In this luminous conversation, I welcome acclaimed playwright, theater director, author, and creative visionary Stan Lai from Shanghai, and together we explore creativity as a living force moving through theater, trust, presence, compassion, and life itself. We journey into how true creativity needs both method and wisdom — the craft and the soul — so what we bring into the world can touch, transform, and let our light shine.
In this rich and heart-opening dialogue, I welcome acclaimed playwright, theater director, author, and creative visionary Stan Lai, joining me from Shanghai, to explore creativity, wisdom, theater, trust, and the living art of being human. Stan shares insights from his book creativiRy, and together we look at how true creativity needs both method and wisdom — the tools and the music, the craft and the soul. His play Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land was chosen by The New York Times as one of the “Essential Works of Theater” of the last 100 years — one of only 20 plays selected, and the only work from Asia included. May this conversation invite us to embrace the creativity of life, create from sincerity and compassion, and let our light shine into the world.
A vivid dialogue for artists, teachers, parents, seekers, performers, and anyone ready to remember that creativity is not separate from life — it is life expressing itself through us.
(00:04:11) The Role of Wisdom in Artistic Expression
(00:04:48) Harnessing Improvisation for Character Development
(00:05:19) Balancing Artistic Wisdom and Theatrical Method
(00:09:51) Diverse Cultural Wisdom Recognition and Embrace
(00:14:53) The Essence of Intent in Artistic Creation
(00:16:30) Creating Art from Heart to Transform Souls
(00:54:49) Theater: Trust and Collaboration for Authenticity
(01:02:22) Authentic Connection and Innovation Through Performance Play
(01:08:23) Nurturing Growth Through Love and Wisdom
Stan Lai's book we spoke about is titled: CREATIVITRY Asia’s Iconic Playwright Reveals the Art of Creativity
Moving to oneness. Nourishing curiosity. Embracing differences. Becoming one.
00:00:37 - Meilin Ehlke
Expressing the complexity of life, the complexity of movies, of playwrights, of screenwriting, of theater, into a few drawn lines. That is not easy, but wow, is it powerful.
Hello, everyone. I'm Meilin Ehlke, your host of the Moving to Oneness podcast. I have a special guest. I'm really honored. All the way from Shanghai, Stan Lai. He's a fascinating, inspiring man.
I started reading his book so I could get to know him a little bit better. And each page I turned, it changed something within me. It was like sparks were flying out of the pages and igniting more and more of my creativity. So stay tuned. This is going to be a fascinating episode. I'm laughing already because I'm so happy. Thank you, Stan, for being here and bringing your energy and dedicating your time to writing a book, bringing together your life, your life's experiences and sharing that with the world. And, I mean, it's not just a book. You have done movies, you have done plays, and written several books, and you go on and on changing the world of theater and especially Chinese theater. So I would love to know a little bit more what sparked you at the end to write this book about creativity.
00:02:44 - Stan Lai
Hi, Meilin. It's so such a pleasure to be on your podcast.
00:02:51 - Meilin Ehlke
Thank you.
00:02:52 - Stan Lai
And thank you for making me feel so comfortable. Because you say we're just. This is not an interview. This is a dialogue.
00:02:58 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes.
00:02:59 - Stan Lai
Yes. And I love it. I love it. It's like, you know, just talking. And I'm very humbled by what you say about the book.
00:03:11 - Stan Lai
The thing is, I've been doing creative work for 40 years, and for the first 25 years, I was teaching also. So I was teaching theater at a university level in Taiwan. And I was frustrated because I felt I was a good teacher, but I could only teach the talented ones or the ones who were already creative to be more creative. I couldn't teach those who weren't creative to be creative, you see.
00:03:51 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah.
00:03:52 - Stan Lai
And when I thought about it, I thought, hey, this is not my problem, you know, and I shouldn't worry about it because I didn't notice on my job description that I'm supposed to teach people who aren't creative to become creative. But it bothered me. It bothered me to no end. Because I thought, you know, I really believe that we all have creative potential within us, and how to bring that out was always something that I hoped I could discover.
Then one day, I discovered it. Basically, I was traveling in India, this magical land where so many. So much inspiration comes to so many people. I was in Bodh Gaya, and I'd been thinking about the Buddhist scriptures. One line in particular that I'd read many times, but suddenly it sort of hit me on the head. And the line basically says, to be able to progress on the path, you need to have two things.
00:04:48 - Stan Lai
You need method and you need wisdom. And this not only works for Buddhism, but I think for everything. I think if you want to be a surgeon, you need a lot of method, but you also need the wisdom of medicine, right? If you don't have that wisdom, how can you be a good surgeon? If you, if you want to be a novelist, you need skills, but you also need a wisdom of what is a novel and, and to note. And basically the wisdom of knowing what is a novel.
00:05:19 - Stan Lai
You have to know what is life, right? So, suddenly it. It started to make sense that, wow, as teachers, we have kind of failed because we only teach method. You know, maybe we. We aspire or we try, but it's not part of our job description. And we don't think about it. It's like we don't even think about whether we are. Whether we are. What's the word? Accredited to teach this thing called wisdom, right? Who, who. Who gives us the, the power or, you know, who says that, yeah, you're qualified. Okay, Meilin you're qualified to teach wisdom. But how can you prove that to me? You know, we don't even have a test or anything for this, or there's. There's nothing in the, in the educational system or the language. There is no department of wisdom that I know of anywhere in the world or, a college of wisdom. And, And I thought that very strange, because if that is true, then we have missed half of the equation in our teaching of creativity and perhaps of all education.
00:06:31 - Stan Lai
And so that's what sparked me to write this book, because I started getting from this inspiration, I started realizing that, you know, I started realizing the simple truth that when we train, we train our method in what we're training in, our art. Let's say if I'm training to be a painter, then I'm training my skills as in drawing and painting and everything. But if I'm training in wisdom, that's a different domain. That is not the domain of art. You can't learn wisdom in art. You can learn wisdom only in life. And who's your teacher in life? Because you're away from school.
You're away. And you see, this is where I got into this whole. This actually, this whole jungle actually, of what happened to wisdom in our lives these days? And why can't we define it properly? Because as I thought of writing the book. You won't believe this, Meilin, but I went to Webster's Dictionary to see.
00:07:34 - Meilin Ehlke
Oh, I read that.
00:07:36 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:07:36 - Meilin Ehlke
It's really frustrating while I was reading. I'll be quiet now.
00:07:40 - Stan Lai
It's funny in a cruel way.
00:07:42 - Meilin Ehlke
Oh, it is funny in a cruel way.
00:07:45 - Stan Lai
Wisdom defined by Webster's is 'the quality of being wise'. Okay? So I said, wait a minute. You know that's cheating, right? I mean, if I go to the dictionary and say, what does it mean to be German? And it says, German means the quality of being German, you know, and you can't. You didn't say anything, right? So I went to cross check the word wise to say, see if there was some enlightenment there. But it said wise is characterized by wisdom. So they made a loop, you know, and, and it's like a, you know, keeps going to nowhere. And I asked a good friend of mine who was the head of the philosophy department at National Taiwan University, I said, "what happened? You know, is Webster's Dictionary cheating?" And he said, "not really, because wisdom is not a word that we can readily define or are willing to define in this day and age. Because in this day and age, if you claim that something is wisdom, you know, could this be dangerous?" Could this be like, can I be starting a cult by claiming that what I, What I know is wisdom? What you know is not wisdom. You know, it's. And, and so my friend, Professor Ling, he said, "actually, wisdom is up to every single individual to define". But the problem is all of us have forgotten our obligation to define this most important word, and we let it slide. And after we let it slide, what is wisdom becomes very random and we don't think about it anymore.
But if we go back to the equation from the Buddhist scriptures, without wisdom, you're losing half of the two pillars that you need to achieve progress. And if you're an artist, I'm sure you understand what I'm saying, you know, because without wisdom, everything that you paint or anything you write or anything you play on the piano is just notes.
00:09:51- Meilin Ehlke
Yes, yes. It's the, it's the trust that we. Whatever, create is needed. I had to think about. I wrote so many pages of your book, so I'm not going to even look. Everyone I did not even finish his book because there's so much in every single paragraph that you can converse on, because these are really life's questions. You can go on and on. And we can have several episodes just of the wisdom. And it wouldn't even cover it. When we go to the theater, that's why I know you have long plays. Because we have condensed things in life. Even we have condensed wisdom. And it is missing our cultural acknowledgement also of wisdom. It's hard to say to a child or we're not experienced, we're not seen when we are born. Stan. What we are, what we bring, because we all bring something else. So I like that word or the expression of your colleague where he said, it's formable, but we have to bring back the essence into the uniqueness that each one brings a different kind of wisdom. So wisdom is what we take in, what we see when we relate to anything out in nature. That's how I see that. How do I relate to a tree? How do I relate to another person? How do I react and what input comes? And does my body move me? And how does my body move me? So that it's not just the mind, it's also wholeness that creates wisdom in acting as in art. Right. And also in a conversation, or a presence in life.
00:11:55 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:11:56 - Meilin Ehlke
And how I do the next step. And am I really in the moment? So we live in the moment. You are my eyes. Very wise. Right?
00:12:06 - Stan Lai
I really think your podcast is basically. Is very sensitive to this word. And I think you're trying to, you know, you're searching for it and what you say is totally correct. It's different for everyone, and it doesn't count unless you find it yourself.
00:12:24 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes.
00:12: 25 - Stan Lai
You know, if somebody tells you and then you accept it, that's not it. You know, you really have to find it for yourself. And then to me, there's many, many levels of wisdom. I think there's more of a general wisdom which can apply to anything, but also whatever you do, like you do podcasts, so there's a wisdom of podcast, you know, you know, you to. To be able to do it right. And when I do theater, so there's a wisdom of theater. I'm a director. I'm a playwright. There's a wisdom to playwriting. There's a wisdom directing. And it's not. I mean, you see a lot of artists with. With wonderful method. They have skills that are incredible. But if the wisdom doesn't catch up, then they fall into some sort of a, I don't Know, a sort of a depressed state where they, where their work doesn't progress. You know, because in the end, you need both. You need the wisdom and the method to work together.
I wrote in the book a conversation I had with the pianist Fu Chung, one of the most famous Chinese pianists. He passed away a few years ago in London. We were in a car in Taipei, and he was, you know, for a concert pianist, he was. It was very painful time for him because he was having arthritis. He was having acupuncture for arthritis in his fingers, you know, and so he couldn't perform. And. But he was doing all these international piano competition juries, so he was a juror. And I asked him, is that fun? He said, yeah. I said, how is it? He said, my God, the young pianists, their fingers are absolutely incredible. And I said, that's good. We were speaking in Chinese, and suddenly he broke into English because we both speak English. And he said, but he said, where's the music?
00:14:20 - Meilin Ehlke
Ah. That touched me too when he said that, when I read that.
00:14:24 - Stan Lai
Because that's it. He's talking exactly. What I'm saying is the music is the wisdom. The fingers are the method. And if you don't have the wisdom, you. I mean, what different are you from AI? You know, an AI Computer playing Bach, you know, or Mozart.
00:14:41 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah, we move this way. And I, you know, a. A piece of art. I also paint and sometimes I dance for myself. But it's all expressions, right?
00:14:53 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:14:54 - Meilin Ehlke
All these ways of art, ways of expressing what we sense, what we feel. And it has not. Is not so accepted in cultures, especially a Western culture. And it still comes back from medieval times, very 18th, 17th century. Right. The flavor is still here. We're breaking it now, or we're just breaking it. And I don't know if it's going backwards, but I'm positive. So a piece of art, it has to have a need. I thought about that. So if you create from your heart because you fall in love with what you're doing and you have a strong intention. And I was speaking. Everyone, I have to show the cover oof Stan's book. If you're listening, go to the video, please.
There's an intention line. Looking at it shamanically, each chapter has a layout of a drawing of movement of intention. But what we bring into existence into the material world, it has to come from purity. It has to be truthful. And also, Stan, what I think it needs a need.
00:16:10 - Stan Lai
Totally.
00:16:11 - Meilin Ehlke
I would like to add a thing. I don't paint often, but I paint over and over. I use nowadays plant pigment and earth pigments to paint, because I can go into conversation even with the pigments. Right.
00:16:27 - Stan Lai
That's great.
00:16:30 - Meilin Ehlke
But what comes often I couldn't paint if I know there's an exhibit in three quarters of a year, in nine months, until the day of, then I just have one painting or two. Just shortly before, because I can sense what is needed. And each piece I remember, and one wasn't even done, and the one that wasn't done yet brought a person into tears while they were looking at. On someone else. Right, so there is something. If we paint, if we make music, why is some music for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, why are some other things have surpassed thousands of years? Because there was the dedication to all and to something that is needed within all of us. That's what I think. That carries us.
00:17:25 - Stan Lai
That's quite profound.
00:17:27 - Meilin Ehlke
That really carries on forward. There has to be. Maybe it is the purpose of the being on this earth that does this.
00:17:39 - Stan Lai
Yeah, I mean, that's very profound. Meilin, I think you are. I would love to see your paintings. I'm sure they're very wonderful. You know, in the book, I talk about this need, and I call it the motivation for doing art. And you're totally right, you know, but what you're talking about is on a different level. It's already on a quite profound level of sharing. Of linking into. I mean, your podcast name the oneness of things. Linking in and then expressing from there. Okay, that's on a totally different level than what most people do.
But what I wanted to say was like, we all feel a need to express, but I question that. I say, is that enough to be able to say, okay, so I'm an artist, you know, because we all need to express, but sometimes we're not very good at it, and then we don't. We never crack into the business and become an artist, you know, or a musician or whatever. We're not good enough. But sometimes we think we're entitled to do these things.
But in the end, the question is what you were just talking about, who is it for? You know. If it's just for yourself to. To satisfy your own some sort of inner need or some sort of psychological need, then my answer would be then. Or my question would then be, who needs to see it, this art? You know, do I need to see it or is it just for you? Or do you think. I mean, what makes you so arrogant to think that what you are painting or what you are writing needs to be seen by other people. If it's only used to heal yourself or to express yourself.
So when you get later in the book, near the end. Meilin, I have a question which me. Which is basically that I think the great art of the world, of humanity is made to transform. But the question must be asked is transform from where to where? And I think you are answering that question already when you were describing your own painting and where it comes from and where it's going. So you want to transform. I mean, the greatest art, it always is transformative. We go there and then we're changed. And how are we changed? My feeling of it is that we are. We are changed by being connected. We are connected to something bigger than ourselves. And if you want to call that oneness, then I'm sure you will call it oneness. I'm fine with that.
00:20:26 - Meilin Ehlke
But there is a, you know, there is a one sound. Oneness is compiled out of the one light, right? Shamanically looking at it, there are several parts to this oneness. And so there is a chorus sound, music. And our words are spoken. The vibrations of our particles in our body create sound. So when we are open to taking that in and we come together. I love that that you said the connection, because I think creativity is by itself, but it also needs another person or several other people to nudge it out of you. So as a professor, I think every student must be happy or lucky to have you as a professor. Because you invite them to speak out what they think.
00:21:29 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:21:30 - Meilin Ehlke
I had to think through my college. I remember I studied business first here in Switzerland. And you needed six weeks to meet a professor. You had to sign in.
00:21:40 - Stan Lai
Oh, no.
00:22:41 - Meilin Ehlke
Because they were not really professors. They came in okay. They were also in,
00:22:46 - Stan Lai
I see.
00:22:47 - Meilin Ehlke
outside, in the private sector, right. But when I studied then later landscape architecture, which I love because I could doing a lot of different things and connecting them. But the doors of the professors, they were always open. And you were going out then maybe to a bar. And there you would meet professors too, and people from other settings. So. So also then the style of university on a campus where conversation was invited. What is needed? Because you have to see so many different perspectives of life, different ways of thinking, different cultures, how they react even to a word. And also when you universities that came again, I had to think a lot about while I was reading your book.
At the beginning universities, you went there for discourse. And we have lost that. If I'm looking now, at my son, he goes. He doesn't have to travel, so he can stay home. But it. It's so segregated. There is no community that forms. There's no intercourse. They go there, they come home. Sometimes they didn't go even to class. They become. Because they have the computer then go meeting over zoom. Right. So this is missing. And Lucky is one good professor. But do they have time to speak with the one who's teaching? Is the teacher there to be able to tickle out, to take a moment to be in the field of a student, sense its energy, feel its future?
Yeah, that's. I think I got out of you, reading your book. That is also your interest in your students. Now, you're born for this. So is there the healer and the artist within you, Stan? Yeah, you're laughing. But it has to be innate in you, other people. And you must like people, too. You love them. Otherwise you wouldn't put your audience in the circle and perform around them. So what is it that makes you so fascinated also by a person?
00:24:15 - Stan Lai
Totally. What you're saying is true. I never thought of myself as a healer. But it's funny. These days, people call my work therapeutic, and therefore they consider the theater to be a therapeutic place. And in my studies, I realized that, you know, like in the Greek. In the ancient Greek world, you have a theater and you have a temple and you have a hospital. And they're together. You know, they're always. These things are bunched together as a civic, you know, trinity there. And so you need the hospital for the body and you need the theater and for the mind, and I guess you need the temple for the spirit, you know, so it all has to go together.
And, you know, I've been doing theater for over 40 years, writing plays mostly, all original work. And the questions pile up after a while. Meilin. It's like, you know, not too many people get to write as many plays as I have or that are performed. And after a while, you really question yourself. What more do I have to say to the world? You know, if I gave. If I gave someone a microphone and they could talk, and every year they have something new to say, who would listen to them after 40 years, you know, it's really kind of humbling to think that way.
But what I do, though, is what you were just alluding to is I never cease to be curious about people, you know, and I always am thinking of making something for the world, you know, it's. Is it for myself or for the world? I always Ask myself that. And it can never, I mean, it can never be purely for the world. That's too difficult. I don't, think too very many artists are like that. I, I find people like, like Fra Angelico in the, in the Renaissance. If you look at his work, you say, my God, this, this, this guy, he was, I mean, he's so altruistic. His work is just for his fellow monks and the word and for the world. And you can feel that in the art. But he's very rare. He's so rare. And, and I can aspire to that.
But I know that when I'm working on a new project, there's still a lot of ego in me. There's still a lot of me that is, that needs to be expressed, you know, but, you know, I think it's, it's a strange sort of dilemma that we're in, you know, I mean, after doing it for so many years, I ask myself, is it, do I still have anything to say? And if I do, if the answer is affirmative, then I continue to work, you know, Otherwise I don't think it's worth it.
But what you say is so totally true. We are living in an age where, where person to person communication is so rare. As you say, students in school, your son, they don't have to go to school, they don't have to. And you know, and it's just, it's. The theater then becomes an important place where people can actually see someone up there live doing theater. I recently saw a review about a performance in New York where everyone is wearing, you know, VR glasses, headsets, and they're watching a pre recorded thing. They say it's what an experience, you know, but to me, I'm going, you're kind of defeating the purpose of live theater, aren't you? If you're, if you're doing that. Because I think the real, the real treasure of the theater is that we can, is people can be, you know, facing each other and we can be telling the stories of our time, of our place. And these stories mean something to us, you know, and that's how we do it.
00:28:24 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah, because there's the presence first, I think we don't just see someone on stage, we can feel.
00:28:32 - Stan Lai
No.
00:28:33 - Meilin Ehlke
So, I have to think about an audience. If I'm in the audience, I'm surrounded by people. There's the breath, there's the smells, It's a lot of stimuli. But then you have the stage. If it's in front of you. You've changed the stages. You've very, again, shamanic circle style, right? Very old going back in the stone age, right?
00:28:58 - Stan Lai
I think so.
00:29:01 - Meilin Ehlke
Because what does a circle. It all makes us wand where there is no hierarchy, right?
00:29:09 - Stan Lai
Right.
00:29:10 - Meilin Ehlke
If you have someone on the stage or around you, you feel their energy, you feel their light. A person can touch someone else and transform someone without saying a word. And then you have movement. And it's. If there's an intention in the movement as well, which is theater also, right?
00:29:32 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:29:33 - Meilin Ehlke
There is intention in the movement. It's not just the spoken word. It's the thousand expressions on a face.
00:29:41 - Stan Lai
Right.
00:29:42 - Meilin Ehlke
And each performance is a tiny little bit different. Like the pre recorded,
00:29:44 - Stan Lai
Totally
00:29:46 - Meilin Ehlke
I think it is nice, but it's different if a different person is there because then the actors or the person who brings over the wisdom or speech, whatever. If you're a singer, I want that you touch it and you. You read the audience and you read the audience and then you can bring that kind of energy in. I think that is important to see.
That came clear to me once I was in Las Vegas. I wanted to be once on stage.
00:30:18 - Stan Lai
Ohhh, OK.
00:30:20 - Meilin Ehlke
I went to Las Vegas. I was on the Inspire Theater. But it's very difficult for me to memorize. So I thought, oh, what am I going to do? It's like 18 minutes. I cannot memorize. But what the pre setting did, it invited me to look at my life experiences and what is important? What do I even want to share? Is there anything interesting for other people? So I boiled it down to, I don't know, a short poem. I even had a tough time remembering that. But I went on stage and I thought, what do I do? The fastest way they can feel who I am is sing. So I just did a shamanic sound and then I went into my short poem. But by then, what has happened? We went into relationship.
00:31:11 - Stan Lai
Yes, yes.
00:31:12 - Meilin Ehlke
They understood who's on stage, who I am a little bit. And I showed a little of my faults and my strengths in that poem. And then the topics came out. It was like, you know, like in. In a pharmacy you have all these things where they have the medication in. That's.
00:31:33 - Stan Lai
Yes, yes.
00:31:34 - Meilin Ehlke
One story after the other. That was medication. I could adjust. And I remember the rappers who were behind us for the evening show because we were too long. It took longer than anticipated. They were knocking on the door behind me to get on stage so everyone could feel it. But even that I integrated into that talk and that speech, right? It was not a nuisance. Then people could be touched and people came later then and said, oh, you spoke to this and this.
This is important also to see if we're free enough to bring in that wisdom, to channel what is needed. And each person is also so important, we channel our beingness into the world.
00:32:20 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:32:22 - Meilin Ehlke
So this is really important, I think. Why even as a teacher in a classroom, are you a teacher who stands in front or do, are you a teacher that walks maybe through the room and invites others? Yeah, so that is important in my eyes as well. Being present in the moment and reading and then building out of that something. Probably you do that in the theater anyway.
00:32:45 - Stan Lai
But Meilin, then we come back to the central, we come back to the central question. Then as a teacher, then what are you teaching your students? I mean, is it wisdom or is it method? And if you're thinking of teaching wisdom, how are you going to do that? You know what you are saying approaching your professors is you're trying to be, you're trying to let the wisdom sort of maybe just rub off of them.
00:33:11 - Stan Lai
You know, it's like some sort of, you know, sparkle or something like that that, you know, I know my students like because I teach directing, I teach playwriting, it's very one on one, you know, and so they, they have a lot of time being with me and, and all I can do is hope.
00:33:30 - Stan Lai
In my old days, all I could do was hope that whatever I knew we could be given to them. But it's not a sure thing, right? How, how can you give them like my plays, right? Even today, if, if an assistant wants to, to remount one of my, my earlier plays, I tell them there is a code to this work, to this piece of art and you have to know the code to be able to reconstruct it. You see, because now nowadays, and, and I get. I, as you may know, I run a. Two theater festivals. One is called the Wuzhen Theater Festival in China. And it's one of the most, become one of the most prominent festivals in Asia. And we get a lot of German theater groups coming in. The big Berlin groups, Hamburg, they come in and everyone is waiting to see their interpretation of Shakespeare or whatever.
It's like if Shakespeare could tell you Hamlet has a code and you have to do it this way or it's not going to work. The modern director will say, okay, that's you, William Shakespeare. I don't care about that. I'm going to do what I need to do. Of course I'm thinking Of now I'm not thinking of posterity, I'm only thinking of now when people are still watching my works. Who, if I'm not directing myself, if maybe I put the final touches on it, but if one of my assistants is doing it, how much do they need to know? Or if somebody I didn't know was doing it, which, which happened recently for my eight hour play, A Dream Like a Dream. Some people staged it in director, staged it in Massachusetts, in America, and did not go by any of my code. And so I'm still waiting to see what that became. But in my mind there's a code and if you want to reproduce the work, you should go by the code.
00:35:30 - Stan Lai
And that sort of is against everything I taught when I was a teacher. Because when I was a teacher, when I told. Taught my students, I said, okay, you're doing Bertolt Brecht. You know, you do it your way. You don't do it his way, you know, because you don't know exactly how he did it. So you, you do what inspires you. If you're doing Chekhov, you know, you do it your way.
One year, I remember I was at the festival and I was interviewing on stage one of the directors who did a. A Seagull from Chekhov. And I asked him because I personally thought that it was a little strange the way he ended it. I said, why did you choose to do this very difficult play? And he said, the truth is I don't know anything about Chekhov. And that's why I wanted to do the play.
00:36:24 - Meilin Ehlke
Uh.
00:36: 25 - Stan Lai
Oh, well, you see, Meilin, do you see what I'm saying? This is.
00:36:28 - Stan Lai
He's entitled to say that and he's entitled to do that. And we all think, yeah, that's cool, you know, you don't know anything about this certain thing, you know, so you wanna, it's like what you're saying, like shamanistic. I don't know anything about shamans, so I'm gonna become a shaman, you know.
00:36:45 - Meilin Ehlke
No, you're born like one. I get it. Yeah.
00:36:46 - Stan Lai
You see, it doesn't work that way. It's like, you can't justify the fact that you're going to try to do Mozart just because you don't know anything about Mozart. Yeah.
00:36:59 - Meilin Ehlke
But there is a pull. There's an interest, right? So we're pulled to something and I think maybe that's. Young children already had to think about it. Do we give them enough lead way? That's why I like the Finnish education system, right? They send the young children like the first four grades, they send them outside in the afternoon, they don't give homework. And then they play, they roam, they climb trees, they explore, they see and they come up with questions. And you speak a lot about questioning as well. And then they come to the teacher and the teacher converses with them and sees how they can help them answer and explore even more or find answers when they come out.
So this is really fascinating because they react to the personal interest. And I think we have lost that a little bit. Right. Our schools are built mainly for style of what you have to be good in memorizing. And maybe you are a girl, a woman, then you are off better. They know already a long time. Boys need to move. Why don't you make a move in the classroom? Luckily, right? So why are we still doing all these old things? And that's why I love that you brought that book out.
And that's everyone. I set the intention that this conversion. If you read also his book, if you're in a situation where you have the power to change things in classrooms, please do it now. You know, it's time that we don't judge so much and that we explore what is in each person. And I come from a German culture where we tell people, children what to do.
00:38:46 - Stan Lai
Hahaha. Chinese too.
00:38:47 - Meilin Ehlke
And I had now a teacher, he's Native American. Yeah, they don't tell anything. They let them explore. And that it can be dangerous. Yes. But then I had my own experience and as you said so beautifully before, Stan, I have to find my own answers because people can tell me thousand times, oh, yeah, yeah, you're good or you're not so good in this. But I have to stand there in my body, say, yes, I can do this and let's work with that. What I'm good in. And this is missing a little bit.
00:39:15 - Stan Lai
And then it's yours.
00:39:17 - Meilin Ehlke
And it's mine and it's Meilinish. I always use the word Meilinish. What is Meilinish?
00:39:19 - Stan Lai
Yes you are it.
00:39:20 - Meilin Ehlke
And it's unique. Right.
00:39:22 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:39:23 - Meilin Ehlke
I have a Chinese name,
00:39:25 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:39:26 - Meilin Ehlke
but I'm a German. And I have an American dad. So I'm such a mix. And I've lived in different places. I've been fed by the landscape of different regions. That makes me who I am. And then my interests. And do we look at that enough in any art? Right? Are there too many critics that just write something and they don't even feel. Have a feeling in them, in the words that they write?
00:39:58 - Stan Lai
Yeah.
00:40:00 - Meilin Ehlke
It's just things. And is there art that is good or not good? Who judges it? There is no judgment really there shouldn't be any judgment. But do you feel good or you don't feel good and that is the simple thing, or does it push you.
00:40:14 - Stan Lai
Well, to me there shouldn't be judgment, but there are things that we can see in things that people express, whether it's art or whatever, if they're into whatever line of work. And that is what are you trying to achieve? You know, what, what is your goal?
Because I do speak about a very difficult topic of, you know, creativity being a double edged thing. Because, we all glorify all of the, the, the, the generals of, of the great, you know, strategists of the past, you know, but their creativity was all for the, for the means of killing people, you know, and so we call that creative. Yes, I'm afraid we do have to call that creative, including things that we see today, like you know, bombs put into beeper phones, you know, or whatever. It's like, you know, it's officially been called very creative.
But can you see there where, what you need and what your motivation is, that comes in at the very beginning when you start a project. And so if you start a project with something that is extremely cruel, then that thing becomes very cruel, you know, that you can't escape it. If you start something with love or you start something with very deep feeling, that's the thing that's going to come out and shine at the end.
Whatever is there at the beginning, at the up upstream, it's going to happen downstream. If you don't put it upstream, there's no way you're gonna, in the last moment be able to put something, you know, you put some love into that bomb. That's not possible at all. It just doesn't, doesn't work that way, you know. So put a lot of emphasis on that. And in a way that what you put into it, that is your wisdom. You know, so what, what you think about, your whole ideas about the world, about life, that's, that all goes into your work and that is what happens at the source, at the beginning of what you're trying to do.
You know, I did write a little bit about this experience I had in Bhutan, a very remote mountain in Bhutan. I was trekking with this British guy and he said, he was helping install an education system for Bhutan, the Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas, where everything is based on the students, the kids, elementary school kids knowing everything about the things that they saw or used that day, where it came from and where it was going to go.
00:43:08 - Meilin Ehlke
Oh, interesting.
00:43:10 - Stan Lai
Yeah. So if they brought lunch, let's say. So the box, the bento box, they brought it in. Where did it come from? What is it made of? Where. Where does everything that is made of in that box come from? And then where does it go and what happens to it, you know, or the. Or the soccer ball that they're kicking or. Or just the plant that they're eating, the. The vegetable that they're eating, you know? And I thought that was an amazing way to think about education, you know. Because what it's doing is it's teaching you to not only understand, but to place value on everything's cause and everything's effect. And you are realizing that anything that happens in life may be caused by you, yourself.
00:43:49 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes, yes.
00:44:00 - Stan Lai
And so who are you complaining to if everything happened because of yourself, you know?
00:44:06 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes, yes. So we set our future. Do we live into our future? Yes, yes. You know, you were speaking. Where is the source from? In one of your drawings? I think it has a line. You have an arrow and a line. So for me, in our teachings, we go into the source and into the non material a lot. So where does everything start from? And what principles are there? And you touched on those. We break it down to intent, right? The principles even of the intent. And once it crosses this line, you had drawn that too, then it comes into existence. We call it an intention. And what you have set out.
So, yeah, you're so right. What principles do we also create from our beingness,
00:44:57 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:44:58 - Meilin Ehlke
and our life experiences and the intentions and the desires and understanding what is needed and how strong is our will to put that into the world? And are we aware and open enough to let that come through?
So you asked me before, I love to invite people to really stay open, to go into higher frequencies. Art does that. You do that with your beautiful work, your movies, your plays, you bring them into, in a way, in a trance, even that sit around, right, so they can really go higher and take it in. And the we create.
00:45:44 - Stan Lai
I wouldn't call it a trance.
00:45:46 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah, in a way, you bring the vibration higher. Let's put it this way. It is. It's a setting. You want to do something with them, right? How do you transform so you have the vibration has to change too.
00:46:01 - Stan Lai
You bring them into a reality. It's a different reality. I don't. I wouldn't call it a trance. You may call it a trance. I'm fine with that. It's just that I consider it. If you're skilled as a playwright and director, you can bring the audience into a different world. And when they're in that world, they're comfortably in that world, and they stay there until you ask them to. To leave, which is at the end of the show, if you're not skilled enough, they come out in the middle, you know, and then they wander. Their. Their minds wander. But if you're skilled, you keep them in that. In that zone or in that world or in that trance, whatever you would like to call it. And in that. If you call it a higher frequency, I just call it a different frequency, then the question still remains is what are you trying to achieve in that frequency? What are you giving them?
00:46:50 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah, that's my question. If you take someone in for eight hours, one of your play, I understand right now, how do you do.
00:46:58 - Stan Lai
yes, 8 hours. Right. It is called 'A Dream like a Dream'.
00:47:02 Meilin Ehlke
That is a gift. Yeah, but how do you do to keep me as a person in the audience, submerged in a way, in that other reality? That powerful in my eyes?
00:47:14 - Stan Lai
Well, the first answer is, I have three intermissions, you know, and one of them is. Is long enough to have dinner. So it's not. It's not eight straight hours. It's not like sleeping eight hours. So there are three intermissions. But the question is valid because totally. What am I trying to give them? You know, if as an artist, you have to ask yourself, what am I giving them? And you say, oh, this is the purity of my soul. I'm giving them that. And then the question is, so why do people see the purity of your soul? What if you are actually giving them some subconscious garbage in your. In your soul, and you're. What you're doing in a performance is basically taking out your garbage, throwing out your garbage. I felt that way as an audience. I've been at performances where I. I feel I'm dumped on, you know, or vomited on, even, you know, that serious. So what. Why do you want to do that? And why do you want to do that to a group of people who have paid to sit there in front of you? These are hard questions. You know, you have to know that the questions exist, and then you have to answer them if you want. If you want to be an artist and have your work, you know, seen in public.
00:48:34 - Meilin Ehlke
What came into my mind. Someone went to the opera recently, a friend of mine, and she came, she walked out, because I think it was La Traviata. And they showed on a movie, rape scenes. And I thought, how can you do that? Right? So what has changed? Because what is being created.
Another thing. So you influencing also young people or the director or teachers or professors. Is that now a fad to do this?
Oh, I. But I did also looked up, as I did not know what crosstalk was. So I researched that yesterday and there is a small group called Crosstalk Einstein Troupe.
00:49:23 - Stan Lai
Really?
00:49:24 - Meilin Ehlke
And five Chinese guys who started that again with the topics of the modern world. You know, if you're on your cell phone.
00:49:33 - Stan Lai
In German in Germany?
00:49:36 - Meilin Ehlke
No, I thought Einstein Troupe crosstalk in Taiwan. I think if I remember that correctly. And they're doing well, they revitalized it and brought it into also the modern world, which you did. I have to tell that everyone. You, Stan, if I understood the crosstalk you created new way of the old ancient China style. If I understood it correctly.
00:50:03 - Stan Lai
It's a Chinese stand-up comedy
00:50:05 - Meilin Ehlke
Stand up comedy. And you did it. And so many people watched it. Millions of people downloaded it.
00:50:13 - Stan Lai
It died, it is an art.
00:50:17 - Meilin Ehlke
And you have people doing it without permission in the ten thousands. You hold a record for this. So there is something that you do that touches people. That what you do. And that was also in your book. It's you. You bring thought out. You made me write. I had ideas. Can't be fast enough in implementing it.
00:50:43 - Stan Lai
That is great.
00:50:44 - Meilin Ehlke
But I wrote it down and then I can't wait to read the next and reread your book. Because you can read a thousand times, I think. Or watch probably your plays.
00:50:53 - Stan Lai
Thank you so much. You're too kind. You have to see a play of mine.
00:50:57 - Meilin Ehlke
There is something about you. Yes, I will. I tried one the movie. I looked for Dream like a Dream or Blossom.
00:51:06 - Stan Lai
Dream like a Dream. None of that is online. It's live theater, you know. So you have to see it.
00:51:10 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah, now. So I have to. Yeah, yeah. I have to come maybe one day to China and watch it.
00:51:16 - Stan Lai
Oh yes. Or we come to you sometime. Yeah, that may happen also. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.
00:51:23 - Meilin Ehlke
And I also wanted to say is, you did a. That came yesterday. I was reading that you worked on the closing ceremony for the Olympics in Beijing.
00:51:38 - Stan Lai
Yes. Not the Beijing Olympics. The deaflympics in Taipei.
00:51:41- Meilin Ehlke
Ah, the deaflympics.
00:51:43 - Stan Lai
Yes, yes.
00:51:45 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah. And it was yesterday, the closing of the Olympics 2026.
00:51:49 - Stan Lai
No, that was.
00:51:51 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes, that I thought it was a funny thing, that I read about it on the day, when it was the closing ceremony of the Olympics. So the divine timing. Why do we come together? So this is another question. You didn't have so much in right. Is it the divine timing? When do we do things? And is it also the creativity more and more.
00:52:15 - Stan Lai
Meilin, I think. I don't think in terms of divine. I think in terms of natural.
00:52:20 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah, Natural State. Yeah.
00:52:20 - Stan Lai
Yeah. It's just. We just go with it and it happens and it happens with. With so many coincidences that you don't call them coincidences anymore. You know, it's. It's like, you know, I'm sure if. If we talked more, we would find common friends and then pretty soon we'd be related, right? Yeah. It's like the world is vast, but it's also very small. And each footstep that we take comes from the footstep previous. And so we are moving somewhere. Everyone is moving somewhere. And so to be able to meet like this is very precious.
00:53:06 - Meilin Ehlke
I really think so.
00:53:08 - Stan Lai
I really think so, you know, so I really think it's not by accident, you know?
00:53:14 - Meilin Ehlke
No, never.
00:53:16 - Stan Lai
Never.
00:53:17 - Meilin Ehlke
When you have an intent. No.
00:53:20 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:53:21 - Meilin Ehlke
Can't even explain it. I think I could give a. A method behind it. But sometimes life is the method.
00:53:30 - Stan Lai
Right? Life is the method. And life is the wisdom also. Both.
00:53:34 - Meilin Ehlke
And life. Creativity comes out of life. And putting the method. I think for me, the method in my creativity is there, if I'm cooking, I'm doing the household. That is also art. Right. Each mother, puts that in.
00:53:53 - Stan Lai
I think so. Definitely.
00:53: - Meilin Ehlke
How do you react? And my big wish is that we let children be more who there that we give them a room. So something you do also in theater and maybe speak that into that a little bit, you create a room where they can explore. And it would be nice. The big wish for me that parents do that more and more give their children the room where they can explore. Where there are not too many rules and see what makes them tickle and where to go. Or even in relationships, in partners, in a business field. Right. So how do you have a tip how people can create a room and in a way feel comfortable in standing back or just being present as the other unfolds?
00:54:49 - Stan Lai
Well, I can speak a little bit about the use of improvisation in the arts, because I use a lot of improvisation in my work. I started 40 years ago, basically using improvisation to build plays with my actors. But if you want to create a room where people can do things freely, the main thing is you need to set parameters. You can't just say, this is a room and you can do. And just go, I can't say to you, let's do an improvisation start. You need a topic, you need to know, what am I doing? Who am I? What is the situation? And then you can improvise, and then you can be free to do whatever you want.
So for me, as a Theater artist. What I did in those days, I don't have the chance to do much of it today because my actors have all become too. Too busy, is that they come and then you say, okay, we're working on a play. This is the vision for the play. So, you know, the vision. And then these are the characters. You are so and so. You are so and so. And we put you together in a room, and then you just. You just take the ball and run. You react to this parameters that I've set up, and in the end, I find that I've written a play. But you may know more about the character than I do because you create the character.
00:56:19 - Meilin Ehlke
Ahh.
00:56:20 - Stan Lai
And for the actor, that's very liberating. And it's like they're not just handed a script and. And say, just, you know, do this, but they are creating the character based on. On all of the parameters that I've set up. And actually we discussed some things. Like many of the. The very great actors that I worked with in, at the beginning of my career, they turned out to be some of the finest actors in the Chinese language.
We were friends, you know, we were. We would be, you know, having dinner after the rehearsal or whatever, and we're talking about these characters as if they're really people. You know, And they would be very. They would be. Let me put it this way, they would show their displeasure at any. At any moment to me, which is, you know, not always happens these days in my rehearsal room because I don't have time to. To talk to the actors that much, you know, but in those days, they would be saying, listen, Stan, this guy, this character shouldn't be. You shouldn't. He shouldn't come from this city. He should come from that city. And I say, why? And we can discuss. We can have all these crazy, you know, dialogues about what is the sign? Is this a Sagittarius or is this a Gemini? You know, that. Who. You know, the character and about the character's past and the future, the whole profession and everything. Because if you set these things up properly, then you have the makings of a good play.
But then again, you see, where it comes down to this is a method. But where is the wisdom to this method? The wisdom to this method means that I would need to know everything about this character to be set correctly to make a good play. How do I know? So this is where you're training is not in method but is in wisdom. You have to know. And the knowing Is the wisdom. And that's a difficult thing to achieve. You have to really work on it in your life.
00:58:27 - Meilin Ehlke
So the trusting oneself in the decision you make
00:58:30 - Stan Lai
You have to.
00:58:32
Or if even sometimes it feels it's awkward or. And maybe I have to use myself as an example here again. But I, had to learn that I channel. But I don't have, you know, some, I don't see things like some other people. And they can translate that. Some people hear very well and they translate. I had to trust when I open my mouth, suddenly talk of certain topic, that it will talk touch the other person. And that took time. So that also means we have time in exploring the way we function.
Or you gave permission to explore that the actors could explore the character.
00:59:24 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:59:25 - Meilin Ehlke
and fine tune it and bring their wisdom in and see does this work.
00:59:27 - Stan Lai
Yes.
00:59:28 - Meilin Ehlke
And in relationship to all the others that are doing that in the moment. So you like the sun, right? You're giving the sun, you're giving the light. If you think about it and you let it sprout. I have a lot of landscape metaphores.
00:59:56 Stan Lai
Oh, I am not the sun. I am the plant. I fenced them in.
00:59:58 - Meilin Ehlke
But each plant is different. And it grows different or exposed how tight it is to others or if there's enough water or new nutrients. And you're giving a lot of nutrients and flexibility. Uh, there's a good, you know, there's no resistance anymore then. So first of all, they trust you to explore themselves,
01:00:17 - Stan Lai
oh yes.
01:00:18 - Meilin Ehlke
and that you listen and see them in what is coming out. So maybe that is another reason. Is that also a method? Is that is maybe also a method in letting them experience.
01:00:29 - Stan Lai
Yes. Yeah, it's a method that works both ways because it's a trust that between myself and my actors who are collaborators. And I trust them to understand the character, but they trust me to shape the work into the final form. And they don't question that in the end, when the play is done and we're performing for an audience, they totally have their trust that this is the way the place should be. You know, it shouldn't be any other way.
01:01:01 - Meilin Ehlke
And then the trust that you finally that they are allowed to adapt it again in the moment when you perform. Right. So, I think that makes the difference.
01:01:09 - Stan Lai
Yes. You were saying, right. What you were saying is so important because that trust also emanates out into the audience. The audience feels the trust. And you can feel it when you're watching a performance that is created through trust and love and sincerity. That is so different from seeing a group of people who just came together for a paycheck, you know.
01:01:37 - Meilin Ehlke
And the trust so if you feel. If you trust me. I trust myself and I trust you, let's say. And I'm an actor that spurts my creativity. So we can only be, I think, often creative when we can be true. And it doesn't matter if it's under stress or not stress. Sometimes stress is nice. Or time restraints. Something really comes out fast. Right. The best things come our because you don't think.
01:02:09 - Stan LaiBut you have to know that. You have to know that you have. That you're totally, you know, you have the permission to do whatever you want.
01:02:18 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes. That is the method.
01:02:19 - Stan Lai
That's very important. Yes.
01:02:22 - Meilin Ehlke
Wow, wow, wow. Thank you, Stan. You have so many beautiful impulses to support people, to be creative on any endeavor they have. So everyone read his book and it's called creativitRy, right?
01:02:43 - Stan Lai
Yes.
01:02:43 - Meilin Ehlke
You can say it.
01:02:44 - Stan Lai
Yes.
01:02:45 - Meilin Ehlke
Asia's iconic playwright reveals the art of creativity. I'm going to show it one more time.
01:02:51 - Stan Lai
Oh, thank you so much.
01:02:52 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes, it is. It really is. It spurts the creativity. And I think, Stan, it's so important that we allow ourselves to be creative. We allow others to be creative. Like when you, as you said, you give the impulse, but they can play with the impulse. And so it's interesting that you say the word playwrite. And if I take the word play and write apart,
01:03:20 - Stan Lai
Yes.
01:03:21 - Meilin Ehlke
that means play again. We don't play enough anymore in this world.
01:03:24 - Stan Lai
Right, Right.
01:03:25 - Meilin Ehlke
So much gets lost because we're not with each other and we don't play so much. And then play right, you know?
01:03:32 - Stan Lai
Yes.
01:03:33 - Meilin Ehlke
It's not just the right as writing,
01:03:35 - Stan Lai
No.
01:03:36 - Meilin Ehlke
but also the right of the correct way. Play as you desire. That is maybe what I call also explore.
01:03:42 - Stan Lai
But also the word write, which I wrote in another. In the selected plays that I translated of my own. I have something about the word playwright. Write does not mean write like writing a letter, but it is the word for like wrought iron, you know like you. You write the iron. It's that word. You're, you know, like a. Like a shoesmith or an ironsmith that kind of write wrought. So you know, in Chinese, the word for play is the same. It's amazing. It means play. It means have fun and play. But the word for writing a play is to weave a play. You weave like you're weaving a basket, you know. So if you're writing a play, it's not writing the words, it's rotting. It's like making this beautiful sculpture, you know. I think that's the way that Shakespeare, all these people that's what they were thinking when they're doing. And not just using a pen to write. It's a play is something that is so three, four dimensional, you know, goes all into these different frequencies that it's not just using your pen or your computer.
01:05:05 - Meilin Ehlke
Uh, that. You know, playwright is really just every moment in life we should be playing and weaving our life.
01:05:11 - Stan Lai
And what you were saying was so inspirational to me. Right, Weaving. Yes. Because Meilin, you know, what you were saying is so inspirational. It's like life is so creative, you know, so how can you not be creative? You really have to embrace that creativity, which is life itself.
01:05:31 - Meilin Ehlke
Yeah. That is a beautiful work. Oh, Stan. Everyone, if you heard the wisdom that comes out, the calmness out of Stan, the truth, the wisdom. You're very wise.
01:05:49 - Stan Lai
No, no, no. I only aspire.
01:05:52 - Meilin Ehlke
I think you were born as a wise being. Expressing. Yeah. There is, you know, a wisdom carrier and expressing wisdom. They exist also and we have shrunk them down. So that there's another kind of where people can go to an ask and feel free again to ask and go back and become creative because they were able to ask someone that question,
01:06:23 - Stan Lai
Yes.
01:06:24 - Meilin Ehlke
or be shown something or, you know,
01:06:26 - Stan Lai
Right.
01:06:27 - Meilin Ehlke
or maybe just a hint of how can you answer your own question better or something like this. Or send them on a journey so they explore themselves. And Stan. So thank you very much and I'm intrigued to learn more about your work. It's on my bucket list to go to China. I've read so much when I was a young girl.
01:06:47 - Stan Lai
Please come, come. Yes. See one of my productions somewhere.
01:06:53 - Meilin Ehlke
That would be fascinating. I'm really setting intention on that.
01:06:58 - Stan Lai
And tell me what you think about the rest of the book, please. I'm very curious. Once you finish it.
01:07:05 - Meilin Ehlke
Yes. Look, all the pages I'm writing.
01:07:08 - Stan Lai
Oh no, Oh my gosh.
01:07:12 - Meilin Ehlke
I am not a person that writes a lot not comes on top of it.
01:07:16 - Stan Lai
Oh, wow.
01:07:17 - Meilin Ehlke
So you see, and I had to write about my life in another book. I had to stop reading and write. And then I go for walks and then the ideas just swirl in. You open up people, Stan. You open people up.
01:07:32 - Stan Lai
Thank you.
01:07:33 - Meilin Ehlke
As I said again, there is no resistance suddenly and it can flow. And it's the connection to the cosmos. Cosmic. It's the connection to the earth. It's the connection to other people and to connection to ourselves and to our source from where we can source our creativity from. Yes. And put it sometimes into a method and maybe not put it sometimes in a method and see what happens.
01:07:59 - Stan Lai
That's the method too. Yes. Right.
01:08:07 - Meilin Ehlke
Ach so. Oh, wonderful. So do you have the last wsdom, the words, something to give at the end to make it around.
01:08:23 - Stan Lai
Hmm. I just have my wishes that everyone really embrace the creativity of life. And then you will see how actually it is to me. The life, if you really take it apart and see really inside there is something very beautiful and glowing about it that is closer to compassion than cruelty. And so we really should see that and see how everything in the world happens and grows because of love and compassion. And that is, to me, that is a place of wisdom. Yeah.
01:09:09 - Meilin Ehlke
So beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Stan.
01:09:13 - Stan Lai
No, thank you for having me.
01:09:15 - Meilin Ehlke
Bringing your energy to the Moving to Oneness podcast. And this episode is going to travel far and touch many people's heart and creativity. So, thank you for being here.
01:09:29 - Stan Lai
Well, you've inspired me because just by having the name Moving to Oneness. You know, I think that the title itself has inspired me to say what I've said today, you know, otherwise I might not be, you know, if you. You have opened something in me, let's put it that way.
01:09:47 - Meilin Ehlke
Thank you. I'm touched.
01:09:48 - Stan Lai
Thank you.
01:09:50 - Meilin Ehlke
So I hope everyone, you feel that something is moving within you and bring it out and let your light shine out into the world. You're such a beautiful being as well. Let your creativity shine. So. this is Meilin, your host of the Moving To Wonders podcast. Have a wonderful day or evening. Bye. Bye.