When Quantum Physics Meets Daoism in Hong Kong and raises another umbrella over the whole…

writes…..   As the protest movement began to burgeon last Friday, September 26^th, in the famous commercial areas of Hong Kong and people began to pour on to the streets around the government headquarters in Central,  in Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mongkok and Wanchai,  I joined a small band of  25 other residents of the pulsating, consumerist driven metropolis and followed a beacon of light and understanding, – an expert in Quantum Physics and the Dao, no less, –   and we transported ourselves to the other end of the (Hong Kong) earth to a sacred reserve of Nature and sustainability – Kadoorie Farm at Tai Mo Shan – and embarked on a very different kind of  five-day sit-in or foray but one that may well hold the answers for a modern day Lao Tse to present to the C.Y. Leungs (Chief Executive) of the world…

Complexity, Gentle Action and Citizenship in the 21^st Century was the topic on the last day, but note the programme had been outlined weeks earlier.  Yet can you think of anything more apt for the mood of the city; considering by then it was Tuesday and Hong Kong people were grappling with how the police had become too heavy handed in the early hours of Monday yet that had only triggered a huge backlash in the populace and a much bigger turnout to underscore solidarity and a determination to kill violence – but only with love!  Paradox proved a key component in all we were to learn, too!

But that reaction from the people rippled and resonated so strongly with everything the visiting quantum physicist, beacon  leader – Shantena Augusto Sabbadini – had been outlining to all those attending the workshop.

It was the archetypal experiential example in action – integral to the whole, or the All, from The Dao (a word usually translated as the Way or Path – again make what you will of that in these times) to the most cutting edge science the top brains are investigating today in pursuit of solutions that take us beyond mainstream science – our current Western religion, as  Sabbadini and others of his awareness dub that.

The difficulty it seems is that our mainstream science is caught in its own determination to ignore certain subtleties and complexities and experiential phenomena which indicate the inter-relationship of all things from particles to atoms in Nature, right up to Man. Plus the experience of sensing things in so many ways which in Nature leaves one in wonderment and awe of the value and influence of absolutely every thing.

Sabbadini worked as a theoretical physicist at the University of Milan and the University of California. In Milan he researched the foundations of quantum physics, focusing on the description of the quantum process of observation, a problem that fascinates him to this day. In California he contributed to the first identification of a black hole.

In the 1990s he was a scientific consultant for the Eranos Foundation, an East-West research centre founded under the guidance of C.G. Jung in the 1930s. In that context he studied Chinese classics under the guidance of the Dutch sinologist Rudolf Ritsema and produced various translations and commentaries, including the Yi Jing and the Dao De Jing.

One of the purposes of the workshop was to explore and find a new, balanced, relationship between nature and humans. To that end participants harvested some of the bounty from the crops grown at the farm and so cooked up one of the meals but the true nourishment came as nutrition for the inner being and had to be harvested and processed more individually against the unique background of every person.

And the inner being proved a tricky item to pinpoint too,  as in that domain words became mere labels and sign posts and not the real food… for it is so easy to talk of all these subjects, gather recipes and such like,  but just relating the ingredients of a meal doesn’t have you eating it… and while that is so obvious with bodily sustenance somewhere in the education system we have shown a tendency to recite the names – soul, spirit, god, goddess, religion, mysticism , etc. – and thought that was it but  failed to process the experience.  So you were back with the wisest of them in Zen styled literature at times: The Zen or Dao you understand is not Zen or Dao, or   “as Niels  Bohr (the  Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory)  said, of quantum physics :  ‘If you think you understand it you don’t get it.’ ” said Sabbadini

By immersing oneself in the water you can learn to swim but while staying on the shore no amount of discussion will see you floating or enjoying the experience. So marvelously, with the expertise of the leader and the superb setting, in some inexplicable manner we each imbibed a treat tailored to individual personalities which though different had some unifying resonance too and so we became seemingly the One.  This was further highlighted when the singing bowls, gongs and other instruments harmonized in an exquisite moonlit, musical performance, created for us on the sacred hilltop where we sat on a carpet of grass at the feet of their statue of the goddess  Kwun Yum.   That perfect little arena overlooks the whole Kadoorie farm. Her part in the splendid totality of the workshop is best explained in this description from the farm’s website as it also encapsulates the essence of much that is integral to both the workshop and the interconnectedness being stressed and also playing out in the bigger picture of modern man straining to hold the compass point of compassion care and love as the path or way:

“The Earth, like any other body, has a lifespan.  Kwun Yum, however, stands for something which is eternal. From a spiritual point of view, the purpose of conservation work is not so much to save the planet as to bring us back into balance with nature, in order to reveal what is eternal. This is the pure awareness that permeates and contains the entire Universe. It is none other than one’s very own self when free from all identification. To experience this is the ultimate goal of all spiritual paths and traditions, but it cannot be put into words; words may point you in the right direction but it is in the silence of the Heart that every human being intuitively and intimately knows Kwun Yum.”

That resonance and attuned vibration of the music and message stayed with us and radiated from us as the energy of our being and we were all so replenished, especially on that level of needing some yardstick to confirm our inner knowing; for everyone there had that sense we had a wellspring, an intuitive knowing, but who would believe us for what does that mean to a rational scientist or a majority of folk hardened by a need to conform to a left brain, ordered materialistic society?

We became a microcosm, our own examples, as news emerged that the protest movement in central Hong Kong which we were so far removed from geographically was part of the all, too,  and we were all interacting and reflecting and taking joy from knowing there was a oneness,  a hum, we might call it, of projecting, emitting and aligning with vibrations which  then somehow could magnify  the positive sense of  the whole  and that seeing the best in all people and situations, and then ‘knowing’  that would act in a scientific manner and breed selfsame or like behaviour (in the style of like begets like)… and the wisdom of the Dao entered the dance and we felt so humbled and proud (that paradox again)  that already the ancients knew all and captured it in poetry and symbol: –

“The world is a sacred vessel…” which today as Sabbadini said: “This translates in our modern jargon to ‘The world is a complex system…’ so we have to use gentle action to effect a change that doesn’t damage.”

An inaudible prayer seemed to emerge from the group in response to that comment as everyone was willing that to be the Way for Hong Kong’s transition.

Being conscious of non-separation was a pointer for  applying the Dao today and recognizing intuition and synchronicity are there not in any superstitious manner but more as a system still to be explained. They are to be thought of more as senses or systems that we need to link with and switch them from witch box to which system – those paradoxes again. These complexities force the greatest thinkers to focus on such matters as they see them as the path through the present perplexities of improving our kith and kin  and  as another great expert Edgar Mitchell (6^th man to walk on the moon) said –“ Intuition should be our first sense, not our sixth.”[1]

With such matters flooding our consciousness and not least the perplexity of what that in itself is, we left however in joy to think that  now  we see the fruits of such mighty forebears beginning to ripen – or as the intent of the workshop proposed  we were rediscovering and probing the balanced relationship that we once had in our past that is hidden in ancient wisdom and traditions, such as in Daoism…and finding  a new expression of that ancient wisdom, while incorporating the findings of the long scientific journey we humans have already made but now we have to up the system and see that interconnectedness, that inexplicable subtle behaviour of all those quanta  in action… don’t leave it all in the close-knit circle or the school room or even the private individual inner knowing – open the cage door and let the bird fly, was surely the message . And so I flew off to Central and found yes the harmony came too…

For there it was as I went to heave my piece of luggage, a bit like a golf cart, down the few steps from the overhead walkway to the pavement. A man much bigger and younger and fitter than I, seemingly appeared out of no-where and doubled right over to meet me eye to eye and then ever so politely asked: “May I help you with that?” in a manner as if making a request of me to do him a favour.  In some surprise, but most grateful, I happily agreed and he swung the luggage down in an instant. And then as I began to thank him profusely he waved such words aside as if the whole deed were less than a droplet on any umbrella and implied: “No, you don’t thank me;  what else am I on the planet for?”  And with that was gone again in an instant  but with a joyous look on his face that only a small boy that saves  a  dragonfly from  getting a wing caught in something dangerously sticky could know or beam forth.  And just so we all swing through the universe encountering either help or giving it as in a dance when the energies, or the quantum physics, are attuned.

Similarly all others in the workshop had many comparable and beautiful stories to tell inspired by what once might have been called chance. Plus, most everyone you meet, when prompted, will be able to relate many a tale of synchronicity, intuition, telepathy or pre-cognition, formerly dismissed as not really a serious matter to a scientist. But now that dismissal or even ridicule is being re-worked and matters that once they’d have set you on fire are now setting other ideas afire and being reinstated in the minds of highly accredited thinkers who have turned the tables as they see and outline a seeming intuitive quantum system running on  resonance, energy and vibration of  thoughts. The impact of which, suggests some tremendous growth in terms of enhancing the progress of humanity, as man then may surely comprehend how the words of ‘we are one’ and catch-crys of ‘everything is inter-related’ are indeed integral and crucial to our total existence and so peace and love will then surely prevail as who, once they know the strokes and direction, will be so daft as to swim for hell rather than heaven?

Something of that need and spirit to spread the higher values of non violence and love seemed to have infused and infected the bigger arenas too in that manner of a wave of knowing and feeling and while we were trying to fathom it all in terms of quantum physics and or the Dao it was seemingly happening and being played out by Hong Kong’s  whole protest movement as banners proclaiming: “Non Violence,”   “ Peace and Love”  and “You may say that I’m a Dreamer- but I’m not the only one…”  waved over the heads of the protest movement and strengthened by the hour  as those gathered stressed the focus was on care, compassion and kindness and love for humanity and the holistic approach…

And so our immersion far from the action with the compass set on the objectives below was really back to the centre – and what more Dao or quantum physics could one ask for?  This from the outline of the workshop also underscored it:

“On one hand, we will look for this new world-view through the insights of quantum physics, open up vistas that move beyond the materialistic approach and build holistic thinking in caring for Planet Earth.

On the other hand, we will be inspired by Mother Nature herself in embodied ecological experiences, in harmony with nature, at the Kadoorie Farm and its Botanic Garden.”

The further quirk or paradox or just sheer delight, perhaps, came from the setting of the workshop.  As you walked through the grounds and loved the iconic pink lotus blooms in the little frog pond, then noticed how artistic were a run of stepping stones with individual hand-made patterns of pebbles inset as if by children, plus other natural patterns of tree trunks and such harmonious use of the land, you marveled at the very fact the place exists. And then you conclude it must surely bring us back to a touch of that goodness in all things and all people when the mysterious inexplicable hand stirs some subtlety in an individual such as Lao Tse[2]; and, closer to our time, ones such as the founding Kadoorie brothers

(Sir Horace and Lord Lawrence)  who in their day had the vision plus care and compassion and inner knowing, I dare say, to decide to establish and create such a tremendously different complex spread  over some 150 hectares, across the hillsides and then bequest it to inspire folk in the future in ways far in advance of their time.

A totally holistic inspiration before anyone had done such labeling and a splendidly generous gift for generations to come. You get the feeling those two brothers will be smiling away in the eternal knowing the seeds they planted have  sprouted and spread  in a myriad of ways, plus embraced hybrids and even produced a poet in the grand-kids,  Andrew McAulay,  who now also plays his role as  Chairperson of the whole Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden enterprise, ensuring the meter, the rhythm of the True Man  – a joy of complexities, contradictions and subtleties the Dao drew – continue to trace and sketch our new Way by inviting and sponsoring such leaders as Shantena Sabbadini to take us full circle through the ancient wisdom of  cultures and the Dao to quantum physics and so back to – the centre – of these history making times in Central Hong  Kong.

So everyone left the 5-day event echoing an inner knowing of the need for the holistic and gentle power to prevail not just in this territory but across the whole planet.

And the take home gem from Sabbadini’s vast studies was surely this: “The wise person or the true spiritual person is fearless because he or she loves; and love is the opposite of fear.”

        ………

The Postscript  from the Dao for the Hong Kong Government and the whole movement must surely be the following verses from  Chapter 29 which Sabbadini closed the workshop on:

The world is a sacred vessel, which must not be tampered

With or  grabbed after.

    To tamper with it is to spoil it, and to grasp it is to lose it.

In fact for all things there is a time for going ahead, and

A time for following behind; …

                   Therefore the Sage avoids all extremes, excesses and 

extravagances.

And these lines from the follow on Chapter 30 seem more than pertinent too:

He who knows how to guide a ruler in the path of Tao

Does not try to override the world with force of arms.

   It is in the nature of a military weapon to turn against

its Wielder.   …

                      You must never think of conquering others by force.

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Note 1: Shantena Sabbadini is an associate director of the PariCenter for New Learning, in Tuscany, Italy. He also teaches short courses at the SchumacherCollege, Devon, UK, and leads workshops on quantum physics and Daoism, using the Yi Jing as a tool for introspection.

 Note 2: Feature photo of the author Vonnie Boston talking to a protester at the Hong Kong movement.  The banner on the overhead walkway declares – “I know that I’m a dreamer… but I’m not the only ONE…” and, the man with his son and wife stressed they were so pleased they were making an impact internationally because of their conviction to protest in a non-aggressive manner. He declared that any form of violence is no longer the way forward for human beings.

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