Chungliang Huang

Throw our arms out to the unknown universe, and say simply, “I accept.”
[Image from the Living Tao Foundation; caption by Lily McCulloch.]

I have sat down to write Chungliang Huang, carried along by wu-wei: "to act without forcing — to move in accordance with the flow of nature's course which is signified by the word Tao, and is best understood from watching the dynamics of water… Sometimes true learning surprises you when it emerges. This is what we call wu-wei." (So it was described in his book Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain: The Essence of Tai Chi, published 1973.)

My last letter was to Steve Andreas, the founder of Real People Press. Our conversation was brief and centered on the work of creating an unconscious change to life's problems, as they are called. Three-and-a-half years ago, I knew what was needed — to come back into my physical body, and I quote from my journal: "Get out of my head and be among people; exercise my limbs and muscles, my balance, strength, and response — perhaps through dance, yoga, or t'ai chi?" I sensed the start of a "cure", but I took no action. I'd never attempted any of those arts and felt unsure of how to begin.

So now I begin with this letter, October 16, 2016 —

Dear Chungliang,

I've spent part of the last three days listening to your teachings during my work-day commute. I watched videos which included interviews of you, your dance performances, and excerpts from The Tao of Bach. I watched you demonstrate Chinese calligraphy, explain Yin-Yang, tai-ji, and bring to life the concepts of centering and balance. Within this video The Tao of Bach: Project Images, I found the picture of you with outstretched arms which I attached to this letter.

The still images are accompanied by Air on the G String, a violin arrangement — one might say a "remix" in today's language — which altered the second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3, about 150 years after the original composition.

I also enjoyed this second video for a glimpse into your personal development as a Chinese-American artist:

In this talk you said: "I realized I needed to really follow what is in my heart. Dance was it. Performing was it… So, I found a little niche, I found a way I could make myself unique and honest — that's what helped me to become who I am."

You emphasized one word especially — honest — and that is how I long to live, more urgently than ever!

Certain teachings you imparted this week remain strong and vivid in my mind:

"Perfect balance" is never attained; the closest to perfect balance is death. Our practice is to go back and forth between off-balance and a return to our center. During an interview while you were demonstrating Tai Ji dance, you said that "losing balance" allows us to come back to center. Here is my interpretation: a mistake is actually counter-point or contrast — the raw material of a more complex harmony. It allows us to deviate from our fixed plan or choreographed steps, so the "mis-step" can revitalize our dance as we find the next step to follow it.

I've known that somewhere in my life, I want to dance; more basically I want and need to inhabit my body once again. Even now as I rearrange words on a digital screen, and my intellect seems so busy and "in charge", I sense how incomplete this letter is, if I do not dance and learn to express my body's powers.

During these last three days, I asked a friend of mine who practices Tai Ji (but has moved some distance away) for a referral of where I may take classes. He recommended someone in my neighboring city who received instruction at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I sent this teacher an email, and am committing to follow through on this contact, or keep looking until the teacher is found. I will make a sincere attempt at learning and practicing Tai Ji. Then see what unfolds.

I plan to write my next letter to the cellist David Darling (#165), whose music I loved years before I heard the name Chungliang Huang. Then I learned that David was one of your collaborators in The Tao of Bach — so again, the path materializes before me.

For your awareness, I'm publishing this letter on my blog Conversings — also known as One Thousand Conversations. If you have the interest or time to write back, please let me know if I may publish your response on the blog. Do you object to any of the content I've assembled in this message — your image, the videos, or quoting your words? I will remove any or correct their presentation as you wish.

I welcome any comments or suggestions regarding my direction, and that of One Thousand Conversations, from you or your colleagues at the Living Tao Foundation.

Thank you for the gift of your insights and creative vision to the world.

Andy

---

Excerpts from your last Living Tao Foundation newsletter follow — an exchange of letters:


Autumn 2016

Dear Living Tao friends:

The Spring and Summer, since my last newsletter to you, has come to a gratifying conclusion…

In spite of the constant bombardment of news of disasters in the world, both natural and manmade, and our split American government and lack of civility with feuding parties for the coming presidential election, we must continue to sustain our faith in a better world unfolding in the future for our future generations. It is difficult to maintain our inner equilibrium, but we must learn to trust in our heart and mind in the ever-changing constant TAO.

One final note that I wish to share with you. You will receive the announcement of a celebratory party to honor my 4 decades of teaching in Europe soon, and my 80th birth year in Winterthur [Switzerland] on April 15, 2017…

In my 80th year, I have been contemplating Confucian writings about harmonious aging. Many of you have heard my telling of what Confucius said about his journey as lifelong student.

Reaching the age of 15 with a will to learn; at
30 to have established the rightful position; at
40 to avoid temptation to be led into confusion; at
50 to have finally understood his destiny, the mandate from heaven; by
60 to be free from the dualism of contradiction and ambivalence; and
only when Confucius had reached his
70th year, was he able to follow his heart's desire, without going astray.

Since Confucius only lived to be in his mid 70s, he was not able to impart further wisdom on what and how he might have envisioned his life at 80 or on reaching 90. Therefore, we must venture forth with our own interpretation of what might have taken place in his Heart, if he had continued to live into his Sagely age. For myself, after much thoughtful contemplation, I have come up with this:

At 80, I wish to return to the simplicity and innocence of a child, sustaining a perpetual sense of wonder and hope. I wish to realize a joyful practice/discipline of “Body-Mind-Spirit in Harmony”, and to “Follow My Bliss” in my "LIVING TAO" Way of Being Myself, spontaneous and naturally so, as Wind and Water – free to be as “Fish in Water and Bird in Flight!”

Anticipate to see this wish to become a commemorative T-shirt and a Poster next year.

chún
unbleached silk, pure; simple; unmixed; genuine
pū
uncarved block; also naturally simple, before it is refined or fixed to be artificial
tóngzhēn
childlike, truthful and real
zìrán
nature; natural; naturally so; self-so-ness
fēngliú
like Wind like Water, flowing naturally at ease with oneself
dào
the TAO, ultimate reality in life, The Way
yóu
at ease in life, naturally as Fish in water, swimmingly well
fēi
at ease in life naturally as Bird in flight—thriving, soaring

Steve Andreas

October 12, 2016

Dear Steve,

The first book from Real People Press which entered my life was Person to Person. I found it in a Nebraska used bookstore more than ten years ago. The distinctive voice of Barry Stevens left an impression on me. Later I read Notes to Myself, which I found more directly applicable to my life, as a man in my twenties with a young family. I discovered both as reissued editions, and I'm not certain that I realized your connection to them right away. Over the years, your name popped up in various books and online articles I read, and eventually I realized that Barry Stevens' son had become Steve Andreas. I ordered a copy of Heart of the Mind but never read it all the way through. Now here I am, several years later, inspired to write you a letter.

To provide some background, I married for the second time in 2015 and took my wife's surname — as I gather you did with your third wife. I have two children (ages 7½ and 6) who still carry my birth surname, as does my ex-wife. I have a troubled relationship with my father, who is currently undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer (and seems to be doing well.) Changing my name was partly motivated by a desire to disassociate myself from his legacy.

I apologize if this question seems inappropriate or prying, but did your relationship with your father have any bearing on your name change? Or did the Stevens name signify an emotional link to him? In the past few days, I learned from a video clip on your website that he committed suicide when you were nine.

A few points you made in the talk "Therapy Isn't Brain Science" leapt to my attention:

You need to make an unconscious change. People come to you complaining of unconscious problems.

Even someone who ruminates or intellectualizes can't stop doing it; they have no voluntary control over it.

So in order to make a change, rationalization and talk therapy as is usually used will not make any difference.

I've seen five different therapists since high school, spending many hours (and thousands of dollars) largely in talk therapy. Though it provided an environment where I could "vent" some of my inner turmoil, and has brought forth a few meaningful insights, at a more basic level it feels like the same old blockages persist.

I am that type of person you referred to — someone who ruminates, intellectualizes, and can't stop doing it. It's not a surprising revelation that my active mind protected me when I was young: with its reasoning and problem-solving ability, the power to create distance or abstraction between myself and a messy world, and vivid imagination which provided an escape. But my intellect has since over-compensated. Perhaps as my last therapist said, what saved me as a child is now threatening to destroy me.

Since watching your video, I've tried to rewind my memory to the time in my life around age 11 or 12, when it seemed that I really began to intellectualize and escape into another world of books and language. I remembered a few of the first times when I disengaged from my body and emotional surroundings. What will I do with these recollections? I'm not yet sure. I am trying to heed your words:

If you use your rational mind to do something different, then you have a chance of changing the unconscious experience.

Directly after that advice, you shared the insight "Most therapy is about description." Yes, I can also relate to that. I've spent about 15 years trying to describe me and the workings of my heart and mind to myself.

I'm not writing you this letter for consultation or therapeutic advice. This is intended to be more of a mutual conversation than that. I recently spent a few days reflecting on the advice of Hugh Prather, and attempted to have a "conversation" with him in my mind. In the course of my reading, Hugh mentioned you as "the most honest publisher with whom I have ever had dealings", and the one who first gave him a start. I took this as advice to write my next letter to you — the second of 1,000 such letters which I plan to write in the next decade. (Talk about an intellect running wild!) I've listed 500 people which comprise half this project in "The List".

While I gathered information about your lifework and prepared to write this letter, I learned of another book which Real People Press brought into being: Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain: The Essence of Tai Chi by Chungliang Al Huang (and to which you and your mother wrote the preface.) I'm taking that as my sign pointing out the next thinker to investigate. I'll read/skim that book over the next few days, see what else I can discover of Chungliang's work, and then sit down to write him a letter.

A page from Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain:

 
I'm dual publishing this letter on my blog Conversings.blogspot.com and also in my older wiki "Remuse", which is soon to be retired. If you visit www.Remuse.net, you will see this letter in the wider context of my reading, writing, and spiritual/artistic quest. It's organized in a way peculiar to my own life and mind.

If you have the interest or time to write back, please let me know if I may publish your response at One Thousand Conversations. I appreciate the messages you have already sent into my life (and the world at large), and I ask for nothing further. But, if you think of a person in addition to Al Huang who you recommend might follow in this series of letters, I'm open to all suggestions. (And if not a person, any experience or strategy you offer is very appreciated.)

My very best to you,

Andy

Hugh Prather

October 9, 2016

Dear Hugh,

I'm writing this letter too late for you to read it, but nonetheless I start in a spirit of true dialogue. This is the first of a thousand conversations (each with a different person) which I plan to have in the next decade. While you were still alive, I read your published journal Notes to Myself. That book evokes how I remember you, and the time in your life which I feel a strong connection to — when you were a young man in the late 1960s. I felt a kinship with many of the feelings you later described when reflecting back on that time:

"I was plagued with questions of career, sexual expression, feelings of inadequacy, and especially a longing to know oneness with Gayle and all others. My childhood had not prepared me to function well in the world, and I was struggling with loyalty to our marriage, a need for friends, and a deep confusion as to which among the many voices within me was the truest guide."  (May 1989 Introduction to the 20th Anniversary Edition)

These are question which have plagued me, too. Back in my twenties (not so long ago) holding your book in my hands, with all the esteem conferred to a published author, I was struck by this: that someone successful — a man who had channeled his expressive powers, his fears and angst, and who made something singular and good for the world — was also a man familiar with insecurity and self-doubt.

While reading, I was charmed by little things in your book: the drawings of leaves throughout the text, and the absence of page numbers.

This week, I found a video you made for the website Attitudinal Healing International, which was posted about two months before you passed away:

In it, you talk about a serenity we can develop that allows us to be peacefully angry or peacefully  depressed. At the end, you state the aim of this inner peace as "above all, connection with other people."

Following those last words, I see a warmth and genuineness in your slight lift of the eyebrows and quick smile. I wish that we could have had one conversation face to face.

Preparing to write this letter, I could not find my copy of Notes to Myself. I looked at the digitized (and limited view) copy at Google Books and randomly chose Section 7 from the e-book's table of contents. After just a couple of pages, I realized that "random chance" had led me right back to the message of your video:

"… To deny my darker emotions can have serious consequences. When I disown a feeling I do not destroy it, I only forfeit my capacity to act it out as I wish. Even to think guiltily or irritatedly about a feeling merely strengths its hold on my mind. Yet regardless of the state I am in, I am always free to draw upon my reserves of stillness and peace, and whenever I do, the inner shift is subtle but profound: I become peacefully depressed, peacefully fearful, peacefully angry. And whereas the effect of my mood before was to pull others down with me, now I leave the world uncontaminated.

If love is at the core of us, we can add love to any misery we feel."

(I added the emphasis above. I should comment that I don't care for your word "uncontaminated", as it seems to perpetuate the judgment against these "darker" feelings, which are part of being human — individually and in our shared interactions.)

I have struggled with bouts of depression for many years. Anger, sadness, and self-hate also visit my internal landscape at times. I'm now trying to take a different view — these may not be states of mind to be vanquished, or mastered, or even "held at bay" — but I can walk through them with equanimity, finding some inner core of peacefulness which contains (envelops, or accepts) my feelings, while still changing their tone. Being "peacefully angry", I am not likely to do new harm to myself or others. So I can cease the continual layering of verbal cuts and darkening, weakening thoughts on top of a history I cannot change.

After taking in this message, I went to the book's introduction. I appreciate the background context you provided:

"I started putting Notes to Myself together in 1968. Gayle and I had been married just about four years… Notes to Myself was essentially a stack of yellow sheets (which I called my diary) where I went to sort things out, where I put down my pains and problems, and my very deep longing to break through to some truth. In many of the passages I was guessing, but because I was trying hard to be honest with myself, I sometimes guessed right…

In my spare time, I finished the manuscript and began the seemingly hopeless process of submitting it to publishers. Everything I had written in the two years I had been a writer — poems, short stories, humorous articles — had been rejected, and so when I received a letter back from Real People Press within a couple of days of mailing the manuscript, I knew it was a rejection slip. Obviously, they had not had time to read it. I found out later that after finishing the book late the night before, the publisher had gone straight to a mailbox with a letter of acceptance. John Stevens (now Steve Andreas) turned out to be the most honest publisher with whom I have ever had dealings…"

This led me to the next letter I'll be writing. Next week, I'll start a conversation with Steve Andreas through the books he has written (which I already have a vague familiarity with.)

Hugh, your deep longing for truth is another experience which I share with you (as do many others!)  I am taking to heart the advice from your video, recorded at the age of 72, and the book you published 46 years ago.

• Make a little improvement to how I feel and act right now.
• When I am depressed, try to be peacefully depressed.

I also hold in my mind these words of yours written in 1989:

"In many ways life is the process of cleaning the windows until finally we see with understanding what before was sensed only with childlike instinct. Maturity is wanting nothing but what we see with the purity of our heart.

I hope that this little book also echoes the truth of your own path. And please know, I walk with you."

— May 1989, Santa Cruz, California

It comforts me to read those words and believe that you walked a path like my own, right here and now.

 * * * 

A year after his passing, Hugh's wife Gayle wrote in a piece "There Is No Death":

I feel Hugh’s peaceful, happy, loving presence every hour of every day. I talk to him; he talks to me. Of course there are times when I cry because I miss his physical presence, but our oneness with each other is still there; it did not die; it cannot die. It is eternal…

And so what message does Hugh have for you? Simply this: Do not be afraid to love; forgive quickly and easily; trust your Self, the Holy Son of God. Never forget who you are. Don’t take the world so seriously; let it fade from your sight so that you behold Love’s splendor. And like Bill Thetford says, "Never forget to laugh."

Hugh Edmondson Prather III was born January 23, 1938, and died November 15, 2010.