Recovering yuan qi

[Apech]

 

So it's not a yin state that indicates death. It's a state of running out of yin. The way you run out of yin is via transformation of yin into yang (tao's business as usual), jing into shen. Death would have been a yin state if we only believed in the physical body as the beginning and end of life. Then indeed a dead body would be as yin an outcome as it gets. But the body is not the whole story. The spirit, Shen! -- that flies up and away, no? That persists and perseveres after death, or else what are we talking about, right?

 

 

 

 

Yes, so life is the inter-function of yin and yang, while death is separation. (?)

[Taomeow]

" Xian Tian " ? Do you refer to " Xia Tian " (下田),the lower dantian?

 

No, to Xian Tian, Earlier Heaven, tao-in-stillness, wuji, Hetu, the unmanifest state, prenatal state. As opposed to Hou Tian, tao-in-motion, taiji, Luoshu, the manifest state, postnatal state.

 

By the way, the Taoist bedchamber arts should not mix with Taoist Dual Cultivation.

 

What do you mean?

[Taomeow]

Yes, so life is the inter-function of yin and yang, while death is separation. (?)

 

Exactly!

[exorcist_1699]

No, to Xian Tian, Earlier Heaven, tao-in-stillness, wuji, Hetu, the unmanifest state, prenatal state. As opposed to Hou Tian, tao-in-motion, taiji, Luoshu, the manifest state, postnatal state.

 

 

 

What do you mean?

 

One is for a healthy way of sex, one is for immortality..

[The Way Is Virtue]

Do you know of any other approaches and what happens once yuanqi is recovered?

 

Here is another source of info on this from the Jade Emporer's Mind Seal Classic (Stuart Alve Olson translation):

"When distant winds blend together,

in one hundred days of spiritual work

And morning recitation to the Shang Ti,

Then in one year you will soar as an immortal."

Edited October 6, 2010 by The Way Is Virtue

[Taomeow]

One is for a healthy way of sex, one is for immortality..

 

Oh, I see what you mean. Do you think they are different practices though? The goals may be different -- some people use taijiquan for health, but it's just an aspect of use -- it can be a health routine, a MA, a meditation, an immortality practice, or even the practice engaged in by the immortals. Ditto healthy sex.

 

Bedchamber arts are similar -- what you make of them can be Dual Cultivation for immortality, or meditation, or a MA (sic), or a health routine.

 

There's a taoist story of a young woman who served wine and food at a roadside tavern somewhere remote, and one day an inconspicuous, "plainclothes" old man who spent the night there left behind a book before proceeding on his way into the mountains. She opened the book and discovered it was a manual on the bedchamber arts of taoism. She studied it and started using it -- she would serve a customer some wine, strike up a conversation, and then take him to her bed and practice. Fast forward sixty years. The same old man comes from the mountains and sees the woman, recognizing her at first glance because, well, she hadn't changed at all -- she still looks 18, so he immediately realized what happened. He burst out laughing. When he was done laughing, he told her, "So you have wings now... but without a teacher, even if you have wings, how can you learn to fly?.." He took her by the hand and off to the mountains they went.

 

So I think the difference is just this -- you can get more than just health out of the bedchamber arts, but you get Dual Cultivation if you have TWO taoists engaged in the practice of the bedchamber arts.

[宁]

Thanks so much for sharing.

 

..remember..

 

Edited October 4, 2010 by Little1

[宁]

What kind of Qi we get/ experience is related to what kind of mental state we have .

 

If we can't get some kind of Awakening, then the qi we get anyhow is low quality; and, what prevent us from entering a much higher state of Mind are mainly 2 factors:

 

1) Our daily , fluctuating reasoning and feelings..

 

2) Our ordinary, but fluctuating way of breathing

 

So, only after the above-mentioned two are stopped, can the pre-heavenly way of breathing arise and then the Yuan Qi comes..

 

Thanks!!

[hagar]

H,

 

I didn't mean for my comments to come across as "criticism,"

and I don't necessarily have more theoretical knowledge, I merely have a different kind of knowledge, and a different understanding. What I was trying to convey is that there's a difference between a concept you hold because someone says so, and one you arrive at because it makes sense within the overall paradigm of taoist sciences. Many teachers (who are no teachers of mine though) will equate yin with all kinds of "impure" states, but it simply doesn't compute if you go to the taoist fundamentals. It computes as an ideology that serves certain interests, but it does not compute as a taoist science. I believe I've learned to separate the former from the latter, at least to an extent... I was trying to share some of my methods and sources for doing this, that's basically the gist of it.

 

I was defining your reply as "criticism" in the most academic sense. =)

 

I think this thread reveals how difficult it is to separate conceptual interpretation of ideas inherited from Daoist lore, what some teachers describe or mean, and what is our actual lived experience. And then there's the impenetrable allegory and metaphor of the texts of Internal alchemy. Its probably going to be very confusing. And when guesswork is thrown into the equation... Need I say more.

 

 

First off, I completely agree that many notions of the "concept" of yin connotes to equalling the feminine as "negative", correlating to death, disease and impure. This is a fallacy, and I second your attempt to highlight the notion of Yin as the birthplace of Yang. Where else is the mysterious Female hinted to in so many ways as in many Nei Dan classics, such as "Understanding Reality".

 

Secondly, my own use of the term yin and yang in my own practice of Nei Dan is pragmatic, and relates to the alchemical transformation process of returning the Shen back to the body. Further, the restoration implies the increase of the Pure Yang. This is the true life energy. It is NOT the same as Essence, which denotes to our True nature, or awareness, or spirit or Buddha nature etc. The Pure yang energy is what we are filled with at birth, yet in a latent state. This can be experienced. It is felt as a burning hot bright light.

 

Our true "treasures"; fire, water and light (jing chi shen) are manifesting this pure yang. This is as far as its meaningful to write or speak about it. The true original primal chaos is often called the true or pure Yin, and has nothing to do with the yin that is expelled in Nei Dan. The yin that worked out in the alchemical process is also useful. It is transformed into medicine by its fusion into the alchemical "pill" that is cultivated and cirulated. This Dan is felt as it produces a vast space in the inner body. Suddenly any impure states or energy has so much space around it that it no longer makes the body chaotic.

 

The light that is fused with the essence of the physical body creates the Dan. It manifests as hot, burning, or magnetic and pulsing. Even deeper it is experienced as sparks that join each other. Sometimes when I see pictures of the birthing of stars by the Hubble telescope, I get a feeling of what its like on a cosmic scale.

 

I dont know if this made any sense.

 

h

[Mal]

I'm not sure I should say anything about this.

But it would only be fair, as I learned alot here myself.

At first, when it happened to me my intention played only a small part. Then I learned what are the conditions that make it possible. The girl I was with was flabbergasted, as was I. Really expands the notion of sexuality to a much deeper level... She also commented alot on the experience.

 

Thanks for sharing. I've also done this with my partner. It was just seated meditation, facing each other. I would have though I was just having a particually vivid fantasy if it wasn't for D feeling the same sensations. And she likes to say "I'm not into all your hippy $hit" doesn't just play along to be "nice" and didn't know what I was doing anyhow

 

I'll tell you this: you are familiar with the practice that I am pretty sure allowed for this to happen in the first place - Tree Qigong. Those so called 'silly movements in front of a tree', can be done in various ways. If you have knowledge, you can put what you know in what you do, and expand it... this way, you can open communication routes non-linear-ly.

 

I was just running orbits through/around/within/between each other.

[三江源]

Hagar!

 

 

Many Big Hug, dude.

[Taomeow]

..remember..

 

 

Definitely that post was infused with something. Even what's left of it still is.

 

Tree qigong did it?.. Sheesh, I've been neglecting it... I had a rather barren year practice-wise all around, ODed on universe-shattering experiences the year before and all of a sudden turned into the proverbial donkey starving between two -- in my case, three -- stacks of hay. Getting back on track though...

[Taomeow]

Secondly, my own use of the term yin and yang in my own practice of Nei Dan is pragmatic, and relates to the alchemical transformation process of returning the Shen back to the body. Further, the restoration implies the increase of the Pure Yang. This is the true life energy. It is NOT the same as Essence, which denotes to our True nature, or awareness, or spirit or Buddha nature etc. The Pure yang energy is what we are filled with at birth, yet in a latent state. This can be experienced. It is felt as a burning hot bright light.

 

I think "pure yang energy in a latent state" has a traditional name... it is called "yin."

 

As for what can be experienced... I guess it depends on who is experiencing. I discovered dantien breathing accidentally in my early teens, no information, just a spontaneous find... and shortly thereafter I fell in love, and the guy was throwing a party at his place, so I came and he opened the door and all of a sudden an abyss of infinite darkness opened right where what I was to learn years later my "lower dantien" is, and from the periphery of my bodymind everything started falling into that abyss at a speed of light. That's the best I can put it. "Burning hot bright light" has its yin soulmate, and the latter has all the characteristics of space and none of energy. "Burning" refers to energy, there was no burning, there was churning -- of space within -- of the nature and intensity that twists galaxies into spirals. "Hot" refers to energy, there was no energy, there was a helpless collapse into infinity with nothing energy-wise to stop it. "Bright light" refers to energy, there was no brightness, there was the darkest mystery, darkest of dark, mystery of mysteries. Energy has its counterpart -- space. You fall into that space, or rather you turn into that space, energy and all, everything collapses into dark infinity churning galaxies on its way in and out of existence.

 

At least that's what I felt.

 

 

I dont know if this made any sense.

 

h

 

Me neither.

[Taomeow]

:o

 

 

You too?

[宁]

Some things are only to remember.

Memory seems to play an important part in this universe.

[exorcist_1699]

I think the yin/yang theory is a system involved many levels of two split ,counteracting forces ; Man is said to be yang does not mean that there is no yin element in his body; woman is said to be yin does not imply that all in her body is yin , otherwise ,she is already a dead body soon after her birth. For example, although woman is said to be yin , on a lower level , talking about her body, head on top is said to be yang and abdomen as yin ; and, back as yang , side and front part of her body as yin ( for tough readers, please read Huangdi Nei Jing "黃帝內經" for more details )

 

Anyway, the Pure Yang, or sometimes referred to as the yang-typed of Jing(陽精) ,is the crucial life force of both sex ; it helps us growing to adolescence, then it retreats and deeply hides somewhere inside us (This process is described by the I-Ching. By the way, the identification of this yang-jing and the way of finding it out is the main contribution of Taoism to human beings ). From Taoist point of view, this Pure Yang can also be said to be the Buddha Heart for Shen and Qi, in fact, are only two faces of the same entity . In Buddhist theory , the Buddhist Heart is repeatedly described as a moon being covered by thick clouds, or the huge ,soundless block under a rough sea,which is seldom seen by ordinary people .

 

A Buddhist saying :"海枯可見底 ,人死不知心" (There will be one day even a big sea dried to be seen its bottom; there seems no possibility that a man can understand his Buddha Heart )tells us the truth . Most people think that they are always acting on their own will, which unfortunately is illusory; they are, in fact, just puppets manipulated by this hidden force, and sadly being driven towards death. The Taoist saying :"人情濃厚道情微 ,道用人情世罕知" talks about the same thing but having meaning much deeper.

Edited October 14, 2010 by exorcist_1699

[hagar]

ed

Edited October 6, 2010 by hagar

[hagar]

ed

Edited October 6, 2010 by hagar

[The Way Is Virtue]

...

Anyway, the Pure Yang, or sometimes referred to as the yang-typed of Jing(陽精) ,is the crucial life force of both sex ; it helps us growing to adolescence, then it retreats and deeply hides somewhere inside us (This process is described by the I-Ching. By the way, the identification of this yang-jing and the way of finding it out is the main contribution of Taoism to human beings ). From Taoist point of view, this Pure Yang can also be said to be the Buddha Heart for Shen and Qi, in fact, are only two faces of the same entity . In Buddhist theory , the Buddhist Heart is repeatedly described as a moon being covered by thick clouds, or the huge ,soundless block under a rough sea,which is seldom seen by ordinary people .

...

 

Very interesting info. Thank you.

[Taomeow]

ed

 

too late, I saw it, and I remember.

 

It was pretty cool.

 

The benefits -- more fluid moistening the joints and bones etc. -- are a classic Increase Yin scenario, textbook. Since you described bright light and heat conductive to these beneficial changes, apparently you succeeded in gathering yang and transforming it into "true yin," aka yuan qi, aka jing, aka "returning shen to the body." Which is exactly what you want to do regardless of the terminology and ideology.

 

It's just my personal thing to try to match actual reality events to taoist terminology used in the classics to "identify" their various aspects. Ideally this should aid communication and understanding. A TCM practitioner, e.g., will immediately sort the symptoms someone presents with into yin and yang, and successful treatment is predicated on his or her knowing what the classic medical texts describe as "yin" and what they describe as "yang," and if the practitioner's own nomenclature is for whatever reason different from that of the Materia Medica, he or she will mis-prescribe. In feng shui, similarly, you want to know if you're dealing with yin or yang dynamics for sure, or you will use for the living what best suits the dead, and vice versa. Now in neidan, it may not be that important to identify the players by name, because the game is inside you and you can use any nicknames you like for the members of your favorite team. It's like a family where the wife would address her husband as "Mrs. Smith" for shits and giggles, and the husband respond by calling the wife "Mr. Smith." They are still a man and a woman, and what they call each other can't change their anatomy and physiology. At least not to the extent that the husband will become pregnant, should one of them conceive.

[exorcist_1699]

 

It's just my personal thing to try to match actual reality events to taoist terminology used in the classics to "identify" their various aspects. Ideally this should aid communication and understanding. A TCM practitioner, e.g., will immediately sort the symptoms someone presents with into yin and yang, and successful treatment is predicated on his or her knowing what the classic medical texts describe as "yin" and what they describe as "yang," and if the practitioner's own nomenclature is for whatever reason different from that of the Materia Medica, he or she will mis-prescribe. In feng shui, similarly, you want to know if you're dealing with yin or yang dynamics for sure, or you will use for the living what best suits the dead, and vice versa. Now in neidan, it may not be that important to identify the players by name, because the game is inside you and you can use any nicknames you like for the members of your favorite team...

In fact, I have considered many times doing my " ed" as Hagar did after re-reading my posts here, but it seems too late as Taomeow says...how painful it is ... maybe the saying : "一層未到一層迷"( " whatever level people not yet reaching, whatever the point where people are destined to be bewildered" ) is the only excuse comforting myself ....

 

 

Although Both Taoist Alchemy and TCM (Trditional Chinese Medicine ) are based on the same system , there are difference between them. TCM , of course, emphasizes more on healing patient's illness while Taoist Alchemy focus on rescuing people, or some individuals , from their pity destiny in this universe , and searching for immortality . For example, both systems talk about "Yuan Qi" yet TCM's concept of Yuan qi is just about a crucial life force inherited from our parents that located somewhere at our lower abdomen /in between our kidney ( specially called Mengmen "命門"); its understanding of Yuan Qi is not so deep as Taoist alchemy does. The TCM doctors ,including those Acupuncture practitioners, will give their patients a dose of medicine of ginseng(plus 白术,淮山..etc) or plaster or a puncture of needle at certain acupunture point ( say qi hai"氣海" ) for any disease related to lack of Yuan qi .

 

The responsibility of the doctors is to re-balance the imbalance in our body by material means as mentioned. Most of them can't initialize qi directly so as to cure diseases. That is , if a Taoist master can use a dose of Qi as medicine to cure hundreds of diseases, then TCM doctors have to use hundreds combination of herbs/ acupuncture points to cure hundreds of varied diseases . Why ?

 

Because they are standing on different levels and using the same power( although with the same name : Qi) from its different levels...

 

However, does it mean TCM's discovery of nearly 20 channels of qi running over our body and those acupuncture points ,its meaning insignificant ? Of course not. Considering Indian Yoga discovers dantians ( lower , upper..etc), and their locations similar to Taoist ( because qi exists objectively in human body, of course, two groups of human beings find nearly the same things!), yet doesn't find out the channels and several hundreds of acupuncture points , and their corresponding combination of cure ( herbs or acupuncture points) for diseases, we can say that Taoist achievement in this arena is greater. ( Buddhism's contribution to human beings is not in this arena, but in a spiritual arena much abstract )

Edited October 7, 2010 by exorcist_1699

[exorcist_1699]

 

 

Question to exorcist: When you say, "Most of them can't initialize qi directly," do you strictly mean qigong healing as in direct qi transmission? If so, is it your belief that direct qi transmission is the highest or sole way of practicing taoist alchemy healing on others?

 

Or, would there be other techniques that a taoist alchemist would/could use to heal others?

 

 

Hi, Rainbow-Vein , thank you for your comments.

 

Yeah, I mean qiging healing. Anyone who takes a quick scan of most of the old Chinese TCM writings can easily find that herbs , plaster, acupuncture, Taijiquan ,Kungfu exercise, qigong..etc all are recognized means of treatment from the same legacy ; there are nearly no argument about it for all these means are based on the same jing-qi-shen framework of TCM or Taoist Alchemy.

 

However, emitting qi is a technique more demanding for it requests our direct manipulating of qi via no other means , so only few doctors can do it . Emitting qi from a qigong doctor's hand( precisely speaking from an acupuncture point roughly located in the middle of our hands ,called Lao gong "労宫" （PC8）) , is not the highest form of healing ; it is a dose of Shen, coming from a glimpse of a Taoist master's eyes, is said to be the highest form of healing.

Edited October 7, 2010 by exorcist_1699

[exorcist_1699]

 

So, what is the qigong alchemist healing with? His/her own qi/shen? Heavenly chi/shen? Something/where else? (I do not have the knowledge of the specific vocabulary.)

 

This may be a self-evident, but in order to raise the shen of the patient, the qigong healer's shen must be developed to a high, or concentrated, capacity. Yes? If so, how can one go about this to the quickest and highest degree? How quickly, in months/years/lifetimes, do you think one can one train, with dedicated practice, to become an alchemist qigong shen healer?

 

Qi 's ability to cure most trivial diseases : a cold , skin diseases, stomach ache..etc seems undoubted to me because I test it many times myself; however, talking about severe diseases seems a little difficult because for decades I have never got any severe diseases or gone to see any doctors...so it seems a little troublesome to raise actual example... But based on the theory, qi very likely can cure severe diseases like cancer, SARS or AIDS, maybe also aging if you view it only as some kind of disease not something doomed to happen .

 

In Taoist Alchemy, it does classify very clearly the ordinary qi ,which you raise by paying attention to your dantian or by visualizing something , from Yuan Qi which you initialize after your having attained some kind of Awakening out of a status of mindlessness ( also see my precedent posts under this topic). Qi that links with that kind of Awakening , of course, has much vigorous and delicate quality , powerful enough to cure most severe diseases.

 

All diseases ,as we know, arise either because of the weakening/ imbalance of jing or qi in our body or invasion of malicious bacteria/virus. In the former case, Yuan Qi , as explained in above posts, can recover /re-balance it . In the later case, as all bacteria and virus , despite how strange a form it may appear or how newly born it is , is only a product of yin/yang qi( just like computer virus , no matter what forms they appear and how destructive they are, can be reduced to just a series of 0 and 1 ), so Yuan Qi as a much higher form over them , can "dismantle" them easily .

Edited October 8, 2010 by exorcist_1699

[exorcist_1699]

 

you've got me curious. would you care to elaborate on your study of the taoist arts? (years of study/types of practices/anything else of note) and are you solely into self-healing or do you heal others too?

 

In most cases, I only act as some kind of translator who translates the ancient Taoist writings' content, most inaccessible to the Western readers , into English..nothing more. So, I view myself as a translator more than any other role..say a clumsy amateur doctor.

 

Regarding your question on Shen, which I seem to miss , one important thing is that people should not concentrate on searching ...in order to achieve high level of Shen ; the best way is that they forget it . You forget it means you don't deliberately add mental factors intervening the appearance of it, which , conversely makes it happen easier. Strangely ,in the arena of Shen, it is after your having it forgotten that you then find it already there...so the training of Shen is the most difficult part of this adventure.

Edited October 9, 2010 by exorcist_1699

[宁]

Both systems talk about "Yuan Qi" yet TCM's concept of Yuan qi is just about a crucial life force inherited from our parents that located somewhere at our lower abdomen /in between our kidney ( specially called Mengmen "命門"); its understanding of Yuan Qi is not so deep as Taoist alchemy does.

 

If we look at the 河圖 and 洛書 number maps, and their corresponding 八卦 Diagrams, the Yuan Qi must occupy the central pivotal role of the map. Is this correct?

Also, regarding the other types of Qi that correspond to the trigrams, how can we find out more about them? It seems that the Bagua Diagram reffers to 9 types of Qi, of which Yuan Qi is the Original Qi.

I suspect there is also a progression, according to daoist esoteric cosmology, that the practitioner must repeat inside his own body, from most common type of Qi found in the world of the 万物, up to the highest of the 元气.

 

 

Thank you

 

L1