Learning to Play while Being in the Flow

In early1982, one of the more spectacular synchronicities happened to me and I had one of my more prolonged experiences of “being in the zone.” When something like that happens in your life, you know you are living right. It is also one of the more distinct characteristics of a life at Play.

It was a dull and boring day in Los Angeles when I got a phone call from a friend who wanted me to go with him to a middle school summer camp on Mt. Palomar for the weekend. The camp was for young San Diego students who wanted some exposure to “nature.” There was literally a cow in the pasture with the word cowpainted on it. Since I was an amateur astronomer in those days, I was excited at the prospect of seeing one of the world’s largest telescopes, so off we went with my large telescope sticking out the sunroof of my car.

Upon arrival, I was shown a small Questar telescope that was donated to the camp. The instructors at the camp said they could not figure out how to use it. Without any instruction booklet, I struggled with it for several nights during my stay, and on the third day, I had a meeting with the instructors to show them how to use it. That little telescope turned out to be an important talisman in another soon-to-be-life-altering encounter.

By the way, I was able to see the famous telescope on Mt. Palomar up close because it rained the day I arrived and since I was the only visitor, they let me into the building after much pleading and begging. I watched them do infrared work, which is not affected by the weather. They were checking out star formations, evolution of galaxies, exotic phenomena in active galactic nuclei, etc. I even got to ride around in the cage that is attached to the back of the telescope.

When I returned home, there was a message saying Francis Ford Coppola wanted a Tai Ji teacher and that I should to go in for an interview. The next day, the producer asked if I could be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in three days. I wasn’t even sure where Oklahoma was but off I went with my telescope still sticking out the top of my car.

I arrived at the primary school the movie company was renting for the summer and was immediately taken to the gymnasium for a meeting with Francis and the cast and crew of the movie The Outsiders. I had no idea what to say to break the ice because I basically considered actors to be overly paid imitators and thought most movies were trash so I didn’t have much in common with them. As fate would have it, I didn’t have to say anything, for Francis immediately asked. “ Do you have a place to stay?” I said, “I just arrived,” and pointed out the window of the gymnasium to my car in the parking lot. He saw my scope sticking out of the car and asked if it was a telescope and I said yes. He then said,“Carl Sagan recently gave me a small telescope and I can’t figure out how to use it.” You guessed it: it was the same scope I had learned to use a few days before! The next thing I knew, we were both on our hands and knees in a corner of the gym discussing its use. Because of our mutual love of astronomy, one of my nightly duties in addition to teaching the cast Tai Ji was to set up the telescopes so the cast and crew could look at the stars between takes.

As I reflect upon the making of that movie and the following movie titled “Rumble Fish”, which was shot back-to-back with The Outsidersin the same city, I now regard those times as not only magical in my life - it must have been a magical time for the whole film industry. How many other movies had so many young and mostly unknown actors and actresses, who later turned out to be superstars appear in the same movie? Because of those extraordinary times, I got to know the young Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Laurence Fishburne, Ralph Macchio, Mickey Rourke, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Esteves, Tom Waits and many others who visited the various locations. They were exceptionally talented kids running around having a good time. No big egos, no fame—most were not even married. I enjoyed them all.

Mark on the extreme left, teaching a secretary, Francis F. Coppola, Emilio Esteves, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, and C. Thomas Howell Tai Ji during the filming of “The Outsiders.”

Although I liked them all, I soon discovered those fools were more interested in making movies than in the precious gift I was giving them, so I eventually got disenchanted with the whole scene. If it were not for Eleanor (Francis’s wife) and her friends taking classes in the E Jing and in studying the book No Boundaryby Ken Wilber, I would not have stayed as long as I did.

However, one precious scene in what was a first grade classroom where I was teaching the E Jing, made my year with them worthwhile. One night, I was scrawling all kinds of obscure symbols from the E Jing on the blackboard when suddenly everyone started laughing and asked me to go to the back of the class to look at the total scene. There were my ancient and profound Chinese characters and symbols surrounded by the permanent figures of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Dumbo, etched into the blackboard, framing and putting my earth-shattering revelations into perspective.

Teaching a Tai Ji class for the people in Tulsa also kept me there plus the fact I was working only one hour per day. However, during Rumble Fish, they discovered I had healing ability and that changed everything. From then on, it was 12-hour days for me.

One good thing came out of all that hard work, and that was the fact I learned to heal without taking on the symptoms of others. I never had that problem in the two years I practiced acupuncture, but when I switched to Chi Gung healing in 1978 due to the advice of my teacher, I occasionally took on other people’s symptoms. Chi Gung meridian healing involved a more intimate mixing of energies with the client than acupuncture did. I tried to cover myself with protective golden light while healing, and I did the “turbid Chi” expulsion techniques after every treatment, but I would still occasionally experience my patients’ maladies. Some people’s bio-electric energies were so gross that on a few occasions, it felt like hot, thick tar was going into my arms. This is why I suggest people not go into healing until they are strong, balanced, and clear.

It was the huge number of people I saw in the course of a day that forced me to learn how to heal without harming myself. It was not unusual to work on 75 people per day. With numbers like that, my internal healing system quickly figured out how to survive. I not only learned how to protect myself, I was more energized at the end of the day than when I started. The Chi flowing down through the top of my head through my arms and into the client became clear and smooth. I actually benefited from the healings along with the client. As my uncle used to say, “Necessity is a mother,” and learning to allow healing Chi to flow unimpeded through you is one of those things you cannot teach; you can only learn.

Another unusual thing happened while I was with them. They were shooting a scene in a drive-in movie theater and a storm started to blow. I had never seen a tornado, so I didn’t know what to expect or what to do, so I did the dumbest thing possible. I took refuge in the circular popcorn stand and apparently they are not the most well-constructed buildings in the world. The circular roof was sucked up and flew through the air like a sickle, shearing off the tops of several vintage cars before lodging in the side of an immaculately restored pickup truck. As far as I know, no one was hurt. I got sucked upward a little but I held onto a railing. When the local owners of those classic cars returned to the drive-in after the storm, they cried their little eyes out when they saw the damage to their cars. I later heard their cars were eventually restored.

Everyone asked if I was scared during it all, but I was so naïve and so interested in what was going on, I forgot to be afraid. I actually stayed outside as long as I could to watch it. I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to witness something that exciting. What I learned from all that is to head for the nearest basement when the sky turns a yellowish-gray.

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