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Seeking some feedback on the following. Please feel free to post your thoughts/comments (please be concise and to the point if possible. If you write a 1000+ word essay, it makes my eyes glaze over and avoid reading it. ) -- Xing is "Original nature or True Nature", and lies in the domain of consciousness. Its root is the spiritual heart/MDT. Ming is the" Life force or Qi", and lies in the domain of energy, and its root is the Lower Dan tien. Practices like Qigong work on Ming. Xing needs more intricate (and simpler) forms of meditation wherein emphasis is not on cultivation and "adding to" (jing, qi and Shen) and/or "transformation" (Jing to Qi, Qi to Shen), but rather of letting go and reduction/elimination (of artificial mental concepts, preconceptions and even subject-object interactions, aka Shen to Emptiness). Ming requires/implies "you wei" or doing, while Xing requires "wu wei" or not-doing. But the two are not mutually exclusive, but rather parts of a continuum. Without proper cultivation of Ming, Xing cannot be realized(?). We have to go from doing to not-doing, effort to effortlessness. All it takes is patience, sincerity and clarity of mind.

Fabrizio Pregadio has revised and expanded his article "The Way of the Golden Elixir: An Introduction to Taoist Alchemy." It's a 72 page long historical overview of neidan. It's nicely formatted and pretty to look at and free. Here's the link: http://www.goldenelixir.com/files/The_Way_of_the_Golden_Elixir.pdf Merry Christmas!

I just noticed a new member to the Tao Bums. He posts as Dr_D, here is from his profile page: http://thetaobums.com/user/109824-dr-d/ Though I have often posted on Sifu Jerry Alan Johnson and defended him and his work in my posts here, I am not one of his students, nor do I know any personally, but I have done so because I believed based on his work that he deserved both respect and recognition. We are lucky on the Tao Bums to have Dr_D here now to be a more official representative and personally, I am happy that I won't have to post nice things about Sifu Johnson anymore, not that I intend to start posting bad ones. Please be sure to encourage Dr_D to be active here and give us lots of the inside scoop on the High Mysteries of Daoist Magic and Alchemy.