Ep174: Daoist Inner Alchemy - Damo Mitchell

In this episode I am joined by Damo Mitchell author, teacher, and student of the internal arts of Asia including Tai Chi and Daoist Inner Alchemy.
Damo recounts his childhood of fear, inadequacy, and martial arts. And recalls how his rage, born from childhood trauma, was healed by the direct energetic intervention of a Daoist master.
Damo shares his adventures throughout Asia, seeking authentic teachings of inner spiritual alchemy and internal martial arts, baiting teachers into fights to test their skills, and eventually discovering hidden lineages of spiritual and energetic transmission.
Damo also explains the Taoist theory of the Dan Tien, why this crucial idea is so often misunderstood even by advanced practitioners of spiritual alchemy, and reveals his own encounters with paranormal powers such as electrokinesis and pyrokinesis.
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www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep...
Also available on KZbin, iTunes, & Spotify - search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.
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Topics include:
00:00 - Intro
00:57 - From martial arts to inner alchemy
03:35 - Childhood fear and inadequacy
05:39 - The limits of martial arts for personal growth
08:20 - The pros and cons of martial arts
09:51 - UFC vs traditional martial arts
11:53 - Practical combat vs spiritual development
14:48 - The problem with Chinese martial arts
17:14 - Confusion of the purpose of training
20:37 - Geoff Thompson and radical combat effectiveness as a spiritual portal
23:16 - Damo’s rage stemming from childhood trauma
25:38 - Early meditative experiences
27:49 - Damo’s childhood meditation system
29:36 - Two types of practitioner
31:00 - Leaving school and travelling to Asia
33:03 - Dead ends when seeking teachers
34:12 - Secrecy in Chinese arts
35:10 - Reflecting on the dead ends
37:34 - Baiting teachers into fights
38:25 - How Damo found real siddhi and internal power
40:41 - The truth about Fa Jin
43:34 - How a controversial master healed Damo’s rage and trauma
48:27 - Damo analyses his chi healing
50:10 - Damo’s life fell apart
52:03 - Full engagement with the spiritual path
53:27 - Calibrating breakthrough experiences
55:14 - Damo on the Self
59:23 - Daoist inner alchemy
01:03:35 - Damo’s inner alchemy journey
01:07:05 - Misconceptions about the dan tien
01:09:20 - Building and filling the dan tien
01:11:04 - Breath work in inner alchemy
01:13:52 - Optimising efficiency
01:14:40 - Enlightenment in Daoism vs Buddhism
01:18:03 - Immortality in Daoism
01:19:34 - Meeting immortals
01:21:15 - Siddhi as evidence of progress
01:22:39 - Electrokinesis and pyrokinesis siddhi
01:24:45 - The importance of morality
01:27:43 - How Damo’s teacher challenges his morality
01:29:35 - How to improve one’s morality and conduct
01:34:03 - Sex and Daoism
01:38:31 - Learning Chinese
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To find out more about Damo Mitchell, visit:
- damomitchell.com/
For more interviews, videos, and more visit:
- www.guruviking.com
Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James

[@LotusNeiGong]

Steve was a thoroughly nice guy and a pleasure to chat with. Thanks Steve 🙏

[@poskantoor]

A standout interview, thank you for being so generous in sharing some of your history. I'm an IAA student and it's lovely to get to know a bit more about my teacher.

[@LotusNeiGong]

Happy to chat :)

[@wes555]

Fantastic interview Steve, thank you for your insight Damo 🙏

[@elyzak333]

I can’t wait to watch this. ❤

[@elyzak333]

Wow, this was definitely one of the best interviews I’ve seen of Damo. Steve asked some excellent questions. I’m so glad morality came up, it’s something I crave learning more about. Hearing Damo speak about alchemy is so exciting to me and I feel so lucky to have found a teacher in Damo. He is a person I really look up to.

[@DiscoverTaiji]

I am happy you did this, Damo is the real deal!

[@LotusNeiGong]

Thanks buddy. Means a lot coming from you

[@cheerfuldragon5642]

I, for one, am very grateful for Damo's teachings and straight forward manner. Thanks for having him on.

[@alexneil394]

Dude this channel is sooooooooooo underrated

[@jennydodd8705]

Wonderful interview…Damo is an amazing Nei Gong teacher and moral human being!!!! 💕🙏🏻

[@spiritualphysics]

👊🏾😎👍🏼 an interesting discussion w/ a fascinating man thanks for sharing

[@jasonandfiona]

I’m always amazed and excited to hear of “early Jhanic states” that so many seekers remember experiencing as children. This is something that I remember from my own childhood, on at least 3 occasions, vivid memories of what I’d now call samadhi.

[@LotusNeiGong]

I think many of these states and energetic aspects of the practice are easier as kinds but then we forget them :)

[@LotusNeiGong]

I meant ‘kids’, not ‘kinds’ sorry :)

[@onelove7069]

For me, I respect his integrity in being open to transformation of self, and understanding. That's a true spiritual path. And also emphasis on morality. This is the ground. Daoism, chi kung, tai chi, they should all be making one a more loving, kind person, with less ego, less identification of the small limited self, the body, the mind.. And funnily enough that's what will make one more skillful. To be in harmony with the Dao. The teacher who took away his anger!! That's skill, I would like to learn from him

[@sunyangchen]

Utterly fascinating.

[@BlindfoldedSight]

blessings brother. I'm excited to see another interview. Good stuff.

[@richierich291266]

Fab interview. Thanks to both Damo and Steve 👍

[@VictorShiryaev]

Awesome!!!

[@journeyingdeeperinward]

Thank you!

[@swellenator]

Fantastic interview, great questions, great answers

[@DuanePortal]

Spectacular interview, thank you for producing us

[@CyberSec1026]

Really looking forward to this! Appreciate the recent focus on Qigong with Bruce Frantzis and Damo.

[@purplegriffin8969]

I agree! Just to add a suggestion, I would like to see more practice-related questions, like when Steve asked Ian Baker all that technical stuff about pranayama, perineum etc.

[@varuanda]

I would really like to know what Mitchell thinks on Frantzis since he seems to be the right guy smelling bullshido from a mile away 🙂Agree, nice to have this mate on!

[@CyberSec1026]

@Varuanda I agree with you, Damo's BS detector is finely tuned. I haven't heard Damo speak about Bruce directly, put Bruce seems to be highly regarded. Bruce and Damo were the names that came up the most as I started getting more into Qigong.

[@varuanda]

@@CyberSec1026 Well Damo has a lot content which is also pretty solid and straight forward whereas Bruce i've only seen the insane talk and no walk. But i don't know really about both of them, i'm still in thought about taking the chance on Damos online course, since i don't have any good qi gong and sure no nei gong teachers nearby. But online inner martial arts is just not it, i guess.

[@CyberSec1026]

@@varuanda fair enough, I haven't worked closely with Bruce in person or online either. I am subscribed to Damo's online course and would highly recommend. Very structured, along with a Facebook group to ask Damo and seniors questions. Good luck to you!

[@m0rgentraum]

Great interview btw!

[@coreyhess3612]

Thanks, Steve and Damo. Will listen to this one. 👍

[@coreyhess3612]

You two might be interested to know that traditional Japanese Zen training, especially Rinzai, involves deep cultivation of the lower dantien, or tanden in Japanese. So a real Roshi’s will be an energy master. This is much more than the normal vague use of the word hara, and it brings a sublime level of functioning. Sadly this part of Zen training is not often seen in most lineages which have come to the West, at least not yet. Thanks for the chat. Informative 👍🏼.

[@rabukan5842]

With all due respect, I've been practicing (and teaching) MA since 1970. I studied a mix of jujutsu/Okinawa Karate/boxing/Filipino MA/military MA from 2 Special Forces Army combat soldiers and instructors who returned from both the Korea and Vietnam wars. I practice(d) Zen, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, etc. for the past 50 years and all of that did come from traditional MA. Karate and Judo since the early 1900's is modern MA, not traditional. Most Karate masters today do not understand bunkai (applications) as they only learned and teach forms and some omote bunkai (surface bunkai.) But Okinawa Ti (what I learned) was brutal and came from Chinese influences and Tegumi, which was the Okinawa form of grappling - which had strikes as well. Qi or Ki was always a part of the arts, and of the fighting. It was based on the coordinated transfer of energy through conduits - meridians/blood vessels/nerve points, etc. - in order to become more efficient in combat and more controlled mentally. We practice breath control/work, which to me, is much more important than the accuracy of a kata or form. I don't believe that Qi and MA can be separated as they harmonize together the way rhythms and melodies work together in music. Most of what I see of YT Qi Gong is American style self-help quick fix/feel-good guru nonsense. It took me 20 years to begin to understand, and that's when I first began my journey to really understand. Those who taught Damo MA in his youth really knew nothing about traditional arts.

[@xvrlskrcll6485]

Great interview, both sides! Thank you very much, Damo Mitchell and Guru Viking!

[@FredericZolnet]

Wonderful interview. Damon is informative and kind as usual and you ask really good questions! I've heard a lot in this interview that I was curious about but hadn't yet heard on Damo's channel. Frank questions, frank answers!

[@gideonros2705]

Excellent

[@johanhausen1621]

I just would like to recommend anyone interested in Daoism in its complexity and thousand-year old tradition to read Louis Komjathy's "The Daoist Tradition" to get another viewpoint of its history steeped in scriptures, talismans, confessions, and rituals, including the history of internal alchemy.

[@freestylebagua]

Early in the 20th century there was a martial art competition in China which many famous masters attended, the competition was canceled without finishing because very quickly many people became seriously injured as dangerous techniques were employed that would never be allowed in mma. These masters of course had long trained in their use but without ever having to use them. Without the deadliness of strikes grappling becomes the dominant combat form in space constrained 1v1 fighting, imho. I believe the movement towards these arts as spiritual, exemplified by the change from '-jitsu' to '-do' in the Japanese arts, was an excellent way to retain the knowledge of these techniques but no it is not going to make one a competitive boxer.

[@Seaileanu]

My master!

[@DaoNeigong]

Great :)

[@novaacuinfo5930]

Patanjali and many great yogic gurus warn against chasing after siddhis. Siddhis are not the true goal but spontaneously manifest when training properly.

[@LotusNeiGong]

Agreed :)

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

🙏

[@HIMfan0805]

Hello Damo Mitchell, I am huge fan of your work and have been following your shows and interviews for a while. I do however thing you are selling traditional martial arts and Chinese martial arts in particular a little short here. Now I do fully recognize you have many more years in the arts and much more skill than me, no questions there. And I do 100% hear your point about martial arts breeding paranoia and fantasy. But I also don't think "tmas" are really comparable to mma and it creates a sort of false impression of what Chinese martial arts are trying to do. Comparing mma to traditional Chinese kung fu in terms of "efficiency" is, in my mind, a little like looking at stimulating a single accupuncture point to test its effect on "headaches" without understanding different types of headaches need different point prescriptions, or, to reference one of your podcasts, looking at taijiquans healing skill in terms of "preventing falls." It's simply the wrong criteria. Oftentimes mma fighters will be better at defending themselves from an average tcma practitioner simply because they train at higher intensity and take the subject more seriously, but there are still very major context differences between a sports fight/practice fight and a more dangerous encounter, much more than is imagined with "eye pokes and breaks and stuff." In a self-defense situation, much of the important skills happen before the fight, the attacks are more committed, counters need to be immediate and fight ending, much of the higher level skills involve staying upright, making informed decisions under fire, being able to gather sensory info efficiently while disrupting theirs, being able to respond without falling into a rut or psychological loop, and so on. When people talk about Geoff Thompson getting to an almost spiritual understanding through martial arts, understanding this level of martial arts is how you get there, but unlike Geoff, if you have an authentic tcma lineage all that work mental, emotional, and physical technique wise is already there so you dont have to reinvent it. A guy named Iain Abernathy is one of the best at talking about this side of martial arts in my opinion, as well as of course Rory Miller. When reading Meditations on Violence, every time he talked about a problem in self-defense violence that made it different from dojo sparring, I could easily match it to a training tool from my taiji and bagua I had already was working with. Now yes of course in terms of practicality of how often would I ever need to actually use these skills not much hopefully. I'm not interested in the topic cause I expect ninjas jumping out of the dumpster nor do I watch a ufc fight going "I could totally beat these guys in da streetz." But I do think it's important to understand these arts in terms of their martial value and recognize that modern sports fighting isn't simply an upgrade martially, regardless of the other spiritual and energetic aspects these arts offer

[@PhoenixDarshan]

I have tried to ascertain Damo's background and I will focus on the facts that he has presented, so to keep things as objective as possible: (1) His longmen lineage teachers? - they wish to remain in secret so their names cannot be revealed , only to inner circle students. (2) His removal of important aspects from Daoist practice such as ritual and scriptures? - he is an expert in these, but no longer practices them because they are a waste or in other posts this is a common misunderstanding (he never provided further evidence how ritual is not part of traditional daoism for 2000 years or proof of his skill) (3) His means of study since he speaks Chinese very rudimentarily stating " I spent two years in China"? -no answer (yes he "translated" the daode jing, which is a rather popularized commentary very liberal and removed from the meaning of the words in classical Chinese, [feel free to run this assessment by anyone with a good standard of classical chinese]. Of course I was attacked by his followers to be unworthy of such information, and to "test" my suspicions in Bali with him, whatever that means, or by himself, that "I just don't know him personally" (not sure how that factors into the revelance of my questions) or by his buddy Adam Mizner that all that is important is skill not lineage - deviating from my questions in the first place since skills was never the subject of my inquiries) So I am drawing here many question marks to which the answers may be given in the future or maybe not. I will now disengage as per request, I said what I had to say.

[@LotusNeiGong]

1. my long men teacher IS named. Wang Haitao was the person I spent the longest with in alchemy but I moved on from here and just keep a cordial relationship with him now. A couple who I taught stayed with him but I moved on to other teachers. I teach Daoist work but I am not Daoist, not really interested in the wider culture and/or religion of Daoism and don’t identify as being a part of that traction, I simply use their terminology and practices. The Daoist world can do what they wish but I want no part of it. It is my current teachers who I wish to keep to myself for now and this is my decision, whether you guys like it or not. Myself, some seniors and a few closer students are privy to that information and that is how it should shall stay. 2. These are not important practices to me; they are irrelevant, but Lu can do what you want, but I think all this stuff is stupid. I am not an ‘expert’ in your words, but I have been trained to a fair level in them. I just don’t care about them. I don’t teach them 🤷‍♂️ 3. I spent longer than two years in China, I was in and out of that country for many years. Thankfully less so these days I don’t answer these to answer you; I don’t respect you enough yo care about your opinion. I answer because others are reading this as well. You see, to me skill IS paramount in all of this, even if it is not to you. I never met any of you lot here talking this crap who have any. Maybe I will one day but right now, you guys are just, to me, wasting your time and other peoples.

[@back-seat-driver1355]

Thanks PhoenixDarshan, these and other Points concerns me as much as you!

[@ultraclaveshermetium5709]

I wonder have you heard of Sifu Kam Yuen?

[@twelvepetaledlotus1721]

I got a question for you. Monkey or the watermargin?

[@bloomintokyoseoul]

"Sexual practices are basically scraping the bottom of the spiritual barrel, it's the lowest of the low" lol talk about dropping a bombshell

[@back-seat-driver1355]

Hm, everybody has a childhood trauma!? Damo has learned a lot from his parents as reported elsewhere, but this is not so spectacular i suppose!

[@m0rgentraum]

I am curious about a tantric perspective on Damo's comment about sexual practice being like scraping at the bottom of the barrel. Tantra is certainly not foremostly about sexual practice, but isn't it true that some of the very advanced completion stage practices are sexual in nature?

[@Myaccount-qk6ps]

Actually in Daoist practice, it's important that you become celibate at some point in order to progress. Not neccessarily permanently, but sexual activities are generally viewed as counterproductive. The sexual practices are meant to minimize the damage, not techniques that can lead you to enlightement by any means.

[@DiscoverTaiji]

even within such completion stage practice actual sexual intercourse is considered the lowest version.

[@m0rgentraum]

@@DiscoverTaiji Interesting. I didnt know that.

[@PhoenixDarshan]

Not quite so, there are records that hint that you can reach enlightenment through it associated with lv dongbin but it is a very small percentage blown out to be the whole tradition and monetized by teachers in thailand.

[@ushojedi]

Different traditions have different approach's. In Tibetan Buddhism Sexual union is considered essential for final stage practices.

[@mrc8725]

isnt siddhi sanskrit? did you learn taoism from an indian?

[@LotusNeiGong]

I used the term most people in the scene are familiar with 🤷‍♂️

[@PhoenixDarshan]

Id prefer people represent daoism who actually have a lineage behind them so its clear where their teaching comes from. Damo teaches a hit hotchpotch/ patchwork identity of several traditions whose origins remain guesswork for the student all under the mantle/umbrella of Daoism. He himself said in recent post on instagram he is not a daoist, not understanding that daoism for thousands of years has been religious and before classical daoism there were the fang shi and the wu shamans, to argue against such is utter madness. And I wonder why he dies not pick up some scholarly books to educate himself on history. So why teach daoism if you dont have faith in the very fabric of its religious origin. If everyone taught popular/new age daoism like him, daoism would be dead in 1 generation. Without memorization (mantra/scripture) there is no daoism. If the opening were to be true, does he accept martial arts challenges? I know a person, muay thai trainer from spain in thailand who fought many such challenges, so what are we talking about here?

[@PhoenixDarshan]

In essence if you buy pizza in the shop and there are meat pies inside, it is false advertising.

[@jimalliban]

Wow, there is a gigantic strawman in your head built from many misunderstood cherry picked fragments of this man's utterances. Keep beating away at it and perhaps some day you may realise that it is yourself that you are attacking.

[@Myaccount-qk6ps]

First I'm pretty he said what his lineage was in this interview. It was Longmen Pai, there's no patchwork or whatever. Second if you've read his book, you'll know that he's quite well-informed on the root of Daoism. And lastly if you've read that instagram post carefully, you'll notice that he's been a part of that type of Daoism for a while too!

[@YongnianTaiChiUSA]

Felt the same way. Read his books, I dont hate the guy but def it is not pure longmen pai. I made this ironically on saturday. kzbin.info/www/bejne/d3-sd62hfrt2gsk

[@LotusNeiGong]

“Without mantra/scripture, there is no Daoism” - and that there is a part of the issue these days. This is where the misunderstandings come into play…

[@relecto2800]

of all the daists you choose fake ones when there are so many proper ones out there. how come?

[@matth9558]

Steve is open to suggestions - if there are people you'd like to see on the show, suggest them!

[@m0rgentraum]

What makes you imply that Damo is a fake practitioner?

[@relecto2800]

@@matth9558 there are many worthy researchers - academic like Liva Kohn, Louis Komjathy etc., practitioners like guys from Parting Clouds or Jason Read, lots of them actually. It's hard to pick a single person

[@relecto2800]

@@m0rgentraum mainly my personal experience in practicing neidan and chinese inner style martial arts and my travels in China. This guy clearly has no idea what is fajin in Taiji or what is dantian in daoist alchemy. He is either making this stuff up or has been learning from fake teachers and is dellusional himself, I can't say for sure. Also he is as stiff as a wooden wardrobe judging from his videos. I am not trying to persuade anyone, you may believe him and ignore me. Just wrote this so that Steve would maybe first research who's out there in a daoist field then make his picks for interviews and not go for the most popular obvious cheesy ones

[@varuanda]

@@relecto2800 So, what makes Damo fake? I'm really curious. Do you know his work, do you speak of experience?I mean that Bruce guy is an easy target just by listening to him you can smell BS if you like but please explain why you pick on Damo.