Geof Nanto

Continuing on Liminal Luke's theme that wearing heavy shoes is only one aspect of this retreat from the real. ...... In so many ways, there has been a prising away of life from place, an abstraction of experience into different kinds of touchlessness. We experience, as no historical period has before, disembodiment and dematerialisation. The almost infinite connectivity of the technological world, for all the benefits that it has brought, has exacted a toll in the coin of contact. We have in many ways forgotten what the world feels like. And so new maladies of the soul have emerged, unhappinesses which are complicated products of the distance we have set between ourselves and the world. We have come increasingly to forget that our minds are shaped by the bodily experience of being in the world — its spaces, textures, sounds, smells and habits — as well as by genetic traits we inherit and ideologies we absorb. A constant and formidably defining exchange occurs between the physical forms of the world around us, and the cast of our inner world of imagination. The feel of a hot dry wind on the face, the smell of distant rain carried as a scent stream in the air, the touch of a bird's sharp foot on one's outstretched palm: such encounters shape our beings and our imaginations in ways which are beyond analysis, but also beyond doubt. There is something uncomplicatedly true in the sensation of laying hands upon sun-warmed rock, or watching a dense mutating flock of birds, or seeing snow fall irrefutably upon one's upturned palm. (From Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places.)

Black Swans are beautiful...... The black swan (Cygnus atratus) is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic conditions. Black swans are large birds with mostly black plumage and red bills. They are monogamous breeders, and are unusual in that one-quarter of all pairings are homosexual, mostly between males. Both partners share incubation and cygnet rearing duties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan

Thank you for the clarification. I did read that reply as coming from a place of great indignation and I was mystified as to why. Like your previous question about how I felt about Lin Yutang’s translation of Tian as God rather than the more usual Heaven, my thoughts in response to the rest of your comments are too varied, too paradoxical and too nebulous to present in any straightforward, coherent form. But I can simply say that I respect your sincerity and appreciate the deep learning apparent in your posts. You may gain some idea of where I’m coming from on the God question if you read this post in my PPD. I know from a previous post of yours that you like Dan Reid’s The Thread of Dao. I like it too. I acquired it near the end on my own chapter by chapter meditation on the Neiye in my PPD. When I first joined Dao Bums a few years ago I put much effort into discussing texts I found meaningful. But my focus has shifted more inwards since then. Hence my reticence with words....for now at least.

Yes. But I’d say using the metaphor, not appropriating it as if is someone else’s exclusive property. I very much like it as an image of what us humans do with our attempts at tidying up concepts. I’m baffled as to why you find this so remarkable. (Note: I’m not saying I think this is wholly a good thing. Often I like to observe the leaves as they’ve naturally fallen. I’d certainly like to read the original Zhuangzi, especially as it apparently contained much mythical content.)

Truly, Taoist Texts literal explanation aside, the version of the Zhuangzi we now have could well be described as ‘The Swept Leaves’ version, or even ‘The Swept Path’ version. The original, now lost, 52 chapter version was radically edited by Guo Xiang around the year 300 CE..... His edition soon became the standard version and has survived to the present day. Most enlightening, Guo Xiang also wrote a postscript to explain the revisions he undertook. This postscript is still extant in the Kozanji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. Here Guo Xiang says that he found Zhuangzi's work full of strange ideas, daring metaphors, and lofty expressions. To make his meaning clear to the uninitiated, he found it necessary to revise the text radically. A certain number of chapters—altogether about one-third of the old manuscript—were excluded completely. "Some of them," he states, "were similar to the Shanhai jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas), others resembled the manuals used by dream interpreters. Some came from the Huainanzi, others again belonged to works dealing with speculations about names and reality." The text seems to have been widely varied, containing profound and shallow parts side by side. Guo Xiang says he found it hard to make sense of the work as a whole, but tried his best to include as much as possible in the coherent philosophical system he outlines in his commentary. As he has it, "I contented myself with summarizing all and refrained from inquiring into its logic. I reduced the text to thirty-three chapters, selecting its best and most complete parts, those which could reasonably be made into one whole." Guo Xiang therefore thoroughly reorganized the Zhuangzi. He eliminated folkloristic parts and shortened the manuscript, as he himself admits; from later citations it is evident that he also rearranged the text and removed those sections he considered merely explanatory to his commentary. Guo Xiang did thus not hesitate to impose his personal understanding and philosophical preferences on the text. The ancient original Zhuangzi was lost and ever since the fourth century it has been received through Guo Xiang's eyes. His philosophical systematization had a tremendous impact on the later tradition. Once his views were found agreeable to Chinese literati, his interpretation was accepted as the correct standard and all variants gradually vanished in the mist of history. (From Livia Kohn, Early Chinese Mysticism.)

I’ve not heard of the Sweeping Leaves version. I like the name though. It sounds Daoist to me. Out of interest I did a web search and found this about the basis of Lin Yutang's translation of the Zhuangzi.... I have based my translation on that of Herbert A. Giles. It soon became apparent in my work that Giles was free in his translation where exactness was easy and possible, and that he had a glib, colloquial style which might be considered a blemish. The result is that hardly a line has been left untouched, and I have had to make my own translation, taking advantage of whatever is good in his English rendering. But still I owe a great debt to my predecessor, and he has notably succeeded in this difficult task in many passages. Where his rendering is good, I have not chosen to be different. In this sense, the translation may be regarded as my own. It should be noted that throughout the text, Giles translates "Heaven" as "God" where it means God. On the other hand, the term "Creator" is an exact rendering of chao-wu, or "he who creates things." I will not go into details of translation of other philosophic terms here. (From The Chuang Tzu translated by Yutang Lin https://terebess.hu/english/chuang.html ) What do you think of his translation of “Heaven” as “God”?

Early in the course of Earl Grey’s discussion topic on the Tao of Controversy I spent about an hour drafting a comment but then deleted it without posting it because I couldn’t adequately express my multifaceted feelings on the subject. I was pleased I did because when I read the discussion the following day it had progressed in a way that covered a great deal of what I wanted to say – and better expressed than I could have managed. Hence my delight in being able to add a heart-felt ‘Like’ to most all of the posts. However, the discussion was mainly about the negatives. A core reason I abandoned my original attempt at replying was that I could see much positivity in working through controversy, and the more I thought about it the deeper and more complex it got. Here’s an extract from a lecture on alchemy given by Marie-Louise von Franz, Carl Jung’s primary assistant in his work of interpreting alchemical texts from a psychological perspective, that covers a further aspect of that complexity….. Dr. von Franz: What is fire? [In alchemy] Answer [from an audience member]: Emotion. Dr. von Franz: Yes, but what is positive about emotion? It transforms, cooks, and enlightens, that is the way in which fire brings light: if I am emotionally gripped by something I can understand it; if I am not emotionally wrestling with my problems, or something else, then nothing comes out. Where there is no emotion there is no life. If you have to learn something by rote and it is of no interest to you, there is no fire; it does not register, even if you read it fifty times. But as soon as there is emotional interest, it need only be read once and you know it. Therefore emotion is the carrier of consciousness, there is no progress in consciousness without emotion. The destructive aspect appears in quarrels; there it eats us up. The other person says it is terrible when you let out your destructive emotion, but if we don't let it out, then emotion eats us up. You know how enjoyable it is if you keep an affect to yourself; if you don't let your negative emotion out it just eats you up from within, there is a growling dog within you for hours. Here there is an allusion to evil emotion: "The fire was kindled in the assembly and the flame consumed the impious on earth." It is the burning up of impious people, of sinners. And then it is said: "He extinguishes the fire in its own inner measure." Psychologically that is very revealing. Again and again people say in analysis that they are in love with you, or hate you, although they say they know it is quite unreasonable: "I am not crazy, I can behave and be reasonable, but the thing is still there, what can I do about it? Please redeem me! It is not enough for me to know it is all nonsense." The answer to that is hard to accept: the fire has to burn the fire, one just has to burn in the emotion till the fire dies down and becomes balanced. That is something which unfortunately cannot be evaded. The burning of the fire, of the emotion, cannot be tricked out of one's system; there is no recipe for getting rid of it, it has to be endured. The fire has to burn until the last unclean element has been consumed, which is what all alchemical texts say in different variations, and we have not found any other way either. It cannot be hindered but only suffered till what is mortal or corruptible, or, as our text says so beautifully, till the corruptible humidity, the unconsciousness, has been burnt up. That is the meaning, it is the acceptance of suffering. If one is filled with 10,000 devils one can only be burnt up in them until they quiet down and are still, and the infantile demand on the analyst or anybody else, that he should redeem one with some kind of comforting trick, does not help. If an analyst pretends he can do that, then he is just a quack, because there is no such thing, and anyway it would be meaningless. If he tries to get analysands out of the suffering it means he takes away from them what is most valuable; cheap comforting is wrong, for by that you get people away from the heat, the place where the process of individuation takes place. Sitting in Hell and roasting there is what brings forth the philosopher's stone; as it is said here, the fire is extinguished with its own inner measure. Passion has its own inner measure; there is no such thing as chaotic libido, for we know that the unconscious itself, as pure nature, has an inner balance. The lack of balance comes from the childishness of the conscious attitude. If you only follow your own passion according to its own indications it will never go too far, it will always lead to its own defeat. Inordinate passion seeks defeat. People who have an inordinately passionate nature, a kind of devilish nature, are lovingly searching for a human person, or a situation, against which they can knock their heads, and they despise any partner or situation in which their passion wins out. Instinctively they seek defeat. It is as though something within them knows this devil has to be hit on the head, which is why if one is friendly or weak, or understanding towards such fire, one does not help the person; generally such people walk out on you, because that is not what they want. The fire of the passion looks for that which will extinguish it, and that is why the urge for individuation, as long as it is a natural inordinate urge, seeks impossible situations; it seeks conflict and defeat and suffering because it seeks its own transformation. Let us say someone is possessed by a power devil. If he can dominate people in his surroundings he is not happy, but remains restless; he dominates the whole family and goes on dominating outside and in his professional life, but he is still restless. He is really searching for someone who can overcome him; that is what he longs for, though naturally he does not like it. It is an ambiguous attitude, for he hates it but at the same time longs for somebody or something to overcome him and put an end to his power. It is very important to know that in the treatment of borderline cases, for they usually suffer from tremendous emotions and always try to let the whole impact fall on the analyst in the hope and fear that he will hit back; that is because the fire knows its own inner measure.

Thank you for your supportive comment, Apech. Please feel free to add some Buddhist flavour, if you so chose. In a general sense, I’d say any path that results in profound inner transformation could be described as an alchemical one. For instance, some people describe the Ten Ox Herding Pictures as a story of alchemical transformation. (However, I’ve spent much time living in Buddhist meditation centres when I was younger and I can tell you these places are rife with unacknowledged, and therefore destructive, emotion.) Other than that, all I’d like to add at this stage is that attacking people is easy. It’s allowing oneself a measure of emotional vulnerability that’s hard. But’s that’s an essential part of the alchemical method; the transmutation of raw, chaotic emotion into spiritual gold.

I agree but would take it further. I’m not really interested in debating any philosophy. However, practical theory is very important for me. That's not what I meant. Can you see greater depth in my statement: "If there was no individual consciousness there'd be no existential angst." Edit: At the risk of stating the obvious, you come across as rather war-like. Surely you're aware of this? I assume the polarity between your peace signature and your confrontational manner with almost all members of this forum is so blatant it could not possibly be anything but deliberate. Hence I make this reply with ambivalent feelings. I'm hoping something constructive comes from it, yet wary of provoking a hostile response. If that’s the case, it’s unlikely I’ll reply to you as I don’t come here for confrontation. But if you’d drop your aggression (which so far you haven't directed at me) I feel you have much to offer this forum.

In a very real way, I feel it dishonours this work to try to discuss it on an open forum. It’s simply impossible to convey anything but some basics. And it’s only meaningful for people like yourself who have come to it through their own experiences. For me, alchemy in all its varied forms best describes the natural transformation processes that happens self-so over time if we allow it. In my case it’s a gradual, slow but profoundly transforming growth. I've had many ups and downs with much emotional trauma, all of which has given me insights into the work. Significantly, it all feels like a part of a meaningful whole, whereas in retrospect I can see my early life as meaningless (though I wasn't aware of this at the time). My simple answer to your question is that Neidan and its preliminary practices are focused on working with energy flows within the body whereas Western alchemists focused on external chemical processes and into these they projected psychic content. It’s rich in emotion; rich in symbolic content. Jung found in it the precursor of what he called individuation. That’s why I said these two are complementary. I’ve needed both – and many other teachings, relationships etc – yet my path is intensely my own.

Consciousness can’t exist without polarity. And sure, whether I call that polarity positive / negative or yin / yang, both poles are part of a greater whole. And yes, if there was no individual consciousness there'd be no existential angst. There are many discussions here on non-dualism and also, often by the same people who profess to be non-dualists, much duelism.

For me too. A life safer. Also Western alchemy. One complements the other. (I suspect you'd also like Western alchemy with its use of Christian imagery. It has great parallels with Daoist Neidan.) Yes. But Jung says the unconscious content thrust itself into his consciousness by itself. It almost sent him crazy with its bizarre content. He writes in Memories, Dreams, Reflections: “An incessant stream of fantasies had been released, and I did my best not to lose my head but to find some way to understand these strange things. I stood helpless before an alien world; everything in it seemed difficult and incomprehensible. I was living in a constant state of tension; often I felt as if gigantic blocks of stone were tumbling down upon me. One thunderstorm followed another.” His journal of this time is amazing, published long after his death as The Red Book. It was only after he received a dream message that he looked for parallels in alchemy, and then he had to spend a decade collecting, translating and deciphering these long forgotten works that had been discarded into the rubbish bin of history, before he was able to get a measure of their great value.

Thanks, Bindi. I was hoping someone would see the parallels with Daoist alchemy. That’s why I started the topic in the Daoist section. For me, a key aspect is how much of this work can be done internally as per Neidan and how much needs to be expressed and burnt out externally the way von Franz describes. I know from my own experience that basic Daoist praxis such as working to harmonise the energy system of the body through qigong, food energetics etc goes a long way to aiding emotional balance. Yet I’m a great believer that much of this has to be played out in the real world over an extended period of time. All things being equal, life is long; and so is the course of this work. (Incidentally, those Thomas Cleary translations you’ve referenced are all books I have and have gained much insight from. They gave me my introduction to Daoist theory and praxis going back almost 30 years ago now. His Taoist I Ching is still my favourite Yi Jing book.)

Maybe not possible to lose the key in an absolute sense, but certainly possible to mislay it and not know where to look to find it. (And when talking about this level of practice, inside and outside are not two.) @Bindi, I fully understand what you mean by liberation, but it's not a term that Daoists use. I personally seek wholeness, and for me that's a path that both Daoist and Western alchemy have given me valuable insight into. For a detailed contemporary account of Daoist Neidan as a practice manual I'd recommend Damo Mitchell, White Moon on the Mountain Peak. Also, Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body is excellent for reasons you'll find if you read it. And yeah, the alchemists of old say that once we have a firm theoretical basis that resonates with us and cultivation has reached a certain point, then the books must be discarded or else they will contaminate our inner experience. It's ultimately an individual journey.

Bindi, you can’t have read the Neiye to make that comment. Unusual for you whose posts are generally very well informed. As Zerostao wrote above: "The Neiye is about breath, meditation, qi cultivation and the cosmology those are based on. The title breaks down to basically to internal work." The Neiye comes across to me as an attempt by someone who has gained genuine attainment at describing the process and experience. No way is it a philosophical work; it is a manual for inner attainment. It's of particular interest because it was written before the language and theory that Daoists are now familiar with came into existence. The author was shaping something new that hadn't been written about before. Of course, people had been experiencing such mystical attainments since the dawn of humanity but the words and theoretical framework to communicate them simply didn't exist. In the Neiye, what later become key concepts such as jing 精 (vital essence), de 德 (inner power), qi 氣 and even Dao 道 were still fluid and they're used practically interchangeably. We see Daoism in it formative stage; hence this period is sometimes called 'proto-Daoism'. And that's why I like it. The later systemisation is a double-edged sword. It both helps and hinders personal cultivation. To my understanding, the Neiye conforms with what your expressing in the gist of your comments such as: "Devotion to learning means increasing day by day; devotion to the Way means decreasing day by day." By the last Lao Zi meant to obtain the way was to shed one's own preconceptions and become more closely aligned with nature. I see no underlying disagreement; just a communication problem.

For me, the essence of Daoism is well expressed in the Neiye. There’s a saying, “Too many cooks spoil the brew.” With Daoism too many concepts spoil the experience for sure.

Shinto (神道 Shintō): The Way of Spirits. Shen Dao in Chinese pinyin. In Japanese, shin (神), meaning 'spirit' or kami and michi (道), meaning 'path'. To me, the core of Shinto is very much in harmony with early Daoism as is its name. I particularly like its focus on connection with nature. "Shinto teaches to revere 'Great Nature'. That means that everything in nature is the transformation and creation of Kami, therefore the sacredness of Kami dwells within it." I don't know of any discussion groups on Shinto but there's plenty of information on it as any web search will reveal. Wikipedia is a good place to start. I found this book very helpful as an overview: The Essence of Shinto by Motohisa Yamakage. Here's a few of his introductory discussion topics..... Shinto is a religion unique to the Japanese people. Shinto has no founder Shinto has no doctrines Shinto has no precepts or commandments Shinto has no idols Shinto has no organisation What it does have are ambiguous characteristics like empathy and silent experience. Hence Shinto is very much an experiential religion. It's about development of intuitive and psychic abilities so that Kami can be felt as real presences.

Some background information that I looked up whilst waiting for the interview...... Livia Kohn (left), Lindsay Wei (right) at a Daoist conference in 2015. Livia Kohn, Ph. D., graduated from Bonn University, Germany, in 1980. After six years at Kyoto University in Japan, she joined Boston University as Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies in 1988. She has also worked variously as visiting professor and adjunct faculty at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, the Stanford Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, San Francisco State University, and the Taoist College Singapore. Her specialty is the study of the Daoist religion and Chinese long life practices. She has written and edited 35 books and over 100 articles, as well as translated works from the German, French, Chinese, and Japanese. She retired from active teaching in 2006 and now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, from where she continues to write books, serves as the executive editor of the Journal of Daoist Studies, and manages Three Pines Press, the Western voice of Daoism (www.threepinespress.com). In addition, she still serves on numerous committees and editorial boards, leads Daoist Qigong and Core Health workshops worldwide, and is the lead organizer of a series of major international conferences on Daoism. Her books include Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (1989), Early Chinese Mysticism (1992), God of the Dao (1998), Daoism Handbook (2000), Monastic Life in Medieval Daoism (2003), Cosmos and Community (2004), Daoist Body Cultivation (2006), Meditation Works (2008), Sitting in Oblivion (2010), Daoist Dietetics (2010), A Source Book in Chinese Longevity (2012), Zhuangzi: Text and Context (2014), and—most recently—Pristine Affluence: Daoist Roots in the Stone Age (2017). In terms of self-cultivation, she began practicing Taiji quan in the 1970s and dedicated herself to Vipassana Meditation for 20 years, beginning in 1981. She is also a certified instructor of Kripalu Yoga, Qigong, and Scottish Country Dancing. Most recently, she is a leading facilitator of Core Health and co-author of Core Health: The Quantum Way to Inner Power (2012) (www.corehealth.us).

Thank you for doing this Dawei.

@Daemon Thank you. I had not previously heard of Maureen Murdock. I’ve briefly browsed her website and my initial impression is that I concur with your intuition that I may find some utility in it. I will explore her work some more later.

My conscious knowledge is helpful, yes! But it also traps me in words and images that can only ever be partial representations of an ineffable whole. Shunryu Suzuki wrote in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.” From my observation this certainly applies to experts on Daoism, Buddhism, Christianity etc., and no less so for devotees of secular philosophies. I for one know the enticing power of such entrapment from personal experience. One way to gain insight into that which knowledge can only ever hint at is to read accounts of from vastly different traditions. For instance, to my mind, what Daoist Neidan describes as Jing to Qi to Shen has parallels with the passage below from Jung’s The Psychology of the Transference that outlines how what starts out as instinctive sexual energy is transformed and refined as it passes through four stages of growth. (I particularly like the emotionality of this account. For me, love in all its manifestations continues to be a powerful transformative experience.) It ends with realisation of wisdom so profound that nothing can be said. Hence the silence of sages. “If a man's temperament inclines him to a spiritual attitude, even the concrete activity of the instincts will take on a certain symbolical character. This activity is no longer the mere satisfaction of instinctual impulses, for it is now associated with or complicated by ‘meanings’. In the case of purely syndromal instinctive processes, which do not demand concrete realization to the same extent, the symbolical character of their fulfilment is all the more marked. The most vivid examples of these complications are probably to be found in erotic phenomenology. Four stages of eroticism were known in the late classical period: Hawwah (Eve), Helen (of Troy), the Virgin Mary, and Sophia. The series is repeated in Goethe's Faust: in the figures of Gretchen as the personification of a purely instinctual relationship (Eve); Helen as an anima figure; 1 Mary as the personification of the "heavenly," i.e., Christian or religious, relationship; and the "eternal feminine" as an expression of the alchemical Sapientia. As the nomenclature shows, we are dealing with the [masculine] heterosexual Eros or anima-figure in four stages, and consequently with four stages of the Eros cult. The first stage – Hawwah, Eve, earth—is purely biological; woman is equated with the mother and only represents something to be fertilized. The second stage is still dominated by the sexual Eros, but on an aesthetic and romantic level where woman has already acquired some value as an individual. The third stage raises Eros to the heights of religious devotion and thus spiritualizes him: Hawwah has been replaced by spiritual motherhood. Finally, the fourth stage illustrates something which unexpectedly goes beyond the almost unsurpassable third stage: Sapientia. How can wisdom transcend the most holy and the most pure? – Presumably only by virtue of the truth that the less sometimes means the more. This stage represents a spiritualization of Helen and consequently of Eros as such. That is why Sapientia was regarded as a parallel to the Shulamite in the Song of Songs.” 1. Simon Magus' Helen (Selene) is another excellent example.

How do people find these response options? Personally, I’d be happy with just the one like we used to have. Either “Thank You” or “Like” would do me. But, if we are to keep the existing options, what I’d very much like is a more appropriate symbol for “Thanks” than the crass gold cup. Any suggestions?

@ Liminal Luke Your thoughtful post is much appreciated. I like all you've written and especially your wish that "people would write out what they like (or find true, funny, or confusing) and just make their appreciation part of the conversation." For me, I'd express it as: If someone's response is other than a straightforward 'Like' or 'Thanks' then I'd wish they'd explain why they click 'sad', 'confused' or 'haha' (when 'haha' is used as derision). To do so seems a matter of common courtesy to me. But really, the overriding reason I started this topic is that I'd like a way of simply saying 'Thank You' without the symbolism of the cup.

Yes, you're correct. In my mind I see it as a symbol for a gold cup. But that's tangential to the subject. Before this discussion goes any further, a question for Dawei: Is altering this symbol something that could be done easily enough?

@ Daemon No, those words are not mine. It’s a four-line translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa of a haiku written by Bashō as part of his travelogue, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. I normally attribute quotations but in this case I felt doing so would spoil the flow.