Theories and practices dealing with Yin and Yan energies in Chi-

[thelerner]

This thread was inspired by a post I made in The Pit.  see below

 

Though part of me, perhaps a masochistic part, would like the existence of a Mo Pai thread the doesn't have a flame war in it.  Maybe for learning, maybe just to show we're adults and we can.

 

One part of mo pai is the exploration of chi, particularly separating yin and yan functions.  Maybe a new thread looking at how different arts interpret and practice yin and yan energies?

 

I'm looking for a polite thread on how the various arts interpret and practice yin and yan energies.  I spent most of my time in Ki-Aikido which had a mostly singular definition of Ki.  A useful one.  Most Eastern arts seem to split chi into many types of energy.  The biggies being yin and yan. 

 

How does your art work with yin and yan chi?  As well as other forms.  What develops yin chi, what yan?  Do we need to separate them?  What is the framework understanding in different systems.  As well as practices if permitted.

 

I'm hoping we'll get some of the sites more experienced people weighing in on this and the discussion stays open and respectful. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[liminal_luke]

I´m not working with them anymore, but the Kan & Li practices I learned from Michael Winn used the distinction between yin and yang energies.  Basically we collected different yin and yang energies (from our bodies, the immediate environment, the planets, the stars, etc -- depending on the level you´re working at) and used them to fuel the alchemical process.  Normally fire (yang) rises and water (yin) descends.  So invert the process placing the yang fiery energies below the yin watery energies (collected together in a nice cauldron) and you get a nice neutral energy -- steam or yuan chi.  

 

That´s a very abbreviated capsule version as I remember it.

[Bearded Dragon]

I just empty into the ground and allow it to bounce back up all the way, but the bouncing back up is more of an emptiness coming up or perhaps such a fine structure of fullness that it's hard to pinpoint. The separation is taking fullness and emptying it out to leave emptiness, and the combination is taking the empty structure and using fullness within it in a more deliberate manner. I think the emptying out is pretty generic. It's just what you do at that point that is a matter of using the creative juice of particular styles or lineages of practices.

 

I guess this mirrors enlightening function also. Empty out to find essence then bring whatever is useful back in consciously.

[小梦想]

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Edited August 11, 2018 by 小梦想

[doc benway]

Yin and yang are arbitrary and relative designations created by thought - labels. 

My Daoist teacher always emphasized practice over study.

He would say that any time spent thinking is time better spent practicing.

We rarely talked about the conceptual aspects of the energies we worked with so I've never really spent much time thinking of it in those terms. 

[blue eyed snake]

Yin and yang are arbitrary and relative designations created by thought - labels. 

My Daoist teacher always emphasized practice over study.

He would say that any time spent thinking is time better spent practicing.

We rarely talked about the conceptual aspects of the energies we worked with so I've never really spent much time thinking of it in those terms. 

 

seems you're teacher is like mine, so I've nothing to add here.

[WisteriaWinds]

So invert the process placing the yang fiery energies below the yin watery energies (collected together in a nice cauldron) and you get a nice neutral energy -- steam or yuan chi.

Yin over yang...

Woman on top is when things get steamy.

Kali dances on Shiva.

Theres a universally accepted concept that gets filtered differently depending on langugae and culture.

[Apech]

Yin and yang are arbitrary and relative designations created by thought - labels. 

My Daoist teacher always emphasized practice over study.

He would say that any time spent thinking is time better spent practicing.

We rarely talked about the conceptual aspects of the energies we worked with so I've never really spent much time thinking of it in those terms. 

 

 

With great respect (genuinely) to you and your teacher the idea that existence and change can be described by the interaction of two mutually dependent principles of that which initiates (yang) and that which responds (yin) is a very powerful and useful way of thinking.  That is why Yinyang Wuxing theory underpinned Chinese thinking and practice from (probably) at least 3000 BC to the modern era.  The yin/yang duality is present in the Yi Jing and the application of the Yi Jing to cosmology allowed the Chinese sages to develop a profound understanding of the process of change and transformation.  When this is view is married to Daoism and Alchemy the result is Nei Dan (Internal Alchemy) which is perhaps the most developed and detailed system for personal development and self-realisation.  Without understanding yin and yang none of this is possible - how this understanding is communicated of course is another issue - it does not have to be through philosophical study and may be through practice.  But the idea of arbitrary labels is misguided as far as I can see.

[Taoist Texts]

 the idea that existence and change can be described by the interaction of two mutually dependent principles of that which initiates (yang) and that which responds (yin) is a very powerful and useful way of thinking.  

It is. except it is the other way around.

[Apech]

It is. except it is the other way around.

 

 

ha ha ... ok I knew that someone was going to say that.

[Taoist Texts]

damn, why it had to be me? anyway, how come the Egyptians did not have the yin yang theory. 

[Apech]

I can recommend this book:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yinyang-Chinese-Thought-Culture-Approaches/dp/052116513X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462565616&sr=8-1&keywords=yin+yang+wang

[Apech]

damn, why it had to be me? anyway, how come the Egyptians did not have the yin yang theory. 

 

Different tradition - I could probably think of an equivalent if you give me a few hours.

[Taoist Texts]

yeah take your time the pyramids are not going anywhere

[dwai]

This thread was inspired by a post I made in The Pit. see below

 

I'm looking for a polite thread on how the various arts interpret and practice yin and yan energies. I spent most of my time in Ki-Aikido which had a mostly singular definition of Ki. A useful one. Most Eastern arts seem to split chi into many types of energy. The biggies being yin and yan.

 

How does your art work with yin and yan chi? As well as other forms. What develops yin chi, what yan? Do we need to separate them? What is the framework understanding in different systems. As well as practices if permitted.

 

I'm hoping we'll get some of the sites more experienced people weighing in on this and the discussion stays open and respectful.

Most qigong/neigong forms combine yin yang cultivation. The yang descends from "sky" and the yin rises from the "earth". They meet in the lower dan tien and combine there.

 

Some practices focus on yin and then yang. But all the practices I have learnt always do both.

 

My teacher now only tells us to let the heavier feeling energy go (drain into earth) and the light energy will automatically take its place as long as we maintain relaxed attention on the dan tien.

 

 

I don't think it's possible to cultivate only yin or only yang as one without the other cannot exist.

[vonkrankenhaus]

YinYang thinking was common in ancient time.

 

Chess board is YinYang.

 

Cross is YinYang.

 

It is a tool that uses unified bifurcation to grow consciousness.

 

The way fractals grow.

 

For example, we could see a table.

 

We can take it apart and examine with our mind that ONE table has UpDown, LeftRight, TopBottom, InsideOutside, etc, etc.

 

We never lose sight that it is one table, but we see aspects that define in a relative way.

 

We can use YinYang to see energy, and also physical structure - ExpandingContracting, etc, or ExpandedContracted, etc.

 

YinYang is also traditionally known as a study of change and movement.

 

All things are changing.

 

Nothing is all yin or all yang - always both.

 

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

Edited May 7, 2016 by vonkrankenhaus

[Apech]

damn, why it had to be me? anyway, how come the Egyptians did not have the yin yang theory. 

 

 

Shu and Tefnut.

[doc benway]

With great respect (genuinely) to you and your teacher the idea that existence and change can be described by the interaction of two mutually dependent principles of that which initiates (yang) and that which responds (yin) is a very powerful and useful way of thinking.  That is why Yinyang Wuxing theory underpinned Chinese thinking and practice from (probably) at least 3000 BC to the modern era.  The yin/yang duality is present in the Yi Jing and the application of the Yi Jing to cosmology allowed the Chinese sages to develop a profound understanding of the process of change and transformation.  When this is view is married to Daoism and Alchemy the result is Nei Dan (Internal Alchemy) which is perhaps the most developed and detailed system for personal development and self-realisation.  Without understanding yin and yang none of this is possible - how this understanding is communicated of course is another issue - it does not have to be through philosophical study and may be through practice.  But the idea of arbitrary labels is misguided as far as I can see.

 

No disrespect taken. My reply is meant in the same vein, sincerely and respectfully.

 

Yes, these words and ideas are useful, for sure, when it comes to thinking and conceptualizing reality.

We are thinking, conceptualizing beings and that will not change.

A central tenet of Daoism, however, is that reality transcends and precedes conceptualization. 

That is the first chapter of the DDJ.

 

Neidan is independent of theory - at least in the way I was taught and the way my teacher received the teachings and his and his...  as far as I know.

The inner work is experiential and stands alone.

When I asked him what books I should read he told me not to waste my time reading. 

Much like a taijiquan master has no need of reading to master pushing hands. 

The Daoist hermits living in mountains and caves did not have large libraries...

 

The correct view can and will arise spontaneously, as the result of skillful practice, with or without theoretical consideration.

In fact, this is precisely why (I believe) that my teacher taught the way he did. If one arrives at the view through skillful practice, there is no doubt, no mistake, no possibility of a misunderstanding. You feel the truth in your bones and see it in the sky and earth. The view arises from direct realization of those processes you describe in your post and can then be reduced to conceptual designation.

 

If one bases the view on conceptualization and theory, one is much more likely to go astray. Particularly given that most of us in the West base our theoretical understanding on a very limited number of works in translation. Those translations are often ambiguous, inaccurate, superficial, or unsophisticated. The Daoists wrote in allegory and metaphor. They did not intend their writings to be easily understood without direct instruction. The intellect can be very misleading, the Daoists understood this and did not base their cultivation methods on conceptualization as a rule. 

 

The theory that you are describing, in fact, arose as a consequence of the direct realization of the masters through practice. This is exactly where it comes from, not from the thinking mind. It is far better to have this direct realization for ourselves than to create a conceptual representation of it, in my opinion. For those of us who may be fortunate enough to receive direct teachings on these practices from a credible source, I say PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! 

 

I maintain my earlier position that yin and yang are arbitrary and relative designations. 

They are totally dependent on perspective and relationship.

 

They are relative insofar as they are interdependent. The concept of yin and yang is not far removed from that of dependent origination. Yin and yang define each other, they always coexist in process, they are meaningless if considered independently.

 

They are arbitrary insofar as they are dependent on perspective. The quality of increasing from one perspective is necessarily a decreasing from a different perspective and so forth. One can flip the labels or look at the process standing on one's head and the only thing that changes is the appearance. The truth is unchanged by our change in perception or designation.

 

"Without understanding yin and yang" ALL of this is possible, in my opinion and experience. The understanding can come before or it can come after... Different vehicles for different practitioners and all that. 

 

The OP was asking how the tradition I've trained in handles the theoretical considerations of yin qi and yang qi in terms of our practices and I answered that as accurately as possible. It may seem misguided to you currently but I suspect you'd feel differently if you'd studied with my teacher and fellow students. The Daoist cultivation methods are indeed quite powerful (although I'm not sure I would put them above the Bönpo methods I've been exposed to) and I suspect one reason they are so powerful is that they are not dependent on or limited by theory and conceptualization, much like tantric and dzogchen practices.

[liminal_luke]

I maintain my earlier position that yin and yang are arbitrary and relative designations. 

They are totally dependent on perspective and relationship.

.

 

I´m no Daoist scholar, but my understanding is that this is the classical view.  You can´t really say that anything is yin or yang in an absolute sense.  It´s always yin or yang in relation to something else.  Our sun, for instance, is generally regarded as yang, and rightly so.  But in the context of some supernova exploding out in deep space it might be yin.  

[dawei]

How does your art work with yin and yan chi?  As well as other forms.  What develops yin chi, what yan?  Do we need to separate them?  What is the framework understanding in different systems.  As well as practices if permitted.

 

I'm hoping we'll get some of the sites more experienced people weighing in on this and the discussion stays open and respectful. 

 

 

When I did medical Qigong, we had Yin vs Yang projections and also such methods to scan the body, and ultimately to either tonify or purge energy in another.  These were subtle issues you simply felt with experience.  And working on females offered an alternate understanding on who is opposite to your experience.

 

In my more recent Light practices, the issue of gender energies has come forward.   And more specifically, once my female energy came forward for the first time and ever since, I have had a re-interpretation of all things energy... and even towards an understand of those who feel their gender is not in sync with their biological start.   

 

If we could all *christmas wish* come in touch with both sides of our gender energies in a really true sense, then we would find we really don't have a primordial energy existence difference among us.  Only that we are experiencing, in this manifest existence, usually one gender side more than another.  

 

[Apech]

@steve

 

We probably agree more than we disagree - so I won't prolong the debate too much and risk hijacking the thread into our relative Buddhist/Bon practices and so on.

 

I do though have a problem with the use of the word arbitrary (def: https://www.wordnik.com/words/arbitrary ) for yin and yang.  Though there is a tendency to mis-assign them to 'things' - like Luke's example of the sun.  The sun is yang relative to the earth - and also the usual example of a hill and it's sunny side.  But if you look at the sun as an object then while it is radiating out vast amounts of energy into space it is also slowly condensing as hydrogen turns to helium and will eventually collapse - so there is an internal yin process.  So its not that things are yin or yang in themselves but in relation to each other.  You could perhaps, say that yin and yang are more verbs than nouns.

 

I think perhaps, I would also like to suggest that while the reality we seek is beyond conceptualisation ... concepts are useful and in fact essential tools for humans as thinking beings.  I see developing and continually redeveloping our view as an important support to practice.  There may be times at which teachers will say, don't bother reading books, but I hope they would not suggest throwing them away.  

[C T]

I think the principles and theories of Yin & Yang are not arbitrary in the sense they are bound by structure ie not random and not open to chaotic representations, but then its hard to imagine if one can hope to progressively apply these principles by adhering rigidly to them. One would imagine there has to be room for flexibility and allowance for sudden transformation (for eg, when latent seeds mature and bear fruit without any particular or related conscious action on our part), something which i have seen happen the odd time, in others as well as self. Whether this means they are arbitrary or not can't really say for sure.  

[blue eyed snake]

With great respect (genuinely) to you and your teacher the idea that existence and change can be described by the interaction of two mutually dependent principles of that which initiates (yang) and that which responds (yin) is a very powerful and useful way of thinking.  That is why Yinyang Wuxing theory underpinned Chinese thinking and practice from (probably) at least 3000 BC to the modern era.  The yin/yang duality is present in the Yi Jing and the application of the Yi Jing to cosmology allowed the Chinese sages to develop a profound understanding of the process of change and transformation.  When this is view is married to Daoism and Alchemy the result is Nei Dan (Internal Alchemy) which is perhaps the most developed and detailed system for personal development and self-realisation.  Without understanding yin and yang none of this is possible - how this understanding is communicated of course is another issue - it does not have to be through philosophical study and may be through practice.  But the idea of arbitrary labels is misguided as far as I can see.

 

thank you Apech, i overlooked that.

 

i'm very much a beginner myself, but I know that our teacher does not want us to fiddle around with  concepts that we are not (yet) able to experience. But now that I've read more carefully your post and that of wisteria winds, i recognize the way I'm taught, so the difference between yin and yang energies definitely not arbitrary, but the focus is on practice.

[blue eyed snake]

Most qigong/neigong forms combine yin yang cultivation. The yang descends from "sky" and the yin rises from the "earth". They meet in the lower dan tien and combine there.

 

 , yep, thats about what i'm taught, and then we are told just to forget about it and stand, and after some time to sink a little deeper 

[Old River]

Yin/Yang has been on my mind lately, between re-reading Zhuangzi and Emerson's essay Compensation (which I highly recommend).

 

I woke up to scribble this in my journal this morning:

 

No matter what is going on in my life, feeling a fullness or a lull in energy from one day to the next, context matters—that is to say, the framework of my environment, which in turn has its broader framework, which is also found within an even greater framework.  This plays a fundamental role in the cosmic perspective, from Marcus Aurelius to Zhuangzi.  What does kosmos mean but “order”?

Bearing in mind that larger context is what brings a degree of coherence to my life—it isn’t just about my “self.”  Nor is the context merely an abstract system, but rather it is a developing awareness of the rhythms of nature.  Like computers, the cosmos is written in sequences of binary code, the myriad interactions of yin and yang which bring about not so much the ten thousand things as much as the ten thousand processes.  The cosmic context is not merely spatial, but, crucially, temporal.

To resist, or deny, or flee from temporality is an illusion: I myself am time, all things are time.  The question for myself then is a matter of following the rhythms of this music: systole/diastole, fullness/emptiness, stillness/movement, sound/silence… and to remain aware that they are inseparable.  Not to defeat one over the other.  Not to dissolve both poles.  Not to flee to a ideal where only one exists without the other.  Not to resign in despair to one overwhelming the other.  These are all failed strategies to wish temporality away.  All is impermanent, all flows.  Without time, there is no being.  Without being, there is no time.

This is no curse to bear—I too am time.  What is needed is not an ideological map, but lucidity.  Meditation is one way to become lucid.  What is necessary in music is to listen, to awaken to the rhythms in which I participate in order to step with them rather than against them.  To step in time.  Why not, at last, join in the dance?