Search the Community

Xing gong (' 性功') , efforts and ways to attaining our true spiritual nature , is a unique Taoist alchemical term that people seldom find it in other disciplines or religions .Because it involves things like no-mind and primordial qi , it always gives people an impression of being unreal , something too abstract to grasp. This is especially true when Xing gong is compared with Ming gong ('命功') , ways that teach us those physical steps , styles and postures of how to practice , how to cure disease..etc. To many people, Xing gong is something beyond their reach , maybe even something useless. In fact, Taoist Xing gong, to me , has the following implications : 1) While Ming gong , in alchemical context, is forbidden to elaborate , talking about Taoist Xing gong is said to be harmless even if we go into detail ; there is no worry of any misfortune or spell cast on us from the Heaven. 2) Different from Ming gong's reliance on what our sifu or teacher told us beforehand , Xing gong requests us to understand those things we experience at varied stages of our practice on our own, as an old saying tells us: "性由自悟, 命假師傳" ( " While Xing gong is self-enlightened, Ming gong ,especially those alchemy related, likely come from your sifu." ) 3) The success of Xing gong is always said to be a natural outcome of the accumulation of our jing and qi , no more should be added. Taoist alchemy practitioners therefore can put less effort , or no effort , into the final stage of attaining Shen as what the 《 Huang Ting Jing》has told them : '仙人道士非有神, 積精累氣以成真' ( ' The immortals are people of no divinity ,the secret of their accomplishment is just a result of having enough jing and qi accumulated ' ) On the other hand, without the help from jing and qi, the Buddhist followers likely find themselves situated in a less favorable situation for achieving what they expect , regardless of the fact that their masters speak of spirit-related stuff in ways usually better than the Taoists' . 4) There is , in fact , an argument about whether we should explore Xing gong first , or we should dive into Ming gong first . Although Xing gong is frightening and most people avoid entering it ,there are unexpected rewards of doing it first : - Whenever we get breakthrough in Xing gong , we leap forward much faster than people who follow the do-Ming gong-first way. It , therefore , can be viewed as some kind of shortcut for our cultivation. - The deeper we understand the Xing aspect of our practice , the less we will be liable to committing mistakes in Ming gong ( ie, there will be less physical troubles arising ) or the stronger we will become in evading those physical or spiritual pitfalls. -( This one likely can only be understood by the TCM students) Generally speaking, when people get a cold, they are not suggested to drink Ginseng soup because if they nourish their sick bodies at that moment , they will also enhance the external evils ,pushing them deep inside , and aggravate their illness ; it is only after having the cold/disease ousted from their bodies , should they start drinking nutritious things . Similarly , without having our Xing uplifted first, the more jing and qi we accumulate , the worse physical and spiritual troubles we will come across..