The Water Method: In the Pursuit of Wu Wei
By Paul Cavel
Part 1: Origins of the Water Method
The Water Method, first coined by Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching, twenty-five hundred years ago, comes from the teachings of the Taoist oral tradition and has existed for many millennia. For this reason, I like to refer to it as “Old Taoism” in contrast to the Neo-Taoist tradition or “New Taoism” which surfaced around one thousand years ago. Old Taoism uses a soft approach to create change in the body, qi and mind, mimicking the characteristics of water. Most notably, water follows the path of least resistance, a principle that is embedded into the fabric of Old Taoism’s theories and practices.
Much, much later, these techniques were transformed, likely due to crossover of qi practices from other traditions, and the Fire Method was born. Mixing and matching systems has been common throughout history. Similar to many Buddhist lineages, which were also flowering throughout China and Tibet at the same time, Fire practices make use of visualisations as a primary vehicle for manifesting change within a practitioner. The Water Method uses feeling, the kinesthetic sense, rather than visualisations in order to carry an individual deep into themselves and develop lasting change based on the state of their internal world. The sixteen neigong are the tools used to create those changes.
According to Old Taoism, there is only one constant in the entire universe: change. Change occurs in all things, from night to day, winter to summer, young to old, etc. The only question is: will you resist change or flow with it? And assuming you will engage with change, what kind of change are you looking to create? What is your intent? From this perspective, the Water and Fire schools agree – change is inevitable, it is only a question of methodology. Again, the original Taoist perspective was to merge and flow with change, in a soft way, to use the natural forces of the universe and ride the wave. Taoists noticed that the more they could recognise and align with universal principles, the stronger and healthier they could become; the more they resisted, the more tension and stress that was generated, the more vulnerable they became to closing down, watering the seeds of illness, injury and despair.
Both the Water and Fire Methods make use of Five Element practices, but whereas the Water Method uses a relaxed approach to remove all that is false to reveal that which is true, the Fire Method chooses a target, sets the intent on achieving that projection and applies the will, sometimes to extremes in the name of the end goal. Fire energy goes directly to its destination by jumping, making something happen and manifesting by force of will. Water energy takes the path of least resistance, relaxing into it, letting go and allowing the true path to unfold of its own accord. Both traditions look to balance the Water and Fire Elements, kun and li, with the Chinese pictogram for qi being a cauldron on the fire cooking rice. Too much Fire and the cauldron would dry out, crack and break; too much water and the rice will not cook.
Following the Path
Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching is closely related to the I Ching, or “Book of Changes”, which is the central Taoist cannon on the phenomena of change. The I Ching was written some four thousand years ago (and there is no known author) which was based upon the earlier, oral tradition that predated this work by another four thousand years. If true, it adds up to an eight thousand year-old tradition likely originating somewhere in the Kunlun mountains of Northern Tibet and migrating into Western China somewhere around four to five thousand years ago. From there, Taoism spread throughout China, setting up monasteries as hubs of study where dedicated practitioners could “follow the Tao”.
Ancient Taoists used methods of deep meditation to map out the human body, its qi (energy) and the mind. They developed many, many techniques to open up an individual’s true potential, and penetrate through to their essence and beyond. These practices were then structured into very precise and multilayered tools that would guide future practitioners through the many layers of body, qi and mind in the most efficient ways possible. Neigong leads adepts through releasing all personal conditioning, stripping themselves back to their essence, and unlocking their full potential. This is the path.
Because Taoism has a millennia-old tradition of practices, having had plenty of time to identify and work out any kinks, only the most efficient and fruitful techniques have been carried forward to the present day. All Taoist principles adhere to universal laws. Everything else has long been left by the wayside, similar to the way modern university research and scientific peer-review methods function today. When a new idea was developed in a particular monastery and got traction, it would be passed to the neighbouring monasteries. If the adepts there could replicate the results and found them useful, they would pass them up to the head monastery, where they could be further disseminated. No less than 200 years of successful results were required before any technique, exercise or set would be woven in.
In recent times, key Taoist centers have been established in the mountains west of Cheng Du, Sichuan Provence, China, where my teacher’s teacher, Liu Hung Chieh, was educated in the Water Method and received the teachings of Lao Tzu. He formerly passed those teachings down to Bruce Frantzis in the 1980s. All of the history that is provided has come from my thirty-five years of training directly with Bruce in both private and public tuition, including a pilgrimage to Cheng Du with my teacher in 2019.
parT TWO COMING SOON:
Wu wei — often described as “doing without doing”, but what does that really mean? How can you do something without doing it?
The 5 Taoist principles that help you cultivate wu wei.
Consistency without desire.