Spotlight: Taoism, Nature, and Human Design

SEASON 1: EPISODE 13

Published 08/21/2020

Amy: Our spotlight episodes take a quick look into core Design concepts and questions. If you’re new to Human Design, these can offer insight into the foundation of the system. If you’re more experienced or have gotten lost in the details, these are reminders of what is simple and essential. Thank you for joining me, Amy Lee, and my co-host, John Cole. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Today, our topic is Taoist philosophy and Human Design. What do they have in common? How can we look at the Human Design system through the lens of the Taoist perspective? What do we learn from that? How does it serve us? How does it relate to the different elements of Design? John is a longtime martial artist and has a lot of connections to that particular philosophy. You’ve been seeing a lot about this recently, John. Do you want to say what it is you’ve been seeing?

John: I tend to look at Taoism as a concept of a certain attunement to the natural order of things, with this idea of aligning with nature. It has rhythms, timing, and cycles in a way that we remain balanced with the larger context of nature. You could say it’s like the seasons, just staying in balance with the world as it is. This is as opposed to trying to manipulate it, dominate it, or control it. It seems like it’s this way of aligning with the natural order of things.

As it relates to Human Design, I feel like there’s a certain resonance there with Human Design as a system. We can look at, for example, the BodyGraph, the mandala, or the wheel. We can see that there is the inclusion of the hexagrams from the E Ching, the Chinese Book of Change. A lot of people consider that, as I understand it, one of the main Taoist source texts. There’s an obvious connection there, but I think it’s more than that. I think that Human Design may be predominantly a Taoist system or closer to the Taoist philosophy than any of these other traditional philosophies.

Amy: There’s definitely the orientation in Human Design that says, “There is nothing wrong with you as you are. Your nature and what you are is perfect.” If it’s not functioning well, if it doesn’t feel good, or if it’s not thriving or surviving, then that’s more of a sign that the nature is being distorted in some way. The nature is not being nurtured and developed in a way that’s healthy and natural.

One of the things that occurs to me is this sense that in Taoist philosophy, everything has its place. There’s no good or bad, right or wrong, there is no better. Similarly, in Human Design, there’s no better Design. It’s just that each Design is unique. Each design is made for a specific context and for specific interactions.

Where we get confused is when our minds get involved, we think we’re supposed to be something that we’re not, or we think we’re supposed to be like something else. Then, we lose touch with our natural flow. We lose touch with our life force energy. We lose touch with our sense of the right place, right time, and right context. However, everything is perfect as it is. Everything serves a purpose, a very specific purpose.

John: I think what you’re pointing to is this contrast between more and enough. That’s something that comes through in Human Design, where people think, “Well, if I experiment with this, or if I try on this system, or this knowledge, or I go further with it, I’m going to get something. I’m going to get the life that I want, I’m going to become rich, or I’m going to get the material things that I want.” I don’t think that’s what any of this is about. I don’t think that promise exists in Human Design.

It sets up this disparity in the world where you see things that are just way out of balance. You’ve got people who have so much and people who have so little. What I see in Human Design is it’s not really about that. It’s not necessarily about making money, getting rich, or having your dream life, although those things may happen. They’re not excluded from the possibility if that’s what your life is about.

You get your life. You get enough, and you will survive. If you’re working with life, things will be provided for you. You will be taken care of on a basic level that just may look like less, from a certain point of view, or different than what we’re holding coming in.

In terms of what we think this is about, for example, you hear about the Type Signatures, like Success is something that Projectors are here for, but does that success mean that I’m going to make millions, have a mansion, or have a Tesla? Or does it mean that you are recognized for who you are and you have the life that you’re here to have in a way that’s not compromising to you?

It’s interesting to look at it from the point of view of, “more, more, more, and more” versus having what you’re here for. That, to me, looks like a more natural balance in terms of either our larger society, collective, or totality. Where everyone has enough, or they’ve got what they need and what they’re here for, rather than what I see going on out in the world so much. There is just this endless quest for more.

Amy: Whether it’s more money, more attention, more energy, or more accomplishments, it could be in all kinds of realms. I think it’s interesting to look at what is the ‘more’ compensating for. Why would we be driven to need so much more than is actually necessary? When I think about that, it seems like if we come into the world with a particular nature, it’s designed to be recognized and nurtured for what it is. Yet, for most of us, we come in, and we’re pretty quickly expected to adhere to all kinds of things, become all kinds of things, and behave in ways that aren’t natural to us.

We take on all of this conditioning, and we take on a lot of adaptive strategies and imitating behaviors to survive socially and sometimes physically in the world. I think that can set up something where we start to think that ‘more’ will compensate for whatever pain or distortion we feel. If you take a Projector, for example, like you said, they’re here for success. For many Projectors, they haven’t been respected for their intelligence. They haven’t been invited for their awareness. They’ve learned to perform and overdo to try to get attention.

I think that can set up a dynamic where you then feel like, “Well, I need a lot of money, or I need a lot of a certain kind of attention, or a certain kind of accomplishment to compensate for the fact that I actually don’t feel so good or successful or natural just being myself. Maybe if I have the newest of this or that, if I have a million followers, or if I achieve some particular thing, then that’s going to make up for the fact that at a core level, I don’t actually feel welcome, and wanted in this world.” If you get really far underneath it all, those are often some of the core beliefs that many of us have been conditioned with. These are the conclusions that we’ve come to based on the conditioning that we’ve experienced.

John: What you’re describing is the filling of a hole that these pursuits of needing more, wanting more, or wanting the life that someone else has that looks attractive seems to have. Maybe believing that this is what we’re all entitled to, on some level, is a compensation mechanism for essentially a life unlived as ourselves. What’s interesting too is we can see examples of people who go out there and achieve a certain level of material success. They later realize that it’s actually not what they thought it would be; it didn’t fill that hole or give them the thing that they thought they were going to get out of that. Then, they’re trapped in that situation. I think you’re pointing to something really important. What is the fundamental issue? Why does that set up? Why are we actually going forward trying to achieve this dynamic?

Amy: I think that’s what is really helpful about working with Human Design. A big part of it, if you’re going to really experiment with it and work with it, is that you can use it to help look at your own motivations. As you feel drawn to act on certain things or to go after certain things, you can pause and just question, “Where is this drive coming from? What is motivating me now?” If you look at the teachings going through each of the Centers on a really simple basic level, you can see all of these different motivations that make it clear that some of them are just sort of bottomless pits. No matter what you achieve, if it’s motivated by trying to compensate for some kind of distortion or trying to fill some kind of hole, it never actually really works. It becomes something that enslaves us.

John: You’re talking about the Not-Self themes of the open Centers essentially. Trying to prove your worth, or value by holding on to things from some false sense of security or trying to achieve certainty.

Amy: We’re trying to get attention.

John: Trying to get attention.

Amy: It’s interesting to think about how if we’re experiencing discomfort in our lives, we feel uncomfortable in our own skin, or if we just feel unhappy- part of the beauty of being able to live according to your Design is that you’ll discover that you can actually survive and do okay in the world through naturally being yourself. What comes most naturally to you is exactly what’s required by the people you’re around and the places you find yourself.

John: Right. It’s almost too obvious. All of this is way too simple.

Amy: We make it so hard. I think sometimes, when we’re not happy with our lives, or it feels like something’s off or wrong, we can feel like, “Oh, I need to get more of something to deal with that.” However, if you look at systems like Human Design, Taoist philosophy, or many spiritual teachings, a lot of what they’ll point to is stripping things down, taking things away.

You need fewer things. You actually may need less attention, less focus from others, less material responsibility and accumulation, less intellectual stimulation and knowledge accumulation, and less goal-oriented pursuit of all kinds of things. Maybe that’s why there’s such a big movement toward mindfulness, Buddhism, and minimalism, all these things that are moving people toward stripping things down. Getting down to the essentials, that’s the core of it. We need to really get to the essential nature of things.

John: Going back to this larger perspective that could be looked at through the lens of Taoism, there’s a greater alignment with the natural order of things. One of the things that we could say is, or that I’ve heard said, is “Everything is the Tao. Even in a sense, the imbalances are the Tao. It’s not just the organic plant matter, the rocks or mountains, or what we would consider nature, but also the skyscrapers and the machines. Technology is still part of this natural balance.

When we look out into society, we see that there are these huge discrepancies. It’s hard for me not to look at this like we’re heading back into a time where these are going to become more important questions. How much do we actually need? How much is enough? What about the other people on this planet? Did they have enough? It’s not that any one of us is necessarily going to solve that, or that it’s our personal agenda. However, if we can come into a greater sense of alignment in our life, stop seeking more, or stop filling up these holes with what we perceive as missing our life to see what’s actually there for us and what we’re here for. It seems a better direction for all of us.

Amy: You can imagine what the world would look like if each person was able to live according to what is most natural to them and let that serve its natural function. That in some ways, is what the Tao says we were designed to be in a naturally functioning ecosystem. I think the other thing about that which is so beautiful is that there’s no morality in it. If you look at it like a rainforest, with all the different creatures, plants, life, rocks, dirt, and everything that’s there, you can’t really say that one is bad and one is good. It’s good to be a tree and it’s bad to be a berry. It’s good to be this animal, not that animal. No, actually, the point is that in nature, everything serves a purpose, and it’s the same in Design.

John: It’s ‘This and That.’

Amy: It’s the ‘This and That’ rather than the ‘Good and Bad’ or ‘Right and Wrong’. Something that I think is one of the most painful afflictions we have, in a way, is our morality. I think some people think, “Well, if we don’t have a consensus about what’s good and bad as people, then people are going to be selfish, treat each other horribly, or take advantage.” It’s as if we need an outer sense of morality because we can’t trust the goodness of our own nature.

John: Maybe in the past, it was necessary, to some degree, to look at some of these traditional religions that come in. They bring this sense of morality as essentially crowd control or population control. We’re now in a Nine-Centered world, living in these Nine-Centered bodies or vehicles. It does seem like something else is needed. There’s greater sophistication, greater potential, or possibilities in this transitional phase that we’re in. Any sense of morality is, in a way, limited, or maybe it doesn’t quite hold up in the world that we’re in and moving into.

Amy: Right. The way that you talked about the I Ching, the Book of Changes, the whole point of it is that life is constantly emerging, evolving, and changing. If you have a certain set of moral tenants that everyone is supposed to adhere to, it cuts people off from their natural present awareness of what’s needed, what’s appropriate, and what’s natural in any given moment in any given context. I think, when we lose touch with our inner authority, with our inner sense of morality, which is not even necessarily a morality, I think it’s more like an inner sense of what’s correct for us in this moment. For the people around me, given what I’m aware of right here, right now, amid things that are rapidly changing, if there’s an outer authority, outer rule, or outer morality that we’re adhering to, I do think it can serve a purpose in certain contexts, in certain communities, or at certain times.

It seems like now, especially, we’re living in a time where I would feel much safer if the people I’m around were embodied, aware, present, paying attention, listening to the intelligence in their bodies, and communicating clearly. I’d feel much safer around a group of people like that, who were all different but all connected to their own inner nature, rather than a group of people who all believe in the same sense of right and wrong or good and bad. It feels much safer to me.

John: Absolutely. It’s almost like a return to something. A return to our natural state and living in balance or in accordance with nature. By the natural order of things.

Amy: That’s what it seems like we’ve lost in our quest to control and dominate everything. Yes, we’ve been able to dominate nature and shelter ourselves from all kinds of natural events. We’ve accumulated and created things that make our lives easier. I think part of what we have lost is the sense of trust and connection to life as it is. We take on this pressure of believing that we have to control and manipulate everything, which is an unfortunate responsibility.

I think for any of us, it’s a burden that is not that fun or that natural to most people. Then, we don’t remember what the cycles are when we’re not attuned to paying attention to them. What is the energy that’s here right now? What’s needed? What’s the season? What context am I in? All of that.

John: It strikes me as a heavily mind-based orientation of things. I would expect that’s coming from what you might call the Seven-Centered hangover. Where we were at a past stage of human development, where that type of conceptual, rational, mental awareness, and an orientation to life was needed, or was a part of our development.

Again, we’re in a different time. We’re in a different order of things. We have these evolved bodies, vehicles, that we’re moving through life, but we’re still functioning back in this mode of trying to control life, nature, and others through the mind. This is what we end up with. Maybe itself, there’s a natural balance in the order of things there. We’re like, “Well, if you do this, this is what happens.” It gets a little bit circular. Then again, that’s what we’re working with. Maybe someone might say, “Well, that’s also the Tao.” It’s all part of it.

Amy: For those of you who may not know, part of what the Human Design knowledge brought was an awareness that we evolved from being New Seventh-Centered, strategic, mentally focused beings who were here to control, manipulate, dominate, play with, and strategize in the material world. Now, we are Nine-Centered beings. We’re moving toward a much more receptive way of being. One of the gifts of Human Design is really to be able to simplify, to see clearly and simply what is natural to each of us as individuals and what isn’t.

Although it can be a very complex intellectual system and deep knowledge base, there are actually some very simple aspects of each individual’s nature that we can learn about through Design. Then, you can work with this. You can immediately go out and play with it; experiment with it and see what happens. In many ways, it can make life a very simple practice of just being present and grounded in our own nature. It’s a much easier way to live in the end.