Zhongyongdaoist

Specifically the book by Ophiel that would be helpful to you was originally titled, The Art and Practice of getting Material Things through Creative Visualization, subsequently shortened to: Art & Practice of Creative Visualization You can read about Ophiel here: Ophiel, his life and works and a search under its old title will produce several links to PDF files that can be downloaded: Ophiel, The Art and Practice of Getting Material things through Creative Visualization One thing that is a helpful adjunct to this is learning to draw, since this will develop you skill in visualization, so getting yourself a copy of this is useful: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards Her Neurology has been criticized, but her techniques work. You can go to her site to learn more: Betty Edwards official site She has a DVD available for those who cannot learn from books.

It worked in Greek and translates well into English, the whole modern tendency is to put it in mathematical form, Martin's essay being full of the technical symbols of propositional calculus and set theory. Here is an example English paraphrase based on the first proposition about the One in Plato's Parmenides: If the One is a Member of the set of those things that are example of themselves, it is singular and simple, being singular and simple it is not a member of the set of wholes with parts, and thus has no beginning middle or end, either in space or time . . . This amounts to a propositional/set theoretical argument that the One "exists" outside of space and time, if and only if it is an example of itself. Plato finishes this argument by allowing that the idea of something existing outside of space and time doesn't make "sense", which some take to mean he is rejecting it, but many don't think that the rejection is to be taken seriously. I think there is a deeper rhetorical and pedagogical purpose at work in such a rejection, and it is a pointer to the unexamined concept "existence". I am also quite aware of many issues related to this dialogue, but I don't have time to go into them, it took me years of reading and reflection to reach understanding that I have of these issues, I can hardly summarize it in a few posts on the Dao Bums. Plotinian Platonism ("neo-Platonism") is in many ways an extended dialectical commentary on Plato's Parmenides. I just improvised the above example to illustrate how it could be put in set theoretical form. Plato's original arguments are already largely in propositional form, though propositional logic, that of the "if . . . then" variety had not been explicated, even in the form that the Stoics were to use it. Plato's arguments are not rigorous and are probably not intended to be completely rigorous, even if they could have been at the time, but I think that they are aimed to stimulate a guided discussion, rather then a proof that could be read and then forgotten.

To respond to this I will have to return to Plato and Plotinus again. Such mathematical tools already exist, such as propositional calculus and set theory that can be used to “map out” in rigorous terms the logical structure of Platonism. In a work published in 1982, (The Structure of Being, State University of New York Press), the editor, R. Baine Harris, has this to say in the preface: and in the second essay of the collection, "On Logical Structure and the Plotinic Cosmos", by R. M. Martin, the author begins with this: and concludes with this: And what would be gained from such a Herculian intellectual effort? It would be a rigorous proof that there “. . . is a way of philosophizing that points to a form of knowing that is beyond dialectics". This way of “knowing”, the one beyond “dialectics”, is the only real knowledge, the direct apprehension gained in Noetic experience, and to rigorously demonstrate that this is true would be of value, though on a practical level, you don't need to go that far, just as you don't need to know the details of the rigorous proofs of calculus to be able to use it for Science or Engineering. All that one needs is enough of an understanding to be able to model spiritual experience such as claimed in Buddhism or Daoism and be able to use that to separate useful theory, theory that is a true help in realizing the practice, from dogmatic dross. That level of understanding is available with a lot less effort than the rigorous proof and it was with that level of understanding that, circa 1980, I took Platonism as my working model of reality. It has worked quit satisfactorily since then. Finally for those who may have found the discussion of the “undescended soul" in my previous post difficult to understand given its very “academic” technical vocabulary this quote from an essay by John Finamore may speak more plainly:

And many of the past few quotes have been charming examples of Buddhist and especially Tibetan Buddhist belief, but as was said earlier: Yes, this is exactly the reason why I have followed Wells posts on "Rainbow/Light" body for sometime. The question is, how much does Buddhist belief and practice contribute to achieving a "Light Body"? And further does one achieve such a "Light Body" because of or in spite of Buddhist belief and practices? . . . So if a "Light Body" is cultivated by Daoist practices such as outlined in this book, then how much is its success or failure dependent on either Buddhist belief or practice? Or are aspects of Buddhist belief and practice actually harmful to the process, which is at least implied by Wells continually noting, as he has, how many Buddhists there are and how few attain "Light Bodies". These are the types of questions that concern Wells. Wells, the OP, has not dissented from this summary, and from the beginning of his posts on Thogal has instead emphasized his interest in technique rather than dogma. Also ralis has objected to certain aspects of the this quote: I take exception with this idea of non existence. Your narrative appears as an absolute rigidly defined ideology. A far more elegant way of defining this is that the phenomenal world as quantified by various languages, appears as an abstraction. Why? Primitive language skills that humans possess does not in any way describe the phenomenal world. E.g. the computer screen that I am watching at this time appears a process as well as all phenomena are and the term LED screen is a useful convention so that communication can take place. To deny that no one has been liberated etc. misses the point entirely. Especially, the underlying dynamic process. Given the density of this problem, I can write more clearly later when I can more clearly gather my thoughts. (Emphasis mine, ZYD) I had not originally intended to return to Plato and Plotinus, but it now seems relevant to show that there are models of “spiritual reality” that in point of fact do justice to “. . . the underlying dynamic process.” Let's go back to the beginning of the section from Plotinus' Enneads that I quoted earlier: As I have noted before the usage of Soul, Mind and other such terms in Plotinus is technical and also well defined, and should not be confused with common usage. The Soul in Plotinus, in so far as it relates to a particular person, is the totality of the human being, it is "eternal" and coterminous with all space and time, and includes both the incarnating ego and the manifestations of both "the One" and "Mind" in the Soul, these aspects of the Soul do not incarnate and specifically this “higher phase of the Soul" is what is referred to as the “Undescended Soul”, which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains this way: As can be seen in the above the "undescended Soul" is identified with Mind which I have previously identified with "Buddha Nature. This if further developed in this section: 4. Beauty Which is extremely important bearing in mind the importance of Beauty, both in the theoretical aspects of Plato and Plotinus and in the techniques of harnessing Eros to the goal of freedom from rebirth. An interesting overview of Plotinus' model of this Total Human Being is found in a review of Plotinus on Self by Pauliina Remes, a rising star in the field of late Platonic scholarship. Her analysis appears generally sound and I can't help, but quote from this rather bold interpretation of the "embodied self" as a four dimensional whole: A position which I have espoused for some time. The above is a very condensed introduction to a very large subject. I am providing it for information purposes and to point those interested to an alternate view. I don't wish to engage in back and forth polemics on relative merits. Edit: Corrected spelling.

I introduced Agrippa and Plotinus to this topic to extend an idea introduced by ralis here: Into areas that most people don't associate with “Eastern Wisdom”. I will make a last post about these Western traditions on this thread and then return to the discussion of Daoist teachings relevant to this. First in regard to Plato, elsewhere on the Dao Bums I have said about the studies which I undertook in the late seventies to understand Plato and his influence on Renaissance Occult Philosophy, which involved my reading a great deal of the secondary scholarly literature on Plato and classical philosophy before turning to read the dialogues themselves: Of particular relevance to this thread are the dialogues which contain concepts which can only be described as “proto-tantric” in the sense of harnessing Eros to the task of spiritual development. To go back to another quote from ralis: Well, Plato gives teachings which he claims will liberate one from rebirth in three lifetimes. Who would have thought? Certainly not 99.44% of the people to whom I bring up the idea of Plato as a source of “mystical” doctrines. Of course it is possible that the "full enlightenment" mentioned above may not be the same as freedom from rebirth. By the way, I don't necessarily accept or reject either claim. Claims of freedom from rebirth like like those of immortality, which end when you die, end when you are reborn, and there really is no way to evaluate them. Now one quote from Plotinus which I think is relevant to some of the issues in this thread: A lot of the above is terminology that will not be clear to the general reader, but Empancipated Souls are those free from rebirth and the distributable Soul is the Soul root of reproduction and thus of jing as seminal fluid, so that what Plotinus is talking about is the idea that the aspect of the soul at the root of worldly reproduction has been “taken” up into a higher level of being and thus the soul is not attracted to “earthly life”. And I see these as relevant to the practices considered preparatory to such teachings as Thogal and Daoist yoga, and it is to the question of the nature of these practices and whether these are necessary or not, to which I will address myself in the next few posts.

Well Jim D., if nothing else you are a Jim Dandy reductionist, but are you really a critical thinker? A question perhaps too large and unwieldy to answer here, so I will address some other ones now. About your dismissal of “chi” or qi as a “vitalist” bio-energy, as it is usually thought of around here, you are probably wrong, but I will postpone a consideration of that until I have discussed where you are definitely wrong and that is of qi as fundamental substance. Discussing qi and its cross cultural equivalents I posted this a while back: (Emphasis added, ZYD) The closest modern conception to qi in this sense of “primary substance” would be the “energy of the vacuum”, though I personally like to think of it as a four dimensional “substance” that underlies Space/Time, Matter/Energy and to extend it to a biological context Consciousness/Body. This is based on simple Special Relativity and doesn't even involve us with “quantum weirdness”, but when you throw that in, the type of reduction which you are making becomes even more difficult. This is why I say that your dismissal of qi as bio-energy is only probably wrong, because outside of the interpretation of qi as primordial substance, which would of course include the brain/neuron structure that you are considering, there is a great deal of room for phenomena that are “not dreamt of in your philosophy”. I can understand this reductionism, it reminds me of myself before I did about a decade of study into the history and philosophy of science in an effort to find a model that could reconcile my mystical and scientific tendencies. That model was to emerge from my study of Classical Philosophy and particularly Platonism. Now this is a long enough post anyway and so I am going to close it with some recommended reading, first about Quantum Mechanics and consciousness, and then about neurology and “magic”. I started reading Henry Stapp circa 2000 and found his ideas very suggestive, while this book: Mindful Universe; Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer disappointed me because it broke no new ground in Stapp's interpretation, it is still an excellent one volume introduction to his thinking, however, I really loved this book: and strongly recommend it. As for Neurology and “magic” anyone who is seriously examining such things as the topic of this thread, should thoroughly familiarize themselves with the ideas covered in this book: Which happens to be a very good read also. Well that is about all that I can put into this now, too much time has already gone into thinking out the post above.

Yes, he is the one who talked about "Prime Mover". I have be following some of your posts and so I thought I might direct you to one of mine in which I examine the usefulness of a cross cultural comparison between Aristotle and Daoism: This was part of a discussion of Aristotle's Four Causes and I used it as an illustration. I am using it to point out that I do have a good background in both Classical and Chinese philosophy. I will post in a couple other of your threads as I have time.

Now to put a little context on my quote of Agrippa on the Light Body. Most people reading it probably would have misinterpreted a lot of it because none of the technical terms, such as "soul" or "mind" are used in a way that is now common usage. The ontology and psychology being used by Agrippa is largely that of Plotinus, a Third Century CE philosopher in the Platonic tradition. The Wikipedia article is OK to start But hardly satisfactory, so it is necessary to read something like these: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy to even catch a glimmer of what Plotinus is talking about. But, basically what Jax is talking about here: Is what Plotinus would call “Mind” and then this: Can be interpreted as similar to what Agrippa is describing. There is of course more to this and I will try to enlarge upon this at some point. As a note, I took Platonism as my “working model” of “reality” back around 1980, after two decades of study and practice of Eurasian esoteric teachings, because of its ability to analyze other spiritual traditions in a systematic and rigorous way. This was not an simple transition because after my first encounter with Plato as a teenager, I rejected Platonism completely, but ten years later, when I started to study it in depth for historical reasons, I began to see its usefulness as a worldview. It still took me several years of study to get to the point of adopting it my “working model”, but thirty-five or so years later I still see it as having a lot to commend itself. Finally, thanks again to Jax for joining the conversation.

I rarely see mention of the solar plexus and would you expand on this? When Reshad Feild came to Santa Fe he had all of his students breath into the solar plexus and out the heart center with a 7-1-7-1 rhythm. Feild would bilocate to his students and have conversations in real time and I would assume that phenomenon is a form of the light body? Feild teaches from a Sufi lineage and is influenced by Gurdjieff. To respond in a suitable way would require more time than I can devote to this matter today, however since you mention the Sufi path and bilocation, I will open this thread up to a wider cross cultural consideration of the topic by quoting from the work of the Renaissance Hermetic Neo-Platonist, Cornelius Agrippa on the “Light Body”: Apparently Feild left this world at the end of this last May.

No, I don't. It's different. But we need not concentrate on visions but the state of impersonal rigpa that arises. From Taoist Yoga; Alchemy and Immortality, Lu K'uan Yü, Samuel Weiser 1970, (Emphasis mine, ZYD) This seems to indicate that absolute void, which is not empty occurs "within" the body centers. I put within in parenthesis because within and without are not exactly the same at this point as they are to ordinary consciousness, but it does not seem that they are the thogal visions seen while gazing at the sky. spiritual vitality will soar up to form a circle (of light) which is not void: Just as a note, it was references to early Thogal visions involving a "circle of light" in Wells early posts on Thogal, as well as the dissolution of the body that first interested me in Thogal and its possible connection with Taoist Yoga. Wells (under his previous name Zoom) has erased almost all of these posts, so I can't be sure exactly where I saw this in his early posts on Thogal.

Thanks for joining the discussion. Images on the Dao Bums are easiest posted as links rather than uploaded. Here is an image of the lion posture: That the link is: http:_//fr.syvum.com/iosundry/fun/yoga/yoga_pose_roaring_lion_simhasana.jpg anything in this format can easily be displayed by clicking on the little green frame just above the text editing box next to the <>. In the above example I have put a "_" in it thus, "http:_//", to make sure that it stays visible as text rather then being turned into a link and is not part of what was pasted into the image display function that I mentioned. You can probably do this for your Facebook images, just hold the mouse pointer over the image and hold down the right mouse button and from the "Context Menu" that shows up chose "copy image location". As far as the title of this thread I might have used something like: Dzogchen Thogal: a Buddhist creative adaptation of a Daoist technique? This is neutral enough so as not to be insulting, but gets the point across. I don't do Facebook, so as much as you can post here would be most welcome.

To give a quick answer on which I will elaborate later, Jerry Alan Johnson, among others, represents Orthodox Ritual Daoist transmission, which includes these types of practices and Johnson certainly teaches Westerners.

Like all such discussions it is funny and sad at the same time, about which I may have more to say at some point. In the meantime I thought I would take the liberty of quoting this informative post here, where it may do some good: by helping to shed some light on a person whose teachings are referenced in this discussion, but the nature of which have not been sufficiently clarified, for the benefit of those who may not be familiar with who Norbu is and what he teaches.

I'm going to take the liberty of posting your original post in a place where I think it will do some good. Link to quote of the above post Edit: I added a link to where I reposted the first post. I hope Creation approves, but the deed is done anyway.

Thanks for your link and excerpt. I read this many years ago and as always it is inspiring reading. For those who would like an echo from a contemporary, here is Cornelius Agrippa from Chapter iii of his Third Book of Occult Philosophy. So for all the aspiring magicians here, a little advice on the Dignity of Man:

Based on my own experience Daoist teachings about the “Inner Gods” are not metaphorical, but are real and provided a level of integration in practice that goes beyond mere “energy” into the sphere of intelligent guidance of organic function. Case in point, in a transmission ceremony of the “Three-Five Surveyors of Merit”, i.e., the Three Pure Ones and the Five Virtuous Emperors, during the transmission of the Green Emperor of the East and the Liver, among other things, a woman complained of feeling extreme heat, like being in an oven, which dissipated after a few minutes. It turned out that this woman, a licensed acupuncturist, had very difficult menses, but the menstrual period immediately afterward passed without her even noticing it. Her subsequent periods were hardly noticeable, lacking pain from cramping, emotional distress and the heavy bleeding that her skill in acupuncture had not alleviated. The woman had not mentioned her difficulties before the rite and it was not done as any type of healing, rather as a ritual transmission for initiatory purposes. In short the “healing” was a spontaneous effect of the ritual and not any intended result, and as such indicates agency on the part of the Virtuous Green Emperor of the Liver. This is just one example I could cite of what seems to be more than merely an energy transmission involved in such rites. I mention this for information sake only and will not discuss the matter beyond this. Ritual Daoism, my preferred term for “Religious Daoism”, has its own equivalent of Deity Yoga and a wide variety of internal practices related to such “Internal Deities”. The origin of the teaching is in the Microcosm/Macrocosm relationship which is fundamental to both Daoism and Confucianism. While its origin in China is not completely clear it makes an early appearance in the work of Mencius in the Fourth Century BCE. It is also essential within the Western Traditions of Mysticism and Magic, where its origin is basically epistemology worked into a supporting ontology, metaphysics and cosmology. In other words it is not just new age woo woo, nor ancient Western or Chinese metaphorical jibber jabber.

Yes, this is exactly the reason why I have followed Wells posts on "Rainbow/Light" body for sometime. The question is, how much does Buddhist belief and practice contribute to achieving a "Light Body"? And further does one achieve such a "Light Body" because of or in spite of Buddhist belief and practices? The Taoist Yoga book from which I have quoted is a "stand alone" practice, as written it is intended to be as complete a treatment of the process as can be put into print. Regarding its cross cultural nature, early on it has this to say: It starts from simple "sitting and forgetting": So if a "Light Body" is cultivated by Daoist practices such as outlined in this book, then how much is its success or failure dependent on either Buddhist belief or practice? Or are aspects of Buddhist belief and practice actually harmful to the process, which is at least implied by Wells continually noting, as he has, how many Buddhists there are and how few attain "Light Bodies". These are the types of questions that concern Wells. As a final note, I will have to say that I agree with the idea that the thread title is a little harsh, but also that the issues of the thread are important to investigate.

Actually I have thought something like this for a while, which is why I posted this: Also as a note the Ur-text from which this comes, Xingming guizhi (性命圭旨) is, as Daniel Burton-Rose makes clear in his Master's thesis, a sycretic work written by Confucians and intended to be a guide to cultivation that crossed sectarian divisions to unify Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist cultivation in a single work. Burton's Rose's thesis can be read here: Integrating Inner Alchemy into Late Ming Cultural History etc. Chapter Two is most important for the discussion of the Ruist, i.e. Confucian aspects of its background and authorship. but I really didn't want to get into a lot of polemics, sot I left it at that. I am only to happy to leave polemics to Wells, but comparing what Jax wrote to details of the Taoist Yoga text is, shall we say, enlightening? The root ideas of the Taoist Yoga text date back to the Waring States period work the Guanzi.

It's only my guess, but I think Nungali is objecting to the planetary associations of the two squares, the square of four in Durer's work is usually associated with Jupiter and the warm, moist sanguine humor, while the square of three is associated with Saturn and the cold, dry melancholic humor. He could be pointing out part of the antidote to melancholic humor, but since there is only one, there are no others to compare and see if he continued the theme of looking to the curing or balancing humor. Maybe the symbol of the balance has something to do with that idea, or it could simply be Saturn's exaltation in Libra. The humors do appear in a few other Durer works, but not the magic squares.

Something that spaces out threads and the people who post in them?

This is apparently a quote from "Immortality in Taoist alchemy. Levels of achievements" by Denis Belobragin. Whatever one may want to think about this and Zen, according to Taoist Yoga; Alchemy and Immortality, it is sound Daoist internal alchemy: Also as a note the Ur-text from which this comes, Xingming guizhi (性命圭旨) is, as Daniel Burton-Rose makes clear in his Master's thesis, a sycretic work written by Confucians and intended to be a guide to cultivation that crossed sectarian divisions to unify Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist cultivation in a single work. Burton's Rose's thesis can be read here: Integrating Inner Alchemy into Late Ming Cultural History etc. Chapter Two is most important for the discussion of the Ruist, i.e. Confucian aspects of its background and authorship. Edit: While quoting the above I noticed that the Taoist Yoga book title needed to be Italicized and have so corrected it.

How about less than thirty years ago in Mexico? The Matamoros Murders About the principle figure Adolfo Constanzo: Blood sacrifice and ritual use of the dead, either whole or parts of them is well, . . . not dead. It is pretty disgusting though.

Late in the article it notes: Yes, bearing in mind that part of the effect was discovered in the early Nineteenth Century, describing it as new, is misleading, but you are also right that it is very significant, particularly bearing in mind that the distinction between bosons and fermions is just such a 'half spin": and involves also Plancks Constant. Maybe this is why they are talking about a "new form of light", because fermions and bosons have very different properties, though it may be a matter of the problem involved in questions of "discovery", between the observation of a phenomena and its explanation.

So you're the source of the Big Trouble in Little China! Dang, I luv that movie! Are you still looking to make it with green eyed girls? Note: the reference is to Rakiel's picture avatar at the time of posting, the Dao Bums being what it is, it may have changed by the time anyone reads this, making this response appear nonsensical. Of course it is nonsensical anyway.

You just need to work on your Mental training and get up to speed on the Hellenistic theory of Bible origins at: Vridar.org the Hellenistic origins of Genesis is a good place to start. Get enough of this stuff under your belt and they will know your hopeless and you can be absolutely sure that they are. By the way, I don't completely agree with this, but the well established Documentary Interpretation is damaging enough to any form of Biblical literalism. More about the background of the Hellenistic authorship theories can be found under Biblical Minimalism on Wikipedia.