Geof Nanto

A vast topic, Old Dog. I've found Carl Jung's explorations particularly helpful in this regard. But it seems he's little read by other Bums and there's no way I can distill the essence of his wisdom into any sort of cogent reply. What's most encouraging for me about your OP is the actual fact that you're wanting to explore the workings of our human psyche, both personally and collectively. “The psyche is the greatest of all cosmic wonders and the “sin qua non” [indispensable ingredient] of the world as an object. It is in the highest degree odd that Western man, with but very few - and ever fewer - exceptions, apparently pays so little regard to this fact. Swamped by the knowledge of external objects, the subject of all knowledge [the psyche] has been temporarily eclipsed to the point of seeming nonexistence.” - Carl Jung [Jung understands psyche as the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious. He uses the term ‘psyche’ rather than ‘mind’, since mind is used in common parlance to refer to the aspects of mental functioning which are conscious. Jung maintained that the psyche is a self-regulating system (like the body). For Jung, the psyche strives to maintain a balance between opposing qualities while at the same time actively seeking its own development or as he called it, individuation.]

Turning difficulty into practice is fundamental for me. But I shy away from declarations of absoluteness like those contained in the above quotations. Mine you, I also like their confidence. For me that confidence is partly inspirational and partly illusional. I'm an embodied human with the gift and burden of an individual consciousness, and that will always mean I'm fundamentally conflicted. Carl Jung wrote: “There is no place where those striving for consciousness could find absolute safety. Doubt and insecurity are indispensable components of a complete life. Only those who can lose this life can really gain it. A ‘complete’ life does not consist of a theoretical completeness, but the fact that one accepts without reservation the particular fatal tissue in which one finds oneself embedded, and that one tries to make sense of it or to create a cosmos from the chaotic mess into which one is born. If one lives properly and completely, time and time again one will be confronted with situations of which one will say, ‘This is too much, I cannot bear it anymore.’ Then the question must be answered: ‘Can one really not bear it?’”

Trump is certainly the antithesis of the sage of the Daodejing. I found it powerfully strange that some members, notably Dawei, like both the Daodejing and Trump. However, Daoism isn’t the Dao. Although I personally find Trump obnoxious, my main interest at this late stage of my life is in understanding why the Dao throws up a Trump-like force. Could it be that our contemporary world is way out of harmony with Dao and the Trump ‘illness’ is a very visible aspect of Nature’s way of highlighting this profound imbalance? He’s a catalyst for change. And how that change plays out across the whole world is not something Trump or anyone else can control. If he’s powerful enough, he’ll cause deep chaos. And out of that chaos new life will eventually be born. The Dao is composed of polar forces (yin-yang) in continual motion and works by reversal. I wrote a little about further aspects of the process of change on my “The Spirit of the Dao Bums” topic here and here. For me, Trump is a low-level manifestation of archetypal force that the Western alchemists of old called the spirit Mercurius. The trickster. He’s a quintessential “poison dripping dragon”. His strength is actually fragile because he’s merely a vehicle for spiritual forces of which he has no awareness. A high-level manifestation of the spirit Mercurius is someone with total awareness of the forces they are manifesting. And that’s definitely not Trump.

I read this account by Marie-Louise von Franz this morning of how Carl Jung’s Psychological Club functioned and it made me smile because of its similarities to the Dao Bums forum: When Jung founded the Psychology Club in Zurich, he had in mind to try to find out how a group, or a society, would work in which the inferior function would not be covered up, but where people would contact each other by it. The result was absolutely amazing. People who came into this society from outside were shocked out of their wits by the rude, bad behavior and the absolutely unending quarrels this group displayed. I visited the Club many years ago and till then had never made a move toward becoming a member because I felt too shy. One day Jung said to me, "Do you not want to join the Psychology Club, or do you not dare to join it?" I said, "I did not dare to join it, but would love to." So he said, "All right, I will be your godfather"—we need godfathers to get into the Club —"but I'll wait first to see if you have a dream, if the right moment has come." And what did I dream? I dreamed that a natural scientist, an old man who looked very much like Jung, had made up an experimental group to find out how animals of different species got along with each other! I came into the place, and there were aquariums with fish in them, enclosures with tortoises, newts, and such creatures, and cages with birds and dogs and cats, and the old man was sitting in the middle, taking notes on how the animals behaved socially with one another. I discovered then that I myself was a flying fish in an aquarium and could jump out. I told my dream to Jung and he said, with a grin, "I think now you are mature enough to join the Psychology Club; you have got the central idea, its purpose." In this rather humorous way the unconscious took up the idea, namely that it is really a great problem, for as conscious beings we can contact each other, but in this inferior function, one person is a cat, another is a tortoise, and a third a hare—there are all those animals! Such social adaptations present a great difficulty. There are all the problems of having one's own territory, one's own ground, for every animal species has a tendency to have a few meters of homeland. Every bird and every animal defends its territory against intruders; one may not step on the other's ground, and all these complicated rituals build up again as soon as human beings join together and discard the persona and try really to contact each other. Then one really feels as if one is moving in the jungle or the bush: one must not step on this snake or frighten that bird by making a quick movement, and things become very complicated.

Without access to Roth's critical text, it's impossible to critique his translation. For example, Roth considers 民 (citizen) to be copyist error. (See his note 29 below.) I have no problems accepting this emendation because ‘citizen’ does not make sense when following from the preceding verse about the vital essence of the sage, or leading into the second part of this verse. Linnell’s translation using 'citizen' is clumsy. Dan Reid makes a valiant effort with: “As a result (of essence), the energy-breath of common people (becomes).” He includes this note: All in all, I think accepting 'citizen' as an error is far simpler than making these translation contortions. On the other hand, I think the received text version of line 5 is better than what Roth considers to be the original line. (See Roth's note 31 below.)

To my mind Dan Reid's book and Roth's make an excellent pair. We are privileged to have them both. For anyone interested in the Neiye, I'd say both these books are essential reading. They complement each other in that Roth uses the technique of what he calls textural archaeology to recover the original text. This recovered text then becomes the critical text on which his translation is based. It includes a reasonably large number of amendments from the received text. On the other hand, Reid doesn't accept any amendments, His translation is based wholly on the received text. Despite these different approaches and the differences in translation that follow, to my mind, the gist of the Neiye remains the same. For this Dao Bums Neiye discussion to be fair to Roth it really needs to include his critical text and his notes on his translation. To illustrate this I will post Roth's critical text and some of his notes for his verse 2 translation in that section of our discussion. I will also include a little of Reid's translation / interpretation.

This comment and my post above are a continuation of discussion started in the "Neiye section 3" topic. What I’m wanting to show with my above post is that Roth was well aware of the huge amount of research, both Chinese and Western, that covered the Neiye chapter of the Guanzi. He was thoroughly conversant with its textual history and the many ambiguities in the text for translators to interpret. What Roth has done in his book is to emphasise the mysticism of the Neiye. Thus he interprets text ambiguities accordingly. In doing so, to my mind, he’s brought back to life the essence of the text and conveyed it in a way relevant for our contemporary spiritual needs. The gist of the text resonates very strongly with my own unfolding experiences. Hence the Neiye is an important foundational text for me. And obviously for Roth too, both as a long term Zen practitioner and academic.

Yes, for me and for some (hopefully) many other Dao Bums members such insight is important. (And also for all the other ancient traditions people are interested in, not just Daoism.) But I often find engagement here difficult. Discussion proceeds much faster than I’d like and interest seems to rapidly fade. Also, I sometimes find the number of disparate voices off-putting. Yet I try to use my engagement with all of this difference productively; like mixing chaotic and disparate ingredients in an inner alchemical cauldron, out of which a core of stillness slowly solidifies within me. I call it an alchemical process because it’s certainly no straightforward linear progression, and the best of it seems to happen largely 'self-so'. I personally would like to see this Neiye discussion going at a slower pace by allowing a little more time between each new verse, and for discussion to proceed with greater harmony. However, as that's not the usual way of Dao Bums, I’m OK to go along with however it proceeds. I always have the option to participate (or not) as I find appropriate.

I’ve attached a few pages from Harold Roth, Original Tao: Inward Training (Nei yeh) and the Foundation of Taoist Mysticism in which he outlines the extensive research he undertook to establish a critical edition of the Neiye as the basis for his translation. (In his book he gives the full Chinese text for each verse.) I personally have neither the Chinese language skills nor the interest to critique his research, but it seems from our Dao Bums discussion, such textural background information is important to others.

Perhaps a little tangential but somewhat relevant...... Many years ago I worked for a while as a Zen shiatsu practitioner, a healing modality which derives its theoretical framing from the same Chinese model as does TCM. Back in 1995 I did an interview with my teacher for a magazine and in it asked him this question: “The thing that Impressed me about your teaching was that it was based on treating people here in Sydney and getting results with the type of illnesses people have now, rather than, for example, ancient China.” He replied: “Yes, a very, very important idea. If only this concept gets across to people, then I think I may have accomplished all I want to do in interrelating to medical systems or creating medical systems. Applying a form of therapy to an individual has to be based on what their actual need is. If we look at China there is not only a different culture, but structurally they're different. Their body shape is different, the food is different, and so is their environment. The definition of what is feeling good maybe is different from one culture to another. So you might make a person feel better within Chinese terms but not within the cultural demands of Australia. To summarise, one not only has to understand traditional medical practice within the cultural context of the country in which it arose (that is, why it's there and what it's used for) but also one must understand it well enough to be able to isolate the actual essence of it and then reintegrate into the situation you're actually working in.”

For me, the Neiye is a powerful aid for my own inner work. A catalyst for inner change. Thus discussions about exactly what it meant in the context of ancient China are of secondary importance for me. What I do know is that although our society is far different from then and our intellectual knowledge has mushroomed, our human emotions are little changed from that time. Hence the timeless essence of the Neiye is its emotional and spiritual content. I hold the text in a certain reverence. That way it reveals its essence to my heart, through my heart. It helps bring order to my somewhat chaotic xin. I value all the people who have sought to bring its wisdom to us Westerners. (Even Taoist Texts with his rather arrogant manner occasionally has what I consider as valuable insights.) All these people have my respect. None of them are idiots. I know Roth, for instance, has spent at least ten years on his examination of the Neiye.

Once again, here's my comment written before reading most of the above.... Following from the previous verse, the qi being referred to here is likewise the shen of later Daoism, as in the conceptual model: Jing Qi Shen (精氣神). At the highest level, to my mind, this shen can be likened to Buddha Mind, or to the Christian notion of Holy Spirit. Hence we have this description of the first five lines from A C Graham: “This may well be the earliest Chinese interpretation of the experience of mystical oneness.” (Roth bases his version of line five on what he considers from his extensive research to be the wording of the original line. I followed Roth in my version but if I were redoing it I’d go with something like Eno’s: "So compact! As though residing within oneself." Or go free form and add Eno’s as a new line after Roth’s line five.) The second part of the verse brings in the important notions of de and also awareness / intent. In my comment on the first chapter I wrote: “Whereas for the sage of the Neiye the same vital essence burns continually with a steady glow. They have somehow transmuted vital essence into something stable and manageable.” Here we learn this stabilisation requires personal de. Moreover, the vital essence (shen) itself helps develop de. They must be allowed to work together for wisdom to develop. (For those who aren't familiar with the Chinese notion of de there's extensive discussion on it in the archives of DaoBums and on the web in general.)

Yes, I agree. As Limahong has said, that’s called listening with the heart. But I don’t see that much happening here with the Neiye discussion so far. People are mostly talking in terms of systems and concepts that postdate the text. They’re finding in the Neiye confirmation of what they already know. And that’s understandable. It’s the only way to orientate oneself to something new. We all do it. And these fast paced DaoBums discussions exacerbate the tendency. Listening with heart happens in its own way and in its own time. And it’s best achieved with the type of calm xin the Neiye speaks of. Otherwise all we tend to find is echoes of our own emotional imbalances and intellectual biases.

I wrote in the introduction that the Neiye could also be called The Art of the Heart-Mind, or The Way of the Numinous Xin. That’s what I consider the Neiye to be. And this first chapter gives a glimpse of the end result. The sage is someone with vital essence stored within their chest. This realised, high level, vital essence of the sage referred to in the Neiye is in later Daoism called shen. Here’s how Louis Komjathy attempts to explain it: “The heart-mind is the emotional and intellectual centre of the human person. It is associated with consciousness and identified as the storehouse of spirit (shen 神). In its original or realized condition, the heart-mind has the ability to attain numinous pervasion: in its disoriented or habituated condition, especially in a state of hyper-emotionality or intellectualism, the heart-mind has the ability to separate the adept from the Dao as Source. The latter is often referred to as the "ordinary heart-mind" or more poetically as the "monkey-mind”, while the former is often referred to as the "original heart-mind". The ordinary heart-mind is characterized by chaos and instability, while the original heart-mind is characterized by coherence and constancy.” The term “monkey mind” for me has always been associated with thoughts. But thoughts are only half of xin. Important, yes, but what underpins it all for me is feelings / emotions. It’s about transmuting the vital essence of my chaotic human heart into a stable numinous heart. And to do this I need to cultivate my innate connection with the xin of Dao, the numinous heart-mind. The remainder of the Neiye gives some clues as to how I might do so.

Yes. A good method and well expressed. But that’s only half of xin. The intellectual half. The other way of exploring a text is with the heart.

I've just come back to this topic after a day's break from the web and I will make my post before reading all the above discussion so I'm not distracted by it. When I first read the Neiye the gist of it spoke clearly to me. I didn’t dwell on any of the obscure images. It was only when I started to write it out for myself that I puzzled over lines like the one being discussed. (And there’s not many in the Neiye like this, mostly it’s relatively straightforward.) Here is some imagery I find relevant to this line and to the Neiye as a whole...... Jolie Holland sings in her song of passionate longing, Amen: “There's a light inside my chest That switched on when we first met And it will not let me rest - Amen “ It seems to me that in ordinary people this high level manifestation of vital essence we call passionate love flares up and flames out relatively quickly. It’s something amazing, numinous but chaotic and unstable. Whereas for the sage of the Neiye the same vital essence burns continually with a steady glow. They have somehow transmuted vital essence into something manageable that can be stored in the chest.

That's the line I found the most interesting too. I puzzled over it, wondering what it actually meant to those ancient Chinese; wondering what inner experience they were referring to. I'm interested to hear what others think it means. (I now have some idea from my own inner experience, but it is something very new and tentative for me. A partial realisation only. I had no idea when I first read the Neiye. )

@dawei Thanks for listing those similarities, most of which I was aware of. That’s why many of us consider that the Neiye expresses foundational aspects of Chinese cognition. No problems with that. What I thought Taoist Texts was asking was why don’t we find the Neiye as a text referenced in later works like we do with the Laozi, Zhuangzi etc. As far as I know Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) doesn’t mention it either. For me, answering this question is not important. It’s something for historians to speculate about. And no one seems to question that the Neiye predates these other better known works. I like the text because I found in it strong parallels with my own experience. It puts into words and takes further core aspects of what’s important for me. I find it extremely encouraging to know that people have been working along these lines for thousands of years. These ancient Chinese feel like my spiritual ancestors. Incidentally, I was surprised to see my version of the Neiye referenced here. It’s something I did for myself and made into a printed booklet so I’d have a hardcopy at hand. Mine is not a translation from classical Chinese like the other four, but a composite based on Roth’s work with reference to other translators, especially Louis Komjathy. For anyone interested, it’s available for free download here as a pdf file. And it has excellent pictures.

Dawei, are you planning to post all the chapters below and make this one long thread? Or were you going to start a new topic for each of the chapters? My strong preference is for the latter option. I mightn’t add many comments, but I’ll be actively reading it all with interest. The Neiye is a very significant text for me. Could also be called The Art of the Heart-Mind, or even The Way of the Numinous Xin. It may not be much quoted directly as a text in other Chinese works but to my mind it concisely expresses core aspects of foundational Chinese cognition. Dan G Reid’s The Thread of the Dao is also an excellent on the Neiye with extensive commentary. But perhaps left until after the whole text is read and personally meditated on before reading such detailed interpretation by someone else. I find these types of discussion helpful, yet also somewhat paradoxical: Considering the disposition of this Dao, How can it be conceived of or discussed? Cultivate the heart-mind and still your thinking; The Dao may then be realized.

I like this interesting juxtaposition on the meaning of ‘cultivation’..... Could also be written: The free and real Self needs to train itself in daily challenges; it is through cultivating itself in the world that it becomes free of worries and doubts. When I use the word 'cultivation' I use it in the somewhat paradoxical Daoist sense that these passages reveal.

I'm not sure I understand fully what you mean, but I wont let that stop me adding my reply! This can lead into the trap of quietism. I live in a semi-wilderness environment and the primal stillness here, especially at night, is vital for me. It’s a sacred stillness, pregnant with ineffable meaning. Yet cultivation solely in such a quiet place is weak. I find I also need opposition / difficulty for me to develop true inner calmness. Jung said a person doesn’t get enlightened by sitting on a mountain top; enlightenment requires full engagement with life. I need to slowly work through and thereby take the energy out of those traits within me that prevent a calm xin. Hence I engage in discussions on this forum. DaoBums has many good qualities, but stillness is definitely not one of them. By some mysterious alchemical process involving myriad ingredients, I slowly I begin to feel that primal stillness within my core.

I like xin as a concept because I’ve always found it impossible to separate thinking and feeling. They’re intertwined. Both give meaning to my life, although for me, healthy functioning means keeping what I feel as primary; thinking is the interpreter. When thinking loses its grounding in feeling, intuition, sensation, emotion etc, and instead creates its own abstract world of concepts as the primary source of personal meaning, then it’s delusional. I also like it that xin references the whole organ / meridian qi flow system of human functioning. It doesn’t suffer from Western mind-body dualism. (But, as an aside because it’s a whole other topic in itself, I don’t agree with accounts, like in the OP referenced article, that state that the heart organ is the seat of xin. To me that’s a continuation of the false idea that the brain is the seat of the mind.) When I said this has been a comprehensive discussion about xin I meant it. But that doesn’t mean we’ve pinned it down. I consider that to be impossible, like it’s impossible to know what ‘mind’ is. We can explore Chinese usage of xin and try to elucidate what xin means for them and us as a concept, as we have done here. That’s complex enough. But for me at least, what it refers to in myself, beyond being able to expand on Descartes and say, “I think and feel therefore I am”, remains elusive. And I like it that Chinese thought never dwelled on searching for the ultimate nature of things. Rather they were interested in the process of life. Hence, the Neiye for instance, is about techniques of xin (xinshu 心術). Daoist cultivation in general is about harmonising one’s life with the flow of Dao. And, as to my personal cultivation, what I do know is that my participation on DaoBums has helped harmonise my xin. It’s a Daoist thing to be unaffected through having a calm xin. I’m still very much affected by many things, though far less so than I was before I started yoga, qigong, meditation etc. And less so than I was a few years ago when I first arrived on DaoBums. Some of that may be simply desensitising, but I know within myself that this lively forum with its mixture of wisdom and folly, of healthy and toxic attitudes, has helped me become more conscious of these traits with myself. And that awareness, through some mysterious alchemy, has changed me for the better.

This is a good discussion that comprehensively covers the topic, in my opinion. My thanks to everyone who's contributed. To my mind, xin is one of those key Chinese terms that could well be left untranslated once a person gets a sense of it. Maybe even left as 心 . To put into my words what's already been said, the sense I personally have of it is the totally of the me that perceives, or at least that part of that totality of which I’m conscious of. And it's my whole being which perceives and 'thinks', as recognised by TCM. Thus xin is a complex mish-mash of cognition, not a unified whole. For me, a primary purpose of qigong and other methods of cultivation is to harmonise (unify) xin. I also added content on xin recently on the Neiye thread here. (And I very much like the comprehensive account of the meaning of xin in contemporary China that Bindi references in her OP. It mightn't be perfect but it's certainly worth reading.)

@rideforever An assertion about Jung such as yours would only have validity if you’d read a sizable selection of the 20 volumes of his collected works and at least some of the large amount of commentary on it written by others. But certainly, methods are refined by trial and error over time. What proves effective is kept. For instance you wrote.... This has close parallels with a method Jung discovered and used on himself in his early days of exploring his own psyche. However, Jung’s framing was far broader in scope than dealing with the types of causal factors you mention. Without reading the work of the authors you mention, from your comment I’d say they've shaped tools to accurately treat specific imbalances. And this is certainly a good thing, providing these tools are used wisely, of course.

One thing to keep in mind with theory is that it’s only a model of reality. Concepts are enticing because they make clear distinctions; distinctions that are only clear in theory, not reality. They help us gain insight into real experience, but can harm us if we make the theory primary and privilege its worldview rather than our own experience. I find Jung’s concepts particularly helpful for gaining insight into my own experience, but I’m not a Jungian. (Nor am I a Daoist, though likewise, I find aspects of Daoism very helpful.) What I’m getting at is that real experience, though primary, can only be described and communicated through concepts, but these can only ever be approximate. This topic is about what Jung calls the shadow. I find it a helpful concept but it becomes a hindrance if I look to find Jung’s concept of a shadow within me, rather than seek to use it to illuminate otherwise ineffable inner experience. This same inner experience could well be descried within a totally different theoretical framework. In fact, if the experience is at all universal, there must be numerous other ways it has been described. All these different accounts can be helpful, but I find some speak to me far more strongly than others. With that in mind here are some further thoughts on the shadow’s place within Jung’s theory...... One of Jung’s fundamental insights is that our human consciousness is polarised. For him, consciousness consists of flows of psychic energy and this energy, like all energy, only flows where there are polar differentials. (Daoists speak in terms of qi flow and yin-yang.) Within our psyche, the first level of polarity is between our conscious awareness and our hidden shadow. (Using contemporary terminology this could also be called a polarity between self and other.) Jung’s aim was not to eliminate or try to join these polar opposites, rather he learned that the best approach was to try and reconcile them. (Reconciling the opposites in a general sense was also the aim of both Western and Chinese alchemists, hence Jung’s affinity with their writings.) According to Jung, by making the shadow more conscious a person enters “a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me." Obviously, this is no easy state to navigate, and gives insight into why humanity at large keeps ‘shadow’ as the primary source of psychic energy. Yet navigating it is vital for the deepening of inner awareness. To the degree that the shadow is made conscious, we lessen the polar tension and hence diminish its ability to energise our psyche. Jung recognised its power as useful and didn’t try to eliminate it completely, rather he allowed it some measure of expression within his personality. But what he found was that there are deeper sources of polarity within the psyche so that this lessening of shadow powered psychic energy, rather than being disastrous, is, in fact, greatly advantageous. When approached wisely, what happens according to Jung is a “boundless expanse” of new awareness. Where does the energy for this expansion of awareness come from? On what polarity does it depend? Jung’s answer is that if one follows the inward path it leads to the realisation of the next level of polarity within the psyche; namely anima, the female image within a man, or animus, the male part of a women. Jung wrote: “Recognising the shadow is what I call the apprenticeship. But making out with the anima is what I call the masterpiece that not many bring off.” Insight into this alchemical transmutation of the energies that power romantic love forms a key part of Jung’s work.