I was born in the East and grew up there, but over time my practice and my life have been shifting to the West. My elementary school was in my hometown, which, until the 1980s, was a town fully immersed in the old lifestyle, with no electricity, no running water, no roads (and, of course, no bikes, buses, or cars).<\/p>
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My hometown is a fishing village called Ruoshan \u7bac\u5c71. We carried water to the house directly from our well because there was no indoor plumbing. Each of the surrounding villages had its own temple. There were both Buddhist and Taoist temples and the two religions were blended together. There was also an ancient nature-based religion.<\/p>
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Because the villagers\u2019 income came solely from fishing, there were temples to the Ocean Goddess. There was a dragon temple and the Great Yu \u5927\u79b9 (the first emperor of the Xia \u590f Dynasty) temple as well. People believed in nature gods and goddesses and incorporated them into daily life. The local shamans still use talismans and chanting for healing, ceremony, and as a part of every day life. Before the modernized culture came to our village in the 1980s time, we all turned to the local shamans for help with curing sickness and performing special rituals to help bring about a specific auspicious outcome or more generally, on how to practice each day to create a peaceful life. Since ancient times, Chinese shamans used special symbols (talisman) as vehicles to access different universal energies for healing and spiritual cultivation.<\/p>
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I grew up in an environment steeped in ancient traditional culture, and it was there that I dedicated my life to the practice of cultivation, which included chanting, meditation, martial arts, Qigong, mystical experiences, and explorations of nature. Since 1988, I have worked with tens of thousands of students and patients interested in these traditional Daoist arts, throughout China, North America and Europe.<\/p>
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I hope you will find that wearing the auspicious talisman calligraphy, each which are infused with the Qi (energy) that I have been cultivating for almost 50 years, will help bring you a palpable sense of healing and harmony.<\/p>
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