop already. We heard that.    [00:20:10] Jeff Chang: right, right. Like punch me like, you want me to punch you? That was funny. You know, I was just, and that was sort of also a mind shift, you know, like    [00:20:19] Miko Lee: Yeah.   [00:20:19] Jeff Chang: It was like, oh, so there was a time before    [00:20:21] Miko Lee: he was revered,    [00:20:22] Jeff Chang: the cool guy. Yeah, before he was the cool guy. Then before he was the guy that was like super suave and like all the, whatever all the ladies wanted and all the guys wanted to be like, that's been the Bruce narrative. So I was attuned to those parts and what strikes me is how much at the end he stuck to his guns. Like folks will read this in the last section of the book, and I don't want to give it away, but this is when Destiny kicks in and Bruce rises to the top and he makes another dragon. He becomes this global star and it was meant to happen. And I was like, no. He was actually fighting every step of the way. Like every day of his life. He felt like this thing was gonna fall apart. At one time, he boycotted his own movie because they weren't giving him what he wanted. Some of his closest friends say the real thing that killed him. People talk about the coroner's report conspiracy, like evil spirits that, but what he really did was like sacrifice himself in a way. That's how a lot of his friends talk about it, you know? From a sense of this deep personal loss of somebody whom they loved so much and who was like there one day and suddenly gone the next, And so, you know, to deal too with that, question of the melancholia that comes with what we experience when we're the survivors of someone we love, who suffers a premature death. In that regard, like I feel like the last part of the book too was deeply informed by. All of the stuff that's come before, with the Black Lives Matter movement. You know, and understanding, that these came from deep sources of grief and mourning and loss. Thinking about what it's meant for Asian Americans to have to look at two generations before we get to the things that Bruce was fighting for representationally    [00:22:14] Miko Lee: Yeah.    [00:22:14] Jeff Chang: You know, before we can get to everything everywhere, all at once. And Michelle Yeoh, receiving the Oscar for that. Like it took two generations. It took Brandon passing away one generation after his father, and then it took a whole bunch of other work that, a lot of folks needed to do in order for us to be able to. Get the kinds of representations that we hoped that we might see after, another dragon. and that, something that, has produced a melancholia in us, you know?    [00:22:48] Miko Lee: Yeah. Yeah.    [00:22:49] Jeff Chang: So.    [00:22:50] Miko Lee: You are talking a little bit about the people that you interviewed and there's so many clearly that you did, and when I was reading it, the backstory of Taki, that was when I thought, oh, this is an Asian American author. I mean, I know you, but it like, including that whole backstory I thought was so powerful and actually helped to build out the story of who he is, who his friends were and how he worked with them. I'm wondering if there's an interview that you didn't get.    [00:23:14] Jeff Chang: So many. So many.    [00:23:16] Miko Lee: Oh really?    [00:23:17] Jeff Chang: Yeah. I mean, I haven't gone back to look at the original contract and the date because so many people passed away. I got started on this, I had three other books that I had to complete from my, publisher at the time this book was signed out of, those contracts. I had had a full-time job then, and then when the, pandemic and BLM sort of reached that inflection point, it was a much more than full-time job. I didn't have time to be able to actually devote the book that I really needed to. I did research over a very long course of time. I did interviews over a very long course of time, but I started the interviews too late, so I couldn't interview Taki.    [00:23:54] Miko Lee: oh wow. Okay.    [00:23:55] Jeff Chang: I couldn't, yeah. Taki, was, alive. He lived to a very old age, but Alzheimer's. Um,    [00:24:01] Miko Lee: oh wow.    [00:24:02] Jeff Chang: Took him, you know? By the time I started reaching out, it was a little bit like too late. I spoke to his son instead at great length. and a lot of other folks around, him. There wasn't just one, there were a million interviews. I didn't get. Taki, I didn't interview Jesse Glover. I would've loved to have interviewed some of his friends From Hong Kong, but we couldn't access them because of the pandemic. I had an amazing researcher on the ground, Winnie Fu who, did a lot of amazing work there and was able to source a lot of stuff for us. There was so many people, and even now, like I was just up in Seattle for the unveiling of the Bruce Lee postage stamp, and I got to meet a friend of his from high school, and so I'm gonna sit down. I've been talking with Shannon's, cousin, Bruce's niece who has been keeping the genealogies of the family. We've been talking a lot. I'm gonna go back and interview her, and so hopefully maybe by the time the paperback edition comes around, I might be able to have some new information that I might be able to throw in in that edition.    [00:25:03] Miko Lee: Yeah. What surprised you most about the research?    [00:25:06] Jeff Chang: I think that Bruce was vulnerable. He felt very lonely a lot of the time. he had set himself out like this huge impossible dream in some ways. he knew his destination. He had no idea how he was gonna get there. That's where I talk about it was all improv. and at different points he despaired. I don't know if these folks are really seeing me, I don't think they really understand me. After the Green Hornet, he couldn't get a job. That he felt was befitting him, you know? So he's taking whatever work he can get. He's working as a fight choreographer for Nancy Kwan. And, just doing what he can and he's relying upon people to put him on. He's doing Gung FU training of a lot of the Hollywood top brass. So he can reach out to them, but even they don't believe in him. They don't believe in him like that. That's why he decides he has to leave. But it takes him literally four years to realize, oh, they don't see me as a main character. They don't see me the way I see myself. Yeah. So I gotta go. Even then he's still trying to get on the TV show, Kung fu. When that door slams and they cast David Carradine yellow face, he's like, oh, that, and that's when the ice cube moment really sets in for him. Like, that's how they see me. That's how they really understand me. After that, he's fighting this battle to try to get back to Hollywood. That's, one of the things he feels like he really wants to do. his thought is that I need to build up as much capital as I possibly can in order to be able to negotiate from a point of, strength. It's just very hip hop. It's very wutang clan. He's able to kind of get there. But he's still gotta fight these battles at the end. They just wanted him to shut up and kick. They gave him a black CoStar and a white CoStar because they were afraid that an Asian lead wouldn't make it. They wanted to name the movie Hans Island. Not Enter the Dragon because, Oriental villains were easier to understand than an Asian American male lead. So    [00:27:00] Miko Lee: that's such a horrible title too.    [00:27:02] Jeff Chang: Oh my God. How can you imagine we would not be talking about Hans Island.    [00:27:07] Miko Lee: I don't know how they thought that was a good idea.    [00:27:10] Jeff Chang: Yeah, it's true.    [00:27:11] Miko Lee: Is there anything else that you would like your audiences that to understand about Bruce Lee?    [00:27:16] Jeff Chang: What I tried to do is portray him in the context that he actually lived in, We've got the legend of Bruce, we've got the stories, of Bruce that have kind of burnished the legend. What I tried to do was to try to put him back as a human being, as a young person walking through Hong Kong streets and the streets of China, you know, down Grant and then, down King Street in Seattle. making it up to the studios, in Hollywood. and what that meant, for him to, actually accomplish all this kind of stuff. Because when we take away the legend, and this is one of the things I was worried about too, back in the late 2000 tens when I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna write. When you take away the legend. I was worried that people were gonna be like, oh, you just want to drag down this guy? And you're like the guy that's just throwing water on our hero. But what I'm, really understanding now is. when you look back at what he went through and what he overcame, he actually becomes even more heroic, to all of us. He wasn't a perfect person. but I think he remains a hero like more than a half century after his passing because of the things that he did.    [00:28:28] Miko Lee: I think that's right and I think you do an amazing job in the book of incorporating this powerful Asian American history and putting, his experience in a time and place that helps the broader world understand what an icon he is and remains. And I really appreciate you for writing this book and taking this time and the amount of energy it took to Percolate really pays off.    [00:28:52] Jeff Chang: Thanks so much. I so appreciate you.   [00:28:55] Miko Lee: So I'm gonna be interviewing NAKASEC on their new study on Asian American Men in the Manosphere. Are you familiar about this?   [00:29:02] Jeff Chang: Oh, I can't wait to read this. I cannot wait to read this. It's so,    [00:29:06] Miko Lee: do you know about this? No. To this report.    [00:29:08] Jeff Chang: I didn't know about it. I didn't know about it. I'm, I'm glad somebody's doing it.    [00:29:11] Miko Lee: Yeah. So they did a whole survey and they found that there is a lot of Asian American men that are part of the manosphere. Mm-hmm. And I'm wondering for you, who's written about Asian American male identity, if you have thoughts about this?    [00:29:26] Jeff Chang: So many thoughts. I was very much thinking about the Asian American manosphere as I was writing this book, because these are my cousins, these are my friends, these are, folks who I've sparred with.   [00:29:39] Miko Lee: Right.   [00:29:40] Jeff Chang: These are conversations I'm having with folks, at the bar over a meal. I'm really interested in seeing how we're able to understand what the appeal of the far right has been around questions, of masculinity in this moment and to win these folks back. I've also seen on the flip side, shifts and changes, around, how Asian American masculinity is displayed sea on social media in this era of a crackdown in immigration.    [00:30:19] Miko Lee: Yeah.    [00:30:20] Jeff Chang: We really do need solidarity. We really do identify with, what Latinos, are going through. What I worry about is that, the Asian American left, our first in instinct would be just to be like, ah, I can't talk to them. it's Gonna like upset me too much. I can't deal with this. Somebody has to,, because that, those are our folks and we've lost them over the last, five years or so and we've gotta get 'em back.   [00:30:45] Miko Lee: And are there folks that you know of that are working specifically on ways to pull this community back?    [00:30:50] Jeff Chang: I imagine that there's a lot of work on the ground that's happening. because this is the, world that I'm in, I look to the folks who are, doing podcasts or doing social media work and, who are, often, men who. Are, you know, kind of like me, like troubled by this development and trying to find a way to speak to their folks as well. I'm monitoring that. I'm not, deep within it, but, like I said, I wrote this book, understanding that, that particular subset of our community. those are the folks that, are the Bruce Lee fans.    [00:31:22] Miko Lee: Yeah.    [00:31:23] Jeff Chang: and are the folks who are, involved in, mixed martial arts and, involved in, athletics and, all these other kinds of things. And, and they're not too far away.    [00:31:33] Miko Lee: Yeah. It feels like there's a disconnect between that kind of loving of Bruce Lee and that world, and interaction with politics, interaction with the current events and how that's impacting them and their families.    [00:31:48] Jeff Chang: Well, I think it's. Yeah. I put that down to the fragmentation of the way that we receive media.    [00:31:54] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:31:55] Jeff Chang: You know, and also, of course, the ways in which social media is geared towards the extremes. The way it's geared towards the extremes and towards lifting up the. Loudest crudest voices sometimes. Mm-hmm. That's exactly where the manosphere originates from. Right? That's where it    [00:32:15] Miko Lee: lives.    [00:32:15] Jeff Chang: Yeah. That's where it lives, is inside that pocket. It's about again, trying to get inside of that and what's causing that. What's the melancholia that's behind that? What is generating this rage, this fury, and being able to channel that, fury, that anger into, ways that will actually help not just all of us, but specifically them.    [00:32:39] Miko Lee: Yeah.    [00:32:40] Jeff Chang: That's an organizing problem that we have to take up.   [00:32:43] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I'm gonna send you the research, the report so you can read it and,    [00:32:48] Jeff Chang: uh, I can't wait to break this open. Oh,    [00:32:52] Miko Lee: okay. I appreciate you. Thanks so much.   [00:32:54] Jeff Chang: Thank you.   [00:32:55] Miko Lee: Next up I speak with Rachel Kelzer, the communications director for NAKASEC, about their new study of Asian American men and the manosphere.Welcome Rachel Koelzer, communications Director for NAKASEC. Welcome to Apex Express.    [00:33:12] Rachel Koelzer: Hi. Thank you so much for having me today.    [00:33:15] Miko Lee: Can you first explain for our audience, your organization that you work with NAKASEC    [00:33:19] Rachel Koelzer: So NAKASEC is short for the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium. We are a national network of five affiliated organizations in six states.   [00:33:32] Miko Lee: Thank you. I wanna start with the question I ask all of my guests, which is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?   [00:33:41] Rachel Koelzer: This is a great question. My people are the dreamers. They are the community rooted, change makers who believe that we are accountable and responsible to each other. For our collective wellbeing, our collective liberation, and our collective joy and care for each other. My people are also Korean adoptees, part of the Asian diaspora, and people who have survived challenges of life and still seek joy and to thrive.   [00:34:23] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing. Through your work at NAKASEC, you recently released this report with a big old title, Asian Men, the Manosphere and Social Media, an Inflection Point for Asian American Advocacy and American Democracy. Wow. Can you first talk about what inspired this study?   [00:34:43] Rachel Koelzer: I became aware that there was this ongoing trend and challenge that we were having of not reaching young Asian men. Our followers were predominantly non men. Based on gender and significantly more women following us. Something like 70 30, 80 20. I talked with other organizations who also do advocacy and community based work who also faced similar challenges. I just wondered why. What is it that is preventing us from effectively reaching this large portion of our community that we serve? So from there we went and partnered with Dr. Tom Wong, and really started to dive into exploring the reasons behind it.    [00:35:34] Miko Lee: So let's back up for a second. Can you explain for our audience what the manosphere is?    [00:35:40] Rachel Koelzer: The manosphere in kind of simplified terms, it's a loosely connected network, of online communities, influencers and content creators who focus on men's issues, masculinity, dating, health and fitness, financial wealth, and gender dynamics. It includes this wide spectrum of content, that range from like the more everyday fitness self-help. To more controversial topics, like anti-feminism, traditional gender roles and critiques of modern women in society. The common thread across these, loosely connected, communities and spaces is this underlying thread of traditional gender norms and expectations.    [00:36:30] Miko Lee: So is the manosphere inherently misogynistic?    [00:36:34] Rachel Koelzer: Yes.    [00:36:35] Miko Lee: Well that was a really quick response. Yes. No question.    [00:36:38] Rachel Koelzer: [Laughter] I being real here, you know? Yeah. It is.    [00:36:46] Miko Lee: Okay.    [00:36:46] Rachel Koelzer: So within the broader manosphere, there's also men's rights activists. Some more like toxic masculine type views. There is a little bit of a range, but yes, inherently, there's deep rooted misogyny.   [00:36:58] Miko Lee: So how did you find people for your Study were they self-described people that participated in the manosphere?   [00:37:06] Rachel Koelzer: We partnered with Dr. Tom Wong, who is at the University of California, San Diego to conduct this survey. He used the voter file. They are self-identified Asian men and we set the parameters to be between the ages of 18 to 45. They identified across political ideology, across political party, and started with more general questions around their social media use. What platforms were they on? What, were the reasons that they were on social media. Who did they follow? To get a baseline understanding of where and what they're consuming. We know that they're online. There were questions about engagement with the manosphere.   [00:37:52] Miko Lee: What did this study reveal? What was surprising to you?    [00:37:57] Rachel Koelzer: What was really shocking is that one in five young Asian men are regularly engaging with manosphere content. That's 20% one in five.   [00:38:07] Miko Lee: That's a huge number.    [00:38:08] Rachel Koelzer: It's a huge number. Yeah. They're engaging with this content that is, starting off pretty innocuous like, you want to look better, you want to feel better, you want to have better relationships. What's being embedded in that to varying degrees of, subtlety are these values of more traditional expectations and roles. It's alarming that this that this many young Asian men are regularly engaging with it. We defined engaging, as, commenting, following, sharing. There were questions about how often they're seeing it across their feed, whether or not they're looking for it or not. We found that 35% of young Asian men are encountering manosphere content on their social media feeds several times a week.   [00:39:00] Miko Lee: Are they identifying it as manosphere content?    [00:39:04] Rachel Koelzer: They identified it, yes. In the survey we did provide a definition. Beforehand of what the manosphere was, and so anything within that would have to fall under this category.   [00:39:17] Miko Lee: Are most of those influencers and content creators, Asian American men also?    [00:39:23] Rachel Koelzer: That's a really good question. When both Dr. Wong and our team, NAKASEC team, were doing some research there, we didn't actually come across when we were looking at like the bigger names, right? Tens of thousands, upwards of millions followers. We didn't really come across many of those large followers that are Asian men. The men that are perpetuating it, regardless of their race or ethnic background. I think what that points to, you mentioned white supremacy earlier, but there's this idea and value that's perpetuated of colorblindness. And so in this space, the gender kind of supersedes the race. What was really curious is, later on in the study we also asked, about early childhood experiences and lessons, from the adults in their lives around masculine values, around showing and expressing emotions, and around representation of asian men in the media. A large portion agreed that the overall representation of Asian men is harmful. We know for those of us who have been interrogating our experiences in the world for a while. We know that Asians and Asian men in particular, we're stereotyped, we're troped in a lot of ways, right, of these feminine, unattractive, nerdy, geeky, or you've got the other side, you've got the Bruce Lees, you've got the Jackie Chans, right? There's a flattening that happens and . I think that is where the manosphere is dangerous and potentially even more appealing to communities who feel that they've been overlooked and undervalued, because it offers answers and those answers are really harmful to other communities, but they're still providing answers.   [00:41:28] Miko Lee: Can we speak a little bit more about the perceptions of Asian Americans in the media There's the stereotypes around women being either the dragon woman or the sexual exotic kind of play toy. Asian men, as you were pointing out, it's either the kung fu guy or the nerdy guy or the effeminate guy. Right. There's like not that much distinction. Is that your perception as well?    [00:41:57] Rachel Koelzer: Yes. I think there's been, even from when I was a child and growing up, over the past 30 years, there's been, improvements. But I think overall yes.   [00:42:08] Miko Lee: When I grew up, the only images were movies and television, and there just was not that much. So we did have those stereotype visions, but it was so limited in scope and content. There just was not as much content. Now it's everywhere. There's content in your phone, there's all these different social media apps, there's all these different channels you can watch. I'm wondering how that has impacted Asian Americans men's perspectives on how they see themselves and if that. Just looking at social media and the manosphere and how that impacted, the reason why you did the study and the outcomes of the study.   [00:42:46] Rachel Koelzer: The study showed that 26.7% of the men who were surveyed feel that Asian men are portrayed favorably in social media. That's actually still a very low percentage. 71.6% agree that Asian men are often underrepresented or stereotyped in media and popular culture. Even though yes, there's still greater representation, that there's still the portrayals and the quality and caliber or what that representation actually is, or how it's developed is still significantly lacking. What the manosphere offers, one, it offers answers as to how you might get away from, from those, right? You might be able to get out of that, which is to be this hyper quote unquote, masculine, dominating, character. It points the blame directly away from systems like patriarchy and white supremacy. It doesn't really interrogate what internalized misogyny, internalized racism, looks like and is doing. It's saying. You know what the problem is actually that women are becoming too independent. The problem is that, men are becoming too effeminate, and so there's this combination of race blindness and naming another villain in a way that punches down.   [00:44:32] It's a combination of looking for genuine insight and information to better understand their experiences and they're finding answers, but the quality of those answers and the ways that they're getting pushed to those are very problematic, very concerning. Not just for what that means for women in queer rights and immigrant rights and marginalized communities rights. These kinds of values that are being espoused and normalized. But what that means for, , how someone starts to view themselves and, their role in the world and the impact that that has on the systems, and structures of our society.    [00:45:13] Miko Lee: There's so many interesting things that you said. I heard you say the men are finding a sense of belonging in the manosphere, and they're getting answers and the answers being right wing propaganda, which is being fed to them. Is that right?   [00:45:26] Rachel Koelzer: Yeah, I think that's right. The problem is the quality of the answers that they're receiving. The values that are embedded within that, whether or not they're being explicitly named, it's not. There are, again, if you go further, deeper, there are folks that are very proud to be part of the manosphere. That is a known and a shared identity as far as like we are part of the manosphere.Then there are those, I think Joe Rogan himself is like, I'm not part of that, but if you listen to his content and his messages, right? There's a lot of those traditional right wing, very violent and misogynistic roots that are coming out in there.   [00:46:13] It starts off very innocuously looking for answers, looking to better understand your life, your experiences, and what you can do about it. That's innocuous enough. Right. And there's even, like, there's a lot to be said about that kind of,, what's the word I'm trying to think of,, initiative, right? To better understand and seek resources and things. But unfortunately through a combination of the algorithm. Through investments into these kinds of content creators, , and spaces we're seeing that those proliferating a lot more. And so whether or not young Asian men are intentionally seeking this type of content, they're being fed it regularly.   [00:46:54] Miko Lee: I also heard you this comment about race blindness. I get that it because it's like men, men, men we're men and we're bounding together. But race blindness feels like a rube, if you will, for, white supremacy and misogyny. It's this way of saying we are all one, but very much targeting, specific folks that are not in positions of power and control.   [00:47:21] Rachel Koelzer: Yeah, absolutely. It flattens and erases the experiences of people who have been marginalized through, our laws, our policies, and it stops the need. It stops the self-reflection and interrogation too that is asked of us otherwise, which is to reflect on what power do I hold and what is my responsibility with that power, whether it's, having more privilege because I'm a citizen. Having privilege because you are a man. Even if you are also, historically and presently marginalized because of your race as an Asian person, it reduces that depth and again, that responsibility for self-reflection and interrogation.   [00:48:22] Miko Lee: So given all that, your report says this is a warning sign, which clearly it is and an opportunity. I wonder if you could talk a bit more about what is the opportunity here as we're in this time of great change. Great revolution, the year of the fire horse. Talk about how we can actively disrupt that pipeline to radical extremism.    [00:48:46] Rachel Koelzer: It's an important question and it's an important conversation that we need to have. There needs to be an awareness and an understanding of what it is that, is threatening the health and wellbeing of our community and of our country. What this study showed is we're at an inflection point. The percentages, the numbers, we're not so far down the rabbit hole, but we're like right on the edge. We're like at this tipping point, and so intervention is necessary now. This is a great opportunity for organizations, for community leaders to be having these conversations. To be engaging in political education with their community members to be, educating and informing and connecting with members of their community, particularly young Asian men. And it's an opportunity for these in-person spaces and these digital spaces to be countering the manosphere with our own answers.   [00:49:51] I think that's one of the biggest things, especially when we're talking about a digital space, to be investing in content creators, to be investing in artists, to be investing in doing the work of putting out our own answers and solutions. Explanations and analysis of what is happening. It's a call to action and an opportunity for funders, donors for people who have the ability, to put money behind these kinds of spaces online. There's just this significant disparate investment. It's an opportunity to be really investing in community, really investing in recreating spaces, building out spaces, I'm thinking particularly again, community-based organizations who can be understanding what the risks and threats are and understanding their communities where they are, and not necessarily adding to, but, with this threat in mind, how does that inform the spaces that you're creating or the strategies that you are engaging?Whether it's online or in person.   [00:51:13] Miko Lee: We need to gather up our brothers, our nephews, our uncles, gather 'em all up, talk about our real, Asian American history of resistance, our power, our ability to move forward, connect with that in person, pull them outta the manosphere, connect all together so that we could move forward as a community in solidarity with each other.   [00:51:37] Rachel Koelzer: Absolutely. There's opportunities across the board regardless, of where your particular position is. Even if you're not a part of a community organization or you're a teacher, a parent. One of the things that also came up in this study was that across ideologies, across the political spectrum and across age groups, there was a significant number. It was like close to 70 or over 70% had shared experiences, of being discouraged from showing emotions, from being, from seeing, modeled from the men in their lives, examples of stoicism. Of, more traditional masculinity, more traditional gender norms. And so there is this also aspect of, yeah, bringing in folks, bringing in our nephews, our brothers, our cousins, our friends, our uncles, and a reflection upon what can we do to be, raising our next generations, our current and our next generations, to value themselves and those around them who are different. To be able to express emotions, be able to have deep, reciprocal relationships, , and to have respect and understand what it means to reflect on one's privilege that comes as a result of, an identity in this very hierarchical world, whether it's, as a man under patriarchy or white, under white supremacy. These are skills that can be taught and can be learned. I think that this is also an opportunity to be reflecting on how we as a society understanding these    [00:53:33] Miko Lee: Well, Rachel Koelzer, thank you so much for joining me and sharing about your report. How can people find out more about your work?   [00:53:42] Rachel Koelzer: Thank you so much for having me. You can follow NAKASEC on most social media platforms. Visit our website. We've got tons of resources and information there and check out our local affiliates. You can find out more about them on our website and on our socials. If you are, you know, in the area, would love to see you.    [00:54:01] Miko Lee: Thank you so much.    [00:54:03] Rachel Koelzer: Thank you.   [00:54:04] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Just a note that Apex Express will be off air for fundrive until May 28th, but we wanna acknowledge that May is Asian American, native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and there are film festivals and cultural events happening all around the country that celebrate our diverse experiences. One Bay Area one to note is CAAMFEST. It's back! The center of Asian American media returns for its 44th year and its festival from May 7th through the 10th is at the Kabuki Theater, a MC in San Francisco with an amazing program of impressive filmmakers. Check it out, maybe I'll see you there and happy AANHPI month. Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night..    The post APEX Express – 4.30.26 – Bruce Lee and the Manosphere appeared first on KPFA.

What if the key to thriving in today's fast-paced world has been around for thousands of years? In this episode of The Greatness Machine, Darius Mirshahzadeh connects with ninth-generation doctor of Eastern medicine Dr. Jenelle Kim to explore the ancient principles behind modern wellness, longevity, and true inner balance. Dr. Jenelle shares the deeply personal story behind her book, “The Korean Art of Living Well: The Eight Keys of Living Meditation for Balance and Transformation,” a work inspired by her lineage and her father's legacy. Rooted in 10,000-year-old Daoist traditions, she introduces the three pillars of optimal living: medicine, movement, and mindset. The conversation dives into how modern life creates stagnation, mentally, physically, and spiritually, and how simple practices like breathwork, grounding, and even laughter can restore flow. Dr. Jenelle explains that true wellness comes down to function and flow, and that imbalance begins when we become stuck in our thoughts. In this episode, Darius and Dr. Jenelle will discuss: (00:00) Introduction and Guest Introduction (02:57) Dr. Jenelle Kim's Journey and Book Release (05:43) The Three Pillars of Ancient Medicine (08:27) The Importance of Mindset and Meditation (11:31) Stagnation and Its Impact on Well-being (14:30) The Role of Humor and Laughter in Healing (17:26) Living Meditation and Connection to the Universe (20:17) Finding Balance in a Distracted World (22:33) Cultural Shifts Towards Mindfulness (25:25) The Eight Keys of Living Meditation (28:35) Connectedness and Honor (31:10) Overcoming Self-Deception (34:18) The Importance of Acknowledgment (40:37) Being Like Bamboo: Flexibility and Strength Dr. Jenelle Kim is a ninth-generation Doctor of Eastern Medicine, martial artist, and Taoist wellness expert. She is the founder of JBK Wellness Labs, where she has spent over two decades developing and formulating products carried by major global retailers. She is also the creator of SABU Wellness Experiences, curating immersive wellness events with leading doctors and practitioners worldwide, and the host of The Experts podcast, featuring top voices across beauty, wellness, and leadership. Dr. Kim is the author of “The Korean Art of Living Well” and a sought-after global speaker, sharing her philosophy of Medicine, Movement, and Mindset at conferences and events around the world. Connect with Dr. Jenelle: Website: https://jenellekim.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jenelle-kim-863835175/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjenellemkim/  Connect with Darius: Website: https://therealdarius.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmirshahzadeh/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imthedarius/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Thegreatnessmachine  Book: The Core Value Equation https://www.amazon.com/Core-Value-Equation-Framework-Limitless/dp/1544506708 Write a review for The Greatness Machine using this link: https://ratethispodcast.com/spreadinggreatness.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most researchers who study alcohol focus on what it does to your body. Edward Slingerland is more interested in what it does to your friendships. In his book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, the University of British Columbia professor argues that alcohol has functioned for thousands of years as humanity's most important social lubricant, and that the modern war on drinking is costing us something we can't easily replace. He and Coleman dig into the anthropological origins of alcohol, why drinking has always been communal, and why giving it up isn't as simple as your doctor thinks. Slingerland argues the loneliness epidemic and the sobriety trend may not be a coincidence. They also touch on Slingerland's background in early Chinese philosophy, and the surprisingly direct path from ancient Daoist texts to a book about getting drunk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sun Wukong goes head-to-head against the last remaining demon Daoist priest of the Slow-Cart Kingdom.

In Part 2 of her stress response series, Katie Brindle shares three advanced techniques to take you beyond "relaxed yet energised" and all the way into a state of bliss.You'll learn: Spiritual breathing — how to extend the rescue breath by lingering at the bottom of the exhale, charging that empty space with positive energy, and guiding every cell in your body into blissful harmony Kindness as medicine — the Daoist concept of 3,000 good deeds, why kindness is its own reward, and how compassion and forgiveness diffuse the liver energy at the heart of the stress response Crystals in your pocket — the simple practice Katie helped popularise in the UK, why the pericardium and heart points in your palm make this so effective, and how to cleanse your crystal at the end of each day Katie shares how stress isn't the enemy. A little stress strengthens the body. It's how we respond to it that matters. These are simple, portable techniques you can use anywhere, because you're already breathing anyway.If you haven't yet, listen to Part 1 first for the foundational techniques this episode builds on.

Things escalate quickly in the battle of magic between Daoists and Buddhists.

Masterpiece Podcasts: Collection of Chinese Classic Novels

In this subscriber-only episode (1-174), Taoist Master Mikel Steenrod explores the turtle as an organizing force within Taoist thought. Beginning with a classic teaching story of a turtle withdrawing beneath a storm, the discussion expands into the turtle's deeper symbolic and practical roles across Taoist tradition. The episode examines how the turtle shell became an early tool for extracting order from chaos through divination practices that predate the I Ching, and how its structured form influenced cosmological thinking. Mikel also discusses the ancient Daoist board game Liubo, modeled after the turtle's undershell, which functioned as both entertainment and a symbolic map for understanding movement through the universe. The turtle's association with longevity, containment, and the preservation of qi is explored, along with its comparison to jade as a storage medium for essence. The discussion then connects these ideas to Taoist cosmology, including the emergence of differentiation from chaos and the need for ordering devices to understand reality. This episode presents the turtle as a model for survival, perception, and energetic containment, offering a practical and symbolic framework for navigating chaos while preserving vitality.   Full episode available to subscribers, along with AMA access, commentary, and community discussion.

The pilgrims get into a duel of magic against the local Daoist priests.

Sun Wukong and his brothers have a little fun with the local Daoists.

Today's episode is our second in a series where we take a deep dive into a concept that hovers just at the edge of language: the subtle body. It's one of those ideas that seems to belong everywhere and nowhere at once -- the subtle body is part of Daoist practice, Indian yoga, Christian mysticism, and, of course, the experimental, boundary-blurring culture of Esalen itself. Depending on who you ask, it might be described as an invisible anatomy, a field of energy, or a map of consciousness. To help understand this topic, today we're joined by Charles Stang and Simon Cox. Charles Stang is a professor at Harvard Divinity School and director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, where he focuses on early Christian thought and mysticism. Simon Cox is a scholar and martial artist who trained for six years in Daoist internal arts in China. He is the author of The Subtle Body: A Genealogy, a book that traces how this concept evolves across cultures and history.

Does the universe have a specific purpose for your life? In this Living the Tao Shorts episode (2-18), Master Mikel Steenrod and Morgan explore a question often associated with the Buddhist idea of dharma—the belief that each person has a role or destiny within a larger cosmic plan. But does Daoism see life that way? Daoist philosophy offers a surprisingly simple perspective. Human life generally moves in one of two directions: cultivating a reasonably happy and durable life, or exploring the deeper nature of existence itself. The discussion examines why people often feel they should be searching for something more, the hidden trap inside the “meaning of life” question, and why Daoism ultimately places the responsibility for meaning on the individual rather than on the universe. Instead of discovering a predetermined purpose, Daoism suggests something both liberating and challenging: Each person carves their own direction through life.  

Is reality fully captured by science or are we missing its most essential dimension? In this dialogue, John Vervaeke joins William Desmond and Guy Sengstock to explore the philosophical foundations of meaning, being, and knowing. Their exchange reveals a shared concern that modern frameworks have narrowed our understanding of reality by excluding participatory and relational dimensions. Desmond's "between" metaphysics and Vervaeke's relevance realization converge to illuminate how meaning arises through engagement rather than detached observation. The discussion moves through cognitive science, phenomenology, and ontology while confronting the existential weight of the meaning crisis. Nihilism is reframed not as a final collapse, but as a transitional space that may allow for a renewed encounter with the sacred and the real. The result is a vision of reality that is deeper, more participatory, and more demanding than modern assumptions allow. William Desmond is a philosopher known for his work on the "between" and the nature of being and meaning. His writing integrates Greek philosophy, Christian thought, and Eastern traditions. Guy Sengstock is the co founder of Circling and founder of The Circling Institute. His work focuses on relational awareness and the transformative power of dialogue. Guest Links William Desmond: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Desmond_(philosopher) Guy Sengstock: https://x.com/guystocks/status/1936455794452774946 Support the Lectern and join a growing community of wisdom seekers https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Explore practices and programs through Awaken to Meaning https://awakentomeaning.com/ 00:00 Welcome to the Lectern 02:00 William Desmond's philosophical journey 08:00 Guy Sengstock and circling practice 13:00 Relevance realization and cognition 18:00 What is relevance 25:00 Being, meaning, and dialogue 41:00 Projection and philosophical pilgrimage 51:00 Daoist perspectives 52:00 Sacred pilgrimage in ancient Greece 54:09 Going away as a way of going home 54:30 Wayfaring and cognition 56:00 Reformation and pilgrimage 56:30 Pilgrimage versus tourism 57:30 The meaning crisis and nihilism 01:01:30 Nihilism as creative opening 01:07:00 Zen and nothingness 01:26:00 Vertical and horizontal nihilism Follow John Vervaeke https://johnvervaeke.com/ https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke  

An interview on humor and amoral ethics in a Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi - and its relation to Confucianism and Legalism. 

Today we begin a three part series in which we explore the idea of the subtle body, a concept found in many contemplative and healing traditions around the world. From yogic energy channels to Daoist internal alchemy, the subtle body refers to the layers of human experience that lie between the physical body and consciousness, suggesting that our lives may unfold through more dimensions than the purely material. In this episode, scholar and martial artist Simon Cox interviews Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy. Murphy was born in Salinas, California in 1930, making him a lively 95 years old at the time of this recording. He is a longtime student of Sri Aurobindo's integral philosophy and the author of numerous innovative books that approach the topic of the subtle body — including 1992's The Future of the Body and 1995's In the Zone. Throughout his career, Murphy has made it a priority to investigate extraordinary human capacities and the further evolution of human nature. Simon Cox brings a unique perspective to this conversation. he spent six years training in Daoist internal arts at Wudang Mountain in China before earning his PhD from Rice University. His book The Subtle Body: A Genealogy traces the history of subtle body concepts across cultures, and his research explores how these ideas have shaped both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. He's currently a research fellow at Esalen's Center for Theory and Research. He holds weekly conversations with Michael Murphy as part of a collaborative effort to illuminate the deeper architecture of Esalen's mission. Simon is currently writing a new book on Esalen's intellectual history — a mythic excavation of Murphy's “Big Vision”: the radical, reality-bending aspiration that seeded Esalen's creation and continues to shape its evolutionary field. Photo of Michael Murphy: Kate Kondratieva

When most people think of alchemy, they imagine a medieval wizard desperately trying to turn lead into gold. But the real story of alchemy is far stranger and far more important because hidden within those mysterious experiments were the early discoveries that would eventually become modern chemistry. In this episode of For the Love of History, we explore the origins of alchemy and how early experiments in metallurgy, medicine, and chemistry shaped the scientific world we know today. What began as practical craft knowledge in ancient Egypt and Greece eventually evolved into a global intellectual tradition spanning the Islamic Golden Age, Indian Rasashastra, and Daoist alchemy in China. Along the way we meet some of the most influential figures in early scientific history. You'll hear about Zosimos of Panopolis, one of the earliest recorded alchemists, and Maria the Jewess, a pioneering woman whose inventions helped shape laboratory techniques still used in chemistry today. We'll also explore the work of Jabir ibn Hayyan, whose writings during the Islamic Golden Age helped transform alchemy into a more systematic scientific practice. From ancient alchemy recipes found in Egyptian papyri to the global exchange of scientific knowledge across continents, this episode uncovers how centuries of curiosity about matter and transformation eventually led to the birth of modern chemistry. The story of alchemy isn't just about gold—it's about humanity's earliest attempts to understand the building blocks of the universe. In This Episode

Cannabis is a plant medicine that can do so much for one's health when it's grown properly and used very wisely.Expert and educator Ryan Sprague explores the chemistry behind what makes cannabis work and explains why judging its quality solely on how much THC it contains is a very bad idea this week on Spirit Gym.Learn more about Ryan and his work on his Highly Optimized website and on social media via Instagram here and here and YouTube. Listen to Ryan's Highly Optimized podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to them.For Spirit Gym listeners: The Sacred Smoke Collective is a private membership association where you can shop for its organic tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) offerings. Save 10 percent on any purchase at this website and a mystery gift by using the promo code paulchek at this link. Also, sign up for the Sacred Smoke Collective's affiliate program at this link. (Special offers from Spirit Gym guests are time-sensitive and at their discretion to redeem after 30 days.)Timestamps 4:44 How a highly optimized human uses cannabis wisely and as one of many tools.10:00 Do Drugs Have Religious Import? by Huston Smith from The Journal of Philosophy.21:28 Practice the Daoist not too much, not too little philosophy.32:34 Psychedelics are meant to be challenging by design.51:09 Why Ryan believes cannabis and hemp are the people's plants.1:05:26 “Cannabis is a medicine that works on one regulatory system that happens to deal with 80-plus different conditions and purposes.”1:13:22 Could cannabis treat epilepsy?1:27:42 How much THC do you realiy need in your cannabis?1:34:18 Foods that help with endocannabinoid production besides cannabis.ResourcesSoma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality by R. Gordon Wasson (FREE PDF link)Find more resources for this episode on our website.Music Credit: Meet Your Heroes (444Hz), Composed, mixed, mastered and produced by Michael RB Schwartz of Brave Bear Music Thanks to our awesome sponsors:PaleovalleyBIOptimizers US and BIOptimizers UK PAUL15Organifi CHEK20Wild PasturesKorrect SPIRITGYMPique LifeCHEK Institute We may earn commissions from qualifying purchases using affiliate links.

What is power? In this episode (1-167) of Living the Tao, Taoist Master Mikel Steenrod challenges the modern assumption that power means dominance or control. Instead, he reframes power as something far more fundamental: the ability to make a decision and see it reach fruition. This teaching focuses on the first of the Four Ascendant Spheres — the Social Sphere — the domain of language, persuasion, money, politics, and what classical Daoists referred to as the “red dust.” Why does poetry move people more than reason? Why does external spiritual identity fail to create real transformation? And how does one move from the illusion-dense realm of talk into deeper spiritual development? This is a subscriber-only doctrinal episode. Hear the full teaching on Supercast.  

A conversation with Prof. Moeller (Carefree Wandering). We discuss the political implications of Daoist philosophy, the Daoist critique of Confucian family roles and anthropocentrism, the comparison to Nietzsche's critique of modernist theories of truth, the differences between the two regarding their respective past and future orientations in philosophy, the difference in "vibe", and the parallel between the two as focused on achieving "great health". Butcher Ding Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGtgGz5SsY0Happy Fish Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nMCrj3soDUProf. Moeller's new book: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-enigma-of-gender/9780231221276/

Shownotes  Take your business to the next level with my FREE VITA Coaching Checklist How pelvic floor health directly connects to pleasure How modern life and high heels create tightness in your pelvic floor What you can start doing now to improve your pelvic floor health Lauren's advice to women who feel numbness during sex Bonus pelvic floor practice with Layla   Bio Lauren Ohayon is the creator of "Restore Your Core®" (RYC®), a comprehensive and sustainable fitness program that empowers women who aim to be strong, long, mobile, and functional.   With more than two decades' of experience as an internationally renowned pelvic floor movement specialist, Lauren focuses on resolving core and pelvic floor issues minus the "burn and shred" mentality. Her signature program has helped over 10,000 women regain confidence in their bodies and a life no longer limited by pain and pelvic floor symptoms. RYC® also boasts over 500 highly trained movement professionals around the world.   She is also the co-founder of Body Ready Method® which is rooted in the RYC® Method and offers evidence-based online pregnancy, birth, and recovery programs and has trained over 1,800 professionals globally.   Lauren and the RYC® teachers help women across the globe gain core strength, achieve ideal pelvic floor function, and learn to move efficiently and exercise optimally.   Learn more about Lauren's work on her website and follow her on YouTube and Instagram.   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelaurenohayon/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@restoreyourcoremethod Website:   Normal UTM (if you are hyperlinking text): https://restoreyourcore.com/?utm_source=tantric_life&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=homepage&utm_campaign=promotion Tiny URL (if the link shows): https://link.restoreyourcore.com/4d4b9uxv Follow Layla!

Today, we'll talk about how the monumental Daoist murals of Yongle Palace, which were created amid war, transformed Chinese religious art, and later survived an unprecedented relocation to become one of China's greatest cultural treasures.

Could nature-based principles outperform modern productivity hacks? This episode, Dr. Aldrich Chan connects neuroscience, Daoist wisdom, & bioharmonized living to help high achievers move out of survival mode & into a more grounded, adaptive, & high-performing state. Meet our guest Dr. Chan is a neuropsychologist, psychotherapist & award-winning author of Reassembling Models of Reality & 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed & How We Return. He is the founder of the Center for Neuropsychology & Consciousness in Miami, with a background in research on Alzheimer's disease, trauma & the Default Mode Network, plus experience teaching at Pepperdine University. His work integrates neuroscience, psychotherapy, mindfulness, creativity & long-standing study of Daoism & Zen. Thank you to our partners Outliyr Biohacker's Peak Performance Shop: get exclusive discounts on cutting-edge health, wellness, & performance gear Ultimate Health Optimization Deals: a database of of all the current best biohacking deals on technology, supplements, systems and more Latest Summits, Conferences, Masterclasses, and Health Optimization Events: join me at the top events around the world FREE Outliyr Nootropics Mini-Course: gain mental clarity, energy, motivation, and focus Key takeaways Modern suffering stems from separation, alienation, & discord (SAD) as brain networks drive disconnection in today's world Living by CPR West—Creativity, Process, Relationship, Wholeness, Equilibrium, Spontaneity, & Transformation—provides a blueprint for optimal living Creativity reflects change & adaptation, not artistic talent, with every mind wired for continual reinvention Prioritizing process over perfection invites presence by engaging with life's constant flow instead of rigid routines or identities Challenges like ADHD reflect evolutionary mismatch or misalignment with natural principles rather than simple disorders to suppress Intuition functions as rapid unconscious processing that guides strong decisions in complex or uncertain situations Human connection synchronizes biology & brain function with people & nature, supporting mental & physical health Growth emerges from accepting all parts of the self, including unwanted traits, & channeling them productively Regulating aspirational, selfish, & survival desires reduces overwhelm by simplifying choices Playfulness, flexibility, & continual adaptation drive true performance, with transformation remaining an ongoing process Episode highlights 01:17 Identify why modern life creates suffering 05:39 Use nature-based principles to restore function 09:57 Apply creativity & process for adaptive performance 36:14 Strengthen relationship & wholeness 54:27 Maintain equilibrium without rigidity 01:01:06 Activate spontaneity & transformation Links Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-HLS8qYAY_M Full episode show notes: outliyr.com/248 Connect with Nick on social media Instagram Twitter (X) YouTube LinkedIn Easy ways to support Subscribe Leave an Apple Podcast review Suggest a guest Do you have questions, thoughts, or feedback for us? Let me know in the show notes above and one of us will get back to you! Be an Outliyr, Nick

In this expansive and deeply illuminating episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, Michelle is joined by San Qing, a Daoist priest, teacher of internal alchemy, and lifelong explorer of consciousness, healing, and human potential. San shares his extraordinary origin story, including a near-death experience as a child, spontaneous clairvoyant and healing abilities, and his eventual ordination in Daoist lineages in China. Together, Michelle and San dive into the nature of reality, the illusion of identification with the material world, and how true healing occurs when we access the stillness beneath thought, diagnosis, and fear. This conversation bridges ancient Daoist wisdom with modern conversations around quantum healing, consciousness, and fertility. It explores how attachment to labels, timelines, and medical predictions can keep the body stuck, and how returning to the "void," the place of non-identity and stillness, allows the body and spirit to reorganise into harmony. This episode is a powerful invitation to remember that healing is not something we force, but something we allow when we reconnect with our deeper intelligence. Key Takeaways: Healing begins beyond the physical body, in consciousness and energy Identifying too strongly with diagnoses can limit what the body is capable of Stillness and non-attachment create space for transformation The body must be able to hold the energetic charge of healing Ancient Daoist teachings offer a roadmap for embodied, sustainable healing Guest Bio:  Taoist Master San Qing is a profound healer. When he talks, there is something else that goes on in the room. The room is filled with light and love. Taoist Master San Qing has over 30 years' experience guiding people, teaching people, opening people up to their true potential as a human being, as a light being, as just being. San Qing is an ordained priest and 66th generation lineage holder and 126th generation lineage holder of Taoism. San is a Taoist master of Qigong and Neigong, is a prolific channel and healer who has built a reputation for direct access to the spirit realm. He is grateful every day to his teachers, the Three Pure Ones and the Tao, for allowing him to witness miracles. San works with people all over the world showing them, that the impossible is possible.  Connect with San Qing Website: https://immortaltaoistrites.com/ The Way 126 App (Web, iOS & Android): https://theway126.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiY-8SXc5g7oJRlA02tQluw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theway_126 Disclaimer: The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider before making any changes to your health or fertility care. Ready to discover what your body needs most on your fertility journey? Take the personalized quiz inside The Wholesome Fertility Journey and get tailored resources to meet you exactly where you are:  https://www.michelleoravitz.com/the-wholesome-fertility-journey For more about my work and offerings, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com Curious about ancient wisdom for fertility? Grab my book The Way of Fertility: https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility Join the Wholesome Fertility Facebook Group for free resources & community support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/ Connect with me on social: Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertilityFacebook: The Wholesome Lotus  

Welcome back to the show!Today, my mentor Kat Lee joins me to talk about the Year of the Wood Snake (the year that passed), what gifts it might have brought us along with the shedding, chaos and hardship... and they year of the Fire Horse, which starts on February 17, 2026- what it means, what to look out for... and how we integrating the lessons and gifts from the previous year can be a necessary step to move ahead with better alignment in the year to come. Kat is an emotional alchemist, nature nerd, Daoist, aspiring homesteader, and writer living in eastern Washington with her husband and their menagerie. Substack: https://emotionalalchemy.substack.com/IG: https://www.instagram.com/kat.hosoo.leeMagazine: https://www.interbeingmag.com/⭐️Join EMPOWERED SPENDER: My digital course that will teach you how to transform financial chaos and shame-inducing emotional spending sprees, into Rich Bitch energy, using an easy-breezy nervous system friendly approach that empowers you to spend guilt free, and save for future adventures. https://www.saveamillioncents.com/empoweredspender ⭐️Check out my 1:1 Money Magic Mentorship Program here.

Incogni advertisementUse code “https://nordvpn.com/earthancients at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an anual Incogni plan.Your URL is: https://incogni.com/earthancientsThe Discovery of a Chinese Imperial Seal in Northern Australia:Preliminary Report and AnalysisBy Dr Luk Yu-ping (British Museum), Ed Liu (Chinese Scholar) & Geological Analyst (AA+Industry)AbstractIn May 2022, a copper-alloy seal bearing early Chinese inscriptions was discovered nearTortilla Flats, Northern Territory, Australia. Preliminary metallurgical and epigraphicanalyses suggest the object predates any known modern or colonial Chinese presence in theregion. The artefact, associated with Daoist deity worship, may indicate ancient maritimeconnections between Asia and northern Australia. This paper summarises the discovery,expert opinions, initial analyses, and recommendations for future study and preservation.What Has Been FoundA square-shaped cast metal seal (90mm2, 20g) with eight Chinese characters and two sidemarkings, believed to represent the “Tiger-tamer Marshal Zhao of the Dark Altar” (玄壇伏虎趙公元帥)—a Daoist deity linked to wealth, protection, and navigation. The artefact bearsthe hallmarks of imperial-level craftsmanship, including a nine-fold casting method andcomplex copper-zinc alloy composition consistent with early high-temperature metallurgy.2. Who Found ItThe seal was discovered by John Miltenburg in collaboration with local researchers. Theinitial academic interpretation and contextual analysis were later undertaken by Ed Liu(Chinese scholar) and Ian Hudson and team, with external review and correspondence withDr Luk Yu-ping, Curator of Chinese Paintings and Prints at the British Museum.3. When It Was FoundThe discovery occurred in early May 2022 during surface exploration of the wetlands areasurrounding Tortilla Flats, Northern Territory, approximately 110 km south of Darwin.4. Where It Was Found and in What CircumstancesThe seal was recovered from wetlands heavily embedded in clay, located between twocreek systems near Tortilla Flats. The location's hydrological conditions likely preserved theartefact by limiting exposure to air and corrosive elements. There is no evidence of modernhabitation, trade, or military activity in the immediate vicinity that would explain the seal'spresence through known historical channels.https://forgottenorigin.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/earth-ancients--2790919/support.

Are good and evil moral absolutes — or are they something else entirely? In this episode (1-165) of Living the Tao, Taoist Master Mikel Steenrod presents the Daoist view of good, evil, and neutrality as energetic positions, not moral judgments. Rather than focusing on right and wrong, Daoism examines how actions affect energy, probability, and personal power. This conversation explores why Daoism was never designed as a social or moral control system, how karma functions energetically rather than morally, and why neutrality may offer the greatest potential for influence and change. Topics include: The Daoist rejection of moral hierarchy Why judgment creates false polarities How karma actually works in classical Daoism Why destruction releases energy faster than creation The role of neutrality in spiritual cultivation How Qi Gong relates to energy outside moral frameworks This episode is ideal for listeners interested in Taoism, spirituality, philosophy, and anyone questioning traditional good-versus-evil thinking. In this episode (1-160), Taoist Master Mikel Steenrod explains why positivity is not about denying reality or forcing optimism. Instead, it's about where you place your attention, how you process experience, and how much failure you can tolerate without giving up. Topics include: Why negativity often feels justified—but limits your life The difference between motivation and long-term damage How childhood conditioning shapes what you focus on The Taoist idea of fail tolerance and endurance Why most people set goals that guarantee failure A practical, no-nonsense discussion of positivity as a trainable skill, not a personality trait.  

What if healing wasn't something you had to earn, fix, or outsource — but something you could remember?In this episode of Rewiring Health, Kelly sits down with Daoist guide and self-healing practitioner Sifu Boggie (Paul Brighton) to explore what it truly means to heal from within.With over 40 years of experience in Daoism, Qi Gong, and embodied healing arts, Sifu Boggie shares why ancient practices like Qi Gong and Tai Chi are not outdated — they're essential tools for navigating modern stress, emotional overload, and disconnection from the body.Together, they explore:Why true healing is about guidance, not fixingHow Qi Gong and Tai Chi regulate the nervous system and restore energetic balanceDaoist philosophy as a grounded, practical approach to modern lifeCommon misconceptions about ancient healing practices — and why they still workHow life experience, playfulness, and curiosity deepen self-trustWhat it means to be a guide rather than a master on the healing pathThis conversation is for anyone who feels overwhelmed, disconnected, or tired of trying to “get it right” — and is ready to reconnect with their own inner wisdom, safety, and natural flow.✨ You are not broken. You are remembering.Connect with Sifu: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sifuboggieFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/2sifuboggieInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/sifu.boggie/Connect with Kelly:⁠drkellykessler.com⁠If you know something needs to change, but find yourself still overriding your needs, explaining when you don't have to, or keeping the peace at your own expense, this is for youI created a free guide called The Self-Abandonment Audit to help you identify where you're losing yourself in the name of connection, and why insight alone hasn't been enough to change it.Download it here:

What is the Daoist concept of wu-wei? Is wu-wei similar to any concepts from Western philosophy? In this episode, Danny and Randy discuss the Daoist concept of wu-wei or effortless action.Thanks to listener Jon B. for suggesting this topic! Subscribe to ESP's YouTube Channel! Thanks for listening!  Do you have a question you want answered in a future episode? If so, send your question to: existentialstoic@protonmail.com 

New @greenpillnet pod out today!

Welcome back to Behind Greatness. We had loads of fun in this conversation. Robert Wagonner joins us from his home in the Midwest. He is a veteran lucid dreamer, having taught himself how to do it in the '70s and never looked back. Robert elaborates on the lucid state as being an educational system. He discussed "buzzing" while having an out of body experience as a young boy, his brother's book and the Monroe Institute, flying through his neighborhood, house cats and mountain lions. We hear about the mysterious "N4" (144), the mentally mediated realm, following the creativity and the blue light. We explore the magic of goofiness, fear, becoming an electron, the search for inherent evil, Daoist societies, "going the distance" and the voluntary death experience. What a trip. "Doubt is gravity".  Robert, Website + Books: https://www.lucidadvice.com/ Other: https://www.lucid-dreaming-advice.com/about-robert Lucid Dreaming Foundation: https://www.luciddreamingfoundation.org/#1 [CORRECTION – The Monroe Institute initially helped Joe McMoneagle to control his OBEs] Episodes mentioned: Joe McMoneagle, ep 198, 199, 200, 210, 215, 218 and Athena Laz, ep 100 To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors

While early Buddhists hailed their religion's founder for opening a path to enlightenment, they also exalted him as the paragon of masculinity. According to Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha's body boasts thirty-two physical features, including lionlike jaws, thighs like a royal stag, broad shoulders, and a deep, resonant voice, that distinguish him from ordinary men. As Buddhism spread throughout Asia and around the world, the Buddha remained an exemplary man, but Buddhists in other times and places developed their own understandings of what it meant to be masculine. This transdisciplinary book brings together essays that explore the variety and diversity of Buddhist masculinities, from early India to the contemporary United States, and from bodhisattva-kings to martial monks. Buddhist Masculinities (Columbia UP, 2023) adopts the methods of religious studies, anthropology, art history, textual-historical studies, and cultural studies to explore texts, images, films, media, and embodiments of masculinity across the Buddhist world, past and present. It turns scholarly attention to normative forms of masculinity that usually go unmarked and unstudied precisely because they are "normal," illuminating the religious and cultural processes that construct Buddhist masculinities. Engaging with contemporary issues of gender identity, intersectionality, and sexual ethics, Buddhist Masculinities ushers in a new era for the study of Buddhism and gender. MEGAN BRYSON is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Asian Studies program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her B.A. in Religious Studies and Chinese from University of Oregon, and her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University. Her research focuses primarily on themes of gender and ethnicity in Chinese religions, especially in the Dali region of Yunnan Province. The geographical specificity of her work is balanced by its temporal breadth, which ranges from the Nanzhao (649-903) and Dali (937-1253) kingdoms to the present, as reflected in her monograph, Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford University Press, 2016, an interview with her about this book is also on the New Books Network), which traces the worship of a local deity in Dali from the 12th to 21st centuries. KEVIN BUCKELEW is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. He received his B.A. in the liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. His research focuses on Buddhism in premodern China, with special attention to the rise of the Chan (Zen) Buddhist tradition and to interactions between Chinese Buddhists and Daoists. Thematically, his work explores how religious identities take shape and assume social authority; how materiality, embodiment, and gender figure into Buddhist soteriology; and how Buddhists have grappled with the problem of human agency. Jue Liang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. She is currently completing her first book, entitled Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshé Tsogyel. She is also working on a second project, tentatively titled i. As a scholar of Buddhist literature, history, and culture in South and East Asia, she reflects in her research and teaching continuities as well as innovations in the gender discourses of Buddhist communities. She is also interested in the theory and practice of translation in general, and translating Tibetan literature in particular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

While early Buddhists hailed their religion's founder for opening a path to enlightenment, they also exalted him as the paragon of masculinity. According to Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha's body boasts thirty-two physical features, including lionlike jaws, thighs like a royal stag, broad shoulders, and a deep, resonant voice, that distinguish him from ordinary men. As Buddhism spread throughout Asia and around the world, the Buddha remained an exemplary man, but Buddhists in other times and places developed their own understandings of what it meant to be masculine. This transdisciplinary book brings together essays that explore the variety and diversity of Buddhist masculinities, from early India to the contemporary United States, and from bodhisattva-kings to martial monks. Buddhist Masculinities (Columbia UP, 2023) adopts the methods of religious studies, anthropology, art history, textual-historical studies, and cultural studies to explore texts, images, films, media, and embodiments of masculinity across the Buddhist world, past and present. It turns scholarly attention to normative forms of masculinity that usually go unmarked and unstudied precisely because they are "normal," illuminating the religious and cultural processes that construct Buddhist masculinities. Engaging with contemporary issues of gender identity, intersectionality, and sexual ethics, Buddhist Masculinities ushers in a new era for the study of Buddhism and gender. MEGAN BRYSON is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Asian Studies program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her B.A. in Religious Studies and Chinese from University of Oregon, and her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University. Her research focuses primarily on themes of gender and ethnicity in Chinese religions, especially in the Dali region of Yunnan Province. The geographical specificity of her work is balanced by its temporal breadth, which ranges from the Nanzhao (649-903) and Dali (937-1253) kingdoms to the present, as reflected in her monograph, Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford University Press, 2016, an interview with her about this book is also on the New Books Network), which traces the worship of a local deity in Dali from the 12th to 21st centuries. KEVIN BUCKELEW is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. He received his B.A. in the liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. His research focuses on Buddhism in premodern China, with special attention to the rise of the Chan (Zen) Buddhist tradition and to interactions between Chinese Buddhists and Daoists. Thematically, his work explores how religious identities take shape and assume social authority; how materiality, embodiment, and gender figure into Buddhist soteriology; and how Buddhists have grappled with the problem of human agency. Jue Liang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. She is currently completing her first book, entitled Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshé Tsogyel. She is also working on a second project, tentatively titled i. As a scholar of Buddhist literature, history, and culture in South and East Asia, she reflects in her research and teaching continuities as well as innovations in the gender discourses of Buddhist communities. She is also interested in the theory and practice of translation in general, and translating Tibetan literature in particular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

In this live episode, Tricia Eastman joins to discuss Seeding Consciousness: Plant Medicine, Ancestral Wisdom, Psychedelic Initiation. She explains why many Indigenous initiatory systems begin with consultation and careful assessment of the person, often using divination and lineage-based diagnostic methods before anyone enters ceremony. Eastman contrasts that with modern frameworks that can move fast, rely on short trainings, or treat the medicine as a stand-alone intervention. Early Themes: Ritual, Preparation, and the Loss of Container Eastman describes her background, including ancestral roots in Mexico and her later work at Crossroads Ibogaine in Mexico, where she supported early ibogaine work with veterans. She frames her broader work as cultural bridging that seeks respect rather than fetishization, and assimilation into modern context rather than appropriation. Early discussion focuses on: Why initiatory traditions emphasize purification, preparation, and long timelines Why consultation matters before any high-intensity medicine work How decades of training shaped traditional initiation roles Why people can get harmed when they treat medicine as plug and play Core Insights: Alchemy, Shadow, and Doing the Work A major throughline is Eastman's critique of the belief that a psychedelic alone will erase trauma. She argues that shadow work remains part of the human condition, and that healing is less about a one-time fix and more about building capacity for relationship with the unconscious. Using alchemical language, she describes "nigredo" as fuel for the creative process, not as something to eliminate forever. Key insights include: Psychedelics are tools, not saviors You cannot outsource responsibility to a pill, a modality, or a facilitator Progress requires practice, discipline, and honest engagement with what arises "Healing" often shows up as obstacles encountered while trying to live and create Later Discussion and Takeaways: Iboga, Ethics, and Biocultural Stewardship Joe and Tricia move into a practical and ethically complex discussion about iboga supply chains, demand pressure, and the risks of amplifying interest without matching it with harm reduction and reciprocity. Eastman emphasizes medical screening, responsible messaging, and supporting Indigenous-led stewardship efforts. She also warns that harm can come from both under-trained modern facilitators and irresponsible people claiming traditional legitimacy. Concrete takeaways include: Treat iboga and ibogaine as high-responsibility work that demands safety protocols Avoid casual marketing that encourages risky self-administration Support Indigenous-led biocultural stewardship and reciprocity efforts Give lineage carriers a meaningful seat at the table in modern policy and clinical conversations Frequently Asked Questions Who is Tricia Eastman? Tricia Eastman is an author, facilitator, and founder of Ancestral Heart. Her work focuses on cultural bridging, initiation frameworks, and Indigenous-led stewardship. What is Seeding Consciousness about? The book examines plant medicine through initiatory traditions, emphasizing consultation, ritual, preparation, and integration rather than reductionistic models. Why does Tricia Eastman critique modern psychedelic models? She argues that many models remove the ritual container and long-form preparation that reduce risk and support deeper integration. Is iboga or ibogaine safe? With the right oversite, yes. Eastman stresses that safety depends on cardiac screening, careful protocols, and experienced oversight. She warns against informal or self-guided use. How can people support reciprocity and stewardship? She encourages donating or supporting Indigenous-led biocultural stewardship initiatives like Ancestral Heart and aligning public messaging with harm reduction. Closing Thoughts This episode makes a clear case that Tricia Eastman Seeding Consciousness is not only a book about psychedelics, but a critique of how the field is developing. Eastman argues that a successful future depends on mature containers, serious safety culture, and respectful partnership with lineage carriers, especially as interest in iboga and ibogaine accelerates. Links https://www.ancestralheart.com https://www.innertraditions.com/author/tricia-eastman Transcript Joe Moore Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Joe Moore with you again from Psychedelics Today, joined today by Tricia Eastman. Tricia, you just wrote a book called Seeding Consciousness. We're going to get into that a bunch today, but how are you today? [00:00:16.07] - Tricia Eastman I'm so good. It's exciting to be live. A lot of the podcasts I do are offline, and so it's like we're being witnessed and feels like just can feel the energy behind It's great. [00:00:31.11] - Joe Moore It's fun. It's a totally different energy than maybe this will come out in four months. This is real, and there's people all over the world watching in real-time. And we'll get some comments. So folks, if you're listening, please leave us some comments. And we'd love to chat a little bit later about those. [00:00:49.23] - Tricia Eastman I'm going to join the chat so that I can see... Wait, I just want to make sure I'm able to see the comments, too. Do I hit join the chat? [00:01:01.17] - Joe Moore Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. I can throw comments on the screen so we can see them together. [00:01:07.02] - Tricia Eastman Cool. [00:01:08.03] - Joe Moore Yeah. So it'll be fun. Give us comments, people. Please, please, please, please. Yeah, you're all good. So Tricia, I want to chat about your book. Tell us high level about your book, and then we're going to start digging into you. [00:01:22.10] - Tricia Eastman So Seeding Consciousness is the title, and I know it's a long subtitled Plant Medicine, Ancestral Wisdom, Psychedelic Initiation. And I felt like it was absolutely necessary for the times that we are in right now. When I was in Gabon in 2018, in one of my many initiations, as as an initiative, the Fung lineage of Buiti, which I've been practicing in for 11 years now, I was given the instructions. I was given the integration homework to write this book. And I would say I don't see that as this divine thing, like you were given the assignment. I think I was given the assignment because it's hard as F to write a book. I mean, it really tests you on so many levels. I mean, even just thinking about putting yourself out there from a legal perspective, and then also, does it make any sense? Will anyone buy it? And on Honestly, it's not me. It's really what I was given to write, but it's based on my experience working with several thousand people over the years. And really, the essence of it is that in our society, we've taken this reductionistic approach in psychedelics, where we've really taken out the ritual. [00:02:54.05] - Tricia Eastman Even now with the FDA trial for MDMA for PTSD. There's even conversations with a lot of companies that are moving forward, psychedelics, through the FDA process, through that pathway, that are talking about taking the therapy out. And the reality is that in these ancient initiatic traditions, they were very long, drawn out experiences with massive purification rituals, massive amounts of different types of practice in order to prepare oneself to meet the medicine. Different plants were taken, like vomatifs and different types of purification rituals were performed. And then you would go into this profound initiatic experience because the people that were working with you that were in, we call it the Nema, who gives initiations, had decades of training and experience doing these types of initiatic experiences. So if you compare that to the modern day framework, we have people that go online and get a certificate and start serving people medicine or do it in a context where maybe there isn't even an established container or facilitator whatsoever. And so really, the idea is, how can we take the essence of this ancient wisdom wisdom, like when you look at initiation, the first step is consultation, which is really going deep into the history of the individual using different types of techniques that are Indigenous technologies, such as different forms of divination, such as cowrie shell readings. [00:04:52.18] - Tricia Eastman And there's different types of specific divinations that are done in different branches of And before one individual would even go into any initiation, you need to understand the person and where they're coming from. So it's really about that breakdown of all of that, and how can we integrate elements of that into a more modern framework. [00:05:24.23] - Joe Moore Brilliant. All right. Well, thank you for that. And let's chat about you. You've got a really interesting past, very dynamic, could even call it multicultural. And you've got a lot of experience that informed this book. So how did this stuff come forward for you? [00:05:50.02] - Tricia Eastman I mean, I've never been the person to seek anything. My family on my mother's side is from Mexico, from Oaxaca, Trique, Mixtec, and Michica. And we had a long lineage of practice going back to my, at least I know from my great, great grandmother, practicing a blend of mestiza, shamanism, combining centerea and Catholicism together. So it's more of like a syncratic mestiza, mestiza being mixed tradition. And so I found it really interesting because later on, when my grandfather came to the United States, he ended up joining the military. And in being in the US, he didn't really have a place. He's very devout spiritual man, but he didn't have a place to practice this blended spiritual tradition. So the mystical aspect of it went behind. And as I started reconnecting to my ancestral lineage, this came forth that I was really starting to understand the mystical aspect of my ancestry. And interestingly, at the same time, was asked to work at Crossroads Abigain in Mexico. And it's so interesting to see that Mexico has been this melting pot and has been the place where Abigain has chosen to plant its roots, so to say, and has treated thousands of veterans. [00:07:36.28] - Tricia Eastman I got to be part of the group of facilitators back over 10 years ago. We treated the first Navy Seals with Abogaine, and that's really spurred a major interest in Abogaine. Now it's in every headline. I also got 10 I got initiated into the Fung lineage of Buiti and have really studied the traditional knowledge. I created a nonprofit back in 2019 called Ancestral Heart, which is really focused on Indigenous-led stewardship. Really, the book helps as a culmination of the decade of real-world experience of combining My husband, Dr. Joseph Barzulia. He's a psychologist. He's also a pretty well-known published researcher in Abigain and 5MEO-DMT, but also deeply spiritual and deeply in respect for the Indigenous traditions that have carried these medicines before us. So we've really been walking this complex path of world bridging between how we establish these relationships and how we bring some of these ancient knowledge systems back into the forefront, but not in a way of fetishizing them, but in a way of deeply respecting them and what we can learn, but from our own assimilation and context versus appropriation. So really, I think the body of my work is around that cultural bridging. [00:09:31.07] - Joe Moore That's brilliant. And yeah, there's some really fun stuff I learned in the book so far that I want to get into later. But next question is, who is your intended audience here? Because this is an interesting book that could hit a few categories, but I'm curious to hear from you. [00:09:49.02] - Tricia Eastman It's so funny because when I wrote the book, I wasn't thinking, oh, what's my marketing plan? What's my pitch? Who's my intended audience? Because it was my homework, and I knew I needed to write the book, and maybe that was problematic in the sense that I had to go to publishers and have a proposal. And then I had to create a formula in hindsight. And I would say the demographic of the book mirrors the demographic of where people are in the psychedelic space, which It's skewed slightly more male, although very female. I think sex isn't necessarily important when we're thinking about the level of trauma and the level of spiritual healing and this huge deficit that we have in mental health, which is really around our disconnection from our true selves, from our heart, from our souls, from this idea of of what Indigenous knowledge systems call us the sacred. It's really more of an attitude of care and presence. I'm sure we could give it a different name so that individuals don't necessarily have any guard up because we have so much negative conditioning related to the American history of religion, which a lot of people have rejected, and some have gone back to. [00:11:37.06] - Tricia Eastman But I think we need to separate it outside of that. I would say the demographic is really this group of I would say anywhere from 30 to 55 male females that are really in this space where maybe they're doing some of the wellness stuff. They're starting to figure some things out, but it's just not getting them there. And when something happens in life, for example, COVID-19 would be a really great example. It knocks them off course, and they just don't have the tools to find that connection. And I would say it even spans across people that do a lot of spiritual practice and maybe are interested in what psychedelics can do in addition to those practices. Because when we look at my view on psychedelics, is they fit within a whole spectrum of wellness and self-care and any lineage of spiritual practice, whether it's yoga or Sufism or Daoist tradition. But they aren't necessarily the thing that... I think there's an over focus on the actual substance itself and putting it on a pedestal that I think is problematic in our society because it goes back to our religious context in the West is primarily exoteric, meaning that we're seeking something outside of ourselves to fulfill ourselves. [00:13:30.29] - Tricia Eastman And so I think that when we look at psychedelic medicines as this exoteric thing versus when we look at initiatory traditions are about inward and direct experience. And all of these spiritual practices and all of these modalities are really designed to pull you back into yourself, into having a direct relationship with yourself and direct experience. And I feel like the minute that you are able to forge that connection, which takes practice and takes discipline, then you don't need to necessarily look at all these other tools outside of yourself. It's like one of my favorite analogies is the staff on the Titanic were moving the furniture around as it was sinking, thinking that they might save the boat from sinking by moving the furniture around. I think that's how we've been with a lot of ego-driven modalities that aren't actually going into the full unconscious, which is where we need to go to have these direct experiences. Sorry for the long answer, but it is for everybody, and it's not just about psychedelics. Anyone can take something from this doing any spiritual work. But we talk a lot about the Indigenous philosophy and how that ties in alongside with spiritual practice and more of this inner way of connecting with oneself and doing the work. [00:15:21.22] - Tricia Eastman And I think also really not sugar coating it in the sense that the psychedelics aren't going to save us. They're not going to cure PTSD. Nothing you take will. It's you that does the work. And if you don't do the work, you're not going to have an 87 % success rate with opioid use disorder or whatever it is, 60 something % for treatment-resistant depression or whatever. It's like you have to do the work. And so we can't keep putting the power in the modality reality or the pill. [00:16:03.18] - Joe Moore Yeah, that makes sense. So you did an interesting thing here with this book, and it was really highlighting aspects of the alchemical process. And people don't necessarily have exposure. They hear the words alchemy. I get my shoulders go up when I hear alchemizing, like transmutation. But it's a thing. And how do we then start communicating this from Jung? I found out an interesting thing recently as an ongoing student. Carl Jung didn't necessarily have access to all that many manuscripts. There's so many alchemical manuscripts available now compared to what he had. And as a result, our understanding of alchemy has really evolved. Western alchemy, European alchemy, everybody. Perhaps Kmetic, too. I don't know. You could speak to that more. I don't keep track of what's revealed in Egypt. So it's really interesting to present that in a forward way? How has it been received so far? Or were you nervous to present this in this way? [00:17:25.10] - Tricia Eastman I mean, honestly, I think the most important The important thing is that in working with several thousand people over the years, people think that taking the psychedelic and the trauma is going to go away. It's always there. I mean, we We archetypically will have the shadow as long as we need the shadow to learn. And so even if we go into a journey and we transcend it, it's still there. So I would say that the The feedback has been really incredible. I mean, the people that are reading... I mean, I think because I'm weaving so many different, complex and deep concepts into one book, it might be a little harder to market. And I think the biggest bummer was that I was really trying to be respectful to my elders and not say anything in the title about Iboga and Abigain, even though I talk a lot about it in the book, and it's such a hot topic, it's really starting to take off. But the people that have read it really consider it. They really do the work. They do the practices in the book, and I'm just getting really profound feedback. So that's exciting to me because really, ultimately, alchemy... [00:18:55.22] - Tricia Eastman Yeah, you're right. It gets used Used a lot in marketing lingo and sitting in the depth of the tar pit. For me, when I was in Gabon, I remember times where I really had to look at things that were so dark in my family history that I didn't even realize were mine until later connected to my lineage. And the dark darkness connected to that and just feeling that and then knowing really the truth of our being is that we aren't those things. We're in this process of changing and being, and so nothing is is fixed, but there is a alchemical essence in just learning to be with it. And so not always can we just be with something. And and have it change, but there are many times that we can actually just be with those parts of ourselves and be accepting, where it's not like you have to have this intellectualized process It's just like, first you have the negrado, then you tune into the albeda, and you receive the insights, and you journal about it, and da, da, da, da, da Action, Mars aspect of it, the rubeda of the process. It's not like that at all. [00:20:44.15] - Tricia Eastman It's really that the wisdom that comes from it because you're essentially digesting black goo, which is metaphoric to the oil that we use to power all of society that's pulled deep out of the Earth, and it becomes gold. It becomes... And really, the way I like to think of it is like, in life, we are here to create, and we are not here to heal ourselves. So if you go to psychedelic medicine and you want to heal yourself, you're going to be in for... You're just going to be stuck and burnt out because that's not what we're here to do as human beings, and you'll never run out of things to heal. But if you You think of the negrado in alchemy as gasoline in your car. Every time you go back in, it's like refilling your gas tank. And whatever you go back in for as you're moving in the journey, it's almost like that bit of negrado is like a lump of coal that's burning in the gas tank. And that gets you to the next point to which there's another thing related to the creative process. So it's like As you're going in that process, you're going to hit these speed bumps and these obstacles in the way. [00:22:07.29] - Tricia Eastman And those obstacles in the way, that's the healing. So if you just get in the car in the human vehicle and you drive and you continue to pull out the shadow material and face it, you're going to keep having the steam, but not just focus on it, having that intention, having that connection to moving forward in life. And I hate to use those words because they sound so growth and expansion oriented, which life isn't always. It's evolutionary and deevolutionary. It's always in spirals. But ultimately, you're in a creative process would be the best way to orient it. So I think when we look at alchemy from that standpoint, then it's productive. Effective. Otherwise, it sounds like some brand of truffle salt or something. [00:23:09.12] - Joe Moore Yeah, I think it's a... If people want to dig in, amazing. It's just a way to describe processes, and it's super informative if you want to go there, but it's not necessary for folks to do the work. And I like how you framed it quite a bit. So let's see. There is one bit, Tricia, that my ears really went up on this one point about a story about Actually, let me do a tangent for you real quick, and then we're going to come back to this story. So are you familiar with the tribe, the Dogon, in Africa? Of course. Yeah. So they're a group that looks as though they were involved in Jewish and/or Egyptian traditions, and then ended up on the far side of like, what, Western Africa, far away, and had their own evolution away from Egypt and the Middle East. Fascinating. Fascinating stories, fascinating astronomy, and much more. I don't know too much about the religion. I love their masks. But this drew an analogy for me, as you were describing that the Buiti often have stories about having lineage to pre-dynastic Egyptian culture. I guess we'll call it that for now, the Kometic culture. [00:24:44.23] - Joe Moore I had not heard that before. Shame on me because I haven't really read any books about Buiti as a religion or organization, or anything to this point. But I found that really interesting to know that now, at least I'm aware of two groups claiming lineage to that ancient world of magic. Can you speak about that at all for us? Yeah. [00:25:09.24] - Tricia Eastman So first off, there really aren't any books talking about that. Some of the things I've learned from elders that I've spoke with and asked in different lineages in Masoco and in Fong Buiti, there's a few things. One, We lived in many different eras. Even if you go into ancient texts of different religions, creation stories, and biblical stories, they talk about these great floods that wiped out the planet. One of the things that Atum talks about, who is one of my Buiti fathers who passed a couple years ago, is Is the understanding that before we were in these different areas, you had Mu or Lumaria, you had Atlantis, and then you had our current timeline. And the way that consciousness was within those timelines was very different and the way the Earth was. You had a whole another continent called Atlantis that many people, even Plato, talks about a very specific location of. And what happened, I believe during that time period, Africa, at least the Saharan band of the desert was much more lush, and it was a cultural melting pot. So if you think about, for example, the Pygmy tribes, which are in Equatorial Africa, they are the ones that introduced Iboga to the Buiti. [00:27:08.08] - Tricia Eastman If you look at the history of ancient Egypt, what I'm told is that the Pygmies lived in Pharaonic Egypt, all the way up until Pharaonic Egypt. And there was a village. And if you look on the map in Egypt, you see a town called Bawiti, B-A-W-I-T-I. And that is the village where they lived. And I have an interesting hypothesis that the God Bess, if you look at what he's wearing, it's the exact same to a T as what the Pygmies wear. And the inspiration for which a lot of the Buiti, because they use the same symbology, because each part of the outfit, whether it's the Mocingi, which is like this animal skin, or the different feathers, they use the parrot feather as a symbology of speech and communication, all of these things are codes within the ceremony that were passed along. And so when you look at Bess, he's wearing almost the exact same outfit that the Pygmies are wearing and very similar to if you see pictures of the ceremonies of Misoko or Gonde Misoko, which I would say is one of the branches of several branches, but that are closer to the original way of Buiti of the jungle, so closer to the way the Pygmies practice. [00:28:59.16] - Tricia Eastman So If you look at Bess, just to back my hypothesis. So you look at Neteru. Neteru were the... They called them the gods of Egypt, and they were all giant. And many say the word nature actually means nature, but they really represented the divine qualities of nature. There's best. Look at him. And a lot of the historians said he's the God of Harmeline and children and happiness. I think he's more than the God of Harmeline, and I think that the Pygmies worked with many different plants and medicines, and really the ultimate aspect of it was freedom. If you think about liberation, like the libation, number one, that's drunkiness. Number two, liberation, you of freeing the joyous child from within, our true nature of who we are. You look at every temple in Egypt, and you look at these giant statues, and then you have this tiny little pygmy God, and there's no other gods that are like Bess. He's one of a kind. He's in his own category. You've You've got giant Hathor, you've got giant Thoth, you've got giant Osiris, Isis, and then you've got little tiny Bess. And so I think it backs this hypothesis. [00:30:48.27] - Tricia Eastman And my understanding from practitioners of Dogon tradition is that they also believe that their ancestors came from Egypt, and they definitely have a lot of similarity in the teachings that I've seen and been exposed to just from here. I mean, you can... There's some more modern groups, and who's to know, really, the validity of all of it. But there are some, even on YouTube, where you can see there's some more modern Dogon temples that are talking in English or English translation about the teachings, and they definitely line up with Kamehdi teachings. And so my hypothesis around that is that the Dogon are probably most likely pygmy descendants as, And the pygmy were basically run out of Bawiti because there was jealousy with the priest, because there was competition, because all of the offerings that were being made in the temple, there was a lot of power, connected to each of the temples. And there was competitiveness even amongst the different temples, lining the Nile and all of that, of who was getting the most offerings and who was getting the most visits. And so the Pygmies essentially were run out, and they migrated, some of them migrated south to Gabon and Equatorial Africa. [00:32:43.07] - Tricia Eastman And then If you think about the physical changes that happened during these planetary catastrophes, which we know that there had been more than one based on many historical books. So that whole area went through a desertification process, and the Equatorial rainforest remained. So it's highly likely even that Iboga, at one point, grew in that region as well. [00:33:18.00] - Joe Moore Have you ever seen evidence of artwork depicting Iboga there in Egypt? [00:33:24.17] - Tricia Eastman There are several different death temples. I'm trying to remember the name of the exact one that I went to, but on the columns, it looked like Iboga trees that were carved into the columns. And I think what's interesting about this... So Seychet is the divine scribe, the scribe of Egyptian wisdom. And she was basically, essentially the sidekick of Thoth. Thoth was who brought a lot of the ancient wisdom and people like Pythagoras and many of the ancient philosophers in Roman times went and studied in a lot of these Thoth lineage mystery schools. When you look at the the river of the Nile on the east side, east is the energy liturgy of initiation. It's always like if you go into a sweat lodge or if you see an ancient temple, usually the doorway is facing the east. West is where the sun sets, and so that's the death. And what's interesting about that is that it was on the west side in the death temple that you would see these aboga plants. But also Seixat was the one who was the main goddess depicted in the hieroglyphs, and there was other hieroglyphs. I mean, if you look at the hieroglyphs of Seixat, it looks like she has a cannabis leaf above her head, and a lot of people have hypothesized that, that it's cannabis. [00:35:16.03] - Tricia Eastman Of course, historians argue about that. And then she's also carrying a little vessel that looks like it has some mushrooms in it. And obviously, she has blue Lotus. Why would she be carrying around blue Lotus and mushrooms? I don't know. It sounds like some initiation. [00:35:36.19] - Joe Moore Yeah, I love that. Well, thanks so much for going there with me. This photo of Seixet. There's some good animations, but everybody just go look at the temple carvings picturing this goddess. It's stunning. And obviously, cannabis. I think it's hard to argue not. I've seen all these like, mushroom, quote, unquote, mushroom things everywhere. I'm like, Yeah, maybe. But this is like, Yes, that's clear. [00:36:06.27] - Tricia Eastman And if you look at what she's wearing, it's the exact same outfit as Bess, which is classic Basically, how the medicine woman or medicine man or what you would call shaman, the outfit that the healers would wear, the shamans or the oracles, those of the auracular arts, different forms of divination would wear. So if you really follow that and you see, Oh, what's Isis wearing? What's Hathor wearing? What's Thoth wearing? You can tell she's very specifically the healer. And it's interesting because they call her the divine scribe. So she's actually downloading, my guess is she's taking plants and downloading from the primordial. [00:37:02.00] - Joe Moore Well, okay. Thanks for bringing that up. That was a lovely part of your book, was your... There's a big initiation sequence, and then you got to go to this place where you could learn many things. Could you speak to that a little bit? And I hope that's an okay one to bring up. [00:37:22.22] - Tricia Eastman Are you talking about the time that I was in initiation and I went to the different ashrams, the different realms in, like Yogananda calls them astral schools that you go and you just download? It seemed like astral schools, but it seemed like it was a Bwiti initiation, where you were in silence for three days, and then Yeah, that one. So there were several different... I mean, I've done seven official initiations, and then I've had many other initiatic experiences. And I would say this one was incredible. Incredibly profound because what it showed me first was that all of the masters of the planet, it was showing me everyone from Kurt Cobain to Bob Marley to Einstein, all the people that had some special connection to an intelligence that was otherworldly, that they were essentially going to the same place, like they were visiting the same place, and they would go. And so the first thing I noticed was that I recognized a lot of people, and current, I'm not going I don't want to say names of people, but I recognize people that are alive today that I would say are profound thinkers that were going to these places as well. [00:38:57.05] - Tricia Eastman And interestingly, then I was taken into one of the classrooms, and in the classroom, this one, specifically, it showed me that you could download any knowledge instantaneously That essentially, having a connection to that school allowed you to download music or understand very complex ideas ideas of mathematics or physics or science that would take people like lifetimes to understand. So it was essentially showing this. And a lot of people might discredit that, that that might be a specific... That we as humans can do that. Well, I'm not saying that it's not that. I don't I don't want to say that it's anything. But what I can say is that I have definitely noticed the level of access that I have within my consciousness. And also what I notice with the masters of Bwiti, specifically in terms of the level of intelligence that they're accessing and that it's different. It's got a different quality to it. And so it was a really profound teaching. And one of the things, too, that I've learned is I use it to help me learn specific things. I don't know if I can give a positive testimonial, but I am learning French. [00:40:55.00] - Tricia Eastman And I noticed when I was in Aspen at the Abigain meeting, and I was with Mubeiboual, who speaks French, I started saying things French that I didn't even realize that I knew to say. I've had these weird moments where I'm actually using this tool And I'm also using it. I have a Gabonese harp. I don't know if you can see it up on the shelf over there. But I also went and asked for some help with downloading some assistance in the harp, then we'll see how that goes. [00:41:38.17] - Joe Moore Yeah. So that's brilliant. I'm thinking of other precedent for that outside of this context, and I can think of a handful. So I love that, like savant syndrome. And then there's a classic text called Ars Notoria that helps accelerate learning, allegedly. And then there's a number of other really interesting things that can help us gain these bits of wisdom and knowledge. And it does feel a little bit like the Dogon. The story I get is the receiving messages from the dog star, and therefore have all sorts of advanced information that they shouldn't we call it. Yeah. Yeah, which is fascinating. We have that worldwide. I think there's plenty of really interesting stuff here. So what I appreciated, Tricia, about how you're structuring your book, or you did structure your book, is that it it seems at the same time, a memoir, on another hand, workbook, like here are some exercises. On the other hand, like here's some things you might try in session. I really appreciated that. It was like people try to get really complicated when we talk about things like IFS. I'm like, well, you don't necessarily have to. You could. Or is this just a human thing, a human way to look at working with our parts? [00:43:20.15] - Joe Moore I don't know. Do you have any thoughts about the way you were approaching this parts work in your book versus how complicated some people make it feel? [00:43:30.00] - Tricia Eastman Yeah. I find that this is just my personal opinion, and no way to discredit Richard Schwartz's work. But parts work has existed in shamanism since forever. When we really look at even in ancient Egypt, Issus, she put Osiris act together. That was the metaphorical story of soul retrieval, which is really the spiritual journey of us reclaiming these pieces of ourselves that we've been disconnected from a society level or individually. And within the context of parts work, it's very organic and it feels other worldly. It's not like there's ever a force where I'm in the process with someone. And a lot of times I would even go into the process with people because they weren't accustomed to how to work with Iboga or game, and so they would be stuck. And then the minute I was like, you know, Iboga, in the tradition, it's really about... It's like the game Marco Polo. It's call and response. And so you're really an active participant, and you're supposed to engage with the spirits. And so the minute that things would show up, it'd be more about like, oh, what do you see? What's coming up here? Asking questions about it, being curious. [00:45:17.07] - Tricia Eastman If you could engage with it, sometimes there's processes where you can't really engage with things at all. So everything that I'm talking about is It was organically shown up as an active engagement process that it wasn't like we were going in. There have been some where you can guide a little bit, but you never push. It might be something like, go to your house, and it being completely unattached. And if they can't go there, then obviously the psyche doesn't want to go there, but it's really an exercise to help them to connect to their soul. And then in contrast, IFS is like, let's work on these different parts and identify these different parts of ourselves. But then let's give them fixed titles, and let's continually in a non-altered state of consciousness, not when we're meditating, not when we're actively in a state where we have the plasticity to change the pathway in the unconscious mind, but we're working in the egoic mind, and we're talking to these parts of ourselves. That could be helpful in the day-to-day struggles. Let's say you have someone who has a lot of rumination or a very active mind to have something to do with that. [00:46:57.01] - Tricia Eastman But that's not going to be the end-all, be-all solution to their problem. It's only moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic because you're still working in the framework where, I'm sorry, the Titanic is still sinking, and it may or may not be enough. It may or may not produce a reliable outcome that could be connected with some level of true relief and true connection within oneself. And so I think that people just... I feel like they almost get a little too... And maybe it's because we're so isolated and lonely, it's like, Oh, now I've got parts. I'm not by myself. I've got my fire I've got my firefighter, and I've got my guardian, and all these things. And I definitely think that IFS is a really great initiator into the idea of engaging with parts of ourselves and how to talk to them. But I don't think it's... And I think doing a session here and there, for some people, can be incredibly helpful, but to all of a sudden incorporate it in like a dogma is toxic. It's dangerous. And that's what we have to be really careful of. [00:48:23.25] - Joe Moore So thank you for that. There's a complicated discussion happening at the Aspen meeting. I think I was only sitting maybe 30 feet away from you. Sorry, I didn't say hi. But the folks from Blessings of the Forest were there, and I got a chance to chat with a number of them and learn more about nuclear protocols, biopiracy, literal piracy, and smuggling, and the works. I'm curious. This is a really complicated question, and I'm sorry for a complicated question this far in. But it's like, as we talk about this stuff publicly and give it increased profile, we are de facto giving more juice and energy to black markets to pirate. We're adding fuel to this engine that we don't necessarily want to see. Cameroon has nothing left, pretty much. From what I'm told, people from Cameroon are coming in, stealing it from Cabona, bringing it back, and then shipping it out. And there's It's like a whole worldwide market for this stuff. I witnessed it. This stuff. Yeah, right? This is real. So the people, the Buiti, and certain Gabanese farmers, are now being pirated. And international demand does not care necessarily about Nagoya compliance. United States didn't sign Nagoya protocol for this biopiracy protection, but we're not the only violator of these ethics, right? [00:50:00.22] - Joe Moore It's everywhere. So how do we balance thinking about talking about IBOCA publicly, given that there's no clean way to get this stuff in the United States that is probably not pirated materials? And as far as I know, there's only one, quote unquote, Nagoya compliant place. I've heard stories that I haven't shared publicly yet, that there's other groups that are compliant, too. But it's a really interesting conversation, and I'm curious of your perspectives there. [00:50:34.04] - Tricia Eastman I mean, this is a very long, drawn-out question, so forgive me if I give you a long, drawn-out answer. [00:50:41.01] - Joe Moore Go for it. [00:50:41.26] - Tricia Eastman It's all good. So in reality, I do believe... You know the first Ebo, Abogaine, that was done in the country was experiments on eight Black prisoners at a hospital under the MK program. [00:51:01.16] - Joe Moore Pre-lutz off, we were doing Abogaine tests on people. [00:51:06.00] - Tricia Eastman Yeah, so pre-Lutz off. I have a hypothesis, although a lot of people would already know me. [00:51:12.07] - Joe Moore No, I didn't know that. Thank you for sharing that with me. [00:51:14.13] - Tricia Eastman That's great. I'll send you some stuff on that. But the Aboga wanted to be here. The Abogaine wanted to be here. I think it's a complex question because on one side of the coin, you have the spirit of plants, which are wild and crazy sometimes. And then you have the initiatory traditions, which create a scaffolding to essentially put the lightning in a bottle, so to say, so that it's less damaging. [00:51:51.13] - Joe Moore It's almost like a temple structure around it. [00:51:53.16] - Tricia Eastman I like that. Yeah. Put a temple structure around it because it's like, yeah, you can work with new nuclear energy, but you have to wear gloves, you have to do all these different safety precautions. I would say that that's why these traditions go hand in hand with the medicine. So some people might say that the agenda of Iboga and even Abogaine might be a different agenda than the Buiti. And ultimately, whether we are Indigenous or not, the Earth belongs to everyone. It's capitalism and the patriarchy that created all these borders and all these separations between people. And in reality, we still have to acknowledge what the essence of Buiti is, which is really the cause and effect relationship that we have with everything that we do. And so some people might use the term karma. And that is if you're in Abogaine clinic and you're putting a bunch of videos out online, and that's spurring a trend on TikTok, which we already know is a big thing where people are selling illegal market, iBoga, is Is any of that your responsibility? Yes. And if I was to sit down with a kogi kagaba, which are the mamus from Colombia, or if I were to sit down with a who said, Hey, let's do a divination, and let's ask some deep questions about this. [00:53:54.01] - Tricia Eastman It would look at things on a bigger perspective than just like, Oh, this person is completely responsible for this. But when we're talking about a medicine that is so intense, and when I was younger, when I first met the medicine, I first was introduced in 2013 was when I first found out about Abigain and Iboga. And in 2014, I lived with someone who lived with a 14th generation Misoko, maybe it was 10th generation Misoco in Costa Rica. And then he decided to just start serving people medicine. And he left this person paralyzed, one person that he treated for the rest of his life. And Aubrey Marcus, it was his business partner for On It, and he's publicly talked about this, about the story behind this. If you go into his older podcasts and blog posts and stuff, he talks about the situation. And the reality is that this medicine requires a massive amount of responsibility. It has crazy interactions, such as grapefruit juice, for example, and all kinds of other things. And so it's not just the responsibility towards the buiti, it's also the responsibility of, does me talking about this without really talking about the safety and the risks, encourage other people. [00:55:49.10] - Tricia Eastman One of the big problems, back in the day, I went to my first guita conference, Global Abogaine Therapy Alliance in 2016. And And then, ISEARs was debating because there was all these people buying Abogaine online and self-detoxing and literally either dying or ending up in the hospital. And they're like, should we release protocols and just give people instructions on how to do this themselves? And I was like, no, absolutely not. We need to really look at the fact that this is an initiatory tradition, that it's been practiced for thousands of that the minimum level at which a person is administering in Gabon is 10 years of training. The way that we've made up for those mistakes, or sorry, not mistakes, lack of training is that we've used medical oversight. Most of the medical oversight that we've received has been a result of mistakes that were made in the space. The first patient that MAPS treated, they killed them because they gave them way over the amount of what milligrams per kilogram of Abigain that you should give somebody. Every single mistake that was made, which a lot of them related to loss of life, became the global Abogane Therapy Safety Guidelines. [00:57:28.19] - Tricia Eastman And so we've already learned from our mistakes here. And so I think it's really important that we understand that there's that aspect, which is really the blood on our hands of if we're not responsible, if we're encouraging people to do this, and we're talking about it in a casual way on Instagram. Like, yeah, microdosing. Well, did you know there was a guy prosecuted this last year, personal trainer, who killed someone And from microdosing in Colorado, the event happened in 2020, but he just got sentenced early 2025. These are examples that we need to look at as a collective that we need. So that's one side of it. And then the other side of it is the reciprocity piece. And the reciprocity piece related to that is, again, the cause and effect. Is A Abogaine clinic talking about doing Abogaine and doing video testimonials, spurring the efforts that are actively being made in Gabon to protect the cultural lineage and to protect the medicine. The reality is every Abogaine clinic is booked out for... I heard the next year, I don't know if that's fact or fiction, but someone told me for a year, because because of all the stuff with all the celebrities that are now talking about it. [00:59:05.20] - Tricia Eastman And then on top of that, you have all these policy, all these different advocacy groups that are talking about it. Essentially, it's not going to be seven... It's going to be, I would say, seven to 10 years before something gets through the FDA. We haven't even done a phase one safety trial for any of the Abigain that's being commercialized. And even if there's some magic that happens within the Trump administration in the next two years that changes the rules to fast track it, it's not going to cut it down probably more than a year. So then you're looking at maybe six years minimum. That whole time, all that strain is being put on Gabon. And so if you're not supporting Gabon, what's happening is it's losing a battle because the movement is gaining momentum, and Gabon cannot keep up with that momentum. It's a tiny country the size of Colorado. So my belief is that anyone who's benefiting from all the hype around Iboga and Abogayne or personally benefited with healing within themselves should be giving back, either to Ancestral Heart, to Blessings of the Forest, to any group that is doing authentic Indigenous-led biocultural stewardship work. [01:00:45.21] - Joe Moore Thanks for that. It's important that we get into some detail here. I wish we had more time to go further on it. [01:00:54.17] - Tricia Eastman I'll do a quick joke. I know. I have a lot. [01:00:57.17] - Joe Moore Yes. Now do Mike Tyson. Kidding. Yeah. So what did we maybe miss that you want to make sure people hear about your book, any biocultural stuff that you want to get out there? You can go for a few more minutes, too, if you have a few things you want to say. [01:01:20.03] - Tricia Eastman I mean, really, thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you for caring and being so passionate about the context related to Buiti, which I think is so important. I would just say that I've been working with this medicine for... I've known about it for 13 years, and I've been working with it for 11 years, and this is my life. I've devoted my life to this work, me and my husband, both. And there isn't anything greater of a blessing that it has brought in our life, but it also is it's a very saturnian energy, so it brings chaos. It brings the deepest challenges and forces you to face things that you need to face. But also on the other side of the coin, everything that I've devoted and given back in service to this work has exponentially brought blessing in my life. So again, I see the issue with people doing these shortened processes, whether it's in an Abigain clinic where you just don't have the ritualistic sacred aspects of an initiatic context and really the rituals that really help integrate and ground the medicine. But you still have this opportunity to continue to receive the blessings. [01:03:09.23] - Tricia Eastman And I really feel in our current psychedelic movement, we essentially have a Bugatti. These medicines are the most finely-tuned sports car that can do every... Even more than that, more like a spaceship. We have this incredible tool, but we're driving it in first gear. We don't even really know how to operate it. It's like, well, I guess you could say flight of the Navigator, but that was a self-driving thing, and I guess, psychedelics are self-driving. But I feel that we are discounting ourselves so greatly by not looking into our past of how these medicines were used. I really think the biggest piece around that is consulting the genuine lineage carriers like Buiti elders, like Mubu Bwal, who's the head of Maganga Manan Zembe, And giving them a seat at the head of the table, really, because there's so much I know in my tradition, about what we do to bring cardiac safety. And why is it that people aren't dying as much in Gabon as they're dying in Abigan clinics. [01:04:37.28] - Joe Moore Shots fired. All right. I like it. Thank you. Thank you for everything you've done here today, I think harm reduction is incredibly important. Let's stop people dying out there. Let's do some harm reduction language. I actually was able to sweet talk my way into getting a really cool EKG recently, which I thought really great about. If you can speak clinician, you can go a long way sometimes. [01:05:11.20] - Tricia Eastman Yeah. Oh, no, go ahead. Sorry. [01:05:15.17] - Joe Moore No, that's all. That's all. So harm reduction is important. How do we keep people safe? How do we keep healing people? And thank you for all your hard work. [01:05:27.22] - Tricia Eastman Thank you. I really appreciate it. We're all figuring it out. No one's perfect. So I'm not trying to fire any shots at anybody. I'm just like, Guys, please listen. We need to get in right relationship with the medicine. And we need to include these stakeholders. And on the other side of the coin, I just want to add that there's a lot of irresponsible, claimed traditional practitioners that are running retreat centers in Mexico and Costa Rica and other places that are also causing a lot of harm, too. So the medical monitoring is definitely, if you're going to do anything, Because these people don't have the training, the worst thing you could do is not have someone going in blind that doesn't have training and not have had an EKG and all that stuff. But we've got a long way to go, and I'm excited to help support in a productive way, all coming together. And that's what me and Joseph have been devoted to. [01:06:45.02] - Joe Moore Brilliant. Tricia Eastman, thank you so much. Everybody should go check out your book Seeding Consciousness out now. The audiobook's lovely, too. Thank you so much for being here. And until next time. [01:07:00.14] - Tricia Eastman Thank you.    

An interview on debates over language and reasoning between the Mohists and the Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi.

What does it really mean to speak of "socialism with Chinese characteristics"? Is it simply a matter of policy and political economy, or does it require grappling with thousands of years of civilizational history, philosophy, and culture? In this episode, Breht is joined by Zhao, the mind behind Goods for the People and author of Chinese Characteristics of Socialism: Civilizational Factors in CPC Governance to explore a bold and provocative argument: that while class struggle and material conditions must remain primary, China's socialist path cannot be understood without its deep Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist inheritance. From Yu the Great's flood control and the origins of infrastructural legitimacy, to the Mandate of Heaven, Da Tong, and the tributary system, we examine how ancient ideas of harmony, moral legitimacy, and collective responsibility continue to shape contemporary Chinese governance and foreign policy. This is a wide-ranging conversation for Marxists, socialists, and anti-imperialists interested in China beyond caricature, reductionism, and Cold War myths -- one that asks how history, philosophy, and material struggle converge in the making of a socialist future, and what China's trajectory might mean for the global path toward communism. Other episodes mentioned in this episode: Check out our 7 hour episode on the last 250 years of Chinese History HERE Check out our episode on Italy's Years of Lead HERE Check out our episode on the German Revolution HERE Check out our episode on the Spanish Civil War HERE   ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

In this episode I am once again joined by Alex W, long term practitioner of Zen, Pragmatic Dharma, and Western Occultism. Alex lays out his ideal curriculum of practices to achieve awakening including a full technique sequence, explanation of the signs of success at each stage, and the various post-awakening paths that are available. Alex details the energetic openings that occur after awakening and how to nurture them, contrasts Buddhist tummo to Daoist inner alchemy, and explains the process to open the psychic senses. Alex challenges the meditation retreat model of practice which he sees as putting economic concerns over student benefit, offers his opinion on the amount of time one should spend in daily meditation, and emphasises the importance of retaining one's autonomy in the spiritual market place. … Video version: https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep335-how-to-guide-for-awakening-beyond-alex-w-3 Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast'.
 … Topics include: 00:00 - Intro 01:05 - What is the ideal curriculum for awakening? 02:55 - Alex's teaching experience 03:30 - Core skills for all traditions 04:42 - Never surrender your autonomy 06:32 - You must learn to sit 08:56 - The first meditation technique 12:32 - Recommended traditions and books 16:11 - First signs of success 19:45 - A major shift 23:39 - Should you pursue enlightenment? 24:51 - Soto vs Rinzai vs Dzogchen vs Mahāmudrā 37:50 - The goal of Dzogchen and Mahāmudrā 39:54 - How to embody realisation 45:35 - Moving from abdomen to heart space 47:04 - Saccidānanda 48:17 - Result of awakening the three energy centres 53:04 - Gurdjieff and self-remembering 55:35 - Using stress to strengthen the energy body 01:00:37 - Tummo and inner alchemy 01:05:55 - Warning about energy practice 01:08:19 - A summary of Alex's recommended path 01:09:54 - How long does the path take? 01:13:24 - The Chinese view of inner alchemy 01:17:32 - Opening the psychic senses 01:22:55 - How much should one practice? 01:25:04 - The economic trap of meditation retreats 01:34:50 - Solo retreats and the limitations of lay life 01:41:21 - Economic logic vs practice effectiveness 01:46:53 - How to relate to strong experiences? 01:49:20 - St John of the Cross 01:56:04 - Deconstructing the Self 02:04:57 - Recognising what is already here 02:07:26 - Closing remarks … Previous episodes with Alex W: - https://www.guruviking.com/search?q=alex For more interviews, videos, and more visit: - www.guruviking.com Music ‘Deva Dasi' by Steve James

Entity Attachments, Paranormal Evidence & Heart Coherence – with Sifu Aman Berry”Tonight – 7 PM Eastern | Rumble Premium Episode✅ INTRO / BIO (to read on-air or paste into description)Sifu Aman Berry is a martial artist, healer, and spiritual practitioner who uses Kung Fu as an energetic system to help clients reduce pain, release trauma, and clear negative unseen influences.His work bridges ancient Daoist proto-shamanic practices, heart coherence, and paranormal countermeasures. Tonight he breaks down entity attachments, parasitic consciousness forms, summoning mechanics, and why heart coherence and energetic alignment repel negative forces.He also brings exclusive paranormal evidence that we will play live.✅ SHOW DESCRIPTION (RUMBLE/YT)Tonight on the Typical Skeptic Podcast (TSP # 2294), I'm joined by Sifu Aman Berry for a deep dive into:Entity attachment mechanicsMutated consciousness vs enlightened consciousnessDjinn, archons, devas, asuras & ancient blood-god worshipersHeart coherence and energetic countermeasuresSummoning & why the phenomena can appear anywhereIron, running water, the Dog Whistle Frequency (1.6–1.8 GHz)Delta/Theta/Alpha/Beta brainwave statesParanormal evidence played liveThis episode blends ancient myth, parapsychology, energetic martial arts, and non-local consciousness in a way only Sifu Aman can deliver.Why did ancient groups like the Canaanites, Aztecs, Kali worshipers, Moloc cults all perform ritual blood sacrifice? What entity group were they feeding?BIOSIGILIZATIONCan you explain “biosigilization” — is it an encoding process into the DNA field, aura, or emotional body?COUNTERMEASURESHow exactly does heart coherence disrupt entity activity or parasitic consciousness?What's the physics behind iron and flowing water breaking attachments or interference?How does heart coherence tie into Daoist proto-shamanism and lightning energy?What is the Dog Whistle Frequency (1.6–1.8 GHz) — why do entities react to it?BRAINWAVE STATESHow do Delta, Theta, and Alpha states make people more vulnerable — or more powerful — in entity interactions?Do some entities prefer people in Theta, where the veil is thin?PRACTICAL APPLICATIONHow can people blend martial arts, breathwork, and heart coherence to fortify their energy field?For beginners: what is the #1 sign someone may have an attachment?What's the most compelling paranormal evidence you've ever captured?✅ HASHTAGS  #EntityAttachments #ParanormalEvidence #HeartCoherence#KungFuHealing #EnergeticProtection #Djinn #Archons #Celestials #Asuras#DaoistShamanism #Mysticism #EnergyMedicine #Consciousness #OccultScience#FrequencyWars #MetaphysicalProtection #TraumaHealing #UFOCommunity #SpiritualWarfare #EntityRemovalTAGS (YT/Rumble/IG)✅ TAGS (YouTube)Typical Skeptic Podcast, Sifu Aman Berry, entity attachments, paranormal evidence,heart coherence, Kung Fu for healing, Djinn, archons, devas, asuras,malakim, raphiem, biosigilization, frequency healing, trauma release,energy clearing, Daoist shamanism, metaphysical podcast, esoteric podcast,UFO podcast, paranormal podcast, spiritual warfare, negative entitiesTypical Skeptic Podcast Links and Affiliates:Support the Mission:

EVERYONE who signs up wins a FREE WhisperVibe™ OR a FREE Rose toy with any Whisper™ order! https://www.bboutique.co/vibe/emilymorse-podcast Join the SmartSX Membership : https://sexwithemily.com/smartsx Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: https://sexwithemily.com/guides/ Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY!: https://bit.ly/3rNSNcZ (free shipping on orders over $99) Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website: https://sexwithemily.com/ Sex educator Susan Bratton reveals why the #1 complaint in heterosexual relationships—"she can't orgasm during intercourse"—isn't about broken bodies, but broken information. With techniques that have her inbox flooded with exclamation points, Susan dismantles everything you thought you knew about penetrative sex. Discover why rushing is killing your pleasure, what ancient Daoists knew about rhythm that porn never taught you, and the counterintuitive move that makes orgasm easier (hint: it's not what you're doing now). Susan explains the arousal gap nobody talks about, reframes the vagina in a way that will change how you touch it, and teaches the "Heart Tongue" approach that transforms mechanical sex into connection. A 50-year-old man asks why his girlfriend can't climax during sex despite trying everything. A 25-year-old wonders if she's ever actually had an orgasm and why "squirting" feels like nothing. Susan guides both through tissue activation, sacred self-pleasure, and why the entrance to the vagina needs to be courted, not conquered. Susan claims her best sex ever and credits specific practices for looking a decade younger than her peers. She shares the "Lips-Nips-Clit Axis," why opening matters more than tightening, and her most-thanked technique involving a 10-count that toggles the nervous system. If you've been chasing sensation instead of connection, this episode rewrites the playbook. Timestamps: