Immortality

[Sanzon]

Being new to TTB & Taoist practice, I would like to hear people's takes on immortality, it's meanings, variations & applications. What types of immortality are there and what different types of immortals are there?

 

Thanks.

[thetaoiseasy]

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Edited October 15, 2013 by thetaoiseasy

[i am]

It was interesting, when I was in China, and had already been reading a lot about Buddhism, and their idea of immortality, I had a chance to ask a Taoist, who was an internal martial arts master (but not Taoist priest) what their definition of immortality was.

 

My version/understanding of it in buddhism is that you meditate and refine your spirit to where you are released from the wheel; samsara. That you kind of remove yourself from the cycle of life and death, and are just "are".

 

His answer for Taoists was that you become immortal by becoming a person, and doing deeds that you are remembered for, and so I guess you're immortal because people and places remember you.

 

I didn't like the answer then, and don't like it now And I think depending on which Taoist you ask, you'd get different definitions, and they wouldn't be chalked up to just different ways of explaining the same thing, I don't think.

[Protector]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula

[Fū Yue]

When dissonance has been entirely eliminated from your mind's echo, you have attained the indestructible rhythm of life everlasting.

 

Immortality is the sound of the conqueror, the taste of which is the mind free from stains.

 

No windowpane, we do not look outside from within, the dust in our eye are really flowers in the sky.

 

Even the gods die some day, but this is the deathless.

 

Let the ashes of sensation gather on the face of the world. See your body as a funeral urn, nirvana with remainder burning on the ground of inevitable release, and hang yourself by the crown.

 

Her wedding gown is the naked sky. Just look and you'll see why.

 

I apologize for the rhyming. Now you know why it seems that the masters lie, with their rhymes and their koans, simile and poem.

 

They can't help it, divine inspiration comes along with timing, and everything is measured just so.

 

The world is narrative. Suspend your disbelief and you suspend time, kronos, the thief.

 

Do you know what you can't do? Neither does the self.

 

It turns out, turn back in before any thing,

 

the hardest part was always the space, this whole world is just like a vase.

 

Conch. Isn't this?

 

If existence is sound, who speaks it as such? Thus have you heard, but how much was literal? Look at your nature and see.

 

What is a bee? Nothing much, or all that you can see?

 

 

 

This just came to mind when I saw your thread, I thought I should post it. If you're wondering why it took so long for me to post, it's not because I was trying hard to think it up, it just happened suddenly. I was wondering whether or not I should delete it all and leave. Who appreciates the advice of a sphinx?

[GrandmasterP]

We're immortal spirits lodging in temporary bodies, time and time again.

Eventually we get the chance to get off the wheel, or not; as we choose.

Suits me sir.

Other views are available.

[deci belle]

It's right this instant; as no other time has ever occurred. If you've cut your karmic roots completely, where else would it be?

 

Immortality has no duration and has never begun. If you function outside of creation now, it is just this.

 

What do I know?

[Gerard]

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Edited September 13, 2013 by Gerard

[Protector]

You're also already rich, it's just that some other guy has all your money

[thelerner]

We're immortal spirits lodging in temporary bodies, time and time again.

Eventually we get the chance to get off the wheel, or not; as we choose.

Suits me sir.

Other views are available.

Sounds good, though personally I'm not even sure about the immortal spirits part. Oh well, in Tao we Trust . Given a vote on the subject, I'd choose to remember my past lives. Getting a full memory wipe each lifetime seems cruel.

 

 

On a slight tangent involving long life, I was reading a new study that contradicted earlier ones about extreme calorie restriction leading to long life. Apparently the original primate study they gave the control group as much as they could eat of unhealthy food, while giving the other group a nutritionally dense but near starvation amount. The poor diet choice made up the big difference between the two. In the story I read when the control group was given an intelligent diet, more food, but not unlimited junk, the huge difference went away. Though there was a difference.

Edited January 23, 2013 by thelerner

[Sanzon]

Thanks all. It was a reference to physical immortality that prompted the question, plus another post by thetaoiseasy regarding the celestial realms. I appreciate your responses.

 

To thetaoiseasy: I was pondering your previous post in "some thoughts" regarding gods & celestial beings, & I wondered to myself what sort of spiritual hierarchy there was in the realms of heaven, and imagined an conversation between two or more celestial beings along the lines of "what are we going to do about these humans?", similar to if an intergalactic group of beings were saying "we all know about them but they don't know about us", & discussing what sort of options are there in regards to their interactions with us. At this, there was a clearing of my energy field & energy shifted from my field to settle in my third eye with a field of blue visible in front of me. It made me wonder where we fit into the scheme of things in that regard.

[deci belle]

You are already an immortal.

ya but i'm a girl too so i can hit you too!! hahahhaa!!❤❤

[Azad]

Hello there

 

thetaoiseasy wrote most parts of Immortality. I try to explain what I heard and see by myself.

Like most of us I heard immortals from my teachers. And after 2002 I learned they were alive. 10 years later I met one of them.
There are a few types of immortals. Yin Shen and a few more. And thetaoiseasy wrote there is no physically immortality. Like most of us read The Magus of Java, after 10 years practice of nei gong you can get together yin ang yang in your lower dantien in one second and you become an immortal. After this you have to pass some tests to prove it. And yes right your soul not dying but our ego dies. When anyone become yang shen his ego is also immortal.
For example WLP is a bit different. He is dual class master. You can read about in Opening The Dragon Gate.
And the one I met last year, is a shaman. He is using different types of qi. Not like Chinese qi gongs. But if I decribe it by chinese terms he is master of Yin qi. As a result he is a yin shen. And he is immortal. He has powers like most of them.

Every human has a potantial to become an immortal. Also has a potantial to become enlightened one. Second one is a better aim for us.

[GrandmasterP]

Everybody dies eventually.

Everybody.

That fact plus taxes are two givens in life.

[Protector]

Everyone except the jellyfish

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

Immortality; an omnitude of simplicity. No one individual unique thing is not immortal when created by base components whose material consistes of the sum total of the whole of all created individual unique things.


Edit: whoel < whole

Edited January 23, 2013 by Northern Avid Judo Ant

[GrandmasterP]

Everyone except the jellyfish

............

 

There's always room for jellyfish.

[C T]

Being new to TTB & Taoist practice, I would like to hear people's takes on immortality, it's meanings, variations & applications. What types of immortality are there and what different types of immortals are there?

 

Thanks.

Prof Kurtis Schaeffer is the man to contact if you are serious about learning this in-depth.

 

He wrote an excellent article 'The attainment of immortality: From Naathas in India to Buddhists in Tibet' which you might be able to source on the web somewhere.

 

A book which could shed a bit of light on this subject -- "Yoga Powers: Extraordinary Capacities Attained through Meditation and Concentration" -- preview here: http://books.google.ie/books?id=rHXQsZiz7PoC&pg=PA331&lpg=PA331&dq=amrtasiddhi&source=bl&ots=DHnExJQXcT&sig=FtuI6DfbQtkY2rTFs_by3IeNg2U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ren_UPXgFNKwhAeVh4GIAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=amrtasiddhi&f=false

 

Another book worth checking out "The Alchemical Body" by David Gordon White.

http://www.amazon.com/Alchemical-Body-Siddha-Traditions-Medieval/dp/0226894991

 

 

 

May your search be fruitful.

[Cheshire Cat]

And the one I met last year, is a shaman. He is using different types of qi. Not like Chinese qi gongs. But if I decribe it by chinese terms he is master of Yin qi. As a result he is a yin shen. And he is immortal. He has powers like most of them.

 

 

This is interesting.

Please, can you share some more information about shamans and immortality?

 

I know that this is the most esoteric aspect of traditional shamanism. Shamans didn't talk about this matter.. or they just give tiny bit of knowledge.

It is so, mainly because those teaching are traditionally given to very few worthy individuals... or none at all, if the master shaman decides so.

Of course, asian shamanism is deeply influenced by indian yoga... but I found this kind of knowledge in south america also.

[Azad]

DAO rain Tao,

We didn't talk too much as you said. He is the one who most terrified person in his area. Everybody have fear about him. Coz he uses his power both ways to heal or to kill. He is never think which is which he just does when we saw him.
What we saw? He was using his power like John Chang and some other grandmasters. He has real fire in his body. But this wasn't made us surprised. When we visited him, he wanted us to use cameras to take all ritual. But we never thought this before and we didn't have any cameras. During the ritual most of us (we were 14 people there) saw spirits in the room. I know this seems like a magic show but it wasn't. Most of us were sceptic. In the part of ritual master shapeshifted into an animal. Yes I know what I'm writing. I read too many books wrote there were shapeshifters on earth I saw one of them. With other 12 friends of mine saw by their eyes. I read Castaneda's book he wrote brujeros or diableros were like shapeshifter. I can say that if someone told me about he/she is a shaman I'm gonna say I'd like to see the spirits which you are connected and maybe you can shapeshift yourself.
What we learned from him; fire within out body is very very important. And we can grove it up by some practices. Like what? Nei Gong (I mean the traditional types. Maybe like siddha practices, very close types of yogi pratics, and Tibetian Tummo), empowerment from a shifu (like John Chang).
What else I can say, keeping our hearts and minds clean are the most important parts.
What else do you wanna know?
Regards

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

I would like to know how to dedicate myself wholly to cultivation of health and longevity as an every day part of my life, overseen by an individual who has already gone great distances on this path.

A Live-in dojo, for example.

Who/where do I go to?

[Azad]

I really don't know honestly.

http://www.genbukan.org/ is a MA based path.

http://www.masterwu.net/ Lives in US but I didn't meet with him face to face.

Practicing within a Dojo you cannot find very easily.

 

In traditions there is 5 effects of destiny for normal people.

1. Our father (biological one)

2. Who we married? (husband/wife)

3. How we died?
These are common.

 

4. Meet with an immortal.

5. Be an immortal. (Means become Yang Shen)

All depends to keep heart and mind clean. Also get merit much opens the last 2.

Regards.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

1.
my biological father is definitely not a positive destiny element...

2.
I'll likely never marry; I would never marry someone I could not trust with my heart, and there are no people I feel I can trust that deeply in my life.

3.
Not dead yet, or am I?

4.
I meet with the earth every day, though not always consciously does that count? n_n

5.
we'll see...?



My heart has been broken many times. I expect the previous wont be the final.
My mind clean? well I was brainwashed by society growing up, does that count?




Mom always told me and my sister that she told us that we "will always know the truth between right and wrong in our hearts." when she was pregnant and a lot while we were still babies.... she even still says it once in a while so it must have value

[Azad]

Mom always told me and my sister that she told us that we "will always know the truth between right and wrong in our hearts." when she was pregnant and a lot while we were still babies.... she even still says it once in a while so it must have value

You have a wise mom.
_/\_

Thank you for reply.

[Cheshire Cat]

What else do you wanna know?

 

 

Thank you for your reply

 

Personally, I never saw a real shapeshifting, not even a ghost's materialization.

It seems that many shamans retain a theoretical knowledge of these things, but they can perform only in a dreams-cape, lucid dreaming state.

They speak of a way of immortality which consists of mastery of a series of magical powers (like shapeshifting), and then performing these skill in a certain order..

 

Did the shaman talked about some kind of sexual discipline (like celibacy, retention,etc...)?

Edited January 26, 2013 by DAO rain TAO