traveler

I am less than a novice but interested. Google translates 旨 as purpose and 指 as finger. Google says the symbols mean: 性 sex, nature, character 命 life, fate, order 法 law, method, act 诀 tactics, formula 明 clear, bright, understand 指 finger, refers to. Is this really The Secrets of Cultivating Essential Nature and Eternal Life?

Thank you.

I am looking for the Chinese version of Taoist Yoga, Alchemy & Immortality, by Lu Kuan Yu. Google tells me that the original text is called, The Secrets of Cultivating Essential Nature and Eternal Life. Specifically, what I am looking for is a public domain version of this text in the original language. Thank you in advance for your help. Traveler

Interesting read, this. From your descriptions here, I see a good correlation between these element aspects of our journey and The Color Code by Taylor Hartman. There are four colors which define four types of personalities. Red is proactive and bossy, blue is carrying and loving, white is peaceful and a bit stubborn, and yellow is fun-centered. For yellow, the world is divided simply into fun and not fun. Fire would be red for nothing gets done without action and reaction. Where do the other elements fit these personality types? Or, do they? Taylor Hartman says we all have a main color or personality with bits of the other types added in. The goal is to drop the negative aspects of our main color type and add the positive traits from the other colors. So, we have five elements. If you view these as parts of your character, then you can see that the Fusion of the Five Elements is attempting to achieve the same thing as Taylor Hartman is suggesting with his Color Code: To improve the character through mixing, removing, and adding aspects of our personal traits and tendencies. The elements are a way to organize our thoughts and set goals for self improvement. Self-evolution also seems to be an automatic process which we are only able to observe, once we allow our deeper self to surface and take more control of our progress. Regardless of how you view any of these ideas, one thing is certain, there is a process going on inside of us, and in our environment as well, which cycles over and over, but not in circles; it is a spiral, ever reaching upward into new inner experiences.

In response to taiwabbit's post, your way of expressing this is how I have been seeing this. It is nice to see it in print. As Michael Winn stated, there are two parts, which I call expanding consciousness and energy movement, and that I personally call the Fusion of Heaven and Earth; when these two halves are brought together there is an inner explosion, every time. This is a basic concept so I am not saying anything new here. I equate intension with heaven and body movement with earth. A new something emerges when you combine these approaches in any way. Such as action following intent, using affirmations and energy meridians like EFT employs, and so forth. Expanding consciousness can be simply that - letting down the barriers and allowing your concept of self to enlarge outward. This is different than moving energy along a meridian such as running the orbit. So, what if you lit up the Mortal Gate (CV1) and then moved energy up the thrusting channel to the lower tan t'ien, then while holding that, expand your awareness outward to engulf the belly? In some small way, at least, the portal into True Earth opens and there is a new sensation that fills your body and flows outward, without center, like you've been connected to something far greater than either your upward moving energy or your expanding consciousness. So, taiwabbit, I liked the way you expressed this. Another way to look at this is found in Hua Hu Ching: you are to give service in all directions undiscriminatingly (that is the energy movement part, doing), and you are to adopt the view that there is no separation between any of the parts of creation (that's the expanding consciousness part). If you can follow these two paths simultaneously, a third path presents itself as the portal into True Earth opens. deci belle, I also liked your post as much and for the same reasons.

Unity in diversity. When we can see every path as a valid experience, then the many become one. It is OK if we disagree because this only strengthens the whole fiber of our collective experience. Grasping: you simply lose track of what it is you were grasping at; you look and cannot find it. Like thinking that you were being attracted to the ground by gravity and then finding that you are actually floating in the air. Is floating or grounding the better path? Who cares as long as what you are experiencing is working for you. Awakening is a never-ending spiral: some times you need to be attached to certain energies or aspects of who you are, other times there is nothing there and you find yourself floating free of all entanglements. Around and around the great wheel of creation we move, discovering new and wonderful things at every turn. Consider: you cannot understand what it feels like to be free until you have grasped at stuff. One cannot exist without the other.

I agree with your explanation. It makes sense and it feels right intuitively. Eric Yudelove describes ascending jing as smoke-like. I can't recall where I read this next bit, but the ascending earth and descending heavenly energies were described as meeting in the body at different points, depending on where the work is needed. In relation to our discussion of the tzu hour, this would indicate different times of the night for this meeting which would activate a healing in the meridian that is moving at the time. There is a paragraph in Taoist Yoga which gives a clue, perhaps. Here it is: I wish I could read and understand the original in Chinese. But, the English translation here indicates that the tzu hour begins when the penis stands without provocation. "When the penis stands during sleep at night this moment is called the hour tsu ..." If it stands at 6:00 AM one morning during the time when the stomach meridian is active, then at that moment the energies of earth and heaven are meeting there for rejuvenation. Quote: "It is important to avail oneself of this moment when the penis stands to gather the generative force for sublimation, for the gathering of it during the negative half of the day is ineffective." This indicates that the moment for sublimation is anytime during the positive half of the day. Since the moment for sublimation is named as the tzu hour, this suggests that the penis may become stiff any time during the first half of the day and that this is the correct time for sublimation that day. I could be wrong, which is most likely when butting up against traditional interpretations of this stuff, but my experience shows me that if I am being celibate, my penis gets stiff without provocation in the morning at various times, different each day. I run the orbit about nine times and it retracts. The time this occurs is the correct moment for sublimation that day. This idea is what your post #10 awoke in me. And I got excited because I thought I was seeing some light shed on this subject of the tzu hour.

Thanks for the book list. Much appreciated. What I am really interested in is what you said about the tzu hour. Is it the heart meridian or the gall bladder meridian that is being targeted by running the fourfold orbit in the tzu hour? My intuition tells me it is the heart's true fire that is being awakened.

Cycles within cycles. Each time the work is "complete" the results are planted back in the earth to grow into the next cycle. I like your way of putting this a lot. Is there an end to the creative cycles? I am beginning to think not. Where can I read more about this Cinnabar-mercury-silver-gold explanation? Please explain the discrepancy that the heart meridian is active around noon, and the gall bladder meridian is the one active near midnight. I know you will have a good explanation. I feel that the heart is the key and so your statement makes perfect sense to me, except that the heart meridian is active at the opposite end of the day, around noon.

Andrei, that's as good an explanation as I've ever seen. Where on the Kabbalah tree of life would you place these steps?

We eat meat here, but not excessively.We almost never eat wheat. Quite often in the morning, we eat a cooked cereal of our own make which is a lot more nutritious than your average kind. It is composed of quinoa, ameranth, teff, buckwheat, chia, brown rice, and milo. A number of these grains are complete proteins. It keeps a person going longer than whole wheat does. The flavor is great. We grind the mix to make pancakes or tortillas as well.

Back to the chemical angle to behavior. Does the herb, sage, clean the person or place, as in smudging, or does it change our perception through inner-body chemistry? Cause and effect, not sin and judgment. Or, moral codes which have a foundation in truth. Two sides of the coin. So to speak in absolutes on this subject is not practical. I stand corrected. All would agree that murder is morally wrong if committed in cold blood, like for pleasure or anger. On the other hand, to not worship God on a certain day or in a certain way is not a moral issue, to me. But in some circles this is a serious breech of moral conduct. Perhaps we should, if living among a people with expectations of this type, comply to avoid consequences. What is "sin" in one social setting is not "sin" elsewhere. Let's use nudity as an example; at the local hot springs this is OK, but not sitting on a park bench downtown. Ah yes, our thoughts seem to have wandered away from the topic. It's like when a circle of people pass a whispered phrase one to another around the circle to find the original phrase to be quite different from the end product.

Could we look at desires vs. choices? Are desires deeper rooted than choices? If so, then to a change our desires would effect the surface stuff we call choices. For instance, what if you could change your preference for apples over oranges on a fundamental root level so that you now automatically chose oranges over apples if given a choice? Then there is the very common paradox: you want a thing but another part of you knows that different choice would, ultimately, be better for you.

The analogy works when you explain it to us. I recall a quote from ACIM that seems to fit:

I like that one. If I may use the example, this is like being capable of celibacy. Sex becomes a conscious choice after that, not an urge which is out of control. My psychologist friend tells me we are all mentally ill. I ran into this snag a few years back when I naively thought that our personalities were who we are. A study of Tourette's syndrome showed me that our personalities are chemical-based. There was this great jazz drummer who had Tourette's. His spasms would throw him into some very bizarre rhythms which he incorporated into his drumming, making him an exceptional jazz drummer. But Tourette's other symptoms made it hard for him to keep a job. He began taking haldol, a drug for depression which regulates the serotonin in the brain. His Tourette's symptoms went away and his personality changed drastically, making him a modal employee but a mediocre drummer. He compromised by going off haldol on the weekends when he enjoyed him drumming. OK. That is not an isolated example, is it. Some people are wondering if DMT isn't responsible for our spiritual experiences. Meditation is said to produce DMT which then alters our perception of life. Overdoses of oxytocin has a great effect on the personality. Deep breathing creates DMT and hugging creates oxytocin, some claim. So, Rara, your question certainly has validity. We are born with a certain chemistry, BUT we can also alter that chemistry. I have altered my chemistry. We all do this by what choices we make within our limitations. Choices made of a certain nature expand the spectrum of what choices we can make in the future. I have been told that the chakra lights are what creates our personality, on that level of consciousness. So, we have chemistry on the physical level and chakra lights on a deeper level. If we work on our chakra lights, then that makes a larger variety of choices available to us. For instance, if we would like to be a loving person but find ourself, time and again, acting out towards others in a hateful way, then open the heart chakra, which creates more inner love. If we'd really rather be a visionary, then wake up the third eye. And so forth. Or, like the book, Color Code, says, work on the character traits directly and rework our personality until we are endowed with the gifts we desire. There is always room for work here. This is, of course, my opinion, and subject to change at any time. But, I used to be an angry SOB. I had a real problem. I almost never get angry any more. We all need healing from time to time.