Geof Nanto

I say it's because it's the yang / masculine aspect of Daoism. It gives the illusion that you're in control of the process, not ineffable nature, the mysterious Dao. Classical Daoism emphasised the importance of the yin / feminine aspect of reality, perhaps because these yang aspects always tend to dominate in one form or another. They're what's visible and graspable; the Dao is invisible and ungraspable.

I agree if you mean external alchemy as the treating of the whole of life as the alchemical cauldron. All that inner work can be used as an escape from the difficulties of life, but used positively it can strengthen our alignment with Dao so that we're able to engage more meaningfully with life. That’s why I consider working with political engagement can be valid practice, for instance. And intimate relationships, love and the whole damn catastrophe; that's real challenging alchemical work. But if you mean what’s normally meant by external alchemy, namely the search for the physical pill of immortality and the ingestion of substances, then I disagree.

@Bindi Yes, it’s important for me to remember this perspective on the shadow which could also be called repressive conditioning. Claire Dunne gives a balanced overview of shadow in her biography of Jung, Carl Jung: wounded Healer of the Soul: “For each of us the shadow is a call to explore our lives in greater depth. Bringing it into light and dealing with its contents, whatever they may be, helps us to grow into a larger sense of our humanity.” She explains further: The first layer we encounter in the unconscious is what Jung called the shadow, usually those parts of ourselves we don't like, don't know, or don't want to know. The shadow can be repressed in us like a cancer or projected outward onto others as qualities we dislike most in a person or group. The negative shadow can present us with a shortcoming to be overcome. The positive can show us a meaningful part of ourselves we should recognize and live out. Either way it’s a tricky element to deal with, as Jung himself knew. He wrote: “My shadow is indeed so huge I could not possibly overlook it in the plan of my life; in fact I had to see it as an essential part of my personality, accept the consequences of this realization, and take responsibility for them.” It seems Jung was successful in integrating his shadow as many accounts from people who had personal dealings with him concur with Psychotherapist Elizabeth Howes impression: “This man did in fact accept the shadow and ... this acceptance brought problems and tensions but also aliveness, reality, integrity, and depth of being.”

I'm interested to learn what your insights are on this. It's your topic and I've already added plenty. Unfortunately, past experience tells me that Jung topics on Dao Bums gain little discussion.

And another couple of snippets on the shadow archetype from his writings.... “Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The later procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” "This meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, 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." (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious) "Recognition of the Shadow, on the other hand, leads to the modesty we need in order to acknowledge imperfection. And it is just this conscious recognition and consideration that are needed whenever a human relationship is to be established. A human relationship is not based on differentiation and perfection, for these only emphasize the differences or call forth the exact opposite; it is based, rather on imperfection, on what is weak, helpless and in need of support — the very ground and motive for dependence. The perfect have no need of others, but weakness has, for it seeks support and does not confront its partner with anything that might force him or her into an inferior position and even humiliate him. This humiliation may happen only too easily when high idealism plays too prominent a role." (CW l0: Civilization in Transition: par 579, p 301)

For any real benefit, Jung has to be read as a totality. A small snippet of his ideas can be more misleading than helpful, particularly as he refines and develops his concepts over time as his own experience deepens. And from my observation, only a small minority of people feel strong resonance with his insights. Hence, with some reservation, here’s the entry on ‘Shadow’ from the glossary of Jung's semi-autobiographical Memories, Dreams, Reflections, for the information of those reading this who are not familiar with his terms...... Shadow. The inferior part of the personality; sum of all personal and collective psychic elements which, because of their incompatibility with the chosen conscious attitude, are denied expression in life and therefore coalesce into a relatively autonomous "splinter personality" with contrary tendencies in the unconscious. The shadow behaves compensatorily to consciousness; hence its effects can be positive as well as negative. In dreams, the shadow figure is always of the same sex as the dreamer. C G Jung: "The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and yet is always thrusting itself upon him directly or indirectly for instance, inferior traits of character and other incompatible tendencies." (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, CW 9, i, p 284.) "... the shadow [is] that hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden personality whose ultimate ramifications reach back into the realm of our animal ancestors and so comprise the whole historical aspect of the unconscious. ... If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of all evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is, his shadow, does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc." ( Aion, CW 9, part 2, p. 266 )

I consider myself as a student of Jung’s, though not in any formal sense. Reading his work has given me profound insights into my own experiences and made me feel not alone; perhaps more so than any other single teacher I’ve had. (I’d say though, as a whole, Daoism, qigong, meditation and aspects of tradition Chinese thought have probably helped me more.) I still find new depth in Jung even after nearly 30 years of reading his multi-volumed Collected Works. The deeper I go into my own experience, the greater is my understanding of his complex writings. The shadow is certainly one of Jung’s key archetypes. To state the obvious, if you want to formally do shadow work, work with an experienced Jungian analyst. I’ve never done this. For me, I’ve slowly gained insight into my own shadow through many years of real-life experience. I note my reactions. A strong adverse emotion response is a key indicator of hidden feelings. Ranting and feeling like I want to attack and destroy someone who has made some observation about me are a couple of red light indicators. And even noting these reactions, it can take years to gain insight into what I am suppressing. Key fact, we suppress our shadows because we truly are not able to handle these dark aspects of ourselves. My advice is don’t delve, just deal with what life presents you with.

I've only browsed the more recent entries on this thread, but what I've read brought to mind this passage from Arthur Waley's introduction to his translation of the Daodejing, The Way and its Power....... “The branch of Confucianism founded by Mencius was profoundly influenced by the Ch'i-country Taoism which centred round the Art of the Mind [xin]and the tending of the Vital Spirit [qi]. In this there is nothing surprising, for Mencius spent much of his life in the country of Ch'i, now part of Shantung. Indeed, the passages in which Mencius deals with the acquisition of the Unmoved Mind and with the use of man's 'well-spring' of natal breath are unintelligible unless we relate them to the much fuller exposition of the same theories in Kuan Tzu [specifically the Neiye chapters]. Mencius, as we know, learnt the art of maintaining an 'unmoved mind' at the age of forty, that is to say on his arrival in the country of Ch'i, which happened about 330 B.C. “When asked about the method that he employed, he replied that he had cultivated the art of using his `flood-like breath-spirit', obviously an allusion to the system described by Kuan Tzu. Mencius however gives his own turn to this doctrine. With him the 'flood-like spirit' is something that is produced cumulatively by the constant exercise of moral sense (i). But it can only come into existence as an accessory of such exercise. Its growth cannot be aided by any special discipline or regime. “It is clear that Mencius is here combating the ideas of the yoga-practitioners who performed particular exercises in order to 'expel the old (i.e. the used breath-spirit) and draw in the new'. Those who try to force the growth of the spirit by means other than the possession of a tranquil conscience he compares to the foolish man of Sung who, grieved that his crops came up so slowly, tried to help them by pulling at the stalks.” From this and many other sources, it seems clear enough that cultivation was a central concern for the ancient Chinese. But exactly what types of cultivation were productive was controversial then as it is now. The reference to Taoist yoga-like practices shows the beginnings of what was later systematised into Neidan. Of particular interest to me is how Mencius emphasised morality / ethics. It became a part of Daoism and I’ve read that Daoist teachers in China still emphasise it. They call it cultivating inner nature ( xiu xing, 修性) and it's as central to their teachings as qi methods and techniques. It seems this vital aspect of their wisdom has found little traction amongst us Westerners.

@Kar3n Am I replying to you as a moderator, or as a normal member of this forum? It creates difficulty when you come into a discussion wearing two hats. For instance, I have no problems with you describing Flowing Hands as “a self-proclaimed holy man” as a normal member, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for a moderator to do so, especially when warning said member about insulting others. The comments I post here are a reflection of where I'm at. I don't claim to be other than a person who's a mixture of both light and dark. I try to be constructive because I value this forum and regularly acknowledge the vital and often difficult role staff play. If Flowing Hands perceives my comment as an attack, that’s his business. When I write something I sincerely feel, I do so with the intent that others may find it helpful. And for me personally the responses I get, both written and in the invisible, help me gain insight into hidden aspects of my own psyche; especially insight into my own darkness. In that way my participation on this forum has helped me enormously in my personal cultivation.

I find many threads on Dao Bums a rich source of insight into our human psychology. I read this one out of general interest. I have no knowledge of, and am not curious to find out about the sect in question. Whilst I’m personally not interested in bagging other people’s paths, the discussion here seemed to me to be well within the norms of this often lively and confrontational forum. Hence I was surprised at the moderator intervention. Especially as it did come across, in part, as a personal attack on Flowing Hands. Having said that, I do find it annoying that Flowing Hands claims the divine authority of Laozi for his views; views that come across as very human in their mixture of wisdom and folly. (In particular, his attacking behaviour on this forum is far removed from the sage of the Daodejing.) Like many of us here, he comes across as a flawed human, doing his best to follow an authentic spiritual calling. I personally think he has an inflated ego, but that is something that's common for people who have felt real contact with other dimensions. It's an insidious trap that everyone must work through in their own way. It's insidious because a person in ego inflation is totally unable to recognise it. (I speak from personal experience.) It can only be seen in retrospect.

This is getting way off topic but I’ll add it anyway as it’s my own experience.... Speaking generally, I’d say all following of clearly defined paths is the mark of early / middle practice. For instance, the sort of clarity of practice that modern Neidan books present, such as Damo Mitchell’s excellent works and much of Thomas Cleary’s translations of Lui I-Ming’s work, is an illusion that everyone must work through themselves. They give the illusion that you're in control of the process, not ineffable nature, the mysterious Dao. That’s why the masters can only hint at their truths through paradoxes and cryptic verses. Fortunately, all things being equal, life is long and there’s plenty of time for the sort of personal exploration that slowly deepens insight over many decades.

Yes ultimately, nature and real life experiences are our greatest teachers. There has to be real felt emotional engagement with life through personal trial and error. We all must find and walk our own unique paths. But written teachings can certainly form solid stepping stones along the Way. Books are a great gift for us all.

Yes, those Thomas Cleary books are excellent for their clarity. I have them all and they’re what first drew me to Daoism almost 30 years ago. I’d call them foundational books. But now I’m older and hopefully a little wiser. I’ve learnt that these methods are only a small part of the Way. However, that’s certainly not a condemnation of their very real value. They’re solid stepping stones defining a path. My early favourite was Understanding Reality: A Taoist Alchemical Classic. And the one I still actively consult is Cleary’s translation of Lui I-Ming’s Taoist I Ching. That book is a gem.

I go with all the above recommendations. The Chinese word / character in question is 心 (xin), and ‘mind’ is a somewhat misleading translation. I recently wrote a little about it here on the Neiye thread. As a supplement to that, here’s the precis of an academic article that gives an excellent overview of xin...... In China, the word, xin 心 (often translated as ‘heart’) is frequently used and its concept is central to Chinese culture. However, its meaning is not exactly the same as ‘heart’ in English. Using qigong as the context, this article aims to explore the meaning of xin as a cultural keyword in order to gain an in depth understanding of Chinese culture and knowledge within that cultural system. Qigong is a Chinese health maintenance system and healing tradition which integrates physical activity with training of the mind and self-cultivation. One of qigong’s basic components is xin adjustment. It is impossible to convey the full meaning of this concept without understanding the meaning of xin. In Chinese culture, xin is the root of physical and mental life. It is the seat of all emotions, and embodies the inherent goodness of human nature and wisdom. Xin helps to guide the individual’s way of life and attitude, and can lead one to deep contentment. (The full article is at: http://www.academicjournals.org/app/webroot/article/article1379496939_Li et al.pdf )

@kyoji Thanks. I enjoyed compiling the booklet too. It's my favourite Daoist text. A glossary of key terms would be a good addition to the booklet for sure but not easy to concisely present. I started to write one but it got too complex so I thought it best to keep it simple. Also, I personally like to allow actual inner experience a free reign, as nebulous as it may be, rather than imposing too much conceptual content. But I do value intellectual insight, and there's plenty of interesting discussion available on the meaning of these Daoist terms. “Heart-mind” is a case in point. Here’s an explanation I’ve adapted from Louis Komjathy’s essay, Names are the Guest of Reality: The centre of Daoist psychology is the heart-mind (xin 心). From a classical and foundational Daoist perspective, the heart-mind is understood both as a physical location in the chest (the heart as “organ”) and as relating to thoughts and emotions (the heart as "consciousness" or shi 識). For this reason, although sometimes translated as "mind" under Buddhist influence, xin is better translated is "heart-mind," thus indicating its psychosomatic nature. 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. (Victor Mair’s discussion on “Heart-Mind” at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14807 is also informative.)

What is the spirit of this forum? I would say currently the spirit of Dao Bums is dominated by those with strong political opinions. That's where powerful emotions are being played out. I've written before that the atmosphere here is a reflection of our collective personal cultivation, with staff and prolific posters having a strong influence. I note that many of these key players have deeply partisan political views. This is the reality. I'm not condoning or condemning it, though it does put me off participating in all sections of this forum. However I am interested in observing how the underlying forces at work play out over the longer term.

Whilst I appreciate the obvious heart-felt nature of the above replies, I’m surprised by their mildly oppositional content. There was no intention on my part to claim that everyone on a spiritual path needs to wander the wilderness. (Indeed, I included a note to this effect at the end of the PPD entry I referenced above.) However, such a way has a long history of effectiveness from the earliest recorded shamanism onwards. It’s especially prominent in Daoism and features in all the major religions. For me, wilderness based practice is something important that’s not much discussed here. And no one can know how it will affect them without actual experience over an extended period of time. Without such experience, comments are groundless opinions. However my original awakening experience, 35 years ago, was whilst living in the midst of a city. That experience changed me from being a total rational materialist who scoffed at any notion of the divine, to someone who knew that far greater intelligent forces than we humans exist. An awesome 'presence' opened a pathway into me through the top of my head and travelled down through my spine, filling me with life-affirming energy / awareness. Why that experience was visited on me I do not know. To me, it’s a mystery why some people have these experiences and others don’t. My heart certainly wasn’t pure. I was a mess, on a downward spiral towards death, living what I’d call in retrospect a totally corrupt life (though at the time it was where I needed to be). That experience was very much a new beginning. But only a beginning. The initial experience only lasted a short time and the feeling faded completely over the course of the day. Although it left an indelible memory, underneath I was still the same messed-up person as before. I’ve needed decades of real-life experience, many teachers and teachings, and further awakenings to help me work through much stuff, notably emotional imbalances. Indeed, I’m still working through them. But what I can say is that that initial experience almost certainly saved my life in that it gave me a belief; more than a belief, it gave me a knowing.

No I haven’t had an experience like the one described in the OP. But I have had strong experiences like the two Miriam describes above. I wrote a little of one a while back in my PPD here. To my observation these types of experiences aren’t uncommon, but the one Miriam describes in the OP is rare. If she were able to sustain it, I’d call her a sage. However, even if a person has an innate disposition for such a path, it seems to me it’s something that needs to be worked at over a lifetime. I’ll write some more on my own experience later. My interest with this topic is with the varied nature of these experiences; some of which seem to come wholly from the outside, whereas others come from within.

Yes, she isn’t Awakened in the absolute sense the Buddha was. And she certainly doesn’t make any such claims. But to my use of the term, what she describes is an awakening experience. One of the reasons I posted her account was to illustrate how such experiences happen naturally, given the right combination of circumstances. When I said in my OP she had no spiritual intent that isn’t strictly accurate. She and her husband were drawn to live in the wilderness for many reasons, both expressible and inexpressible. One strand was spiritual but not in any rigorous sense. They had a general spiritual interest and even took a copy of the Daodejing with them. Early on Peter commented: ‘This beauty and purity [of the wilderness] will transform the mind, don’t you think?’ His eyes were full of wonder. ‘All the great religions have one basic message. Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, Lao-tzu—they all speak about the transformation of the mind.’ I nodded, looking out at the powerful river, which had cut so effortlessly through the hard rocks. ‘Whatever it might mean, this pure and wild place should change our consciousness.’ But they certainly weren’t focused on spiritual attainment. Mostly they were engaged with simply living in wilderness. And during those years they had several glimpses of mystical experience. Here are another couple: "We once climbed a big mountaintop. As soon as we emerged out of the gully, we were met with a strong westerly wind that swept mercilessly over bare rocks where only red lichen managed to grow. On the summit we gazed at a turquoise lake below us. The amazing opaque colour of the glacial water was absolutely breathtaking. A braided river with a hundred courses glittered in the afternoon sun, and in the far distance we could see farmland with its straight roads and square paddocks. We sat between the clouds and enjoyed the view, as we had done many times before. "Suddenly we both felt the presence of another dimension. We were struck with awe. On that high mountain, we were witnessing something immeasurable. It was as if we were sensing the unspeakable energy that underpins all of reality. In comparison to this immensity, thousands of years of human history and sophisticated achievements seemed quite insignificant. In this light, even the existence of mankind seemed irrelevant. This sense lasted only a short time—half an hour at the most. We saw it once and never again. We tried talking about it, but we couldn’t find the right words. Later, I wondered whether this was what Lao-tzu called the great Dao." And on another occasion: "One evening when we were sitting round the fire, Peter slowly stood up and ambled off barefoot through the thick sphagnum moss. There was something about his determined footsteps that made me follow him. He stepped elegantly over fallen branches, between clumps of tussock, and arrived at the clearing on the saddle. The sun had just set behind the distant blue-grey ridges. The trees, grass and moss were bathed in a reddish glow. "As I stood there barefoot in the soft moss, I looked into the valley below. As subtly and gently as a scented breeze, I became aware of a vast body of silence and eternity, a clear presence of something unknown—almost another dimension. It was such a presence that I was compelled to stop thinking and begin listening. I listened in complete quietness and with total attention. Effortlessly. For a moment everything was whole, innocent and holy."

@liminal_luke I didn’t get the impression that you are leaving outright. Rather I thought you were trying your version of the ancient Daoist practice of opinion retention. I wish that practice was more in vogue here rather than the popular semen retention fetish. It’s not without its dangers though, because, like with semen retention, we’re dealing with the energies behind these phenomena. With opinions it’s emotional energy. I posted one on the best overviews I’ve read on the subject here. I have ambivalent feeling about this site. Like others have said, I too have learnt much from by participation here. I greatly appreciate that this site exists where many people take the time to post thoughtful, heartfelt comments. But there’s no light that doesn’t cast a shadow. There’s an old song that goes something like this..... There is a site in cyberspace they call the Dao Bum. It’s been the ruin of many a poor seeker and me, O God, for one. If I had listened what Mama said, I’d be at home today. Being so young and foolish, poor boy, let a rambler lead me astray. Go tell my baby sister never do like I have done To shun that place in cyberspace they call the Dao Bum. My mother she’s a tailor, she sewed these new blue jeans. My alter ego, a drunkard on words, Lord, Lord, writes opinions so it seems. The only thing a drunkard needs is a keyboard and a bunk. The only time he’s satisfied is when he’s on a drunk. Fills his opinions to the brim, posts them around. Only pleasure he gets out of life is hoboin’ from sound to sound. A small part in his body, mostly in his brain. I’m going back to cyberspace to wear that ball and chain. Going back to cyberspace, my race is almost run. Going back to spend the rest of my days stuck on Dao Bum.

@dawei It appears to me that you’ve sought to deceive both the site owner and this forum. (I state this observation openly where it can be dealt with openly. Overall, and overriding this, I consider you to be an excellent administrator and the overall integrity of this site is very high, as the fact that this conversation is allowed to take place at all testifies.)

I would probably only have read the equivalent of a few pages of the Trump thread since it began, and nothing recently, so I’m in no position to gauge its mood. However when I have read it I found no informed discussion of American politics; rather the thread consisted of opposing camps battling it out. And I could understand the frustration of the anti-Trump camp in that theirs appeared to be the minority view. Hence I can’t help but read Dawei’s comments as an attempt to shut down a minority point of view couched in noble sounding sentiments. Isn’t the whole point of “Off Topic” a place that allows people to vent? If there was genuine political discussion of the constructive type Dawei is now wanting, then we would have not needed to create “Off-Topic" in the first place. Edit for clarification: By “minority point of view” I’m referring only to discussion on this forum, not anti-Trump sentiment within an overall American or world setting.

Your opinion has a high standing with me, Liminal Luke. And I also have a high opinion of Dawei, and I greatly appreciate the effort all staff members put into moderating discussions here. However on this subject I suspect he and some other staff members are more than a little biased. I know there are staff members actively pro-Trump. Is their anyone on staff who is actively anti-Trump? (Ideally, I'd like it if all staff where without partisan political opinions, however I realise that's unrealistic.)

I have Arthur Waley's translation. His is a highly rated translation, but translating poetry from Chinese and retaining the feel of the original is next to impossible of course. I'm not familiar with Pound's translation but perhaps work with both, Waley's for translation accuracy and Pound's for poetic feel. I bought it more to get a feel of ancient Chinese culture, and that it certainly gives. It is a great reminder that we humans have changed little emotionally over the last few millennia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality has the whole topic covered. Here's the opening paragraphs....... For me, spirituality is the inner essence of true religion. It's unfortunate that this central aspect has been virtually lost from the contemporary meaning of religion because of the disconnection of the mainstream religions from underlying spiritual reality. Hence the very notion of religion has become toxic for many people. This is unfortunate as this observation from Carl Jung makes clear.... “Of all my patients past middle life, that is, past thirty-five, there is not one whose ultimate problem is not one of religious attitude. Indeed, in the end every one suffered from having lost that which living religions of every age have given to their believers, and none is really cured who has not regained a religious attitude, which naturally has nothing to do with creeds or belonging to a church.”