To be ancient is a dichotomy to being historical, hence relevant here. I was surprised to read the asterisk notation at the most recent newsletter saying there are attempts to defame ZSD (shortened for brevity). After reading the posts I realize that most of them have come from recent times, in the last couple of years. Missing is the perspective of the past years through the many evolutions of Daniel into what he/she has become now. However harm has been done and hence this is a recourse to some need to be heard about that harm. I hope that the efforts bring to light change that is sometimes needed like Chen stomping his foot to the earth cracking apart the the structure. With shock, Chen symbolizes the eldest son in the family, the family being the vessel of self, the one we are born of, and the community we practice and life by. Thunder raises fear, to begin and renew and I do believe these moments will lead to this. Have faith. Speak your truth always.

There is history for those that have come recent to MogaDao that with some light may help to know more. Those that knew the Daniel as a student of literature, a writer of a strange and violent novel, during the days when he was practicing martial arts, and competing. He trained invisible elsewhere from where he taught, so as to keep the story of himself away from the appearance of what he was creating. The driving moments of his life as he explains through these competitions, and family abandonment and rejection reduced his Qi to the point of fatigue which is the seed story he tells when explaining what brought him to MogaDao. He went to China for competitions, and collapsed there. Being treated in Qigong clinics as he says brought him to Shea, his elder teacher. He tells stories of how erotic it was listening to his 90 year old teacher having sex in the next room. There has always been an underlying sexual current with him, which I suppose inspired through his own healing, to teach his understanding. The authority in which he creates these courses to heal however are in his own making. The authority is self professed. 

Upon return to the states he became a farrier, a meditation to reintegrate back to the American Way. He brought back an exotic practice that was in demand, in a land that has many wounded. He began teaching in small places, in rec centers, and used charisma to charm at least always one person to be the maker for him. A wounded soul that believe though him they would too be healed. That is the attraction, but the problem is power. Each place he went, there were students, and then moving on, there were other students, until he settled in Santa Fe. Finding a population of elder wealth to tap into.

I think up until 2012 he was the Qigong teacher, humble, writing, taking care of the community, still using those around to do the duties of the guru complex. But there was a moment that Im not sure many know, during that time period where he suffered a severe concussion from a MMA competition and had brain swelling. For me, I noticed the change that came after that, in a grotesque way. There began the talk of the “I’m going away” and it began being used 2 years into the making to draw people to live and practice with him. There was a mission, its in the guru complex, if the teacher goes away, there is a fear of aloneness and insecurity, so there is a stronger pull like a bug to a light. People do strange things, like so many from the Portland area selling their houses and moving their lives to Santa Fe to dive into a new teacher program that he created and demanded that if one wanted to get certified, they had to be there, living, taking 10 or more classes a week at a hefty price. It was the 2 years of wealth gain, that allowed him to buy property and a house, disappear from the teaching, teach his dog sign language and develop his plan. It is true there were flyers posted online of his teaching in California during the silence, some found it, it was not hard to find if one searched. So for those that knew it began to set doubt.

In the building up to the silence, those that were the favorites like taking videos, running the website, managing the books and money had special priviledges to private conversations. And everyone seemed to wish an audience with Daniel. Now he was calling himself Master Zhen Dao. Self professed. There was always the claim that the old ways of being present, was the way to practice his Qigong. So it demanded presence in life there. No videos, no online information and those that asked for permission to use an exercise in books or written matter were excised. 

The way to secure the income was to demand that one needed to live in Santa Fe, or else never reach the ranks of the elite.  The first immersions and certifying teachers were subjective. And so many bought the kool aid. I use that term because it had begun to become cultish then. When one teacher makes all the rules, the pathways to the cosmos, only through him, and sets the rules of how to play, how to pay, and how people would go forward in their lives, it becomes a cult. But people didn’t see it. Being far away and returning for a presence soon after the return after the silence, I noticed one practice, showing up to a bunch of shaved heads, males and female. Following suit of Zhenzan Dao. Wearing little pouches around their necks with inscriptions of duty, all wearing similar clothes, black. Were they trying to become him, or was this some subconsious ushered wish through the teacher. Brought about through a guilt sense, of living frugal, monk like lives, dispelling the world, to come into the circle.

There was a gaunt appearance, and slight mental instability I noticed happening with Zhenzan and the students that were in the circle. Nikesha saying she was a Daoist Priestess, Zhenzan being the god, or whatever was deep inside the stories of the Greek Gods in his psyche. They began living that reality walking a thin veil of reality.  The words began to change, the courses were renamed, the progression was changing. Those that didn’t have a comparison, don’t realize that the forms are the same, with different nuances just renamed. But Zhen would make statements that those that were not upgrading, like booting up an upgrade, were not in the circle, and didn’t have the understanding. If the old students wanted to stay in the game, they had to take the new classes, jump back into the expensive immersions, now become Greek names of Ethea, Eros, etc. Changing MogaDao from what it began from into something unrecognizable.

Those from the beginning, I don’t think there are many if any around anymore, they see the change and its not good. Those watching from a distance are amazed and watching unsure how this will turn out. Those in the mix now, I read the stories and feel really shocked at the gross abuse, and wonder why no one is reporting? If a teacher touched someone’s genitals, anywhere, it's sexual abuse. Why then is noone feeling the shock? It is the guru syndrome. Have seen it in the yoga world, until it finally cracks, you hear about Bikram sexually abusing students, and all those years noone said anything, and the girls thought that having sex with him would somehow enlighten them. Once again its not a shocker that there is talk about all the drama of relationship, sex and the quietness, its a psychotic submission. Its classic psychosis. You just have to back away to see it.

I am sorry to all those that have been harmed. That makes me really sad, and even sadder that such a brilliant man has become such a mess.  Trauma comes in all forms. And you would have to know what it feels like to be rejected as the person you are by a parent or both, that manifests into becoming them.  I think Zheneviere is a manifestation, a need for power of an deeply insecure psychosis. Sometimes you can dig so deep into a story that you begin to live the fantasies that seem better than the actual life. Exactly why television is the numbing agent, allowing one to seek refuge in another’s life. Being a god, the delusion of grandeur, self possessed, self authorizing, is what sets those apart from the winners, while the realists that see the world as it is, are depressed. The feed each other, because those that need something to believe in, are trapped into the delusion of the guru as if that power is real and attainable, at the very least sharable so life is not so alone, grieved, feared.

As a conclusion, it would be wise of those that are protecting ZSD aka Daniel Villasenor, to step back and see the threads. And for Zhen to seek help before there is serious, if not already harm done. Blessings everyone, love on your quest to healing.