exorcist_1699

Death is an everlasting topic for human beings ,some people even say that it is because of it that life becomes meaningful ; quite a cynic idea or ,to be candid , foolish attitude . Real taoists are never afraid of death , and ,do not view it as something that happen inevitably . Death is only a disease, not a fatal ending of us . Death does not happen at sometime in our future ,but every moment , every breath of our life ; small "negligence" accumulate , and , give rise to the final disaster . Way out of death is therefore in every of our living moment, every change of our mind , and every breath we take.

Different from those daily life issues in which we deal with materials , tools, energy , forms and rules , taoist technical problem is the one related to how we handle emptiness/ nothingness before our eyes ; handling or even playing with emptiness /nothingness , making it as something " technical " , is undoubtedly a significant creation of human spirit , the main achievement of Buddhism and Taoism for human being. Only nothingness lasts forever ; Capable of living with it , in fact, is the real source of taoist immortality .. Some people may claim that taoist technical problems are those issues dealing with how we manipulate our breathing, situate our hands or how we visualize something .. it is really not true... Western thinkers such as Satre and Heidegger do write about Being and Nothingness...etc , however,they are the people who think of those problems , not really deal with it .

One of the best of taoist ways: Forgetting your body so that qi can be nourished ; Forgetting qi so that shen (Spirit) can be noursihed; Forgetting shen so that 'nothingness ' can be nourished ; Forgetting is really better yet much difficult than visualization

Only after having reach the 1st step and got rid of the boundary between our body and the outside world, do people start to understand the significance of the "Monism of qi " , the only system that can counter the dominance of the Western science . I always think that we are such a culture on such a planet where people can't manipulate those forces well and always fall into the predicament in which religion contradicts with science, nothingness against being, reason despises intuition...; somewhere , in this universe , should exist some ET culture that can handle those contradictions better than us .

What is called Magic Gateway is the meta-qi Knowing yet paying no attention is the key (先天一氣號玄關 知而不守是功夫)

According to the Taoist and TCM theory , our body , as a micro-cosmos , has characteristics similar and corresponding to the universe. So, if there are black holes in the universe, there is...in our body and qi is the medium...

Many taoist poems are simple yet profound , and , are suitable for being used as a medium for learning Chinese. The following are two of them I like a lot : 學道之人不識真 只因從前認識神 無量劫來生死種 痴人喚作本來人 有物先天地 無為本寂寥 能為萬物主 不逐四時凋

Talking about the longest time of meditation /praying in a day a religion asks , then , it is Buddhism and Taoism, not Muslim, which request the most . What they ask is we should be in a state of meditation /praying in every moment of our time yet without smashing the mind who handles the daily trivial. As Zen's sixth Master , Huei Lan, puts it : 惠能無技倆 不斷百思量 That is like maintaining a pool of still water without having ripples after your having dropped a rock in it .

Up to this moment of human history, there are three forms of Knowledge/Intelligence that we know: 1. Everyday common sense plus scientific knowledge. 2. The 1st form yet materialized and re-processed outside human brain as Expert System, AI ...and stored in database ,web servers... 3. The Intelligence told by taoism and Buddhism. First form of intelligence does not understand the 3rd one , it guess, but no matter how hard it tries, through Psychology or Philosophy for example , it always fails.

Although I am no good translator , I try it as follows; just a literal trial ,without any artistic consideration: People who study Tao yet do not know the Reality/ Meta-Mind, the reason is that they were bewildered by a false self; seed giving rise to the endless transmigration of their soul , instead of being recognized as false , people call it a real ego, the Meta-Mind. The Chinese edition of this poem I get is a little different from yours, but meaning is nearly the same. I translate the Chinese taoist term "元神" as Meta-Mind. If I remember it correctly,the poem is written by a Buddhist monk living in the Tang Dynasty. There is no surprise why a monk writes a poem looks taoist as there is no clear dividing line between Buddhism and Taoism in China , at least , to those who know what they are really talking about.

The real ego , of course, is : Buddha, in Buddhist term; Meta-Mind , in taoist term;

Hi, Procurator, my superficial understanding , not direct translation , is : Our pseudo self , i.e, our daily life ego , which most people desperately cling to and think that it is real , is ,in fact, an illusion ; Such attachment is also the cause of the endless transmigration of our soul. It is not until the appearance of the real ego, which unfortunately is deeply hidden , do we understand the real meaning of our life . Just some rough idea to share , it seems you see deeper than me...and just try to give me a test :-)

Hi, Xuesheng, your point is interesting and full of Buddhist sense . Man is , in fact, Buddha getting lost in an earthly world; once awaken (Enlightenment) ,he will return to to his originally privileged position easily.

What are the reasons that make man no god? First, man is entangled by social relations. As Marx once put it, the essence of man is the totality of social relations. Second , man is entangled in a physical body. Getting rid of the limitation of social relations is difficult; getting rid of our physical body is more difficult. However, taoist practice, starting from eliminating the necessity of sex, dreaming, eating, breathing...in fact, step by step , is emancipating us from the physical body and makes us god-like. I think , the process and feeling of becoming god should be something wonderful :-) Are you prepared to taste it ?

"Many masters have claimed they were sickly before they started practice." Maybe it is true ; but if they are masters, then although originally they look old and sickly ,they can reverse it . There are many records about fallen teeth re-grown , whiten hair blacken , even un-reproductive man becomes reproductive again...recorded in the old Chinese books. I hope I am not too demanding towards the "masters" :-)

Whether a taoist practitioner can live a long life is definitely a criterion to judge the success or correctness of her/his practice although most Buddhists don't talk about that . I think Taoist idea is better otherwise any person can boast of how best his/her spiritual cultivation is , and, subjective , spiritual achievement of a person is always difficult to prove . If many people who do not practice any qigong or taiji can live up to 90 years old , it seems living beyond it is something basic for taoist practitioners ( get killed in an accident is another story )? Another faster criterion to judge is to see whether that person always look young or not ; in this way , you can judge a so-called master within few years , no need to wait for decades , as wrinkles on people's face is the most difficult thing to hide :-)

Please be reminded that having all jing changed to qi ,although not necessarily means you will lose your sexual capacity, it does imply that you lose your reproductive ability. However, instead of producing a new life outside, you regenerate a new life inside yourself, a new life of higher level which is free of the limitation from yin and yang (female + male)... a secret key of taoist immortality. As a superstitious , timid taoist coming from the Chinese tradition, never dare I explain so plainly and in such details as Dao Zhen did ... I bless him .

Simply speaking, purifying our mind,even deep to the sub-conscious level , is unsafe. Only after having all our essence (Jing) changed to qi , can we say the death/life issue guaranteed . Of course,here , we are only talking about aging, there are many other factors that can give rise to death ...

"I think for serious students, this is a big hurdle to overcome." Absolutely correct; in fact, unable to cross this hurdle, all our effort will, in the end, become futile .The taoist saying is that : capable of stopping the process and reversing it means delaying the process of aging..... Considering a 58 years old man marries to a 45 years old ,healthy woman, their baby will still be as young as others.... Sexual dreams is nothing horrible if most of your jing has become qi; in that case even having sexual dream does not lead to release of it . A "goalkeeper" is there.... Of course, people may then think of the possibility of losing male reproductive ability; it seems not , the process is reversible... The same hurdle exists in female situation, unable to "slash the red dragon" , then any of her effort will finally become fruitless. Of course, all points above are only meaningful for very determined people.

Some religion asks people to pray ( another form of meditation ) many times a day, to pray at certain time a day , or pray in some costume , these all are formalities,incapable of leading them to Reality . ( by the way, calling the name of our God/Lord is , in fact, another kind of visualization, which is also the reason why some priests are capable of initiating healing power ). Taoist and Zen style is something simpler ; they know that formalities are for the crowd, the simplest is for the intelligent.The better we get rid of formalities , the closer we approach Reality; the braver we get rid of trivial , the better we grasp the truth. I think, the term stillness seems misleading , the essence of life or spiritual cultivation is vigorous and dynamic, stillness can only be a short stage of cultivation we experience , not the end ;afterwards, something huge and lively should arise,otherwise we are stuck in it...

Comparing with all known methods, the Zen Buddhist way should be the hardest; it relies on nothing, starts from nowhere , and, preaches even talking about emptiness /nothingness is a barrier; In some sense, I think , the braver a religion in getting rid of formality , the closer a religion approaches Reality .. Where can you find a religion in which its followers dare to burn the statue of its own god/God just for smashing formalities ?

By grasping "qi" in your hands, you can do some supernatural things; you act god-like; there is no huge gap between man and god in Chinese culture as it is in the West. This is also why in Kung fu movie, you can find so many supernatural actions ; in fact, the theory and mechanism underlying kung-fu is same as Taoism. Have anyone ever got experience in waking up in midnight and performing some kind of Kung-fu-like movement subconsciously , but naturally (follow qi's movement in your body)? In Greek mythology, it seems , the gap between god and man is not so big , however, due to the incapacity of discovering of qi ( however, they do raise the concept of atom) , and , later the dominance of Christianity , it later becomes widening ...of course, this time , the relation is between God , a creator of the whole universe , and man . I think , part of the miracles that Jesus did and what are well described in Bible , if they happened in the Chinese cultural context, the Chinese would just describe them as qi gong therapy ; There are , in fact, some records in ancient texts about healing others' diseases without using herbs, instruments , or even having any touch of others' body ; the Chinese just call it " distributing qi " for healing.

Enlightment, different from all subjective things that human beings ever experienced : dreaming , subconscious of , thinking , feeling...etc , its initial stage ,can be called "mindless awakening ". Mindlessness , like a pool of still water without any ripples, is not a state we should pursue . It is mindless then awakening that is something we are eager to attain. Only after Enlightenment appeared , do we get meta-qi , a dose that can really stop aging , or even reverse it. Of course , it also implies the possiblility of getting rid of physical death..... however, anything physical is limited and unreliable , so, the taoists ,just like any human beings , are also eager to attain spiritual eternity . Needless to say, in this way , chasing after afterlife eternity, which is common among most religions , is never the aim of taoism .

Some people may use whether there is an appearance of a "pearl" or "ball " before us as the proof of Enlightenment ; by observing its size ( at first may just look like a small bean ) and color , you know where you reach . However, although in most cases it is true, the shortcoming of such proof is that you are using a subjective thing to prove another subjective thing ; doubt still exists . It is worse for people who adopt imagination as a method right from the beginning of their practice. At this stage , they will be puzzled by whether it is an illusory ball , imaginary ball or a real one ? To solve the problem , Taoism cleverly adopts a way to prove it indirectly on the opposite side : as human beings , we are an unity of spirit and body, and ,Awakening and Enlightenment , as some kinds of huge accomplishment in our spirit, they must also generate deep impact on our physical body . So, why not proving it by seeing whether your cancer is cured, white hair disappear , fallen teeth re-grown ,wrinkles recede or sleeping becomes unnecessary ?

To me, Awakening is a status different from just being mindless. It is an abrupt change , a jump from one status to another status, like there is a door suddenly open in your mind leading to some arena new...some people even find such a jump/change accompanied with some kind of sound.... Thinking it in terms of taoist qi gong practice, the quality of qi you experience in Awakening is totally different from what you experience under mindlessness or ordinary mental status . I call qi arising under Enlightenment , a deeper state of Awakening , as meta-qi ( just a translation ,other people may have better terms than mine) ; Kinds of diseases it can cure are also different from those you can cure by just applying ordinary qi . For example ,diseases such as Cancer and AIDS , can hardly be cured by qi you initiate under ordinary mental condition or just being mindless. Of course, I do not say mindlessness is meaningless; absolutely not .Contrary to many people's thinking that concentrating of our mind on certain spot of our body or imagining something wonderful , in fact ,getting rid of mental interference , is a precondition of the appearance of qi . So, mindlessness is really an achievement provided that you are not trapped in it .