Wondo

Hello, I was wondering what internal alchemy practices the Dragon Gate school uses to practice internal alchemy. Is it more psychologically based, like Secret of the Golden Flower and Guarding the One or the Clarity and Tranquility practice and using visualization and breathing techniques, or is it more body based, like stirring and rinsing saliva, manipulating certain body parts, etc. ? Thanks.

Cool. Thanks.

Like for example Wang Liping and his disciple Natan Brine. I do Taiji and Qi Gong and incorporate some of the methods from the seated 8 Brocades which includes rinsing and swallowing saliva, etc. But, I am drawn more toward the Jin Huan Secret Flower teaching because of my years of Zen practice, but yet follow the Taoists principles more so than Buddhism.

Void, Yes!! This is what I was trying to say months ago. I read your blog. Very interesting and in agreement. So, there is need for the simultaneous inferior and superior practices for us mere mortals.

I guess from the conventional way of looking at it, one may say it has stopped, but everything I have been taught and have read says that it is still happening.The lungs are not so much involved anymore but the LDT is. It is actually happening between the cinnabar field and the yellow court. Very deep. The whole body is breathing. Don’t know how else to explain it. If we are at a loss for words on how to explain, our experiences may actually be similar, just that language is being the barrier here.

Not argumentaive at all. I think your statements are very useful. What I have experienced may be different than what you have experienced. There are times when it appears that breathing has stopped, but then when I notice it, it resumes. If I stay in an empty state for long periods who knows how long it may have "stopped." I will not share what else I have experienced during those times, but suffice it to say the feeling encompasses the whole body and let's just say that clarity is far reaching.

True, but you are still breathing. The breathing is being done in the dantien, not so much the lungs. It is so extremely subtle that you do not notice it. You should not be even paying attention to the breathing in this stage because EB is on the side of non doing and if you are breathing in any special way or trying not to breathe, both of those ways are still doing something. When doing meditation and the mind is completely still, the body will also be completely still and then there is no awareness of breathing. Things just kind of take over themselves. Some people have thought EB to be the practice of stopping the breath. There are some methods that talk of stopping the breath but this is an intermediate method of the Lesser Celestial Circuit where you pause at the muddy pellet before going down the renmai. EB is an advanced level and the "stopping" referred to here has to do with stopping your focus of breathing, you just let it happen naturally. Noticing that the breath has stopped or become so unnoticeable immediately starts the process again. Just like when you are in deep samhadi and then you take notice of it, just that noticing is the resuming of thought. And if you have noticed yourself having "stopped" the breath, that noticing resumes the breathing. This is not a bad thing at all, it means your breathing in your meditation is very good and your mind has settled.

Others say it is when you stop breathing and only breathe internally. This is not entirely true. There is still breathing but it is hardly noticable. Personally, I have found that to stumble on EB requires that one have been familiar with deep diaphramatic breathing and reverse breathing in order to enter in to EB. The previous two seems to open up the possibility of EB. It was easy for me, but then again I have been practicing formal meditation for over 25 years.

It is breathing. So much has been misunderstood about EB. Some equate it with reverse breathing, but that is not correct. EB happens when your breathing becomes very subtle and very relaxed and hardly noticable. If you were to hold a feather under your nose, it would not move. EB happens naturally and is not forced. Having done natural breathing and reverse breathing as a foundation is necessary in order for the EB to be deep and centered.

Yes.

Sounds good to me.

And if you do not do any of those things, how do you cultivate?

I appreciate it. You followed the link, if you get a chance read it. It lays out a lot of stuff.

I posted a link above. Again, "more fun" when you do not read. Also, if you cultivate being virtous, which is mentioned in his methods, that involves activity doesn it not???

If you are of inferior virtue (most of us mere mortals are) then you must do something. Don't sit around blindly. Because LYM was heavily influenced by Confucious thought, the method involves correcting our mistakes and to cultivate virtue in our actions. Because he is a Taoist and comes from the alchemical tradition, this is both a physical and spiritual activity. Here Qian and Kun restore their righful place.

I know that LYM talking about cultivating Nature (Xing) and Existence (Ming) together may sound something like if we just sit in stillness and are not moved by desires and overcome the tendency to be drawn in a miriad of directions that what will happen is that by doing so, that everything will return to our original nature. That may be like the Bodhisattva in the Heart Sutra that knows that all five skandhas are empty but yet still functions in this world. The Bodhisattva knows the nature of reality, yet is still in reality. The superior virute is where one has not fallen from the precelestial and so works on guarding that. Whereas the inferior virtue has fallen from the precelestial and enters in to the postcelestial and so must engage in doing. What LYM is warning about is not to get caught into thinking that by "doing" that you are using the body to do so as if in the body, there is contained something that can return to the precelestial. This is like in the Heart Sutra knowing that there are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, but yet right here in this moment there are eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. LYM is warning against getting attached to these ideas of the Elixir being contained in any of the five aggregates. My take on this is that if you are practicing the inferior virtue method, by restoring your orignal nature and restoring the Elixir, it is done so in the knowledge that ultimately, this does not exist in any physical location. It is a spiritual process. But a spirtual process can also be a physical process. They are not two. LYM says they are not three, they are one.

What LYM would call inferior Virtue.

"Nature and Existence must be cultivated together, but in the practice there should be two stages." (Discriminations, ch. 19, "Superior and Inferior Virtue," 31b-32a). "Those who are able to follow the way of superior virtue perform the two stages simultaneously." ( Pregadio). "Therefore the way of superior virtue attains both stages simultaneously by means of "non-doing." Inferior virute, instead, is the gradual way:Internal Alchemy enables one first to reover the True Seed of the Elixir by "doing," and then to nourish it by "non-doing." Dispite the difference between these two ways of cultivation, Liu Yiming adds an important remark:when both stages of inferior virtue are fulfilled, "then this road has ledto the same destination as superior virtue."(Fabrizio commenting on - Discriminations, ch. 19 "Superior and Inferior Virtue," 31a).

https://www.academia.edu/6581869/Discriminations_in_Cultivating_the_Tao_Liu_Yiming_1734_1821_and_His_Xiuzhen_houbian

I do both simultaneously.

Try this https://www.academia.edu/6581869/Discriminations_in_Cultivating_the_Tao_Liu_Yiming_1734_1821_and_His_Xiuzhen_houbian

For those here that have argued that LYM does not believe in cultivation of the physical and only the cultivation of the spiritual, here is a document that will hopefully clear things up.... https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/49412887/PREGADIO__Discriminations_in_Cultivating_the_Tao.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1551649823&Signature=CI0YEzQL6ZILnzpxdWrhSxfAXqc%3D&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B filename%3DDiscriminations_in_Cultivating_the_Tao_L.pdf

Okay. Fair enough.

That text is easy to understand, not sure why you would disagree.

Lifeforce, this is why I said the above. I am not in disagreement with you. I am discovering this. I had read in some material and some discussions that I had with others that LYM was writing to an audience that had already attained Neidan and was going beyond it. I was not aware that he had done it and it had done nothing for him. No need to bang your head against the wall, just read my thread more carefully. :-)