The Dancing Wu Li Masters Read Online Free Page A

California coast is an awesome combination of power and beauty, but nowhere so much as along the Pacific Coast Highway between the towns of Big Sur and San Luis Obispo. The Esalen facilities are located about a half hour south of Big Sur between the highway and the coastal mountains on the one side and rugged cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the other. A dancing stream divides the northern third of the grounds from the remainder. On that side is a big house (called the Big House) where guests stay and groups meet, along with a small home where Dick Price (co-founder of Esalen with Murphy) stays with his family. On the other side of the stream is a lodge where meals are served and meetings are held, accommodations for guests and staff, and hot sulfur baths.
    Dinner at Esalen is a multidimensional experience. The elements are candlelight, organic food, and a contagious naturalness that is the essence of the Esalen experience. I joined two men who already were eating. One was David Finkelstein, a physicist from Yeshiva University (in New York) who was attending the conference on physics. Theother was Al Chung-liang Huang, a T’ai Chi Master who was leading a workshop at Esalen. I could not have chosen better companions.
    The conversation soon turned to physics.
    “When I studied physics in Taiwan,” said Huang, “we called it Wu Li (pronounced ‘Woo Lee’). It means ‘Patterns of Organic Energy.’”
    Everyone at the table was taken at once by this image. Mental lights flashed on, one by one, as the idea penetrated. “Wu Li” was more than poetic. It was the best definition of physics that the conference would produce. It caught that certain something, that living quality that we were seeking to express in a book, that thing without which physics becomes sterile.
    “Let’s write a book about Wu Li!” I heard myself exclaim. Immediately, ideas and energy began to flow, and in one stroke all of the prior planning that I had done went out the window. From that pooling of energy came the image of the Dancing Wu Li Masters. My remaining days at Esalen and those that followed were devoted to finding out what Wu Li Masters are, and why they dance. All of us sensed with excitement and certitude that we had discovered the channel through which the very things that we wanted to say about physics would flow.
     
    The Chinese language does not use an alphabet like western languages. Each word in Chinese is depicted by a character, which is a line drawing. (Sometimes two or more characters are combined to form different meanings.) This is why it is difficult to translate Chinese into English. Good translations require a translator who is both a poet and a linguist.
    For example, “Wu” can mean either “matter” or “energy.” “Li” is a richly poetic word. It means “universal order” or “universal law.” It also means “organic patterns.” The grain in a panel of wood is Li. The organic pattern on the surface of a leaf is also Li, and so is the texture of a rose petal. In short, Wu Li, the Chinese word for physics, means “patterns of organic energy” (“matter/energy”[Wu] + “universal order/organic patterns” [Li]. This is remarkable since it reflects a world view which the founders of western science (Galileo and Newton) simply did not comprehend, but toward which virtually every physical theory of import in the twentieth century is pointing! The question is not, “Do they know something that we don’t?” The question is, “How do they know it?”
    English words can be pronounced almost any way without changing their meanings. I was five years a college graduate before I learned to pronounce “consummate” as an adjective (con-SUM-mate). (It means “carried to the utmost extent or degree; perfect”). I live in anguish when I think of the times that I have spoken of con summate linguists, con summate scholars, etc. Someone always seemed to be holding back a smile, almost. I learned later