The Tao of Creativity
The Tao of creativity
Qigong master Michal Winn discusses the Taoist tradition in relation to creativity and the arts.
Michael Winn is a Taoist adept who has decades of experience teaching subtle energy methods internationally, from tantric kundalini yoga to tai chi, qigong, and inner alchemy meditation. He has worked with top spiritual teachers from many different traditions, including serving as the writer/editor of renowned qigong master Mantak Chia’s first seven books that established his fame. He is a founder and past president of the National Qigong Association, and founder and director of Healing Tao USA, the largest Tao arts program in the West.
Encountering the Tao
How did you come upon the tradition and practices of Taoism?
When I was young I knew I was very clever. In high school I won the California State Debate Championship. I beat a hundred thousand teams with a clever case no one was prepared for. I got into an Ivy League school, so from a conventional standpoint you could say things were going well for me… but I didn’t feel creative. I felt like I was just a smart monkey that could put things together to impress people. Rather than creating something that was really coming from myself, I was just moving chess pieces on the board in a clever way. And even though I never told anyone about how I felt, it really began to bother me.
After I graduated, I took a job in book publishing. Although things started off well, after several years my boss abruptly fired me. I said, “I’m doing a great job, why are you firing me?” She said, “Yes, you do a great job, but you don't belong here. This is a corporation. You're too creative.” I guess at this point I was beginning to get more in touch with my creative self. Looking back, getting kicked out of that corporation and the security it provided was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve been self-employed ever since.
After I left publishing, I taught myself photography, then traveled to Africa. I re-invented myself as a freelance journalist and war correspondent. Things started working in a very spontaneous and natural way. I travelled all over the world, writing, buying and selling handicrafts, doing all kinds of freelance things just to make ends meet. I loved it, because suddenly I was forced to be creative in order to survive.
Yet I still felt there was a limitation on my creativity, in the sense that I was only being creative in the outer aspects of my life. I knew there was a deeper, more fundamental quest I wanted to make. I got interested in the act of creation itself. Was there a god up there, and I its puppet at the end of a string, being created from above? Or am I being somehow generated from within? Am I creating my body? How and where did I get all my qualities? These questions drove me to explore different spiritual paths, to see if I could find answers.
I started to put my attention on what was going on inside my body-mind. On one level it felt like I was sculpting my life— my character, my being, my choices, my everything. My whole self was a creative, artistic process, yet I only knew my life from a printout on the outside. I wasn’t able to grasp the inner nature of it.
Eventually I stumbled upon Tao, the Natural Way. It felt much more embodied than many of the other traditions I’d explored, with a focus on deep inner-body processes. I found the Taoist practices of qigong and internal alchemy meditation gave me the tools I needed to go into my own psyche and start monkeying around. But now this was a creative monkey, not just a copycat monkey! I was finally able to start exploring the inner dimensions of my experience, getting into the psychic infrastructure of my creative self.
Taoist cosmology embraced Heaven, Earth, and Humanity holistically, evolving them via a single medium called qi [“subtle breath”]. This liberated me to integrate both the creative and the spiritual aspects of myself. Now I could start to explore things multi-dimensionally, using core concepts within Taoist cosmology such as Yin-Yang theory and the Five Elements. It gave me a map, enabling me to go deeper inside the physical, emotional, sexual, mental, and spiritual dimensions of my Self.
Creative Harmony
How do you feel that Taoism is relevant to artists and the creative process?
I think it might be interesting for artists curious how different spiritual paths relate to creativity, to realize what exactly Taoist practices are doing. It took me a very long time to figure this out. My Tao teacher gave me practices and tools, but he didn't truly understand exactly where they came from or how to take them deeper. So I spent many decades hacking into these practices, going through old texts, and seeking out a lot of knowledgeable spiritual teachers who gave me little clues along the way. Eventually I realized at the very root of it all was the essence of creativity itself.
The Chinese call this root creative energy yuan qi. It is the neutral force that mediates between the polarities of yin and yang. As readers may already know, yin and yang refer to pairs of opposites, such as male-female, hot-cold, sun-moon, left brain-right brain, etc. These opposites are in constant flux… but what regulates the balance of yin and yang? According to esoteric Taoism there is a third, neutral force, which is invisible. It’s very mysterious. Yuan qi doesn’t have any specific characteristics, and can only be grasped through the alchemical combustion that refines the play of yin and yang.
You can't say, “Oh, here it is, now I’ve found the secret sauce. I’ll do some practice, capture it, and focus it creatively.” It's not that simple. But if we explore the concept of yuan qi more deeply, I think we can find parallels to the artistic process. Just this idea alone might open up new creative pathways for us.
Many artists have a mind set or expectation that they need to be reactive in order to be creative. In other words, you're living a very polarized life with great highs and lows. You've suffered, and through that suffering you can try to generate a creative response. But suffering, according to Taoism, is itself just one side of a polarity. On the other side is joy. If you're unhappy, you're suffering. When you resolve the suffering through your art, you feel release, or joy, or happiness. So often a work of art is the expression of the resolution or release of that polar tension.
But does this mean we always have to suffer deeply in order to create? I don't think so. What I discovered in Taoist inner alchemy is there are not just these two polarities we always seem to be struggling to resolve. There’s a third force that lubricates the entire dance between yin-yang. This third neutral space opens up a more effortless place to create from, while still tapping into the dynamic yin-yang tension (e.g. sufferingi-joy) that gives us the original impetus to change.
This is actually the highest Taoist principle, called wu wei. It means “acting without effort”. I think you could translate it best simply as spontaneous action. It arises from our soul, to balance all the patterns of struggle in our personality. It then manifests this as effortless creative expression.
I’m sure every artist has had a glimpse or moment like this, of being totally in the flow. All of us would love to be able – at will - to open up a deeper energetic connection to our soul, or inner witness, or whatever language we choose to use. They all refer to something within us that is creating from a much deeper place than our normal, everyday identity.
The Taoist view of this deeper realm of the Self is quite interesting. In their definition the body-mind consists of 12 vital organ spirits, each of which reflects the creative inner structure of Nature itself. You could say our personal creative soul process steps down the dynamic tensions between the 12 Over Souls of our cosmos. These show up in culture everywhere, as 12 Greek god/desses atop Mount Olympus, or the 12 signs of the Zodiac, or any other system that seeks to unify the inner and outer spheres of reality.
These 12 organ spirits within us each have their own personality and creative agenda. One wants to dance, another one wants to eat, one wants to make money, another wants to sleep. then depending on your constitution, you're going to have clusters of stronger and weaker aspects. These qualities are defined by the five elements of fire, water, wood, metal and earth. Your unique combination of these 5 elements within your 12 sub-personalities is what drives your creative process.
These 12 body-spirits are always in a state of dynamic interaction, sometimes battling each other, other times working together in harmony. It’s like any family dynamic, only its internal. When we talk about being in a state of struggle or conflict, the term monkey mind is appropriate. Monkey mind is basically when your body-spirits are running around in 12 different directions, each trying to do their own thing.
Eventually the 12 monkeys disperse their qi and tire themselves out. They haven't learned how to focus and harmonize the creative will of the group to accomplish one unified, creative act. But if we learn to harmonize their polarities by infusing them with yuan qi, using qigong or the Inner Smile meditation, they start to co-create more efficiently. The yuan qi inspires a vision that transcends the limited goal of any one of them.
This is the challenge every human being faces. We have all these tendencies pulling us in many directions, and the artist has to say, “hey team, let's get together and focus on this." We're going to create this piece of music, or this sculpture, or write this book... so you've got to pull your whole inner psyche family together. Get them to creatively cooperate, ask each to offer their unique abilities to the task at hand.
This is precisely what the formulas of qi gong and inner alchemy are all about. Through them I’ve found I can connect with the energies and intelligences of the different organ spirits. I can actually communicate with them and start to organize them. There are higher practices where you can follow them into even deeper dimensions, going further and further back into [the] Source.
Before I entered into this path, I felt I was in the dark, trying to create things in response to what I needed to produce. But after working with these tools for many years, I feel like I'm creating much closer from the source of my authentic, deepest Self. That's been an incredible gift for me, enabling me to speak in my true voice, without worrying about reactions from others.
Entering the Path
How can we begin working with these tools and practices?
That's exactly the question I had in college when I first read Lao Tzu’s twenty-five-hundred-year-old text, called the Tao Te Ching. I said, wow, this is beautiful poetry; it’s so sublime, but how do you do it? It wasn't until I stumbled upon the practices of qigong and internal alchemy that I went, “Oh, here's the answer!”
The ancient Taoists already understood what quantum physics is telling us today, that it’s an illusion that you're a solid object as a body. For the Taoists, there’s ultimately no distinction between body and mind. Their basic premise is that everything is made out of vibrating energy, and through qigong and alchemy meditation that pair and neutralize polarities, we begin to achieve an ever-deepening level of perception. We gradually learn how to navigate the cosmic energy field.
CORE PRACTICES
One exercise I’ve found to be very helpful for almost everyone on this path is ‘Deep Earth Pulsing Qigong’. It's a simple exercise. It feels like you're just walking in place, but what you're actually doing is focusing your qi and awareness down into the center of the earth. This links your personal energy field with the much greater and more stable energy field of the planet. (watch 10 min. video of practice here).
Many artists are not very well-grounded, their creative fire is spewing all over the place. Deep Earth Pulsing Qigong helps strengthen our rootedness in the earth. It also makes us more aware of the fact that Mother Earth is an incredibly dynamic, creative being. Through movement, breath, and mental focus, the practice helps us go deep into the core of what I call the ‘heart-womb of Mother Earth’. We start coming into contact with the presence of something much deeper and greater that is around us all the time, yet we’ve never noticed Her because we’re too distracted by our monkey mind.
The practice is very simple and easy to learn, and I’ve found it’s really helped a lot of people from many different walks of life. It’s as if they start to say, “Ok, I’m walking through life, but now I feel I'm walking more deeply in the energy field around me. I’m not just on the surface of the earth, I'm connecting deep inside the planet’s energetic processes. I'm pumping that energy back up into my body."
Another fundamental practice is the ‘Six Healing Sounds’. This practice involves various sounds paired with simple arm movements, each connected to a different organ. As you make each movement and sound you activate specific acupuncture meridians, enabling your qi to move and release the creative flow of stuck energies and emotions. A video is available for purchase on my website that can be purchased (available here), along with the whole package of my Fundamentals courses, which include many other core practices.
A practice easily accessible to everyone is called the ‘Inner Smile’. It’s rooted in a very simple activity—everybody knows how to “outer smile”. We smile at people all the time, it’s a fundamental part of social life. Scientists have concluded it's not a learned activity, but an innate behavior. All babies naturally know how to smile. If we can reverse the direction of our outer smile, and turn it inward toward ourselves, we’re able to focus that loving and healing energy toward our organ spirits, meridians, and cultivate many spiritual qualities. For artists, it’s an invaluable tool when used to dissolve creative blockages or unfathomable resistance.
Many people have the idea that meditation is about trying to empty the contents or stop their mind. Many of these ideas come from traditions that don't really value the experience of being in the world. They are escapist, anti-creative and anti-embodiment. Alas, in trying to reach emptiness, they turn off their creative juices, claiming they cause worldly “attachment”.
I once asked a young Taoist in China why he became a monk. He replied: “I was a Buddhist monk. But they banned me from playing music or studying the I Ching Book of Changes. They said it would create attachment. So I switched to Tao. Now my heart sings every day! I am very happy exploring my creative feelings.”
The Tao Inner Smile is the opposite—it does not suppress or negate anything. Rather it cultivates our self-loving, creative energy to focus on whatever we feel is our highest destiny. [To get a Free copy of Michael Winn’s $20. ebook ‘Way of the Inner Smile’ sign up to his mailing list here.]
The Inner Smile does not try to stop our mind. It actually encounters and accepts our mind at a deeper level inside our body. Many people told me they can't meditate, as they get frustrated when they can’t stop their mind. I tell them, “Don't stop your mind. Stopping suppresses its innate creativity. Mind seeks love and harmony, to amplify the flow of its creative energy.“
Mental activity is completely healthy and natural, especially when focused on creating our highest destiny. Observe children: they bubble over with creative energy. They’re masters of living spontaneously, of wu-wei! Astonishing things just leap out of them. You’re like, “where do you get that from, man?” It’s incredible, how their play is non-stop creativity. I love being around my 11-year old son as he is such a beautiful expression of divine playfulness. I encourage artists to explore the practice of smiling to their inner child, to unleash its power of creative play. That play is a true meditation on [the] Source.
The true artists take the essence of life, and spontaneously create from it. Suffering can inspire creativity, but great art doesn't require suffering. Kids create spontaneously, without suffering. You see it all the time.
Songs of the Soul
I divide the spiritual path available to everyone into three phases:
physical-sensory body,
energy or light body,
the sound body.
The physical body everyone knows as the vessel of the personality. If we look deeper within it, we encounter the light body, which contains all your meridians and energy flow. In 2009 Fritz Popp discovered every cell and our DNA emit measurable light. It’s a case of science trying to catch up to the Taoists who have been exploring subtle light realities for thousands of years. Scientists can only describe it from the outside; they can’t access it from within.
The message is: don’t wait for science to validate our subtle bodies as real. Inner alchemy is both a spiritual science and a creative art, with tools available right now. They’ve been time-tested for millennia, and allow us to actually encounter, communicate with, and creatively shape higher dimensional subtle energy.
The third phase, the sound body, might be interesting to musicians. From this perspective, everything starts off as sound, and steps itself down into light. Then the light steps itself down into tangible heat and physical form. My conclusion is that at the very highest level, our universe is singing itself into existence. Although it may sound fantastic, I've had incredible experiences of listening to the Music of the Spheres, hearing planetary tones, and other kinds of celestial music that arises during alchemy meditation.
It’s amazing to hear, in the inner space of our cosmos, Creation singing itself into existence. It may be the highlight of my meditative journey. I had an especially profound experience when my wife of many years was dying in 2008. I was sitting with her, when suddenly the heavens opened up, as if to receive her soul. The room was filled with ethereal music from a celestial orchestra. The beauty of it was so great, beyond description, I was overwhelmed. I lost all fear of death on that day.
I feel that music is the universal language, the vibrational language of our cosmos. No matter we are born Chinese, German, or English; music transcends ordinary language. We may not understand a foreign language. But music instantly cuts across all cultural boundaries as a direct transmission to our soul.
It’s because our soul itself is a musical pattern. Nature tracks everyone by their unique soul song. It's a series of high-pitched tones that are your unique vibrational signature. It’s why we ‘vibe” with some people, and not with others.
I think every artist is exploring this in some way. They are involved in a creative process, and are using some medium to bring out their unique voice or soul signature. Ultimately, everyone is an artist expressing their soul song, in order to manifest their highest worldly destiny. Tao spiritual practices can open up a whole range of voices inside of us. Our job is to harmonize them, get them to work together, to co-creatively sing them into the world.
— Learn about Michael Winn’s workshops, retreats, and audio-videos offerings at: www.healingtaousa.com —
