Yae

I was going to say that's awesome, but isn't Ming the yin/feminine? But if Neidan is about building the 100% yang body then neither would be. Maybe this reasoning is... Not helpful. Great name regardless.

Ooh nice list thanks. Lol I have no idea, sorry for talking about it without a concrete reference. Drew Hempel talks about it a lot. But even for the yang spirit, is it not birthed from the head? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. It would take a while to find it again though. Same with the Wang Liping story, it would take time to find, is it that important? I believe it was actually in his book. I'm pretty confused about Wang Liping. Buut I'm leaning more toward a true Neidan school. As you said it's traditional, tried-and-true.

2 cents: I read an article about Wang Liping where the writer visited his house and found he is rather poor economically. I don't think they make much on the seminars. But I would like to see the (true) Neidan school masters who are supposedly amazingly youthful for their ages, to compare them to Wang Liping. And Drew says (and I believe) that Chunyi Lin is balding partly because he's healing others constantly (sending yin spirits out of his head to heal ghosts). This also goes along with I think it was opendao's comment about qigong healers draining their yuan jing more rapidly. But supposedly when CL retires and gets to go do long cave meditations as he wants to, his hair will grow back. Sounds like preheaven practice if it's true. I think this is a practice Master Yuanming Zhang taught him since that's who he did cave meditations... I don't know specifics about him though. He also learned to alter the alcohol content in wine and send lethal amounts of electrical current through his body without being harmed, and more things. That's in CL's book Born A Healer.

Cool, I hadn't thought of such pursuits as such a personal thing. In that sense I do have a sort of tyrannical mindset, like "It's not personal it's the truth". and "this is the best way but I understand you younger souls aren't here yet, but you definitely will have to end up here eventually". Not that I think that, but I'm kind of acting on that. I don't want 100% unity consciousness yet, unless the fragments can maintain their identities... But aren't the identities only made up of a story of how they worked out their imperfections on the way to remembering their true that is the peak of joy and serenity? Merging of yin and yang. How could anyone not desire it at some point? Isn't it what we're always unconsicously reaching for in this universe of duality? But it's the end of the story, not the middle. And this is all babble without actually experiencing it, since written/spoken language is only the middleman between the heart/mind and the language of pure feeling. Even technological creation is the result of individual felt truths that gave way to reason and compounded into creations. Haha, now this is really babble.

I do stand by the old soul thing, I think I've processed a lot of that^ (ooh still wiggling through the pressure from society and work a bit though) and am wanting to move on ahead to this spiritual cultivation now. I was actually just complaining yesterday telling my mom it will take at least 10 good years if I'm going to be a master of the universe, "complaining" because after that I want to move to Hawaii and put a nice garden of eden-ish fruit farm together so I can finally have a diet that doesn't make me feel terrible and doesn't harm anything. Plants have feelings too (see youtube "mythbusters plants have feelings"). But cucumbers do not, and apparently just may contain all the things leafy greens are for. And maybe I'll open a branch school there if everything goes well. Woohoo, I am jealous of that fantastical potential reality. But the fruit party is on the backburner for a reason. First I need truth. And for that I need discipline. That deserves all of my energy I think. I'm good without the last stage of (true) Neidan cultivation for now (Celestial Immortal). Lol like Spiritual Immortality is no big deal.

Part of my interest in that^ concept came because I recently did 100 days of SFQ, 1 hour of active and 1 hour of sitting, doing the practices prescribed by CL. I started off strong and energetic and willing, but as I got near the end I started feeling more and more exhausted. So I'm wondering if I was becoming too yin from it. I currently spend a lot of time thinking and reading vs running or manual labor etc which is a pretty yin lifestyle, but also bike around for transportation and that doesn't wear me out. I also think my desire to continue was dwindling at the end, despite my belief in the practice. But that could also be from becoming more yin. I've definitely built up more desire to do something since then, and even during sitting meditations at the center I sit up straight trying to function more on the yang side. Ii don't know. Innersound, did you experience this increasing tiredness when you practiced SFQ alternating 30 min active, 30 min sitting, for 4-6 hours a day for what was it, a year straight? edit: sorry this is actually pretty off-topic from the thread title. unless we're discussing the merits of the qigong "foundation", the active exercises, if only to affect the postheaven channels.

I thought about this when I was reading on the site all-dao.com about the levels of immortality, the lowest is the Ghostly Immortal who was like incarnating like us but became too yin or something, sometimes through cultivation practice that actually made the being too yin, and they somehow lost their way through this and dropped off the incarnation cycle. I was wondering if these would be the beings he healed. here it is: "1. Phantom-immortal or ghost-immortal - Gui Xian ( 鬼仙 ) Gui Xian. Literally - the immortal among devils or the immortal devil. It was believed that this achievement is a characteristic of shamanic practices, the late Chan Buddhism, the pseudo-Taoism, different meditations. Withdrawal of Yin spirit in a state of no breath and palpitation. The practitioner remains mortal, despite the practice of spirit withdrawal and possible capabilities. Moreover, he may not be reborn after his death and stay a ghost forever. This was not practiced in Taoism, it was forbidden (meaning the serious study, not just jingzuo)." http://www.all-dao.com/immortality-achievements.html

So you're saying that the stories of other people's bilocation are based on illusions and maybe people who can see yin bodies... But no, that would require someone to be actively using two yin bodies, or using one yin body while moving around in their physical body, and there was someone able to see them... Though I don't think a story of someone seeing a person's yin spirit form would be considered bilocation as it's usually used. It would have to be two solid forms interacting with people etc. So really only the illusion thing or the actual yang bodies thing sound valid to me. Do you agree that two yang bodies functioning at the same time could be considered bilocation? I do think I've heard too many stories from too many people about seeing ghosts and things, and they didn't all come across as believable. Some sound more like people who aren't concerned about the actual truth of things and just want to say and convince themselves something happened for whatever reason.

I actually can't find it now, I'm sorry. It was a story of a man going to dinner and bringing his friend who was in yin body form. The man could see his friend but others couldn't, so he had to ask them to serve what looked like an empty spot. The man had to eat both portions because his friend couldn't eat, he could only 'suck at the air' or something. But yes more specifically it said that only people with special faculties would be able to see it.

But I just read in The Way of Complete Perfection - A Quanzhen Daoist Anthology that the yin body (what I'm thinking of as yinshen) can't interact with the physical environment and can't be seen, but the yang body can. I'm confused.

Oh. Then I guess Chunyi's bilocation wouldn't necessarily require that either. -10 points to Innersound if this is true. Why is that?

Wait... But what about the stories of Catholic holy people like Mother Teresa doing bilocation? That would require a yang spirit wouldn't it?

*Unlesss Chunyi Lin finally responds to my inquiry about preheaven energy cultivation at the later level of his teaching and sounds like he really knows about it. I know Neidan people would doubt that a practice like SFQ would know about that, but I think Master Lin is really good. Innersound mentioned that people have seen CL's yang body, but he also said that CL was experiencing a precursor to the creation of another one but didn't do what he had to so it didn't happen. If that's true it seems like he either didn't know how to do it, or it wasn't his priority because he just wants to heal people here and now. I'm wondering about Jim Nance. It sounds like he's had a lot of experiences with a yin body at least, and has of course had many supernormal experiences. He sits in lotus for many hours a day and doesn't seem to be dwindling from yin overload in my simple opinion. Innersound, any word on his yang body? CL does say there are teachings he received that he's not allowed to share.

It's alright, just ask yourself if it sounds like a reliable and honest approach to you. If not, forget about it. Don't let us stop you. I think it's worth going for.

"Discourse 12: The Way of Sages [5a] To enter the way of sages, you must develop determination for many years, amassing accomplishments and binding yourself to practice. Only an adept of elevated illumination, an individual with excelling realization, can enter the way of sages." I came across this snippet in The Way of Complete Perfection- A Quanzhen Daoist Anthology by Louis Komjathy. It speaks to my personal experience of how discipline might work. Like, you build up enough experiences over time that nudge you in a certain direction, for me it's mostly finding more and more things too unfulfilling and fleeting, combined maybe with my belief in and some very clearly valid experience with mystical truth (I can go into detail if someone doubts that, I'll very easily make you believe it too) and desire for answers to this confusing existence, then eventually there's enough momentum and you do it, and then have to remind yourself again why to do it, but then it's something slightly different but with the same goal but a more refined approach, and then... Hah that's where I am now, the concept is unfinished for me. Maybe it'll finally be finished once it finishes the reincarnation cycle and reunites with the Tao. ugh.

Man Innersound I got a little lost there. I don't know enough to respond to or even absorb some of that. These Neidan people are only "forcing ignorance"" in the sense that you're not allowed to learn the pre-heaven practices unless you're at one of the schools practicing for from about one month for WuLiuPai to 2 or 3? years for YuXianPai. I would think that a person's environment has to be conducive to the requirements for mental and physical celibacy, or else it would be a constant battle with the sexual desires that rise each day. But cultivating out alone somewhere, with no females, it seems like it might not be so stressful. Or maybe it's just a matter of discipline. Yes I was thinking earlier that Chunyi's quote may have been a bit of American diplomacy. "As many other Neidan school, we teach how the spirit-shen can enter the "emptiness that is not empty", but it has no relation to focus or non-focus, as well as to the idea of emptiness in qigong, when people feel nothing ("no body"), see nothing except white light or focus on something that produces no signals." - opendao Innersound, some have said that TY is meant to be used as a companion while having a Neidan teacher, teaching the aforementioned in-person-only/heart-to-heart-only methods. I (intuitively but may be wrong) don't think TY specifically defines emptiness as the "no body" state, or even the gradual extension of the gaps between thoughts until no-mind is achieved. I think that still sounds like clearing of the heart(-mind) practice that is the beginning practice in these Neidan schools. I have no clue what the emptiness experience opendao is describing would be like, but it seems possible that IT is the actual emptiness practice mentioned in TY. That is unless the practice is mentioned in the first section about quieting the heart.

That part of the text was ok for me because I read in Drunvalo Melchezidek's The Secret of the Flower of Life (popular New Age book) that the ankh in Egypt was used to do exactly what Chunyi Lin said, The energy from the orgasm passes through the center, but instead of leaving the body and being lost/depleted it is channeled back down and returns to... someplace in the body. So you think the energy is too much for the brain? I was just thinking of it like, using heart-centered and mind-centered thoughts to conduct the use of the sex energy in a loving way or something, which makes sense only in the realm of visualization, intention, etc.

I do feel like lust is a factory for lower body energy blockages (personal experience but is a topic discussed and apparently researched by Innersound). Opendao has mentioned that good post-heaven energy flow is necessary for successful cultivation of pre-heaven (I think? but doesn't pre-heaven practice also balance post-heaven?) so it seems like lust would get in the way of that. Regarding sex, Master Lin said in his TaoBums interview: "Yes, sexual relations and orgasm can deplete your energy. And, sexual relations and orgasm can enhance your energy flow and development. This depends on many things, The level of love, commitment and connection you have with your partner are very important. At the right level you can utilize the moment of orgasm to take that sexual energy and move it up through your heart and to your mind to develop "wisdom energy" which is very beneficial. For some people celibacy may help them focus and enhance their energy development." So... seems it's not all bad.

Phew ok I'm still reading your second post Innersound, but I want to restate this query to you: How can you add to the pre-heaven energy through celibacy if we're born with a set amount? It seems like it would only be possible to lose it more slowly through celibacy, so at say, age 30 after "spreading one's wild oats" (to borrow a term of yours) the whole time, celibacy would be useless because one has already spent too much pre-heaven. That was clear right?

Hey Innersound, so are you saying that by un-focusing into the emptiness, all the necessary energy movements will take place? Would this also be the means to build the yang shen to avoid things like the world spinning around you? Because the postheaven jing wouldn't be enough for that right? And don't you say that celibacy builds conserves the pre-heaven energy? Neidan practitioners here are saying that isn't necessary* because once you learn the preheaven energy building methods, your energy builds faster than it can deplete*. Sounds nice right? Ah but conserving the pre-heaven energy isn't really enough is it? We would have a way to build it up, or else the amount we have right now would be enough and we'd just have to conserve it. I've asked Master Lin if any of his practices, like going into the emptiness maybe, build the preheaven energy but this was just a few days ago so I'm waiting for a reply. *http://thetaobums.com/topic/35815-minor-schools-and-inconsistent-methods-from-zhong-l-chuan-dao-ji/ (translated textual reference about celibacy not being necessary) *the comment about the energy building faster than it depletes was opendao's, on some other discussion, I don't remember where but could find it if you want. but it's not a text refernce or anything. Opendao, what does your school think of this? Focus, or non-focus, on the emptiness? Though I think many would consider that meditation. Also fasting isn't advised in your school I think, but SFQ uses fasting to go into the emptiness. Jaci Gran of SFQ said the experience of the losing the feeling of your body during meditation is an experience of going into the emptiness. I felt that while fasting. Innersound, but how do you go into the emptiness while doing visualization? Do you just set it in motion and then do it? I thought it was good in SFQ to have constant focus on seeing-feeling the energy.

LOL'd literally just now because I would love to that! Hahaha. But the discipline to do 2 hours of SFQ active exercises daily doesn't come as easily for me.

Taoist Yoga is such a commonly discussed text here, I think a post like that would be pretty valuable.

Does this soft explanation of yuan qi sound acceptable to WLP people? I'm not sure what the body dissolving means though. Transition to light body maybe.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/sbe40/sbe4020.htm "The crash of thunder and the blustering wind both come without design." COOOOL I was going to post this on facebook but realized my catholics might get mad.

Bump. Does bumping even work on TB? Cool article ty for sharing.