exorcist_1699

Replenish jing and qi are easy, even for people who are over 70 as we already get a lot of jing and qi accumulated in our bodies , only that they are always stuck at some places (usually at those main acupuncture points where sore , sting pains are felt when being pressed ) , or in some unbalanced status that they cannot be used . By applying our mind or our fingers on them , we can release them and then they can act as some kind of replenishment ; this is why they are called the internal medical storage . Replenishing Shen likely is more difficult as doing some mental maths or learning some foreign languages does sharpen our mind or keep our memorial power , they are not anything an upgrade of Shen . Anyway, as "whenever Shen consolidates , jing and qi also gather " , using Shen in a mindless way can be viewed as some higher, spiritual exercises to reversely replenish jing and qi . This is why some followers of Zen who do theirs well , not to speak of Taoists' much easier jing-qi-shen way , can regenerate and enhance their jing : Regrowing fallen teeth , removing a hemorrhoid , regaining hard erection ..etc

Feeling of heat , like boiling water , and glow down to the marrow level can be some criteria of judging how well people's cultivation of jing and qi . The uplifted jing into brain can upgrade people's shen's level , say they can now conversely use shen to polish their jing's quality : " 神凝則精凝" (" once shen gathers , jing also consolidates " ) . And , this is the key / reason of qigong healing for many symptoms of diseases , say feeble knee , strange tumor , bad memory , deteriorated eyesight ..etc can be due to lack of jing .

Although someone here argues about whether there ever existed a school called Wu-Liu Pai , it doesn't bother me much for Wu-liu writings are there, its actual figures' preaching are well recorded, and its influence on Taoism in recent centuries is undeniable . Anyway , here I would like to talk about its significance , which can be summarized as follows: 1) It is Wu-Liu who declare that once we can stop jing leakage , we can live forever. It sounds seemingly not that difficult , but unless you know/ are told of some clues, it is ,in fact, something unlikely . Besides capable of stopping and reversing aging, jing is also said to be the 'medicine' accumulated in us to cure nearly all diseases; 2) A stop of jing leakage is not only crucial to Taoist practice, but also to Buddhism, which is hardly mentioned by those Buddhists. From Wu-Liu's point of view , you can't get an enlightened monk with his jing keeps leaking . Even he does succeed on some occasions , definitely he can't sustain it for long. That means, enough and pure jing is the precondition for a yang-typed of Enlightenment , which is different from most yin-typed meditations without Awakening ; as a Taoist formula tells us what meditation should be : "To the utmost of yin , yang pop-up " ; so it is that Awakening, that yang arisen from "chaos " enables us to live forever. 3) Because of the above-mentioned reasons , Wu-Liu quote a lot from Buddhist sutras , mainly to emphasize implicitly the importance of a persistent mindlessness followed with Awakening ; since old guys/women lack of that essence to nourish IT , better start your practice young, say before 60 . 4) Capable of pulling together a yang-typed , awaken Mind likely is something crucial to the Micro-cosmic circulation despite most people prefer paying attention to other things such as how strong their feelings of qi are... The MCC can not be guided by a daily-type of consciousness , in fact, quite a lot of troubles arisen from MCC are due practitioners' sticking to their old way of thinking . Giving us lot of details for the MCC that no other schools ever did is another contribution of the Wu-Liu school.

Thanks . A good piece of Taoist essay . So many keys and details in it which look useful .

Here I refer to reincarnation , as mentioned , a series of repeated afterlives , not just some simple idea of afterlife .

Despite reincarnation originally not a Taoist concept , in fact it comes from Buddhism , Taoism does make use of it yet in the terms of jing ,qi and shen . A person dies because he uses up all jing and qi in his body , or in some cases, his physical body seriously damaged , that his spirit ( a yin-typed of shen ) is forced to leave . In most cases, this reluctantly forced to leave, yin-type of spirit cannot take its fate along in its own hands ; without a physical body , it may roam a long time in some places , say in an old fortress , a deserted tunnel or under a desolate bridge near seashore for some reasons .. not necessarily going into an afterlife soon after death ; even if it can incarnate, in what life form : a woman , a pig or a worm ..is no guarantee . So ,Taoism emphasizes on the everlasting life , an achievement better be accomplished in THIS lifetime as long as some yang-qi still lurking inside the physical body , not the afterlife.

2- 3 inches under the navel , an area inside..

Hardly is visualization viewed by Taoism as any kind of decent way despite it likely being the hottest way proposed by many people . I view it as one belongs to those ways which " you can easily come across in your lifetime , yet hardly does it make you succeed " ( " 易遇而難成" ) . Of course, to its opposite , you get those ways which " seldom can you come across in your lifetime , yet it likely enables you succeed " (" 難遇 而易成") . Headache : you stop practicing such way, then it will recede. Headache due to having initialized uncontrollable qi : Shift your attention back to lower dantian and withdraw your qi to it ; or shift your attention to the bottom of your feet , say the acupuncture points " 涌泉 " :

Talking about Taoist meditation , likely the lower abdomen , a big place below the navel for men as their starting point , is the location appropriate . For women, should be middle of their breasts . Notice that the principle is wherever yang /sex pleasure / convex arises, wherever is the place. For TCM treatment , say if you want to do some acupressure or place a TCM plaster on some acupuncture point to replenish jing , then it is the " Guan Yuan " (" 關元" ) , 4-finger width below your navel :

When people come across troubles and adversities, how can they do to overcome ? Most of them will try using the knowledge , experiences and material assets they get , working out some plans to solve them . On the other hand, some may adopt lessening ,even getting rid of their expectations or desires, so as to make them feel better, another way of solving their troubles . In fact, we can have some Zen's formulae , as we get in other disciplines , to treat them : 1) "Eliminate the ego, not eliminate the scenarios( those difficulties and adversities ) " ("奪 人不奪境" ). As there is no ego, to where those worries or sufferings hooked to ? 2) " Eliminate those scenarios , not the ego" ( " 奪境不奪人 " ) 3)"Eliminate both the scenarios and the ego " (" 人境俱奪") 4) "Eliminate neither the scenarios nor the ego " ("人境俱不奪") . Capable of entering the Universal or Ontological mind/ Consciousness , the core , as 4) refers to , enables us to 'make use' of no-Mind to deal with all things and matters in non-doing way ; it is only those people whose consciousness are always staying at the surface , far from the core , do they get the necessities of raising varied of ideas and emotions , or expressed in their look pretty terms: tactics or strategy , to solve problems . Below is an atom-like model of people's mind :

Because most of the post-natal jing we get is through eating and drinking , by accumulating them and paying attention to the lower abdomen , where the digestion process ends, we can arouse qi ; with qi accumulated , and arisen , we then forget it, forget that it is being forgotten , to attain Shen ; with the skill of playing with Shen , a mindless Mind , grasped and refined , we get more high quality qi accumulated ; then quantity leads to quality jumps , an intercourse between Shen and qi happens , and, embryonic breathing arises ..; notice that hardly can a mind be settled and emptied by itself ; no-mind implies hardly can it or should it raise any intention to empty itself, instead, it can be grasped and emptied by qi. This is the crucial difference between Taoist way from others' .There are 2 main thresholds to cross in this process : 1) Your capability of arousing qi by whatever way you are taught by your teacher / research 2) Your capability to understand and attain a mindless Mind ( can have varied degree of depth ) Attainment of qi lets you understand what most of the TCM writings talk about ; attainment of a mindless Mind/ a no-mind Mind lets you understand what most of the Buddhist writings talk about provided that you read classical Chinese ;

I do think that both Buddhism and Taoism 's goals nearly are the same : Solving troubles of Aging, Sickness, Death and Living ( Reproduce ) . The main difference is that in this process , Taoism emphasizes both physical and spiritual proofs , yet the Buddhists overlook the physical ones . In this sense, Taoism is much closer to modern science than Buddhism for at every step, it requires proof, otherwise, Taoists will look into their ways, try finding anything wrong . For example , hardly correct practice of MCO allows you suffer from any diseases; even cancer can be a piece of cake provided that you always pay attention to spiritual things , not interested in them only after having been told by the doctor that you get 3-month life to live . If you find qi not so powerful , then it is your practice problematic , you should try finding out what things wrong in your practice.. However , in the same situation , many shallow-minded Buddhists will say : the body is illusory , some kind of attachment , why care about it ..;

Only few separate writings from the whole collection of the Taoist canons are translated from the classical Chinese into English : " Secret of Gold Flower " , writings of Wu-Liu School , writings of Zhao Bi-Chen ..etc , less than 1% of the valuable Taoist writings worthy of translating into English .

Although both Taoism and Buddhism talk about Emptiness, they get very different temperament , which may reflect the original, different characters of the Chinese and the Indians : 1. The Chinese are relatively practical people who speak less , the Indians are more eager to express themselves. 2. Taoists cultivate and meditate in small groups of few people , Buddhists do them in big groups , say in hundreds, even in thousands. 3. Taoism wants to say as little as possible , Buddhism , although emphasizes that the Void or the Buddha Heart is beyond reach by words, in fact says a lot . The volume of Buddhist Sutras is huge, nobody knows its exact quantity ; Taoist Canons' volume originally was small, it is only due to the pressure of the translation of the incoming Buddhist Sutras that it gets big ; however its volume is still no match to the Buddhist ones . 4. Comparing to the zealous Buddhists who are eager to preach their briefs so as to rescue all people ( in fact, all creatures if animals can hear and understand ) of the world , Taoism is a cold , indifferent religion , whose followers think that only people who are embodied in relatively cleaner qi , hardly can they be interested in Tao , or understand its significance .

Replenishment of jing , regretfully rooted in Nothingness ( " 虛" , Taoist term ) or Emptiness ( " 空" , Buddhist term ) , not rooted in the earth or any other places despite doing exercises and eating jing- enhancing food also help . But we are talking about " root " , so we refer to something fundamental . As nothingness or emptiness is invisible and difficult to deal with , I assume most people do not like it . However , by just capable of attaining an emptied Mind , without thinking of anything related to the female body or its underclothes, we can arouse sex pleasure , heat and " jumps" at the perineum or lower abdomen part is a clear proof of such a linkage . Notice that an emptied Mind gets the same character as , or is equal to , the emptiness everywhere.

The " Yin Fu jing " « 陰符經 » says: " 宇宙在乎手，萬化生乎身 " ( " All things come from the body ⁕ , grasp the cosmic in your own hands " ). Since the cosmic is full of qi , and our bodies are the embodiment of it , so capable of initializing qi from our bodies , manipulating it and expanding it beyond the body boundaries implies the control of the basic force of the cosmic in our own hands something possible . With the fundamental force in our hands, basic / fatal troubles of life : To live ( and to reproduce), to age , to get sick , to die (生老病死) can be solved . Of course, if you can only initialize qi and circulate it in your own body , incapable of of expanding it beyond, then there is no way of talking about the cosmic stuff ; yet talk about curing some diseases in it is still feasible . ⁕ Notice that Taoist view of the body as a mini cosmic.

The existence of a much bigger , everlasting Mind outside us , in the universe , or even as the Creator of this universe , is the common belief of most of the religions . However, only Taoism explains it in the context of the jing- qi -shen framework . Because of such an explanation and practice ,and , because all those elements mentioned are inside us , as the most basic elements of our existence ,it makes the climbing of a small, humble individual ,step by step , onto the Heaven , becoming part of this bigger Mind itself possible . Without it , the external Mind/God is always something super, beyond our reach . The recognition of such jing-qi-shen framework is also the criterion which differentiates Taoism from Buddhism , and other religions /philosophies.

Modern physics, especially quantum mechanics , make emptiness and consciousness / observers factors or issues that need to be considered when studying the essence or basic blocks of the universe ; they are , in fact , two , out of other few topics like qi, most heavily talked topics of Buddhism and Daoism as we can find , in Daoist cannons and Buddhist Sutras , millions of pages devoted to them . Although modern science thinks that this Consciousness ( in reality, expressions of the Buddha Heart or Cosmic Mind* in minds of the crowds ) something intelligent arisen on planets billions years after the big-bang and the cooling down of those solar systems , Buddhism and Daoism think that intelligent Mind exists right at the beginning , everywhere , it is only its expressions that look seemingly after time and look required happened under certain physical conditions, for example , in the habitable zone of a solar system . *Cosmic Mind ( '天心') , Daoist term equivalent to the Buddha Heart .

Our daily consciousness or scientific mind does achieve great things at our will , via separating things or phenomena into different parts, layers, relations, steps ..and then by observations and by applying logic/ maths on them , we make assumptions and finally find out those patterns and rules underlying them .. ; humans are always successful via such methods , however , they may not be suitable when we talk about studying the world of qi , or world of the Budda Mind.

Cultivating the mind via the body , which composed of jing and qi , is possible . Cultivating the mind via the mind itself is nearly impossible for whatever ways you adopt , say visualizing something , singing whatever name of your gods, focusing whatever strength on something ..etc , you are in fact : 1)in that process , using up your jing and qi, which conversely weaken your spiritual power ; for example, spending a whole day singing the name of Buddha, in fact, drain a lot of jing and qi from the practitioner, especially for old people , which makes greater spiritual achievement not likely . 2) A mind can only be nourished by a much bigger , powerful Mind , not a trivial mind itself. You , in fact, cannot grind a brick into a mirror. Or, put it in other way : If a horse cart does not move forward, which one should you whip ? The cart or the horse ?

It main depends on how young you are when you start becoming capable of refining jing to qi ; to young guys, say those before their 50's , very bright sparks appear somewhere before their eyes when they pee or meditate is quite a common phenomenon . Accumulating enough high quality jing seems to be the only way..

No-mind is , in fact, a stage of transition , leading us from the pseudo to the genuine . Notice that this consciousness , attached to our drives, to our senses , to our emotions and to our reasoning , is so real and dominant that trying to disentangle from it and reach the super-consciousness ( I would rather call it the Cosmic Mind ) as old3bob raised above , to most people , seems unlikely . So, we need some 'skills' of detaching from them to enter another totally new status or dimension. From human's perspective , detachment from this daily consciousness leads us to no-mind , then a further detachment from no-mind may lead us ( or awaken us ) to a much greater Mind , no matter you call it as super-consciousness or Cosmic Mind . However ,we can also view it from a reverse perspective that despite its seemingly lurking and popping up from our brain , that greater Mind is , in fact , the embodiment of an external Mind from the universe on us . If the Cosmic Mind is the moon, then people's minds can be viewed as its billions reflections on lakes, pools, springs on Earth. However , methodologically, some totally new 'skills' which not presume ourselves being the reflections ( expressions ), separated from the origin/ core (' 體'), have to adopt ; and , they may read like these : - "以心求心, 心將成有" ( " Making use of your minds to search for another great Mind , then hardly can it be any way of no-mind ") <<傳 心法要>> ( for it turns out that your intention consolidates some mind(s), not eliminates it /them ) " 喜怒哀樂之未發謂之中 " ( " What is called the core is when minds and emotions just arise but not yet formed" ) <<中庸>> - "當體即是, 動念即乖" ( " At one stroke enter the core , any idea or expectation means deviation") <<傳心法要>> Assume that Dao's essence/ core is somewhere /sometime ( in future ) separated from our minds , and we should squeeze our minds chasing after it is , in fact, human's method/ way , not Dao's.. Anyway, a famous poem, written by the Daoist cum Confucian scholar , Sao Yong ('邵雍') , who lived in the Song Dynasty , tells us the relation between no-mind and the Cosmic Mind: ' 天心復處是無心 ' ( The Cosmic Mind comes on us as no-mind ) ' 心到無時無處尋 ' ( Being no-minded , to its utmost , we cannot find it anywhere ) '若謂無心便無事 ' ( Meaningless you think it is , why ) '水中何故郤生金 ' ( emerged from water , something looks gold like before our eyes )

Some ideas on the posts above : 1) " When I do emptiness meditation, counting my breaths, or observing my mind, there is emptiness(except for small monkeys) but no sense of bliss or emotional content whatsoever. It gets boring. " So, there is something in the background which counts , which observes, which expects ... , in that case, hardly can it be anything an emptiness meditation for a lot of minds stuck there . And, if it is not empty and pure enough, then unlikely can anything lively be nourished from it ; people will then sooner or later find their "emptiness meditation" boring , unable to continue. 2) Instead of talking about those personal experiences, higher level and dimensions stuffs, people should try using how well no-mind meditation cure disease and aging symptoms on their bodies as criteria for they are more realistic , objective enough to be measured , and are free from self-deception . 3)The skills of being no-mind , then erase it as being no-skill , no-way is crucial to our cultivation, both spiritual and physical , for they should not be separated as some pro-Buddhist ways do . It is something indispensable , just like electricians' abilities of measuring voltage , current on circuits to isolate electric failures and web programmers' abilities of writing HTML, CSS and JS codes . Unable to jump freely on different levels of attention, abstraction or attachment, whatever you call it, blocks people from understanding what genuine cultivation is .

Our spirit , appears to us as varied forms of consciousness and emotions , are in fact controlled by the jing and qi that originate from the dantian ( lower) . No matter what structure and layers we think of our mind, problems like bad memory , not having a sharp mind, unable to pull together a still mind , fail to do lengthy reasoning , uncontrolled illusions popping up....etc , their solution can be found in the area of lower dantian rather than trying to find them in the upper , area of spirit . Lower dantian is also a place we accumulate energy or nutrition for a much greater self ; let high quality jing and qi arise to naturally sublimate our spirit / shen is a way much better than people's deliberate (spiritual ) efforts . It is in this sense that we can find how clever and significant Daoism is. The terms "氣機" ( " mechanism of qi " ) and "神機" ( " mechanism of shen " ) have to be studied in details , like studies of how to set up a solar-powered system composed of electrical and mechanical parts based on varied mechanisms , so as to benefit our life .

Daoism simply is a system of philosophy for understanding the world(s) , both physical and spiritual , that we live in . However, different from other systems of philosophies ( even religions) , Daoism interprets them with the ideas and ways of jing , qi , shen , which exist not only inside people's bodies, but everywhere , therefore giving the followers of Daoism the power and means of not only understanding the world(s) , but changing them . Philosophers finally are endowed with a power , qi , that disentangles them from solely being an explainer , always succumbing to poverty, diseases, aging and earthly political power , even alienated human creation like AGI .