Greetings for the excelent article. I’m a brazilin student of Qi Qong and Tai Chi Chuan and I follow your blog since 2017. Honestly, find this specific text saved my relationship with Qi Gong. I practice it with an skillfull teacher over three years and I almost gave up three times. I am completely desmotivated, because he’s stringent, with no patience and use authority to teach us. Once, I argued about his way of teaching and he just told me “I took these manners from my masters”. So I thought: God, all the chinese art is this way, so?

I had decided to give up. But now, a hope came to me. Thank you!

Thanks, M. I’m working hard to get my site fixed. Don’t worry. I’ll be blogging again soon!

This of course does not address when the teacher is the one comiting crimes. Unfortunately when they abuse these traditions citing it as it is they do not look at the highest code of conduct available. Many of china legendary figures and officials have great integrity yet some chinese citing chinese tradition such as guan xi knowns as relationship in english use it to enrich themselves. Ignoring one important virtue INTEGRITY.

Chinese art of war basically stresses the important of human rights as well with leaders learning to differentiate right and wrong etc. For a working organisation.

Good points, Libby. Thanks!

Thank you for taking a stand against abuse in the student/teacher relationship. The principles you describe and the steps you are taking seem to be a very good approach. I don’t know enough about the Chinese traditions to be able to say which ones to keep and which ones to leave behind.

In reading the Atlantic article that was linked to the open letter you signed, I noticed two conditions that you might want to keep in mind when building protections against abuse at Flowing Zen. First, many people who come to these arts are seeking healing and, therefore, may be especially vulnerable to abuse. Second, much of the cover up and failure to respond was motivated by love of the arts and reluctance to destroy the school offering them.Both of these conditions contribute to an atmosphere in which abuse is more likely to occur and less likely to be immediately exposed.

I’m not sure if these observations can be translated into stronger protections, but I thought it might be helpful to keep in mind.

Anything, which includes above all the rights of humans to health, happiness and a life free from suffering.

The human life should be respected and cherished for what it can give each person, good or bad, young, or old, male or female. There are no divisions.

Best wishes.