Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, I speak with Solala Towler. Solala had taught and practiced Taoist meditation and qigong for more than 25 years. He teaches qigong and sound healing at conferences and workshops, and is the editor of The Empty Vessel, a widely respected of Taoist philosophy and practice. He has authored Tales from the Tao and Tao Paths to Love, and has a new book with Sounds True—The Tao of Intimacy and Ecstasy: Realizing the Promise of Spiritual Union.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Solala and I talked about Taoist lovemaking and the optional orgasm. We also talked about embryonic breathing and issues of sexual vitality. We discussed The Watercourse Way and relationships, and how to handle a low or difficult period in a relationship. Finally, cultural misperceptions about healthy relationships from a Taoist point of view. Here’s my conversation with Solala Towler:
In your new book, The Tao of Intimacy and Ecstasy, you introduce this term: “sacred union.” I’d love to know—to begin our conversation—what is “sacred union” according to the Taoists?
Solala Towler: Well, the sacred union could be a number of levels—anything from our union to our source, which the Chinese called “Tao.” In this book in particular, it’s about sacred union as a relationship with a partner as a form of spiritual practice.
Actually, originally I was calling the book Sacred Union, but you guys came up with this other title—which is actually much better.
TS: So, tell me a little bit—would you say there are principles of sacred union?
ST: Yes, definitely. These principles all come from the path that I follow, which is Taoism—which goes back about 5,000 years in China. Some of the very basic principles—such as one called wu wei [Towler spells the word]. It means “not forcing”—not overdoing, not going against your own nature. In relationship, it’s something like not trying to force things to happen—not trying to make things happen faster than they naturally need to flower.
So, that’s a very important one. Then, the Watercourse Way is another one—what from the ’60s we called “going with the flow,” which is actually an ancient Taoist concept where they talk about water. Water always flowing downhill. Water taking the shape of whatever container it finds itself in. If you put it in a round container, it becomes round. If you put it in a square container, it becomes square. So, it has the ability to flow with whatever the situation is—rather than going back to trying to force things, again, and force things into a shape that is not natural.
People have [found] a lot of frustration in relationship issues around these kinds of things—of trying to force things. [It’s] trying to make that other person to fit the box that we would like them to be in, which we think is going to make things better for us.
TS: Now, you talked a bit about not forcing things, but what would you say to somebody who has one foot in and one foot out of a relationship, and they’re not quite sure here. What would the Taoist approach be? They’re not really in; they’re not really out. It’s not naturally flowing in either direction.
ST: I guess I would tell the person to slow down—which is another big one that I talk about a lot in the book: going slowly. It is when we go slowly that we can actually feel and understand what really is going on—what is about to be going on—instead of necessarily what we wish was going on.
So, someone who has one foot in, one foot out? That’s a very good question. I think they would just have to maybe take some time out to check in with themselves to see if this is really what they want. Or be fine with the way things are and just let things go naturally—whether they go forwards or backwards or stay where they are. Just be OK with what is.
TS: I think sometimes when I hear people invoke the Taoist idea of just going with the flow—something like that—it can have a shadow side, which is a type of apathy or over-lackadaisicalness. Or indecision—something like that.
So, that’s what I guess I’m trying to address: How do we prevent wu wei, the Watercourse Way, from being apathy?
ST: That’s a good question. Really, it’s about being sensitive to understanding or feeling what this flow is. They talk about flowing water. We do physical practices in Taoism. We do qigong kind of practices, meditation kind of practices—because people who don’t move—when water doesn’t move, it stagnates. Then it becomes like a swamp, and then things start growing in it. That’s not the flow of water. That’s water being stuck somewhere.
In the old times, people would translate “wu wei” as “not doing,” meaning “do nothing.” In the Tao Te Ching—which is the most famous book from Taoism, written 2,500 years ago [and is] the second-most widely translated book in the world after the Bible. He talks about [how] the sage goes about doing nothing, and nothing is left undone. The sage or realized person doesn’t try to force anything. But it doesn’t mean that we just sit on our but and never do anything.
TS: Now, Solala, you’re the founder and editor of a magazine—and a magazine that I remember reading 20 years ago—called The Empty Vessel. It’s a magazine that’s been around for a long time. I’m curious if you could explain a little bit about this metaphor, if you will, of the empty vessel and how it might apply to the world of relationships.
ST: You know, we’ve all heard that story a million times—about the guy who’s so full of himself, and he goes to meet this teacher to see if there’s anything else he can glean from the teacher. But when he meets the teacher, he just goes on and on. “I’ve been initiated into this and that, and I’m a close friend with this teacher and that teacher.” The teacher is pouring the hot tea into the cup until the hot tea is flowing all over the table and into the guy’s lap. It’s burning him and he’s jumping up and yelling. The teacher is saying, “Obviously, your cup is so full it is over-full. Not only can I not put anything else in, it is actually harming you.”
So, the Taoist approach is that you empty your cup. In the Tao Te Ching it’s said, “In the world of knowledge, every day something more is taken on.” We’re reading more books; we’re stuffing more information into our heads. In the way of Tao, every day something is let go of. We’re emptying, emptying, emptying—and the more the empty, the more we’re able to be filled.
How that relates specifically to relationship: That’s another thing where you meet somebody, sometimes maybe you’re nervous. You want to impress them. Or you’re feeling a little insecure. You start talking, talking, talking and going on about all your accomplishments and all the things you’ve done. You hope that you are impressing the other person, but usually it doesn’t impress the other person. It may even really turn them off.
If you can actually allow them to come forward—empty your cup so they can come forward and maybe pour a little into your cup. Then you can pour a little back and forth, like when you’re having a tea party when you were a kid, and you’re pouring the little cups back and forth. That’s one way.
TS: Interestingly, when we started our conversation, we started by talking about sacred union. You mentioned that relationship and sexuality really could be a pathway toward the spiritual realization—the sense of oneness with all of life that many people are quite intensely interested in.
So, I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that—and specifically sexuality. What [do] you see in the Taoist tradition [about] the relationship between sexuality and awakening, if you will?
ST: Sure. As we know, sexuality is probably the most misunderstood idea in our culture, and the one that [most] gets people twisted around. To sell items, to have power over someone else.
In Taoism, sexual energy is just thought of as creative energy. There’s a certain amount of energy that we receive from our parents at conception—what the Chinese call jing. We all get a finite amount of that. It’s said to reside in the kidneys—kidney-adrenal system. The aging process is as we use up that jing. We can use it up in a number of ways—with bad diet, bad lifestyle. As we use up that jing, we start to get older. We wear out.
So a lot of the practices we do—the qigong, meditation, and internal alchemy practices we do as Taoists—we can’t so much replenish it, but we can hold onto it for longer.
Sexuality is a form of creativity. It’s a form of communication. It’s a form of intimacy. When people don’t understand sexuality—which most people probably in the world, really, don’t understand—then people get a lot of problems. They have a lot of problems in their life.
I think an interesting thing about the Taoist approach is that a lot of our spiritual practices are physiological practices. The idea is that if you are not healthy, if your energy is weak, if your emotions are all over the place and unbalanced, if your thought processes are not clear, how can you expect to have a positive, creative relationship with anyone else? Whether it’s sexually, emotionally, or even intellectually?
So, we work on ourselves so that we can become stronger—so that we can work with a partner and play with a partner so it becomes more of a two-way give and take.
The interesting thing about Taoist practices is that Taoists feel that women are energetically superior to men. That even goes to they feel that women have a lot less work to do to become spiritually realized than men. So, the role of the man in Taoist sexual yoga is to serve the woman.
It’s very obvious that men are the fire element, which all too easily flames up and flares out. Women are the water element, which takes longer to bubble but can last a lot longer—and [can] communicate on deeper levels than a lot of men are prepared to do.
TS: OK, now what you’re saying here is very interesting to me. When you say that the woman or that the feminine is “energetically superior” to the man, what do you mean? What is it mean to be energetically superior? I’ve always sensed something like this, but didn’t know there was a traditional explanation for this!
ST: [Laughs.] Oh, yes, yes, yes. It goes from the sort of cosmic level—in the Tao Te Ching, he says, “Know the yang, but hold to the yin.” He compares Tao to the primal mother.
Physiologically, men—in the sexual act, they ejaculate [and] they lose energy. Often then, they lose interest and they lose that connection—the deep connection. But the woman does not lose the energy, because you can think of it as “injaculating” [in] her climax. She doesn’t lose energy that way. So, she’s still ready to keep going whether it’s physically, emotionally. And the man gets worn out.
Just like in many cultures, women are revered and feared because of their ability to bleed once a month without dying. They can create new life. Men can’t do that. I always think, “Well, if men were the ones having babies, we would carry them for about a month and a half, tops. Then we’d be done. We’d be ready to get this guy out.”
So, there’s all those kinds of aspects of it. Women are better at guiding projects over the long term. And I’m speaking very generally here, of course. A lot of men have a lot of creative drive to start something, but if it’s going to take years before it really produces anything, they often lose interest. [Whereas] women are ready to stick with it.
TS: Now, you also said that in Taoist lovemaking, it’s the job of the man to serve the woman. Tell me: what does that actually mean? How would that change the way most couples—or many couples, at least—are approaching lovemaking?
ST: Well, it goes back to that idea that men are the element fire and women are the element water. The fire is pretty much ready from the get-go. Ready to go! [Whereas] the water—again, I’m speaking generally here—water takes a lot longer to come to a boil. And so, the man needs to—and I talk about this a lot in the book—the man needs to slow down—we were talking about wu wei, not forcing—and match himself with the woman.
So, that implies the man slowing down and matching the woman, and letting go of the sort-of “race to the goal” of climax, and then he’s done. The more you do these physiological spiritual practices—like qigong, for instance—the less energy you lose when you do climax. But in the beginning, it’s better for the man to hold himself back. And the only way for him to do that is to go slower and to become very sensitive to his body—to where he is on the circuit—[and] to her body and her energy.
Going slowly, being more sensitive—it’s great for everybody.
TS: Help me understand—you said the more a man does qigong practices, the less he would lose during ejaculation of his energy. Help me understand that.
ST: Well, you know qigong practice—”qigong” means “working with energy.” Working with qi. qi is the basic life force that we all have. Everything that’s alive has qi. You know—the trees, the rocks, the animals, the water. Everything that’s alive has qi.
Qigong is usually thought of as a way of accessing, circulating, and storing qi in our body. We live in a world of qi. We’re surrounded by qi. It’s like we’re fish in the ocean of qi.
But we block ourselves off from that qi. Or you might think of it as we block ourselves off from the healing light. Through environmental things, through (maybe) abuse issues, or maybe just the way we were raised (the culture we live in) really doesn’t support that kind of thing.
So, qigong is a way for us to open ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and physiologically to allow that qi to come in and start moving through our body, opening the pathways that have been blocked. We do a lot of work in qigong with feeding the kidney-adrenal system—which is the seat of our sexual energy and creative energy.
There’s a lot of people walking around in this culture with really burnt-out adrenals because of lifestyle issues or taking too many bad drugs. Even pharmaceuticals can do it.
TS: And you’re underscoring that because if our adrenals are blown out in some way, it’s going to affect our sex life?
ST: Yes. Yes. How can we find the right person if we ourselves are not healthy and balanced? How can we make the right choices? How can we hope to choose a healthy person if we’re not healthy? So, that’s very important.
TS: Now, you said something else, Solala—I always like saying your name. It’s quite musical.
ST: And you’re doing very well with it, too!
TS: Thank you. Thank you.
[You said] that if a man has not practiced qigong, it’s best to hold himself back so he doesn’t lose so much energy during ejaculation. You know, I can imagine a listener saying, “Really? Really? You’re going to have to make a good case here to convince me why I should do this.”
ST: I think any man has had that experience. They’re all hot and ready to go, they’re really having a great time, and then suddenly they ejaculate and then it’s over. They’re tired. They just want to roll over and go to sleep. They’re not as interested in their partner. If they do it in the morning, they find their work day is not quite as good as it was.
It’s well- known among athletes and fighters that they’re going to lose energy that night, so they keep themselves from ejaculating the night before. It’s just a physiological fact.
TS: OK. And you mentioned that by slowing down and becoming more sensitive—that that can be helpful. Are there actual exercises that can be done that would help a man hold himself back?
ST: Yes. Even doing Kegels—people associate Kegels with women doing them around childbirth or something. But Kegels can be very helpful. Pulling up on the whole lower—what we call the lower jowl, pulling up on the anus, or the area between the anus and the genitals. Those kinds of things can make you stronger.
But I think the main thing is—in my experience—is just practice going slower, being sensitive, and not being attached to doing it right every time. That’s really the way to go.
There’s ideas that you use two fingers—if you feel you’re just about to go over, press on what we call “the Huiyin point” between the perineum with fingers. [This] actually cuts off the ejaculation.
But really, after you do that for a while you can just do it with your mind.
TS: Just to be clear—in this Taoist system, woman can have as many orgasms as they want. They can be multi-orgasmic.
ST: That’s right.
TS: They can—whatever. And since the job of the man is to serve the woman, this is sounding pretty good.
ST: Well, the man also can—there’s an exchange of sexual energetic fluids. The man can actually gain quite a bit from having the woman’s—you know, the penis is very porous. The man can gain quite a bit.
These ideas sound kind of crazy in the beginning, but he can actually gain a lot of energy from the woman also. So, it’s to his benefit as well.
TS: Can you explain that? What do you mean—”gain a lot of energy from the woman’s orgasm?”
ST: Whether it’s his penis soaking up her sexual fluids when she has a climax—there’s something that’s released in her that the man can soak up.
TS: And what is the benefit from this Taoist viewpoint of soaking in this material?
ST: Well, it’s the idea that the man is yang, and the woman’s yin. The yang can replenished—can be thought of as being replenished—from the yin.
That doesn’t just mean sexually, either. Just being with either a woman or even a yin person—being able to replenish his yang with yin. Yin can also be things like gardening, moving, working with the earth, being in the ocean, being in the sunlight. All those kinds of things. Meditation. All these things replenish his yang, so he doesn’t just lose it all.
You go to any retirement center and there’s a lot more women than men. Women tend to live longer than men because men burn themselves out.
TS: In the Taoist literature, are there references made to same-sex couples—either gay men or lesbian women couples?
ST: Yes. You know, in classical China there [were] no moral strictures against that. The only thing they would say is if there’s two men together, two yangs can burn each other out. It’s good for them to make sure they’re getting yin energy from another place. The same with two women, two yins—they need some yang in their life. It is interesting how a lot of times, [in] same-sex couples one tends to be more of the yang role.
In the book, I have some exercises about if you’re the person—whether a man or a woman, whichever one—[who tends] to be the yang role—the more assertive role—to give that to the other person, if only for a short while, as an exercise. Let them become the yang. Even if they’re a woman, they can become the yang via surrogate member. You can learn a lot about yourself that way. It keeps things in balance more too.
There are many assertive women. We all have yin and yang in our being. All of us have both. There are many assertive women just as there are a lot of really reticent males also.
TS: Now, I want to take this just a little bit further. If it was two men and let’s just say they said, “Yes, there is an excess of yang here.” And you said, “Bring more yin in.” How would they do that?
ST: There’s practices that you can do. Qigong, meditation kind of practices. There’s having friendship with a woman or friendship with someone who’s very yin. There’s dietary things you can do, even. There’s a lot of different options, actually.
Most people—when they think of yin and yang—they think, “Yang just means they’re a really fiery, creative, outgoing person and yin is the very retreative person.” Really, yin and yang have nothing to do with man and woman. They’re just two side of the same coin, is what they are really.
Yin and yang originally meant the sunny side of the hill and the shady side of the hill. And yang is thought of as outward, creative, fiery energy, and yin is thought of as going down deep into the water. We need both.
TS: Is the goal in the Taoist system to have yin and yang in balance?
ST: Yes. Yes. Like a lot of other spiritual paths, there’s a sense of almost androgyny—that the enlightened person, the sage, the realized person has everything in balance.
TS: OK, so let’s just be a little bit more specific. If somebody’s listening and they want to bring more yang into their life, very specifically what would they do?
ST: There’s a chapter in the book that talks about this. There [are] simple things like going out in the sunlight—in the morning especially, when the sun’s not too bright. Actually, [there is] a practice where we “swallow” the sunlight, the sun energy, into our body.
For more yin, you would do that with the moon. The moon is considered the yin. You would swallow the moonlight energy into your body.
There are foods—in Chinese medicine, all the foods are associated with different elements. Some are very yin and cooling. Some are very yang and warming. So, you can do things with your diet that way also.
TS: Can you give some very obvious specifics?
ST: Well, of course anything spicy—Szechuan food is going to be more yang. Chicken, for instance, is considered cooling. Well—actually, chicken is probably in the middle. But there are a lot of fruits that are cooling.
The Chinese don’t really like to say, “Do you have raw food?” because digestion is a form of cooking. Too much raw food will actually upset your digestion.
Each one of these organs—and there’s a meditation in the book that talks about this. Each one of our five major organs is thought of in an energetic way. It’s also associated with positive and negative emotions. So, when our kidney-adrenals are very low, not only do we not have much energy, but we’re a lot more susceptible to fear. Fear or panic attacks. Night sweats. These kinds of things.
If our spleen energy—our digestive energy—is low, then our groundedness is low. Our ability to empathize with others is low. [There is a] propensity for worrying and thinking about the same process over and over and over.
It’s interesting that we can approach it from an energetic point, because the emotions are also thought of as energetic states.
TS: Help me understand a little bit how understanding the organs, their energetic nature, and the associated emotions—how that might play into intimacy.
ST: Yes, yes. Let’s consider that the liver—which is a detoxifying organ and stores a lot of the blood in our body when we’re sleeping. The liver has to do with flexibility, which is another big Taoist principle. When our liver gets tight—when we become too toxic—then suddenly we feel a lot of anger issues.
So, somebody with a lot of anger issues who—sometimes, it’s fine to be angry. We have a reason to be angry. But there are people out there who just get angry very easily for seemingly no reason. It really makes a big difference in their relationship life.
If they were able to—through Chinese medicine or qigong meditation—treat their liver so that [they have the] ability to be more flexible in their life, that can have a lot to do with how their relationships go.
So, that’s just one example.
TS: Solala, I’d like to know a little bit about you and how you came, first of all, to Taoism.
ST: I’ve always been interested in Eastern mysticism. I grew up in the ’60s, and there was a lot of interest in Eastern philosophy and mysticism. I practiced yoga back in Boston in the ’60s. I studied Zen for quite a while.
I got sick. I had chronic fatigue syndrome for like 12 years, until I was totally bedridden. I had three young children, was going to acupuncture school, [and] had a business. I had to drop everything and just go to bed for three months.
So, I was totally bedridden and Chinese medicine is practically the only thing that can help with that syndrome. In Western medicine, it’s considered [that there] is no cure. It’s thought of a sort of autoimmune disease and they just tell people to rest. So, Chinese medicine got me out of bed—Chinese herbs.
Then I got interested in, “What’s the philosophy behind Chinese medicine?” This was like 25 years ago. Then I discovered Taoism and I discovered my main Taoist teacher, Hua Ching Ni. I started reading his books and started studying qigong. Chinese herbs [are] what got me out of bed and qigong is what cured me.
TS: And then this move to really look at the Taoist approach to intimacy? How did that happen in your life?
ST: You know, chronic fatigue syndrome is severe kidney-adrenal exhaustion, so I had no sexual energy. When I did have a little, I would lose it very easily. So, when I started looking into the Taoist practices, I discovered Mantak Chia has some good books and other people discovered this. Wow! This is a whole different idea. This is a whole different approach. This might be really good for myself physically, but it also started opening a lot of doors of intimacy, deeper communication, and communication with my partner at the time.
TS: Now, what would you say to somebody who wants to have more sexual vitality? They find themselves in a low sexual desire place.
ST: They should see a practitioner of Chinese medicine because they’ll be able to help them with their kidney-adrenal loss—or what we call kidney deficiency.
They should do meditation qigong practices to build their energy. They should look into the sexual practices so they don’t lose their energy every time.
Those are all ways that they can regain their sexual energy. And know ways to redirect it—because sexual energy is also our creative energy. When our sexual energy is really low, our creativity is really low as well.
The beauty of the Taoist approach is that it’s all multi-level. You’re never working on one level. All these other levels are affected.
TS: Do you think it’s possible that someone could be putting their creative energy into things that aren’t sexual, but are into writing projects or other kinds of creative endeavors—
ST: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
TS: —but therefore, their sexual vitality seems low because they’re pouring that energy out in other ways?
ST: It could be some of that. It depends on whether they’re drinking a lot of coffee and staying up all night working on these projects, and their adrenal energy gets low.
There are some people who are just not that sexually oriented. Really, their great experience in their life is what they create in their music, their writing, their directing of films, acting, or performing. It’s not necessary that everyone—and it’s not about becoming some kind of sexual athlete.
Even in China, this stuff got corrupted. Then there was the whole idea of the man almost like a sexual vampire—just sleeping with a lot of young women and taking their yin essence for himself. Every wonderful thing gets corrupted by human beings.
TS: Now, what if a couple has a desire differential, where one partner would like to have sexual experience a lot more frequently? What does the Taoist tradition have to offer in these kinds of situations?
ST: I think they have to be honest with each other, open with each other, communicate very well with each other, and be able to be flexible with each other. One person may extend more than they would naturally. The other person may not ask for something less than they would [if] left on their own.
Find a happy medium. It’s all about finding a happy medium.
TS: In qigong breathing—and you introduce this in the book—the breath of focusing on the lower belly, breathing into the belly itself. I’m wondering if you could introduce people to how to do that. Then, also, help us understand how that might relate to our sexual drive.
ST: In Taoism, we just have three centers—like three chakras. They’re called dantians. “Dantian” means “field of elixir” or “field of medicine.” We have an Upper Dantian at the third-eye level, Middle Dantian at the heart center, and Lower Dantian is in the abdomen. It’s usually thought of as three finger-widths below the navel and a third of the way inside our abdomen.
This is kind of like our foundation—our energetic foundation. When we do this diaphragmatic breathing—and people in yoga use this kind of breathing as well. Opera singers use this kind of breathing. The idea is that when we inhale, our abdomen expands. When we exhale, our abdomen contracts.
What you’re doing physiologically is the diaphragmatic muscle is moving up and down, massaging all our organs down below our digestive organs. So, it brings more blood and qi into that part of our system.
Also, when we do our meditation, one of the meditations is—we’re breathing through our nose. As we breathe in, our abdomen expands and we imagine that we’re breathing in healing light—healing qi—that’s going down into our system and filling our system with this healing light, healing qi. [It] goes to all the places that have disease or pain or stuck energy, and kind of [opens] them up.
Then, as we exhale, we imagine we are breathing out any pain, distress, and disease. We see it in our mind’s eye as black smoke coming out of our nose. It’s a way of grounding yourself, of centering yourself.
When I was a kid in the ’50s, we had this toy that was a plastic doll that was weighted in the bottom with a weight. Every time you knocked it over, it would pop back up. The idea is: the more we ground ourselves [and] the more we fill ourselves from the bottom up, the more we have this sense of weightedness in our Lower Dantian, then we’re just like those dolls. When we get knocked over in life, instead of just lying on the floor and whining, we’re able to pop back up.
That’s a very, very foundational practice in almost all qigong and Taoist meditation practice. It’s amazing what people will feel. People who never felt grounded—people who walk around [and] their entire life is lived from their neck up. They don’t have a sense of who they are in their body. They don’t have a sense of a connectedness to the Earth or other life forms around them. They understand it all intellectually, but they don’t get it physiologically in their body.
In Taoist practice, it’s not enough to just understand these principles intellectually. We need to really feel them and experience them in our body.
TS: So, on the inhale, how do you make sure that you’re taking in fresh energy? What are you visualizing on the inhale?
ST: People can visualize like a glittering energy or a white cloud of energy. Healing in our mind’s eye, we see this healing light coming in to our body and filling our entire system.
TS: And is it coming in through the nose and travelling down the body? Or coming in through all the pores—?
ST: Yes. In the beginning, we keep things very simple. We’re imagining [and] we’re breathing in through our nose. But really, the next step is to imagine you’re actually breathing right into your navel.
The navel is a really important center—when we’re in utero [it’s] where we receive our oxygen and all our nutrients. So, sometimes they call this “embryonic breathing”—as if we were actually in utero, in the universe, and we’re still connected to the Great Mother. And we’re receiving our nutrients—our life support—from the Great Mother, and we’re receiving it through our navel—through our Lower Dantian.
I’ll just say: When you build a house, you build it from the foundation up. You don’t start with the roof. You start with building a strong foundation.
TS: So breathing in this glittering energy right into our navel—and then it travels three finger widths down into this area you’re calling the Lower Dantian?
ST: Yes—and then expands throughout our body.
So, there’s a feeling of expansion. Not only is our abdomen expanding, we feel our whole being is expanding and contracting—just like stars do. Just like flowers do. They open and they close, they open and they close. They don’t stay open all the time. They don’t stay closed all the time. There’s that back and forth—that give and take.
TS: Do you see some connection between the practice of this embryonic breathing and our sexual vitality and pleasure?
ST: Well, I think the more we are grounded in our body, of course we’re going to feel things differently. When we’re approaching our sexuality just from our head—just from images we see on the computer or in advertisements or something—our whole experience with our partner is going to be very different than when we come to them—especially when we’re both grounded in our bodies—[we] are able to not only be sensitive to our own body but to our partner’s. I think [that] could make a big difference.
TS: Now, there’s a very interesting chapter in your new book on the “The Tai Chi of Communion,” where you were looking at the principles of tai chi applied to relationship. I’d love to talk with you about a couple of these tai chi principles. One that you mentioned was “receiving with emptiness.” I’m wondering if you can explain that principle in tai chi and then how you think it can be applied to relationship.
TS: Part of it goes back to what we were talking about—having the empty cup. Being empty. The empty vessel—I named my magazine that because there’s a line in the Tao Te Ching that says, “Tao is an empty vessel, always ready to receive.” You can take energy out from it, but it never is empty itself. It’s an empty vessel just like the empty cup we were talking about.
Most people practice tai chi nowadays as a relaxation/meditation/health practice. Tai chi is a qigong practice, because we’re working with qi. We have these principles of sometimes we’re moving forward, sometimes we’re pulling back.
Sometimes you need to be forceful, you need to be yang; in a relationship, in a communication, in an instance of communicating with someone—your partner or someone you work with. Someone in your family.
Other times, it’s way better to not be forceful—to let them say what they need to say. Let them move forward and you move backward. It’s a way of communication and communing so that there’s always a sense of balance. There’s a give and take.
TS: In thinking about the principle [of] “receiving with emptiness,” I was thinking about conflicts in relationships and how that principle might be helpful in a conflict. I’m wondering if you could talk about that.
ST: Yes—a lot of times when there’s a conflict, sometimes we feel like we’ve been wronged and we feel very self-righteous, very hurt, or we feel very angry. We feel like it’s very important to let the other person know that they were wrong in wronging us. We can feel very attached to making sure they really get it. Sometimes, we may even want them to feel bad [in] the way we feel bad.
That just escalates everything. It doesn’t get us anywhere. There are ways to communicate that I feel hurt by something you did or said.
[One must] understand that part of this is my own pattern.
Part of this is my own pattern from childhood, from past relationships. It may not have anything to do with the other person.
The more we approach with this [idea of] not trying to get back at the other person or make the other person wrong or hurt the other person in turn, we can actually communicate with them in a much more clear way [so] that they can see what it is that’s not working. But they don’t have to feel defensive. If you’re not attacking someone, they don’t have to get defensive.
You know what I mean? So, they don’t have to lash out. That can go a long way towards better communications.
TS: Now, there was another tai chi principle that I thought was quite interesting that you applied to relationship. [This] is the principle of “rootedness.” I wonder if you can speak to that.
ST: It goes back to that thing: if we don’t have a strong sense of connection, of rootedness—whenever I teach qigong, the first practice we do is we’re standing. We’re using our mind intent—or our imagination—to send roots from the bottom of our feet down into the earth so that we’re like a tree with roots that are really strong in the earth.
When the wind blows us, our limbs can dance in the breeze, but we don’t get knocked over. We don’t get hurt as easily. We don’t get knocked off our center as easily. We’re able to be more true to our real nature—our true nature—in our communication and relationship with other people. All the other people that we’re in relationship with.
If we don’t—if we’re not rooted, if we’re not grounded, we’re easily knocked off—we’re going through our life with—we all know people that just go through one terrible experience after another. Or one anxiety after another. They’re always in a state of panic or in this kind of ungrounded state.
TS: One of the things I thought was interesting in the practice you offer in the book about rootedness is you describe—as you just did—about an individual becoming rooted by visualizing their roots going down in the ground, five times the size of their natural height.
But then you also had a second part, where you could visualize you and your partner’s roots intertwining together. I thought that was quite intriguing.
ST: Yes. Then you’re more like a forest instead of just a tree. You’re not a lone tree anymore—you’re a little closer to being a forest.
You know, when we look at trees—I say, “Visualize a tree,” [and] what do you think of? You see a trunk with limbs, branches, leaves, maybe flowers, and fruit. But actually, when we look at a tree, we’re only seeing the top half. There’s a whole other half that’s sometimes even larger in the root system.
We all have that ourselves. The face that we show to the world is only the top half of this tree. If people don’t know how to see your roots or you don’t have an experience of being rooted yourself, you can’t show that to other people and you can’t feel that with other people. Certainly, with your partner, I would think that that would be important—for you to feel that with each other.
So, you’re just not physically, emotionally, energetically entwined. But your roots are actually entwined. It’s a beautiful thing.
TS: Now, Solala, our program is called Insights at the Edge. One of the things I’m always curious about is how it’s actually going for people—putting what they know into practice in their lives. Especially in an area like relationships and sexuality. I mean, such a challenging part of life for most of us. I always want to know what people’s “edge” is.
So I’m curious—if you’re willing, here—to share to whatever degree you’re comfortable with our listeners what aspect of the Taoist principles of sacred union have been the most challenging for you in your life to really put into practice?
ST: Well, interesting you should ask that, because I was married for 25 years, [then] became divorced. Nine months later almost to the day, I met the woman who I am partnered with now. I’m the first guy she’s ever lived with. She had a lot of emotional, energetic issues.
So, what was great is I got to use all my Taoist training in going slowly (slower than I may have wanted to go); with being OK with what was actually going on rather than what I wish was going on; with accepting her for who she is. We’ve been together nine years now, and she still tells me how great it is that she feels totally accepted for who she really is—with all her foibles and everything, just like we all have. That feeling that she was able to be safe and accepted is what allowed her to flower and open to me.
So, it was great that I got to use these things I’ve been studying for so long in a very concrete way—and have it work!
TS: But would you say—even in your life right now, your current life—that there’s an edge for you? Meaning the part of us that’s still kind of hard and challenging.
ST: For me, it’s more along the lines of business kinds of things. Living on the edge—trying to find that balance of overworking or not working enough. I’m naturally very lazy, but there’s a part of me that really wants to accomplish some things and share all these things that I’ve been practicing and learning for so many years with other people. Because when I do, I get the response that it can be very helpful for people—and fun and exciting.
TS: OK. Now, going back to the book for a moment, there was another section of the book that I found quite interesting—which was talking about cycles in relationship and how, in our relationship, we often have hard times as well as really good times. [The section says] the Taoists can help us understand the low times and have a point of view during those hard, difficult times. I’m wondering if you could share what that is—how the Taoists help advise us during the difficult times.
ST: Yes. There’s a book that a lot of people use—not just Taoists. One of the most ancient books on the planet, really, is called the I Ching. It’s a book that is used for divination and also what we call “cultivation.” In Taoist practice, we call spiritual work “self-cultivation.”
It’s like we’re planting a garden. We clear the area. We clear all the old weeds and things out. We plant seeds and then we nurture them. We water them. We watch them. We try to let them grow naturally in their own time, and we harvest them when it’s time to harvest them.
We all go through big life cycles. Sometimes we go through many cycles in one day. Sometimes our energy is low; sometimes it’s up. Sometimes we’re feeling open; sometimes we’re feeling closed.
The idea [is] that that’s natural, that’s fine, that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes people feel like they want to be going really great at all times, and when they go into a low cycle they get really scared. The I Ching teaches us that all low cycles transform to high cycles and high cycles transform into low cycles.
So, when things are going really great, you don’t overextend because inevitably things are going to turn into a lower cycle. Or when you’re in a lower cycle, don’t give up hope, become hopeless, and despair.
The image [that] is used is the water’s going down—you know, the flowing water—and then it hits a dam and it gets stopped. Sometimes in life, we’re at these junctures where we feel we’re stopped. We can’t force our way through the dam. All we can do is to be peaceful within ourselves and wait for the water to eventually rise and flow over the dam again.
So, sometimes the most you can do is to not do anything. Back to that wu wei that we started talking about in the very beginning here.
Your partner may be in a different cycle than you. Sometimes, you’re in the same cycle together and it’s great. Or sometimes you’re both in a low cycle and it can be very challenging.
But respect the cycles and realize that’s part of life. Be able to work with them. I used to tell my girlfriend that I didn’t want us to get into a rut, but I wanted us to get into a groove.
TS: I like that. In many ways, this question may allow you summarize many of the things that we’ve talked about. But I’m wondering: if you had to name just a handful of what you think are the core misperceptions about relationships and sexual fulfillment in our culture—the most pervasive misperceptions—what do you think they might be?
ST: Boy, you really ask good questions.
One of the things I hate in movies [is] where it’s supposed to be a beautiful, passionate relationship that’s just beginning or is happening, and you see the two people physically crash into each other, start tearing each other’s clothes off, and it’s this very—it’s almost like they’re so excited, but it’s a very ungrounded [scene]. People feel like that’s what true passion is. You need to want to crash into each other, rip each other’s clothes off, and usually in the movies it lasts two, three minutes. And then for a lot of people, that is what it lasts.
Or they feel like they read a few books on tantra or sexual yoga, and they need to become some sort of sexual athlete to be fulfilled.
A real difficult thing in relationships is when you expect the other person to fulfill every one of your needs, and to be there for you in every way that you want someone to be there for [you]. Then you’re greatly disappointed when they can’t possibly fulfill that—because it’s not humanly possible. Whether that’s emotionally, sexually, energetically—those kinds of things—people have to get real.
The real can be very beautiful and the real can be more of a graceful dance than a crashing together. People think they have to have this incredible drama of passion going on. And then when you’re together for a number of years, that drama kind of starts going down a little bit. But as long as you keep that idea that you’re in the groove and not allow yourself to get into the rut, the passion can come in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it comes [and] it’s very quiet.
TS: Tell me what you mean by “the groove.” I have some ideas, but tell me what that means to you.
ST: It’s like dancing with someone. When you feel like the music is moving you and the music is just showing you which way to go. The more you listen to it, the more it shows you where to go. You’re with your partner, and you’re both moving to the music. You may hear the music in a totally different way because you’re totally different people. And then you also find a way to be in the same groove with the other person and dance with them that’s in a light, graceful, fun way.
Sometimes, it’s just brushing against each other in the kitchen as you’re walking past each other in the morning. Sometimes, it’s in high-passion drama. And sometimes, it’s just sitting next to each other reading a book, each being in your own world—but also feeling a closeness together.
It’s so very important not to make that other person be the be-all, end-all of the world for you, because it’s too much pressure for both of you.
TS: Now, Solala, I just have one last question for you. I was reading on your blog a piece where you say your personal practice these days consists in something you call “looking up.”
[Towler laughs.]
TS: What’s “looking up?”
ST: Well, it started with taking walks [and] realizing, “Oh, my head is down too much. I need to pick my head up.” Then it moved into looking up and seeing the tops—I love to sit in my yard; there’s a lot of huge trees in my neighborhood—seeing the tops of the trees dancing in the breeze. And looking up even in cities—especially some of the older cities—you can see a lot of interesting buildings and a lot of things that are at the top of the buildings that you wouldn’t see if you were just looking straight ahead.
Sometimes, looking up can mean taking a different approach. Sometimes [when] I take my walk, I tend to go through the neighborhood in a certain way. Sometimes I do it backwards and I see different things. Suddenly, there’s a sign these people have on their fence that is very playful and fun that I never saw before because I’m usually coming from the other direction.
Also, it’s something about taking the more expansive view. It’s like when we’re watching a movie on a television, and in the beginning we see the wall, the television, the screen. As we get more drawn into it, all we see is the film. We’re in the film. We don’t see the bigger picture.
Sometimes in life, we’re in a low cycle. We’re in a challenging cycle. And we’re so caught up in what’s going on right then that we lose sight of the bigger picture of where our spiritual journey is taking us. We have been in great places before and we probably will again. This is the time to not try to force our way or break our way out of this situation.
Relax. Gather our qi. Take an expansive view. Look up. It can also mean looking within.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Solala Towler. I just love his name. It sounds like water flowing to me. Solala. Towler.
With Sounds True, he is the author of a new book, The Tao of Intimacy and Ecstasy: Realizing the Promise of Spiritual Union. If you’re interested in more information about Solala, you can visit his website, where you’ll find his blog and also information about The Empty Vessel magazine—www.abodetao.com.
SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
