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COLLEGE OF TAO
APRIL 2025
NEWSLETTER
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Taoist Rituals in Modern Life:
Timeless bridge between ancient practices and modern science
By Dr. Mao Shing Ni
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In todayâs fast-paced, hyper-material world, the resurgence of ancient spiritual practices may seem unexpectedâbut their power is undeniable. At our upcoming Alchemy of Transformation Retreat from April 10 -13 hosted at Yo San University campus, discover how time-honored Taoist rituals, talismans, and invocations can become your tools for mental clarity, emotional resilience, and energetic alignment.
Rediscover Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living Traditional Taoist Practices are not mere relics of the past. Rooted in deep cosmological wisdom, they offer practical benefits that resonate with modern science.
Taoist talismans (珊, Fu) are symbolic scripts drawn on yellow paper with red ink, designed to harmonize your energy and connect you to the higher power and the deeper order of the cosmos. When activated through ritual, breath work, and invocations, these talismans become powerful conduits for protection, healing, clarity, and transformation.
The Science Behind the Rituals
Recent scientific research is beginning to validate the neurological and psychological value of these ancient practices:
âą Cognitive Anchoring and Stress Reduction: Studies published in Frontiers in Psychology reveal that rituals provide predictability and structure, reducing anxiety and fostering a sense of control in uncertain times (Hobson et al., 2017). Engaging in talismanic rituals can create a feeling of psychological safety similar to mindfulness or prayer.
âą Neuroplasticity and Focused Intention: Repeated chanting and visualization, key components of Taoist invocations, have been shown to enhance neural connectivity and coherence. Research discussed in How God Changes Your Brain by Newberg & Waldman (2009) highlights how such practices promote brain states linked to creativity, insight, and healing.
âą Biophoton Emissions: Studies have detected photon emissions from the brain and bodyâphenomena that may be involved in cellular communication. Taoist rituals were meant to harness and guide these subtle energies for healing and protection (Van Wijk, 2005).
A Retreat to Realign and Rejuvenate
At our retreat, youâll have the opportunity to integrate these ancient practices into your daily life. Learn how to:
âą Enhance Stress Management and Mental Clarity: Experience rituals designed to calm your mind, focus your intention, and build robust energetic boundaries.
âą Facilitate Personal Healing: Discover techniques that can shift your energy, promote healing, and support your overall wellbeing.
âą Engage with Natureâs Rhythms: Reconnect with the cycles of the natural world, honor the invisible forces that shape your health, and live with renewed intentionality.
In a world saturated with data, distraction, and disconnection, these Taoist rituals offer a much-needed return to purpose and balance. They are an integration of science and spirituality. By inviting consciousness, intention, and sacred design back into your life, you can experience a transformation that bridges ancient wisdom and modern discovery.
Join Us
If youâre searching for depth and meaning beyond material success, our Alchemy of Transformation Retreat offers a grounding yet transcendent experience. Embrace the chance to align with the rhythms of the Tao and discover how these potent rituals can enhance your mind-body-spirit connection.
This hybrid retreat features in-person attendance as well as online access making it easy for those who do not live in Los Angeles.
Registration closes April 5. Reserve your spot today and begin your journey toward lasting harmony and inner peace.
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IN ONLY 10 DAYS YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER
2025 COLLEGE OF TAO RETREAT
The Alchemy of Transformation
April 10-13, 2025
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Whether you are In-Person, on Zoom, or just viewing all the Recordings in the comfort of your home; take advantage of this Transformational Opportunity to infuse the Ancient Wisdom of the Tao into your life.
Learn how to live your life in Peace, Balance & Protection. Learn how to use breath work, with invocations and talismans which are powerful conduits for protection, healing, clarity, and transformation.Discover who you really are.
Join On-Line, In Person or
By Recordings for a Month
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COLLEGE OF TAO 2025 RETREAT SCHEDULE
April 10-April 13, 2025 Yo San University
In Person, Zoom, and Recorded
THURSDAY APRIL10, 1st DAY OF RETREAT
6:00 - 7:00 am Registration
6:30 - 7:00 am Breakfast (Available, Dr. Maoâs cereal)
7:00 - 7:45 am Retreat Opening Meditation (Dr. Mao Shing Ni)
8:00 - 9:00 am Self Healing Qi Gong (Claire Cunneen)
9:00 - 9:30 am. Break
9:30 - 11:00 am Thinking Is Louder Than Thunder (Peter Stege)
11:15 - 11:45 am Walking Meditation Video (Dr. Mao Shing Ni)
!2:00 - 12:45 pm Lunch
1:00 - 2:00 pm Introduction to âI Chingâ (James Tuggle)
2:15 - 3:30 pm How to Cast the âI Chingâ (James Tuggle)
3:45 - 4:15 pm Eight Treasures Qi Gong (James Tuggle)
4:15 - 5:30 pm. Quiet Time
5:30 - 6:15 pm Dinner
6:15 - 7:15 pm Clean-up & Fellowship Cooking Video ( Dr. Mao Shing Ni )
7:30 - 8:30 pm Introduction to Invocations & Talismans (Dr. Mao Shing Ni)
FRIDAY APRIL 11, 2nd DAY OF RETREAT
6:00 - 7:00 am Registration
6:30 - 7:00 am Breakfast (Available, Dr. Maoâs cereal)
7:00 - 7:30 am Friday Morning Meditation in Shrine Room (Amira Kusala)
7:45 - 8:45 am Cosmic Tour Bagua (Arnold Tayam)
9:00 - 11:00 am Merry-Go-Round, Bagua Level 1, (Marc Mason)
12:00 - 12:45 pm Lunch
1:00 - 2:15 pm Integral Nutrition (Amira Kusala)
2:30 - 5 00 pm Talismans, and Calligraphy â 1, (Dr Mao Shing Ni)
5:30 - 6:15 pm Dinner
6:30 - 7:00 pm Talismans, and Calligraphy â 2, (Dr. Mao Shing Ni)
SATURDAY APRIL 12, 3rd DAY OF RETREAT
6:30 - 7:00 am Breakfast (Available) Dr. Maoâs cereal)
7:00 - 7:45 am Morning Meditation/ Salutations (Dr. Daoshing Ni)
8:00 - 9:30 am Crane Style Qi Gong (Dr. Daoshing Ni)
9:45 - 11:45 am Yang Sheng Lecture (Dr. Daoshing Ni)
12:00 - 12:45 pm Lunch
1:00 - 2:15 pm Quiet time
2:30 - 5:00 pm Advanced Invocations (Dr. Mao Shing Ni)
5:30 - 6:15 pm Dinner
6:15 - 7:15 pm Invoking Your Future (Dr Mao Shing Ni)
SUNDAY APRIL 13, FINAL DAY OF RETREAT
6:30 - 7:00 am Breakfast (Available) Dr. Maoâs cereal) (bring all luggage to Tai Chi Room 3rd Floor)
7:00 - 8:00 am Sunday Renewal Ceremony (Dr. Mao Shing Ni)
8:00 - 8:15 am Quiet Time
8:15 - 9:30 am Tai Chi â (Peter Stege)
9:45 - 10:45 am Merry-Go-Round (Marc Mason)
11:00 - 12:30 pm COT Deans & Inspiration Letter from OmNi (Edward Sullivan)
12:30 - 1:00 pm Lunch
1:00 - 3:00 pm Community Service Clean & Packing up Volunteers Welcome
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Engage Your Mind Body and Spirit - Be Part of the Experience
Join Us Today While There is Still Time
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Events Update from
The College of Tao Shrine and Retreat Center
Southern Oregon, USA
2025 Schedule
Monday April 14, 6:00 pm â Sunday, April 20, 6:00 pm
Mountain Springtime Immersion
This is a work session to continue the upkeep and improvement of the property. Mostly outdoor work, forest, land, pruning, planting, etc. as well as indoor work for those interested. Early morning group and individual quiet sitting and movement practice. Evening cultivation. âRearrange your scheduleâ and settle into the Springtime rhythm of this remote and unique property. This retreat is scheduled to follow the COT Retreat in April at Yo San University or can be attended separately. 3 day minimum please. Cooking, cleaning and all other chores to be shared. The closest airport is Medford, OR. There are flights on Alaska Airlines LAX to MFR and Avelo Airlines serves Burbank, CA to MFR on Mondays and Fridays.
Registration and info contact Peter Stege pstege@hotmail.com
Cost: $25/day to cover food expenses.
October 3 - 5, Sisters Retreat
October 9 - 13, Harmony Tai Chi Level 3 (58 Step)
COT Mentorship, CHI Health certification in any CHI form, or ITMI Teacher certification(any level) are required to attend any of these retreats.
Registration for October retreats begins May 1 at www.collegeoftao.org
To reserve a spot for the Sisters Retreat, please contact Amira Kusala, taoistmentorship@gmail.com
To reserve a spot for all other retreats and for any questions, please contact Peter Stege at pstege@hotmail.com
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Tao of Life Tele-Study Group
Thursday April 17, 2025 | 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm PT
The Majestic Domain of the Universal Heart
The Most Truthful Divinity
by Hua-Ching Ni & Mao Shing Ni, PhD
Click Here to Join
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Meeting ID 839 6061 8537
Use Passcode 2825ï»ż
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The selection, The Majestic Domain of the Universal Heart, is provided by Paul Olko.
"This book has been a manual for me to focus on my healing of the physical and spiritual aspects of my heart these past few months. I would like to present it to the study group for reading and contemplation. Thank you!"
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Dr. Daoshing Ni, a 38th generation doctor of the Ni family lineage, facilitates this monthly Tele-Study group.
If you have any questions, please contact:
ï»żvladimiriliev@sbcglobal.net
CLICK HERE to purchase book
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Elena Babienko shared two important guidelines:
"Humanity takes the example of Earth to stabilize itself.
Earth takes the example of Heaven to rotate itself.
Heaven takes the example of Tao to purify itself.
Tao takes the example of itself to integrate and disintegrate all things and all lives."
I Ching, Commentary to Hexagram 14, p 296
What do the luxuries of life, ornamental knowledge. psychological toys, social and religious vanities all mean to human life? Value your plain life. Do not do things that cause you to lose your original perfect balance, called "wu wei" (non-doing).
Although it does not matter if you do something, it does matter if you overdo it. This is called "wei wu wei" (do the non-doing).
from Chapter 25 in the
Tao Teh Ching.
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ï»żINFINICHI ENERGY HEALING QI GONG LEVEL I | |
IN-PERSON OR
ZOOM CLASS
May 23 - 25, 2025ï»ż
Instructors
Dr. Mao Shing Ni & Edward Sullivan
- Protect yourself
- Protect your environment
- Strengthen your Vitality or Qi
- Learn the Foundation of Medical Qi Gong Healing
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Welcome Qi Friends,
You will learn some Ancient healing Qi Gong practices that can strengthen your immune system and lay the foundation for helping others to heal. Students are introduced to the basic principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
The Level 1 course may be taken for your personal health and protection; or you may decide to continue on and learn additional InfiniChi levels to help your family and friends heal. The advanced levels are the professional path to become an InfiniChi Energy Qi Gong Practitioner.
This ancient wisdom is based upon the healing modalities of the Hua-Ching Ni Family and TCM Medical Qi Gong texts. It features a systematic program that increases Qi sensitivity, facilitates Qi healing, and helps to awaken the healing power of subtle energy.
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Level 1 - Prerequisites: None
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INFINICHI 1: All 3 DAYS
Friday May 23 through Sunday May 25
9:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific Time
with a lunch break
Total Cost: $350
$300 If Registered by May 10
(If you have already taken this class
AUDIT for $89 for the whole weekend)
In-Person will be held at Yo San University
13315 Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066
2nd floor, InfiniChi Room, or Zoom.
After you have registered and paid, a Zoom Link
will be sent to you the week of the course.
Class recordings will be sent to all participants.
For information about the entire
InfiniChi Program, click on the
REGISTER button above.
Any questions please contact
Ed@QiandLight.com
Edward Sullivan: Dean,
Infinichi Energy Healing Qi Gong Institute
College of Tao
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On Sundays at 7:00 am PT, you are invited to join us via Zoom in a Spiritual Renewal Ceremony facilitated by the Ministers of the Integral Way. James Tuggle along with others will guide us in how to apply the wisdom of the Integral Way. There is no fee for the College of Tao community, friends and family.
On Sunday April 13, we will be broadcasting live from The Shrine of the Eternal Breath of Tao at Yo San University during our Annual Retreat. Dr. Mao Shing Ni will be guiding this Sunday Renewal Service.
Join Zoom Meeting Here
Meeting ID: 136 428 813
Passcode: 006090
Find your local number: Click Here
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Deep and Sincere Gratitude
ï»żOpens Our Divine Heart
by Alannah Fitzgerald
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An amazing thing can happen when, with pure intention, we guide, focus and still our mind within our inherent Divine Heart of hearts and, with deepest gratitude, breathe in the expansive, boundless purity and joy that this process bestows in us. As we gently allow this energy to fill our Being, we can then calmly guide it through our willing hands and hearts to serve our fellow Beings with great love and integrity.
On a personal note, gradually, through many, many years of trials and tribulations, while in the midst of serving others without thoughts of personal reward, acknowledgment or spoken appreciation, I have come to experience the sheer joy it brings. As though bubbling up from a pure spring, into the conscious mind, this ease of flow sparked a warm remembrance of what I have read from OmNi many times before; that when "we help others, we are [through natural law] helping ourselves" and, likewise, "as we help ourselves [through exercising our personal cultivation], we are indeed helping others." As time has passed, the realization of this deep and subtle, wondrous miracle has borne fruit. I ask myself and you, my dear reader, is this not an energy of boundless joy we wish to carry within ourselves? Is this not vital to our own wellbeing?
I think by now, many of us have come to the awareness that the quality of energy we carry within is, in fact, the energy we express to the world. When we extend ourselves to others in this way, with purity, kindness and grace, we inevitably expand our being far beyond just ourselves. The goodness we cultivate within our own life-being thus expands as our field of energy ripples out, touching all lives - humans, plants and animals.
Hopefully, without repeating myself too often, the value of this precious aspect of cultivation will move us, more and more with each passing day, to offer ourselves in selfless service to others. One of my favorite âinvocationsâ to repeat while serving is, âEvery worldly deed, whether for self or others, is dedicated as an offering to the Subtle Realm.â
Tomorrow can only be today. Shall we make this day a masterpiece?
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| | Brothers of the Heavenly Way | | |
BROTHERS MEETING
March 10, 2025
A question was asked: Why expand our self to unite with the solar system? Why expand our awareness to something larger than our own life/body? Isnât cultivation about going inside ourselves?
Cultivation is not just one thing, it is many things. We know that spiritual cultivation has Stepping Stones. The things you attend to at the beginning are not the same things you attend to at the end. On page 50 of our book, Eternal Light, Master Ni is talking about the end of cultivation: âEnlarge yourself to be the whole solar systemâŠuntil there is no existence of the small life of individual human form with the sense of internal and external; everything is one. Each time you do this, you complete your spiritual cultivation.â
Life is a process and spiritual cultivation mirrors and works with life. What is the boundary of inside and outside? It is something for us to discover. To find it, we begin by going inside.
The next Brothers Meeting is April 6, 2025
Please contact Rob at rbtbrc@yahoo.com to join us.
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| | Sisters of the Heavenly Way | | |
Listening to a talk the other day, I was struck by the similarity of understanding between the Christian and Integral Way traditions.
In the gospel of St. Thomas, Jesus apparently says to his disciples: âIf they ask you what is the sign of the Father in you, tell them it is both a movement and a rest.â A surge of joy! Yes! How beautifully expressed. Itâs universal nature. It cannot be otherwise. We all come from, exist in and share the same Being with its all encompassing benevolent expression. The sign of Tao in us, in all lives and things, is the sameâa movement and a rest. The primal outward activity of yang, and the inward and quieter aspect of receptive yang, or yin.
In cultivation, the rest or yin aspect of being softens attention off the finite activity of thinking and perceiving to settle and open into the infinite and ever present Tao. The movement or yang aspect then causes awareness to rise and turn back out into the world, to see the world clearly, as itself, and express purely from Tao. The importance of the yin expression is clearâawareness moves inward to remember and recognise itself as itselfâ the True Nature of Being.
Encouraged by the teachings of the Lady of Great Harmony in Mystical Universal Mother, Sisters continue to shift awareness off the limited forms of thinking and perceiving to bathe in the sky-like presence of Tao. The Lady in Blue hints at this shift.
As minds and hearts clear of their dualizing tendencies, pure intuitive and natural ways of being can arise without distortion. Tao can express, shine, without competition from an emotional and preferential heart/mind.
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Love,
Barbara
Our next Sisters gathering will be held in May 2025.
Sisters will not be gathering in April because of the annual retreat.
For West Australians we meet on Sunday May 11th at 8:30 am
For Californian women we meet on Saturday May 10th at 5:30 pm PT
For our Eastern US women we meet on March 10 at 8:30 pm ET
Contact Barbara Wolff to join our gatherings: sistersofuhw@gmail.com
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Invocation for Health and Longevity
I am strong; the sky is clear.
ï»żI am strong; the earth is stable.
I am strong; men are at peace with one another.
I am supported by the harmony of all three spheres.
All of my spiritual elements return to me.
All of my spiritual guardians accompany me.
The yin and yang of my life are well integrated.
My life root is firm.
As I follow the path of revitalization,
my mind and emotions become wholesomely active.
The goddess of my heart nourishes my life abundantly.
Internal chi (energy) enhances my spiritual growth,
and all obstacles dissolve before me.
The channels of my life energy are balanced.
My natural healing power contributes to a long and happy life,
so that my virtuous fulfillment in the world
can be accomplished.
By following the subtle law and integral way of life,I draw ever closer to the divine realm of the Subtle Origin.
Then repeat this phrase three times: âDivine Source of Health and Longevityâ
It is good to repeat the entire invocation three times or more at one sitting. Hands are held together in front of the body with the right thumb in the palm of the left hand. After the reading, gently bite the teeth together 36 times, swallow the saliva three times and bring the energy down to the lower abdomen. If you have a specific ailment, visualize it being healed completely and your body being restored to health and wholeness. If you are not ill, then visualize yourself as completely healthy.
ï»żThis is a Spiritual Practice for Enhancing Health from, âPower of Natural Healingâ by Hua-Ching Ni.
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Coming this Summer
Crane Style Qi Gong with Dr. Dao
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Coming This September
Qi Gong & Meditations for Cancer Support and Prevention
And Self Healing Qi Gong
Instructor: Edward Sullivan
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Thank you for joining us.
Volunteer Editors:
Sue, Alannah,
Sybil and Amira
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