True Freedom with Lixuan An
Show Notes
This is an invitation to remember the freedom you were born with. In this episode of the Rose Woman Podcast, we sit down with Lixuan An to explore what true freedom feels like in a real, lived body and life.
Lixuan was born in Beijing, China, and came to the US at the age of 15 to enter University. After a 20 year stellar career in marketing and tech which took her around the world, a near death experience in 2005 completely changed the course of her life. Lixuan left the business world to embark on a two-decades long intensive study of philosophy, psychology, mysticism, religion, and a myriad of healing modalities, including ancient rituals, hypnosis and plant medicine. Today she is a highly regarded art curator, public speaker, spiritual teacher and mystical healer, and has helped thousands transform their lives. With her empathy, compassion, intuition, and guidance from ancestral and cosmic realms, Lixuan helps individuals to investigate and comprehend the root causes of their sufferings and to help them remove obstacles on their path to joy, peace, fulfillment, and unconditional love and wellbeing.
Lixuan resides in Silicon Valley and in Sweden. She regularly leads transformational retreats and workshops world-wide. She works with individuals, groups and organizations, and dedicates her life to the humble and simple joy of facilitating and witnessing the healing and expansion of human kind.
So press play, come with an open heart, and let this episode be a gentle experiment in your own freedom.
n this episode, we cover so many topics, including:
(00:00:00) Opening Definition of Freedom
(00:00:20) Introduction to the Episode
(00:03:18) Stanislav Grof’s Contributions and Holotropic Breathwork
(00:05:40) Breathwork as a tool for Freedom
(00:09:02) What is Freedom?
(00:13:20) Compassionate Self‑Inquiry
(00:17:02) Prayer: Healing through Love
(00:21:07) Triggers as Soul Curriculum
(00:22:57) Shift the Story & Take Action
(00:24:53) Importance of Parenting and Ancestral Healing
(00:27:19) Practical Steps in Achieving Freedom
(00:30:18) Unwanted Recurring Events are Pointers to Areas Lacking Freedom
(00:35:48) The Role of the Body in Freedom
(00:41:08) Embodying Freedom and Transformation
(00:44:44) Practices for Achieving Freedom
(00:47:09) Impact on Art Making
(00:49:10) Closing Thoughts
Helpful links:
Lixuan An - To book private sessions, group workshops or retreats contact lixuanlive@gmail.com
Stan Grof - psychiatrist with over sixty years of experience in the research of non-ordinary states of consciousness
Arlene Saman - Founder of One Heart Worldwide
Thich Nhat Hanh - Global spiritual leader, poet, and peace activist
Your host:
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Transcript
Lixuan An 0:05
Freedom is a state of being. In fact, all human beings are free, period. So then why does it not feel so? And that not feeling so is where the pearls lie.
Christine Mason 0:20
Welcome, everybody. It's Christine Marie Mason, and this is The Rose Woman. Today, I have the privilege of interviewing a friend of mine, Lixuan An. Lixuan is one of those people I always leave feeling lighter, not because she's breezy or avoids hard things, but because she has genuinely done the work, and it shows she carries a quality of spaciousness that you just feel in her presence. It's quite contagious. Actually. She's a healer, a teacher, a curator turned artist, and she has spent decades helping people find what she calls total freedom, not the kind where you get to do whatever you want, but the kind where you are no longer at war with yourself. We've known each other for years. We met through Stan grofs world, and there's a little detour on that in the beginning of the show. It's worth it, and this conversation just goes right to the heart of freedom, compassion, the body childhood, the stories we inherited and the ones we can finally put down before we drop into it. I want to make a little plug for my new book, which is also about freedom. It's actually a book that I wrote in 2023 and finally had the courage to publish, called mantra, tantra and ayahuasca. It was originally subtitled Sex, drugs and rock and roll in search of the sacred, but the subtitle that won out was ecstasy devotion and the return of the holy body. So that is on Spotify. Is an audiobook, and it's on Amazon. Again. You can find me, Christine Marie Mason, on almost any channel, including my author profile on Amazon. That is my 10th book, and I think it's very story driven and fun to listen to, so please have a listen or a read. Okay, that being said, let's go. Here is Lixuan.
Christine Mason 2:14
The first time I met you, you had the same radiant smile on your face, and from the very beginning, you were one of the people who uplifted everyone they met you. There was a filmmaker making a film, and you were like, totally enhancing him. There was an artist who was unrecognized in a way that you thought they deserved more visibility. And so you got like, behind them. There was a woman who was doing a bathing temple, and you just like stepped right in and uplifted her. And I thought the generosity of spirit that Lixuan brings to the table is a model for all of humankind. So I'm very grateful to know you, and I'm so excited to have this conversation.
Lixuan An 2:59
Oh Christine, thank you. What an introduction. How generous of you to to give this feedback. And I'm very, very touched by it. And of course, the first time I met you, we were in a room full of giants led by Stan Grof himself, and that was how we met. So it was through some very, very cosmic, Divine Will that we were brought together to begin with, so too. And then I was thinking this morning, just so fondly, how you came to visit me in Sweden, our lunch in the cute little cafe, and just how and on recently, when we step by the river at my friend Sheila's place, just every time I am in your presence, I just inherently sense and feel and know that I'm in the presence of this divine feminine. Let's do a little bow down
Christine Mason 3:57
to Stan for a moment as we're getting going. So Stanislav Grof was one of the pioneers of consciousness. He originally was researching LSD, and then when that was made illegal, he started researching biological ways to access the same ecstatic states, and turned to breath work, Holotropic breathwork, which he kind of invented. Well, I mean, pranayama and the ancient traditions probably were the precursor, but kind of reinvented for the
Lixuan An 4:24
modern world. Is that a fair way to discuss him? Yeah, I think that's rare fair. I mean, I think he, first of all, I consider Stan to be one of the most instrumental psychologists in the in the modern history up there with Freud and Jung and then this Stan Grof, you were right historically that when his psychedelic research sort of basically got grounded, he spent a number of years teaching at Esalen Institute, which is this beautiful. Full spiritual place in Big Sur, California, together with his then wife, and together there, they developed this curriculum that encompasses this Holotropic breathing, which now today is so widely practiced and benefited from by 1000s and hundreds of 1000s of people. So I have enormous respect for him. A lot of my work actually come from his teaching, really, especially the prenatal, pre birth journey of a human being, but where I don't want to get off track.
Christine Mason 5:40
So more I just, I do love that. I think it's worth pointing to that this the work that that it is one of the tools to freedom. So it's not completely off track from our topic today. But if let's just leave it, if you, if you haven't heard about his perinatal matrix, go ahead and Google that or ask your favorite AI friend, your favorite AI boyfriend, to tell you all about Stan Grof and the perinatal metric matrix. It was just such a beautiful moment, though, because it was right at the beginning of covid, wasn't it? It was February.
Lixuan An 6:16
Was Valentine's weekend, 2020, that I the fortune of gather just a very few. It wasn't that many, but really hand selected luminaries such as yourself to come do not well.
Christine Mason 6:33
Arlene came in from one heart worldwide, San Francisco. So Arlene is another, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna go off track here. Yes, it's off track, but it's on track for the show because Arlene Saman, she founded one heart worldwide. She was an intensive care neonatal nurse who went on vacation to see the and saw the Dalai Lama talk, and he picked her out of the audience, and he told her that she was going to save women's lives and childbirth, and she saved 10s of 1000s of women's lives through her foundation. And as she began her own inward exploration, she also found psychedelics, and she found Stan's work and became a major supporter of him. So that's how I ended up with that beautiful old house in Oakland, doing that and rebirthing, what an experience, what an experience. And so, yes, so from that, lot has happened, and you've been exploring your own, your own journey toward freedom. Would you back us up a little bit and just speak to your own evolutionary path in this regard,
Lixuan An 7:38
let me because I think we started recording after I made my opening statement, so let me go back and actually put a stick in the ground here. I'm so excited to broach the subject of total freedom with you today, because, as you know, I work with private individuals and organizations and groups. So though I spend most of my time in my sanctuary, I do have connect to the outside world, to other people, and I can sense that it's a increasingly seemingly, I want to say, seemingly chaotic and uncertain and even unknowable world. So there's a lot of collective anxiety that is bubbling up to the surface, and I'm really here to proclaim wholeheartedly and with such enthusiasm in my heart and my soul that freedom is not only possible, but is actually already here, and has always been here. So the talk I want to have with you in this, this, this discourse, is really about, what does actually freedom mean to an individual, and how do we get there?
Christine Mason 8:57
That's a great question. What is freedom? What do you how do you define it? We can. We can pick it apart.
Lixuan An 9:02
Freedom again. Nobody has to subscribe to what I say. Nobody needs to follow what I say or what I teach. I'm just sharing something from my heart, and if it resonates great, if it doesn't, it's perfect. We get to spend a nice time hour together from my own perspective, freedom is not a destination. Freedom is a state of being. In fact, all human beings are free, period. So then, why does it not feel so? And that not feeling so is where the pearls lie, that those are the opportunities for us to go and explore. So I if I pare it down to the most simplistic fashion, let's ask this question. For example, I want to do something, whatever it might be. I want to run a marathon, write a book, paint a painting, make a sculpture. Fall in love, whatever it is that I want to do, what makes me postpone, pause, negotiate or give up? I think that's a really interesting question, because we, all we, there's all of us have some deep, innate longing that is different from the pragmatic, rational goal orientation that we've been taught or been culturalized or influenced. There's some innate longing and there's some innate desire that exists in every human being, because every human being is a soul choosing to take this incarnation, to experience, to have this human experience. So there is a cosmic reason why we're here, and so that, I think that is why a lot of people, myself included, often find ourselves selves for lack of better, we're stuck in this kind of in between place where I think I'm supposed to do this, but I really want to do that, and even what I want to do is unclear. There's a lot of cloud cloudiness, and all of that cloudiness is thought. Essentially, they're thoughts. And since thoughts exist only in the context of time and space, and thoughts originate from experiences, and since all our experiences are limited, there's no way we can experience everything. So thoughts are completely limited, and yet we're very attached to them. So it's these thoughts that that make us do or not do, makes us go or stay, make us, make us open or close. For me, freedom is this state of complete openness. Spaciousness is like the zero, the grounding number zero, upon which everything is possible. But the opposite of freedom is the closeness. Is the shutting down. It's the hiding, it's the suppression, is the depression, and so of course, we prefer not to have that. So then how do we move from this right column of contraction into this left column of just open, expansive state of being?
Christine Mason 12:38
There's so many places to pick that up. One is you begin sort of with a I have a desire or something, an impulse that I'd like to follow, and then I gate myself. That's so there are some moments when I notice even the desire or the impulse is inaccessible. It's pre edited by the constraints or the limitations of the visions that I of, the vision that I have, the culture that I live in, the family that I belong to, and so there feels like even a pre action to investigate the frame in which you're living, so that you can see or feel into what you're pulled
Lixuan An 13:20
toward, absolutely that is the what you just said is really high level Christine is really you. You've gone beyond actually the surface what you said is just so perfect, because it is absolutely true. Even Even if we upon closer inspection, we can discover that even what we think we want and desire often are illusions themselves, right? So that that is a perfect segue for for me, I'm I'm really boiling this down to very simple, because we just have, like, 45 minutes to have this conversation keeping it simple. So, so then, what are some steps towards this original natural state of being, being free, Okay, number one, I would argue the number one ingredient, is get to know yourself in a much deeper way, self knowledge through a process I call compassionate self inquiry. And this is where we really because for most of our lives, myself included, again, we spend, we have spent enormous amount of time and effort to try to really run away from what is most painful and difficult within ourselves and thinking that some externality can really change or shift this uneasy feeling or this kind of deeply rooted sorrow or pain or sadness, but it turns out not to. Be true, because all that energies that are suppressed or hidden or locked away, they actually seep out in all sorts of ways into our life. So they're actually very present all the time. So not only can we not kid ourselves to think that if I just don't look at it. Or if I could just, you know, become famous, or, you know, wealthy or well respected, or whatever, it might be beautiful, you know, and then I'll be okay. But actually, the way to become truly Okay, the way to becoming truly free from that suffering, is I love what Thich Nhat Hanh, how he take he puts it Thich Nhat Hanh says, the only way out is in. So I have to have the courage, the resolve, the willingness, and also the trust. And that's trust is like the number one word for me, for my own life, and also in my teachings, to actually go and investigate, trace all the way back as far as you can go, through meditation, through meta guided imagery, through hypnosis, to whatever it means psychedelic medicines, to trace the root of this energy, and the key word for me was compassionate, compassionate self inquiry.
Christine Mason 16:27
When a lot of people begin to do self inquiry, then the shame comes up, the self worth comes up, the fear comes up, of things that have been blocked and that internalized judgment itself blocks the looking, so the fact that you put compassionate into it, like, hey, there a little part of me that I don't want to look at. You're all right. You're a natural adaptation to whatever happened to you. Like, it's got a sweet quality to put that before the self inquiry part. First of all, I'm just bringing an attitude or a mudra of compassion.
Lixuan An 17:02
Absolutely, compassion is the absolute most critical ingredient, I think, that governs life, how we live, how we show up. And in every one of my sessions, I say a prayer, and in this prayer, I pray that may all healing comes through love, not through pain. Let's do that prayer. Say it. Say it to take a deep breath in and exhale. Allow this breath to soften the heart chamber and the belly once again for real, deep breath in and as we exhale, we just allow the heart chamber and the tummy and all the rest of the body to soften and become more receptive and sink into a deeper contact with the benevolent energy that upholds us in all waking moments as we go about our business on this little planet we call Earth, while she hurdles through space at 1000s of miles an hour and spitting. That is how magical this existence is, and that is how actually absolutely safe it is to be alive and to be here right now. So in this place of being here, in this moment of aliveness, we humbly ask that all healing can come through love, all comprehension stems from the foundation of compassion, and all complaints of any kind can eventually cease to be replaced by the most deeply heart soul felt gratitude of being this given this chance to experience this extraordinary, magical journey we call life. May all
Christine Mason 19:26
my healing come from love, not pain.
Lixuan An 19:30
Beautiful. Yeah, so then let's get back on the topic, right,
Christine Mason 19:35
compassionate self inquiry, and we've done some prayer to let my healing come through love, so that if I'm looking and the pain arises, it's transmuted to love. Now, what? What comes next?
Lixuan An 19:47
Well, I want, I'd like to make one more point on the compassion, and thank you for bringing that up, because such an important conversation. We talk about compassion a lot, having compassion for others. Less fortunate and so on and so forth. But actually, compassion must be all inclusive. Compassion for others cannot be true until we can actually have compassion for ourselves. So this compassionate self inquiry will cede a much more expansive compassion that we can bring out into the world. Does that make sense? Whereas if we only focus on the externalities again and not pay attention to the inner workings of our psycho emotional selves, then it's not sustainable. Sooner or later, something triggers us, then everything we know, everything we understand, just just just goes out the window,
Christine Mason 20:52
even in a cave, life, you think like, oh, if I can just isolate myself, perhaps I will not be triggered. But certainly it something will come to you because life, life conspires to create the triggers that will advance your souls to the lament.
Lixuan An 21:07
Yes, that's right, that's absolutely right. So now what? Okay, let's say, give a very simple example. I'll give two examples. I'll use myself as a guinea pig, right? I'll leave my clients out of this. So for years, I want to paint. I long to paint, long to paint. Long to be an artist. What do I become? I become a curator in museums, galleries and so on, until one day, someone very beautiful friend says to me, you know, lichuan, a curator is an artist before they believe in themselves. And so that was like a light bulb moment, right? Because I'm a damn good curator, but I cannot even unfurl my hands to make a drawing a line. What is going on with that? Right? So upon compassionate self inquiry, when we go and trace the origin, then, of course, what comes Oh, when I was little, teachers wrote home a letter. She's doodling in class instead of obeying, and I get smacked. And what does that teach me? Don't draw, don't paint, right? Pay attention to the teachers and do what you're supposed to be doing. I mean, that's a very simple, simplistic answer, but,
Christine Mason 22:23
well, it is simplistic, but I think it's a common experience,
Lixuan An 22:26
right? Common experience.
Christine Mason 22:29
We used to think in our household that, like children are great perceivers, but bad concluders. Oh, tell me more about that. Yeah, just that. Basically, you know, they notice every little detail, but they'll draw the wrong conclusion from it.
Lixuan An 22:41
Yes, exactly you got it. We draw the wrong conclusion. That is key, and that is the next step. So we get, we get identify the fear, we trace the origin, then we go and shift the story. Yeah, like
Christine Mason 22:57
your story could be, Oh, wow. They're telling me not to doodle. Wow, those people really don't understand the role of artists in society. And I intend to be an artist, they're wrong. You know,
Lixuan An 23:10
I love what you said. However, almost all of these, yeah, these stuck energies have been there since early childhood, right, right, right. So the four year old me, the five year old me, could not have, first of all, my brain was hardly developed, and I could not have the comprehension or the wisdom or insight to know that about the adult or say, oh, hooray. When I'm in class, I should pay attention. But from 3pm to 4pm I draw, no, the child doesn't know the child, what child hears it. You're not You're forbidden to draw. That's a bad thing. You get smacked. But now, when we can really center ourselves, when we have you know, through, through breathing meditation, guidance, we come into this state of trustfulness, and we we muster the courage and willingness to go in and investigate, because I want to paint, so I want to know why my hands are frozen. Then I discover, oh, I remember this memory, but now I can look at it from the adult, mature eyes to see what the situation is. And then suddenly I can shift the story so it was never about me. It was never about me not being good enough. So now suddenly that stories get shipped and then we can change it. We can change it for real. I have to stress this point. We can find it. We can find the cause. We can shift the story. We become closer to who we really are in this case, but unless we really make the change through action, nothing changes. Nothing changes for real. I want to, I want
Christine Mason 24:53
to come back to this idea of like the story, the Insight versus the trend. Transformation. Let's, let's, let's revisit this and go deeper on that. I feel that happens all the time. People spend years in therapy, Insight after insight, but it doesn't somehow penetrate the system. So I think the breathwork actually does help with that, by the way, you know. But let's talk. Let's take a pause and point out the vital nature of a parent that can really see and meet their child like we can have compassion for all parents who are busy doing whatever they're doing and they can't say, meet their child. Okay, everything. Blessings on everything. But if you are a parent right now, and you are helping bring up a small human, the delicacy of you witnessing and noticing what that child's gifted at when they go into like disconnection, when they are misunderstanding, bringing your full attention to that just prevents so many problems later. So just an urging that young parents that are listening give that space for their littles,
Lixuan An 26:01
yes, and I agree wholeheartedly, and I will say, have also compassion for yourself. As parents get to really know what you're worried about, what you're fearful about, because cheesiest It might sound, but it really is true, when we heal ourselves, we really heal our offsprings well, but if we don't heal ourselves, we can really extend, prolong the suffering of our ancestral imprint. It doesn't come for free. And in fact, this is why I find it first of all, it's all just such a fantastic game. The children reproach the parents, but the parents lack, or the parents shortfalls, ultimately become the pathway for the children to find their path of evolution.
Christine Mason 27:02
Yeah, and maybe it's not even a shortfall, you know, maybe, like in that time when you were being raised, maybe being well behaved and following the rules was a lifesaver, very protective of something else, you know, that might have trumped that. Well, I'll give you
Lixuan An 27:19
another example, which is, I think, probably also relatable. We all have some sort of phobia, right? Mine, for a very, very long time, I had a debilitating fear of the mosquitoes. I mean, really, if there was one mosquito in the room and 20 people, I will be covered in bites. If the one mosquito in my bedroom, I will be up literally for hours in the night trying to get this mosquito. It was, became like a neurosis in me. But then one day, and of course, you know, that prevented me from doing a lot of fun things. I wouldn't want to go to the woods, it does, you know, so on and so forth. But one day, I, you know, just a casual conversation I had with my mother, suddenly she said something that took me is like this red, red moment that took me all the way to my childhood, when they were exiled into the mountains at the nuclear or they were both physicists, and they were exiled in this nuclear facility in the mountain, high up somewhere in the remote part of China, and where the living conditions were deplorable, and medical conditions was very lacking, and it was a place that had a lot of moisture and humidity, and there were a lot of mosquitoes and disease. And I saw in that instance that how my mother was always fretting with the mosquito nets and the incense and all this. She was always worried about mosquitoes. I suddenly realized in that moment, my fear, my lifelong fear of the mosquito, does not belong to me. It was my mother's, and I can now see she had the right to be worried because she had a practical reason based on that time and space, just like you said, to be worried, but not me. I don't have that say. I don't live in that kind of condition, in a moment, in literally an instance, I was able to let go. And funny enough, mosquitoes hardly ever bite me since then. That is a very frequency question.
Christine Mason 29:13
What do you mean? They don't bite you anymore. You stopped. You stopped giving your attention to them, signaling out your frequency that drew them to you wasn't a blood marker. It was your own fear.
Lixuan An 29:26
It was my own fear. And my energy towards a Mosquito was hatred. I was going to get them at all costs, even if it cost me a whole night's sleep. But now, when I see a mosquito, first of all, first of all, I don't kill anything. I've been a vegetarian since 2000 when I see a mosquito, I don't always kill it. Sometimes I'm just like, Oh, there you are. Hey, hey, there. Occasionally, if I do kill it, I am so like, apologetic. Please forgive me for killing you and and literally, they hardly ever bite me anymore. It's and. Even if they do, is no longer a problem for me. That's the thing I got freed from it. And so isn't it fun to really go and investigate, what are areas? What are situations, what are instances when I'm not just free?
Christine Mason 30:18
Yeah, what? And the pointers are when it's manifesting in your life, when something you don't want to have manifesting in your life is showing up. That's the pointer to a place you might not be free yet. Let's go back to the thing about the difference between something that lives in your head as an idea or an insight and the methodology to truly create transformation and action. I'd love to cover that a little more.
Lixuan An 30:43
I'm laughing. You'll appreciate this. Though, my husband Ola using incredible award hours, he prints T shirts and give them to friends, and today, this morning, when I was meditating, actually, I started laughing because I thought I'm going to ask him to make me a bunch of T shirts to bring to my next workshop to give out as gifts that says still in process, because that's it. It is insight that is, or we call it wisdom, knowledge, whatever it might be, unless it actually moves the needle in how we live our lives, how we show up as a human being, how we mirror in another, in our relationships. It's just a thought. It's just a thought. And when I work with clients, right away, I tell them, This is not talk therapy. We're not here to to ruminate, we're not here to talk, but we're here to embark upon a journey of the self talk therapy is great. I'm so happy. If people have the resource, the support, go for it. It's great. But unless it really makes sustained and impactful change in your life, and we've seen this right, people can stay, like you said in therapy, for 1020, years. So the work that I'm interested in doing, and that I do do, is to help people really go to the root, because when the truth is revealed, actually, all the sorrows will be healed. We don't actually need to go one by one, which is really, really interesting. It is actually Akin, I call it spiritual surgery. It's like your doctor cutting out the the cancer from your skin, find it, cut it out, get it out of there. And that's it. And that is and I've seen it. I've seen it hundreds and 1000s of times over the years, that people can make just such transformative changes in their lives. And I have to say it is. It doesn't come for free. It's often a very hard one journey. Because I say hard one, the heavy lifting is the willingness and to actually trust enough to be courageous enough to essentially let go of all Our beliefs, all our concepts, even values, morals, memories and start anew. Start anew. And it sounds crazy, but it is so beautiful when we can actually, even if it's for a moment, and this is when I teach meditation, is that even if you just you're here just for two seconds. Next time you're here for five seconds, next time we extend this, this state of this zero state, the state of open, receptivity and lightness. It's just an exquisite and lovely way of being alive, and it can be done if Viktor Frankl can find freedom while in concentration camp. So can we
Christine Mason 34:34
so it's a gradual process of expanding your capacity to act from the new frame, or is it or is it more like, Hey, I've seen that, I've seen the light, and now I'm waking up and reminding myself that that's the way it is, and there's a change,
Lixuan An 34:51
a grace. That's a really good question, especially, I've seen this over the years in the spiritual community, especially in. Medicine communities. You know, we get this expansive and connectedness and this unbelievable experience of transcendence, and we think we get it. But you know what? Nothing I don't think, at least not from me or people that I work with, or my friends, nothing can truly change without true self knowledge, and that is going back from the very you know, the Root Chakra, and slowly, methodically, intentionally work your way up. Otherwise, it's just it's bypassing otherwise, you know, the triggers will come or we'll lose our footing. We'll lose our centeredness.
Christine Mason 35:48
So So we've gone from compassion, self inquiry to inviting a prayerful, loving way of seeing into like, taking the thought into daily action and really grounding it, integrating it into your life. And now you're bringing up this piece on, taking it through the body, feeling it in and as the body. So when people say spiritual bypass, that to me, usually means it's either living above the third eye, like it's an idea, or I've, like, left my body behind, and I'm out in the ethers with, like, some sense of the Divine Spirit, but I'm not, like, in the relational field or feeling myself. So so what? Let's talk a little bit about bringing it through the body, like investigating and going through and connecting it to the body. How does that show up for you?
Lixuan An 36:38
Well, first and foremost, the body is a very complex place, and it's both a place and it's an energy. The body is rarely for lack of better word, it's rarely clean and the impurity is the shame and guilt and regrets and remorse and all of these kind of very challenging, difficult emotions that we bury inside the tissues, and Certainly in the Western culture, our relationship to the body is very much on the surface. It's the muscles. Is this condition of our skin, the the absence of the the wrinkles, or whatever might be, the beautiful hair, right? It's, it's the external. The external of the body is, is what we're taught is okay to to have a relationship. In fact, we have, I was venture to say, have too much relationship with the external body, but the inner body has been neglected since eons ago, eons ago. And it's so curious, if we get still and quiet and unwilling to explore, we can pretty much locate every emotion in the part of our body, and that is actually a really important step, because if we don't know where it is, we can't get rid of it, right? So this a more intimate connection to the to the body and the energies that reside in the body. Well, how do we, and this is kind of off track, but I'll just gonna say it anyway, how does intimacy happen? Intimacy happens to vulnerability when we're willing to be vulnerable, to connect to what is vulnerable inside. That is when we can get close, intimate, connected, and then again, with this attitude resolve of compassion, this self inquiry with full compassion, and I would even say gratitude, right, that we get to do this, that we get to live, to have a conscious life, a life of awareness and perspective, with the with the intention, not the attachment to the outcome, but the intention of transformation. How fortunate are we? How blessed are we, right? So, yeah, the body and I that that that's also, I give you another anecdotal, silly examples of Lixuan's life many years ago in my gallery, I hosted many, many workshops with great people. And so this one time, I invited this wonderful spiritual teacher from Bali. He came, and we were so excited about his teaching for the weekend workshop. He. Comes into my gallery, he takes one look at me, puts his hands on my shoulders, and said, Lixuan, you do know that God doesn't need a helper, right? And I was like, I just felt myself completely dejected, so much like, What do you mean i for all these years, I aspire to be God's best helper. What do you mean? God doesn't need a helper. He said, Lixuan, your primary job is to rebuild the temple so that so your queen can actually reside in the temple of your body. I was in my late 40s, then, like four decades on this earth with a broken temple and wanting to, you know, to exist at this very high frequency place doing all this great stuff. No, I had to get back to the basic I had to face and confront what was painful, what was dark, what was difficult, and then I actually go back and look and shift those stories shift. Every single story can be shifted, every one of them.
Christine Mason 41:08
That was another one of our early conversations on the embodiment of our sexual sexual bodies, yep, relearning and integrating the connection to your own body. So I you mentioned Viktor Frankl and and the true freedom is independent of your actual physical circumstances, is one of the messages that he has. So, so let's distinguish between the kind of freedom that says I'm going to jump on a plane and go explore Africa today, you know, and the kind of freedom that allows you to choose your response to the circumstances of your life.
Lixuan An 41:47
Yes, so again, freedom, freedom is not I get to do whatever I want. It's not that freedom is a state of beingness in which my heart is wide open to every single human being and creature in this world. Not only can I have compassion, but my compassion is all inclusive, and the unconditionality of freedom is what also the Buddha teaches equanimity. It is what I like to use the example of the lighthouse. The lighthouse is steady and stable and grounded and beaming as light in all kinds of weather conditions. It does not sway with the wind. It does not fold with the storm. It is just there. And I also look at nature. I was just having this conversation with a student the other day. You know, I'm a gardener, so when I look at my flowers that are starting to bloom, I see that in nature, every single plant is gonna do its thing, from seed to little sprouts to growing taller to eventually, hopefully bloom. But that and that process, the process from the seed to the flower is what is innate in nature, not the outcome. Not Not a single plant, not a single flower is going to be bogged down by what kind of flower am I going to become, and How tall am I going to become? Because we there's no guarantee of that. It might be trampled tomorrow. So this is another thing, this that we are so conditioned in the outcome as the only valuable thing, it's not that. In fact, Freedom is the ability to actually let go of that, let go of the attachment to outcome, because the actual outcome could be anything but our imagination, but to actually go Through the process so intention, action, manifestation of creativity into whatever, and that is what's so beautiful, because when we let go of our own projections and expectations, we actually can tap into a much, much wider and much, much more exhilarating and expensive revelation.
Christine Mason 44:44
So what are your practices? Now you mentioned you have a morning meditation practice,
Lixuan An 44:49
unless I'm teaching or I'm in session or I am more or less in a contemplative meditative state. All the day, and I have been this way for a very long time, and I very blessed. But I do have a regular I meditate, I paint, I write, I also receive a lot of messages I I'm always channeling for people who are in my orbit. And that's also really beautiful. But the biggest practice the or right, I should say that the most important practice for me is alertness from moment to moment, word to word, thought to thought, action to action, to really be aware of what is behind. I'm human being. I you know, I can lose my I can lose my centeredness. I can lose my whatever I can get triggered too, but I, I know now it takes me much less time to get back to centerness and I, but it's not a skip hop. It is through a process. It's just through a process. Oh, what happened just there? What is it inside of me that is still not fully whole, and let's look at that. And that process doesn't need to take very long, but it is very it's it's shifting, and it's transformative, and then it's done, it's very clean. It becomes clean. So, so when I talk about the body being clean, it's a purification. So we can let it go.
Christine Mason 46:41
It's not more so much as self soothing or an attempt to bounce back, or your refractory time is going through a process that actually leads to long term greater freedom.
Lixuan An 46:51
Absolutely, yeah, I'm not interested in just hopping over, because you know that's gonna happen again, right? So no, and really it's any practice becomes second nature if we really stay with it.
Christine Mason 47:09
How has this approach to total freedom impacted your art making?
Lixuan An 47:14
Well, here's one.
Christine Mason 47:17
Oh, it's so expressive and colorful. Look at that.
Lixuan An 47:20
Beautiful. This was not this is done from a open heart. Is it good? Is it bad? Do people like it is irrelevant, right? Whereas, for the previous 50 years, I couldn't do it. Just couldn't, no matter how much I loved I mean, you know me. I've been a curator for decades. I can't
Christine Mason 47:43
remember you walking me around a space and saying something like, this piece is in conversation with that piece, and how you can how you're hanging the room, and blah, blah, blah, you know. I mean, I love to make meaning out of what I'm seeing, and I love looking at artist technique, but you had a very different way of seeing and hanging a space, and so it's very interesting to see as you've moved into being an artist, from a curator, and moved into the sense of, like, I don't really care whether other people like it, that there's, there's so much more sparkle around, even Looking at or the art with you. You know, wow, look. What were they thinking?
Lixuan An 48:25
Yeah, and in fact, I this is, I never, I haven't really thought about this. But not only do I not really care what other people think about it anyway, nobody's looking at it, I don't actually care what I think of it isn't that interesting, because what I think of it is also loaded in my history. So just let I just let go of this concept that it needs to be liked, that it needs to be good somehow I just put just, just, just do it
Christine Mason 48:59
Okay, everybody that can be our primary lesson, find your freedom. Release the internal judge or gatekeeper that stops you from your expression and just do it. Just do it.
Lixuan An 49:10
Freedom is possible. Get some self knowledge. Rewrite your story and thrive in this new space that you create for yourself and thrive you will, I guarantee it. I love you. Love you too.
Christine Mason 49:29
Well, a few things I'm still sitting with from that conversation. First, freedom is a state of being, not a destination. We're not working toward it like a finish line. We're expanding our capacity to inhabit it right now, moment by moment. Second, the mosquito story that fear didn't belong to her. It was her mother's held in her mother's body for good reason, passed on without a word being spoken. How many things are we carrying that were never ours to carry? Third, insight without embody? Action is just a thought. Lixuan put it beautifully. If it's not moving the needle in how you actually show up, it's still just a thought. Wear the still in process t shirt. Don't figure it out and leave it there. Just actually do the work. And finally, rebuild your temple first, before you go on a mission, before the service, before the output, you have to put your queen inside of somewhere she can live in the body and in her own in her own temple. So you can find Lixuan. I'll put all of her links in the show notes. And I am Christine Mason. This is the Rose Woman. I'm very grateful for you and the accompaniment on this journey of curiosity and investigation into what it means to be fully alive. So as always, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please share the episode if it felt like something that would move someone else in your life, and they can benefit all of all the time.
