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way, but rather in pursuit of consciousness, service, and immortal Dao running through all that is. This practice is done primarily through physical and meditative exercises, which expand the mind, sharpen the senses, and increase longevity. There are also rituals, including chants, arcane sexual practices, and reading of the classics, all of which encourage the light of truth to enter even the darkest corners of the mind.

      I knew quite a few exercises but not so many rituals, at least until the day I became a monk. On that day, South China steamed. The temple, once a rural property but now lodged squarely in the middle of the huge city’s garment district, was such a walled-in hotbox that even the trees begged for a breeze. The day-long ordination ritual began in the relative cool of morning but, as the day progressed, the wooden beams in the high-ceiling temple chambers in which we chanted, bowed, prayed, and rang bells began to sweat.

      Unlike many ancient systems of thought, which have remained fixed inside static, “primitive” societies, Daoism has grown and deepened over time, gaining sophistication and texture alongside the culture that spawned it. This means adopting and integrating ideas from other traditions as needed. In the glaring eyes of hundreds of deities set in alcoves around me, I saw evidence of Confucian ancestor worship and Buddhist beliefs in statues brightly painted in yellow, gold, blue, green, black, and red, and rendered in half-man-size, seemingly swollen with tears. In their midst were more than a few renderings of the Buddha himself and of his female counterpart Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy.

      Some water was available, but not more than a sip here or there. My fellow monks seemed less uncomfortable than I was, perhaps because they had long ago acclimated to wearing robes in the tropical heat. As the devotional ritual unfolded, they watched me, took care of me, led me from chamber to chamber and building to building. My command of Chinese was not nearly good enough to quickly and precisely read the characters before me, so I mostly mumbled and stumbled through hours of chants read from texts rendered in ancient, thick-paged books.

      The texts before me were specific to the somewhat newer branch of Daoism in which I was being ordained, which differed from the older branch I’d been raised on through Master Yan’s martial arts. My first and strongest loyalty was to Master Yan but I knew I was lucky to have Master Pan, and through him, a second lineage in which to study and to grow. Historically associated with poets, artists, merchants, and hermits, Daoism is also popular with China’s intellectual and power elite, and I’d seen such people floating in and out of Pan’s private office.

      Serene, sedate, rotund, and blessed with a breeze from the flat bamboo fans of acolytes attending him, long thick black hair tucked under his square, Daoist hat, Pan looked on. I worried I was disappointing him, but I needn’t have. When it was time to receive my certificate at the end of the day, I found myself bowing prostrated before him, hands and knees on a maroon pillow, thumbs hidden so as to evoke the yin/yang symbol known as the taijitu. When the signal came, I stood and bowed three times, paused, did the same again, paused, and did one last set of three, for a total of nine gestures of obeisance. Halfway through, despite downcast eyes, I caught a glimpse of Pan’s expression—an admixture of curiosity and affection, conveying without words the question, “Crazy foreigner, what are you doing here?”

      The last time, however, he gave me a smile I can only describe as beatific. I felt his positive energy, his encouragement and affection, as clearly as a laser beam from his eyes. Daoist masters have for millennia provided a wellspring of wisdom based on close study of nature and, in that capacity, have served as influential advisors to China’s rulers. I thought about the long road I’d taken, from a New York City apartment to this incense-filled Chinese temple. I bathed in the light of Pan’s approbation and felt a rise of satisfaction at having followed my path of self-cultivation to this memorable and marvelous time and place.

      Tuning in the World

      To really understand the flavor of classical Daoist wisdom, it’s best to open the mind by reading regularly from the Daoist canon. Some of the major works therein have been translated from their original Chinese. These include the divinatory, philosophical catalog of natural unfoldings, the Yijing, the famous Daodejing (The Classic of the Way and Virtue), the Zhuangzi (The Classic of Master Zhuang), Huangting Jing (The Classic of the Yellow Court), Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi (The Secret of the Golden Flower), the Qing Jingjing (The Classic of Purity and Stillness), and the Huainanzi (Master Huainan, a wise, encyclopedic collection of instructions for ruling a country that employs the very same root-and-branches structure as this manifesto). Daoist adherents find the principles and ideas in these books so compelling they adopt Daoist choices, priorities, diet, and values. Using intellection, meditation, and physical practice, they develop calm, clear minds and an abiding sense of the rationally unfathomable fabric of which our world is made. Why not take a stab at one and see what insights it reveals?

      …

      Airline safety announcements counsel us to put on our own oxygen mask before assisting others. The Daoist version of putting on the mask is the process of growing healthy, calm, and clear, balancing our urges so as to grow wise, realize our potential, and become a sage. A sage is a person who deeply senses the flow of the world and moves with it, not against it. Sages recognize the inherent wisdom of nature, the long-term genius of universal forces. We have gone beyond book-learning to a different kind of knowing. Quintessentially wise, we seem to do nothing, yet somehow get everything done. At any given moment, we may appear fools, maybe even idiots, and yet, in the fullness of time, we are revealed to be anything but. We are soft, yielding, and relaxed, yet often triumph; we covet nothing, yet have all we need; we seek to control no one but ourselves, yet are sought out for counsel; we consider ourselves nothing special, yet are in primary and constant contact with ineffable Dao.

      …

      Exercising the brain is as important as exercising the body. Despite the digital training currently in vogue, the best kind of mental exercise takes place neither in front of screen nor in front of printed page, but with eyes closed, ears guarded, safety assured, and with clean, fresh air without wind. This exercise is called meditation, and there is an increasing body of literature pertaining to its myriad of health benefits. One of these is that meditation improves the physical condition of the brain, just as exercise tones and strengthens the body. While meditation can be used as a tool to accomplish a number of different goals, Daoists use it to bring mind and body into harmonious union. Sitting or lying-down meditation will do, but standing meditation most strongly encourages the flow of energy up the back and down the front of the body in what we call the Great Heavenly Circle. Folding our hands over our navel (left hand on top for men, right hand on top for women), we position our feet shoulder-width apart. Relaxing the torso, we settle into the support of our pelvic girdle, our knees slightly soft, eyes gently closed, tip of our tongue comfortably resting just above and behind the front teeth. Suspended between Earth and sky in the classic natural position for the human animal, we breathe through our nose and concentrate on progressively relaxing our body from top to bottom, in horizontal cross sections, like the rings on a stalk of bamboo. Let’s try it today for a minute, tomorrow for two, and then the next day for three. Let’s keep adding a minute per day until, at the end of the month, the session lasts half an hour. Substitute this exercise for a meal three times per week. The benefits include a calmer, less reactive mind and a stronger, healthier body—all qualities of the rectified body/mind.

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      Many of the ills of the world arise from our fundamental inability to simply stand quietly and wait for the next unfolding. Before committing to any consequential action, let’s wait, be patient, take a breath, and reconsider.

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      If there is a single beneficial thing we can do for our body and our mind that utterly transcends any system of beliefs, any spiritual, religious, cultural, or social context, it is to learn to breathe. Breathing is the first thing we do upon entering this existence, and the last as well. The fact that most of us don’t know how to do it, that we breathe about as well as a one-legged man in flip flops runs a marathon, is, indeed, a sad sign of the effects of modern living. We know how to breathe when we are born, of course. As babies, we breathe with our bellies. In goes the air as the belly expands, pulling the diaphragm downward and creating negative pressure in the lungs. Out goes the air as the belly contracts, the diaphragm lifts, and

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