Is Valley Spirit the femine aspect & Dao the male aspect?

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Something like the "Holy Spirit" being the femine aspect of the Mother Father Son trinity, seems to me that the Dao is like the personality of the "Higher Power" which maybe is this "Valley Spirit." The Dao being how this higher power works but not the power itself. This seems to fit the male/pattern + female/substance = Yin/Yang balance ideas.

 

Agree? Disagree?

 

 

[Taomeow]

Laozi's synonym for "tao" is "the great mother..." and since he is the great father of the term, I would take his word for it.

You are onto something though, but it's not yin vs. yang as in female vs. male. Tao/mother is the kind of yin that contains yang as its aspect -- "yang embracing yin," they call it. (When you look at the diagram of wuji, traditionally represented as an empty circle... well, the outer circumference of that circle is its yang aspect, and everything inside is its yin aspect.) The aspects of yin power that are the closest to manifesting are the yang aspects of a yin power. As Castaneda's Don Juan put it, "maleness is rare in the universe because it is optional." Yin power may or may not put on a show of its power -- if she chooses not to, she won't manifest yang. Tao-in-stillness, wuji, is yin... Nonbeing is yin, the unmanifest is yin, the source is yin, the uncreated is yin. The first creative impulse -- that's yang. Thunder... It strikes, sets things in motion, dies. "The Valley Spirit never dies" is a reassurance that this process, the process of creation, does not affect the source. Tao is uncreated...

[Harmonious Emptiness]

@ Malikshreds: Could be wrong, but I find it more closely associated to the middle dantien. I found it interesting that the original character was "浴washing spirit" and if you look at the diagram from Hui Ming Jing (Wu Liu Pai school), the same character "浴 washing" appears at the middle dantien. I think of "valley spirit" sort of like the male or female cleavage which leads down to the solar plexus, another valley like area with the Yellow Court residing.

 

 

@Taomeow: True, Yang is in Yin/Yin is in Yang. Also the female being creative in this way makes it to a large degree Yang. Interesting info there. Thanks.

[deci belle]

I say the Valley Spirit is ready empty openness where potential moves. The glossary in Thomas Cleary's translation of Chang Po-tuan's Understanding Reality (Wu chen p'ien) says that the valley spirit is a symbol of open awareness.

 

Since the Tao isn't really accessible, it has no correlate. I don't view it as a yin/yang relationship.

 

In the Explanatory Talks section of The Book of Balance and Harmony on page 86 it says:

 

 

 

Lao Tzu said, "The valley spirit undying is called the mysterious female." This means that when open awareness is not obscured, then the mechanism of movement and stillness cannot be inhibited. Lao Tzu also said, "The door of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth." This refers to the opening and closing of the yang of HEAVEN and the yin of EARTH producing change and evolution.

Loa Tzu also said, "Continuously there as such, using it is not forced."

[Guest munky]

Dao is the formless origin, beyond yin and yang energies but I think the Dao is yin as it literally is the Great Mother from which everything came out of. Everything is nurtured by it yet it does not show itself and try to take credit for anything, much like a mother showing unconditional love to a child. I would say this is the action of the Dao and is known as De or Virtue. It is how the higher power works as compared to the Holy Spirit as mentioned in the OP.

 

The mysterious female or valley spirit if they are the same thing seems to be what is between nonbeing and being, and between the changeless and the changing. It is the door between the Dao that has no beginning and no end, and what came through that door, known as the energies of yin and yang that drive the mechanism of creation in the universe. In finding the mysterious female/pass we are sort of reversing the normal path of creation, and from the myriad changes constantly occuring we are returning to the immaterial, undifferentiated source.

If this door of the mysterious female serves the function of being the heart of heaven and earth, yin and yang, how could it possibly have a specific location in the body such as upper or middle dan tien? Maybe that is to do with the heart of heaven and earth INSIDE the body rather than of the universe. As there is always information on what in the microcosm of the body corresponds to the macrocosm of the universe.

Edited January 25, 2013 by munky

[deci belle]

It has no location.

 

 

In finding the mysterious female/pass we are sort of reversing the normal path of creation, and from the myriad changes constantly occuring we are returning to the immaterial, undifferentiated source.

 

We are in fact reversing. This is turning the light around. In turning the light around, our actions return to the source and do not enter the created. This is enlightening activity.

[Aetherous]

(When you look at the diagram of wuji, traditionally represented as an empty circle... well, the outer circumference of that circle is its yang aspect, and everything inside is its yin aspect.)

 

Isn't it the opposite? With the taiji, the white is yang and the black is yin. And immortals are not called "pure yin", but "pure yang".

[thetaoiseasy]

There was the void, the mystic female, the valley spirit, or Tao. From the void emanated pure yang qi, which is represented by a white circle. Then the white circle divides into black and white, which is yin and yang. The combination of yin and yang give birth to humans.

 

"Tao give births to one. One give births to Two. Two gives birth to three. Three gives birth to myriad things."

 

In cultivation, we trace it backwards. We are humans, a mix of of yin and yang. With refinement, we get rid of our yin to become pure yang. By becoming a pure yang, we can return to the void, aka Tao.

 

Tao is beyond yin and yang. It is both something and nothing. But it is given female characteristics and compared to a mother, because what else can give birth to all things? Our lovely ladies. If anything, God was a woman.

Edited January 25, 2013 by thetaoiseasy

[Aetherous]

shh

Edited January 25, 2013 by turtle shell

[ChiDragon]

There was the void, the mystic female, the valley spirit, or Tao. From the void emanated pure yang qi, which is represented by a white circle. Then the white circle divides into black and white, which is yin and yang. The combination of yin and yang give birth to humans.

 

"Tao give births to one. One give births to Two. Two gives birth to three. Three gives birth to myriad things."

 

In cultivation, we trace it backwards. We are humans, a mix of of yin and yang. With refinement, we get rid of our yin to become pure yang. By becoming a pure yang, we can return to the void, aka Tao.

 

Tao is beyond yin and yang. It is both something and nothing. But it is given female characteristics and compared to a mother, because what else can give birth to all things? Our lovely ladies. If anything, God was a woman.

 

I think you are the closest when it comes to the description of Tao. The yin-yang symbol was derived from the Yi Jing; and LaoTze was very familiar with the Yi Jing. I believe that he got the idea about Tao was from the Yi Jing. Confucius wrote the Ten Wings about Yi Jing. He defines that Tao is Yin-yang. If we look at the dynamic Yin-yang circle, with some imaginations, the spinning circle can have the yin go stronger than the yang and vice versa. Hence, Tao can be manifested sometimes as a female or male. In the TTC, I believe LaoTze portray Tao as female most of the time.

 

"There was the void, the mystic female, the valley spirit, or Tao. "

Yes, the word "or" will make Tao as the "valley spirit". Thus Tao is the mystic female.

Edited January 25, 2013 by ChiDragon

[Harmonious Emptiness]

In pondering it a bit more, I think what I was considering is more like Yang Chi being like the "Holy Spirit" or spiritual substance, and Dao being the patterns or perceivable behaviour of it. Of course it doesn't make much sense to make these comparisons since on one hand - female creates, on the other yang/male creates.

 

So, then Valley Spirit is Dao? The center of Wuji maybe?

 

The original question may be nonsense, but I'm liking the discussion that is following it.

[ChiDragon]

So, then Valley Spirit is Dao? The center of Wuji maybe?

 

The original question may be nonsense, but I'm liking the discussion that is following it.

 

So, then Valley Spirit is Dao. Yes....!!!

 

Wuji has no center.

Wu ji is the opposite of Tai Ji. Where Tai Ji is the positive infinity and Wu Ji is the negative infinity. Hence, zero is the center between Wu Ji and Tai ji.

[dawei]

@ Malikshreds: Could be wrong, but I find it more closely associated to the middle dantien. I found it interesting that the original character was "浴washing spirit" and if you look at the diagram from Hui Ming Jing (Wu Liu Pai school), the same character "浴 washing" appears at the middle dantien. I think of "valley spirit" sort of like the male or female cleavage which leads down to the solar plexus, another valley like area with the Yellow Court residing.

 

In Yang's book on Embryonic Breathing, Valley Spirit is detailed as the upper dantian in classic texts.

 

The idea of 'washing spirit' (or bathing the spirit) is about nourishing the spirit. Only a few ancient chinese texts use this phrase. The now missing "Book of the Yellow Emperor" is said to be the first to use it but Leizi text quotes the passage which is also now in the DDJ. Not sure this is worth pursuing further here?

[Taomeow]

This diagram -- wuji to taiji to ten thousand things (and back, and back and forth, and so forth) was the focus of my meditations for a while, a few years ago. I would place it at eye level, sit in lotus, and look at it using a Dzogchen technique of "placing awareness in the eyes." Because it was the very first method of meditation I was taught, many moons ago, I didn't get rid of the technique when moving on to things taoist, inherently a lot more abstract... so this is still my basic technique for studying taoist "visual props" -- Hetu, Luoshu, the Circular I Ching, the pattern of movement of qi through the Nine Palaces, the images of constellations, the fu's, and anything else that is absolutely abstract in its true nature, but is taught to the beginner as a concrete image, a manifestation. You can't really draw an image of wiji or taiji, not in black, not in white, not in any color, because for starters wuji, tao-in-stillness, has no vibration and color is a vibration... Any image is a manifestation, but when you are trying to access the unmanifest, you use the taoist premise that the process goes both ways and "being comes from nonbeing" and "to grasp nonbeing, you depart from being." And then the magic of a stillness meditation is your tool to travel in that direction, from the concrete image back to its abstract origin, from awareness of a "picture" to pure awareness, from ten thousand things to taiji to wuji. So, if your meditation is deep and steady and takes you to the wuji state (which is the whole point of any stillness meditation, you have to embody what you are trying to access because there's no other way to access it), you "get it."

 

As one side effect of this practice, I know that none of it can be "logically inferred" or "guessed at" -- although logic and guesswork enter the picture as soon as stillness ends and motion begins. The motion begins as separation, and it begins already logically, and circular-logcially at that, not mysteriously anymore -- for logic is born of mystery (and it is circular because" the Way of this motion is Return"). Yin sinks to the bottom and yang floats to the top, and that's why any two phenomena that have a top and a bottom, a higher and a lower, are yin and yang to each other; yin is heavy and yang is light, and that's why any two phenomena that have weight are yin and yang to each other once outside the realm of perfect equilibrium; yin is dark and yang is light because... and so on.

 

So, among other things, the wuji state reveals the logic of the taiji state, but between the logic of the taiji state and the wuji state itself lies the mysterious border, miaotao, and there's no talking about what's beyond and there's no talking about what's ON the border either. So, the empty circle is drawn "empty" because that's a visual prop, not because it is empty, or white, or anything like that. It's none of these, and yet it's yin -- but you have already crossed the border back here, to the world of ten thousand things, to say "it's yin" -- and there's no way to say anything about it other than from "here," in the world of manifestations. Assessed from here, looked back at through the prism of the manifest, it is yin. It has all the attributes of yin, and Laozi did a superb job of writing a whole book about it. But you mustn't confuse the two (the generic "you" I mean). I.e. don't claim any knowledge of "there" from "here." Anything you might say, without having the knowledge of "there" from "there," is irrelevant. You know what "those who speak do not know" really means? It doesn't mean you "speak don't know," it means "speak or no speak, if you know I know that you know, if you don't know I know that you don't know."

[zuowang]

The Dao is everything, and in everything without separation. It is both yin and yang. Wuji represents that void of no distinction when wuji split yin and yang manifested and so did myriad things.

[dawei]

Whether the valley is used or bathing (or water--as it is what fills the valley-streams), they are all the female principle (yin)... so I wouldn't get too caught up in exactly which word is intended but to grasp the meaning intended.

 

Valley (or water) and Spirit are both yin aspects and represent [the center of] emptiness/nothingness but it uses a physical (outer) and spiritual (inner) aspect to show the dynamic potential which resides in the void. The female principle of reproduction/creation is easily understood as this is how something can come from nothing (and why a male aspect would not work as nothing can come from that nothing aspect).

 

While the DDJ passage talks of this as the 'gate', it is the portal between the physical and spiritual.' The outer and inner. Thus, it is Yang-within-Yin (as was said). This is the root to [to the arising of] Heaven and Earth; The upper and lower.

 

Another female aspect which should not get lost is that this emptiness/nothingness is the Wu-State. Once one connects this nothingness of 'Wu' to the female Shaman 'Wu', the common glyph can be understood.

 

As Ellen Chen has suggested: If Philosophy is the rationalization of religion, then 'Wu' could be the DDJ rationalization of the ancient female shamanistic political and spiritual power. Inner and outer; above and below.

[Taomeow]

Here's a rather interesting fact for your consideration, folks:

in our "great mother langauge," Indo-European, there was a word Bhleg, which meant "shine, burn, flush." When our languages separated into "ten thousand things," some of them interpreted the phenomenon it referred to as black and others as blanco -- white. You will find this bhleg all over Indo-European languages, sometimes meaning black and sometimes meaning white, sometimes meaning empty (blank) without a distinct assertion as to whether what's "blank" is black or white, and sometimes meaning blush -- redden! And remove from existence -- obliterate.

[Guest munky]

Consider as well that we can find and go back to the source and mysterious female through stillness, and that may transfer to increased awareness of it and some constant experience of increasing levels of emptiness. But this is probably only the beginning as we need to purify ourselves so that our entire being and body undergoes the return and reversal. Becoming pure yang as thetaoiseasy said and fully becoming ONE with Tao, not simply having some experience of finding it or being aware of it at varying levels.

[ChiDragon]

The Dao is everything, and in everything without separation. It is both yin and yang. Wuji represents that void of no distinction when wuji split yin and yang manifested and so did myriad things.

 

According to your scenario about "when wuji split yin and yang manifested and so did myriad things". Does that given us a clue that Tai Ji can be split like Wu Ji. What will that be then.....???

Edited January 25, 2013 by ChiDragon

[Taomeow]

 

According to your scenario about "when wuji split yin and yang manifested and so did myriad things". Does that given us a clue that Tai Ji can be split like Wu Ji. What will that be then.....???

[ChiDragon]

What did it say....??? Please enlighten me....

What did Tai Ji split into....???

Edited January 26, 2013 by ChiDragon

[Taomeow]

What did it say....??? Please enlighten me....

 

What did Tai Ji split into....???

 

Taiji, aka yin and yang, split into tai yang, shao yin, shao yang, and tai yin. These, at the next step of division, form the bagua family, the eight trigrams. The eight trigrams combining in pairs form the 64 hexagrams. The 64 hexagrams of the I Ching is the maximal number of meaningful divisions within the cosmic process. The diagram I posted originally illustrates the dynamic process generating the eight trigrams, the Eight Directions, and the 64 hexagrams by the "rotational swimming of the fishes." If you go to a museum of ancient Chinese art, you will see similar patterns on many objects sometimes depicted as the actual fishes. They "spawn" all manifestations in this manner.

 

Better?..

[ChiDragon]

Oh. Yes, it came back to my memory. Thank you....!!!

Wu Ji engender Tai Ji. I guess the 64 hexagrams ended up as Tai Ji......

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

what is the closest to, but not over, 10,000 in powers of 2?

2^13...

so what happened with the other 1808 "things" of those 10,000 things???
Or did the tao use decimals?


What's the square root of 10,000? LOL





still, over 8,000 ... uh... what would you call a trigram/hexagram/??? of 13 bars?

Edited January 26, 2013 by Northern Avid Judo Ant

[Taomeow]

what is the closest to, but not over, 10,000 in powers of 2?

 

2^13...

 

so what happened with the other 1808 "things" of those 10,000 things???

Or did the tao use decimals?

 

 

What's the square root of 10,000? LOL

 

 

 

 

 

still, over 8,000 ... uh... what would you call a trigram/hexagram/??? of 13 bars?

 

I would call it "modern western science."

 

Division beyond 64 is not impossible, as you may have imagined me saying. No. Not impossible, merely imbecilic.

 

It heralds fragmentation of processes (including the process of cognition, of comprehending reality) into so many parts that they can no longer find their relationship to each other, let alone their way back to their source.

 

It's like studying a continuously exploding palace, with chairs, tables, vases, pictures, bricks, brick-a-bracks and what not flying in all directions, falling to the ground, being shaken by a new blast and flying into smaller, bigger, nano-fragments, fragments flying left, right, center, outer space, in more and more directions -- and then detonating more explosives so you can study more pieces, and again... and again... and then, when a pile of boxes with labels into which you collect those fragments is higher than the sun but no one knows how to get to the only one where what they're looking for is stored, deciding that what's needed is to split them some more, get more fragments, more thoroughly collected into more boxes and more elaborately labeled... and if that still doesn't satisfy, and it never does... um... let's study something really far out! -- let's not just explode it, let's nuke it!!

 

Taoist sciences -- well, that's like studying a handmade one-story hut that has 64 features... a round hole for the smoke to come out, aligned with Polestar... a fireplace for cooking meals and elixirs, a well for drawing water that has no bottom, a pigsty with as many pigs as your family will need in a year plus one extra for Shangdi, a book shelf and a medicine cabinet... everything needed to make it complete, a complete microcosm reflecting accurately and precisely a complete macrocosm, whole, unbroken... and then nothing more. Once you have all you need, why overwhelm yourself, why get greedy?.. Who is being helped by a restless split-it-all monster fragmenting "things" (and lives!!) into a million, billion, quadrillion "red dust" particles?.. Not me, said the little taoist mouse in her little 64-feature mousehole inside the 64-feature house...

 

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