exorcist_1699

I know the guy Wang Mu and read some of his works. I absolutely agree that the issue superior virtue and inferior virtue is too important to be ignored . In fact, only the superior virtue can make use of Zen's method,those who are inferior virtue, no matter how hard they try , are unlikely to succeed( sadly most who try the method are doomed to fall into the trap of pseudo-void , but mistakenly think that they are achieving something ... ) In Taoist terms , that means the superior virtue can skip over jing and qi, and directly start from the stage of refining Shen... Liu YiMing is nearly the best, among those masters , who explains clearly the basic principles of Taoist alchemy , however, only very few of his works are translated into English.

-Although Tao exists everywhere ,even in dirty and humble status, it is argued that the truth about it is noble, deep and magnificent, unlikely to be understood by people with a shallow mind and indecent behavior ; So, some people should not be endowed with the right to hear it , otherwise it is some kind of blasphemy . In fact, there are quite a lot of hazards in the process, it might have given lot of misfortunes to these people, had they known the steps and carelessly started the practice . I think people should be given the load that they can undertake ( maybe little similar to what is said in the movie Spiderman: the more powerful you are, the more the responsibility you have to take ..).. -Mainly books written by those masters from : 1) the Wu-Liu School , figures such as Liu Hua Yang and Zhao Bi Chen (趙避塵) 2) the West School , figure like Wang Dong Ting ( 汪東亭)

Please read those links under the recent topic: The Taoist/Buddhist debate .

Taoist stuff written by Buddhists do not worry me . I am the believer that Taoism, Buddhism and Confucian are , at highest level , talking about the same things.It is their not so smart followers, at the stage before their reaching the highest level , quarrels among themselves on trivial matters ( of course, I am one of them, otherwise, there is nothing I have to argue here ).

From Taost/TCM 's viewpoint, sex definitely is related to intelligence for how healthy our hair, bone ,teeth and marrow is basically dependent on the status of our jing ; In TCM , our brain is always referred to as the " sea of marrow ". However , behind our jing , there is a deeply hidden force located between our kidneys that governs it , which we call it the meta-jing. This meta-jing, sometimes also be called the taiji in our body, has yin and yang two aspects , and the balance of them is crucial to the growth and health of our mind and body . Too weak the yin side will make it incapable of counteracting the opposite yang force , which can give rise to the late or incapable closure of some children 's fontanel , or too young at an age ,some children showing a talent close or equal to genius , yet in either case , unfortunately always leads to early death. However, in Taoist cultivation , such a dilemma can be solved by creating a pure yang mind at a new level, disentangling from the limitation of yin , that enables us to have an intelligence tenfold of a genius.

I think the most important contribution of Taoism to our civilization is its raising the concept of qi and telling us the steps to initialize it , upgrade it to Shen .With it , all those miracles that precedent gods/ witches made can be explained , not in scientific terms , not in religious terms ,but in Taoist unique philosophical terms . In fact , if you like , Taoism can purely be a system of philosophy yet without losing its character , its ability of initializing that special spiritual power ( in fact, at the point when you can initialize some qi, you are granted the potential of having that power , from qi to shen is a qualitative jump, but it is also a natural jump ..) Never in human history does a philosophical system tell people how to cure diseases, how to live forever , how to make miracles in such concrete steps ...in that sense , we can say , Taoism really provides a way for individual emancipation. Different from Buddhism, Taoism seldom proposes human emancipation , but individuals' emancipation . Does it mean Taoism holding a heart not kinder than , a compassion less stronger than Buddhism's towards the mass ? Just take a look at what happened and happening in human history, we have to say that Taoism does adopt a more realistic approach...

Both are correct . In the sense of spiritual stability and unity: In post-heavenly status, it is qi which drives our lung breathes, heart beats, stomach moves..,and plus our fluctuating mind , they are those disturbing factors that bar a stable , united Spirit from emergence ( that is why , in case of emergency, a fire for instance,we are advised to hold our breathing for a while in order to make a sane decision for escape ) . However, along with the deepening of our meditation , to certain point , these differentiated qi in various organs will unit , making our breathing ,heartbeat and thinking stop...therefore all spirits and qi can be united , and the appearance of the Spirit possible . Another sense is that at later stage of our cultivation , after Shen and qi having their intercourse , a spiritual fetus is said to be produced, and the middle part our body will be the place where it is nourished. Keen readers can sense that if we hold a scientific , functional approach to human body , then all these can't be understand ; this is why we emphasize using Taoist unique philosophical terminologies for although having used for 2,000 years , their meanings are quite coherent ,without too many changes ; and, they do describe and explain the process more precisely.

The process of attaining this spiritual ability is simple for it is just a quantitative accumulation to qualitative jump process : we accumulate enough jing and shen , then at certain point ,naturally a totally new Spirit pop up from us ( See Huang Ting Jin : "積精累氣以成真") provided that we do not deliberately intervene , for example, some people chase after stronger feeling of qi...in this process. There are few points I have to add: 1) This qualitative jump, in fact, is also a jump from " post-heavenly" to " pre-heavenly" level. 2) Thinking that this Spirit will arise from our brain is too simple-minded.It can pop- up from anywhere. Please notice that the Chinese do think that different organs in our body have their respective spirits . 3) This process is also a process of internalization, we pull our split spirits from those sensational organs ( eyes, ears, nose..)inwards , together and consolidate them into a united Spirit . Genuine Intention /Earth* arise... * From Taoist/TCM point of view, eyes can see because they get the spirit from liver, ears can hear because they get the spirit from kidney, nose can smell because it gets the spirit from lung...etc , the split spirits correspond to Five Elements; here, they return to Earth . Earth is said to be able to absorb anything just like our stomach : in normal status , whatever we eat, it absorbs and digest . In fact , it seems we can dump anything to earth , including our nuclear waste.

From the standpoint of the Chinese Taoism, after arguing and intermixing with the Buddhism for 2,000 years, the problem is basically solved. The best part of Buddhism is absorbed into the system of Taoism, that is the reasons why you can find many sayings, methods, ideas of Buddhism in Taoist writings ; you find lot of Buddhist icons in Taoist temples..( of course, never can you find a single Taoist icon in Buddhist monasteries ) Besides, more importantly , Zen, a Tao-ized system , is established and recognized by the Buddhist cycle.

The red guards did destroy many temples on famous Taoist mountains like WudanShang, HuaShan... they did smashed corpse and coffin of Wang Chong Yang , who established the school of Quan Zhen , into pieces yet these to Taoism are all material things, idols for mass, illusory and quickly dispersing as passing clouds on our head. Great Taoist masters' eternity can be compared to sun and moon, their powers to the storms and lightnings , their legacy as high-rising mountains and oceans .. so few decades of political upheavals is unlikely to be so hurtful as people think . The so-called disappearance of Taoism or Taoist legacy is , in fact, some kind of illusion ; on the contrary , it reflects Tao's not having definite form(無定形) , its lack of any fixed tendency(無成勢) , its reluctance of coming ahead of events (不為物先) , yet its capability of reserving its own potential well .

These people just repeat what the writings of Wu-Liu School say, unfortunately in an imprecise , even incorrect way , sadly taking advantage of some people's inability of reading Chinese ... My Taoist instinct immediately tells me that Taoist alchemy should not be sold in this way... However, maybe these people ,overseas drifting as they are , rootless as they are, do help spreading Taoist knowledge worldwide , although not in the ideal way I expect ?

I will , no worry

Hi, Marblehead and Little1, Thank you guys' responses. I am just one of the participants on this forum, I do not view myself especially different from others.

Why hold such a mechanical view on life ? Just similar to having introduced light as a medium/ means of measurement into the study of our physical world, we are forced to change our views on velocity, mass and energy .. Here, after our having brought in qi , our having gained the ability of initializing it , in which god-like ( shen) character also innate , we are bestowed a potential of restructuring our biological existence , i.e. the relation between the young and aged , withered and regenerated , alive and dead are no longer something so fixed as before, no longer something so unsurpassable as people thought...

I think attaining the level of Earth Immortal is not so difficult as people think, some insight disentangled them from prevailing ideology , some determination ,persistence and skills are what we need . But as so many Earth Immortals for these years have been detained in the realm of earth ( although likely along with the advance of science and technology, the number of people succeeded is decreasing ...) , why we can't see them walking on the streets? Different from the past, in which frequently some immortals appeared , did some good things, and before having surrounded by the mass , disappeared into the deep mountains; nowadays, means of communications are too advanced,and journalists , including those free-lance , are too many and active that if one of them appears in this morning, likely in the afternoon, on all newspapers and websites will be full of the photos of his appearance. So, how can they act like those immortals before ?

Hi, Rain and Rainbow, I think Way is Virtue and the links , which I only get the time to take some quick scans on them , he gives already help me answering some of the questions. Since neither can I have personal experience on it , nor there is any partner here helping me verifying those traditional views , so what I can add are few more ideas for reference : 1) Taoist concept of "jing" does not only apply to male, it also applies to female. The only difference is that the expressions of jing in female is more complicated , ie, it sometimes appears as blood, sometimes appears as milk. In addition, the rise and fall of it appears periodical. However, in fact, hardly can a guy detain his jing over one- month time ,and up to that full amount , most guys are forced to consciously ( despite their thinking that they act consciously on their own will, they are ,in fact, act like some kind of puppet , manipulated by some hidden force behind ) or unconsciously ( in dreams ) release it * . So, it is somehow periodical, but not so clear and regular as female's . * One of the ways to verify a guy, who claims himself a master, is to ask him about the way of solving this issue. Please notice that in Taoist alchemy, everything should be done naturally, so any deliberate or unnatural ways are unlikely the right ones. 2) The term yang-jing , of course, is defined as something contrary to the materialized sperm/blood, something yin. It is said that "what can be seen, is something you shouldn't make use of ; what should be utilized is something invisible " (" 見者不可用 ,用者不可見" ). 3) While guys who can initialize qi by just paying attention to their lower abdomen, why for female they have rub their breasts ? I think it is because female sex drive is not so easy and quick to be aroused as male's . Some sex drive, before it materialized , is need to help us initialize qi . However, for old guys who are lack of yang-qing, rubbing their balls slightly at certain time ( likely be the time just before dawn ; to youth, likely be the time 1~3 a.m. despite the fact that they need not do so unless they have some diseases... ) is helpful before they pay attention to their lower dantian.

Although having got older means less jing that people can initialize, and therefore a weaker ability in getting high quality qi ,there are , however , some benefits in it : First, less jing means your having less sex drive than those young guys. In that case, likely you can manipulate it easier. Too strong a sex drive , in most cases, turns out to be something negative . Too much , too strong a force than the appropriate , than what you can manipulate , is no better than having not enough of it .. Second , old guys , after years of life experience , already see through the illusory nature of things in life : fame, love ,prestige, loss ..etc, that entangle them before. Therefore, when coming across the Taoist truth, many of them can grasp it and stick to it more firmly than those young , indecisive Taoist followers. It is said that as long as the yang-jing , no matter how little it is, existing in us, there is a possibility of accumulating it, expanding it , upgrading it ...in a word, even you are at the age of 100, the door towards physical immortality is still there, open for you.. However, to male who can't have an erection , or capable but not hard enough, they must first accumulate their jing and make it return to the status as in their youth.Only after having succeeded that , do they get the foundation, the starting point to "tame the tiger"... For old ladies, no matter how old they are , they have to cultivate and get their menstruation back so that the foundation , the starting point to" slash the red dragon" becomes possible.

Taoism is the best religion , because : 1) Taoism is a system having flexibility and manifold appearances , it can be viewed as both a system of philosophy (of war/ politics /life ) and religion. People who love its philosophy , can find a lot of good ideas and sayings in LaoTze and Chuang Tze. On the other hand, people who search for spiritual comfort , immortality and gods, can similarly find those religious elements in it . 2) To attain some kind of god-like ability , to get control of their fate in their own hands, likely are many people's wish . Taoism provides the thing that these people want to have , and those concrete steps to achieve it . God is you and you are god. God-like ability is already innate in the most important element of Taoism , ie, qi . In fact, Tao is just another name of "pre-hevenly qi; it is only after its descend and " degeneration" that it splits into mind and body . 3) In other religions, there is somehow some rupture in between this world and other spiritual worlds, this life and afterlife /other lives that people are passively put under to face . But in Taoism , itself being a coherent trinity of jeng-qi-shen, this life can achieve eternal life , this world can link to other worlds , there is no real separation .

Taoist criticism on the prevailing Buddhist view of immortality (in fact, not the real Buddhist view, but misinterpreted, vulgarized view of Buddhism . Sadly,idea that is dominant is always superficial ) is that if you can't prove immortality ( whatever forms ) when you are alive, how can you claim your immortality, strangely after your passing away ? Taoist ability in attaining both physical and spiritual eternity in this lifetime , in this world , ironically , is seen and accused as attachment to self, attachment to body , attachment to immortality ..how shallow a mind of those vulgar "Buddhists" ... Shen , after having nourished by the yang-qi , becomes stronger and stronger and therefore can get rid of those physical limitations on It gradually , first by disentangling from the limitations of those sensational abilities : hearing , seeing .. , and finally by leaving the body behind and becomes absolutely free . Yet pure Yang -Shen ( 陽神) is not the highest form of the Taoist Alchemical achievement, it is to bring the physical body with us that is the highest . But how ? By qi-lizing (" 氣化") our whole physical body . "Qi-lization" is an important concept in Taoism for it is said that qi : " 聚則成形, 散則成氣" ( " concentrates and embodies to appear as physical forms , disperses to appear as qi again " ). It is Shen, after being distracted and lost , degenerates into various physical forms (" 只因一念妄, 化作種種形" ). However , only after having attained very high level of Shen can the qi-lization of the body be possible .

Qi does have innate spiritual and moral character otherwise no matter how fancy our imagination is , how skilfully we use our brain's visualizing power,hardly can we uplift qi to a totally new, high level because qi, to most people who can initialize it, is still something just moving , something hot, something giving them strange sex pleasure...yet where is its spiritual /moral character? In fact, " Whatever level you have not reached, whatever place you are inevitably entangled and perplexed " ( 一層未到一層迷 ) But why so difficult ? To me, here, Taoism gives us a better answer than others by pointing out that it is our status of existence( " post-heavenly " ) which bars us from advancing : how we breathe, what we eat,how we think...all are dominated by the yin force . Yet this yin force is still not the final , crucial life force we refer to ( if it is , if this so-called biological force , this Will as Schopenhauer claims , is the life force, then hardly can we claim real freedom and immortality possible ) ; it is the not-yet-degenerated Yang,hidden in it , that is the crucial life force.And, not relying on it , but its opposite , the spiritual arena in which most religions stuck to , cultivating , seems unlikely .. " I do rely on God to help me getting rid of heavy drinking and drug.." some people may shout at me... I have to reply that : What I am talking about is something fundamental , not some kinds of deviation from the common path..

I have to say that Tao is the entity and Te its natural expression. Without Tao, Te is groundless. Without Te , Tao can't be seen by people in the society or nature ,let alone being understand by them. But Te , in our society , can only be seen only after some virtuous actions are taken , some kinds of external expressions are seen . People have to take some actions to help others, provide some convenience to others , or not do anything to hurt others so as to show their virtues ; Yet when they do such good things , according to Taoist view, they should not consider any things like because there is a God from Heaven looking at me , or thinking of avoiding kama, or trying to gain some reputation..etc ; any deliberate action with some utilitarian consideration can't be claimed as Te for any unnatural action and idea distort the essential relation that Te is a just the natural expressions of Tao . In fact, a virtuous action that expects some paying back , even it is something just psychological , can't be viewed as a virtue , let alone hypocrisy in its manifold forms . Without yang- qi , which is the crucial life force that we live on yet hidden deeply inside us , our mind is always in a status of restless, our breathing fluctuating , our senses distracted and entangled by fascinating things around us , our drive always towards sex... ., doing virtuous things therefore seems unlikely . In addition, the rise of yang-qi is always accompanied by our mind being lifted to a new, high plane,which naturally leads us to take virtuous actions in direct and unartificial way.

"Somewhere in time" (1980) is a movie in which a guy tried to go back to the past and meet his lover in her young age. Yet by reasoning , as what the main actor tried in the movie by going back to the old place and concentrated his mind , in reality , can't either make people younger or allow them travel across time no matter how hard they try . However, reversing aging can be viewed as , in some sense, disentangling our existence from time because time can only measured by other physical things ( e.g. a physical clock ) or in some biological framework , yet the introduction of Qi into the system makes all things blurred; the discovery of Qi and Shen does make two things possible : 1) We can reverse a aging process, which of course, happens in time. That is even not in a space ship traveling at a speed close to light, a biological process can be lengthened or reversed . 2) We can know the unknown things that happened in the past or those that are only going to happen in future. Shen is , in fact, not limited by any physical or biological barrier or framework .

The point is how we define death: stop of breathing , heart beat or the brain is having no activities at all / not emitting any electrical pulse ? However, in some Taoist/Buddhist practice, even all the above-mentioned phenomena arise, they do not necessarily lead to people 's death. On the contrary, a very clear mind can still station there and take charge of the situation. In fact , we can deliberately let ourselves experience death or near death many times we want... It seems a much clear definition of death should be : Besides those above-mentioned , the soul who is previously in charge of the physical body, now leaves it and never returns again . Concretely speaking ,there can be two status : 1) Because our body is seriously damaged ,so qi is no longer able to stay in it; and, accompanying the leave of qi (yang) , our soul (yin ) is forced to leave... Or, because of aging, the qi that sustains our life is gradually diminishing and to a certain point , it no longer can grasp the soul.. So death comes to us in a passive way , and is resulted from the separation of yin and yang . Or , 2) We deliberately polish and manipulate our qi with the force of our mind so that at certain stage, we can freely let our soul leave the physical body for a while and then return. As the foundation of our physical life, qi, is still in our body, so the leave of the soul does not necessarily lead to death unless the soul get lost and not returns... The significance of Taoist qi practice is that it provides us a way of testing death and revival on ourselves...and , to me , its theoretical framework , comparing to those provided by Buddhism , is clearer and more coherent .

Why think that a trivial mind can understand what another much bigger , magnificent MIND is doing.? Of course, a monkey can sit beside us and study what we humans are doing , however, no matter how hard it observes and tries , it can't understand the deep cultural implication of our behaviors, let alone the intelligence we attain and the cultural legacy we accumulate . I do not oppose science study the brain, what I say is that when science studies a mind in its real , deep meditative state , science should not overestimate what it can get . Besides, why we expect that everything in this universe should be subject/succumb to the study of science and its reasoning..?

Unfortunately those who keep talking about a science of meditation are people who never get a real understanding of what a much higher Wisdom than science that they can really nourish from meditation ;With such a narrow, fatal scientific framework embedded in our mind , hardly can we really achieve anything high...