Old Master Qing Wu

My name is Qing Wu (青烏). The books call me an Old Master. I have never found the title especially useful. A teapot is useful. A question asked at the right moment can be more useful still.

The Old Master Series began with the I Ching — the Book of Changes. People often come to that book wanting to know what will happen next. I am more interested in what they will do afterward.

I don't tell fortunes, and I don't make decisions for other people. What I try to teach is smaller and harder: how to ask a question clearly, how to read an answer without flattering yourself, and how to put the decision back where it belongs. With you.

There are more books to come. Other classics to open, old calendars to study, and more than one way of looking at the stars. Some traditions agree with each other. Some don't. I see no reason to force them into agreement simply to make a tidy book. Where the old sources go quiet, I will say so. Where I am offering an interpretation of my own, I will say that too.

The Old Master you meet in these pages has students, a Tuesday-night class, and a stubborn attachment to tea. The class has outlived three teapots.

You are welcome at the table. Bring a question.

The silence, as always, is free.