Because of that, I had to keep my emotions extremely stable. The Taoist practices—qigong, breathwork, meditation, visualization—were not just philosophy to me; they were survival skills. We don’t call it zazen, but it looks exactly the same, with Tai Chi, acupuncture, traditional medicine…all those Taoist traditions were part of my everyday life. Even before reading the Tao Te Ching, I was living Lǐ Ěr’s ideas.