Introduction
Falcon Books is presenting a series of interviews with seasoned Hermetic practitioners and those who follow a spiritual discipline. The aim being to share the wisdom, knowledge and understanding of these practitioners with those just beginning the path and as an inspiration to us all. The focus of these discussions are guided towards the spiritual seeker.
Presenting today an interview with Serge Augier also known as the “Urban Daoist” to view his website and facebook with the same name. To view his demonstrations please go vimeo, and youtube channel.
Serge has over 40 years experience in the Daoist arts. He is the current master of the Daxuan school, which is an ancient lineage of Daoist practices comprising of a wide range of skills both esoteric and practical incorporating principles of internal cultivation and philosophy and their application in daily life.
He teaches Ziranmen (natural boxing) which incorporates bare-hand and weapon training, and three well known internal arts of Bagua, Xingyi and also General Li’s Taijiquan. Serge is also a well known author on these subjects.
Terminology
- Ba Zi Mondate – Ba Zi means “Eight Characters”: each individual is born under the influence of eight basic energy potentials, based on the principles of Yin and Yang as well as the interaction of the Five Elements. The purpose of Ba Zi is to analyse, for oneself and for other people, the influences of elements that determine personalities, and more importantly to have a precise and refined understanding of ourselves in order to use our full potential.
- Celestial Mandate – The Celestial Mandate of the Daxuan School is a Complex Bazi as it carries more than 27 Characters to Interpret. This interpretation is a great help to know yourself better, in your strengths and blockages, but also to understand the others, find the source of misunderstandings that punctuate your interactions, and improve your capacity for empathy and communication.
- Wai Gong – Health exercises.
- Nei Gong – Techniques for the development of vitality.
- Nei Dan – Taoist internal alchemy.
- Xin Yi Dao Yin Fa – The research of emotional stability.
- Shen Gong – The work and training of the Spirit.
Magic Meditation
The One resides at the North Pole,
in the midst of the abyss.
In front is the Hall of Light,
behind is the Crimson Palace.
Imposing is the Flowery Canopy,
great is the Golden Pavilion!
On its left is the gang star, on its right the kui,
waves and breakers propagate in the void.
Mysterious excrescences overlay the cliffs,
vermilion herbs enwrap the hills;
on the rocks is white jade,
the Sun and the Moon spread their light.
There you go beyond fire and pass over water,
you cross the Mystery and go past the Yellow.
Walls and gates intersect,
curtains and hangings are adorned with gems;
dragons and tigers are lined up on guard
and divine beings are at their sides.
( (Baopu zi) – A method used for circulating the Qi)
Hello Serge and a cordial welcome from Falcon Books. Thank you for sharing with us your time and wisdom along this journey.
Some may have been wondering why I included a Daoist practitioner in relation to discussing Franz Bardon’s teachings and Initiation into Hermetics (IIH). As we know Bardon drew some of his knowledge from various different traditions and brought them together within one platform. We are aware these universal teachings and are applicable to many different areas. I would like to investigate these teachings from this particular Daoist tradition and discuss the parallels between the two systems and also the approach to inner cultivation and explore the esoteric aspects of this system.
Falcon Books: Firstly, I would begin if you would be willing to share your fascinating childhood with us, how you first was introduced to the Daxuan tradition.
Serge Augier: Hello, I am very happy to be here and to answer your questions. First of all, let me tell you I do not talk about myself, my story, my own training, or the way I am in my own path. Only because I want to put forward my tradition, but not at all my own imaginings, or own accomplishments. That is why I never talk about my history or anything. Of course, let’s say my teacher lived with me as a kid, introduced me to Daoist practice when I was seven years old. I started practicing as soon as my teacher asked me. But, I only enjoyed practicing when I was around twelve/thirteen years of age. Between seven and thirteen I was training the basics and it was more because I was pushed towards the practice. But as soon as I reached twelve /thirteen, I started training because I wanted to, that was when I was introduced to the Daxuan tradition.
Falcon Books: Please could explain the origins of Daxuan and the various branches within it.
Serge Augier: Daxuan Daoism, defined as Clanic ( family) Daoism which means, it is not a religious Daoism, it is not monastic Daoism. It is Clanic – meaning from a clan or family.
What is the difference?
Around the year 200 AD in China, Buddhism arrived and started to have monasteries, dancing, music and beautiful Buddhist dress and the people started to looking at it as a very interesting religion. Then most of Daoist sects began to copy and fuse Buddhism and Daoism together, thus leading to the emergence of Daoism monasteries. But some parts of Daoism, especially Clanic Daoism, (family Daoism ) stayed true to their first teachings, and never digressed, they lived more as a hermits or exorcists, or as doctors and they would not be in monasteries because they always believed that in Clanic Daoism people should live in life, in the reality of people, even if sometimes we have some retreat, where we withdraw from the world, but the actual path is non-cultural and is in life. Which means it is not about China, Japan, Britain, France, or the US. It is about the capacity to develop the best we can and these human qualities are not attached to any culture, or any tradition other than human tradition, that is in the meaning of life. All traditions should be expressed in life in your family, in your life, not being away to escape from the world.
We see monastic life as very interesting way of life of course, but at the same time, we see it as a way to escape the reality of life. We need monks to bring in more light, into the world, but a the same time to really accomplish what we are supposed to do, we have to accomplish it with other human beings, Half of our path, half of what we are supposed to do is with other human beings. If you are in too much of a retreat of this human interaction you are losing path of what you are supposed to do with yourself at this moment. You need to do and to express it with other human beings.
The actual Daxuan Practice started in 510AD it was a union of Daoist clans from Feng Shui, sorcery, exorcism, old Feng Shui tradition. All of them melted together in a complete human development tradition. It was only to survive because at the time there wasn’t any communication between them and they realised they needed to be stronger and to be together.
This kind of Daxuan Daoism, Clanic Daoism, is the work of human qualities and we cut down all the qualities of humanity into different aspects as we do in alchemy, as we do some plants, or some metal. You break down every quality and quantity down and the possibility of a human being, and you work on each of these qualities to make them each as perfect as you can then you go back to uniting these qualities. To unit the quality that you have perfected. To make sure we can be as perfect as we can, to life our life strongly and as completely as we can. The idea is to express yourself as a human being. Understand things we do not understand, to understand aspects of our humanity that we have to discover. To make all of these aspects as perfect as we can. Then our behavior our mental introspection, our energetic development. our body, health and power, all this will develop to unite to be the perfect human being we can be. Being real in and being in phase with our celestial mandate.
Falcon Books: You mention on your website the Shamanic side of your tradition, that it is the Yin aspect of the art and connects with the subconscious. Can you explain a little how this works, what some of the training entails and how it relates to the Yang aspect.
Serge Augier: In our tradition, we have two big aspects, one being Yin and one being Yang. The Yang aspect is where we do the in the world, this is called Neigong, Chi Gong, martial arts, any kind of Daoist magic Feng Shui, Ba Zi. But also at some point, we want to listen to the world, listen to messages of the world, listen to what the universe is telling us. For this practice we give space to our shamanic tradition, the oldest tradition, coming from the Feng Sui, old sorcerer. This tradition is telling us to take care of everything that we can feel, that we can see, that we can perceive. All of our perceptions, all of our possibility of knowledge in the world. This is not doing any more this is receiving, listening and looking.
These two aspects are very important because with the Yang aspect we go into the world choose whether we want to do it and start practicing as we want, but we do not take care of the environment or the right time cycle, of the right moment, is it the right time to divine a chicken, we don’t care. This is the Yin aspect. It is time for us to change the environment and we practice now, same with the magic if we don’t like something in the world, want to make it better, we do something with intent. This is the Yang aspect.
In the Yin aspect, if we practice energy we want to see if it is the right time if our Ba Zi and Celestial Mondate (view key for explanation) are in harmony and to train certain aspects that one, a door is open to do whatever we want. The Yin aspect will look at which direction we have to train what time, what is the best moment has the best feeling and which aspect of the tradition we should do. Because in the Yin shamanic aspect, you first have to listen to the world and go with it. To train whatever you can train at this precise moment. In the Yang tradition, as most people now do, you just impose your training onto the world. These two traditions are very important, but the Yin, Shamanic tradition has to survive more because today most people don’t know, don’t remember this path and this path is amazing to develop human qualities.
In the Shamanic tradition we will connect with our inner light, inner God, we learn how to go into trance, where we connect with something a lot thinner and more subtle than the coarse aspect of life, where we connect with the invisible world. To have better information and to accept our divinity, our complete divine self and let go for a little while our mundane self.
The Shamanic aspect connects us with the right direction, the right space, the right power points, we can have correct power points all over the world where there are places that give us power and connects us to the symbolic animals, material, plants and spirit. It connects us with the changes of weather. The Shamanic path is very, very linked to the listening and improving our interaction with the world and our environment.
Falcon Books: I have noticed how there are parallels between Franz Bardon’s IIH within steps 1- 3 and your teachings. For example, within your school (Ba-men Daxuan) 8 gates you cover Health exercises (Wai Gong), Techniques for the development of Vitality (neigong), Taoist internal alchemy (Nei Dan),The research of emotional stability (Xin Yi Dao Yin Fa), The work and training of the Spirit (Shen Gong). Could you define these terms and how you approach these aspects within your tradition?
Serge Augier: Once again one of the best aspects of Clanic Daoism of the Daxuan school, is that we don’t just try and train, not knowing what we do, not understanding exactly how we are. Just do a little movement and expecting some result. We understand the human being as being a body as being as an animal, we have basic needs and have basic compulsions that we have to listen to, but we are energetic. We are vitality and breath, with each breath we exchange with the world, and we are mind pure spirit which does not really live with us because ‘spirit’ is really in our reality. Spirit is something we have but is not in our reality, but we start experiencing the Spirit which is for real, meaning with our organs, our body, it is not spirit anymore it, it is ‘not mind’ anymore it is already emotion. We know that we have a body, breath, vitality, emotion, mind, invisible spirituality. Knowing that and studying these different aspects We decide as a Daoist tradition to study each of these aspects and to and to make them as good as they can be. My body, of course, I will exercise it. It is pretty simple, but I will exercise the same, my breathing capacity. The mind and the way it is functioning, the internal connections, my internal functioning and all of the aspects that makes me cleared emotionally, of sentiments and perception of the world. By training each of these aspects in a different manner, I will make them clear and as perfect as I can. Then after, slowly I will go towards practices, that are united with breath, body, mind, spirituality and I will work as one. But first as in alchemy, I will cut down all of my qualities all of my aspects of myself into little pieces and I will train each of the pieces. I will not confuse my breathing practice, with my mind practice, with my body practice, with my feeling practice. By doing this and taking each time just to the amount of what I can do. I can really evolve and really change. Which means I will not spend forty years doing everything but doing nothing as we know to do very well. But I will in fact train and evolve in each aspect of my life by doing this, slowly I will not function in the same way, I will not behave in the same way, I will not feel the same way. My health will be completely different. My relationship to the world and to other people will be completely different. I will for real evolve every week, every month and every year of my life.
a. Health Exercises (Wai Gong)
Serge Augier: Once again we need to train the Wai Gong – exterior training. Exterior training it is really making my tendons, bones, stability, coordination, strength, grounding, everything pushed to the maximum. It is not a feeling, it is not a thinking of evolution because it is Wai Gong is physical which means if you train it you will be strong, you will be fast, your body with be grounded which means if somebody tried to pull or push you, you will not move and this you can test it with anyone. All of my students all over the world, after a couple of months, they are very stable even if they are big or they are small or they are women, or if they are 50 or 80 years of age, or age 22. It is the same quality you will develop. Good coordination, strong grounding and overall very good health.
b. Vitality (Nei Gong)
Serge Augier: Then when the body is strong you want to do the same training as the body, but not thinking about the body but thinking about the breathing. These exercises where you move the body freely because you have experienced it already but putting all your intent not putting the feeling of the body but putting the breath and vitality then you start to do internal training we call it Nei Gong.
c. Internal alchemy (Nei Dan)
Serge Augier: After that we have become vitalized full of energy and needs to be trained without the body, to push it to its limits, to push it to the maximum we can do this is Nei Dan. Nei Dan is alchemy and takes all the possibility to have developed in Wai Gong and Nei Gong, take all the abundance of Qi that you did, having a new life and new eating habits, new sleeping habits and all the things that we teach in the Daxuan Tradition. Then you will sit and make this Qi condense, sublimate change and overall push your Qi or vitality to the maximum of your potential that you have in your Celestial Mandate. This is Nei Dan.
d. Emotional stability (XinY i Dao Yin Fa)
Serge Augier: Then before we can really change the mind we have all this energy moving pushing away and pushing out emotions all over. We need to train emotional stability because being emotional is, in fact spending more Qi than most of the physical activity we have. This emotional stability is trained with Xin Yin Dao Yin Fa (emotional stability), is the dissolving of our emotional troubles. It is done by the body, the mind and the breath altogether.
e. Spirit (Shen Gong)
Serge Augier: It is only there we can deeply train the Shen Gong (Spirit) the training of the mind and has nothing to do with meditation, like Wai Gong (health training) is training the mind, just making the mind available for you. Another time a life of a human being, making the time to look for the season for harvesting and maybe need more time. Today life is too fast and our mind completely escapes our control. We just need to make our mind available for focusing for at least an hour or at least two hours as to the basic focus as to seven minutes. Shen Gong is just training the mind and making sure the mind is available for us to be used.
Then after not only do we have these 5 different forms of training, the Wai Gong, Nei Gong, Nai Dan, Xin Yin Dao Yin Fa, Shen Gong. But we have further training which focuses on uniting of these aspects. As soon as these aspects have been trained a little, of course, to train better we do not have a real order. I really believe these aspects of training can be trained together as soon as you start and they will work in synergy.
It is true if your body really hurts it is impossible to take care of you mind, or of your emotions, if at the same time you train your mind and you train your body, you train your breathing (Nei Dan) you train your Xin Yin Dao Yin Fa; each of this training will help the next one and you will have what we have in the Daxuan Tradition, a complete global clan teaching which pushes you to move pretty quickly which makes you very motivated. To have personal experience of the success of training, which is the only real motivation you should have. Never listen to a teacher, only listen to try to do what the teacher tells you to do and then by your own experience you can see if the practice is good or not.
We need again to give some good space to common sense, if you train for a year and you do not feel anything then something is wrong. If you train for 10 years and you are pretty much the same person something is really wrong, you should have stopped in the first year.
Falcon Books: I would like to thank you again for your time and sharing your tradition with us.
Image credit: sergeaugier.com