Cutting the root of the spirit?

[Thunder_Gooch]

Has anyone here heard of a practice called cutting the root of the spirit?

 

or anything like that?

[youzifive]

Where did you hear that?

 

Has anyone here heard of a practice called cutting the root of the spirit?

 

or anything like that?

[Thunder_Gooch]

wang liping told me i needed to cut the root of my spirit to stop rebirth.

[Creation]

wang liping told me i needed to cut the root of my spirit to stop rebirth.

Perhaps this could be of some use to you:

 

B.K. Frantzis describes an experience in his book Relaxing into Your Being where he basically got to the core of his being and fully experienced pure consciousness, and consequently completely understood that all the content of his consciousness (emotional, mental, psychic, karmic, whatever) was not who he really was. When he saw his teacher (the Immortal Liu Hung Chieh) the next time, before he even said anything, Liu asked him to describe what was different about him. Frantzis described what had happened, and Liu told him that he had seen the root of his mind, and in so doing he had cut the root of the mind. Now, this conversation occurred in Chinese, and so I think given the context, it is likely that Frantzis was translating Shen to mind, so another translation could have been he cut the root of his spirit.

 

Frantzis says something about this stage of meditative realization in The Great Stillness (the sequel to Relaxing into Your Being, the great stillness being the term he uses for the meditative state presently under consideration) that he doesn't really explain: that it allows the adept to reincarnate intact. He also says that it is not the end of the journey, but that it is like becoming one with yourself (instead of being fragmented, this is related to "reincarnating intact"), and the next step is to become one with the Tao.

 

I don't really understand it (how could I?)...but I would recommend checking out both books.

[Unconditioned]

Has anyone here heard of a practice called cutting the root of the spirit?

 

or anything like that?

 

While your teacher is pointing in the right direction, it seems so obscure that it leaves you guessing - "how"? It's our natural inclination, we're conditioned to want to do something about the 'problem', we want to take action right away.

 

Working in business, I've learned that in order to solve a problem you have to understand it first. If you can start to understand what your teacher is telling you, you'll find the answer with little or no practice. The statement reminds me of "Who am I?" by Ramana Maharishi.

 

Now all that said, my 'practice' has had little to do with physical practices but more of a "what is this stuff?" science type approach.

 

Best of luck!

[Thunder_Gooch]

My last Q&A with master Wang I asked what "cutting the root of the spirit" meant, and how to accomplish it. This was my reply:

 

Master Wang's answer: 1. There is a very special method to stop the

rebirth. Cutting off the "spirit/soul root" is one way. 2. There 3 types

of energy --- universal energy, rebirth energy, yourself body energy.

Taoist practicing training is to train with these 3 energies, if they

train successfully, the rebirth will be stopped.

 

I still am not clear on what cutting the root of the spirit means exactly, or what implications it has, or how to accomplish it.

 

It sounds like it is a method to literally kill the soul itself and cease to exist eternally, or least that is what I get out of it.

[Gerard]

It's a Daoist metaphor, like so many others. It means leaving the body at will during meditation practice in order to energise the Yang aspect of the original mind (Heaven-Yang-Celestial, primordial mind, original spirit) rather than the worldy mind (Yin-Earth, worldy spirit, body-mind-me when I look at myself on a mirror). To attain this you must practice in a retreat environment away from mundane problems, ritual thinking and society.

[Otis]

wang liping told me i needed to cut the root of my spirit to stop rebirth.

I'm still wondering why you want to stop rebirth! You have mentioned wanting to "escape this rat race". But if you're seeking freedom, I don't think that you'll find it in the same direction as "escape".

 

IME, freedom comes from 1. taking full responsibility for my experience of the world, which leads to 2. loving the world thoroughly. Any attempts to be elsewhere than I am, puts me deeper into the very trap that I seek liberation from. The only thing that needs to be escaped from, is my need to deny or avoid how things are.

Edited March 16, 2011 by Otis

[gendao]

B.K. Frantzis describes an experience in his book Relaxing into Your Being where he basically got to the core of his being and fully experienced pure consciousness, and consequently completely understood that all the content of his consciousness (emotional, mental, psychic, karmic, whatever) was not who he really was. When he saw his teacher (the Immortal Liu Hung Chieh) the next time, before he even said anything, Liu asked him to describe what was different about him. Frantzis described what had happened, and Liu told him that he had seen the root of his mind, and in so doing he had cut the root of the mind. Now, this conversation occurred in Chinese, and so I think given the context, it is likely that Frantzis was translating Shen to mind, so another translation could have been he cut the root of his spirit.

Cool story.

 

But "shen" translates to spirit and "xin" to mind/heart. So, I doubt BKF would have translated "xin" to spirit.

[Ken]

No.2 means completing and attaining the highest level possible in inner alchemy training, a.k.a becoming a fully realized Spiritual Immortal (神仙）, Master Wang had said as much in an off-hand comment during a seminar last year.

 

I have never heard of no. 1 though and without his verbatim answer in Chinese, it's impossible to even guess at what it mean. However, you are talking about going against reincarnation, the grandest flow of the universe, which only a full Spiritual Immortal can stop, so even if "cutting off spirit/soul root" is a practice, it won't be easier to achieve than becoming a full-blown realized immortal. I am more inclined to think that it is a task that can be done by a spiritual immortal or some similar being.

 

Of course these are only speculations and for everyone on this forum, that's the only thing we can do because we are only mortals and these concept are beyond our understanding. I will suggest that if you get a chance to ask Master Wang again, either through an online Q&A or a class, ask him again but be more specific, like asking him "Is cutting off the root of the spirit a practice that one can do? Or is it a task that have to be performed on you by others?".

 

 

Master Wang's answer: 1. There is a very special method to stop the

rebirth. Cutting off the "spirit/soul root" is one way. 2. There 3 types

of energy --- universal energy, rebirth energy, yourself body energy.

Taoist practicing training is to train with these 3 energies, if they

train successfully, the rebirth will be stopped.

Edited March 16, 2011 by Ken

[Creation]

Cool story.

 

But "shen" translates to spirit and "xin" to mind/heart. So, I doubt BKF would have translated "xin" to spirit.

Hi vortex.

 

Ahh, being called to task for posting things outside me ken. I try not to do that anymore, but since the cat is already out of the bag...

 

Unfortunately, not only do we not know the Chinese terms used, even if we did they are technical terms, so if you don't get the lingo you might not see the connection. I have reason to believe from Frantzis' writings that a certain technical sense of xin and a certain technical sense of of shen, as well as a sense of the Buddhist technical term bodhicitta, refer to the same thing, namely a person's innermost core, from which all manifestation arises. These three terms have several different meanings depending on context. I recall posting several times on this in the past.

 

This is mostly speculation on my part, so of course take it as such (not that you need me to tell you that...), but really, it seems very unlikely to me that there is a cutting the root of the mind and a cutting the root of the spirit, both of which are a major culmination of cultivation and have implications for reincarnation, yet are completely different things.

Edited March 16, 2011 by Creation

[Thunder_Gooch]

Perhaps it is. I was atheist for most of my life, until I had an experience which proved to me beyond any reasonable doubt, there are things we don't yet understand.

 

When I was atheist, I just wanted to be intellectually stimulated, live a good life and be a good person, and die and remain dead for the rest of eternity.

 

Now I am not so sure that is what happens after death, after my experience I am more inclined to believe in rebirth, and that thought is horrific to me. The thought of an endless succession of lives, after each life ends you lose your memories and identity of the previous life and begin again as a child. That sounds like hell to me, and something I want to prevent at all costs.

 

Losing my memories, identity, personality and my awareness starting again as a child somewhere at sometime again in the universe as something else.

 

I'd rather my awareness just end in a sea of eternal nonexistence then being erased and starting new as someone or something else.

 

If there really is an eternal cycle of rebirth, I want it to end this in lifetime by any means necessary.

 

That's just how I feel, I am ready to get off the merry-go-round.

 

 

I'm still wondering why you want to stop rebirth! You have mentioned wanting to "escape this rat race". But if you're seeking freedom, I don't think that you'll find it in the same direction as "escape".

 

IME, freedom comes from 1. taking full responsibility for my experience of the world, which leads to 2. loving the world thoroughly. Any attempts to be elsewhere than I am, puts me deeper into the very trap that I seek liberation from. The only thing that needs to be escaped from, is my need to deny or avoid how things are.

[manitou]

These words by your teacher sound like they are words that will fall into place for you, within your specific context, at the right time. I'll bet you'll have a Eureka! moment on those words down the road. You'll know exactly what he was talking about as it pertains to you individually. If he is a master he can see into your soul.

[Otis]

Now I am not so sure that is what happens after death, after my experience I am more inclined to believe in rebirth, and that thought is horrific to me. The thought of an endless succession of lives, after each life ends you lose your memories and identity of the previous life and begin again as a child. That sounds like hell to me, and something I want to prevent at all costs.

 

Losing my memories, identity, personality and my awareness starting again as a child somewhere at sometime again in the universe as something else.

 

I'd rather my awareness just end in a sea of eternal nonexistence then being erased and starting new as someone or something else.

 

If there really is an eternal cycle of rebirth, I want it to end this in lifetime by any means necessary.

 

That's just how I feel, I am ready to get off the merry-go-round.

I still don't understand.

 

Personally, I don't know why anyone would believe in reincarnation, since it seems like such a wild and baseless speculation.

 

But even if it is the case, I fail to see why it "sounds like hell" to you. What's wrong with it?

 

Either way, don't you think that liberation comes from really becoming one with this life, right now, rather than worrying about the next life, or trying to "get off the merry-go-round"?

[Sloppy Zhang]

I still don't understand.

 

Personally, I don't know why anyone would believe in reincarnation, since it seems like such a wild and baseless speculation.

 

But even if it is the case, I fail to see why it "sounds like hell" to you. What's wrong with it?

 

Either way, don't you think that liberation comes from really becoming one with this life, right now, rather than worrying about the next life, or trying to "get off the merry-go-round"?

 

Well for me I don't know so much about reincarnation, but I have realized how cyclic things are. How you repeat the things that are done to you onto others, how they repeat onto you. Even a cursory glance at history will reveal many of the same things, the same struggles, being fought over and over and over again. Each time they say, "this is done, we have learned our lesson", yet each time we repeat the same actions (whether they lead to good or bad, happiness or not).

 

Even if you just look at it on the scale of one life, there's a lot of stuff you'd want to liberate yourself from.

[Thunder_Gooch]

I wouldn't expect you to understand, most wouldn't.

 

I still don't understand.

 

Personally, I don't know why anyone would believe in reincarnation, since it seems like such a wild and baseless speculation.

 

But even if it is the case, I fail to see why it "sounds like hell" to you. What's wrong with it?

 

Either way, don't you think that liberation comes from really becoming one with this life, right now, rather than worrying about the next life, or trying to "get off the merry-go-round"?

[manitou]

 

 

Personally, I don't know why anyone would believe in reincarnation, since it seems like such a wild and baseless speculation.

 

 

I'm never sure where I come in on the reincarnation thing, but one thing did occur to me not too long ago. Reincarnation, especially within family DNA lines, would be an excellent way for the Intelligence to increase the base understanding that the embryo comes into the world with. Babies today are born with a greater core knowledge (I'm sure there's a better term for this) than, say, 1000 years ago. I would think that reincarnating within DNA lines would be a very efficient way for nature to do this, as opposed to a haphazard jumping around. Why not stay with the structure already in place?

[Sloppy Zhang]

I'm never sure where I come in on the reincarnation thing, but one thing did occur to me not too long ago. Reincarnation, especially within family DNA lines, would be an excellent way for the Intelligence to increase the base understanding that the embryo comes into the world with. Babies today are born with a greater core knowledge (I'm sure there's a better term for this) than, say, 1000 years ago. I would think that reincarnating within DNA lines would be a very efficient way for nature to do this, as opposed to a haphazard jumping around. Why not stay with the structure already in place?

 

I've heard some people say that, for the most part, people do reincarnate like that. They carry over the karma of their deeds, their family deeds, the deeds of their nationality, religion, race, global region, etc etc. For the most part. If you believe in that stuff.

[Birch]

I've been pondering on this one. I'm at a point where I consider that multiple forces are acting on a person long before and after their conception, throughout their gestation, and at (and of course after) birth, within and without. I'm using the term "lineage" but it implies a "progression" where there isn't necessarily one. I've preferred "tendency towards resolution/completion" in the past.

 

Lots of interesting books have been written about the various "forces" but they all (unfortunately) tend to single themselves out as the "most" influential - another casualty of dualistic (as opposed to systems-based) thinking, IMO. For example.

 

Genetic lineage

Social/cultural/familial lineage

Environmental lineage

"Spritual" (as in the "unseen" "immaterial" as opposed to "woo-woo") lineage

 

The other error I've seen made is attributing any (or all) of the above to one's own "small i" agency. IMO "New Age" does this far too much - including the idea that one "chooses" to incarnate into a specific set of circumstances. Although this "could" be true at the macrocosmic level (and I'd have assume it is, at this point...simply because I'm here and conscious of the fact) I don't believe it to be true at the "micro-cosmic" level which is where most religions seem to insist that (re)incarnation happens.

 

Rambling as usual...

[hyok]

I'm pretty sure we don't lose our memories at all. They become a part of us like all the memories from our past lives if we have any. We forget temporarily cuz of these amnesiac blocks that keep us from remembering between carnation. It's the only way we learn and develop.

 

Regarding the OP, I'm thinking The Wanger meant cutting off the connection between our spirit and the Earth. Perhaps attachments, too? Dunno.

[manitou]

"Spritual" (as in the "unseen" "immaterial" as opposed to "woo-woo") lineage

 

 

 

What do you want to bet the true answers are in the woo-woo lineage?

[Birch]

What do you want to bet the true answers are in the woo-woo lineage?

 

I don't think I need to bet :-)

 

My remark wasn't made to disparage non-material answers. In fact much of what I was citing as "forces" are wholly non-material, despite what people would probably consider to be "material" results of their expression. (I still think this is funny, but I digress:-))

 

Does that make any of them "spiritual"? Most certainly, for some people :-) Not at all for others, in-between for still others? :-)

 

In fact I think that considering some of the forces as active agents with their own paths and relationships to each other and to humans is probably the best way to get any kind of practical understanding of them. There's been some research done that shows that people who can't understand complex math equations very much CAN understand them when the math is translated into human relationship stories. Think of Taoist 5E medical systems, creative and destructive cycles...

 

If I have time to go dig up the research I'l post.

[Dagon]

I think he means coaxing Kundalini through the Ida.

Edited March 18, 2011 by Dagon