Taoist Shaman: Practices From The Wheel Of Life HOT!

Mantak Chia founded the Universal Healing Tao System in 1979 and since then has taught and certified tens of thousands of students and instructors from all over the world. Kris Deva North has been involved in Taoist practice since 1987 and is cofounder of the London Tao Centre. Together they explain the shamanic principles which lie behind the Taoist Medicine Wheel which is "the foundation of most Chinese art, of the traditional Chinese medicines we know today as acupuncture and herbalism, of Chinese astrology and divination, of Tai Chi Chuan, 'the supreme ultimate' combining meditation and martial art, and of the esoteric sexual practices taught to the emperors by their female advisers to form the basis of Taoist alchemy: the quest for immortality." Many see the medicine wheel as the circle of life which connects inner and outer, higher and lower.

Taoist Shaman: Practices from the Wheel of Life

Over the centuries Taoism declined from state religion to fragmentation. The puritan reformation declined too and many texts on sexual practices reappeared. While the formal religious aspect was crumbling, scholars and officials fell in and out of favor in the political chaos. Many became hermits, practicing the naturalistic Taoism of Lao-tzu and integrating it with their Confucian ideas. A notice stating There is an altar in this house was a sign of a safe haven for the traveling Taoist during the Buddhist persecutions. The tradition has been maintained to this day to show the location of a Taoist household or temple.

Today the shaman is the healer in a community and, particularly in the Taoist tradition, is known only to the community, unknown in the outer world. This secrecy stems from the days of persecution. As a healing warrior, the shaman mediates with, or combats, Spirit, by taking into her- or himself the energies to heal and to seal. As mediator with Spirit the shaman is chosen by Spirit and called by humans when other healing practices such as herbs, massage, acupuncture, or allopathy have failed. If sickness prevails, the shaman finds out from Spirit what healing the soul needs for the body to be whole again. The shaman enlivens the perspective that everything is a gift and a blessing, for everything is love, and gratitude and thanks must be given even for hurt and pain. Then harmony can be restored between soul and body.

The Taoist sages saw the medicine wheel as a representation of all creation, including Wu Chi, the Three Pure Ones, the principles of yin and yang, the five elements, the eight forces of the universe, the twelve power animals of the Chinese zodiac, and the sixty-four trigrams of the I Ching (fig. 2.1). The Taoist medicine wheel is the foundation of most Chinese art, of the traditional Chinese medicines we know today as acupuncture and herbalism, of Chinese astrology and divination, of Tai Chi Chuan, the supreme ultimate combining meditation and martial art, and of the esoteric sexual practices taught to the emperors by their female advisers to form the basis of Taoist alchemy: the quest for immortality.

The next layer is the interplay of yin and yang within the circle, yin becoming yang, yang becoming yin, which denotes the change that is life from its broadest scale to its microcosmic alternation between wave and particle (fig. 2.3).

From the Three Pure Ones, the sages adduced the five elements governing life in this earthly dimension: fire, earth, metal, water, and wood (fig. 2.4). They are represented by a pentacle in the next layer of the wheel. 041b061a72