exorcist_1699

The point is that the so-called " our spirit " is split : while the real I is deeply hidden on the other side , what we know or are happily with , is in fact a pseudo "I" . Of course, without getting rid of this pseudo one , hardly can our spirit link to the spirit of Tao . The point is not its split into consciousness , sub-consciousness, unconsciousness ... , because no matter what layers/ status it is in , comparing to the real I , the pseudo one is just not "sane " enough . And, because it is not "sane" enough , not pure enough , not high enough , hardly can you rely on it to link with the spirit of Tao . Maybe you can connect a frog's brain to the internet , however , there is no possibility for this poor animal to understand the civilization on it .

The Wu-Liu school , which Zhao Bi Chen (趙避塵) belongs to , its writings is said to be the most explicit in explaining the Taoist steps of cultivation . However, even in the mentioned book, "性命法訣明指", Zhao deliberately reverses and mixes some steps. In fact, I can't find anyone from the Chinese legacy, who knows the whole complete steps , dares to tell publicly all the details . Only fool believes the claim that qi is simply another subject of science, and people can talk about it as clear and detailed as other subjects . Maybe some Westerners "masters " believe such claim , but they are not from the Chinese legacy , nor do they know the complete steps . Yet the issue is not about West or China , it is an issue about how large a group of audience in which we should talk about those crucial steps leading to immortality .

In the arena of spiritual cultivation , it is always difficult to claim anything clear cut . Our daily trivial mind is full of ups and downs , sorrows and ecstasies ... people are not accustomed to any status that they can assure themselves that they are in safe, they are in grasp of their own future , free of worries of aging ,accidents , illness and death . Maybe the only clear-cut status they are sure is that they are awaken , not in a dream ? Yet what Taoist cultivation gives us is totally different , anyway, what I claim "clear- cut " are in the following senses: 1) Relative to some Buddhist ways , which ask people to contemplate on problems such as "Who am I? " , " What is a mind neither thinking of evil , nor good ?" , for years yet without giving concrete criterion for what can be said to be accomplished , Taoist jing-qi-shen way of course is clear-cut. 2) The completion of each step in Taoist way is always clear : For example ,stop menstruation or stop of ordinary way of breathing , the practitioner herself clearly knows what she has achieved and its effect on both her body and mind.There is no ambiguity . Besides, what happen first and what happen later is so clear that there can't be any doubts or mixed . 3) The emergence of the pre-heavenly way of breathing or a much condensed and clearer Mind , for example , is always abrupt , not a continual process. At that moment, you fail to grasp it , you have to wait patiently for the next moment ...Yet once grasped it , you then know that a quality jump has happened in your life .

In Taoist practice , it is because there is a pseudo "I" so that a real I can be nourished . Without making use of this trivial , mortal , humble "I" , hardly can we get a more respected and potent I. Or, in Buddhist expression , there is only one I in existence, one being entangled . What we have to do is just to release it from those shackles . But why it is necessary to being waken up ? Do we not live well in that illusory world? As those rebels in the movie " Matrix" , is it necessary to swallow that pill leading to a real , much clearer mind/ world ?

Nourishing a Spirit is definitely needed because our daily trivial mind of sensing and reasoning can't be the basis for cultivating qi. Both the Taoist and Buddhist ways emphasize it; the only difference is that while the Buddhist ways always skipping the jing and qi, the Taoist way insists that a higher Spirit can be nourished from them . The problem is , this Taoist way of attaining a bigger Spirit is too clear-cut that they deliberately "blur" it with strange jargons and mixed steps ...

Because people's bodies are always different , and they follow varied methods of qigong and meditation , I think it is inappropriate to make any comments on specific feeling / phenomena that they experience in cultivation , especially on internet , yet there are some basic principles that practitioners likely should follow : 1) Natural . Laotzu is definitely a guidebook for Taoist practice . So reading good translations of Laotzu by people who not only possess advanced linguistic ability but also have experience in practice , is always helpful. Besides at initial stage our being requested to focusing on our dantian , afterwards, the less intervention of our mind on qi , the better quality of it we can get . Deliberately intervening the flow of qi is always inappropriate . 2) The theoretical framework of jing-qi-shen is definitely useful . It is a philosophical framework , yet at the same time a religious framework for after having polished qi to certain extent/quality ,its "supernatural" quality inevitably arises. However, people always try making their scientific explanations on those phenomena that they not well understand , therefore it is always misleading and unhelpful . 3) The more knowledge of TCM , Traditional Chinese Medicine , we get , the better we can solve problems in your cultivation , especially at initial stage . 4) Whether we are entering a higher stage of our practice should mainly be judged by two things: a) Does pre-heavenly way of breathing arise? and b)Does a much clearer and condensed Mind appear?

One of them , a Zen Buddhist poem, I like most , is : I do not have any kinds of minds, why do I need to have any kinds of ways (to achieve Enlightenment). ( 我無一切心, 何用一切法 ) Such kind of Zen's ability to reach Tao's deepest core at one stroke, skipping all those trivial , steps and layers, contrary to modern people's clumsiness , showing us how talented an intuition once the Chinese possessed .

Regarding the argument that forgetting time gives rise to physical eternity, I think it is partly true for Buddhism already tells that we should forget three kinds of mind time-related : the mind of the past (過去心) which makes us attach to previous annoyance, the mind of the present (現在心) , which occupies us , and the mind of the future (未來心) which makes us always worry about what will happen to us . However, it is not only time, but all those Kantian pure categories , which make our sense and reasoning possible , that all have to be forgotten so that physical eternity and forever youth , can be attained . And, it is only after having reached that status can pre-heavenly be initialized ; nothing ,especially not those scientific stuff , besides pre-heavenly qi, can make physical eternity possible .

All Chinese in China speak Mandarin notwithstanding the fact that every province , no matter it is Henan, where the famous Shaolin temple located, or Hubei , where the mysterious Wudanshan situated , all has its respective dialect . However, the northern dialects mostly sound close to Mandarin , while the Southern dialects , say Cantonese and Fujianese ,sound very different . Anyway, if you speak to a Chinese in Mandarin, he /she likely understands what you say, and will react by shifting from his /her dialect to Mandarin , and answers you . This is just some kind of cultural, unspoken rule. The force that unites China is its unitary Chinese characters, not those dialects , and , Mandarin is very close to the written form of Chinese . Reading Chinese and writing Chinese is very different from speaking it . To foreigners, there is quite a huge gap in between . However, without having read and understand Goethe and Kant, hardly can you claim of understanding the German spirit ? In case of the Chinese Taoist cultivation , it is especially severe for those crucial keys are deliberately expressed in strange ,classical Chinese jargons and poems . Yet no matter how difficult it is , what worthier of learning than things really telling you the secrets of getting rid of aging , even death ?

Taoist jing-qi-shen is different from the seeming Buddhist one not only because it is based on a more detailed qi 's system ( around 20 channels and several hundreds of acupunctural points) , but also because the jing-qi-shen framework is the base that the TCM doctors use it to analyze symptoms and cure patients. That means the complexity of human body-mind relation not only can be studied by few people's meditation and kungfu practice ,but enriched by studying millions of people's abnormal and unbalanced status . In fact, it is always when we get hurt and sick, physically and mentally, that we understand ourselves more and deeper . Besides, I have to point out that the Sichuan province , which is one of the important Taoist origins , is located just next to Tibet ; So, we can expect, in fact, is is shown by many historical records , that there are frequent , long lasting intercourses between Taoism and Tibetan Buddhism . The true ,or people may think it is an orthodox view, is that such an intercourse is part of the Chinese cultural legacy. I doubt any dual cultivation with body contact anything high-class or decent , not to speak of whether it evil or not. Of course , you get many religious pictures of Tibetan Buddha in which showing you such a posture , yet such artistic expression may not tell you the truth of things..

Everlasting youth /beauty is nothing special, it is , like eternal health, just an inevitable by-product of Taoist practice at its initial stage. Yet , if you are not privileged to get it, then even you pay one million , not to speak of US$22.36 , you still can't get it . In fact, after having invited Tao to our body , we get everlasting beauty and amazing wisdom . However, Tao only follows Te ( virtues) to us , not through money or other means .

Taoist way is simple : Just forgetting it . Forget your body so that qi can be cultivated; forget qi ,so that your shen can be cultivated; forget shen so that nothingness can be cultivated . (From : " Book of Assimilation " ("化書") ) (忘形以養氣, 忘氣以養神,忘神以養虚 - by 譚峭 )

What I claim different is the unique Taoist jing-qi-shen way towards the ontological core hidden in this cosmos that both systems, Buddhism and Taoism , concur . Taoist criticism on many Buddhist methods' mistakes , which most Buddhists make , is that only by relying on our daily experiences and consciousness , our yin-mind, no matter how mindless a status we reach , hardly can we break through into that door, entering another new arena (In Chinese Zen's saying : "破參").It is like you can't pull your hair and make yourself arise above the ground, to a high level .. This is why the famous Zen's sixth master , Huei Lang("惠能") , who lived in the times of the Tang Dynasty in China , after having attaining the absolute mindless status: Originally there is nothingness (本來無一物) by no way can we attach to any impurity (何處惹塵埃) (based on my clumsy translation ) still had to hide in the Guangdong province among the hunters for more than a 14-year time , further polishing his achievement before his emerging as a public Zen master. Saying that a mind "neither thinking of good , nor thinking of evil " (不思善,不思惡) is all what it is , is unlikely true .There are still a lot of unspoken secrets . Our yin-mind, in fact, is a pseudo-mind which can't radically change itself by just making a series of self-negations ( it is interesting to compare it with Hegel's phenomenology of spirit) , instead it has to rely on the help of our genuine Ego , which, unfortunately is far retreating into its opposite , secret location . The situation that a guest is misidentified as the host must be reversed: 無量刼來生死種 痴人喚作本來人

Although I dislike all those religious Taoist rituals and costume, I do believe in immortality and other Taoist supernatural power, so likely people classify me as a religious Taoist. I do not think philosophical Taoism anything wrong , I just think there is no need for people to limit themselves. In fact, I doubt the classification of philosophical and religious Taoism appropriate due to the uniqueness of the concept qi , which in Chinese has moral, medical and spiritual (if it jumps to the shen level) implications that you can't find in the West any idea equivalent . I think , likely believers of philosophical Taoism are people who can't initialize qi , or who can only initialize qi ( more precisely ,post-heavenly yin-qi ) at low level and circulate it in their body to cure some not so severe diseases. That is , they are people who never push their qi to the shen level; in that case, of course, hardly can they believe in the so-called religious Taoism , and its claim of having so many of strange powers. However, the point is, when you cultivate qi to certain level , its delicate spiritual characters inevitably appear regardless of how you call them : philosophical or religious ; it is therefore not right to arbitrarily limit them to any arena which you yourself not fully understand ...

Fearlessness is a rare quality in our temperament that not so many people possess . Undoubtedly , it is something moral . That is , it belongs to the arena of Te . As Tao and Te are just two faces of the same coin, of course , Taoism handles the issue well , maybe better than the Buddhist . We fear because we are or will be in danger . We fear of getting old, hurt, sick and killed by aging, diseases and all other unexpected accidents around us . Yet , with ourselves equipped with pre-heavenly qi, ie, Tao , what fears we still have? Besides, we fear because we worry whether our close friends, relatives or country will get in troubles in accidents or disasters ; there are so many potential dangers and uncertainties in this world . We doubt whether we get enough moral courage to stand out , to give our hands when others are in danger . Fear, should not be something we ignore, evade , negate but should be the stuff we digest so that our qi, our spirit will grow and expand after having it assimilated . Without fear being got rid of , no moral actions are likely be possible for we are afraid of being criticized , being hurt . This is part of the reason why Tao is accomplished by Te. Hardly should we refine our qi in deep mountains , escaping from the crowd , but among the crowd , among the cruelty of this world . The more moral actions we took , the more danger and difficulties we overcame, the more immense the qi we expanded and upgraded .

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While fire in water is what our life relies on, our spirit is dependent on yin-jing ; However , if we solely refine our yang-qi, no matter how well we do, how many hundreds years we can live, we are just a stubborn fool. On the other hand , no matter how intelligent and delicate a spirit we polish , how great a mind like Socrates or Einstein we have , our soul still can't escape the fate of repeated transmigration .That is why Taoism always advocates the dual cutivation of Spirit and Life . ( * different from another meaning of dual cultivation : male cum female )

Taoist practice, to the final analysis, is the relation between Water and Fire . They do not repulse each other . There is fire in Water,and there is water in Fire . Fire in water is yang-qi; water in fire is yin-jing . Knowing their interaction is always important .

The traditional saying is , there are several groups of people you should not teach: 1) People whose parents, even ancestors ,did some thing really evil. 2) People who are handicapped, blind or deaf ..( I wonder why ,maybe due to past karma or incomplete circulation of qi.. ?) 3) People who are too worldly-oriented ; people who can't disentangle themselves from the attachment to wife, car, house ..( maybe also to their pets, I think ) 4) People who only have superficial understanding of Taoism , no real practical abilities yet make use of it as a medium to boast of how erudite they are .

From the standpoint of Taoism , those three basic elements of the Chinese culture : Taoism , Buddhism( includes Tibetan) and Confucian , in fact target at the same goal, it is only their methods are varied ; however, there are always some sectarian , mediocre Buddhists , who so ignorant of the great achievement and abundant legacy people get from the intercourse of these three schools over a history of 2,000 years , think that Buddhism always stands alone , and is more superior . I am not interested in any argument about the ontological aspects of Taoism and Buddhism ,which I think is beyond the reach of our reasoning and language ; What I am interested are their methods , ie, how human beings knew, then explored and manipulated the emptiness before their eyes and really nourished something out of it . Both Taoism and Buddhism find that in emptiness , some medicine that can cure our disease ,aging or even death , is hidden , yet it is only Taoism that links it to qi. So, Taoism differs from Buddhism mainly in its discovery of qi in the cosmos, our body , and its applications in medicine. It also gives us an detailed description of those acupuncture points and channels that qi circulates in ; All , of course, are important for our cultivation . It seems Buddhism gets a similar system , however, at a closer look, we find it far from so precise and detailed as the Taoist one that you can rely on ( for example ,which point , which specific channel that corresponds to what disease, to what herb should be used..etc ) to cure thousands of diseases, including mental illness arise from Buddhist style of meditation. Some Buddhists may criticize Taoist framework of jing-qi-shen , but what can they, those mediocre Buddhists , propose?Esoteric Buddhism ,which relies heavily on visualization , chants and mudra ( mystic signs of hands), to some people , can be as trivial and attached , and no better than many mediocre Taoist schools. Practicing the Pure Land 's method requests you having persistent spirit in uttering the name of Buddha or chanting those scripts in Sutra , so as attain a mindless status , but after that what follow? To many people, it likely degrades into some kind of daily ,unproductive routine . Zen Buddhist method is the most difficult one, yet to some talents , most stimulating . However, to most people ,it likely degenerates into some kind of philosophical gossip , if not bullshit , unrelated to the aim which Buddhism really pursues. I think if people compare them with Taoist jing-qi-shen framework, and study carefully the precedent process of their cultivation , its relation with their life , likely they can make some impartial judgment themselves .

"Meditating on your reflection on the mirror " as a method of nourishing your yin-mind, without having it refined by yang-qi ,is far from any righteous way towards eternal life, so is criticized by most Taoist masters. If it is out, I am afraid that it is difficult to call it back .

The "traps " of Buddhist method , to many people , are : 1) Instead of grasping the core of Buddhism by pure intuition , most people , after years of fruitless effort, retreat to trying to manipulate it as a system of reasoning , which unfortunately makes them deviates more distant from the right way . 2)Instead of achieving Enlightenment in mediation, most people, by solely relying on their post-heavenly yin-mind , likely will be trapped in mindless stagnation and waste a lot of valuable time in their life ( Taoist treatment of this issue is the introduction of the trigrams : Kan and Li...) . Besides, with their legs cross sitting there for hours yet incapable of initiating high quality qi , which originally is not any Buddhist element , people likely get sick let alone a healthier body.

I think the key is how to initiate pre-heavenly qi so that we can touch Tao with more intimate personal feeling ,in that case , a lot of theoretical issues can be settled . Most people think that Pure intuition is the way , yet unfortunately if it is said to be pure , then it is difficult to be classified into steps . If you try to , it loses its power of purity, therefore lose its momentum to attain the goal . So, we face some kind of dilemma . More theorization in order to explain the issue clearer inversely push us away from our goal . Zen's Koan are some kinds of strange attempts trying to explain the unexplainable . Besides, from Taoist point of view , most of us are situated in a degenerated post-heavenly status ; no matter how hard we purify this mind , our effort most likely turn out to be some kind of mindless stagnation instead of creation . And,as long as the gate is not open , there is no genuine microcosmic circulation , therefore the outcome of jing / red dragon being refined into qi unsecured , so eternal life unlikely .

The fact that most Chinese Taoists accept the linkage of Tao to qi may perplex many Western readers of Laotzu as in the book there seems to have no mention of it , let alone speaking of concepts like pre-heavenly qi . I think there are two reasons: 1)Although in Laotze you can't find the term qi, in other Taoist writings such as Chuangtzu and Huangdi Neijing , which written in the times afterwards not far from Laotzu , and are generally accepted as the Taoist classics, qi are mentioned in details as the key element of our life and our cultivation . As there are already English translations of these two books, readers can find them out themselves . 2) Nobody oppose that in Laotze there are lot of words admiring nothingness and wuwei ( achieve something great by seemingly doing nothing ; people may find it interesting when comparing the concept with Hegel's " Cunning of Reason" ..) , however, I have to say that they are not only Taoist ways of handling our personal life , political and military matters, but also basic principle governing our spiritual cultivation: wuwei does give rise to high-quality qi . Because grasp of concepts such as post-heavenly qi and pre-heavenly qi may sound difficult to some people , I think some kind of operational definition maybe helpful : qi that you can initiate by paying attention to certain place of your body, likely the location called dantian , is called post-heavenly qi ; qi that you can initiate by paying attention to nothing/nowhere under a much clearer mind ( Awakening ) is called pre-heavenly qi . Of course, it is only an operation repeatedly done successfully by a small group of people ,some kind of collective truth in a small range no match to any scientific test , so I oppose calling it any scientific truth ; There is some truth beyond the reach of science .

I always think that Zen is a great creation , a great and bold religious action taken by a group of Chinese at certain historical period of time that seldom can you find another example in human history ; yet it is not any careless creation without its Buddhist legacy and support from those Buddhist classics , for instance , the Diamond Sutra .The deeper you understand those Buddhist classics, the louder the applause you will give to Zen's creation . Have you ever heard of a religion deliberately getting rid of its own holy scripts , smashing its own idols ( not other religions' idols ) ,capsizing its own altar so as to fulfill its own Greatness while most other religions are still entangled by the trivial rules of how to worship, by the numbers of times or direction that people have to pray in a day , by the so-called holy words in their holy book.... Zen's styles are always splendid, always straightforward without any compromise, always abrupt ; It sets our mind over an abyss in order to attain a sudden change , an abrupt awakening towards an everlasting life .