exorcist_1699

Once you have been able to initialize qi, be it from the lower dantian(male ) , or from the middle dandian ( female ) , you then wait for qi telling you how it develops ( where it goes and in what direction..) , not your desire of what it is or what other people tell you how it should be . An important saying : " 氣滿督自開" " Once qi accumulated and got full, the channel of Du itself opens " so the channel of Du is formed out of qi, developed by it , not by your intention . And, if it has not been full, there is no use of your adding your intention to make it full or to lead it in whatever ways . Please notice that a stronger intention / focus gives rise to "evil fire" ( "邪火" ) , not more or better qi , regardless of its giving you stronger feelings ( students of TCM likely can grasp this easier..) Similar to the Du channel, a genuine mindless Mind is nourished out of qi * , so any intention to attain it ( intentionally) inevitably results in a grinding-a-brick-to-become-mirror failure , some kind of meditation that most people have been doing for their whole life-time, yet useless. * Another way is via Zen's , which is too peculiar for most people to grasp .

We originally get a Mind having those 'supernatural ' abilities to grasp the world ,its phenomena and essence , not necessarily relies on our senses and reason . Such a power of going beyond all physical bounds loses for two causes : 1) It later splits and attaches to senses . 2) It attaches to the ego , a pseudo-self, which from our very early ages up to our deathbeds, we stubbornly stick to and believe its reality . And , we use all our might to service it , thinking that it is for our best interest to do so . it is by getting rid of these two causes or illusions that we start to regain our supernatural abilities , not the other ways around . Making use of qi is only one of the ways that makes it easier , compared to other non-Taoist ways .

What kind of things you deal with determines what kind of a mind you need to have . If you deal with ordinary things made of molecules in daily life , you use ordinary logical , analytic thinking ; if you deal with sub-particle like quantum or electromagnetic field ,say light , then your mind has to change . Similarly if you deal with things like qi and shen , you use another special kind of mind in which logical and analytical thinking no longer be the dominating way , quite the contrary , intuition , or a series of intuitions , becomes the main skill you need to master . Regarding Neidan , there is no secret or hidden key that has to hide in Xing gong , it can be stated clearly . It is the same as your explaining any law of physics to your students or apostles. Make it clear and precise , even in mathematical forms . However, Xing gong ( skills/ practices ) does have its unique characteristics : 1) It is level dependent ; it means not having reached that level of spiritual ability, then no matter how clear your sifu talks about it , you can not understand and your imagination of it likely be useless or not beneficial . 2) Only the basic principles should be explained clearly , further describing its subtleties (status or layer) does not help , but smother your students/apostles from reaching them as their expectations ( now become attachments) prevent them from happening. Such a phenomenon hardly exists in any other discipline of science or technology . 3) It is even more ethical than what we know in science : Only those ways are pure , simple and ethical ( not hurting others, be beneficial to others..etc ) can succeed. Evil ways hardly work or make you proceed to high level . It is in Meng gong that there are hidden keys or secrets.

No, Zen/Chan does not need jing , qi , shen nor talks about them , in fact , they are all criticized as attachment . And, any attachment , no matter it is to our abdomen , to those feelings of heat and light or to some spiritual achievement , can only prevent us from further proceeding in our cultivation .

If jing consolidated at our own will , no long scattered around different parts of our body , then of course our mind will also be consolidated as a vivid clear Mind , no longer fluctuating yet powered with those desires to live ,to search meanings , to love . This is of course a Mind with special abilities ; this is also the Taoist way . On the other hand , hardly does Zen talk about jing or qi , it seems it just follows its unique way to attain that mindless Mind , too strange for modern people to grasp . In fact I always think that Zen can only be understood in the Chinese language , neither Japanese nor Korean, hardly be in English for these are all "tedious " languages ; even Modern Chinese is impossible , but only in Classical Chinese , a language so simple , straight and self-contained ; a language that Zen 's words are recorded . I had such a thought long time ago , but I found it difficult to express , maybe in my sub-conscious mind , I was afraid of being accused of sounding arrogant ; or , maybe such a thought seemed too strange even to myself .. . It was after watching the movie Arrival that my mind changed . An alien culture , free of the limitations of the past , the present and the future , their people's minds travel freely across the huge span of time of this universe , does need to create a unique language , composed of a series circular ,intangible symbols , to express it , to pass to others . Or, maybe their minds originally had not been that free , it was after having got such a unique language from somewhere , then their mind started to becoming free ?

Thanks your response . I think desires are always viewed as something negative . In most religious cultivation , they are things to be suppressed or got rid of . However in Taoist cultivation , desires are viewed as varied expressions of jing that life based on , unlikely be destructive . To sublimate desires , the key is a mindless Mind that people need to do it well and there are two pre-conditions : 1) They get jing accumulated in their body in relatively abundant condition , otherwise they likely can't get that kind of spiritual magnificence and delicacy . 2) They know Zen's unique way of attaining a mindless Mind well , which can be summarized by one word : " Detachment " ("離") for " simply detached from all physical and spiritual states/ forms, you get all those named Buddhas " (" 離一切諸相, 則名諸佛") Compared to Zen's thorough way of " Detachment " , we get Taoist gradual way which can also be summarized in one word : " Reversion " ("逆") . As desires always result in something going downward , outside and dissipated from our body, what people have to do is to reverse it , making it go upwards, inside and consolidated .

The issue of desire is crucial in Taoist Neidan , in fact, without desires, Tao cannot embody itself and be expressed in humans . It is via desires , especially the sex desire , that Tao shows itself to us . Yet because those desires are so strong , and Tao's trace so light that Tao's making use of human desires for its own purpose hardly be noticed * . Sublimate those desires, the desire to see colorful things , the desire to listen to wonderful music, the desire to have sex with a pretty lady..etc as some kind of medicine for nourishing our life , and make it eternal is a process called " Xing's grasping and consolidating desires " ("以性攝情" ) . Without having such a process done , any Taoist achievement , in the end, is futile. * A famous Taoist saying : "人情濃厚道情微, 道用人情世罕知"

Both Taoism and TCM base on jing, qi , shen , these are basic stuff they both share , but there are really some differences : 1) Taoism ( I mean Neidan) is for eternal life , TCM is for curing diseases and health; 2) While Taoism emphasizes the attainment of pre-heavenly qi, TCM limits itself to use the post-heavenly qi ; 3) TCM looks more complicated , or trivial , as you need to know all 14 meridians , concepts related to them say Shao Yang, Yang-Ming..etc and the 5-element theory..so as to identify the diseases and make use of acupuncture, tuna ,herbs to cure ; on the other hand, in Neidan, once you are capable of initializing qi , you start to be able to cure ( at least yourself); the jing-qi-shen theory and the Du plus Ren meridians are the main things you need to know , 5-element theory is less important because once the qi from lower dantian initialized , it will build up and spread... So unless you are eager to preach Taoist theory to the public and answer troubles from qi-gong practitioners , the Neidan path should be a simpler one . 4) Hardly does TCM mention the emptied-Mind issue, but in Neidan it is crucial .

Passions and sex drives are so strong, especially those in our youth, that only an emptied ,mindless Mind with no intention can counteract and sublimate them . All minds are the tools of those passions and drives, yet thinking that they are working for the interest of their own selves, their real owners ( in fact the host is outcast to a hidden corner of the body where people sometime call it dantian , sometime call it the Magic Gateway .., it is a guest , the false self , who is really in charge ) . If people are in capable of bringing back their real Self , then no matter how hard they try living away from the crowd , on the high mountain, into a deep cave.. all are just some kinds of formalism in life , to the end , futile.

觀空亦空，空無所空。所空既無，無無亦無。無無既無，湛然常寂。寂無所寂，欲豈能生。欲既不生，即是真靜。真常應物，真常得性。常應常靜，常清靜矣！ 如此清靜，漸入真道。既入真道，名爲得道。雖名得道，實無所得。爲化眾生，名爲得道。能悟之者，可傳聖道。 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In fact , it already includes the ontology related to Tao and the methodology of entering its core here .

You can tonify your jing by many ways at many levels : 1) Ordinary ways: Eat good food, sleep well , refrain from having sex..etc; but likely guys who are in /after 50s not possible to recover from it through these ways. 2) TCM herbal formula : The conditions of using them are the comprehension of the Chinese herbs well , plus your capable of identifying what aspect of your kidney deficiency is ,whether it be yin ( water/liquid) aspect or yang (fire) aspect , so as to drink the right formulas. Roughly we can say that it is jing tonified by jing at the same level as herbs used are jing targeted , also pork or mutton are always added to these herbs' soup to enhance the effects. 3) By Medical qigong ways : Gong of contracting and relaxing your perineum, rubbing or pressing your navel several times per day , clenching your teeth when peeing..etc , there are lot of them very effective. We can say that these are jing tonified on the qi level . 4) Tonify jing on the Shen level as freeform mentioned above : An emptied Mind, if doing well , can tonify jing , not only those in our kidney , but directly those in our kneel, ankle , wrist where pains, swells or cramps make us suffer . It is , in fact , tonifying the ordinary jing by Yuan Jing ( meta/ prenatal essence ) for Yuan Jing can be embodied in us as Shen . The point is , since our jing is already in a deficient status, the least possible state from where we can attain the Shen , how then can we adopt that way ?

1) If you follow the medical qigong way , then it is jing ( 精) to qi (氣) ; If you follow the Neidan way , then it is jing to 炁 ( pre-heavenly qi ); What makes it different depends on what kind of a mind you apply to the process, whether it is something similar to your daily consciousness or a unique emptied mind . 2) Yuan ( original ) Jing (essence ) is something elusive behind , only its embodied forms in our bodies can be sensed : when we see we use jing , when we hear , we use jing ; sex is just another form we use our jing , and because it drains a large amount of it and gets a materialized form as result , we can identify it easily , others are formless so they are not that easily be recognized . Note that in Taoism , no matter in TCM or Neidan sense, jing is not solely referred to sex or something stored in sex organ, rather jing is referred as the yin ( liquid and material ) aspect of every organ , and qi is the yang ( energy) aspect of every organ ; we can do many things undermine our jing say , by over-using our eyesight in reading too many books, listening to too much music , sex-addiction or over-thinking ( it hurts our stomach )..etc. One of the reasons why people unable to attain physical immortality is their incapacity of grasping the complexity and delicacy of jing , espeically Yuan Jing , which in fact need careful study of their daily life and practice ; heavy reading of TCM's texts are also useful ( you can view Neidan as a concentrated form of Taoism where a lot of details are not mentioned , it is in TCM that you are given them..)

Although under our navel, there are lot of acupuncture points, but we can not pull together the lower dantian by just pressing them , it is the application of our mind that is necessary . You can apply an no-intention mind to dantian after it is initialized . One of the skills is "focus then forget it " , it is, of course , different from " focus then keep focusing ".

Dantian is different from the acupuncture point . The acupuncture points are always there as important , existing energy concentrated points on the meridians even you do not apply your mind to it or just in sleep . For example, one of the most common used acupuncture points is on the Large Intestine Channel: LI4, Hegu( '合谷') , in between your thumb and index finger, where you can sense it by pressing and holding it for 2~3 minutes , then you sense some flow of energy along your forearm . Dantian is something different; if you do not apply a mind , some intention on it , qi will not arise from it to show its existence , let alone rising from the bottom of our body to your head . First you mobilize it by slightly apply your mind to the lower , middle or upper dantian ( apply a mind to the UD , its strength is difficult to grasp , don't careless try ! ) , then later for initializing higher quality of qi, you apply no-mind to one of them , or just "apply " no-mind to nowhere ..

Both qi gong and TCM herbs use the same stuff to sustain and nourish us : jing and qi . The only difference is by ways of different media . While TCM makes use of jing and qi in treated herbs , minerals ,inserts ..etc that we eat , stick or steam the body, smell into our nose ...etc , gi-gong practitioners use mind , intention, focus or just no-mind or no-intention to initialize , first qi inside our bodies , later qi outside of our bodies , to do the same job . Some TCM herbs , same as qi-gong , do replenish our kidney -yin as qi-gong does .

Maybe you can see this : https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/40698-jing-of-tranquility-清淨經/

Yeah , for both Taoist and Buddhist practice ,things like avoid nocturnal emission of jing , not drink cold or icy water or abstain from getting angry with trivial matters are all important . But the reasons why those prohibitions are significant Buddhists never state it clearly . It is in Taoist jing-qi-shen or TCM's context that they are fully explained .

Buddhists do not talk about jing and qi , which does not imply that they are not the source of the human spirit . Quite the contrary , with the identification of them , it lets us solve many problems in our practice much easier.

Jing and shen are closely related . Deterioration of your jing will definitely weaken your mental ability . Any mental activities, whether it be calculating your monthly expense , playing online games overnight , try consolidating an emptied mind for hours ..etc all lessen your spiritual power, then drain your essence . People may not sense it in a short period of time or in their youth , but in the long run, in their old age it can be sensed clearly . Most old people lose their creativity ( delicacy and creativity of spirit comes from jing ) in jobs or no longer be capable of learning new things are also proofs of this . Lack of jing definitely will lead to a dull mind , in fact, various layers of emptiness , that kind of delicacy , can not be sensed by old guys , which sadly makes them doubt the truth of Taoist or Buddhist truth . So, unless they can do their emptied-Mind job well that enables them to tap energy from that emptiness continuously, hardly can they maintain that level of spiritual competence in their old age.

Likely what we come across in modern society are Zen or Meditation classes, vulgarized forms of the original preaching , mainly tailored made for office ladies or business men to kill off their spare time or to make their mind peaceful . Hardly can we meet sharp and penetrating , on some occasions even bloody, say chop off an apostle's thumb or cut a poor cat into halves , ways of forcing people into confronting what the Buddha Mind is . The aspiration to grasp the reality of the cosmos is lost, and replaced by those mediocre tastes of a modern citizen.

In fact, sitting there straight , try consolidating an emptied Mind or singing the name of Buddha , all these activities drain our jing and shen day after day . So, unless the shen and jing we get daily from the emptied Mind overtakes the shen and jing we lose every day, never can we attain everlasting life. Besides , even we can get an not so bad emptied Mind in our youth , we likely will loss it in our old age . Another important thing is how to assure that the emptied Mind we get is something yang, not any unproductive , forcibly formed, looks seemingly emptied Mind , some kind of pseudo Enlightenment ? One of the proofs is whether there is sex pleasure in that mindless status, the other one is whether there is embryonic breathing ...; these are Taoist criteria to check Buddhist claim of achievement . Generally speaking , Taoists know Buddhist way better than Buddhists' understanding of the Taoist jing-qi-shen framework .

Both Buddhism and Taoism emphasize the importance of the emptied Mind, in fact , it is the core of both systems. The main difference is that Taoism knows well that to attain such an emptied Mind directly from people's existing status ( entangled in a weak physical body with various stresses and drives ; dominated by an overwhelming analytic mind..etc) is nearly impossible . So better adopt an indirect way of initializing qi from jing first , then from qi lets people grasp what an emptied Mind ( shen ) is . Besides, once qi is initialized and upgraded , lets it settle the fluctuating minds is more easier than asking the minds to settle/ empty itself as qi and mind gets yang and yin attract-to-each-other relationship in between . However, any good way can be vulgarized , not because Taoist is inferior to the Buddhist , but because some not so clever people incline to make thing superficial so that they can grasp it . Remember that any attachment to qi , to some glow, even to emptiness itself will block you from advancing . Building a boat to cross a river, but then you have to abandon it, is the metaphor always quoted so as to remind people of not being entangled by any attachment ; it is true even you have just attained a great , laborious achievement one second ago .

" Beings would visit me and I would have spiritual conversations with them. Sometimes some would come to challenge me, but I seemed to know inherently how to deal with those challenges..." It seems inappropriate to respond..

I think real Buddhist masters know the importance of physical health as well , maybe sometime they look ignoring it is because Taoists talk too much about jing and qi ? Taoist view of Zen's way is : It starts straight by cultivating Shen at the top level and in one stroke also solves the middle ( qi) and bottom ( jing ) levels issues. It is just a concentrated , non-gradual way to doing jing => qi => shen in reverse order , which likely be possible only for gifted people . That means if you do your emptied-Mind well, you simultaneously can get a diamond -like body in both physical and spiritual senses . However, if you seemingly do your Emptied- mind stuff well , say attaining some kind of foretelling ability or capable of driving out some spirit , yet still get a weak , sick or aging body, then definitely you are only polishing some type of yin-qi or yin-mind . And, polishing a yin-typed of mind well is nothing or not much worthy of boasting of .

About the no-way is the best way stuff, people may wonder how it be possible . Assume that you are a native speaker of English, do you pay attention to any grammatical rules when you speak English ? You just speak it out straight from your mouth those words ..If you have any attention to those rules, never can you speak it so fluently . So, our mind does have a special ability to squeeze a bundle of rules to no-rule , and makes it work . Similarly in the world of qi or Buddhist practice. At high level, you just start with no-way ; if you pay attention to stuff like how to control your breathing, whether your qi being circulated correctly or how to get rid of those fluctuating ideas ( the harder you try, the more they pop -up )..then hardly can you upgrade your practice for those attachments always entangle you ; A no-way emptied Mind is what you need for your practice ; in fact, high-quality qi ( pre-heavenly qi ) arisen only after your capable of consolidating such a Mind .