sillybearhappyhoneyeater

I've had lots of fun in my day, lets put it that way.

Thanks very much for sharing and thanks for the kind words. I'll have a more detailed look a bit later. I think when we start to train, we should try to read as much classical writing as we can. If we can master the meanings of the classics, we will already have a good foundation from which to start. I like the looks of the book you quoted from, it also looks a lot like Xian xue. :) Daoism is about kindness, Laozi said that very clearly in his three treasures chapter :)

made a mistake: the part about zhu xi, actually the quote should have said "the birth of yang within yin." The true yang and true yin are contained within each other and born of each other :)

wei wu wei and wu bu wei have basically the same meaning. Action without action, or aciton without motive are all analoguous. The key is the genuine achievement of non action or non motive as a prerequisite for this event to occur. I know there are many different branches of thought in Daoism, so I can only speak for the parts I have personally researched. In terms of attaining the genuine movement of energy in the body, the mind first has to be directed to complete silence, non action and stillness. This is corroborated in many places, even in confucian thought. Zhu Xi said that Yang is born of yin when it reaches its absolute. This is the containment of yin within yang. Incidentally, this is also the meaning when Liezi said "one births two, two birth three, three birth five, five birth seven, seven birth nine and nine returns to one." This is the nature of the birth of yin and yang in the Yijing and then in later branches of Chinese thought. The key principle being that the clear change between yin and yang occurs between the qian and kun trigrams, when they extend beyond the point of usefulness and then change into the other. Things further complicate when we use the ideas of kan and li as the water and fire contained between heaven and earth. That is why at the start of wu zhen pian, Zhang Boduan uses the analogy of lightening crashing on a stone. Huang Yuanji later explains this as meaning that when you achieve real pre birth Qi, it will be as though lightening has suddenly crashed on a stone, giving off sparks which are only briefly visible. The after effect is the full illumination of the body. This is the moment at which the emptiest, quietest moment of yin changes into yang. Much of Daoist thinking has been based around ways to maximize Yang energy through cultivating the utmost of stillness. A common exercise among certain groups is to lie like a corpse and don't allow any part of your body to move. staying completely still, even in the mind, and enforcing this is enough to get a basic movement of energy in the body. I met a master in Taiwan who advocated this practice. He was also able to send qi directly to my du mai meridian and into my head via the jade pillow. No physical movement was involved on his part (freaky, messed me up for a day or two). Anyway, I'm kind of rambling here, but my basic point is that wei wu wei is born of genuine wu wei, whether it is non action, non motive, action without action, motive without motive (remember that the wei used is always the same character here), however it is interpreted, if it is good for your practice, it is indeed good!!

I can't remember if I already posted on this thread, but I want to say that at least in the tradition of the middle school, Wu Wei really actually is a complete embrace of emptiness and total non action. If you look at the way wu wei works in daoism, you have you wei: tangible action, or intentional action, wu wei: non action wu bu wei: intangible non action, or more precisely, action without action. Action without action, at least in the Neidan schools actually means the birth of pre heaven energy created by using non action to temper kan and li in the furnace (dantian). In this case, wu wei really has to be as non involved as possible. Lu Dongbin said at the start of baizi bei "to cultivate qi, forget to say protect, focus the heart on action without action," Huang Yuanji said "hanging freely in emptiness." This is how you can "go back to the root and return to the origin," (in the words of zhang boduan). At least in the Neidan school, Wu wei has the meaning of adopting non action as a way to cultivate Qi.

Daeluin: Hu Haiya suggest not to adopt a specific posture when you meditate. What he says specifically is that the ancients sat in a cross legged posture simply because that was the custom of the time. His advice is that in order to meet with Qi, it is enough to simply sit in a comfortable position and breathe to the Dantian. Obviously the practice has many more layers to it than that, but as a basic requirement, basically you can sit in a comfortable position. Actually, I was doing a bit of work with Huang Yuanji's book yesterday, I'll pass along some notes here: 鸿蒙未兆之先，原是浑浑沦沦，绝无半点形象——虽曰无名，而天地人物咸育个中 "in the state of hong meng (before creation) and before things can be predicted (to occur), originally there is mixed chaos, with no way to see even a fraction of its image (the dao's image), so it is called "without name" (at the time of creation, heaven and earth have no name), and heaven and earth, people, animals, and natural objects are all raised from its centre." this is fundamental to understanding Huang's technique. during hong meng, before an event can even be predicted, the original nature (of the universe) will be in the chaos state, there is no chance to even fathom a fraction of its image, so that is why it is called Wu ming, and why all beings, people minerals and the world come from its centre. This passage mainly deals with how the Dao cannot be observed through "you wei," which is the biggest aspect of Haung's writing. 学人下手之初，别无他术，惟有一心端坐，万念悉捐，垂帘观照。心之下，肾之上，彷佛有个虚无窟子。神神相照，息息常归，任其一往一来，但以神气两者凝注中宫为主 "before the student can put down his hand (to practice), his art hasn't been differentiated. with one heart (focus the mind) sit upright, subtract the ten thousand thoughts (calm your mind), close the curtain and observe the illumination (close the eyes and illuminate the mind). Below the heart, above the kidney, place Buddha in his silent cave (place your mind in the solar plexus area. Actually, this works the same way as the LDT, so your choice). The spirit will seem to light up, the breath will continuously return. assign one to go and one to come, but don't forget to send both breaths to rest in the middle palace (solar plexus area)." We can see from this document that the basic of meditation in Huang's method (Qing dynasty era, Middle school) is about gaining a sense of relaxation and calm while gradually and conscsiously breathing and illuminating the Dan Tian (in this case the area inside of the solar plexus which he calls the middle palace). Some very important points here are: 惟有一心端坐，万念悉捐，垂帘观照。 with one heart sit upright, subtract all of the thoughts, close the curtain and observe the light. This section doesn't mean to sit in a full lotus or anything like that. It means that the method by which you sit should have your full attention. In this case, the word 端 duan, which is sometimes read as upright, actually just means sit in a comfortable upright position. It is ok to sit in a chair to do this, just focus on being aware of your body in space. Reducing the ten thousand thoughts just means that you should think less as you start your practice. close the curtain and observe the light means that the eyes should close as if they were curtains. There isn't any tension involved at all. observe the light means that you should illuminate the mind slightly. 神神相照，息息常归 the spirit seems to illuminate the breath continuously returns. this is very hard to translate directly, so I want to comment on it here. Daoism has a principle (from very early on, I think Zhang Boduan said it first in understanding reality) you need to be able to relax and then relax again, illuminate and then illuminate again. This is a direct interpretation of Laozi's "mystery within the mystery." The idea is that the first time you illuminate the area and relax, it will only have a superficial result. the second time you illuminate and relax, it should be much deeper. actually, this may occur many times, and ideally after a sufficient period of practice, it will become natural. I hope this is of some assistance in understanding posture and mindset, at least from the Middle school tradition of Nei Dan Dao.

Daeluin: You don't need to work with post heaven material before learning pre heaven material. Opening the Yinqiao meridian can be done direclty through seated meditation. At the time when the pre heaven Jing circulates through the body (yuan jing) it will also begin to accumulate in the yinqiao. One of the biggest things to notice when the yinqiao begins to open is that the testicles contract (naturally) and the area around the prostate begins to move on its own. This happens around the same time as "He Che," or the water cart, when the Jing begins to rise within the body. Lots of people do both jing gong (post heaven work) and neidan together, so do I, but there is no specific requirement for it. If you read Chinese, you should have a look at the book Dao De Jing Chan wei, as it is the best classic explaining pre birth training for those who haven't practiced it yet. What you are talking about is a popular idea in some parts of the Northern school, but it was never advocated by Lu Dongbin, Zhang Boduan, Yin Xi, or any of the other big names in Neidan. It is a specific belief held among some groups of people in Daoism, but it doesn't represent the big picture of Daoism. I also suggest looking into the work of Chen Yingning and Hu Haiya, since they write in much more modern language which is easier to understand. leth: Do you read Chinese? You should get the book "xian xue," immortality study by Chen Yingning. If you can't find it, you can get the book of his student, Hu Haiya, who basically collected all of Chen's essays and explained them. Xian Xue is by far the easiest to understand school in Daoism and it also includes TCM, so I suspect it would be right up your alley :)

Interesting that you mention that. Xian xue, or the immortality school, which is a 20th century Daoist school that combines Daoism with Chinese medicine and Gongfu, has an entire passage on using accupuncture as a form of external elixir practice. I don't know much about accupuncture, so I haven't bothered reading that section, since it will just be gibberish to me unless I learn TCM theory more deeply. I know there is a deep connection, but obviously each practice does something different. I am strongly of the belief that dao tong culture (culture connected to Daoism) is all complimentary and I have also done a great deal of research into the effects of tea ceremony as a type of external elixir practice.

I don't understand TCM deeply, so I may not be completely qualified to talk about the differences. I can say that in terms of comparison with Qi gong, Daoism works directly with pre birth Jing, qi and shen. Qi gong tends to work with post birth energy. The key difference is in the way the energy manifests. Very early Daoist classics didn't alk about Jing Qi and shen, but instead used the terms Xi, Yi, and Hui, or faint, deep, and invisible. Basically the idea is that Shen is invisible and can't be felt, but that it can be directed to cultivate Qi. Chen Yingning said that the relationship between Shen and Qi is that the shen boils the Jing essence of the body (basically sexual fluid) and causes steam to rise, which becomes Qi. The steam when it is further boiled evaporates and becomes shen. This is a very simplistic explanation, but it is basically right (there are actually a bunch of phases left out such as yuan shen, yuan jing and so on, but at a basic level it follows principle). qi gong focuses on the concept that the mind can move Qi in the body, so when you put your attention on a specific point, say the hand for instance, then the Qi will move there. This is very in keeping with western medical knowledge showing that the mind can actually lead blood to specific parts of the body. Qi gong is quite mixed up with the medicine idea that Qi moves in the blood as oxygen and can be directed by the mind. In Daoism this is typically called "jing gong," or "nei gong." Meditation doesn't work according to this principle, it works according to the principle of the Qi spontaneously moving from deep in the body and making the track of the du and ren mai all by itself. The feeling is also very different. I have good circulation in the du and ren mai from meditating and can say that the Qi fills the entire body from the inside out, and emerges seemingly from nowhere. Chen Yingning also used the analogy that Qi moves in meditation after yin completely finishes its course and becomes totally still and silent. at this time the Kun trigram begins to change and give birth to the Qian trigam, meaning that the energy of the body naturally becomes pure yang with no flaw. The basic principle of Neidan is to use pure yin to cause the energy of the body to revert to pure yang, pure growth, and repair of energetic injury and leaking. In a nutshell

Cured myself of schizo affective disorder and PTSD, as well as recovery from substance abuse problems. Strong body, healthy mind, great sex drive, stronger sense of moral responsibilty, learning a new language, culture, becoming an expert in tea ceremony, and learning all kinds of other rad stuff along the way. I went from being a confused, messed up nineteen year old with serious problems and potential legal problems, to a healthy, functional, happy adult in under a decade. I fixed my health, my mind, my family, and after making a complete recovery, I have used my time to share this wonderful method with other people all over the world! Daoism is so great!

Meditating does not need to be a chore, or something that you feel like you ought to do in order to attain spiritual enlightenment. Meditation should be something you look forward to and find comfortable. It should be something you can fall back on when you need it, and it should make you feel better than you did before you meditated. I have noticed that many people either have trouble finding the time to meditate, or try to make it into something overly stimulating and tiring. If you find it difficult to meditate, it means you are doing something wrong. Consider that Fu Xi said "yang moves to its absolute and becomes quiet, this gives birth to yin. yin is quiet to its absolute and returns to yang." Energy is achieved by quieting the mind to the ultimate of stillness. when you enter complete stillness, your mind will naturally turn on and Qi will begin to move by itself. This is called "huo zi shi," or the time of awakening of life. This life is your Qi and you should cultivate it in quiet and restfullness. This is as easy to accomplish as lying flat on your back and simply forcing yourself not to move. Don't focus on anything else, just make sure you don't move or tense you body in any way. If it helps, you can imagine your entire body is paralyzed while you practice and you don't have voluntary control over your muscles. Notice how your breath begins to regulate itself. Empty your mind of thoughts and relax, then relax again. This is enough to enter meditation. I hope you try it and have good luck!

http://www.tambulimedia.com/2015/08/22/yin-and-yang-in-daoist-meditation-practice/ There is a bit more free stuff here.

Jumping back into the thread for a sec, I recently read a great passage about Xing and Ming in the book immortality study, by Chen Yingning. Chen said that Ming is like the oil of a lamp and Xing is the brightness of the light being emitted from it. A lamp without oil is useless, and a lamp which has not been lit is also useless. This fits in well with the idea from Xing Ming Guizhi (the best book in Quanzhen discussing xing and ming) that Xing is the mind before it has met Shen and Ming is the body before it has met Qi. xing ming gui zhi also says that the heavens are Xing and the earth is Ming. This fits in with the idea of san yuan, where the heavens are the clarity of xing, the earth is the life of ming, and people are the combination of xing and ming, capable of using the xing mind to illuminate the ming spirit. There are a huge amount of analogous ideas all over the place in Chinese philosophy, for instance, Zhu Xi's concept of Gui Shen (ghost and spirit) as applied to the change of yin and yang in the cleaning of the Qi of the body. Most of these ideas are post Tang dynasty, and although they may not meet perfectly with ancient philosophical concepts, they can really help us understand the nature of meditation, which is quite important in the grand scheme of studying Daoism.

Chen Yingning (author of Xian Xue, and creator of the immortality study school of Daoism) thought that posture was not important to the correct practice of meditation. He said that the reason why the ancients sat cross legged had more to do with cultural habbits than requirements. His student Hu Haiya advised my teacher Yang Hai to simply sit back in a comfortable chair, close his eyes, and begin to feel the breaths coming and going from his body. Even just staying like that for a few minutes is good enough to begin relaxing the body and moving into the meditative state. Remember that in Daoism, the absolute of stillness gives birth to energy, and so if we want to give birth to energy, we have to attain a genuine stillness and quiet. This can't be done while worrying about posture. Hu Haiya said "meditation is one time when we can attain rest. Even in sleep, we are dreaming and do not truly rest. Meditation is when the body can enter rest and repair itself." Now go to that big comfy chair, I know you want to.

Kan and Li as concepts come from the book of changes and were discussed in depth in terms of meditation by Lu Dongbin a little more than 1000 years ago. Lu Dongbin advised people to start from the root of Wu Wei and focus the attention on the dantian (lower abdomen area actually). He said people should stay like this until the reach non action and then from that time, Kan and Li (actually, Kan symbolizes the Jing or essence of the body, while Li symbolizes the true mind) would mix naturally and of their own volition turn into Qi. The fact of the matter is actually that anywhere in the torso under the heart that has a hollow in the deep body (solar plexus, lower dantian, qi xue point under the dantian) can be used to create the marriage of kan and li. The most important point is that you have to attain non action and non thought first. If you use concentration, or active use of breathing or intention in that area, you will damage yourself. When you do internal alchemy, the very most important thing is to make the mind as calm and comfortable as possible. Everything else is just micro adjustment in order to make sure things don't get too hot or too cold. I don't know about the author you mentioned, since I have never read his book, but I urge that if you want to learn meditation from a Daoist perspective, the most valuable thing you can do is just sit back in a comfortable chair, breathe softly and place the mind lightly into the lower abdomen. This is already a good enough basic to begin stirring the pre natal energy in the dan tian. I have recently released a book that goes into some detail about how Kan and Li work in meditation, if you think it is worth your time, you can think about getting a copy. http://www.tambulimedia.com/2015/08/22/yin-and-yang-in-daoist-meditation-practice/ here is an excerpt.

Ganlu (sweet dew, sweet syrup) is an extremely important literary phrase in Chinese literature, even outside of Daoism. It is a big idea and encompasses several phenomenon including the natural occurance of morning dew on grass, a type of wine that the gods drink, a phase during meditation, a type of tea from sichuan, and a representation of law and order. In terms of saliva, it has another name "jin ye," and is related to alchemy in early schools of Daoism, but deemphesized i post Lu Dongbin and the Zhonglv Jindan neiguan school separated external practices from meditation. Lu Dongbin used ganlu to talk about the effect of the upper dantian and sky gate, after opening, feeling as though a type of sweet alcohol is condensing. He said "the sweet syrup collects around the mountain top and must be overflowing... drink your longevity alcohol and listen to the music without strings... so free and unfettered, who could know why you are so happy?" Ganlu even shows up in the classic of tea by lu yu when he says that drinking tea can clarify the mind like ganlu and purified butter (Daoist and Buddhist references both used here). Whatever the heck ganlu is, it must have been pretty rad stuff eh??

two thing: what is your meditation based on? do you have a teacher to guide you through it? I had a very similar experience several years ago when I started to (incorrectly) seriously emphasize meditating on the heart centre, as well as going without ejaculating for a long period of time. Depending on what you are doing, you could be seriously hurting yourself. When I was doing all the heart work, I thought I was getting really deeply into my emotions and started talking with absolute emotional frankness with everyone I met, telling the truth at all times. I also had this very strange phenomenon where when doing taiji push hands with people, I could achieve absolute softeness and following, using almost no strength to blast people several feet off the ground. I had the idea that I was making big progress, but actually I was beginning to lose sleep, become dependent on caffeine, and have neurosis. Finally, once I started having massive hallucinations around bed time (freaky stuff), I came to my senses and stopped doing the intense heart meditations. I brought all my energy back to my lower dantian, and did things that got me in touch with the gravity of the earth. After a month I was emotionally better, started not freaking people out anymore, and my taiji skill changed again into something less surprising, but much more functional. Be very careful if you are meditating without a teacher, because it is easy to go down the wrong track, and if noone is there to protect you, you can get in lots of trouble.

http://www.tambulimedia.com/health-books/daoist-qigong-meditation/ Hi all, please have a look at my book on neidan methods. It is one of the first books in the western world which takes a clear approach to developing jing, qi, shen, and introducing xuan men, zhou tian, sanguan santian, practice and so on. It also has a really cracking commentary on Lu Dongbin's hundred character ancestor tablet. No pressure to buy, but please do have a look.

By the way, in a Daoist sense, psychedelics open the mystery gate and revert to the origin. The problem is that you are reverting to the origin without the use of your frontal lobe and without having entered Wuwei before doing so. i think it was Mickey O'rourke who said "LSD is like a one man birthday party, you don't get anything if nobody brought any pressence."

I've had bad water by accident a few times too I'm going to speak direclty to make it faster: 1: drugs are bad for your health if poorly controlled. 2: nothing good happens after 9 pm 3: empathy is useless if you don't have self control. Now that we are past that stuff, I want to talk about the really cool stuff that will have us all nerding out for hours. Recent research trends show that psychedelic drugs such as LSD may actually temporarily dissable the frontal lobe of the brain. The frontal lobe is basically concerned with tying the activity of the rest of the brain together in a cohesive and logical whole. Without the frontal lobe, you essentially end up with a mish mash of all of the different functions of the brain going off at the same time, but not being unified. This explains much of the reason that why when people trip out they tend to see weird primal functions of the brain that are present in lesser evolved mamals such as cats, but not in humans (IE: deeply ingrained instinctual traits used for killing and avoiding being killed). This also explains why psychedelic drugs trip us out so hard.. our brains literally stop making sense while we are high. The issue of course is that the left and right side of the brain are still sorting out information coming to them and there is still some capacity for logic. It is just that the logic is badly impaired by the lack of function of the frontal lobe. Taking this into account, if you aren't ready to have this function stolen from you for the duration on a trip, it can be a profoundly jarring experience and may be quite difficult to explain to yourself afterward. This can lead to PTSD symptoms, anxiety, flashbacks and other things like night terrors, schizo affective dissorder and even worse. What you have to do is recognize that what you experienced was caused by the physiological effect of having drunk some bad water and that it doesn't reflect the nature of reality. Smoking marijiuana will not be a good idea for a few weeks until you bring yourself back to a grounded place emotionally, and you might also consider not drinking alcohol or engaging in stressful activities. About the women and empathy, you need to understand that any woman you know is capable of taking care of herself and shouldnt be thought of as helpless or easy to hurt. Anyone who is easy to hurt, be they male or female needs to sort that out by themselves. It isn't your job to help people through their neurosis by developing neurosis of your own. I'm telling you this because I have also been in similar places emotionally and it really is a big waste of your time. The absolute best thing you can do in your situation right now is focus on achieving positive things in your life, getting experience in various fields, enjoying your time on earth, and when you skills are developed enough, using them to help other people get through the experiences you have already dealt with, but perhaps they haven't. Also, quit drinking strange water at festivals.

The main thing you want to do during sleep is protect Qi from leaking through dreams. What you can do is lie on your side in the fetal position. direct the mind to the legs and simply keep it there. Stay that way for as long as possible, or until you go back to sleep. That way you will get to keep more of your qi. The natural logic of this is that when you sleep, the blood tends to go to the head to protect the brain. If you will your mind to your legs it can draw some blood there and thus your body will get to keep more qi than it would if you were sleepin in another position. This is abstracted from Da Cheng Jie Yao (a book from the Qing dynasty about nei dan methods)

The fool on the hill, as far as I know, is a song directly influenced by Zhaungzi (correct me if I'm wrong, think i heard it on npr). Wu wei isn't a stand along topic, it has to be followed by wu bu wei (action without action). Wu wei just means staying quiet until things began to change by themselves, it may very well be a code for meditation techniques, or perhaps it is a political encouragement to wait to see what others do to themsevles through their snooping around and infighting. Remember that the Dao De Jing is also a political text and is about how to govern a nation. Non action could be very good for the nobleman who wants to keep his life.

Dao Kan Li is a metaphor for xing and ming mixing in the dantian. Li is representative of Shen, which comes from Xing and lives in the fire palace (the heart). Kan represents the unused jing near the kidneys, this comes from the root of ming and lives in the water palace. using kan and li is actually the study of using the mind to illuminate the dantian and thus boil the jing in the kidney area. All of Lu Dongbin's poetry advises non action, and xing ming cannot be cultivated by taking any direct action. In this sense it is totally different from Qi gong, where you can cultivate hou tian qi with the movement of the body and breath. If you want li and kan to mix in the dantian, what you have to do is place the mind there for a very long time without budging. This non action state might take a very long time before any Qi begins to rise. you need to be patient with this if you want to get the best effect. I'm willing to talk more about this subject, but prefer anything deeper than this to be done in private. Also, I recently published a book which goes into great detail about this subject, you might consider procuring a copy to study from http://www.tambulimedia.com/health-books/daoist-qigong-meditation/ Kan and Li is a very deep subject and quite difficult to unpack completely if you don't have someone to teach you. In any event, always direct the mind to non action and you will have the best effect.

MDMA. it has drawbacks though.... correct meditation practice can bring bliss, but you really have to be patient because it can also be really frustrating when you are making slow progress.

I have always liked power lifting for this. If you want to really raise genuine yang energy in your body, you should learn meditation though.