opendao

Read Dao De Jing. Better in Chinese, or with a parallel text. It's not the fastest way, but it will help you to feel the reality of Neidan, and, if you like it, will lead you to a teacher. But read it with an open heart, not only with the mind.

to make such remarks, I would suggest you to find Dao first... Eternal Dao cannot be found unless you find a teacher, understand scriptures and practise until you attain Dao. Long discourses about ego and freedom lead to nowhere. We must limit our ego in a "school box", or we get nothing. For modern "liberal" world it sounds unacceptable, but it is the ONLY way, according to those who finally found the Dao. Wandering without directions being "an intellectual hobo" (or bum, haha) is just a way to waste time and play the fool, pretending to be a "real taoist"...

Dao De Jing, is it religious text or neidan text? Obviously it's both. And it's used in rituals, but was written for indoor students... You're seeing distinction where "real Taoists" see the unity. There are some simple things: 1) there is only one Daoism, without any distinction to "religious", "philosophical", "practical", "alchemical" etc. This is the teaching of Dao passed down from Huang Di and Lao Zi. 2) Neidan is the core of Daoism, the set of practical principles and methods, how to "attain Dao" 3) In its history, the teaching of Dao, Great Dao, has appeared in many forms: secluded hermits, family schools, monastic, external / internal / pair cultivation. They all shared the same methods and principles. That is why it's called Dao, not Buddhism or something else. 4) In its history, different schools has preserved different aspects of the teaching. But to say that Neidan is different from, say, Zhen Yi rituals is to show one's lack of any understanding. Ritual itself is an important part for _some_ students. Dao is available to everyone. Daoism in the West is a piece of joke usually, but some people are serious, and don't jump to conclusions to prove themselves that Dao can be learn without any teacher, as you constantly do. To say that 道教义枢's phrase is only about "ritual manuals"... Have you really read the text? Then prove your claims by quotes, not by wikipedia )))

the real IMA is not about dantian rotation, nor about zhan zhuang. In Dai xinyi (Wang Yinghai lineage) and in Yiquan (Zhao Daoxin lineage) we learn and teach, Dantian gong exists, but it's just a beginning. So, as usual, Taoist Texts get his/her (god knows) experience from reading books and watching video, but obviously it's not enough. About impossibility: again, from our experience, it's possible, and not so hard to do, if the method is correct. Plus, if there is a complete Neidan school, then the progress is much faster. next step is to find a teacher, because you have now 2 options: stop completely or get to the level of the power-jing in its basic, simplistic variant, but even this variant will spend your innate energy dramatically. Same thing about doing the microcosmic orbit as it's described everywhere: you just spend the fuel you have no ability to restore. It leads to no progress, sickness, bad temper, and degradation.

all this thread by multiple alter egos of that anonymous "dead fake teacher" is just a sophisticated trolling It seems to be some form of schizophrenia based megalomania...

then why to continue to play fool? If you teach then provide an info about it, so people know what to avoid.

really. All teachers, who became masters by studying scriptures under the guidance of their teachers, say that and don't make stupid mistakes in translations, as some self proclaimed "alive teachers" do here: http://thedaobums.com/topic/38856-riding-the-phoenix-to-penglai/page-6#entry640502

"In west Philadelphia born and raised On the playground was where I spent most of my days" It's all clear, no ques bro, it really has something in common with your translation, but it seems Master Lu meant other things to say... 四(four)字(character)凝(4 "congeal")神(3 spirit)入气(1 qi)穴("lair" 2)； Do you really think that 入 is not a character? Or maybe you think the author couldn't properly count? How come you translate 5 characters as 4 words, skipping one of them (important one by the way)? Any why you cannot translate 气穴 anyhow else? "Lair" is very poetic, but has no practical sense, that you insist you know. Simple question: what enters what (and when)?

who did you pay, Great Master Hobo? You're so knowledgeable about frauds, trolls, clones, robbers, "spiritual business" and other money-related things that I cannot avoid strange conclusions...

other guy can just recommend you to read more carefully. All disrespect Taoist Texts has shown here for the last year to the Daoist teaching and teachers is returning to him. He knows it. You don't. Everything else are just kids emotions. It's sweet you have them but the real price for such beloved blindness is too high.... But sorry to distract you from your fantasy world of interaction with Hobo Thanks god I'm not hobo...

it's just a quantum reflection of your internal world

Just as a side note: Taoist Yoga is an incomplete translation of writings made by a person who got no alchemical results. But if you don't care about "who teaches you" then for sure it's not very important

Well, a year ago I've asked Taoist Texts to tell us his sad story, why he hates Daoists so much and Neidan in particular. After a year he got a courage to tell. The usual Taobum's story: right intention in the beginning, bad fate - learning from a charlatan, getting nothing and became frustrated , nihilistic and sarcastic. Now the only option for such people is to praise Taoist Yoga and learn from video and books... But in the world there are teachers, who really know Neidan, and they glad to share their knowledge even with foreigners. Why? Because they have De and they see clearly what has to be done to help people. Only blind people can say that Neidan masters focus only on their own practice. In reality it's impossible to achieve even the first level without De. So teachers have their strong reasons to teach right students. For those who don't care about the crowd's opinions, who are able to find a good teacher, practice, get De, for them all things like "taming red dragons" and "mao-you" become clear when it's time to practically know such things. The Dao is straight and simple, but books are just hints where to look for a teacher and how to understand the teacher's teaching. Learning Dao without teacher leads to nowhere. Leading others to nowhere stops your practice (because of De damage). Your victims won't be able to learn the Dao after your "advises" and "experiences". It's not just spooky words: we see such stories very often.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zhang_Boduan.jpg It's the definitive answer to all Innersound's rhetoric questions and shallow quotes. Thanks for quoting Damo: Not even funny. Some modern mix from TCM and qigong books...

it's hard to recommend Liu Yiming, as well as Cleary... They lead people in a wrong direction. If you want to study Yijing, read Yijing's texts and commentaries from Daozang. You can start with Wei Boyang to get insights how Yijing is used in Neidan, but it's not an easy reading... Speaking about origins, your intuition is quite good, and the only way to get through the early history of Daoism is about practice and getting some specific skills. In Neidan schools such methods still exist, that's why masters can be sure about the unbroken history of teaching. And they often name the teaching as Huang Lao Xue: The teaching of Yellow Emperor and Lao Zi. Because these are 2 key figures of the early history. I can only recommend to follow their advise and research more about Huangdi.

1) very respectable scholar, did he practice any alchemy? No. 2) he is honest and mentions many times that nothing can be said for sure just based on textual researches. 3) he mixes various random quotes, from various schools. Their "weight" from a practical point is very different, and they use the same terms in absolutely different contexts. For the initiated in the Tradition it's all clear, but for scholars it creates confusions they cannot overcome. So far nothing interesting and "fantastic". Usual problem in the daology: how to connect Huang Di, Lao Zi, and Neidan. They don't understand the tradition, they don't understand even that Dao De Jing is an answer, because EVERYTHING Neidan uses is there. Other texts they don't even try to touch...

Now anybody can open Neidan books, and find "Dao, the cosmos, the gods, the humanity, the alchemist and as a distant last - the recipe", so there is absolutely no difference between Neidan and Alchemy. Damn, major texts in Neidan literature are about what is Dao and how it manifests in cosmos, but this point was totally missed. So basically, returning to the beginning, we see that what Taoist Texts defined as an "alchemy" is the same as Neidan. It's not surprising, because there is nothing else.

it seems you missed the target of your message.... Trolling is not here. My question is just a question. I also may protect what I think is good and right against lies and accusations, even if they are made in a separate topic. The point was "neidan fascist schools don't work, because they were created by seminars makers". As an argument we got the same, absolutely the same explanation of "alchemy" as in major Neidan books. So basically Taoist Texts is promoting and explaining what he hates: Neidan = Alchemy = Internal Alchemy = Dao. Which is funny, of course, but it's not trolling, it's just a highlighting of mistakes. But I'm a bit confused why my question is considered as trolling, while Taoist Texts or Innersoundqigong's remarks about "greedy daoists" are not trolling... see, again: "So the co-founders of the Neidan school apparently just made all this stuff up." Dawei, I really want to hear your opinion. What's that?

^shrug^ That's all? Now anybody can open Neidan books, and find "Dao, the cosmos, the gods, the humanity, the alchemist and as a distant last - the recipe", so there is absolutely no difference between Neidan and Alchemy. Damn, major texts in Neidan literature are about what is Dao and how it manifests in cosmos, but some confused individuals somehow missed that... TT, have you read any Neidan text from start to finish?

He cannot, you're destroying the basis of his system of beliefs.... He takes one text, which has zero importance for anybody else except the "respected scholar", and voila, a new theory of waidan after neidan is made.... It's impossible to criticize Neidan based on randomly selected quotes, without even basic understanding on what is Dan. So far we see just a collection of mistakes.

just simply wrong

Generic usage is useful only if we can highlight the common principles between different schools. My teacher has done this work (based on his knowledge of texts and practices in various schools), so behind all differences in the terminology and practices, we can say that there is one common principle. And it is the same not only for the single cultivation, but also for the external alchemy and pair cultivation. That's why in texts we see Great Dao, Dan Dao, "3 teachings are one" - ancient masters understood it very well.

At some point in time, people have changed and stopped understanding ancient explanations, like Dao De Jing. So masters have started to use the alchemy terminology to explain things in a more clear way, according to people's change. Then Chan became more popular and again, for mere people masters have started to use Buddhist terminology. At the modern time, in the West, very often we need to explain things using Christian terminology. It's a part of the culture ("wen") inside a person. Same as the language. That's why some people are so confused and cannot get though the Daoist terminology. It covers a few thousand years, many teachers, schools, approaches to explain and teach. Moreover, modern Western approach is very secular, our alphabet, language, logic etc are not really good to learn sacred things..

It's redundant only for those who don't know about 3 ways to create the elixir. For you Neidan is an object, for Chinese people Neidan is a short form of Neidan Shu, The Art of the Internal Alchemy. There is also Daoshu or Xianshu. Meaning is the same. And there are dozens of other names... There are "schools of Neidan", "corpora of Neidan literature" and "Neidan followers" as well as "practitioners". But for TT they are all wrong... Why? Just because he can Basically, nothing changes: without practice you cannot get elixir ready, whatever fancy name you use, or do you name it "object" or "process". Dao - is it a process or object? Maybe even subject? Or an ultimate goal? Or Qi, is it an object of Neidan or subject? Western binary logic can't answer that. There is also no answer in the wikipedia... So what is the method "fascist neidan schools" and "greedy daoists" haven't informed you about, TT?

Dao is more then enough, but the practical Dao schools uses Neidan semantics a lot. Like 内丹术 金丹 (internal alchemy art of the golden elixir) as a common name of a school. The metaphors like "remedy", "cinnabar" can help to explain some subtle things. Same as "alchemy" as a process of "refinement". So Chinese masters don't avoid it, so what's a point to avoid and invent English explanations? All explanations really depend on the level of the person who explains... Even Dao as a term has a lot of different sides. So I prefer to use Neidan and Dao. They connect people to the root, to the tradition.