Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Thinking Allowed Audio Podcast
Episode: The Tao Te Ching with San Qing
Date: December 23, 2025
Host: Emmy Vadnais
Guest: San Qing (Daoist Priest, Qigong & Neigong Master, Spirit Channeler & Healer)

Episode Overview

This episode explores the Tao Te Ching, guided by Emmy Vadnais in conversation with San Qing, a Daoist priest and lineage holder. The discussion travels through the Tao Te Ching’s origins, its role in Daoism, personal and mystical experiences with the text, and practical advice for integrating its wisdom into daily life. San shares insights from his own channeled translation and draws on decades of Taoist practice, offering listeners a rich and personal view of this ancient, foundational scripture.

Main Themes & Structure

1. The Tao Te Ching: Essence and Purpose

• A spiritual manual and foundational text for Daoist seekers, aiding personal and mystical self-remembrance (03:14).
• Not to be understood purely through the intellect; the verses act as “incantations” or living energies that meet the reader wherever they are on their journey (04:00).

"When you meet those words with your own attention and intention...you start to feel how familiar this experience is and how much you are at one with this stream we might call consciousness." – San Qing (03:36)

2. Origins, Authorship, and Lao Tzu

• Lao Tzu's historical and mythic persona: “old teacher, wise teacher” (05:51).
• San shares his personal channeling experiences, describing Lao Tzu's story as both an embodied master and an immortal spirit known as Supreme Purity (06:25).
• Lao Tzu is linked symbolically to cosmic forces; the Tao Te Ching unfolds from this connection to the “primordial mother,” the source of all.

3. Structure & Magical Practice

• The 81 verses are not just poetic but serve as magical tools, foundational for internal alchemy, energetic grids, and ritualized self-cultivation (10:18).
• Verses correspond with numerological concepts and can elicit tangible spiritual sensations:

"The words come off the page, they swirl around me, they drop into my heart center and then expand me like a blossom flower." – San Qing (00:00/11:40)

• Magic in Daoism involves drawing cosmic energy into the material world, often through practices likened to grids or “star stepping” (13:52, 16:33).

4. Intention, Intuition, and the Role of Mind

• Tao Te Ching is designed to bypass linear, logical thinking, invoking expansive, intuitive modes of awareness (12:33).
• The more a seeker “lets go,” the more the universe flows into their experience—paradoxes and non-dual awareness are central (41:43).

"The less you squeeze, the more you receive...your mind is like the undulating flame—you reach for it and it just disappears." – San Qing (22:31)

5. Channeling, Translation, and Spiritual Creativity

• San's translation of the Tao Te Ching was channeled in direct communion with Lao Tzu; he emphasizes openness and release of ego for genuine reception (20:48–24:48).
• Channeled texts are “streamed” from higher consciousness, described variously as God, Dao, The Mother, or the universe.

6. Paradoxes, Yin-Yang, and Core Themes

• The Tao Te Ching is lush with paradox (“soft overcomes hard”, “knowing not-knowing”); these are meant to dissolve the limits of intellect (41:43).
• Yin and Yang are fundamental—not just as symbols but as dynamic forces active in every aspect of reality and personal experience (48:38).
• Simplicity, humility, balance, and “effortless action” (wu wei) form the heart of the teaching (39:36).

"Returning to the flow of nature...a sublime, synchronistic, serendipitous, super ride of remembrance where people are in this whimsical, childlike state." – San Qing (39:36)

7. Application and Daily Practice

• Reading the Tao Te Ching is promoted as a ritual: practice involves selecting a verse daily or weekly, reciting it, and feeling its energetic effect (52:52).
• Verse recitation acts as an “oscillating blossoming flower inside,” resetting and realigning one's being (53:56).

8. Integrating Taoist Wisdom

• The text universalizes spiritual truths—accessible across languages and cultures, always reflecting the reader/listener’s state (56:28).
• Ultimately, Taoist cultivation is about lessening mental interference and embodying intuitive “knowing” through feeling and experience.

"The less thinking and the knowing is part of the feeling and that's where this thing is alive...it comes from an experience and a universal understanding with the language." – San Qing (56:28)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Mystical Reading (00:00/11:40):
  "The words come off the page, they swirl around me, they drop into my heart center and then expand me like a blossom flower."

• On Authentic Channeling (22:31):
  "The less you squeeze, the more you receive...your mind is like the undulating flame—you reach for it and it just disappears."

• On Paradox and Knowing (41:43):
  "When you find your answer, there is no answer. When you accept you know nothing, you know everything."

• Verse 16 (36:36):
  "'All possibilities is the vision of oneness. Vision of oneness is universal love. Universal love is the great truth of nature. Great truth of Nature is Tao. Know this and you will live forever. Body dissolves, your identity forgotten. He who has dao has all eternity.'"

• Verse 28 (37:59):
  "'Let male merge with female. Let bright merge with dull. Let high merge with low. This will reveal the world as whole... The sage holds the block complete, holding all things within himself embodies the great unity that cannot be controlled or separated.'"

• On Everyday Practice (53:56):
  "Read the scripture and it will instantly reset you... It was like this oscillating blossoming flower that I've got inside me."

Key Timestamps

• 03:14: The Tao Te Ching as a mystical manual
• 05:44: Historical & mythic Lao Tzu; immortals
• 10:18: 81 incantations; context for Taoist magic
• 12:33: Shifting from logic to intuition via the Tao Te Ching
• 16:33: The magical “grid” and star stepping practice
• 18:24: The Tao Te Ching’s essential “message”—union and wholeness
• 20:48: San channeling Lao Tzu, creative process
• 22:31: Letting go, authenticity in channeling
• 36:36: Verse 16, reading and discussion
• 37:59: Verse 28, reading and discussion
• 39:36: Simplicity, humility, balance, “effortless action”
• 41:43: Paradoxes and experiential wisdom
• 48:38–50:28: Yin-Yang symbolism (rainbow, unity)
• 52:52: Practical ritual: using the verses in daily routine
• 56:28: Final reflections—Tao Te Ching as universal blossoming

Closing Reflections

San Qing urges listeners to approach the Tao Te Ching as a living, transformative experience—less for intellectual mastery than for direct, embodied realization. Through daily ritual, openness to paradox, and cultivation of inner silence, the wisdom of the Tao becomes immediately accessible, offering guidance, healing, and expanded consciousness to all who sincerely seek it.