Solala Blog for 4/25/14

0

Well it looks like once again I have been majorly remiss about adding a new blog. Life is just so darn full! We recently connected with a new printer in IL who, for the same price I have been paying for black and white printing of The Empty Vessel, does it in full color! We just did our first issue with them and it turned out great! (You can find it, the Spring 14 issue in our store.)

It is really pretty amazing that we have managed to keep this magazine afloat for so many years (21). It was the fall of 1993 that I was inspired to start a Daoist magazine once I looked around and saw there was nothing that really went into the Daoist philosophy as well as practices, at least here in the States. Actually, I was initially inspired by Tricycle, a very fine Buddhist magazine.

And of course the name for the magazine comes from Laozi, chapter 4.

Dao is an empty vessel;
it is used but never exhausted.
It is the fathomless source
of the ten thousand beings!
It blunts the sharp
and untangles the knots.
It softens the glare
and unites with the dust of the world.
It is tranquil and serene
and endures forever.
I do not know from where it comes
yet it is the ancestor of us all.

In the 21 years since I began the magazine I have tried to become that empty vessel, to bring these wonderful practices and teachings from Daoism to my readers and students. Recently, when I interviewed Dr. Bernard Shannon, medical qigong healer and instructor as well as ordained Daoist priest, for the Spring issue, he mentioned a term that is used in his school in China for anyone that identifies with Daoism but is not ordained: Daoyou, meaning “friend of the dao.”

I love this idea of being a friend of Dao. I have met so many wonderful people while publishing this magazine all these years. It has taken me to so many wonderful places and I look forward to continuing on this path for this lifetime at least!

I bow in gratitude to all the Daoyou’s out there!