Here is a quote from an old Chinese book that might have been exactly what my Shaman ancestor told to that Buddhist monk because this is what was taught to me.
"In everything pertaining to Nourishing Life, one should listen well but incorporate the essential, look wide but choose the best. One cannot rely on one's bias to a single practice. Moreover, the danger is that those who devote themselves to one of these practices trust only their discipline of choice. Those who are expert in breathing say that one can extend the number of years only through circulation of breath. Those who know the methods for bending and stretching [their body] say that one can avoid aging only through daoyin. Those who know the methods based on herbs and plants say that one can surpass any limit only through medicines and pills. When the path you walk does not bear fruit, it is because of biases like these.
Source: Baopu zi, chapter 6. Translation published in Fabrizio Pregadio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Medieval China, 134-35 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).
Aho
Shaman Elder Maggie
