Healing Tao USA

Marrying the Heart and the Brain. Wired for the Sacred.

My two loves, music and meditation, are finally tying the knot.

The forms of meditation I practice are rooted in Taoist Qigong and Tai Chi.

Over the last twenty years of music projects, I’ve worked with people from all walks of life and traditions.

I’ve played upright bass, bass guitar, and keyboards – blues, rock, punk, experimental, world music, and lately, traditional jazz.

I started on piano young, mostly classical. My teacher taught theory and reading, but it felt like another memorization exercise – like multiplication tables or vocabulary lists.

Around fifteen I moved to bass guitar and learned by mimicking the blues and punk bands I loved. My sound changed with each group and style. I kept the basics of theory (chord structures) and relied on my ear for blues, rock, and free-form improvisation. 

For a long time, I fought against having any kind of structure in my bands. It was only later after having learned about Taoist meditation, Qigong, and Tai Chi that I began to see the importance of structure and music theory. I noticed that even with a structure, a frame to work within, I could still achieve a state of bliss through repetition.

Meditation came into my life in the 90s when I had a class on Zen meditation at Loyola of New Orleans. I learned how much 10 minutes of practice per day could do. Sitting and quieting the mind. That’s it! Stress levels decreased and so did my migraines. 

After a while sitting was tough, physically, and I soon met a Taoist Tai Chi and Qigong teacher, Peter Hom. Sitting was no longer my style. Moving meditation were. Peter’s tools changed my life. 

Pretty soon I felt and looked younger. So did the folks I practiced with, many of them decades older. Week after week, people came in with social anxiety, PTSD, substance struggles, and more, and you could watch the weight lift. Issues would just melt away. Not magic – just practice, breath, and steady movement. 

Peter would talk about qi, life force, and play around with it. He understood the Tao and the way that everything changes. He would change around the forms he taught, much to some distress. We naturally wanted something set in stone, and he’d have to remind us that that is not Tao, and that Tao is change. 

Peter reminded me of a jazz musician, except the tradition and framework in which he played were thousands of years old. With dedicated practice, the series of movements eventually harmonizes all the cells in one’s body to bring the mind, heart, soul, and spirit together in the flow.

Jazz music is a celebration of improvisation, world rhythms and sound vibrations. It celebrates the unique feel of each musician while paying homage to the framework of the collaboration. 

Taoist meditation techniques embrace the vibrations of the universe, energy at its atomic and sub-atomic levels. Qi is the bioelectric current that runs through all living things. Native Americans refer to it as the Great Spirit, whereas the Hindus refer to this as the primordial Om, the breath, or prana. In the Egyptian tradition, it is known as ka, whereas the Africans refer to it as ashé. It is also referred to in the Christian tradition as the breath of life, or the Holy Spirit. 

Qigong is work – energy work – one of the 5 branches of Chinese medicine. Just as Gongfu, aka Kung Fu, translates as “hard work done over time.” 

From my first three Tai Chi and Qigong instructors, I learned a range of forms. I also quickly learned there are nearly as many variations as there are instructors. Details shift by lineage and instructor. The more advanced one becomes, the smaller some of the movements become. Even seated, you can practice Qigong and Tai Chi in the mind alone and feel the energy flow to those parts of the body that you are “moving.” 

Tao masters say that where awareness goes, qi follows. It can support healing, mentally and physically, or be directed for self-defense as in Kung Fu. It’s a balance of mind and body. Early on, it can feel cerebral, but once the sequences of movements settle in, the brain and body sync – like performing music.

Every musical arrangement is unique – like our DNA. Even with classical music where arrangements have been played thousands of times throughout history, no performance is the same on a vibrational level. 

Outside factors always come into play, like the wood of each instrument, the temperature and humidity of the room, the horsehair bows and the reeds – not to mention the emotions and physical vibrations of each performer.

I’ve performed in groups who were all heart and soul, but no head. I’ve also played in super rigid environments where the heart and soul get buried in the overcomplicated solos, theory and showboating. Have you ever heard a guitar or drum solo that is so overly complex that it lacks any kind of feeling? 

Sometimes, a solo may grab attention through sheer difficulty. At the same time, the brain can hinder the spirit of the performance from fully expressing itself on the heart’s level. As in martial arts, one can know the moves and have memorized many different forms, but without heart and soul, there is little life force, or qi, behind it. The balance is the sweet spot where the magic happens.
 
Whether I’m listening or performing, musician or a meditator, I seek the same thing: flow – the marriage of the heart and brain, the right and the left, the emotions and the intellect. People find it everywhere: yoga, a drive at dawn, a song, a painting. It’s the trance when the inner and outer worlds just click into place.

It’s the moment when one falls in love or gets goosebumps at the climax of a film or book. Maybe its rarity makes it feel sacred? Whatever it is, we’re wired for it. I’ve even felt it working Mardi Gras rushes in the bars and restaurants when it felt like the wheels were going to fall off the wagon. I’d just get to work, get in the zone, and do my job. Everything, even the most mundane activity, has a flow.
Lately I’ve been revisiting the music theory I skipped for years. After a long stretch of just winging it by ear, I realized that having clear parameters makes it easier to play with unfamiliar jazz players. With a shared framework, we can improvise all night – there’s always a home base to leave and return to.

After I'd played the same mapped-out tunes week after week, the flow finally arrived. I’d slip into a trance, watch the crowd and the dancers, and forget I was even holding an upright bass. It echoed my meditation practice: Learn the map so you can throw it away. You can dance outside of it, then come back when you choose. There’s also the option to not return, but it’s in that knowing where the ultimate freedom lies. Riding the sweet spot.

-Marc LaPorte. Founder of Nola Chi Kung - Qigong and Tai Chi. As published on the Healing Tao USA website.