Daily Taoist 1_13 – Buddha Zhen Reads TAO #4 of the Tao of Taoism based upon Lao Tzu’s Dao Te Ching
Buddha Zhen Shen-Lang “Spirit Wolf of Truth” reads TAO #4 of his book, TAO OF TAOISM – Using the Dao Te Ching to Improve Your Life. Based upon the BOOK OF CHANGES or TAO TE CHING by Lao Tzu, Buddha Zhen elaborates and adds his own answers to the questions of his book. The Tao of Taoism was written by Buddha Zhen (born Richard Del Connor) for his Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan students in 1989 as THE TAO – COMING TO TERMS, and then rewritten again for his Kung Fu students as Tao Of Taoism – Using the Dao Te Ching to Improve Your Life in 1992 and published in its current format in 2010.
The Tao of Taoism is a self-help book that breaks down each of the paragraphs of wisdom written by Lao Tzu over 2,200 years ago into questions with blank spaces for the students to fill-in with their own personal and unique answers. This enables students to reflect on the Taoist wisdom and integrate effectively into their personal existence. Buddha Zhen also says that it is beneficial to review the questions and update the answers every decade. Or take pride in how the previous answer is still benefiting their current life.
This TAO #4 and is an altered translation by Buddha Zhen according to his own views and perspectives of Lao Tzu’s original intentions or a completely modernized view that students can better relate to. Buddha Zhen has been teaching his Taoism since 1988 and “…viewing its affects on students.” He says he’s not interested in the spiritual foolishness that Americans keep adding to these philosophical phrases. BZ is only interested in how his students can integrate this knowledge into their modern materialistic lives.
In this episode of THE DAILY TAOIST 13, Buddha Zhen elaborates on his eating and sleeping habits. This video is the first video of which Buddha Zhen realizes he is not fooling around and rehearsing the reading of this book for an AUDIO-BOOK he has set up for in his bedroom-recording studio. The audiobook may not be recorded as soon as planned. In editing these 69 videos we’ve realized that we lack a computer capable of editing the professional recordings. This project will be delayed until Richard Del Connor and his SHAOLIN RECORDS production company can afford to purchase a new computer. Richard has been homeless for six years and dependent upon the computers of the public libraries in North Hollywood and Studio City since 2013. The borrowed 2013 PC computer used to create this blog cannot play the 1080p videos or ProTools recording software…
So for the next few months we will be releasing these DAILY TAOIST videos on YouTube and Patreon in hope of gaining sponsors or selling Kung Fu class videos we are editing on his newly acquired iPhone 11 Pro Max.
This is TAO #4 of the TAO OF TAOISM by Richard Del Connor / Buddha Zhen. This also the video: DAILY TAOIST 13. Their is a transcript of the video below. Incidently, view the CC Subtitles when viewing the videos. After completing all the video performances it became obvious that Buddha Zhen mumbles almost indistinctly while pondering these wisdoms.
TAO #4
Nature is a cosmic whirlpool of inexhaustible energy.
Whether you splash, join or leave the whirlpool — the forces of Nature continue unchanged.
YouTube VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Alright. Let’s do one more. I’m not sure. I thought I was just gonna experiment. But now I’m kind of motivated to do the whole book. Kind of maybe the WARRIOR in me. But I feel like I’ve started something worthy of finishing. So anyway, let’s do one more.
This is NUMBER 4 on page 13. And Lao Tzu supposedly, according to me said:
Nature is a cosmic whirlpool of inexhaustible energy.
Whether you splash, join or leave the whirlpool– the forces of Nature continue unchanged.
And when I use ‘Nature’ like that: in both cases I’m using a capital ‘N.’ I’m saying Nature is kind of like the Mother Nature, the spirit, the God, the identity. Which is just a romantic way of putting together the science, you know, the weather, the way of spinning of the thing, the rotating around of the earth. That’s not as pretty. Harder to put a word on that. All the physical, geophysical reality aspects of our existence. Mother Nature. Nature. Nature is an easy way to term it. And that’s all that “Tao” is. The ‘Tao’ is just a word. Remember, Tao is just a word that we decided could mean something which most people don’t understand still.
Okay. So, here we go. One minute: getting started. Here we go. I’m trying to figure out how to be more succinct. So I can be more professional on this. I’m going to in there and actually record it really nicely.
Okay. NUMBER 4. Let’s read that again. Nature is a cosmic whirlpool of inexhaustible energy. Yeah, that’s what Nature–just planets spinning around… That’s a lot of energy. Inexhaustible? Well I suppose they may stop and slow down–but that’s beyond our comprehension. Whether you splash, join or leave the whirlpool– So if you fly off the Earth– the forces of Nature continue unchanged.
Yeah. So if you leave the Earth, it won’t change.
Okay. So here we go. Let’s read the questions. I didn’t read ahead. I actually– I should’ve scanned ahead. See if there’s any I want to answer myself. I stumble along here. Then I want to take a break here. Yeah. Here we go.
How are you connected to the cosmic whirlpool?
Yeah, I’ve gotta talk. I’ve got some friends. And over the years I’ve been a Native American. Actually, like I said previously, I used to give back to– something to Grandfather. I probably shouldn’t talk in Lakota. I’ll mess up bad. You know when I was even having meals I would try to have a relationship. It’s like a karmic relationship. It’s almost like you want to think it’s a sentient being and that by scratching it, it’ll be nice to you and let you stay there. And so, I had that kind of relationship.
And then there’s another kind of relationship of that. Kind of creepy I think, that– Anyway– All the plants. All the plants have like a bioenergy. Put all the plants together and they kind of harmonize. They almost talk to each other. And in fact, I’m probably willing to say that they do talk to each other. But they have a certain energy feeling. Like radio waves. You just bear with my terminology. I’m just using words to convey a concept. So don’t hang me on any technicalities. Anyway, they’ve all got this magnetic energy frequencies, or whatever they communicate on. They’ve got that. Now the animals are different. And they don’t want to be in that frequency and listening to the plants. You know. So that’s a whole bunch of noise to them. So to them they’re in kind of a different frequency of awareness and involvement. So they sense each other and almost talk telepathically. And we’re part of that. We’re part of that animal frequency network that’s almost– you can almost tap into it. A lot of people like to think of it as a radio-wave consciousness. And I’ve got to tell you, if it does exist and you get tapped into it: it’s like “gahhhh.” Like a whole bunch of cows in a field. Who wants to tap into all that? All this, “Me,” “Me,” “My,” “My,” “Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi…” And all it is is animals, “I’m hungry,” “I want,” “I want,” “I want…”
So that’s why — getting connected into the cosmic whirlpool– Sorry. I had to throw that in. Four minutes! Sheesh.
Okay. Here we go.
How inexhaustible is your inner internal energy?
Well, I’ve definitely got a whole bunch more than anybody else.
What are your most energetic hours of the day?
Ah… See I’ve worked as a carpenter, graveyard shifts and everything. So I really do know what I prefer. And what I really prefer: my body’s natural rhythm with the Tao. Whatever it is as a creative person, energetic person, a working person… Whatever– Is I like I like to sleep from midnight to 8:00 A.M. You can kind of shift it an hour or two but that’s the basic layout of it. From midnight to 8 A.M I want to be asleep. Although now I have to get up at six in the morning… visit the latrine. Used to sleep through that, but that’s because I’m a senior. Anyway. Then I have to tell my cat, “Go back to bed.” Getting up too early.
Actually, I’m trying– I was trying to go to bed from 11:30 to 7:30. So my alarm’s going off at 7:30. Maybe I should move it 8:00. But 7:30 kind of worked for me because I had certain things I wanted to do by certain times of the day. Other obligations. And I was shooting classes with Oscar. And stuff like that. So 7:30– Actually, and then it was– My most energetic hours of the day are the reverse of that. So that’s everything that’s not that…
When would you like to have more energy?
Even late at night. Sometimes. I try not to drink coffee after 6:00 in the evening. Because that will get me through to midnight. And if I have much coffee at 8:00 or especially at 10:00 then it’ll be harder to get to sleep. And if I don’t get much sleep then I’m not as good the next day. So you don’t want to make mistakes. You know. You’ve gotta keep that rhythm. If you break the rhythm one day you can ruin several days.
Okay… When do you do your Tai Chi everyday?
Remember? I wrote this for my students.
Lately I’ve been doing it like super late. Because I work out in the day and stuff. It’s not really for me, or I do my classes and stuff. But then I didn’t do MY Tai Chi. So it usually ends being really late. When I’m really tired or something. It’s been kind of weird. Not weird. Yeah weird. Weird. When you’re really really tired and know…
Sometimes I come out there. Man, I can’t sleep. So I’ll do my Tai Chi. Then you realize how tired you are. “I’m really tired. I can go back to sleep.” But I don’t try to fool myself. So anyway, I’ll start doing my Tai Chi and go, “Oh Man I am really tired.” And then you’re doing it and just trying to make it to the end of the Form. And that’s a, a good experience. Because that’s what real battle is. Or anything in life is really. It never goes easy. It always gets harder as you go. So you have to build up that spirit of just accepting the fact it gets harder. And you do it.
Where are we?
How do you feel about practicing Kung Fu?
Oh God. Man. Talking about my classes. I’ve injuries. Two surgeries. I threw out my shoulder. I had back prob– And then I mean I had plantar fasciitis. I was going to a therapist. The last couple years have been horrible for a few years. Just horrible in terms of doing it. So for me this Kung Fu is like my comeback. I’m driven to rebuild myself. I mean to the Kung Fu I used to be. Because I’ve backed off and didn’t have much students the last couple years. And so I wasn’t doing as many classes… All at the same time. It just all snowballed into me doing the least amount of Kung Fu in my life.
At 66 years of age that wasn’t a good way to transition into seniorhood. It was like, “Let’s not do it…” I’d do 1/10th of as much exercise for a couple years. So now I’m 66 years old and I’m not at my spring chicken–you know, that I could be at right now. Where I was a few years ago would be great. More than that, five years ago and I’ve degraded much more than I should’ve. In fact I don’t think I should degrade at all. I want to go back to where I was five years ago.
So anyway, I’m doing my Kung Fu as a comeback. To me it’s that WARRIOR. It’s that drive to– And I really want to do it. Which is why it bugs me like I said when I get too busy and I’m trying to talk myself out of it. My little conflict.
Okay. Where are we?
Explain your eating schedule each day.
Ahh. I eat every few hours. You might learn a few things about this.
When I was homeless I was actually eating three eggs for breakfast every day. So, if you can get a dozen eggs that’d last me– because my ice would only last me two days usually so I’d get ice twice and then the next time I’d get ice I’d get some more eggs. But… I’d get up in the morning: I have breakfast. Okay? Feed my cat and have breakfast. So that was like 8:00. So I’d get up about 7:00, 7:30, so by 8:00 I’m having breakfast. Then 10:00 I usually have a snack. My cat’s been changing my schedule a little bit. It hasn’t been working for me. Because we just jumped into daily savings time and he doesn’t understand that. So, so even though it says 11:00; to him it’s 12:00. You know, I keep forgetting that. And I pissed him off. “11:00? No, no. Wait another hour.” He’ll come over and eat his dry food and go back and take a nap. And I’ll call him… And he won’t come out for lunch. “Rrrrr, Rrrrr, Rrrrr. You didn’t feed me when you should’ve then!” “It’s noon now.” But he doesn’t understand the jump ahead so I’ve been like changing my schedule just kinda for him. But reworking mine and skipping that morning break which I don’t really need. Now that I’m not working as a laborer anymore. So I’m like getting up at 8:00. Eating breakfast at 9:00. And then not eating anything until noon and I’ll feed him at like 11:00 and then I’ll have something at noon. And then I might have a snack at 3:00. I usually do but I get so busy working on the web I’ll sit down and it’s like four hours later, “Oh my goodness. I worked right through my 3:00 break.” That’s why I don’t like working on the computer. I just get too sucked into it. I’m not talking about Facebook. I’m talking about building these websites.
But anyway. So by lunch. Okay. So like breakfast I’ll usually have an egg or two. Maybe a meat. Apple or orange. And then a pancake or something, which I always put a lot of egg in. So… Or a cereal or something. But I always want a fruit, a meat, the eggs, and a starch. The dairy’s not as important to me. I don’t really focus on the dairy. But I’m trying to add a little bit. I like to have some cheese and stuff.
Okay. So anyway that’s my breakfast. Then at noon what I’m gonna have is basically the same kind of layout except I’ll usually add lettuce. Because I don’t like having lettuce for breakfast. So I’ll always try to have a salad for breakfast [lunch] and hopefully I’ll have a salad for dinner. So I’ll have two salads in that day. So then I’ll have a salad for my lunch. And lately what I’ve been doing is I get the bags of spinach lettuce. And then I wash it. And then I slice up an orange, or an apple, and then I throw that in there. Then I mix up some peanut butter with some water and salt and maybe some soy sauce. I make like a peanut butter sauce. Or I buy something from the store. And then I have a salad while I also have some sort of a meat. Could be a chicken or hamburger or fried egg or lately I got some baloney from the church. I’m so full of baloney. I’m serious. I’ve got like ten pounds of baloney. I’ve been eating a lot of baloney. Okay, so that’s my lunch.
Now I might have a snack in the afternoon because as a worker and as a person– you shouldn’t ever have… You can’t go six, or five hours is too long to go without eating. So all the way from noon until five and making my dinner at 6:00 is too much of a sugar lull. That 4:00 to 6:00 is not gonna be me at my best. I won’t be my smartest. I won’t be my most productive. So I try to have a 3:00 break. Which can be anything. Just a granola bar. Peanut butter sandwich. Maybe another salad. I like having just a salad and an apple, you know. Or an orange. I try to have a fruit or something. But make it something. A little snack. But not a meal. Not really a meal. And it doesn’t have to even have meat in it. But I’ve gotta have meat in the next one. I want protein three times a day.
So then I’ve got my supper about 5:00 to 6:00. And that’ll be anything. I look cooking chicken lately. And tacos and… I’ve been overcooking. I fried– I went through a container and a half of oil the first two months I moved here. Frying all kinds of stuff. Can’t do when you’re in your car. So I had a lot of fun cooking.
So I… kind of panicked. I got like a quart and a half of oil in less than two months. I said, “I’m backin’ off now.” I’ve used less than a half a thing in three months so now. So I’ve changed my cooking style. But I was really enjoying frying a lot of stuff for a while.
Okay. So you go through these things. That was my Tao. I had to work that out of my system. And get some stuff out. Frustration. Food frustration.
Where were we? Thirteen minutes and I’m not going to fast now. Okay. Where are we?
Explain your eating schedule. You got that? Oh! And you should have a snack after that. So at 6:00 and if I go to bed at midnight– then I can’t–I won’t at ten o’clock, at 12:00 I’m gonna finally break down and have something to eat and then I’m gonna go to bed with a full stomach and I’m gonna wake up in the morning with acid reflux. So you don’t want to eat within two hours of going to bed. So you should never eat after 10:00, basically if you’re going to bed at midnight. If you’re going to bed at 10:00 then you shouldn’t eat after 8:00. You’ve gotta have that two hour window for your food to get out of your stomach before you lay down. So if it sits in there all night IT ROTS. And that’s what acid reflux is. It’s as simple as that. The doctor’s not gonna tell you that. I don’t know why.
Doctors just give you pills. They could really help you a lot more than that if they really got smarter.
But like I said, they’re just WORKERS. They, they’re told what to say, and they say what they’re told to do. So that’s all what most doctors are. We expect– I expect too much out of a doctor.
Okay. Where were we? Oh yeah. So, acid reflux. I’m glad that I threw that in.
How do you wake up each morning and how quickly are you awake?
Ah, well gosh. I was in this parking lot sleeping for some months last year. And… I had to wake up and walk all the way across the parking lot to the latrine and get back. You know, you can’t be all, ‘ooooooohhh’, and walking out there. Just pointing out that sometimes you’ve just gotta wake up and be in action. Danger there.
I’ve never found– Actually, lately a couple times, in the house I have noticed I’m kinda draggin’ around. Not as perky as I would be if I was outside. So it’s a mental attitude. A decision. It’s a decision. And… you should just wake up. That’s it. Don’t convince yourself that you can’t do that. That’s it. You’ve just got to tell yourself that you can do it. It’s that easy. It’s a decision.
Your Daily Habits are your Daily Tao
Where are we?
Explain your morning habits before going to work or school.
Okay. So do you shower in the evening, or do you shower in the morning. Brush your teeth. What do you do? All that type of stuff. Floss.
Which direction, North, East, South, or West does your head point when you sleep each night?
Think of yourself as a compass needle with your head being the tip of the needle. Okay, so when you lay down at night if your head pointed directly North then you’re pointed to the North. Kay? When you’re pointed to the West, East, South. Okay? So that’s– Anyway. The point being is that’s the way you’re magnetically polarized when you sleep. And that’s real important. That’s how you sleep.
But anyway, Shifu sleeping suggestions. I don’t obviously get into that right now. That whole topic of Feng Shui. Read Feng Shui. Feng Shui will explain the whole thing. Everything that Feng Shui says is true. As far as I know. Put it this way: everything I’ve learned about Feng Shui made since. Proven itself in reality. But the trick is to really be able to see the truth of it. The Feng Shui. It’s not as easy as read it and see it. It’s an art in itself so it’s not that easy.
Okay. Where are we?
Explain your after-work or after-school habits.
What do you do in that window from 3:00 to 6:00? Like I said, you should probably have a break. Probably at 3:00 have a snack. So now you’re empowered for three hours of whatever you want to do.
So at 6:00, then you have your real dinner. Or 5:00 to 6:00. Start at 5:00 then it’s ready at 6:00. If you started at 5:00, served it at 5:30, you’ve still got to clean it up. So it’s still 6:00 no matter how you look at it.
Your Tao within the Cosmic Whirlpool
Okay, where were we?
How are you adding energy back into the cosmic whirlpool?
Aaaaahhh. That’s a little more spiritual. My Native American thing coming through.
How are you adding energy to the world?
In other words, what energy do you add?
What energy is Trump adding to the world? To the Tao of the universe? He’s gota megaphone see. Trump our President has this huge magaphone. It’s 2020 right now. So he has more of an effect than I do. If I yell and say anything more caustic than him: No effect. Nobody hears. He’s connected to the Tao in a different way than I am. He has an effect. And the energy he’s adding– Look what it is. It’s ugly. It’s ugly energy.
So make sure you choose your energy. Just all energy is not good. Qigong is ‘energy work.’ But it doesn’t mean good energy or bad energy work. We want to presume it’s good. But obviously its just working your energy. The trick is you’ve gotta have good energy to work.
In fact the Chinese have something that they used to refer to– I haven’t heard anybody refer to lately. I don’t hang out with that many Chinese people this century. But they call it ‘Qi Poisoning.’ And that’s where you’re basically circulating bad energy. And it just poisons you. You’re magnifying it. It’s like being Darth Vader and killing yourself with your negative energy. Okay?
How aware are you of all energy sources around you?
If you walked– If someone was to blindfold you and you walked under power lines–could you sense them? Don’t feel bad. You can go nuts. I got to a point where I could feel the wires in the walls. Sheesh. Gotta back off a little bit. Feeling it is not going to do you any good.
But… How much can you sense it? Can you sense different energies? Can you tell when you walk on different surfaces… You’re up in the air, not connected to the Earth?
Anyway, that’s it. That’s NUMBER 4. Let’s read NUMBER 4 [“Tao #4”] and see if I’ve led you to understand it better.
NUMBER 4 is: Nature is an inexhaustible whirlpool of cosmic energy. Whether you splash, join, or leave the whirlpool– the forces of Nature continue unchanged.
Now there are really two things. Let’s go back to that first one. I think that second one kind of covers it over.
Nature is a cosmic whirlpool of inexhaustible energy. Rember what I was saying, talking about getting up in the morning. That’s you and Naure. Does Nature have trouble getting up in the morning? No. Then you’re not in harmony with Nature. So the inexhaustible energy is Nature. You really want to tap into it. Really be in harmony with it. Get energized.
Alright. Buddha Zhen here. Whoops. 19 minutes!
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The TAO of the SOULS
“Now the MUSICIAN [soul] is the most complicated. It’s all artists, mathematicians, scientists, all the creative thinkers. I’m just calling them all MUSICIAN [souls] because I need one word. All the artists, all the creative people, writers… They’re all this one particular type of soul.”
