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nificance of their topknot?First, to be natural. And topknot here is a double loop,representing taiji – yin and yang. It takes time for themto make that. It is not the usual one. This is a special waythey do here on Wudang. They call it taiji hair. He saysthat to become a student of Daoism you must begin fromyour head!Is there any significance to where the topknot is placedon the head?Yes, it is on the top of the head on the bai hui point,where yin and yang meet. This is a very important pointin TCM as well as in qigong and taiji.How does he feel about the rebirth of Daoism in modernChina?He said that Daoism does not develop well in Chinanow. There are very few people who really understandDaoism. Daoism is very different from Buddhism. Buddhismincorporates lots of themes to grow the religionbigger and bigger. But Daoism is different. They nevertell you to be a Daoist (proselytize). They never say that.They believe in letting things go a natural way.He says that in ancient times a real Daoist was anatural scientist. He must be very knowledgable aboutlots of things. And Daoism does not connect to politicsat all. Daoism influenced TCM a lot. They have a verydeep connection. TCM is very different from Westernmedicine. In Western medicine if you have a pain hereand it gets worse and worse then they will cut it. But(Photo by Sarah Braat)TCM will never use that way. They use acupuncture tohelp the person to recover.He also says that the computer, one of the mostpopular things these days, has the earliest knowledgefrom Daoism. (Editor’s note: I believe what he is referringto here is the binary system, originating with the Yijing(I Ching), which was used in the original computer codelanguage.)So Daoism is different from many other religions.Many other religions have been used as tools by the politicians.Daoism is really a natural science and its reachinto many subjects is very broad.The knowledge of Daoism is very deep and not everyonecan understand it. This is one of the reasons that,historically, Daoism has not developed very well. Butnow and in the future he and his friends will do a betterjob to develop Daoism.In the West we talk about two different kinds of Daoism.Dao Jia or what is sometimes called HuangLao orphilosophical Daoism and Dao Jio or religious Daoism.About Dao Jia, you know that jia means family right?Dao Jia means a people who have an idea about a kind ofreligion. This goes back to thousands of years ago. Manyof these people were connected with wu (shamanism).According to historical records, a thousand years agothere were these Dao Jia, which has a much longer historythan Dao Jio, which is the Daoist religion. The Daoistreligion was founded two thousand years ago by ZhangDao Ling (Tianshi or Heavenly Masters sect).There were lots of masters then that they called DaoThe Empty Vessel 31