damdao

Those are (possibly): a five syllable mantra, a mudra and a concentration in the right location of the heavenly eye. Their origin is Yi guan dao, as it is the study of the five religions. As Ormus said, they (yi guan dao) have spirit writing too.

Only an example of Family terms in traditional schools:

As always the quoted text has nothing to do with the thesis it is supposed to support. In Daoism and in martial arts we have the terms shifu, shimo, shihing and shidai. All of them related to family relations inside a school. In fact what Komjathy says is exactly that "teacher-father", "disciple-son", the other disciple-son must be brother. Don't you think?

This quote seems to suggest the third option...

Hmmm, I think this is the standard method for writing academic papers... In recent years buddhist studies has advanced beyond that, and daoist studies are in the middle of this. In fact, Komjathy, for instance has to quote, in footnotes, researchers that are completely against daoism and his points of view. I don't remember now where (it was one of the early publications) but he discusses the biases of the academia (how to write a sinologic paper, what points of view can be expressed and so on). Besides, we have here, as in buddhism two discourses mutually exclusive: the academic and the daoist. The methods are different and the documents are different.

Hi Ormus, you know that I like that you write the fruit of your lineage researches in this forum. But I was about to tell something similar to what Arkady highlighted. Many of the conclusions of sinologist are no more than witty statements. In fact, daology is in diapers. I like to read Eskildsen and Komjathy (and Bokenkamp and recently Esposito) but some statements are no more than assumptions and many original documents are not reliable at all. In order to do a complete and critical analisys we should evaluate original documents too. And discuss point by point. The authors you quoted often discuss the reliability of such documents.

One very important issue is that today, lay people can devote to education and spiritual cultivation, so there is no need of a monastic "elite" proper of mediaeval ages.

Anew example of twisted logic. It is fair to say that it is 荒謬 and even we can say more fairly that it is an UFO.

It is relevant to the accusation "my school is the only true all others not". There is a tendency in human mind to over simplification of complex and multidimensional situations and this leads to emotional reactions. All is reduced to the fight "my school is better" and this is not the point. The point is about what is neidan and what is not neidan. About proof. First, I cannot provide you with the proof I suppose you look for, I am a beginner (in neidan), but I do have my proofs and I am satisfied. As a methodological point: What is a proof? What a proof proves? What kind of research is needed for that? What are the qualifications of the researcher? Finally, What the tradition says about the whole research-proof thing? I think it deserves a thread in itself.

Neidan is about working out ming and xing, so insisting only in a xing experience is the same as speak about other thing than neidan. So, mocking at a neidan school speaking about other thing is like barking at the wrong tree.

Here we can see a confusion in the categories. Genmen is a buddhist school and Mopai is "mohist" neither of two are neidan nor they claim it (by the way, this reminds me when hempel tried to prove that Chunyi Lin school is neidan despite the fact that Nance said no), so it is not comparable with a school that speaks about neidan principles.

Perhaps this could help. There is more in youtube. www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/liaofan.pdf

This is simply not fair... now I have to change my earlier text... Well, the OP is a about comparing daoism and buddhism and as the OP introduced a daoist concept (immortality) qualified in a way that seems not correct (earthbound) it is obvious that the thread had to take two paths, one buddhist (or other schools advocating for enlightenment) and the other daoist (or yogic or other schools advocating immortality). The asking for a non-chinese terminology was after a while, in fact it was not only about nonchinese terminology or english concepts but about something that all people can understand http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/43230-attainment-of-full-enlightenment-through-cultivation/?p=734991 in fact, something understandable. I don't see the problem of chinese concepts and I don't see the advantage of english concepts, on the contrary it is a godd exercise to open up the mind with another framework, another paradigma, many discussions arise from a partial comprehension of the original langage. But all this is out of place now that the thread has been moved to the general section...

It is very paradoxical, nearly Nasrudin-like how in a forum called Dao Bums and in the subsection Daoist Discussion what a lot of people seems to be trying to avoid the Chinese aspects of Daoism. It reminds me the orientalist attitude of the XIX century, colonialist of course, among other things. In fact, trying to speak about the fact which is Daoism apart from the Chinese Schools which teach and practice it is a form of colonialism. It is highly doubtful that most of people who attained the Dao did it only through practice and not through texts. Most of Chinese masters are well versed in the classics this means knowing classical Chinese and wide reading. In fact, Chinese people regards this kind of balance as a good sign, a person with classical knowledge and practical knowledge, wen-wu in balance. In fact we need to read and to practice these are not mutually exclusive paths. Of course we can translate qi as prana, but prana is a sanskrit word, so the cultural aspect remains. In fact, speaking about this the Dalai Lama stated that there are two hundred of years ahead until all tibetans texts are translated into English, if we think about daoist studies we can state the same thing. Of course, as Arkady said, in the future the situation could change but only a little. Then we have the issue regarding the authority, who gains benefits from ignorance? Only manipulative people. If a school stimulates you to read directly the classics there is less room for manipulation, instead if a school or a teacher stresses a discurse of not reading and not learning language then manipulation is very easy. We must not forget, as DSC said, that if we don't know Chinese we must rely on translators, and most of them has their own agenda. What spiritual merit there is in not knowing chinese? What spiritual demerit there is in knowing it? Besides, relying in the early translator gives birth to monsters like the early model/image of daoism and daoists, to the dichotomy between religious and philosophical daoism, etc. so distorted it was... In fact, this early model was heavely influenced by neo-confucianists commentators who were against daoists. The book of Russel Kirkland Taoism the Enduring Tradition is a must in order to criticize this early fantasy and the fabrication of daoist as wild people apart of the society. Of course, Needham too is a must.

Well... All religions has its founder as the first spiritual being in the creation. This is the ancient neoplatonic teaching about the logos. So, if you are a christian Jesus is the first created through whom all creation can manifest and attain its perfection, if you are muslim the equivalent is the haqiqat al muhammadiyah, if you are buddhist it is buddha or a dhyani buddha and if you are daoist is the divinization version of Lao Zi. Believing that only one of them actually is the first being is sectarian. It is like a universal teching present in nearly every mystic path.

From my understanding of the basics of neidan you have to create a vehicle of consciousness, the yangshen. It is not purification of jing to qi to shen but a way to unify them, so to say. "Purification" implies that you are working with post heaven energies. Neidan is different from qigong, yangshen, neigong, etc. In neidan you work with pre-heaven energies, so no need to purify them. It is sad but most books speak in a misleading way, and in fact speak about a post-heaven (qigong-like) process. Immortals are prominent in many traditions, in fact until today you can find the Nath yogic tradition that describes the results of its path in a similar way to daoism. Spiritual immortality is something present in nearly all traditions. So, I see no problem in sects claiming contact with spiritual immortals. The controversial point is physical immortality, but even in sects that support that view it is not a goal but a stage. So daoism does not cultivate a earthbound consciousness but a totally free Self, this can be read in ancient books where we can not say that there is buddhist influence. I don't like the word enlightenment, it is a wrong english translation, neither sanskrit nor chinese use such a word, but in order to shorten the subject we can say that daoism is a quest for the Dao, qigong is a quest for well being and longevity. But there is another problem: world-view. When in neidan (or qigong or TCM) you train an exercise designed for an organ you not only works on that organ but on the psyche-emotion, what chinese called three hun and seven po (ten faculties in total) (a reference: http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/article.php?id=28516).So, even physical exercises are designed to free the practitioner from conditioning (awakening) and later the work on the yangshen.

Those are shishen categories.

Daoists does not desire immortality. Immortality is a way of describing a particular stage in the whole process. Besides, what is immortal (yangshen) is not what is mortal (shishen, acquired self) so there is no room for desires. A way of expressing the last two steps says something like that: converting shen to void, converting void to the Dao.

This can help you to trace Chinese neidan lineages in Korea, if you don't know it already: https://books.google.com.ar/books?id=KVv4CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT172&lpg=PT172&dq=choi+chi+won+solitary+sage&source=bl&ots=rQkMnV1LeF&sig=OoxecPv8oarODTsG3xS_taMhixM&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrl-PZ7efRAhXJh5AKHYDsCroQ6AEIXDAO#v=onepage&q&f=false Other resources involves research in Hwarang origins and are mostly in Japanese and Korean.

Yiyinyiyang explained about this site. See post quoted above. Well, no. Technically is not WLP but WLTXFP.

Please, read what I wrote. I even provided Sanscrit-Chinese equivalents. And yes, there is no enlightenment. And... what exists in all traditions perhaps is not the same. Even in buddhism different schools have different approaches.

Let's not belittle Chinese Medicine. We have Ma Dayang's Twelve Points!

I think that you are speaking about this: Here we can see the whole context of that statement and decide if it is relevant to the discussion or in what measure.

I don't know if you have a more solid base to state that but in longmen for instance (at least in theory) the ming work is needed because the xing work consumes yuan qi. So, even in lineages where ming work is not so important, it is explicitly stateted that for this kind of xing work some ming work is needed in order not to deplet yourself.

This is an important point. Two links in English: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/悟 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/覺 This is a side-way regarding the OP. It would be very interesting to research Jianxing 見性 and its relation with neidan and buddhism.