Daeluin

Nah, overrated.

I think you've hit upon something key here. I think many use their belief and absolute faith in whatever their religion says to connect them to the openhearted feeling of spirituality. Whatever else they do in their lives, it doesn't matter, as long as they come back to reconnect their faith to the institutionalization of spirituality. I feel most do this to deal with the fear of facing themselves. It is much easier to be accountable to someone else than to one's self. Funny though, the thing I connected to most in Christianity was that god was everywhere, including inside of ourselves. Rather than connect my belief and faith to something external, I think it most important to return my faith and belief to my true heart, the one under all that ego stuff, the one that is connected to one-ness with everything around me. The more I accept and trust where it leads, and listen carefully inside and outside, the more I am able to maintain and deepen this connection to spirituality. Within I feel radiant and compassionate. Without I am in synchronous relation with my environment. What more does one need?

The perfection we look for is not always apparent when it crosses our path. It is well for us to remember that those who cultivate tao to the higher levels place themselves low by necessity, and will not appear externally as much at all. Should we hope to learn from such a one, we too must lower ourselves or they will slip by invisibly. The root of tao is subtle and exists between the lines. Much can be learned on the surface, but to get deeper one must get over one's self.

In my lowly opinion, embryo breathing is the key here. An ancient immortal said: If you cultivate Xing and do not cultivate Ming, for ten thousand kalpas your Yin Ling will hardly enter sainthood. If you cultivate Ming and do not cultivate Xing, it is like having a property without an owner. And I believe Secret of the Golden Flower speaks to letting the mind (shen) rest upon the breath (jing-qi), until they are in harmony. Once this is taken to a deep, smooth, full body state of pore breathing, through all dan tiens as one, the process takes on a life of its own, but only if you have enough humility to surrender to your true self. This, in my uneducated speculation of various experiences, might relate to the cultivation of Ming to a usable, non-leaking state, and the harmonization/mixing of Ming and Xing, but perhaps has yet to deal with Ling to effect the fusion/merging of Xing with Ming. This fusion is, in my speculation, the source of the golden light. Or, perhaps it is only the ignition of the Xing, as ZOOM claims - and yet without the Ming to contain it, it would fly away. The fusion of it with Ming is perhaps related to the Yin Ling spoken of above.

Does tao win or lose? Certainly the planet has a limited time frame, but the resources we exploit may be used up long before that happens. Just as humans use up their own inner primordial energy and undergo ageing, the potential exists for human-kind to use up the resources we rely upon. We also have the potential to learn finer balance, as is present in the many ecosystems we topple. Should we kill ourselves off and strip the earth bare, certainly the earth could reclaim itself over time. No doubt it has happened before and could happen again.

Looks like the discussion on 61 could use more context. Hu Xuezhi: So if someone tries to conquer you, Marblehead, if they are smaller than you it might be best to simply receive them. And if they are larger than you, they really have no business conquering you, so best to yield to their own momentum and not giving them reason to stick around by engaging them. This can be accomplished by both letting them think they have conquered you, and not giving them much reason to care. When the Malazan Empire's reputation for unfailingly conquering many countries spread to one little island kingdom, they sent an emissary to the Malazan Emperor with their terms for surrender. No Malazan ever ended up visiting the kingdom. I know a teacher who has a reputation. When his name comes up people will laughingly dismiss him. He never once did anything to correct such reputation, simply letting it be. In the end his students know the truth, and the rumors merely keep him invisible from those who might otherwise look deeper.

I hear that. To me it is a way of looking at reality that allows me to understand just how much beauty there is abounding us, and that despite how many threats there are to its survival, there is an awe inspiring courage present with the undying potential to overcome any and all forms of exploitation. Perhaps less pessimistic than thinking we are doomed to be wiped out by the seemingly undying greed of mankind, and not as blindly optimistic as justifying to ourselves that despite the greed of man nature always seems to grow back and look at all the flowers.

All of the above and more. There are many books, many approaching different levels of reclaiming health, from exercises to cultivate yin to iron shirt qigong. Much has been converted to use western terms and principles to help simplify these concepts for western audiences. I believe the overall system does lead much deeper down the roads of traditional inner alchemy, from a western perspective. In the end all schools have different methods whether they are eastern or western - what is important is that those who are able to resonate with and practice the methods are led to achieve the traditional results. It is not generally recommended to make judgments from books or dvds alone, so the attention gained by the many books in circulation is a double-edged sword for these systems. The two systems - Healing Tao and Universal Tao - are different. I know that Michael Winn left Mantak Chia 20 years ago when he realized they were both taking the same lineage in different directions. I also sense that Michael tries to be very careful with people's own momentum, providing a stable field for them to accomplish what they need to, both within the specific framework of the school for those who choose that path, and also outside of that framework for those who have their own paths. Michael hosts meditations that are attended by members of the spiritual community from many different paths without discrimination. The autumnal equinox meditation I attended was very taoist, and the short guided meditation period was rooted in simplicity and reached the core of everything I have studied from the classics. Oh, and as to speaking with spirits, this is merely an indication of achievement. Masters should be able to listen to your own shen and guide you based on what you personally need rather than dumping theory on you. As to Atlantis, I've come across too many Atlantean connections in the area I live to dismiss this from lack of scientific evidence. In terms of spiritual evidence, it seems hard to avoid. If that bothers you just ignore it and move on. Either it is triggering a reaction related to your own past which you are not ready to listen to yet, or you have no relation to it and there's no point in giving it energy when you have your own path.

It occurs to me, that it is one thing to create the medicines and elixirs, and an entirely different thing to circulate them throughout the body. I do not know, but sense, that one may use the medicines and elixirs to further the alchemy to new levels without fully circulating those medicines to fully dissolve and replenish the substance of the body.

Yes, this is very poignant. We are all unique and have our own highly complex spiritual momentum. I was happy to find answers in the books of this system that helped me understand what I was looking for, but ultimately I allowed the tao to very naturally draw me to a teacher I resonated with before practicing. I simply followed my hearts song, knew I needed to leave the city I was in, chose to move to a place I had somehow ended up visiting unintentionally many times for random reasons, and the house I ended up living in had a person training in this school (not Chia's or Winn's). After the first class I knew it was perfect for me. How could I have known this by looking in a phone book? Everyone's answers come in different ways. It's all about listening to what is real inside.

This term creates polarity and I don't think it serves a clear purpose. The meaning that comes to me is related to the tao itself - the root of existence. To return to tao we return to the root of existence. To allow oneself to focus elsewhere is a side-path, and it is very easy to get drawn into side-paths. When people use this term "true taoism" I think they are referring to this, but I am not sure.

Jetsun said: That might be an important point. Many are drawn to taoist beliefs / principles because of their simplicity. Yet this simplicity provides something for the ego to grasp. To fully accomplish connection to the tao one must get over one's self. What one thinks one is or knows will only get in the way of harmonizing polarity within and without.

Yes, I feel the fear comes from the fear of being fully responsible for ourselves. When seeing the opportunity, we often choose to stand on the shoulders of another to avoid this. Be it nature or other humans via slavery, castes, classes. All this only enables us to see how much more we can take. Should we accept responsibility for ourselves, we truly begin to face ourselves, and perhaps come to understand the burden of desire and the gift of simple living. The beings that do come to accept this responsibility will ever be dominated by conquerors who decide there is something of value to exploit - hence the use of yielding, humility, and non-contention as mechanisms of invisibility. The connection the conquered beings made to tao is covered by layers of trauma and perversion, but it remains and lives on within, and there will always be those who are able to uncover it again.

I appreciate the essence which opendao is trying to caution about. And yet I do not believe there is one right way. I've seen a person say it is possible to separate the essence from the fluid (though I don't know of methods), and I've heard the same person evolve to stress that one harvests without harvesting. Many many methods. It is up to us to follow the best method for our current stage, which might be a temporary correct method at that time and might become a non-optimal method as we evolve to new stages. Nothing is fixed. drew seems content on his fixation with this particular path - that is his choice. It is up to him to find a way to bring that to fruition or not. Beating home the potential for it to be incorrect or harmful if used incorrectly is more likely to result in him attaching to this path even more tightly, so I think this type of forceful discussion is running to a counter-purpose. Others have had many opportunities to read the different perspectives and hopefully come to the conclusion they need to find the answers that are right for their own path. If the polarization continue this thread may just end up in the pit. It is natural for the truth to be hidden within layers of noise, and I doubt this can be changed at this period of society's evolution into widespread sharing of information. The clarity is there for those who can draw it out.

I'm not seeing anything about those with vision being right and those without vision being wrong. Further this leads me to wonder as to whether these thousands of years of the history of man (a drop in the bucket) were those of vision or not. If you are taking that as right, then where is this oneness we have achieved? It is in the nature of cancer cells to exploit their environment much as can be seen in the history of man. Perhaps we have achieved oneness in many little ways, but have not attained freedom from reliance on the non-renewable resources which we consume.

Ah, of course. How incredibly synchronistic and fitting. Hexagram 24 ䷗, "Return." When yin culminates yang returns. And yet the symbolism is much more than just returning. Even as when Yang culminates and Yin returns, that tiny bit of yin has the potential to topple over all the other Yangs above it. The same is true for the tiny bit of Yang with the potential to overcome the all of the Yins above it. All of these Yin lines are seemingly dominant, but earth is receptive, and the Yang line is in the position of Thunderous force. Many translations name the hexagram "Return" while also referring to it as "the turning point." Stephen Karcher's Total I Ching defines the character as: I wish I had my Ritsema and Rabbadini here, curious what they say. The essence I'm getting is one of undertaking a journey for purposes of rebirth and turning around a situation. Perhaps returning to truth, or returning to one's self anew. Even though on a superficial level it concerns returning, clearly there is a much deeper context here at the heart of how one returns, or, revives. It would seem the character is concerned more with the journey itself, not returning from the journey. The footsteps are leaving the city, not returning to it. Karcher adds that in later characters the element for 'road' was added. Fascinatingly, Karcher adds that during the winter solstice when this energy is in operation the early rulers would close the frontiers and markets, that merchants and sojourners would not move, so as to nurture this returning energy within the people and country during time when everything is still and the energy is hard to sense, even though it is ripe with potential. This is the time of the western celebrations of christmas and new years, during which people exploit the yin stillness to spend their yang energy doing whatever they want without resistance from the environment. And yet if people would preserve their inner yang an connect to the stillness of the environment, they could instead harness this strong vital force with the potential to revive them. I love the paradox encoded here of returning by stopping, or returning by going away from where one might desire to go. So rich.

In doing, we use our energy. In non-doing we preserve it. Some believe that once proper skill is developed in non-doing, one may flow within the current of their own gravity drawn way, like water does, and thereby interact with the world while preserving one's energy. The idea is that this is the means by which one may accomplish a form of enlightenment at which point one enters a new stage of being. I'm not clear on where this idea of the tao of man ruling over nature come from. Sounds like something a man decided. The concept of tao I am familiar with is subtle and difficult to speak of, as it represents the stage before the universe existed, even as it is all around us everywhere yet nowhere simultaneously. Zhuangzi advises there is no right or wrong, just what is right in front of us.

When I was attempting to translate 復命 online, the only choice in the list that really made sense to me for 復 was "turning over." Not as in turning in, but turning over the situation. I can see this as a type of transcendence. When one "turns over" the mandate, one is done with the mission, has transcended it. When one returns to the root, one "turns over" the orders, transcending their operation. The sage "turns over" fate. I'm no translator, but I like the common theme here of flipping, transcending, overcoming, up-ending, overturning, getting to the other side of, which all seem to work identically in these 3 contexts, as well as the idea of transforming the post-celestial into the pre-celestial. In this perspective I don't think rejection is the best way to think about it. One overcomes the burden of the mission by accomplishing it. Thus one gets to the other side of the burden, turning it over, and it is no longer a burden but a reward. So perhaps this concept isn't (or wasn't originally) primarily about whether or not the mandate is returned (it might be returned in failure too), but whether or not one is able to accomplish the mission and turn around their fate. In older times failing the mission might cost one their life, so this emphasis might make sense. Thus in the same context one overturns the rules of heaven (fate) not by rejecting them, but by besting them at their own game and transcending it. Thanks very much for your post TT, this new context really helps inform these old texts, at least for me.

Study the patterns of your life, your coping mechanisms, how you deal with others. Especially when under stress. What causes stress? What really gets under your skin, pushes you over the edge? How do you deal with family? What are your dreams, your goals? How do you go to excess in your life, what brings you down? How well do you accept yourself for who you are? These are the questions that really help me with finding balance and acceptance in my relation with the world. Studying the cycles of the waxing and waning of the moon and the sun, as they flow from small to big and big to small, cold to hot and hot to cold helped me get a deeper feeling for the wood-fire-metal-water cycle. Remember, earth is the center, earth is Sincerity and truth. Once you accept things as they are, learn to flow more harmoniously with them. Take your time. Learn to slow down. Learn to be still. Learn to see the slow ebb and flow of life. As I did this longer term goals became more practical to me and I stopped worrying about the rat race, even as I worked to maintain my sincerity every day and struggled to avoid bursting when the pressures increased. Then I started changing small things to help me address my patterns, and exploring what worked and didn't work. I'm still doing this and have a long way to go, but my life is so much stabler now that my values have shifted. Learning to let go of personal attachments is huge. This allows us to flow adaptively within an ever changing environment without losing our center. Once we can do it within slower cycles, we can speed things up - but it takes time. Years. As to the principles - the classics reach the root. Dao De Jing. Zhuangzi. Yijing. Over time people add layers, and after a while it all becomes noise. Even so, studying nature, both humanity and earth based is a good way to see principles in action. They're everywhere. Over time they just begin to all connect together. But knowing is limitless - our lives have limits. Learn to rest upon the balance of your life, let go of egoic attachments and just flow. You'll be surprised where you end up and who you meet. That's what came to me in answer to your question. I hope it is helpful to you. Blessings!

I wonder if choosing to not ride the train might be an anology for those who ignore the lessons sent their way and run the other direction. Their train still moves along the same timing, but they aren't really with it in the same sense and they miss out on the opportunities it might otherwise provide. Funny thing about the celestial mechanism though, it has a way of catching up to you even when you say no thanks.

Thanks, I like the train / plane analogy. It also resonates with the birth based yijing astrology I practice, where one's momentum within balance is indicated by hexagram lines each depicting a 6 or 9 year phases of change. The phases are set and cannot be rushed, and so one has periods of time during which to come to terms with their place within the overall balance around them and the lessons they are given. People walk towards or away from the type of balance indicated. The hexagrams are all different. Some indicate a more challenging path to balance while others may have more free will, as the plane in your analogy. I didn't say it does or doesn't. However, perhaps we need to be of service to the tao, to finely balance our karma. In Neidan one often takes energy from outside oneself to replenish what one lost. A master taught me the balance of this exchange is very very important, and that we are all born with all the energy we need to return. One must pay for what one loans. The quality of energy exchanged is also part of this balance. If we leak out unified pure energy, or draw in separated and coarse energy (and are able to refine it within) this leads our environment closer to unity. But if we leak out separated and coarse energy and only take back pure and refined energy, this leads our environment closer to separation. I sense this give and take is highly complicated, and don't want to presume to understand its precise operation. However I feel believing we are able to replenish our lost energy from the environment without seeking balance within this exchange is missing a piece of the puzzle. The service we offer to the tao helps us to balance this exchange. This service may be accomplished in many ways, visible or invisible. From what I understand, Liu Yiming is saying transforming one's post-celestial, destiny granted by heaven ming into pre-celestial, breath of tao ming, may be accomplished by resting upon the direction of one's destiny and applying the operation of generation within it, this generation within the conquest of destiny #7. And flowing like this one would merge with the way of balance. Naturally there is more than just ming to return to its pre-celestial state, but following this operation of ming might be seen as flowing with the principle of water, the foundation our lighter arts rest upon. I am not suggesting we do this instead of energy work, but that we use our energy work within the context of this dance within balance. The principles of Neidan suggest this operation will be transcended when one advances to higher stages. I'm merely perceiving that putting it all together like this might be the simplest, quickest and most balanced method for transforming to the next stage, without something or other pulling us back due to bad timing or errors. By flowing along the current of our destiny and unravelling it, we are able to merge with the proper timing we need. ************************************************************************ As to the tao needing our help, I don't know. As to the universe needing our help, I'm not sure. What expands and does not contract seems imbalanced, and I believe Neidan helps the universe to contract by refining and returning the energy of creation closer to the origin. But who can say if the universe has had a full breath yet or is ready to contract? Perhaps this must come from the knowledge granted by heaven, the pre-celestial xing. And yet on several occasions, those I encounter who are in tune with heavenly knowledge have indicated the universe greatly needs our help, and that the actions of humans on earth have far more profound spiritual effects all throughout the universe than the exploitation and pollution of our own planet.

In case people aren't aware, the creation cycle of the 5 phases/agents is: Wood engenders Fire Fire engenders Earth Earth engenders Metal Metal engenders Water Water engenders Wood When one generates the other, it is used up in the process. When Water engenders Wood, Wood soaks up the Water, turning it into life and using it to continuously expand. A parallel to this often referred to in Taoist Classics and the yijing is that of a Parent - Child relationship. The parent nurtures, the child consumes and absorbs what the parent shares. If the situation is unbalanced the child can end up sapping the parent of strength. In terms of conquest, or control: Earth mitigates and refines Water Water mitigates and refines Fire Fire mitigates and refines Metal Metal mitigates and refines Wood Wood mitigates and refines Earth I use the term mitigate to convey a more appropriate tone. Conquest and control is what happens when the dynamic uses force, implying that Water is unwilling to be changed by Earth, so Earth conquers Water, forcing it to behave. However, when Water is willing, the dynamic takes a more diplomatic tone, and Water follows the direction Earth leads in. Mitigation conveys a relationship that avoids excess, which is the function of this type of cycle. The "control" cycle of the "five elements" has the effect of refinement and balancing. A parallel often used for this in the classics and the yijing is of the Husband-Wife relationship. To think this works one way is somewhat outdated - both parties mutually combine to direct and refine each other. Liu Yiming uses the associations of Virtues with the 5 phases: Earth is associated with integrity and sincerity. When there is less sincerity and integrity, earth does not hold together well, and the water it directs becomes muddy. Thus sincerity is key to keeping Water clear. Water is associated with Wisdom when it is clear, and desire and ambition when it is murky. When water is clear, it directs Fire in a stable way. When water is muddy, Fire burns more wildly. Fire is associated with illumination, and is the waxing of the cycle, the expression of the creation phase that began with the seed contained within Water. When Fire is directed by clear Water (wisdom), the illumination it expresses is clear and bright, like a steady and un-flickering light or a clear pane of glass one may see through with no distortion. When fire is directed by muddy water, it goes everywhere. It flickers here then there. It seeks to impatiently act upon the desire of the muddy water, consuming and scattering randomly like a wildfire. Fire that illuminates clearly directs Metal to discern clearly. Wildfire informs Metal with an vast array of sensation. Metal is associated with discernment. Metal that discerns clearly is able to accept the situation and respond to it with it's primary function - settling. Where Fire is the expression of the generation cycle, Metal begins the return to stillness. Metal draws back inward, closing the cycle. When metal is informed by a vast array of sensation, it is blind and overwhelmed, unable to sense how to properly close the cycle. Then it begins to judge right from wrong in an attempt to deal with the situation that feels so out of control. However when metal is able to simply accept all that it faces as one, it is able to let go of the need to judge, and is able to accomplish its task of compressing what has expanded (the noise of the human mind) back towards the origin. Metal that accepts and settles, directs wood to expand smoothly. Metal that discriminates directs wood to expand in a complex menagerie of ways. Metal compresses into water in the form of minerals. Edit: Applying the total acceptance and settling of the Metal phase may be as simple as smiling unconditionally rather than frowning conditionally. Like Laozi in the Vinegar Tasters, smiling in the face of suffering. When we are bombarded with Metal type directives, questions, discriminations, total in-discriminatory and unconditional acceptance without answer is possibly the only way to avoid feeding back into some separation of energy. Perhaps this is the root of the saying: those who speak, don't know; those who know, don't speak. See: Gift of Insults. Wood is associated with growth, movement. Wood takes the seed created in the stillness of water, and using the nurturing life force of water expands life, as shaped by the minerals/metals found in that water which act as blueprints. In terms of emotions, Wood is the energy that is shaped and informed by our senses, which then is expressed in the Fire phase. When Metal discriminates, it attaches to something, and this in turn shapes the flow of energy. When metal attaches to sensations of happiness, Wood shapes energy that will express as Joy. And yet happiness and Joy are part of a polarity, and inevitably Metal will lack what it has attached to seeking, leading the energy of Wood to be shaped towards expressions of sadness or anger. In this fashion sometimes Wood/Energy will be strong, sometimes weak. When Wood is shaped by Metal that accepts, it develops smoothly, evenly, and is more adaptive to flowing harmoniously within the given situation, without needing to be shaped towards a specific end. Liu Yiming refers to this as kindness. As Liu Yiming says, when the true gets buried, the false runs wild. This can even be seen by in increasing complexity of my above descriptions as the cycle progresses. When wild energy (Wood) controls Earth, integrity is divided, broken up, split apart. When even energy (Wood), or kindness controls Earth, one returns to the heart of truth. Therefore increasing what is true within each of these interactions will lead them all back to unity. The above concerns the control cycle as it informs the creation of the elements being controlled in terms of how it may lead back to the heart of truth - Generation within Conquest. It would appear that Generation within Conquest may also lead to the post-celestial, but only when truth and sincerity are abandoned. When sincerity is maintained and guards the wholeness of unity, Generation within Conquest leads back to greater unity. When these elements are already created and in excess, the control cycle may help bring them back into control, following the same principles. However that is concerned more with Conquest within Generation.

From my personal perspective, I found yawning and sighing to be different, but related. When I would sigh, I was allowing my energy to deflate. When I would yawn, I was trying to replenish the oxygen/qi to the deeper layers of my body where it was lacking due to my bad posture and sighing. When I developed deeper breathing patterns, began to turn my awareness more inward instead of keeping my awareness very externally focused, and worked on holding a better posture, my yawning and sighing all but stopped unless I was tired. Naturally, and as others have said, this could be one of many things.

Predetermined influences, but I think change is the key to uniting with this mechanism. If we reject it we complicate things. But if we merge with it we can begin to use it, slowly dissolving and shaping it. In this way we may regain control over our internal mechanism. Liu Yiming says further in Cultivating the Tao (tl. Pregadio), after an extensive chapter on the five phases/agents and directly after explaining the creation and control cycles: This seems a subtle key to using one's five agents to work towards what is pre-celestial. Conquest within generation is perhaps simply our control of what is generated all around us. Our environment generates resources which we exploit. Our body generates energies which our ego's exploit. Generation within conquest is perhaps what I describe above - recognizing the lessons the tao sends our way, merging with this controlling mechanism and learning to generate progressive change within this mechanism. At the end of Cleary's Taoist Classics Volume 4: The Taoist I Ching, specifically the Arcana section, Liu Yiming is further quoted describing this process in terms of cultivating Virtue. See a longer excerpt here. Thanks for creating and refining this topic mods / dawei!