Daeluin

Clubfoot-Hunchback-No-lips talked to Duke Ling of Wei. Duke Ling was so delighted with him that when he saw normal people, their necks appeared thin and scraggy. Jug-Jar-Big-goiter talked to Duke Huan of Chi. Duke Huan was so delighted with him that when he saw normal people, he too thought their necks were thin scraggy. So when goodness shines forth, the outward appearances are forgotten. Men do not forget what ought to be forgotten, but forget what ought not be forgotten. This is forgetfulness indeed! Therefore, the sage lets everything pass before his mind. To him learning is something added, conventions are like glue, morality is a bond, and skills are for trade. The sage does not make plans, so what use has he for learning? He does not make divisions, so what use has he for glue? He lacks nothing, so what use has he for morality? He has nothing to sell, so what use has he for trade? His not needing these four things is a gift from heaven. This gift is his heavenly food. Since he is fed by heaven, what use has he for men? He has the appearance of a man but not the desires of a man. He has the appearance of a man, so he associates with men. He does not have the desires of a man, so he is not concerned with right or wrong. How infinitely small is that which makes him a man! How infinitely great is that which makes him perfect in heaven! Hui Tsu asked Chuang Tsu, "Can a man really live without desire?" "Yes," said Chuang Tsu. "But," said Hui Tsu, "if a man has no desire, how can you call him a man?" Chuang Tsu said, "Tao gives him his appearance, and heaven gives him his body. Why should he not be called a man?" Hui Tsu said, "Since he is called a man, how can he be without desire?" Chuang Tsu said, "That is not what I mean by desire. When I say he has no desire I mean that he does not disturb his inner well-being with likes and dislikes. He accepts things as they are and does not try to improve upon them." Hui Tsu said, "If a man does not try to improve upon the way things are, how does he survive?" Chuang Tsu said, "Tao gives him his appearance. Heaven gives him his body. He does not disturb his inner well-being with likes and dislikes. At present you use all your vital energy on external things and wear out your spirit. You lean against a tree and mutter, collapse upon a rotten stump and fall asleep. Your body is a gift from heaven, yet you use it to babble and jabber about 'hardness' and 'whiteness'!" Chuang Tsu 5 Signs of Full Virtue tl Feng/English

Well, I live very simply, with very few possessions. Mainly a computer, a small book collection, weapons for class, and some clothes, in a tiny-house that I built myself. It sort of came to me when I asked the universe where I should live. The computer holds me back from inner work. The books are valuable until I have read them. The weapons are tools for training qi extension. The clothes largely come from thrift stores and are easily replaced. The tiny-home is temporary as well. I can do without all of them. As for daily bread, this comes through computer work, and I am actively working to change this and replacing it with something more psychosomatic, which may or may not require me owning a car or depending on other possessions. As they will be based on my service, I do not see why I should need to attach to them. I have lived the past 3 years without a car and do not depend on one. I either walk most places, which is very healthy for me (I live 2 miles from the city), or take a bus if I need to get somewhere further away, which happens infrequently. Ultimately I believe that people can work together in community to nurture and sustain each other on very little money. Currently I live in a home where we each put in $100/m for food and always end up with extra at the end of the month. My tiny home was built myself so I am only charged $100/m for a main-house use fee, and $55/m for utilities. This way of living hardly required any loss from my perspective, and it is difficult for me to see why our society doesn't nurture this type of lifestyle. Again, it isn't about detaching, it is about refining and integrating. The more we integrate, the more harmony is created and the more things become effortless, as we nurture higher spiritual awareness. Appearing normal is related to how I comport myself within society, more than it is an indication of my lifestyle or attachments. It is a choice one can make, to harmonize with one's environment.

Well, not much I feel like responding to in this one. Doing the work of spiritual integration and dissolving the ego, abiding in emptiness, naturally takes one in the direction of wholeness with all. It is not abandoning anything, not stopping about caring about anything, but quite the opposite. In oneness with everything, attachment to particular parts based on ego just removes from connection to wholeness. This is generally something that needs to be experienced for the meaning to become clear, in my experience. Thus, you can push me off of what you think is important to me, but you can never push me away from what really matters, even were you to kill me. I can navigate the openings and closings as they appear and disappear, and that is all that really matters in terms of fully walking my path using wu wei and ziran. It is not about my choosing what to delineate or not as anything at all. As one grows in connection to the whole, one begins to see that nothing can truly be lost, for all is one. Separate the parts and they eventually come back together again. Keeping to the center, applies to oneself. One should not overly attach to external things. If there is call to breathe life into them, breathe life into them, and then let them do their own living, see what happens. If called to participate, participate in the moment, as called. If things stop feeling "right," observe the closing and look to see where there is a new opening, and continue the journey.

And yet I said nothing about believing such things. On multiple occasions you have proclaimed something like this in a way that twists the meaning of things. It is a clever technique for playing mind games. Like I said before, the evading is the protection of the center, not fleeing from it. It does not require direct contact, even when the fighting becomes close. And is it really possible to push someone off of a thread? People are easily ignored - they may easily be done with you, but not with the thread. Especially when following a posting style that is humble and open, there is little to be concerned with. People are welcome to their opinions. This is amusing. You declare intent with your words, and make invitations. Then you say they were designed to cause a certain effect. The first time was when I, oblivious to your intention behind asking if I could become a broccoli, did not respond directly to it. Then you revealed that your intention was for me to acknowledge that I could not be a broccoli. Next, I called you out on inviting a discussion based on trusting one another to not go too far, and then you verbally attack me and twist the meaning of my words quite intentionally, post after post. Only after I reply calling your declaration a trap, you say it was designed to make me see that you weren't spinning anything. This is pretty much the definition of entrapment. You are welcome to act like a troll and play your mind games. But these attacks and games and twisted meanings all just take things into a more unsophisticated realm of discussion. In the beginning, you proposed: My own palliative for discussions, a type of unicorn I would like to see some day , is much more basic ,it's simply the honest Direct answer of any question mark. I am willing to reciprocate. Are we to believe that without direct answers, we should make attacks upon others? How is this a palliative for discussions?

My evasion is simply the maintenance of the appearance of my center. Another comes at me, intent upon invading the appearance of my center, so I guide it past. I remain at peace, yet it keeps on coming, and seems to grow angrier with each evasion. Did I cause this, or did it cause this from its own attachments and expectations? Where winning and losing enter the equation, balance is already lost. Is the art of discussion founded upon motives for winning and losing? So much for proclamations of trust and equality - they were but traps. I reply out of courtesy to the thread, and yet I need not reply at all. There is no evasion needed, for nothing was engaged but presence. If my presence is unwelcome, I am not attached to sticking around. Peace be with you.

In aikido, the attack is guided, the attacker's momentum is used as the fuel for the guiding. There is no need to receive a punch in order to defend "the presentation." The efforts of the attacker are already sustaining the presentation. To oppose something maintains it. It is natural for falseness to cover truth, and little point in fighting this. The truth is there for those who wish to look for it. This is the point of hiding it within gentleness and humility. Even should it attract attacks, it needs not do attacking of itself. With nothing to defend, what need for retaliation? Not attacking, what need of bailing out? Falseness may be applied upon the surface, yet the truth remains the truth, unassailed. With taijiquan practitioners, it is said that doing push hands with an advanced practitioner is confusing. It is like they aren't even there... you see yourself touch them, yet you feel nothing in front of you. You try to send your qi into them to find their center, to disrupt their root, and you become lost within their emptiness. The attack simply dissolves within them.

To be clear, nothing I said speaks to controlling anything - rather the opposite, really. Directness does tend to be somewhat controlling, and if indirectness eludes its grasp, it is like complaining that someone won't stand still to take a punch? Meeting directness with directness tends to lead away from balance, like one person grasping at the other - when the grasp lands, they tend toward wrestling upon the floor. One person thinks it means one thing and that the other should agree, and the other has a difference of opinion - where does grappling truly lead them, unless one side or the other is willing to release their expectations? As my Sifu says, lead to emptiness. Indirectness to meet directness is balance - it brings natural circularity to that which is too linear. It is a gift, but perhaps not one that all are willing to appreciate.

In addition to my earlier sharing, I'd like to also share that I tend to think too much. And this overthinking tends to make me heavy. In my own experience, I attended a ecstatic dance gathering a couple times a month, for a time. I would practice movements that were mostly improvisational from my forms, and it was quite beneficial for opening me up and getting lighter. Of course, the opposite could be true for people who are too light and don't know how to ground and integrate. It is all balance, and generally it can all be found in the forms. Sometimes we need to listen to life's lessons too, in order to help shift into a more positive balance.

Well I've answered your questions graciously already! In fact I was already writing my own personal response to your earlier question when you replied to my quote from The Secret of the Golden Flower/Fluorescence. Now you've replied again, expectant and impatient. How is that working for you? This does bring something to mind however. Not only does desire get in the way of harmony, at times, if we attach too strongly to our desires, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Expectation is the hoary curse of humanity. - Steven Erikson Who made us entitled to receive answers to questions? Who made us entitled to receive those answers only in forms we are willing to accept? The answers are ever present, always - it is often us who lose the ability to perceive them. Another experience I have been led to, is the ability to look for answers before there are questions. This is a part of the discovery of emptiness. In being led toward deeper emptiness, at first it seems as though my questions are given non-answers... yet with deeper apperception I discover that this emptiness is not empty at all, yet pregnant with all that is, including the answers I sought. From this, what point in holding another to my own desires? Do they owe something to me?

A beautiful part of it, to me, is that in this increased integration, this increased attention to one's core goodness, one not only begins to walk a path that is free and open to one's self, one also nurtures, through alignment, the natural path of others.

Thomas Cleary is simply the translator - haha, I cannot really speak to what he can or cannot do! The text has been passed down for a long time. But yes, I have experienced these things, and was quite surprised at the unfolding of synchronicities within my life. One weekend, I was in class, and Sifu asked us to study hexagram 26. After class some of us gathered togther for lunch and we talked about hexagram 26, and I happened to get the birth date from a friend to look up his I-Ching Birth Hexagram (he luo li shu). The next day I wandered into a tea house to do the calculations. It was getting a little busy in there, so after some time someone approaches me and asks if he could share my table while waiting for his friend to show up, and I happily accepted. He became curious about what I was doing, and I explained the chart to him. Arriving at the conclusion of my calculations, I discovered that my friend's Birth Hexagram was 26! Then my table-neighbor gave me his birth date so I could calculate his as well.... and to my surprise I discovered that he shared the exact same birth year, month and day as the friend from class whose calculations I had just finished. They were born at different hours however, and had different Birth Hexagrams. It was at this point that the friend he had been waiting for showed up, who happened to be another friend from my class, who I had been spontaneously running into here and there all month! A couple days later I explain all these things to Sifu, who sagely nods and says with a twinkle in his eye, yes, that's how it works. Insults? They are just gifts of energy? Accept the gift, happily, why let the mind catch upon itself? Death is an incredible process or rebirth, one beautiful phase within cyclical motion. None of this is about denying others or denying self - it is about going beyond the ego, into the discovery of true self. Somehow the ego likes to protect it's fabricated identity, but as I dissolve it, again, yet again, I discover its actions tend to prevent more wholeness of self than it presumes to protect.

Here we are on daoist forums, where there are many discussions on spiritual achievement. The general concept here, as I see it, is that at first, yes it is difficult to recognize the sources of desire. This leads to actions based on desire, and motives at cross purposes can fall out of harmony with each other. However, this is all ego, and ego is largely self-created and self-sustained, through self-indulgence. It can easily be dissolved, and rather than acting upon desire one can instead turn within and trace back the signal to its source. At some layer, we might observe this to be the organ spirits of the body sending messages to the sovereign heart-mind, informing of some discomfort or need. The message is not requesting that something external needs to be done, but requesting internal acknowledgement. Listening to the message and sending the messenger back home, and perhaps internally adjusting to ease the discomfort allows for greater regulation of the organ shen and bodily qi. More importantly, it ceases the separation between the upper soul and the lower soul. It is little different from the choice between not feeling comfortable in a dirty room and feeling like leaving (desire) or doing the work to clean the room and feeling like staying. When we do the work, the internal become inviting again, and there is increased harmony and integration between the upper (hun) and lower (po) souls, in terms of daoist understanding. As this work toward integration increases, what is rough within become finer and finer, and transformations take place. One begins to develop a greater and greater sense of peace within, until resting within stillness is quite natural, and does not take extra effort to maintain. Instead, one would rather not leave this sense of peace. This integration miraculously leads to external synchronization with one's environment, and surprisingly one seems to be in the right place at the right time more and more frequently, without necessarily intending to do so. This is the manifestation of the ziran within wu wei.... do to the increase of integration and peaceful state within, one's decisions are not based on desire, but based upon flowing within the natural openings and closings available to one, without forcing things. The navigation of this is natural and needs no forcing; it just happens, of itself. I speak of this from personal experience, yes. Some of the most magical moments in my life came about from being like this.

Nevertheless, the actual practice goes from shallow to deep, from crude to fine. Throughout, it is best to be consistent. The practice is one from beginning to end, but its quality during the process can be known only by oneself. Nevertheless, it is necessary to wind up at the point where "heaven is open, earth is broad, and all things are just as they are," for only this can be considered attainment. What has been communicated through successive sages is not beyond reversed gazing. Confucians call it "reaching toward knowledge." Buddhists call it "observing mind." Taoists call it "inner observation." The essential teaching is summarized above; as for the rest, matters of entering and exiting stillness, the prelude and the aftermath, one should use the book Small Stopping and Seeing for a touchstone. The words focus on the center are most sublime. The center is omnipresent; the whole universe is within it. This indicates the mechanism of Creation; you focus on this to enter the gate, that is all. To focus means to focus on this as a hint, not to become rigidly fixated. The meaning of the word focus has life to it; it is very subtle. The terms stopping and seeing basically cannot be separated. They mean concentration and insight. Hereafter, whenever thoughts arise, you don't need to sit still as before, but you should investigate this thought: where is it? Where does it come from? Where does it disappear? Push this inquiry on and on over and over until you realize it cannot be grasped; then you will see where the thought arises. You don't need to seek out the point of arising any more. "'Having looked for my mind, I realize it cannot be grasped.' 'I have pacified your mind for you.'" This is correct seeing; whatever is contrary to this is false seeing. Once you reach this ungraspability, then as before you continuously practice stopping and continue it by seeing, practice seeing and continue it by stopping. This is twin cultivation of stopping and seeing. This is turning the light around. The turning around is stopping, the light is seeing. Stopping without seeing is called turning around without light; seeing without stopping is called having light without turning it around. Remember this. The Secret of the Golden Flower/Fluorescence end of chapter 3 tl Thomas Cleary

It involves understanding the sources of desire.

They say where sincerity is, the way is open. My suggestions are full of cautions, things to double check, things to be aware of, and so on. This could easily get in the way of discussion, and more importantly, of naturalness. Perhaps my goal is for these things to be natural. However, when one is natural, it is difficult for one to avoid cutting something accidentally. After all it is hard to walk outside without inevitably stepping on and killing some other living being. This excerpt hones in on the goal: Within the Daoist tradition, there is actually much discussion of and different perspectives on the relationship between "fate" (ontological givenness) and freedom, or the capacity for independent action and the possibility and desirability of "perfection." Wuwei involves allowing each being to unfold according to its own nature and connection with the Dao. It involves allowing space for ziran to appear. Applied to ethics, wuwei inspires one to stop doing everything that prevents one from being who one is and that inhibits other beings from expressing their innate condition with the Dao. Such a condition is characterized by virtue. For Daoists, it is possible to be "naturally ethical," but that entails a corresponding transcendence of social conditioning, familial obligations, and personal habituation. It involves understanding the sources of desire. A lack of attention to the condition of one's core goodness also frequently results in acceptance of what should be rejected and rejection of what should be accepted. In the end, what can we do but set the intention upon greater integrity and core goodness, then as you say, exercise trust.

Something to remember, here on the internet, is that we cannot assume our audience is limited to those who are participating in the discussion. For the record, I am not advocating use of platitudes. Platitudes soften the edges of things after the fact. My suggestion is to soften the edges first, taking ownership and responsibility for one's actions with care, to avoid needing platitudes later. The reason is precisely because we are among strangers. I'm not having this conversation with you in your kitchen, but in a crowd at Grand Central. Often, on these boards, adherents of particular schools will share their teachings with strong convictions. This can easily clash with other schools, which is likely obvious. What may not be as obvious is the confusion generated within an unknown number of witnesses to this exchange. Presented with two opposing perspectives, each proclaiming to be correct, how does the reader draw conclusion? Presumably based upon the information that ends up feeling most right for them. My suggestion, is that that there is a way to nestle truth and clarity within gentleness, such that it does not generate confusion, yet is readily unwrapped by those who choose to look deeper. Each school is correct, IMO, when in an environment designed for the ears of their own students. In this environment the teachings are able to be practiced as tools that lead to results. It is when those tools are presented at large to strangers, IMO, that things with edges create unsought for cuts.

It is easy to only look at karma as something external, and not internal. For every action, there are external changes and internal changes. Both of these influence our karmic momentum, yet the internal changes are what directly affect our own personal whole. Our own whole then carries these changes with it, continuously reshaping its pattern and continuously carrying that pattern with it, until it finds a way to stop carrying that pattern. The pattern that is carried within not only informs the shape of our own personal whole, but it also informs how the external world rests upon the shape of our whole. It is entirely our choice how we emotionally respond to events, although sometimes it may feel difficult. When someone runs at us screaming with a knife and proceeds to shove us against the wall, etc, we have a choice to remain calm or to allow our emotional-energetic-psychic shapings become terrorized and cling to a malformed shape we then proceed to have difficulty in dealing with. Further, it is common for us to think our attacker is responsible for this shaping rather than ourselves, which makes it difficult to own that we must be the ones who work out the encapsulation of our energy caused by this trauma. When we do our inner work, we come to face these encapsulations and resolve them internally, which also changes our shape and how the external world rests upon this shape. Intentionally shaping our exchanges with the external realm can also likely help heal the internal, but not unless we are using those experiences as catalysts to do the inner transformative work as well. It largely comes down to - what are we holding on to? What are we attached to? Freeing ourselves of attachments to things needing to be any particular way also then frees us of getting in the way of the natural momentum of this particular shaping within space and time and allows it to flow unobstructed according to dao, self-so.

Steven Q. Marshal has a few cheap kindle articles up for sale on this topic. One is titled: Emptiness in Buddhism and Taoism: the Difference, and another compares the differences between the Taoist and Buddhist Heart Sutras. Perhaps those could be useful to this conversation. --- Recently someone posted here that one of the goals is to unwrap the soul from around the spirit so that the spirit becomes free. I've heard that in Buddhism the idea of the Soul is denied. Perhaps within this denial, something is left behind that flavors each perspective differently. In daoist internal alchemy, there is the concept of merging the upper and lower souls (hun and po), which is also related to merging the 5 elemental phases and 4 directions back into one. This is essentially reversing the diffraction of light, after cleansing and balancing it's components. The soul is unwrapped, and then turned around to rejoin the oneness. There is a concept in daoism of putting things back together such that there is no separation from the dao. After one transcends, the more complete things are, the longer one will stay complete. Yet if something is missing or has been abandoned, eventually there will be the need to do the work to reclaim what is missing. I believe this is why daoism focuses on the body and the energy at these earlier stages, so as to do some initial work to bring all of the components together before doing the work at the later stages which are more difficult to distinguish from other practices. And perhaps the accomplishments within these initial stages also informs why daoism has a different perspective than buddhism at the later stages. Although it is possible some types of buddhism, such as Tantric Buddhism, also incorporate these practices. That which is emptiness is indeed emptiness, but emptiness is not fixed as emptiness. That which is form is indeed form, but form is not fixed as form.

When we approach something in terms of what we are getting our of it, the relationship is one of desire. It is also common for business models to exploit desire in others by marketing things as such. Thus on these boards, many have seen a lot of this and perhaps are not moved by claims. In the dao de jing it is said that raising something up with big claims only invites its fall, while the practice of humility allows things to build up naturally without enmity and polarity. Now, I don't know anything about the style you posted, but perhaps I can share some general principles. When it comes to aging and qi, we are exploring a relationship between the manifest, material realm (healthy body), and the mysterious subtle realm. In terms of qi, both sides exist within us, and we tend to face life by ever pushing ahead, day to day, without doing much in the way of returning and settling into the depths within. In this way we tend to draw upon the reserves within the mysterious in order to fuel the health of the manifest. It is good to keep this formula in mind: Always without desire we must be found, If its deep mystery we would sound; But if desire always within us be, Its outer fringe is all that we shall see. So, it is by becoming empty and still, and letting go of desire that we are able to rekindle connection with the mysterious. Doing some type of energy (qi) work (gong) to stir up and regulate one's energy (qi), and then settling into meditation and allowing one to become empty, is a good general formula for working away the things blocking one from connection to the mysterious. Sincerity is key, time is key, and harmonious equanimity is key. If we live very hectic lives with lots of dynamic emotional changes and stresses, we seriously tax our energy, making it more difficult and even uncomfortable to return within. The longer we may try to spend in not thinking about things and not actively pursuing things, the more uncomfortable and difficult things can be. It takes time, and qigong and awareness of natural breathing (resting the mind on the fullness of the breath) are great ways to work toward this goal. Just trying to share some general principles related to working with energy. A good teacher can be very valuable in helping safely guide one into a balanced approach to working with energy over time. It is not merely about learning the exercises, but more importantly in learning to regulate the exercises gradually over time as one's mind is able to dissolve and integrate more deeply into the spiritual aspect of what is happening within one's body. I would recommend any teachers who seem to radiate a gentle calm and graceful presence, with bright eyes that seem to contain a deep knowingness. Avoid teachers who talk too much, as the emphasis should be on getting out of the mind and into the body, rather than filling the mind with new concepts to think about. Of course any teacher will likely use explanations to help their students, but the purpose of these should be to provide a framework that is then worked within without needing continuous mental exploration. In the actual practice, a few words here and there are plenty. But most of all just trust your intuition about someone. I would recommend this book specifically for the deeper layers of transformative energy work for women.

Something else that comes to mind, is recognizing and working with the nature of one's audience. When we recognize the nature of the various members of our audience, we can also gauge how they will respond to what we have to share. It isn't helpful to hold people in boxes, but it is helpful to recognize when people's behavior is repeated again and again with very minor changes. This is a part of listening to our audience and responding to the openings it allows, rather than trying to force something on it that goes against its nature. I often share long messages full of understanding. I realize that lots of people may not wish to read my posts, and in a way this deals with the nature of those who only look at the surface of things, and prevents me from having to deal with people who like posting their first emotional reaction to things that don't take long to absorb and reflect. I also try to look at things from multiple perspectives, and even though I explain complex things sometimes, I try to present them as simple as possible. I take extra care to reflect on what might be confusing to someone completely unfamiliar with a given concept, and see if I can present it in a simpler way. Often I will re-read my posts and make things simpler. Editing run-on complex sentences to become shorter sentences. Rewording things that might be interpreted in two different ways. Replacing words that don't feel quite right, and so on. Sometimes, for me, editing after the post has been published lets me see it more clearly than reading what I have written before I publish the post. If I am going to post something more personal, I also take a greater care before doing so. I examine myself to see if I have any insecurities regarding the sharing, or if I am sharing something to seek validation from others. If I expose a part of myself that is vulnerable, or holds an expectation from others, I am only setting myself up for disappointment. Additionally, in sharing something personal, I try to only do so when the "weather" within the "room" is pleasant and "safe." This makes it more likely for the sharing to be taken as something meaningful rather than brushed past. Sometimes even if a thread is inviting something I have a very specific contribution for, I will avoid posting if the thread seems to be hijacked by people who are avoiding the topic and playing their own game. There seems to be little point in letting my post get lost amidst a mess of other postings. Something a friend once shared with me, is that no one else can ever know what any experience I shared is truly like for me, no matter how well I word it. That experience is mine alone. Zhuangzi says, we can ever only know ourselves from the inside out, and all else from the outside in. The choice is ours to decide how to best act in exchange between the internal and external. If we have expectations of the external, it is often hard to get them met. However, we have the capacity to observe where the openings and closing within the external are. It is then our choice to decide if we feel internally open to serving that external opening. Sometimes we are able to tell if this potential relationship is something that will be healing and evolutionary, or if it is something that is imbalanced and negative. Other times it is a mystery, and we can only hope to do our best. Blessings!

Do you improvise when drawing a circle? No - it wouldn't be a circle. The key is learning first how to draw the circle - and why you can't ever get it quite right. In the beginning we have blind spots - places we are energetically imbalanced. These blind spots are more difficult to work in, and improvising early on may lead us to avoid what is difficult rather than working through it to dissolve the blockages and evolve into greater wholeness within. A circle is complex. We can see this by following a complete cycle of life and death. A seed being nourished and the initiation of life. The life within the seed orienting between the six directions of qi. The growth of the spout as it courageously and blindly pushes up and down through the earth. The surface is reached and leaves come out as the small plant basks in the sunlight and flouishes in growth. Strong and healthy, the vitality and strength increase. Having reached adequate strength, flowers blossom and the energy of growth transforms into expression. The culmination of growth which represents the birth of decline. The flower is fertilized and the fruit is born. The flower fades as the fruit grows, and the vitality of the plant begins to flow into the fruit and seeds for the next generation. The fruit develops and begins to take shape. The fruit, fully grown, matures and ripens, as the energy of the plant begins to settle. The life force within the plant begins to fade and the ripened fruit drops to the ground. The plant, its energy gone, dies. The fruit too returns into the soil, its seeds being incubated within in preparation for the next new phase of growth. This is the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of day and night. It is the 12 animal signs of the chinese zodiac (12 earthly branches) starting with rat (zi). There is a very important yet subtle concept hidden within this: One part is encoded and hidden within other parts. When one begins to draw a circle on paper, as the curve takes shape it begins to inform where the rest of the circle belongs. To deviate from this path means one is deviating from the center. When moving the arms in a circle like holding a ball, starting at lower dan tien, over and up one side, to top of head, down the other side to return - all of these phases may be experienced, including the sensation of each part being interconnected with the other parts. When one moves the arms, the whole body is moving, and there are many many energetic circles present elsewhere within the body. Especially as the arms begin to go upwards, the opposite foot is sinking a deeper root, yet as one reaches a certain place the opposite hip (same as the side of the arms) reaches a point where it cannot go further to the side and begins to rotate. This rotation, fueled by the rooting of the other foot/leg, transforms into upward movement - and thus fire is born within wood. Fire represents the culmination and peak, yet is is already defined and present within the early stages of growth, even as growth itself (wood) is beginning to fill with life. Each of these different phases begin to inform each other through the rotation. After the top is reached and fire and yang have culminated, yin is born, and yet the momentum initiated by yang continues. Even as it continues, it no longer has force behind it, and the momentum is simply allowed to take its course as one allows the motion to return. The more one is able to get out of the way of controlling this yin phase of the cycle, the more one will begin to discover the different phases within this cycle. Unlike the cycle with the plant and fruit, during the metal phase we do not release our energy externally (like I am here), but along with the fire we turn inwards, and practice acceptance during the metal phase to allow the energy to fully return within. To do this we need to be empty otherwise we will create too much shaping of the metal for it to be able to fit within. This is part of withdrawing the yin response. Here, we use a big circle in the body as a more obvious example, but the same principles are present everywhere, all of the time. Here, we explore knowledge to reach a greater depth of comprehension, yet we now must also dissolve this knowledge and allow it to grow within on its own, lest we become attached to using it to control things. The key is to reach a place where we feel these things happening on their own as we simply set intention to open and close within different shapings of the body. The taijiquan forms provide us with many different body shapes from which to explore dynamic openings and closings, expansions and contractions of the energy. IMO, once we are able to feel these dynamics operate smoothly on their own without getting stuck in different parts of their cyclings, then we have reached a place from which we may improvise.

Hi VELLY, welcome to the community. Just last night I was reading an article on Tantra from Damo Mitchell's Daoist Reflections from Scholar Sage. Here's an excerpt: Confusion has arisen in modern times, as we have now been widely exposed to the teachings of both Yoga and the Daoist arts. Both of these systems present different views of how we as humans function beyond the level of physical form. This is due to the systems' individual aims and focuses. The Daoist internal arts initially focus heavily upon the energetic realm, whilst Yoga seems to discuss the spiritual/consciousness realm to a far higher degree. There is a very good reason for this. This reason is Tantra. In modern times the term Tantra is often equated with sexual practices. The alternative community has turned what was originally the study of the energy body into a way to heighten sexual pleasure under the illusion that this will lead to spiritual elevation. Tantra was not originally majorly concerned with sexual practices, as only a very small part of its teachings concerned dual-cultivation methods of this sort. The term Tantra can be translated as meaning 'gaining understanding through expansion of the awareness'; it was originally the study of expanding the frequencies of our comprehension in order to study the more subtle energy realms that sat beyond the physical body. Being a Sanskrit term it was originally a branch of the Yogic school's practice and could basically be equated with Qi Gong. Any form of energy work including Qi Gong, Dao Yin or even internal alchemy would fall under the bracket of Tantric practices. Tantra was Yoga's way of studying the energy body. It is rare to find a Tantric Yoga school these days. Many may well say that they are practising Tantra when they are not. If you have the chance to witness an authentic Yogic Tantric school practising you will see that many of their exercises essentially look like Qi Gong. After the performance of Asanas, which are the physical exercises most modern people would equate with Yoga, Tantric Yoga practitioners often sit and breathe whilst making particular hand postures, chanting and moving their fingers and arms around in time with their breath to shift Qi, which we can equate with Prana along the length of the meridians, which we can equate with Nadi. Tantric Yogis often work with three key energy centres in their body, which correspond to the location of the Dan Tien, and refine frequencies inside of their bodies to lift Jing into Qi an then into Shen; in short they are practising their own form of Qi Gong. Many of these Tantric practices were passed on to the Buddhists of Tibet, and now there are also Tantric schools of Buddhist Yoga coming from this tradition as well. At some point Tantra was largely removed from Yoga, leaving many schools with a bridge that could not be crossed. Students were now trying to jump from Asanas (physical body work) to meditation on the Chakra (spiritual body work), which cannot easily be done. You cannot simply move from physical body work to the spirit body - it is too big a jump. There must be some kind of energetic practice that bridges to two. He continues to describe some of the reasons these energetic body practices may have faded from the system over time as well as describing the fruits of this true and full form of Tantra in greater detail, over the next several pages. In daoism, there are what are known as the chamber arts, which also have a misconstrued idea in the west of sexual practices. This is because often these arts related to different types of practices for men and women to balance and harmonize their somewhat different energetic body functions. There is a lengthy chapter on this in Opening the Dragon Gate, translated by Thomas Cleary. For example, at night as one becomes still, the jing (lower vibrational energy) moves through the body. This energy is not sexual at all, it is simply the more dense form of celestial energy that replenishes what the body is missing. It is responsible for replenishing our energy reserves that keep the bodily systems function as we sleep, replenishing and balancing out what our food sources and daily practices left depleted and imbalanced. The jing that replenishes the body qi in this way turns into what is known as yuan qi. This celestial jing also tends to first go toward replenishing the needs of the reproductive systems. In men, the reproductive system is poised for ejection. This is why at night, in stillness when the jing returns to replenish the reproductive system, the penis becomes erect without arousal. In fact, if there are traces of sexual desire within the mind of the sleeper, this is often the cause of nocturnal emissions. Conversely in women, the reproductive systems are internal and receptive, and the jing also moves upward to replenish the needs of the breasts. So for men, if one is very sexually active, much of one's jing is going to be going towards replenishing what is lost through sexual activity. This is what often causes men to feel low after orgasm/ejaculation. This loss of jing is similar to what happens in menstruation - the reproductve materials go away and need to draw upon the jing energetic fuel to rebuild them. It is often recommended that young men be sure to get plenty of physical exercise to help metabolize all of this energy that wants to thrust outwards, otherwise it would be lost. Meanwhile it is recommended for young women to spend time with the elderly, as the jing in their breast area tends to encourage an opening of the heart and a desire to share this energy emotionally, which can be very uplifting for the elderly. These chamber arts are not focused on sexuality very much, rather they are focused on the harmonious preservation of the bodies vital energies. It is when we do the opposite and cultivate excess sexual desire and desire for blissful sensation that we tend to develop extreme patterns of depleting our vital energy. This is not to say that the male-female relationship cannot be used with the intent to cultivate harmony. The male can learn much from the deep receptive power of the female, and the female can learn much from the stable strength of the male. Some sexual practices (kareeza) work to avoid orgasm by moving slowly yet intentionally, focused upon the feeling of their connection while working to remain centered within. In this way, the yin and yang of each can find both expression and balance, without leading to depletion. The lack of orgasm is replaced by a more heart centered awakening that grows and matures, replacing "getting off" with deeper spiritual development. I don't have much experience in this, but perhaps you can find more information about it elsewhere. There is a lot of criticism regarding some of the modern books like multi orgasmic man on these boards, as this is working with a powerful and extreme type of charged energy that could easily become dangerous to one's health if one practices in an incorrect and forceful fashion. Especially if one is entering the realm of energy work from only knowing the experience of what sexual energy feels like, and unaware of what other types of energy feel like, or correctly preparing the body for various types of energetic workings, one may easily make mistakes with a practice that has few true teachers. Blessings to your journey and may you find your own appropriate way to navigate the openings and closings.

So Liu Yiming's perspective here is interesting, and perhaps sees some differences in word definition when compared with the path of three barriers: Refining Jing to transmute it into Qi, refining Qi to transmute it into Shen, refining Shen to return to Emptiness. In this path, as one enters into the stage of refining Qi to transmute it into Shen, one has learned how to cultivate the Golden Elixir, or Precelestial Qi of True Unity from above, which according to Liu Yiming above has already gone beyond the level of yuan shen. In this stage one nurtures the reverted elixir into the great elixir - creates and incubates the immortal embryo. This seems like the stage of non-doing and superior de from above, and works toward the completion of the embyro. After this intermediate barrier, the "two return to one" and there will only be the One Spirit (yishen), and one will progress to the higher barrier. In both systems this appears to be the stage of "nine years" and so on. In any case, I've found it helpful here to find just a little clarification on some of the different terminologies used by different systems. Otherwise it might indeed be confusing! Also, as to the idea of the soul being wrapped around the shen and unwrapping it to become free. We have the five organ shen, which include the hun and the po also known as the upper soul and lower soul. The work at the initial barrier is to accomplish "doing" to return to the precelestial state so that the five organ shen are not only unwrapped, but reverse their diffraction to return to one: When the four images join one another, and when the five agents gather together, then Jing, Qi, and Shen coagulate and coalesce one with the other. Therefore it says "the three families see one another." This is called the Infant, the One Qi prior to Heaven, the Embyro of Sainthood, the Golden Elixir. The 3 families here also refers to the numerology of the five elements. Five represents the center and earth. One (water) plus four (metal) = five. Two (fire) plus three (wood) = five. The three fives are able to merge as one. The "yishen," or complete embryo, does seem like a good comparison to superior de. After that is returning it to dao. Thanks for the thread and sorry for my confusion, this has been helpful for me! And of course Sifu gave a lecture on spiritual freedom tonight. excerpts from Fabrizio Pregadio's translations: Cultivating the Tao Foundations of Internal Alchemy

Seems pretty spiritual to me. One of the goals of internal alchemy works toward reversing the process of diffraction of the spirits (which follow similar principles to light) back into one whole. This natural multilayered diffraction of light in the right environment where there is just enough moisture and just enough light, evenly distributed, seems like a form of nature doing spiritual work. The things that make us feel ooohhh and aaaahhh in our internal spiritual work may be similar to the things we see within refined balances in nature that summon similar feelings. When I look at the double rainbows, something inside me wonders what is spiritually happening between the two bows.

Precelestial Jing, Qi, and Shen Yuan jing, yuan qi, and yuan shen come from a time before father and mother conjoin. ... Jing, qi, shen have three names, but in fact they are one. "One" refers to the inchoate Origin, "three" refers to the subdivision of the Numen (fenling). "One" is the foundation (ti), "three is the operation (yong). We might say that, in the body of the inchoate Origin, what is unmixed throughout its pure Unity becomes the jing; what flows throughout its veins becomes the qi; and what moves throughout its numinous emptiness becomes the shen. They are three but it is one; it is one but they are three. When we speak of the the three superior Medicines, we mean the operation; when we speak of its being plentiful and whole, we mean the foundation. It cannot be called "three," but they cannot be called "one" either. ... Yuan jing is like a pearl or like dew; it is pure, flawless, and unmixed, and nurtures and moistens the hundred bones. Yuan qi is like haze or like mist; it runs throughout the hundred vessels. Yuan shen is utterly numinous and utterly sacred; it rules over the ten thousand pursuits. ... Precelestial Qi of True Unity. Yuandu zi (Zhao Youqin) said: The precelestial qi comes from within Empty Non-Being. The Wuzhen pian says: The Tao from Empty Non-Being generates the One Qi, Then from the One Qi gives birth to Yin and Yang. Xue Daoguang said: There is something before Heaven and Earth, it has no name and is fundamentally silent and still. It is capable of ruling over the ten thousand images, and does not decay along the course of the four seasons. All these passages say that the precelestial Qi is the Ancestral Qi that generates all things. It comes from within Empty Non-Being; it is the ruler of the ten thousand images and the patriarch of Heaven and Earth; it has no form and no image; and it is soundless and scentless. "Watching, you do not see it; listening you do not hear it; grasping, you do not get it." However, although it is devoid of form it can generate forms, and although it is devoid of image it can generate images. With regard to its shen, it is "the shen that is not shen"; with regard to its qi, it is the qi of True Unity; with regard to its jing, it is the jing True Unity. It is also called True Seed, Golden Elixir, and "method of not dying of the other house." It cannot be compared to the postcelestial qi of inspiration and expiration, the thinking shen, and the jing of the intercourse; and it also cannot be equated to the yuan jing, the yuan qi, and the yuan shen. Yuan jing, yuan qi, and yuan shen are Yang in the postcelestial, but are Yin in the precelestial. The are different from the precelestial qi of True Unity, which is indestructible for ten thousand kalpas, transcends all things, and is "the only Honored One." Neither life nor death adhere to it, neither Being nor Non-Being are established in it. This qi is the root of the postcelestial jing, qi, and shen, and the ruler of the precelestial jing, qi, and shen. It is something of the nature of utmost Yang, the Treasure of Heaven. Those who comprehend it are few. Superior De and Inferior De An ancient scripture says: Superior de has no doing: there is nothing whereby it does. Inferior de does: there is something whereby it does. Another scripture says: Superior de keeps one's form intact by means of the Tao. Inferior de extends one's mint by means of a technique. Both passages say that superior de and inferior de differ in status, and that their operation is also not the same. Essentially, in superior de one's body is intact and one's de is full, and the Yang of Qian ☰ has never been damaged. "Never been damaged" means that the precelestial Yang has never been damaged; it does not mean that the postcelestial body has not lost its integrity. When the Yang of Qian is plentiful, with a pure and flawless perfect jing and an inchoate One Qi, the five agents gather together and the four images join in harmony. All of the precious things are intact. Without a method for protecting and guarding this, the Yang necessarily culminates and generates the Yin; wholeness culminates and becomes lacking. Those who know this hasten to seek the oral instructions of an enlightened master. Without waiting for the birth of Yin, they use the method of "keeping one's form intact by means of the "Tao." They set the natural True Fire in motion, and refine the Yin breath of the entire body; they use the Yin instead of being used by the Yin, and achieve efficacy in the postcelestial. When the Yin is exhausted and the Yang is pure, they live a long life free from death. As for inferior de, after the Yang culminates and the Yin is born, the precelestial is dispersed. The five agents are divided from one another, the four images are not in harmony, and all of the precious things are lost. If you cultivate this state by the way of "non-doing," it would be as if in the tripod there is no Seed; what is the purpose of using water and fire to boil an empty pot? You must "steal Yin and Yang," "seize creation and transformation," and return from the postcelestial to the precelestial. Only then can that old thing from times past be recovered: it had gone but now it returns, and comes again into your complete possession. After you recover that original thing and the foundation of your ming is firm, you should again set up the furnace and the tripod, and perform the way of non-doing. By "nourishing warmly" the Embryo of Sainthood (shengtai), in ten months the qi becomes plentiful, and you deliver the dharma-body (fashen). Then this road has led to the same destination as superior de. ... ... From this we know that superior de and inferior de are not to be considered with regard to the postcelestial, but with regard to the precelestial. When the precelestial is intact, that is superior de., and when the precelestial is lacking, that is inferior de. This is the proper conclusion. Then there are those who do not understand the Great Tao. They either say that ming is more important and xing is less important, or that xing is more important and ming is less important. This is all wrong. Xing and ming must be cultivated together, but in the practice there should be two stages. In superior de, there is no need to cultivate ming, and one just cultivates xing: when xing is fulfilled, then ming is also fulfilled. In inferior de, one must first cultivate ming and then cultivate xing; after ming is fulfilled, one must also fulfill xing. Fulfilling ming is "doing," fulfilling xing is "non-doing." The Ways of "doing" and "non-doing" are established to provide a starting point to those who possess superior de or inferior de. When one comes to fully achieving the Great Tao, not only does the operation of "doing" not apply, but also the operation of "non-doing" does not apply. When one reaches the highest step there is a different wondrous operation, but it does not pertain to either "doing" or "non-doing." ... The relative status of xing and ming entirely derives from the distinction between superior de and inferior de. Liu Ming's xiuzhen houbian tl Fabrizio Pregadio in Cultivating the Dao