“Language and communication” may sound like a very theoretical topic for a Wing Chun and nei kung teacher like me, but it is actually a very important philosophical subject addressed in the 老子 Tao Te Ching. And, characteristically for Taoist philosophy, it also has a significant practical and spiritual dimension, which is why it is highly relevant to any deeper bodymind practice. It directly relates to the ways in which we learn and move through the world.

On the one hand, human language is wonderful. Unfortunately, it is all too often used to set humans apart from the non-human parts of existence. Besides, as a general tool for communication, human language is overrated, and is too often misused to manipulate and distort natural relationships and complex networks. If our focus, however, is on true communication and community, we deal with the language topic in much more open and inclusive ways, and our world changes. In an internal practice like the 五行功 “Five Phases Method,” for instance, we learn and communicate with our inner organs without using words. There is so much to learn: sleep practices, meditation practices and their ways of learning with subconscious spheres, … And what is happening inside of our body, inside every cell of our body, is so endlessly connected to what is happening outside of the body.

Taking a more open and more constructive approach to language(s) is highly relevant to our learning processes in general, because it means we are not overly reliant on our human perspective or our human teachers—“there are no masters.” Good human teachers simply accompany and support us on our ways to become more open-minded multilingual practitioners in a multispecies world, to learn constructive ways of communication in all kinds of languages available to us, and to act in more constructive ways. Since ancient times, good human teachers have taught us to learn from plants, animals, landscapes, … (萬物草木之生也柔脆, 谷神不死是謂玄牝, 守其雌為天下谿, 江海所以能為百谷王者以其善下之, 上善若水), learn their languages and communicate with them as a community (人法地, 執一以爲天下牧). Such is the path of a bodymind practice.

Bodymind practices have traditionally been embedded in complex networks and contexts.