Victor Koo: Re-connecting “Humanity and other beings” — The Roadmap for Transforming Individuals and Communities from the Inside Out through Tianren Culture

A Vision Rooted in Tian Ren He Yi - One with Nature

After founding the NYSE-listed multi-screen video platform Youku, Victor Koo has turned his sights to a more profound challenge: reconnecting humanity with the natural world. He founded Tianren Culture in Hong Kong around 2018. The name is derived from the classical Taoist philosophy “Tian Ren He Yi （天人合一）— the harmonious oneness of humanity and nature. The central question was stark: “What is the root cause of today’s poly-crisis—environmental degradation, zoonotic epidemics, geo-political conflicts and mental-health crisis, etc.? What is a high leverage solution at the foundational level?”

After years of exploration and contemplation, the answer became clear: the disconnection and imbalance within humanity, with other sentient beings and the natural environment we live in. The solution, then, lies in raising awareness and inner transformation at both the individual and community levels. Nothing really changes; Victor asserts, unless we address our inner connected consciousness and start shifting our values, beliefs and lifestyles.

Twin Levers: One Wisdom and One Health

Tianren Culture operates on two mutually reinforcing levers.

One Wisdom focuses on contemplative practices—meditation, breathwork, nature-based reflection etc.—to encourage and enable our inner transformation at the consciousness level to address mental, emotional and spiritual wellness.
One Health targets food-system transformation as the center of human, animal, and planetary health. The agenda ranges from flexitarian diet, factory farming reduction, fermentation and new protein product development to policy advocacy.

One Wisdom: "Encourage and Enable Inner Transformation"

One Wisdom’s goal is to encourage and enable inner transformation through communicating wisdom, enabling practices and service opportunities, and cultivating well-intentioned communities. Starting with social change-makers like NPOs and social entrepreneurs, Tianren Culture supports initiatives that cultivate the inner awareness and capacities needed to tackle complex external problems.

Tianren Culture pursues this goal through the following approaches:

（from Tianren Culture）

1. Lowering the entry barriers to encourage the adoption of beginner-friendly practices

While mindfulness is the most well-researched modality of practice, it often requires significant intentional effort for beginners. Aside from mindfulness, there are many other types of contemplative practices that might feel more natural and easier for beginners to adopt, such as breathwork, nature-based contemplation (forest bathing, gardening), and sound-based meditation. Tianren Culture supports various research and communication projects to promote beginner-friendly exercises as easy entry points for people to start contemplative practices. For example, since 2020, Tianren Culture has funded breathwork research with Stanford School of Medicine showing that just a five-minute “cyclic sigh” breath protocol significantly reduces anxiety and elevates mood. It is also currently collaborating with UC Berkeley on developing nature-based contemplation practices.

2. Leveraging with Technology for a Broader and Personalized Reach

As people progress on this path, they may need continuous guidance and support to navigate the complexity of advanced practices and spiritual wisdom. Not everyone has the luxury of direct access to great spiritual teachers on their journeys, but now there is generative and agentic AI. ServiceSpace, closely supported by Tianren Culture, is prototyping “Awakin AI,” an initiative exploring how AI could be a companion alongside inner transformation and social service. One idea is a Compassion Bot that helps users navigate their inner transformation journey by answering questions about wisdom and practices, recommending readings/videos tailored to each user’s profile and history, helping them cross the “habit-formation valley,” and connecting them with communities to maintain accountability on their committed journey.

3. Deepening Through In-person and Online Engagements

Tianren Culture nurtures a transformative array of gatherings and courses, both in-person and online, delivering systematic, in-depth learning for ‘multipliers’— changemakers like NPOs and social entrepreneurs who touch and uplift countless lives. To begin, in-person retreats and pilgrimages in Japan invite international and local changemakers to immerse themselves in nature, reconnect with the primal source ‘Earth,’ and share heartfelt conversations within a safe community. Beyond Japan, additional gatherings cross-inspired across other Asian regions will amplify the ripple. Following this, the Garrison Institute hosts two online courses this year introducing various kinds of contemplative practices to Asian changemakers, creating spaces to pause, reflect, and realign with what truly matters—empowering them to lead with clarity and purpose.

One Health: Re-Shaping the Food System for a "Nature-Centric" Future

Environmental health, human health, and animal health are closely integrated; thus, the goal of the One Health initiative is to help shift from a human-centric exploitative world to a nature-centric regenerative ecosystem. To translate One Health from principle into practice, Tianren Culture concentrates on three mutually reinforcing strategies:

（from Tianren Culture）

1. Asia-Centric Focus

Because Asia houses 60% of the world population and will drive most of the world’s new meat demand over the next 20 years, Tianren Culture is co-funding research on new proteins, particularly those cultivated from fermentation technologies, sponsoring plant-forward diet advocacy, and supporting academic policy research on forward-looking food system transformation.

2. Co-creation and Co-learning

The food system involves many different parties and perspectives; therefore, the supporting side must also be collaborative and diverse. Tianren Culture has convened a working group since 2021 with funders in health, climate, and animal welfare under shared goals and metrics to support initiatives in Asia. Projects include research on factory farming with China Agricultural University and new protein R&D grants.

3. Toward a Future Where Regenerative Choices Are the Norm

The ultimate goal of this initiative is to make regenerative, nature-centered eating a familiar and everyday choice for everyone. Sustainable food should not be seen as something special, but as a natural part of daily meals. Achieving this vision requires not only technological innovation, but also cultural shifts and changes in mindset.

Inner-Purposed and Heartful Social Service

Interactions with partners prompted Victor to rethink the nature of "giving" and reflect on other possibilities of being "catalytic." Social innovation can be transformative by designing high-leverage projects, targeting white spaces, addressing root causes, and ultimately tackling the root cause of all root causes. Yet, beyond the top-down strategies Victor once knew so well, the raw, untamed force of bottom-up social innovation can shatter expectation, touching people’s souls through inspiration, compassion, and service—an inspiration and compassion that continue to spread.

As Victor reflects, "Social innovation can be catalytic when it is strategic, but it can also be, if not even more, powerful when it is heartful." Due to this reflection, Victor now refers to Tianren Culture as a social service platform—a platform with patience to tackle root causes, open-mindedness to collaborate, and compassionate hearts to serve social good.

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