exorcist_1699

Hardly will Buddhists, not to speak of followers of Zen , recognize posture as something important for them because they view the physical body as illusory ; if they do , they face contradictions in their preaching . On the other hand ,Taoist alchemy does recognize the importance of posture, at least, at initial stage . The posture that enables you to get qi , in the order of easiness, is : Sitting upright with legs crossed , standing with hands placed near dantian , lying on your side, lying on your back , walking ...; or course, if you can enter an emptied Mind quickly and stay there persistently , then no matter what posture you adopt , you can get your qi easily . Apart from posture, what kind of drinks or food you eat is another factor you have to pay attention to : 1) Spicy food lets your qi expand , which is inappropriate to consolidating an emptied Mind; 2) Iced drinks that is against yang qi should also be avoided. At last , a factor looks seemingly spiritual , yet qi-related , is : 1) If you get a shallow mind always jealous of others' achievement ,then it in fact prevents you from uplifting and expanding yourself to get more qi; 2) A narrow mind which is always eager to show off some achievement you get can only block you from advancing. So, these are qi-related factors that Taoism emphasizes , yet overlooked by the Buddhists.

Both Buddhism and Taoism talk about emptiness and emptied mind , but because the Buddhist and Zen ones came to the West much earlier than the Taoist, so it gives people quite a lot of confusion . How can we differentiate them ? How unique are the Taoist ? I think , there are at least 3 of them : 1) No matter how much a school talks about emptiness and emptied mind , as long as it talks about them in the context of jing , qi, shen , then it is a Taoist school , not a Buddhist one . 2) No matter how a school emphasizes the importance of emptiness or emptied mind, as long as it claims that the physical body , as the embodiment of jing and qi , is as important as the spiritual part of our life, not something illusory , then it is Taoist , not Buddhist or others' . In short , it maintains Taoist principle of dual ( Xing and Meng )cultivation . 3) No matter what fantastic words a school admires that great , emptied Mind , as long as it recognizes that a Mind , even having gained many 3rd- eye abilities, is still something being encased in a physical skull, limited by a fragile body , living a short earthly life incapable of determining its future ... ie , a mind still having its yin character and needs Yang, the pre-heavenly qi, to help, then it is a school of Taoism , not others' . In fact, two of the contributions of Taoist theory , very different from others, are : - its pointing out the shortcomings ( yin-character ) of most spiritual cultivation , not necessarily be Buddhist , but can come from other religions; -its request for both spiritual and physical proofs : Capable of seeing through a physical barrier by your mind-eye is not enough , you are also asked to regenerate a fallen tooth at old age..; that is , the emptied Mind you nourish should be good enough, deep enough to touch , say, the marrow level the body.., which reflects the Yang at deeper layer. Most modern superficial -minded Buddhists always say that an aging, sick body is unrelated , unimportant . ..blah, blah, blah for their cultivation , yet through some detailed reading of the biography/ autobiography of those Zen masters , likely you can find another picture of the truth .

To me , Liu's words imply some criticism on Buddhist way of attaining the Buddha Heart ( referred to as 'ancestral Xing') , of course , a seemingly real , yet in fact a Yin-typed one . From Taoist standpoint , a great Mind should always be the product of jing cum qi 's refinement . Zen's no-step, no-form, no-need-of- accumulation approach is conditional : it is only true for the superb-te (' 上德 ' ) ; otherwise, please ask for jing and qi's help...

Concentration doesn't let people enter Samadhi , a persistent ,consolidated emptied mind that hardly can people experience in their daily life . If concentration can do , then it means if we prefer and focus , we can eliminate all those up and down of our mind by our own will , which unfortunately is not case . On the contrary , It is our mind's detachment or negating the current stream of consciousness , yet expect no achievement ... ,such a mindset that helps . Taoist way further supplements this process by adding jing and qi for an emptied mind can be grown and nourished through them much easier.

You may like to watch this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el3i3TfNg-I&t=62s

Mindfulness and concentration are mindsets of daily life and scientific reasoning which most people mistaken them as the spiritual ways that should be followed in their cultivation . In fact, besides the initial stage of some focus on the dantian or on the breathing to settle the mind, it is by using detachment and negation of the existing one , the pseudo mind , that is the way we should apply . And , that is why we keep talking about the use of an " emptied mind ", a non- fluctuated , consolidated one to deal with qi . Of course, a fluctuated mind is related to lung breathing , a post-heavenly way we live ; may be it is also why in emergence , people are asked to hold their breathing so that their mind can think clearer ....anyway , it implies that there is a unique breathing , very different from the ordinary one, that help consolidating our mind ; it is naive to think that the trivial mind we get can settle itself by suppressing the ups and downs of those ideas, through our own efforts to become a great One itself ; conversely , the harder we suppress it , the more it stands against us . A mind become great because it knows how to make use of qi , especially the pre-heavenly one . Using the pre-heavenly to counteract the post-heavenly , using nothingness to contain beings .. is always Taoist strategy , as " Can Tong Qi" <<周易參同契>> says : "以無制有, 器用者空" ( " Using nothingness to contain beings as using utensils because of its emptiness " )

道化性命, 至唯物辯証 , 偉哉 , 斯言 ! 哲人長逝, 悲夫 ..

" 仙" in Chinese refers to a special person who , not only literally hides on high mountain for his cultivation , but also lives an immortal life in Heaven , so translate it as " Way of Immortality' seems closer .

People who follow the Buddhist way are unlikely capable of , or interested in , understanding the Taoist theory of post-heavenly and pre-heavenly trigrams, which although borrowed from the Yi Jing , does grasp the essence of humans' predicament at its core; unfortunately , it is only after your capable of refining qi into Shen , do you get a glimpse of what it really refers to . A post-heavenly yin-typed mind , ie, our daily consciousness , although occasionally can be forced into an empty state, is very difficult to transform itself into Shen or a Buddha Mind by relying only on its own effort ; for example, whenever it desires to empty itself, it adds a " mind to empty " to itself , so not to speak of other spiritual fluctuations, how can it become emptied ? " 動念即乖" ( " Any rise or shift of the mind is doomed ") , but how can it be ? Taoist treatment to solve this trouble is smartly not lied in the mind itself but on the other side , a hidden pre-heavenly Yang ...; I think it is what Daeluin tries to say .

Many interesting debates had already staged before, but not all audience came in time to watch them .Not all actors are interested in repeating their dialogue even they know that they can earn some applause . Besides, you get a not so detailed feedback when trying to key in some words in search for previous information on this site .., for example, I can't find quite a big chunk of what I wrote here... Anyway , to me , the clear line drawn in between the so-called philosophical and religious Taoism is unnecessary , always overstated , which mainly is due to most people's lack of understanding of the Taoist formula : Jing => qi => Shen ; or more precisely speaking , their incapacity in pushing their practice from the stage of having attained qi to the stage of attaining Shen . In that case, no matter how hard you try to explain to people about why holiness or supernatural stuff inevitably arisen at some stage, your explanation fals on deaf ears. People can't understand that for the first time in human history , the appearance of Taoism enables them to grasp an ubiquitous force : qi as a medium to seal the gap between the subject and object , the physical and spiritual , thing-inside your brain and thing-outside your brain ... only if, just only if you can march forward a little , to consolidate that fluctuating qi and minds into some kind of a big One very different from what you daily sense and reason...

Without qi as the medium , it is extremely difficult for people to understand why Taoists and Buddhists are so fond of talking about emptiness . Besides , Buddhist way of dealing with emptiness is so inaccessible that it either presses people into some kind of mysticism or trap them in a status of pseudo-voidness ( a stagnant pool of water that can't nourish fish or a way of ' grinding brick to make it a piece mirror') . Taoist way is much easier for with qi at hands ,in our body to sense , to counter-check ; so easy that in the past people have to deliberately blur its real meanings with strange jargons : white tiger, mercury , yellow old lady..etc .But times has been changing, and we can express it in a clearer way . Emptiness, which exists everywhere without limitation, together with the emptied mind , which is limited to the space of a physical skull no matter how excited, how smart , how great it thinks of itself , are just two faces of the same coin : Tao , the pre-heavenly qi .Making the originally not emptied mind empty, nourishing it with qi ,and letting it meet and have intercourse with the ubiquitous emptiness is in fact the essence of Taoist alchemy.

To me , studying meditation or Qi by a scientific way always smother the greatness of the subject for in most cases you end up with the so-called brain science stuff , limited to the little space of a physical skull , and its magnificent cosmological implication lost . In fact, in this field , people need to get accustomed to thinking in Taoist jing-qi-shen framework and test what they sense and discover in their meditation ... a philosophical mind is always more important than a scientific mind. What you get is : "宇宙在乎手" ( " Grasp the secret of this universe directly in your own hands") , not a trivial field of science which belittles you as only a researcher .

___ _ _ ___ is a trigram called " Li" ('離'), which symbolizes ' Fire' , the post-heavenly , upper , spiritual status of humans ; _ _ ___ _ _　is a trigram called " Kan"('坎'), which symbolizes ' Water' the post-heavenly , lower , physical status of humans ( more precisely speaking for men ) ; A combination of them ( both belong to those eight basic trigrams ) gives you the status of our whole : Upper Fire, lower Water. Fire always goes dissipative and upwards like our spirit ; water always goes down and becomes dirty like our jing . Without Taoist cultivation , they always go further apart from each other as we age , and death is the only possible result . In daytime we use our mind to work or entertain , spiritual energy is wasted; in night time we are drown by sex and trapped by nocturnal leakage . Taoist cultivation , therefore , is just to make them meet and intercourse , arising from it a " Yuan Shen" , some kind of mindless Mind , to take charge of our whole practice so that aging will be stopped and reversed , and everlasting youth, not only afterlife eternity, becomes possible. First , you have to extract that middle Yang from the "Kan" trigram ; please notice that the precondition for such an extractionn is to make 'Water' not so dirty , much cleaner...for dirty water is the main cause of jing leakage , no matter it is in an awaken or sleepy status .

The attitude you adopt towards those feelings such as qi, light, heat, sex pleasure...etc in your cultivation, except those happen at the initial stage , should be something like knowing-but-not-paying-attention-to ( '存而不守') , otherwise, the more you focus on them, the more you likely smother their further developments , let alone something so crucial , related to the appearance of the Magical Gateway ...

" ..................................................... neither attention nor will is needed, in fact, do not think, do not imagine, eyes still closed, just look at Xuanguan (玄关) in front of eyes, with the whole body relaxed and attention focused on looking. By several times practice, some saw a small bright light, Wang Liping guided, “pay attention to this small light, to stabilize it. This small bright light is the light of Yuanshen, present’s phenomenon is the appearance of Xing Light (Xing Guang)” Sound interesting , but problematic ; such a way of opening the " Xuanguan " ..." Attention focused and looking " then.. a small bright light ...I doubt such a way of opening the " Magic Gateway " is likely ..

Whether it advocates a Righteous Mind ( '正念' ; a mindless Mind ) or not should be used as the criterion to judge a religious cultivation or group , no matter it claims itself Taoist , Buddhist or any hybrid one. This is an approach adopted by both Taoist and Buddhist , although from Taoist perspective , advocating such a Mind is mainly ­due to its greatest possibility of mobilizing the pre-heavenly qi . Apart from it , there are other consideration : 1) If you are a mediocre guy , then likely you do not get the insight and buy such an idea of a so-called great Mind , and you will keep doing your paying-attention-to-the-dantian or visualizing-a-light-ball stuff , which is fine as it suits your aim of just living longer or curing a disease. 2) If you are a bad guy , then hardly do you get a patience of dealing with a boring 'mindless Mind' for without great aspiration you likely drop it quickly and pursue other easier means for attaining your goal . 3)If you are an evil guy, then hardly can you not be swallowed by your own evil nature in the process of playing with this Mind. So, whatever the case , using the Righteous Mind filters many groups of people and the purity of Tao is maintained ,neither it vulgarized nor misused .

As mentioned, it appeared in books published at least dated back to the Ching dynasty , i.e. at lest 2 ~ 300 years ago , so I wonder whether there is any copyright issue to use the diagram...

I think sexual cultivation between married couple is okay , but beyond that range , it is inappropriate because it is too easy to be used by bad guys, in whatever excuses , to advocate their bad ideas, so I seldom mention it ; in fact, I know little about Taoist sex dual practice...,whenever I mention dual cultivation , I refer to the intercourse between qi and Shen , which similarly can give us bodily and spiritual pleasure..

Yi Guan Dao was quite an influential ,religious sect which claimed followers of 300,000 by 1949 yet later severely suppressed by the CCP after her takeover of power on the Mainland , and only few of its leaders left fleeing to Taiwan .The group is itself problematic and hardly does any decent Taoist compare it to righteous schools ('名門正派') like the Wu-Liu or West School . Why ? You simply by reading what Liu Huayang and his apostles (for example, Zhao Bichen's ) said , or what Wang Dongting ('汪東亭') , West School's main figure in the last century said , then you can judge . For example , hardly do they preach any sexual practice ( originally good but later degenerated into tools abused by evil guys ) , visualization ( too trivial or overuse of minds.. ) or muddling with politics..

Mindfulness is much easier than mindlessness , so most people talk about it , and think that it is beneficial and powerful. However , comparing to mindlessness , a totally different kind of mental ability , mindfulness is a little superficial ( I have tried my best to sound polite...) Why people are so ignorant or afraid of mindlessness, it can be fun :- )

If you think that the most influential Taoist figure in China ( includes Taiwan ) in the last century is Nan Huai jin ( half-Taoist) or Zhao Bi Chen, then hardly do you get it right. Although not known to most Westerners, it is Chen Ying Ning ("陳攖寧" 1880-1969) ,a scholar and Taoist practitioner who died in 1969 in the turbulence of the Cultural Revolution, that gets the title. Taoist Dan is said to be attainable through three Yuans ("三元 " ,ie, 3 ways) : Human , Earth and Heaven,and Mr.Chen is generally recognized as the only figure who knows the theory and gets some practical experience in all three of them. Chen is also the only person who claims himself having spent 3 yeas on reading the whole Tao Zhan ("道蔵"),ie, nearly the complete Works of all the Taoist writings written in its 2,500-year history . Last but not least, Chen writes and edits quite lot of articles on female Dan (女丹 ), based on his wife 's practice and his grasp of the related theory ( his wife , in fact, does the practice under his supervision..) .

Recently I have chatted with a member about light she is seeing in her cultivation, below are some of my ideas , which should only be viewed as some kind of "bait " to attract more ,better ideas from you guys : Hi , xxxx, In normal case , the light you see can be judged by its size, shape ,color and others : 1) It should first appear as a small dot/ bean , then its size grows bigger and bigger along with the quantity and quality of qi and 'jing' you accumulate . If not , if right at the beginning ,it appears as an apple or volleyball in size to you , then it is abnormal; 2) It should starts look as something irregular, then gradually turns into a round shape, the process just reflects how well, how perfect your mind is being turned into ; if not , it is not so okay. 3) Most likely it starts looking as a white bright dot , if it starts to look in other color, then it is problematic. A light ball turning into yellow or red, should be something happening at later stage of people's practice.. 3) You should see it no matter your eyes is close or open , if not , it is not that okay ; "Not so okay" means you yourself deliberately create the light , something illusory, or you get other mental problems (sorry to say this ) . Of course, there is an exception that you bring very good karma along with you from former life ... then it is something really exceptional...

Thank your comme Thank your comments.

The necessity of protecting the human body is only due to the unfinished job of training the 'Yang Shen', once it is completed, then there is no need to safeguard the physical one . In fact , the job is, as mentioned, a deliberate attempt with our control to a large extent guaranteed, otherwise it should not even be started. If a person dies, whatever reason it is , his spirit is forced to leave the body ,so its OBE is totally a passive one ; in case of Yang Shen's leave of body , when , where and how to leave is at its own will and despite there are some dangers in the process ,they are controllable owing to the accumulated, thousand-year experiences. Note that nearly all other OBE are yin-typed, and mostly happen either in insane, sleepy or dying status , only Taoist one is yang-typed and being practiced in a fully awakened status .

Taoist alchemy , in fact, looks like a self-induced but well controlled death process so as to search for the secret of life : first you stop the fluctuation /activities of your minds , then you stop the ordinary way of your breathing , later you stop your heart beat...; it is dangerous to do that through Western medical knowledge and means for the Westerners know nothing about the technique to induce and control it ( many guys commit suicide because of losing their girlfriends, hardly can you hear of anyone does that in order to explore the secret of life :- ) ) , not to speak of the need to do the process repeatedly so that you gather enough data to explore the issue . In Taoist alchemy , there is a stage at which you have to train the " Yang Shen' ( a meta-Mind nourished well by high-quality jing and qi ) , and the OBE as a process is repeatedly done in many times , in fact , in many years ( said to be using 3-year time to make the 'Yang Shen' grow mature ) . And , there are many symptoms mentioned and precautions raised to safeguard you who practice it . For example , at initial stage, the ' Yang Shen ' should just stay close over your head once It left the body , not floating away , you then have to immediately absorb It inside ; later you allow It to be several feet away from you , then you let It travel outside of your house..etc; Other issues like how to safeguard yourself from the occupation of other evil spirit while your 'Yang Shen' is out and your body is like a host-less house , or why projecting your mind into a mirror to train your ability of leaving the body is hazardous....etc are also addressed. To Taoist alchemy , OBE is a technical issue , not an issue of whether it is real or not because from Taoist theory of Trinity , jing-qi-Shen is as a whole and are interchangeable ; physical boundary of a body looks so real only under certain condition ; Mind/ mind's capability of existing outside body is just a natural conclusion of this theory's inner logic ... . Enacting precautions beforehand is possible because you get a deep understanding of TCM and Taoist alchemy . Note that Taoist interest in OBE is always targeted at a refined Yang Mind/ Spirit , very different from the Tibetan Buddhist interest in a yin one after a person's death . The value of studying OBE , similar to outer space travel in which leaving our mother planet forces us to know more about gravity , time and space , leaving our body forces us to study more about mind , life and time : for examples , phenomena such as our lifetime is condensed into few seconds and shown in front of your eyes or you find a big Mind behind all small minds..etc . Taoist alchemy likely is the most qualified guide to lead you through the whole exploration..