Dancing with the Tao: Dhugal Meachem on Yin Yoga and Taoism

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hey, Yinis, and welcome to a yin Yoga. Podcast, if you are new around here, welcome

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for those of you that are, return listeners, welcome back. Thanks for coming back.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We are going to have a guest interview today, and I’m super stoked about it. I’ll talk more about that in just a moment. But before we get to that, I just wanted to share a little bit of podcast. Love that I have received.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This is from Jeannie Wynn

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Nick brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to these podcasts. For those who practice or teach Yin Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She explores themes with grace, encouraging teachers to consider what and how they teach

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and shares thoughts on all things. Yin, a highly

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Nyk Danu Yoga: thought-provoking, informative, podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: thank you, Janie.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you have been listening for a while, and you have yet to offer a review.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’d be super grateful if you wouldn’t mind taking

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a couple of minutes to go into whatever app you’re listening to this on and give it 5 stars. If you’re on apple, you also have the option to write a written review, which is what I just read.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this really helps the podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: grow. When the algorithms, you know, those nebulous algorithms see that people are enjoying the podcast they’re taking the time to rate it, that they’re subscribing and following this helps to boost the podcast up. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you would do that, if you’re a regular listener, I would be super grateful.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So just also a reminder that this is an adult podcast with adult subject matter. So if you have small people around.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: please take note of that and grab some headphones.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Today we have a guest.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: A friend and colleague.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Google Meetum.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Some of you may have know may know Dougal.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m just gonna read his bio. I’m gonna try to do it without laughing, because Dougal, if you don’t know him, has quite the sense of humor.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Dougal practiced Tibetan meditation in the early nineties in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: While practicing Qigong and Young family Tai Chi.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: he eventually started teaching Tai Chi in Hong Kong, but got a little bored with it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and later realized it’s because he hit compression all over the places in the stances, and they were painful for him all

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and fell into a yoga class. Thinking that would be better.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: he started teaching in the alignment alignment. Nazi Anusara! Yoga! No, he’s so funny, and then became an ambassador for Noah Maze.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Noah Maze is a great guy, but even more alignment. On a trip to Beijing he was buying fake Yoga Dvds. One night in a dark alley, and he inadvertently picked up some bald guys. Yin Yoga, DVD.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And the whole

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Nyk Danu Yoga: movement world changed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I loved the guy.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: He’s speaking of Paul Grilly for those of you who don’t know I booked my 1st training that week in

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 2,011 in Thailand, and haven’t looked back since. He seemed to serve all of my yoga hits. Chi Yoga Chinese medicine meditation.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Dougal ran his own little studio in Hong Kong before moving to Scotland in 2,015, where he now runs a 500 h, black black Mat Yogi online, and in the Uk. And in Italy, and the program focuses on yin and functional anatomy, an intro to the dao and to chi

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Nyk Danu Yoga: chica, which is kind of like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Qigong.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and some of the young practices a hundred hour chiology, which is nurturing Chi

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for a hundred hours, and then a meditation course. That’s a hundred hours, and it is much inspired by the grillies.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but more so by the Dao Zen Chinese medicine than they are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: simply because that’s his background, and where he finds peace, and I would agree.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: He also graduated with an undergraduate degree in Chinese in 1,996. He has a master’s in martial arts. Cinema. That’s amazing. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And he’s a qualified young style. Tai Chi

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Nyk Danu Yoga: instructor along with Qigong.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s a little bit about Dougal, and the next time that you hear from me I will be here with Dougal.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s a little bit about. Dougal is

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as as official of a bio as you can get with Dougal. I met Dougal. I can’t remember what year it was. Which of my Paul grilly trainings. What year but we were in one of the levels many levels together. And

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Nyk Danu Yoga: just thought he was such a

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Nyk Danu Yoga: hilarious guy. 1st of all. I’m always, you know, a big fan of the Scottish, I must say, he’s funny and just warm hearted. Just a genuine good person. And I really appreciated his knowledge on, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: kind of the Taoism and the the Chinese aspect of things, which, of course, I’m not super knowledgeable in. Yes, I studied Tcm.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: For a few years, but I have not studied Taoism in depth, and certainly don’t have anywhere near

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the amount of knowledge and information on these things as Dugal does. So when I knew I wanted to have an episode on Taoism, I knew right away had to be with Dugal.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So the next time that you hear from me it’ll be myself and Dougal together.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hey, Dougal, thank you so much for coming to hang out with us today.

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Dhugal Meachem: Hey, Nick, it’s really nice to be with you and to be in Canada. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for those of you who are listening or watching on Youtube. Dougal does not live in Canada, and I do so. When I reached out to him to say, Hey, do you want to come on the Podcast, and was thinking it was going to be a nightmare with European time zones in my time zone, and he’s like actually

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Nyk Danu Yoga: going to be in Canada in a few weeks. So here we are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Before we get into the topic I would love to just hear kind of like the

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the abridged version of like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how did you even find yoga

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I, I gathered from your bio, which is hysterical. By the way, very, very much. Do go through the whole thing so good that you kind of did a bit more of the the Chinese aspect first, st like the Tai Chi gong, and then did yoga. And okay. So I’d love to hear a bit more about, maybe even just how you found

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like, what was it about Tai Chi gong? And

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, China, that that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: piqued your interest. We could start. Maybe there.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, I think. You know, you know. I know for a little bit from your background how childhood influences

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Dhugal Meachem: your what happens in life, and

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Dhugal Meachem: for better or for worse, I found myself in Singapore in my teenage

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Dhugal Meachem: years. My father was a pharmaceutical sales, rep

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Dhugal Meachem: selling hepatitis vaccines in southeast Asia

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Dhugal Meachem: and so I just got exposed to that really early on and in Singapore we used to walk down the street at night eating gorgeous food.

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Dhugal Meachem: and I walk past Chinese medicine shops, and I just used to look in them and go

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Dhugal Meachem: like hanging, you know, dead snakes and bits of

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Dhugal Meachem: I don’t know tiger paw, or really weird fruits and stuff, and they smell really crazy and really interesting. And sometimes I’d go with my pocket money. I’d go and drink stuff from that little store, the little lady on there and go. Wow! That’s disgusting. What does that do? Kind of like Charlie and the chocolate factory and

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Dhugal Meachem: that grew from there. I had just fell in love with Southeast Asia. My 1st crushes were local girls at the time. I, my favorite food still is from there.

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Dhugal Meachem: And when I when I went to university, my mom said, What do you want to do? And I went duh Chinese and

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Dhugal Meachem: I didn’t want to go to Communist China, so I went to Taiwan and my year out, and there I started studying Qi Gong and Tai, Chi and Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetans for all of the political crap that they’ve had over the last hundreds, hundreds of years. There’s loads of Tibetans throughout

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Dhugal Meachem: Hong Kong Taiwan, Singapore and beautiful beautiful meditation teachers.

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Dhugal Meachem: so I just. I got a bad back from sitting down all the time and listening to them. So

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Dhugal Meachem: Qigong

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Dhugal Meachem: in Mandarin, because I ended up speaking pretty good. Mandarin and had spent some time in Hong Kong 20 years in Hong Kong after that. And so it’s just this is just this natural

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Dhugal Meachem: curiosity of a very, very different way of seeing the world and thinking about the world and experiencing the world.

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Dhugal Meachem: and

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Dhugal Meachem: And eventually, you know, I got into my thirties and started doing more formal Yoga. And then it just I started teaching Qigong and Tai Chi in my twenties in Hong Kong, and

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Dhugal Meachem: and then I just got kind of bored of it, and I just did some yoga and and now, here I’m in my fifties, and I’m still playing around with all of this stuff, and it’s just been a beautiful

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Dhugal Meachem: way of me enjoying life and and getting and getting and feeling

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Dhugal Meachem: good about life, feeling good about people. The Yogic experience that the Qigong and Taoist and Buddhist

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Dhugal Meachem: Tibetan

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Dhugal Meachem: traditions are really all about being super super

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Dhugal Meachem: happy

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Dhugal Meachem: and and bringing that happiness to other people. So.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I didn’t know that actually about the large percentage of Tibetans.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, it makes sense now. But it’s like, Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. I I have a fair bit of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Tibetan meditation experience as well.

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Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, that’s cool.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So when did you move from?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay? So you you were teaching like Qigong and Tai Chi and stuff before you started teaching Yoga. How did you make the journey to Yoga?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then to teaching Yoga.

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Dhugal Meachem: Well.

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Dhugal Meachem: the really great thing about yoga is.

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Dhugal Meachem: I think, in English. When we say yoga we mean like Indian yoga, like Hotta yoga Vinyasa yoga hot yoga bikram yoga, etc. in Yoga. When you say, Oh, Yoga in Asia.

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Dhugal Meachem: like the Tibetans do yoga like, there’s something called the the 8 Tibetans, or whatever it’s called. Yeah. The the Taoists say that they do yoga, they call it, which is just a fanaticization of Yoga.

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Dhugal Meachem: And so Yoga really is

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Dhugal Meachem: often very physical practices to go with the

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Dhugal Meachem: the meditation and spiritual aspects. So

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Dhugal Meachem: well, actually say, I’ve been already doing. I already felt like I’d already been doing yoga! When I’ve been doing qigong, it would actually go and say our stretching would be called yoga. Let’s do some.

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Dhugal Meachem: Let’s do some Yoga stretching before we did our Qigong or Tai Chi. So

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Dhugal Meachem: when I went to do yoga.

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Dhugal Meachem: I kinda it was just another flavor of just like, you know Baskin Robbins, just another flavor of the same ice cream

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Dhugal Meachem: kind of thing.

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Dhugal Meachem: and so when I got into yoga in the noughties and eventually became a teacher trainer in the early teens. I already had this big mix of Tibetan meditation, Chi and Chinese medicine playing around Yoga, which is all about prana

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Dhugal Meachem: and then Yoga is just very sexy in the late noughties and early teens.

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Dhugal Meachem: Hong Kong, huge, huge studios, with all the best teachers coming through, like the most in famous teachers that anyone would know, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Celebrities.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, it was the rock stars of Yoga and and our teacher Paul was there

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Dhugal Meachem: also. He wasn’t very well received, because it was too boring. Everyone wanted to be, you know, doing one finger handstands and stuff.

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Dhugal Meachem: so so it was just really another flavor and explanation and exploration. I went straight into Vinyasa and Hata Yoga and became a teacher, then a teacher trainer, and I opened my studio and I’ve helped a lot of people. I’ve helped myself. I think you will agree with me, Nick. We’re in it for ourselves, primarily, to begin with, and we heal ourselves and and in Hong Kong. It’s a big stressed out city and people were thirsty.

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Dhugal Meachem: great Indian teachers coming through there. As I said, Tibetans as well, and international teachers. So it’s really a really beautiful place. And I was stressed out suit at the time I was the china guy because I spoke mandarin. I had a real job

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Dhugal Meachem: with a suit on. And these ideas and these people I met through Yogis and Indian Yogis and Tibetan meditation practitioners and Taoists and

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Dhugal Meachem: Buddhists.

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Dhugal Meachem: They’re all really. And we’ll come out. You talked about Yin and Yang, you say, on on this podcast another episode, it’s the yin side to this massive Yang experience of business and achievement.

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Dhugal Meachem: And that’s what I’ve realized is

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Dhugal Meachem: we? We need to spend more time and get really comfortable in that, in aspect of life. And even when you’re doing a 1 finger handstand or a, you know, a really intense

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Dhugal Meachem: fast, that’s what you really

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Dhugal Meachem: digging into. You’re getting into the rest and relax and recover

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Dhugal Meachem: fresh and emptiness and

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Dhugal Meachem: all that kind of stuff. So they’re all just different flavors of the same thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: being able to speak, Mandarin is

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Nyk Danu Yoga: such a gift whenever i’m doing my teacher training and I, I come across a word that I I know is I’m always. I always apologize immediately. I’m like I am about to butcher this. But here we go. That was the one class that I wish I would have taken before I dropped out of Tcm. School was at least medical mandarin, so at least I had some. But no, I have none.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And now, of course, you are running and what we can talk we’ll definitely include a link to your your teacher trainings and stuff like that in in the show notes for anyone who wants to check those out. But now, of course, you’re training teachers, and you’ve got like several different courses that you’re doing, which is amazing.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, I I mean, I I learned my mandarin by karaoke, if that’s any.

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Dhugal Meachem: That was the way I started. Yeah. So I highly recommend that approach rather than medical management. But

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, it. Probably.

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Dhugal Meachem: Have been less.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Stressful.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, I mean, I just

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Dhugal Meachem: really, really, what I find. And particularly post Covid is, people are stressed out. They talk about mental illness. We talk about trauma, trauma informed. Yoga is very

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Dhugal Meachem: kind of buzzy right now. A lot of.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Teachers.

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Dhugal Meachem: Talking about that.

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Dhugal Meachem: And so I started off with a 200 h yin program, which you know, functional yin where variable anatomy all this stuff

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Dhugal Meachem: you and I

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Dhugal Meachem: I know you are still passionate about it, because I, as I watch you

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Dhugal Meachem: on the Gram and other places and but then from there, you know, it’s just really

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Dhugal Meachem: Yin is on the I. I talk about 3 levels of practice using Taoist model, which I’m sure we’ll talk about later.

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Dhugal Meachem: But physical, energetic, and psycho emotional, and the physical practice of yin just begs you to go into being really comfortable with quiet and stillness

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Dhugal Meachem: and because I

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Dhugal Meachem: I know from my personal experience and working with teachers and students and modern people, that people are not comfortable. Their mental space is not comfortable with quiet. It’s on kind of a endless verbal diarrhea in the brain of I’m good, I’m bad. I don’t like this. I’m a bad person. I’m a good person. You’re a good person. I’m a bad person. Blah blah!

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Dhugal Meachem: And so we actually spend a whole 100 h in there in my meditation part, I’m not aware of too many 500 h programs that have a whole 100 h based on meditation. But that’s what I do.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Well they should.

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Dhugal Meachem: We have a great time in there. I think it’s maybe even more popular than the

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Dhugal Meachem: than the in stuff.

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Dhugal Meachem: so we do that, and then we have a what I call a geology like biology. But geology.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Nice.

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Dhugal Meachem: Which is 100 h on

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Dhugal Meachem: Chi, and

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Dhugal Meachem: seeing the body and the mind and the heart as one integrated

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Dhugal Meachem: thing which we really really can get so much out of if we look after them in a way, that which is very different way of thinking of modern

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Dhugal Meachem: medicine, though you got a headache, have some aspirin you got.

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Dhugal Meachem: Stomach ulcer. Take this. Yeah, it’s it’s very reductionist and I’ve got so much.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Western model right? Especially with allopathic medicine to just like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that’s 1 of the things I loved so much studying Chinese medicine was this conversation about the root and the branch.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: about how it’s like, yes, we’re gonna get you out of pain. But we’re also gonna look back over here and figure out, where is this coming from? Yeah. And it’s so frustrating to deal with.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, regular listeners, or anybody who’s

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Nyk Danu Yoga: taking my training will know.

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Dhugal Meachem: Like that like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s just like, Oh, something’s wrong. Here’s a here’s a little quick fix for that, you know.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah. And I do practice acupuncture. And one thing you know. Now I’m in my early fifties. I’ve become by default a kind of a menopause. Doctor. Just a lot of my patients are menopausal women.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Damn if you weren’t closer to me!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s like.

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Dhugal Meachem: And you know we buy. I had one woman recently who

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Dhugal Meachem: who couldn’t stop having her period. I don’t know if happily talk about periods for like a minute here, but just by mindfulness practices. This is fire in Chinese medicine. She’s had so much fire in her body, and I gave her a mancha which is basically chill the hell out

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Dhugal Meachem: and just relax. And and her period stopped within a 2 weeks of just doing that practice. So that’s crazy. Crazy idea. Anybody?

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah.

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Dhugal Meachem: who’s kind of coming

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Dhugal Meachem: from somewhere far left of what we’re talking about. But.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I would imagine that you probably often get folks, because this is how I came to acupuncture.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I actually came to acupuncture because I have a chronic tight, right trapezius.

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Dhugal Meachem: Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so my my chiropractor would adjust me, and then he’d be like, and you’re out again because it. This was just like not letting go. And he said, You know, you should try some acupuncture. And at the same time I had been dealing with a bunch of health challenges which now, basically, I know, was like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: totally Chi depletion, or, you know, kind of like a chronic fatigue situation. And I’d been going to doctors and getting tests. And they were all like, you’re within the range of normal. And I was like, but I’m no.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, normal.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know I’m used to being the energizer, Bunny, and I can’t get out of bed. That is not normal, you know, and it was. So I went through the right trapezius. But when the acupuncturist did the long intake that you all do, especially that 1st one.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I told her that. Yeah. Well, nobody seems to know what’s going on, she said. Well, that’s interesting, because in Chinese medicine, that’s all the same thing. And I was like.

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Dhugal Meachem: Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Say what you know. Yeah, it’s just a totally different way of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: looking at

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Nyk Danu Yoga: everything. The body, nature, all of it.

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Dhugal Meachem: And that’s the opportunity of that’s why I love Yoga. That’s why I love meditation. That’s why I love Chinese medicine, because it’s just a different fresh to us. What Western is like you? What? Huh? Way of looking at things? And it really works. If it didn’t, I’m a fairly sciencey guy. Me, too.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I was, I would say I have one foot in the woo and one foot in the no, I don’t know.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Your source for that. Yeah.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, and but a lot of stuff like this. This menstrual patient who came to me just being able to fix her just by meditating is like what and but she’s on. She’s not all the people who come to me

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Dhugal Meachem: often. Acupuncture they’ve been to their doctor. They’ve been to their specialist. They’ve been tested up the Yin Yang.

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Dhugal Meachem: and they’re coming to me is like I, this is crazy bullshit. But okay, like no one else can help. So let’s give this a shot.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Dhugal Meachem: And I quite like that position. Because I don’t have to.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, prove anybody. I can just say, Okay, well, it’s crazy. It’s basically voodoo. But here we go.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Let’s try it out. See how it works. You know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that might be a really good segue to test. To start with today’s

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Nyk Danu Yoga: topic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think it’s so interesting, too, that you did go study. Tcm, because I don’t think you were doing that last time I saw you. No, yeah. And I wasn’t, and I oh, I was.

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Dhugal Meachem: Formally, no.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I had just started when I saw you so so interesting! How many of us kind of get pulled over that way?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But you, of course, have a background even before your Tcm studies. And you know, Taoist thought Taoism just Chinese culture. So I would. This is why, when I was like, I need someone to just kind of come and give like a Taoism one on one. I was like, it’s gotta be Dougal so maybe we could start with that now, just with kind of like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how? What is Taoism? And how is it

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Nyk Danu Yoga: different? Like, why was the philosophy

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Nyk Danu Yoga: different.

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Dhugal Meachem: Can we start with a little story.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Love stories. Please. Yes.

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Dhugal Meachem: So there’s this is a very famous painting in China, which most school kids and adults will know. It’s called the San Suan.

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Dhugal Meachem: or the

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Dhugal Meachem: the 3 old vinegar people. I guess you could call it

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Dhugal Meachem: 3 olds, this 3 old bit of guys.

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Dhugal Meachem: And it’s 3 men sitting around a big vat, which is a vat of vinegar.

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Dhugal Meachem: and the 3 men are Buddha.

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Dhugal Meachem: the Confucius, and Lao Tz. The.

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Dhugal Meachem: Historical founder of Taoism, and

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Dhugal Meachem: Buddha takes a spoon of the vinegar and puts it in his mouth and goes.

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Dhugal Meachem: oh, life is suffering.

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Dhugal Meachem: And anyone who studied any amount of Buddhism will. That’s 1 of the most famous things like the whole approach to Buddhism is life is

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Dhugal Meachem: if you don’t get life. Life can be just seen as just hard, grindy, nasty.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Dhugal Meachem: Room, and then you die. Yeah. So

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Dhugal Meachem: the Confucius, who’s the kind of the most famous

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Dhugal Meachem: kind of

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Dhugal Meachem: mainstream, if you think Asian culture, and you think of, you know family units, and how Asians are very, very stratasized culture.

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Dhugal Meachem: So so Confucius takes a drip of the sip of the vinegar and goes. Hmm! That’s good. But it needs a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of that, and bit of that, and then it’ll be better.

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Dhugal Meachem: Confucians are always the fixers. They’re the. They’re the Republican party of the United States, you know. They take something, and then we’ll make it better again. Let’s not get into politics. We’ll make it. We’ll improve it. It’s good, but it needs

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Dhugal Meachem: needs a bit of work.

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Dhugal Meachem: And

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Dhugal Meachem: Laoza, who’s in the back, watches these other 2 people, and then he takes a sip of the vinegar and goes.

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Dhugal Meachem: That’s good shit. That’s good vinegar, because vinegar is

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Dhugal Meachem: vinegar. It’s gonna taste like vinegar. So you don’t need to. It’s not suffering you. It doesn’t need fixing.

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Dhugal Meachem: And

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Dhugal Meachem: when I so I I spent a long time with Tibetan

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Dhugal Meachem: Buddhist meditators. Have you just have to be in China to be surrounded by Confucians? And that’s why you have, you know, dragon moms making their kids study

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Dhugal Meachem: dentistry and medicine and engineering and law to be the best to fix the world. So you’re surrounded by that. But Taoism is is kind of very much the the safety valve to Asian East Asian culture particularly.

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Dhugal Meachem: and you can always see these kind of figures around

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Dhugal Meachem: in Hong Kong in Taiwan, in Japan particularly. These are the Zen Buddhists, the ones who just go. You know what

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Dhugal Meachem: this is? A. This is a philosophy for people who don’t want to continuously fix and change and improve all the time. This

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Dhugal Meachem: we have this in the Western. I think we have Bohemians and artists and musicians and people live on, you know Vancouver Island, and those kinds of folks

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Dhugal Meachem: who

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Dhugal Meachem: who you know what? Actually, if you just leave life as it is.

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Dhugal Meachem: we you’ll find there’s a huge amount of great stuff happening. It’s a it’s a relationship with the world around us as well. You don’t need to, you know.

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Dhugal Meachem: Dig up and dredge and make artificial cities. You’ll find that actually the the ancients and old people and old cultures know how to live with the land. Very intelligent.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Absolutely

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Dhugal Meachem: I just find this. I just looked at it living in at that time in Hong Kong

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Dhugal Meachem: and in Taipei big cities and went, wow! There’s people here who have a really really

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Dhugal Meachem: interesting relaxed

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Dhugal Meachem: and what they would call natural approach. And so I got really fascinated by it. And even for them. The Buddhists were working too hard.

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Dhugal Meachem: you know, to try and get

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Dhugal Meachem: realized, or to get Shamati, or to get Nirvana.

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Dhugal Meachem: and they just basically seem to do nothing and then get realized, which I loved as a yin yoga practitioner, you know. Do nothing lying around on the floor, and certainly your back feels better so. Oh, you can apply this to your whole life as well. So that’s Taoism.

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Dhugal Meachem: as an idea. And it’s just now 2, 3,000 years old as a philosophy.

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Dhugal Meachem: and I love it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I have been really inspired by

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: there’s the nature base of it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I remember when I was in Chinese medicine school.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I loved all of the theory that we were presented with, and you know in Tcm foundations. I know a lot of my classmates were like, Huh! I don’t get it. And I was like, Yes, of course, this makes perfect sense, you know, it just really made sense to me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then but it wasn’t until we took kind of the 5 element area where I was like, Oh, okay. Now, now I found my heart because it was just really connecting.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, instead of just lists of things from a textbook it felt like. Oh, this is now like a circular experience for me.

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Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

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Dhugal Meachem: yeah, I think the that’s a bit a big thing. So

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Dhugal Meachem: The

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Dhugal Meachem: Taoist culture comes out of Sichuan province. Sichuan Province is in the Southwest. So if you, I think, in Canada and around the world now, if you think hot pots, hot pot food spicy this way. This is where

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Dhugal Meachem: pandas come from. It’s where bamboo comes from, and

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Dhugal Meachem: the people who were the original Taoists, you know, back

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Dhugal Meachem: probably 3,000 BC. Maybe into 2,000 BC. They were Shaman, and particularly Shah women.

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Dhugal Meachem: And these are the people who rain dance. These are the people who look at the skies and go.

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Dhugal Meachem: This is a good time for harvest. This is a good time

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Dhugal Meachem: for

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Dhugal Meachem: for a marriage to happen between 2 powerful families and books like the aging or the Book of Changes came out, which is the book, is book is a generous description of it. It’s probably an oral tradition. It’s just a book of solid lines and broken lines in sets of 6, so it could be 3 solid lines and 3 broken lines.

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Dhugal Meachem: which are just Yin and Yang. So these are the ones and zeros ones and zeros in soft computing software makes, you know, artificial intelligence flies people to the moon and does crazy, incredible, complex stuff.

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Dhugal Meachem: Yin and Yang is just the binary, the simple binary of reality. And groups of 6 of these

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Dhugal Meachem: was an almanac which people

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Dhugal Meachem: use to understand.

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Dhugal Meachem: So, for example, many yin lines would be the darkest day of winter. So 6 broken lines together. Oh, that’s that’s a time to bed down and go to sleep and basically do nothing.

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Dhugal Meachem: And and so this book

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Dhugal Meachem: was by people who wanted to understand

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Dhugal Meachem: how to gain the power of the universe through through their lives. And

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Dhugal Meachem: if you go to Chinese temples, if you ever go to Beijing Tin Han, the

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Dhugal Meachem: temple of heaven is just one building on a huge open platform.

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Dhugal Meachem: so unlike a you know, a Christian church where you go in and are wowed by the

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Dhugal Meachem: awe of God and the power of God.

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Dhugal Meachem: and you bow down before God.

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Dhugal Meachem: You just have this one kind of little building in the middle, and then you have this the heavens, the sky is above you, and you are. I think you must have this experience where you are in the world. Anyone who ever gets up at a sunrise or sees a sunset or looks at the stars. Thinks.

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Dhugal Meachem: Jeez, wow! I’m I’m a tiny piece.

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Dhugal Meachem: And so of a big big thing. And so

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Dhugal Meachem: Taoism is this.

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Dhugal Meachem: is this

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Dhugal Meachem: beautiful philosophy of allowing us and reminding us continuously, and giving us practices like qi gong, like like meditation.

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Dhugal Meachem: of not just intellectually knowing that we are

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Dhugal Meachem: a part of something bigger, but feeling it so deeply down, and then writing, and then actually harnessing that power. And you can see the great teachers that I’ve worked with are they have a twinkle in their eye. They have the energy, Bunny.

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Dhugal Meachem: that Nick says she has when she’s on a good day or good good couple of months. And those people are lovely people to be with.

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Dhugal Meachem: and they they have this philosophy who has their back.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: One thing that I found

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Nyk Danu Yoga: surprising with with Qigong.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because I came from a yoga background first.st

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Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And when I had done some qigong, I was always

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in comparison to Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: surprised at how I could get so warm

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and like, actually. And it takes a lot for me to break a sweat. I’m just like, not a sweater. And so like I. But I could actually be like, oh, I’m like doing here like what? And yet at the same time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: without feeling like I had exerted myself, and that to me was like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: such a a pivotal moment in the way that I started looking even at my Yoga practice. You know I I come from.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know the Ayungar tradition. You know the alignment to police long before I found Paul. Luckily I had only gone a couple of years into teaching when I found Paul, and I was

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Nyk Danu Yoga: awoken to the fact that that doesn’t make sense

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I remember that one of the things I was used to hear in my anger classes was to find the place of effortless effort.

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Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I would look at them and think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: are you mad like? How how can I find effortless effort? And I would say that I actually never found effortless effort in Yoga until I had the experience in Qigong. And then I was able to go.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, okay, I see how I can like I could do a thing, but without sort of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: gritting my teeth and like white knuckling it, and like, you know, like using all my attention. And you know, and so I was really, really surprised. And and that’s 1 of the things I loved about about Qigong is how I could feel I could feel like, you know, some of the benefits of doing a really difficult physical practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and at the same time feeling like I wasn’t depleted at all, you know.

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Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. So what do you think the difference is in just how that I mean, that’s obviously gotta be

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how they’ve the Taoist view of like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: energy. Right?

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Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, you’ve hit the. You’ve gone straight to the core of one of the fundamental.

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Dhugal Meachem: When I talked about people lying around and getting, you know Nirvana or Shamadi? You’ve gone to the fundamental one of the fundamental ideas which is Wu Wei in in in a Taoist talk from the Dao urging, which I’m happy to talk a bit a little bit about if people don’t know what that is. But Wuwei is

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Dhugal Meachem: Wu means not, and way means action, so it’s often translated as inaction. But what really, what way is is not forcing it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm.

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Dhugal Meachem: Let’s take just for an an an image in your mind, if you like, of a beautiful tree on a hill.

330
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Dhugal Meachem: Think of like, you know, the most beautiful tree that you could you could possibly imagine. Maybe it’s the 1st couple of days of spring. The sun’s just coming up behind

331
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Dhugal Meachem: and it was due. It rained overnight, and

332
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Dhugal Meachem: and you just look at the tree and go.

333
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Dhugal Meachem: Wow! That is, that is a

334
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Dhugal Meachem: that is a beautiful tree.

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Dhugal Meachem: and in Yoga

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Dhugal Meachem: and in the spiritual practices of Yoga we often go. Okay. Well, that’s I. Wanna be Buddha. I wanna be Patanjali.

337
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Dhugal Meachem: How do I become that? And you have the eightfold path, or you have, you know, Yoga’s Patanjali’s

338
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Dhugal Meachem: path. Whereas the daoist go.

339
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Dhugal Meachem: that’s a beautiful tree.

340
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Dhugal Meachem: But it’s a beautiful tree, just because it’s being itself.

341
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Dhugal Meachem: Didn’t. The tree didn’t wake up this morning? Go, man, I gotta do my son salutations, and then I gotta do my pranayama, and then I gotta do my Nettie pot, and then I gotta do my.

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Dhugal Meachem: it just

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Dhugal Meachem: is.

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Dhugal Meachem: And

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Dhugal Meachem: this is lovely. It kind of flows from our variable anatomy, if you like. There’s no perfect yoga pose. There’s just your pose, and you’ll know it is your pose, because it’ll feel amazing.

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Dhugal Meachem: And there’s no

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Dhugal Meachem: goal because Chi flows through the universe everywhere at all the time. It’s just a fundamental, given, fundamental concept of the I

348
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Dhugal Meachem: of the of of reality.

349
00:34:56.449 –> 00:35:11.040
Dhugal Meachem: Sun comes up, it rains, clouds go across the sky, there’s life and death. This is a flow of energy, of exchange between life and death, morning and night, male and female, good and bad, which just is.

350
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Dhugal Meachem: And so if you flow with that this fundamental

351
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Dhugal Meachem: principle of reality.

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Dhugal Meachem: you’ll find that there is a lightness

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00:35:22.880 –> 00:35:24.330
Dhugal Meachem: comes into your life.

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00:35:24.380 –> 00:35:26.820
Dhugal Meachem: and some of one of the most famous Taoists

355
00:35:26.890 –> 00:35:28.500
Dhugal Meachem: philosophers. Liedz

356
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Dhugal Meachem: was supposed to be so realized that he didn’t actually, his feet didn’t actually touch the floor. He just floated.

357
00:35:35.040 –> 00:35:38.629
Dhugal Meachem: And I’m sure, anyone, Nick, that you inspires you in life.

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Dhugal Meachem: They’re kind of like that, like it might be a barman or

359
00:35:43.550 –> 00:35:44.620
Dhugal Meachem: garbage

360
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Dhugal Meachem: throw a router. It could be someone working in

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Dhugal Meachem: could be someone in your family. I’ve got a couple of Taoists in my family. They don’t even know that they’re the happiest buggers in life.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: With this.

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Dhugal Meachem: Just they’re just they’re just them.

364
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Dhugal Meachem: Just like that tree on the on the hillside.

365
00:36:02.170 –> 00:36:08.240
Dhugal Meachem: It’s just totally happy and totally comfortable and totally in its own vibe.

366
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Dhugal Meachem: and you can’t go ahead and tell and ask, Hey, tree, how can I be as tree as you?

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00:36:14.630 –> 00:36:25.630
Dhugal Meachem: It will just go. Well, huh! I’m I’m just. I’m just doing. My, I’m just just. I’m just being me. I can. I don’t have nothing to teach you which is classic zen

368
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Dhugal Meachem: psych as philosophy

369
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Dhugal Meachem: and psychiatry.

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Dhugal Meachem: And this is what the Taoist path is. It’s getting so comfortable with who you are deep down

371
00:36:38.530 –> 00:36:40.050
Dhugal Meachem: that you don’t care

372
00:36:40.270 –> 00:36:47.669
Dhugal Meachem: about, and it’s most extreme about money and status and wealth, and how good a Yoga teacher you are, and how amazing your Yoga poses are.

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Dhugal Meachem: and but but people, you are just, very, very content. And this is Shamati in the in the dour sense, and other people look at you and be inspired by you.

374
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Dhugal Meachem: And I think

375
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Dhugal Meachem: mainstream characters that people might kind of know are

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Dhugal Meachem: kind of like this of maybe Keanu Reeves.

377
00:37:08.230 –> 00:37:16.119
Dhugal Meachem: Kind of guy like he has an age appropriate girlfriend, and people go. Wow! Keanuard! But I think Keanu is just being Keanu. He’s just

378
00:37:16.590 –> 00:37:18.910
Dhugal Meachem: I found her attractive. And we’re a couple now.

379
00:37:20.550 –> 00:37:24.951
Dhugal Meachem: there are a lot of people like this. Bjork is another kind of the musician, Bjork, from

380
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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

381
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Dhugal Meachem: She just kind of makes her own music, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t work. But she’s having a riot and

382
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Dhugal Meachem: so this is the Taoist. It doesn’t have to be an Asian idea. I think we certainly have these.

383
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Dhugal Meachem: as I mentioned, Bohemians and musicians. But it’s a counterbalance to that. I’m gonna do this. And I’m gonna get that. And I’m gonna be a good yogi. And I’m gonna and the Taoist goes, actually, just go to the back of the class, and, if necessary, fall asleep. And you’ll figure out you’ll get to the same path

384
00:37:57.246 –> 00:38:07.579
Dhugal Meachem: as everyone else did, because she flows, and enlightenment is just allowing the universe to flow through you and expressing it to you like a star in the sky.

385
00:38:10.030 –> 00:38:12.449
Dhugal Meachem: Look at the star and go, wow! That’s a beautiful star.

386
00:38:12.520 –> 00:38:16.102
Dhugal Meachem: And so it’s a very different paradigm.

387
00:38:18.680 –> 00:38:23.329
Dhugal Meachem: often Yogis will say it’s cheating, and it’s not really doing it properly

388
00:38:23.610 –> 00:38:25.177
Dhugal Meachem: like they’ll just say.

389
00:38:27.030 –> 00:38:37.153
Dhugal Meachem: but have have you? Have you done? No, no, if you so if you’re thinking Yama Niyama Pranayama, have you got to Pratchahara yet, and the Taoist will go. What’s Prachara?

390
00:38:37.800 –> 00:38:42.533
Dhugal Meachem: they’ll they’ll just go. I feel really good. I had a nice meal now I’m going for a nap and

391
00:38:44.020 –> 00:38:47.919
Dhugal Meachem: and people go. Well, you’re kind of cheating, and you haven’t done your 500 h, and

392
00:38:48.545 –> 00:38:53.989
Dhugal Meachem: so it’s it’s a very interesting paradigm. But eventually it’s extremely

393
00:38:54.200 –> 00:38:59.960
Dhugal Meachem: feels so good and the texts of Taoism and the people who practice Taoism

394
00:39:00.220 –> 00:39:16.089
Dhugal Meachem: come across as these kind of people who are just, you know, so of themselves. And again, coming back to our variable anatomy like we know there’s 5 bazillion different caterpillars. There’s 5 bazillion different shoelaces. There are 5.

395
00:39:16.180 –> 00:39:18.999
Dhugal Meachem: And let’s take population. Well, there are 8

396
00:39:19.290 –> 00:39:20.770
Dhugal Meachem: 1 billion different

397
00:39:21.740 –> 00:39:31.109
Dhugal Meachem: versions of Dawa Shamari, and that doesn’t include all the animals in your dog and cat that we often think are enlightened as well. Anyway, so am I talking, making any sense.

398
00:39:31.110 –> 00:39:32.625
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah, I

399
00:39:34.050 –> 00:39:37.349
Nyk Danu Yoga: I was going to say in my own life, I think that some of these

400
00:39:38.392 –> 00:39:45.229
Nyk Danu Yoga: some of this transitioning from from kind of this more half a brained Yogic brain into this.

401
00:39:45.370 –> 00:39:55.620
Nyk Danu Yoga: Not that I can say I embrace the dow every day, but it is. It is something I do. I do a lot more than I used to, but for me it actually was getting quite sick.

402
00:39:56.220 –> 00:40:24.429
Nyk Danu Yoga: That was the the shift for me when I moved. From. At the time I had to stop teaching I was still teaching full time, but I had to stop for my own practice doing any kind of Hatha, or flow, or Vinyasa, because it I was just too depleted. And so my home practice became essentially yin as my main practice meditation still. And then, you know, on days where I was on my moon cycle or not feeling well, it was even more yin like it was restorative, or Nidra.

403
00:40:24.430 –> 00:40:24.840
Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

404
00:40:24.840 –> 00:40:30.549
Nyk Danu Yoga: And having done that as my primary physical practice for about 2 years.

405
00:40:30.780 –> 00:40:31.670
Dhugal Meachem: Wow!

406
00:40:31.670 –> 00:40:32.890
Nyk Danu Yoga: Shifted

407
00:40:32.920 –> 00:41:01.950
Nyk Danu Yoga: the whole way that I looked at not only Yoga, but also my own practice, and like what were the goals of my practice so like those poses of, you know. Do handstand in the middle of the room sort of coming off the vision board. This like really rigid kind of like almost obsessive meditation schedule, because, you know, I wanted to become enlightened in this lifetime. Softened. And what I came up with at the end of that 2 years was just that

408
00:41:02.450 –> 00:41:08.030
Nyk Danu Yoga: I wanted to use these tools to heal myself and to be more

409
00:41:08.890 –> 00:41:10.449
Nyk Danu Yoga: kind of at peace.

410
00:41:10.480 –> 00:41:13.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: and you know, to be a a kind human.

411
00:41:13.980 –> 00:41:20.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: and then to share those gifts with other people so that they could be kind humans.

412
00:41:20.820 –> 00:41:24.089
Nyk Danu Yoga: And if that’s all I accomplished in this life.

413
00:41:24.390 –> 00:41:34.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: We’re good, you know. It was very interesting shift from from how I was. Of course, when I 1st started doing yoga where it’s like the goal poses and the get enlightenment. And it’s

414
00:41:34.710 –> 00:41:42.809
Nyk Danu Yoga: I. I often say, you know this, that philosophy is very kind of like up and out like, transcend your body. We’ve got somewhere to be. Let’s go. Let’s go.

415
00:41:42.810 –> 00:41:43.460
Dhugal Meachem: Yeah.

416
00:41:43.460 –> 00:41:46.879
Nyk Danu Yoga: Whereas Taoism has just got such a different

417
00:41:47.560 –> 00:41:52.900
Nyk Danu Yoga: energy to it. So I’d love yeah, anything you want to share from. You know, in the time that we have

418
00:41:52.960 –> 00:41:58.029
Nyk Danu Yoga: about just kind of basics, like if somebody’s like, I’m intrigued by this Taoism. But, like.

419
00:41:58.770 –> 00:42:01.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know. Where would I go? That kind of thing.

420
00:42:01.830 –> 00:42:18.793
Dhugal Meachem: Well, if there’s fortunately we live in a world where comics are and are are the best way of of understanding things if you wanna I I gave my kids Calvin and Hobbes when they were kids, and Garfield and

421
00:42:19.220 –> 00:42:22.170
Dhugal Meachem: mutts, I don’t know if you if you know mutts.

422
00:42:22.170 –> 00:42:23.069
Nyk Danu Yoga: Don’t know much. No.

423
00:42:23.070 –> 00:42:28.509
Dhugal Meachem: But mutts. These are all very Taoist comics. Calvin and Hobbes you were, you know, Calvin and Hobbs.

424
00:42:28.920 –> 00:42:53.626
Dhugal Meachem: A little boy. I think he’s 6, and his tie and his his toy tiger, his fluffy tiger doll, and his parents are kind of the Confucians. They’re the Yogis who are going out to work and doing their they’re doing their what are they calling it? They’re doing their they’re doing their their practice every day, and Calvin just goes out into the snow with his toy tiger and play, and

425
00:42:54.220 –> 00:42:54.904
Dhugal Meachem: and

426
00:42:56.690 –> 00:42:57.610
Dhugal Meachem: so it

427
00:42:57.930 –> 00:43:08.250
Dhugal Meachem: at first.st If anybody gets anything out of things like Calvert and Hobbes, or Mutts, or Garfield Garfield is just a fat cat who lies in the sun and eats food, and

428
00:43:08.540 –> 00:43:11.479
Dhugal Meachem: he’s probably one of the happiest beings on the planet.

429
00:43:11.520 –> 00:43:14.419
Dhugal Meachem: That’s a Taoist. So you don’t have to read

430
00:43:14.590 –> 00:43:28.570
Dhugal Meachem: texts. If you get things out of those kinds of things. But I’ll throw in a couple of Taoist texts anyway. So the Tao du Jing is one of the most famous Taoist texts, and after that is the Drangtsu. Both of these are probably Pre.

431
00:43:28.710 –> 00:43:29.840
Dhugal Meachem: BC,

432
00:43:30.365 –> 00:43:33.844
Dhugal Meachem: there’s great translations of them by Brian Booyah,

433
00:43:34.280 –> 00:43:34.846
Nyk Danu Yoga: For that.

434
00:43:35.130 –> 00:43:41.860
Dhugal Meachem: And he he has translated my favorite. So when I was in Taiwan as a student, back in the nineties, there was this

435
00:43:42.170 –> 00:44:02.599
Dhugal Meachem: comic artist who was everywhere, and he’s now in his seventies, and his books have now been translated into into English. So they’re comic strips of the Dao da jing, and of yeah, and they’re really cool. Brian Booyah, BUIA. Is translated amongst a couple of other ones. He’s done some Confucian text, too.

436
00:44:02.740 –> 00:44:09.030
Dhugal Meachem: and so I would ask people to just put these next to the toilet and sit. And every time you go for the business.

437
00:44:09.080 –> 00:44:10.990
Dhugal Meachem: read one of these, wait.

438
00:44:10.990 –> 00:44:14.204
Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, rather than their phone.

439
00:44:14.740 –> 00:44:19.811
Dhugal Meachem: You can get it on kindle if you really want to. But it might be disrupted.

440
00:44:20.530 –> 00:44:24.222
Dhugal Meachem: because this is really a philosophy of

441
00:44:25.390 –> 00:44:32.120
Dhugal Meachem: of letting go what you just that process you just that 2 year process you just described. Nick

442
00:44:32.440 –> 00:44:33.520
Dhugal Meachem: is

443
00:44:34.440 –> 00:44:40.820
Dhugal Meachem: so to come back to, you know yin young theory there’s doing and achieving and being, and

444
00:44:41.010 –> 00:44:43.680
Dhugal Meachem: and improving and refining.

445
00:44:45.530 –> 00:44:51.429
Dhugal Meachem: And I come people, I have people who come to me in the clinic like this like high. And they’re like high achievers. And like.

446
00:44:51.560 –> 00:44:53.579
Dhugal Meachem: I need to improve my sleep.

447
00:44:53.620 –> 00:44:58.160
Dhugal Meachem: And I go, okay, well, what’s your sleep like? And they go. Yeah, it’s 4 or 5 h, and I’m like.

448
00:44:58.620 –> 00:45:11.989
Dhugal Meachem: that’s terrible. 4 or 5 h sleep is horrible. Yeah. How can I improve it? I’ve got my apple watch on. I’m taking my vitamins. I’m probably on. If it’s a woman in their fifties on my hrt, it’s kind of playing with my.

449
00:45:12.740 –> 00:45:16.999
Dhugal Meachem: and that that this is all very Yang attitude stuff.

450
00:45:17.050 –> 00:45:19.099
Dhugal Meachem: and I will often say to them.

451
00:45:19.240 –> 00:45:20.140
Dhugal Meachem: Well.

452
00:45:20.330 –> 00:45:26.749
Dhugal Meachem: the best way to improve your sleep and sleep is critical for health, happiness.

453
00:45:27.512 –> 00:45:33.450
Dhugal Meachem: And that’s what why yin is so important. I think it’s just where people just become aware that doing

454
00:45:33.550 –> 00:45:37.149
Dhugal Meachem: fuck all is is really powerful.

455
00:45:37.840 –> 00:45:41.579
Dhugal Meachem: And our culture, where you have to be consuming

456
00:45:41.770 –> 00:45:44.339
Dhugal Meachem: or producing something to be useful.

457
00:45:44.880 –> 00:45:48.130
Dhugal Meachem: This just doesn’t compute to modern people. Like

458
00:45:48.250 –> 00:45:54.590
Dhugal Meachem: I, I used to work in corporate, and people would say, I can get by on 4 h of sleep. So I’m way more productive.

459
00:45:54.670 –> 00:45:57.229
Dhugal Meachem: And those people, now I look at them, and they’re

460
00:45:57.350 –> 00:46:03.420
Dhugal Meachem: they’re they’ve had burnout. They’re in terrible shape. They might be rich, but their health is a disaster.

461
00:46:03.850 –> 00:46:05.100
Dhugal Meachem: And so

462
00:46:05.310 –> 00:46:14.529
Dhugal Meachem: this whole philosophy, and those books, those comics I just recommended are all about again and again, and again, and again, and again, and again and again

463
00:46:15.590 –> 00:46:21.809
Dhugal Meachem: go to the back of the class. If you’re tired, fall asleep, if you, if you’re not sleeping well.

464
00:46:22.600 –> 00:46:24.160
Dhugal Meachem: probably just

465
00:46:24.970 –> 00:46:27.769
Dhugal Meachem: sleep more, and if you can sleep more

466
00:46:27.920 –> 00:46:31.380
Dhugal Meachem: well, keep going until you have burnout, and then you’re gonna have to sleep.

467
00:46:31.380 –> 00:46:32.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: More.

468
00:46:32.310 –> 00:46:34.080
Dhugal Meachem: It’s gonna come to you, anyway.

469
00:46:36.240 –> 00:46:37.005
Dhugal Meachem: and

470
00:46:38.310 –> 00:46:40.907
Dhugal Meachem: I’ll tell you another story. So

471
00:46:42.420 –> 00:46:46.289
Dhugal Meachem: in Taoism and Buddhism

472
00:46:47.560 –> 00:46:50.000
Dhugal Meachem: there is a fairly

473
00:46:50.580 –> 00:46:54.943
Dhugal Meachem: contentious and a little bit a little bit not very

474
00:46:55.430 –> 00:47:15.789
Dhugal Meachem: enjoyed by a lot of people who spent years meditating and going from level one to level 2 to level 3 to level 4 level 5 and like, and they get certificate. Maybe they get like a holy thread. There’s 1 very teach very famous teacher called Hoynan, who who was the 5th patriarch in in Zen, and he’s a a Zen Buddhist teacher, but he’s massively influenced by Taoism.

475
00:47:16.070 –> 00:47:22.680
Dhugal Meachem: and he said his teacher, a student asked him, what’s the best way to get enlightened? And the student sorry, Huang said.

476
00:47:22.910 –> 00:47:24.229
Dhugal Meachem: There are 2 paths.

477
00:47:24.760 –> 00:47:27.560
Dhugal Meachem: There’s the hard path, and there’s the easy path.

478
00:47:27.800 –> 00:47:29.150
Dhugal Meachem: Which one do you want?

479
00:47:29.530 –> 00:47:31.820
Dhugal Meachem: The students said, well, of course, I want the easy path.

480
00:47:32.840 –> 00:47:35.509
Dhugal Meachem: Hwynang said. Are you sure? Because everyone takes the

481
00:47:35.670 –> 00:47:40.300
Dhugal Meachem: the harder path like they go to school. Then they do level one level 2 level 3, level 4, level 5.

482
00:47:41.150 –> 00:47:42.720
Dhugal Meachem: But that’s for idiots.

483
00:47:43.390 –> 00:47:48.390
Dhugal Meachem: So, and when I read this as a you know, as a Yoga teacher, and I was also an Ayenga like you, for, like

484
00:47:48.650 –> 00:47:55.620
Dhugal Meachem: I’m an idiot, I’ve been doing level one and level 2, and working on my Udvadanurasana, or, you know, wheel pose.

485
00:47:56.830 –> 00:48:02.290
Dhugal Meachem: I still don’t feel that enlightened. I mean, I got a good back bend, but I don’t think I’m Buddha like

486
00:48:02.510 –> 00:48:03.569
Dhugal Meachem: right now.

487
00:48:03.930 –> 00:48:04.500
Dhugal Meachem: Has it?

488
00:48:04.500 –> 00:48:05.789
Nyk Danu Yoga: Made me a nicer person.

489
00:48:05.790 –> 00:48:12.209
Dhugal Meachem: Hasn’t made me, and I see you see this in Yoga a lot right. I’ve spent a long time with Yogis, and some of them are

490
00:48:12.580 –> 00:48:14.649
Dhugal Meachem: worse than normal people.

491
00:48:14.650 –> 00:48:16.550
Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s a lot of assholes in Yoga.

492
00:48:16.550 –> 00:48:19.768
Dhugal Meachem: Not being nice to meet normal people. Yeah, yeah. And

493
00:48:20.870 –> 00:48:23.020
Dhugal Meachem: And Huynang said, well, the easy path

494
00:48:23.150 –> 00:48:24.350
Dhugal Meachem: is just

495
00:48:24.850 –> 00:48:26.060
Dhugal Meachem: become

496
00:48:26.390 –> 00:48:27.650
Dhugal Meachem: so

497
00:48:27.700 –> 00:48:31.740
Dhugal Meachem: clear, so empty, so nothing

498
00:48:32.800 –> 00:48:36.569
Dhugal Meachem: that it’s like the the like. A lens of an eye

499
00:48:36.740 –> 00:48:55.280
Dhugal Meachem: like you can only see because the lens of your eye is transparent, and then all the light comes into your eye, and you can see that. And that’s how a Taoist has become so transparent and so light that all of the experiences of the universe come to you, and all of the experiences from inside of you come through. And you’re aware of all of that

500
00:48:55.490 –> 00:48:57.459
Dhugal Meachem: all of the time. What’s that movie?

501
00:48:57.510 –> 00:49:03.720
Dhugal Meachem: Everything everywhere, all at once, for something like that just out last year with Michelle Yeo, one of my favorite.

502
00:49:03.720 –> 00:49:04.860
Nyk Danu Yoga: Haven’t seen it, but I will.

503
00:49:04.860 –> 00:49:06.050
Dhugal Meachem: Artists

504
00:49:06.860 –> 00:49:08.870
Dhugal Meachem: from Hong Kong. So

505
00:49:09.090 –> 00:49:10.639
Dhugal Meachem: Huenang says

506
00:49:12.030 –> 00:49:13.570
Dhugal Meachem: the easy path.

507
00:49:13.650 –> 00:49:16.480
Dhugal Meachem: No one does it because everyone will say.

508
00:49:16.790 –> 00:49:26.429
Dhugal Meachem: What have you achieved today? Have you, you know. Have you deepened your Pranayama? Have you? What level of Shamari have you got to? But the Taoist will look back and go.

509
00:49:26.470 –> 00:49:33.940
Dhugal Meachem: I don’t understand any of those concepts, because really, Shamadi, real happiness is not. You can’t put it down in words

510
00:49:33.950 –> 00:49:36.049
Dhugal Meachem: and put it down in ideas.

511
00:49:36.090 –> 00:49:37.319
Dhugal Meachem: I asked you.

512
00:49:37.660 –> 00:49:47.830
Dhugal Meachem: You know, Nick, what’s a good day? It’s a feeling right. It’s a when things just flow. Maybe I don’t know. Amos makes you a nice breakfast, and if he ever does that, or

513
00:49:48.140 –> 00:49:54.310
Dhugal Meachem: or you know, just sun comes through the light. Light comes through your window. A good day. Have a good class.

514
00:49:54.430 –> 00:49:58.679
Dhugal Meachem: You can’t bottle that, and you can’t make a and so

515
00:49:59.000 –> 00:50:01.059
Dhugal Meachem: a prescription for that. And so

516
00:50:03.130 –> 00:50:07.790
Dhugal Meachem: Hoy, Nung, said, the simple path is just

517
00:50:07.910 –> 00:50:14.659
Dhugal Meachem: being. This is Eck, this is Eckhart Tola, his whole life on. He’s also your side of the country, I think.

518
00:50:15.022 –> 00:50:20.177
Dhugal Meachem: This is just the power of now. Just be here. Now let everything come to you

519
00:50:20.690 –> 00:50:23.419
Dhugal Meachem: now in the quiet moment

520
00:50:23.760 –> 00:50:24.410
Dhugal Meachem: and

521
00:50:25.290 –> 00:50:30.510
Dhugal Meachem: And then, because Taoism is just one half of the Yin Yang symbol.

522
00:50:30.630 –> 00:50:35.800
Dhugal Meachem: it’s the inside, and then you can go back to the stuff. Then you can sleep, and then you go back to your life. Then you.

523
00:50:36.160 –> 00:50:43.589
Dhugal Meachem: Rest, and then you go back, and then these 2 balance out beautifully, and Chi flows in the same way as the sun rises

524
00:50:43.780 –> 00:50:46.510
Dhugal Meachem: and the sun sets in the same way as we’re young.

525
00:50:46.780 –> 00:50:49.480
Dhugal Meachem: and then we’re old in the same way as

526
00:50:51.630 –> 00:50:55.240
Dhugal Meachem: in the same way as you do your Yin, and then sometimes you want to do some Yang.

527
00:50:55.680 –> 00:50:58.870
Dhugal Meachem: and you just go with that. And the Taoist.

528
00:51:01.710 –> 00:51:03.690
Dhugal Meachem: Shamadi, if you like, is

529
00:51:03.850 –> 00:51:08.516
Dhugal Meachem: is is that person whose ego is not involved. But it’s just. It’s just

530
00:51:08.930 –> 00:51:10.440
Dhugal Meachem: going with that flow.

531
00:51:10.660 –> 00:51:11.570
Dhugal Meachem: And

532
00:51:11.730 –> 00:51:21.219
Dhugal Meachem: but to do that you have to let go and let go and let go and let go and let go continuously. It’s kind of the opposite of Patanjay Yoga, if you like.

533
00:51:21.822 –> 00:51:23.929
Nyk Danu Yoga: that’s how I felt about it, too.

534
00:51:24.280 –> 00:51:25.420
Nyk Danu Yoga: is that it’s

535
00:51:26.680 –> 00:51:33.230
Nyk Danu Yoga: potentially yoga to me always feels like a ladder, kind of like a vertical thing, whereas Taoism feels like a circle

536
00:51:33.460 –> 00:51:40.629
Nyk Danu Yoga: like the Yin Yang. It’s like, Oh, we do, we do this, and then we do this and then that harmonizes so that we can like it just seems

537
00:51:41.170 –> 00:51:45.620
Nyk Danu Yoga: far more holistic. I guess you could say.

538
00:51:45.860 –> 00:51:47.520
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, it’s interesting

539
00:51:47.580 –> 00:52:06.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: because I can. Ever since I started doing this podcast sometimes I can hear, not literally their voices in my head. But I could hear some of the things that Yoga teachers will be saying and I think one of them for sure is going to be well, well, wait a minute. If we’re embracing Taoism, and we’re just we’re gonna just be

540
00:52:07.110 –> 00:52:13.849
Nyk Danu Yoga: how the heck am I supposed to live in this modern world and get anything done like I have kids to raise and taxes to pay and.

541
00:52:13.850 –> 00:52:14.370
Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

542
00:52:14.370 –> 00:52:18.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know. And so finding, I I think, finding the the harmony

543
00:52:19.230 –> 00:52:23.099
Nyk Danu Yoga: of those 2 things is, that’s the tricky part.

544
00:52:23.740 –> 00:52:50.333
Nyk Danu Yoga: But from my experience, both with myself, past Nick, and also just with people I work with is that in in our Western culture especially, and of course it’s also invaded Asia as well. Now. We’re so young dominant, you know, with the go go, push, push, like you said like when you said somebody’s only getting 4 or 5 h sleep. I like hurt inside. I’m like an 8 to 10 girl to be like to be my best, you know.

545
00:52:51.310 –> 00:52:52.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: and

546
00:52:52.470 –> 00:53:04.609
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think that the hard part for us to realize sometimes is that we’re so far young that we almost have to over yin for a while, so that we can then kind of come into some sense of harmony.

547
00:53:05.430 –> 00:53:11.909
Dhugal Meachem: Yes, and how do you feel after doing your 2 years of yin? And

548
00:53:12.740 –> 00:53:14.740
Dhugal Meachem: how do you? What’s changed.

549
00:53:15.290 –> 00:53:19.361
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, everything about my practice for for one

550
00:53:19.910 –> 00:53:24.000
Nyk Danu Yoga: I realized that I had been so attached to the

551
00:53:24.060 –> 00:53:29.289
Nyk Danu Yoga: and and this happens a lot in. I anger Yoga, because you don’t even really study meditation, the Asanas

552
00:53:29.310 –> 00:53:34.080
Nyk Danu Yoga: as my yoga so that Aha! Of just being like right.

553
00:53:34.150 –> 00:53:35.170
Nyk Danu Yoga: So

554
00:53:35.670 –> 00:53:41.359
Nyk Danu Yoga: I actually fell in love with Yoga because of the relief it gave me for my anxiety.

555
00:53:41.690 –> 00:53:42.220
Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

556
00:53:42.220 –> 00:54:01.860
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then somewhere along the path to becoming a teacher and studying this deeper, I lost that, and I was all about the like. I need to get my head to my knee in Janisha Shasa, and I need to like vision board poses, and that 2 years allowed me to come back to actually what was the point of this practice

557
00:54:01.980 –> 00:54:06.360
Nyk Danu Yoga: in the beginning. So yes, the physical practices are great.

558
00:54:06.560 –> 00:54:07.300
Nyk Danu Yoga: But.

559
00:54:07.680 –> 00:54:10.460
Nyk Danu Yoga: and starting to study with Paul, and

560
00:54:10.510 –> 00:54:15.960
Nyk Danu Yoga: looking at Yoga as a functional thing. I started looking at it in the grand scheme of my life, too.

561
00:54:16.090 –> 00:54:16.610
Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

562
00:54:16.610 –> 00:54:19.340
Nyk Danu Yoga: What is the function of this Yoga practice for me?

563
00:54:19.990 –> 00:54:27.249
Nyk Danu Yoga: Is it to, like, you know, become enlightened in this lifetime, and be able to do cool handstands and look all impressive and have goal poses?

564
00:54:27.290 –> 00:54:31.950
Nyk Danu Yoga: Or is this a tool that I’m using to create wellness

565
00:54:32.300 –> 00:54:35.560
Nyk Danu Yoga: in my body so that I can actually live my life.

566
00:54:35.620 –> 00:54:41.129
Nyk Danu Yoga: And that was the big Aha! Was that like I had turned it into one more thing to achieve

567
00:54:41.460 –> 00:54:48.849
Nyk Danu Yoga: when actually now what it is, and I think also age. This happens with age. I mean, I’m you know, 51. Now, now it’s like

568
00:54:49.020 –> 00:55:02.119
Nyk Danu Yoga: anytime I’m going to do an Asana. There’s a function to it like I’m consciously going to think about. If I’m gonna you know, sometimes it’s just play, sometimes it’s just free form play movement for sure. But a lot of times it’s like, Okay, what?

569
00:55:02.290 –> 00:55:04.649
Nyk Danu Yoga: What do I need? What needs to be addressed?

570
00:55:04.720 –> 00:55:17.410
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then I’m gonna look for the shapes that have that function for my body, and that’s going to be my practice because the rest of the time. To be honest, I want to be outside in the woodland area, feeding the birds and squirrels like. I don’t.

571
00:55:17.410 –> 00:55:17.990
Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

572
00:55:17.990 –> 00:55:26.459
Nyk Danu Yoga: Want to be working on some handstand thing when I could just be out in in nature in the moment, and like, you know, and so

573
00:55:26.600 –> 00:55:43.569
Nyk Danu Yoga: I would say that as far as the the Asana goes now, it’s like it’s it’s even more functional, you know. Now for me it’s like, is there? There’s a need here that I have, or something’s, you know, gone off kilter. What can I use within my yoga repertoire to to help with that

574
00:55:43.580 –> 00:55:48.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: so that I can, you know, be out of pain. Sleep better? Yeah.

575
00:55:48.310 –> 00:55:50.860
Dhugal Meachem: Tools. You have tools to

576
00:55:51.770 –> 00:55:54.389
Dhugal Meachem: to navigate the journey of life.

577
00:55:54.390 –> 00:55:55.560
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. Yeah.

578
00:55:55.630 –> 00:55:57.520
Nyk Danu Yoga: Whereas I think before it was.

579
00:55:57.590 –> 00:55:58.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: it was very

580
00:55:59.280 –> 00:56:00.500
Nyk Danu Yoga: external.

581
00:56:00.650 –> 00:56:01.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know

582
00:56:01.930 –> 00:56:03.820
Nyk Danu Yoga: the the poses were, you know.

583
00:56:03.820 –> 00:56:08.460
Dhugal Meachem: And and there you go. I think that’s that’s this Yin Yang balance, and we go through

584
00:56:08.805 –> 00:56:12.650
Dhugal Meachem: in the Indian tradition. You kind of. Have you know the journey from

585
00:56:13.063 –> 00:56:17.300
Dhugal Meachem: from child to eventual, you know. You go back to the forest.

586
00:56:17.820 –> 00:56:30.180
Dhugal Meachem: There’s a there’s a there’s a there’s a Yang time of life which is particularly into your late teens, into your early forties, where you’re, you know. You have to create your own wealth, maybe, or bring. Maybe you have children.

587
00:56:30.487 –> 00:56:32.269
Dhugal Meachem: And then eventually to kind of

588
00:56:32.370 –> 00:56:39.210
Dhugal Meachem: fifties and onwards is a more of a yin time, and so it doesn’t. People often say, like you have to be.

589
00:56:39.330 –> 00:56:41.370
Dhugal Meachem: you know, yenning out all the time.

590
00:56:41.500 –> 00:56:49.309
Dhugal Meachem: No, there are time, I think if you try to teach yin yoga to teen to teenagers. Teenagers, maybe, but in a kindergarten probably bad idea.

591
00:56:50.540 –> 00:56:55.179
Dhugal Meachem: that they want to be doing handstands and cartwheels and rolling around in the Yoga mats.

592
00:56:55.300 –> 00:56:57.000
Dhugal Meachem: And so

593
00:56:57.370 –> 00:57:02.410
Dhugal Meachem: and we have more Chi as a as a young person ever. That’s why, you know.

594
00:57:02.890 –> 00:57:16.349
Dhugal Meachem: If you give a baby a red bull or coca cola, they like explode because they’re already full of Chi. They give a red bull or coca cola to someone in their fifties they go. Oh, thanks for the energy! Their teeth might fall out. But so

595
00:57:16.930 –> 00:57:23.470
Dhugal Meachem: so the the Taoist kind of paradigm is

596
00:57:23.560 –> 00:57:25.390
Dhugal Meachem: is becoming

597
00:57:26.380 –> 00:57:34.680
Dhugal Meachem: so comfortable with yourself and the one another big. We talked about way and inaction, but another thing is Ran

598
00:57:34.770 –> 00:57:41.970
Dhugal Meachem: is often translated as nature, and often you’ll see you talked about it earlier, like you feel like Taoism has a

599
00:57:42.500 –> 00:57:44.880
Dhugal Meachem: and big aspect of nature to it.

600
00:57:45.210 –> 00:57:46.510
Dhugal Meachem: To run

601
00:57:47.204 –> 00:57:52.219
Dhugal Meachem: is the word which is translated in as into nature, and Ziran doesn’t mean nature.

602
00:57:53.782 –> 00:57:59.950
Dhugal Meachem: If you think about nature in English, it could be. It comes from the old word natura.

603
00:58:00.130 –> 00:58:04.189
Dhugal Meachem: I think it’s a Latin word which is kind of a classification of

604
00:58:04.510 –> 00:58:24.690
Dhugal Meachem: a part of the world like this, humans in this nature, whereas is one of the words, if you see Chinese people and you ask them, Hey, you! And they go. Who me? They point to their nose like this. They go, hey, me! They don’t! They don’t do this, they go, hey me! So the picture the character for is the pick is the finger pointing at your face.

605
00:58:24.690 –> 00:58:25.400
Nyk Danu Yoga: Interesting.

606
00:58:25.400 –> 00:58:26.120
Dhugal Meachem: So it’s

607
00:58:26.370 –> 00:58:33.790
Dhugal Meachem: reference to you. And then ran, is A is a character of a of a bonfire, with some food on it

608
00:58:34.310 –> 00:58:36.900
Dhugal Meachem: so, or a barbecue. Essentially

609
00:58:37.250 –> 00:58:39.640
Dhugal Meachem: so. This is around me. Self

610
00:58:40.280 –> 00:58:44.899
Dhugal Meachem: igniting self. Perpetuating.

611
00:58:45.170 –> 00:58:48.429
Dhugal Meachem: I think, maybe the the best word is spontaneous.

612
00:58:49.600 –> 00:58:52.580
Dhugal Meachem: And if I listen to you, you know what

613
00:58:53.490 –> 00:58:59.429
Dhugal Meachem: the tools that you have, and you have your life and your teaching and all that stuff. But you also have tools

614
00:58:59.560 –> 00:59:10.369
Dhugal Meachem: so that you can nurture what? Spontaneously you as a, as Nick, as a person, this day. And when we’re ever doing this, podcast

615
00:59:10.400 –> 00:59:22.287
Dhugal Meachem: you know how to bring out the stuff. So the Chi naturally flows through your body spontaneously, and that naturally gives you a feeling of happiness, and come and and

616
00:59:24.320 –> 00:59:27.520
Dhugal Meachem: not just long-term happiness, but contentment.

617
00:59:27.520 –> 00:59:30.447
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, yeah, I was. Gonna say, I always think of

618
00:59:31.990 –> 00:59:37.950
Nyk Danu Yoga: That was another thing that changed over that course. And actually, when I started studying. Tcm. Is that I

619
00:59:38.030 –> 00:59:40.620
Nyk Danu Yoga: I stopped looking for happiness.

620
00:59:41.400 –> 00:59:54.249
Nyk Danu Yoga: And tried to just embrace moments of contentment which I think has far more longevity. You know, in Chinese medicine. I’ve said this in one of the episodes. I remember when I was studying it, and they said that you can have too much joy. I was like.

621
00:59:54.610 –> 01:00:13.529
Nyk Danu Yoga: how the hell could you have too much joy like? It doesn’t compute to a Western brain. But then, when I learned about, if you have too much joy, it can scatter your your heart. She I was like, Oh, and then you think about people like, you know, when they win a brand new car, or whatever on a and they faint, cause it’s just like it’s too much like their system can’t handle it.

622
01:00:13.580 –> 01:00:23.880
Nyk Danu Yoga: And around that time is also when I let go of of even when I started doing my Meta practice. Often one of the 1st lines is, May I be happy? And I immediately switched it to may I be content.

623
01:00:23.880 –> 01:00:24.540
Dhugal Meachem: Hmm.

624
01:00:24.540 –> 01:00:26.559
Nyk Danu Yoga: Because I feel like it is

625
01:00:26.590 –> 01:00:28.530
Nyk Danu Yoga: so much more reasonable

626
01:00:28.980 –> 01:00:43.769
Nyk Danu Yoga: and also so much more accessible. Yeah, right? Like, even in really stressful times in life. There can be a moment in your day, or 2, or 3, or 10, or however long you allow, where you can say, Okay, what in this moment. Can I find

627
01:00:43.800 –> 01:00:47.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: some contentment here, you know. Yeah.

628
01:00:47.310 –> 01:00:48.960
Dhugal Meachem: And you can only find that

629
01:00:48.970 –> 01:00:50.260
Dhugal Meachem: in one way.

630
01:00:50.420 –> 01:00:51.940
Dhugal Meachem: and that is through quiet.

631
01:00:52.550 –> 01:00:58.610
Dhugal Meachem: That’s yin. That’s Qigong. That’s meditation. That’s a walk in the park that’s baking.

632
01:00:58.890 –> 01:01:01.429
Dhugal Meachem: that’s gardening, whatever you do.

633
01:01:02.280 –> 01:01:06.659
Dhugal Meachem: And Eckerhart Taller is great at this, you know, you have to be able to sit

634
01:01:06.710 –> 01:01:08.739
Dhugal Meachem: and simply just watch.

635
01:01:09.310 –> 01:01:14.020
Dhugal Meachem: However, you do that. If it’s yin yoga, it’s the pain in your hamstrings. If it’s qigong like

636
01:01:14.200 –> 01:01:20.669
Dhugal Meachem: holy crap, this is actually quite hard, just really going, really, really, painfully, slowly.

637
01:01:20.990 –> 01:01:26.889
Dhugal Meachem: But because I realize I’m anxious or I’m I’m like, what’s next? What’s next? Or when can I do this? Faster? You realize there’s a

638
01:01:26.900 –> 01:01:30.329
Dhugal Meachem: there’s a drive inside you which you’re you’re not comfortable with.

639
01:01:30.690 –> 01:01:46.260
Dhugal Meachem: You. Realize all the demons inside of you, and if you, if you practice long enough and effectively enough, you’ll start to also realize what gives you contentment. And so Taoism is, and that’s the what naturally.

640
01:01:46.980 –> 01:01:48.400
Dhugal Meachem: Why do some people

641
01:01:48.850 –> 01:02:03.950
Dhugal Meachem: like Harley, Davidson’s and other people like, you know, walks in the in the forest? Why do some people do yin Yoga? And other people want to make millions of bucks? Why do some people I wanna live in that part of the country and other people in that country, because we’re all

642
01:02:04.340 –> 01:02:15.370
Dhugal Meachem: life is diversity, and we know that through us again, through our skeletal variation studies like there’s cats are different from dogs. There’s a great taoist

643
01:02:16.280 –> 01:02:18.200
Dhugal Meachem: alignment kind of joke.

644
01:02:19.018 –> 01:02:21.330
Dhugal Meachem: Here, said the monkey

645
01:02:21.450 –> 01:02:25.199
Dhugal Meachem: to the fish, let me save you and pull you up the tree.

646
01:02:25.660 –> 01:02:32.119
Dhugal Meachem: and of course the fish dies. Because the fish dies off the tree, but that’s where the monkey thinks it’s

647
01:02:32.360 –> 01:02:33.300
Dhugal Meachem: it’s best.

648
01:02:33.580 –> 01:02:36.469
Dhugal Meachem: And so the Taoist approach is

649
01:02:37.040 –> 01:02:40.170
Dhugal Meachem: through all these practices, getting still, getting quiet.

650
01:02:40.400 –> 01:02:42.960
Dhugal Meachem: naturally feeling

651
01:02:43.660 –> 01:02:53.790
Dhugal Meachem: how she flows, the power of the universe throws and expresses itself through you, and how you dance with that. And all of these texts are.

652
01:02:53.800 –> 01:02:55.900
Dhugal Meachem: And all these practices are all about.

653
01:02:56.730 –> 01:02:58.860
Dhugal Meachem: But our brain

654
01:02:59.220 –> 01:03:10.509
Dhugal Meachem: gets involved and says, really, shouldn’t I be doing this? Shouldn’t I be doing that? And the dance between what’s coming up from inside of you? And what’s coming down from maybe your parents, or from your

655
01:03:10.820 –> 01:03:18.430
Dhugal Meachem: from community or from culture. That is the practice there, and to be healthy to avoid cancer. And

656
01:03:19.483 –> 01:03:20.730
Dhugal Meachem: you know

657
01:03:20.950 –> 01:03:23.350
Dhugal Meachem: anxiety and trauma

658
01:03:24.350 –> 01:03:31.710
Dhugal Meachem: that dance that you just described between those 2, and figuring out the balance. That’s your path. That’s your doll, that’s your

659
01:03:31.780 –> 01:03:40.050
Dhugal Meachem: the path. The word da often means path. That is your the way that you will travel, and no one really can teach it to you.

660
01:03:40.866 –> 01:03:42.649
Dhugal Meachem: And that’s why it’s fun.

661
01:03:43.820 –> 01:03:48.479
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think, sometimes the hardest thing for people, and it probably was for me

662
01:03:48.620 –> 01:03:55.789
Nyk Danu Yoga: as well. It is I I’ve always been pretty good at ignoring society’s voices, because I’m just rebellious by nature.

663
01:03:55.790 –> 01:03:58.289
Dhugal Meachem: One of the reasons. I have a huge respect for you.

664
01:03:58.470 –> 01:04:10.062
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I’m just like I’ve always been a questioner. That was, I mean, that was credit to my mother, you know, to she. Now she didn’t love it so much when I was a teenager, and I was also always questioning her. But you know

665
01:04:10.700 –> 01:04:26.460
Nyk Danu Yoga: but you know one of the best ways that I find to start to pick apart these these beliefs or these sort of societal, whether it’s your parents or just. You know the world. We live in expectations of you. And to see, okay, well, what is actually

666
01:04:27.080 –> 01:04:39.229
Nyk Danu Yoga: for me versus what’s been put on me is to pause any time that there’s discomfort, and your thoughts are going about something, or your judgments, or you’re shooting all over yourself. You know you’re like I should. This I should. That

667
01:04:39.270 –> 01:04:41.350
Nyk Danu Yoga: is to just pause and say.

668
01:04:41.570 –> 01:04:42.680
Nyk Danu Yoga: Is that true?

669
01:04:43.930 –> 01:04:49.590
Nyk Danu Yoga: Because something about just putting the pause, and the question in there like, Is that true?

670
01:04:49.780 –> 01:04:53.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: It it just. It made a huge difference for me to just be like, wait a minute.

671
01:04:54.680 –> 01:04:56.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: Is that true?

672
01:04:56.260 –> 01:05:15.320
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, and even when I 1st made that transition, when I was quite, you know, ill, and I had to move from Hafa Yoga practices into more sedentary stuff. I remember there was a lot of voices in my head. It’s like, Well, how can you be teaching these classes if you’re not? Because I had my teacher’s voice in my head of like, you can’t teach things that you don’t practice.

673
01:05:15.490 –> 01:05:19.569
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. And so it was like, how can I be teaching Warrior

674
01:05:19.750 –> 01:05:24.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: tonight at 5, 45, when I’m not doing where you’re in my practice. And then, you know, I had to pause and go.

675
01:05:25.170 –> 01:05:26.819
Nyk Danu Yoga: But you’ve done, warrior

676
01:05:26.920 –> 01:05:40.369
Nyk Danu Yoga: thousands of times by now, like, you know, it’s not like I’m teaching something I’ve never embodied. It was just right. Now. I’m not doing, Warrior, because that’s what’s wise for me. I can still teach it because I’ve done it, you know, thousands and thousands of times.

677
01:05:40.420 –> 01:05:43.789
Nyk Danu Yoga: but I find any time that there’s a point in life where

678
01:05:45.660 –> 01:05:49.270
Nyk Danu Yoga: you’re trying to to shift habits you know

679
01:05:49.530 –> 01:05:52.140
Nyk Danu Yoga: that question of. Is that true?

680
01:05:52.470 –> 01:05:54.930
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s just such a a powerful one.

681
01:05:55.250 –> 01:06:00.959
Dhugal Meachem: Yeah. And the the what’s true will change from day to day, sometimes week to week.

682
01:06:00.960 –> 01:06:01.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: Represent.

683
01:06:01.660 –> 01:06:02.680
Dhugal Meachem: Month to month.

684
01:06:04.507 –> 01:06:14.592
Dhugal Meachem: as a yogi, you know, we’re not famous for commitment. We have commitment issues often like, what? Teach a class every Friday at that time.

685
01:06:19.074 –> 01:06:22.810
Dhugal Meachem: but what really.

686
01:06:23.080 –> 01:06:34.040
Dhugal Meachem: I think maybe another interesting way of talking about this is the definition of I. The Taoists are massively interested in who we are, who you think

687
01:06:34.160 –> 01:06:35.120
Dhugal Meachem: you are.

688
01:06:35.650 –> 01:06:44.680
Dhugal Meachem: and most of us think we’re this thing insider here, and that’s me and everything else, like everything else, is not me.

689
01:06:46.050 –> 01:06:49.670
Dhugal Meachem: and particularly if I work with young people, they have this massive.

690
01:06:51.570 –> 01:06:53.519
Dhugal Meachem: I mean anxiety. I mean, it’s.

691
01:06:53.520 –> 01:06:54.130
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s.

692
01:06:54.130 –> 01:06:57.380
Dhugal Meachem: It’s universe versus me in that mindset.

693
01:06:57.670 –> 01:06:59.840
Dhugal Meachem: So Taoist approach

694
01:07:01.160 –> 01:07:03.620
Dhugal Meachem: goes straight to the heart of this.

695
01:07:04.390 –> 01:07:12.759
Dhugal Meachem: Who you think you are. We have it through our language, like my hair and my legs, and my fingers, and my nose, and my heart beats.

696
01:07:12.850 –> 01:07:14.719
Dhugal Meachem: and then everything else is

697
01:07:14.790 –> 01:07:15.990
Dhugal Meachem: otherness.

698
01:07:16.800 –> 01:07:18.439
Dhugal Meachem: but actually

699
01:07:19.380 –> 01:07:25.339
Dhugal Meachem: take a just rational approach to this. You cannot be you without the oxygen around you.

700
01:07:25.760 –> 01:07:32.070
Dhugal Meachem: Just very, very simply. You could not be here if you didn’t have the planet underneath you. You

701
01:07:32.220 –> 01:07:44.240
Dhugal Meachem: I couldn’t be me if I if there wasn’t you like, there was just me and nothing else in the universe, how would I know I was me? So these very rational things? And if you extrapolate this

702
01:07:44.560 –> 01:07:48.249
Dhugal Meachem: all the way to its logical conclusion. Well.

703
01:07:48.630 –> 01:07:50.349
Dhugal Meachem: there’s no you without

704
01:07:50.870 –> 01:07:58.439
Dhugal Meachem: everything else, and therefore this the the separation between you and everything else is an abstract one.

705
01:07:58.904 –> 01:08:03.859
Dhugal Meachem: That we make. And if you really meditate on that for a long time.

706
01:08:05.140 –> 01:08:10.649
Dhugal Meachem: actually you don’t, you don’t. You don’t exist. There’s a there’s a

707
01:08:11.140 –> 01:08:15.989
Dhugal Meachem: you’re just. You’re just like a star in the sky or a wave on a beach.

708
01:08:16.200 –> 01:08:19.269
Dhugal Meachem: and on the inside the wave there’s lots of little

709
01:08:19.420 –> 01:08:24.169
Dhugal Meachem: drops of water going, hey? Actually, a wave is nice because you can go. The wave is kind of waving at the universe.

710
01:08:25.470 –> 01:08:26.529
Dhugal Meachem: so

711
01:08:26.910 –> 01:08:36.019
Dhugal Meachem: so another way of thinking about this is is, is, who are you, really? And it’s not in the kind of Western sense is like.

712
01:08:36.109 –> 01:08:38.370
Dhugal Meachem: I’m this person with this fashion.

713
01:08:38.450 –> 01:08:40.079
Dhugal Meachem: and that’s me.

714
01:08:40.100 –> 01:08:42.299
Dhugal Meachem: It’s who are you, really

715
01:08:43.000 –> 01:08:49.100
Dhugal Meachem: you? Well, you are! You are universe dancing in a way. You are leaf floating on the

716
01:08:49.330 –> 01:08:54.799
Dhugal Meachem: love it on the wind. You’re you’re a star in the sky. You’re a wave on the beach.

717
01:08:55.319 –> 01:09:03.660
Dhugal Meachem: and that’s massive. I found that to be very useful for myself, but also for people I teach in teacher trainings, and also just in the clinic as well.

718
01:09:06.170 –> 01:09:09.519
Dhugal Meachem: that’s also very different. I would say to Yoga theory, yeah.

719
01:09:09.529 –> 01:09:14.449
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I was going to say, I think that that last little bit there was probably

720
01:09:14.619 –> 01:09:25.899
Nyk Danu Yoga: a good place to start to wrap it up on, because I know you’ve got things to do. You’ve got things to do, people to see places to be I know we could do this. We probably do a 10 h episode if we had the time.

721
01:09:25.989 –> 01:09:29.059
Nyk Danu Yoga: but I absolutely loved that

722
01:09:29.099 –> 01:09:30.119
Nyk Danu Yoga: as the

723
01:09:30.579 –> 01:09:33.219
Nyk Danu Yoga: kind of little icing on the cake.

724
01:09:35.209 –> 01:09:38.059
Nyk Danu Yoga: And of course I’m going to put links to all your stuff.

725
01:09:38.209 –> 01:09:44.909
Nyk Danu Yoga: and I’ll put links to those books as well that you mentioned in the show notes. But before we totally wrap up I do have

726
01:09:45.129 –> 01:09:47.759
Nyk Danu Yoga: some little icebreaker questions that I like to

727
01:09:48.279 –> 01:09:55.059
Nyk Danu Yoga: to do with my guests. I guess an icebreaker means I should have done them in the beginning. So these are more like getting to know you questions.

728
01:09:55.209 –> 01:09:58.519
Nyk Danu Yoga: The 1st one is coffee or tea.

729
01:09:59.480 –> 01:10:01.230
Dhugal Meachem: Oh, I’m a total. T. Nerd

730
01:10:01.300 –> 01:10:05.029
Dhugal Meachem: has to be Chinese. Pour tea done properly.

731
01:10:05.940 –> 01:10:06.890
Dhugal Meachem: Thanks.

732
01:10:08.050 –> 01:10:09.649
Nyk Danu Yoga: Favorite ice cream, flavor.

733
01:10:10.810 –> 01:10:15.100
Dhugal Meachem: I teach a lot in Italy, and I’ve been converted to pistachio.

734
01:10:17.840 –> 01:10:20.920
Nyk Danu Yoga: one thing people often get wrong about me.

735
01:10:27.070 –> 01:10:30.269
Dhugal Meachem: That I’m that I’m not in my fifties.

736
01:10:31.330 –> 01:10:42.679
Dhugal Meachem: because I think I look I was looking at you as well. I’m like, really are you? I’m not. I’m beginning to enjoy. I mean, I’m probably gonna die of a heart attack now, having said this tomorrow. But if I look.

737
01:10:42.680 –> 01:10:45.140
Nyk Danu Yoga: I just knocked on wood for you. Thank you.

738
01:10:45.140 –> 01:10:47.719
Dhugal Meachem: If I look around people

739
01:10:47.820 –> 01:10:50.879
Dhugal Meachem: our age, I think we’re doing pretty good.

740
01:10:51.120 –> 01:11:00.450
Nyk Danu Yoga: I agree. Yeah, even if you look back, pop culture wise at like actors, we all grew up watching, and the what they looked like in their fifties. And now you look at us. It’s like.

741
01:11:00.620 –> 01:11:01.380
Nyk Danu Yoga: huh.

742
01:11:01.380 –> 01:11:06.860
Dhugal Meachem: What is Tom Cruise doing? I look to the Olympics, and like no, Tom used to be a good looking guy, naive.

743
01:11:07.220 –> 01:11:09.030
Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, he’s older than us, but still, yeah.

744
01:11:09.030 –> 01:11:12.029
Dhugal Meachem: He is, but he’s I haven’t had any. Have you had any plastic surgery? No.

745
01:11:12.030 –> 01:11:16.829
Nyk Danu Yoga: No, no, no, no, Botox, no, nothing. Just, you know.

746
01:11:16.870 –> 01:11:21.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: coconut oil and sleep. That’s my beauty. Regimen.

747
01:11:24.480 –> 01:11:28.060
Nyk Danu Yoga: So yeah, that actually is one that people often get wrong about me too. My age.

748
01:11:28.510 –> 01:11:32.079
Nyk Danu Yoga: A pop culture vice like a show, or a series, or a

749
01:11:32.450 –> 01:11:34.969
Nyk Danu Yoga: podcast, or something that you binge on.

750
01:11:34.970 –> 01:11:38.659
Dhugal Meachem: Popco pop pop! What is pop? Culture? Wow! I’m

751
01:11:39.180 –> 01:11:40.260
Dhugal Meachem: pop culture.

752
01:11:40.260 –> 01:11:42.659
Nyk Danu Yoga: This one’s always so hard for Yoga people to answer.

753
01:11:42.660 –> 01:11:46.059
Dhugal Meachem: Actually, I’m just going to come back to Star Wars. I think if you want.

754
01:11:46.060 –> 01:11:46.450
Nyk Danu Yoga: But I’m.

755
01:11:46.450 –> 01:11:50.000
Dhugal Meachem: Stand Taoism watch episode 4

756
01:11:50.440 –> 01:11:53.049
Dhugal Meachem: and actually episode

757
01:11:54.650 –> 01:11:59.379
Dhugal Meachem: 5. You know where Yoda is teaching Luke Skywalker, and he has to feel the force. Luke.

758
01:12:00.610 –> 01:12:06.310
Dhugal Meachem: Chinese medicine and Taoism is just Star Wars. So let’s just go with the old.

759
01:12:06.310 –> 01:12:07.150
Nyk Danu Yoga: Star Wars.

760
01:12:07.400 –> 01:12:08.150
Nyk Danu Yoga: excellent.

761
01:12:08.150 –> 01:12:08.720
Dhugal Meachem: Yeah.

762
01:12:09.110 –> 01:12:12.390
Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe that’ll be the title for this episode. Taoism and Chinese medicine.

763
01:12:12.390 –> 01:12:12.940
Dhugal Meachem: Forcing it.

764
01:12:12.940 –> 01:12:18.367
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. When I’m not practicing Yoga or Qigong, I am.

765
01:12:18.820 –> 01:12:21.199
Dhugal Meachem: I am bouldering with my kids.

766
01:12:21.320 –> 01:12:22.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: Awesome.

767
01:12:22.180 –> 01:12:25.080
Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, it’s really amazing upper body strength. And I just.

768
01:12:25.080 –> 01:12:25.550
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

769
01:12:25.550 –> 01:12:30.730
Dhugal Meachem: Vibe of the weird out there. Alternative vibe of rock, climbing people and.

770
01:12:30.730 –> 01:12:31.600
Nyk Danu Yoga: So fun.

771
01:12:33.540 –> 01:12:35.649
Nyk Danu Yoga: One weird fact about you.

772
01:12:37.521 –> 01:12:40.728
Dhugal Meachem: One weird fact about me.

773
01:12:41.930 –> 01:12:46.419
Dhugal Meachem: I like Chinese karaoke. I think I said to you earlier, yeah.

774
01:12:46.420 –> 01:12:47.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s awesome.

775
01:12:47.190 –> 01:12:47.520
Dhugal Meachem: Really old.

776
01:12:47.520 –> 01:12:49.890
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ve never done Chinese karaoke, of course, but.

777
01:12:51.420 –> 01:12:52.840
Dhugal Meachem: Highly recommended.

778
01:12:52.840 –> 01:12:56.859
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay. What the world needs now is.

779
01:12:58.020 –> 01:12:58.950
Dhugal Meachem: Less

780
01:12:59.790 –> 01:13:01.610
Dhugal Meachem: people doing shit

781
01:13:01.720 –> 01:13:03.589
Dhugal Meachem: and more people

782
01:13:04.316 –> 01:13:06.660
Dhugal Meachem: being caring and compassionate.

783
01:13:08.230 –> 01:13:10.110
Nyk Danu Yoga: yes, yes, here, here.

784
01:13:10.560 –> 01:13:13.530
Nyk Danu Yoga: One thing I wish people knew about yin yoga.

785
01:13:13.990 –> 01:13:15.989
Nyk Danu Yoga: and I know it’s hard to just do one. But.

786
01:13:16.450 –> 01:13:22.240
Dhugal Meachem: Yeah, but it’s you need a really qualified teacher to teach it.

787
01:13:22.410 –> 01:13:30.490
Dhugal Meachem: Don’t go to someone who’s 200 h teacher, but never trained in Yin that drives me crazy.

788
01:13:30.490 –> 01:13:33.100
Nyk Danu Yoga: Those of you who can’t see me on the pod. I’m

789
01:13:33.170 –> 01:13:34.680
Nyk Danu Yoga: raising the roof on that one.

790
01:13:34.680 –> 01:13:40.589
Dhugal Meachem: In is its whole own universe, and do yourself a favor and go to

791
01:13:40.990 –> 01:13:42.600
Dhugal Meachem: teacher who spent

792
01:13:43.060 –> 01:13:45.670
Dhugal Meachem: a lot of time looking at this. You won’t regret

793
01:13:45.720 –> 01:13:47.130
Dhugal Meachem: that at all.

794
01:13:47.130 –> 01:13:49.369
Nyk Danu Yoga: 100% agree. I often say.

795
01:13:49.840 –> 01:13:59.459
Nyk Danu Yoga: when it’s really a case of you don’t know all that you don’t know until you take a yin training. And then you’re like, Oh, there’s so many layers to this. Yeah.

796
01:13:59.460 –> 01:14:01.519
Dhugal Meachem: I would. I wouldn’t teach Bikram

797
01:14:02.188 –> 01:14:11.500
Dhugal Meachem: cause I I’ve been to a couple of classes, but I I wouldn’t be able to teach it. Well, and yeah, it sounds dumb, because, you know, is just lying around on the floor. I’m I would be crazy.

798
01:14:11.830 –> 01:14:16.178
Dhugal Meachem: I think, if if I was the 1st person to say that when you asked this question, but

799
01:14:16.740 –> 01:14:21.219
Dhugal Meachem: just seems like it’s laying around the floor. But it’s there’s so much happening in there.

800
01:14:21.220 –> 01:14:23.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: Agreed.

801
01:14:23.320 –> 01:14:27.919
Nyk Danu Yoga: is there anything else that I forgot to ask you about, that you would like to add.

802
01:14:30.525 –> 01:14:31.600
Dhugal Meachem: No!

803
01:14:35.840 –> 01:14:38.050
Dhugal Meachem: no! I play

804
01:14:38.190 –> 01:14:41.039
Dhugal Meachem: just another out there. Fact about me. I play

805
01:14:41.250 –> 01:14:44.299
Dhugal Meachem: an instrument called the Gucin, which is like a

806
01:14:44.620 –> 01:14:48.779
Dhugal Meachem: it’s like a guitar. Magic took a guitar and lay it down horizontal on a table. Yeah.

807
01:14:48.900 –> 01:14:49.550
Dhugal Meachem: like it. I have.

808
01:14:49.550 –> 01:14:51.500
Nyk Danu Yoga: Have a dear friend who

809
01:14:52.280 –> 01:14:56.570
Nyk Danu Yoga: she was in Calgary. Now she’s in Vancouver who plays that quite well. Yeah, she’s.

810
01:14:56.570 –> 01:14:57.320
Dhugal Meachem: My favorite.

811
01:14:57.320 –> 01:14:58.139
Nyk Danu Yoga: Bad stuff.

812
01:14:58.140 –> 01:15:00.229
Dhugal Meachem: Covid, and I’m having a blast with it.

813
01:15:00.570 –> 01:15:01.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Awesome.

814
01:15:02.210 –> 01:15:11.699
Nyk Danu Yoga: Well, my friend, thank you so much for coming out out of your I guess I don’t know where you are exactly, but you’re in Toronto. So

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01:15:11.820 –> 01:15:15.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: thank you for mentioning that you’re going to be in Canada. That made this a lot easier.

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01:15:15.660 –> 01:15:20.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: and of course I’ll put links to all your stuff in the in the the bio

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and we’ll say our proper goodbye in a moment when I hit record off with the recording

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but for those of you listening or watching bye, for now.

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Dhugal Meachem: Thanks for having me. Nick.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: My pleasure.