Nei Yeh Ch. 25 - Final Chapter

[manitou]

TWENTY SIX

 

That mysterious vital energy within the mind:

One moment it arrives, the next it departs.

So fine, there is nothing within it;

So vast, there is nothing outside it.

We lose it

Because of the harm caused by mental agitation.

When the mind can hold on to tranquility,

The Way will become naturally established.

For people who have attained the Way]It permeates their pores and saturates their hair.

Within their chest, they remain unvanquished.

(Follow) this Way of restricting sense-desires

And the myriad things will not cause you harm.

[manitou]

This ending paragraph of the Nei-Yeh seems to reinforce the idea that the mind needs to be trained into singularity before any of this can be realized. I think this can only be done by people who have practiced meditation for many years and have learned to tame the inner dialogue.

 

When we get to the point of self-realization, the point of realizing who and What we actually are, the Way lays out before us. Some of us on this forum have ardously taken self-realization seriously; for those, the payoff is that it is possible to hold onto the Awareness throughout the day. It is possible to look kindly at each and every stranger, or each and every situation, and see it for what it is. That's because when a person becomes self-realized, it's because he's gone deeper and deeper into his own character, removing those things which are distortions and distractions from the Way, and returns with a clear vessel to See clearly and express the Love that is in the universe. It's not a good and bad thing; it's a removing the distortions thing. It's after the distortions have been removed that the vision is clear. In order to understand the Essence of the Tao te Ching or the Nei-Yeh, it cannot be done by brain alone. Far from it. The experience is, well, experiential.

 

I thank any of those who have stuck with me on this study. It has been my honor to input the Nei-Yeh and

make my few comments. As this entity, the Internet, is an extension of our brain waves, to input something as wonderful as further exploration of the Nei-Yeh is to benefit all of mankind equally in some cosmic way. This internet has become a living creature, and seems to be our communal brain in action and interaction. It's so very easy to see all the seemingly horrible things going on in the world....that's what sells newspapers, I guess. But for every horrible thing there's an equally wonderful thing going on at the top of the cloud; it's just that all we see is the ugly underside. I think the Tao Bums and other sites like ours are the helium in the picture; somehow our thoughts and projections make the whole loaf rise; I see us as leavening interspersed throughout the world. The world is undergoing drastic physical and political changes, and I'm wondering if those of us who can See aren't here to assist others with transitions when transitions occur.

 

Again, thank you Tao Bums, for allowing me this opportunity.

[zerostao]

manitou, thanks for such a great presentation and commentary.(and insight)

for me , it is a reminder of how cool a forum TTB is.

[manitou]

Thank you Zero - I'm happy to have had a few fellow travellers that were interested too. I think the nei-Yeh is on to something.

[Truth Seeker]

That mysterious vital energy within the mind:

One moment it arrives, the next it departs.

So fine, there is nothing within it;

So vast, there is nothing outside it.

 

I know it's an old thread, but I just joined and am currently reading Nei Yeh, so I thought I'd blow the dust off this thread. The quote above was striking to me when I first read it in the book because if you think about it, it's really a metaphysical claim about the nature of the "vital energy" (qi). It comes and goes, and is therefore a real "thing" even if the question of mass is not addressed (i.e. it's in our minds and could be intangible like thoughts). It's smaller than an atom yet so vast there's nothing outside it. That seems to possibly be a massively important metaphysical statement in two short, unassuming lines. Since nothing is smaller than it, is it the building block of reality itself? And it permeates the universe, nothing is beyond it. Of course we're used to this concept ever since Star Wars, but this also reminds me of The Tao of Physics and the idea that energy - constantly changing and even popping in and out of perceptible reality - is the basis of all matter, and that this is line with ancient Taoist thought.

[manitou]

I know it's an old thread, but I just joined and am currently reading Nei Yeh, so I thought I'd blow the dust off this thread. The quote above was striking to me when I first read it in the book because if you think about it, it's really a metaphysical claim about the nature of the "vital energy" (qi). It comes and goes, and is therefore a real "thing" even if the question of mass is not addressed (i.e. it's in our minds and could be intangible like thoughts). It's smaller than an atom yet so vast there's nothing outside it. That seems to possibly be a massively important metaphysical statement in two short, unassuming lines. Since nothing is smaller than it, is it the building block of reality itself? And it permeates the universe, nothing is beyond it. Of course we're used to this concept ever since Star Wars, but this also reminds me of The Tao of Physics and the idea that energy - constantly changing and even popping in and out of perceptible reality - is the basis of all matter, and that this is line with ancient Taoist thought.

 

Interesting, TruthSeeker - your reference to the Tao of Physics. Almost as though the analogy could be extended to the particle vs. wave phenomenon. It's as though we're sitting at the intersection of time and space. A particle takes up space, a 'wave of probability' takes up time. I'm not quite seeing the direct analogy but somehow I sense that it's there, the connection to micro/macro.

[Truth Seeker]

Good point. If I'm not mistaken, it's accepted knowledge now in physics that all matter is, at the subatomic level, just energy. So the interesting thing is the constant transmutation of some energy, which the Tao of Physics wrote about. That empty space is actually fields of potentiality in which energy coalesces as subatomic particles for a fraction of a second and then breaks apart again. To me, that sounds like wuji - pure potential before it forms "solid" matter and becomes either yin or yang, a part of taiji. Perhaps this applies to the book's definition of qi as well, and not just empty space way out there in the universe. That is, perhaps this potentiality fills space all around us and within us, and our path is to be sensitive and harmonious with it. The particle/wave phenomenon really blows my mind, I can't grasp how something can be both, even though I've read multiple explanations.

[manitou]

This dovetails with something we were talking about in a book study down in The Pit. I analogized this potentiality as the moment of pregnant silence when a conductor raises his baton in a symphony - you can hear a pin drop, there is 360 degrees of potentiality for what comes next. If a violinist then plays one single strain of a note, this brings the potentiality down to 359 degrees. the entire opus is a diminishing of potentiality, one note at a time. and morphs into structure.

 

Yes, I do believe that the great colloid in which all is suspended is Thought.

 

So glad you're here, by the way! Your cultivated brain is a wonderful addition to our community.