Daily Tao Sounds for health and healing have been used in China over 1500 years. They have been taught by Kung Fu and Chi Kung masters, and the magical cry ‘Yi’ of an early shaman healer still means doctor in Chinese language.
We all know that singing, humming or making pleasant sounds to a baby soothes and comforts the child as well as the one who makes the sounds. Agreeable, positive sounds release emotional pressure and are Natural Stress Relief for any age. For healing anxiety disorder and as a depression self help, Daily Tao Sounds recycle and transform negative energy into positive Chi, therefore into positive feelings.
Personal Experiences using Daily Tao Sounds
Sounding is an enjoyable practice for me and have been instrumental in strengthening my lungs (which were weak due to childhood illnesses) and overcoming persistent feelings of sadness and hastiness. Also, if I practice daily, the Tao sounds energize me for the day and help me sleep better at night.
I discovered in my Healing Tao workshops that many young people who admit having anger, hold fear or sadness on a deeper level. For them, recognizing these feelings as ‘stuck’, negative energy which transforms into positive Chi through daily Tao sounds practice, is more acceptable than seeing them as psychological problems.
Six Healing Sounds
The Six Healing Sounds you learn on this page are done following the nurturing cycle of Five Phases. Each organ system corresponds to an element, a season, color, taste and a transforming emotion. To learn more about Five Phases, please click on the graphic.
Lung/Large Intestine – Metal – Autumn – White – Pungent – Sadness to Joy, Courage – Sound is SSSSSSS. (tongue behind teeth).
Kidney/Urinary Bladder – Water – Winter – Dark Blue – Salty – Fear to Peace, Gentleness – Sound is WOOOOOO. . . (lips as when blowing out a candle).
Liver/Gall Bladder – Wood – Green – Sour – Anger to Tolerance, Kindness. The Sound is SHHHHHH. (tongue near palate).
Heart/Small Intestine – Fire – Red – Bitter – Hate, Impatience to Love, Compassion. The Sound is HAAAAAA. . . (mouth wide open).
Spleen/Pancreas/Stomach – Earth – Harvest time – Yellow – Sweet or Bland – Worry to Fairness, Singing. the Sound is WHOOOOO. . . (from throat, guttural).
Pericardium/Triple Warmer – Fire – All Seasons. The Sound is HEEEEEE. P/TW correspond to the fire element, but the sound is usually done as the sixth since TW’s function is to balance, especially the temperature of the upper, middle and the lower burner of the body.
Preparation for the Practice
If you feel stiff or tense shake your body gently as you walk around.
Sit with a straight back in a quiet place. If you can not sit for some reason, find a comfortable position where you have both arms free to move. If you can not move, do the sounds only.
Making Six Healing Sounds with their movements opens the breath and gives you a sense of joyous freedom. To make them into Daily Tao Sounds, try doing them at the same time, at the same place – perhaps in the morning to catch the right tone and inner stillness for the day. Do each sound 6, 9 or 18 times (at least three times if in a hurry!).
Before beginning the sequence for each organ system, rest your open palms on your lap. Think of the special qualities you read above and your intention to transform all polluted energy into positive Chi each time you empty your lungs.
At he end of each sequence, direct your love to these amazing physical instruments that serve you, and thankfully accept the transformation of all negative to positive Chi. Repeat the daily Tao sounds as many times as your time allows.
The Practice
Lung/LI: Look up and breathe in as you raise the arms and turn the palms upwards. On SSSSSS. sound let your arms float slowly back to their original position. Breathe normally.
Kidney/UB: Breathe in as you bend your back and bring your hands to lock around your knees. Your neck straight to avoid unnecessary tension, push the abdominal muscles against the kidneys with a WOOOOO sound until the air in your lungs is spent. Breathing normally let the arms float back to rest on your lap.
Liver/GB: Breathe in as you make a large circle with your arms to lock the thumbs above your head and lean slightly to your left. On SHHHHHHH. sound let the arms float back along the circle back to your lap.
Heart/SI: Breathe in as you make a large circle with your arms to lock the thumbs above your head and lean slightly to your right. On HAAAAAA. . sound let the arms float back along the circle back to your lap.
Spleen/ST: Breathe in as you make a circle with your arms and bring your fingertips under the left ribcage (stomach area). Breathe out on WHOOOOOO. sound as you press as deep as feels comfortable to you. Breathe normally as you float your arms along the circle back to your lap.
PC/TW: Lean back in your chair keeping the neck straight but relaxed. Or lie on your back. Breathe in as you spread the arms and bring your hands above the head. On HEEEEEEE. sound glide your hands just above the body to rest on your lap.(This sound, done with movements at bedtime can help you to have a deep sleep).
Open Your Heart to the Virtues of great Love
Open your heart to the sounds while following the instructions, but do not worry about doing them ‘just right’. Remember that Daily Tao Sounds taught by Chi Kung masters or other Tao of Health practitioners may vary in the sounds’ form and movements, but their ‘Tai Chi Breathing’ is the same.
Emptying the lungs from stale air is always an important aspect of Tao of Health and a sense of balance it brings.
While the use of Natural Healing Remedies grew primarily to help cure illnesses, healing herbs were, and still are, also used to maintain youthful vigour and smooth flow of Chi through our physical networks.
Ideally herbs are used for prevention. There is an old saying, ‘It’s better to dig a well before you run out of the water.’
However, the classification of Chinese Healing Herbs developed because of the need to cure illnesses with complex symptoms.
What makes these substances correct dis-harmonies or help revitalize the person who is using them?
Human beings and herbs have one thing in common – both are of nature, which encompasses the entire material universe and its phenomena.
The root of the word nature is Nasci< Latin – to be born. The cells of plants, animals and humans are in perpetual renewal, nothing ever dies, forms only change according to the movement of Chi with its myriad qualities.
Being born is an essential character in all things and beings, not isolated, not even a part but the integrated whole. Being in renewal is innate – of nature!
Natural healing remedies are of nature, not broken down into chemical components like drugs, but working in a roundabout way, holistically resonating with the same kind of Chi.
Marshall McLuhan said, “Matter does not matter!”
Since all Life is radiation and resonance, let us forget matter for a moment!
Vibrating, resonating life includes plant, animal and mineral kingdoms as well as human life, nature’s most complex expression.
Life’s very purpose is its process – to evolve naturally, to remain harmonious.
The mineral kingdom is a simple form of vibratory life fossilized into a certain frequency. In vegetation, the cells breathe in and out the changes in constant continuum and each cell re-creates itself naturally in the process of life and death.
This diversified continuum is directed by Wu Chi, the Primal Creative Energy, manifesting in all and everything. It is harmonizing and creating new combinations according to two of the basic laws in Creation. . .
Motion and Attraction of Similar Radiations. ‘Birds of the Feather Flock Together!’
The overall harmonious co-operative is Tao – the Way, a still point within everything while causing movement – like an axis in the centre of a wheel.
It seems that healing herbs with a particular quality and magnetism – a particular vibratory frequency, are drawn to a similar ‘milieu’. Through it, the herbs’ qualities affect the channel and organ functions and through that the entire body.
Therapeutic potential of an herb depends on its taste and temperature as well as its ability to move within the channel network. The herb must also be able to lead or to harmonize and support actions of other herbs in a formula.
Variations in combinations create possibilities for different actions.
The practitioner works on the basis that natural healing remedies do not cure, but they assist and support nature in her ongoing process to harmonize and nurture life.
For a certain deficiency in the body, such as of blood (Anemia), the herbs can supply certain constituents so the body may improve its blood. This way an overall vital force is strengthened and harmonized.
Here is an example from my own experience. When I was studying Chinese Medicine in the eighties, the pressure to study day and night had built to such an extent that I was totally exhausted, began to have palpitations and chest pains.
After examining me, my teacher prescribed a common patent formula called “Gui Pi Wan’. Soon the pains were gone, and this medicine has come handy through the years whenever I am overworked and need an energy boost.
Also, ‘Let your food be medicine and medicine be your food’ is another old Chinese proverb.
A twentieth-century scholar Lin Yutang wrote: “The Chinese do not draw the distinction between food and medicine. What is good for the body is medicine and at the same time food.”
Daily meals are often flavoured and supplemented with the same herbs the herbalists use in their formulas.
The essential message of this short introduction to Chinese Healing Herbs is that the wonderful nature we all share within and without, is a subtle co-operative vibrating creatively, being born in an ongoing continuity and newness.
The connections are intricate yet each part fits into the greater whole. This working together seems to be the primary aim of nature when we view its uniqueness, its harmony and its beauty.
Animals search in nature for those plants that benefit their well-being.
Shouldn’t we as human beings, who have been bestowed with greater co-operative intelligence also accept, that it is wise to look for answers in nature, of which we are the most evolved and exultant expression?
Before writing about ancient Chinese Medicine and its comprehensive knowledge, I like to share with you some of my own thoughts related to it.
To me working with it is like drawing water from a deep well, I have to prime it every time in order to bring up its clear water.
This means that working with an individual with a disharmony, a connection must be made to his/her Original Source Chi as well as to that of the greater cosmos. The goal is to fit into the workings of the great Vital Energy – Wu Chi. Only then can we truly help and be helped.
My sincere hope is that you can experience the balanced awareness that is necessary for complete healing of yourself and those you love.
In order to do this a silent and receptive state of mind is required. Without this receptivity, understanding the intricate patterns of dis-harmonies cannot become clear.
Intellectually we can gather information and apply it, we can even experience temporary relief, but ultimately our intuitive channel must become clear for lasting healing and wellness.
Therefore I’m asking you to open up your consciousness to the kind of knowledge which I searched for (and still do), through my studies of the ancient Chinese Medicine in the eighties.
And in addition to having been trained as a Healing Tao instructor by Mantak Chia, I have explored many teachings, been with Sufi masters and studied spiritual texts including writings of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and the Chinese classic ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower’ and most recently ‘In the Light of Truth’ by Abd-ru-shin.
All of them require a shift in consciousness every time I read them.
When I decided to study ancient Chinese Medicine in depth after reading the Huang Di Neijing (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine), I realized that here is a health system through which I can bring some of my spiritual understanding into a usable format.
Later, when I began to practice Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), I found that with each individual with whom I worked, we sought for ‘the main thread of the fabric’ that connects us to the ‘tone vibration’ present in all and everything.
Medicine Tao. The comprehensive and profound knowledge gathered and presented in the books on ancient Chinese Medicine carry a unifying message of the micro-macro cosmic universe.
The question of effective acupuncture and specific herbs for health and healing were important to the ancient acupuncture doctor.
But equally important was how to guide the individual toward ‘Tao of Health’, a harmonious lifestyle by daily use of natural healing foods and remedies found in his environment.
Instructions were given how to clear the energy system of the body in order to unify its function with the laws of nature and the greater cosmos.
Helping the person understand this goal of unity, even to inspire him to work toward longevity and the glorious destiny of Enlightenment, a birthright of every human being, was an important aspect of acupuncture doctor’s work.
In the light of our modern knowledge, writing these pages is a modest but sincere attempt toward this noble goal.
Without the desire to understand the whole, the treatments we learn to give ourselves and those we love will be patchwork. They cannot last without this deep commitment to the comprehensive physical-emotional-spiritual well-being.
Unifying Logic of TCM
As you read about the ancient Chinese Medicine you’ll discover that although it is less analytical than our Western medicine, it is brilliant in its unifying logic. And I believe that by fully understanding this we can work toward permanently satisfying results.
Like most of its counterparts in other countries, Traditional Chinese Medicine evolved through the millenniums as a reflection of the culture and the philosophical-religious outlook of its people.
Tao, the Way of Harmony, is the directive and foundation of the mysterious intermingling of ‘heaven, earth and man’. Chinese Medicine describes health and illness as phenomena in relation to Tao’s natural laws operating in all Creation.
Constantly Forming Vital Energy or Chi
Central to TCM is the concept of Vital Energy or Chi, which constantly creates itself anew in a myriad of forms, – yet in its essence is one – therein lies its paradox. However, when correctly understood it also reveals its beautiful and simple logic.
Huang Di Neijing is a summary of the medical practices and theoretical knowledge up to 500 to 300 BC when it was compiled by unknown authors.
Confidence to Conquer Illness
The book says that in order to completely heal a person, acupuncture, herbs and the other modalities are only one aspect of the treatment. There must also be integrated within the patient in other ways.
“When people lack the confidence to conquer illness, they allow the Spirit to scatter and wither away. They let their emotions take control of their lives. They spend their days drowned in desires and worries, exhausting their Jing essence, their Chi and Shen spirit. Of course then, even with these other modalities, the disease will not be cured.”
As a product of a long process of synthesizing one discovery with another, one region with another and one dynasty with another, Neijing provides the basis for the massive medical knowledge compiled through the later centuries.
Adaptability of TCM
Because of this Chinese Medicine’s ability to adapt, it’s principles based on the Law of Yin and Yang – and all that it contains – are applicable even in our changeable conditions and discoveries of the Western Medicine.
In my over twenty-five year practice of TCM, I did not discover even once any contradiction between Chinese Medicine and its Western counterpart. Instead, I found that they can complement each other in a supportive way when the principles are understood and practices properly applied.
