When 9/11 happened, I was in Brooklyn. I had an appointment for lunch with a Healing Tao colleague in mid-Manhattan. I took the subway and as it emerged onto the bridge over the East River, the odor of smoke and burning debris and bodies overwhelmed the air. Smoke was still rising from downtown. It was a weird hour in a Japanese restaurant. I received an e-mail from one of my students, a Jungian psychotherapist and author. Here below is our exchange.
Continue reading “9/11: E-Mail In Memoriam”Author: renejnavarro
Daoism and Tai chi chuan
It is rather hard to explain the process of learning Taoism and Tai chi chuan. A few important conceptual elements are involved in it:
Continue reading “Daoism and Tai chi chuan”Diary 6/11/25: Instructor’s Training in the Healing Tao (now Universal Healing Tao)
July of 2026 would be the 40th anniversary of my certification as a Healing Tao (now Universal Healing Tao) instructor. I was authorized to teach the 4 basic courses: Microcosmic Orbit (with Inner Smile and 6 Healing Sounds), Iron Shirt Chikung 1 (Zhan Zhuang), Healing Love and Tai Chi Chi Kung 1. The training was held at Rudi’s in Big Indian, Catskills, New York. There were, if I remember, about 10 of us who took the Instructor Training but I remember only a few: aside from me, there were Marie Favorito, John Loupos, Mackenzie Stewart. There were at the time 5 Senior instructors: Juan Li, Ron Diana, Rylin Malone, Michael Winn and Gunther Weill. I do not know how they were trained and selected as senior instructors. Juan Li, Gunther Weil and Rylin Malone were there to assist in the seminar and testing but the trainees were taught directly by Mantak Chia. If anyone remembers more details, please tell me.
Continue reading “Diary 6/11/25: Instructor’s Training in the Healing Tao (now Universal Healing Tao)”“Sulu”
Here is a link to an article about the devastation of Jolo, written decades after the war. I heard in 1974 that napalm was used. Where the napalm came from was obvious: it had only one source, the US. We did not really know what happened. There was apparently a news black out by the Marcos government.
Continue reading ““Sulu””Diary 4/21/25: Herbals in the Gospels
Believe it or not, for Easter, I have been reading the gospel of John. Only chapters 11and 12 on the family of Lazarus, Martha and Mary whom Jesus loved and the strange anointment of Jesus. Did you know that Mary used spikenard, a very rare and expensive oil to wash (perhaps massage) the feet of Jesus?
Continue reading “Diary 4/21/25: Herbals in the Gospels”Hiyas na Tanglaw award
SIFU RENE NAVARRO
In deep recognition of his contributions to the capacity development of the staff and students of INAM Philippines on classical Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, thus enhancing the quality of healthcare to the Filipino people served by INAM;
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Diary 3/2/25: Dragon Tiger Video Ching See San
When I began studying Shaolin Kungfu with Johnny F. Chiuten, I was told by him that the style was Hung Ga or Angka or Hong Cha, depending on the dialect. This was in the mid-1960s when we did not have the internet and there was really a paucity of information about martial arts. Then when I settled in the US I learned in the 1970s that there were several styles of Hung Gar, each claiming authenticity and bragging rights, with different forms and techniques that “evolved” from the original ancestor in the Southern Shaolin in Fujian back during the Qing Dynasty.
Continue reading “Diary 3/2/25: Dragon Tiger Video Ching See San”Diary 1/18/25: Daoism Study
Diary 1/18/25: Daoism Study
I often receive questions from students. A student told me that, in response to my advice, she is taking lessons in Daoism with scholar Livia Kohn twice a month. I gave a few suggestions for her and those who are interested in studying Daoism. Studying Daoism is a long, difficult and possibly costly education.
Continue reading “Diary 1/18/25: Daoism Study”Diary update 11/29/24
We just got back from a Thanksgiving Party at the Billingham’s (Joe and Claire) in the woods in Erwinna, Bucks County, PA. Just relatives: Al, Laura, Laura’s parents, Isabel and her husband Jay and Ava, Lolit and me. It was such a pleasure just being with family, chatting updates, what everybody was doing. Ava, now 23, is employed in New York City. Isabel, now 25, is doing her doctorate in bio-engineering at Penn. Even the time spent stooped over the jigsaw puzzle of Gustav Klimt’s The Woman in Gold was a pleasure.
Continue reading “Diary update 11/29/24”Paris: Through the Years
There was the music, of course, by Debussy and Berlioz and the art of Monet snd Picasso. But in college it was Albert Camus who incarnated Paris. Not Jean Paul Sartre, although I read his work on existentialism. Not Simone de Beauvoir either. It was Camus and his novels – The Stranger, the Plague – and his essays The Rebel and Art, Sedition and Death. I read about those intellectuals on the Left Bank. I went for the more accessible writings – Francoise Sagan and Antoine de St-Exupery and later on Roland Barthes. Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida were too high above my comprehension. I had a copy of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness but I never went beyond the first chapter. The Little Prince is still my favorite book. I gave my rare copy of Peter Ustinov’s rendition on vinyl to my granddaughter Isabel on her wedding.
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