Reincarnation vs. ancestral spirits

[Owledge]

There are two concepts/beliefs that are quite well-established in spiritual circles, and I wonder about logical conflicts arising from that, because some people use both concepts simultaneously, e.g. that one guy who read my palm (not that I put much belief in that), who told me that there were spirits of dead ancestors watching over me and at the same time told me how often I had been reincarnated.

Wouldn't that require those ancestors to have become enlightened immortals?

And does the traditional belief system of reincarnation allow for anybody to not end up in nirvana? Or are 'ascended immortals' too supposed to reach nirvana eventually?

[Taomeow]

There are two concepts/beliefs that are quite well-established in spiritual circles, and I wonder about logical conflicts arising from that, because some people use both concepts simultaneously, e.g. that one guy who read my palm (not that I put much belief in that), who told me that there were spirits of dead ancestors watching over me and at the same time told me how often I had been reincarnated.

Wouldn't that require those ancestors to have become enlightened immortals?

And does the traditional belief system of reincarnation allow for anybody to not end up in nirvana? Or are 'ascended immortals' too supposed to reach nirvana eventually?

 

um... nirvana is not a taoist concept, nor a shamanic one, so I don't have anywhere to put it and don't know where its proponents put their ancestral spirits. In taoism, ancestral spirits have different fates just as living humans do. Reincarnation is normal, and you don't particularly fuss about what you reincarnate into ("what will I be in my new life? A rat perhaps? Or a rat's liver? I look forward to that... where can the great tao take me where it isn't good?" -- Zhuangzi). Being stuck in the spirit world and failing to reincarnate is unfortunate. This happens to people with unresolved issues of life or death. Such spirits are traditionally helped along by taoist professionals (priests and monks) so they can find their way and reincarnate properly, and by lay folks who make offerings to ancestral spirits. I for one do. I know that some of my ancestors were victims of a violent historic process and didn't die peacefully (most people killed in wars become lost in the spirit realm, e.g.). So the contradiction arises only if you mix two doctrines that take a diametrically opposite view of what life is, and consequently what death is -- the Indo-European one and the East Asian one. This mixing and matching leads to the third one, "new age" -- and it's funny that "new age" is ages old... I've read 2200-year-old documents (Sima Qian) lamenting the hodge-podge of "modern beliefs."

[Gerard]

um... nirvana is not a taoist concept...

 

Daoism has identical concept: returning to the Source. No more wandering spirits.

 

Btw, were you born in the year of the rat due to your affinity to dragons.

[Taomeow]

Daoism has identical concept: returning to the Source. No more wandering spirits.

 

Btw, were you born in the year of the rat due to your affinity to dragons.

 

Well, returning to the Source is different, because you don't return "for good," nor seek to, at least not in classical taoism. I think I've written on the subject before, more than once, so I'm not gonna bore you this time.

 

I have no rats among my Four Animals, but I have an important Snake in the Month Pillar (which is more influential than the animal of the year of birth, per my sources... the Month Pillar corresponds to one of the "twelve zodiac signs" of Western astrology). And Snakes are pretty much the prototype model for dragons, minus the frills. I also have a Tiger in my chart, so the scene for alchemy is set... I'm merely following my destiny when I focus on these two animals. My Snake is green (Wood), so I can take her forward in the cycle to Fire, wings, heaven -- or backward to Water, depth, primordial Mother... Needless to say I choose the latter and so all my practices are "back to the...." whatever it is, it's always about "return."

[Owledge]

My Snake is green (Wood)

There's something called "snakewood". It is very hard.

Does that make any sense to you?

[Sloppy Zhang]

***SPOILER ALERT***

 

 

There's a scene in the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender in which Aang consults with his own past lives. As the avatar, he's reincarnated as all these people, but he can still commune with them. Technically, he's just communing with himself, as he's already lead those lives, but they are personified in (ancestor) spirits that he can converse with and ask for advice (they weren't, in the series, his familial ancestors, since each incarnation incarnates in different tribes of people, but they are ancestors in the sense that they came before him and he turns to them for guidance).

Edited November 4, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[Owledge]

So you're hinting at the view (which I, too, thought about) that those ancestral spirits (or whenever attempts are made to contact the deceased, which all seem to be existing) are a kind of energy pattern left in the world, not the same as the soul?

[manitou]

So you're hinting at the view (which I, too, thought about) that those ancestral spirits (or whenever attempts are made to contact the deceased, which all seem to be existing) are a kind of energy pattern left in the world, not the same as the soul?

 

I am dealing with the same question. There is a golf course in my town in Ohio that has had 4 heart attacks at hole 13 in the past 2 years. The last heart attack was fatal, just 2 weeks ago. Hole 13 is next to the high point of the course, in fact the high point of the entire area. The configuration of the land indicates that the high point is most likely a native burial ground. I walked up there to see if I could get any sensations or synchronicity (which I did), and also saw that the golf course owner had recently built a restroom on top of the burial hill. Holy crap. How would the ancestors feel about this? My feeling had always been that disruptions like this were due to residual energy of sorts; but if there is any relationship between the recent restroom and the recent heart attacks, perhaps that indicates that the "spirits are angry" and perhaps that does knock it over into the realm of soul rather than residual energy disruption?

Or, in the alternative, maybe I'm just a whack job...

[Marblehead]

Hehehe. Taomeow has said enough so that I do not need speak to this issue.

[Apech]

So you're hinting at the view (which I, too, thought about) that those ancestral spirits (or whenever attempts are made to contact the deceased, which all seem to be existing) are a kind of energy pattern left in the world, not the same as the soul?

 

In Ancient Egypt they venerated and consulted (through oracle) the ka of the ancestor - which is exactly that a kind of sustained energy pattern associated with the body but not the body - which resides in or close to the mummy.

 

There is also the concept of storehouse consciousness in which all that has existed is stored as residual forms.

 

This all boils down to what constitutes a person anyway. For instance a ghost-like repeating energy pattern is that a person?

 

I don't know if you can compare Taoist return to source and nirvana - as nirvana is at least in part defined in terms of liberation from samsara. I don't think that Taoist, Shamans or indeed anyone else seeks liberation from the cyclical world in the way that it is conceptualized in Buddhism.

[Birch]

"repeating energy pattern is that a person?"

 

 

I think it's a specific aspect of a person that can get caught up beyond "necessary". What I mean by necessary is a bit weird and in my own words (Apech you would perhaps frown at my usage):

 

The pattern is "looking" for an "out" or a "completion" or "resolution." If no context or conditions are recognized "in the environment" as providing that opportunity then it rolls on ad-nauseum, perhaps even creating contexts and conditions to resolve (I suspect this is what dreams might be "for")

 

It's the "thing" that (arguably, I'm not sure) needs to get dropped in favour of one's self.

 

On a tangent, I wonder how many of them there are around a given self and whether they are in harmony with each other? Do they self-entrain? Do they entrain other patterns around them?

[Apech]

 

I think it's a specific aspect of a person that can get caught up beyond "necessary". What I mean by necessary is a bit weird and in my own words (Apech you would perhaps frown at my usage):

 

The pattern is "looking" for an "out" or a "completion" or "resolution." If no context or conditions are recognized "in the environment" as providing that opportunity then it rolls on ad-nauseum, perhaps even creating contexts and conditions to resolve (I suspect this is what dreams might be "for")

 

 

Yes I think you are right.

 

It's the "thing" that (arguably, I'm not sure) needs to get dropped in favour of one's self.

 

On a tangent, I wonder how many of them there are around a given self and whether they are in harmony with each other? Do they self-entrain? Do they entrain other patterns around them?

 

I can see that one energy pattern could induce (entrain) another given the right conditions. I think its their incompleteness which suggests they are not in harmony (generally or with each other)? ? ?

[devoid]

There are two concepts/beliefs that are quite well-established in spiritual circles, and I wonder about logical conflicts arising from that, because some people use both concepts simultaneously, e.g. that one guy who read my palm (not that I put much belief in that), who told me that there were spirits of dead ancestors watching over me and at the same time told me how often I had been reincarnated.

Wouldn't that require those ancestors to have become enlightened immortals?

And does the traditional belief system of reincarnation allow for anybody to not end up in nirvana? Or are 'ascended immortals' too supposed to reach nirvana eventually?

 

I think your question is very valid (even if we allow for the rephrased version suggested in this thread )

 

I.e. how can one return to the source as well as exist as an immortal and indirectly: Does one exclude the other?

 

I have been playing around with a theory of virtualization for some time: Yes, pretty much like with computers. Take a back-up at some given point and install it on different (virtual) machines and after that let them lead their separate or semi-seperate ways.

 

One 'copy' merges with the Tao - another 'copy' co-existing in some Astral plane, etc.

 

I can see if it sounds weird, but I want to make an end-note that Robert Bruce talks about something similar in what he coined the mind-split effect in OBE / Astral Travel. Back to the purpose of TTB: Taoists traditionally also have the concept of spawning different different processes; a key example is the spiritual embryo from Taoist Alchemy. I also seem to recall something similar from a passage in Opening the Dragon Gate: The Making of a Modern Tao Wizard in which Master Wang Liping spawns seven processes or so at once while visiting some poor, secluded village during the cultural revolution in China.

[Gauss]

There are two concepts/beliefs that are quite well-established in spiritual circles, and I wonder about logical conflicts arising from that, because some people use both concepts simultaneously, e.g. that one guy who read my palm (not that I put much belief in that), who told me that there were spirits of dead ancestors watching over me and at the same time told me how often I had been reincarnated.

Wouldn't that require those ancestors to have become enlightened immortals?

And does the traditional belief system of reincarnation allow for anybody to not end up in nirvana? Or are 'ascended immortals' too supposed to reach nirvana eventually?

 

Remember, in Samsara you have a limited time in each step of the reincarnation loop. Ie being a deity for 500 years, being a rock for 10 000 years, being a pig for 3 years etc etc...

 

It is said being a hungry ghost/spirit is terrible but also that time is limited, later one goes on in Samsara.

 

Becoming an immortal requires that you reach at least the level of Arhat. That is really hard and requires a grueling round of cultivation.

 

PS: A link to fabulous reincarnation stories here:

 

http://www.pureinsight.org/taxonomy/term/9

Edited November 8, 2010 by Gauss

[EagleShen]

There are two ways to look at it that bridge the 'contradiction'.

 

One is related to the misconception most people have that they reincarnate. 'They' do not, and by 'they' i mean the personality, what most actually think of as themselves. What returns to source is the essence, that which simply is, the spirit i guess or whatever one chooses to call it.

 

As i understand it, the energetic pattern created by the personality can exist on some level of reality for a period of time, potentially for a long period of time. This is very different to being a ghost, it's more like a psychic imprint.

 

The other is that time is simply a perception, and that the seeming contradiction is purely due to a limitation of understanding. We exist both as a reincarnation moving through time, and at the same time anyone we've been and anyone we've been born from also exists simultaneously in the space-time continuum.

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

There are two concepts/beliefs that are quite well-established in spiritual circles, and I wonder about logical conflicts arising from that, because some people use both concepts simultaneously, e.g. that one guy who read my palm (not that I put much belief in that), who told me that there were spirits of dead ancestors watching over me and at the same time told me how often I had been reincarnated.

Wouldn't that require those ancestors to have become enlightened immortals?

And does the traditional belief system of reincarnation allow for anybody to not end up in nirvana? Or are 'ascended immortals' too supposed to reach nirvana eventually?

 

I find the idea hilarious, because I just realized that possibly millions of Chinese are lighting incense sticks and paying respect to themselves!!

 

Imagine that, wasting time burning fake paper money at the crossroads for, what turns out to be, yourself, to use in a dimension where you aren't even residing at that time. Oh the irony. Love it.

 

Hopefully there's a bank of sorts where it's waiting when you get back. I think I better go make a deposit right now!

 

ps. I went to a funeral a while back here, and they burned a paper car, paper house and various other 'normal' things.... but what really got me was the paper model 'air-conditioning unit'.... when I finally realized what it was I almost lost it and creased up, it's not a great thing to do at a funeral let me tell you; luckily I caught it and just pretended I was really emotionally moved to tears. Come to think of it an air conditioning unit might be the best gift of all, I mean if your going to hell your gonna need something to cool yourself down aren't you!

[Marblehead]

... I mean if your going to hell your gonna need something to cool yourself down aren't you!

 

Hehehe.

[Taomeow]

I find the idea hilarious, because I just realized that possibly millions of Chinese are lighting incense sticks and paying respect to themselves!!

 

Imagine that, wasting time burning fake paper money at the crossroads for, what turns out to be, yourself, to use in a dimension where you aren't even residing at that time. Oh the irony. Love it.

 

Hopefully there's a bank of sorts where it's waiting when you get back. I think I better go make a deposit right now!

 

ps. I went to a funeral a while back here, and they burned a paper car, paper house and various other 'normal' things.... but what really got me was the paper model 'air-conditioning unit'.... when I finally realized what it was I almost lost it and creased up, it's not a great thing to do at a funeral let me tell you; luckily I caught it and just pretended I was really emotionally moved to tears. Come to think of it an air conditioning unit might be the best gift of all, I mean if your going to hell your gonna need something to cool yourself down aren't you!

 

It's not just the Chinese, it's everybody outside the anglosphere. Veneration of ancestors is what all humans did in all cultures at all times before the onset of the current conditions. In West Africa they refer to this "collective entity," one's ancestry, as "mboga," and it is indeed thought of as lack of respect for yourself if you are not respectful to your mboga. If you neglect your ancestors, the composite entity that is the cause for you, it means you don't much care for the effect -- yourself.

 

Sending goods to the afterlife was also pretty universal. The Chinese, being pragmatic and, in the current generation at least, very taken with innovations, will obviously send the spiritual component of the modern, contemporary material goods to the afterlife rather than something obsolete. Burning a paper model releases the pure "idea" of a thing, its spirit that is, into the subtle realms. Books in particular, all the books that have been burned throughout history, are not gone -- I find this thought very comforting.

 

Any act, thought, or written word is immortal. Any paper model of an air conditioner, ditto. It's intent which makes it so by giving it context, and context is something you can't ever remove from reality, because context is reality itself. What you contribute to reality's context by shaping it in a particular way with your intent is part of its "forever" structure.

 

Intent is a complex interaction between yi and zhi, and its zhi component originates in the Kidneys as a subtler effect of jing. Jing, as well as all its effects, is immortal. Zhi is yin-yang twofold, and while your yang zhi guides your intent consciously, your yin zhi guides your destiny through the invisible realms, unconsciously. Yin zhi is "half in half out" vis a vis dimensionality, it is the part of your spirit that easily crosses over and communicates with your ancestral spirits or is accessed by them below the level of your conscious perceptions. So whether you do it consciously or not, you are in touch with your "extended self," your ancestry, at all times. But doing it consciously has the same benefits as any other form of cultivation of consciousness. It's no different from cultivating awareness in any other respect which you don't have until/unless you practice.

 

There were times (hundreds of thousands of years) when everybody knew that...

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

 

Books in particular, all the books that have been burned throughout history, are not gone -- I find this thought very comforting.

 

 

I guess that's what Chairman Mao was doing then when he burned all those books. I never saw it like that! I guess he knew he'd get a bit bored in the after life without any good books to read at bedtime.

 

 

 

Any act, thought, or written word is immortal. Any paper model of an air conditioner, ditto. It's intent which makes it so by giving it context, and context is something you can't ever remove from reality, because context is reality itself. What you contribute to reality's context by shaping it in a particular way with your intent is part of its "forever" structure.

 

Intent is a complex interaction between yi and zhi, and its zhi component originates in the Kidneys as a subtler effect of jing. Jing, as well as all its effects, is immortal. Zhi is yin-yang twofold, and while your yang zhi guides your intent consciously, your yin zhi guides your destiny through the invisible realms, unconsciously. Yin zhi is "half in half out" vis a vis dimensionality, it is the part of your spirit that easily crosses over and communicates with your ancestral spirits or is accessed by them below the level of your conscious perceptions. So whether you do it consciously or not, you are in touch with your "extended self," your ancestry, at all times. But doing it consciously has the same benefits as any other form of cultivation of consciousness. It's no different from cultivating awareness in any other respect which you don't have until/unless you practice.

 

There were times (hundreds of thousands of years) when everybody knew that...

 

I know most of this Taomeow.... 'any act done with intention is a magical act' - Dion Fortune.

 

But what I don't know is 'Zhi'...... what is zhi? That's a new one on me..... is Zhi like void/akasha? What is intentions 'Zhi' component and why does it originate in the kidneys? More on this would be interesting.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that

[Taomeow]

I guess that's what Chairman Mao was doing then when he burned all those books. I never saw it like that! I guess he knew he'd get a bit bored in the after life without any good books to read at bedtime.

 

Later in life, Mao is said to have believed that he was a reincarnation of the First Emperor, the book-burning scholar-burying guy, but boasted that "the First Emperor buried 480 scholars and I buried 48,000 -- I surpassed him a hundred times." (Source: Adeline Yen Mah, "A Thousand Pieces of Gold.") It means that while his previous incarnation only had to wait some 2,000 years to reincarnate, the next one will have to wait at least a hundred times longer -- a minimum of 200,000 years -- biding his time as a gui before his next chance to redeem himself as a decent human being. Obviously he needs a helluva lot of reading material to do something with his time. Only he won't have access to what he burned -- a gui is always hungry, and lacks exactly as much as he has taken away from others while alive. So Mao will crave knowledge, among many other things, with insatiable longing for 200,000 years, without getting a single crumb. Serves him right.

 

I know most of this Taomeow.... 'any act done with intention is a magical act' - Dion Fortune.

 

But what I don't know is 'Zhi'...... what is zhi? That's a new one on me..... is Zhi like void/akasha? What is intentions 'Zhi' component and why does it originate in the kidneys? More on this would be interesting.

 

Zhi is one of the Five Lesser Shens that together comprise the Greater Shen. (Hun, Po, Heart Shen, Yi, Zhi.) Zhi is a co-creator of the Kidneys. In Western terms, it has much to do with the pineal-hypothalamus-pituitary axis, and psychologically with "willpower," "timing," time-sensitive decision-making, light-darkness interactions, configuration of the stars and all things astrological (you could say that it has access to the akasha without being "it" -- it "reads" what's written in the stars). Basically it is the Lesser Shen in charge of one's overall destiny in this life, so its position toward other Lesser Shens is to give focus and direction to the whole, to the Greater Shen and to the physical body and their co-creative antics in this-here life and beyond.

 

Like I said, zhi is twofold -- the yang zhi resides closer to the surface, the yin zhi is hidden. The yang part is the driving engine behind conscious destiny-affecting decisions one makes in life, plans conceived and goals set and worked toward (using "willpower," "determination," "planning and scheduling" and the like). The yin part is the driving engine behind unconscious destiny-affecting decisions already made in the larger context, in "reality itself" -- "written in the stars," inherited from ancestors, guided by gods, and so on. Yin zhi has access to the past and the future, and drives one's "willpower" toward particular moves in one's life whose meaning only becomes clear "in hind sight" -- as something that was "meant to be," destiny.

 

That's the common situation, but a taoist who looks deeper into these things might want to read yin zhi (and the records it is in touch with at all times) "preventively," so to speak, and even figure out if anything there can or should be re-written (that's where cultivation comes into the picture). So anyone who engages conscious processes where they would typically, in an untrained human, run on autopilot, unifies the yin-yang components of zhi so that conscious choices and unconscious drives become one, gaining more control over one's destiny. Processes that affect zhi are usually esoteric practices -- taoist magic (including but not limited to internal alchemy), astrology, feng shui, devotional practices (austerities, prayer, service to others, veneration of deities and ancestral spirits, noble causes, etc.). Some lifestyle and even dietary choices can be useful too, but by themselves, without access to yin zhi, these are more likely to affect yang zhi only, and therefore are prone to be mismatched with what isn't known -- including one's true lifestyle and dietary needs the knowledge of which yin zhi possesses and yang zhi (let alone the upper crust of the left brain hemisphere) doesn't. (This explains all those smoking, drinking, and otherwise non-PC top level masters and shamans who baffle lay folks or provoke condescending attitudes and are mistaken for lacking in willpower or responsibility or information. Nope... they just know what their yin zhi knows, which vastly differs from what the FDA might assert.)

[EagleShen]

 

 

Zhi is one of the Five Lesser Shens that together comprise the Greater Shen. (Hun, Po, Heart Shen, Yi, Zhi.) Zhi is a co-creator of the Kidneys. In Western terms, it has much to do with the pineal-hypothalamus-pituitary axis, and psychologically with "willpower," "timing," time-sensitive decision-making, light-darkness interactions, configuration of the stars and all things astrological (you could say that it has access to the akasha without being "it" -- it "reads" what's written in the stars). Basically it is the Lesser Shen in charge of one's overall destiny in this life, so its position toward other Lesser Shens is to give focus and direction to the whole, to the Greater Shen and to the physical body and their co-creative antics in this-here life and beyond.

 

Like I said, zhi is twofold -- the yang zhi resides closer to the surface, the yin zhi is hidden. The yang part is the driving engine behind conscious destiny-affecting decisions one makes in life, plans conceived and goals set and worked toward (using "willpower," "determination," "planning and scheduling" and the like). The yin part is the driving engine behind unconscious destiny-affecting decisions already made in the larger context, in "reality itself" -- "written in the stars," inherited from ancestors, guided by gods, and so on. Yin zhi has access to the past and the future, and drives one's "willpower" toward particular moves in one's life whose meaning only becomes clear "in hind sight" -- as something that was "meant to be," destiny.

 

That's the common situation, but a taoist who looks deeper into these things might want to read yin zhi (and the records it is in touch with at all times) "preventively," so to speak, and even figure out if anything there can or should be re-written (that's where cultivation comes into the picture). So anyone who engages conscious processes where they would typically, in an untrained human, run on autopilot, unifies the yin-yang components of zhi so that conscious choices and unconscious drives become one, gaining more control over one's destiny. Processes that affect zhi are usually esoteric practices -- taoist magic (including but not limited to internal alchemy), astrology, feng shui, devotional practices (austerities, prayer, service to others, veneration of deities and ancestral spirits, noble causes, etc.). Some lifestyle and even dietary choices can be useful too, but by themselves, without access to yin zhi, these are more likely to affect yang zhi only, and therefore are prone to be mismatched with what isn't known -- including one's true lifestyle and dietary needs the knowledge of which yin zhi possesses and yang zhi (let alone the upper crust of the left brain hemisphere) doesn't. (This explains all those smoking, drinking, and otherwise non-PC top level masters and shamans who baffle lay folks or provoke condescending attitudes and are mistaken for lacking in willpower or responsibility or information. Nope... they just know what their yin zhi knows, which vastly differs from what the FDA might assert.)

 

Thanks Taomeow.

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

Later in life, Mao is said to have believed that he was a reincarnation of the First Emperor, the book-burning scholar-burying guy, but boasted that "the First Emperor buried 480 scholars and I buried 48,000 -- I surpassed him a hundred times." (Source: Adeline Yen Mah, "A Thousand Pieces of Gold.") It means that while his previous incarnation only had to wait some 2,000 years to reincarnate, the next one will have to wait at least a hundred times longer -- a minimum of 200,000 years -- biding his time as a gui before his next chance to redeem himself as a decent human being. Obviously he needs a helluva lot of reading material to do something with his time. Only he won't have access to what he burned -- a gui is always hungry, and lacks exactly as much as he has taken away from others while alive. So Mao will crave knowledge, among many other things, with insatiable longing for 200,000 years, without getting a single crumb. Serves him right.

 

 

 

Zhi is one of the Five Lesser Shens that together comprise the Greater Shen. (Hun, Po, Heart Shen, Yi, Zhi.) Zhi is a co-creator of the Kidneys. In Western terms, it has much to do with the pineal-hypothalamus-pituitary axis, and psychologically with "willpower," "timing," time-sensitive decision-making, light-darkness interactions, configuration of the stars and all things astrological (you could say that it has access to the akasha without being "it" -- it "reads" what's written in the stars). Basically it is the Lesser Shen in charge of one's overall destiny in this life, so its position toward other Lesser Shens is to give focus and direction to the whole, to the Greater Shen and to the physical body and their co-creative antics in this-here life and beyond.

 

Like I said, zhi is twofold -- the yang zhi resides closer to the surface, the yin zhi is hidden. The yang part is the driving engine behind conscious destiny-affecting decisions one makes in life, plans conceived and goals set and worked toward (using "willpower," "determination," "planning and scheduling" and the like). The yin part is the driving engine behind unconscious destiny-affecting decisions already made in the larger context, in "reality itself" -- "written in the stars," inherited from ancestors, guided by gods, and so on. Yin zhi has access to the past and the future, and drives one's "willpower" toward particular moves in one's life whose meaning only becomes clear "in hind sight" -- as something that was "meant to be," destiny.

 

That's the common situation, but a taoist who looks deeper into these things might want to read yin zhi (and the records it is in touch with at all times) "preventively," so to speak, and even figure out if anything there can or should be re-written (that's where cultivation comes into the picture). So anyone who engages conscious processes where they would typically, in an untrained human, run on autopilot, unifies the yin-yang components of zhi so that conscious choices and unconscious drives become one, gaining more control over one's destiny. Processes that affect zhi are usually esoteric practices -- taoist magic (including but not limited to internal alchemy), astrology, feng shui, devotional practices (austerities, prayer, service to others, veneration of deities and ancestral spirits, noble causes, etc.). Some lifestyle and even dietary choices can be useful too, but by themselves, without access to yin zhi, these are more likely to affect yang zhi only, and therefore are prone to be mismatched with what isn't known -- including one's true lifestyle and dietary needs the knowledge of which yin zhi possesses and yang zhi (let alone the upper crust of the left brain hemisphere) doesn't. (This explains all those smoking, drinking, and otherwise non-PC top level masters and shamans who baffle lay folks or provoke condescending attitudes and are mistaken for lacking in willpower or responsibility or information. Nope... they just know what their yin zhi knows, which vastly differs from what the FDA might assert.)

 

Thanks Taomeow, I haven't been back for a day or so but I was looking forward to reading this. Very interesting.

 

Yang zhi and yin zhi and decision making has me slightly confused though, if yang zhi is related to conscious decision making, as in use of will-power and so on, yet yin zhi is related to the driving force and has access to destiny would it be correct to say the yin is in control and creates the decision even if a person considers they made the decision with their normal everyday logical mind, with the yang-zhi. And if so, what is the use of the yang zhi....or is it more related to the 'carrying out' of whatever decision is made?

[Taomeow]

Thanks Taomeow, I haven't been back for a day or so but I was looking forward to reading this. Very interesting.

 

Yang zhi and yin zhi and decision making has me slightly confused though, if yang zhi is related to conscious decision making, as in use of will-power and so on, yet yin zhi is related to the driving force and has access to destiny would it be correct to say the yin is in control and creates the decision even if a person considers they made the decision with their normal everyday logical mind, with the yang-zhi. And if so, what is the use of the yang zhi....or is it more related to the 'carrying out' of whatever decision is made?

 

Good question!

 

Storing yin zhi is like drawing a bow, activating yang zhi is like releasing an arrow. There's no conflict between the bow and the arrow if the archer is skillful at handling both and is acting harmoniously. If she isn't, the arrow will never reach the true mark no matter how sturdy or how sharp it is. Also, not relying on yin zhi, using yang zhi only, is like throwing arrows by hand... not very efficient. So it is a unit, zhi is, but a two-fold unit, one needs to know and master the unified action of the bow and arrow in order to utilize zhi successfully.

[goldisheavy]

There are two concepts/beliefs that are quite well-established in spiritual circles, and I wonder about logical conflicts arising from that,

 

Yes, I think under certain conditions logical contradictions do arise given these two beliefs.

 

If you believe that the soul of a person is objectively a thing, obviously one thing can only be in one place at a time. This means, if the soul reincarnated, it's not available as an ancestral spirit. If the soul is sticking around as an ancestral spirit, it either chose not to reincarnate or failed to reincarnate in some way.

 

If you believe that people instead of souls have individual mindstreams, that's a little different. A mindstream is less thing-like than a soul. A mindstream is still unique and individual, but just like any stream, it can split and flow into two different directions simultaneously and both resultant streams can claim to be the same "ancestral" stream. So at this point your conception is less thing-like, but it is still halfway thing-like.

 

You can go even further than that. You can say that mindstreams are individual only with respect to potentiality, but not with respect to any actuality. What does this mean? It means you don't consider any experiences or events as actual. Instead you think of them as merely vividly apparent as opposed to granting them any degree of actuality. Then mindstream's individuality is expressed in terms of different visionary potentials and not in terms of different actualities. If you can understand what it means, you could say that I carry the likenesses of individualities of various people in my own mindstream, while you do the same from your own perspective and that neither is more nor less valid, neither is actual, but both can be apparent within their own POV. What this means is that when I die, I may experience reincarnation, but someone who used to know me as a friend, will retain a likeness of me in their mindstream and that likeness will be available to speak as an ancestral spirit. In this way of thinking, neither the ancenstral spirit appearance nor the appearances that arise to my own perspective are inherently valid or inherently invalid. This mode of understanding is the hardest to understand because it is non-substantialist at its core and is highly abstract.

 

So depending on how refined your understanding is, there either is or is not a conflict. Considering that most people who believe in spirits tend to think of spirits as actual things, there probably is some degree of conflict between the two views.

Edited November 11, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Apech]

Good question!

 

Storing yin zhi is like drawing a bow, activating yang zhi is like releasing an arrow. There's no conflict between the bow and the arrow if the archer is skillful at handling both and is acting harmoniously. If she isn't, the arrow will never reach the true mark no matter how sturdy or how sharp it is. Also, not relying on yin zhi, using yang zhi only, is like throwing arrows by hand... not very efficient. So it is a unit, zhi is, but a two-fold unit, one needs to know and master the unified action of the bow and arrow in order to utilize zhi successfully.

 

Thank you Taomeow for this and the above posts - fascinating stuff. Makes me think of the Egyptian Shai (destiny or fate) maybe they are related somewhere back in the mists of time.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Apech