On the podcast today, we travel beyond the system of tonic herbalism through the gateway of philosophy to explore the revered wisdom teachings that underpin Taoism: A nature-based way of living that ultimately seeks to cultivate harmony within the mind and body.
Many people desire a sense of harmony to be resolved within their life and restored within themselves. But how do we bring ourselves back to centre when the Ying and The Yang are out of balance? Today, Mason delves into the Taoist teachings of The Six Thieves (the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind), The Seven emotions, Seven Injuries, and Ten Weaknesses; Teachings laid out by the Immortals to support the intention of harmony and guide us out of excessiveness.
Mason discusses the beautiful anchorage of a foundational Yin/Yang lifestyle, when cravings and desires lead to excess, how a healthy flowing Liver and strong Heart are pillars of balance, and why women and men are most centred when following the rhythms of the moon and Qi cycles.
Mason discusses:
- What are The Six Thieves?
- The Seven Emotions and Injuries.
- What are The Ten Weaknesses?
- How the Six Thieves steal our Jing/Qi/Shen.
- Why the 24 hour Qi cycle is essential for men.
- The Yin Yang foundation of a woman's moon cycle.
- Why we thrive with a Yin/Yang foundational lifestyle.
- Moving from cravings/desires to intention/perception.
- The relationships between the seven emotions seven injuries.
"Everything ends up in harmony through the five elements and through the Yin and the Yang. Nothing is ever in excess because everything always harmonises. You still have times of peak fire and peak Yin, and you get to experience them. There's a time of peak sexual activity and a time of peak rest throughout the day or the monthly cycle. You still get to experience everything and engage with life. And because you are moving around the seasonal wheel, you are moving around the Qi as it moves through the various organs. You're following nature's rhythm and entering into harmony and engagement with Yin and Yang. All of a sudden you will realise it's not about depriving yourself; it's about having everything in its portion- that's appropriate and sustainable. So you can move around the entire buffet of life and experience everything, experience it with a bit more richness".
- Mason Taylor
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Mason Taylor
Mason Taylor is the CEO/Founder of SuperFeast and a renowned tonic herbalist. On a soul mission to bring people back to their body and nature while bursting through dogma, he shares passionately and uniquely in his workshops, podcast, and content on how to cultivate healing and potentiation through health sovereignty. An expert in Daoist tonic herbalism, Mason has helped tens of thousands of people globally discover medicinal mushrooms, adaptogenic tonic herbs, and the healing philosophy from which they emerged. Mason is also a budding comedian; bursting the bubble on the “health scene” with his antics.
Resource guide
Cultivating Stillness book- Eva Wong
Qi Health Cycle poster - Jost Sauer
Beauty Tonics:
Relevant Articles:
The Three Treasures (Jing, Qi and Shen)
The Taoist Brains: Who Are The Tao and What Is There Philosophy?
Relevant Podcasts:
Yin Yang Wuxing For Inner Harmony with Rhonda Chang (EP#89)
The Wu Shen and Alchemy Vs Ascension with Stephanie Nosco (EP#123)
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Check Out The Transcript Here:
Mason:
So quite often people wonder why do I concentrate so much on the philosophy? When I talk about herbalism, when I talk about the adaptogens that we see coming out of this beautiful ancient Eastern system. And it's because what does occur is when you take a scalpel to an ancient system and you pull out one port part and leave the rest, you get an excess of something. You get an incomplete system, and an incomplete system can lead to an exacerbation of something within the self that actually can sometimes, Tony [inaudible] had adaptogen, we are pretty safe, but can lead to creating some damage. And it's something that it's not even maybe not damage, but it creates a glass ceiling, is probably a better way to put it. And a hollowness in the entire, I mean, people come to these herbs because we really are looking for some results or something to transform or change living in this world.
Mason:
Some people's spirits, souls, bodies are screaming, crying out for harmony to be restored. And so for me, I had to include the philosophy and the intent that is behind the entirety of why these herbs became revered in the first place. And I really do feel that they're allies. And they're a huge gateway into getting this harmony that we speak of, but especially, if we come back to this philosophy. I'm going to go back into the specifics of the aspect of this philosophy, that when we get distinction over the tonic herbs and our usage of tonic herbs becomes an arena for us to restore organ function, restore quietness of the mind that we get to go from having a desire for a particular health outcome. A lot of the time getting it, but because there's philosophy and reverence behind the herbal system.
Mason:
So, you're craving of the body to look a certain way, which is okay. Good. You know, a little bit of that desire, a little bit of that craving, it's great. But what happens when that gets excessive? What happens when all you are left with is that craving and that desire? Well, that's when you get the six thieves and the six thieves in the long term, steal your treasures, steal your jing, and we do it to ourselves. And so, I'm going to read a passage from a book called Cultivating Stillness by Eva Wong and to Daris Manuel for transforming body and mind.
Mason:
And this is going to give you the beginning insights and distinction of why we are so massive at super feast in going, yes, feel that external driven. I want my body to look like this, I want to exude beauty like this. I want energy so I can achieve this. That's amazing, but then let that be the top of the iceberg and then stay engaged. And as I said, I'm going to talk about how having a healthy flowing liver, nice strong liver energy that harmonise between yin and yang. And heart will support naturally for what I'm talking about, to not occur to you. And that's why we love the philosophy. Okay, the six thieves are these, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. If the eyes crave beauty and enticement, then the soul will fall into the hell of those born from eggs and will reincarnate as a bird. Its colourful plumage will be watched by all. Is that not good to see?
Mason:
If the ears want to hear evil things, the soul will fall into the hell of those born of the womb. You'll be reincarnated as a mule, horse, camel or other beasts of burden who wears bells on its harness. Is that not good to hear? If the nose craves fragrant smells, the soul will fall into the hell of those born in wet realms. You will be reincarnated as a crab, shrimp, prawn, or other creature that lives in the muck at the bottom of the sea. It will always live in dirty and foul smelling environments. Is that not good to smell? If the tongue craves the five tastes, the soul will fall into the hell of those born as insects, you will be reincarnated as a mosquito fly or wasp. The mouth will be the instrument causing harm to others. Is that not good to taste?
Mason:
If the heart craves riches, the soul will fall into the hell of those born with hooves, you will be reincarnated as a bearer of goods, such as a camel. All your life will have treasures strapped to your back. Is that not wealth? If your body craves sexual activity, the soul will descend to the hell of those born, who mate, continuously. You'll be reincarnated as a chicken, duck or turkey, and will always have sexual interactions. Is that not enjoyable? These are the consequences of the six cravings. Still reading. You also need to know of the seven emotions and the seven injuries. The seven emotions are these happiness, anger, sadness, fear, love, cruelty, desire. Excessive happiness injures the heart, excessive anger injures the liver, excessive sadness injures the lungs, excessive fear injures the gallbladder. Excessive love injures the spirit, excessive cruelty endures sensitivity, excessive desires endure the spleen. These are the relationships between the seven emotions and the seven injuries.
Mason:
There are also the 10 weaknesses. Walk too much, and the tendons will weaken. Stand too much, and the bones will weaken. Sit too much, and the blood will weaken. Sleep too much, and the meridians will weaken. Listen too much, and the generative force will weaken. See too much, and the spirit will weaken. Speak too much, and vital energy will weaken. Eat too much, and the heart will weaken. Think too much, and the spleen will weaken. Too much sex will dissipate, generative energy. These are the 10 weaknesses. So quite often at the beginning of my Daoist journey, I remember hearing about everything in moderation and that I'd always liked the little bit that said, including moderation, because I love excess. I love jumping in the deep end and that's something really that's for your teens. And especially for your '20s, is to explore the realms of excess and obsession while you've got the jing to do so.
Mason:
And if you continue that into '30s and then '40s, '50s, '60s, especially, what you start to realise is that border around Daoism and that border around longevity and around all the seeming promises. Extreme life extension, extreme cultivation of sexual essence, the health around the eyes, the strong lungs, the strong elastic skin. All these things that you see emerging from Daoist, tonic, herbalism, kind of all the promises that emerge from Daoism. They are all within this chess, that's kind of almost like a test that says, yes, however, are you willing to comprehend? It's the only way the mind can comprehend if you are excessive in any of these areas and you go too far away from your centre with desire and craving. And you seek based on the knowledge and the way you are thinking, the way reality works, you go too far. Do you realise that is not the way of the Dao?
Mason:
And quite often I know when I was younger, it just bored me, but there was enough to keep me engaged. And as you move further and further down the line, you can see the heart of acknowledging yourself as a part of nature. Everything ends up in harmony through the five elements, through yin and yang. Nothing is ever in excess, because everything always harmonises. You still have times of peak fire and peak yin and you get to experience them. There's a time of peak sexual activity and time of peak rest throughout the day or the monthly cycle, you still get to go around and experience everything.
Mason:
You still get to engage with life. And because you are moving around the seasonal wheel, because you are moving around with the chi, as it moves around through all of the various organs. You're following nature's rhythm, you're entering into a harmony and you can enter into an engagement, simple engagement with yin and yang. All of a sudden you start to see, oh, it's not about the depriving of self, it's about having everything in its portion that's appropriate and sustainable. So you can move around the entire buffet of life and experience everything, experience it with a bit more richness, a bit more appreciation because it isn't in excess. You can experience the array of emotions that you're capable of. And as you go through and honour each of them, and don't go chasing and making that anger, anger is something that gets me results and can't move on from it.
Mason:
I'm going to just say, that becomes the personality or become someone that's so excessively loving or so excessively happy that you go, right, I'm going to decide with my mind because I know the knowledge that felt good and being happy is good. But that's my identity now and staying within an excess, but rather let it go. Keep on moving, chop wood, carry water, keep on moving. What happens is it opens up the magical realm that the ancient wisdom tradition spoke of. So you don't need to think about Daoism or you don't need to think about the Vedic philosophy or those grassroots Shamanic philosophies that really lived in this slippery realm. And in these wisdom traditions, you just see that's the common theme. And it's a path where you're heavily engaged. You're constantly getting tested because you're constantly, this is why we take tonic herbs and strengthen our body and remove blockages from our body through particular types of massage and abdominal massage and using wash room.
Mason:
And we do physical movement and qigong and dynamic stretching. And we ground ourselves and get ourselves hydrated and get ourselves... Make sure we're in a balanced way, we're strong and healthy, we have that tenacity. And because as we keep on moving through the seasons of our lives, without going excessively into one way of being perhaps, that's when you realise that, oh, I've got that tenacity because I've been doing all that, that I can look, why am I excessively been that way? Why am I excessively desiring beauty? Why do I excessively crave my body to look a certain way? Why do I crave to be sexually active in a certain way? And there, is it good or bad? No. And even when we're elders, we'll probably most likely still be feeling the charge of those cravings.
Mason:
But the thing is, we put so much mindfulness into it. So much practise and engagement as we've been engaging with life and drinking the juices of life and making sure we're taking the Ferrari, which is your body out of the garage and having a fang every now and then enjoying yourself. You get to really ensure that your awareness around those desires and cravings don't control you. This is at the heart of every wisdom tradition, and that's what lies there within Daoism And that's all we're alluding to. When we talk about engaging with herbalism is, feeling that desire arise to an appropriate amount and then be ready to feel what's underneath that, in terms of a long term intention, that's going to support this process of you remaining harmonious. So you can continue to go around the wheel of life with strength, without early degeneration, with a light that skip in your step and with your spirit shining. So that you can really, the richness of life can just really emerge forth.
Mason:
There's an even a harmony, some people say, "live fast, die young," and that's some people's journey, but there is there's even a harmony balance point there. Cool, you want to go hard? I absolutely get it. You don't want to sacrifice a bunch now, but sometimes that hard road leads to so much enjoyment happening down the path. And quite often, when we do say those things, rather than why did you say it? Why did we engage in that? Why do we have to get defensive? Why didn't we just ignore those people? And then just keep on going about living our hard and fast lives, our fast and loose lives. It's because you're avoiding and that's okay. But that's in here, lies the core of Daoist philosophy or wisdom philosophy, or earth-based philosophy, nature-based philosophy, body-based philosophy, body-based approach to life, there's wisdom there.
Mason:
And that's why I bang on about it so much, that's why there is so much philosophy there. So when we start looking at our attempts to not have the destructive effects of the six thieves and these excessive seven emotions, and then therefore, the 10 weaknesses take us down into those real, that knowledge mind based approach to life, which leads to suffering according to Daoism a lot. And you can see a lot of Buddhist teachings emerging in this is, so what needs to be at the core of our lifestyle? And the core of the lifestyle, if you can acknowledge yin and yang in your life and somewhat of a harmonisation between yin and yang in your days, in your weeks, in your months, in your moon phases into years during the phase of your life.
Mason:
That's a powerful way to quiet the mind when it comes to following and chasing these desires and these cravings, which are good in their... Not good, they're ideal when they're in check and we can watch them and utilise them and follow them. When we have zero acknowledgement of nature and a foundation of yin-yang in our lifestyle, it makes it very difficult for the mind to become quiet. Because when in the absence of the foundation of life, which is that polarity in duality of yin-yang, only the pursuit of the cerebral pursuit of knowledge can satiate us. And so, this is why the science is such a beautiful art, but scientism when it creates a void and has a misunderstanding of yin-yang and becomes about pure pursuit and desire and pursuit of knowledge, the heart and the spirit, the mind can't actually go quiet.
Mason:
So you actually can't perceive reality. And that opens up a whole can of worms, because you would say, even scientism starts to go into, no, this is objective reality that you can see how often, how many variables are lost and how that egoic pursuit for perfect knowledge starts to come in and the amount of studies, technically correct. That aren't applicable in real life, because there are so many, there's such a multitude of variables that you've ignored. And you're not still enough, and your spirit isn't present enough. Your heart's not present enough that your body's not feeling to any in any kind of way that you've run off into the dog bar, which was all that mental pursuit of knowledge. When you can't quiet the mind, therefore that knowledge base mind starts arking up and becoming too loud.
Mason:
And that's when it must attach itself to ideology. And then when you go down that or gets sacrificed, this jing and that tenacity to go on and discover more of ourselves is where that jing emerges from. And so, when we look at yin and yang, it's nice to acknowledge there is yin and yang in all of us. Those of the male persuasion, chi, you're dominated and governed by chi, women governed by blood. And therefore, you're going to see a greater influence of yang, chi being yang, or yin, blood being yin. And so, there are those who are governed by blood, who have more yang or less yang. Of course, you see that individual expression, but for simplicity's purposes, let's just look at it like that. And so for everybody involved, we're going to see that if the foundation of your lifestyle has some aspect of acknowledgement of yin or yang. You're going to have that foundation to not run away in desires.
Mason:
But let's focus on two aspects. There's the phases of the sun and phases of the moon. So for those governed by chi, I'm going to go through the Daoist organ wheel, 24 hour organ wheel. And it applies to both those governed by blood and chi, but especially those governed by chi. And if you can get into the flow of acknowledging when it's a yang rising, and then when it's descending and you enter the yin. If you can, even just in that 24 hour cycle, if you can start a tuning yourself there, you watch what happens to the quietening of your mind, and then the bringing out of your spirit. And you'll make that transition from craving and desire into true intention and perception. And for those governed by blood, we're looking at the phases of menstruation and the phases of the way that your blood moves between moon to moon and between your seasons.
Mason:
So let's start with menstruation and that moon cycle. Now, of course, those governed by chi and a yang are also going to be impacted by this. But in terms of those who are governed by blood and governed by yin, women, if you can make this, the foundation of your rhythm and the foundation of your relationship to yin and yang, you're going to feel an absolute transformation, especially in your mind. That's when you're going to see your meditation, your physical practise, your yoga practise, your herbal practise. All of these things are going to go to another level, because you've got the primary rhythm of yin and yang, in the way that your body can relate to it. And so when you are within your period and you are bleeding, acknowledging that this is your winter, this is the time for stillness.
Mason:
This is the time from retracting going into full conservation, not activation, not creativity, really coming back from the world. And you look at when that happens within the chi cycle, the 24 hour chi cycle, that's happening in the middle of the night. And so the world already revolves around us, being able to go into full lockdown mode when it's the middle of the night, no one expects you to be on, no one expects you to be in this meeting. You know, no one expects you to be in this giant pitch. No one expects you to be at that conference. No one expects you to be running that webinar that you've pre-organised, whatever it is. That doesn't mean that we're not engaging in life at all, but during that winter phase, in any way that you can have your life begin to revolve more and more around there, being a much greater amount of stillness. And non-engagement with the world when you are in that winter period.
Mason:
The more honouring of the actual dominant yin time, which is your time, you're going to see such a foundation of health going on. And then moving next into that follow, what is it, follicular? Is it follicular phase ? I generally just sit it in the seasons where that becomes just spring, it's when you're sprouting, the yang starts to emerge and acknowledge that and work with that. If you can start over the next years, have that intention to move towards you living within this moon cycle and that seasonal cycle, that yin-yang cycle experience the yang here. Moving in that ovulatory phase, that's when you're in peak summer, that's when you can feel that expansiveness, feel that passion and really embrace it and enjoy it.
Mason:
And then finally moving into luteal phase and feeling that luteal phase as that autumn, that is that autumn season. Of course there, what I do like to throw in is, even though it's not there biologically between after that summer, that ovulatory phase can go that little bit longer. So feel towards the end that you land down within that late summer, and that spleen time. Land in that earth, that spleen, reflect how to go this time, how to go during this? Am I moving towards my destiny? And then analyse that, and then into the luteal phase, that's when you go into your autumn metal season, beautiful season. That's your foundation of yin and yang.
Mason:
For men, for those governed by chi, it's much more revolving around the sun and chi 24-hour cycle. So when you get to that 5:00 AM time, it's a great time to emerge. Start to wake up, getting ready for that rising yang, have that meditation practise and that very gentle movement practise. Before you start warming up, moving towards the day as the sun starts coming out and the sun starts cracking over the horizon. And depending on the time of year, that's going to be early or later, that's going to depend on when the yang's there, and ready to engage with. And then bang, hit it, move your body, get that exercise in there. So where for those governed by blood, you're going to see it's in that follicular, that spring phase. That's going to be the time when perhaps, your movement and your exercise is going to be more engaging, is going to be more based on sweat. It's going to be a bit more based on more activity.
Mason:
And then, going further and further as you go along, but then, for men, for chi bodies, you're going to feel that at that sunrise period. Bang, get a sweat on, get moving, the bowels get released, and you ignite and wake the body. Moving in through those 20, I think all of you may have had, you can look up the 24-hour time, organ wheel, as you go on, just acknowledge during the day, those early hours is when you're getting really creative. You're eating the frog, which means just doing those hard tasks early in the morning. You're taking on that deep think time early in the morning, getting up to that zenith of heart time at that midday, and you still, your high energy. And then as you start to come around, you start getting into that absorbing of food after lunch. Before you get to like that 3:00 PM, and that's when you start restoring that energy, you get to that bladder time.
Mason:
And you go into more work that it's not so intense, it's not so engaged. You start your working, your studying, you may be doing something that doesn't need you to be so highly engaged and intense, and being on. Before you enter into that kidney time of five to seven, then you go into leisure period and you start feeling that dispersion of energy and that yin. What we see is a really great way for you to all engage with what it means between being in a yin phase and a yang phase is that, yang time is literally just that, it's driven by time. If we look at the universe being, having a relationship with time and space, those morning yang periods, you are looking at the clock. You are in time, you are doing things which require you to know the time, be efficient, be productive, and you can see already the desire and the excess of someone who is stuck in that 5:00 AM to that 11:00 AM time.
Mason:
So especially at outside light back 5:00 AM, large intestine, stomach time, spleen time, heart time. Those are the times you see someone starts identifying with their knowledge, with being an extreme hustler and performer and entrepreneur. And that's the time to really engage with those. And a lot of the time people in their '20s, you're meant to kind of explore your obsession. But then what you see is that starts bleeding out into the late afternoon, into the afternoon, into the night. And so that intensity and you're working in time, am I being efficient? Am I hacking? Have I got a bunch of work hacks to make sure that I'm stuffing in as much as possible, blah, blah.... All that kind of achievement based stuff, it becomes excessive, right? And so does it have a place? Hell yeah. And it's beautiful to have it sitting there, within that 5:00 AM to 12 noon or 1:00 PM. But you can see as we go around in the organ wheel, long term, if we don't want to be, don't want those desires to be running away with us.
Mason:
And what ultimately happens, takes away from our capacity to achieve with quality in life. What we see in those yin periods especially, you can think about for women listening, as you go into the menstrual phase, the period phase, that winter, it becomes more spaciousness for everyone. You can feel when you get to that 5:00 PM, 7:00 PM, 10, 9:00 PM, those times, you want it to be more about space. You're loosely aware of the time, but you just want to move a little bit more freely through space and have space around you. If anyone listening has ever been in the baby bubble, or we talk about mothers having baby brains and partners, fathers, and partners, whoever's supporting when you're in that phase, especially during those first two weeks. You can experience it as well, all time dissolves and your in pure spaciousness.
Mason:
And it's a real shame still, that there's a little bit of a smirk or a little bit of like, we refer to baby brain as something, I don't know what the word is, but something undesirable or, but it's the biggest gift. So like just think of that much space, that much protective yin, that much potential, that much cultivation. It's a siloed space for the cultivation of love and focus on that little human. It's a beautiful biological, energetic phenomena that we really, you can see that the movement and the acknowledgement in ancient tradition, sure. But now, just that acknowledgement is just like that postpartum period, that fourth trimester being acknowledged and that spaciousness. That you can see the yang and that time dissolve away for good reason. And then partners I've experienced as you come out of that initial bubble, mother and babies stay within that spacious bubble.
Mason:
And then, it teaches us a lot about yin and yang. It really reminded me a lot about yin and yang because I was getting stuck in that, got to stay on in time, being effective, hustling all the time. And it goes, if it constantly went into those afternoon hours in the long term, what I'm seeing is one of the thieves starting to engage and take me off on a ride away from centre. And as that happens, I get out of harmony and all of a sudden I become susceptible to those thieves, taken me out and those emotions jumping up and then that damage happening to the six spirits of the body. The six spirits withering as that goes along. So that yin and yang living in yin and yang, that's the primary thing I'm going to be leaving you with today.
Mason:
If you can get that in your 24-hour cycle for everyone, and especially those governed by chi and then that moon cycle and that menstrual phase for everyone, but especially those governed by blood. You're going to see that's the foundation that doesn't lead you off into that constant chasing and keeps you in a centred place. So you can engage deeper in what your intentions are. The liver is the organ system that regulates and governs our peripheral nervous system. So the senses that there's a reason why the eyes, the ears, noses, the tongues and aspects of the body, that feeling sense, that sexual feeling pleasure. That's the reason why, what we are sensing becomes excessive and then feeds the mind to go and obsess and desire and crave is because there's a deficiency in the regulatory capacity of our liver, taking in these feelings and taking in this sensory information, because remember the liver is the general of the body.
Mason:
And before going forth to manifest your vision through a well executed plan that is methodical, the general takes stock of the army and takes stock of what's going on in the environment. What he can feel, what he can see, what he can perceive and through what's delivered to him, through reports in terms of what reserves we have and what a health check is, if we have in our body. That all comes through that peripheral nervous system taking in and sensing what's going on in our body and in our environment. And we need a healthy liver to enable us to powerfully take in this information. And this is just why time and nature, working to feel the people around you, feeling nature around you, feeling what's going on within your body. Your sense is there for a reason, you can feel and get health checks.
Mason:
Your instinct is on and it's alive. And that's coming through that peripheral nervous system taking in information. And then that liver is the mother to the heart. Sending all of that information to the perceptive organ and organ system of the heart fire. So we can feel exactly what is going on around us. And this is the step that people miss, because our mind is so active and we are never slowing down or stopping or taking stock. This is why a stillness practise is so important, because what happens is all of that sensory information goes straight past the heart and just goes up into the mind. That mind who's just desiring, craving more knowledge, more solving the problems, more fixing things, more, more... Or the desire becomes about avoiding responsibility. I crave just to not feel anything else, I'm just going to avoid it. I'm going to become a victim, so on and so forth.
Mason:
The commonality there is that we've, don't have a strong, healthy enough heart, perhaps that's because our mind, which can, our spirit rests in the mind that shen is translated as the mind, isn't still enough. So that, all that information that's coming from the liver can be delivered effectively with the heart to the heart. And we can perceive, what actually is my intention here. What actually is going to be of ultimate benefit to myself here. And you can feel it and I'm not going to go into, well, you know this for everyone listening here, I know I'm most likely preaching to the choir. But if you follow the mind and the pursuit of knowledge, of course, you can get hijacked by ideology. A little bit of a stillness exercise when just a little bit of a practise for everyone before you drink your tonic, pause, feel, allow your heart to interpret or to perceive what you're feeling. Pause in, as you feel, I want more energy and I want to be an athlete or pause, feel it go up in towards near and around your physical heart.
Mason:
And in that heart fire system, there's physiological electromagnetic happenings occurring. There's a chi phenomena happening and time and time again, just that pause, engaging with that intention, allowing that process of that taking in of information from the liver, delivering to the heart and that's feeding it, nurturing it. As long as you are calm in mind, mind isn't running off in excess. And that constant need for justification, that constant knowledge, well, being right. You've been wrong, all that kind of stuff and that's where the goods lie, everyone. And that's why in tonic herbalism, that's what we mean. Start there, feel that desire, but if you can pause and just engage with that intention a little bit more, that's great. So that's why we have meditation practises.
Mason:
That's why we have non-agenda herbal practise. That's why we have non-agenda based physical practise, where we're exploring, feeling. And as something comes up, as a tension comes up, you can stop there, sit with that tension. Whether it's a physical one and engage with it, whether you are massaging yourself or stretching or doing some physical practise. Or whether it's an emotional tension and you've got a stillness practise, or you practise so much that in everyday life, you can stop, pause and feel that tension and go, what is this? I'm going to be led from this and engage, feel it. That's always going to lead towards your intention, being understood and known because you haven't gone and just reacted immediately with the mind. The mind will come in from that stillness and give you a nice interpretation of what the heart has felt in language that you can understand and communicate.
Mason:
And that is how we approach tonic herbalism, everyone. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I've enjoyed it, running around in the more philosophical realms of Daoism I love this podcast for being able to do that with you. There's so many beautiful conversations that are constantly going on behind the scenes. So many, we're just constantly talking to people, so magical. On this one, we've said this so many times and just hit me like, oh, this is all that. Going from desire to intent, what is that? What do we... I understand it, but can I communicate that within like a 45 minute podcast and here we are, turns out we could. So enjoy that one, everyone. Remember, that's if you are practising , if you're engaged with this way of living, you're doing it. And just came, just cheering you on. All of the herbal practise is supporting you and going towards this and having this state of being emerge. I'm cheering for you, love you. Please, let me know how you enjoyed this podcast. I'd love to hear from you.
