My name is David. I’m around thirty years old. I am Taiwanese by ancestry, born in New York and raised in Kansas, and now a resident of Oregon. I got my B.A. in psychology at Stanford University. Professionally, I’m an acupuncturist.
Immediately after graduating from college, I went to live for a year in the Wisconsin Northwoods, with a small community at a school for wilderness survival and Native philosophy. You’ll find it chronicled in musings and photos.
Spiritually, I’ve been influenced by a number of sources, including Christianity, Judaism, Daoism, Buddhism, Native American spirituality, Toltec philosophy, and channelled entities. I currently practice within a Western mystery tradition.
I am very interested in the many levels of health. Formally, I have a degree in massage therapy and a masters in Oriental medicine, which encompasses acupuncture, herbs, counseling, dietary therapy, and qigong (chi kung).
These three intertwining paths — harmony with nature, spiritual practice, and health — comprise my main personal interests and values. My life is focused on figuring out how to expand consciousness toward the Divine, while inhabiting a weak, imperfect body, living in a weird, fucked up world of modern industrial civilization at the peak of the age of global empire.
My personal relationships are also a major part of my path of growth, particularly my relationship with my wife Abigail. Love is a vast, deep, and complex teacher, sometimes joy and sometimes torture; I am profoundly grateful that it is in my life.
The general theme of my blog, and my life, is the exploration of the boundary between the seemingly abstract world of the spiritual, and the gritty, dirty reality of the everyday world. It is, in part, about “Discovering the magic and the meaning in the mundane,” which reflects my desire, and constant effort, to penetrate into the Mystery of life in even the small details, and to bring that into my everyday consciousness.
This excerpt from Hermetic practitioner Rawn Clark’s essay, Dimensions of the Divine, helps to explain it more deeply.
Every thing that happens in our lives is an aspect and manifestation of the Divine Love. We also call it karma, which is nothing other than the Divine setting before us, in the absolute best manner possible, the lessons we need to learn in order to evolve.
Divine Providence provides us with exactly what we need, exactly when we need it. It never places before us something we don’t need. Even the vilest of circumstances are, from the Divine perspective, necessary. Furthermore, they are presented according to the Universal Legality, which means that the form in which they are presented is the only form in which they could, in that moment, be presented to us.
The consequences of this astound the mind if one contemplates them deeply enough …
The only time any thing feels like it is not a manifestation of the Divine Providential Love, is when we do not recognize it as such and therefore do not harmonize with it. It’s when we ourselves are not consciously aware of our own role as manifestations of the Divine Love and do not harmonize our own thoughts, words and deeds with that Divine Loving, that we become blinded to the eternal and infinite manifestation of the Divine Love all around us.
But as creatures of the temporal realm which wield our human free will, it is our prerogative to choose whether or not we consciously harmonize with the Divine Love and therefore aid its expression, instead of hindering it. When we choose to not harmonize, we become blind to the fact that a difficult circumstance is in fact an expression of the Divine Love designed specifically to advance our personal evolution. This choice breeds difficulty, strife and the experience of suffering.
On the other hand, when we do recognize that every circumstance is an expression of the Divine Love and begin to consciously participate in the Divine Love through our thoughts, words and deeds, then strife and suffering disappear. We then become eager to face any challenge that confronts us because we recognize the value we will derive from not resisting it and from intentionally learning from it. In this way, we let the Divine love us and love through us.
This touches on the deepest Mystery of our own humble, mortal existence, both the need to contact the Dao or the Divine through spiritual effort, as well as the seeming contradiction of great ugliness, suffering, and violence that permeates life and the world. I constantly try to navigate these worlds, not always with ease.
If anything I wrote touches you in any way, positive or negative, please leave a note to let me know that you were here.
If you want a broad overview, visit the full archive page.
About my Musings
The Edge of Grace
I wrote a short story in high school with the title “The Edge of Grace.” It was about a man who comes to a place where good things end, and questions the nature of good and evil. I still like the title. The Christian idea of “grace” is God’s love for the undeserving; it is love that transcends and transforms darkness into light. In my mind, it is the realization that we are all part of the All. Grace, therefore, is awakening to the Higher Self, and recognizing this Higher Self in others. All of us are but perched on the edge of this awakening, often blind and ignorant of it, but there all the same.
As for the design, my good friend Paul drew it for me. I like its iconic look: The circle, the triad, the four directions or eight compass points, the eye — all of these have great mystical meaning. And, it reminds me of our friendship.
8 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
I enjoyed your blog and will be adding it to my links. Thanks also for linking to me.
I like the design your friend Paul drew – it also reminds me of a dorje.
I see you got a B.A. in Pschology at Stanford. I wonder if you met my friend Doug Daher who taught in Psychology there.
I got my MFA at Stanford in painting. I went there first in 1976, took a 10-year break, and returned to finish it in 1986.
Uchi Deshi,
Thanks. And whoa, that’s interesting. I did actually take a class taught by your friend, in fact it was one of my favorite classes at Stanford; it was an introduction to Jung. It was a lot more in line with my interests than the other more academic, research-oriented stuff in the Stanford psych department. I remember that I asked Doug if he would be my academic adviser, and he told me that he couldn’t because he wasn’t actually a member of the department (I think he worked at the counseling center or something). Which kind of says it all about my opinion of the department.
Anyway, if you talk to Doug you can tell him that his class was one of my favorites in my college career.
Hi David,
It’s been awhile since I’ve explored your site. Many changes and a few similarities… Turning 30 in a year does seem crazy, truly scary, and amazing. Recalling the first content of your site up to now, I am struck by emotion, at your life, and our friendship. The search for healing and the mysterious magical in life continues. And yet, something significant of both has been found and shared. Thank you.
Paul
Paul,
It’s an honor to have your friendship on this fascinating, unpredictable journey. I’m glad we still walk similar paths, even if outwardly they’re very different. It’s good to have an old friend around.
David,
I am with you on your journey towards Grace! I hope you inspire many others with your honesty and your seeking.
Thanks Anne, and welcome.
By chance I found some wonderful new high quality video clips with the famous chinese female qigong master Guo Lin. Look a the bottom of the post.
http://neigong.net/2008/04/17/guolin-qigong/
Btw: Do any of you have book or video references to Guo Lin or know more about her?
Enjoy these moments, Thomas
Thomas,
The only thing I know about Guo Lin is the reference Ken Cohen made to her in his book The Way of Qigong. Very inspiring though.
You might ask on The Tao Bums Forum.