Solala Towler: Embracing the Tao, Healing with Qigong & Finding Flow in a Chaotic World | Ep29

Solala Towler is a distinguished author, teacher, and practitioner of Taoist philosophy, meditation, and qigong, with over 25 years of experience in the field. He has authored 12 books on Taoism, including notable titles such as "Tales from the Tao," "The Tao of Intimacy and Ecstasy," "Practicing the Tao Te Ching: 81 Steps on the Way," "Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters," and "Cha Dao: The Way of Tea." 

Solala is also known for his teachings and workshops on qigong and sound healing across the United States. He leads study trips to Asia, offering participants immersive experiences in Taoist practices and culture. 

Solala opens up about his introduction to Taoism—the moment he discovered a book that changed his life and led him down a path of deep spiritual exploration. He explains how Taoist principles like Wu Wei (effortless action) and Manzo (going slowly) can help us navigate life and business with more ease and alignment. He also shares how Qigong became a tool for self-healing and how the ritual of tea drinking can be a gateway to mindfulness and inner peace.

This conversation explores the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern entrepreneurship, revealing how flexibility, presence, and flow lead to greater success than force and struggle. Solala explains why adapting like water is the key to resilience, how Qigong can support both mental and physical health, and why true wisdom comes from humility, humor, and openness.

If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or seeking a more balanced, intuitive way of living and working, this episode offers timeless guidance to help you align with the natural rhythms of life.

Connect with Solala Towler:

Explore his books & teachings: abodetao.com

Join his Qigong & Taoist classes: abodetao.com

Core Themes

• Taoism for entrepreneurs
• The philosophy of flow
• Living the Tao
• Qigong healing benefits
• Tea and mindfulness
• Slow living practices
• Ancient wisdom for modern life

Connect with Christian

Instagram:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/christianmauerer/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@chrismauerer

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/chrismauerer

Business Inquiries:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠info@lovepixelagency.com

👉 Listen to all Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast episodes here:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5ryYCcW1SltPKhi9RRdk01

☎️ Book a call for a FREE 15min Brand Consult/Funnel Mapping Session
https://calendly.com/lovepixel/15min-consult

🍵 What about a cup of tea
https://besttealeaves.com/

🚀 Are you ready to launch your website?
https://lovepixelagency.com/

Transcript

Christian
What is up beautiful people? This is Christian here from the Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast and I am so honored today to have such a light and wisdom keeper on today. His name is Solala Towler and he's a distinguished author, teacher and practitioner of Taoist philosophy, meditation and Qigong with about 25 years of experience in the field. He has authored 12 books on Taoism, including notable titles such as

Tales from the Tao, The Tao of Intimacy and Ecstasy, Zhongzhu, The Inner Chapters, and my favorite, the Cha Do, which is the way of tea. So, Solala is also known for his teaching and workshops in Qigong and Sound Healing across the United States, and he leads trips and excursions to Asia, offering participants immersive experiences in Taoist practices and culture. Welcome to the show. Such an honor to have you on,

Solala Towler
Thank you all, thank you.

Christian
Beautiful. So tell me, how did you find the towel and how does it change a person's life? Because I know it has mind.

Solala Towler
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been involved in Eastern spirituality, Eastern religion, Eastern philosophy for many, years, from about 1969. And then I've gone in, I've studied a lot of Buddhism and I was, about 35 years ago, I was studying Zen Buddhism. I went into a metaphysical bookstore in Portland, Oregon, went to their tiny little used book section.

and found a book by this guy, Huaqing Ni. And it totally turned my life around. And so I've been studying with him for 35 years, but I've studied with teachers all over the US and in China because I've led nine groups to China. And later we can talk about I'm leading a group to Taiwan in May. Yeah, so we can talk about that later. But

Yeah, there's something there was something about Zen Buddhism, at least the Japanese style of Zen Buddhism. It was a felt a little rigid. so Taoism actually comes, mean, Zen rather comes from a Chinese form of Buddhism called Chan Buddhism, which is a mixture of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. So there's a lot of influence there.

Yeah, so and then I got really sick. I had chronic fatigue syndrome to the point where I was totally bedridden and Chinese herbs got me out of bed and Qigong is what cured me. So I'm big believer in Qigong and all that kind of stuff. So I've been doing that for 35 years now. And I did publish a magazine for 25 years called The Empty Vessel, which I'm no longer doing, but it was a Taoist magazine. We had articles and interviews with masters and things.

Christian
Wow, is that still available online or was just a paper?

Solala Towler
Well, I passed it on to some other folks and they haven't weren't able to keep it up. They live in Florida and their house was destroyed by a hurricane as a matter of fact. So there's no recovering from that. Yeah, but I do a lot of online classes, Zoom classes.

Christian
Okay.

And so a lot of people in the audience are creators, social media, online. It's a big part of the world, right? So my question to you is how can we live more of the Tao in such an inundated world?

Solala Towler
Yep, yeah.

well, you know, there's a book that a lot of people are familiar with, the Delta Jing written 2,500 years ago and still very, very useful today. So you can, it's very simple book. a very short book. It's actually the most widely translated book in the world after the Bible. And it has ideas, principles. call them like the water course way, which is means like going with the flow, being adaptable.

this idea of when you put water in a square container, the water becomes square. put it in a round container, it becomes round. Yes. So how can we be that flexible and that adaptable? So whatever situation we find ourselves in, sometimes we find ourselves in very uncomfortable situations or not ideal situations, but how can we use this teaching of, okay, I'll find a way to be here in the situation and still be my authentic self.

and still deal with the situation. And also things like Manzo, which means go slowly, moving through your life, not crashing through your life, but taking one step at a time. You know, the author allows us as the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. So a lot of people may feel like, I would really like to have an online business, but it sounds so complicated.

It'll take forever and I have to find all these people, but so they never get around to doing anything. But, you know, even this ancient book tells us just take that first step. It's right. If you know it's what you would like to do, go online and learn how do I run a zoom class? You know, and they and you know, I started this all the zoom stuff a year before COVID. And I used to travel all over the country teaching, but.

during the COVID years, the dark ages, we call it. I learned how to do Zoom. Now I teach three Zoom classes a week and just starting to travel again, which I love being in the room with people. But this Zoom, I call it CyberDow. We get to be, you're far away, you're in Florida, I'm in Oregon, but we are here together in this moment.

Christian
I love

Yeah.

Solala Towler
And the Japanese have a phrase, Ichigo Ichi, which means honor this moment. This particular moment will never come again. Even if we get together again, it'll be a different moment and could be a different what's going on with you that day, what's going on with me that day. So we honor this time we have together here. So things like that, you it's very useful actually.

Christian
Yeah, it's so beautiful. think I just want to sit back and listen to you for the next hour. I think for me, it's just like I'm absorbing so much wisdom. like, how does he see the world now?

Solala Towler
Yeah.

Well, I've had very good teachers. You know, I honor my teachers and I share with what I've learned from my teachers. And sometimes, as you know, being a spiritual person, sometimes your teachers is a really great book or a class you take. Sometimes it's you get in a car accident or you get a diagnosis that you have to deal with. Those are also our teachers. If we if we keep our spiritual eyes open and our spiritual ears open.

for those opportunities. You know, things aren't going well. I'm so depressed. I'm so angry. This is terrible. Or things are not going well. Well, that's just this moment. How can I deal with it to reach another moment that might be even better?

Things like that.

Christian
Yeah, I appreciate the timelessness of the Tao. If something is timeless, you just know it's not a trend, it's not a fad, it's just, you can always rely on it. You can always look into the Tao and just like.

Solala Towler
Yeah, it's not a new age teaching, it's an old age teaching. Which can be used in us today as Westerners, we're not Chinese, we're Westerners, living in the 21st century. How do we put those ancient teachings into our life right now? So we can be happy and healthy and possibly holy.

Christian
Interesting,

Beautiful. So as you, you know, study with your masters and teachers, like, what would you say they all had in common apart from the concept of, let's say, the water course, where the flexibility of things, is there anything else that you have extracted from there? You know, like everybody's doing.

Solala Towler
Yeah, they don't take themselves too seriously. That's a mark of a, to me, a high level teacher. They see the humorous side in almost everything. To me, that's a sign of a good teacher too. And they're humble, you know, not just follow my words and don't listen to anyone else. I am the highest teacher in the world. You know, that kind of stuff I just don't even go to. I don't want to deal with people like that. I want to deal with people that are humble and open.

Christian
Hmm, beautiful. Yeah.

Solala Towler
That's what works for me.

is a big part of it. You mentioned my Cha Dao book. I actually have three tea books. This is another one, Tea Mind, Tea Heart. And it's all stories and poems and articles about tea. And it has 50 color photos inside. But this is one of my favorite. This is an ancient form of the yin yang symbol. It's a spiral.

Christian
my God. you

Solala Towler
And I took this photo. It's on a door in a Taoist temple up in the mountains in China, the Wudang Mountains. So tea, you know, and then I just have, you know, this is a teacup in my house. You know, it's just tea is in Taoism. It's a spiritual path. You know, like this is one that I like, but it has a reflection of that, of the sky above the cup of poor tea.

So tea is another one of those things, slowing down, enjoying the tea. We have this phrase called pin ming lun dao, which means savor tea, disgust dao. And usually in Chinese, you say drink tea, you say he cha, but this is not he drink, this is pin savor. And it's three...

Christian
Yeah.

Mmm.

Solala Towler
Three squares meaning three mouths and Lundau doesn't necessarily have to you have to talk about Taoism But just sharing something from your heart with each other

Yeah. So that's a big part of, big part of it. And then I have this shameless commercials here. This other book called Tea House at the Edge of the World. Yeah. It's stories about a magical tea house. That's not on any chart. It's not on any map. You just have to find yourself there and some kind of healing experience happens. Some of the stories take place in ancient China, some in modern London, all over the place.

Christian
Well...

Wow.

Wow, I love it. I personally, I'm only 33 years old, so I don't, I'm still working up to the wisdom that you embody. But I really, I felt drawn to tea. I mean, I kind of grew up with it, right? Germans are big tea drinkers. My parents drank a cup of jasmine green tea every morning. But I never got into it until I was like 22.

Solala Towler
So that was a super fun.

Christian
When Starbucks came out with the matcha latte, it's where your friends go study and you sit with them. didn't ever like coffee. Okay, great, they have matcha, right? So I'm like, what is this? It was great, it was sweet, but then I took out the milk and I took out the sugar. What is this green stuff? And then from matcha, I was diving into the Japanese green tea varieties of gyokuro, kama-iricha.

Solala Towler
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christian
You have Fukamushi, Sencha, Genmaicha, mean all the wonderful, incredible world of green tea in Japan. I mean, it went so far that I started my own tea brand.

Yeah, I started this brand. It's called One with Tea, one and half years ago. And I started selling it on Amazon because not because I'm a big fan of Amazon. They actually take quite a bit of a cut, but I didn't want to deal with the like brand building social media because it's so much effort to like build an audience, build blah, blah, blah. You know, I was like, you know what? Let me just put it on Amazon. People are there already. Yes, Amazon takes like

Solala Towler
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Christian
30, 40 % of your product, but I don't have to worry about the whole how people find it. I put it up there. It's beautifully marketed, branded, and of course produced in Japan. It's all organic. it's, you know, where it comes from is also important. And I was like, yeah, let me do that. Because I was like, I love tea so much. I want to share it with more people. How do I do that? I was like, well, let me just create something and put it on now.

Solala Towler
Yeah.

Yeah. Are you familiar with Chinese teas at all? Like pu'er tea?

Christian
So.

I mean,

I've known some, I've tried some, but the world of Chinese teas, think it's more opening up and it's fast, exactly as you say. I mean, if we can spend some time of you discussing a little bit about tea and Dao and just like, because I've never, like I felt always drawn to tea and there's such a alignment and synchronicity there with life, spirituality.

Solala Towler
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian
the Tao, the timeless, the... I mean, everything.

Solala Towler
Yeah. Well, there's another principle I call tea mind. Tea mind is the ability to go slowly through your life, to really appreciate all the things in your life, to be flexible psychologically, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and have that feeling that tea mind, you could also drink coffee with tea mind. It doesn't necessarily be.

have to be tea or have to be Chinese tea. It's just that you're open to learning new things all the time. That's what tea mind is about. I'll share a short poem from here with you. And it's called, Every Tea Should Be a Time of Celebration. Tea mind, tea heart. That's a Pu'er tea. You see how dark it is. That's just on my dining room table. I took that. I'll go and clean my glasses.

Christian
Please,

And that's from which book? What's the T-Mind T-Heart.

Solala Towler
Uh-oh. Let's just ignore that. Here, I'll just unplug the phone, actually. Yeah, I forgot to do that before. Let's see, 4-4.

Christian
and

Solala Towler
When we drink tea and ping, um, pin ming, that phrase I just told you, we celebrate the magical transformation of leaf and water contained in the cup or bowl from which we drink the tea leaves that appear so dead and dry. You know, when you, you get a lot of tea, especially like poor tea is a dry cake. People look at it and go, this just looks like dead leaves, but

The tea leaves that appear so dead and dry when paired with hot water become transformed from dry dead leaf to a living liqueur, connecting the drinker with the land that the tree or bush grew from, the hands that picked bud and leaves and processed them a hard labor. The seller of the tea brings the tea to us, our own hands and mouth touching the tea.

our spirits becoming calm and centered as we drink the magical brew. So it is that we celebrate this coming together of hand and heart, of land and leaf, of sunlight and moonlight and our own sweet selves. We give thanks and praises for the opportunity and blessing of sharing ourselves with the ancient magic of water, earth and sunlight. So bright.

so life-giving. We celebrate the coming together of all these things, these gifts given freely of the earth and sky. And in this way, every tea becomes a celebration of gratitude and grace.

So that's my attitude about P.

Not that we have to do a big complicated tea ceremony every time we have tea, but it's still sometimes fun to do a ceremony. You're familiar with Japanese tea. They have a very strong ancient tea ceremony, the Japanese tea ceremony, the Zen ceremony. Chinese are a little, their ceremony is not as complicated.

Christian
Yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate that. think sometimes, like you said, the strictness and rigidness from Zen Buddhism can like translate it into the tea world as well. And it's just like, it's not as attractive to me because it's a little bit too, it's too masculine. You understand? It's like, yeah.

Solala Towler
You

very formal. Chinese

are much less formal people as a culture. So their tea ceremony like what I do is much less informal. There's a few things we do, but then we just open it up after like 10 minutes. just we're already done with the ritual, then we can just enjoy ourselves and enjoy the tea.

Christian
Interesting.

Hmm.

Yeah. Wow. And...

So what are some of your moments, I guess, with tea and with wisdom or do you remember a conversation you had with...

Solala Towler
Well, I had an

interesting experience on two, I lead groups to China to study Qigong, go up in the mountains, study with Dalmasters. And one year we attacked another week on and we went to Tibet, which I was always excited about going to. But the Tibetans, don't know you're familiar with Tibetan tea. Traditionally, it's a black tea. They boil it. They put salt in it. And then they also traditionally use like yak milk.

Sometimes or yet rancid yak butter. So it has a very, very strong flavor that I'm afraid of. And so I told my girlfriend that going to Tibet, I like, what do I do if a monk offers me tea? You know, I have to accept it, right? If a monk over and one day I'm sitting in a temple in the back room with three monks. We're just hanging out. This guy comes in with a big theramist. I'm like, he pours us all tea and it tasted like

somebody made like English breakfast, black tea, put some milk in it and salt and then put it on the shelf for like three or four days till it got kind of moldy tasting. It tastes like moldy tea. So I'm sitting there sipping it very slowly and I'm saying to myself, I can do this. I can do this. And suddenly the monk next to me snatches it out of my hand and bangs it on the table. And I think maybe he was like taking

I was having a hard time with this because they drink 30 or 40 cups a day of that tea. Because traditionally in Tibet, they don't grow vegetables. They live, you know, very high altitude. So that's part of their vegetable is the it's very and they pour the milk and everything. Why the milk has to be rancid? don't know. That seems odd to me. But yeah.

Christian
Yeah.

Wow.

It's deminishment, yeah?

That is interesting though. I've always

wondered what happens. if I can just philosophize or take my take on this. I went on a boat on Sunday and I made a big thermos of oolong tea from Taiwan. And I left it. I didn't drink it at all. I left like, it was still half full, which was like a liter, at least.

Solala Towler
Yeah.

yeah.

Christian
Um, so I left it there till Wednesday and I drank it Wednesday morning because it was in a thermos close. I was like, yeah, it has this like. Tangy. It's like, it's, I don't know. It's like, it's a little, it's a slightly overripe Mandarin taste. You know what I mean? Um, but I was, there has to be something about it.

Solala Towler
So, hello.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Christian
Maybe because the tea is like sprouting, it's alive, like fermenting, it's almost like kombucha but fresh.

Solala Towler
Yeah, and it might

be makes it easier to digest because it's partly digested the milk.

Christian
Yeah, that makes

sense. There's more enzyme released, especially with the milk. Interesting.

Solala Towler
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now, the poor

tea that I drink a lot of that we use a lot in Chinese tea, Gong Fu ceremony, it's a fermented tea. And until fairly recently, till like the 60s, they would make this. It all grows in trees, for one thing. All tea grew on trees originally. And then people started making it bushes because it's easier to pick. But in way southwest China, Yunnan province, there are the

tribal people called the Boulang people, the Yi people, and they have these trees. Some of them are a thousand years old and they have to climb up the tree to pick the leaves. And then they would process them and then they would put it on a shelf and not think of drinking it for at least 20, 30 years. And then it slowly ferments like a fine wine. People think wine, you make grape juice and then you leave it for years. And it's like even better.

So that kind of tea is very expensive now. You get a cake like this big for like $3,000 or more. But then people didn't want to wait so long for the tea. They wanted to make it cheaper. So they found another way to make it, fast track it. And they process it and then they pile it in big piles on the floor in a warehouse. They wet it down. They put a thermal blanket over it. And then it starts slowly fermenting on its own.

Christian
Wow.

Solala Towler
Sometimes they'll inoculate it with some of the former batch of tea they made. And then within like six weeks, it's done. And then this photo I showed you, this is how it comes out very, very dark.

Christian
Hmm.

Solala Towler
And it has a lot, it's fermented, so it's very good for digestion. It has some unique qualities that are different than green tea. I drink Chinese green tea every morning. That's how I start my day. In the afternoon, I start drinking the poor tea. It's P-U-E-R, sometimes spelled P-U-E-R-H. And a lot of people in the West call it poo air.

Christian
Hmm.

Beautiful.

Solala Towler
But a friend of mine in Taiwan who has a tea business, he said, no, you pronounce it poo-ar. He said poo-air is a fart. So that's not what we want to call our tea. So it's a good way to remember. Yeah.

Christian
That's funny. is

hilarious. Wow. And so tell us a little bit, let's shift gears a little bit. Tell us a little bit. How did you decide to make this your mission, your life's work, your legacy? it's not, mean, what you've built and what you've written, mean, it's decades worth of work.

Solala Towler
this.

Christian
How did you decide initially, like, I'm going to make this my path?

Solala Towler
Well, you know, I grew up in the 60s when I was a young lad in like when I was like 19 years old, it was the 60s in the US. And you may know something about that time. was a very magical time. And I was like a hippie, you know, then and just hitchhiking around the country, exploring new ways of living and, you know, that kind of thing. And did some.

Like LSD and stuff like that, which was very helpful to me. It brought me out of my shell. I'd been in all my life, but then in 1969, I realized that the smoking and the taking LSD was opening a door for me, but I needed to go through the doorway myself. So I stopped taking anything like that. And I'm because I'm an old hippie, you know, I don't like working for the man. I always have my own business. I I'm too spoiled to work for someone else.

Christian
Yeah.

Solala Towler
So like 30 years ago, I started a Daoist magazine that was sold all over the world. And then after 25 years, I just decided it was time to move on to something else. And then I started teaching Qigong. So it's what Joseph Campbell called following your bliss. You know, that's how I make a living. I live from month to month. I have no savings or anything, but I still am free to teach and live the way I want.

So I teach three classes a week. I am teaching one tonight, as a matter of fact, on Dada Jing, on the more esoteric parts of Dada Jing. So it's like I make my living by my spiritual path. You know, I'm very blessed. I feel very blessed in that way. And I'm not, you know, I'm not super computer savvy, because I was born in 1950, way before computers. And so I'm still learning.

And I know people are much better, probably you are, getting yourself out there. I'm on Facebook, but I'm still learning about Instagram and things like that. So I'm still learning about how to present myself to the world and share what I've learned from my teachers and my experiences of life. And so I appreciate you inviting me here today to talk about what I love, what still excites me.

Christian
Yeah.

Solala Towler
after 35 years of studying it.

Christian
Yeah, it's incredible. It's an honor, you know, like, so my little nickname there says Love Pixel, right? part of my work or my being, my Dharma here on Earth is to help people make love tangible. Like that is my mission. And we do that on like

Solala Towler
Thank

Christian
web design branding side, with, you know, beautiful, incredibly crafted, websites that help people to express themselves. it's, I'm happy to, you know, have more of a conversation about that, and, help you, you know, maybe guide you in one way or another where you can like leverage certain things. Like even for example, this interview, like the reason why we don't do it on zoom, but we do it here because this platform allows us to like,

Immediately create a short form content for social media without hiring a video editor. So, you know, there's lots of, AI platforms and different, you know, technologies that allow you to just generate content and like get yourself more visible. so yeah, I'm happy to, you know, have, have a conversation more about that in terms of, know, getting yourself out there, but ultimately it just comes down to.

Solala Towler
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Christian
three things, right? You need to have people that find you, traffic is what they say. Then you need to have a platform where people land. And then on that platform may or may not be some sort of conversion event, whether that's a purchase or they just leave their email and become part of your newsletter type of thing. then throughout time, you build a relationship and then they might purchase something. And then the third part is like,

Solala Towler
Right.

Christian
the delivery of that. it's it's traffic, a platform and like delivery, right? So exactly. So yeah, you know, for me, especially like it's such an honor to give you this platform because I think you have so much wisdom to share. And a lot of times, you know, like the young generation that comes in and think, ah, we're all better and we know better, you know what mean? But like,

Solala Towler
and have something of value to share with them. Yeah.

Christian
We miss the timelessness or like we miss the slowing down. Like what was that concept like that Manzo or what was it called? Manzo. Yeah. You know, it's like.

Solala Towler
Manso. That's right.

Yeah.

Christian
Take breath, slow down, life can be slow, you know?

Solala Towler
Actually, in traditional more traditional Chinese culture, instead of saying the way you say goodbye is zaijian. But traditionally, they would say Manzo, go slowly, go slowly away from me. Don't rush out the door. And now China and the city anyway is going faster and faster, just like the West. There's some traditional things that some people have lost. Some people still have it. And then there are people living in the mountains where I go with my groups in there.

Christian
Hmm

Yeah.

Yeah.

Solala Towler
living in very, very simple Spartan kind of places, but their inner world is very, very rich and they're really strong. They run up and down. There's hundreds of steps. When you go to China, it's kind of funny. Here we have like trails you walk up and down. Anywhere you go in China, trails is hundreds, if not thousands of stone steps that you walk up. And it takes a lot of energy to be able to walk up those steps. And the first time I heard that phrase,

I was with these Chinese guys and I was like huffing and puffing and then I had to stop and catch my breath and then go up. And one of them turned to me and said, Manzo, Manzo. And I didn't know the term, but I could tell what he was saying was slow down, slow down. You don't have to rush up the steps. You don't have to rush through your life. You don't have to rush to make things happen as fast as humanly or non-humanly possible.

My teacher says he can describe the perfect Taoist lifestyle in three words, take it easy.

And I don't know if you've heard of another ancient Taoist teacher Zhuangzi. He's the most important after the Tao Te Ching Lao Tzu. And he says, he describes the perfect lifestyle is it's called Xiao You You, which means free and easy wandering or free and easy roaming. Live your life. No one can free you but yourself. Really on the inside.

Christian
Hmm.

Solala Towler
if you free yourself and give yourself room to grow and to experience and to dance.

One of my favorite songs right now is from this group, the Ezra Collective. They're kind of a funk jazz group. And they have this song, God gave me feet for dancing. And it goes, the chorus is, God made me feet for dancing. That's exactly what I'll do. So that's kind of a Taoist way of life too. Your feet are dancing, your heart is dancing, your soul is dancing. Not just your body.

Christian
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. It's very

interesting to see, you know, like, because from my perspective, the lifestyle has gotten so sedentary, know, everything's in front of computer, you know, the content creation, the design, the you name it, the writing, the video shooting, it's crazy. It's like

Solala Towler
Mm-hmm. Well, sit in front of a computer. Yeah, like I do.

yeah.

Yeah.

Christian
We should do this more often.

Solala Towler
Yeah, dancing. God gave us feet for dancing. That's exactly what we'll do. Well, that's why in Daoism, we have moving meditation, like Tai Chi. You're moving in very prescribed ways, very slowly. You're moving, but inside you're very still. And Qi Gong is the same kind of thing. It's a moving meditation, because just sitting like they do in Zen meditation a lot.

Christian
Wow.

Solala Towler
mostly that's all they do for sitting for hours and hours and hours. And that would say that's not natural. We're like animals. Animals can sit very quietly, but then they can move. You know, you have a cat who looks like she's sound asleep and you open a can of tuna fish in the kitchen, they're like awake and in there immediately. So we can be awake enough to respond, but also inside we're very still. That's the key.

Christian
Hmm.

Beautiful and how Like how would we in this day and age like Let's say someone's interested in learning more about you know Learning from you or your work that you've done Apart from the books that you have available Is there anything else that people can get in touch with your work and the online courses you said you have like a zoom study group?

Solala Towler
Yeah, I have a website.

I'm starting a new class next Wednesday, but I'm very excited about it's called Open Heart Chico. The opposite of open heart surgery, and it's bringing kind of like the cutting edge of Western science about the heart. People think the heart is just a pump. The heart is constantly sending electrical electrical messages up to the brain and back down into the gut and back up and.

a lot more stuff about the heart and, you know, in Western language, we have a lot of follow your heart, someone's heartbroken, someone is good hearted, learning something by heart. We have all these ideas of a heart. And in Chinese medicine, what we think of as our cognitive mind, they say, resides in our heart. So I'm bringing in some of that modern Western science and also Chinese medicine.

and qigong and meditation and we're going to be doing qigong exercises and doing invocations and mantras. So it's like a nine week course that I'm starting on Wednesday. Yeah, very excited about.

Christian
It's beautiful.

And what's the website that people can find that...

Solala Towler
Well, abode like home abode, Dow spelled with a T dot com.

Christian
about our dog.

Solala Towler
Yeah,

and I have my books in there and my courses.

Christian
Beautiful. We'll link that in the description. Yeah, absolutely. And from your side as, you know, kind of like that wisdom keeper and just like overall, I would say, like to me, it sounds like you've really found your like calibration point, your balance in life and how you want to show up, live every day.

Solala Towler
Yeah, that'd be great.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Christian
what are some of the spiritual practices that you do on a daily basis?

Solala Towler
Well, I drink green tea in the morning. While I'm drinking tea, I'm reading Daoist books, studying. And then I actually have a little temple in my backyard, which was there when I bought my house. It's pretty amazing. I get, yeah, it's a little eight sided building. It was made as a built as a Sufi temple. I bought my house from some Sufi friends. So I do sitting meditation, visualization.

Christian
How could you?

Solala Towler
I do invocations, which are not prayers asking for something, but something to create a special kind of energetic field. It has lines like, the goddess of my heart nourishes my life abundantly, things like that. And I do qigong and Tai Chi Chuan. You know, I have qigong. I've been doing one certain qigong form for 25 years now.

And I still love it and I'm still learning things from it. You you learn a Qigong form or a Taiji form and after you're doing it for a while, the form itself becomes your teacher. You learn the form from a teacher, but then the practice itself becomes your teacher. So things like that, you know, I'm a musician too. play music. Yeah. And I lead sometimes Kirtan. You know, you probably know Kirtan music.

Christian
Yeah, yeah, I your time. Beautiful.

Solala Towler
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, it's great because it's not like I'm up there performing for an audience. We're all in the band together. You know, we're chanting and singing and you don't have to worry like, can you hold a, you know, a good singer or not? Anybody can chant. Don't worry about what you're sounding like. Just join the group. And it's a spiritual practice, of course, as you probably know in India, chanting the names of the divine.

Christian
Yeah.

Solala Towler
to kind of bring that divine feeling into your own body. And in China, we have China and Japan, we have this goddess, Guan Yin. In the West, they often call her Guan Yin, partly because the Chinese is difficult to know how to pronounce. When you see a T, it's pronounced as a D. So unless you already knew that, you have no idea. Guan Yin is the Bodhisattva of mercy and compassion. She who hears the cries of the world.

and kind of that aspect of the universe, that very supporting, loving, compassionate nature of the universe. So I bring in all that stuff.

Christian
Wow, that's so fascinating.

Solala Towler
Yeah.

And then I do my, my teachings on zoom, know, it's really, I love being in a room with people, but when it's not possible, you know, I can't drive to Florida to meet with you or you're not going to fly to Oregon to meet with me for this. You know, we take advantage of what we have here in cyber Dell and it's real. can share real things here. Right.

Christian
Yeah.

Yeah, so what's one invocation you'd like to share with the audience?

Solala Towler
I don't have any of them memorized, but I have a mantra that I do every day. In English, means my mind, now that I have to say it, not in context here, my mind is a bright pearl rolling smoothly with no obstruction. Qing shu yun ming wu ne in Chinese. And I actually have a mala and I chant it.

Christian
Yeah.

Solala Towler
And it means my mind is a bright pearl rolling smoothly with no obstruction. It's open. It's ready to go in any direction it needs to go or where I want it to go. I'm not stuck in one place. They talk about living your life in a groove instead of a rut. They're two very different things, right?

Christian
Yeah, that's beautiful. Thanks.

Solala Towler
Yeah. So

so I do the stillness meditation, I do the moving, it's important to have a balance of both in the Taoist tradition.

Christian
Yeah, yeah, I think I've come to see a lot of things in my life also through the lens of like, yin and yang, masculine, feminine, right? Like, how does this activity feel? How does this business relationship feel in terms of balance and exchange? And how does this whatever activity feel, right? Because from there, you can adjust of like, well, I feel now I need more nourishing. All right, right now I'm ready to

give again, you know?

Solala Towler
Yeah,

yeah, yin yang, it's it has nothing to with gender. But it's like young energy is usually thought I was creative, expansive kind when you got a new project going. And then yin is more like more contemplative and being quiet. And we need both. Sometimes we're in our life, we're creating something and we're really putting a lot of energy out there. It's very young, which is great. And then other times we need to pull back a little bit.

Christian
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, retreat.

Solala Towler
Yeah, and we need both, really.

Christian
Yeah, exactly. So we're nearing the last 10 minutes of the podcast and I wanted to ask you some personal questions, like couple of just short questions, but deep questions. So the first question would be, what are three words that you want people to know you for?

Solala Towler
you

Christian
after you this physical incarnation.

Solala Towler
Wow. Honest, fun, and open.

Christian
Honest, and open, beautiful.

Solala Towler
I've never thought

of it that way. So that's just what came up.

Christian
Who or what inspires you the most currently in your spiritual and entrepreneurial journey? there anything or anyone that you like, yes, this just keeps...

Solala Towler
Yeah, you know, as we've talked here, I've shared that I'm new at a lot of this computer stuff. And so I'm learning and trying to remain open. it's really interesting to me and really exciting to me, actually, to, as you're saying, bring all the beautiful spiritual experiences and teachings I've had for my teachers and share that with others in a way that, you know, ancient

masters didn't do, you would have to go to them. You'd have to climb the mountain to get to the teacher. The teacher didn't come down and walk, you know, just to the village and start teaching. So but now we have this. We have these tools that we use online tools and things so that I can just put out this is what I'm offering. If you're interested, here's the link. It's almost like the ancient teachers. I wrote a book.

Christian
Yeah.

Solala Towler
Recalling it the Dao De Jing. If you're interested, get a copy. know, Daoists don't proselytize. We're not trying to convert people to Daoism. One of my teachers says, we just suggest. You might be interested in this. Try it. It's up to you. We're not trying to force anyone into our way of belief or anything.

Christian
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah I know it's a very, it's like feminine, passive, soft, like hey look, this is cool, look at it if you like, if not no worries, you know.

Solala Towler
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, or a little practice. just looked at the time. It's already changed, but it was 11 11. So five years ago I had cancer. I had surgery for it recovered very well. But ever since then, whenever I see a clock that says three, three, three or 11 11, I stop and I say, thank you for the blessing. Thank you for the magic. It takes 10 seconds, but it's just like.

We're going along our day and the day is moving and moving and suddenly we see, this could be a very special moment. Stop and acknowledge it. I'm not thinking any deity or any person. I'm just giving thanks.

Christian
Yeah, and it's funny because you're saying that in the 44th minute.

Solala Towler
Oh, okay. Yeah, it was just 1111 here. Yeah, pay attention to that kind of stuff. It's a simple little practice, but it can be nice.

Christian
That's how it is. Yeah.

Yeah. So last question before we move into more of the closing out part of the podcast is what is your vision of the new earth of what you see coming for humanity?

Solala Towler
And we're living in very strange times with what's going on in the government of my country and places in Ukraine and various places in the world. But I try to remember that Lao Tzu, who wrote the Dao Te Ching, he lived in a place, time what scholars call the warring states period. And he felt society was starting, there was a lot of conflict going on and that's where he decided to leave. But some...

his, some guy convinced him to write some of his thoughts down. The very first line of the Dao De Jing is Dao Ke Dao Fei Chang Dao, which means the Dao that can be written down or put in a little box is not the real Dao. So we need to remain open. We need to keep remain with our hearts open. But, know, our eyes open too.

and support the things and the people and the traditions and the classes and all the things that we know are positive for the world, our world and everyone else in this world. Right?

Christian
Hmm.

Yeah. And I think it's a really cool time right now to like, for humanity to take that baton, to take responsibility, to take the power back from like all this like old media, like all this stuff is dying, you know, TV, radio, all that stuff like Hollywood. People don't really care about it that much anymore, which is really fantastic. It just shows you that the attention is going back

to where people want to put their attention, right? And I think that's a great sign that humanity is progressing in the right direction.

Solala Towler
We're being challenged right now and we want to be able to rise to that challenge. Of not, you look at the headlines, my God, the whole world's going to hell or you could look at headlines. Well, some people are having a really tough time and how can I send more love into the world? How can I acknowledge the people in my life? Instead of just, yeah, there's my partner, there's my friend, like really acknowledge how

Christian
Yeah.

Yeah.

Solala Towler
much there, how much we appreciate of what they're giving us. And artists, great artists, great teachers all around the world, they're offering something really positive. It's not all negative in the world. There's always a mixture. Like you said, Yin-Yang is always moving. It's not a static thing. That's why it's a circle instead of a square or that photo I showed you of a spiral.

Christian
Yeah. Yeah.

Solala Towler
things are

shifting and changing all the time and transforming. We are transforming. The very cells in our body are dying off by the thousands every day and we're growing new ones. And how can we remain open so that we can join that transformational journey that's always open to us if we open our mind and heart to it.

Christian
Yeah, what a beautiful message to leave our audience with. I really like to always dedicate the last part of our conversation to our guest, which is you. And I would like to ask you, just as a person, as a spiritual entrepreneur, as a brand of yourself and other brands, what are...

What are your future goals and what are you looking to call in? Kind of like doing a little, just a little visioning to give over to you as like putting that out there.

Solala Towler
Yeah,

Yeah, I just want to continue offering classes and guidance to people, you know, to once again share what I've learned, what's worked in my life and get to know, get to be a little more comfortable with media. And I have some people helping me with that and just be able to share and hear, listen to what other people have to say, what other people have to share about their journey.

We're all in it together, right? The whole world, we're all in it together. Let's acknowledge that and honor that.

Christian
Beautiful. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. And then lastly, what are the last words you want to leave the audience with and where can people find you?

Solala Towler
Well, my website is abodehome, A-B-O-D-E-T-A-O.com. And I have my classes and my books and all that. I have a lot of books and classes. And I'm really happy to connect with people like yourself and people who are seekers, people who are light bringers is one of the terms that people use. People who...

are on a spiritual path. doesn't have to be Taoism. It doesn't have to be an Eastern, you know, whatever spiritual path they're on. All the paths lead to the same goal, right? Unity, one source with a capital S. And so I'm doing my part and I acknowledge and honor people who are all doing their part.

Christian
Beautiful.

Solala Towler
That makes sense.

Christian
Thank you so much. yeah, thanks for being here, sharing your wisdom, sharing your heart. And we really appreciate you being here. It's such an honor, you know?

Solala Towler
Yeah.

It's really nice meeting you. It's really nice to be part of this. I'm going off now to check out the new Indian restaurant in town. That's where I go from here. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Christian
I love it. That sounds like a great thing to do. right. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

And we'll stay in touch.