Dialing-in to Inter-Being through Resonance Code: A Taoist Technology for Conscious Evolution

A hallmark for the way of a Taoist is Wu Wei, which is commonly translated as non-action. That is slightly misleading. A more accurate interpretation of Wu Wei is actually “micro-actions’. It means a person, when acquiring an embodied knowledge of wholeness, can achieve maximal results through micro-actions. This is the principle underlying acupuncture, which delivers a minimal intervention while maximizing a shift toward wellness, a greater degree of wholeness,

Resonance Code brings this philosophy and practice of micro-action to people who are engaging in social change and exploring conscious evolution. We are asking: as change agents promoting wholeness in our individual and social lives, how can we practice Wu Wei, choosing actions and ways of being in alignment with wholeness?

Returning to My Roots

In 2013, I was managing my fledging acupuncture clinic in a wealthy suburb of Seattle. That was four years after I took off my “golden handcuffs” in the form of a handsomely-paid and well-respected research scientist position at Merck, the pharmaceutical giant.

I was born and raised in China in the 70s. When I was growing up, I was indoctrinated to believe that Chinese medicine, the art and craft that both my maternal and fraternal grandfathers practiced their entire lives, was backward, unscientific, uncivilized and even toxic to humans. Science had become the “standard for truth” that Chinese medicine could not measure up to. Therefore, Chinese medicine had to be discarded. Or, even worse, it needed to be modified to conform to the scientific standard.

Turning my back on my ancestors’ medicine, I chose a career in biology and western science, attempting to prove myself worthy to the very thing that invalidated my ancestors’ wisdom. However, when I was at the peak of my career as a scientist, I felt empty, anxious and burnt-out.

My colleagues and I were working on the cutting edge of human knowledge, making remarkable scientific discoveries. However, I deeply questioned the value of these fancy innovations and data analyses beyond enriching the pockets of the elites. My intuition told me the gigantic financial and material resources going into these research efforts would serve human health much better if only a fraction of them could to be directed to promoting nutrition, preventive medicine and healthy lifestyles.

Science, as it is predominantly practiced in this era, is good at breaking things down and analyzing what’s wrong. It does not seem to know how to put things back together, how to achieve wholeness. As a result, the scientific establishment is failing at supporting a sustainable system of health care. When I was working in that system, I felt an agonizing pain deep down in my heart for throwing my life away, serving something against my values.

In my agony, I turned toward my ancestors, whose spirits guided me. Through many soul-wrenching, life-changing events, I eventually reconnected with my true purpose and resolved to walk a path that would fulfill me.

I went back to studying Chinese medicine, acupuncture and Taoism, the philosophical framework underlying Chinese medicine. I was determined to reunite with my roots and bring back the glory of my beloved medicine.

An Evolutionary Leap

During the time I practiced Chinese medicine, I painfully realized acupuncture was seen as “alternative medicine” more like an accessory, squashed by a giant healthcare system that steps over, marginalizes and devalues holistic medicine. I discovered the healthcare system embodies the same arrogance and ignorance the dominant culture holds toward indigenous and earth-based knowledge.

The government regulatory agencies and insurance companies I dealt with are deaf and blind to the exquisite art and music of Chinese medicine, dumbing it down into mechanical acts. I worked three times harder than at my previous job. I poured my heart and soul into the healing work I performed, yet I was only paid a fraction of my previous Merck salary.

“THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!” When I lay down after a long, tiring day, I heard the rage inside rattle liking a hurricane. I felt like a leaf swirling in a tornado of emotions.

Feeling helpless and powerless, I wept for failing my ancestors, for not being able to bring back the glory of my beloved medicine. “I want this to change!” The rage inside roared and shouted. I sensed that if the true integrity of Chinese medicine was to survive the appropriation of the capitalistic economic model, a giant evolutionary leap needs to happen to elevate this ancient knowledge system!

Yet that was a huge undertaking. I was nobody, with no platform, or institutional support to back me up. I had no voice in the public domain. Ironically, the only resource I had were my investments and 401K retirement savings accumulated through my years working for Merck. I felt utterly alone and isolated.

In the worldview of Taoism and other indigenous cultures, a human being is never alone. Each individual is a precious node in the web of interconnectedness. The culture of industrialization conditioned us to THINK we are alone. We become isolated in our individual identities.

While modern-day culture affirms this aloneness, through our embodied sensations, we can reconnect! Feelings and emotions are “energy-in-motion”, through which we constantly exchange information with Inter-Being, a web of interconnected consciousness. Inter-Being is a vast network of alliances and subtle communication from living beings in a natural world embodying and defining wholeness. It is a vibrational field of subtle energy existing in time and space just like the electro-magnetic field of the Earth.

Many indigenous cultures speak about and honor varied forms of this Inter-Being. This ancient wisdom and related practices encourage connection with Inter-Being by respecting Earth Mother and paying attention to our inner world rather than drawing our focus and attention to the outer, material world.

Taoist philosophy asserts as humans, we need to embody wholeness through our relationships with one another, so the social organisms we form may become an organic, integrated extension the natural world. Otherwise, our social organisms, in their isolation, become “cancerous” tissues eating away natural resources!

Chinese traditional culture speaks about human dynamics with the same words that describe the natural world, such as the Sky, Earth, Water and Fire. The ancient Chinese strive to embody these natural energies in couple relationships, within a family, and between a leader and the followers. A person may form relations and social organisms that embody wholeness and follow the laws of the natural world. She and her network of social relations become part of the Inter-Being. A person who conducts herself that way will never be alone.

To deprogram us from the separate identity cultural paradigm of the modern world, we need to allow ourselves to feel our feelings, not just the happy, sunny and bright feelings, but also the fear, grief and anger. These feelings are the portal through which we may begin “dialing-in” to the field of Inter-Being, receiving and sending subtle information that can guide us along the path of evolving ourselves, as well as the relations we form toward wholeness.

A Miraculous Journey

In the last eight years, my work with the feelings inside has taken me on a miraculous ride of change. Things my rational mind previously thought were impossible became true.

I am now an established coach and teacher for leadership and self-awareness. I wrote a book in my second-language that “translates” the ancestral knowledge of Taoism and acupuncture into modern language social innovators can understand and practice.

The best thing is I am not alone anymore! I met my partner Joe with whom I work, live and play side-by-side. He taught me his life’s work, Feelingwork, which greatly hones my capacity to feel, sending and receiving information with Inter-Being with greater clarity. This greater clarity is often mirrored by the synchronicities showing up in my life. This allows me to further trust my intuitions.

I am surrounded by supporters, students, colleagues and people who invest in my success. I work with people from four different continents including my homeland, China. I established myself as a thought leader in an elite professional field, coaching and leadership development. As an Asian female, I brought in a fresh voice, advocating for indigenous wisdom being a valid and valuable ingredient to cultivate leadership and transform the society. I constantly receive invitations to speak at various public forums.

What makes this a personal miracle is that I achieved these outer recognitions by diligently following a path of going inward. I did not follow conventional business advice. I did minimal marketing and promotion. I kept my professional website bare bones simple. I walked a path that defies the norms of capitalistic business practice.

Instead, I dial-into Inter-Being through the practice of Resonance Code. I still my mind so I can observe subtle currents of events beneath the busy currents of life. These currents contain important information from Inter-Being. I tune into the synchronicities happening around me. I honor each person coming in to my life as an embodied messenger representing Inter-Being, no matter they are allies or challengers.

In engaging with the outer world, I treated every action and choice I made as a micro-action, an acupuncture intervention that minimizes effort and maximizes a shift toward wholeness. By taking small, specific steps in harmony with what arose naturally from my daily life, opportunities, luck and resources poured my way!

One ancient teaching in my culture says if a person is committed to aligning her inner self to her life’s purpose, the outer world attends to her soul desire and makes way for her will. Frankly, I didn’t quite believe that when I started this journey. But now, I stand on my own experience and say with confidence, it worked.

Dialing-in: the Resonance Code Practice

Feelings allow us to connect with the Inter-Being. Yet the web of Inter-Being is vast. When we open our sensory capacity, we can get overwhelmed and drown in the ocean of information there, just like one can drown in the vastness of the internet.

To interact with Inter-Being in a sustainable way, we can tune to our specific “radio station”. The Resonance Code practice with I Ching enables us to tune our minds, intuition and embodied senses to do exactly that.

Resonance Code is a rebirth of the ancient Chinese classic, I Ching, the Book of Change. For thousands of years, I Ching has been associated with a divinatory practice. In taking an evolutionary leap, Resonance Code has rebirthed I Ching into a practice enabling a practitioner to cultivate wholeness through embodied self-awareness.

In this practice, a practitioner holds a question, an inquiry in mind. Then she engages with random events to produce a six-digit binary code. This is a fancy way to say that one will throw three coins in the air six times, and observe the turns of heads and tails. The pattern one observes produces a hexagram, a mathematical code, which can be decoded into questions, inquiries and practices of self-awareness according to the Resonance Code.

For someone whose worldview is strictly shaped by modern rational scientific thinking, deriving meanings from some random throws of coins may seem silly, childish, superstitious, or just some new-age-woo-woo-nonsense. That was pretty much how I felt when I was first introduced to it.

However, I am a scientist. The spirit of science encourages an open-mind and curiosity to all things unknown. As a scientist, I am trained to explore questions worthy of investigation. After experiencing how the conventional scientific establishment failed to deliver a sustainable health care system, I was no longer willing to turn my back on my ancestors’ wisdom. I asked myself: can this deceptively simple device be used as a “dialing-in” method to communicate with the Inter-Being?

My journey over the past eight years was an experiment to answer this question. I gave everything I had to this experiment, including my 401K account from Merck. Shedding this money from Merck was incredibly cleansing and freeing, even though at the beginning it was frightening!

There are three important principles associated with the practice of dialing-in I want to emphasize. These principles set the Resonance Code apart from “a-woo-woo-non-sense”, making it a rigorous and disciplined practice.

First, developing a disciplined practice of somatic attunement. This is probably the most important principle. Our physical body is the most substantial “instrument” for dialing-in. Attuning this biological instrument is as important as a musician tuning her musical instrument. The most reliable and best quality of information exchange will come from our bodily sensations and instincts. My somatic practice combines Qigong, energy medicine and improvisational movements.

Second, embodiment of the information exchange Dialing-in the Inter-Being is deceivingly simple. However, if we are not committed to embodying this information in our daily life, the quality of the information we receive will degrade.

The information I receive from these dial-ins has prompted me to catch “synchronicities”, showing up at the right time and right place, meeting the right person and having the right conversation delivers the next opportunity and resource. I met the two co-authors of the Resonance Code and my chief editor, from “pure chance”. The universe works in reciprocal way. When I listen to random events with respect, the random events work in my favor. Essentially, we make our own luck.

Often, especially at the beginning, the instructions I received would go up against the wiring of my fear-driven ego. For example, at the beginning of my career, my fear-based ego urged me to follow the conventional advice to promote my work by designing a professional website and paying google search to get visibility. Instead, the instructions I received asked me to learn to write my own music and sing songs for myself. It also asked me to live off of my Merck 401K and not worry about earning a salary to prove myself worthy. It instructed me to learn how to be a child again, simply enjoying being myself and following my impulses.

The tension between the information I received and the habit patterns of my fear-driven ego was intense. At times I felt as if there was a full-on “spiritual war” inside. However, with Feelingwork and a host of tools Joe and I invented to assist the Resonance Code, I gradually trained my ego to attune to wholeness rather than being driven by fear.

Third, tending relationships. As a person who focuses her attention primarily on going inward, I limit the time and attention I spent interacting with the outside world. However, when interactions do happen, I take them seriously.

I treat every person I encounter as an “embodied representative” from the subtle field of Inter-Being. The field of Inter-Being constantly sends me allies, helpers, messengers, people who invest themselves in my success. They often arrive in ways I do not expect. I learned to tend each one of these relationships with the uttermost care and patience, learning what Inter-Being was teaching me through them.

As an innovator disrupting status quo, I still deal with push-backs and resistance from the existing paradigm. Sometimes, the field will signal me about obstacles I might encounter by sending me people who are “challengers”. These challengers say or do things that would hurt me. I always go back to myself and work on the places inside that render me vulnerable to these “attacks”. That means I would deliberately feel the hurt, while transmuting the pain into creative energy I can then integrate to make myself more whole.

By interacting with the “challengers” I learn how to craft my messages to address push-backs and resistance in the most compassionate way, or circumvent them in the most efficient way. That’s the craft of acupuncture.

I feel grateful to these “challengers” Inter-Being sent, although interactions with them can be painful. When I can feel compassionate toward the very people who hurt, suppress or attempt to squash me, I know I am truly free. 

Calling for Pioneers

Our connection with the Inter-Being is our birthright. We each have our specific frequency that connects us to the Inter-Being in a unique way.  However, many forces in today’s culture are invested in devaluing, suppressing and otherwise interfering with these connections. People who tend to maintain this connection, such as indigenous people, women, people with sensitive nervous systems, are marginalized or pathologized. For example, my husband Joe and my editor Ellen both have exquisite mental capacity to connect with Inter-Being. This trait led to a label of “mental disorder” they had to battle against to live their life purpose.

It is time to reclaim our birthright to connect with the Inter-Being, by honoring our wholeness, honoring the wholeness in each other and in planet Earth!

The Resonance Code is an inter-weaving of East and West. It was first born through the first Resonance Code Lab consisting of people living in the US and three other European countries. For the last eighteen months, Resonance Code has immersed itself in its native soil of China and grown immensely.

We are now in the process of launching the next round of Resonance Code training in English. We are calling for pioneers who feel called to explore this frontier of conscious evolution. We are calling people who are attending to the birthing of a new cultural paradigm on the planet, people who are passionate about regenerating our relationship with Mother Earth. We strive to empower others to embrace wholeness through the micro-actions of Wu Wei, while enjoying this journey with the company of one another.

Please stay tuned for the announcement about our next course!