deci belle Posted March 3, 2013 The ancient classics on the science of cultivating reality often speak of the path of nondoing, but seldom speak of the path of doing. However, on the path of nondoing, only those of superior knowledge become suddenly enlightened and attain complete comprehension, understanding everything in one realization, immediately ascending into the realm of sages. Mediocre and lesser people, those who are dull, deeply conditioned, and lacking perceptivity, will find that their power is insufficient to practice the path of nondoing; they will not be able to transcend all objects and reach the goal directly. During the latter Han dynasty (second century C.E.) Wei Po-yang, a Taoist adept, composed the Triplex Unity (Ts'an t'ung ch'i) to guide those of middling and lesser faculties. He used images to present the imageless, used forms to allude to the formless. This was the beginning of the term gold elixir and the technical symbolism of lead and mercury, sand and silver, raven and rabbit, dragon and tiger, the baby, the girl, medicinal substances, the furnace and cauldron, cooking and refining, and so on. Later on, many people who had attained the Tao composed alchemical treatises, all based on the Triplex Unity, to expound the subtle principles. Their intention was for students in later times to use the former to study the latter, and use the latter to understand the former. Nevertheless, later students did not look into the meanings of the code words and did not figure out the principles of the symbols. Seeing talk of gold elixir, lead, mercury, cauldron, and furnace, they thought it referred to the preparation of potions to ingest, and they took to chemistry. Seeing talk of raven and rabbit, dragon and tiger, they thought it referred to the internal organs, and they took to visualization exercises. Seeing talk of other and self, yin and yang, male and female, they thought it referred to conjugal elixir, and they took to sexual yoga. Seeing talk of going along, reversing, and inverting, they thought it referred to forced effort, and took to energy circulation practices. Seeing talk of nondoing to cultivate essence, they took to mean utter quiescence, and they got involved in quietism. Seeing talk of doing to cultivate life, they thought it meant exercise, and came to cling to form. These and other schools arose, all taking a deer to be a horse, taking a crow for a phoenix, not only without benefit to essence and life, but even to the detriment of essence and life. Could this have been the intention of the ancient teachers in using symbolic language? —From Liu I-ming's second part of his commentary to Chang Po-tuan's Four Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir (The Inner Teachings of Taoism), translated by Thomas Cleary 1986 Shambhala ISBN 0-87773-363-5 6 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dark Templar Posted August 10, 2013 Very interesting, thanks deci belle! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deci belle Posted August 17, 2013 (edited) haha!!❤ poofs~ as Vous say …bump!! heehee!! I just quoted from Liu I-mings writing on this thread, Basher! ed note: added last line Edited August 17, 2013 by deci belle Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Basher Posted August 17, 2013 Phew, thought you were upset with someone, Deci. One of us is like the author of "The Three Musketeers"...... A Dumas ! but it's probably not you ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
