Learning the Integral Way
by Hua-Ching Ni

Twelve years ago I left Los Angeles and now I am back. Since the cycle of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun is twelve years long, it was a Tiger year when I left in 1986, and it was again a Tiger year when I returned in 1998. A wise one once said that when you step into a river, from one time to the next, it is a different river each time. The running water is always different, always renewing itself. So I have come back to the river of LA. However, before I fully step back into this river again, I need to test the water and set my course.

Several good-hearted students have helped me put some advertisements together to announce my new start, listing health services, consultations and classes that I might offer. This follows the modern custom of attracting society's interest by advertising. These classes would be expensive for someone who is not financially successful, and truthfully my intent is to discourage such interest. You really have no need to learn from me because the truth of life is already present in your own life. This does not mean that I can't or won't be helpful to those who seek me out. However, you already have the opportunity to learn the knowledge and art that I have previously taught in various classes over the past twenty and more years, and through my books and videos. In addition to this there are another twenty-five unpublished titles that are ready for printing. This treasure, which is already available to you, can be as valuable to you as you make it.

Fundamentally, I encourage you not to do things that are against your own nature, but to stay pure and healthy. I do not encourage you to hook up with a UFO that is tied to the tail of a comet, as in the recent Heaven's Gate incident. If this is what you are interested in, then I suggest you take a parachute along so that you will have the chance to come back to earth. To me this is not the way to handle the burden of life. My learning is that life is meant to be happy.

Most of the classes that I would teach at this point are not suitable for the general public or beginners. I would be reluctant to teach them, even to more advanced students. For someone who is seriously interested in development, being attached to finding an easy way through someone else's achievement, or expecting assistance from practices that are really only minor details, would only obstruct the real achievement of spiritual independence. By this I mean fulfilling their free spirit, or spirit of independence from anything aside from their own natural life. This is how the Way was developed.

I have been responsive to serious students for years now, and I teach them something only when they are ready. In some circumstances their sweet personality and virtuous condition might persuade me and make it difficult for me to refuse to teach more. However, this only creates more burdens in their life, if they aren't truly ready. Since the completeness of a happy natural life is the most valuable asset a person can have, why exchange it for some candies?

There have also been requests for me to teach more classes to assist students who are interested in improving themselvews. However, true well-being is protected and preserved by not adding anything to the clean, healthy life being that you already have intact. This is the criterion by which to judge any teaching you think you may need in order to develop yourself.

The most direct and practical method of self-development is to achieve yourself by your own effort. I have provided a great deal of specific information and knowledge in my many books and videos, including several that are yet to be published. All of this material is intended to assist your achievement. This substantial amount of material is more than ample to assist you in your spiritual goals.

Some people seem to think that spiritual training should be a matter of religious charity, but is religion truly charitable? I think it is people's own nature that is charitable, and that it is misused as religious charity. It is fine if you don't agree with me on this point. I already offer my service in a wide range. Yo San University for Chinese Medicine is for the training of good doctors to serve the medical needs of society. Chi Health Institute trains people to develop their own chi through movement. InfiniChi Institute trains chi healers. The Universal Society of the Integral Way offers mutual help opportunities for individuals to support their living and learning, and useful spiritual growth. They also are able to realize Lao Tzu's teachings in their personal lives and as guidance for the community. The mentors and senior students of the College of Tao Correspondence Course help beginning students to learn this tradition. So far, all of these services are supported through individual dedication, and without public assistance or financing of any sort. You are welcome to participate in these programs and assist their efforts to serve others, if you wish to participate in a meaningful activity. Any donation you wish to make, with the sweet thought of charity, is welcomed by all of us for your immortal merit.

The Integral Way of Life guides people to rely on themselves rather than on the charity of religions, governments, or others. This is the direction of charity from nature. In support of this direction, I work to support those who truly value their lives and who have a high appreciation of the nature of life. In respecting their own life nature, people need to eliminate the tendency to make emotional demands on others, so that they can avoid creating frustration as their burden in life.

As for public work, there is no need for me to be stubborn, because any healthy support is good support. If it is your interest to help this educational work or publication of the books, your help is appreciated.

As for the accomplishment of your personal spiritual pursuit, the proverb says: "Where there is a will, there is a way." With an interest in natural life, and with careful study of the books that I have already spent twenty years writing for you, you will achieve yourself.

The true training is realized in the process of working on your life. Do not chase after attractive-sounding arts or magic, whether ancient or modern. There are no shortcuts. But remember this, an important observation made by a young student like me. The immortals achieved themselves through many different personal approaches to enlightening the mind. Let this encourage you to organize a good lifestyle of your own, with regularity and normalcy. Even though this tradition contains a method for achieving spiritual immortality, no one achieves it in exactly the same way. Differences in personal nature are to be expected and respected.

Don't worry whether you are being artful or artless in doing your spiritual self-cultivation. The way is within you. It is the undefeatable, natural interest in a healthy life. This power comes from pursuing and enjoying your spiritual purity and simplicity. By persistently working on your own life, your life will bear its own good fruit.

Yours is the generation of science and technology. In this time of great material advancement people may look for a shortcut to—or a replacement for—spiritual self-cultivation. Everyone likes things easy and trouble-free. A modern proverb says that there are two things that are unavoidable: death and taxes. Even if this is true you should also know that spiritual growth can make such things easier to take, because it uplifts people above the level of slavery to external forces.

It is my experience that the ancient way of achievement lies in personal spiritual discovery and a spiritually deathless life. This is distinct from vulgar religious emotions about eternal life. With a scientific approach, realistic minds can verify this reality. Having verified it, they would very likely choose the life of a simpleton with high, pure spiritual enjoyment rather than a life of religious fantasy.

I have clearly stated on many occasions that I do not teach Taoism in the religious sense. If religion is your interest, then you need a different teacher. Nor do I conform to a single style or form. Although I have written and taught the subject of T-A-O (i.e. the Truth Above Oneself and the Truth Among Ourselves), I have not turned it into a vulgar cultural trend or a product for sale in the spiritual marketplace. There are already more than enough enticing cosmetics that only serve to mask the natural facts of life. What I have to offer is simply the deep nature of all people and how you can develop your unadorned plain life through your own efforts. Some people expect me to give them a doctrine or a set of rituals that will magically turn them into someone special. Real spiritual development takes time. It is a matter of personal effort and growth. As your taste improves, your appreciation grows. If you have not nurtured respect for reality in your own heart, you will forever be knocking on the wrong door.

I do not consider myself particularly suited for public life or teaching. This seems rather obvious, because I do not try to sell "Taoism" to you, nor do I use it to protect myself from the experience of normal human life. I only encourage people to recognize what is most normal and constant in their own lives. In general, people seem to want an external program that they can follow. Some of you have been my students and friends for a long time. I know that you are very capable and can do better than me with aspects of being with the general public and doing things of a business nature. It is now your turn to exercise your learning and achievement for helping the confused world. I encourage you to further your interest to work with others as one important stage of life that you have to go through in order to know yourself more deeply. This will help you to build a foundation for spiritual immortality with your golden light.

It is my experience, through teaching and observation, that your personal attitude of life in this moment or any moment expresses your intention to learn the Truth of Life and achieve yourself. Eventually, that intention determines your fortune, your achievement and your limitations, spiritually and materially. Do not follow the examples of religious believers or politicians who are determined to shape the world and life before knowing what lies beyond the conscious content of their lives.

At one level, students of Tao may be young or old, but we all have one thing in common. We are like honeybees that go around gathering nectar to make honey. The question is not how much nectar you gather, but what kind nectar you gather. What good is the nectar of poisonous plants? This is how the bite of poisonous snakes and the sting of killer bees becomes so dangerous. This is also why so many people contain poison with which they poison one another and the world. And this is why most of my teachers, for many generations, have stayed away from the world. It is my own stupidity to come back to the world to verify such truth of people. It has been quite some time. I still work in the world equipped only with the words of Lao-Tzu, who said to not be afraid of beasts and poisonous insects, but just learn from the Red Baby. There is nothing that would hurt the Red Baby, which represents the Original Nature of Life. Spiritually, this means that we should not become nervous or upset about beasts or insects. Although I have followed this teaching and have learned to be stupid, I still believe that their bite or sting could be fatal if you have gathered poison within yourself from somewhere or someone.

The healer's tradition is expected to restore the original life nature—the Red Baby stage of life—and enable people to see the unconditioned, natural joy of life. I have nothing to be arrogant about. I open my arms to welcome you to live with the Integral Way. If it sounds too easy, you will think it is cheap and you would prefer something harder. Hard or easy, please leave your poison behind. Ideally, I accept only people of no poison. Such people are hard to find because most people are poisoned by parents, religions, social leaders and themselves. Some of you carry a tremendous amount of poison within you, yet you still expect to get around me for warmth. I am sorry I am unable to help you. I recommend that you turn to your personal God of self-salvation. Learning the Integral Way is not an intellectual endeavor; you have to improve your mind by building a responsible personality.

I enjoy the sweet personality of some of my students. It is the mark of how they treat their own lives. If their lives are well balanced thn they do not suffer misery. When you are treated badly by somebody, try to notice how the person's internal condition is reflected in his or her external life. There may be a personal hell inside such a person.

Spiritual self-cultivation is not the pursuit of a spiritual fantasy, nor is it an escape. It is a method of self-improvement for the purpose of eliminating one's own personal obstacles. Deep sweetness of personality is different from mere tact or diplomacy, which can be simply the products of social sophistication. True spiritual mellowness of personality comes from internal and external balance, so the individual is not sour and thorny. This makes it possible for a teacher to work with them and assist their higher spiritual attainment and achievement. I encourage you to nurture your own sweet personality and wisdom above all immature beliefs and behaviors.

A teacher who lives in the world needs to maintain purity and avoid impurity. I recommend frequent self-inspection of what one is gathering from general society and what influences are affecting one's personal social environment. Keep what is pure and good, and wash away whatever is impure and bad, because this is how we form our healthy personality. A good, normal, personality and the diligent fulfillment of a dutiful student can attract spiritual and worldly success more effectively than anything else can.

It has been a serious shortcoming of mine that I like to work on what is halfway ready, by which I mean that the other individual will do half the work and meet me halfway. I might choose to treat patients the same way. My experience of giving help to someone is like when you see an eel lying in the baking heat of the sun on the side of a road. You walk over to bring the eel in your bare hands up the bumpy mountain road to find water, such as the wet land or a lake. I expect the cooperation of the eel, but usually there is none. This makes the work much harder. If the world were like the eel, I would leave it alone. In my life, I have been so ambitious to help the eel, but the eel gives me a hard time, or perhaps the road of life is so bumpy.

People usually don't see that many teachers, whether new or conventionally established, simply spread conventional poison that society has unconsciously and unselectively gathered through years of confused worldly life, without reflection or serious inspection. In comparison with such teachers, a piece of highly sweet incense contains more of the essence of life than they do.

The goal of the spiritual education offered by the Integral Way is to guide people to live with what is normal and to maintain the natural balance of life. This is the realization of the Integral Truth of life. It is not something separate from life, such as is expressed through the doctrine that "God is our ruler, we are born of sin, and God is the fixer." The more honest teaching is to be a responsible person who doesn't make trouble for oneself or for others. All religious leaders should avoid creating negative and ignorant stories that only make life harder for people.

Whoever is truly able to live with Tao recognizes that in order to realize the natural greatness of life it is better to make one inch of real progress than to talk a mile. It is not necessary to move to the high mountains or a rural place in order to achieve oneself, even in today's complex world. The true value of spiritual development is the cultivation of the essence of life within nature and society. Just as the spiritual peak of Kun Lun rises above the dusty world by its purity and cleanness, an achieved person is able to live in society for some time to help people. However, he or she is not one of the crowd, and is never a student of the crowd. The crowd of society is like a jellyfish, which occasionally has the eyes of a shrimp that rides on it. In each generation the mass is the jellyfish, while the social leaders are the shrimps who assume the position and the power of leadership, but give no true direction.

In learning Tao, length of study is not necessarily a source of pride. If there is no self-improvement, the length of time one studies is nothing other than proof of the extent to which one has wasted his or her time.

A person who lives with the Integral Way is always observing whether he or she transgresses the Way. That is the balanced and natural completeness of Life.

In learning the Integral Way, one's goal is to refine the lower combination of one's personality, metaphorically described as a mixed personality. This mixed personality is derived from monkeys on earth and from high heavenly beings from space. Only those who carefully work on the internal high essence to grow the Mighty One—the harmonized elements of life having high and effective cooperation with conscience and rationality to rule life—can replace the emotion and sentimentality which often rule life while debasing it.

Rubies can take high heat and cold in forming themselves. This is similar to a spiritually strengthened personality, except that such a personality is more precious than rubies. I am famous for fortifying you to become rubies. Even though some of you may be more like strawberries, we enjoy strawberries a lot too, if there is no poisonous fertilizer attached to them. Some people become poisonous in order to protect themselves, so that others will not gobble them up, but you can not be poisonous and have a pure soul at the same time. That is the human dilemma, isn't it?

I would like to make some suggestions for further study. For ladies I recommend the book "Mystical Universal Mother" as helpful to you. For gentlemen I recommend the book "Eternal Light." As a common support for both I recommend "The Workbook for Spiritual Development of All People" as a beneficial choice.

I myself am quite limited, and perhaps you could do more for yourselves. However, I thank you for all your support.

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