Walker

I attended a weeklong Shan Ren Dao teachings in NE China 5 years ago. There's a lot to say about this body of teachings. I'll try and respond to a few of your questions and comments here. 1. Although Shan Ren Dao does incorporate ideas from Daoism and Buddhism, its biggest influences come from Confucianism. 2. That said, there were definitely Quanzhen Daoist priests who participated in this movement while Wang Fengyi was still alive. At that time there were smallish groups of teachers in this "school" who traveled around northern China to give teachings and "說病/shuobing," which I guess you could translate as "talk [out] illnesses." Some of the Daoist priests who were a part of this movement survived the early- to late-20th century era of warfare, the communist revolution, and the Cultural Revolution, and went on to continue preaching some of Wang's ideas within their Daoist temples. His teachings have also spread far and wide throughout the Daoist and Buddhist temple "grapevine" in China. For example, I first found Discourse on Transforming Inner Nature: Hua Xing Tan (《化性談》) in the 太子洞/Taizi Cave on Mt. Wudang back in 2010; the famous Buddhist monk who emigrated to the US, Hsuan Hua Shangren (宣化上人) was also a proponent of these teachings, and I was given a VCD of lectures by a young Buddhist hermit on Mt. Wutai in 2011. The teachings were becoming very popular very quickly during those years. 3. This brings us to an important question: can you nowadays find Daoists monks or nuns teaching Shan Ren Dao? The answer is no--at least not publicly. Why? Last year the Chinese Communist Party, fearing--as it always does--any and all movements that might allow for a concentration of power/influence and/or the empowerment of its citizenry officially labelled these teachings as a "cult," banned the printing and distribution of the relevant texts, forced the closure of numerous Shan Ren Dao schools, forced Liu Shan Ren (劉善人--I think that's him in the YouTube thumbnail in the striped sweater on the right) to stop traveling the country offering teachings, sent cadres to temples to collect and destroy Shan Ren Dao books, and so forth. This "crackdown" affected a lot of people I know, most of whom have more or less walked away from Shan Ren Dao (either teaching, running schools, or printing books) in order to stay out of jail and not be tortured. It is a shame, but hardly surprising given Xi Jinping's predilection to use the types of techniques of governance he appears to have learned during his youth in the Cultural Revolution. Contrary to what images of glamorous-looking skyscrapers and luxury cars in Shanghai and Shenzhen might suggest, the fact is that times are always tough in countries where authoritarianism reigns. 4. I don't know if there are any other English resources out there. For the record, Transforming Inner Nature: Hua Xing Tan was not written by Wang Fengyi, it was written by a student in this school of thought whose name escapes me (I think this person may have studied directly with Wang, but I'm not sure). At any rate, just like many self-cultivation teachings from China, while reading books is a great way to pick up the knowledge, you'll always be missing something by not training with the people in the "lineage" (or whatever word better applies here). Liu Shan Ren, for instance, devotes part of his book to talking about how long it took for him to really learn how to treat people's illnesses with oral teaching from his master--if I recall correctly, it was a long process taking years if not decades. Having been through a Shan Ren Dao teaching session, I can tell you that when you are in a group of people offering public confessions, singing and chanting together, sleeping and eating under the same roof, forbidden to leave except for two trips to a local bathhouse in a week, forbidden to even talk, forbidden to do any other cultivation practices one may have learned elsewhere, etc., then a certain "qi" is created, and it puts people into a state of high malleability, concord, and openness; in this environment various types of catharsis are possible, and indeed I witnessed a lot of people (myself included) be quite deeply affected. The person I accompanied there, for example, had more or less lost his mind and been on the run in China for 3 years in a state of such madness that all the Western psychiatrists in Shanghai had declared him incurable; after the week long class, he went and lived as a guest in a Daoist temple for three months and then eventually returned to his family. He recovered his mental health (the Daoists are probably most to be thanked for this, as dozens or hundreds of hours of rituals were done on his behalf) and eventually he returned to his family and later was able to finish high school and go to college in the US, where I think he is now, and doing fine. So, in sum, no matter how deep the inspiration Transforming Inner Nature: Hua Xing Tan gives you might be, it is unlikely to come close to actually participating in these teachings; if you can afford it, the class in the US might be worth going to (traditionally these teachings were offered for free in China, but that probably was only possible thanks to the contributions given by wealthy individuals; in the US, where millionaires and billionaires don't seem to prone to patronizing wandering sages, I guess tuition of some sort might be necessary). If you were inspired enough spend 5+ years becoming fluent in Chinese and adventuring in off-the-beaten-track China, you probably would be able to find a way to study firsthand in the underground there. 5. I should add that while I witnessed some impressive healings during the course I took, they were all on the mental/emotional level. I've heard many stories about people's physical illnesses being improved or cured by Shan Ren Dao "talking [out] illness," but I never saw it with my own eyes. 6. The famous modern TCM doctor Liu Lihong (劉力紅) was able to get a graduate program for researching Shan Ren Dao off of the ground at Guangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine several years before the crackdown last year. It is possible that this graduate program has survived, but even if it has, I suspect it has been severely "harmonized," as they say (just like the "qigong tuina department" at Xiyuan Hospital in Beijing where I asked a doctor how they incorporate qigong into their treatments. His answer? "We don't do any qigong here, that's just on the sign." Sigh. PRC. Fuck.) 7. Transforming Inner Nature: Hua Xing Tan heavily emphasizes the 5-phase correspondences that show up in the 5 zang and 6 fu organs, the 5 virtues, relationships, and so forth. This kind of teaching can probably fairly accurately be called "Confucian." It also talks about the 3 different types of "human nature," how they relate to each other, and what we must do to address them in our training. All of this was a big part of the course I attended, but what was perhaps more important were 1. group confession, 2. group vow-making, 3. public expressions of gratitude for all those Confucianism typically places "above us" in its conception of human relationships, 4. 認不是--learning to identify and admit to our own shortcomings whenever we find ourselves unhappy with others, 5. 找好處, learning to think about the good in others the moment we are unhappy with them, and 6. reciting certain healing affirmations with special intonations that in some ways bear a resemblance to the famous "six healing sounds" of Daoism and Tientai Buddhism. Some of the vows we were encouraged to make (no sex before marriage, ever, being one example; also, never taking a piss outdoors, even in the woods; never having sex outside of our homes, even in a paid-for hotel room) were arguably quite out of step with the times. Daoists tend not to be so rigid in their prescriptions for non-monastics, recognizing that nature does not always conform with the social standards of a particular place, time, and people, That's all I can think of. Good luck.

Amen. Did anybody ever save Deci's blog, Letres d'Alchemie (might've got the French spelling a little wrong)? I don't think it's online any more.

It is admirable that you wish to do these things for yourself but given the name of this forum it is worth pointing out that the many, many Daoists I have known tend to consider visiting skilled physicians and healers when need be it a perfectly wise "technique." If you need help and ask for it, that is the opposite of moronic. If you are confident you can figure it out on your own, more power to you.

If you're willing to enlist others' help: 1. https://www.mfrtherapists.com/ Barnes is a sage with the magic touch in terms of healing and teaching. Thanks to the latter, many of his students are also extremely skilled. I've encountered his myofascial release techniques as student, practitioner, and patient. Rarely do they not work at all; usually they produce excellent, long-lasting results; sometimes the results border on being miraculous. Barnes' MFR is so good that I've gone back to Beijing and taught it to a few tuina practitioners and acupuncturists there who immediately started to integrate the stuff into their practices. 2. If you're in the US, UK, Switzerland, or Australia you might also look for acupuncture students of Andrew Nugent Head; or, if it's at all feasible, visit his clinic in Asheville, NC. Simple zhanzhuang can do it, but you need to be taught by somebody who can give the sort of detailed instructions that lead the body to begin to open up from the inside out. Such teachers do exist and this process is real, but my observation is that in the world of these practices far fewer people get such instructions than don't, so good luck.

Some notes written in a hurry... I think for general purposes "cultivation" is just fine... But if you break this word into its two parts, there's a lot to say. 修 does mean to mend things (like fabric... but nowadays bicycles, cars, airplanes, whatever), but it also means a lot of other things. If you look at the 《康熙字典》, the massive dictionary put together under during Emperor Kangxi's reign, you'll see what a variety of meanings the term can have. And yet even that dictionary doesn't contain one (iirc) that I have heard used more than once in oral teachings, which is close to being a synonym for "損" ("to harm," but in Daoist contexts more at "to reduce," as in Laozi's, "reduce every day to [come closer to] the Dao]/爲道日損"). The idea here is that when you 修 you get rid of all that is extraneous, inessential, false, and occluding. 煉, "to refine," is a metallurgical term; its meaning in such a context is the same as "to refine" would be in the context of extracting gold from base metals or iron from ore in English. These two words side-by-side indicate a dual process of reducing that which is false on the one hand, whilst making more pure that which is real (or beneficial, from the standpoint of the goal a Daoist cultivator seeks) on the other. Returning to "to cultivate," if you are cultivating a garden, both of these things need to be done. You eliminate weeds, sources of toxicity in the soil, trash, etc. You also constantly work to improve soil quality, seed quality, timing of planting, watering, & fertilizing, and so forth. 修 and 煉 are done side by side.

Got it. You have won. Goodbye.

One time for your mind. I don't speak French so I'm not sure how good of a job the interpreter did, but she seems thorough. Master Nan gives a great introduction to this short text. Hopefully this will be of value to French speakers on the board.

Whatever the opposite of an O at a D is, Drew, your post just gave me one. Multiples, actually. I'm afraid I'm going to have to duck out of this conversation, too. Ta-ta!

Well, Jeez, why'd ya quote it then?

Hahahaha, did you type that with a straight face!? And, Do you sell t-shirts emblazoned with such phrases? Edit: but seriously, what Chinese book are you talking about?

Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa------------------------------------------------? The same dynamo who doesn't even have time for anything so stodgy as a carriage return as he zooms from this quantum mechanic to that anthropologist of the Bushmen to this music theorist suddenly is going to get all traditional "stick with the Daoist teachings!?!?!?" Well shucks. I love the internet. Anyway. Are we talking about 《延陵先生集新舊服氣經》, that Fu Qi Jing? What chapter are you quoting? I will bet you that there is a damn good argument to be made that the book does not say that "spirits are seminal essence." Christ Almighty. Note to people who do not read Chinese: it's not just non-Chinese people who see the character "精" (or its translations or mistranslations) and automatically assume "semen/sperm/vaginal fluid." Plenty of Chinese people have made the same mistake... for centuries. And plenty of woebegone Daoist authors have been saying "no, that's wrong" in the plainest, most straightforward wording you can imagine... for centuries. This is not to say there's no connection between the two, but...

Lol... I believe you mean you mean... Simple answer buried under GIANT HEAP OF 多言數窮！ By the way, in fact I do not "want a 'Western' verification of Laozi." Have you not noticed that I'm the dude suggesting you to try and see this from the perspectives of what the classics written in Chinese say and what the living Daoists of China, Taiwan, and elsewhere teach? I guess that is hard to notice when you're weighed down by the sheer heaviness of light (no wonder I'm tired all the time--it's this fucking light on my shoulders!!!!) and various other conundrums that evidently Daoism is really all about. Sigh. But not to despair! Suddenly I am reminded of a song--let us sing! Now how does it go? Something like... Push push push your boat Forcefully up the stream Wearily wearily wearily wearily Why can't I wake from this dream? (Cue the tubas) Shit, I need more vocal lessons, I think my imperfect C might've knocked the moon out of its orbit (again). Anyway, speaking of rivers, to keep wagging our jaws about this would be a bit too much being like the two fish on the sand of yore, lovingly spitting on each other to try and keep each other's scales wet. Ah, truly a romantic way to spend one's qi, and yet, well, I see the river over there, so you know what I think I'm just gonna flop on in and get lost in the water. Remember, if that light gets too heavy for ya, you might try not dragging that suitcase around everywhere you go... Ta-ta!

Drew, you're all over the place, man. Simple question: Laozi says of the Dao that it is 先天地生, or "before + heaven + earth + born." Laozi is mistaken?

Sorry to have ignored this post--there was no intentional overlap,but I'm reading Zhuangzi for the second time this year right now, so I guess I'm at least learning how to mimic sagacity, if nothing else!

Exorcist: Can you please provide links/bibliographical references to what 虛雲, 印光, and 月溪 have said about Daoist alchemy? Note that above when I was talking about Empty Cloud, this was 虛雲老和尚; it was in his biography where he is recorded saying that 呂洞賓 and 張伯端 are realized Chan masters while he was teaching at a 禪七. If he is on record making more comments about Daoist alchemy, I would be interested in reading them.

The rejection of what Daoists classify as ming teachings by *some* Buddhists is, in my opinion, an extreme position, usually undertaken by people who are at a stage of their life/learning where they feel the strong need to identify themselves as members of an exclusive and special group, and therefore to hold onto firm ideas (mental walls, basically) about what distinguishes their religion from other, "lesser," "misguided," religions. There is lots of evidence of ming practice in Buddhism you can read about. For example: The recent book Meditation Saved my Life, by a Tibetan lama, sheds light on the preservation of what Daoists would probably classify as ming practices in Buddhism. (Note: the back cover of the book claims that the book "reveals the secret of the great healing powers that lie dormant within each of us." In fact, there are no concrete details in the book about how to practice what Phakyab Rinpoche practiced--and nor, likely, should there be--but it is still a very worthwhile read) Also, one can read Charles Luk's translation of the The Autobiography of Empty Cloud for free in PDF form. This Buddhist master lived to a very ripe old age, and his life was most definitely not an easy one. Ironically, while he casts some disparaging remarks at Daoism, he is recorded in this book stating--to the audience attending a seven day Chan meditation retreat he led, no less!--that he believes that Lu Dongbin (one of the immortals who taught Wang Chongyang) and Zhang Boduan (author of Awakening to Reality and founder of the "ming first southern school" of internal alchemy) were both enlightened Chan masters. That Chan/Zen owes much of its development to Daoist philosophy is widely known and seldom disputed, but lesser known is that some Chan/Zen teachers, including in Japan, continue to use signature Daoist ming practices, such as those that work with the dantians as well as ren and du meridians.* So: did Empty Cloud, heir to all five schools of Chan, live to 120 because he was taught Daoist gong, some of which came directly from his Daoist tutor, and some of which might have been transmitted to him by Chan masters? I don't think anybody knows the answer to that question, but... *Some examples described in this book, iirc; video where the same master talks about mixing heaven and earth qi during meditation, here (has English subtitles)

Drew, Everything you said is worthy of contemplation but ultimately you haven't convinced me that the term "Dao" solely describes the unique environment of planet earth and humanity's relationship to it. You suggest I am projecting a western reality by asking my questions, but I'm not convinced that is so. How is my question more eastern or western than Zhuangzi's question about the butterfly? It strikes me as presumptuous for a modern, monolingual (correct me if I'm wrong about that) American who has never lived in Asia--much less ancient Asia--to conclude that somehow Daoist thought precludes the kind of question I ask, when abundant evidence suggests to us that throughout history many people we look back on and call Daoists were very interested in asking all sorts of questions. Given where you're standing in 2018 Minnesota, unless your teepee has a time travel function, I have to ask: really, how the hell would you know where long dead people's lines of inquiry would stop, and why? During the Warring States period, when Laozi and Confucius and countless other teachers wandered from place to place teaching, people were certainly not all in agreement about much of anything--one can pick up any book with "諸子百家" in its subtitle and see plenty of primary source evidence that the idea of some unified way of viewing the world that can be called "traditionally Chinese" is not based in actual historical fact. Heck, the doctors over the centuries couldn't even decide just how many zang and fu organs there were! Anyway, while you seem to base many of your conclusions on the notion that Daoists got their ideas from observing the heavenly bodies (which some of them certainly did do), I base many of my conclusions on the notion that Daoists also got ideas from going "inwards" into stillness and finding something so original that it is not even contingent upon the existence of this planet, this sun and moon, and even the long dead first stars that supplied the dust that those later things are made of. As Laozi put it right there in the Daodejing, they found something 先天地生: "before + heaven + earth + born." It cannot be named, Laozi said, but if forced to give it a name... You're well read but you're quoting an endless list of non-Daoist books written by non-Daoist authors to back up your thesis. Given your deep interest in Daoism, doesn't it ever cross your mind that you might want to learn classical Chinese and start working directly with the tradition you're commenting on? There are a few millennia worth of books waiting for you, to say nothing of the living oral tradition, which can still be found by those who look for it. Even if this path isn't for you, though, might I suggest that you reread Laozi and Zhuangzi from time to time, and when doing so, with no intent to "figure out" what they're trying to say? Instead, just let the words into your mind, and then let go. Reading like this isn't my idea--many an old Daoist teacher suggests taking this approach from time to time. For the record, Red Pine did not say "qi is not emptiness." He said that Daoists are not interested in or don't talk about emptiness--something to that effect.

It is very difficult for lots of people to believe that these written and spoken teachings are trying to lead them well beyond language, not more deeply into its tangled intricacies.

I have a lot of admiration for Red Pine--I wouldn't bust his balls just to bust his balls. This was almost a decade ago, so my memory's a tad hazy, but it was a simple exchange, and I'm pretty sure I remember it reasonably clearly. At the time Red Pine was delivering a talk that mostly centered on Buddhism, with "emptiness" (空, in Buddhist contexts) occupying a central enough part of the lecture that I felt compelled to ask afterwards what he thought the important similarities/differences between Daoist and Buddhist discussions of emptiness (空 as well a 虛, in Daoism) are. He replied succinctly, "Daoists don't talk about emptiness, because they're only interested in qi," or something to that effect, and effectively closed the book on my question. Perhaps he was just having an off day or was jetlagged or whatever, but the fact is that one cannot read more than a few pages of inner alchemy texts without seeing that the Daoists are quite interested in emptiness, and thus I came to the conclusion that Bill Porter does not read these types of books. Early on he spent a lot of his time in Taiwan in a Buddhist monastery (in the Dharma Drum organization under Master Shengyen/聖嚴法師, if I'm not mistaken), and also spent time in the Land of 10,000 Buddhas in California, which is affiliated with Master Hsuanhua/宣化上人... while those temples are probably great places to learn about Buddhism, they are simply not hotbeds of Daoist alchemy. I know people in Taiwan quite steeped in the Dharma Drum organization, and they are taught very little about Daoism in general, and effectively nothing about alchemy. If he says that--please dig up the exact quote, if you have the book on hand--that's still simply a very controversial statement. Oracle bone inscriptions of moon (月) and head (首) look nothing alike. The 《説文解字》 does not connect the two characters, nor did the master etymologist Duan Yucai. As for all the ancient Sumeria/Sanskrit etymology/agriculturalism/Bushmen culture/etc., it's all very interesting in its own right and I am open to the possibility that there are shared motifs, wisdom, practices, etc. in all these ancient cultures, but I think one risks connecting dots that aren't really connected if one runs too wild with these things. From the standpoint of history, I think it's very hard to say that this or that calendrical tradition or representative god/dess found in one corner of the ancient world (and interpreted by some modern person millennia years later) tells us anything conclusive about anything else at some other corner of the ancient world. And then there's another problem. If there was no moon, would there be no Dao? If there was no sun, would there be no Dao? What about two moons, two suns? While we can certainly see yin and yang represented in the two big balls in the sky that we see every day, and while they certainly play a part in lots of Daoist imagery and even specific practices, one finds far more nuanced teachings. Song Longyuan, a Qing Dynasty-era Longmen Daoist-cum-imperial archivist who wrote a brilliant and exhaustive commentary on the DDJ for Emperor Kangxi (who was no lightweight in terms of his scholarship, nor credulous when it came to Daoism--he is recorded as once literally having thrown a book on secret methods for reaching physical immortality back in the face of the person who offered to him) for instance, when talking about the 玄 and 牝, refers to them as wuji and taiji; it is those two vast, intangible-yet-everpresent, distinct-yet-inseparable, not-one-not-two principles that are constantly mating, giving us the seen and the unseen... not the two balls in the sky.

Firstly, I'm glad to finally see somebody reference this exceedingly important point, which I will expand upon since Pregadio isn't here to do so. We are used to seeing English translation after English translation that talks about "the mysterious female." This comes from two Chinese characters side by side, 玄 and 牝; usually the first character is taken to be an adjective describing the second, and that's where "mysterious female" comes from. However, there is a long tradition in inner alchemy of viewing these two characters as two nouns placed side by side. When that happens, you get, instead of "the mysterious female," basically, "male and female." This should draw readers minds two two very commonly repeated phrases in Daoist cultivation. The first, from the Yijing, is "一陰一陽謂之道," or "one yin, one yang, this is called Dao." The second is "孤陰不生，獨陽不長," or "alone, yin will not be born; alone, yang will not grow" (Wang Chongyang is famously supposed to have told this to Sun Bu'er, who was at first scandalized, thinking he was trying to "put his yang in her yin," until she and Ma Danyang realized he was telling her a secret of inner alchemy practice). The import of this is that inner alchemy involved yin and yang, not pure yin, nor an idea that the Dao is all yin or female, and that that's where we're headed. When it comes to the question of where Pregadio got his idea about what 玄 and 牝, most likely he saw Liu Yiming present it numerous times in his writings. I've seen it in other writers' works and my guess--just a guess--is that this kind of explanation can be found in writing at least in the Song Dynasty, maybe earlier. Something to look into later. Now, secondly, Drew, here's where there's a problem. Above you say, "external reality is yang from sun, but the secret source of light is from the Dao--discovered with the eyes closed as the internal female, the yin qi (wood)." I see two major mistakes with this line of thought. 1. It runs contrary to Daoist thought to claim that the manifest world is not Dao where as the unmanifest is Dao. The Dao is all encompassing, yet it is not a thing that encompasses; there is nothing in which the Dao is not to be found, although you will not find the Dao in things. 2. In five phase theory, wood is not really yin. It actually represents the phase in which the first yang is born in stillness and grows until reaching its full potential (fire), which which point a first yin is born, which will grow into metal and back into water. Wood is associated with growth, upwards movement, stirring from slumber, the awakening of spring from winter, the morning. Wood is quite yang. Huh? On your blog post you said that Red Pine said that the taiji symbol means moon. Anyway... 1. The taiji symbol (perhaps more properly called the "yin yang symbol," because the circle with the dot in the middle is also referred to as a taiji) is just a symbol for taiji. It is not called "the Dao symbol" in China. 2. I don't think there is record of its being associated with Daoism till 1,500 years after Laozi, though I may be wrong. 3. With all due respect to the man, Red Pine is an expert on Buddhist but not Daoist practice. I came to this conclusion after asking him a question in person about Daoist practice, and his answer was one that only somebody who does not read inner alchemy writings would give. And 4. The logical train of, "Red Pine said that the taiji symbol is a moon and Laozi was a member of the Miao people therefore the Dao is feminine and your pineal gland proves this by glowing with moonlight," is... certainly Drewism, not necessarily Daoism. How on earth Sumerian/Sanskrit/whatever philology sheds light on Daoism is beyond me, even with your extra large, highlighted red font...

Since you're such a thoughtful smartypants, why, then there's no need for us unthinking simpletons to botch things up by trying to answer this question for you--you're doubtlessly capable of using your brainy brain to read the classics directly. Since you're probably busy thinking about lots of things and reading so many books, I'll try my best to help you a wee bit by suggesting a tiny little paragraph, but sheesh, I don't know if it'll be up to your standards, o Phoenix. 關尹子曰：「事有在，事言有理。道無在，道言無理。知言無理，則言言皆道。不知言無理，雖執至言，為梗為翳。」 Now that we got that out of the way. 1. Dao is genderless. Gender does not remove one from Dao. 2. Dao is impersonal. Persons are not separate from Dao. 3. The Dao in our definitions is not the true Dao. 4. There are no synonyms for a word that has no definition. 5. All words are synonymous with a word that has no definition. 6. No words express Dao. 7. No words are separate from the Dao. 8. You are more likely to find your answers by being "mindless" than not. 9. Thinking is merely an adjutant for cultivators of Dao. 10. You seem to possess youth and energy. If you care so much, use those things to learn Chinese and sincerely cultivate. Or, spend your life asking half-baked questions on the internet and getting stupid answers from insipid forum bums like me in return for your tepid efforts. Whatever.

You're usually a font of on-point comments, but in this case WMJ, pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffftttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt, you gotta be fucking kidding me. Asians in general and Chinese in specific have been genociding left right and center for just as long as all the other motley colors of mankind. Guangzhou massacre. Dzungar genocide. Or, if you want something that people from Sichuan still talks about today, howzabout 張獻忠/Zhang Xianzhong, whose armies slaughtered 1,000,000 people, or 1/3 of the province's population back in the 1600s: It seems advisable to make efforts to not occlude our sight with naive Orientalism or banal PRC "we Chinese love peace, you foreigners love war" propaganda.

Many good replies in this thread... I have seen the term "回光“ used in a lot of Daoist books from the Song Dynasty till the present and I took a few minutes the other day and did some Ctrl+F'ing around with the digital copies on my computer. It seems to be a term that gets used in numerous different ways by different authors. I didn't have time to do a close reading, but sometimes the meaning seems to be "turn your awareness upon awareness itself." Other times it seems to refer to focusing the mind (and perhaps a visualized light?) upon certain points in the body. Other times I was too lazy to try and figure out what the author might have meant. Anyway, as Rocky suggested, if your teacher uses it in a certain way in a certain context, that's what it probably means; as Joe suggested with reading, read, read, practice, practice, read, and mind the context! Looking at the term from another angle, it is (and many other Daoist terms are) kinda like "grounding yourself" is in English. Sometimes somebody says "ground yourself," and they mean, "stop thinking so damn much." Sometimes they mean go walk around barefoot because that's supposed to be good for your health, and some people call that grounding. Both are valid practices, both will bring you benefit, and hell, you could do both at the same time. But still, pretty different ideas.

Daozhen brought a level of sincerity to this forum that is seldom seen, here or elsewhere in the world. Thanks for putting this together.

A-to-the-motherfucking-Men!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is dude even talking about?????????? Gerard, Gerard...